353 Real

It was in the middle of the night when Alex finally regained his consciousness. He looked at the dark sky, but he couldn't see anything but fog in front of him.

He slowly got up and looked around him. There was nothing but fog on either side as well. He couldn't see anything else. The space had shifted once again.

He felt his head, but it wasn't hurting as much as it was last time. The headache and dizziness he was feeling were bearable. Then, he slowly started remembering the events of the things that took place in the spiritual sea.

Alex remembered the shadowy figure, but couldn't remember what it looked like. It was a barely dark figure that didn't even seem like it was a silhouette. His vision was just that hazy at the time.

Fear started creeping upon him. "W-What was that?" he thought. Yet no matter what he thought of, he didn't have an answer to that question.

It was then he remembered what Zexi had started shouting after seeing his images.

"How could he see my memories from my real life? How does a game— No, how can anything look at my memories in my real life?" Alex couldn't understand. Does Eternal Cultivation have some method of hacking into one's brain?

"In the first place, this game is a weird one," he thought. "None of the other VR games taught in the classes ever have this much information, this many people with this many emotions."

"Zexi said… that I was a clone and that I am controlling this body from somewhere else… could that be true?" Alex thought. From what he remembered about clones, you could be far away from it and still control it if your mind was connected to it, similar to the person who was controlling Song Zun.

Even as he spoke the next few words, he couldn't believe he was even thinking it.

"Is this… not a game?"

Alex couldn't wrap his head around the much information that he was provided. "Is this not a game? Is this world real? Are these people real? AM I REAL?" his eyes darted around as he asked himself those questions.

"No, how is that even possible in the first place? How can such a world exist? No, it can't be real," he tried to tell himself. While some things made sense, some didn't at all.

"No, don't think about it right now. Focus on getting out of here," he tried to distract himself. He got up and started walking around aimlessly.

However, no matter what he did, his thoughts came back to the same thing. Is this a game?

He couldn't find Zexi anywhere. He didn't know if he was still hanging around somewhere waiting to sneak attack him or had left the formation already, but he knew that he had taken a bit of damage for sure. Even if it was simply mental damage.

Losing most of your mind inside another person's head couldn't really be good for you.

He wandered around with many thoughts in his mind until he hit something and fell down. "What's that?" he stood up to check. He sent out his divine sense, and when he finally saw it, he couldn't help but suck in a large amount of air.

In front of him, on the ground, was the unconscious Zexi.

"What should I do? Should I... Yes, I— I should kill him," Alex made up his mind when he saw Zexi lay down there. He send out his spiritual sense to make sure he wasn't awake and faking it.

He tried to check the rhythm of his breathing to see if that would give away anything, but there was nothing. No breathing, no rhythm.

"He-He's dead."

Alex didn't know what to do with that information. The person that had given him so much trouble, was dead in front of him. He didn't feel sad for him, or happy as one would expect, only confusion.

He was certainly relieved that he wouldn't have to worry about him anymore, yet he couldn't understand how he could possibly die.

"Could it be… that yellow light?" Alex thought. Every time he ate a monster core and was sent to his spiritual sea to fight the monster, there was always that yellow fog that appeared and consumed the monster once it died.

"Could it be… that fog consumed him… and killed him as well?" Alex was flabbergasted when he came up with that conclusion.

"So… in a way, I killed him," he thought. He slumped onto the ground unable to think of anything else. There was too much information being thrown his way today.

'I should… just log out.'

Alex opened his eyes back in his room. It was the middle of the night, and his light was on. He stood up and walked up to the mirror. He looked at his face and touched the mirror.

'This feels the same as in the game… is it really not a game?' Alex thought.

After using the helmet for an entire day, he needs to go use the bathroom. Even in the bathroom, he couldn't stop the thoughts from pouring out into his mind.

Was it a game? Was it real? If it was a game, how were his memories accessed? If it was real…. How?

He got out of the bathroom and looked at the helmet. "Everything will be answered if I can look at what is inside of it," Alex thought and went out to get a bunch of tools to open the thing.

He got some screwdrivers, a hammer, a plier, few scissors, and a knife, and started prying it open. He opened a video on his laptop and learned how to do it.

After half an hour and prying, he finally got the helmet to open up. However, he wasn't happy when he realized what the parts inside the helmets were.

Nothing there made sense to him at all. He picked up the chip that was hidden inside the helmet and looked at it carefully.

Suddenly, he noticed something on the chip that made his eyes go wide.