354 Chip

"My dear wife, do you want me to ask the servants to bring you anything else?" A young man who was in a lotus position asked the girl next to him.

"Longlong, don't call 'dear wife', just say, dear or wife. I feel embarrassed when you say the whole thing.

"Also, I don't need anything, I'm done cultivating for the night. I will go take a nap. You go do whatever it is that you do that help you make so much money," the girl said.

"Haha, don't worry dear. I will tell you where the money comes from in due time. I just hope you won't be surprised at that time," the man said.

The girl walked up to him and gave him a deep kiss before walking away, leaving behind a fragrant smell of her perfume. The man looked at his wife with loving eyes before standing up and walking the other way, out of the room.

The girl got onto the best and closed her eyes.

KADAK

The doors to the capsule opened and out walked Hannah. She freshened up a bit and went outside to eat her only meal of the day nowadays, breakfast.

"…. So, when these lines form, they must be at equal angles from each other. The closer they are to each other, the better they will perform."

Hannah could hear a voice coming from the kitchen. 'A man?' she thought and walked into the kitchen only to find Alex very intensely watching a video on his phone.

"What are you doing watching videos so early in the morning? Are you that excited about going to your classes today?" Hannah asked.

"My… what?" Alex paused the video and looked at Hannah in surprise.

"Your classes. You do remember they start from today right?" Hannah reminded him.

"Huh? What's today?" he quickly checked his phone and realized that it was Monday today. "Urghh… I haven't slept since I woke up at 2 pm. So, I might have to skip today's school," he said.

"What? Why did you wake up at 2 pm? Why didn't you just sleep?" Hannah asked. She then saw something on the table and picked it up.

She looked at the green object with golden lines on it. "Is this an electronic chip?" she asked. "Where did you get it?"

"Does it look like a chip to you, sister?" he asked.

"Yes. Isn't it a chip?" she asked.

"I don't know. It came from the VR helmet. I opened it up and saw this inside," Alex said.

"You broke open your helmet? Why?" Hannah asked.

"I wanted to see what was inside— No, I needed to see what was inside," Alex said. He took the chip from Hannah's hands and flipped it around to show her something.

"Check this out, sister. Do you see anything here?" he asked.

"Umm… I don't know what I am looking for. I just see a bunch of lines, that's it. You should know I don't have much talent in electronics," Hannah said.

"Not electronics sister. Imagine you find it inside the game, what will you think of it?" Alex asked.

Hannah took the chip once more and looked at the lines. Still, she couldn't tell anything. Alex decided to help here.

"Look here, sister." He traced his finger along a golden line in the chip such that it made a symmetrical figure as a whole. "Doesn't it look like a formation to you?" he asked.

"A formation? Like in the game? I'm sorry, I don't really know much about these things. I spend my days in the game doing normal cultivation and training," Hannah said. "Also, aren't you an alchemist? Why do you know about formations?"

"I… don't really know about formations. I've only seen a few blueprints and this one looks like a formation," Alex said.

"Don't tell me you broke your helmet to look at an easter egg," Hannah said in surprise.

"What? Of course not. I was trying to find out if…" Alex stopped.

"Find out if what?" Hannah asked.

"You will laugh at me," Alex said.

"No I won't, just tell me," Hannah said.

"I was just trying to find out if the game… was actually real," Alex said.

"Pfft. Hahaha, you sound like one of those crazy conspiracy theorists. Did they catch your attention too?" Hannah asked.

"Conspiracy theorists? There are people who believe that the game is real?" Alex asked.

"Yeah, there have been people like that ever since the game started," Hannah said and looked at Alex weirdly. "Did you not learn from them?"

"No. Something happened in the game that made me think… that it might be more than just a game," Alex said.

"What happened?" Hannah asked seriously.

"An enemy of mine read my memories… and saw the real world for some reason," he said. "So… I am starting to believe that helmet could either read our memories or the world we go to in the game is real."

Hannah looked at him for a second and shook her head. "You said you were awake since 2 pm right? You need sleep."

Alex thought of explaining it to her more, but then he saw her disapproving face. 'She doesn't believe me. Hah, I wouldn't believe myself too,' he thought.

"Alright, I will go sleep. See you later." Alex stood up and walked away. Hannah simply shook her head once again and sighed.

Soon she forgot about what they were talking about and got herself a breakfast.

Alex went to his room and fell onto the bed. The broken pieces of the helmet were on the side of the bed, and he didn't know how to fix it back.

He tried to sleep, but more and more questions popped into his head. "If I were to believe that that was a formation, then the helmet should be something like part of a larger formation, or a separate artifact, right?" he thought.

"Formations— I need to learn about them more to figure out what that is about," he thought. "I can't sleep right now. I need to know more."

He got up from the bed and walked into the capsule before logging back in.