558 You are the Reason

Alex walked out of the City Lord's manor after saying his goodbye. The City Lord told him that he would relay the information to the Emperor about him being alive.

Alex would need to quickly graduate and go to the capital so he could save Pearl. Also, he wanted to meet up with the Royal Alchemist to see if he had any ideas to regrow his arm.

He was looking forward to that, but for now, there was something else that had grabbed his interest.

"Who's gathering players?" he wondered. He had learned that the commotion outside that he heard before getting in was actually the place of gathering.

So, he decided to make his way there before he went to the Tiger sect.

Walking there, Alex saw a lot of people along the way. All of them had the same sad, confused, and somewhat hopeful look on their faces.

'They must really not want to stay here, huh?' he thought. 'Understandable.'

He saw a building next to the group of people where the soldiers were governing the players. One by one, the players would enter the building and walk out less than a minute later.

'What's the purpose here?' Alex wondered. Initially, his thought was that someone had started a therapy group for people that were now likely depressed and anxious.

But… this seemed nothing like it. 'Do they perhaps have some malicious intent?' Alex thought. If they had, Alex decided to help these poor folks a little.

He waited in line as more and more of the players entered and walked out.

He didn't know how long it had been going on, but from what he could tell, there were about 600 players in total in the Scarlet city.

He would've never thought of there being this many.

He looked to the western sky and saw the sun. It would set in merely 2 more hours. 'I hope this hurries up,' he thought.

As he waited for his turn, he spoke with a few of the players that were on the line.

At first, he thought everyone was just a normal person, who was busy playing their game. However, it didn't take him long to realize that just like him, they were the old souls stuck here too.

'Why did I think this only happened to me?' he wondered. He started asking questions.

However, when he continued listening to their anguish, he realized that these people had zero ideas about what was happening.

The last thing they remembered was, just like him, putting on the helmets. Aside from that, there were some thoughts and memories that popped up into their mind of the time when the other soul controlled their body, but aside from that, they remembered nothing.

Alex was really surprised to hear that. He asked if they had ever been conscious after coming to the game world, but it seemed they hadn't.

Some of them did say that they thought they were awake the first couple of days, but it was a memory from so long ago that they couldn't trust themselves with it.

'Wait, was I the only one who remembered it all?' he thought. 'How is that possible?'

He tried thinking of answers to the question and after a while, came up with 2 answers.

Firstly, he had something that they didn't, which was the eidetic memory. Having spiritual sense, he could remember every memory, every detail to perfection.

Even after so much time had passed, he could remember everything since the day he cultivated with a Spirit Cleansing Lily.

Since these people didn't have that luxury, after months on end, they couldn't remember most of the memory they had made.

Another answer was that it was all because he came up to the surface everything the other Alex cultivated. He still had no idea why that was, but from talking to these players, it seemed that it was only him that did that.

'Right,' he thought. 'He was the only anomaly in the other world who would sleep during cultivation. Did that help me somehow?'

Alex guessed that while both of these answers were equally true, the second one held more importance.

'There must be something wrong, or rather right with my body for me to wake up when cultivating, unlike them,' he thought.

He had a Divine Grade body, a God-grade talent, and… a seemingly very powerful spirit roots.

'It could be any of these things,' he said. Finally, a little before the sun was to go down the horizon, his turn came up.

Under the watch of the soldiers, he saw a woman walk away, and he entered the building.

The building seemed to be a sort of warehouse, now that he could see it more clearly from the inside.

The room was open and there was a girl with a notepad in her hand, seemingly writing down something.

"What's your name?" she asked without even looking at him as she clicked the pen and started writing down what he was going to say.

"Alex Benton. I assume you wanted my real-world name," Alex said.

The girl looked at him with narrowed eyes and continued writing. 'She's quite pretty,' Alex thought.

He sent out his spiritual sense to see what he was writing but suddenly felt a backlash when the girl sent her own spiritual sense to attack his.

"Stay in your place," she told him angrily.

Alex felt a little scared of what she had just done. 'How is she so strong?' he wondered. Her age barely made her look a few years older than him, so this came to him as a genuine surprise.

Just when he was thinking that, he noticed something that was so obvious that he couldn't believe he missed it.

He immediately put up his only hand as he pointed at the thing that was on her hand.

"A PEN!" he shouted in surprise. A body made up of plastic, with ink in it that was topped off by a small layer of gel. That was a pen that was impossible to be found in this world.

"You! How do you have that pen?" he asked.

"Hoh! You are the first one to ask me about this pen. The others just asked me about what was going on. It seems you are not as concerned about it," the girl said.

"Now, put your arm down or I will cut that one off as w—" suddenly the smirk in her face disappeared, and her eyes went wide.

"That ring!" she shouted when she saw the golden ring with a ruby in Alex's hand. "Where did you get that ring?"

"This ring?" Alex showed a confused face, but on the inside, he was surprised that she noticed the ring at all.

"I found it in the de—"

His voice stopped as well when he noticed a similar ring on her fingers as well. It wasn't the same design, but it was similar enough that Alex knew for sure that it was a storage ring as well.

"Where did you find it?" the girl asked again.

"Why don't you tell me where you found yours?" Alex asked.

"You don't need to know that," the girl said.

"Then I guess, you don't need to know this as well," Alex said. Despite nearly answering it already, he decided to hold off the information.

"How about this?" Alex said. "If you tell me how you got the pen, I will tell you where I found this as well."

The girl thought for a while and answered, "I got it from where you think I got it from."

Alex's eyes went wide. "From the other world? For our homeworld?" Alex asked.

A curiously little smile came upon the girl's face. "You could say that I guess," she said.

"How did you get it? Where did you get it from?" he asked.

"You don't need to know anything else. Just tell me where you found the ring. I have a few more questions after that and you can leave," the girl said.

Alex really wanted to know about them, but he couldn't force the girl considering how strong she was.

"I found them in the desert north of here," Alex said. He didn't give her any hints as to the fact that he knew what they were.

"Can I see them?" the girl asked.

"No thanks. I would like to keep it myself. It looks pretty on me," he said.

The girl's eyes narrowed. She really wanted to take the ring, but her master would scold her if he learned that she hit him. After all, she was told to be as diplomatic as possible.

"Alright, let's forget about it then," she said. Alex was surprised she didn't insist further given how strong she was.

He kept looking at the pen and notepad, and they were definitely from his home-world. 'How did she get them here?' he wondered.

"Do you know how long you've been here?" she asked.

"About 7 or so months," Alex said.

The girl's eyes changed when she heard that. He was just a month off from the correct answer after all.

"Are you sure?" she asked.

"Yes," Alex said. "I started a month later than everyone else, so it's been 7 months."

"What?" she suddenly exclaimed. "You know that too?"

"Uh, yes," Alex said. "Unlike the ones out there, I was conscious some of the time and have full control over my memories."

"Woah!" the girl said, actually impressed, or at least surprised. "Maybe you are the only one that can help me then."

"I can?" Alex looked at her in surprise. "What do you want the help with?"

"I wonder if you remember anything important happening here 5 days ago," she asked.

"May I ask what it is for?" Alex asked.

"5 days ago, something happened that caused all the players to revert back to their original state. I have come to learn that the cause of that problem was from this area," she said. "So, I'm looking for information on it. if you have any, it's better you give us so we can do something to fix it."

"5 days ago, huh?" Alex said. He wasn't sure if he should be giving out this information, but if it meant learning a way back home, he would be ready to give out every single secret he held.

"Let's see… 7 days ago there was a bandit invasion on this city. Many people died… including people I cared about."

Alex's face turned solemn as he remembered the night once more.

"And? That's it?" she asked with a disappointed look.

"What? No, of course not. Uhh… north of here there was a source of Yang that suppressed cultivation in the entire desert. That night, the Yang energy reached a climax."

"What?" the girl cried out. "Yang?" the girl stood up once again in surprise as her eyes that had gone done to being a normal size had widened again.

"Uh… yeah," Alex said, slightly surprised at such a reaction from her.

"Sorry, please continue," the girl sat back down and carefully noted everything, not wasting a single word of his.

"And?" she asked.

"Well, I had a fight with someone who poisoned me. So, in my near-dead state, I went to check what it was."

"When I found it… I ate the source," Alex said.

The girl suddenly stopped writing. "You ate the source?"

"Yes," Alex said.

"Wait, I must have heard it wrong. You said… you ate the yang source?" she asked once again.

"Well… technically the other guy that was in my body did. The real player," Alex said.

The girl's hands started shaking and with a snap, the pen broke in two.

Alex stepped back a few steps when he saw the rage build up in her face.