7 The Eternal Golden Phoenix Sect

Tiara wanted to jolt up as she heard the hospital room door open at this untimely hour. It was right after her lunch and the nurses had promised to leave her alone.

She had been thinking about the game she had just seen a glimpse of. She hated the experience in the end but she thought of how she was able to move around and the glorious feeling of levelling up…it intoxicated her. She wanted more of it, not just 15 minutes.

She had seen the map of that game and there was so much more to explore and the final quest was still to be completed…her young mind danced with excitement at the thought. "I need to ask Mitchell how to play that game again. There's no use sitting like this in the real world anyway, unable to move. At least in there, I could breathe."

A middle aged looking man entered the room with a shining blue suitcase in his hand. Following him was an equally tall boy in a dark hoodie. He had his hands tucked into his pockets and didn't meet Tiara's eyes.

She narrowed her eyes and followed the man's movements. He had a ruffled lab coat on and glass spectacles rested on his bent nose. His eyes were wandering here and there as if he was thinking something. Seeing Tiara, the doctor smiled, "It's nice to see you, Tiara Keeser. I'm glad you've woken up. We've all been waiting."

"Waiting? Why? I'm a nobody. Please leave me alone."

Percy looked over to the side and walked to the side of the room. He had thought at least his partner would be slightly attractive. But no, she was paralysed and quite average. He thought the health chart hanging on the wall looked prettier than her.

He glanced at her and looked over her innocent features. "Huh."

The doctor pulled a chair and sat down. "Tiara. My name is Zha Huang. I'm the creator and senior researcher of The Project Dream System. I believe you have gotten a glimpse of it already."

Tiara took in a breath. He was…Tiara's eyes widened in shock.

"Did you like the experience?" he asked.

Tiara shook her head then said, "I mean, yes," and nodded her head instead. She was awestruck that the creator of that game was right before her. "I…I want to play it again. But for longer."

He smiled, pride filling inside him, "And you will. You can stay in for longer if you Dream with the help of a Yang pair. The connection will help you both regulate the strain on your brain. You must have disconnected from the game with immense pain?"

Tiara nodded, still not forgetting how it tore her, the pain. But she was willing to bear that as long as she could play. It would be the most liberating thing in her life. When she played she felt something she had never felt before.

Freedom.

Percy saw the love for it in her eyes and wondered…how good could that game be? But something was bothering him still. He pulled down his hoodie and stepped up so that the two could see him.

"Doctor. You didn't tell me about this. I can't have a paralytic as my partner. It's too burdensome. Find me another person," he declared and stepped out of the room.

"Percy." The doctor stood up, his voice stern. He looked back at Tiara who looked like he had just broken her with those words. She looked away and bit her lip. What the hell was wrong with that guy? She would have seen him walking past the room through the glass partitions if it wasn't spray painted black.

She saw the doctor place a hand on his shoulder, she couldn't feel the touch though. "Don't worry," Zha Huang whispered, "He'll come around soon."

Tiara couldn't understand, "At least I'm not a leper. Why is he acting that way?"

He sighed. "Percy…is also the victim to a degenerative disease too. He doesn't have long to live. The hospital atmosphere must have triggered him."

"I wish I could go after him and give him a hug," Tiara said innocently. She looked at the doctor and saw him raise his eyebrows in surprise.

"Tiara. You're not 12 anymore, please keep that in mind."

"Oh," she remembered. She was so used to being 12. She had been 12 years old for 8 years, however messed up that sounded. She snapped out of the reverie soon enough and smiled, "Say, doctor, how did you make this game? A game you can play in your head…how does that work?"

"Well, since you really want to know…I'll tell you. This Project was started long ago, back in the 18th century, when factories started popping up everywhere." He explained to her about the Power of Qi at which she laughed at, thinking that he was joking. He told her how the last remaining Sect, the Eternal Golden Phoenix Sect wanted to save the divine connection between humans and nature to be severed forever.

"And that is how I reached here. I finally found a way. In this game, you cultivate and train yourself using the ancestral methods, revive the old ways and restore the prosperity humans once had."

Tiara looked at him and wasn't convinced. "Yeah, that's only in the game. In reality, we're still the same."

Zha Huang's lips tilted up in an amused smile. Hearing her, he laughed, shaking his head. Tiara simply narrowed her eyes and looked at him in pure confusion. Huang tilted his head back and laughed even more. When he was finally calmed down, he spoke with a chuckle in his voice.

His eyes shone with fascination, "That's why this game is unlike anything else. It consumes your brain and becomes a part of your body when you play it. Anything you experience in the game, becomes a part of you in real life."

"I don't get you, doctor."

He laughed at the poor lamb in front of him, "For every level you cross in the game..." he whispered, his voice now serious, "your life span gets extended in reality."

Tiara's jaw dropped a bit before closing it back up. Zha Huang continued, "You'll find some remaining members of our sect already in Zirlock. They can play the game without much problem because they are already...masters in cultivation. Find them. Ask them to help you and prove to them that you can clear the Final Level."

"What happens if I do?" she asked. She had thought this was just a game...but it didn't seem like it. She needed to know more.

Zha Huang's eyes flitted to a point above her head and he took in breath.

Before she could ask anything else, a huge gunshot blasted in their ears. Zha Huang stared as the inner windows looking over the city shattered to pieces and a cold wind flew in. Tiara's face glazed over with a chill. Zha Huang stood up and stood in front of the girl to protect her.

More gunshots sounded and it hit different things inside the room, blasting it into pieces. A black helicopter hovered outside the room on the 18th floor, making their hairs almost rip off from their heads.

The passenger of the helicopter looked out and shouted, "Hand her over! Or we'll destroy this whole building!"

Doctor Zha Huang glanced back and forth the patient and the man in the helicopter. Who were they? He spotted the logo on the helicopter. A curling silver dragon…the logo, it was so very familiar. He mumbled something unconsciously.

"No!" he shouted and called for the nurse that had accompanied him in the black car. A bullet shot through the room again, grazing the doctor's ear. He winced and covered his ear to find blood on his fingers, but he wasn't fazed.

Tiara felt helpless. She could only scream every time the room shook. She felt the ground rumble as all the people inside the hospital started evacuating. The doctor bent down and carried Tiara in his arms, "We need to get out, now."

Tiara flinched as he picked her up and heard another bullet being shot. The doctor crouched down in time and the bullet lodged itself in the wall. The man in the helicopter was getting impatient. He beckoned the helicopter to move in closer. Once it was close enough, he jumped into the room, a gun in one hand and a dagger in the other.

"Project Dream System cannot continue. It's insanity. Surrender now, Zha Huang, or all the poor patients in this hospital dies."

The nurse stumbled inside in fear. There was a stampede of evacuating people and patients in the corridor. The doctor didn't know how he would transport Tiara to safety.

"Where's the boy?"

The nurse gave him a worried expression, "I'm sorry…I lost him."

The helicopter man twirled his gun in his hand and before the nurse could stop him, he sneaked up on Huang and banged him on the head. His grip around Tiara loosened and the girl fell on the floor like a dead doll.

Pain erupted in her head and for a second, at different parts of her body from the impact with the spine. She heard one more gunshot and she turned her head to look at the scene on the floor, right in front of her eyes.

Blood pooled around the doctor's head and colored the immaculate white tiles red. The nurse fell on her knees and cried, shaking her head, "No, no, no…"

Tiara saw big boots step towards her and lift her upwards on to the man's broad shoulder, "You've lived too long, kid. Time for you to die. Anyone associated with the Dream System shall not breathe again."