Lucy's Plight

Once all the players were gone, Luke received a message.

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Beta Testing has ended.

Data has been collected. No changes are required in the system.

Schedule on track.

Version 1 releases in 424 days 23 hours, 59 minutes, 40 seconds.

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'Sigh'

Luke sighed exaggeratedly. Through his free time, he had been planning and refining this speech and very moment. He was planning on trying to get the players to figure out a way to make him return back to Earth. Although he liked his new body, the fact that his life could be in constant danger put a lot of stress on someone who is used to living an extremely peaceful mind. He just wanted to return and go back to chilling in VR instead of living in it in some sort of death game.

However, he couldn't just tell the players he was a layer like them. They would most likely think that the NPC had gone insane. If not that, they would have two reaction, one was to immediately kill him and see if he revived, the other was to communicate more. However, if even one of the players within the group chose the first option, he would die just like that, and it was game over. He might not die just yet, but the players here would then spread this news to the word, and when Version 1 opens, a majority of the players would be interested in trying to kill him. He would have to live in hiding to live, which would cut off his only existing ray of hope.

Therefore, he had chosen this approach. He would make himself seem more and more unique to pique the interests of the players. He chose a different choice. A choice where he made his background more mysterious, while himself becoming strong enough to survive an onslaught of a billion players at a time.

Once he was at this point, he would try and get them to find his main body, and find out what actually happened.

However, this was in the future, when the players begin to come to the conclusion on their own that The Sage was not a normal NPC, but was more of a human. He was not The Sage, but the Supreme Sage, a fully aware consciousness trapped within a game.

At that point he would give them more hints at him maybe being a human, causing them to investigate the real world for him.

For now, since the players were gone, he needed to do two things. First was to grow stronger, and the second was to increase the members within his faction.

To grow stronger, he needed to level up like crazy. But before that, he needed to complete his magic array.

Even in 23 days' time, he had barely completed 90% of the array. He would need a few more days to complete it, and another day or two to apply it to himself.

And that is exactly what he got to, leaving a dazed Lucy behind.

She was completely shocked. The Masked Man who had saved her from slavery and from being killed, bowed down and asked the help of the weaklings who were growing way too fast than normal people. And their conversation was beyond what she could understand.

She only heard gibberish for the most part, but the one thing she heard was that those people who were getting stronger by the second, could not die, and that the masked man would be waiting for them to return, and poof. Just like that, they vanished into glowing blue cubes, which also vanished.

On the other hand, Luke went back to his workshop and began working tirelessly on the magic array. He would only come out once every few days to restock on food and to take a shower.

Lucy had been handed a lot of money, which she used sparingly on food for the masked man and other necessities for herself and the house.

She had already become accustomed to life here with The Masked Man every called The Sage. He did not treat her like a slave nor like a normal peasant. In fact, he did not treat her in any particular way, just like a stone among a road full of other stones.

However, she did not mind this. She could feel that the Masked man was giving her space to recover, and that was exactly what she needed. However, that time of needing space had long passed, and what she needed now was help.

It had been nearly a month since the incident, and she needed help. Currently the only living person who had shown kindness to her was the young man she had saved, and this Masked man. She did not know the state of the young man, nor did she know the state and location of the other villagers from her village.

She could only hold onto the Masked Man for support. However, he never seemed to have any time.