Mother

"Logout" David muttered as his vision suddenly went dark. 

He took off the VR Headset before jumping out of the machine. 

David looked around and saw the machine was closed, realising that Tom was still playing the game. 

"I will talk to him later", he thought as he left the room, rushing back home. 

"Despite all the realism, Time works differently in the game than in the real world", David thought as he took out his phone, realising that only 3 hours had passed in real life, even though 6 hours had passed in the game.

He quickly entered his house, "I am back, Mom", as he quickly changed his clothes and entered his mom's room. 

"Did you take your medicines?" he asked her.

"Yes, I did. You must be hungry; let me cook something for you", David's mother said as she shut down the machine on her heart and tried to get up from the bed.

"You stay down!" David quickly rushed to help, making her lie on the bed again.

"But the food?" his mom asked.

"I will cook!" David said. "Today you will see the skills of master chef Davey in action", 

"Did a girl break your heart? It must be Alice. Dont worry. You will find someone else", his mom replied with a smile.

"Damnit! Why does everyone think I got rejected. She did reject me, but not in this life!"

David quickly rushed to the kitchen before taking out the essential ingredients to cook chicken soup.

"My dad had passed away when we were young. It has always been me and my mom, but then we got to know that she was suffering from a heart disease. I wasn't able to help her out much in my previous life. But this time, I will heal her." David firmed his belief as he quickly made a delicious bowl of chicken soup. 

He had learnt to cook while running away from different guilds after Tom's Territory.

David then gave all his attention to cooking the best chicken soup for his mother as a gift for doing so much work for him all these years.

===

"So, how does it taste!" David asked as he sat on a chair opposite his mom, who was tasting the chicken soup.

"It's perfect!" his mom said, taking another spoon from the soup.

"Thank-", 

"The rejection must have hurt a lot. My poor boy", his mom said before he could thank her,

"MOM!!"

"I am kidding, I am kidding! I am proud of you, Davey", she smiled.

It had been a long time since David had seen his mom smile. He felt that all his worries melted on spending time with his mom.

-ding-

A voice reached David's ears.

"Did you hear something?" he asked his mom, who denied it before focussing on her soup again.

"Must be my ears", David thought, "It sounded just like the System from Orion."

[ You have created a Chicken Soup (Common). You have learned the skill of Basic Cooking]

"What?" David suddenly stood up, not understanding what was going on.

"Mom, I am going back to my room", he quickly said as he rushed back into his room before closing its door.

"What in the fuck" David muttered as he looked at the bright blue interface in front of him, exactly like it was after the 'merging'. 

"How? Is it because I was able to use it in the future?" David knew the scientists had tried to explain how the game could transfer our skills and stats to the real world.

"The scientists believed it was related to our souls and how mana reacts to it."

"Although I remember that they gave up after the mass extinction event, where only the players inside the territories survived, and the territories formed themselves on the earth, and the merging was complete."

"But what if they were right? And Seraphina actually sent my soul back in time?" David thought about it. Even though he couldn't feel Mana inside his body, he put forward his hand before trying to conjure the spell. 

He looked towards the system before realising that the Mana had already dropped to 0, but the spell hadn't worked.

"Is it possible that the moderator is slowly releasing mana into the world, and currently, it's so weak that I cannot utilise it?" David realised the possible implications of it. He realised that he would slowly be able to utilise his spells in real life way before the merging.

He looked again at his system and the available stat points, which were 2. He added one point to Agility before adding the second one to Mana. Both his Agility and Mana were now 11.

David stood up and felt that his body was a bit lighter.

"It really works!!" he was shocked again. He knew that he would gain more stat points as he levelled up, and if his body was already synchronising with his in-game stats, then, 

"I will be super strong in no time!" he jumped in happiness.

"Let's go back to Tom, he must be back by now", David thought. He dashed out of his house, running towards his best friend's house. He could feel that his body was way lighter and might even get stronger than Tom in a few level-ups. 

"My major focus should be improving my character, not flexing over people in real life."

He took short breaks and reached Tom's house quickly.

"Welcome, Master; Tom is getting ready. You can wait inside", one of the servants standing at the main gate said to David.

"Okay, tell him to be quick", David said as he walked inside Tom's room.

"Hey, buttercup, my maids told me you missed me!" Tom said as he made a stylish entry into his room and jumped on his bed, sitting beside David.

"hah, very funny."

"Okay, okay, what level did you reach? Remember, we need to hunt wolves. I have gotten information that Dungeons are about to open soon; we need to prepare for that as well", Tom said.

"Calm down, Calm down", David said. He could see Tom's excitement and was happy. He regretted missing these moments in his previous life and was happy he was given another chance.

"I will introduce you to my party..." Tom kept going, and David listened, smiling.