Altering

Kai took the journey back to the Bluestone Sect. He had already confirmed the existence of the immortal beings, so all he had to do was return and make the report, that he killed two of them while questioning the third, and after killing the third, the first two returned back completely unharmed.

…

Meanwhile, back on Earth, the 10 Alpha testers had just left their game cabins which allowed them to be fully immersed into the game.

"Hands in the air now!" Immediately, they were greeted with guns being shoved into their faces as their slightly fuzzy mind tried to understand the situation.

Without being able to understand much, they were escorted to a bunch of doctors who first checked their condition before they were led to what could only be called an interrogation room.

"Tell me everything you found out about the New World." A man with his face covered in a black piece of cloth entered the room and sat down while facing the female tester. His intimidating gaze caused a significant amount of discomfort to her.

"After I answer… I won't be allowed to leave this place right?" she dryly chuckled.

"…" The man with his face covered did not respond.

"I'll take your silence as a yes. Anyways. I have a deal for you. You don't kill me after I tell you everything, and in exchange, I'll help you in doing whatever it is you want to do here."

"…"

"Clearly, you have taken over this entire base for some reason. And assuming it is related to the New World, you will definitely need experts who know about the entire operation. I can help with that as long as you don't kill me." The female tester said as she leaned forward, placing her interwoven hands on the metal table.

The man did not respond, however, for the first time he did indeed have a reaction to her words. He turned his head towards the two-way mirror and waited silently. The female tester also remained silent with bated breath. This could decide her life and death, and she was not willing to risk her life for something as fragile as honour or loyalty to her CEO. The latter was already at rock bottom after she learned of the methods her CEO had used to get the outsourced AIs.

A few minutes passed before the man nodded at the mirror and turned to her.

"Alright, your proposal has been accepted. Let us start with your name."

"Grace"

…

At this point in time, Kai had already returned back to the Bluestone Sect and was waiting for his submitted ring to be returned. He knew that the ring could record events which had transpired, so he did not have to worry about providing proof that he completed his mission. However, he was more scared about the conversations he had with the female tester being recorded. If it was, it would be great trouble for him.

Thankfully, on the long journey back here, he got the idea to ask the system to help him alter the data in the ring, and somehow it was able to instruct him on what he had to do.

In fact, it was rather simple; for a mage, to edit the information. However, he was not even an apprentice and had not even learned a single spell. Therefore, it was a lot longer process for him. Thankfully, his accumulated Spiritual Energy finally came to use as he pushed it into the ring at a certain location on the inside of the ring.

Somehow, he found that he could feel the recording inside as though he was holding a physical video recording of it. It was rather strange, but Kai was not one to complain about this.

Immediately, he forwarded the recording to the conversation he had had with the female tester. However, he was surprised that the exact moments where things like 'Earth', 'AI', 'Game' and other aspects were heard, had already been cut out from the recording.

Unfortunately, it definitely did not look natural, so Kai spent a few hours editing it, as well as inserting his voice into places to make sense of the whole conversation.

Ultimately, it ended up turning into an interrogation about who they were and where they were from. Of course, he made sure to leave the parts where she spoke as they were already cut in the perfect places to make it seem as though whatever his answer was could not be recorded by the ring.

In the end, he made sure to show the part where he killed her, as well as the part where he noticed the two others he had killed reappearing, just completely naked.

With that, his preparations were completed, yet he still had this fear that his editing might be found out by the ones who were inspecting his mission through the ring.

As time passed, this fear only grew, as no one had arrived to return his ring to him. This only meant that it was still being investigated, or that they had lost it somewhere. Considering how illogical and mind-blowing the recording was, the latter was unlikely to have happened.

'Can you cut some of my memories and hide them as data within you? And return them to me when I tell you? Also, can you insert some altered memories in its place?' Kai finally got a brilliant idea. Since the information was this abnormal, it was likely that someone would question him. Considering how magic worked here, it was likely that they would know if he was lying. Therefore, if he could just remove and change certain memories in his mind, he would not have any issues!

*Beep*

[Establishing task]

[Time until completion: 0s]

[Task complete]

[Yes. This is possible. However, interacting with the real world, especially memories will require Mana. Current Mana reserves as sufficient. It will take 10 seconds to copy memories, 20 seconds to remove memories, and 20 seconds to input altered memories]

'Great!'