Outside world
"Why don't you call off the engagement?" Ivan asked.
Sommy replied that she would have done so a long time ago if she could, but it wasn't her decision to make; she had no parents and was taken in by Luke's family, who had taken care of her all these years.
This was a kind of payment for all their care and the reason she bothered looking out for Luke at times.
Ivan could only feel sorry for Sommy after learning all this; she was tied to that jerk for life. Luke's family was just taking advantage of the helpless girl; it was a mystery how she still managed to stay so cheerful most of the time.
"Anyway, let's forget about my problems. I can't imagine how strong you'll become by the end of our training; I wonder who would be stronger by then, you or Vlad," Sommy said with a thoughtful look.
" Who's Vlad?" Ivan asked.
" Oh, that's an abbreviation for Vladimir. Alaric Vladimir" Sommy stated.
A glint flashed past Ivan's eyes, he immediately asked Sommy to tell him about this Alaric Vladimir guy.
According to Sommy, Alaric Vladimir had entered the training program together with their set and had quickly started to dominate in every aspect of the training.
He easily defeated the repeaters of that time and got the title of the strongest before the ranking was even created, it went without saying that he became even more monstrous after the ranking and Nexus chamber were introduced.
It was said that Alaric Vladimir even matched up with some of the officials of the tower.
He had a few circles of followers who were all also up in the ranking but none of them got close to Vlad's level.
Ivan's eyes blazed as he listened to Sommy talk about this Alaric Vladimir guy, he wished he had met him and was able to fight him.
'It doesn't matter, I can find him after leaving here' Ivan thought to himself.
"As for his personality, he's just like you. Rarely talks, always wearing a deadpan expression, and cold" Sommy suddenly said with a teasing expression on her face.
Ivan "..."
"You don't know me," he said bluntly.
"Exactly, you're too cold and won't allow others to get close enough to know you," Sommy added while giggling.
Ivan made a poker face, unable to find a response to Sommy's claim.
"Anyway, I'll be off now. See you around," Sommy said; her food had finished at some point, and she got up to leave.
Ivan also got up as well, but his mind was occupied with thoughts of that Alaric dude and what Sommy had said; he shook his head fiercely to clear his thoughts.
"Training first, everything else comes after," Ivan said to himself before leaving for Ralph's room. He'll take Ralph to the Nexus chamber before going to the training room to fight more monsters and bosses.
...…
While the trainees in the tower were taking their training seriously and trying to increase their strength as much as possible, the outside world was experiencing its own crisis.
After the appearance of links and the discovery of the dreamscape, the earth was left with only three major cities and nine outskirts, with three outskirts anchoring to a major city.
These major cities were San Pluto, which was the biggest and had over five million people living in it; Motuni, which had over two million people living there; and Orcuno, which was the smallest major city of humans and had a bit over a million citizens.
Of course, there was still a vast population of humans inside the dreamscape, but the total number of humans currently did not even count up to fifteen million in total, with limited space for them to occupy.
After regaining stability and forming strong forces, humans had begun their quest of reclaiming what was theirs; the lost lands and seas that were lost to the habitants of the dreamscape!
Swoooooo!!
An enormous air carrier flew above the surface of an eerily quiet sea, its humongous shadow that was cast by the blazing sun moved over the sea surface like the silhouette of a behemoth.
Strange gigantic creatures would leap into the air from the sea from time to time in an attempt to snap at the air carrier with their enormous maws.
Inside the air carrier, in what looked like a meeting room, over fifty people could be seen seated around what looked like a holographic image of an island while holding a meeting.
Each one of these people had fearsome and bloody auras revolving around them and they all had serious looks on their faces. All of them were dressed in fine black uniforms with eye-catching white belts over their regalia, their ages ranging from those in their twenties to those who were in their forties.
A man who appeared to be in his thirties stood in the middle of this gathering with the hologram right before him, he made gestures while saying something.
"This area used to be a continent occupied by the Africans, and two thousand kilometers behind it is the vast Death Sea; on the other side of the Death Sea is the camp of people from the Dominion Tower who can act as reinforcements if the need arises.
You will be deployed around here," he made a gesture and made the hologram zoom in and show an area that looked like a forest region with tall-looking trees. "Your mission is to sweep through this area all the way here, which should be an area of 800 meters of detours. Arrive at the location of the link that gives these monsters entrance to our world and secure the place, report back immediately after completing the objective!" The man stated and the hologram vanished, causing the room to fall into darkness briefly before light was restored.
"Is that understood?" The man asked while looking towards a young man who seemed to be in his early twenties. He had short black hair and black eyes that gleamed, he was also extremely handsome and looked like a main character from some anime.
The young man looked back at him with expressionless eyes before nodding.
"Good, do well. You've been making remarkable progress since you came out of training. Continue, and you'll climb ranks faster than most of us," the middle-aged man commented, but the young man paid no attention to him, immediately walking out of the room.
Had Sommy or any of the repeaters been here, they would have definitely recognized this young man; he was no other but Alaric Vladimir!
"Hey, Vlad! Wait up"
Alaric Vladimir paused his steps when he heard someone call his name, he turned around and saw that it was a youth with blue hair covering a side of his face.
Ivan would have definitely recognized this youth, they had met at the teleportation vault back at the tower four months ago.
This young man with blue hair was called Jack and he was already a True King rank Nexulyte.
Jack reached where Vlad was before passing a piece of paper to him, Vlad took the paper and read through it quietly for a couple of seconds before lifting his head without a change in expression.
"Inform Bella and the others; you all should assemble your team and meet me at the facility vault in five minutes," Vlad said to Jack and immediately turned to leave. Jack gave his back a long stare before turning over to carry out his assignment.
Vlad, still holding the piece of paper in his hand, walked through the lobbies of the air carrier. The paper was a permit to claim a land carrier and since his team had quite several people, he had been permitted to claim ten land carriers.
A single land carrier was usually able to carry seven people along with a month's worth of supplies.
"Seems like it's going to be another long mission" Vlad muttered to himself, his eyes narrowing into a slit.
This was his third mission since he left the training camp; as a Partial Lord ranked Nexulyte, Vlad had a team of ten True King Nexulytes under him, and those True Kings had four Mortal King subordinates; this made his team reach a total of 51 people for every mission.
Of course, it was also because the missions assigned to him always required a large number of people to be able to share the workload; he could decide to take fewer people if he wanted.
Vlad arrived at the facility vault shortly, this was a huge workshop in the air carrier where hundreds of Nexulytes with mechanic talents did their work. Of course, these ones were not battle mechanics; they were seen to be even more valuable than battle mechanics at the time since they were in charge of creating everything related to machinery. Weapons, carriers, communication devices, spatial storage devices, just name it.
A young man in his early twenties spotted Vlad immediately after he stepped into the facility vault, this young man was in a nano suit that was probably the manifestation of his talent as he jumped from on top of a tall piece of metal.