Kai met with the receptionist. She showed him the guild card. It carried his information as well as his current rank, which was a one star Iron adventurer.
The ranking system for adventurers were Iron, Silver, Gold, Platinum, and then Diamond, and within each of those ranks, they had three star levels to get through before a total rank up.
Everyone had to start right from Iron.
Every adventurer was also expected to submit one quest per month from the quest board.
Kai did not have plans to do that for now though. Now that he had gotten the card, his next course of action was selling everything that he had on him.
After everything was sold, it came up to a hundred silver coins, which was one gold coin.
"Tch, I wasted all my coins with that old swindler, but then again, weapons and spells are extremely expensive."
He took the coins and bid the receptionist farewell. After leaving the guild, he searched for an inn that came with a restaurant.
He found a relatively normal one and got two rooms, one for Mira and one for him, but he could not stay long anymore. He had to log out.
He had been inside now for over four hours. He needed to prepare food for Aoi and make sure that she was okay. After giving Mira her room, he went into his and logged out.
[Are you certain you want to leave Ascension Online?]
"Weird question to ask since I already said log out," he said. "Yes, I'd like to leave." A few seconds later, he had left the game and everything went dark.
He grabbed the headset and took it off his head. It took a bit for his eyes to get adjusted to the light of his room, so he just sat there for a little.
When he finally pushed himself up and stood, it felt as if something had changed. Kai felt off.
His body seemed to have gained more fluidity, like he had far better control over his entire body.
He looked at his hands, noticing how his eyes focused more on them, and he could see the individual hairs.
"What the hell is happening?" he muttered, shock on his face. He focused a bit more, and what happened next stunned him. His eyes focused so much that he managed to see past his skin for an instant and see what was underneath.
It scared him instantly as he staggered back and fell into the pod. Beads of sweat formed on his head.
"What was that? Did I hallucinate?"
He tried to do it again, but it did not work at all, yet he felt it was not a hallucination. Without any answer, he got up, pushing the thought to the back of his mind for now. He left the room and headed to his sister's room.
Knock knock.
He knocked twice and then opened the door. She was laying on the bed, sleeping.
He had a pained smile on his face. "Don't worry, sis. After today, everything changes," he said before shutting the door.
"I still feel strange, but my body feels a lot lighter and easier to control." He thought about what could be causing this, but without any answer, he decided to leave it be and go cook.
Entering inside the kitchen, he started prepping what he would cook for his sister. It was still porridge, but a different kind now.
He lined up the vegetables after washing them and was about to start cutting, but then he stopped. He stared at the knife for an unusual amount of time. The moves within the Butterfly Dance played over and over in his head.
Then, his body moved on its own. He carried out the first flow of movements, a thrust forward, his feet following instantly after like a flowing river. His hands moved with a slash. He took another step, made a pivot, and slashed downward, only for an invisible arc to shoot out and cut into the wall, leaving a thin cut there.
Kai froze. He had seen the cut appear on the wall. It was not there before, so it meant his actions did this. Finally, it all started making sense. The thing that happened with his eyes had to do with appraisal. He was in better control of his body due to the fighting and the Butterfly Dance, and now he had used it to cut into a wall from a distance.
"Oh my God... the game is affecting reality. That can't be true, right? If it was true, it would be on the news for sure," he spoke to himself.
He eagerly rushed through making the meal, and when everything was inside the pot and cooking, he rushed to a chair, sat down, and pulled out his phone.
Inside the browser search, he typed, (Ascension Online affecting reality)
Sadly, what he got as results were news on people that killed themselves because they lost their account somehow, or lost their items in game. None of that mattered to Kai.
He kept searching, clicking on every link that looked like it could help, but nothing was helping.
(Gaining abilities from Ascension Online)
He made another search, but there was nothing there, until he spotted a small article inside a site talking about people taking the game too seriously.
The article stated, (Ascension Online might be more than it seems). He clicked the article and it took him to a page, but the page was shut down, no longer active.
It seemed like someone was actively trying to ensure there was no news like that at all. Desperate for answers, Kai entered a streamer chat room where strangers messaged themselves.
He had entered the room long ago, but never really spoke. Now he wanted to see what they would have to say, since all of them had played the game.
[Hey guys, did anyone notice anything weird after leaving Ascension Online?]
No one answered. His chat was getting buried underneath hundreds of messages, until suddenly someone messaged him privately.