“modest, how do you have the face to call yourself modest after such an extravagant and boastful self-introduction?” Azraf reflected inwardly but on the outside, he only stared at the guy with a slightly startled look.

“that face, that look, it’s just as I expected, you must be mind blown by my amazing identities.”

Azraf did not comment this time. He just gazed seriously at the guy.

“you don’t have to get this shocked, I am not at all that great. there might be someone better than I am. Ahhhh..”

“I get what this is all about now?.” Azraf suddenly blurted.

“got what? what are you talking about?.”

“The exact reason you called me here. I know that I was called here for you to ask me about my experience in the final stage of Curia Online. isn’t that your goal?.” Azraf announced as his gaze turned sharp.

“hahahah, as expected of a person who has an extraordinary mental capability able to survive the shock which leads to the death of thousands of players in Curia Online.” Eddy Matthew cracked up and admitted in a roundabout manner.

“you think this is funny?, because of you, I always get disturbed by that news reporter whenever I appear in a public sight, because of this, I am always under surveillance and forced to live in fear!.”

“ I was always eaten like a horse with so many questions like; why am I being so tightly watched? who is the one after me?. I know that no matter how much the governments are interested in me, they wouldn’t go to such a troublesome length when I can be directly and forcefully brought away by them but after being brought here by mister Franklin, I finally understand the reason.”

“ You were the one interest in me all this while!., you are the source of my discomfort” Azraf finished his last sentence with a raised voice as his knuckles were now tightly clenched.

“calm down mister Smith, it’s not what you think, I was just studying you in other to prove my analysis about how special you were.” Eddy tried to ease the tension in Azraf knowing that he had gone too far.

“it's not what I think? it’s even worse than I think because you have been unto me since before then. you had something to do with the medical tests that doctor Samantha ran on me after I woke up didn’t you? I also presume that it was how you found out about me? give me a justification for this now!!.” Azraf demanded.

“ok, ok! your accusations are all true.” The scientists said in a comforting way. “But not exactly.”

“am not asking if they're true or not, I demand an explanation.” Azraf retorted.

“Alright, if that is what you want, I will make things clear to you.

"it all started when all these gamers along with you suddenly had a disaster. thousands of gamers were suddenly trapped in their virtual capsule without waking up."

"The event was so sudden, so unexplainable that Curia Online was shut down and all virtual reality gaming activities were suspended by the Authorities. That lead to a great loss of career for people like me. Our area of expertise mostly relayed with making virtual games but with the games gone, a lot of us lost our purposes.”

“To resurrect our work, we had to personally investigate into the matter and find the cause and cure so that virtual reality games can be legalized again.”

“However, even after researching on it for about a month, other than concluding that the catastrophe resulted from a discharge of very powerful mental shock, no other clue could be found. A month later, the gamers trapped in their virtual capsules began to die one after the other leading to even more shock and panic.”

“ People began to lose their trust in the safety of virtual reality games making the authorities more adamant in their sanction."

“many researchers gave up on the research as they couldn’t find anything useful no matter how much they tried and mostly due to pressure from above, amid all this, the deaths of the gamers who were trapped did not cease in the slightest, they perished even more frequently.

“ At the end of the year, all the gamers were no more. however, despite the death of all, one person remained who refused to die. But no one had the time to pay that survivor any attention as two rippling events unfolded one after the other. The appearance of the space crack and the perishing of my friend and partner Timmy Stark.”

“ These two events made the researchers relent their pursuit in finding the course of the disaster of Curia Online and more heads were directed towards the connection between Curia Online and the space crack but not all gave up, my partner Timmy stark never did, it became his obsession because my partner was the one most affected by the whole events.”

“ As the brain behind Curia Online, people criticized him for the death of the gamers and the appearance of the space crack as all these things have a connection with Curia Online. Unfortunately, my partner couldn’t handle the pressure from all over the world and in the end, he suicided.”

“when he died I took over his research in other to clear his name and also to get to the root of all this. But after searching a long time without uncovering any clues, I concluded that the only possible way to complete my research was to turn back to you, the solitary gamer who everyone gave up on and who refused to join the other dead gamers. Even after such a long time, you remain animated neither dead nor alive..”

“ I placed you under the care of my former student, Samantha, and monitored every change, everything about your consciousness just to ascertain what transpired but beyond the probability, you suddenly underwent an incomprehensible soul mutation and miraculously woke up from the virtual capsule, emerging as the one and only survivor of that disaster.”

“my interest in you exponentially increased when I heard about the news from samantha, I immediately instructed her to run a few tests on you to study you clearly and what I discovered instead of the original answers I seaked was how extraordinary your consciousness became, it was something beyond the explanation of even science, its simply, magnificent.”

“what is it about?.” Azraf who had remained silent the whole time, suddenly blurted. he was particularly interested in this news because, the reason he has been so lost, the reason he came here and intentionally pressured the scientist into spelling the beans was all so he could find out about this.

Azraf hopes very much that what is about to be revealed to him will clear all his doubts about why and how he reincarnated into this world.

“your consciousness is very powerful, almost comparable to that of ten people’s. Furthermore, in your soul I found something incredible, I don’t know exactly what it is but it composes of an extremely pure quintessence of electricity.”

“In the soul vision ray, there seemed to be this blure silhouette of an anonymous entity in the very depths of your consciousness. Here, let me show you.” Eddy beckoned as he moved towards a visual projector and tapped on the switch.

Instantaneously, a projection screen materialized, showing an image that sent Azraf's mind into turmoil.

Right in front of him was a blurry scene of his ethereal consciousness which housed a small region that was distorted, however, in that region, Azraf saw faint runes which he had seen elsewhere before.

If he remembers correctly, he’s seen these runes on the relic of the skythunder lineage given to him by his father.

“this?.. this?." Azraf was speechless and shocked inside upon seeing the view but he struggle mentally to believe it.

Everything made sense now, his coming to this world was planned by his father who gave him the relic before he embarked on the journey to slay the blue lightning dragon. But why? why would his father do such a thing?.

“You need not worry too much over the discovery mister smith, it is rather useful to you than harmful?.” Eddy sounded beside him, in a calm voice under the misconception that Azraf became this shocked due to him freaking out from the discovery.

Although Azraf tried hard to remain calm, it took him time to get back to reality.

“Am alright.”

“ok, if you say so then let me proceed to the second and main reason why I wanted you here.”

“you see, after the discovery of the world beyond the crack, the researchers rushed to investigate the world excitedly as they all found a new toy and there, discoveries were made which shows that not only is it a magical world similar to Curia Online, but it contains existence who wield magical powers equivalent to the Game, Curia Online, however, these discoveries put the earth in a difficult position as the explorers have proven that inhabitants of that world also can inflict great harms to our world. Therefore, the earth needed to get stronger in other to not be defenseless.

“As a result of that, researchers went crazy looking for ways to no accomplishment until someone envisioned a brilliant idea, he thought, since the world beyond the space crack is the same as Curia Online, then the same rule in the game should also apply in that world.”

“ with this idea as the basis, a lot of researchers tried replicating the basics of Curia Online but they all failed including me. In the cause of endless failure and at the same time, urgency, a new idea was bred.”

“That is, if the programs of Curia Online cannot be replicated, how about we rewrite it into something usable In that world?.”

“To carry out the plan, electronic and technological scientists from all over the world assembled in the glorious virtual cooperation and worked on a project which we called the Earth's Defending System.”

“ The idea of the System was to d******d the programming of Curia Online into a chip which will be inserted in the brain of a host and it should carry out the same function in Curia Online when the host is in the world beyond the space crack... It was……….”

“did you succeed?” Azraf asked when Eddy suddenly become silent as he reminisced.

“yes, with me in the lead, how can it fail, as the partner of the brain behind curia online, I know sixty if not seventy percent of the programs. You see, that is why the governments left me in charge of this lab.”

“because of our success, today everyone who signs up for the expedition to become earth's defenders must have an Earth Defending System which will assist them to grow and later thrive.”

“As for you, the uniqueness of your consciousness forced me to work extra hard to make the only chip, the only System in the world that I presume will be compatible with your consciousness.”

“The real reason you have been on my tail all this time was because of this system?.” Azraf said with a look of discerning.

“correct, I needed to study you more in other to successfully build a system compatible with your consciousness and that is why I was forced to put you under surveillance.”

“I don’t understand, what do you get by going through all this trouble in other to help me build the system?.”

“more hope for earth and most importantly, more specializing in my career. Alright enough of that now, since you already know what you need to, let’s get to business. I have to insert the system into your brain, we don’t have much time, one of those government dogs could walk in here at any time. I don’t want them ruining this for us in any way.” Eddy urged as he started to operate a robot that was stationed in front of them.

________________________________

Azraf dashed out of the lab steadily, his expression was eased as a faint smile was visible on his face, now he has the system and acquired more information about his reincarnation, the only thing which remains is to go to the world beyond the dimensional space crack and return to the waters that he belonged to.

Watching as he left, the scientists' expression was filled with utter fascination. Just when he inserted the chip in Azraf's mind, an incident occurred that nearly made him panic but everything suddenly changed when a bright purple light, sparked out from within Azraf's eyes.

Yes, his long-time efforts have not proven useless.

Meanwhile, Azraf left the company and headed straight towards his home. Instruction was given to him that he should only head to the expedition on the next day so he wants to spend the little time he has left with his friends and family.

On getting home, Azraf met with his aunt who seemingly never stopped worrying for him. He had to put a lot of effort to finally calm down her pessimistic excitement. After that, he called over his two friends.

Jackson and Jenifer arrived there shortly.

“you guys hid such important stuff from me, so much for being friends for twenty years!!.” Jenifer shouted at Jackson and Azraf in a spicy voice. She did not take it likely when both of them left her in the dark.

Azraf: “it's not what you think.”

Jackson “we were afraid that you will also try to…”

“try to join you fools in sending yourself into a death mission? do you think that am as brainless and suicidal as you guys!!.” Jenifer cut in.

“hay, he’s the only one who thinks that way, why do you have to put me in that statement as well?.” Azraf blurted as if he had been deeply wronged.

“what the fuck do you mean it’s what only I think? were you not the one who advised me to not tell her about everything.” After being betrayed by Azraf, Jackson dropped a bomb which made Azraf turn pale.

“it's not like that, it’s not me it was him.” Azraf pointed at Jackson and accused when the piercing gaze of Jenifer turned to him.

Jackson: “no it’s him don’t turn back to me.”

Azraf: “he’s the one”

“you two haven’t changed one bit, you still have this habit of ganging up on me since our childhood.” At last, Jenifer relented with a sigh after the two played with her.

This was the trick that the two played on her since their childhood whenever she gets mad at them when they offend her. the trick always works on her because she always fell helpless to it.

After seeing her cool down, the two guys finally came to her and confessed their crimes while at the same time, apologizing.

Knowing that they were going to say goodbye to Jackson and Azraf, Jenifer and Andrew's aunt both did their best to make a little time worthwhile.

They made a lot of jokes and talked about sensitive and funny things in their childhoods which made everyone laugh.

Jackson and Jenifer slept over the night after having an overly extravagant meal that was prepared by the two women together.

On the next day, it was finally time for Azraf and Jackson to leave for their journey in space. His aunt once again, became very emotional as she tightly clenched him and refuse to let go for almost thirty minutes. Jenifer bade farewell to her two childhood friends with moist eyes.

After getting out, the two were immediately enveloped by a beam of light that descended from above a flying aircraft which dragged them into it and sped off.

hours later, the two exited the aircraft and appeared in a spacious place filled with numerous people. Up above an entrance that graced in front of them was a sign that displayed the name of the place.

Studying the sign exceptionally, both Azraf and Jackson pronounced it together.

“ELDS: Earth's Defense Launching Station.”