Alex opened his eyes inside his capsule. He could see some lights around him, he could hear himself moving, feel the softness beneath him.
'I logged out?' he thought with a solemn expression on his face. The memory of the sea was still clear in his mind. 'Did I die?'
He tried to log back in. Instead of going back to his body in the game, or the other world as he had come to believe, he got a single message in his ears.
Alex sighed. "I really did die, huh?" he said softly. He didn't want to make any such decisions at the moment, so he declined the capsule's offer.
He opened the lid and walked out.
Suddenly, he felt a wave of nausea and hunger hit him as he nearly stumbled onto the ground.
His stomach cried really loudly. "What's—" he remembered that he hadn't eaten anything in nearly 3 days now due to the events of the game.
He remembered feeling really happy when he got to take his revenge, but now he didn't know how to feel anymore.
Revenge wasn't going to bring his master back. It even made him die in the process. Because of his impulsive action, he was now unable to go save Pearl as well.
Alex sighed once again. He had let revenge destroy who he was and what he had left. He shook his head and forgot about it for now.
He got up and left to eat. He didn't even bother going to the bathroom as he was too hungry to do that.
He ate as he had never before, surprising all 3 of the girls who had come down to eat as well.
"Slow down, or you will choke," Hannah told him.
Alex nodded, but didn't speak and continued eating. Once done, he left the kitchen and went back to his room.
He went back into his room and went to take a shower. He thought about what he would do next in the shower.
He knew he was going to get a bad body like everyone else, so he didn't really look forward to going into the game. Even if he did, he likely wouldn't spend such a long time in there.
He had surely lost his alchemy skills so there was no way he could remain an alchemist either. Without his body, he didn't see himself getting strong quickly as well.
The only reason he even wanted to go back was to rescue Pearl, but would he even be able to? Pearl was no longer bonded with him now that he was dead as well.
"Will I even spawn in the Western Continent? People usually don't spawn there, right?" Alex thought.
He started worrying a little more. Still, he needed to take the chance. For Pearl.
Once he got out of the bathroom, he immediately went back to the capsule. He opened the lid, got in, and logged in.
He waited for the capsule to ask the question again… but it never came.
"Huh?" he wondered. "Why is nothing happening?" He tried to log in once more, but again, there was nothing but silence.
'The hell?' he thought. "No way that question from before was a one-time thing, right? Just because I rejected it once, that shouldn't mean I don't get to enter at all."
Alex started to get worried. Did he lose his one chance to 'reincarnate' in the game?
Suddenly, he heard a knock on the door. He walked out of the capsule and opened the door.
Outside the door, was a confused Hannah. Before he could even say anything, she quickly shoved him aside and jumped into his capsule.
'What the hell?' Alex thought. 'What is she doing?'
He waited for a minute or so, and Hannah walked out of the capsule. The confusion was ever so high in her eyes.
"Did your capsule break before today?" she asked.
"What? No, I logged out this morning after I died in the game," Alex said. "After that, I haven't been able to log in."
She then opened her phone she had brought along and went on to check the news.
"Hey guys, is your capsule working?" Sarah shouted through the house.
Alex and Hannah walked outside to find a confused Sarah in the living room with her laptop in her hand.
"It's not just us," Hannah said while looking at something on her screen. "The entire world is suffering this. Everyone was simultaneously logged out while we were eating, it seems."
"What's going on? Is this a maintenance break? Is there anything on the internet about this?" Sarah asked.
"No, but people are asking questions," Hannah said.
"Let's wait for it to get fixed then," Alex said.
And so they waited for an hour. Then two hours. 4. 8. A day. 2 days. 5 days. 10 days.
However, there was no information about the game. Deva Corp had a fire lit under them from all the harassment they suffered from the players.
However, even though they owned the game, they weren't the ones who were responsible for maintaining it. But, they didn't know who was, and could never get into contact with the developer.
After many days, people simply lost all hope. They started a lawsuit against the Deva corp. Their stocks dropped from sky high, all the way to the ground.
The people understood that they could no longer go back to the game, so people started going on with their life.
Alex had already sold his stock of Deva corp when he had come to understand that the reincarnation aspect of the game would one day ruin it for everyone. And while he was wrong about the reason, he had luckily sold it while it was at its peak.
With the game not existing anymore, and him having no way to sustain himself, Alex decided to go back to University. He took classes that would help him in business this time so that he could help his father back home.
They changed apartments too as this one was too costly to sustain and got themselves a more affordable one.
Alex's relationship with Emily steadily progressed as well. As for Hannah, it didn't seem like she could find someone to love anything soon.
After a few months, she left Oakleaf city and went back to her hometown to help her father with their business.
Alex studied in the university for a bit longer before returning back home to improve his father's agriculture.
He helped him gather new workers and added facilities to house them. His father insisted on doing everything alone, but Alex didn't let him.
He then expanded his farm by a lot and started working on it himself. His business knowledge, as well as his father's agricultural knowledge, helped them create one of the biggest and most well-known farms in the entire city of Mapleleaf.
A year or so later, at the age of 25, Alex married Emily. Their wedding wasn't very big, but both of their family were happy with a small wedding.
A year or two later, Hannah also got married to a man she had fallen in love with at work.
They hadn't forgotten about the game. Eternal Cultivation may have been short-lived, but it had made a very large impact on their lives.
Alex still remembered his master who had died. He prayed his other master who lived was well now. He remembered his senior sister, senior brother, his friends, and he missed them all.
Most of all, however, he missed Pearl. If he had any regrets regarding the game, it was that he couldn't save him. All he could do was pray that Pearl passed the ritual without dying.
Hannah still loved her husband from the game, and would sometimes tell Alex how much she missed him. However, she didn't let that ruin her current relationship with her husband.
The world remembered the game, they remembered it very well. But they had also moved on from it.
A few years later, Alex had a child with Emily. A daughter. He named her Maron, after his late master, Ma Rong.
That was the only child he had, and he loved her dearly.
Life went on, and many years passed. Alex was now in his 40s. He had retired now and lived happily on his farm with his wife.
And he wouldn't want it to be any other way.
[The End of Volume 1: Inside the Game]
* * * *
--Extra from Alex's LIfe--
A certain day.
Alex couldn't sleep at all during the night with the back pain that kept him awake. While he was awake, he heard a loud bang coming from somewhere behind his house.
He walked out in the midsummer night, with a flashlight in his hands.
The sound had come from the forest behind his house. There were no workers at the moment due to the summer festival they had gone to set up close to the city.
"What's going on?" he asked himself. He walked into the woods without any fear. There were no beasts in there after all. The only thing he needed to worry about was falling off of the edge.
However, he didn't need to worry about that as they were very far away from where he was.
He walked slowly as his old bones hurt a lot during the night. He walked about 5 minutes into the forest when he noticed something.
There was some sound coming from up ahead. 'I hope it's not dangerous,' he thought.
If there was danger ahead of him, he wouldn't be able to run away. Still, it was too late to turn around as he saw what had made the noise in the forest.
His eyes narrowed when he saw the source of the sound.
