"What about you?" Helen asked Graham.
"I… don't know. There's not a single thing growing in the parts I'm at. Nowhere to sell, not a human soul in sight," Graham said. "I tried… uh, doing what that thing said and sitting down, but nothing happened."
"You cultivated?" Helen asked.
"Yes, that. But it didn't work," Graham said.
"You should go try again," Helen said. "Let's stay the entire night this time."
"I need to sleep," Graham protested.
"You can sleep in the machine. It's designed that way. Go now," Helen chided and Graham reluctantly entered the capsule.
Helen followed him and entered the capsule as well. The next thing she knew, she was back in the tavern she had logged out from.
Helen decided to cultivate. She knew what she had to do. Focus your mind, let your thoughts go astray, and slowly breathe in and out.
As she thought that, Helen slowly fell into a lull and soon enough, she fell in a trance. A trance where the soul in her real body would be suppressed for the soul in her fake one.
Unfortunately, while she was cultivating, her soul could never be suppressed by trivial formations.
Though the system tried to, her soul would always surface when she cultivated. Not that it mattered, for this would be the last time the fake soul ever stayed in her body.
While the fake soul was logged out with a random disconnection prompt, Helen opened her eyes in the tavern with confusion clear on her face.
"How long has it been?" she wondered and looked at the time. There was no clock in her vision.
"Setting?" she cried out but no setting came. No panels appeared.
"Log out!" she demanded, but that was impossible as well, for unbeknownst to her, Alex had destroyed the system that kept everything in order.
As such, soon her life was sent into disorder.
Helen was more fortunate than the rest of the players that surfaced after the game system's disappearance. She had her wit and with her soul never fully suppressed, she knew every single moment of what she lived through in this world.
More than that, she had information about this world that she learned through the internet. When she understood her situation, she decided to give it her all to find her son and her husband.
She didn't know what continent they were in, but she promised herself she would find them.
So, she took the one simple talisman book in her storage bag and started studying.
Months would go by before she reached a high enough level in her cultivation base that she could consistently make great talismans, and someone took notice.
Qin Shan of the Flowing Brush sect was the only Saint rank Talisman maker of DawnSpring city, one of the very few in the entire empire.
When going through new recruits in the guild, he came across Helen's speed at which she was going up in her talisman.
When she went from reaching Common Earth rank to Common Heaven rank in just mere 3 months, he understood that he had someone special in this place.
So, he met up with Helen and after seeing her absorb information like a sponge, he decided to take her in as his own disciple.
He even went as far as to make an exception for her in the sect as no one above 40 was allowed to remain a student.
At first, Old man Qin thought that he would have to spend a lot to get Helen to cultivate and reach a higher level. However, he soon realized how wrong he was.
Helen needed just the bare minimum and she could breakthrough easily. In fact, her speed of breakthrough was way too fast if she only focused on it.
So as to not bring up suspicion, he made her not cultivate at all most of the time and only made her focus on making talismans.
Soon, her talent shone through that as well.
* * * * *
"And then he made you take part in the competition?" Alex asked.
"Yes, partly to improve the sect's name. Partly to help get my own name and image into the world so that you would see me if you were in this continent," Helen said. "I'm glad it worked."
Alex nodded and asked, "I suspected your talent to be high but to think you had God-grade talent as well. Not to mention, our spiritual roots are the same. Hmm… I wonder if you can take the White Tiger's blood as well?"
Alex had barely thought for a second before shaking his head. "No, you need the body more than the roots. While your body constitution sounds great on paper, if I'm not wrong, it's a Heaven Grade body," Alex said.
Helen nodded. "It was considered an above-average grade for most players," she said.
"Right, did father mention his status at all? What his body was, or what his talent was?" Alex asked.
Helen sighed and shook her head. "Your father said nothing. He couldn't even cultivate where he was," Helen said. "Honestly, I worried about him more than I worried about you. At least you were already doing good with earning so much money, but him… sigh."
Alex sighed as well. 'Place where you can't cultivate… that just sounds like…,' Alex thought of a place before another thought occurred to him.
"Do you really remember entering the game and coming back out?" he asked.
"Yes, I do," Helen said.
"I see," Alex said with a thoughtful. "So our souls must not be swapped unless we sit down and cultivate."
"Souls swapped? What do you mean?" Helen asked with a confused look.
"It's like this," Alex said and proceeded to explain everything he could think of to explain.
Partway through, his own story mixed into the things as it became impossible to explain everything without telling where he learned it all.
He told her about the book of the Alchemy God, his two masters, Pearl, Beast realm, and finally the fight he had to go through in the desert beyond the Forbidden Fields.
He tried to skip over Ma Rong's death and the empty space his heart still held, but he couldn't do that. Halfway through, his eyes became misty as he explained it all to his mother.
Helen hugged him once more and pat his head.
After a while, she let go and asked, "wait, does that mean there is another me and you back on the 5th continent?"
Alex was about to answer when he finally understood what that question meant. 'Wait, then I don't have to find my way home?' he thought to himself.
He still wanted to meet sister Hao and the creator, and learn why they did what they did. Why they risked the lives of many... No, killed so many just for a game? Was there a hidden purpose? Or was this just entertainment for a god that was easily bored?
He felt a shift in his motivation from finding a home to finding answers.
Helen saw her son go quiet and wondered if she said something to remind him of something bad. So, she quickly decided to change the conversation topic.
"You mentioned a pet, right? where is he?" she asked.
"Ah yes," Alex came out of his stupefied expression and brought out Pearl from his beast space.
In a bright white light, the tiny and cute cat jumped in front of Helen with his head held high.
He looked at Helen with a confused look and then turned back to Alex. "Pearl, meet my mother," he said.
"Meow?" Pearl said.
"Aw, come here little one," Helen said as she lay her hands flat for Pearl to jump on top of it. After Pearl climbed on top of it, she brought him up to eye level as she used one hand to rub his tiny head.
"Hello, Pearl," she said with a smile.
Alex smiled and gave a mental command to Pearl.
"Hello, mother," Pearl said with a smug smile on his face.
"What?" Helen was shocked a little when she heard the cat speak. "Wh-what? what? Is he like a parrot?" she asked.
"I'm Pearl, not a parrot, mother," Pearl said.
"Wait, can you really speak?" she looked at him with her shock fixed on her face.
"Yes, I can," Pearl said.
Only after a minute did the shock wane from her face and a look of incredulity appeared on it.
"Wow, I can't believe there is a beast out there that can speak," she said.
"There are many that can do that, mother," Alex said. "Although I've only seen 2 that can do so at True realm, all Saint realm beasts are able to speak."
"Do they learn it from somewhere?" Helen asked.
"No, they just…" Alex stopped. Wait. Where did the saint beasts learn to speak the human, no demon language?
No, that was wrong too. Both Human and Demon language was the same, just written differently. Yao Jia had told him so.
'So everyone in this world just knows how to speak one language?' he wondered. 'How did we come to learn that same language despite being isolated for so long too?'
There were a lot of questions for him to think of, but unfortunately, the other him hadn't spoken aloud a lot of things for him to remember his words. So, Alex was not privy to a lot of information that was simply in the other Alex's mind.
He remembered the other him talking about a few things and had pieced most of it together, but some information clearly still missed.
He couldn't help but wonder, 'What else do I still not remember from back home?'
