"What did you say?"
Aki heard Zaon's rambling.
"Nothing, I just need to help myself."
Zaon composed himself. Nobody has to know. That he came from the future.
"I mean, my body gets painful sometimes after gaming."
"Bah! That's why I am against the 16 hour period. Gaming must only be 6 hours, but Tablet mad it 16. Profiteering bastards!"
"Woah. I didn't think that you hate them that much."
"Of course, I hate them. Aorin is not even talking to me now, because she wants a pod, and I don't want to buy her one."
"Why not buy one?"
"She has a sister, dude. And what Aorin has, Akarin has to get that one too."
"Sucks to be you."
"The nerve."
Zaon laughed loudly.
He then sighed, as he realized that getting stronger is not as fast as he thinks.
"I can train you."
A voice suddenly said.
Zaon and Akihiro looked at the voice at the same time.
And what they saw is a person who looked like he just woke up.
"Karlo, are you sure you're standing up now?"
Trove jumped in joy, but worry washed him.
"Damn, I'm not dead, so I'm fine."
He scratched his head as he went to the fridge to take a sip of water.
But, he got one pitcher, and gulped it down straight. He then burped so loud that it concerned Akihiro, but he just laughed it off.
"As I was saying..."
He took one leg of a chicken and took a bite. He then sat on one of the stools inside the house.
"... I can train you."
"Damn, right. Seeing you being so addicted to gambling, I can see my future by training under you."
Zaon refuted.
"Gaaaah! You think I'm not trustworthy?"
Karlo said as he took another bite. The first line was because he bit his tongue hearing Zaon.
Zaon looked at Aki, and they both sain in chorus:
"Yes."
Karlo nearly choke, and Trove came in to rescue him by hitting the back of his head, which caused him to spit out the chicken he had just bitten.
"You!"
"Why, you? You almost died, and now, you want to train the person who saved us?"
"Idiot, do you think I will offer what we learned if I haven't known that he saved us?"
"You.. are you an imbecile?"
"??"
"Okay, stop!"
Zaon interrupted the two.
"I am thankful for the offer, but I can't just accept things from a stranger, right?"
"So, you're saying that you save a stranger, but does not accept goodwill from them?"
"I don't know, maybe you have ulterior motives."
"If I have, I could've killed you then."
Just like that, Karlo dropped a bomb.
Silence permeated the air, as well as the thick killing intent of Karlo.
But then, a much more powerful energy emerged from the person beside him.
"Hey, are you threatening us right now?"
Karlo retracted the killing intent, and bit the chicken again.
"No.3, are you sure about this?" Trove asked Karlo.
"No.3??" Aki's curiosity went up.
"Yes, I was number 3."
Karlo licked his fingers as he went to the sink and washed his hands. Then, using his wet hands, he brushed off his hair and took a string from the kitchen to tie his hair.
"Sorry for the late introduction, I am Special Armed Forces Number 3, Karlo Avianus."
Beard and mustache, as well as the face of a veteran who looked like someone meek, but can kill anyone.
"That Karlo?"
"Yes, that Karlo."
"Then you must be legit."
Zaon pondered a moment as he looked at Karlo again.
'Did I pick up someone so important?'
Karlo Avianus.
He is one of the generals that fought in the war fifteen years ago, together with the four heroes.
They won, and now, they are away from the field for 16 years, as the game became the platform of wars and all.
He was a secret operative, but one of the people who took down almost all of the enemy forces.
That was when his name became famous, and the military can't hide him anymore, so they decided to declare him a general.
The Black Panther of the Military.
"Don't be so shy, even the doctor beside you knows what training I am talking about." Karlo said, looking to Akihiro.
"Number 3, I hope you don't divulge anything. Your life is still under the rule of military." Aki said, gritting his teeth.
"The military has no power now, Doctor."
"Even so, I won't let my friend's brother undergo that."
"The choice is not yours, it is his."
"Zaon.."
When Aki and Karlo finally looked at Zaon, all they saw was madness in his eyes. Fear, anger, madness, loneliness and madness painted his face.
"What are you two talking about?"
Just a simple line.
But the two felt the heaviness in his words.
This is because they know the game too well.
There are three things that made the game smooth while on a pod.
First, is the hardware.
Any pod can be used, but specialized pods gives a certain percentage of synchronization rate, so that the delay between the movement and the skill in game will be shortened.
It may be milliseconds, but that millisecond can cause the battle to end.
Second, is the mind.
The mind of the user is needed to run the pod.
Brain is the center of all the body, and each and every move is read by the synapses sent to the nerve.
But, the body sends too many information at the same time. This made the hardware comes to play, as it filters the movements away, and opens up the pathways for more smoother gameplay.
And the last, but not the least, is the body.
Say for example, one person trains his body, and another doesn't, and both played the game.
The one with training plays well, because his body was already trained with his mind.
And his mind just replays the recording he had.
"Ingrain Method."
"What is that?" Zaon asked.
"It is a long story, but the short version is this."
"You know that the days of the game are shorter than the days in the world."
"Three days there, is one day here.
"And if there are three days there, that means, you can train your body there twice, and once outside it."
"It is called ingrain as it etched everything into your brain first, before you can act it out."
"For example, you are being kidnapped."
"You know that you have to fight, but you don't know how to, so you just stay there silently, and let them take you."
"It is not because of fear of them, but the fear of underperforming and being hurt in the process."
"That's why you needed to know first how to move well, and when you realized it, you can do whatever you want."
"The same goes vice versa."
"If you train your body, it remembers the things you did, and can change the way you do in game."
"In short, it trains you in both dimensions that it basically makes you stronger as time goes by."
Karlo stopped as he saw Zaon thinking.
"So, you mean to say, that I can surpass everyone?"
"Yes, everyone that I know."
"Even the Number 1 and 2?"
"Everyone. Including them."
"Then let's get started."
"WAIT!" Akihiro decided to stop them.
"What is it?" Zaon asked.
"Kid, not everything in this world is free." Karlo said.
"Right. So, what's the catch?"
Akihiro stopoed for a moment, before continuing.
"The Ingrain Method, is good. But it eliminates two things from the user."
"And those are?"
"First, their fear. And second.."
"What?"
Akihiro looked at Karlo, which he nodded and replied.
"Sanity."
"What? What do you mean?"
Zaon was flustered.
Living two lives, this was a key he needs to surpass his past life.
And now, the key has poison in it.
It's to die while opening the door, or not open it at all.
"Take your time, kid." Karlo then took his seat back from where he got it, but before he did, Zaon's light came back.
"Aki, you're a doctor, right?"
"Yes?"
"You know something about this, right?"
"Apparently, yes."
"So, you do have a solution, right?"
"Darn. That's why I hate geniuses like you."
"So, do you have it, or not?"
Aki then started to scrunch up his hair and messed it around before finally calming down.
"What we found is that in Ingraing Method, you have to beat your body and mind into doing something that."
"For example, exercises."
"You fill your mind with stress, and then your body can't keep up, and you just exercise your body once, which is accepting three times the brain stress."
"So, in order to do that, the person has to have willpower and enough stimulation in the real world, to let out the stress."
"But, it will compromise the sleep, and will destroy both the body and mind."
"In short, you are just negating the effects in reality, focusing on one thing, and in the long run, you will find that you have something in your mind that you caanot escape."
"Just like the addiction of this human here."
"Well, excuse me!" Karlo said with a smile as he saluted.
"And the solution?"
"Don't do it. There are no solu--"
"Say it."
"Zaon, there's no-"
"Aki."
"There are no-"
"AKI!"
"..."
Silence permeated the air, and Zaon's eyes are bloodshot.
After a few minutes, Aki croaked up.
"The solution is simple. You just need to log out every after sixteen in hours game."
"That easy?"
"No, that's not easy."
"Why?"
"Quests don't stop in the game, and even if you're not there, the quest's timer is still there. As well as everything."
"That's fine to me." Zaon said with certainty.
"That's not the hard part. The hard part is to balance it."
"Balance?"
Karlo stopped Akihiro, and he decided to disclose everything.
"In game, you have to shut your body off, and use your brain. Now, in the real world, you need to stop using your brain and let your body be stressed."
"What does that mean?"
"The Zen mode of people. Where you just let your body auto-pilot itself, and you shut your brain off."
"Isn't that too risky?"
"That's the problem. It is too risky."
"Tsk." Zaon clicked his tongue. Another dead end for him.
If he turns off his brain, he has to be safe.
And, in doing it, he risks himself because of his body mechanics.
Playing for 5-6 hours, and using 2-3 hours for sleep, exercise and everything sounds impossible for him.
This will mess up his bodily functions. And that's the risk he is going for.
If he wants revenge, he has to be stronger, and he has to also be able to preserve himself after all of it, so he can spend his time with his niece.
Gripping his hand, he just resigned to his fate. He has to choose one over the other, and sacrifice something.
But then, he remembered something.
"That's for a normal human, right?"
"Normal what?"
"Six hours. That's usually for normal humans."
"Yes."
"Got it."
"What? Why?"
"So, there are some who goes beyond, right?"
"The mental strain? Yes. Some of them have such drive that the strain on their brains were cancelled out even if they were gaming for... 12... hours."
"Bingo."
Akihiro stopped on the end of his speech as he realized what just happened.
Zaon did not trick him, but his drive seems to be working.
Drive. Determination. Perseverance.
These things push someone to do the impossible.
And even if people say that it is impossible, there are people who still goes beyond Plus Ultra.
I mean, beyond their limits.
This also means that they are solely focused on the things they want to achieve, and the things they have to do.
And Zaon, is one of those people.