A few hours ago, before Prinz meets all his colleagues on the promised day.
It marks as one of the greatest achievements for Prinz and his guild-mates when they rank in the top 10 most powerful guild in the 'Rebirth of New Earth' ranking. It is a day worthy of celebration. Everyone in the guildhall screams with great joy while there are others shedding tears of joy. Everyone seems very excited at the same time genuinely relieved for our accomplishments.
They now gather together in the aftermath of the guild war. Every single member of the guild is celebrating in the guild-hall.
"Ehmmm..." Prinz coughs to let everyone notice him. He then said:
"Guys, please listen and pay attention. Tonight, we will organize a celebration party for our guild promotion at exactly 2000 hour. Remember, at exactly 2000 hour. Anyone who has yet to get your invitation, please inform Gantz."
"Please let me know guys," Gantz replied unenthusiastically.
Gantz is a friend Prinz met when he first arrived in the game. He is a person who valued friendship above all else. Prinz and Gantz start playing 'Rebirth of New Earth' at the same time and they went through thick and thin together.
While everyone else is checking their invitation, Prinz opens his notebook and scrutinizes on the list he has written inside. He instantly makes a frown look when he sees the list. While sighing loudly, Prinz then walks to the back. His eyes remain on the list of tasks that he has to complete them soon.
"Haiz, when everyone is very excited for tonight I will need to go back and wrap up this list. Well, the party will be 16 hours from now. I guess I will just coop up inside the equipment house and stay until then." Prinz lamented inside.
As he walks to the room, a tall man with a long brown-beard bearing large body armours suddenly pats his shoulder. He is about 2 meters in height while his armours are dyed in crimson and black in colour. He looks like a reincarnation of a crimson devil of a popular e****i anime from hundreds of years ago; the only difference is his bulging stomach. The tall man is the present guild leader of 'Myths'. Prinz only recognizes him as Red in the game.
He then immediately stops Prinz.
"Prinz, you're working very hard huh? Please keep up your good work. Our guild will depend on you more from now onwards. We are still a little far behind the rivalling the powerful 'Sovereigns of All Life'. After all, their empire is built a few years longer of us. Relatively, they are somewhat on par with in terms of strength; only that they have far more experienced leaders in their chain of command. But, with your impeccable crafting skills, we will definitely close our power gap with them. Hahaha."
Prinz turned his head to the rear and indifferently replied:
"Guild Leader, please don't pressure me like this. I do not voluntarily choose to be a craftsman. You are the one who forced me to take the job. Seriously, guild leader, I beg your mercy please."
He then bows his head down; as if he is pleading to his guild leader – from the bottom of his heart he despairs.
"Haha! Prinz, you should be honest and open yourself more to everyone. You are the best craftsman in the 'Rebirth of New Earth'. Right now, you are the only craftsman with an enlightenment passive and Divinely Creator rank; among others in the craftsman profession, there is no one like you. I admit that might be the one who forced you to take this profession seriously in the beginning. But then again, it is because you have the talent, yet you lacked the resolve to do anything back then."
"It's coincidental back then when I forged my unique weapon with stealth ability. Everyone else, including guild leader, of course, thought that I am a talented craftsman because I was able to create it. The system is also to blame; announcing my name publicly for my achievement. It was however not the entire truth. I only did my research and kept practising; until finally, I raised my crafting abilities and forged my own weapon. I would never let other craftsmen create my sole unique weapon." Prinz murmured inside in anguish.
"Do you want to say something?" the guild leader abruptly asks.
"No, I didn't," Prinz replies indifferently.
Another great factor in the 'Rebirth of New Earth' game is the fact that everyone owns single unique equipment that could grow with its owner. The starting point of the weapon forging is not necessarily important as the owner could feed their equipment with powerful materials that suit their preference. All players have the chance to nurture abilities in their equipment. There are a lot of methods to nurture a weapon; players also have a lot of freedom to do everything they could to strengthen themselves.
For example, Prinz have armour made of goat's leather and a pixie's shed skin which grant him an ability to conceal himself. In the game, a pixie's skin gives the pixies a natural ability to conceal themselves from other living creatures. Unless they reveal themselves, nobody can find them.
A pixie is an Earth mythical creature from various folklores and is thus incorporates into effect in the 'Rebirth of New Earth' story.
Prinz has a compulsive disorder where he could get intensely obsessed if he does not achieve what he wants. He got a little lucky to receive the pixie's skin in the game; therefore he specifically wanted to crafts his own unique weapon and not relying on other craftsmen. Precisely, because he did not want to screw up his only chance he learned craftsmanship and blacksmithing.
Prinz takes his chance to change a topic.
"Guild Leader, I've been wondering for quite an awhile. Did you craft your own unique equipment?"
"Haha! The answer is no. I hired an NPC craftsman to forge my weapon. Besides, it was more efficient to let the NPC do everything. I only need to allocate a portion of my data and adjust the completed weapon compatibility. Besides, as long as I gathered enough materials with desired properties the NPC can always create my equipment. Furthermore, with you around crafting supplementary equipment for us gathering high-class materials would be a child's play."
In the 'Rebirth of New Earth', everyone can only have one unique weapon; whether it is armour, jewellery or weapon there is only one that can be nurtured by the owner. All other supplementary weapons, however, can be collected from a drop or forged by player. It depends on how much capacity that a player has to wear and carry them along.
As the two carry onto the conversation, everyone in the hall begins to leave one by one. After a while, Prinz also heads to the equipment house. His heart fell into despair the moment he looks inside the house. He found many broken pieces of equipment that are left on the floor. There are many types of armour, weapons and staffs; in various in sizes and not only limited to one kind.
"Fixing everything will be very tedious. Should I just leave now?" Prinz asks himself.
He then apathetically answers:
"No, I must not! I should start now; fix every broken piece and complete this list of important armaments-to-forge. These broken pieces of equipment are pretty easy to repair while the other thing that is slightly harder will be to forge the guild supplementary armaments."
While lamenting inside, he begins by arranging the broken equipment by their category. There are body armours, shields, limbs protective gears and head protectors that he sorts. Then, he promptly inspects them one by one before he repairs what he needs to. It took him a continuous 4 hours in the reparation process. Prinz also takes another 4 hours to forge the supplementary equipment before he finally completes the list. There is only one thing left for him to do but has nothing to do with the game. Prinz has to leave the game soon.
____
In the room, where Prinz and his colleagues gather.
Prinz still stands in doubt even after Chris explained everything. Despite that, he remains calm and composed; just as his brain trying to process the explanation from Chris. He finds it a little odd that every single robot that represents his colleagues' consciousness could put on view their emotions. Prinz has his scepticism; therefore he then deliberately inquires for more information:
"So, everyone has already noticed the 'Tree of Life' system. Perhaps, I am not careful enough at disclosing every development traces that link to system creation. I can also clearly see everyone's facial expressions. Therefore, I presume that Diana and with the help of everyone have expanded the system and integrate it as your own self. Well, I would never think that everyone would consent on this system. Because of that, the developments have always in secrecy and I conceal every record; until today."
"Hmmph... You should trust us more and let us help you from the beginning." Diana snorts in derision.
"I'm glad everyone consented on 'Tree of Life'. Thank you." Prinz humbles his head down to everyone.
Phil raises his right arm in the air and speaks:
"Actually, I was against it in the beginning. I do not want humanity to fall back to their bestial nature and thus possibly would bring everything that we have governed for hundreds of years as core existences down; posing a threat that can force Virtual Dimension to fall apart. In spite of this reasoning, in the beginning, I gradually have a change in my view as I see and experience those events from 'Rebirth of New Earth'. It is eye-opening for me and I feel alive!"
Phil has an ideology that against human violent nature. He has always disinclined towards the phrase 'the end justifies the means'. As one of the experts in humanities, it is ironically in contradiction with humanity dispositions. Prinz is astonished when Phil consents to the system existence.
"Thank you, Phil."
Prinz then turns his gaze towards Diana. She is pouting; with her lips curl upward while her arms wrap around her chest.
"Diana, thank you too. Even though I plan to reveal everything today, everyone has already known about 'Tree of Life' and assists in its development. Anyhow, I am obligated to inform that 'Rebirth of New Earth' is a game that I handed over to Leyla; my personal android and an overseer of my quarter; to quantify and simulate the game story to suit what humanity wants from their senses and mind. I was not the core developer. With various folklores that we have on Earth, I constructed the general game story to centre on them. Leyla finished the rest of the 'Rebirth of New Earth' components and maintain the simulation functions. Diana as well as everyone, I also ask for forgiveness for not contacting anyone in the past hundred years."
"Don't worry about it, Prinz. Your frantic expression just now was enough for everyone to let you off. Hehe...." Loci that has been very quiet, quickly interjects.
Beep, beep, beep...
"Master Heilig, the energy is ready. Virtual Dimension system upgrade can begin its initiation."
Sheyla who has been performing the calculation on the energy consumptions and monitoring the overall process promptly alerts Prinz.
"Everyone, it's time. Before we begin, I would like to tell everyone that I am really thankful for meeting everyone. I have learned many things from our encounter and all the wisdom that I receive from everyone will forever engrave inside my mind."
Prinz words bring the room into a heart-breaking atmosphere.
"Why are you saying something like a 'forever goodbye' to us," Mat asks Prinz in curious.
"It's nothing. I just wanted to say that to everyone. I also hope that we will forever stay together; to uncover all mysteries in the universe. Now let us begin."
"Hehe, it is always our dream."
"Hahaha, there is a timeless period ahead of us."
"Let's do it, everyone."
"Yeah!"
The voices of the 44 of Prinz's colleagues chant in agreement to him. At the same time, the Virtual Dimension system upgrade commences.
With abrupt news of the system expansion in 'Tree of Life', the system is now ready to be integrated entirely into Virtual Dimension. It is not in Prinz's plan; then again he does not want to let all of his colleagues' efforts to lay wasted. Based on the confidence that everyone shown and from the results that he witnesses on the robots, Prinz recognises that 'Tree of Life' system has grown beyond the entirety of what he can accomplish alone.
A blinding white light first engulfs Prinz before the light spreads toward everyone else in the room. There is an unexpected tremor coming from the ground. Prinz can physically feel the tremors. He thinks of the tremors as a minor Earth crust phenomenon from the ground. Everything is supposed to gradually return to normal in a few hours; with an ample amount of time for Prinz to return into 'Rebirth of New Earth' and joins his guild-mates for the guild celebration. By the time the upgrade finishes, the tremors would also stop.
Except, all of a sudden, an unforeseen event transpires as the blinding white light is abruptly replace by a dark-pitched black view from the room centre. At the same time, a charming little voice informs of something beyond Prinz's comprehension. He is unable to understand what has just transpired.