Tired from the travelling, the pair took a shower and changed into more comfortable sleep wear as they were not planning to go out tonight. Sato dried his hair in the living room. The sun had already started to set as they made their way into their villa. Now, the outside was just pitch black and only the dome's ceiling lights and fire place was providing light to the room.
Sitting down on the sofa by the fireplace, Sato got comfortable. In his hands was a tablet. The tablet looked extremely futuristic, which was the main selling point of its company. It was designed by SYMBOL, the creator of the Mark phones. Back then Sato had the Mark 3 which was an older model. The company was already on the Mark X5 which was already the sixth phone produced by them. In Sato's hand was their latest prototype, a futuristic glass tablet that looked like the Mark phone's design. It was decided that the product name would be Gateway, symbolising the multifunction applications in the tablet.
In the 22nd century, most homes have been converted into SMART homes. Everything in the house could now be controlled and adjusted with an electronic device. The Gateway is not only powerful in that sense, but it has the capabilities to analyse and study your daily life patterns. It has an inbuilt self learning Central Processing Unit that can adjust and automate your daily needs. The latest bionic chip installed in the Gateway is able to compete with the latest gaming computers, allowing for smooth application usage and gaming capabilities.
The reason why Sato has the latest tablet was because SYMBOL was actually a subsidiary company under the Tobion Foundations. As such, the young man was given early release access to the newest prototype that was going to enter the market in 2101.
With facial recognition paired to Sato's face, the young man opened up the Gateway and clicked an app on the home page. The application did not have a logo and was just a black square. When the application loaded up, three big font words appeared on the glass. "Ray Or Light"
Sato was about to beta test GamingPro's latest creation, the mobile ROL. It may be counter intuitive for a virtual game to have a 2D counterpart after its 3D counterpart had launched on the market. Yet, after doing countless market research and receiving consumer feedback, the company found that the people wanted a way for them to play the game even while being on the go. As such, Marion and his team of programmers spent 6 months to create a 2D game that ,as best as it could, rival the virtual Ray Of Light. The portable game at the moment has an astoundingly large file size of 200GB that was currently, the largest game file ever to exist. To make matters worse, the current tablets doesn't have a good enough spec to allow the mobile ROL to be played at its maximum capacity.
It was due to this reason where Marion had given Gray a call to ask about the Gateway and it's gaming specifications. Thankfully, the Gateway's current processor and internal chips were the latest of its time and was able to support the gameplay. Marion then request for Gray to provide him with two of the tablets so that he could install the game for Sato and him to try. Of course, the boyfriend lover could not say no to giving Sato the game. He gladly sent it over to Marion, before receiving it back a day before they left for Country J.
On the plane flight to Country J, Sato could wait no longer and started to try the game out. Obviously, the boy was ecstatic that he was able to try out the latest mobile version. When he opened the application, the game used the Gateway's front camera to scan Sato's face. It was similar to the Gamingpod and Gaming Helmet's log in function. With that, the application derived from its data base that it was Sato and he was able to enter the Ray Of Light world.
The gaming experience using the Gateway could be described in one word. Surreal. Although the game was made to be 2-dimensional, the graphics in the game was an exact replica of the virtual world. Players would not lose out if they were to play it on the tablet. The only difference would be the physical experience when playing the game. There is even a voice function that is similar to how the actual game works.
Ever since the day when Sato participated in the war between the Human and Undead faction, he hasn't actually been online as much. There was a follow-up mission 'Escorting The Dragoon Head' that Gray and Sato accepted after their victory against the Human faction.
*Escorting The Dragoon Head
*Help to escort the Head of the Dragoon Family to the Tutachi Desert Plains in the west.
*Failure to complete the mission will result in - 2 player's level. Trust level will lower from Trusting to Despised. (This does not apply to races in the Neutral factions)
Unfortunately, on the day of the escort, Sato and Gray had sparred in the house. Sato had been knocked out by Gray. This resulted in the pair missing out on the mission and had lost 2 levels. As they were part of the Neutral faction, their Trust level wasn't affected at all.
The days after that were slow and easy, Gray and Sato slowly grind experience and did miscellaneous tasks in the Elven camps. They didn't really want to spend time doing a Main Quest as Sato had examinations in those coming weeks. Now, during the holidays, Sato and Gray were finally free and ready to continue with their mission.
Sato had managed to gain back enough experience to reach level 30 once again. His pet, Whitie had reached level 20 too. In addition, with the help of the Dark Knights Guild and Gray, Sato received the current best Lv30 equipments and weapons for his use. As such, he had received an overall upgrade in his stats.