Michael wasn't too sure who was watching him, but he was sure that he was being watched.
It was fairly obvious. Or how else would the Spellcaster Source knew what he was up to, and how else would Deus knew what the Spellcaster Source was doing.
As a matter of fact, it was more than likely that everyone was basically keeping track of everyone else, especially those that situated below them in terms of power or hierarchy.
The same could be said for Michael, as he was keeping an eye on Anna and her four friends. He knew their names were Anna, Lance, Jake, Bruce, and Emma due to their deaths within his world.
Michael just did not know the relationships between them, however.
As they did not appear to be all friends. At least friendly enough to each other.
They did appear to know each other before being transmigrated into this world, though. The world on the outside, not his world. They were taken into his world afterwards and accidentally killed. But only Anna had that memory since she was awake when Window tore her into pieces. Poor girl.
Her friends were far more fortunate, as they were unconscious due to being under a sleeping curse at Michael's hand.
In any case, the fact that they knew each other implied that they came from the same world, and from what Michael had witnessed, it was most likely from the same Earth.
Whether it was his Earth or not, that would be revealed to him in time.
Michael took the form of a bird, as it allowed him to be completely inconspicuous. He wanted to play an observer for now, as just appearing out of nowhere would not earn their trust.
He wondered if he needed their trust to learn what they knew.
Honestly, Michael could theoretically force any information out of these five teenagers through other means, such as torture. Within his world, they had absolutely no power, but they appeared to be quite resourceful, being able to erect a shelter near a river.
The river provided bountiful fishes and plenty of fresh water, and the forest nearby provided a variety of vegetables and fruits. They would not need to worry about starving or dying of thirst. But of course, that was not enough as shown by Jake and Bruce wandering away from their shelter.
Michael stalked them in silence. It took a bit of time getting used to flying and gliding around as a bird, but it was not that hard, considering his world was not like the real world.
Everything within his world was simplified, as his world was originally a MMORPG.
A game with far too complex or steep learning curve would put off players. Thus, anything that could be streamlined should be streamlined for the sake of convenience and user-friendly.
"Hey Jake. You notice that there are no animals around?" Bruce pointed out as he looked at the display hovering in front of him. It was a mini map, and it revealed everything within sight around him. While it should only visible to Bruce, Michael could see it as well.
There were other displays hovering around Bruce, such as status, inventory, profile and so on. He was able to open them through a simple vocal command. Not even need to be vocalized either.
"There are birds," Jake responded as he climbed up a huge tree to pick the apples above.
Those apples were stored into his inventory, and the inventory allowed him to harvest a vast number of apples without attracting any sort of penalty. There was a weight limit associated with his inventory, however, but that could be solved by literally exchanging items with Bruce.
"Fishes too," Jake added and jumped off the tree from several meters up. He would have been severely injured if he did that in the outside world, but in here, he lost roughly 10% of his Health Point.
Despite that, Jake expressed no discomfort whatsoever.
That much loss in HP was a concern if Jake was in a battle, but outside battle, his health would slowly be restored as long as he was well-fed.
He took a bite out an apple to keep his hunger and thirst high, maintaining the well-fed status. Only a bite before putting the bitten apple back into his inventory. Foods did not rot within this world, as that the rotting system did not exist.
Bruce ate something too to keep up that status as well, but it was not an apple since there were plenty of foods to be found within the forest and fished from the river and lake. "No, I mean other kind of game, like wild deer, boars, you know."
"Maybe whoever created this game has not implemented it yet," Jake said with a shrug. "I rather have a way to craft weapons fast than that though."
Michael checked the framework to make sure that crafting system was active. It actually was, but Jake and Bruce as well as the others had not figure it out yet. The crafting system was quite obscure.
Actually, it was too obscure without help from some sort of guide or tooltip.
Seeing these… players… struggled with opening the crafting options, Michael made a note to rework the system to make it more accessible. Or he could just tell them how to access it directly.
Michael decided to remain silence for now, as he was just an observer at the moment.
Even without the aid of the crafting system, Jake could still craft things normally.
Unfortunately, without proper machined tools and equipment, crafting things from scratch would be very hard. A whole industry had to be built in order to produce something as simple as an iron axe.
Metallurgy was already part of the framework, and that system wasn't programmed by Michael or his company. It was one of the critical systems that allowed the world to function properly.
Michael supposed he had Deus to thank for that.
"You're still going on about that?"
Jake shrugged once more. "It's not any different than the last world we got teleported to. At least this one, we don't have to go and fight monsters. I'm sick of that shit. If Lance wants to play hero, he can play with himself. By the way, there are only two of them, and Anna follows Lance around like a fucking slut. I would take Emma, but… she is a stuck-up bitch, thinking she is better than all of us."
"What the hell are you thinking man? We aren't living here!" Bruce retorted. "We have to find a way back to Earth."
"I don't know dude. Whoever put us here doesn't give us any sort of goal," Jake said, already preparing for the worse. "Not like that old fart Dalton, promising us that he could return us home if we slay the Demon King. I don't trust him before, and I don't trust him now."
The name Dalton made Michael growled with anger. It appeared that Dalton had a hand in bringing in these teenagers after all. That meant Dalton was likely also a transmigrator.
Dalton was a hero in the last war, so therefore, it was almost a certainty.