"It's ok Gray. I'm sure that you'll one day become a great muscle Warrior. But make sure to keep your dreams separated from when you're asleep to when you're in reality." soothed Qin, patting Gray on his brown curls. The strange urge to pat the adorable Gray came over Fen, who quickly removed the thought from his mind.
Gray's face reddened and he mumbled exasperatedly, "I'm serious! Look, I even got the Lesson too!"
"Oh shit he actually did," Amelia exclaimed, seeing the white glowing sword emblazoned on Gray's childish wrist. Unlike the other's simple design such as Amelia's ember and Qin's spear, the sword on his wrist had a very complex hilt design consisting of a white wolf springing up, the blade coming out of the wolf's open maw.
"Is there a way to get a refund on Shop purchases...? Oh, did I say that out loud?" Gray's eyes wobbled with water when he heard Fen, before he started sniffling like a kitten.
"Look what you did jackass, you made him cry!" Amelia exclaimed before a panicked expression appeared on her face, "Hurry, fix it!"
Turns out she did have other emotions besides anger and spite. Interesting. However, the revelation came at a extremely unfortunate time; Fen wasn't good with crying kids either.
"What do you want me to do, I didn't mean to say it, it just slipped out!" Now two of the three remaining members of Squad 42 were panicking, trying various methods to calm Gray down. Meanwhile, in the other side of the room, Qin was staring at Amelia and Fen fussing over Gray. For some reason, the image of a mother goose overlapped over their faces for a moment, while Gray transformed into a fuzzy duckling. His previous impressions of the two were as far away as they could get from that but for some reason that was the image his mind wondered to.
Similarly, Qin's hopes of Fen being the only other intellectual in the group were smothered, beaten and dropped into the Void. Seeing that he too would soon get swept up the emotional storm created by Gray's tears, the older youth quickly escaped the room.
He didn't get far. After walking for five meters he groaned and realized that he had nowhere to go. Even if he did have someplace to go he would eventually have to go back to the Squad room if he had any plans to sleep that night.
Qin braced himself and went back to the emotional storm with Gray in the center and hoped that he could endure however long Gray's episode lasted. He could only hope that similar events didn't occur throughout the long year inside the Program.
****
"Geez, he didn't stop crying and sniffling for at least an hour," Fen grumbled to himself in his room. Alone, he was secretly astonished at how Gray could produce such a constant flood of tears without drinking any water. Humans only had a certain limit to the amount of fluid within their bodies before they needed to drink something; but the small teenager just kept going and bawling his eyes out.
Speaking of water, the Squad's meals were delivered inside of the room during Gray's tantrum, giving the others a small reprieve from dealing with Gray.
A small section of the wall popped out, the inscribed veins temporarily withdrawing from a square-shaped part of the wall until it ejected, revealing a hollow interior filled with steaming food and water. After the food was taken from inside, it popped back into the wall and was reclaimed by the energy veins.
After the square was completely reclaimed by the wall, a new interface permanently appeared, floating next to the wall. Unlike the large empty interface next to the shop, this one was full of writing and items, specifically water and other drinks.
From now on if they wanted food or drinks they had to order from this new interface and watch as it appeared in front of them.
Even after returning from the Archon's speech, the large interface on the wall was still glowing with nothing written inside it. They assumed that they would learn more about it after they went to the first Lesson, where they could at least ask their instructors about it. Fen inwardly wondered whether Raisen would be able to give him any useful information about the massive screen, but he didn't very high expectations.
The only thing that the old Knight had proven was how annoying and unpleasant he could be when he wanted to.
It was only after Gray had some food inside his stomach that he calmed down, and they all retired to their rooms to sleep before the first set of Lessons the next day.
Thinking about the Squad, a small frown appeared on Fen's face.
"I was friendly with them, I think?" he mumbled. Fen rolled off the bed in the room he was assigned to and started listlessly scrolling through the Shop, viewing the various items for sale without really seeing them.
It was definitely a start. Currently, the two 'personalities' were fighting for dominance inside of Fen, influencing his actions and his relationship with the rest of the Squad members. One of them was his original self, apathetic and twisted in nature, caring little for other people besides his family. The other was the product of Miko and their relationship together, gently guiding him towards being kinder and more accepting. The shock his body experienced after being throw into the Void had caused the reemergence of his original shift, a sort of relapse in thinking.
Fen believed that the shock his body was going through allowed all of his characteristics to surface as his mind reorganized itself. He didn't fully understand why; he wasn't a psychologist, or a magic psychologist, if those even existed.
If he thought back to how he acted while in the Void however, he reasoned that the way he behaved was the normal reaction. But people typically didn't get sucked into other dimensions to train and become death warriors, so who knew what the normal reaction was?
People like Amelia were probably the majority among the Opfer, ailed by constant anger and glares. Then they was the minority, people like Qin, who were logical in their every action (Qin seemed to also be affected by Gray's optimism, which was interesting).
There was also a very small group of people like Gray, who were constantly happy and emotional, contrasting against the dark Void like small stars of joy.
Among the Foundation employees, the technicians responsible for the data application within the Program speculated that this small group of people like Gray wouldn't last long; they were either too young or too naïve to survive after first Task.
Of course, outliers existed in every group, and people among some certain groups that were speculated to have the highest survival ratio still might not survive, and candidates with the lowest speculated odds of survival might somehow survive until the very end. The Foundation knew about the uncountable deaths that were required in order to produce the Guardians, but in order to create unshakable warriors capable of protecting the planet after the Succession such unethical methods were necessary to achieve their goal.
And as for the dead... The families of the candidates killed within the Program would be well compensated. They would be given priority when relocating communities to safer areas after the Succession, although they would never be given a body to bury or say goodbye to.
'Sacrifice creates progress.' Using the ideology promoted by the Urok family it could also be said that progress gives value to sacrifice, so that their memories wouldn't be tainted by failure and instead graced by success.
Of course it must also be said that it was much easier to follow their ideology when you weren't the one being sacrificed. Otherwise you might have some complaints about it. But, nobody in the VPF was being sacrificed! So there was no reason to fear for a response.
After seeing small parts of the universe, the Foundation was created by the Urok family to create progress through the return of Heaven's Virtues to ignite humanity and revive the Fallen civilizations. With their return, the Foundation theorized that technology on Earth would experience a major shift from mechanical engineering back to magic; which would require knowledge that only the Foundation had.
The Fallen races returning on Earth would create mass chaos for the planet and its government, and create the start of a shift of societal values as a whole. Racism, religion, war, all of the issues that were prevalent would all be put aside in order to handle the sudden inflow of the returned Fallen civilizations.
The ruling governments on the planet would struggle to provide a solution to the public. Some countries like the one Fen came from would prioritize national security and temporarily 'imprison' the new races that appeared within their borders before a real solution could be created.
Other nations would collapse entirely from the conflicts that would arise from the Fallen races' return, or already existing conflicts between two sides would be flipped towards the preservation of the human race and destroying these races to prevent the creation of a Fallen civilization. It was cruel to imagine humans doing such a thing but anything was possible after taking into consideration the nature of humanity after the Sins' influence.
The purpose of the Guardians was twofold: to eliminate the monster threat that would spawn on Earth caused by the Succession as well as to protect the Fallen races from the extremist groups that would appear.
There were a multitude of plans from the Foundation, all for different scenarios that might possibly occur following the Succession. There were too many unknowns created from the unprecedented event for the Foundation to be careless and improvise, which had led to the creation of countless Divisions and Programs dedicated to each of these possible scenarios.
For example, although the Succession would return these races such as the Elves, Dwarves, Golems and such, it was unknown how the process would actually create them; whether the people who returned to the planet were the originals who died in the Great War between the Virtues and Sins or if they would be entirely new beings like blank templates or if existing humans would have their genes altered until they transformed into the Fallen races. These were just a few of the scenarios thought up by the Foundation, and already dozens of groups inside of the organization had several plans of action ready for mobilization in the case of each event.
Nothing like the Succession had ever occurred before in human history for obvious reasons and the massive cost of forcibly altering the structure of the planet for the return of the Fallen races meant that another Succession of the same scale would be impossible to recreate. Too many resources had been poured into the Guardian Developmental Program and other related projects for the event that would permanently change the world to ever be recreated.
Entire cities were constructed, housing members of the Foundation to prepare the basic infrastructure needed to care for the countless numbers of the Fallen races that would return to Earth. These cities were built in secret places that not even the most influential of superpowers on the planet were aware of.
Of course, such an action was only possible because the planet was still undeveloped compared to other civilizations that existed in the many universes. The exploration of other parts of the planet required too many resources to explore and domesticate, allowing the Foundation to plant their members and infrastructure within the unknown wilds.
In terms of the logistics of the Succession, the overall plan of the VPF was to isolate and relocate all returned Fallen race members to the cities they constructed while the world's government were gradually assimilated during the chaos and restructured in a grander and singular government under the Foundations control.
That was the grand plan; there were countless smaller plans for the smaller details and movements required to actually execute the plan and 'take over the world', so to speak. Of course, there would be obstructions to the plan such as the hidden organizations in the world that still practiced the magical arts with powerful individuals, but compared to the massive Foundation which the Urok family controlled which was arguably the most powerful individuals on a planet filled with lower-quality Mana and energy, they were insignificant and could be easily subdued.
The Virtue Procural Foundation. Such a grand name could only be associated with a powerful organization, capable of presenting results on the same level as returning Heaven's Virtues to the planet. Of course, the name of the organization could just be for purely cosmetic effects, but that wasn't the case for the Foundation. The Uroks changed the entire organization all for the purpose of instilling a sense of unity and pride for all its members and to set a clear goal.
Failure was never once considered an option. In every single planed operation there was always a 'plan B' to which they could fall back on in the case of an unexpected event. Failure meant death for the entire planet, but that was the expected result when you failed at manipulating Mana and space on a planetary scale.
Of course, no one would be around to record their failure because of the planetary destruction, so that also helped motivate Foundation members.
There would be no explosion, no massive fireball that would be seen over the horizon prompting people to hug their families one last time; there would just be a silent bang, and the entire planet would simply vanish from existence as humanity knew it. There was no sound in space, and perhaps no one would even notice the planet's disappearance. Not Heaven, not the Virtues, not the Sins, nothing. Not even Gods would know. An entire civilization's history wiped out from existence, stemming from the Foundation's failure.
That was why failure was not considered an option. The scale of a single mistake would snowball too fast, making perfection the most basic standard of all operations. That was the grandness of the Foundation, why everyone no longer cared about whether their actions were ethical or not or even whether sacrifices were necessary. The emotions of people like Fen, Amelia, Qin, and Gray did not matter when considering the scale of what the Foundation was trying to achieve.
Inside the facility of Rift-178, time passed quickly as the exhausted members of Squad 42 quickly fell asleep inside their rooms.
This time, Fen experienced the same nightmare as before. Alone in the star-filled Void, with unnatural sounds coming from all around him from creatures hidden from his sight. This time however, he knew it was a dream, which helped calm his rapidly beating heart. The calmness didn't last long however. His body shivered as he felt the faint presence of something breathing behind him. All his muscles tensed together as he tried to run but he discovered that he was stuck in place.
Fen shut his eyes tight, refusing to turn around. At the same time, he inwardly mocked himself for his cowardice at being scared from a nightmare.
The same screeching he heard in the dream suddenly stopped, giving him a brief moment of respite from the loud sounds that assaulted his mind. However, the sound returned once more, louder than ever before.
The previous grunts and screeches were gone, and unearthly screams sounded from all around him. There was no order, just mindless chaos as the air erupted in ear-splitting noise.
Frozen in place, he could feel something dripping from his eyes and ears. He didn't feel any pain, but he instinctually knew that the liquid was his own blood. The sensation of being frozen in place overwhelmed him for a few seconds, but they seemed like hours to Fen. Thankfully, the noise stopped, although he felt as if he would never forget the sounds inside the Void.
The sound of something in front of him gave him some relief; at least he could still hear. Fen stopped treating this reality as a dream, doing so would not help him and would instead restrict his actions. Not that he could do anything anyways. Even now, he still couldn't move from his position within the Void. Keeping his eyes closed was one of the only actions he could accomplish inside this strange reality.
The shuffling sound came closer, but he still kept his eyes closed. Fen had long since resigned himself to suffering throughout his sleep. But then he felt a strange sensation across his cheek; it was almost like a hand caressing his face. At the same time, the shuffling sound ended just in front of his face.
The sensation was cold but for some reason it made Fen feel almost warm. If asked to describe it, Fen would have to say that the sensation felt alive. The warmth came from the emotion behind the gesture, while his body felt a cold chill, almost like touching ice.
'Miko?' He thought, confused. The only people who had touched his face that way were his Mom and Miko, but the idea of any of them appearing in this strange reality was extremely strange.
He cracked his eyes open, but the sensation ended as soon as he let light into his eyes. Instead of seeing the Void in his dream, the walls of the facility came into view. The walls were constantly blinking however, growing brighter through every pulse.
"Huh. Weird..." mumbled Fen as he quickly got out of bed.