The next 2 days after finding the dungeon in the mall were uneventful, and only 48 hours remained until the quests were refilled.
The world was changing at an insane pace, more than 1/3rd of the entire world's population had mana now.
Through hard work Quast was able to afford himself a bit of the things he had, like his gaming PC and a Virtual Reality headset, which he hadn't used in a while. He remembered a game that he had paid for and downloaded.
The next thing he knew he was hooking his VR headset into his computer and turning the game on.
It was mostly a social game where one had the choice to play various games alone or with a team, another choice of the game was just socializing with people, the option which Quast picked was the latter one.
He joined a random lobby and walked around with his character that was just the default male one, since there had been a few big updates after he stopped playing, his previous character had been deleted after a certain update, and he didn't bother to change it.
He walked to some random people who were sitting at a table inside of the virtual world, deciding to also sit with them, not embarassed at all.
The conversation that the strangers were having before Quast came was of course, about Mana, everyone was talking about it, since it was the thing that was bound to change the world.
"What were you all talking about, also do you guys mind if I sit down here?" Quast asked using the in-game voice chat.
"Oh sure you can sit here, no one is stopping you, this is a public game after all." A voice of a man spoke, he was sitting opposite of Quast and his character was a default skin but with a top hat.
"Yeah." The 3 other people also said at the same time, from their voices Quast deduced that everyone there was either 20 years old or above the age of 20.
To Quast's character's left there were 2 people, one of which was a girl and the other one was a guy, on his right was only 1 person, and infront of him was the guy with the top hat who first spoke.
The table that they were sitting on was a beach table under a big beach umbrella that was covering them in virtual shade.
"We were talking about how the world is changing, literally everyone is talking about that right now." The one person on Quast's right spoke, his ingame character just a human-sized teddy bear.
"Yeah, it's to be expected." Quast replied.
"I wonder how the world will change, I wonder if technological advancements would skyrocket?" The only female in the group spoke, her character was just a 3d version of an anime character.
"Why do you think that?" The guy on the left near the girl spoke, his in-game character was just a cartoon character from a show that used to air a long time ago.
"Since there are probably going to be many more unique abilites up the line, there will probably be ones that can manipulate electronics, or items in general." the girl responded.
"Fair point." Quast transmitted through the voice chat.
"Yeah, but a question lays unanswered in the back and front of our minds, namely 'Where did this energy that gives abilities come from?'" The guy with the top hat questioned.
Quast couldn't help but give it a laugh, the absurdity of it, he still had his voice chat turned on though, so the people he was sitting on the table with heard him laugh.
"Why did you laugh?" The person with the top hat asked.
"I guess, it's because it's laughable." Quast responded.
"Oh wait guys, my cat is scratching at the door. Gotta let him out." the girl said and went afk.
"What?" the person with a cartoon character asked in confusion.
"Listen guys, I want you all to start training yourselves mentally and physically when you feel that something innate has changed within you." Quast quite cryptically said.
"Huh???" everyone who was there was even more confused.
The one who just said those puzzling words thought how he should leave to make himself seem cooler and also that it was best to leave before it got too awkward.
The girl returned and put her VR headset back on, her friends still there but the kid that had just come was gone.
"What happened? Where is he?" she asked.
"He said some obscure shit and then left." The top hat guy decided to respond.
"Woah.. what did he say?" the 3d anime character asked.
"Something about us training ourselves mentally and physically when we get a weird feeling that something has changed within us." he continued.
"Really? Does he know something about Mana? Who was he?" she questioned not only herself but also her friends. However, no one knew the answer to those questions.
Back in his room Quast took off his VR headset "That was such a nice thing for me to do, I wonder why I did it... I guess it kinda was because I wanted to brag that I was the main reason behind it or something, hopefully they will use the info well." Quast thought after he took off his headset, he really wasn't in the mood for VR, mainly because there weren't that many games in his library, so he decided to call his friend Jerry and play some random games.
Jerry instantly picked up and said through his now new microphone that he had gotten a few days ago "Bro, check out the biggest stream on YouTube right now, I was just about to call you."
"Sure. My expectations are high." Quast opened the website and it was instantly the first thing in his recommended, since so many people were watching it was being pushed out by the algorithm, attracting even more viewers. The thumbnail was a street in a city at night and the title was "Ability user"
Quast was a little bit late to the stream though, since the man was already being detained by the police to be taken to a facility somewhere, a shop near where the camera was focused seemed to be quite destroyed. "What did I miss?" he knew that this wasn't the beginning of the stream.
"This dude was straight up robbing a shop at night with an ability." Jerry replied.
"What kind of ability did he have?" the one who had arrived late to the stream asked.
"I dunno, but on the stream there were some flashing lights coming out of the shop's windows, and then they shattered" Jerry said.
"Also why the fuck was this person recording instead of running away?" Quast spoke.
"For the content?" Jerry answered with a question himself.
"..Man, crime rates keep rising don't they? I guess heroes and villains will soon become real?" Quast thought while also trying to inquire on his friend's thoughts.
"Yeah, but I definitely won't be a hero or a villain. Too much work and responsibilities."
"True, but imagine how many people will try to be heroes, those super hero tests from that one anime that I forgot the name of will probably come true." Quast's mind jumped to an animated scene of a fight between heroes and villains.
"Just imagine if nothing like that happens... yeah." Jerry kind of laughed at his own joke, but quickly quieted down soon after.
"Mhm, so do you wanna play something." And just like that he and Jerry played a mediocre amount of games, before they decided to stop, because Quast was pretty bored and tired.
Of course he first went to brush his teeth, which rejuvenated him a little bit, but that rejuvenation soon dissapated into thin air after he started watching videos of the most boring game on the market right now, it was his own way of getting to sleep when he couldn't.
The final thought before shutting his phone and sliding it under his pillow was what those 4 people that he met today in that VR game were going to do with the information he gave them.