(Author's Note: This is the start of the backstory between the two key characters, Chan and Administrator. Skip to Chapter 82 if you don't want to read this. You can also avail the privilege chaps by swiping the left side of your screen to the right and scroll all the way to the bottom of the chapter list and click the purchase privilege button.)
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Undine briefly mentioned to her that this youth could possibly help her with the curse plaguing her but how? She felt doubtful and did not trust her words completely.
Though it would a lie if she said that she did not feel hopeful at all thus even if the chance was slim but as long as there's that small of a chance, she would definitely cling onto it with her life on the line.
She silently stood by his side and guarded him over the course of his change class, although it was quite unnecessary for her to do this due to the Invulnerability Glow, but what about after that?
He could not possibly erupt with power instantaneously can he?
Then she suddenly felt Mirage's dormant primitive energy surging wildly as if it was responsing to his change class, it slowly changed and coagulated into a small blob of dormant mana energy.
Her sapphire blue eyes twitched a bit and silently thought.
'This.. how could he possess abundant mana energy right after his change class? It even surpassed mine when I changed class from before... ha... comparisons are indeed infuriating.'
***
Inside the golden tower's skill library.
Mirage appeared inside the library with a lethargic and listless appearance.
Although he had indeed gained the talent to sense mana, but the price to do so was an extreme pain that could make most people instantly pass out.
His consciousness looked extremely unstable and blurry, Chan looked at him with astonishment.
Earlier when Mirage had suddenly disappeared in front of him, Chan felt angry for his disrespectful attitude of leaving so suddenly while they're in the midst of their conversation.
Then he thought that there may be an emergency that had happened for him to leave arbitrarily without even leaving a goodbye.
He felt aggrieved but he could not even get out of his golden tower, much less contact someone outside.
Now that he saw him in a miserably blurry and lethargic state, he had concluded that his guess earlier was right as it did look like that something bad had happened to him out there.
He opened his mouth and softly asked Mirage, his face had a look of concern and confusion.
"You... what happened to you? You don't look so good... D-don't get me wrong! I'm just asking this casually and am not concerned about your well-being at all!"
He was at first concerned then realized something and felt shy for some reason so he immediately corrected his sentence while looking to the side with puffed cheeks, looking extremely cute and adorable.
Mirage felt that his behavior was too cute so he gave him a teasing look and said with mischief.
"Aha.. yeah.. right.."
He purposely made the last word longer to the point that Chan's chest was huffing and puffing with anger because of embarrassment, thus he angrily lashed out at him with a glare and said.
"You! How dare you tease me?! I will kick you out of here if you continue to behave like this!"
Mirage smiled but did not plan to tease him any further so he nodded at him and explained to Chan what had happened to him.
"Okay, I'll stop, about your question earlier. I became like this because of the talent I got from the talent tree."
Chan had his ears perked up at what he was saying then he froze after he heard him saying that he had unlocked his talent tree.
He was shocked and involuntarily blurted out.
"That shouldn't be possible! How could you unlock the talent tree in this early phase?"
Mirage was taken aback so he asked him back with confusion.
"Why? Is there something wrong with me unlocking it?"
Chan hurriedly replied.
"It's nothing! It would've been fine if you hadn't said a thing but now the most important thing for you to do is to get out here or else you..."
Chan hadn't even finished his sentence when he suddenly froze, his eyes were filled with panic and terror.
Mirage also heard him lifelessly muttering strange words under his breath.
"It's too late... she noticed... I'm...doomed."
Mirage was in dismay with his sudden change of behavior and quickly asked him in a concerned voice.
"Chan? Hey? What happened to you?"
He was about to say some comforting words when he saw Chan looking up in despair, his little body was shaking violently and was floating in the air unsteadily.
"She's here."
Mirage was confused by this so he too looked up to see the direction of where he was looking, and completely froze because of the thing that he saw.
There he saw a giant screen like his game screen, words after words were being generated in it.
[ Detected a Player Bug Exploitation... ]
[ Administrator has been permitted by the system to partially descend. ]
The screen disappeared, what was replaced were specks of white lights that gathered just a few meters above them, the lights were extremely numerous and packed that the air above them suddenly felt full.
These lights were merging and consuming each other, the process was quite fast as they immediately see the rough outline of two circular objects silently floating in the air.
It didn't take too long before the last bits of white light finally merged with the two objects, then a mystical thing occurred in front of their eyes right after.
The two circular objects emitted a brilliant white light, they were like a pair of two shining bright suns.
But it only happened in an instant, like that of a blinding yet brief camera flash.
The two unknown objects had suddenly become a pair of cold and emotionless white eyes.
The eyes had a perfectly symmetrical shape, they looked especially flawless, the irises were that of a snow-white color untainted by impurity and darkness.
The eyes were coldly looking at them, it first scanned Mirage before it rested its gaze on the fearfully trembling Chan.
Chan also felt the piercing gaze and he was about to open his mouth to explain when the eyes suddenly emitted extreme pressure directed towards them.
The pressure bore heavy weight on them that they had almost immediately got pushed down to the ground with a thud.
Their bodies felt heavy, the sides of their faces were sticking close to the ground, they could not get up nor move an inch but they could still move their eyes to look around.
Chan looked at the cold eyes hanging above them, he opened his mouth with great difficulty and said something that only he and the eyes above could hear.
He was obviously talking as his mouth moved intermittently yet Mirage had not even heard a thing from what he was saying, it's as if his ears had gone deaf.
He was vexed and thought that maybe he had suddenly gone deaf from the pressure that he felt from the eyes above him.
He sneakily opened his game panel and glanced towards Chan, he was about to click the exit shop button with his mind when he suddenly heard a cold and emotionless voice of a woman talking in his head.
"You have exploited a bug under my jurisdiction so how could I possibly let you, the culprit, leave? You wait for your punishment after I am done dealing with this kid."
That's right, he had definitely heard the voice in his head not through his ears.
He was shocked and silently thought to himself.
'Isn't this what Psychics do?!'
He felt that he was right when he heard the voice of the woman again.
'I'm a Psychic and an administrator and don't think of anything unnecessary.'
This time he felt extremely shocked, he did not know that the eyes could read minds, he fearfully looked towards it, he saw it looking at him coldly thus he tacitly agreed to keep himself mum.
He no longer dared to do anything, not even opening his game panel, he just waited for them to finish their silent conversation.
***
Chan wasn't really the original shopkeeper of the player shop, he was just a normal child born like other people of Dystopia who had their parents, he's not that different from them as he also had his moth and father...
As to why had he ended up becoming the shopkeeper? It has something to do with his past.
Chan was born in the Western Continent also called the Endless Desert Continent, one would only be able to feel the hot weather in the day while freezing cold weather at night.
He was born in a group of a small merchant caravan that travels around the vast desert to trade.
His parents were normal people with black hair and eyes, but he was born with shiny silver hair that shone with a glistening light and a pair of golden eyes like that of a mini golden suns.
At night, when he was just born out of his mother's womb, an extremely shocking phenomenon unfolded in the sky above their merchant caravan.