After the entire incident, Axel returned home, intending on entering Evolution Online once again. He could not waste time in order to slowly absorb KI from the surroundings like what most people would do. No. That was incredibly inefficient.
The speed at which you cultivated and grew in KI depended on how fast you could absorb ambient KI, and how much KI is present in the environment.
The former depended totally on innate talent, the latter, however, depended on many things. Most important of which was money. If he had money, he could buy spiritual herbs and other treasures which would greatly boost the amount of KI around him.
If he had even more money and influence within the federation, Like those from the Ocean group or Ray Holdings, he could even directly purchase pills to directly increase the amount of KI within his body.
Suddenly, Axel had a strange thought. He remembered how Ray holdings, and the Ocean group had madly invested into the game, to the point where their entire survival depended on it. What was the need to invest so greatly into a game? Although it was going to monopolise the entire gaming industry in the entire federation, and although it was a golden opportunity, it was still not enough for them to so fervently invest into the game. There was also the fact that the game could unconditionally increase the Rank of a person's KI cultivation every 50 levels, it would still not force these mega-giants into throwing everything they had into the game, even after 10 years since the release of the game, they had yet to stop throwing away money, assets, and connections into the game like an addicted gambler.
If they had spent that money on cultivation resources, they could have easily made ten, or even a hundred times more KI users that they made using the game, and they would most definitely be incredibly loyal to them.
There was definitely something interesting about this game that he, and the public at large had yet to learn about, even 10 years into the future.
'Could it become a death game or something, where the entire human race is unable to log out from the game, only for our real bodies to slowly wither away into nothingness? Or was it just a strategy those conglomerates had come up with?' After all, not many people knew what the old geezers of those enormous organisations were planning.
There was also the possibility of something completely out of Axel's expectation to happen, like in the novel he had read, where zombies suddenly appeared in the world, causing an apocalypse and turning nearly 80% of the human population into zombies nearly overnight. Thankfully, the main character was someone who had already experienced this hell one before, and after reincarnating, he decided to make sure the situation would not end up so dire as to himself becoming the last human alive, who had also ended up dying. The plot went on and on, taking many turns, but it ended abruptly, because the novel was still ongoing.
'Hmm, wait a second… Couldn't I be considered someone who had reincarnated? Or at least, restarted my life? The something that ludicrous could actually happen? Wait, could that also mean that other people might have also reincarnated? Before that, could Evolution Online actually hold some sort of sinister secret behind it? Like some aliens coming to take over the earth or something?'
Axel's expression turned ashen as he made random and seemingly irrelevant connections between anything that came to his mind, almost as though he had lost his mind.
All of sudden, he heard a noise he was incredibly familiar with. It was the crisp jingle that he would hear within the game, whenever a system notification came up, whether it be about discovering a new map, killing a monster, or gaining fame. This was that very jingle that would follow the notifications from the system.
This would generally be incredibly normal, since such notification would constantly ring out when Axel was playing the game, for various reasons, to the point he got used to ignoring them almost completely.
Therefore, he had ignored this one as well, but only for a brief moment. Within a second, his pupils contracted as his whole body stiffened. A cool breeze blew in from the temperature control device, but this instead only made the tense feeling within Axel grow stronger and goosebumps formed, starting from his legs moving all the way up his back, and finally even into his scalp, giving off a numbing sensation.
Currently, he was not in the game, but in his bedroom, heading towards the washroom to relieve himself, since there were still 10 minutes before the servers opened.
But then how had the game jingle appeared here?
Cold sweat began to form on Axel's forehead as he stiffly turned his neck towards the origin of the sound, praying to all the gods he could think of, even to his own ancestors as far back as he could remember, hoping it was just his laptop or something playing a video or something.