Reading the program name, Adrian wryly smiled, laughing, "Magus you smart bastard! How do you even corrupt the system, while still asleep?"
Confused, Sakura quizzed, "What do you mean? Who's Magus?"
While speaking, Sakura turned back on the message system, after being bombarded with requests.
Not even a second after the first message came through.
[OS sponsors 50 fate value to ask, what you mean by "corrupt the system."]
Shaking his head, Adrian responded, "You'll both find out soon. First, we'll find the others, then everything will make sense."
Not satisfied, Sakura continued to pester Adrian for answers, only to be met with increasingly vague answers.
Deflecting Sakura's questions, Adrian focused on the six strings that lead in different directions.
Trying to remember the first string that called out to him, Adrian closed his eyes trying to sense the attributes of the strings.
Without delay, Adrian felt the call of two attributes he was all too familiar with death and enhancement.
Opening his eyes, a hazy purple mist formed as the energy and hair-thin thread became incredibly clear and noticeable.
His eyes darted along tracing the thread's path nearly instantly tracking it back to its source as it snaked into a narrow offshoot tunnel.
Excited with the prospect of reconnecting with the others, Adrian dropped into a sprinter's pose gathering energy into his heels.
As the energy gathered, drawing in the heat in the air, quickly dropping the temperature as his shoes retracted back into his clothes.
Exhaling an ice-cold breath, Adrian released all the energy from his heel propelling himself forward so fast the air behind him caught fire.
Following the thread along its path at Mach 2.1, Adrian nearly crashed into the snaking tunnel walls.
However a fraction of a second before making contact with the first wall, his skin scrunched up before instantaneously straightening releasing an air burst propelling him along the wall at a faster speed.
Coming up to the next wall, Adrian repeated the process except in shorter bursts as he was forced to zig-zag along the snaking tunnel constantly gaining speed until he hit Mach 10.
Within minutes, Adrian traveled along these increasingly narrow tunnels over 1000 kilometers and still gained no reaction from the six-colored system panel.
Just as Adrian started to doubt whether or not his assumption was correct when suddenly the thread he was following gained a mind of its own detaching from the panel as one color drained and the system updated.
[Contact Established…]
Just as the new system message updated, the Nexus interface popped open with a new message.
[Program "Deus Ex Machina" restarting the awakening process…]
[10…9…8…7…]
Being distracted by the changes, Adrian misstepped, disintegrating his legs upon impact with the wall, causing his entire body to crumple in on itself forcing the already active endurance to be sent into overdrive.
[3…2…1…0…]
By the time Adrian's mind cleared and his body regenerated, he felt his energy flow backward causing his internals to rupture once again, just as the tunnel collapsed around him smothering him.
[ 1/6 Awakened ]
Watching the situation, Sakura couldn't help but burst into laughter thinking fate had avenged her after Adrian basically ignored her.
Between bouts of laughter, Sakura coughed out, "That's what you get! Should have answered me!"
Clawing his way through several kilotons of earth and stone, Adrian didn't respond as his jaw had been snapped off, laying several feet away, and a boulder-like stone was taking up its old location.
Reluctantly, Adrian manipulated the Nexus interface opening the normally forgotten [SHOP] tab.
After mentally thumbing through the useless categories, Adrian exchanged 12.82 Million energy to buy the only [20 Second - Ethereal Ticket] in stock.
Once he thought confirmed, the ticket annoyingly appeared in his hand forcing him to dislocate his fingers to tear the ticket allowing his body to become ghost-like as he swam through the rubble along the old path before finding a large open cavern.
Sadly the card expired just as he dove out of the rubble trapping his left leg inside.
Unfortunately, the leg materialized within the solid rubble instantly destroying every inch of flesh that was placed within any rubble instantly severing the leg.
Much to [Endurance's] dismay it was once again forced into action as it repaired the missing limbs and dislodged the stone shards that were spread throughout his body.
Bones snapping and flesh squelching filled the chamber as his body slowly repaired itself.
Sighing in relief as his jaw reformed, Adrian whipped his brow as he finally responded to Sakura, "That was not your work and you know it. But…"
Picking up a rock off the ground, Adrian twisted his torso around, throwing it at something in the shadows, as he finished his sentence, "It IS your side-effect right, Mora."
A high-pitched voice rang out shortly after, "OWW! Meany, you know I didn't do it on purpose! MURPHY'S LAW JUST WORKS LIKE THAT!"
Confused by the sudden appearance of another female-sounding voice, Sakura pouted grumbling, "Adrian! Who's that?!"
Rolling his eyes and turning around, the hazy mist under Adrian's eyes formed lenses around his pupils allowing him to easily make out the figure in the dark.
Standing before him was a tall blond-haired, green-eyed English woman sporting a perfect hour-glass shaped body proportioned in all the right areas, wearing a leather jacket and blue jeans, causing her to exude an odd boyish charisma.
Unaffected by the woman's stunning looks, Adrian unenthusiastically introduced the two, "Sakura, this is one of my two more feminine personalities, Mora. Mora, you might not be able to see her, but the person I'm talking to is my lover, Sakura."
Both sides gasped, not believing what Adrian had just said for completely different reasons.
Mora couldn't believe the fact that from her perspective, Adrian had gained a lover in the matter of a night and that that lover just so happened to not be visible and only audio based.
Sakura was shocked as she had always believed that all of Adrian's alternate personalities were Male.
Skeptical, Mora rolled her eyes, teasing, "You can't fool me that easy. I know you can easily change your voice to tick me. If I can't see her then I won't believe you."
Taking Mora's words as a challenge, Sakura forcefully descended onto the island in her soul-body form, cheekily shouting, "You doubt me na-"
Before she could even finish her sentence her soul body was struck by nine differently colored bolts of lightning, forcing her back into her void.
Shocked, by the sudden appearance and disappearance of Sakura, Mora coughed saying, "O-Ok… I was wrong to doubt you… So, where is this? Where's everybody?"