The Humanoids Academy has been experimenting with two dream worlds for a few years.
That's right, two dream worlds.
Lee wants the most to help Karl's child, Alex, grow up. But she couldn't do that, so she is trying to research.
They set up two worlds, one medieval and the other modern styles. Both worlds are based on dreams; they are not perfect.
Both Alex dream world and Five Star dream world have flaws, but Humanoids Academy managed to hold them together for the experimentation to continue.
Alex Kingdom is the center of the first dream world, and Five-star Country is the center of the second.
They are dream worlds but not much different from real worlds; in any event, the point of this experiment is to make both real. If everything goes right, they will turn into reality.
The goal of this experiment is to make rank 11 dream worlds real, and, in the process, to collect a lot of data about how dream worlds work.
Here is what they did and the problems that occurred.
Humanoids Academy connected the two dream worlds with a dream link, Connecting each and every intelligent being of the two worlds to each other.
The original plan was not to cause them to kill each other.
But, a problem occurred.
As a result of a bug, the connection caused people who lost their link to the other world to be rejected by the dream world they resided in.
Coding a world is complex, let alone coding two dream worlds together.
Lee would have never been able to do it had it not been for Karl's masteries that she inherited. But, in the end, her dream concept after a billion years is only at the master level, not even quasi-grandmaster.
Her ability has limits.
The only way for one to be accepted by the world is for them to kill another and take over their link.
This wasn't part of Lee's plan.
The bug threatened the destruction of both worlds.
As a result, Humanoids Academy has been working hard on a fix, and they found a way after only a month.
...
Lee is looking at the screen intensely; Now, she can clearly see the wrong parts of the code.
It's a pity she can't delete them; the only way is to code more and try to patch it.
"Good, you're getting better!" Rachel smiled. She had not gone all out to help Lee but had been giving a hint or two that significantly quickened the process of finding a fix.
"Thank you, Rachel," Lee was genuinely grateful; she could never repay all Rachel did for her.
"Of course! You want to reverse the time to before the bug?" asked Rachel.
The bug caused great destruction and death of many people.
Lee could use some energy and restore the time to what it was before the bug started ruining things.
She looked at the state of the two dream worlds, then said," No."
Things generally didn't go as bad as she expected, primarily because of Alex III.
Alex III is the protagonist of all these experiments.
The name 'Alex' is not an accident; Alex III is named after Alex, the most lasting dream of Karl.
After trying for thousands of years, Lee caught a breath of Alex and refined it and turned it into Alex III.
Therefore, Alex III is what Alex would be if she could make him real.
She is still far away from that feat.
Honestly, she doubts it's even possible without a universal law related to dreams. But she has to try.
In the worst-case scenario, she could only try to make Alex 'real' using only 'Breaths,' like Alex III.
The final would not be anywhere near as powerful, but the personalities, at least on a surface level, should be similar.
It would be like a detailed plastic copy of a planet; on the surface, it would look the same, but in essence, they are nothing alike.
"Let's add the new code and hope nothing goes wrong," said Lee.
Rachel nodded.
Lee has been working on a code that can mostly patch the bug. It won't eliminate it, but it will significantly alleviate it.
Now, without the patch, once anyone loses their link, they feel like a void is chasing them.
This void is nothing supernatural; it is just people's deep instinct that warns them that they must have a link.
If they don't, then the world rejects them.
The void feeling is a symptom, like a cough is a symptom of a cold. The body and soul warn people that they must look for another link.
The death, however, is because the world's laws will gradually reject those without a link.
Death is not because of fear; in fact, the fear is likewise an instinct warning the body. Even without fear, they still die.
But, the fear does make death happen sooner, exactly like a virus that provokes the immune system so much that it blows up the lungs before the disease even finds the chance to kill the person.
The body and soul want to warn so much that they actually kill the person sooner than the disease(the bug)!
Likewise, the craziness has nothing to do with the bug; it's just that the Void feeling intensifies to the point that it removes all reason from the person and makes them crazy.
Still, the death would happen regardless, no later than a month after the link was lost.
It's because the world would reject those without links; once it rejects a mortal, they would be expelled.
Because the world is only a dream, expelling means they would cease to exist, a fate worse than death.
There is no way to change that without patching the world's laws, so Alex Kingdom's research will fail; they may be able to lessen the symptoms of fear and void chasing, but the hard deadline of 30 days cannot be touched by mortals, or even by most mages below rank 10.
The patch that Lee developed can lengthen the time of death to 1000 years.
The bug is too fundamental, and fixing it fully will take a long time.
She added another line of code that will significantly weaken the body's reaction, thus reducing the fear and feeling of void chasing.
Again, it won't eliminate it.
She took out her coding glasses.
It is a rank 11 item that helps in coding.
Coding is energy in a specific shape; typically, one can only plan in one's mind. But these glasses will help the coder keep track of everything and maintain the code's harmony and integrity, reducing the chance of a bug.
...
Rob checked his gun.
It was a handgun with 15 bullets. The gun laws in Five-star Country were relatively lenient, with some restrictions:
Everyone has to receive 12 hours of practical and five hours of legal training before being able to buy; anyone with any violent crime will forever be prohibited from owning a gun. The minimum age is 22.
Everyone can only own one handgun at a time.
One must renew their practical and legal training once every three years.
One must have safe storage; in the event the gun is stolen, any crime committed by that gun is the responsibility of both the criminal who did the crime and the person whose carelessness caused someone who shouldn't have a gun to have a gun.
Once one buys a gun, they can carry it anywhere except in some protected places, like a police station or courtroom.
The self-defense laws are also robust; even a physical push can justify using fatal force.
Rob didn't look like a gun lover, but he did get one when he was younger in response to a crime wave.
As a result, he did have training in shooting. Now, that training comes in very useful.
To get resources, one must loot the supermarkets and storage houses. Outside is dangerous, and the most dangerous place is near supermarkets and storage houses.
Two weeks ago, someone attacked Rob's house, forcing him to run away from his house and leave all his stored food.
He killed one invader, but out of fear of more coming, he ran away with only things he could carry.
The roads were unusable because too many cars were left on the streets.
He moved around and searched a bit and found another house relatively far away, but with no food inside, he had no choice but to come look for supplies.
Alex III did everything he could to persuade him against it.
He suggested finding fresh human bodies and using them as food.
Human corpses are not hard to find these days.
But, it was just too disgusting for Rob, way over the red line.
Honestly, he prefers to die than be forced to eat human meat.
So, he ignored Alex III and went looking at supermarkets.
Most were already empty, but after looking around, he finally found one less visible one that wasn't looted yet.
That is where he is now.
...
"I should hurry!" he thought.
Even though a month passed, nobody came to loot here, but this doesn't mean they won't ever come; he prefers not to risk it.
He carried as much as he could from the supermarket back home. Every trip took two hours.
There was no other way; The roads were closed entirely.
Fortunately, this location is a less populated part of the city, and after a month, most have left.
Still, with every trip, there are huge risks; He wouldn't have done it if he could survive without food!
He quickly collected the food with the most calories and left the shop. Fortunately, the water system still works; otherwise, carrying lots of water would have been difficult.
He went out and looked back.
Nobody had come.
It's been a month, and nobody found this shop, so it's implausible somebody suddenly shows up now that he came; it's the real world, not a movie.
The GPS systems are still preliminary, and this shop also opened just a few months ago, so not many know it exists.
After around two hours, he finally returned home.
This trip marked the tenth time he brought food back.
He had stored 250 kg of food, all with high calories.
He also found some multivitamins, so the only thing lacking is protein.
The power is long gone, so storing meat is a problem; he could only rely on canned food for now.
His meals wouldn't be delicious, but at least he wouldn't suffer from hunger.
In any case, the food will eventually expire or run out.
Sooner or later, he must go and find a group to join.
Alex III prevented him from considering it so far, promising to send help 'soon.'
As for when 'soon' will be, Rob has no idea.
He can see the situation on Alex Kingsom's side, and it doesn't look like they will come to help anytime soon.
...