After logging out of the game, Connor's senses quickly return to reality. A dark place with no incoming sound. The hum of the cabin coming to a gradual stop.
Quiet. Peaceful nothingness.
This was Connor's habit. Sitting in the pod to prepare himself for the uneventful, somber day or night ahead of him back in reality.
*Sir, Father Lin has sent you a message. Would you like for me to read it?*
"Who? Oh, it's Sonia," Connor says in a tone of remembrance. His logging out of the game immediately triggered a sort of mental psychosis that rendered his regression useless.
Connor's thoughts were full of the dull, mundane life he lived. So, upon hearing Sonia, Connor snapped out of the sad reverie he couldn't escape from and immediately a fire ignited in his eyes.
'I almost got lost in the sadness again. No, not again. Not ever. This time is different!!'
The chains that bound Connor's existence as a low-life in his previous timeline no longer held firm and began to break one by one.
"No, Sonia. I'll go visit him in a bit. Thanks."
With that, Connor exits his game cabin and immediately opens a bolted-down fridge that is voice, fingerprint, and retinal locked only to himself.
The contents of the fridge contain 24 S-Grade Solutions and 25 A-Grade Solutions with a few B-Grade and C-Grade Solutions. He'd set these aside for himself as he had more use for them than any of his family members at this stage of the game.
Plus, those Dietary Solutions are the foundations of Connor's soon-to-be Guild Workshop.
Without further ado, Connor opens a bottle of A-Grade Solution and ravenously gulps it down.
The effects of the Dietary Solution are to repair and strengthen the cells in the body depending on what was most worn down.
A slight cooling sensation begins to spread throughout Connor's brain. The Dietary Solution automatically began the reparation process.
Each neuron in Connor's brain, which was sending out weak signals to the nerves and sometimes scattered signals, soon started to emit slightly stronger pulses.
'As expected. It's not enough.'
Seeing this, Connor consumed another bottle of A-Grade Solution. Feeling the headache receding more rapidly, Connor downs another bottle. His brain begins to heat up immensely.
One must know, that ordinary people could only dream of being able to see a bottle of A-grade solution. Let alone drinking one.
If that person was able to consume that grade of Solution, they would've immediately reached the first realm of cognitive strength, the Mentee Realm.
On Earth, in the year 2169, mental strength and physical fitness play a big part in the daily life of people.
The life expectancy of the average citizen globally is 90 years of age. This is simply due to the overall health program done by Chronos Corp. after releasing the Dietary Solution 80 years ago.
Though the Dietary Solution itself was expensive, a cheaper alternative would be Dietary Supplements. They too have grades ranging from S to D.
Even the lowest grade of Supplements would have enough nutrients to last an average citizen a full day on one pill. The cost of each pack of 30 Supplements is 500G.
For the average family, this is quite a sum, but most parents tended to nurture their children while they were still young in hopes of producing a genius recognized by many esports teams and gyms.
Ten years after the Solution release, in the year 2199, Chronos Corp. then announced the release of virtual reality gaming with only 10% realism.
This made people game like crazy. Spending hours upon hours a day playing.
With the help of the Dietary Solution, people began to notice the effects it had on their minds.
After that, every five years for the next thirty years, Chronos Corp. released VR games with even more realism. Each release went from 15% to 20%. Then, from 25% to 30%. And lastly, the last 10 years were from 40% to 50%.
Before the current release of Shattered Realms which is at 60% base realism, those games were the ultimate VR games to date.
Many people often spent days inside the games just to increase their status and cognitive strength. Which barely worked.
They would soon find out that Shattered Realms is the real deal. This game would help them increase their Cognitive Strength by leaps and bounds within a year than they had in the past 5.
Those obtaining the first star in the Mentee Realm are able to notice a major boost of clarity in their thoughts.
At the second star, the ability to fully focus on one thought while vaguely having another could be gained. At the last star, the second thought formed would be 50% clear.
Cognitive Strength realms in this world are divided into 3 stars and Half-Step before proceeding to the next realm. While the realms themselves from lowest to highest are:
1. Mentee Realm ☆ ☆ ☆
2. Processor Realm ☆ ☆ ☆
3. Dissemination Realm ☆ ☆ ☆
4. Prime/Colossus Master ☆ ☆ ☆
5. Mystic Realm☆ ☆ ☆
What comes after the Mystic Realm is something unknown to Connor.
At this moment, Connor is in the process of ascending from the Mentee 1-star to Mentee 3-star.
Not wasting any time, Connor began a set of body exercises that he'd used back in the future to help him become a Half-Step Prime Master in a short span of about 5 years.
That was all thanks to his buddy Infinite Sutra. Connor had never met him in the real world and did not know his name either.
Nonetheless, it was because of him that Connor was able to quickly level up and reach the standards of the elites in such a short time.
However, he would never be recognized as an elite due to certain stringencies placed on him by the other powers within the Lightheart Guild.
That in itself reduced his reputation by a bit. People neither thought negatively of him nor was there any good.
On top of that, Connor never had any impressive feats or achievements within the guild either.
Nonetheless, that did not discourage Guild Leader Lionheart from promoting Connor to at least a Field Team Leader.
A Half-Step Prime Master stuck as a field grunt was not okay in any circumstance.
These were core experts of any guild.
That's why in this life, Connor was determined to repay all those who showed him kindness in some way.
He will gather the best of the best players from his previous life and make a guild unrivaled in the entire server.
The set of body exercises Infinite Sutra had given Connor could only be used while consuming B-Grade solutions and above.
Due to the complexity of the exercises and how cruel they were to the body, not enough energy was supplied to keep up with the amount lost.
Connor's past body was already fit to begin with. Now, paired with three A-grade solutions and the body exercises, he could squeeze four months of training into this single day.
The first set of exercises is meant for Mentee Realm experts. Mentee Realm, as previously stated, focuses on thought clarity.
Right out of the gate, Connor is able to completely control two parts of his body while surfing the web perfectly without even noticing he was actively thinking about them.
Achieving the Realm of Simplicity is nigh impossible. It's like holding the sun with your bare hands.
You can't do it!!!
This was the main secret to Connor's past life achievements. The only thing is that he couldn't produce three thoughts at once at this stage.
The strain was simply too great. The amount of processing power needed was unattainable to 99.99999% of the world.
Only geniuses of geniuses could possibly achieve this state.
Noticing that he could still do more things, Connor decided to count numbers as well, noting no strain or loss of thought and movements occurred.
'Damn!! Where's my limit? Three thoughts are active at the same time and I'm able to fully focus on all three at once.'
To say Connor was shocked is an understatement. What Connor is currently doing is only possible at the 3-star Processor Realm.
That is when the fourth thought formed as Connor subconsciously began to speculate the possible reasons why he's able to think three thoughts at once; the System Admin's merging of his souls.
Connor himself knew that he was quite talented during his past life. Now, imagine said talent increased twofold. The heights he could achieve are unknown.
Connor could confidently say no one in the world is a match for him in the same realm.
Suddenly, his brain had momentarily sped up to the point where the video he was currently watching slowed to a third of its speed.
To think that on the first day of playing Shattered Realms Connor would go from a 1-star Mentee to a Half-Step Processor Realm expert is inconceivable even to himself.
Yet, here he is. Connor eventually slows down his thoughts and limbs so as to not cause any mishaps. It's the same as hitting the brakes on a car while going 60mph everyday.
If you repeatedly slam the brakes while driving, eventually they will break over time due to all the forward momentum of the car being put on them.
What Connor is unaware of now is that 17 hours had passed since he began the "light" training that should've taken only an hour or so to complete the first set of exercises.
Upon checking the time, Connor saw that it was 1am the next day.
'F*ck! Hopefully, whatever it is Dad wanted to tell me isn't that important.'