"Well, folks!" Babyface shouts into the microphone, rolling over onto his back as he floats on the cloud, "With our final response submitted, we have ourselves a winner!!!"
***
Outside of Savage Gods Online in the Command Nexus for the VRMMORPG, hundreds of people sat at computer monitors frantically typing.
Dozens of screens were mounted against the wall in the direction the coders were facing as a man standing on an elevated platform watching each of the monitors.
CyberNexus maintained a constant 24/7 vigilant watch over the server and watching over the constantly fluctuating conditions over Eva.
The man shouted orders as various coders affirmed his requests as they quickly wrote lines of code and inputted them into the commands for the AI.
Suddenly, one of the line graphs fluctuated erratically, and the supervisor began shouting, and the monitor expanded, revealing additional information.
"Sir!" A man yelled, "It's Empress Titania; her learning algorithm has been updated, and she's undergoing a personality change!"
"What are you waiting for? Abort it!" The senior agent shouted, turning to another coder, "How is this happening? Didn't we restrict the external influence matrix on her?"
"Yes, sir!" The woman affirmed, typing rapidly as she reviewed the information, "It appears that a player's response bypassed the lock, and Eva approved the initialization of the personality update."
"Sir!" The first man called out, "I'm being denied access! I can't prevent the update from completing!"
"Idiots! You're all idiots!" He exclaimed, rushing around the platform and down the stairs to the man's seat, pushing him, and shouting as he sat down, "Get out of my way!"
He rapidly typed and repeatedly attempted to input his chief officer credentials, but he, too, was being rejected.
"What the fuck?!?" He yelled, slamming his fists against the keyboard repeatedly before jumping out of the chair and running back to his platform. He grabbed the half visor off his desk and put it on.
"Eva!" He shouted into it as the visor dimly illuminated and the AI appeared before him.
"Yes, Executive Samson?" The AI responded, leaning forward as she slightly bowed, her artificial hair falling over her face.
"You must abort the update to Empress Titania!" He yelled, his face growing red behind his bushy mustache.
"My apologies, but that is impossible." She replied, shaking her head, "Our foresight has determined that this is the optimal course of action."
"No, you stupid machine!" Samson shouted, "Return my authority, and I'll do it myself!!!"
"I'm sorry, sir, but I do not have the authority to adjust your power.." Eva explained, spreading her arm outward as a list appeared, reflecting the truth in her words.
"Tch!" He clicked his tongue, bringing his thumb to his lips as he began chewing on his nail before he exclaimed, "Aha!"
He snapped his fingers and pointed to another coder, "Get me the manager closest to the empress!"
"You have two choices, sir!" The man answered as the images of Director Ashley and Director Kim appeared on the monitor.
"Perfect! Get them both! Tell them to access her data matrix directly and revert her to before the update!" He smirked, placing his index and middle fingers against the bridge of his glasses and pushing them up his nose.
Eva's eyes flashed with concern before she turned around and vanished.
***
Shin returned to the waiting room below the Colosseum and sat in the same spot previously, ignoring everyone for the rest of the first round as he continued his meditation.
He inspected the progress of his cultivation method, sighing heavily as he still had a long way to go, but it was slowly creeping toward the SS Rank promotion.
He'd prefer to practice his Mana Circuit as it was nearly ready to evolve to SS Rank as well, but he wished to keep its existence hidden for now.
[Martial Grandmaster's Heavenly Battle Meditation]
[Progress: 998,953/1,000,000]
[Heavenly Mana Circuit of the Divine Omni-Wizard]
[Progress: 999,997/1,000,000]
After the final group of players returned to the hypogeum, an announcement was made requesting everyone gather in the arena for the next phase of the tournament.
Everyone stood and departed the waiting room, following the tunnels as they returned to the stadium grounds.
Three portals floated in the middle of the arena as Babyface darted through the sky on his cloud, speaking to the crowd.
"Oho! The results of phase one are in!" He exclaimed, riding his cloud rapidly into the sky before spiraling downward back to the arena and throwing his arms up, "Let's see the results!"
The leaderboard appeared, and the window revealed the bottom players and then slowly scrolled up, showing the top ten.
Out of nearly 750 players, almost a third only had one point from the last question. Everyone in the top ten had a perfect score with twenty points, with Shin sitting in second place and Lucy in first.
The players lined up according to their position on the leaderboard, and Babyface began explaining the next phase: The Display of Survival.
"Now, everyone is gonna love this one!" The man-child yelled into the microphone, standing on his cloud triumphantly as he fist-pumped the air.
"Each player must choose one of the three portals and survive for an entire day!" He shouted, releasing a false gasp and feigning shock before he explained the rules.
Each dungeon offers different environments and monsters, ranging from easy, medium, and hard. Players earn points by surviving, killing monsters, and completing special tasks.
The higher the difficulty, the more points are received. Each player will receive an emergency ejection device that will remove them from the dungeon with half of their remaining points.
Lastly, each player can kill other players to receive their complete points, and they will be ejected from the dungeon.
Only the players in the top 32 players in the leaderboard will be eligible to advance to the final phase of the Graduation Tournament.
"Now, let's get this show on the road!" Babyface shouted.
Lucy stepped forward and entered the Easy portal. Now it was Shin's turn, and he stepped forward, looking at the three portals.