Stellar Colony 7, Quarters 12A
Aric examined his comm device closely. It wasn't just old; it was outdated, slow, and took forever to charge.
Due to the lack of fast-charging technology in his sector, the device usually needed about four hours to fully charge, and it could only last for one and a half to two days of regular use.
If he kept using his comm device heavily, the charge wouldn't even last a full day.
What puzzled Aric was how his old device had managed to fully charge in just about two hours.
He was so curious about it that he momentarily forgot about the frustrations of his job.
Aric was someone who enjoyed reading sci-fi web novels. In truth, this hobby was more of a necessity. He also liked other pastimes like holo-gaming and zero-g sports, but those activities were too expensive. Reading was cheaper.
Did I just experience the legendary fortuitous anomaly?
Aric couldn't help but entertain the thought. After all, he seemed perfectly fine despite the strange energy surge.
He tried to make a call to his colleague, Jonas Fairchild. The results showed that his comm device was still functional, and he could even hear that Jonas wasn't in the best mood.
Jonas was relatively close to him on Nebula Station 7. Although he was also in his twenties, Jonas had advanced technical certifications and outstanding professional skills in system diagnostics. They were similar in age but vastly different in rank. Fortunately, it didn't affect their friendship.
Aric complained about what had happened earlier and mentioned that he was thinking of quitting his job.
Jonas, sounding distracted, replied, "Oh, did Commander Hale give you trouble? I'll deal with him."
Commander Victor Hale was just an ordinary station commander, and he was over 30 years old. Although he was experienced, he was no match for Jonas in technical expertise if it ever came down to a dispute.
Aric put down the comm device and mumbled, "This guy is upset about something."
Anyway, it had nothing to do with him, and he needed to decide whether he should show up for work tomorrow.
Although Nebula Station 7 was part of the maintenance division, it was still relatively fair. For the highly-mobile techs, they could have a daily wage. If Aric resigned tomorrow, he could collect pay for over 20 days of work.
However, the new finance officer was notorious for being difficult and might drag the process out.
More importantly, if he resigned, he'd have to find a place to live by himself by the next day, which would cost him credits.
"Well, there aren't many good people on this station," Aric muttered while scanning through his device. It had charged quickly, so could it lose power just as fast?
When he looked at the screen, he noticed a notification from his holo-farm app, and it suddenly reminded him that the crops in his virtual farm hadn't been harvested yet.
Aric had installed the app to build rapport with the station's director. To be specific, he wanted to stay on the good side of Director Langston, who had a peculiar fondness for virtual farming.
In the workplace, you didn't need to be as shrewd as in the corporate world, but when leaders had hobbies, the staff should learn how to appeal to them. This was what Jonas had taught him.
As expected, a couple of days after he installed the holo-farm app, Director Langston visited his quarters for an inspection and noticed the holo-farm interface he had "accidentally" left open. She asked for his handle later, and he successfully added her as a contact.
Nevertheless, it wasn't entirely a good thing to have such a close relationship with his superior. A month later, Director Langston suddenly mentioned, "You should plant some rare crystals when you reach the next level."
Aric immediately understood that his boss had a gem mine in the game.
Aric actually had a gem mine in his holo-farm as well, but the crystals he grew were usually sufficient for his needs. He didn't realize that his boss needed more rare crystals.
In fact, Director Langston never grew common crystals because she was at a high level and only dealt with high-value items.
However, she needed rare crystals, so she frequently visited her staff's holo-farms to take some for her mine.
Aric wasn't dense, and he soon developed the habit of growing rare crystals after receiving his boss's hint. Although he disliked it, he always reminded himself not to harvest them until his boss had taken her share.
However, as the director of Nebula Station 7, Director Langston was always occupied with her duties and didn't visit the game at regular times, so Aric often had to wait a long time to harvest his own crystals.
He was a good employee.
Nevertheless, he decided to stop placating his boss now. "Anyway, I'm going to quit, and I'll harvest all the crystals this time."
After that, he opened his holo-farm app and tapped the mature crystals in the field.
To his astonishment, he was suddenly transported into a strange virtual space.
There were 10 plots of rare crystals in front of him now, and it looked exactly like his holo-farm.
Not far away, there was a kennel with an empty bowl at the front. It was empty because feeding virtual pets cost extra credits.
Besides, if he had a virtual pet, his boss wouldn't be able to take his crystals.
Aric was stunned for a full 10 minutes. He then slapped himself hard. He jumped up from the shock and snapped, "What the hell!"
He was so excited that he was incoherent. It was a great anomaly, a legendary anomaly!
It indeed was an anomaly. He was fortunate enough to harvest the crystals himself in the virtual space. He didn't need any special tools, and he could simply reach out and pick the crystals.
Nevertheless, it was exhausting to harvest crystals by hand.
It took Aric almost half an hour to clear a single plot, and he regretted expanding his farm so much.
Then he stood up and said, "How can I get out of here? Hello, system? Are you there?"
He hoped that the system would respond, perhaps with a guide or a control panel, but nothing appeared. He didn't even get a notification or system tone.
Aric looked at the mature crystals in the remaining nine plots and mumbled, "Probably I have to harvest all of them before I can leave."
Six hours later, Aric breathlessly sat on the edge of the last plot, looking at the 10 empty plots in front of him. He wished that he could lie down and sleep right there. "Damn, it's really not an easy job. Hello, system? Can you hear me?"
No response.
"Alright, I can accept some system help." Aric gave in. "Hi, is there a system guide?"
Still nothing.
Aric began to panic, and he feared that he might not be able to exit the virtual space. Although his life was somewhat unsatisfactory, he wasn't mentally prepared to be stuck in a virtual farm, let alone forever.
Thinking of that, he felt quite anxious.
Will I become a data stream of "0" and "1" if I can't leave here after coming inside?
After trying countless times, Aric finally returned to reality.
He glanced around, then reached out and pinched his arm. He didn't have a better choice. That slap he gave himself earlier was too strong, and now he had a slight ringing in his ears, so he thought it was better to pinch himself.
The pain in his arm told him that he had truly returned to reality.
Immediately afterward, he let out a sigh of relief. "Holy stars, I almost got stuck in there."
It turned out there was no system guide in the virtual space. The reason why he couldn't exit was that he had missed a single crystal in one of the plots.
Just because he didn't harvest every crystal, he almost became trapped in the virtual space. It was a painful lesson.
"It seems that this farm still strictly follows the program's rules," Aric said to himself, still somewhat shaken by the experience.
Next, as the recipient of this strange anomaly, he decided he needed to analyze how it had happened.
However, his stomach growled, reminding him that he hadn't eaten in over eight hours, and he had even been doing virtual physical labor during that time.
When he glanced at the time on his comm device, he was stunned again. "No way, it's still 2000 hours?"
Aric checked the date and made sure that he was still on the same day when he had experienced the energy surge.
In other words, after he entered the virtual farm, time outside had stopped, even though he had stayed inside for seven hours.
"This is unbelievable." He was amazed, and he couldn't help but imagine how successful he could be with this anomaly in the future.
As he walked to the door of his quarters, a little stocky man hurried in from outside. He was taken aback when he saw Aric's exhausted look. "Hey, what happened to you?"
The stocky man was Aric's roommate. He was usually responsible for cargo management. He often received tips, so his income was a bit higher than Aric's, but he spent more than he earned.
Aric didn't particularly like him, not because he was jealous of his higher income, but because he had lost tools twice and suspected Rian Grayson.
Therefore, he gave him a curt response. "I just spent half a day in the virtual farm."
"Ridiculous." Stellar Colony 7 was a state-of-the-art station. There was no physical farm for him to work in. "I was just showing you some concern. Would it kill you not to snap back?" said Rian with a frown.
Aric looked at him for a long moment. He then said in a serious tone, "I'm not lying to you, and I mean it."