[3 hours before the harvest season]
Sat on a gaming chair in a bedroom with a personal bathroom near the entrance, a boy with dark brown hair was using his tablet to research something as he typed on the holographic keyboard, his eyes fixed on the holographic curved display before him.
There were expensive-looking bookshelves made from high-quality wood, adorned with hundreds of books neatly aligned near his table.
A holographic display of an attractive anime female figure with long pink hair and a blend of a white dress with armor would immediately catch one eye placed near his bed. She seemed like a heroine from an action RPG video game.
This character was his favorite fictional female character, or perhaps even his lifelong crush, as the voice actor for this character happened to be his first crush as well.
He was reading the news about the sudden appearance of many spaceship spots in the Freedom Sanctuary, a continent next to Singa Sanctuary. The spaceships were heading towards the Unbreakable Chain Dome. What was unusual was that spaceships were not normally allowed to operate within Earth's atmosphere unless there was an emergency situation, such as war.
"There is no war, why are they deploying a spaceship and cruiser?" Shan murmured.
Suddenly, he remembered the vision he had seen a few days ago: a world fallen into ruins, with cruisers nearly one hundred meters in length dominating the sky, followed by battles ignited with blue particles and the Eclipse hanging in the sky alongside many cosmic eyes filled with glimmering stars.
He pondered inwardly, -Don't tell me, it's not just a baseless vision but the future that is about to occur?-
He had learned to fear this side of supernatural ability that could foresee the future, and he knew that perhaps this vision was trying to warn him and prepare him for an inevitable war ahead.
He moved on to another unknown website that deleted and recreated every minute. This website functioned without the surveillance of the world government. Even in this age, they couldn't create a darknet, but people would always find a way to conduct illegal activities under the watchful eye of the world government.
Everything on this unknown website looked like nonsense, from Morse code to mathematical numbers and symbols. However, those who regularly used this website knew the meaning behind all of these abstract symbols.
But he rarely visited the website since it sold many human body parts in exchange for coins or cryptocurrency, which the world government allowed to exist so they could also engage in illegal activities under the public eye.
As soon as he accessed the website using a complex math algorithm that only scratched the surface of the website, he then had to solve all the ever-changing numbers within a matter of 10 seconds, or else he would have to start over.
But these numbers didn't make any sense until he realized they were the Euler number, an infinite number that never repeated itself. The only way to solve it was by not giving a numeric answer, but instead providing the letter "E" as the solution.
He was allowed access to another page where there were many symbols representing human arms, legs, eyes, etc. Even though the symbols looked cartoonish, he knew that once he entered one of these sites, his location would be exposed to the world government. After all, he knew that those selling human bodies and organs were none other than the officials of the world government themselves.
Scrolling down, he saw a post about a self-proclaimed prophet with a symbol of the black sun. The user went by the name E=MC2. This person was known for accurately predicting future events of the world and even provided hints about the future stock market and cryptocurrency trends.
He came to the conclusion that this person must have been working for the world government for a long time, even though he had no concrete information about them. Since he wanted to find a connection between the news of the spaceships and their potential impact on the future, he visited this site for that reason.
But what he saw was the symbol of the black sun. He remembered a discussion about the meaning behind the black sun, representing the sun at night. It was like chaos unleashed, akin to the gates of Tartarus opening.
Suddenly, he heard a knock on his door, and a female voice called out to him, "Shan, your breakfast is ready!"
He responded, "Sister, it's still only 3 am!"
"Well, I cooked food for you early so I can go back to take a nap after playing the game all night," his older sister replied.
A few seconds later, he could hear her footsteps fading away. He then remembered his sister mentioning yesterday that she didn't go to work and took a few days off since she had finished her animation project.
Currently, he lives alone with his sister as both their mother and father have passed away. Nevertheless, his sister always looked after him, and he was skilled as a daily trader and ranker in TWOD as well, so they didn't have any problems with basic needs. Shan closed his tablet, took a shower, changed into his usual sweater and blue jeans, and walked to the dining room for a meal. Today, his sister had cooked pork fried noodles and lemon juice, his favorite dishes.
As he ate the fried noodles, he thought to himself, "Maybe we are not witnessing the first sign, but the fourth sign has already been set in motion, wherein the one controlling world events in humanity finally makes their move to cause war and chaos!"
-Just who are you E=MC2? Are you a real prophet?-
More importantly, he suddenly felt fearful of the future if the conclusion he had reached was true. It was an unusual emotion that he had never experienced before, something more sinister than the great global disaster was about to happen today or tomorrow. He couldn't predict what would happen in the next second or minute, but he swiftly looked at his sister's room and felt the need to protect her. More importantly, he had to meet up with his friends. After all, having trusted companions would increase his chances of survival.
He took short steps and arrived at his sister's door. He knocked and said, "Baohu, I have something important to talk to you about."
Qiang Baohu was her name. She was the driving force behind Shan's daily efforts, as he wanted to take care of her in the future when she could retired earlier.
Baohu responded with a tired voice, "I am sleepy and tired. Let's talk about it later." Her voice barely audible from the other side of the room.
"It's an emergency," Shan shouted.
Baohu shouted back, "Sleep is more important."
Now he had no choice but to be direct. "The world is heading towards destruction."
Immediately, he heard footsteps coming from inside the room, and a second later, the door swung open from the inside.
"What did you just say?" Baohu said in a shocked voice.
Her long, silky brown hair fell in strands, covering her cleavage as she wore a pajama set that slightly exposed it. Her blue oceanic eyes were fixed on Shan with a frown.
She was an average-looking girl, and that was her strength. She had a natural beauty that wasn't over the top.
"That's just my assumption, but be careful and don't go outside in these past few days. I will put our house in an emergency state," Shan said with a worried tone and expression.
Baohu immediately responded in an angry voice, "Huh? Where are you going? It might be dangerous outside, and I know your intuition is rarely wrong."
"I need to find Einsamer and my other friends. Then I will come back to save you. Our house is the safest place right now."
The underground house complex was built for situations like war or global disasters. Shan and his sister had saved a lot of money to buy this house after all. They could be considered secret millionaires, but now money didn't matter in war and global disasters.
Baohu understood her brother's point of view. He was an exceptional genius, even at his age. Therefore, she didn't try to stop him, even though she was worried about what could happen to him.
"Promise me that you will return to me safely. You are the only hope I have left in this world," Baohu said with saddened eyes.
"Don't worry, and don't answer those loan sharks. We paid them off years ago. They're just trying to scare us with their lawless terms," Shan stated, turning to walk away.
"I will remember that," Baohu replied as Shan was walking away with his back facing her.
He opened the small holographic icon that hovered beside the door and walked towards it.
"Activate emergency mode," Shan commanded with his voice.
A holographic projection from a small black device near the door appeared.
[System: Bio-Data tracking disabled. Eco-mode energy turns on. The security barrier turns on. Backup water and supplies activated (Duration: 30 days).]
As he left the house and closed the door, he arrived at a one-way lobby. It took him a few seconds to reach a room with three expensive flying cars. He smiled as he looked at the fruits of his hard work. Though no one knew about his success, Shan was still proud of himself and wished his mother and father could see what he had achieved.
He entered a blue sports car, a two-seat vehicle. As he touched the steering wheel, he closed his eyes and reminisced about the past three years. He had worked tirelessly within the confines of his room, attending school and practicing in the band.
He spent several hours reading a book about the stock market, martial arts, philosophy, and mythology. During that time, he dedicated most of his life to observing the stock market, cryptocurrencies, and items being sold in TWOD. Initially, he felt very lonely, but as time went by, his loneliness became his strength. Whenever he spent time with his band, his energy would recharge.
None of them were aware that he was a millionaire, almost reaching billionaire status in the trading industry, except Setsuna, who found out through her investments in the stock market and secretly stalked his account until she found out it was Shan. He wanted to reveal everything through his book, but he hadn't published it yet and Setsuna also respected his wish to remain unseen in the trading world.
Now, going to school was the only option left for him, since he knew it would be impossible to find his friends from their locations.
But now, he had to give up everything because he knew that a war might break out soon. He was always the type of person who valued his intuition over materialistic things, and he always listened to his intuition. This sometimes made it difficult for him to connect with the people around him, but Shan no longer cared about such things. He knew that his motivation was all about making the people close to him feel seen and valued.
"This might be a new beginning. Let's see what the future has to offer this time, even if things are tough," Shan said with a saddened smile.
As the roof of the garage of his house, built underneath an underground forest, split apart, revealing a black sky due to the deactivation of the holographic sky, Shan looked up at the sky with a frown. He then said to himself, "My intuition is right. This entire utopia thing is just a lie."