The armor had seen a fairly substantial upgrade. It had doubled the durability added as well as the all stat percentage growth. He had received an additional 20% in his absorption of energy. He still couldn’t really quantify that stat, but it seemed self explanatory. He could absorb energy more efficiently. This was great as it made him stronger.

There were two new items. He could now absorb solar energy and he had an additional 10% for his P.E.. He took a look at his status page to see what other gains he had made during the last couple days.

Alex Sullivan

Race- Human

Rank- Private

Grade- F

Class- Shift

Level- 93

Strength-573 (793)

Agility- 417 (540)

Intelligence- 276 (363)

Durability- 897 (1,298)

Endurance- 548 (703)

Health- 12,980/12,980

Stamina- 7,030/7,030

P.E.- 0/11,990

He had gained six levels since the last time he checked, which was substantial. He was excited to see what would happen once he reached level 100. He was close, though he was unsure how fast he would be able to level up now that he wasn’t in constant danger. Plus, he had already identified random people and things he had come across and hadn’t seen anybody above level 5.

The highest level person he had met had been level 5. He was a massive guy that had to be a body builder or something. For him to be level 5 without being enhanced by the Forge was actually impressive. His tag said he was human, but had juiced in parentheses. Alex thought the word choice was interesting, but maybe the Forge was trying to use his own vernacular in its identification of things. It did know what things were called in English. He thought back and realized that everything he had come across thus far had names that were easy for him to understand as well. Did these creatures have different names? Most likely, but the Forge had put it into terms he could understand.

This made him wonder how connected the Forge really was to him. It couldn’t be some central AI that controlled every single Awakened, at least not completely. He imagined it was like the AI was more of a central system and each user had a node implanted into their mind. Kind of like how a computer network worked. The Forge had rules and information that it would push to the nodes and the nodes would then enforce those rules and relay the information. That was Alex’s best guess anyways. There wasn’t anyway for him to know without getting a closer look at the entire process.

This thought process did give Alex an idea—if each person has its own node like a computer, could he somehow elevate his privileges? He would think about it a little more. This could be the kind of thing that frees him one day, but currently he had no way to interface with the central AI. He would also need to research more about how computers and networks actually worked. If they functioned similarly, he needed all the information could get on the subject.

His to do list was growing by the day and he had yet to even make a dent in it yet. It was already bright and well into the day when he finally went over his gains, but there was still much of the day left.

He felt like he would need to give Sarah some time. She had looked really upset and if he was being honest with himself, the conversation had upset him too. He would still try to reconnect with them, but he would just have to do it later.

Instead, Alex decided he would need to move onto the next thing on his list. He needed to find Lila. If anybody could fill him in on what had been happening on Earth, it would be her. She hadn’t been sent on a punishment tour like he had, so she would’ve been sent directly home after leaving the tutorial. She had probably even avoided the large influx of Awakened as she had left the tutorial early. He was worried that he would be unable to track her down. She had said that she was a student before all this and she might be in another city after all or at the very least, in a new apartment.

He made his way over to the university campus and started going to the places she said he could find her. She had told him during the day it was likely she was either in the library or in commons area. She spent a lot of time studying and depending on her mood, she would be found in either of the two locations. He went to the commons area first as he didn’t want to be found wandering the library. He was afraid they’d kick him out.

The commons were an outdoor courtyard of sorts. He remembered from when he had been considering going to college himself where they were located. There were tables and benches all over that allowed people to gather and chat or study. Alex surveyed the scene looking for Lila in the crowd. He hoped that he would recognize her when he saw her. It had felt like such a long time that he was worried he had forgotten what she looked like.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Surprisingly, it didn’t take long at all. She was sitting at one of the tables all by herself. Alex hurried over and promptly sat down.

“Is this seat taken?” he asked.

“No. You can sit there,” she said without lifting her head from her laptop.

“Ok then. I’ll just take a seat then,” Alex said slightly taken aback.

Did nobody miss me? I feel invisible.

“That’s great. I’ll just keep studying if you don’t mind,” she said, again not looking in his direction.

*This is Lila right?*

He sat just looking at her for a few seconds. Yep, it was her. She noticed him staring at her and spoke up.

“Look! I’m not looking for a boyfriend or anything. I’m way too busy for that. So, if you’re going to just stare at me, either I’m going to move or you should.”

“C’mon! You didn’t miss me at all? That’s not really a good way to talk to your friends you know.”

She finally looked up, her jaw dropping to the floor.

“What the heck! I thought you were dead. Why didn’t you come find me,” she said smacking Alex in the head.

“Woah! Take it easy. It’s not really my fault. I would’ve come sooner if I could.”

“Where have you been? I’ve already met up and talked to the rest of the group. Everyone, even the other ones that got sent to a punishment tour. We are all accounted for, except you. Nobody had seen you. Ethan and Sophia even went to the same place so we thought they would’ve seen you, but no. They took longer to come back, so we thought that you would show up eventually, but you never did. We checked in for a long time hoping that you had shown up, but after a while, I guess we just gave up. We stopped asking. It hurt to get our hopes up each time just for them to crash down again.”

“Well that’s depressing. I’m back now. No need to fear!” he said heroically.

She had a deadpan expression.

“Hurray. The great Alex is back. We can all stop worrying now,” she said with so little emotion.

“I’m glad to see you even if you aren’t glad to see me.”

“I’m glad to see you!” she said loudly. Several people looked over at them. She quickly hid behind her hands.

“Who are you trying to convince? The entire campus? You get worked up too easily.”

“Shut up. Look! I’m glad to see you ok. I’m glad that you’re alive. Just, what took you so long?”

Alex gave her a quick rundown of the last year of his life. Obviously, he had to mention how he had nearly single-handedly saved an entire planet and killed an ancient sand dragon in the process.

“That’s…actually super impressive. I’m not even going to lie. That is super cool.”

“I know. I’m not one to brag normally, but it was awesome,” Alex said puffing his chest slightly.

Lila rolled her eyes.

“Ok, but you said that you were only there for a year. Why did it take you so long to get back?”

“I was hoping you could help me out with that. You’re smarter than me. It doesn’t sound like anybody else had time that they lost somehow. Why am I the only one?”

She thought for a second, mumbling to herself. She would come close to an idea, but then discard it just as fast. Alex just sat there in silence letting her do her thing. After five minutes of silence, Alex was starting to get restless he was about to interrupt her and say they could figure it out later when she jumped up excitedly.

“I’ve got it! This has to be it. Ok so to put it simply, time has a lot to do with gravity. The more gravity something produces, the slower time is. Did you notice anything about the gravity on the planet you were on? Did you feel heavier?”

“I mean maybe at first, but I got used to it. It was hard to tell since I had just gotten insanely strong.”

“So,” she gestured with her hands, goading a response from Alex.

When he didn’t say anything she continued.

“So, time on that planet must have been moving twice as slow as here. One year there was equivalent to two here. You didn’t lose any time, not really. You just experienced it at a slower rate than we did.”

Alex felt sick. Would this happen every time he was called away? Could he be called on a mission and then come back fifty years in the future? Lila looked at his face and came to a similar conclusion. They both looked like they had bad Chinese food and it had hit them at the same time.

“I don’t like what that could mean,” Alex said.

“Me neither. So far, none of us have had any time skips like you experienced and we’ve gone on a few missions already. So maybe it isn’t that common. Maybe you just got unlucky,” Lila offered.

“No kidding. I feel like the most unlucky person alive right now.”

“At least you are alive.”

He glared at her, “You know what I mean though. I guess it could be worse. It could’ve been ten years, or twenty, or one hundred, or…”

“Ok I get it. Chill.”

“Sorry,” alex said sheepishly.

“Hopefully nothing like that happens to any of us. It’s already pretty messed up that they forced us into this, but it would be a whole different story if they completely ruined our lives like this.”

She sat in contemplation for a little bit before she got a grim expression on her face.

“What’s that look for?” Alex asked.

“That means you don’t know what’s been going on.”

“What do you mean by that? Why are you so being so cryptic?” Alex said, his discomfort evident in his face.

“I think we should all get together and talk about it. It’s a big deal. We’ve been lucky, but it’s mostly because we are being careful. Hopefully nobody has noticed you yet. That would be really bad.”

“You’re gonna make me throw up. Everything in my life is crazy right now, I don’t need something else on top of it.”

“You don’t get a choice. Did you get that notification when you got back?”

Alex’s faced turned white.