Steven’s statement startled Tier. He quickly rose up to protest, “But I didn’t use any cheat or… Ugh…”

The hunter staggered as a sharp dizzying sting struck his brain accompanied by a sudden strong nausea in his stomach. As he fell, they tried to catch him, but Manna was the closest and quickest to act. She caught and embraced his head on her shoulder.

“Pras… do not force yourself,” Manna whispered calmingly.

There was a clear warmth in her words, but it gave a weird reaction in Tier’s heart. He struggled to speak, “B-but, I need to protect you guys… I must….”

“You need to rest,” Steven sighed without looking back and continued to work on his screen.

Helped by Renma and Nubram, Manna put Tier to sit while leaning on a tree. “We will be fine, deskmate, even without you,” She said.

----------------------------------------

You are just a replacement, kid. Not an ace like him.

----------------------------------------

Manna’s words, though soft, were heard differently in Tier’s ears. It stung so deeply into his heart, reminding him of how insignificant he was. The best he could achieve was a replacement. He was not an ace. How could he have the audacity to think that his friends needed him to level up safely? Especially with the clearly more experienced Manna mingling around them.

Perhaps, it was true that all of this ‘helping his friends’ reasoning was just a facade he created for himself. Just for a glimpse of hope to run away from his past guilt, he used them as an excuse.

“I’m useless as usual,” Tier whispered desperately to himself, “You don’t need people like me. There is no reason for me to be here.”

“Pras,” Manna whispered back. She closed her face to Tier’s. Her eyes gleamed with assurance as she continued, “I… we can be your reason.”

“Ahem!” Renma cleared his throat suddenly.

However, it was Nubram who added a comment, “Like for real? No reason? Our sole reason was to play together, wasn't it? And I surely need your tactics and awareness to solve more difficult contents later.”

He eyed lazily at Manna, “And I still have a hard time trusting our supposed tank’s guidance.”

“My, my… I am clearly an offtank bruiser.”

“Good, we can employ Zackhs in the future.”

“You're still angry about the whole Arkengrad fiasco, huh?” Renma chimed nonchalantly.

“Duh.”

“My… fine…” Manna sighed in rather annoyed fashion. This is the first time Tier saw Manna get that agitated. She continued, “I was just trying to help, it was my mistake.”

Nubram snorted, there was a small spark of flame erupted from his nose. “Your mistake in…?”

Manna pouted while looking away from Nubram. Since her face was still rather close to Tier, he could see the full view of the expression. It was very cute nonetheless.

“For the misunderstanding,” Manna said with a low voice.

“And…?”

“For almost wasting my dauntless deskmate’s sacrifice,” Manna continued. She then glanced cynically at Nubram. “Happy?”

“Not until you recommend me as an officer or division leader,” Nubram answered snarkily.

“Ugh….”

“Hahahaha!” Grok, Sami, and Esferta suddenly burst into laughter.

“I was worried at first, boss,” Grok cackled. “But apparently you found skilled and nice friends. Also a boyfriend.”

“Grok, we are deskmates,” Manna hissed.

“Sure thing, girl,” Sami giggled. She then eyed Tier and said, “Anyway, sorry I overheard what you said earlier, boy. From what I see so far, I think you are not as useless as you think.”

“Yeah, bro,” Grok nodded. “Though I hope you didn’t puke for real in the real world just now. I just want to say that you better have a bit of trust in your friends here. They all look tough, they can take care of themselves. But that doesn’t mean you are useless to them. It’s just that you seem to need to rest like Steven said.”

While shrugging with an ever knowing smile, Flick jumped into the conversion, “Don’t worry, mate. After you come back, we can help you this time. I can already handle a level 80, now.”

“Excuse me, I dealt the finishing blow,” Rushvatte retorted.

“Mate, it was my idea that brought him down.”

“Nuh-uh, if it wasn’t for my [Blitz] he would have gotten away.”

“Anyway, bro.” Renma said as he ignored the bickering of Rushvatte and Flick. He patted Tier’s shoulder. “As I said way before this. We are here to play together. No one’s a burden. Stop being too hard on yourself.”

Tier couldn’t answer. His mind and heart was still a complete mess. Yet, among those cold storms, he could feel a bit of warmth due to his friends' words.

“Alright, alright, that’s one thing, man,” Rushvatte suddenly growled at Steven. “But I need some explanation here, Steven. You just took his time to play because he was exhausted? He just played with us now, he hasn't reach daily or weekly limit. Is there anything else that I missed?”

Steven sighed again before explaining, “Well, dude… this is my fault. The first time I checked on Tier’s logs was when I first met him and Renma when they made their custom ability. I saw that he has a tendency to have higher brain activity than most players when playing here.”

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“It’s not that weird, to be honest. A lot of players have that, even you guys here. However, like very few players do, Tier has an even weirder tendency to have a huge burst in brain activity. I mean, if you are engaged in an intense fight, you definitely will have some spikes. Generally, his spikes are a bit higher, common for DPS or utility focused players. But, there were three times when his spikes were insanely high. When he started playing, when he solo-ed a minotauros, and just now.”

Steven took a deep breath for a while before continuing, “At first, I thought he was just processing data much faster, thus making his perception of time kinda different. There are other cases like this, no big deal. But, yeap, I was wrong. The reason why he could feel the presence, movement, and intention was because his brain acted like a sponge.”

“Sponge?!” Macepaw raved, “♫oooooh, who lives in the pineapple under the sea?♫”

“Not that sponge!”

Everyone else, except Tier and Manna, protested at Macepaws response. Esferta even took an extra step to launch a silencing spell at Macepaw to keep him shut.

Steven also threatened the shaman, “Don’t make a ruckus or I will ban you for a week without compensation! If you give me even a pinch of another headache after all those bizarre abilities you requested, I swear I will….”

The GM suddenly stopped, cleared his throat, took a few deep breaths, and finally explained the main topic again, “Back to the main agenda. So, when we are using AdVRSe, our brain does not accept all information as it is. Some information is omitted or disregarded. Both the system and our brain are able to do that.”

“In Tier’s case. It seems that during these peaks, his brain disregards all those limitations and just drains as much information as possible. This is why he could act as if he knew about an incoming action.”

Steven created a triangle diagram on his screen to show to the others. He continued, “As you all know, current AdVRSE utilises both server-client and client-to-client handshake. When you want to move, your intent is being sent to the server and to other clients in the vicinity. Then with approval from the server, this will be directed to people in the surrounding area where their brain will decide to take heed of it or not. Only when the server approves that the client to client handshake is deemed as valid.”

“Are you telling me that his brain accepted the client-to-client data transmit even before the server approved it?” Nubram asked. He was frowning as his eyes looked seriously at Steven’s screen.

“Correct.” Steven nodded. “But you have to note that normally your brain won’t accept any data before the server approves.”

Seemingly curious, Rushvatte also asked, “So why is he able to do that?”

Steven closed his window. He sighed. “Just my hypothesis. Naturally we have our ego that serves as a bridge to reality. This is also where denials and rejections happen. This is where the main filter is. From what I heard from your conversation, it seems that Tier lacks this thing. And when ego disappears, what is left?”

“Id,” Tier chimed in. “The animalistic nature.”

“Bingo,” Steven clapped. “Where did you learn that?”

“My father was a psychiatrist.” Tier snorted. “He talked about it a lot during our free time.”

The conversation suddenly left a bittersweet taste in Tier’s heart. He remembered how - even after all his father’s previous downfall as well as Tier’s own - his father still spent time discussing all these sorts of things with his ever curious past self. It was a sweet memory nonetheless. Just like how his friends' words gave him warmth earlier.

“Both a man and a beast, definitely said like a true hunter,” Grok commented excitedly. “This is getting more metal, bro.”

“Metal or not, Grok. In the end, I need to give him another limitation, just like his [Cobra’s Manoeuvre], of course taking another slot of custom ability. I can make sure the system won’t throw too much information to his brain. But, well… there is no guarantee that he won’t absorb information uncontrollably. If he did, then we need a contingency plan to avoid him being overloaded,” Steven explained at length.

“Just share the burden,” Renma suggested nonchalantly while scratching the nose part of his mask.

Everyone, including Tier, fell silent as if they heard something astonishing coming from the laws of heavens itself. And with such amazement, Rushvatte exclaimed, “Since when you got so smart?!”

And with that, Rushvatte, Nubram, Flick, and Macepaw bursted into furor. They ruffled Renma’s hair while chanting, “stack INT, stack INT, stack INT.”

“Are you guys praising me or what?”

“Take that as a praise,” Steven cackled. “It does seem like a good idea considering you are friends in real life, close ones it seems. I might be able to do something since you guys won’t have many subconscious reservations about one another.”

“W-wait, Steven,” Tier tried to protest. The idea of burdening others still felt uneasy to him. “Please don’t burden others with my ailment.”

“Ailment?” Rushvatte protested back. “Are you trying to keep the good stuff to yourself?”

“Yeah, bro.” Renma shook his head. “Even processors need RAM, and seriously, I need some help with my tunnel vision thing.”

“I’m just in for the thrill, mate.”

“Whew, and I need support.”

“Pras,” Manna called softly as she tapped at Tier’s shoulder. “It is okay to share a burden. They are tougher than you might think.”

Tier was stranded by the words of his friends yet again. And, he could only nod a little as an answer.

“Good, I think we’re kinda set here,” Steven chuckled. “However, I need all of you to keep this secret, especially from the other head GMs. I don’t want Gary and Zell to make a ruckus too early.” He then eyed Grok, Esferta, and Sami, “Especially you three.”

“Chill, bro. I don’t like gossipping.” Grok shrugged.

“Same with Grok here,” Sami confirmed.

“As long as we can get some compensation or free stuff,” Esferta concluded with a sinister smile.

“Fine…” Steven groaned.

Before he left, Steven suddenly stopped again and turned to Renma and Nubram, “You two, can we discuss a bit about your custom ability?”

“But before that,” Steven looked at Tier again. “You are not allowed to log in before at least 36 hours or before I give you a message that your new custom ability is ready. Any protest?”

Tier’s forehead twitched in protest. Yet another custom ability slot was robbed away from him which just functions as another limiter. Therefore he retorted, “What is my compensation? You stole another one from me.”

“Ach, I’ll give you some EXP booster for the lost time, ‘kay dude?”

“That’s it? How about my custom ability slot?”

“You still have remaining slots. Also….”

Steven’s serious expression suddenly faded away. Now, he was back to his usual haphazard style complete with his ever annoying grin. He whispered, “I can arrange a romantic date location for you and Manna or Esferta. How about it? Which one do you like more? The innocent yet brave angelic grace or the alluring demon?”

Tier finally snapped. Yet, it was not the usual explosion of anger. Perhaps, this time he was already tired or gave up on thinking. Steven’s offer had triggered the darkest side of Tier’s brain. He raved with a flat expression, “I certainly prefer X-02 Strike Wyvern. That plane is plain beautiful. The prettiest in the sky.”

Tier raised his hand and simulated a plane movement, “You know? It can manoeuvre really well with great agility. It even can perform double kulbit with no sweat. Duh, because it’s a machine, it can’t sweat. I still prefer it over the F-35. Compared to the F35, I still prefer the shape of the Tomcat or F-15EX Advanced Eagle.”

There was a clear dumbfounded expression on Steven’s face due to Tier’s raving. The hunter didn’t bother to give further explanation. He was even too tired to stop his body from sliding sideways and fell to the grass.

“Duude, just log out already.”