Rose opened up an application on her laptop then pulled up a certain file. She then spun her laptop around to reveal a fully-rendered 3D model of what looked like an incredibly weathered and damn-near destroyed city.

There were thousands of buildings, and each one looked slightly different from the last. Most of these buildings were covered in what looked like moss, but beneath that, blue walls with hints of golden detailing could be seen.

At the centre of this city stood what was certainly a very impressive palace in its heyday, but now, a sword that was at least 500-meters tall had been cleanly pierced through the structure's roof, causing most of the building to collapse under the attack.

Vanessa's eyes were practically sparkling. "That's so awesome! It's a ruined underwater city! Does it really look like that?! Is that sword really at the bottom of the ocean?!"

Rose nodded. "Yup. A race of people known as Alphorians once inhabited that city and several hundred more under the oceans around the globe. That was their capital though. They made a final stand down in Atlantis during the war that wiped them all out. Unfortunately, they still lost. Their attacker did die in the attack too though, so that's a win, I guess. I can't concretely find out, but I think the aggressor was trying to destroy Earth, but the Alphorians stopped them. I can't say more with you here, Vanessa."

The German teen scratched the back of her head a bit awkwardly. "Sorry... I should really get more points, huh? But... um... so Alphorians? Not Mermen?"

Rose sneered. "That's just what the people who found the corpses called them. Alphorian was the real name of their race."

"How do you know that?" Vanessa asked as she held her chin in one hand and her elbow in the other as she cocked her head to the side. "The system, or, like, esper legends?"

Rose snorted at the laughable thought that espers could ever be so knowledgeable when all they cared for as a society was power and nothing but power. "No, it's because-"

Frowning and sighing deeply, Rose wore a sorry expression as she faced her friend. "Can you leave the room, please? Daz might need to know this stuff, but with you here, I can't tell him anything important. It's, uh, not personal. You just d-"

"I don't have a high enough access level, I know," Vanessa interrupted and smiled warmly. She stood up and happily said, "I don't mind. I'll go help the robots. I don't think they're finished settling everyone in yet..." After saying that, the teen quickly left the room.

Daz followed her with his eyes then slowly looked down at his sister. "She was lying. She does mind."

"I know," Rose replied as she flipped her laptop around and returned to typing on it.

Daz raised a single eyebrow. "She's your friend. Your only friend. If you have access to this knowledge but not how to fix your esper mutation, then it must only need you to be in the top 1,000 on the merit ranking list, right? You're a super genius. Help her reach your level. You'll only alienate her if you don't. She wants to be useful."

"I know." Rose didn't look very happy. She closed her eyes and rubbed the arch of her nose a bit roughly. "Even I'm not in the top 1,000 yet. I can't really do shit until the tests are over. I need access to the system's stock market."

Daz considered flicking the girl's forehead but chose not to since she seemed to be just as upset as Vanessa was. "Please mind your language, and how is that possible? Information on Earth's prior tests is available to the top 10,000?"

Rose shook her head slowly. "No. It's only available to the top ten."

Some surprise could be seen on Daz's usually stoic expression. "Then how? Ah... Your patron god..."

Rose nodded. "Smart... for once. Yeah. It's to do with my class. I can... how to say this... I can learn almost anything I want, but I need to guess the information perfectly within three attempts. If I fu-," she stopped herself from cursing upon feeling the weight of Daz's glare, "if I fail that, then I'll never get confirmation on if my guesses are right. The system will confirm if I'm right or wrong during those three attempts. I can't risk messing up with my guesses for my esper mutation, so I'm working on thinking up the right questions while I wait to earn more merit points."

Daz looked impressed. "So you figured out that Atlantis was real, who ruled it, how its people were wiped out, and even what the city looks like? What, all with three guesses at each tidbit of info related to it?"

"Exactly. The important part there is 'each tidbit of info'. The smaller I guess, the more info I have on hand to build the bigger picture with instead of going for broke and never knowing if I was right. It sounds complicated, but it's really simple when you get used to it," the girl said with a shrug. "By the way, the system seemingly knows very little about Earth's esper powers, so the tidbit tactic is a bit of a dead-end there."

Daz laughed and shook his head. "I'm sure. But still, on the topic of Atlantis, you'd need some sort of base to even start guessing about the little things, right? A city of mermen under the pacific who fought in a war during a prior system test is incredibly specific."

Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.

"Yeah, you're not wrong, but I have access to an archived version of Earth's now-crippled internet, which helped a lot. I'm trying to build my own mini internet with the framework of the old one, by the way. Also, I can directly buy info from the system, but I don't have nearly enough money for that," Rose explained with another uncaring shrug.

Daz stroked his chin thoughtfully. "You're amazing, you know that, right?"

Smiling smugly, Rose nodded. "I course I do." She then stretched lightly and said, "Still, I'm surprised you know about the fact that Earth's had system-tests before. That's not the easiest thing to figure out. Did your earring tip you off?"

Daz smiled and shook his head. "Nah. I certainly found it odd that I got an item from an ancient group of people from Earth, but the one who confirmed that the system has been on Earth before was actually the person that writes all of the... flavour text."

Rose wore a surprised look on her face. "Wow. You actually see that stuff? Lucky you. From what I know, that person is generally quite rude, but they also tend to give out a lot of useful hints and tips. Though, mind you, I bet they've never once lied when insulting you," she teased with a grin.

Daz smiled wryly and got up out of his chair. Anticipating a forehead flick, Rose quickly closed her eyes and grit her teeth, but it never came.

Instead, Daz hugged his sister and kissed her on the top of her head. "You know, I used to hate how sarcastic and annoying you got when you hit puberty, but you're cute in your own little way, you know that, right?"

Unsure of what do and very suddenly embarrassed, Rose just silently nodded her head.

"Hah... It's always so fun to leave you speechless..." Daz squeezed her affectionately then pulled back and smiled. "Wanna come with me to Atlantis then? I know you wanna ride in my new car, right?"

Rose's face was beet-red, but she very quickly nodded her head. "It's not technically a car, but yeah, I'd love that. If you drive it at Mach-1, we should arrive in 3-and-a-half-hours-ish."

"Huh. I thought it'd be faster. Atlantis is only in the middle of the Northern Pacific, right?" Daz asked.

Rose shrugged. "Well, yeah. It's kinda close to Honolulu, to be honest, and it is closer to us then it is to Japan, but it's still over 2,000-miles away, almost 3,000, even. Mach-1 is fast, but it's only, like, a little under 800-miles-per-hour."

The girl then smirked. "If you've got the stones, you could always drive at Mach-4? We'd get there in just under an hour."

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

"Huh. Just under an hour, exactly like you said," Daz muttered as he confirmed with the car's GPS that they'd arrived directly over the spot that Atlantis was at. They were several hundred feet above the ocean, but they had most definitely arrived.

Rose slowly peeled her eyes open and yawned. "That went by faster than I'd expected... This thing is honestly far too comfy. I kinda regret egging you on now. I could have used some more sleep."

Daz smiled. "We'll go at Mach-1 on the way back. I need to browse the shop anyway."

"Sounds good," Rose replied with yet another yawn. She stretched lightly and began tapping away on her keyboard. After a few moments had passed, she nodded. "We should be good to go down. You'll have to get out when we reach Atlantis if you actually want to claim it, but you have pressure resistance and the Waterbreathing skill, so you should be fi-"

She was interrupted by the sound of a massive bang. The entire Ridomochi Final Model shook slightly as all of the windows were covered in a fiery explosion. Naturally, the car was perfectly fine. Something at this level wasn't enough to even knock off a single point of its durability.

"What the fuck was that?" Daz asked calmly, though his wording clearly showed that he was angry.

Before Rose could even reply, another explosion covered the car, then another, another, another, and again, another. Eventually, whatever was attacking them gave up with their explosive assault and instead swapped to a barrage of thousands of bullets.

Frowning, Rose finally answered after she had checked a few things on her laptop. "It seems like right beneath us are a bit over 30 naval warships from the JMSDF. That's a third of their entire fleet. I guess we aren't the only ones that know about Atlantis. Good thing they can't withstand the pressure that deep in the ocean, or we'd have wasted our time by coming here."

"JMSDF?" Daz asked for clarification.

Rose rolled her eyes. "The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force."

Daz nodded slowly. "I see..."

She glanced up at her brother's expressionless face and asked, "Well, what now? I'm not sure if you noticed, but they don't seem to be very friendly."

Daz raised a hand and stroked his jawline. "Well, we could always ignore them and dive into the sea. The car can handle it. It's built for space travel and for moving through black holes and crazy stuff like that, after all. It'll be fine underwater. Hell, I bet it'd be fine in magma. Another part of me, however, wants to go talk to them. I could use a naval force. If they're not serving anyone or are serving someone incompetent, then I'm confident that I can convince or cajole them into joining us. Thoughts?"

Rose shrugged. "I have no info on these clowns, and I'm not gonna dedicate resources nor time to find out who they are or what they want. You have sharp instincts, don't you? Use them."

Daz chuckled faintly at that. "You're right. Well, I guess I'll be back soon then, huh? Wish me luck," he said before he leaned over a pecked Rose's forehead lightly.

Scowling, Rose replied, "Good luck, Daz," and then opened up one of her many games to distract herself from her rising blush. She really couldn't handle his affection, if that wasn't already apparent.

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

A few moments earlier and on the surface of the ocean, something odd had happened.

"Sir! Something just entered our detection range and suddenly stopped directly over Site Alpha!" a Japanese man in his mid-30s claimed as he held down the comms button on his control panel and stared at the radar in front of him.

"Is it a monster? If so, shoot it down," a stoic voice answered.

"No, Sir! From the holographic rendering, it seems to be a futuristic car of some sort. It's just floating in the air about 400-feet above us. Our tech can't render in the occupants, it seems," the marine replied.

"Try to establish a radio connection. If that fails, try a telepathic one. You have two minutes. I want that thing out of the sky one way or another by then," the commanding voice ordered.

"Yessir!" The man immediately got to work.

Meanwhile, on the flagship of the fleet, on the bridge that overlooked the flight deck below, an Asian man wearing the uniform of an admiral of the Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force could be found frowning.

"First no response to our communication attempts, then it was unscathed from over ten direct hits by the RIM-116s, and even the Phalanx cannons can't pierce its body... What are you and who do you belong to?" the man who was easily in his late-fifties asked himself.

"Admiral Fudo, a man of apparent western heritage has exited the object! He is standing on a... on a shovel and is flying down towards us! He looks kind of familiar..." the marine on the bridge who was in charge of this whole situation relayed.

The admiral's frown deepened. "Relay this order to all the ships that can see him: Shoot him down."