The hearty food and ale was making Veronika feeling very full and satisfied. She decided to step out for air and sat on the side steps of the tavern’s wide front porch.

Kami followed behind her, looking just as satisfied. That crazy-mouth cretarian had fed him bowls of meat broth, while chanting a long list of fancy names for the ingredients the meal contained. Apparently it would make him grow healthy and strong. It didn’t matter to him what was in the bowl. The food was good and he had a happy belly. And importantly, he wasn’t given any powdered fish. That junk always made him throw up.

He lifted his gaze to see a quarter moon glowing brightly in the sky, then turned his attention to Veronika, who also had her gaze toward the stars. The night felt peaceful around her.

“Hey, Shepherd. Back at the fight…” He grunted in low tones like he was trying to say the right thing and not tick her off.

“Yeah?” She eyed him with one wry eyebrow raised and an amusing grin twitching on her lips.

“You weren't useless. Cough,” he said and gagged like he was trying to get rid of a fur ball.

She chuckled and patted the top of his head, which he didn't seem to mind. Her vision suddenly went blurry, like she was seeing double of Kami.

“System?” She groaned.

[Sorry, Veronika. Performing updates. Should be completed in three minutes]

A ding kept rebounding around her head and getting louder by the second. She slammed her hands over her ears. Naturally, it wasn’t blocking out anything.

“Shepherd?” Kami gulped when he noticed her Emotional Aura was fluctuating with pain colors. He fretted on the spot, unsure how to help her.

Veronika recovered almost instantly when the dinging in her stopped.

“I’m fine.” She reassured the wolf.

“Shepherd. I detect an abnormal spike in your biorhythms. I recommend recharging your energy levels some more.” Scot casually stepped up to her and placed his hand on her back, to feed some of his energy into her.

“Thanks, but I’m plenty recharged on sushi.” She reassured him.

[My updates are completed. There’s a door I want you to walk through. You can bring the others] System cordially said.

“Door?” Veronika scratched her head, looking baffled. A digital map popped up before her and hovered midair.

“A map?” Kami tilted his head to one side, also looking perplexed.

“You can see it?”

“Um, yeah. It’s a digital map.” He continued to look perplex.

“Oh, there you both are. Enjoying the fresh air molecules I see.” Simone stepped out of the tavern to stand beside Scot, looking mildly perplexed at seeing the digital map hovering before them. Then nodded with understanding.

“Ah. Digital replication of Junkyard Town’s map. Clever use of spirit energy, illusionary magic, manifestation. You know, the human eye is capable of seeing around one million different colors at any time. Cretarians can see double this value, that is why our eyesight very sharp. Oddly sharper than Lakionians who see half this value with middle eye being color-blind. Dead color eye!”

Kami and Veronika stared at Simone oddly, and not really understanding or caring what she was spouting out. Scot showed no expression, almost like he was processing data during a downtime moment. But Simone was oblivious to their attention as she peered closer at the map.

“Oh, this big pointy red arrow is pointing to a spot across the road. But that would be part of the town wall?” She frowned and rubbed her chin with thought, then dropped it and grabbed Veronika’s hand.

Veronika yelped when the woman yanked her forward into a walk to the spot where her map’s big, pointy arrow had highlighted. Scot and Kami shared a pensive look then followed the women.

They followed the moving arrow on the map, which was also moving in sync with Veronika’s pace. It showed their positions as four moving blue dots inching closer to the red-dot spot.

“Stupid humans.” Creed cussed as he sat down on a set of crates to gaze up at one of the moons, with a bottle of ale in his hand.

He rose when he heard a noisy commotion and rush of boots headed toward him. Damn, drunks. People would be sleeping. A frown creased his forehead above his middle eye as he stomped his way toward the oncoming nuisance and groaned when he saw it was Veronika and the others.

“I should’ve known.” He grumbled with a low voice.

But everyone’s attention was too focused on the red pointy arrow and map to take much notice of him. Creed sighed when his curiosity got the better of him, and he went to see what held everyone’s attention on the glowing, digital map before them.

“There’s nothing here but town wall and metal scrap.” Creed knowingly said and folded his arms across his chest.

“Um, System. What the heck are you pointing at?” Veronika thought with her mental image fixated on the pointy arrow aimed at a pile of junk before her.

Kami sniffed at the white door panel, which was leaning against some crates stacked up against the town’s metal wall. It looked like just a piece of building junk someone left lying around.

[Activating portalator protocols…] System’s voice rebounded around Veronika’s head, causing the map to wink out of sight.

Everyone shielded their eyes from the intense shimmer the door’s surface was casting. Scot blinked as he ran an analysis scan over the object.

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“My scans detect a quantum spacial code on this panel, which seems to lead to a virtual ground. Tracing source target…”

[Walk through]

“Through what?!” Veronika yelped when a digital image of the big, pointy arrow was pulsating toward the shining door.

“No venture…” Simone flashed her a big grin as she gave her a solid push through the forming space.

Veronika let out a scream and stopped when she saw herself standing in a digital replication of a white marble mansion foyer, similar to her soul library’s vestibule space.

“No gain,” Simone said as she calmly strolled through, having yanked Creed along with her. He complained, but stayed close to her.

Scot followed calmly through when his analysis had confirmed zero threats were detected.

Kami shivered and let out a few growls. He began complaining about making a mistake.

“You guys complain, but I didn’t ask you to tag along?” Veronika huffed at the others.

“Miss out on treasure? I brave this space.” Kami grunted, quickly getting over his nerves.

“You think there’s treasure here?” Her eyes widened with sparkles at the thought of treasure finds.

“Exactly. There are treasures here, but only those matching your ability will likely appear.” System appeared before them in her usual canary bird self.

“You can manifest here?”

“Precisely. We have found a portalator target to a virtual domain.”

“Oh! Portalator. A Concordat teleportation device using spacial magic, leveraging Earth Isekai protocols. A cleverly designed point technology, which folds space from one location to another. Ingenuous, but also dangerous.” Simone blurted and began rubbing her chin with thoughts on the consequences.

“Danger as in?” Veronika gulped.

“Well, teleportation always has risk. Most devices use inflight spacial modulator rearrangers to send matter at faster than light speed from one point to another. It is a matter technology, leveraging telekinetic magic to hold the space for safe travels. But sometimes body parts can go on backwards.”

Everyone was soon patting down their bodies to make sure everything was where it should be. System chuckled.

“You can be at ease. A portalator doesn’t use matter rearrangement to transport point-to-point. Time-spacial essence is used to fold space. A position is extrapolated from the devices to form the linear targets. A code allows them to activate a target path between each other. It is a low form of space travel, without flying in a ship.” System reassured them.

“It would be expensive. This technology is still considered prototype. So why would a portalator target be here?” Scot asked as he was calculating possible answers.

“Simple answer.”

System explained that the target panel appeared detached from a ship wreckage, which likely arrived within a junk drop. She suspected one of the town guards had picked it up for construction purposes, not realizing what it was.

“But my scans had detected it when we had first walked through the area.”

Creed frowned. “I think we should tell my father. We can’t have a portal door left lying around for the enemy to walk through.”

“Unnecessary. The only end point at this target path is this digital domain. And only one entry point, which we all walked through. This is a virtual shadow path arena for executive officer training during spaceflight. ”

System explained that only high profile war ships were fitted with a portalator to a virtual training domain, which existed within a sub-universe space within the Sol System, where Earth resided. The sub-universe space leveraged the scarce Bing Verslas with nitrogen and methane compounds on the Styx satellite planet to construct and hold the domain.

“We’re somewhere near Pluto?” Veronika gasped.

“Incorrect.”

System explained that the energy used to construct the domain was from Styx, which was contained on the portalator. The panel carried an imprint, or better term, blueprint of the virtual domain. But they were still within Seria’s atmosphere: standing in a replication of the blueprinted landscape, which was virtually simulated with spacial technology to form its own universe.

“But this space is a temporary residency with its own universe laws, which needs to be upheld to keep the spacial magic in balanced.”

“Is that why you can exist outside my body?”

“Correct. The virtual environment is built on synthetic materials and source codes, which uses an object-oriented language to replicate script blocks for individual interaction.”

“So this isn’t a real space?” Creed frown, struggling to grasp an understanding of where he was.

“It is and it isn’t. This space isn’t a physical plane like a planet. It’s a subspace. Like all universe laws, where intelligent existence is defined by the coalescence of matter, it leverages the portalator’s physical elements for domain construction. So to exist within the space, requires an active portalator. Once we leave this space and close the portalator, it will be deconstructed. Hence, why it’s safe from external influences. This is the only one holding up the space. I control the entrance protocols.” System confirmed.

Veronika was concerned that her friendly AI System was about to put her through another hellish level-up task. The last one had nearly killed her by bomb impact. She would rather avoid death by explosion: especially by many magical swords capable of turning a person into fairy dust.

“You can’t be weak clone fodder forever. Sooner or later you will need to level-up to survive the many dangers you will face,” System nonchalantly answered.

“Rather she stays weak. Better yet, she should’ve stayed dead.” Creed soberly commented.

“I’m so glad you’re my supportive friend,” Veronika wryly stated and groaned when a loud ding rang around her head, stirring an ache to her temples.

“Ugh, that dinging is pretty hard on the auditory nerves.” Simone groaned and sighed with relief with the ding stopped.

System’s bird image transformed into a line of digital white text, which was displayed before all of them.

[Task: Kill all monsters in the area under 30 mins. Or let them kill you all]

“What?!” Kami almost barked out his exasperation at the strange command.

“Wait. You can see this?” Veronika blurted as she pointed at the hovering task order in midair before their eyes.

“Affirmative.” Scot cordially confirmed as he inspected the state of his rifle.

She wasn’t sure whether to laugh or cry at the fact: System was a truly, ruthless, taskmaster.

“So, System, this virtual shadow path arena…” Simone gulped and clung to Creed’s arm.

System went offline. A countdown clock appeared in Veronika’s mind.

“Let’s figure out the answer as we go. The clock is on.”

Cries filled with excitement and bloodlust suddenly surrounded them. There was a lot.

“I suggest we ready our weapons,” Scot said. His eyes were scanning the surrounding area. “Enemy approaching.”

Veronika groaned when her internal bioscans had counted more than fifty fast moving red dots headed toward them. All different shapes, sizes and speeds.

“Time to fight!” Kami howled and barked to make the first attack.