Vlad tried to stop Yelena as she left his room, but no words ca out. He opened his mouth, but all that escaped was a broken, soundless gasp. His body felt powerless, overwheld by emotion too heavy to put into words.
He pushed the blanket off and stepped down in a hurry, fearing his sister would be gone if he did not stop her, but his legs gave away, and he fell face-first onto the floor.
He did not care about the fall or his current state, and in pure desperation, he scrambled to his feet, crawling and clawing his way toward the door.
He used the door to get back up and pulled it open with all the strength he could muster, making it slam against the wall. His breath was ragged, his chest heaving as he looked for his sister.
And there she was.
Yelena stood in the hallway, looking back, blinking in surprise at his sudden appearance.
Vlad froze, his grip tightening on the doorfra as the world around him seed to blur. His mind refused to believe what he was seeing, his years of experience roaring at him that she was not his sister.
Yelena had died years ago.
Yet here she was, standing before him, whole and unhard, slightly younger, but there was no doubt that she was Yelena, his elder sister.
She looked at him, her light brown eyes filled with confusion and concern. She seed so real, so present, so impossibly alive that Vlad wished it to be true.
"Vlad?" Yelena said, tilting her head slightly. Her voice carried that familiar asured tone, a mix of concern and annoyance. "What’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost."
Vlad recognized it, old mories flooding his mind. When he tried to speak, his throat tightened once more, and no words escaped him.
A lot of thoughts clouded his mind. His reasoning told him that she was not real, but his instinct told him that she was.
"Vlad?" Yelena asked as she walked toward him.
Vlad pushed his thoughts aside, and without thinking, without hesitation, he lunged forward and wrapped his arms around her.
Yelena tensed in shock, but Vlad only squeezed her tighter, afraid that if he let go, she would disappear again.
"What are you....," Yelena stopped mid-sentence as she felt sothing warm and damp against the back of her shoulder.
"Vlad, what happened?" she asked, startled, seeing her brother cry and act unlike his usual self.
"You worried about the Ascension trail?" She asked, reaching the only possible conclusion.
"Hey, hey, get a hold of yourself," She said, her voice steady as she gently caressed his back, "You have already been chosen as a candidate, so your chases are a hundred tis higher than a normal person,"
"You will get chosen, and even if you are not, then there is nothing to worry about,"
"Victor will hear you, and I am sure you don’t want him to see you like this," she said, her voice uncertain, unsure of how to comfort her brother.
Vlad felt her warmth, her familiar scent, and the steady rhythm of her voice. Everything about Yelena was real. She did not feel anything like a mory, a dream, or a cruel illusion.
And then there were his surroundings: the black-and-white textured walls, the short hallway, and the gray door located on the right side.
Everything felt familiar.
His sister spoke of the Ascension trial, and he was familiar with it. How could he not be, since it was the Ascension that began the chain of events that started the Great Galactic War?
Vlad stood frozen, his mind reeling. The more he grasped his situation, the more his disbelief grew. Each realization only added to the overwhelming confusion engulfing his mind.
"I had a nightmare," He said with a weak voice, "I lost all of you."
The words ca out in a low whisper, his heart trembling as he rembered the deaths of his family.
"Everything is fine," Yelena said. Out of all the dismissive or motivating words that crossed her mind, she settled on the simplest answer.
And it worked like a charm.
The suffocating panic eating away at Vlad’s mind eased, calming his chaotic mind state and giving him enough clarity to think straight.
’Did I survive the explosion?’ Vlad questioned, not even considering that he was back in ti.
’But everything feels so real,’ He thought only to question it, ’But who knows how much hidden technology those old nobles wield,’
"Vlad," Yelena said, her voice hesitant, "We only have an hour before the trial begins, and you know how they are very strict about ti,"
Vlad hugged her tighter for a mont before letting go. "I’ll join you soon," He said, his voice steadier now.
Vlad gave her a big smile before turning around and walking into his room.
He closed the door and went straight to the shower, not bothering to check the internet, break so stuff, or break his own finger to see if he was in virtual reality because he knew it would not work.
He looked in the mirror, and sure enough, he saw his eighteen-year-old self. A young man with a height of 6.1ft, a decently built physique, a handso face frad by pitch dark hair, and ash gray eyes.
’The chances of being in a virtual reality are high, at least much higher than being in heaven/hell or back in ti,’ Vlad thought, his rational mind desperately trying to make sense of the impossible.
Vlad had lived nearly three full decades as a soldier, a few years in the MMORPG Assentation, and the rest on the actual battlefield, having lived through countless terrible situations, so it was his nature to analyze his situation.
If this were a simulation, that would an soone had saved him from certain death and reconstructed his past using his own mories with terrifying accuracy.
But to what end? Testing? Torture? Reward? To extract so information from Him?
If he was in heaven and, as a reward, given the life he wanted, then great, but hell was also the possibility, and it was possible that he would live a worse life than he did in his first life.
"Vlad, do you want to play music, or would you like to hear the news?" a thin, feminine voice sounded as Vlad stepped into the bathroom.
"Ren, just tell the date. That’s all," Vlad replied to the ho AI, already unbuttoning his shirt as he began removing his clothes.
"21 June 2147,"
Vlad smiled, knowing today was the day he relived the most in his life. If only one thing had gone differently, then maybe his family would have lived longer.
Today was the day of the third Ascension trial, and those who were chosen would earn the right to play the MMORPG Ascension, a virtual ga that was a second reality to the Galactic Empire of Zenith Hegemony.
It was not just a VR ga world like the tens of other VR gas with 100% imrsion, giving a life-like reality that was impossible to differentiate.
What made Ascension different was that it was controlled by Lucid, the Pri AI, an artificial intelligence without rival, an entity growing and learning so fast that it would never be matched or surpassed by another of its kind.
Lucid was an autonomous entity, yet its core nature was its eternal servitude to the Alliance, and Ascension was the VR world created to best serve that purpose.
To understand the importance and purpose of Ascension, one must first learn about Alliance and the purpose of Pri AI Lucid.
Humanity is at its scientific peak in the current age. The journey that began more than a century ago with lifeless rockets leaving for the moon and Mars has grown to unimaginable heights.
The great discovery of artificial intelligence, which humanity thought would make humanity obsolete, only gave them more ti and drive for innovation.
Humanity achieved biological breakthroughs, such as cellular healing, which erased nearly all diseases, and cellular regeneration, which healed any injuries.
Technology was not left behind, with great advancents ranging from AI robots to bending gravity and using it for fast travel on land and then in space to the most recent advancent of bending space and creating stable wormholes for faster-than-light travel.
Humanity had achieved all that in a short ti, but it did not do it alone; it did it with the help of the Starborn Race, its first Alien and closest ally.
The Starborn Race, a humanoid carbon-based species, first made contact with humanity in 2077.
The two species quickly ford a friendship after recognizing their comparable strength and shared scientific understanding.
Though their approaches differed, as humanity harnessed atomic energy, while the Starborn tapped into gravity as an infinite power source, their mutual respect and curiosity bridged the gap between them.
Over the last seven decades, many intelligent races have been discovered. So willingly joined them, embracing the new change and growth, while others have been forcibly subdued through conquest.
The various races were united under the banner of the Zenith Hegemony, and the ruling body that governed the empire was known as the Alliance.
While the empire had over twenty intelligent races, the Alliance only had eleven seats, each one reserved for the chosen leaders of the eleven highest-ranked races.
However, each seat held the sa voting power as the other, no matter how strong the first-ranked race was compared to the eleventh.
This system was created to keep equality above everything and make the growth of the Empire as a whole the first priority of everyone.
Now, the Pri AI Lucid.
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