Chapter 35: Entering the Metaverse
Chapter 35: Entering the Metaverse
After picking up his transmitter, Adam rushed out of the carpark.
Even though an epic sequences of battles had just taken place in the psychic world, nothing of note had happened in the real world aside from the eight people who had seemingly passed away spontaneously in that carpark.
Hence, the Mechguard officers weren\'t alerted to the incident right away.
After leaving the carpark, Adam\'s plan was to take the void rail back to Layton Academy.
However, before he had even stepped into the capsule carriage on the tracks, he received a call from Red Spider.
"Don\'t make me clean up your mess, you little rascal! Don\'t you know you have to deal with the aftermath of your actions? You released such a massive psychic domain, there\'s no way there weren\'t any innocent civilians that just so happened to get sucked into your psychic world while parking their cars! While you were fighting those hitmen, they were naturally just going to lie low and keep quiet, but they called Mechguard as soon as you left!"
"Then what can we do?"
"I already took care of it for you. In any case, you retaliated in your psychic domain, so the real-world consequences are very limited. On top of that, this is justified self-defense, so you don\'t have to worry about anything. Looks like you learned quite a few tricks from Sadou, didn\'t you?"
"You knw about that?"
"Of course I do! The pawn shop specializes in the business of intel. Otherwise, how could we possibly resolve so many problems? No matter who you come into contact with, you have to remember at all times that you are an employee of the pawn shop."
"If I\'m an employee of the pawn shop, then can I get some wages? At the moment, I have to repay 100,000 a month, and... Hey!"
Red Spider cut off the video call before Adam had a chance to finish.
"I can\'t mention money anywhere! These days, money is even more important than human lives!"
After taking a moment to consider his situation, he decided to return to the academy.
There was no other place for him to go.
After taking care of those eight hitmen, he was confident that he wouldn\'t be harassed by any low-level hitmen in the near future, but at the same time, that also meant that the next wave of hitmen to come after him were going to be a lot more powerful.
He needed to work extra hard in his training and also try to unearth the person who had put out the reward on his head in the black market.
70,000,000 really is a massive bounty...
After getting into the capsule carriage, Adam took the time to rest while mull over some things, and at the same time, he established a plan for his future, consisting of earning money, investigating certain people, and warding off assassination attempts.
If there was one thing that could address all these objectives in a relatively comprehensive manner, then it had to be...
"I think we should open a shop together. What do you think?" After returning to the academy, he immediately sought out Hook and Nie Yiyi. "We should form a team and open a psychotherapy clinic."
"What? And face anomalies all day long?" Hook asked as he sat casually in the classroom with his legs crossed. "I understand that opening a psychotherapy clinic is very lucrative, and that there\'s a lot of demand for this service, but generally speaking, that\'s a venture that only true masters of the trade can dip their toes into."
"Nie Yiyi is a master, isn\'t she?"
"Er..." Nie Yiyi blushed from embarrassment from Adam\'s praise. "I wouldn\'t call myself a master. I\'m ranked pretty high up there in the academy, but there are many people more powerful than me outside the academy."
"That\'s alright, I count as half a master as well now," Adam encouraged.
When it came to a team that he could trust, this was the best one that he could assemble at this point in time.
Nie Yiyi wasn\'t considered to be elite in the outside world, but she was certainly among the cream of the crop in the academy.
Hook was very weak, but he was extremely versatile, and adapters of his talents were very rare.
"I\'m not doing it. It\'s too dangerous. I like money a lot, but not to the point that I\'m willing to sacrifice my life for it. Given the compensation that we get for facing anomalies, it would be smarter to sign up as a hitman in the black market. There are no weak anomalies, but there definitely are weak mission targets," Hook said with a shake of his head.
He had been well and truly spooked by the scarecrow last time.
Nie Yiyi was rather tempted, but in her eyes, funding was a problem.
"On top of that, we have no storefront, whether that be in the real world or in the Metaverse, nor do we have the required licenses. It\'s going to be very difficult..."
Most importantly, neither of them were as desperate as Adam in their pursuit for power and money.
The reason why Adam had thought of the idea of opening a psychotherapy clinic was primarily due to his own unique traits.
After a great deal of contemplation, Adam decided that the quickest way in which he could improve his own power was to absorb anomalic power.
Some strange flowerpots had been implanted into his psychic body by someone, and not only were these flowerpots capable of nurturing anomalies, they were also able to allow the emotional anomalies inside to devour the power of other anomalies.
As long as he could constantly find more anomalies and defeat them to absorb their power, his own powers would enjoy a meteoric rise.
It was very difficult to encounter anomalies through other avenues for earning money, but if he were to open a psychotherapy clinic, virtually all of the patients would be sure to have some persistent trauma or fears.
Thus, by opening a psychotherapy clinic, he would be able to kill two birds with one stone, earning money while providing himself with what was essentially a cheat code in his quest for power.
"I have some interest in this subject. How about we go and take look in the Metaverse after dinner? Nowadays, opening a shop in the Metaverse is more effective than opening one in the real world."
"Of course."
.
……
Following their discussion, the three of them gathered together in a dorm room that night.
"Here\'s the 11.0 helmet that I used in the past. I can\'t believe there\'s someone in this day and age who doesn\'t own a Metaverse helmet," Hook said as he handed Adam a helmet that was reeked of excess sebum.
Adam put on the mask, and even though there was a great deal of general knowledge pertaining to the Metaverse in his mind, he had never actually logged into the Metaverse since his awakening.
One of the pieces of general knowledge that was already in his mind was how to operate a Metaverse helmet, and with the helmet acquired, he connected his consciousness with the direct neural interface. A rush of dizziness ensued, following which he entered the Metaverse.
In doing so, he arrived directly within a vast space.
The ground that he was standing on belonged to an enormous space station, and there were many people roaming over the space station. A quick inspection of his surroundings told Adam that there had to be tens of thousands of people in the nearby area alone.
While Adam was still looking around, two bursts of light flashed beside him, and Hook and Nie Yiyi also arrived.
These two were clearly already seasoned Metaverse veterans, and as soon as they arrived, they immediately headed toward a certain direction.
"Let\'s go. If we want to open a shop, then the best course of action is to visit the Trade Planet. The land on that planet is super expensive, so we won\'t be able to purchase, but we can perhaps consider renting depending on the monthly rate," Hook introduced while making his way toward a teleporter on the space station.
After bringing up the voice-activated module on the teleporter, countless holograms of planets emerged before the three of them.
Among them were planets like the Sex Planet, the Game Planet, the Beer Planet, the Baseball Planet, the Deep Sea Planet, the Horror Planet, and countless more planets that all served different purposes.
Every single one of those planets were constituent modules of the Metaverse, and many smaller modules had been embedded into those modules.
For example, Cowboy\'s game company was one of the constituent parts of the Game Planet.
"We need to go the business planet and the Trade Planet. It\'s like fucking Wall Street over there! Every single inch of land is worth it\'s weight in gold," Hook complained while entering the term "Trade Planet" into the searchbar, following which the module of a colorful planet emerged.
As soon as his hand came into contact with the module, he instantly vanished on the spot, having entered the module.
Adam and Nie Yiyi replicated this process and also entered the trade star.