Chapter 37: Hiro’s Busy Saturday (I)

After going back and forth, they decided to meet at midnight sharp tonight. To avoid any premeditated ambush, Hiro gave the other person general instructions.

He specified a certain region of the city. Still, he would only provide the specific district 40 minutes to midnight, and he would provide the exact address for the meeting 15 minutes to midnight.

This level of caution left the other party speechless, but they agreed. Moreover, Hiro also requested that both the mother and daughter needed to arrive at the meeting, and if he didn't spot them from a distance, he wouldn't show himself.

The other party agreed to this request after a few minutes of going back and forth, mainly because they understood that no one can be too careful in the Paranormal Society.

…

Just as Hiro was feeling stressed about his tight time schedule, he paused in place.

Standing by the car's rear door, Sebastian was a little confused to see his master standing there with a dazed look in his eyes.

However, Sebastian didn't dare disturb his master's thoughts, so he waited patiently.

Hiro suddenly recalled the {Time Dilation} feature in the system, and after hesitating for a while, he chose to bite the bullet and upgrade the time dilation ratio.

He quickly called out the status window for this feature. The ratio was at 4:1, and the next upgrade cost was 400 achievement points.

Hiro started upgrading without hesitation…

400 achievement points…

800 achievement points…

1,600 achievement points…

Hiro wanted to continue, but the next upgrade would cost 3,200 achievement points, but he had already spent 2,800 points from his current savings of 4,330 points.

Now, he had 1,530 achievement points left, obviously not enough to upgrade the feature once again.

However, it was sufficient for now, as the ratio had increased to 7:1 between simulation and reality. Sёarch* The Nôvel(F)ire.ηet website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.

After he finished the upgrades, he took the time to check if he could upgrade the {Treasure Scanning} feature as well.

However, the system said that he needed to discover and record treasures to upgrade the distance of the scan, and the ratio was proportional.

For example, registering 100 treasures would upgrade the scan radius to 100m, and the next level was to register 1,000 treasures to upgrade the scan radius to 1,000m.

In a sense, the system was smart enough to base all its upgrades on achievement points, as Hiro's daily life wouldn't be as diverse otherwise.

The moment Hiro and Sebastian settled inside the car, the latter asked respectfully, "Sir, what's our schedule for today?"

Hiro replied lightly, "Take me to Teacher Aiya's apartment first. Then, I need to check the new building Arabella bought for the company in the commercial district. If anything changes, I'll let you know."

Sebastian nodded without a word. As for Hiro, he closed his eyes to enter the system space, as he wanted to spend the 5 gems on a lottery box draw.

This time, his luck was incredibly good.

As the lottery box exploded with brilliant colors, a black cube emerged from the lights, and Hiro immediately focused on the small window hovering above it.

[Notice: You've obtained 1x Futuristic Multi-Purpose Quantum Watch]

[Notice: The quantum watch is installed with a compatible Artificial Intelligence Algorithm.]

[Notice: Cannot be duplicated, reverse-engineered, traced, or hacked.]

[Notice: The item is bound to the host via the system space and cannot be traded; the item will cease functionality once removed from the host's body.]

[Notice: Items that are bound to the host via the system space can be stored and extracted from the system space at will.]

…

Hiro hadn't expected that so many pop-up notifications would appear after he hit the jackpot. For a moment, his shock reached an extreme that left him unable to react.

After he reacted, he quickly summoned his previous two rewards—two portable flash drives, containing the VR capsule and the VR room technologies respectively.

"System, can I transfer data directly to my watch?" Hiro asked anxiously.

Till today, he didn't dare install this data on any computer in the real world, precisely because he was concerned about cyber security.

"Also, can you transfer apps from my phone to the watch? Can I transfer the PARA app?"

If anyone who was in the know saw the PARA app on his phone, it could also spell disaster for Hiro.

Thus, it could only be said that the multi-purpose quantum watch came at the right time.

[Notice: The watch can be used as a miniature quantum computer, it can indeed run mobile and computer applications. Do you wish to proceed with the transfer of data?]

Hiro didn't hesitate to select yes. Then, the black cube and the two flash drives faded into motes of light, congealing to take the shape of a luxurious wristwatch.

It didn't look like an electronic device at all, but rather, it resembled a meticulously designed classic watch.

Judging by the system's standards, he assumed that the gold and diamonds inlaid in the craftsmanship of the watch were real.

Although this watch didn't look the part of a futuristic technology, Hiro knew that the watch carried a transformation feature, and it would transform into a multi-purpose quantum watch with the tap of a button.

Its current appearance was only a disguise of a limited edition Patek Philippe watch to fool the public eye.

After the unpacking of the reward and the transfer of data, the watch disappeared from the system space under Hiro's eyes.

Hiro wasn't in a rush. Just now, he noticed something he overlooked in the system rewards inventory.

It was a reward from when he competed in the {Grinding} mission, and it was called a {Fantasy Crystal}.

Hiro was too engrossed in the hype of the system rewards back then, especially the game voucher, and he forgot to check the properties of this reward.

Without further ado, he pulled up the information on the {Fantasy Crystal}.

[Fantasy Crystal]: A fragment from the 10,000 fantasies. This item can be used to unlock an immaterial sub-dimension with faith energy as its foundation.

[Notice: The {Fantasy Crystal} can only be used after you've completed the storyline of a minimum of one game.]

Hiro was still trying to process the meaning of this information when he suddenly asked, "System, how am I supposed to gather faith energy? It's too dangerous!"

Although any faith with 1.2 billion devoted believers is qualified to become an established religion, the problem lies in the process of getting to 1.2 billion.

Goes without saying, not even the Lesser Deities would stand by and watch, let alone the Greater Deities and the Mainstream Deities.

[Notice: Once you've completed a game, you will receive the game's Developer Source Code as a reward; spread the game to the masses, and you'll receive faith energy as feedback from the player base in a proportional value to the number of players and their respective levels in-game.]

Hiro understood, and thus, his enthusiasm was quickly defeated.

The key factor here was that he had to wait until he completed the storyline of a game. At the moment, he was as far as he could be from completing the Legend of Babylon's storyline mode.

This won't do! Hiro made yet another resolute decision. From now on, Sunday will become my seclusion day to play, unless an extreme emergency pops up!

…

Hiro quickly left the system space.

The moment he did so, he noticed that the watch on his left hand was replaced by the quantum watch. Not only that, but the quantum watch had also changed its appearance to match his previous watch.

Other than a moment of being surprised, Hiro didn't express any other emotions on his face.

After all, Sebastian was keeping an eye on him through the rear-view mirror. Although it was with good intentions, one can never be too careful.

Instead of checking the watch, he opened his phone to examine his current apps. After discovering that the PARA app was nowhere to be seen, Hiro heaved a sigh of relief.

At the very least, Hiro could consider his confidentiality to be guaranteed in the Paranormal Society, even if the PARA's millions of cloud servers were to be hacked one day.

Who's to say that his watch was the only quantum computer in the world? If anyone used a supercomputer for the sake of intelligence gathering, who can stop them?

Of course, one way to combat such a troubadour issue would be to constantly create new threads and not go online for a prolonged session.

Nonetheless, "guaranteed safety" was much better than "highly secure."

Throughout the trip to Teacher Aiya's place, Hiro kept going about his immediate and future gains from the system—doing his best to calm his turbulent emotions beneath the mask of calm.

By the time Sebastian parked the car in the designated parking lot near the apartment building, Hiro was surprised to find Teacher Aiya waiting for them downstairs on the street.

Hiro quickly went up to her and asked, "I take it you know the man in the photo?"

Teacher Aiya was obviously perturbed as she nodded her head and answered in a soft, tired voice.

"My roommate's boyfriend."