Prisoners of VR

[R: I visited Kazakhstan today and entered their treasury. Talgat Musabayev's uVR Earth is safe. I confirmed its legitimacy. There are no signs of tampering done to it. So, Rakshat Gupta's existence makes no sense. He's an unregistered DOVA Agent.]

'This makes no sense.' Rahu frowned and replied.

[I: Did the Kazakhstan government sell his 3D Avatar to someone?]

[R: I obviously inquired about that, but they haven't done anything of the sort. I looked into their records to verify it. The 3D Avatar's source died long ago, so it's not possible to create a new model out of him. That leaves two possibilities.]

[I: I'm all ears.]

[R: Either Talgat Musabayev sold his 3D Avatar's data or he was compromised.]

[I: Compromised? What do you mean by that? Did you inspect his corpse?]

[R: I haven't done that yet. Not sure if any information remains after so long. But by compromised, I mean individuals like Rakshat Gupta. It's impossible to illegally create uVR Earths. The scale of the factory necessary to make them is so huge that it's easy to detect. Megasphere is constantly surveying the world through our satellites to prevent that. And creating DOVA uVR Earths is even more impossible. One DOVA uVR Earth requires as many resources as a thousand uVR Earths. Obviously, you would have thought this too.]

[I: Yeah, I did.]

[R: That means the enemy is capable of tinkering with uVR Earths to give them a DOVA uVR Earth's properties. Considering how the resource necessary for uVR Earth creation is monopolised by Pomegranate Corporation HQ in Australia, and the fact a DOVA Agent's 3D Avatar is in the hands of an unregistered DOVA Agent, we can only conclude that there's a leak in the source.]

[I: I dare not imagine a problem with Megasphere. That would be terrifying. We aren't even authorised to approach anywhere close to Australia.]

The production plant of uVR Earths was in Australia. There only existed one plant in the world, and it was here, with a production capacity ranging between 10-15 million uVR Earths a month.

The primary resource used in an uVR Earth was an artificially created compound. And the raw materials necessary to produce this were present only on this continent. The scarce resources scattered throughout the world had long since been mined and transported to Australia.

Currently, Australia was transformed into a manufacturing hub solely in possession of Pomegranate Corporation. Its strategic location meant it couldn't be invaded or attacked by any nation. All manufacturing facilities of Pomegranate Corporation were in Australia.

The only people allowed to live here were employees of the corporation and their families. They had to follow strict rules. First of all, they were forbidden from leaving the continent. Second, they couldn't leak any pictures of the continent on the internet. Of course, as Megasphere monitored their actions, leaking any information on the internet wasn't possible.

These people worked on maintaining and running Pomegranate Corporation, developing new products, and finally, working on basic maintenance of the facility where the supercomputer of Megasphere was installed.

There existed drones and androids to perform any and all manual tasks required by Megasphere, from mining resources to building structures. As the world's greatest AI oversaw everything, there should virtually be no blind spots.

[R: Recently, I have been attacked by strange people. They seemed like members of a cult and were dedicated to killing me. I fear it's Manav orchestrating things behind the scenes. I don't know what he did, but if a loophole exists in Megasphere's vision, he has firmly grasped hold over it.]

Rahu could immediately recall two incidents. First was Rakshat Gupta, an unregistered DOVA Agent. Second was Mahesh. As a civilian equipped with a civilian uVR Earth, he was able to unleash Induced Reality, albeit for a short duration. And the one to appear from that as a 3D Avatar was Manav himself.

Both instances operated beyond the norm. As the technology behind uVR Earth was closely guarded by Megasphere, Rahu couldn't even begin to understand just what Manav did to unleash such a phenomenon.

Secondly, he had yet to figure out the connection between Manav and Rakshat Gupta.

[I: I fear that's the case. It seems we need to look into uVR Earths as a whole.]

[R: That won't be easy. Other than that, did you interrogate Rakshat Gupta? He's our only solid lead.]

[I: I'm still working on that.]

[R: Alright, I'll be waiting for an answer. I'll look into things on my side too.]

The communication ended there as Rahu contemplated things for a few minutes before exiting his room. He walked to a nearby ward where Rakshat Gupta was kept sedated.

Induced Reality-Dark Room!

Rahu unleashed his ability and observed that the effects of the previous Dark Room still existed on Rakshat Gupta. Dark Room was an ability with lingering effects, since it overpowered the body's senses to make them feel as if they were in a dark room with no light, sound, smell, and even gravity.

The lingering duration of the effect varied from person to person. At its full power, Rakshat Gupta was under its effects for more than four days. Since he was in a sedated state, the effects wore off slowly.

Induced Reality-Inverse Perception!

Rahu arrived at Rakshat Gupta's Virtual Space. It was the default grassland with a waterfall. The only difference was within the house located adjacent to the river. The interior was modern and futuristic.

There were some books in the living room, a computer that contained some games, and a bunch of videos, from educational to straight-up erotic. Rahu had already gone through them all and failed to find anything useful.

Attached to the living room were two bedrooms. Chained to the ground in one was the masked man, Rakshat Gupta's 3D Avatar. It was originally able to move in the Virtual Space, but Rahu had chained it there.

The masked man hadn't eaten anything and had grown visibly weaker. But once his condition falls below certain parameters, he would be reset. The body would immediately recover to its pristine state by consuming some brainpower.

Rahu had interrogated the masked man. But all he had were the memories and experiences of the original 3D Avatar in its nascent form-right after it had been created. So, that too was a bust.

But, Rahu did learn that every time Rakshat Gupta arrived at the Virtual Space, he entered a basement. The entrance to the basement was in the second room. There was a piano in the centre and only by playing a musical piece at a certain rhythm would the door open.

He gained this information through interrogation because, right before boarding the airplane to confront Rahu, Rakshat Gupta had entered the basement. But as he sent the masked man away whenever he did so, the latter didn't know of the details about the basement.

As usual, Rahu played the musical piece and entered the path leading to the basement. He walked down the flight of stairs that numbered two hundred and arrived before a steel wall.

There was a twenty-four-digit number lock on it. Only by turning the twenty-four digits to the right number would the safe open. Rahu couldn't find the number to that.

He flipped the place upside down and still couldn't find any clues regarding it. The masked man had no idea about the safe, not to mention the pin.

If Rakshat Gupta frequently entered the safe, there would be traces. Fingerprints, minute traces of wear and tear, etc. That would have been the case in the real world, but here, it seemed after every time he entered and left the safe, Rakshat Gupta simply reset the safe, thereby returning it to a pristine state.

It was why Rahu had no clues to proceed forward with. The walls of the safe were three metres thick. The primary material was steel, but it was also layered with other elements to make it foolproof.

Bombing, laser, drill, etc. Rahu employed a variety of tricks. But the moment he began to do some damage, the safe would start to heal. It did this by consuming Rakshat Gupta's brainpower. If Rahu's actions consumed all his brainpower, then Rakshat Gupta's body would forcibly produce more.

This might impair his brain and even cause his body to go into cardiac arrest. Rahi's earlier attempts almost killed Rakshat Gupta, so he could only take on a conservative approach.

There were explosives strong enough to destroy this safe, but they might also destroy whatever was hidden within. But more than that, if he brought in a nuclear explosive, just to process the explosion might consume so much of Rakshat Gupta's brainpower that his brain would simply implode.

Therefore, his last option was to manually input the numbers on the number lock until he got the correct combination.

Even Rahu wasn't sure as to when he might succeed. He had been at it for a month already. After a couple of hours, he stopped, sighing when he received a message from an unknown sender.

[The Dungeon Boss revived]

'I can only resume this once I'm done with my task at Worldcraft.' It took high priority as too many things in the future would be influenced by it, most of which fell under his line of work.

Upon confirming the state of Dark Room's effect on Rakshat Gupta, Rahu returned to his cabin and slumped on the berth he had asked Ashok to install there. Closing his eyes, he counted to three before he fell asleep and arrived at Larkrood Village.