Chapter 8: Chapter 8: The Glitch
As the council meeting ended, Seren found himself filled with questions. He hesitated for a moment, then spoke up. "Why does everyone look transparent?"
Before anyone could respond, a sudden chill swept through the room. Seren's vision blurred as a pop-up window appeared in his system interface, flashing red with an alarm sound blaring in his ears. The words "Error" flashed repeatedly, accompanied by a countdown that began ticking down from 10.
Panic gripped Seren as he watched the numbers decrease: 9, 8, 7... Sweat beaded on his forehead, and his heart raced with fear. What was happening? Why was there an error?
As the countdown reached zero, a new sound emerged? a calm, feminine voice. "Errors identified. Errors identified. Errors correction. Errors identified; correction failed. Insufficient energy."
Seren's mind raced, trying to make sense of the situation. The voice continued, "Error... insufficient energy."
The voice was familiar, yet he couldn't place it. Where had he heard it before? After a moment of frantic thinking, he remembered, the voice belonged to the Artificial Intelligence, named Aiko, from his former company. It had assisted him during the experiments before the explosion.
"How is this possible?" Seren wondered aloud. "The server was in Japan, not France. How did Aiko follow me to this world?"
His thoughts were interrupted as Aiko's voice cut through his confusion. "System restart. Start of the Reboot."
Seren's world went black for a few seconds, a void of nothingness enveloping him. When he regained his senses, a new window appeared: "Reboot success. The bare of the correction go up to 5 % Error correction smoothly but another warning arrived, Errors identified: correction unfinished. Insufficient energy."
Seren mumbled " 5 % correction? what energy Aiko used to make the corrections"?
Aiko's voice returned, calm and steady. "Recalculation, solution calculated, 10 possibility of energy design. Recalculation…." For 5 min Aiko repeated the process until she said "Seren. I am Aiko. Energy need resolved. "
Seren looked around, noticing that everything around him was frozen in time. The council members were motionless, their expressions suspended in the moment.
After a brief silence, Aiko continued, "Mission 1: Finish the tasks of the 9 leaders in a maximum of 7 years. Reward: Fragment of the capital of the Astralis Empire."
"Fragment of the capital? in 7 years max?" Seren wondered aloud. "What does that mean?"
Aiko responded, "Ten fragments of the capital are scattered around the island. Completing the ten missions will restore the system's full functionality. PS: FINISH THE MISSION EARLEARà SPECIALD REAWARD / UNKOWN".
Seren's mind buzzed with questions, but before he could ask, Aiko fell silent. After ten seconds, a new countdown appeared, and as it reached zero, the world around him resumed.
Seren said "she can't answer all my energy I think either the error is stopping Aiko from responding to me or the system is limited not like her original functionality in earth. Let's so how everything goes I will think slowly, when I get back to my room."
The council members looked at Seren expectantly. "What did you want to ask?" Thalor inquired.
Seren quickly composed himself, deciding to change his question. "When will the training start?"
General Kael, the seasoned strategist, answered with a nod. "You'll start with me first. We believe two years is enough to enhance your physical and tactical knowledge. Let's begin tomorrow. Meet me at six in the morning at the coliseum. You can ask the little elf, Lyra, to show you the way."
Seren nodded, his mind still reeling from the encounter with Aiko.
Seren said" it's weird that the discussion with 9 exiled community leader looks duller now after the reboot then when I arrived at the meeting with them". I don't understand the actual situation,
Serene was thinking that maybe the energy used by Aiko was the energy of the town and maybe that he's in area like half illusion half reality.
Serene mumbled "weird, weird... so, freaking weird".