[Tier EX - Akashic Terminal]
Alphonse's golden eyes shone blindingly. In an instant, his consciousness was transported to a realm that defied human comprehension.
In this place, there was neither sky nor earth. He stood in the center of an infinite expanse of light. The floor beneath his feet was as clear as tranquil water.
Beneath its transparent surface lay a breathtaking cosmic panorama—clusters of brilliant stars and slowly rotating galaxies.
Every time Alphonse took a step, the floor rippled gently. The water's ripples emitted a golden luminescence that spread outward, dancing across the canvas of the solar systems below.
Gigantic pillars of light towered around him, holding up the void. Between these pillars, countless books made of pure, radiant light floated freely.
The books moved to their own rhythm, drifting through the space like swimming fish. On the cover of each luminous tome, a name was clearly inscribed.
One book floated low, passing straight through Alphonse's shoulder like an illusory projection.
Simultaneously, the fleeting sound of a young child's joyful laughter echoed in his ears. Alphonse glanced at the title on the cover of the book that had just passed him: Theodore Harrison.
It was a record of a soul. The footprint of an individual's existence.
Alphonse continued his steady march toward the center of the space. He looked down, staring at his right hand. A glowing book had been resting in his grasp the entire time.
Inscribed on its cover was the name: Alexander Fonseca.
As Alphonse opened the pages of the tome, the sheets of light projected a three-dimensional image of himself—a man draped in black robes with a monocle, standing beneath a giant oak tree with glowing golden eyes.
He flipped to the previous page. The page displayed a man in an expensive tailored suit, standing behind a mahogany desk in a luxurious penthouse overlooking a metropolis.
The pages began to flip faster, projecting a sequence of vivid scenes into the empty air.
The image shifted to the atmosphere of a massive conference table. The man in the expensive suit sat at the head of the table, surrounded by multinational corporate executives. They looked at him with a mixture of stiff reverence and restrained greed in their eyes. Above their heads, digital stock projections fluctuated wildly.
The scene shifted again. Now the image displayed a complex stream of Real Money Trading (RMT) data, resembling a matrix of light.
Alphonse watched the projection of thousands of transactions, corporate caravans moving across the digital map of Orion Online. Meanwhile, in the background, a real-world vault was being stuffed to the brim with stacks of cash and gold bullion. The image depicted absolute control over trillions in digital assets.
A final image emerged: an exclusive banquet.
Faceless figures bearing the name tags of "Politicians" and "Tycoons" approached Alexander's projection. They did not speak with words; instead, they offered parchments of distribution monopoly contracts or begged for the protection of their in-game caravans.
The image showcased the embodiment of a king spanning two worlds.
However, as Alphonse stared at these images, he realized one crucial fact. Alexander Fonseca's power on Earth was entirely bound by server cables, civil laws, and stacks of paper contracts. The man in the expensive suit was merely the administrative facade of the true Player entity.
Now, that server was disconnected forever. The billions of dollars in stocks and contracts on Earth in those images now felt like meaningless dust.
In this new world, monetary wealth could not stop the swing of a sword, and political connections could not control the flow of magic.
The only thing relevant to his survival and his return to absolute dominance was his identity as a Player and the Guild Master of Pioneer. The avatar had now become the true entity.
Alphonse slammed the glowing book shut with one decisive motion. The images shattered into pixels of light before fading into nothingness.
His gaze turned razor-sharp, leaving behind not a single speck of doubt or regret for the earthly wealth he had left behind.
"Alexander Fonseca is dead," he stated softly, yet firmly.
"The one living and breathing right now is Alphonse."
As if responding to his declaration, the book in his hand glowed radiantly. The letters on its cover melted, rearranged themselves, and locked in his new identity: Alphonse.
He resumed his steps, finally arriving at the core of the mental space.
Hovering before him was a colossal geometric structure composed of overlapping rings of light, spinning on different axes like a miniature model of the center of the universe.
"The Cosmic Mandala," Alphonse murmured.
He stared at the grand structure with a sense of familiarity. This room was not much different from the interface space when he was in the game—the place where he spent countless hours squeezing the secrets of the universe from the Akashic Records.
Yet, the atmosphere here felt far more mysterious, far heavier, and undeniably real.
Akashic Terminal. This was the pinnacle skill of his Unique Job Awakening: Akashic.
This was the very foundation of how Alphonse—who in the real world was just Alexander, a nobody before his rise—managed to build a guild of twenty-three members, all of whom possessed a Unique Job Awakening, himself included.
Unlike normal job classes, a Unique Job only had one slot in the entire game; no other player could possess the same class.
Knowledge is power, and Alphonse held the master key to the universal library that recorded all the world's secrets.
However, truth was never given freely.
From the very first second his consciousness was pulled into this space, Alphonse could feel his Mana reserves slowly draining, siphoned purely to maintain his presence in this realm.
In the game, every piece of information demanded a toll paid in Mana. Asking for the location of the nearest water spring might only cost a fraction.
However, asking for the coordinates of a Phantasmal Artifact could dry up his entire Mana pool in an instant. The cost was determined by how drastically the information would impact the balance of the world.
Alphonse cleared his mind. He looked at the Cosmic Mandala before him and asked his first question.
"Identify the world my physical body is currently in, and explain how my body shares the exact appearance of my game character."
The Cosmic Mandala responded. Its rings of light spun rapidly, emitting a piercing hum.
In the empty air, projections of recent memories formed. Alphonse saw the visual of his original body on Earth, lying stiffly inside the Gaming Pod capsule.
Suddenly, the heart rate monitor beside the capsule flatlined. The numbers blinked to zero. The shrill sound of a medical siren pierced the room.
The image shifted rapidly. Now the visual showed his final seconds in the Starlight Castle war room. As the server shutdown was announced, his game character and the entire building faded, shattering into pixels of light.
The image changed once more. A vast expanse of space stretched out. Multicolored stars fell like a meteor shower, plummeting toward the land of an unknown world.
As the meteors struck the earth, there were no explosions; their light merely faded, weaving flesh, bone, and fabric, leaving behind the visual of Alphonse opening his eyes in the Eastern Forest.
As the projection ended, a stream of information pierced his brain, like a light bulb forcefully switched on inside his skull.
[Your soul has transmigrated to an alternate world named Orion. The laws of reality within Orion detected your soul's resonance and wove a physical vessel that adopted the form of the last game character you played.]
Alphonse flinched. He drew in a cold breath, his chest heaving violently as he felt half of his total Mana reserves instantly siphoned away.
His legs trembled slightly, struggling to bear the weight of the sudden energy void.
"One single question just consumed half my Mana," he hissed, fighting off a wave of dizziness. "But at least I now truly understand my current condition."
Just as he deduced, since his final moments were spent in the war room with all the core members of Pioneer experiencing the exact same forced logout, he couldn't have been thrown into this world alone.
Without wasting a second, Alphonse asked his second question. "How many Players transmigrated to this world of Orion?"
The Mandala spun again. The room filled with numerous visual windows blinking rapidly like CCTV footage.
Alphonse saw Players falling from the sky to face various fates. Some landed in the middle of barren deserts, plummeted into freezing snowy plains, plunged into the center of vast, stormy oceans, dropped directly into the lairs of savage beasts, or crashed into the narrow alleys of human cities.
[There are 10,000 Players who transmigrated in the initial arrival wave.]
Alphonse felt his Mana plummet once more.
He muttered softly in his mind, Ten thousand... Did the server filter based on level? Based on wealth? Or... were these ten thousand people simply the ones logged in exactly at the moment of the server update?
But his focus honed in on the Cosmic Mandala's specific choice of words.
Wait... what does it mean by 'initial arrival wave'? Does this imply there will be a second wave, a third, and so on?
Reflexively, Alphonse opened his mouth wide, fully intending to hurl that exact question at the Akashic system.
But in the very next second, his eyes widened in sheer horror. His hand moved like lightning, clamping tightly over his own mouth, forcefully silencing his voice.
Damn it, he cursed inwardly, cold sweat drenching the forehead of his mental projection. Thank god I realized it in time.
Although the Akashic Terminal could theoretically answer any question, the law of equivalent exchange was ruthless.
Questions that attempted to pierce the veil of future destiny, or tried to read someone's unuttered inner thoughts, demanded an absurd, astronomical Mana cost.
Back in the game, Alphonse had learned a bitter lesson from his own arrogance.
When he first acquired this job, he arrogantly asked for the precise location of the Diamond Treasure Chest in a Server Event that wouldn't begin for another two days.
The result? His Mana was insufficient to pay for information from the future.
The system instantly siphoned his entire HP (Hit Points) bar as compensation, resulting in a ridiculous death where he collapsed in the middle of a city plaza without even getting an answer.
Even for a trivial question like, "Will I hit the jackpot on my first gacha pull?", the system nearly bled him dry before answering:
[No, you will not hit the jackpot.]
It was a painful answer that canceled his intention to do a hundred spins.
In the game, a ridiculous death like that was a laughing matter because the respawn system would just revive him at the nearest temple.
But in this real world of Orion? All interface systems had vanished.
If the entire game system is gone, then the respawn system shouldn't exist either, Alphonse deduced grimly.
He had absolutely zero intention of verifying whether he could come back to life after dying. He only had one life to live now.
Considering there were only ten thousand players out of Orion Online's multi-million player base currently here, he had to confirm the fate of his comrades.
"Locate the coordinates of the core members of the Pioneer Guild who landed in this world," Alphonse requested.
The Mandala spun slowly, weighing the gravity of his question. Two visual windows materialized in the air.
The first visual displayed a man in a maroon tailored suit with messy blonde hair. The man was standing on a rock in the middle of a toxic green swamp, laughing uproariously as his bow glowed golden, shooting down a pack of swamp lizards with theatrical flair.
The second visual showed a female Elf with silver hair tipped in turquoise. Wearing her asymmetrical combat suit, she marched with efficient steps through a blizzard on a freezing ice plain. Her face was completely devoid of emotion, a fragmented sword floating faithfully at her side.
[Arcus - Coordinates: (421, 183, 2). Vrischil - Coordinates: (2850, 4120, 24)]
Alphonse gasped for air. His head throbbed violently. He could feel his Mana teetering on the edge of absolute depletion.
"Only Arcus and Vrischil," he whispered softly. His other twenty members had not made it into this initial wave.
However, that sense of loss was slightly tempered by rational relief.
Given that those two were elite combat units holding Unique Job Awakenings from the Zodiac series—Arcus the Sagittarius and Vrischil the Scorpio—they were far from weak.
At least, with their survival skills and combat dominance, their lives won't be easily threatened, even if they have to clash directly with other elite players in this world.
Yet, his paranoid instincts as a Guild Master were not satisfied. He had to know the true scale of the threat.
He steadied himself, took an exceptionally deep breath, and stared at the glowing geometric structure for what would be the last time today.
"One final question," Alphonse hissed hoarsely. "How many Players out of those ten thousand... are still alive at this exact second?"
The Cosmic Mandala spun violently. The room trembled.
Various visuals of player corpses flashed rapidly before Alphonse's eyes—players who died falling into hazardous terrain, torn apart by monsters, or drowned in the deep sea.
Golden numbers floated directly in front of him.
[9,873]
One hundred and twenty-seven lives of the so-called gods of the game had been snuffed out, erased from existence within mere minutes of setting foot in this world. Death here was real, and it was permanent.
However, the price of that truth had to be paid at that very second.
The remaining Mana inside Alphonse's body was siphoned completely dry in the blink of an eye. The cost was insufficient.
Without an ounce of mercy, the dimensional space responded. A cold, cruel tug instantly gripped his heart, piercing his body's defenses and forcefully seizing his vitality to cover the outstanding toll.
The next second, the Mandala's structure dimmed. The luminous mental space cracked like a mirror struck by a hammer, then shattered into a million pieces.
Alphonse's consciousness was violently hurled back into his physical body.
Beneath the roots of the oak tree in the Eastern Forest, Alphonse collapsed forward.
Both of his hands slammed into the dirt, supporting his body, which suddenly felt as heavy as lead. His chest throbbed with agonizing pain, as if his internal organs had just been crushed by an invisible hand.
Cold sweat poured profusely from his temples. Accompanied by his erratic, heavy breathing, a warm, metallic sensation trailed down his upper lip.
Drops of blood fell endlessly, staining the leaves lying in the shadow of his face.
This was not mere exhaustion; the Akashic had just devoured a portion of his actual life span.
He wiped his nose roughly with the back of his hand, staring at the fresh blood now smeared across his glove.
When he lifted his face, the golden eyes behind his monocle—which usually radiated nothing but calm calculation—now reflected an emotion he had long forgotten.
The fear of death.