THE STRONGEST NEXULYTE

"You're going back already, why don't you come with me then?"

A familiar jovial voice sounded from behind them. Sir Peter's hand paused before he could touch the button while Ivan and his group members hated their steps as well, all of them turned around to look at the same time to confirm the voice that they just heard.

"Tower Master?!" Sir Peter's eyes widened when he saw James walking toward them; he immediately stood straight and saluted.

Ivan, Ralph, Glen, and Karin were surprised to see James, they also saluted. Clint, on the other hand, wore a cold expression while saluting as well.

James was the Tower master of the Owen Tower HQ after all so Karin and Clint knew him too.

James had a kind smile on his face as he walked over with both hands behind his waist, his eyes roaming their faces.

"I heard you finished your mission; I was told that you did well; Well done, everyone," James said to them, his tone was very gentle.

Glen, Ralph, and Karin showed confident expressions as they were praised by the Tower master. Meanwhile, Ivan's face was calm, and Clint's face turned colder.

James turned to look at Sir Peter.

"You can return to what you were doing, I'll take them back myself since I was planning on returning as well." He said.

Sir Peter straightened up and accepted the order while saluting, he quickly escaped right after.

After Sir Peter left, James turned back to look at Ivan's group as he stepped toward the Meta ring.

" So how was the mission?" He asked while pressing the buttons on the metal rings.

" It was all right," Ivan responded plainly.

The metal ring opened with a hissing sound and created a part for them to approach the squirming mirror gate.

James stepped toward it and the rest followed behind him.

" You didn't encounter any difficulty during your first mission, right? I made sure to try and help you get an easy mission for your first time in the dreamscape." James smiled at them.

" It was fine, we didn't face any difficulty." Stated Ivan.

James nodded before asking about the other's well-being and how they fared during the mission. Glen and Karin were excited to receive the concern of the tower master and answered energetically with sparkling eyes.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

Ralph's response was calm and he wasn't overly excited as the other two. Clint was the most shocking, he directly ignored James' question.

The others were surprised by this action but didn't ask, at least not in front of the Tower master.

James didn't seem to mind this and walked into the mirror gate, he immediately vanished into it. The group also approached and walked into it as well; it was their second experience using a mirror gate, and they could not help but marvel at the surreal feeling when they passed through it.

They appeared on the other side instantaneously, and a wave of fresh air crashed into them. When they appeared outside the mirror gate inside the base of the real world, they all felt alive and free; the five of them couldn't help but breathe in deeply.

"Ah, it's so good to be back; I've missed the real world so badly," Glen said while making sobbing sounds.

"Same here, same here. I feel like I've been locked in a cave for years." Karin nodded her head in agreement with Glen's words as the two of them sucked in the oxygen hungrily.

Ivan looked at the two of them with a small smile on his face, he felt the same way as the two but did not think it was enough to overreact like them. Ralph facepalmed at the two and let out a sigh.

"Once again, welcome to the real world from your first mission." James, who was standing a few meters ahead of them and had already opened the metal ring said to them.

The group looked toward him and immediately walked over, leaving the area of the mirror gate.

It was daytime in the real world when they returned and the bright sun was hanging high in the sky, bathing the base with harsh sunlight.

The group looked around, they saw many Nexulytes moving around in protective body suits and black uniforms; the situation here was more peaceful and wasn't as intense as the situation on the other side of the mirror gate.

They could see that the base had been expanded and more structures had been built in the base. They could also hear loud explosive sounds in the distance, it sounded as if there was a fight going on.

"Don't bother about that. It must be a group of monsters attacking, but there are already people dealing with it." James said when he saw them looking into the distance.

The eyes of the group flashed in realization and they nodded in understanding.

"I presume that you'll want to return immediately instead of staying here in the base. After you, all have families to return to. I'll arrange for someone to take you back, you can walk around the base in the meantime." James said to them.

" Ummm, Tower master. Is there perhaps a place where we can get equipment in the base?" Ralph suddenly asked. Everyone immediately turned to look at him, surprised by his request.

James paused for a few seconds before saying.

" Yes, of course. You can go to the equipment vault to take a look, but you'll have to pay as the tower can't give out the equipment there for free; there won't be enough resources to make it for every person in the tower if that's the case." James explained before walking off.

Ralph saluted and turned around only to see Glen and Karin staring at him.

" What?" He raised an eyebrow.

" What equipment do you want to buy?" Glen asked.

" Something to defend myself," Ralph said casually.

Glen was confused and asked why he didn't just summon his undead to do the fighting; Ralph only smiled and shook his head without saying anything.

He had similar thoughts before they entered the dreamscape, but his experience insisted Region 17 opened his eyes to a whole new world. He realized that depending on his talent wasn't enough.

In a situation where his undead were being occupied by strong opponents and were temporarily unable to protect him, wouldn't it be easy for him to die if a monster that he couldn't handle with his physical strength attacked him? Besides, it wasn't every time that he would spend Nexus to summon his undead for every opponent; he didn't go through so much training for nothing.

For this reason, Ralph decided that he needed something that he could use to fight whenever the enemy was something beyond his power.

Ivan looked at his friend in silence; he seemed to have figured out Ralph's thoughts but didn't say it out loud; he silently supported it, though.

"Has anyone checked their balance yet? How much did you receive?" They suddenly heard Karin's voice. Everyone's attention was immediately drawn to this matter and they all took out their communicators from the storage devices to check their balance in their profiles.

Ivan also took out his communicator to take a look, the instant he turned it on…the screen of Ivan's communicator was flooded with message notifications.

He was stunned as he saw the hundreds of messages flashing on the screen, many of them were from a long time ago. Precisely from the time they came here for their mission.

Ivan felt strange when he saw the notifications. He didn't know a lot of people, and very few people had his contact so who could have spammed him with so many messages?

He curiously opened his communicator to see, and his eyes flashed; next to a small bubble profile was a number tag that displayed +99.

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It was from the anonymous person who had messaged him the morning after the New Year evening, the one whom Ivan regarded as a scam and didn't reply.

'Why is this person messaging so much? Don't you have anything better to do with your time?' Ivan thought to himself with a frown.

"Ivan, is everything all right?"

He suddenly heard Ralph's voice and raised his head, he saw that everyone was staring at him after hearing Ralph's question. Ralph had apparently seen him frown all of a sudden and couldn't help but ask.

"Yes, I'm good. Don't worry about me." Ivan waved his hand and returned his gaze to the communicator before opening the anonymous person's message. Ivan's expression turned strange again when he saw the long line of messages.

He started scrolling with his thumb and his expression turned even more strange.

Most of the messages were asking about his well-being, like: "How are you?" "Good day," "Good morning (afternoon, evening)," "Good night, sweet dreams," "Are you in the dreamscape yet?" "Stay safe," "Please respond when you get back," "Not back yet?"...

Ivan felt weird reading the messages; there was nothing important in any of the messages, and everything was this person asking about his well-being and wishing him to be safe.

'Who is this person? So persistent' Ivan wondered inwardly as he thought of the people who had his contact. Of everyone he knew, only Glen would be crazy enough to do such a thing, and that was even a guess, as he wasn't entirely sure.

As for their families, they had no reason to send him so many messages.

'It can't be Miss Elora either, she's not so free.' Ivan thought.

At the mention of Miss Elora in his mind, Ivan's heart skipped a beat, and memories with Kira flashed appeared in his mind.