A Visit.

7 days later...

"Recovery complete. Hibernation ending in 3...2...1..."

Alex opened his eyes inside the System space.

"System?"

"Yes?"

It appeared at his side and asked,

"Were we able to get the gun in time?"

"You were."

The weapon appeared in front of him. Alex looked at her and asked,

"How severe is the damage?"

"Not so severe anymore. You are almost healed."

"What?"

"Oh yes. I forgot to mention. I couldn't bring you back inside the system space because your mind was all hazy after the shockwave. You were in a coma while I was busy healing your body up."

"For how long?"

"7 days. It could have been more, but I gave your brain a jump-start."

"Fair enough. Did anything happen while I was out?"

"Not sure. I could only sense the people within 2 meters of you."

"Who did you sense?"

He was curious.

"Jin, Lei, Mei, and Sylvia."

"She is here?"

"Of course she is. You are her son."

Alex sighed and said,

"I'll open my eyes now."

He disappeared from the system space. After a few seconds, his eyes opened.

Mei was sleeping by his hand. Alex felt weak, but he managed to place his hand on her head.

She opened her eyes almost instantly. She raised her head, only to find that he was staring at her.

"Help me up."

"No. You need to rest."

"I'll do it myself."

He placed his hands helped himself up. He was struggling, so Mei stepped in.

"Can't you just listen to me for once?"

"You stink."

He commented. She had not left this room for more than 10 minutes ever since Alex had been brought in.

"What a way to say thank you. You truly are a gentleman."

She adjusted his pillow and helped him lean on it.

"There, happy?"

She was angry. Instead of being thankful, he was behaving like a brat.

"Thank you."

Alex decided to stop fooling around.

"W-what?"

The sudden shift in attitude caught her off guard.

"You took care of me while I was out. While I can't say that I can repay you, I sincerely wanted to thank you for your efforts."

He lowered her head slightly and said,

"Thank you."

His words broke through her defenses like a stone through the glass.

"Don't mention it. I am sure that if you were in my place, you would have done the same."

Alex seriously doubted that, but he didn't say anything out loud.

"Is my mother here?"

"How did you know?"

Alex flashed his cheeky smile.

"Clever guess."

Mei sighed. That moment of seriousness lasted far too short for her liking.

"She is in a meeting with the master. I will go and inform them of your condition."

"Nah. Don't disturb them."

"If I don't inform them, master could punish me for my tardiness."

Alex clicked his tongue and said,

"Tch. Teacher's pet."

Mei really wanted to smack him on his head and send him into a coma once again.

"You will recover one day. My fist will be waiting."

She said before turning around to leave.

"Only if you can defeat me first."

He said that as she left.

'My flirt skill is at least legendary rank, right?'

'Don't kid yourself. I don't classify flirting as a skill.'

System responded.

A few minutes later, the group arrived.

In this situation, a girl he knew for no more than a month was more worried about him. Sylvia just looked at him and asked,

"Did you complete the mission?"

Alex was confused, but he answered without faltering.

"Yes."

Sylvia smiled and said,

"Well done. Now, as soon as you finish your recovery, the collective expects a briefing from you. Do you understand?"

"I understand."

Sylvia looked towards Lei and said,

"I will be leaving now. Take care of him."

Lei nodded but didn't speak. Jin was standing there like a statue, looking at Alex with mixed emotions.

She walked towards the door, turned around and said,

"Girl, make sure that he doesn't leave this room for at least another week."

Mei didn't like Sylvia. She wasn't a good mother in her eyes. But for the sake of respect, she said,

"I won't let him out of my sight."

"Man..."

Alex groaned. He wanted to go back to his cell.

----------------------------------------------------

"How do you like it?"

Lucius felt like he could see the future unfold in front of his eyes. His son had made something extremely terrifying.

"Do we have the technology to implement this?"

He folded his arms and looked towards his wife.

"Not at full capacity. For now, we can only test this in a large city at best."

"What if we duplicate the program and use individual systems to maintain a local network for now?"

Steven was ready with his idea.

"We can't do that."

Clara said.

"Why?"

Lucius agreed with Steven. They could create several duplicates to implement the program all over the globe and slowly merge them.

"You both don't understand. We need to polish this and wait for a perfect moment for implementation."

"But no one would be able to trace us down. Our technology is superior."

"Wouldn't distributing the program all over the world make it more vulnerable to cracking?"

Steven went silent.

"We need to show this program to the collective."

Clara frowned.

"No need to do that. We will work on it and make it a better program. Meanwhile, try not to spread the word. We need to have it working if we want to impress them."