It was currently sunset.
The afterglow of the setting sun burned the sky a fiery red, intertwining with the newly lit neon lights of downtown Riverton to create an ambiguous purplish-red hue.
Today was clear with high visibility, and from this angle, one could even faintly see the sights of the city center dozens of kilometers away.
Buildings stood densely and numerously, elevated bridges wound around the city’s torso, and the after-work traffic flowed endlessly upon them like the city’s blood vessels.
However.
In front of the huge building at the very center, all the surrounding structures appeared much lower.
At the top of a thousand-meter-tall gray tower-like building, four huge white metal blades were slowly rotating driven by the wind.
Whether in the bustling central business district or the city’s suburbs, as long as one looked up, they could basically see this building named “Riverton Tower”.
Eighteen years ago, this building was completed and erected, and the name of Riverton originated precisely from this.
To outsiders, this was an industrial miracle difficult to replicate, but to Riverton locals, it was a commonplace landmark and an urban totem deeply ingrained in their bones.
The two walked forward along the bustling street, and before long, they arrived at an old apartment complex.
Passing by the shade of the trees downstairs, those old men playing chess immediately swarmed over eagerly the moment they saw Alex Morgan, exclaiming all at once.
“Ah-Morgan! That Willian Dawson hasn’t dared to show his face in the neighborhood around here for the past few days ever since he lost to you a few days ago!”
“Ha, he even bragged about being an amateur 9th-dan, but you blew him out of the water in five minutes.”
“The expression on his face is something this old man still remembers now!”
One of the old men chuckled and rubbed his bald head: “If there’s such a matter next time, I’ll have to trouble you again, and of course I won’t forget the usual rules.”
Alex Morgan nodded and walked toward the stairwell carrying the bag.
“Amateur 9th-dan… Are you guys talking about Chinese chess?”
Following closely behind Alex Morgan, Hailey Morgan’s desire for inquiry was practically bursting out: “You beat an amateur chess player?”
Alex Morgan was noncommittal.
Or rather, she couldn’t be bothered to prove herself.
Hailey Morgan widened her eyes: “I thought the gaming master you talked about every day was just bragging or a case of adolescent delusions, but I didn’t expect you to actually win against an amateur chess player. Where did you learn your chess skills? Did you learn them since childhood?”
——Amateur was only relative to professional chess players; between amateur chess players and ordinary enthusiasts, there was often a huge gap in strength.
“Chess.com”
Alex Morgan took out the key she had prepared long ago and replied without turning her head.
“Is this… the name of a chess academy?” Hailey Morgan was puzzled.
“In QQ Games.”
“…Huh?”
What on earth was QQ Games?
Was it that kind of game shop place after school?
Or some arcade hall?
Hailey Morgan was stunned for a moment, feeling she probably figured it out, and then became even more excited instead: “By self-studying purely in a game, you managed to beat an amateur chess player. Could you possibly be that kind of novel protagonist? You touched a blood-stained Chinese chess board in your hometown’s warehouse, and then were possessed by the Soul of a chess saint from a thousand years ago, all for that legendary move of the gods?”
“You’re thinking too much.”
Click.
Along with the soft sound of the key turning, Alex Morgan pushed open her own apartment door.
Hailey Morgan was extremely quick to make herself at home, slipping right in in a flash, standing at the entryway, her big eyes darting around to survey the surroundings.
The furnishings inside the room were unexpectedly simple, one could even say somewhat empty, with no excess clutter.
The wooden floor was mopped spotless, exuding a cold and monotonous vibe.
But this cleanliness could not conceal the heavy sense of a bygone era filling the room.
In the center of the living room stood a dark red solid wood square table with a bulky style, looking like one of those old items popular more than a decade ago.
The varnish on the tabletop had long since peeled off, revealing the mottled wood grain underneath, and the corners were polished slick from long-term use, while the cushions of the matching wooden chairs were also slightly sunken.
Only the area in the corner of the wall appeared somewhat rugged—neatly stacked there were a pair of adjustable-weight dumbbells, a power rack, a few resistance bands, and a hand gripper polished to a shine.
During this moment of observation, Alex Morgan had already walked into the kitchen.
Just as Hailey Morgan turned around intending to close the door, the moment her hand touched the door handle, her movements paused slightly.
Not paying attention earlier in the dim light of the stairwell, the outside of this door was plastered with shoddy flyer advertisements for “Professional Locksmithing”, “Dredging Sewers”, and “Document Forgery”.
It looked dirty, perfectly blending into this dilapidated tube-shaped apartment building.
But only standing inside the room at this moment did Hailey Morgan discover that this was actually a brand new and sturdy security door, with the door frame even reinforced extra, just camouflaged extremely well.
She gently closed the door, listening to that thick and dull closing sound, a meaningful smile curving at the corner of her mouth.
Classmate Alex Morgan, you might as well just write the four words “I have secrets” across your face.
But…
since that’s the case, why were you still willing to let me in?
Hailey Morgan didn’t know what she thought of, but her mood instantly became extremely good.
She kicked off her sandals, completely disregarding whether the floor was clean or not, and with her fair, tender little bare feet, went patter-patter to the side of Alex Morgan who was busy in the kitchen, asking curiously: “Alex Morgan, what was that usual rule the old man mentioned just now?”
“Go put on the slippers in the shoe cabinet. I just mopped the floor before going out.”
“Tch.”
Hailey Morgan stuck out her tongue, but she was obedient enough to go put on the slippers.
“He’s the landlord here; the whole building belongs to him.”
Alex Morgan began to sort and arrange the groceries she had bought, answering, “He made an agreement with me: win a game, next month’s rent is halved, so I just handled it.”
Alex Morgan suddenly uttered a sentence that would sound baffling to ordinary people: “Simply put, it’s just doing some time-efficient side quests.”
Hailey Morgan, however, understood what this fellow was talking about, and her eyes suddenly lit up:
“Since you play live-action games in reality and like doing quests to get rewards, wouldn’t it be even better if you play the ‘boyfriend game’ with me and I give you rewards?”
“The rent for this old place tops out at fifteen hundred a month. How about I calculate it for you as eight hundred for five minutes, and ninety-six hundred for an hour? Of course, during this period, you must obey any instructions from this Young Miss.”
“If you perform well and please me, doubling it wouldn’t be out of the question either.”
As she spoke, she raised her head, a pretty arc curving at the corner of her mouth, looking like she had caught Alex Morgan’s tail.
Yet what she saw was only the youth’s sympathetic gaze of “Are you stupid?”, and she said with extreme righteous confidence:
“Playing games is for entertainment, not to wrong oneself, and things like dating aren’t worth me wasting time on.”
“…”
The smug look on Hailey Morgan’s face froze for a moment.
She gnashed her little canine teeth, thinking inwardly that this fellow truly wouldn’t budge to any reasoning, and could only forcibly change the subject: “So, are you really not considering developing in the direction of a professional chess player?”
“Meaningless.”
Having witnessed the development of artificial intelligence in her past life, Alex Morgan shook her head: “Nor am I particularly good at this kind of purely mental game.”
The top Go star of her past life, the youngest eight-crown king, had ultimately also developed in an abstract direction.
Hailey Morgan seemed to have some realization, glanced at the chicken breast she took out from the refrigerator, along with the neatly chopped vegetables, and thought thoughtfully:
“So, is this why you, a ‘gaming master’, still need to exercise? Because you want to study games that require physical coordination and nerve reflex speed, like darts, bowling, or things like that?”
“Not entirely.”
Alex Morgan’s expression was calm as she used one hand to take out four eggs from the egg carton.
Exerting force with her fingertips, she gave the eggshells a gentle knock against the rim of a bowl, and the egg liquid slid into the bowl with a precise and steady motion, without any redundant trembling.
“What is it for then?”
“In order to transform into Ultra○.”