For the tasks assigned by his master, Little Henry seemed quite happy, even raising the speaker volume by half a decibel.

Of course, this might have just been Brian Carter's own imagination.

“Master, when will you be back?”

Brian Carter thought for a moment and said,

“At the latest, three days.”

“If all goes well, maybe before tomorrow night.”

……

The real world, Niuma Club group chat.

That guy in the group called “Brian” disappeared right after dropping a website link—no one knew if he logged off or was just lurking.

The topic about “fully immersive virtual reality games” had almost died down, but a few minutes ago, this guy’s move to create a small group chat brought the discussion right back.

Quit Smoking: [Damn, is this guy for real?]

This Quit Smoking was also a regular, active group member, though not an admin.

Fleet Passage: [Yeah, after you guys clicked the reservation, he made a small group and pulled all of us admins in. (scratches head)]

Fleet Passage was the group owner, so naturally he was in that small group too.

As soon as he said this, the group chat exploded.

[Damn! This is shady!]

[Do you guys know what company Brian works for? I want to report him for backdoor deals! (funny)]

[Come on, company? Last year there was a VR company among the cancer stocks, the boss lost so much he got thrown in jail! VR isn’t even the hot trend anymore!]

[Keep your voices down, Brian might be lurking. (funny)]

[What do you think he’s after? Just for a joke?]

[Who knows, maybe he’s funneling you “brothers” to a gambling site, and when there’s enough people, he’ll scam you all!]

[I don’t think this guy is up to any good! Just kick him out.]

The topic started to get out of hand.

It even escalated to personal attacks.

William Clark frowned as he watched, just about to say something when the group owner stepped in to put on the brakes.

(group-wide mute)

Fleet Passage: [Guys, don’t be like this. The new members might not know Brian, but he’s actually a good guy—just a bit bad at shooting games, a bit blind, a bit of a noob, but otherwise fine.]

Long Days Ahead: [True, I believe Brian isn’t getting into gambling or anything. Right now, we’re just not sure if his account got hacked. If it did, the admin team will handle it. I’ll retract all the messages in a bit, let’s change the topic. (smile)]

(group mute lifted)

With the owner and admins stepping in, everyone gave them face and dropped the topic, quickly switching to the European Cup.

William Clark didn’t watch sports, at least not soccer.

He glanced at the time in the bottom right corner of the screen—it was already 18:00, just in time for dinner.

Uploading his unfinished assignment to the cloud, William Clark pushed back his chair, got up, and went downstairs to the cafeteria for a serving of spicy chicken fried rice, enjoying every bite.

When he leisurely returned to his dorm, he suddenly froze at the sight of a cardboard box on his desk.

A delivery?

“William, what did you buy? That’s a huge package!”

His dorm mates gathered around, and the other two guys also turned their attention over.

Everyone was pretty well-mannered.

When William Clark wasn’t in the dorm, they wouldn’t touch his stuff. Now that he was back, it didn’t matter.

They were all curious about what he’d bought.

“I didn’t buy anything… Who delivered this?”

The three roommates exchanged glances.

“I didn’t notice…”

“Me neither.”

“No idea, I just went to pick up my takeout.”

Weird.

Usually, deliveries were left at the package station downstairs, but today it was brought right to the door.

Even weirder, William Clark thought he hadn’t even put his seat number in his online shopping address.

Are delivery guys this amazing now?

Opening the box, he found a helmet inside.

It looked a lot like a motorcycle helmet, painted black inside and out, nothing special at first glance.

If there was anything unusual, it was that it had no front face—once you put it on, your whole head was covered and you couldn’t see a thing.

At first glance, William Clark thought it was a cooking pot.

“What is this thing?”

A guy from the next desk picked up the helmet, fiddled with it, put it on his head, then took it off and handed it back to William Clark in confusion.

“You’re asking me? Who am I supposed to ask?”

Could it really be a pot?

William Clark, just as confused, tried putting it on his head.

His vision went completely dark.

But just as he was about to take it off, a faint blue light suddenly pierced the darkness and entered his retina.

[Waiting for game activation: 71 hours 19 minutes]

This…

Could this be that game helmet?!

Damn.

Was the shipping really this fast?

William Clark was completely stunned.

“Didn’t you guys see it?”

Taking off the helmet, William Clark looked at the roommate who had just worn it.

But that roommate just looked back at him, equally confused.

“See what?”