the truth

Now that the 1st anniversary of his reincarnation had passed, James's life became monotone yet again, he could feel himself getting closer and closer to the beyond Domain Realm, but he simply needed more time.

Progress had slowed down tremendously inside the one gaming headquarters, for the next 8 months the only progress made was the advancement of some of the lower members in the Void Realm, most of them were on the verge of breaking through, so they would all be in the Void Realm by the time gods Domain launched in 4 months, the commanders had also made a little progression, not in the realms of Refinement, but in their mental strength, which was very important, since mental strength is linked to concentration in-game, and that determines your ability to control mana, Rick and Olivia had both reached the 1-star mental strength master Realm, while Charlotte and Livia had reached 3-star. James had long expected this, after all, Charlotte was a talented mage, which required a lot of mental power, while Livia was a Saint. While they made good progress, James had managed to get back to his privies level of a 1-star mental strength grandmaster.

James felt that the progress they made was outstanding, but he needed them to work more on the realms of Refinement, they were to concentrate on real-life martial arts.

So thinking about that he called a meeting, and not even half an hour later, every one of his commanders was sitting in their main conference room, he didn't call Mike, since he needed a lot of mental strength for the quest James was going to give him, so he let him train in mental martial arts.

"I have called you here to discuss your guy's further training, I want all of you to reach the Domain Realm in 2 months, after that, I will be giving you study material about God's Domain to study for the 2 months before its release, so your training is going to go on the back burner from that moment onward, do your best, I believe in you guys."

The 4 of them didn't say anything, they just looked at the ground, they knew that he had hoped for them to train more in-game, but getting stronger in real life just felt so much more amazing, they felt a sense of guilt, using up his resources and not even meeting his expectations.

James noticed this and went to cheer them up.

"you guys don't have to feel bad, I gave you those resources because I trust and believe in you guys, and mental strength will also hugely help in-game, so your time wasn't wasted, but at the beginning of the game, when no updated have come out yet, the realms of Refinement will be more important, so try to first focus on that."

Rick looked at James with a hesitant face, like he was about to say something but just didn't, he had been making this face for a couple of months now, and James just brushed it off most of the time but this time was just one too many.

"If you want to ask something Rick, you can go ahead."

The hesitation on his face just grew bigger until he just sight.

"I didn't want to ask this, because it is your private business James, but how do you know all this stuff, from what I heard not even the higher-ups of the Green god's company know anything about it, but you seem to know quite a bit."

The other 3 commanders started listening more intently after hearing that, they had been wondering the same thing, but were too scared to ask.

James just sight, originally he wasn't going to tell them, or anyone his secret, but over the last almost 2 years, they had become more than his commanders, every day they spent training together, pushing each other to be better, he considered them comrades, and friends.

He had long resolved to tell them his secret before the launch of gods Domain. Maybe not now, or in the next couple of years, but they would find out he was hiding something big, and they would maybe even discover what that was, he would rather that he could go into gods Domain with full confidence and trust in his commanders than having to hide things from them, and if one of them would betray him in the future and let blow up in his face, he would rather do it now.

All 4 of them were on the edge of their seat, James looked like he was seriously going to answer.

"As you all probably realize, I have a big secrete, and I will be revealed that to you, since I consider you guys real friends, but not now, I will be doing so when I give you guys your study material for gods Domain, please be patient."

All of them seemed to be a little disappointed, but also even more determent to reach the Domain Realm.

For the next 2 months all they did was train, and as a result, there was tremendous growth at the one gaming organization, all 4 commanders had managed to reach the Domain Realm, and also the first Realm of truth unbeknownst to them, they had just been copying some parts of James's fighting style, and it just happened, James didn't even flinch anymore at these extraordinary achievements, he had gotten way too used to them over the past 2 years. All of the other team members had also managed to get into the Void Realm, James estimated that it would take around 2 years for all of them to get into the Domain Realm with the help of God's Domain. All of these achievements were big, but James thought of his own as the biggest, he had reached the beyond Domain Realm. One thing became extremely clear when he reached it, he may have the ability to ignore all his senses and guess the future to some degree, but his journey was far from over, on the contrary, after stepping into the beyond Domain Realm he felt like a new journey had just begun.

When the 2-month period was over, Mike, Olivia, Rick, Charlotte, and Livia were back in the head conference room, all of them without any electronics at all, just like James had instructed, all the cameras and whatnot were also removed from the room.

While they were all sitting there in anticipation, James walked in.

"First of all, congratulations everyone on reaching the Domain Realm, you guys are truly talented."

James then took a look around the room, everyone was as quiet as could be, staring at him with intensity, even the normally shy Charlotte.

"I see that you guys are all full of anticipation, well that is understandable, but before I tell you my secret, you need to know the secret behind gods Domain."

James took 1 last breath before revealing probably the biggest secret of the planet.

"Gods Domain wasn't made by the Green gods company, it was given to them by a higher race, a race that lives in the 4th dimension, they gave us a chance to enter a world through VR to compete for their technology, that world is called 'the greater God's Domain", it connects countless universes, and to enter it directly, you have to be at the mental level of a neutralizing grandmaster, but since not many people qualify with such restrictions they made smaller versions of this world, that is our game, Gods Domain, and in some time our God's Domain will merge with the greater Gods Domain, so that everyone can get there, at that moment our world will also become part of the greater world, a universe where all of the planets that have merged with the greater gods Domain reside. As you can imagine, your strength in God's Domain and your mental strength is everything in this world."

Silence crowded the room, James looked around and let out a little smile, there were no doubting eyes, just eyes of shock, he couldn't help to think that he was right in trusting these people.

"Now on to my secret, well, there is no easy way to say this so I'll just come out and say it, I know everything because I have already experienced it, I was reincarnated with a Godly relic I found in the greater gods Domain, now, I'm telling you all this for 2 reasons, the first one is because I truly see you guys as friends, and I wouldn't feel comfortable lying for the rest of my life, the second reason is so you could see the severity of the situation, as motivation you could say."

James took a brief pause and looked around the room.

"So, are you guys still willing to join me?"

After a couple of seconds of silence, Rick was the first one to talk.

"Listen, James, that was some pretty hefty stuff you just said, and if I didn't know you any better I would think this was a joke, but just like you said, we're friends, and if all of that stuff is real then we gotta stick together no matter what."

Mike then spoke a couple of seconds after that.

"I'm with Rick, that you are willing to trust us with that kind of information already proves enough to me, count me in"

Livia then decided to speak up.

"Same for me, I'm honored to be considered that good of a friend to be trusted like this, and at the end of the day you didn't lie to us, you did scout us for our talent, maybe with a little more knowledge, but so be it."

Charlotte followed this up with a quiet 'yea me too' accompanied by nodding her head.

The only one left was Olivia, she had been staring at James with her mouth right open from the moment he finished.

"Are you for real James?"

"I can assure you, Olivia, everything I just said is true."

Then sparkles started appearing in Olivia's eyes.

"THAT'S SO COOL, of course, I'm coming with you James, how could I miss fighting with experts from other universes."

James just plopped back down in his chair and let out a huge sigh.

"you guys don't know how much of a relief this is, it would only take 1 of you to turn on me to ruin my whole plan, anyway here you go."

James plopped a packet of papers down on the conference table in front of everyone.

"That contains all basic info about gods Domain, and at the back is the quest I want your group to complete, I will give a quick rundown so everyone knows what the others are doing, Rick, you will get the most important quest, and also the only mythic quest available, it is called, [Revival of the Dwarf race], as you can imagine, this involves reviving a race at the brink of destruction, the final reward for this is a primal ore vein, basically a pocket dimension that can produce roughly half of our gods domains resources. Livia, you will be doing a quest related to a dimension-traveling merchant, this involves getting him all the pieces of his broken teleportation ring back, you do this by being the first to beat 100 dungeons on he'll mode, and the reward will be 1 of his items, you are going to choose the bag of keys, I'll tell you what they are but the most important part is that we get them before reaching [Tier 3]. Charlotte, you will be doing the quest, [saint's apprentice], where you will be tested by a Saint, she then gives you 2 rewards, her inheritance, which is a special class, she will also give you a Special Saint level mana technique of the Void element. And last but not least, Olivia, you will be going around gods Domain collecting legendary equipment, or any other items that I put on your list, these aren't as difficult or time-consuming as the legendary quests, so that's why there are a lot of them. Now then, any questions?"

When James asked this Olivia immediately put her hand in the air, James subsequently nodded to sign that she could talk.

"2 things, first, why do I have to do the lame stuff, and what are you going to do?"

James just smirked and started talking.

"first of all, your mission isn't lame, I might have labeled it as collecting items, but even in the greater gods Domain, legendary items are incredibly rare, and to get them you will have to complete some epic quests to get the pieces, and for your second question, I will be doing a personal quest called [Merlin's knowledge seeker], it involves me solving some ancient runes for Merlin, he will then grand me a favor, this will be a relatively quick one since I already know the answer, so after that, I will be helping all of you periodically. Also, 1 last thing, when it comes time to accept the quest, make sure to call everyone over and do it as a group, the personal rewards from epic, legendary, or mythic quests aren't a joke, even if they aren't going to help u in the completion of the quest. Okay then, if everyone is ready, you can start studying."