15 Alerting the Researchers

After breakfast, Ke Meng checked his body temperature before heading out. Everything was normal, so there should not be any problem.

He went downstairs with his camera gadgets that he had spent 20,000 yuan on. He was planning to use his small car as the new review video material.

He was not considered wealthy and only had two properties under his name. He did not buy the car himself since it was an inheritance his parents left behind. Compared to the really wealthy people, he was just a normal person.

He had gotten used to living alone throughout his life without having any family around.

Looking for fun became Ke Meng's biggest hobby since God knew when. He was willing to try some things even though they came with some risks.

What kind of skill the Shadow Catcher was? He was very curious.

…

In the dark universe setting, there was a planet in which the lands were surrounded by an orange ocean. It was rotating around the stars. 

The orange ocean was the unique thing about the Orange Planet. There was countless orange plankton in the ocean water. Due to the micronutrients and minerals in the ocean water, the skin on those planktons had evolved into a unique photosensitive surface throughout billions of years whereby they would not absorb orange light whose wavelength was longer.

Because the number of planktons covered the ocean water in the entire planet, the ocean water of Orange Planet was orange.

Omnic City was the most developed intelligent robotic city on Orange Planet.

Artificial intelligence oversaw the city's order of life and industrial production. Everyone who was living in Omnic City did not have to do any physical work.

In Omnic City, research jobs were the only jobs that humans required.

Those who were incapable of research or did not want to work in research could enjoy life and entertainment.

Virtual reality games developed by subjects including neurology, materials science and brainwave study were one of the most popular daily entertainments in Omnic City. At the moment, there were 901 VR games available on the market.

On the 210th floor, in Unit 6's residence of a super skyscraper in Omnic City, a man on the bed in the pod suddenly opened his eyes. He was screaming while his expression was distorted. Veins were bulging on his forehead, and he looked like he was in extreme pain.

The big hatchet covering the bed had danger warning and noise occurring.

"Warning! Warning! Irregular activity found in the brainwave! The brain is suspected to be damaged!

"Safety measures have been activated! The institute and local hospital have been informed!

"The researchers from the institute have been sent!

"The hospital's air ambulance plane is estimated to arrive in 68 seconds!"

At the same time the loud warnings coming out of the VR pod, two other people's gaming pods in Omnic City blared with loud warnings too. The institute and local hospital were informed at the same time.

There was no option to call the police in Omnic City because the law enforcers had been replaced by robots. With AI having surveillance on each public place, no criminal could live in peace in Omnic City.

The local hospitals were formed by medical robots as well. A maglev car that was on standby entered the maglev vacuum tunnel immediately. It soon arrived at the maglev track station close to the victim.

A mini self-flying plane flew out of the transportation car. It passed through the vacuum hub and the quarantine zone, and then transferred out of the transportation tunnel.

It was flying at hundreds of meters per minute. It arrived outside the 210th floor's balcony right at the estimated 68th second.

The skyscraper's AI connected to Unit 6 on the 210th floor's control system automatically. As the railings at the balcony opened, two medical robots entered the house with a stretcher immediately. They saw the male resident who was screaming crazily.

Before arriving, the house's gaming pod's control center was linked to the city's control center. The patient's personal data and real-time recording were sent to the medical system for analysis.

The medical robots gave him a shot of strong tranquilizer as soon as they entered. The screaming man released two low hums and shut his eyes a few seconds later. He stopped being maniacal.

Subsequently, the two medical robots moved the man onto the emergency plane. They rushed to the main hospital of Omnic City.

The other two men who had gone insane at different places were rushed to the local hospital by the emergency planes that had gone to their attention immediately.

At the Omnic City Institute, the director was shocked by the reports that came out of nowhere.

"Three people's brains have been damaged. The safety system forced them to go offline!" He read the red words on the screen in confusion.

In the Orange Planet nation where technology was developed, it was something bizarre for someone to have their brain damaged from playing a VR game.

One must know that the VR gaming pods had been operating for tens of years. Apart from some minor issues during the beginning years when they began operation such as players feeling exhausted from playing for 48 hours straight, neurasthenia, brainwave's extensive delay on a minority of people, and so on, there was no more issue since it had been fixed.

There was never an incident when the players' brains were damaged by the machines. Each VR game pods passed a very strict quality assessment. They would remake them if there was a chance of one over a ten million flaw. It was produced following the spacecraft's production standard.

Aware that it was serious, the director checked the safety measures of the control center. On the control center's mission list, five researchers were brought to the maglev transportation floor immediately.

If it was the director who had given the order, the plan would have taken a couple of seconds slower than AI. Therefore, having AI giving the orders would be the fastest way. It was the programmed rule.

Naturally, the director could also dismiss the AI's operation after it gave its order. However, since it was to save someone's life, tThere was no need for him to dismiss the system.

"Notify all researchers that everyone who is free should come to the meeting. At the same time, send VR game researchers and medical researchers to the hospitals to check out the situation. Also, notify the people from World Game Co. Get them to see me immediately."

"Your order has been carried out." a notification popped onto the screen a few seconds later.

Soon, the director went into the meeting room. There were researchers in white lab coats occupying the meeting room.

The researchers were the people on Orange Planet who had no interest in things of low taste. They were passionate about researching and studying subject knowledge in various technology fields in order to grow Orange Planet's technology even further.

Therefore, they would talk about research all the time when they sat together.

The research's subject was different today. All of them stared at the words on the big screen with heavy expressions.

"Three players' brains were damaged playing a VR game."

All researchers held their heads down to download the meeting document as soon as they saw what was written on the big screen.

They scrolled through the screen in their hand. Some were reading the three players' life trajectories from their childhood until now.

Some were checking the game pods' opcodes a few hours back in the attempt to check if there were any odd activities whereas some were reading the players' gaming documents.

Under normal circumstances, the game system had no right of recording the players' privacy. Only the players' own recorded videos could be uploaded.

Therefore, they had no idea what the three of them had gone through. They could only check the gaming videos they had made and uploaded to the internet.

"Control center, are there any latest videos? We want to know what happened recently. It'd be best if there were videos that were recorded a couple of minutes ago," a game researcher requested in a hurry. He was eager to find out how the game had damaged the players' brains. It was just bizarre for such a thing to happen when technology had entered the interstellar era nation.

"Database has been updated. The latest video is now in the database. Please take a look." The control center downloaded all of the documents that were in the gaming pod's storage. After reading them at light speed, the documents that were logically determined to be useful to save the players were immediately uploaded to the database.

The people's spirits were lifted upon hearing that. They played the latest video uploaded one after another.

In the video, they saw a bunch of people that looked like dogs tying five players up in the video.