VRMMORPG: Dragomancer Reborn

Chapter 195 Cyber Sleuthing

>Player Arthur's hunger is at 100%!<

Having finished his food, Arthur felt a lot better. He was still reading through the news and hadn't found anything interesting.

"Things are still calm, I guess…" Arthur muttered when he saw a rather mundane news article.

>The Pan-Division Academy Sports competition reaches its conclusion! Forty winners over twenty categories rise to the top!<

It was a news article that was almost ignorable for Arthur if not for that fact that he saw a particular word in that.

"Archery…" As soon as Arthur saw that, his mind went back to the girl that he had met in Morpheus Online. "Val had callouses that only a professional archer could… but considering her age she is probably still a student. If so…" an idea appeared to him.

Arthur opened the article and went through it before stopping at the section that showed the results for Archery.

>Despite hundreds of students participating in the Archery competition, the gold winner is still unrivaled!<

>Valerie Hale continues being the gold winner for the fourth year in a row!<

As soon as Arthur saw the name and the photo in the article, he knew he had it.

"So that's her…" Arthur smiled seeing the teen girl wearing a gold medal and holding a bow in the photo.

She had light brown hair and dark brown eyes along with a slim build. Though Arthur also realized that she actually looked even younger than she did in the game.

'I guess she focused on making her character look older… but even then she only looks around 16 at most.' Arthur wondered how old she actually was.

There wasn't a mention in the article thus he just searched for her name. From the article, it was clear that she wasn't just a no-name person and actually had some reputation.

The search gave Arthur multiple results among which there was an article that told more about the girl.

>Valerie Hale, the 13 year old Eagle eyed Prodigy joins the prosperous Callum Academy! Will she be able to keep her momentum and be scouted by Rayleigh university?<

"Damn, she's actually 13 and joined Callum Academy?" Even Arthur knew about the Academy which was favored by prodigies of all types.

It was very hard to get into, but they took in students that excelled in various fields; whether it be academia oriented, creative, or sports. One needed to be at their peak in at least one of them to be picked by Callum Academy.

'If one is picked by Callum Academy, their chances of being able to join Rayleigh University increase massively.' Arthur recalled.

Even his childhood friend that he had recently reconnected with, Stella attended Rayleigh University.

Both Callum Academy and Rayleigh University were institutes for the elites that Arthur would never dream of joining. Nor did he have the capabilities to join them.

Not that it mattered to him now, but in the past he had gotten a lot of mocking from people that had become successful. Even he wished to be that capable, but could not match up to them.

Though now he had his own way of doing that… something that could put him at the very forefront.

'If she could join Callum Academy because of her skill in Archery it makes sense why she's this good in game. Someone of that caliber is surely able to obtain the Title on their own.' Arthur reckoned, but a few doubts still remained in his mind.

As far as he knew Valerie Hale had never joined the game in his last life. And even if she had, she wasn't a well known player.

'Considering she managed to get into Callum Academy, her joining Morpheus Online should have created at least some news. It isn't like the Academy discourages the students from that either. Heck, they have a dedicated E-sports division for that in the first place!' Arthur pondered on the matter.

Regardless of what this entailed, Arthur knew one thing for sure: He needed to keep a close eye on Valerie.

"Someone who wasn't known suddenly became the second person to hit level 10 and even managed to get to Trunel Woods that fast… a large change like this can be problematic in the long term." Arthur muttered to himself.

He understood that this had happened due to only one thing… His return to the past.

'If not for my regression and the changes I've brought, she would have never become level 10 this fast. If I managed to change this, just how much have I affected the future this way?' Arthur was given a lot to think about.

He opened up the 'database' that he had made based on his memories of the game and started going through all the things that were different from before. Whether it be the quests, the location changes or the behavior of the NPCs.

Arthur forgot about time and got so engrossed in it that it was already 4 pm when he stopped. And it has gone on for longer if not for the reminder that Arthur got.

>Player Arzhur's Hunger has fallen to 10%!<

"HAAA~" Arthur stretched his arms and walked around. "Time really passes fast when you're busy."

His time wasn't spent in vain either though, as Arthur managed to eke out a few more clues when doing a review of his Database.

He cooked some food while continuing to think about it all, letting his hands work on autopilot to make a sub.

'The one thing that is staying relatively constant is the quests themselves. Since many of them are tied to the location or the background of the game, they cannot be changed as freely.

The only thing that does change is how the quest is interpreted.' This was one of the things that Arthur figured out.

At first, he had been worried that the mission he had done to lure out Dozla might have changed things too much, but after reviewing it all he realized he had merely sped up the series of events.

'Dozla was supposed to be killed about a year later, but wasn't as big of an NPC. His disappearance won't affect the future quests as much… the game would simply 'replace' one bandit chief with another.

The main question is about the Cultists of Iltan. If things happened like in the past, the evil deity should have gained more of its power by attacking at that time. But now that the Cultists have been repelled, he'll continue to be weakened.' Arthur analyzed.

While he had somewhat grasped on how things would go, he needed more information to further understand it.

'I'll just have to investigate more in game, I guess.' Arthur thought. "And considering Valerie managed to get this far, more players should soon start arriving too." He guessed.

>Player Arthur's Hunger has reached 100%!<

Arthur ended up finishing the sub sandwich without even thinking and saw the notification.

He looked at the time and saw that he had more than 5 hours till the login time.

"Guess I can research a bit more," Arthur said as he tried to look up another person of interest. "Considering Rain contacted to meet me, the management behind him should have probably had a hand in it." He looked through any news about the team that Rain belonged to.

Rain's real name was also Rain, being one of the few players that used their legal names as their avatars. Usually, people would avoid doing this, but once Rain became famous enough, his name held a lot of value.

And since he was already well known, there was little use in hiding his identity. Not to mention he was backed up by several strong sponsors and a great management team as well, leaving little threat to his safety.

'Agate Talent Management… Hmm, they've been rather silent.' Arthur checked and found little news about them.

This was the team that Rain belonged to and was also the co-owner of. They were rather famous and had star players for various games. As such, Arthur was surprised that there was no news about the opening recruitment for Morpheus Online.

Even if the game was new, there was no way an experienced E-sports team like Agate would ignore a cash cow like Morpheus Online.

As such, they would spread the word and there would be no lack of news agencies willing to cover it. And yet, the most recent Article that Arthur found about them was over a month ago.

"This isn't like them at all." Arthur muttered in confusion. 'I wasn't focused on news about them in the past, thus I don't know what they did at this time.'

What Arthur did know was that they would come into full force in just a couple months of time, having acquired several strong players in that time.

Still, having seen this a particular thought appeared in Arthur's mind.

"Is it possible that they are actually looking to recruit me too?" Arthur wondered.