In the end, Van and the DMB never got the chance to talk with Caelum. He had zero interest in whatever they wanted to discuss, so the matter quietly died there.

To their credit, the DMB knew when to back off.

When dealing with someone whose strength couldn’t even be measured, failing to recruit him was one thing, but provoking him was another. Surveillance was pointless too.

The last thing they wanted was to piss Caelum off.

As for Caelum himself, he barely cared. His days slipped by in complete slacker mode, watching anime, browsing the internet, and arguing nonsense with random idiots online.

That was until he stumbled across a strange post on the forums.

[Special Series Game Guide]

Caelum raised an eyebrow.

"Special series?"

This was his first time hearing about it. Apparently, aside from normal games, there were also games classified as special series.

The games he’d played before, Evolution Battle Royale, Heroes and Magic, and Super Universe, whether PvP or open world, all belonged to the normal category.

Special series games were different.

Any power gained inside those games could not be brought back into reality. Instead, the game would calculate something called Interference Value based on the player’s impact on the game world, then multiply the player’s existing real world strength accordingly.

Because of that, a huge number of players were obsessed with clearing special series games.

The way to gain Interference Value was simple.

As long as a player participated in major events and influenced the world’s history, structure, or overall direction in some meaningful way, they would earn Interference Value.

Simple in theory.

Extremely difficult in practice.

The smallest unit was 0.01. Even participating in a major event and playing a key role would usually grant no more than 0.1.

Only after reaching 1.0 could a player gain a full one times multiplier to their strength.

In other words, doubling your power was absurdly difficult.

Caelum muttered to himself, "Could be worth trying."

At his current level, his strength had become downright ridiculous. Many game worlds probably didn’t even have a higher power ceiling than him anymore.

Since he still hadn’t found a suitable normal series game, he might as well try a special series one first.

That said, special series games came with plenty of restrictions.

First, each game could only be entered once. Leaving meant permanent withdrawal. No reentry.

The moment you quit, your results were finalized.

Second, special series games could not be played consecutively. There had to be at least one completed normal series game between them, along with a required amount of real world playtime.

That was why special series games were notoriously hard to clear.

Unlike normal games, there were no endless retries.

But in exchange, the rewards were extremely valuable.

On the table, Fluffball was staring intensely at several glass marbles.

One of them had completely captured its attention.

No matter how it looked at it, the spiral arm inside the marble looked suspiciously similar to its homeland, the Orion Arm.

It didn’t think too deeply about it and assumed it was just an ordinary marble.

"Can I have this one?"

Caelum glanced over.

He didn’t care much.

"Take it if you want."

Fluffball immediately hugged the marble happily, already thinking about how to hang it on itself somehow.

After being away from home for so long, it really was starting to miss the Astryx Empire.

It stared out at the sky beyond the balcony.

Even though Earth was technically located within the Orion Arm too, there was obviously no way to see Astryx territory from here.

Especially not in broad daylight.

Meanwhile, Caelum continued browsing the game forums and quickly found a special series game that interested him.

A massive open world game called Jujutsu Realm.

He opened the game terminal.

Sliding through the interface, he selected Jujutsu Realm.

Before entering, he gave Fluffball the usual reminder.

"There’s still plenty of food at home. Same as always, take care of yourself."

"Yeah, yeah."

Fluffball answered absentmindedly while running all over the apartment trying to find some string or strap to hang the marble around its body.

Caelum tapped the game icon.

[Game: Jujutsu Realm]

[Enter Game]

A flash of white light swallowed him.

His figure vanished from reality and entered the game world.

Jujutsu Realm.

According to the forum guide, Jujutsu was essentially a type of technique, similar to magic in Heroes and Magic.

Magic required mana.

Jujutsu naturally required Cursed Energy.

The difference was that Jujutsu didn’t possess world ending destructive power, making this a relatively low power open world game.

Game start.

Caelum found himself sitting in a classroom wearing a stylish black school uniform.

Looking around, he realized there were only three people in the otherwise empty room, himself included.

All three looked equally bored.

Caelum examined himself.

His age appeared to have been adjusted to around eighteen.

The other two also looked like young adults, though he couldn’t tell whether they were players.

One had messy spiky hair and radiated the energy of someone way too hyper for his own good.

The other had a short blue ponytail tied behind his head and wore a permanently gloomy expression, the type that looked impossible to get along with.

The game introduction began.

[Since ancient times, countless legends of demons and monsters have existed throughout the world.]

[Many of those stories may be false.]

[But some things are undeniably real.]

[Anger, hatred, disgust, jealousy, fear...]

[When humanity’s negative emotions accumulate in large enough quantities, they give birth to monsters known as Cursed Spirits.]

[These creatures feed upon human negativity and continue growing stronger, becoming a major threat to society.]

[And thus, Sorcerers were born.]

[Certain humans learned to condense their own negative emotions into Cursed Energy, using bloodline and soul to forge unique techniques.]

[Since then, they have carried the duty of exorcising Cursed Spirits.]

[For thousands of years, humanity’s hidden balance has endured through the conflict between both sides.]

[Until now.]

...

[Player: Caelum]

[Rank: Grade 4 Sorcerer]

[Interference Value: 0.00]

[Technique: None]

[Cursed Tool: None]

...

Sorcerer ranks were divided into Grade 4, Grade 3, Grade 2, Grade 1, and the highest level, Special Grade.

Since Caelum had just started, he was naturally at the very bottom as a Grade 4 Sorcerer.

Then again, for some players, strength in this game clearly wasn’t the important part. 𝒇𝒓𝒆𝒆𝙬𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝒎

They just wanted to cause chaos and rack up Interference Value.

Even weaklings could thrive here if they knew how to use their brains.

[Game world detected]

[Loading cheats...]

[Loading complete. Please select your cheat.]

[1: Infinite Cursed Energy]

[2: Heavenly Restriction]

[3: Crazy Crit Fusion System]

Immediately, Caelum’s attention locked onto Crazy Crit Fusion System.