With a flight spent in the darkness, replaying Percy’s stupid face over and over in her head, Valerie was finally thrust back into the light as the bag was ripped off of her head. The light stung her eyes, which had long since adjusted to the darkness.

But even through the blinding white light, she could recognise the fuzzy outline of her apartment.

Was she a little disappointed that she was back here and not in the mansion again? A little. Was she creeped out that this ’Bai Yin’ knew exactly where Valerie lived, and even got into the apartment, without a key? Absolutely. But at this point she didn’t even try to question it.

Silent assassin woman with magic from a billionaires secret cult. Why shouldn’t she be able to do a little breaking and entering, or have all of Valerie’s information memorised. With all the different apps and services constantly harvesting people’s data, and how they hacked her poor little Jinu, this woman probably knew Valerie better than Valerie did.

Rubbing her stiff jaw, causing it to click a few times, Valerie ignored the spy woman and immediately moved over to her computer. This woman was going to be invading her life no matter what, so there was no point in concerning herself about it.

There was better things to worry about, such as securing her future.

Armed with all of her new information, Valerie instantly went online and started shopping. Specifically, she was buying potted plants.

Anything and everything she could find, she put them in her cart. They were expensive, eye-wateringly expensive. Not made for the likes of her, unless she had an insane obsession like a certain druid.

But with the sales of her player guide, she had the money to spare. It might not have been the most popular book on the market, but it was more than enough to give her some green so that she could treat herself to some other green.

The moment she hit confirm on her purchase and the money left her account, making it seem pathetic and feeble in comparison to how bloated it was previously, there was a knock at the door.

’There’s no way that it was that fast, right?’

Rolling over to the door, she peeked out of the bedroom towards the front door, just in time to see Bai Yin taking a package from the flustered delivery boy. He was stuttering over his words and was blushing deeply as he handed it to her, a goofy smile across his face. Meanwhile the silent woman remained completely stoic and ice cold in her gaze, which was visible now that she had removed her sunglasses.

"Y-y-y-your package Ma’am. I-I hope this isn’t too forwards but I was h-hoping that I could take you out to dinner some ti-"

Wham!

The door slammed in his face the moment Bai Yin took the package from his hand, and she turned on her heels without a care for the whimpering on the other side from a broken nose, and an even more broken heart.

Bai Yin cast her cold gaze towards Valerie, glaring at her with emotionless silence, as she carried the package over to the couch. It was roughly the size of a briefcase, and when she unwrapped it Valerie noticed it was a very familiar looking black case.

Bai Yin clicked the latches open and removed the contents from the foam padded case, revealing a small metallic circlet. A Neural Crown.

’She ordered one of those already? And to my house?! There’s no way this timing was a coincidence, right?’

Valerie thought to herself, casting a slightly worried look towards the woman that was supposed to be acting as her ’helper.’ Bai Yin glared at Valerie, giving her a silent warning that Valerie had no doubt she would follow through on, before Bai Yin placed the crown onto her head and slumped back on the couch.

Somehow, even when she was sitting there unconscious and ’helpless’ Valerie still got a shiver down her spine whenever she looked at her. Like an angler fish, dangling its lure in the air and waiting to lure her in so it could strike.

"Great... There goes my safe haven away from her." Valerie grumbled to herself.

"She will race through the tutorial. I just hope the Gatekeeper can keep her at bay long enough for me to get some stuff done."

After grabbing a nutrition block from the fridge to satisfy her still grumbling stomach, Valerie hurried back to her computer, Valerie closed the shopping tab and moved over to the Dawd Forums and began to scour as fast as she could.

Her eyes darted back and forth, all while she shovelled the brick of nutritional gunk into her mouth. She cringed at the horrific flavour, part of her wanting to puke it up, but it was the best kind of snack as it could substitute for an entire meal. More importantly, it was cheap, and with her plant binge it was going to have to be her new regular meal from now on.

It didn’t take Valerie long to find what she was looking for. Post after post of people reporting headaches from playing the game. Many people were laughing it off as only coming from those who binge played far too much, giving them the age old advice of "touch grass" as if that was even feasible anymore.

But whilst they were joking about or dismissing it, Valerie knew that it was a signal of what was to come.

"It really has started. I wonder when the first monster will appear or how." She muttered to herself, before closing the page.

With her own source secured, and plants on route to fuel further cultivation, Valerie could move her focus away from real life for the moment and instead delve back into Dawd. She was falling behind.

The average level for players was reaching the high 40s, while the highest level was 70, which naturally belonged to the pro level players. So her first goal became reaching level 50, as many posts that she had seen in her search were discussing the boon that everyone got from crossing that threshold.

Cracking her knuckles, clambered onto her chair, where her crown was already suspiciously waiting for her, and pulled it onto her head. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head, and the logo of the game flashed before her eyes as she slipped between worlds.