Chapter 9: Rejection vs. Recognition
Jax stormed into his boss's office the next morning, fueled by righteous indignation and slightly less phantom limb tingle than the night before. Grak, the P-Hub regional manager, barely looked up from polishing his ridiculously oversized 'World's Okayest Boss' mug. Grak was a man whose imagination stretched about as far as his quarterly bonus targets, and whose understanding of cutting-edge tech involved knowing how to reboot the office coffee machine.
"Grak, you need to see this!" Jax slapped a printout of the Ascension Heaven store page onto the cluttered desk. "This game… it's not normal. The realism is impossible for current hardware, and… and I think it might actually interact with the player's Qi!"
Grak finally looked up, blinking owlishly. "Qi? What are you talking about, Jax? Did you sniff too much toner again? It's a game. Polygons. Code. Made by 'Ascension Heaven LLC'," he peered at the printout, "'Registered address: A PO Box in Dimension X.' Sounds legit." He chuckled wheezily.
"No, listen!" Jax insisted, leaning forward. "I felt it. When I fought this… this squirrel thing, I felt energy! Like the Cultivators describe! And the realism, Grak, you wouldn't believe—"
"Enough!" Grak slammed his mug down, coffee sloshing onto performance reports. "I hired you to review games, Jax, not hallucinate! 'Qi feels real'? What's next, are you going to tell me you can fly after playing 'Flappy Bird VR'? This is exactly the kind of nonsense that makes P-Hub look like a joke!" He pointed a sausage-like finger at Jax. "Maybe you overloaded your haptics. Maybe you've got nerve damage from spending too much time strapped into that headset. Whatever it is, it's your problem."
He crumpled the printout. "Consider this your final review, Jax. Of your employment here. You're fired. Pack your desk cactus and get out."
Jax stared, dumbfounded. "Fired? For reporting something extraordinary?"
"Fired for being a liability!" Grak snapped. "Go see a doctor about your 'Qi tingles'. And don't let the door hit you on the way out."
Stunned and furious, Jax stumbled back to his cubicle. Fired. For finding potentially the biggest breakthrough in interactive technology ever. He slumped into his chair, the smell of stale coffee now seeming mocking. He could leak his findings online, scream from the digital rooftops… but who would believe him? A fired reviewer from a second-rate platform, raving about magic squirrels and energy tingles? They'd dismiss him as crazy, or worse, assume it was a publicity stunt. Without proof, without credibility, he was just another voice shouting into the void. The risk was too high, the potential for ridicule immense. Despair washed over him. He had stumbled upon something world-changing, and all it had gotten him was unemployed.
Meanwhile, across the city in the sleek, chrome-and-glass headquarters of Quantum Leap Interstellar (QL), Ben Carter squinted at his monitor. Ben was a senior analyst in QL's Content Acquisition division, a sharp young man with a keen eye for disruptive technology and a much better VR setup than Jax could ever afford. An alert had popped up on his console for a new submission: 'Ascension Heaven'.
It wasn't the game itself that triggered the flag initially, but a meta-data anomaly. The listed publisher, 'Ascension Heaven LLC', had zero history, yet the 1.0 GB client had passed QL's initial security scans with unusual cleanliness, and user reports (trickling in from P-Hub's chaotic forums, which QL monitored) mentioned 'unprecedented realism'. The audacious '99% True Reality' claim, usually a red flag for vaporware, combined with these whispers, pinged Ben's 'Potential Disruptor' heuristic.
"Alright, 'Ascension Heaven'," Ben murmured, activating his professional-grade immersion rig. "Let's see if you're genuine disruption or just digital smoke."
He launched the client.
The transition was instantaneous. One moment, the cool, sterile feel of the QL testing lab; the next, the rich, multi-sensory reality of Beginner's Rest. Ben, unlike Jax, didn't panic. His training kicked in. He methodically tested the environment. Texture fidelity, audio spatialization, NPC interaction (Elder Rui was indeed unnervingly natural), even the physics felt subtly right in a way current engines struggled to emulate.
This… shouldn't be possible on standard architecture, Ben analyzed coolly, his mind racing. The processing power required for this level of simultaneous sensory simulation is astronomical. Unless… unless it's not simulating everything in the traditional sense.
He accepted Rui's quest, fought a Dire Squirrel – experiencing the same startlingly intuitive combat and the bizarre, faint Qi-like energy surge Jax had. But where Jax felt confusion and fear, Ben felt a jolt of electrifying recognition.
This wasn't just a game. It was a paradigm shift. A technology so advanced it bordered on magic. It could redefine entertainment, training, communication… everything. It was potentially the single most valuable piece of software QL had ever encountered.
He logged out immediately, his professional calm barely masking his excitement. He didn't hesitate. He accessed QL's secure internal network, bypassed standard reporting channels, and initiated a Priority Omega alert directly to the highest levels of the company – specifically, to Seraphina, the formidable head of QL's Strategic Development division.
He typed a single codeword into the encrypted message subject line, a term reserved for discoveries with potentially world-altering implications:
Subject: Genesis Seed.
Ben Carter knew, with absolute certainty, that Quantum Leap needed to acquire or control Ascension Heaven. Immediately.