Chapter 31: Dimensional Pockets
When Hiro cleared his throat to draw their attention, the family of three finally snapped back to their senses.
Well, Bella's mother was the fastest to react, covering her beautiful smile with the back of her right hand as her smiling eyes sized up Hiro once again.
Bella's father laughed and clapped his hands.
Even though such insights had no practical value in today's society, just having this breadth of mind was already a huge advantage.
In business, such intangible assets were the cornerstones of a budding business empire.
Boldness, vision, creativity, insight, forbearance, knowledge, imagination, all of these were intangible qualities that made a great man great.
Still, Bella's father shook his head. "Although your perspective is unique, it's best if you don't talk about this in a public setting. If the Holy Church catches wind of your worldview on deities, no one on this earth can protect you."
Hiro understood this principle as well. Actually, this was quite common when a certain belief in some religions reached a certain extreme.
Even back on Earth, such things were daily occurrences, let alone in this world where the deity with the least base of believers had a minimum of 1.2 billion pious followers to join the Holy Church's Pantheon of the Gods.
With Hiro's current understanding of the religious doctrine of this world, he knew about the Lesser Deities, Greater Deities, and the Mainstream Deities.
All of these topics were too advanced for the current Hiro—let alone joining in on the power struggle between the Church and the State, mere ripples from their casual collisions could end him for good.
Thus, it wasn't unexpected for someone like Bella's father to be concerned about Hiro's current mindset and where he stood.
As long as he hadn't reached a certain level, he was better at playing his cards low-key, neutral, and risk-averse.
"I know what I'm doing, Uncle. Thanks for the advice." Hiro expressed his understanding and appreciation.
Bella's father composed himself and said, "We can now move to the other topic, which is to express my gratitude for helping my family."
"There's no need to go so far…" Hiro just started talking when Bella's father raised his palm with a stern face.
He said, "Stop right there, young man. We are a family that separates merits and gratitude; we don't like owing favors. Although I couldn't contact Babylon for now, I will express my thanks to you nonetheless."
He then snapped his fingers, and a servant walked in, a stack tablet in his hands.
He handed the tablet to Bella's father, who then proceeded to tap away at the screen for a few seconds before passing the device over to Hiro.
"I heard from Bella that you're a Sorcerer, and your power source is spirituality. Thus, I highlighted a few gains from spiritually attributed dimensional pockets for you to choose from."
Hiro was intrigued as he accepted the device with clear interest, "dimensional pockets?"
Bella's father nodded. "This bit of information can also be considered as a form of repaying your kindness, as your level is far from learning about these things. It's like this…"
According to Bella's father,—dimensional pockets are points of intersection between parallel realms, a product of a collision between the invisible powers of the higher-level dimensions.
It could only be said that the root cause behind the existence of Paranormals was the radiative energy from these pocket dimensions throughout the history of this world.
Once a Paranormal reaches a certain level, they would gain the qualifications to explore these pocket dimensions on exploration missions, and these missions could take from three days up to a week, a month, or even a year during extreme conditions.
Dangers of exploring such pocket dimensions aside, the harvest is quite good if one manages to make it back alive.
For example, the spirituality-rich resources displayed on the tablet in Hiro's hands.
These abnormal fruits, vegetables, minerals, and other resources can help Hiro increase his spirituality's volume and density, allowing his tier and rank to increase gradually.
Like the Paranormal tiers, these resources are categorized into different grades from G9 to G1 in descending order, not to forget the corresponding ranks of C, B, A, and S.
Goes without saying, all the resources displayed on the tablet were grade 9C materials.
Bella smiled and poked at Hiro's side, whispering in a devilish tone, "Pick your poison…"
Hiro smiled, already wondering whether or not Bella's father was looking for Babylon to invite him on a similar expedition.
However, Hiro had no more than 245 achievement points at the moment, which was sufficient for no more than a single day of synchronization.
This was too little amount of time, and he couldn't waste it on an uncertain endeavor like exploring a pocket dimension.
Moreover, his daoist character was on the verge of achieving a minor breakthrough, getting into the 10th layer of the Nascent Soul realm.
With the current daily ratio of 4,492,800 Spirit Qi per day, it would take only a few days for him to advance to the next great realm.
If Hiro logged into the game and took advantage of the time dilation feature while he was in-game, the process would be even faster.
It's just that he had to consign himself to sitting down in the same place for two weeks.
If only he could take a three-day leave from school to focus on secluded cultivation, he could squeeze those two weeks of in-game time into his schedule without a hitch.
Sigh… Unfortunately, I can't do things like that, it's not good to be greedy and anxious for immediate success…
Hiro sorted out his thoughts.
Even if he played Transcendent Taoist for 8 real-time hours every night, he would only need about ten days to reach the critical breakthrough point.
Since that's the case, I'll ignore my PARA app for the next ten days, then check out these dimensional pockets once my Daoist character meets the Tier-6 standards of this world.
During this time, Hiro could think of other ways to generate achievement points and an excuse to skip school.
Hm, tomorrow is my debut day for the Soccer Club, right?
Hiro's eyes lit up. If he could become a famous athlete in the school, he could easily generate traffic for his profile on the iMessenger app.
Hiro quickly opened his phone and downloaded the add-on newsfeed feature for the iMessenger app, upgrading his account to a social media account.
Soon, his actions were broadcasted on both his friends' and the public newsfeed, similar to how Facebook and Twitter were operating back on Earth.
Now, all that's left is to become an internet celebrity, then wait for the friend requests to pour in and collect those achievement points.
Bella's parents thought that Hiro was using his phone to consult the PARA app, but only Bella knew that he was on iMessenger, creating a public account.
Looking at the notification on her phone, Bella's cheeks reddened in embarrassment, but she didn't dare expose Hiro and ruin the solemnity of the atmosphere.
Once he was satisfied, Hiro put his phone aside and returned his attention to the array of spiritual materials on the display.
After thinking for a while, Hiro made his choice and picked a chain bracelet that had the effect of amplifying one's affinity to spirituality, though the effect was limited to weak Paranormals.
Bella's father didn't say anything else; he directly ordered a servant to bring the accessory over, while Hiro didn't stand on ceremony and directly put it on his right wrist.
The moment he put it on, he heard a system prompt in his head while a pop-up window appeared in front of him.
[Notice: You've completed the hidden mission, "Treasure Hunt."
Reward: Unlocked the system's treasure scanning feature.]