From what Ian recalled, it was not possible to transmit the gameplay of the game through a monitor in real-time. The reason was that inside the game; the time ratio was one to six. One hour of real-time was six hours in the game.
Ian quickly calculated in his head. "So, for one day to pass in Parallel Realm time, then four hours must pass in real-time. That means, being in the game for six days is equivalent to one day in real-time..." And because of that, it was impossible to watch it live. The only action was to record it for later.
Ian had no clue how the company, Eleven Hands, achieved something like that. It was a deeply kept secret that only a handful of people knew.
Anyway, due to the relative time difference, it was not possible to see what Willer was currently doing visually.
However, there was another way to see what was going on.
Ian hopped on Willer's computer.
"I heard it was possible to see the stats of the person when they are playing. Let me see..." Ian went to a website managed by the Eleven Hands to look for his brother's character. It even shows the ranking of all the players.
Since there were millions upon millions of players playing Parallel Realm, it was not viable to scroll down the list to find what he was looking for.
"If I recall, he always used 'ZeroEyesPro' as his in-game name." He remembered from playing massive multi-player games with him.
He typed it in the search bar and found one match.
There was an icon next to the name to show that would reveal more information about the person he was looking for. Once clicked, a simple text appeared on the monitor.
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Name: Wilan ZeroProEyes
Grade Base: ★☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆
Class: [Hidden]
Stats: [Hidden]
Equipment: [Hidden]
Journal: [Hidden]
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Seeing that many of the information was hidden, Ian was not surprised. Ever since Willer started hacking, he built a habit of making any information private in case someone wanted to report him. It was a paranoia he brought onto himself.
He started at the name that Willer chose.
"Wilan ZeroProEyes… I believe the first couple of weeks after launch, players had a first and last name. The reason was that it was cringey to call some people by their weird avatar names all the time. So naturally, over time, the first name was added to keep it simple. "
When he thought about having to call his brother, ZeroProEyes, all the time in public, he would have felt slightly embarrassed by it.
The next thing he saw was the Grade Base.
"I do not much about Grade Base..." Ian tried to recall any information about it, but he could not. Instead, he will move on and research on it later or ask his brother.
For the rest of the information, there were all hidden.
Journal was something to use for players to keep track of their adventure. He heard journals of top tier players can be bought for a high price, but no such case had happened yet, or at least in public. To keep their ranking, many players will prefer to hide it than to sell it since there were perks for being ranked high.
"I guess there was not much to see. Willer hid much of his information… He is probably trying to avoid standing out as he finds ways to exploit the game."
Even his ranking was hidden, but Ian believed it was near the bottom of the list.
Ian sighed seeing that Willer was trying to ruin a good game, but since Willer was his brother, he was not going to report him. Besides, he had no proof he was hacking.
Honestly, Ian had never heard of an exploit being found before. If there was ever one, someone would have noticed it by now. And Ian was sure that the developers watched very closely for anything shady going on in their game.
As the minimizing reaction time, Ian did not think of it as an exploit. It was more like buying a better graphic card for a higher frame rate. Though it was still a grey area since it could be considered in unauthorized modification, and could lead to a ban.
After seeing as much as he can, Ian gave up seeing what Willer was doing inside the game. Since stats were being updated in real-time, it was possible to guess what a player was focusing on, but with his brother's cautious personality, there was not much to see.
"Knowing my brother, he will pull an all-nighter playing this game."
So Ian did something else besides sitting on the computer. Since it had been a while when he last exercise, Ian changed his clothes to go for a jog.
Ignoring the doctor's advice to keep any movements as little as possible, he thought a short jog would not hurt.
As he ran under the night sky, his mind reminisced about his past life.
Ian was once a pro gamer renowned throughout the entire world. Eventually, people called him Three Second Sight because they believed he could see into the future. But Ian rejected such an embarrassing title publicly.
Instead of supernatural power, it was thanks to his quick reflexes and sharp wits he honed playing with his hacker brother ever since he was young. With patience and his competitive personality, Ian persistently practiced to the point of fatigue. He remembered the many hours he had to put in just to beat Willer once in a first-person shooting game. Willer was using an aim-hack which made him never missed a shot. To overcome such disadvantages, Ian had to outsmart and outplay him. Not only that, but he also had to get the first shot with pinpoint accuracy before Willer did. And once he did, Willer would devise new ways to overcome it, of course, by learning new ways to hack the game. But Ian overcame many of the challenges brought to him by his brother.
The cycle continued for many games over the years until Ian could put many pro gamers to shame.
"I wonder how many times I lost to Willer ever since he discovered that he could hack to gain an advantage. But now that I think about it, he never gave himself enough of an advantage to win one hundred percent of the time. It was just enough so I could at least barely win." He thought.
As the night drew darker, Ian breathed more heavily with each step. With his legs beginning to cramp up and lungs burning, he took a break on a bench in a small park.
"I am really out of shape…" He panted. Even though his lungs and legs were burning, he wanted to continue. However, Ian knew that he reached his limit. If he continued running, the object inside his brain would move and make things worst. It was hard enough to maintain a posture, so he does not move his head around too much. But to do so under stress, he was not confident.
Ian sighed as he could not do the things he wanted to.
"I should not be running anymore..." He told himself with regret. Walking back to his house, Ian contemplated about getting the surgery to remove the object in his brain.
It was more than his trauma from the accident that prevented him from getting the operation. But also, he had no more money after all the therapies, drugs, and the services from the hospital he had stayed at. Being there for half a year, it had drained him of all the savings that he earned from playing games.