Alex Volff appears in front of the spiraling black light that is surrounded by a thick glass wall around it. He can see two guards standing outside the door from behind the glass wall. Alex walks out of the portal room, greeting the guards when he passes them by. He walks up to the bespectacled UDA staff that he met the last time he came out of the Realm of Defenders.

"How are you, Mr. Akira? I want to exchange {Energy Stones} again," Alex starts the conversation.

"Ah, good work, Mr. Alex Volff. Please hand me the {Energy Stones} and your UDA ID card," Akira replies to Alex.

"Oh, you remember my name?" Alex asks in surprise while handing Akira 15 F-ranked {Energy Stones} and his new UDA ID card that shows that his new status as a member of UDA.

"Yes. We rarely get someone as young as you enter the Realm of Defenders, so I specifically remember you. Oh... you have become a member of UDA too?" Akira replies and shows a mild surprise.

"Oh... And here I thought that all UDA staffs are good at remembering names. Haha..." Alex replies with a light laugh.

"Haha..." Akira laughs.

After taking a short while to verify everything, Akira hands Alex's ID card back to him.

"Everything is taken care of. $ 1,800 has been credited to your account. Because of your status as UDA member, you have been given 20% more than the market value of those {Energy Stones}. Also, 75 points have been added to your UDA account," Akira gives Alex an explanation about his gains this time.

Alex smiles and says his goodbye to Akira. He has earned $ 1,800 this time. Much more than the $ 100 he earned from his first entrance. This money will enable him to start helping his mother in taking care of their family.

Alex bought 15 F-ranked {Energy Stones} to exchange for money. Of course, he is now able to get E-ranked {Energy Stones}, but he didn't get them. First, to hide the fact that he is now an E-ranked Defender, but also because their worth will end up the same. E-ranked {Energy Stones} cost 200 credits each and their market value when exchanging with UDA is $ 1,000 for each E-ranked {Energy Stones}. It's no different than buying 10 F-ranked {Energy Stones}. Of course, in the future when he can spend thousands of credits on {Energy Stones}, it will be foolish to bring out hundreds of F-ranked {Energy Stones} and he will just switch to the higher ranked ones.

Alex walks into a nearby hyperloop station and gets into an individual capsule to take him back home. Being a Defender has its perks. One of them is being able to ride on these hyperloop networks for free. The hyperloop network is one of the results of the technological advancement caused by resources from the Realm of Defenders. As people who risk their lives in the Realm of Defenders to bring out these resources, the Defenders can enjoy these technologies for free or at a discounted price.

He arrives at the station near his housing complex. Alex runs straight home after getting out of the hyperloop capsule. He arrives at the front of his family's apartment only to find a locked door. He uses his electronic key to open the door and walks inside.

"Mom, Elsa, I'm home!" Alex shouts to announce his return.

"..."

There is no answer from inside the house. Alex checks the time on his watch and realizes the problem.

"Ah, that's right. It's 2 PM now. Mom must be at work and Elsa is at school. Well, I guess I will just surprise them when they're back," Alex talks to himself.

Alex goes straight to his room and starts unpacking. While waiting for his mother and little sister to return, Alex starts accessing his personal computer to do some research about the E-rank. He has to wait for a while for his computer to start up. This computer is an old model that used to be popular more than a decade ago. It uses voice control as its main input method. His father bought it. Now, with the new programs installed, this computer is running really slow.

"Ah... This thing is so slow. When I get more money in the future I will buy the newest brain-controlled holographic computer," Alex mumbles to himself while dreaming about the future.

Of course, he won't get rid of this old computer. Afterall, this is something his father bought. Even if he can bear to depart with it, his mother won't allow him to get rid of this computer.

Alex starts by opening the UDA database. His F-ranked Defender status only allows him to access limited E-ranked information. He reads up on everything he can find. Alex realizes that there is no information about Dungeons in there.

After reading the little amount of information in the UDA database, Alex decides to continue his research in the Defenders' Online Forum. Not every Defender have access to the UDA database. In fact, most Defenders are not UDA members, so they can't access the classified database. This online forum is a way for Defenders to share information between themselves.

Alex scans his UDA ID card on the computer to gain access to the online forum. Due to the information in his ID card still describing him as F-ranked Defender, Alex finds a lot of sub-forums that he can't access. In spite of that, Alex still searches for every accessible post that contains the keyword "E-rank".

There is a lot more information in this forum, but as he expected earlier, they are unreliable. For example, there is information about various creatures one can encounter in the E-rank area. There are even descriptions of their strength and weakness, but some of them don't match each other, and some of them even contradicted each other.

Alex starts taking note and doing his own research. He has to decide for himself which bits of information are true and which ones are fake.