《Hundred Worlds》 Prologue ########################################### Prologue ############################################## Words from the Author: My first real approach at publishing to others. I have tried my hand at writing a lot, most horror and comedy. But I lose interest as I have no one to suggest it''s growth. I hope I get a lot of criticism for my work to learn and grow and I will try to keep it as original as possible. I hope to bring in a lot of my real life instances to the story and hope everyone enjoys it as much as I enjoy writing it. Thank you and Enjoy!!! PS: It''s kinda like there is two VR systems in the game. I will explain more with... more chapter. And the Prologue doesn''t contain anything related to the VR. Sorry.!! PSS: I haven''t done a PR on it. But have read it multiple times and corrected it a few times. Let me know if it requires more corrections. ###################################################################################################
Prologue
Consider a situation where you have everything. Well not everything in the world, but everything you need. Then what more is there to strive for. I was born to a loving family : of course, I wouldn''t say it was all peachy and dramatically a perfect family. Every family has it''s short comings, fights, misfortune, ego, independence and most importantly the ways of showing love. I wouldn''t say my family doesn''t love me, what I want to know is, do I? I don''t know what love is, I have always remembered myself being lazy with emotions, they baffle me. I had a few proposals in high school from girls, but I never understood how they could love someone they don''t even know when I don''t know if I love people I know. Well enough about love; let''s go back to having everything : Currently, I have a decent earning, I don''t spend money to tell the truth. I believe too much is waste and something extra I buy is equal to stealing from someone who doesn''t have the things I have. I stay at a hostel cause'' I moved out of my home due to work as my work location being in a different city. So I barely use 50% of salary for my rent and expenses. My expenses mostly being food, but I eat only when I''m hungry, so it either 2 times a day or once. I never take an extra bite after I am satisfied, but I never compromise with my food. Well enough about me, shall we talk about how this affects my story. I will explain my reality with how I live my alternate. The world''s first VR technology, CAPSULE is released today, well to be more accurate - the world''s first VRMMORPG, Hundred Worlds is also released. We had VR for over less than a decade now. It was nothing big if you compare it to the latest VR which is full immersion. The previous generations of VR were mostly head gear and movement recognition technology, which were all Single player or Instance related gaming, but you couldn''t do more than just 4 hours of gaming in those devices because it lead to insomnia and depression since people preferred spending more time having adventures in these games than facing a boring reality, But with more time spent in the game, the less outside and this caused health issues. Later a brilliant innovation was brought about with wearable devices called, MiRRoR. It was a different approach to Virtual reality cause'' it didn''t create a separate reality but augmented with current reality. The approach was simple, it was aimed at people''s yearning to know how much they progressed in life with their actions. So what MiRRoR made possible was an unique change to humanity in revolutionising life with gaming. The approach was simple but it took over 4 years for it to reach the corners of the world. MiRRoR is a simple eye gear which looks like sport goggles which creates 3D images over the real world when viewed through them. So an apartment basement or parking would look like a dungeon, a skyscraper could look like a Wizards tower or a mountain and your neighbour could be witches. MiRRoR worked on a different band of signals hence a tower needed to be set up every 20 miles in a hexagonal structure go get maximum coverage. The AI was so advanced that when doing some action would generate a skill, but in order to gain them you need to show competence by doing various stage breakers, an easy example for this would be my favourite skill, cooking - To learn cooking skill you only need to boil water 5 times and transfer to a container or Jug. To level up this skill, you would need to cook various items, but for beginner making instant noodles, omelette and even some ''Just Fry'' foods is enough. So levelling these skills took real effort which progressed though your real life cooking skills. To know where you stand in your skills was through different grades namely 0 -5. So beginner is 0 and for every 5 levels and to switch grades one would be required to go to the MiRRoR institute and apply for skill setting test. Which is a simple test if you really do have the skill, as for cooking you are just required to ... well cook and a group of judges will taste it and rate it out of 5. If average is 3 or above you set your skill at that stage, so that you won''t forget them if you don''t cook over 2 weeks. As you switch through each grade, a person of master level meaning a person who has been Grade 5 for over 5 years would judge your skills and you would be required to book a slot to be tested, so especially during vacation seasons the MiRRoR Institute is packed with people. If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Initially MiRRoR was just for fun, but it became a way of life when you could gain skills related to your job. As a Civil Engineer would get the Brick work and Planning skill, a Doctor would get the... well not the Heal skill, but rather Pharmacist skill and Bedside manners (PASSIVE) skill. Even martial artists would get skills related to their trade. The amount of skills a person could learn is limitless, but learning every skill required time and just learning tailoring skills but if you never use them for over two weeks you would lose those skills. The reason MiRRoR became popular was because it became easier for people to understand themselves, their own growth and of their peers. Even jobs were hired with requirements like, Grade 3+ Mechanic required, Grade 4+ IT Developer looking for a job. Competitions were split based on Grades, it was never with age, but with competence later on. The most important thing that changed the world were Quests. Anyone and everyone could create quests; they too had related Grading. It became an easy way to get the work done as shopkeepers would create a quest for delivering a package, a manager would create a quest for this employees (for incentives and raise), a teacher can assign quests with students on other activities which resulted in easy scoring. The questing system was integrated into all administrative system as a way of grading and maintenance. This questing system revolutionised the world, everything were done through quests. But since MiRRoR started, life became a little more interesting that people had no need to escape to a fantasy world to become what they wanted. MiRRoR became a reality which required their own escape later on. People were shunned because of difference in Grade and Skill, like every technology which was made to bring order to life caused the largest mechanization of life. People were given worth by grades, though people were brought back to reality, the additional details just made it harder for people. As for me, I didn''t care. My work which I can''t explain in detail due to security violations can be easily explained as : a fixer, well not a hit man or assassin. I fix applications for people, for example, a person has an application which was supposed to do a set function, but achieving it is hard, that is where I come in to split it into sections and blocks and reassemble them to make sure they perform as required and more. It''s analytical and it kept me occupied for two years, but later I just got bored. Today, I would get the CAPSULE delivered as I already bought it during the pre-book last month. I happened to buy it before it sold out in 5 minutes which was surprising. I think it could be because it is damn costly which almost took up 50% of my savings to just buy the immersion gear and an year long subscription that took another 10%. I had a few tasks to complete today at office, but I can''t wait to reach my room. *RING*RING*RING* "Hello?" "Hey Alex, It''s Salim" "Hey dude, what happened?" "Nothing, just called to let you know that a delivery arrived for you and I have placed it my cupboard. You know where I place the key rite?" "Yup, Thanks." "mm...Is it the VR equipment you have been talking about all week?" " I hope it is, also I got a message about the delivery an hour back, so it''s probably the same. " " Cool, can I try it on when I come in after work?" "I don''t think you can, unless you register for an account. I think you should, we can share the gear and since you work night shifts and always around when I am off at work you can play then. What do you think?" "Cool, I will let you continue your work then. We''ll talk tomorrow." "Sure, dude. Thanks. Bye." "Bye." It has been a long time since I have felt motivated toward something and the frustration on not having completed my task and not being able to log out for the day for another 2 hours was leaving my mind to waver about new adventure. I silence my curiosity with great effort and concentrate on finishing my tasks at hand so that I can to start my long missed Adventure soon... Next Chapter, Uno Chapter 1 : Uno ########################################### Chapter 1 ################################################## Hi guys, I was trying to write this one a little fast. Hope there aren''t any mistakes. Please let me know if there needs to be any corrections. Let me know your thoughts on the further progression. Thanks and Enjoy. #######################################################################################################
CHAPTER 1 : UNO
"Alex, have you found something?" "Dan, you just assigned this task to me an hour ago. I will need more time." "Alex, I got a meeting with this guy in another hour. I need something to tell him" "Tell him ''we are still analyzing the issue''. I have no idea what is causing this and so far it looks fine with the logic. I will update you tomorrow in detail cause I want to leave early today." "Why? you always leave late" "Just cause I want to leave early. Please Dan, I''m running in circles with this issue, I will take a look with a fresh mind tomorrow. Ok?" "mm... ok. You already decided you won''t finish it today, so what can I say. So what you gonna do leaving early? a date?" "Thanks Boss, mm... No.... I''ve got... things to do..." -"Don''t want to let him know I''m leaving early for a game", thought Alex. "hmm... something''s up. You''re pulling your words. Tell me!!!" "It''s nothing Dan, I will let you know later. I will leave for the day." "Ok. Bye... I''ll find out you know." "Hehe.. we''ll see. Bye" The call was disconnected and at quarter past seven in the evening Alex exited his office, which isn''t actually leaving early, but since he always left after nine this was very early by habit. On his way towards the elevator, he put on his MR( MiRRoR) goggles and switched on his display while also jabbing at ''G'' on the control panel. The goggles booted up in a few seconds on his way toward the ground floor, but it took almost five minutes since his office was at the 20th floor and it stopping at other floors along the way.
Welcome to MiRRoR, Krimson.
"MR Command, Start Road Rage." He said while at the ground floor.
Road Rage started. Please set route.
"Select custom Evening Flash route."
Are you sure you want to select ''Evening Flash'' custom Route. You previous selections for the past month was the default dungeon route.
"Affirmative, Start ''Evening Flash'' and set as default route."
Evening Flash is set to default route and has been initiated.
As the goggle AI had initiated the simulation. The goggles which covered most of his face lit up from inside and he was able to see the world around him appended with image which were not actually present. This was called the MiRRoR world. Any person can summon up objects and place it here and anyone who were logged into the MiRRoR world could see them or alter them if given permission to do so. The simulation Alex initiated, Road Rage is a running/jogging simulator which was used as a way for people to be entertained during their walks or jogging. It ran in sync with MiRRoR world, but changes done during Road Rage would not be visible to all since it was a sub simulation. On initiating Road Rage, a person is capable of setting a route to a target destination and how he would like to reach it. There are multiple types of route modes. A few common examples are, ? Rally mode - where a person can set up points in between where they can hunt or meet up with friends. This is usually the default mode. ? Berserker mode - A mode to pass time. This sets up a random route to your destination which includes all hunting ground and dungeons in the vicinity of your route. ? Flash mode - A mode where it provided the shortest distance coverage. Also in this mode even if you pass through dungeons and instances on the way, you will appear as a blur since as the name suggests, you are moving with almost the speed of light in this mode. ( in this mode, you just disappear to others in MiRRoR, but to keep this mode up you need to be running/jogging continuously to your destination. ) The mode which Alex selected was a custom mode which he had created long time back where his destination was to his room, which was almost 1.5 miles from his office. Custom modes can be created earlier on if your destination is already known. In custom mode, you can mix and match the different modes and use them at a later time. Alex usually made a custom route which was a combination of Rally mode and the Berserker mode. He had set up a rally point at a snack bar on his way from office to break and selected alleyways with berserker mode in those paths, so that any MR entities in that vicinity would engage him. After MiRRoR was incorporated into every nook and corner of the world. Dungeons and monster spawning locations were set up based on user requests. Later a patch latter MiRRoR world v.2.0.10 made a significant change that where there were alleyways with different lengths, MR entities , i.e. monsters, thieves, ghosts and even demons were summoned at these places. In order to pass these places without having to confront these MR entities, you just need to switch the MR goggles to Standby mode where the Dungeons and Fantasy aspect of MiRRoR world would not be activated. But some large scale events, such as boss battles and wars cannot be avoided. So, the only way to avoid these would be to get killed and not get revived soon after the event has completed. Getting back to the current day, Alex had started jogging towards the exit of his premises, while greeting a causal ''Hey'' and nods at people on the way. His view from the MR goggles were showing a green path which turned red at regular signal stops, but he still had to do jogs in place to not disable the ''Flash mode''. Other than the illuminated path in front of his, all the objects in the MR world were a blur to him in the MR world like a car moving at 60kmps but faster , this was because in the simulation he was moving at close to light speed. He had reached halfway after ten minutes and his custom route took him into an alleyway which was a dungeon instance which spawned ghosts and demons. The alleyway was around 30 metres in length and 3 meters wide and it hosted a lot of different level MR entities. As Alex made his way through the alleyway, he saw a bunch of people already engaged in a battle and as he could guess, it was mini boss - the wraith, Sheeya. It was quite difficult to solo since it could summon all spirit related minion around. The wraith was at a towering height of seven and half feet tall where it was floating a feet above the ground. It was wearing all black and was clawing at the party around it. The amount of detail the wraith had could entice fear into a rookie in this area. He recognised the party and they were a known group in the vicinity as the ''Group 7'' or ''G7'' as they called themselves. He slowed down on seeing them, but still jogging in place and looked at their Cleric, Ken if they required a hand. "Hey!... Hey Ken!!" He said "Wait... " said the cleric and chanted a large scale buff and also healed their Agro multiple times before he turned his glance at the person interrupting their hunt. "Ah Alex, as you can see we are busy at the moment. What is it?" He blurted out, while turning his head suddenly towards the battle side and healing his comrades. "Well nothing, I just wanted to know if you guys need any help. I don''t see you guys having endowed you blades except for your critter who I think is using a holy blade." "mm.. you are.. " he said and suddenly turned around and cast a debuff on the wraith and it''s minion and also multiple heals towards his team. "mm..yea, you are jogging. So aren''t you in a hurry?" he said while keeping an eye on his team. "Well, I was just gonna offer you guys a holy endow if you had holy water." "Ah...yea.. splendid. Wait let me get you the holy water." Ken said while pulling out something and handing it to Alex. If anyone not looking at this scene without the MR goggles would see a group of four people swinging at the air, while two others were doing dance stances that always ended with them pointing towards the centre where the other four were swinging at. Beside them were two others where one would turn at frequent intervals and wave his hands like a musical conductor and the other is jogging in place for no reason. "MR command, Pause current route."
Route has been paused, say ''continue active route'' to resume with route.
As he disabled his Flash route and was made suddenly visible to the entities in the dungeon, all the surrounding entities started to move towards him. Alex looked at the ghosts approaching him and he smiled at them. "MR Command, Battle mode ON" he said and the AI responded to its activation. *Snap* *Snap* *Snap* If anyone without the MR gear would only see something like this, After his actions of continuous finger snaps, the area towards him were covered with fire traps; the ghosts were bombarded with fire missiles and fire traps which were triggered as they moved toward their target and after a while they disappeared one by one due to the accumulated damage leaving transparent cloths and other loots behind where they stood. He moved towards the four who were engaged with blocking and swinging their arms with a baton and shield or a baton in each arm. These batons and shield act as the equipment in MR world and they are accessories which can be bought separately. Alex approached the melee group from behind such that he didn''t gain the attention of the wraith and showed an action of pouring something in his arms and rubbing them he placed it on the back of the party''s critter. "Weapons Endow." The critter was a dual swordsman who was lashing out at the wraith with different skills. With this action the weapons were endowed with holy property for a duration of an hour. On seeing the difference in the damage, the wraith was looking around for the reason for this change. "ARGH!!! You are soon join the dead Elementalist!!" Saying this the wraith tried to leap towards Alex, but the tank had already cast his skills to gain back the Agro of the wraith. The tank has used a skill, Entice which made him look like the most desirable object to the wraith. The pros of the skill was that it had almost 80% chance of gaining the agro of a monster, it doesn''t work on monsters which have very high intelligence. But the cons of this skill was the monster goes into a frenzy and lunges towards the tanks. On having noticed that he no longer had the agro of the wraith, Alex closed up towards the melee bunch to endow the rest of the team with the help of the tank taking the agro after each endow. The endow skill requires a related catalyst for different elements and he is only capable of doing this because of his skill ''Elementalism'' which was at Grade 4 now. Alex chose to become an Elementalist because he could use a melee skill whenever required. But the choice of getting something that doesn''t exist in the real world, Magic was more entertaining. He was almost at level 4 Grade 4 which means he could control all 7 elements ( fire, water, wind, earth, gravity, light and dark) and also since reaching Grade 4 he could endow properties into weapons for an hour. Later after he reaches Grade 5, he could made weapons solely out of elements. After having endowed all the members of G7 he bid them goodbye and left the dungeon while on the way he had to incinerate a couple of Ghosts and demons until he could exit the alleyway and start his route again. If he had wanted, Alex could have finished the battle with the wraith in five minutes, he had a skill which was an AOE spell which did over 30x damage continuously and by spamming that he could have taken care of the wraith in minutes. But he had other plans for the day and he needed to re-activate Road Rage to avoid unwanted battles, case when disabling Road Rage in a dungeon, it can only be re-activated after exiting the dungeon or when not being targeted by monsters for more than ten minutes. As one of his battle skills being Elementalist all the evil spirits and ghosts were attacking him to gain his soul points which was a lot larger than other players. The soul points are like experience point but for MR entities. With sufficient soul points monsters in MR world could evolve to a stronger state for example, like in Pok¨¦mon and yes, you can take up Pok¨¦mon master as a skill set and catch and breed Pok¨¦mon in the MR world. Pok¨¦mon monsters were one of the various monster race in the MiRRoR world. Even this alleyway had a couple of Gastley which were easier to kill with fire. The Pok¨¦mon race was quite popular among all players and many had Pikachu as a companion in the MR world. With regards to evolution, a walking dead could kill a player and get his soul points, after sufficient soul points it would evolve into a ghoul, later into a Wight , then Draugr and finally a Lich. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. Alex after having re-activated his Route, jogging he sped through the streets and crossed roads to reach his room by 8PM where he deactivated Road Rage. He rushed towards his room and guessing if his other roommate was present. On trying to push open, he found it was locked and he knocked to make sure before checking the lock. After a few second, the door was opened by his other roommate, Madhan. Alex was sharing his room with two roommates, Salim and Madhan, they worked later and night shifts. Salim leaves for office around 6 PM and returns only around 2 AM, while Madhan leaves for office around 8:30PM everyday and returns around 6AM the next day. "Hey Alex bro. You''re early today. What happened?" "Hey Madhan, What? Can''t I come early?" "Well you are usually late, so I asked. Well any particular reason why you''re early?" "Nothing much, I heard my delivery has come, so I left a little early. " "Ah ok, the VR, I was sleeping when it came. I''ll leave then. I still haven''t taken a bite since breakfast. " Madhan comes in early morning 6AM, he only has his breakfast and sleeps through lunch only to wake up to get ready for office. "Ok Madhan. See you later. Bye" Alex said to his roommate as he walked out the door with his hand raised to wave goodbye. Alex rushed towards Salim''s cupboard while taking the key from the usual spot and found his package lying on a pile of Salim''s clothes. He started unwrapping the package which was at a size of 60 cm x 60 cm . It was a square box which said ''Fragile'' outside. He unwrapped it carefully and removed its contents. The cardboard box was covered securely with bubble wrap and it contained another cardboard box which was the product box. It had the logo of the makers of CAPSULE, GGL Tech, it was a matte finished black box which looked amazing. It had a silver line in between which showed the cut in the matte box for opening it. On unpacking the box, inside contained a headgear which looked like a beanie with metallic stitches like a metal web all over it and a couple of connection optical cables, a Video/Audio output cable and a small box which is probably the quantum computer to which the headgear would be connect to. The box also contained a user manual, Pre configuration steps and troubleshooting guide. The CAPSULE headgear was easy to assemble and the user manual had a simple diagram to show what connects to what and sufficient instructions were provided such as, the quantum computer was to be placed on the ground and it should have sufficient cable length when connected to the headgear such at them sitting up the quantum computer would not be pulled up from its location. The quantum computer had its own version of the complex AI which then communicates with the Network AI to process the data at faster speeds. The AI in the quantum computer pre-processes the data and such that no load is directed at the network AI rather than routing the correct data. After having assembled the CAPSULE, Alex read the Pre-Configuration steps to see if all the boot and other functions were operable. After all these steps were confirmed, he slipped on to his bed and forced a command into his MR goggles to mention that he was Away and can only be contacted through his e-mail or chat. The CAPSULE was capable of linking a personal inbox of the user such that he doesn''t lose connection with the outside while playing in case of an emergency. He plugged in the internet cord for communications as the AI was connect with the same wireless network as the MR goggles. Checking the time to see it was around 8:45PM, he slid into his bed wearing the beanie headgear and muttered "Initiate initial configuration" On having said the command phrase to start the sequence, he was suddenly in a room which got brighter slowly and soon it as white all around. He didn''t remember closing his eyes nor felt he had opened his eyes to this room, an infinite white room which can only be described as infinity with marble flooring and a never ending horizon. While looking around he could see a body and legs, it looked nothing like his body. He assumed it would be a default skin for configuration purposes.
Welcome to the CAPSULE configuration panel. There is a total of Five steps to configure the CAPSULE to your personal use. Step 1: Please follow the lines on the ground by placing one feet over the other. Concentrate on the line while doing this to configure the motion.
Suddenly a few green line appeared on the floor and Alex started following them by placing one feet over the other on the lines. After having walked for around 5 meters straight ahead, the lines turned left for another 5 meters and then right for another 5 meter. After having completed this, the lines disappeared and a strange number of white steps were created in front of him. The steps were strange because each step was almost 3 feet high and the only way to climb them would be to jump.
Step 2 : Please jump up to climb the stairs.
Alex jumped up the stairs and on having climbed over 10 steps. The ground merged and he was back on a plain surface. *Bong* As he turned towards the sound, he found a huge white board which could be found in class rooms and a table near it. On the table was a white board marker. With the items present he could guess what the next would be.
Step 3: Please pick up the marker and write 8 in the different boxes which appear on the board.
On taking the marker and approaching the white board, a large box of around 1 meter x 500cms appeared. He found it easier to write an eight inside this box. Later the size of the box decreased over 30 times while the smallest box was about 2cm x 1cm, where the marker tip also became finer. As the box size reduced the hand co-ordination was challenged and after a few mistakes of drawing half outside the box, he completed the Step 3 successfully.
Step 4 : Speaking factory. Please repeat the words written on the board now to make sure lip sync is perfect.
As the notification vanished, the white board was now filled with a list of 20 words one after the other. On completing these words, the white board was now filled with 20 sentences or phrases. After completing these 20 another set of 10 more longer phrases were displayed and this completed the Step 4.
Step 5 : Emergency Log out. To setup the emergency log out it requires two conditions to be set, first the player has to select a escape phrase to initiate the emergency log out and secondly a way to jog the brain to wake up. A few examples of this would be to imagine falling or drowning, which would cause the body to awaken. Please take caution to remember the escape phrase as Emergency log out would be very crucial in case of getting stuck during long instances. Also please use Emergency log out with caution cause'' it will not log out the avatar for 5 minutes and it is susceptible to harm or even death.
"Please select an escape phrase and recite the phrase clearly" Alex through for a while on what his escape phrase would be. He didn''t want to say something that can be said even casually. He needed a phrase which would bring him back to reality and he knew only one said by Albert Einstein. "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one."
Is '' Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one.'' the phrase you have selected for Emergency log out.?
"Yes."
For the second part, imagine a sudden shock to awaken the mind. Falling is the recommended option.
Alex though about how he had a dream about falling from top of a building and he woke up on his bed with a jerk as if he had fallen on his bed. "You have selected an instance of falling backwards as the way to awake the brain. Are you sure?" "Yes." He didn''t want to wait longer and confirmed the action.
Thank you for completing the configuration of CAPSULE. Please try the emergency log out and restart the configuration to initiate the game.
On hearing the last instructions, Alex started with his emergency log out procedure. "Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." He said while thinking of the sensation of falling down. *thud* He was now awake on his bed. "So the emergency log out worked. Cool. Might as well log back in." He thought to himself. "Initiate initial configuration" He was back in the same white room.
You have successfully completed the CAPSULE personal configuration. If different users are using the same gear, the configuration needs to be done per individual. It is not required to redo for individuals already configured.
Initiating sequence, Hundred Worlds... Please wait... 5... 4... 3.. 2.. 1...
The view went blank and it felt like he was facing resistance from wind. -"Am I flying?" Suddenly the screen went bright with a flash and blinded the view. As time passed by the horizon was visible as time passed by.. "Am I falling....??"
Welcome to Uno - The premiere
Previous Chapter : Prologue Next Chapter : Signing In Chapter 2 : Signing In ################################################## CHAPTER 2 ############################################## yO~ guys. Thank you for reading. This chapter took me longer than expected. I don''t know if I can write better than what is below, but hope you enjoy. I started off without knowing if I have reached a level to express my thoughts into words. Thank you again and enjoy! #############################################################################################################
Chapter 2: Signing In
PART -1 Alex looked around as his vision cleared and saw that he was mid air with a sensation he was falling. " Did I hear you say ''falling''?? There should be a place to fall on if you were indeed falling." Alex looked around to see who it was and when he gazed upwards to the source of the voice, it was a man in his early thirties with a sage beard wearing a white cassock or something similar which faded towards his legs . His legs were always covered in with a thin layer of clouds and it was difficult to know if he had legs or not. On see that the man who arrived was floating down towards him. Alex looked down at himself and what he could see was a similar white cassock on himself, but his seemed more transparent, more ghost like and his faded right after his knees into a white blur. As he concentrated on his legs, he could sense them but couldn''t feel their existence. "I believe you seem to have understood you got no physical means to move traveller.", said the sage. -" I might as well get most of my information from him.." , Alex thought to himself. But what puzzled him even more was the lack of a character creation and race selection. " Yes Sir and could you be kind enough to let me know where I am?" "Sir?..Ah yes, You are in the dwelling of spirits in Uno. I''m Michael and here to guide you towards the others." "Dwelling of the spirits? So, am I dead?" "That would depend on what death means to you traveller, but No, you are not dead, as you''re yet to start your journey." "How do I move Sir?" , Alex asked after trying to move around normally by moving his legs or the space below his knees. "Well as a spirit you would need to just will it. If you do not have the will to live, you will always remain a spirit, this will be clear to you soon enough. To move you need to think yourself getting heavier and you shall fall and think of yourself as light as a feather then you shall float. Why don''t you try by making yourself heavier now." Alex started to imagine himself getting heavier , but nothing happened. He then thought of weights being tied to his arms and them being pushed down by the force. And suddenly... "AAAAAhhhhh........." " Traveller, you are indeed falling now and if you do not stop to ascend now we will miss your signing in ceremony. Quick try to make yourself light as a feather" Alex imagined as himself light as a feather, but it look him different attempts to stop his descend. What got him more curious was even though he fell down quite a large distance, he wasn''t able to see any signs of land. Finally he was able to stop himself by float upwards after imagining himself filled with helium and floating. "Splendid, follow me and we should reach the others soon. But, traveller you still haven''t let me know what you call yourself." Alex was at a loss of words, he was so engrossed with the detail and the new predicament before him he forgot to introduce himself. "I apologise, my name is Crimson and it has been a pleasure meeting you." "The crimson light of the sunset and sunrise. I particularly like that contrast. Likewise Crimson, shall we get going.", saying these worlds Michael flew past Alex toward his right and ascended toward somewhere. He was not able to keep up with Michael for a while, but soon was able to move beside him. He found the scenery breath taking as he sped through clouds and it was an ocean of clouds, but he was not able to see where he was lead to. After having followed Michael for around 15 minutes, Michael stopped and looked at Alex while pointing upwards. "Now make yourself lighter and come straight up.", he said and ascended in flash. Alex followed suit hoping that they would reach somewhere and in an instant he was blinded by a bright light. Allowing himself to clear his vision, he later found himself in a space which was infinite and everything was white. It resembled the configuration instance he was in earlier , but this had a little more divinity and calmness in it. There was no limit to the vastness of white before him and the clouds around him looked to be more breathtaking, the floors looked like they were made of the whitest clouds. But as he was looking around the splendour around him, Michael was looking at the traveller in front of him and cleared his throat. "Ahem!!" Realizing he had stunned with the scenery for a while, he turned to Michael looking apologetic and Michael moved towards an entrance which had an arch made of clouds, but it had white stones in between to make it look ancient. Following him inside, Alex stopped to see Michael had brought him towards another person who shared a similar air around him like Michael. "Here he is Gabriel, I''m off to bring another as instructed by father." "Yes, Michael. I will instruct this traveller further. You may leave." -"Gabriel? Are they angels?" , Crimson asked himself. "Greetings Crimson, My name is Gabriel and your guide here after. I will explain and answer your questions. But before I start do you have any questions you want ask?" "Hello Gabriel, How did you know my name is Crimson and are you and Michael Angels?" "I believe you mentioned your name to Michael, as you can guess our consciousness is shared between our brothers and sisters. And as for us being Angles, I was asked the same by other travellers, I believe it is what we might be called from where you come from, we are called Malakim in this realm ." Gabriel turned towards another arch which looked similar to the one Michael had led Crimson through to meet Gabriel, but this arch was looked more ancient with vines which grew from below the clouds and surrounded around the arch. As Crimson followed Gabriel through the arch, he had reached a wider expanse which was now having a few people/spirits around. Some looked brighter than the other which he guessed were NPC like Michael and Gabriel. "Please wait here Crimson, father will speak soon when all have arrived." "Thank you Gabriel, but can you please let me know where I am. Michael mentioned this is the dwelling of the spirits, so is Uno the spirit world. Also.." " Yes, this is the dwelling of the spirits and it is a part of Uno, but it also doesn''t exist in time. I believe that is all I can say at the moment and wouldn''t it be more fun to find the rest by yourself. I shall take my leave. " said Gabriel by interrupting and left the same way he led Alex inside, as he turned Alex could see a smirk at the edge of his face. Looking around he was approached by another player. The player was wearing a similar cassock as himself, his face looked different, but Alex didn''t know how his face looked so couldn''t know if this was a default look or if everyone got a distinct face. Alex looked around to see other player''s faces, but they were too far to make sense of anything especially their faces. "Hey, you just got here huh?" "Hi, I''m Crimson. Yes, I was brought here by Gabriel." "Gabriel eh!! cool!! I call myself Kendril, though we can call ourselves whatever we want since there was no character creation which was weird. Azriel brought me here. Awesome rite! They are all Angels. I think he left as well and he didn''t answer any of my questions. Did Gabriel answer any of your questions?", said Kendril. "No, he just told me that it would be ''fun'' to find out ourselves." "fun huh, I guess it would be. Any thoughts why we started out here? It''s really a strange start eh?" "No, I''m sure of anything yet. " , he made his replies short when he found out Kendril was as clueless as himself. Kendril understanding the unwillingness to continue this talk further from Crimson. "Shall we head towards the centre. The other players all are assembled there. Just to let you know there are only a few people here. I think this is one of the instances because one of the told the Angels mentioned that all will be clear when more have logged in and I believe only 1million CAPSULE gears were sold. So, maybe the event require a minimum number of players to be logged in to start. " "That is a.. really good observation. Lets head there then.", said Alex being impressed by the information shared by Kendril. "By the way the Angels call themselves as Malakim.", he shared with Kendril following him and Kendril nodded in response. After reaching the centre led by Kendril, he spent a few minutes listening in on the conversations around and came to understand that no information was know on what to do next. Everyone''s face looked different, but all claimed that there was no character creation when they joined. All they could confirm on was this is a prelude to a great quest and it was only made available to the first players of the game or they hoped. A few minutes had passed and all of a sudden a voice filled the halls in which everyone was assembled.
Welcome everyone to this great event...
On hearing the word ''event'' most of the players around were exhilarated on having deduced something important.
... I''m God. And this is my realm. I will like to know you all understand, everything is under my control, but also in yours. All your choices are solely yours but the one it affects is ultimately you; You may not understand it now, but in time you will understand these words. Now I will let you know a set of facts to be aware of before all of you travellers start your journey. 1. Soul is the most important and powerful entity in the universe besides me. 2. Your soul is the most powerful in the universe and never promise or vow on your soul, it brings more problem than good. 3. Never wager your soul with anyone. You will be punished if you do not have a soul when in existence. Well that''s it for now. Does anyone have a question? I guess not... Oh and I''ll give you a bonus word of advice, don''t piss me off..!!! Ok. Now that you all have been waiting a long time. Let''s start. A number of passage will open appear at the edge of these rooms to start with your tests for your journey ahead. May you find what you desire and make sure to give a great show.!!
, the voice faded away. Everyone was dumb struck at the announcement and a common wave of bewilderment arose in the crowd. "God? Did the announcement say God?" "Soul? Don''t we know that already to never sell your soul?" "So is this heaven?" "No, this must be purgatory", answered someone. A series of questions were in the air and the prattling crowd was silenced when a series of passages which glowed like the sun appeared at the end of the hall we were all gathered at. Alex was walking towards a passage closer to him as did the others and he only these words caught his attention as he stood to enter the passage. "..Give a great show." PART 2: -"What is happening, it went all dark again. This game should find a better way to switch scenes. Damn, I think I''ll be blinded again.", thought Crimson.
You have entered Eden. Your soul has started energising...
Soul has bound with your spirit and incarnation has started. Your soul has chosen to be born as Entomon race.
"I can hear rustling and everything is shaking a lot... I feel different. Where am I? Looks like I''m encased inside a white mosaic sheathing... Am I inside an egg. This game is weird." Surrounding a larvae which was as big as the largest ant in the group of four with completely black scales with red tinge in-between, they were tearing up the larvae from all sides to release their brethren into this world. As the larvae walls are torn open by the ants around, they marvel at the ant inside, it was different from every other ant around, with a larger trunk and thicker mandibles at the front, but the antennae was not completely developed and it was covered by an aura type colouring which left the surrounding ants bewildered at the sight.
"Warrior...WARRIOR...warrior , another warrior is among us."
these words were echoing in his mind as he looked at the swarm of ants around him. He jumped back and fell unable to hold his balance to his new self , but as he fell he tried to control his falling by pushing his arms off the ground and what he saw shocked him even more than the sight of the swarm of ants. He observed that his legs or hands were a pair of hairy sticks which had claws at each ends. -"I really am an Ant. This game is more weird than I thought." Looking at himself was easy as he could see a wide range of vision than usual, if he had ears he could have seen beyond that. He saw that he was larger than the ants around him and they were keeping their distance as they saw his quick movements. Looking at himself, he found himself to be covered by a thick black scale where his abdomen was covered by a hint of red. In the place of his legs were large, thick and hairy pair of strong ant legs with claws at the end which looked razor sharp. In the place of his arms were smaller versions of his legs which had lesser partitions but looked as strong as his legs; he also found he had another pair of legs emerging from his abdomen and they resembled his lower legs. He also noticed his antennae were also different more distinct than the others around. The voices in his head were more irritating now as they almost overtook his own thoughts and he concentrated to block them out. As he tried hard to block it out, his pair of antennae raised high and the colour changed from a mixed aura to dull grey and he heard no more voices. But the feeling which he felt next was more frightening than surprising, Crimson felt cold and disconnected, a feeling far worse than being alone, he felt out of place and with no purpose and suddenly a transparent window appeared in front of him. ''You have found a way to disconnect the hive link. This action has generated a new Skill. New Skill : Racial Communication - Passive - Beginner On having found a way to deactivate this skill, it has levelled up to level 5. Ability to understand communication within colony by 25%. Unique addition is capable of removing presence from the hive channel.'' -"A new skill just by forcing something to happen. Cool, but what is this feeling." "Skill details, Racial Communication", Crimson said , but nothing happened. "Show skill details." "Display skill details." "..." After having tried multiple variations of the command he had know. Nothing happened. Seeing his frustration a larger ant in the group approached him. "Young one, I''m elder Et''uan, why do you seem not alive, but yet you are.", he asked and it surprised Crimson as he was able to understand him, but also he knew he wasn''t speaking any human language. Moreover, it found it was funny to see words come out a bug''s mouth or mandibles as they moved mouthing the words. -"I think he means the way I deactivated the Racial Communication skill, I wonder it''s rare.", Crimson thought trying not to laugh seeing the mouth moving around. "Elder, I''m called Crimson and I do not know what I have done. I just willed for all the voices in my head to be silenced and now I feel alone and now I do not know how to undo what I have done.", he did not know why he said alone when he tried to say disconnected. He guessed it was not in vocabulary of this species and the AI altered it to make it understandable to the elder. "You''re special. A great warrior, young one, as prophesised by the late Queen. You have the ability to hide your thoughts from us, but it will bring you great burdens to carry one. I fear your fate." On having heard this, Crimson was more curious, but first he needed to know how to use his skills and mainly see his stats. "Elder, do you know how I can see my abilities." -"The AI changed the word ''skills'' to ''abilities'' now." The elder looked at the youngling and was now wearing a smile which wasn''t recognisable by Crimson. -"Why his is antennae raising and his eyes and mandibles moving sideways. Is he angry...no, I think he is smiling. Creepy!!!", Crimson thought. "You are destined to be a great warrior, but you are as young as the saplings. To see your abilities, you just need to say , "Reveal the depth of my knowledge" and if you want to share it others mention the name after ''with'', like this, Reveal the depth of my knowledge with Crimson, and to read the skills in detail just say the skill name and Reveal mastery"
List of Skills
Skill NameMastery - LevelExperience
BiteMaster - 100%
Hard ShellMaster - 100%
Iron FeetMaster - 100%
FornicationMaster - 100%
Protective InstinctMaster - 100%
Pheromone MasteryMaster - 100%
Racial ConnectionMaster - 100%
?????????
?????????
?????????
Having seen all the elders skills and nothing wanting to ask more to turn things awkward. "How about status, elder? Is there a way to see one''s status?" "Oh young one, just say ''show status'' for that. " Crimson was really irritated by this and just controlled his anger and muttered. "Reveal the depth of my knowledge and show status"
List of Skills
Skill NameMastery - LevelExperience
Racial CommunicationBeginner - 543%
?????????
?????????
Status Window
Name:CrimsonAlignment:NA
Level: 1Class:Warrior
Race: EntomonGender:Male
Life force depleted
0.01
Fame:NAInfamy:NA
-
Health: 100Health Regen:2/ Sec
Mana:100Mana Regen:2/ Sec
Stamina:75Stamina Regen:1/ Sec
-
Strenght:20Agility:20
Vitality:10
Intelligence:10Wisdom:10
Leadership:1Luck:1
-
Attack:30Defense:5
Physical Resistances
Slashing:0.1Piercing:0.1
Crushing:0.1
Elemental Resistances
Fire:5Water:0
Wind:0Earth:0
Light:0Darkness:0
Racial benefits - +15 STR, AGI and VIT for every 10 levels. ??????????
He had only one skill and two others which were ''???''. And his status had the class as Warrior. He knew that ant colonies had only 4 hierarchies i.e. Worker, Soldier, Male Ants and Queen. The elder seemed to be a male ant, but usually male ants die right after mating, so that was weird. Moreover, he was a warrior and a male ant. Does that mean Soldiers are all called Warriors? "Elder, can you please show me your status. " "So be it. Show status to Crimson."
Status Window
Name:Et''uanAlignment:NA
Level: 60Class:Soldier
Race: EntomonGender:Male
Life Force
3%
Fame:NAInfamy:NA
-
Health: 2000Health Regen:33/ Sec
Mana:200Mana Regen:3/ Sec
Stamina:950Stamina Regen:16/ Sec
-
Strenght:100Agility:180
Vitality:200
Intelligence:20Wisdom:50
Leadership:50Luck:0
-
Attack:150Defense:100
Physical Resistances
Slashing:0.1Piercing:0.1
Crushing:0.4
Elemental Resistances
Fire:15Water:0.5
Wind:15Earth:15
Light:0Darkness:0
Racial benefits - +5 STR, AGI and VIT for every 10 levels. The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. ??????????
Having seen the Elder''s class which was soldier, Crimson had only come to one conclusion that all players would start as Warrior, moreover the bonus stats from this class was twice as much as soldier and this was a lot. Also, what intrigued him even more now was the stat ''Life force depleted''. His was at 1% but the Elder was at 98% meaning he was near his death. " Racial Communication, reveal mastery."
Skill Mastery : Racial Communication Belonging to the Entomon race. Capable of sharing thoughts with fellow colony members. Able to understand Entomon language. Passive, Establishes a link with colony but unable to communicate through the channel - Mana Usage - 10 Active , Able to relay thoughts to all members of the colony - Mana Usage - 20 per second.
On having seeing that this was both a passive/active skill he activated it passively and it consumed its initial 10 mana. With the skill activated he found that the room was more warm and lively and felt like a place he belonged. The place was beaming with life and he knew where everyone was. He felt that everyone who were frozen since he deactivated the skill were closing in to see him. "Thank you elder. I do not know why I am here. Could you please help me understand. " "Right to the point. I like you young one. First lets have food and when we are fed I will explain everything." The Elder turned and a few ants brought a few sponge like items and placed it before them. Crimson turned to see from where they had brought and he found that they had excavated them from the walls of the chamber. "Eat, they will replenish your strength. The young should eat well to grow strong." Crimson took the sponge in his arms after a few attempts and finally holding it without dropping them he found that the hair like structures could help is picking them like forks. On holding the sponge, he felt that he sponge like structure was alive and he wasn''t sure if it was edible. "Come on child, eat.", said the elder and he picked up a sponge and showed it to Crimson and eat it by placing it between his mandibles. Crimson followed the elders movements and placed it between his mandibles and cut into it. His mandibles were quite larger than the elders through he was younger and a bite almost took all the sponge into his mouth. "Tasty, I can''t believe this sponge can be so delicious.", on having said this, Crimson took another sponge from the pile, which was created before him by the workers and gulped it down. He had a few and stopped having noticed that he no longer felt the need to eat and looked at the elder who also had seemed to have stopped eating. "Elder, now we are fed. Can you please share with your wisdom?" "Yes, young one. I see you did not waste nor show greed in the food placed before you and also time. I''m happy that I had waited so long for your arrival. Young one, your birth and the birth of other warrior like yourselves were prophesised by the late Queen to liberate us from the clutches of the evil land lords. She told us that, you and the other Warriors will rile up an army and lead them to the top of Mount of Heros where a battle with the land lord will take place and we will all learn the truth of this world there. That is and was all our purpose. Now I hand you the same quest handed to me by others before me."
New Quest Received, race quests cannot be denied: Secret of Eden Lead you army to the top of the Mount of Heros and confront the Dragon lords to free all race from their domination. Also learn the secret of Eden from them. Grade: SS+ Reward: ?????
"Elder, the land lords, you didn''t mention that they are dragons..." "You would have found out sooner, young one. Now let''s go out and I will explain further." "But elder, how can we go against dragons?", Crimson was confused at the quest given to him, he was ''An Ant'' a small ant and it go against dragons? "Ant?? I haven''t heard of such a name. Well come outside young one and you might understand the world a little more." The elder now took him outside the chamber from where they had fed . They moved past the workers who were on their way back bringing food inside the hive, they made way and everyone was looking at the elder and the new young warrior who looked bigger than their largest soldiers. As the elder led Crimson outside, every worker and soldier looking at them had a sign of admiration and warmth. Crossing many paths and numerous chambers upwards, they finally reach a pathway which had light coming in and Crimson knew they were nearing the surface. He had walked with the elder and they would have covered over 10 miles around the hive and it marvelled him at the complexity of the hive. Moreover he was not feeling even a tad bit tired after all this walking and soon realised that his stamina didn''t deplete at all even after a long walk. The final steps towards the surface was a slant and they ended up outside which was now in ruin. Crimson looked around and the view cleared with the first light blinding him , but it cleared fast and he was in a forest or woods. He looked around and saw the trees around him towering up and he wondered if they were really trees or small plants with regards to the size of an ant. Even after reaching the surface , the elder waited for Crimson to take in the image around him, but after a while he nudged at the young warrior to follow him and led him into the forest. Crimson having followed the elder into the forest, he found that something was no right. The elder was releasing a trail of chemicals behind as he walked and I saw that a few notifications had popped up in my view. I left it for later as the elder was not letting up and moving forward into the forests depth. Following the Elder, the young ant bobbed it''s head around and about ecstatic with all the sensation around him. He felt alive, the ground felt alive under him. The rustling of the leaves and the smell of earth, sap and different trees were distinct to him. He knew which were more nutritious by smell and which were harmful to his colony by the state of decay of the food around them. After a while the Elder stopped and turned around. Crimson could see he had stopped in front of a cave. The cave was medium sized as if it could hold a family of foxes, but what amazed Crimson was that the hole for him was not too big. He though it could be a rat hole, but a rat hole would be even bigger for an ant. Having sensed it had company outside it''s cave. A pair of wolves came out showing its fangs at the unwelcomed guests. The sight of the wolves surprised him. The cave was actually significantly larger for a wolf to live in. Excited at the sight before him, Crimson was towering over the wolves and the Elder was at a human height to these wolves. Roughly saying, the wolves were around 1 meter from the ground while the elder was 1.7 meters and Crimson was around 2 meters tall. "Young one, you just watch today.", said the Elder and he moved towards the Wolf at lightning speed. The wolves were on guard and tried to bite down on the Elder, but the Elder evaded all their attacks and swung them around like toys with his hind legs. The elder then charged at the wolf before him and bit it''s neck. *CRAAACK* After a few seconds the wolf''s head was separated from its body. The wolf which was swung by the elder jumped on him from behind, but the elder pivoted with his legs and side stepped and caught the wolf in mid air by its neck and a crushing sound was heard followed by the head being separated from the body of the wolf. Crimson was amazed at the sight before him and the confusion he had on facing the dragons were sullied by the sight of two large and wild wolves laying headless in front of him. Of course, the dragons would be in a league of their own, but it was possible to hunt dragons as human, weak humans, but as ants, as human sized ants, he would be having a greater advantage. "Elder, I understand what you wanted to show me and I shall do all that I can to complete my task." "Do not falter alone young one, this task is not only yours, but also for the others after you. My time is soon reaching and before that I have more to teach and help you with as my elders have done for me. Let us return child. You carry one of the corpses, I will take the other. " Crimson was confused, he thought ants only ate leafs and fungus. He tried to word his confusion to the elder, but the elder had already started carrying one of the wolves and it''s head towards the hive. It look a while for Crimson to get used to picking up the wolf from the ground. Even on his way towards the surface, he did not know how to move properly and only by observing the elder and other workers did he understand. He looked at the wolf before him and concentrated on picking the wolf by confirming his grip with the hairs in his fore-legs and after a few attempts, he was able to pick up the body of the wolf. Now he had to take the head of the wolf also, but he wasn''t sure how. the elder had picked up both in his arms, but Crimson didn''t want to place the wolf he had in his arms down. So he bit at the bloody head and picked it up. He didn''t feel nauseous as he was good at compartmentalising his feelings, but rather impressed by the level of detail in the wolfs head up close and as a few drops of blood entered his mouth he thought. -"Delicious and weird." After having successfully picked up the wolfs body, he turned around to see the Elder, but he was nowhere in sight. Crimson moved towards the place the Elder was standing and sensed a path before him, he knew he had to follow a trail, but there was nothing before him. He walked forward knowing his path, but he couldn''t explain how he knew and after walking for a while, he reached the entrance of the hive. Before the entrance, stood the elder and nodded his approval. The elder then placed the wolf corpses before the entrance, Crimson followed and placed his as well on the ground. After a while, two worker ants came outside the hive and picked up the corpses and went back in. Crimson couldn''t hold his curiosity for long and asked, "Elder, do our race eat meat?" The Elder rather expecting this question explained. "Our colony is different from others of our race, the workers and the young eat the food we prepare in our hive, but the soldiers and warriors can eat both the hive food and what they kill outside. Especially our solders and warriors are capable of growing far stronger than others of our race by eating the meat of their kill." "Thank you Elder, today has been an interesting day. But I''m tired and would like to rest. Shall we head back inside." "Yes young one, we have been told by our elders that the Warrior who would liberate us would require to take longer rests than the others. Please follow me child, I shall show you where you can lay to rest." Having followed the Elder deep inside the nest, the elder took a different path than before and lead Crimson towards another chamber. It look a longer route than before and the size of the colony amazed him, on having reached a far chamber, he was then asked to take his rest here and to come find him near the first chamber where he was brought into this world to find the Elder. Before exiting the game, Crimson looked at the notifications which were blinking for a while since he left the forest.
You have learnt a new Skill : Pheromone Mastery Pheromone Mastery - Beginner 1 - 34% Able to secrete different types of pheromones based on situations. Currently only able to secrete the tagging pheromone used for trailing or marking the paths. The pheromone will disappear after 5 minutes. Able to identify pheromones at a particular distance. Currently only able to detect the pheromones when standing over it. Usage cost : 1 mana
Unlocked the Racial skill, Stamina Reduction after walking for over an hour.
Having more than two racial skills, a new skill, Racial Connection has been created and they have been integrated with the Racial Connection.
Unlocked the Racial skill available to only combat classes, Blood Thirst. It is integrated with the Racial Connection.
Unlocked the Racial skill available to only combat classes, Compact Muscles. It is integrated with the Racial Connection.
The racial skill Racial Communication has also been integrated into Racial Connection.
Having carried a weight greater than your own over a large distance has increased the your Strength by 1. ''Increased Strength by 1'' ''Increased Strength by 1'' ''Increased Strength by 1''
"reveal to me the depth of my knowledge"
List of Skills
Skill NameMastery - LevelExperience
Racial ConnectionBegineer - 285%
Pheromone MasteryBegineer - 160%
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-"I need to see if I can change this command. Cool, I got more skills. I think I will get more as time passes." "Show status"
Status Window
Name:CrimsonAlignment:NA
Level: 1Class:Warrior
Race: EntomonGender:Male
Life force depleted
0.01
Fame:NAInfamy:NA
-
Health: 100Health Regen:2/ Sec
Mana:100Mana Regen:2/ Sec
Stamina:75Stamina Regen:1/ Sec
-
Strenght:23Agility:20
Vitality:10
Intelligence:10Wisdom:10
Leadership:1Luck:1
-
Attack:33Defense:5
Physical Resistances
Slashing:0.1Piercing:0.1
Crushing:0.1
Elemental Resistances
Fire:5Water:0
Wind:0Earth:0
Light:0Darkness:0
Racial benefits - +15 STR, AGI and VIT for every 10 levels. ??????????
-"Three strength points increase just by carrying the wolf carcass back to the hive. I will be stronger than the elder in no time. I better log out, I need to catch some sleep before office." Crimson looked at the right upper corner of his vision and clicked the ''Systems'' tab and selected ''Disconnect.''
Are you sure you want to disconnect? Y/N Tip: If you set your character to sleep and disconnect, the character growth will be faster.
'' -"So, I can grow even when logged off. But what does growing really mean? In strength or just my life depletion?." Crimson selected ''No'' and put his Character to rest at the side of the chamber and then selected ''Disconnect'' , ''Yes''. Slowly he was brought back to a white room similar to the configuration screen and then he was logged off. Alex opened his eyes and looked around. He had a yearning to continue his adventure, but he knew more than anything everything should be in control. Nothing should control one''s mind. He took his MR goggles he had placed on the side and clicked the time button. ''00:30 AM'' -"Hmm, I remember logging in at around 8:45, I thought I spent over seven hours in the game...." Alex started to split the time he spent in the game and find how long he really had logged in. He knew that in the CAPSULE the time is faster by 3x times than in the real world. -"I was at the spirits world for around two hours and over five hours at Eden. So it really is 3x times the speed. I spent around 2 hours 15 minutes, so around 6 to 7 hours in game. This is awesome, I get more time to play." Content with this new adventure, he locked his room door from inside with the key, so that his roommate Salim would be able to open the door even if he was sound asleep. Alex laid down to rest, but he was not able to sleep with all the excitement. He wanted to login again and continue his adventure. But he had already decided to not give into his addiction with gaming and laid down with his eyes closed. An hour passed and Alex heard the door being unlocked. He knew Salim has come in and he without switching on the light slept as soon as he lied down. Alex slowly succumbed to sleep... **BEEP*BEEP*BEEP*** -"uh, It''s 6AM already.", Alex pressed the Alarm off switch under his bed and went back to sleep. Madhan entered the room and saw his roommate switching off his alarm. He changed his clothes and laid down to sleep. **BEEP*BEEP*BEEP*** Alex was sound asleep as the Alarm rang at 8AM and it auto snoozed every five minutes and it started again the fourth time at 8:20AM. "Alex...Alex...BRO!!! You alarm is ringing....", Madhan woke up irritated and shook Alex awake. "eh...uh... what? Madhan? Ah sorry. Thank you for waking me up.", Alex said and switched off this alarm to which Madhan went back to sleep. Alex has shaken off his drowsiness and stretched with his morning routines. -"Today''s Friday, hope today the day goes faster.", He thought to himself as he started to get ready for office.
Previous Chapter : Uno Next Chapter : Training
I hope you enjoy this chapter. My first real try at status and skill boxes, let me know if there needs to be any correction. Thanks and Enjoy. Extra : 1 yO~ guys. I had a little free time and wrote a small extra. I don''t know yet where I will include this in the story. Hope you enjoy. #############################################################################################################
Extra : 1
In a dark cave a tigress can be heard moaning as it laid on its side. Hours passed and the tigress was still in labour pain and all of a sudden she started contracting fully. Within a few minutes of pushing , the foetal sac covering the young tiger was slowing being visible outside to the world. Feet first and after a few minutes of continuous contractions the legs were half way through. The foetal sac broke as the cub tried to move it''s legs, but the head was still stuck inside the tigress. A few more minutes of pushing and the young tiger was complete outside its mother and had fallen down gasping for air. The tigress turned and started to lick her cub with her rough tongue to remove the sticky membrane of the foetal sac from the cubs fur. The cub was whimpering happily to this act. The tiger growled at it''s cub, followed by the cub crying out loud and he fainted after looking at its mother. -----
You have entered Eden. Your soul has started energising...
This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work.
Soul has bound with your spirit and incarnation has started. Your soul has chosen to be born as Panthera race.
-"I''m again brought into a blinding room. I got some notifications, but I can''t move to check it. Why is it so sticky and slimy. Yuk!!! But, it''s warm and comforting as well." -"Oh my god, what is happening, I''m being pushed. Where are I?" -"I can''t move and I they keep pushing me... I''m getting irritated now. I don''t like being pushed around." -"My feet are cold. I will die outside. What the hell is this game?" -"I can''t beathe... I.. can''t breathe..." -"Air..!!! Thank God. Air" , he gasped for air. "Hey stop that, it tickles. Haha.. He.. stop... I mean it. Stop..." He tried to open his eyes to see who was tickling him and frustrated with the ticking and his inability to see he started shouting out his irritation. After some time he opened his eyes slowly to see a view before him and he was stunned. -"A tiger as soon as started the game.... I''m dead" "Son." -"Son?? So.. the warm place was... Noooo.... ", the cub fainted. Chapter 3 : Training - Part 1 ################################################################################# Chapter -3 : Training. ################################################################################# yO~ Guys, I apologize for the late release, been busy with a lot of work and sleep. Weekend blew away with just a few pages of work done. I hope you enjoy the chapter and I hope I get a few feed backs on how to improve. I know I have a slow pace now. I''m working on making it a quick paced soon. Thanks and Enjoy. #################################################################################
Chapter 3: Training
Part - 1 Alex got ready to office by 09:30 AM, had his breakfast by 10:00AM and reached office by 10:30AM. On his 30 minute walk, he disabled the gaming mode of his MR goggles and opened up the News relay on the left side of the screen, so that it doesn''t affect the view of his path. "MR Command, Search News channel on ''Hundred Worlds''" "Search found 1 million topics. Top 10 displayed on screen" "Play video from topic like ''Hundred World''s creator, Jin Hye Park says..''." "Playing video.." A view opened up on the left side of Alex''s display showing a man in the late forties, Alex identified him at first glance, as he was the face of the company which was forefront in creating the most advanced technology in the world today, from the quantum computers to the latest CAPSULE VR console. He was a saviour to his boredom. The interview was on a show which was hosted by the young and beautiful host of the show, Morning Roasts with Joan Hark. The Interview started after a intro of the show. "Welcome viewers, to begin the show we are going to introduce Mr. Jin Hye Park..." Alex fast forwarded the video until Park started to talk. He knew the history of Park - the genius was a part of the secret society who lead to the discovery of the quantum technology and leaked it into the world. He was kicked out of his country for revealing the secret and later he started a new organisation, which is also responsible for the MR goggles. "...Thank you Mr. Park for coming to our show." "I was sleeping, so I didn''t mind." "Ah.. Well Mr. Park shall we start with the Interview. Mr. Park the long awaited VRMMORPG, Hundred Worlds is released. We have known for over a decade the longing of people for a full immersion VRMMORPG. So, how did you happen to invent this. Did you plan to invent this or was this a reaction to one of your secret experiments." "Well, yes, we can say it was an accident and also it wasn''t. It was a result of our secret experiments, but also it wasn''t. All you can be rest assured is, we now have the capability to fully immerse our senses into another reality. I would say into another alternate world because all the NPC or Non Player Character though ruled by my Artificial Intelligence design, they still have independence and self thought. " "Mr. Park, if these NPC have individuality and self thought. So if they are killed by a player, wouldn''t that be murder." "Yes, It would be. I really like your questions Miss. Joan. It may be a game to us, but to the entities in the game, it''s their reality. If you kill a NPC, it is murder in that World and you will be rightfully punished for that. I will not elaborate more, since the punishments will be known soon enough." "Thank you Mr.Park for answering that question. Now I have another question, we had a talk with few of the first wave of players who started playing the game and they seem to have all said there was no character creation or class selection. To be more precise, no one even got a human race. Is this going to be an alien race related VRMMORPG." "Miss. Joan, the game is unique and it was made such that it will last for decades. I will not like to disclose information about the game, it would not be interesting then. " "But Mr. Park the players all started as animals or birds or insects, is there a purpose to this?" "As I said Miss. Joan, wouldn''t it be fun for the players to find the answer to these questions. Why should we run their fun." "Ah..mm.. Ok. Could you at least tell us the concept behind the name, Hundred Worlds. Are there Hundred Worlds in this game?" "I will be glad to tell you this. The game had Hundred Worlds and the first to join them under the same banner will win the game or unlock the end of the game." "One more question..." "Miss. Joan, I believe this is more than I can say. Shall we conclude." "uh.. No... It''s been only five minutes Mr. Park, this is an hour long show." "Huh? Alrite then, I''ll answer any question except about the game. I hope that is fine.." Alex fasforwaded the video again since the next part started talking about Park''s favourite food, movie, anime and love life. "... Yes, Thank you Mr. Park for spending your valuable time with us. Now we go back to David at the studio who will walk us through the sudden increase in the GDP of GGL Tech. Off to you David." And the video stopped. So everyone was born into different animal races. I wonder what will happen next. I can''t wait to continue. But, his voice... the God AI.. He got onto the elevator and reached his floor, as he entered office he only had one thought in his mind. "Eight hours, 10:30 plus eight hours is 18:30, then a 30 minute break, so 19:00. I need to finish all my work before 19:00 and I have the whole weekend to play." Some might have figured out why eight hours, but for those who don''t know. The minimum hours an employee must is eight productive hours and after the integration of MR goggles this was strictly monitored for performance and productivity reviews, but if you stay late you don''t get compensated nor does it give you a better review. Alex started his work quickly as soon as he booted up his machine. And he went on with his tasks without break( except lunch). 10:45 - Checked e-mails and replied. 11:00 - Started on a task. 12:00 - Sent latest update on the task to Dan. 13:00 - Lunch 13:20 - Returned from lunch and continued the task. 16:00 - Found the issue and fixed it. Testing it with multiple scenarios. 16:00 - Testing failed at one scenario. Sent an e-mail to user to understand requirement. 16:30 - Still no reply. Sent a remainder. 17:00 - User replied. Understood issue and fixed. Testing again. 18:00 - All tests completed. Alex called Dan to let him know the issue and the approach taken. 18:30 - Packaged it and placed it in SVN. 18:55 - Alex called Dan and mentioned that location of the path. "Dan , I have sent you an e-mail mentioning my approach to the fix and placed the package. I think you can take care of the next." "Alex, good work, this guy is really annoying. I''m glad we finished it before the weekend else he would have asked for it to be done by the time he comes in on Monday." "I know, I did rather not, so I found different method to fix it. Dan, I called you to just let you know I''m leaving for the day and to wish you a Happy weekend." "Leaving early today as well.. something is up... Tell me what it is.. " "Nothing Dan, it''s Friday...and I just got a new activity. It''s a new VR game and it''s different. " "You mean CAPSULE. You managed to get your hands on one. Awesome. Now I understand your eagerness to leave office on time. So, how is the game?" "Different. Nothing else to say. " " Hmm.. Different huh? Well, I saw the videos today morning and it was quite interesting. I ordered it as well and I will get him next it week or the one after. Well, I will keep you for long. Happy weekend. " "Bye Dan." Alex left to the washroom and changed to his track suit. He logged out of office a few minutes past 19:00 and switched on his MR goggles and set it to default route. On his way he was greeted with "hey" and "hi" and he greeted back without stopping. He reached his room within 20 minutes and looked at his notifications before him. " Ability : Sonic run has levelled up. Grade 4 - Level 6 - 2% Passive Effects: Able to disappear from MiRRoR world since moving near the speed of light ( in game while running). Active Effects: Can slow down time in the MiRRoR world by /1.5 ( previously /1.2). Can be activate even when standing still. | Mana : 50 per second. | " He swiped them away, as he was not going to use it anytime soon. **KNOCK**KNOCK** "Open up!!" "Hey bro, you''re early today. Wassup?" "Just. Why? am I not allowed to come early? " "I just asked, since it''s rare. " "I''m gonna start leaving early at 9AM return by 6PM." "Hehe.. sure sure. " Alex got out of his tracksuit and hung them to dry. And the clothes he wore to office into the laundry bag. He waited for Madhan to get ready for office and went in for a shower. Madhan had left by then and Alex got out of the shower. He wore his clothes and went out for dinner. After a light dinner since he didn''t want to waste anymore time. He returned back to his room and took out the CAPSULE from his cupboard and placed the control box on the ground below his bed. He locked the door of his room from inside with the key and set his status in the MR goggles as "Away, please send me an e-mail to get in touch for a couple of hours." He checked the time and it was 21:00. Have checked everything was taken care of, he lied down and slid the VR beanie on his head. After having lied down, the VR beanie started up. "Start Hundred Worlds.", he said. The login sequence started and he was first brought into the white room. A moment later he was slowly feeling like he was waking up from a deep slumber. He was offline for more than 21 hours, that was 63 hours in the game and didn''t know what changes had taken place while the time he was away . Waking up he felt a sudden rush of hunger like he was dying from it. He saw that his alerts at the right side of his screen was flashing continuously, but he didn''t have time to check them. He sensed food nearby and suddenly by instinct he turned towards the side and found a huge mass of the sponge like fungus and started to bite down on it until there wasn''t much left. *Thud* "OUCH!!!", cried out Crimson while holding his head as if it was going to separate from his head. He turned around to see who had assaulted his head and found the elder behind him. "You have been sleeping for three cycles. If you slept any more than that, you would have died in your sleep." Crimson nodded as he understood it was true. "Thank you elder for bringing me the food, else I really would have died." "How did you...? It''s ok. I''m supposed to take care of you anyway. We have to start with your training soon, the others have started already and you are way behind. I hope you have time to learn everything. " "The others? You mean, there are other like me here. And what do you mean I''m behind them, is something going to happen soon?" "Humph!!, You sleep for over three cycles and then you bombard me with questions. Well it''s ok. Yes, there are other warrior like you throughout the great hive and each have started their training with their respective teachers .Next, the reason why I said we are behind and the soon to occur activity is.. well let me just show you. Show status to Crimson."
Status Window
Name:Et''uanAlignment:NA
Level: 60Class:Soldier
Race: EntomonGender:Male
Life Force
25.1%
Fame:NAInfamy:NA
-
Health: 2000Health Regen:33/ Sec
Mana:200Mana Regen:3/ Sec
Stamina:950Stamina Regen:16/ Sec
-
Strenght:100Agility:180
Vitality:200
Intelligence:20Wisdom:50
Leadership:0Luck:0
-
Attack:150Defense:100
Physical Resistances
Slashing:0.1Piercing:0.1
Crushing:0.4
Elemental Resistances
Fire:15Water:100
Wind:100Earth:100
Light:??Darkness:??
Racial benefits - +5 TR, AGI and VIT for every 10 levels. ??????????
OMG, his life force is at 2%. Will he die after he reaches 0%. "Elder, I''m sorry. I didn''t..." "No, Do not be sad young one. My life force was stuck at 5% for a long time and without purpose. I knew then training you was my purpose and we shall start quickly. I will make modifications to the training to teach you everything I know." "Thank you Elder. But, before we start I want to understand a few things. Can you please help me in understanding them." "Of course, it is my whole purpose to teach you. Ask and be done with it!.", said the Elder stern and proud. "Elder, These cycles you mentioned are these the way of counting the way the day passes?" "Yes in a way it is. In a cycle, we have it split into three periods: First it is continuous sunlight then followed by continuous rainfall and finally by thick fog. Each period is eight hours. If all these three periods happen at a time, it is called a cycle." So each period is eight hours. "Elder, If I might ask. How often should one eat to not die." "That is really a strange question young one and I do not know the exact number. But from what I saw you were alive even after not having eaten for three cycles. But that was mostly because you were sleeping and you did not waste energy. If you were awake and doing training, I think half a cycle would be the limit." Hmm.. I will just have to test it out during the weekend. "Young one, we don''t have time to waste. Follow me quickly, we must start your training.", the Elder strolled out of the chamber and quickly started moving outside and Crimson started to follow. While following the Elder, he opened up all the notifications and alerts. First he open up all the Alerts,
The same alert seems to have occurred continuously. Do you want to consolidate the notifications and alerts? Y/ N?
"Yes"
You are famished. Hunger levels are at cautionary low levels. Life force reduced by 1 % for each hour. X 10.
You are more famished. Hunger levels are at dangerously low levels. Life force reduced by 1% for every 30 minutes X 5
Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.
You are most famished. Hunger levels are at deadly low levels. Life force reduces by 1 % for every minute X 10
After having read the alerts, dark clouds were over Crimson''s head. I lost 25% of life force just on the first day. Sigh! Lost is lost..., I wonder how long it actually takes to reduce life force by 1 %. Moreover, I have been getting these notifications for over 7 hours and 40 minutes. But, I was not online... wait... Another dark cloud with lightning was hovering over Crimson in his mind. He realised that he had set his character to sleep the last time he had logged off. I wonder if I didn''t set it to sleep, what would have happened. Wondering at his helplessness. He opened up the notifications next, Spoiler :
You have entered a growth stage. New Skill : You have learned Adaptation Growth.
Adaptation Growth is Active. Growth has started. The last stats which was raised before going to sleep will increase by 1 for every 2 hours the player is in growth stage.
Strength has increased by 1. x 5
Adaptation Growth has level up to Beginner Level 2. Energy consumed during growth stage is reduced by 10%
Strength has increased by 1 x 7
Adaptation Growth has leveled up to Beginner Level 3. Energy consumed during growth stage is reduced by 15%
Strength has increased by 1 x 8
Adaptation Growth has leveled up to Beginner Level 4. Energy consumed during growth stage is reduced by 20%
Strength has increased by 1 x 5
Adaptation Growth has leveled up to Beginner Level 5. Energy consumed during growth stage is reduced by 25%. The last stats which was raised before going to sleep will increase by 2 for every 2 hours the player is in growth stage.
Strength is increased by 2 x 2
You don''t have energy to sustain growth stage. Your life force is being used as energy source. Please eat before it causes ill effects to your body.
Ill effects?? Spoiler :
Since the body is now famished and life force is being used as energy source, the body is malnutritioned. Strength and vitality is reduced by 1 until energy is replenished. The effect persists for an hour even after consuming food. ( Effects will add.) X 2
Strength is increased by 2
Since the body is now famished and life force is being used as energy source, the body is malnutritioned. Strength and vitality is reduced by 1 until energy is replenished. The effect persists for an hour even after consuming food. ( Effects will add.) X 2
Strength is increased by 2
Since the body is now famished and life force is being used as energy source, the body is malnutritioned. Strength and vitality is reduced by 1 until energy is replenished. The effect persists for an hour even after consuming food. ( Effects will add.) X 2
Strength is increased by 2
Since the body is now famished and life force is being used as energy source, the body is malnutritioned. Strength and vitality is reduced by 1 until energy is replenished. The effect persists for an hour even after consuming food. ( Effects will add.) X 2
Strength is increased by 2
So totally, I got 37 Strength, but a debuff of -9 Strength and Vitality for 9 hours. I should be careful with this sleep option. It''s useful if I can find a way to make it work. But, I lost 25% of my life force, Sigh. "Show status "
Status Window
Name:CrimsonAlignment:NA
Level: 1Class:Warrior
Race: EntomonGender:Male
Life force depleted
25.2
Fame:NAInfamy:NA
-
Health: 100Health Regen:2/ Sec
Mana:100Mana Regen:2/ Sec
Stamina:75Stamina Regen:1/ Sec
-
Strenght:57 -9Agility:20
Vitality:10 - 9
Intelligence:10Wisdom:10
Leadership:1Luck:1
-
Attack:75Defense:5
Physical Resistances
Slashing:0.1Piercing:0.1
Crushing:0.1
Elemental resistances
Fire:5Water:0
Wind:0Earth:0
Light:0Darkness:0
Racial benefits - +15 STR, AGI and VIT for every 10 levels. ??????????
Luckily HP doesn''t drop below 100 at Level 1. I wonder if what will happen if I reach 0% life force and .... *KNOCK* "OUCH!!!!!", he cried and fell down losing his balance. It was difficult to for an ant to lose balance while walking on plain ground. The sheer amount of force it took to knock him down reduced his HP by 30% health. Crimson looked up at the Elder before him and saw the air around the Elder was deadly and he wasn''t someone who liked to wait. "You better follow me rather than playing around. You don''t have that liberty any more. You will be trained continuously for two cycles and more if we can. The other colonies and races have started training their new younglings and you are far behind them. Now come and don''t make me find you the same way I did now." Crimson could only nod to the Elders words and followed him without question. They were deep in the colonies and as they crossed many joining sections within Crimson looked around him without stopping. He saw the trail of ants smaller than him carrying various things, most of them were fruits, trees and even roots. I wonder how many forests they destroyed. They crossed many leagues and finally reached a joining section from where fresh air and light was in abundance. The Elder didn''t turn and walked at a stern pace to which the young warrior who towered the Elder followed. On reaching outside, the Elder turned and stood in front of the young ant. It was day and the light was shining off the scales of the Elder ant. "You seemed to have grown more than the last time we talked. We will deal with that later. First I''ll tell you what we are going to do and you will follow them. Firstly, we are leaving the colony for your training. Since we don''t have the liberty as others with time. Secondly, we will be eating what every we hunt. So, you are going to fight for your food while I do for mine. Last and final, You will not be distracted. If you even get distracted with the training for even a moment. I will make sure you regret it a thousand time over. No time for questions and follow me. " I feel like I just signed up for hell camp. The elder started walking and again the young ant followed. They walked for leagues and the elder slowed down and told the following ant to stay hidden. After a few minutes out of nowhere a bear was lunging at the Elder. The elder side stepped and was rounding up at the bear. The bear dropped to all fours and roared at the ant; the ant stood its ground. The bear chased the ant, but was never able to catch up with its reflexes and the bear was being worn down. It was tired, but it could not let the ant free for it was trespassing onto its territory and something about the ant didn''t tingled its rage. A few hours passed and it started to rain. The bear was huffing and its moves started to get sluggish. The ant turned and rubbed against its scales with its hind legs and suddenly another ant entered the field. "Now young one. I''m going to show you how to fight. Since you are not fully grown yet you will not be able to do some of them, but see them and remember it because from next time onwards you will be the one fighting. " The bear was watching everything and didn''t move. It was tired and was conserving it''s energy. "This is how you being an attack. Get on all six and.." The elder said to the young one and got into position. He got down on the ground with his abdomen raised as if it was a sting and his head was down glaring at the bear. The bear seeing this felt the killing intent towards him and got ready for an attack. The ant ran towards the bear, but the bear which had the advantage in size swiped at the ant with its right paw. The ant just jumped backwards in a split second and jumped forward after the swipe had completed. The ant jumped at the bears face and started to bite hold of the bears head. With a firm grasp at its head , the ant raised its abdomen and the tip of the abdomen bulged out into a pointy hook. In mere second, the ant had poked the hook into the neck of the bear and the bear cried out in pain. The ant pulled out the hook and again pierced it into the right eyes of the bear. The bear fell down and was rolling around the shake off the ant. But, the ant released the bite on the bears head and jumped back. The bear was bleeding, but was far from dead. It was in its final moments, but it did not want to die alone and with its last bit of energy tried to get up. The area was soaking red with the blood of the bear mixed with the rain water and the bear could not see with only one eye. After a while, the bear stopped moving and it died. The ant approached the bear and bit down on the neck of the bear and cut its head off. "The next one is yours , but now let''s eat." The two ants dragged the bear below a tree and feasted on the dead bear before them and left only bones behind. The hide of the bear was wrapped around a tree to mark this territory. After having eaten the bear, the elder soon started to move towards the side the bear had come from and after a while they were confronted by another bear. "This one is yours young one, but I will wear it down for you.", saying that the elder jumped towards the bear and paced around the bear. At regular intervals the elder would bite down on the swinging paws of the bear and sting its arm. After a few minutes of fighting and having stung at all the paws and feet of the bear, the bear was greatly weakened and it''s paws and legs had started to swell from the areas of being stung. The bear was sloppy and slipped often due to the rain. Seeing that the bear was significantly weakened, the elder turned towards Crimson and nodded. "You haven''t grown fully to get your hook yet. But, your mouth and claws are a strong. Don''t think, let you instinct guide you." The young ant nodded back in response and moved forward towards the bear. The ant got down low and approached the bear. The bear was resting and only reacted when the young ant got near. The bear swung at the ant, but the swing was slow and looked clumsy ; the ant was able to avoid it easily by taking a step back. The bear was frustrated and frenzied slashed at the ant. The ant jumped back and the bear fell forwards, it tried to land on its paws, but the swollen paws and the slippery ground due to rain caused the bear to fall down. The ant taking this opportunity jumped onto the bear and started biting down at the neck of the bear with its razor sharp and huge mandibles. The bear cried out loud in pain and it was over within seconds. The head of the bear was separated from the body and the bear was dead. Various notifications had come up in front of Crimson as he killed the bear and he opened up one by one and started reading them. He read that he had levelled up and that the status points were evenly distributed based on class. "Open.." *THUD* "Ouuuu...." "WHAT did I tell you before the training? No more distractions. Now carry the bear and follow me. It''s time for your punishment and keep up.", the elder said and moved away and it looked like he was smiling which frightened the young ant. Cont... Chapter 3 : Training - Part 2 Chapter 3 : Training - Part 2 #################################################################################### Chapter 3 : Training - Part 2 yO~ Guys, Part 2 of the second chapter. Thanks and Have fun. ####################################################################################
Chapter 3 : Training
Part - 2 Crimson soon opened up his settings and deactivated the notifications, since he didn''t have to look at them. He didn''t even have to assign stats, so it was not required to check the notifications. He carried the bear over his head. He left the head behind since it was hard to carry. The bear was larger than the ant, but Crimson didn''t feel any difficulty in carrying the bear while following the elder. They started walking for a while and after a while the rain stopped. Slowly the surrounding were getting covered by fog and crimson could not see the elder before him. He concentrated to sense the presence of the elder and as he moved he sensed the path the follow and continued. After following the path left behind by the elder, crimson was climbing a slope upwards and the stopped seeing the elder. "Now we eat, I think you should be feeling hungry as well." Crimson was feeling hungry, but since he didn''t want to lose the path of the elder, he did not stop. The ants started to bite down on the body of the bear and ate everything except the bones and hide. The elder stood up and urged Crimson to follow. The elder stopped near the wall of stone which Crimson thought was the side of a mountain. "Young one since time is slim. We need to strengthen your body soon. During the fog, no creature will venture outside. I had already mapped these regions and know my place around. Now pick up this stone and follow my path." Crimson looked around and saw no stone around him. "Elder, I don''t see any stones." The elder showed an expression which Crimson and seen only twice and recognised as a smile. He saw the elder touching the wall before them. Crimson looked at the wall or stone before him and his eyes widened as he was not able to say where the stone started and where it ended. "Elder, I don''t think I can lift this... stone... mountain." "I told you about the punishment. This is a small stone. We will start with bigger ones next. Let me help you lift it.", the elder said with a smile and bent down to lift the rock. He elder ant lifted the rock and placed it on his back behind his head. Due to the fog the original size of the rock could not be seen, but it was roughly over 20 meters in diameter. "Now, bend down and balance the stone on your back and hold it with you forelegs. Don''t let it fall, then you will have to carry it back. Now just carry it and follow me.", he said and placed the stone by sliding it onto the back of the young ant. Crimson felt a huge load placed over him and he was barely able to control his balance. He felt like tumbling and just standing with the rock drained his strength. He had played for over 7 hours and within two hours more the restricting on his strength stat would be released. The elder looked at Crimson and confirming that he will not fall over started to moved from the way he arrived to this place and the start of the slope. "Now follow me young one. We don''t have time to lose.", he said and started to climb the slope. Crimson slowly moved forward, step by step towards the elder and trying hard to maintain his balance. He was slowly moving while trying not to fall and he knew if he fell with the rock, he would be squashed by the weight and probably end up dead. Since he was moving slowly, he lost sight of the elder early on, but he was still able to sense the path the elder had left for him. Though he didn''t know how he could sense the path, but just followed it slowly upwards. After two hours they reached the top of the hill, but they couldn''t enjoy the view since it was covered by fog. On reaching the top, Crimson felt that the stone was becoming less difficult to balance and he guessed it was due to the debuff probably being removed. "Good work young one. I doubted if you could carry it in your first try. I was hoping to see if you would drop it and then chase after it down the slope. Since, we got used to carrying it up, why don''t you carry it back down now." "But.." "I said, carry it back down... or do you want to waste my time again...", the elder said smiling. "No...", said crimson "Carry it down by yourself and when you reach down wait for me.", said the elder and disappeared into the mists. Crimson started to carry down the rock and cursed when he almost fell down due to the slope. Carrying up he could control his balance, but now he had to resist against gravity and every step downwards felt like falling down. Crimson reached the ground faster than it took him to climb it and waited for the elder; he was tired, hungry and sleepy. He placed the rock on the ground and lied down to rest while waiting for the elder. But he had played continuously for 10 hours and he fell asleep.
Started growth stage.
Due to recent efforts and huge stat increases in short time. The body has been modified with respect to the stats.
Crimson had slept for an hour and he was woken up by the elder. "You amaze me young one. You grow up very fast." He woke up to see that he had grown larger than before, his legs looked more bulkier. His body had a hard covering of scale and it had a dark varnished shine to it. The most distinct change was his abdomen, it had an extract section to it at the end, but it was not fully grown. His mandibles looked thicker and stronger than before. The elder then pulled a pair of wolves behind him and placed it in between himself and Crimson. "Eat, we should continue with the training." While eating he didn''t seem to mind the blood and raw flesh, all he could think about was checking his stats and skills, if he had something new. They finished eating and Crimson was completely energised for his next task and the elder told him to follow and led him up the hill they climbed down. As they reached the top the fog started to clear up and bright light was shone all around them. Crimson was dazzled with the scenery before him. The top of the mountain was a mountain path across the mountain and as the fog cleared he could see many packs of animals all around. As the fog covering the ground of the mountain started to clear up, they were surrounded by a horde of wolfs : White, grey and black - in all different sizes and lengths. "Young one, for your next task. You will fight continuously until the fog starts up again and only then will you rest. Until it starts again. Do you understand..." Crimson had only one thing to say in all his bewilderment. "You bloody Old ANT... I''m gonna kill you for this.. " The Elder stepped back and the wolves started to circle around them. The Elder was chuckling at Crimsons reply. "I will cover your back. But I will not kill them, just deflect them. These are all your to take care of." The Elder then released the pressure surrounding him and suddenly the wolves moved for the attack. Crimson was having a hard time with the wolves, for the first hour or so he could barely touch them. He was continuously evading them. But later he thought to leave it and started using kicks and tried to smash with his abdomen. Crimson was a martial arts fanatic and was a master at Karate. He had learned various moves through mimicking them from videos and books he read. The occasional kicks and abdomen smash started to work, but he couldn''t focus on a particular wolf to take down because the wolves were very organised. When they attacked, they made sure to cover each other''s blind spots and also when one was injured another took him place. Currently Crimson was faced with twenty wolves, more would have joined if they could get behind him, but the elder was taking care of that. Crimson was getting tired, but he couldn''t rest and the light started to dim and rain had started. Crimson lost the sense of time trying to stay alive. But when the rain started, he was at an advantage. The wolves were slipping and being an ant, Crimson always kept his balance. The wolves that were fighting were also not backing down. Since these were trespassers into their territory and they wouldn''t stop unless the trespassers were chased away or killed. Crimson taking the advantage saw a wolf fall down while jumping back when he kicked. He lunged at the wolf and in order to end it quickly he snapped the wolf''s neck with his mouth. The wolf died instantly with its throat crushed and the body went limp. This rattled up the wolves and they jumped in to get revenge. Crimson taking the body of the wolf flung it at the wolves coming towards him with open fangs and they tried to move away but fell down. Crimson moved towards them in great speed and did an Axe kick on the fallen wolves aiming their necks. All the wolves struck were dead instantly and he was happy with the outcome. Hours passed in the rain and Crimson had a few scratches and bruises if you can call them on his scales. The wolfs bite was not able to penetrate his thick scales but they left an impression and he felt shocking pain which was like being stuck with a needle. The body count of the wolves were piling up and the rain stopped. As the fog started to rise up the mountain the number of wolves dwindled down and finally when the fog had set in there was none in sight. Crimson was tired, but more than being tired he was famished. He saw that the elder was near him and he didn''t have a scratch on him. "Good, you have performed better than I expected. I never thought you would find a way to fight with your body unless I taught you, but I''m impressed. Now, eat and then we''ll head down.", saying that the elder grouped the bodies of the wolves and they counted around 35 wolves. I would have killed more if I knew how to fight properly with this body. He looked at the blood around him and he was disgusted, but he knew it was necessary. He knew it was only a game, but before he could ponder more into his mind. The elder pulled up two bodies of wolves near him and said, "Eat. We don''t have time." Crimson didn''t have the strength to question or fight with the Elder for the situation he was in earlier and down at the food set before him. He felt better after having eaten both the wolves before him. The elder had also ate one of the wolves from the pile and after having eaten the food, he rose up and went down. Crimson stayed still for a while and tried to get up, but wasn''t able to and he lied down and slept. *THUD* "AAaahh.. what.. " Crimson woke up and saw the elder standing over him. "Wake up!! If you sleep here you will be dead soon." Crimson got up with great difficulty and saw that the fog was still visible, so he didn''t sleep for more than few minutes. He didn''t feel rested, but was better than before. Observing the pile of wolves, they were on a big rectangular rock and it looked artificial and not naturally formed. Then he looked at the elder and understood that it was his work. The elder picked up the huge rectangular rock and before Crimson can raise his objection placed it on his back. The weight was crushing him, but he held firm to the ground. The stone was smaller than the earlier one, but it was heavier. Crimson thought it probably was a large piece of ore. "Now follow me and be quick. You can rest when he get back to the colony." Hearing colony, Crimson was more motivated to get out of here and he followed the elder relentlessly. They walked for hours and through Crimson was tired, he was only a few feet behind the elder. Finally having the reached the colony. Crimson laid the large stone on the ground and literally fell on top of the rock and slept. A group of five workers came out from the opening of the colony and carried the rock into the colony. They moved slow and placed the rock with the wolves and Crimson into a chamber and left as per the Elders order.
Growth stage started.
Growth has completed. Making modifications to body based on previous actions and stats.
Generating new skills based on previous actions.
Created a new stat : Fighting Spirit Created a new stat : Reflex
Created a rare stat : Gluttony
Created a rare stat : Strength multiplier Pre-requisites : Must have Gluttony and Strength stat.
Crimson woke up feeling different. He knew he felt different, earlier when he was in his avatar''s body he felt constrained, but even while waking up he felt... different. His vision adjusted to the dark room he was in and as hunger took over him, he found the pile of wolves he had killed before him. He devoured it completely and which amazed him. He ate 32 wolves all by himself, though he was full it didn''t stop him from eating. After all the flesh of the wolves were consumed, he couldn''t stop himself and started to bite down on the bone. It was a difficult to consumed at first, but Crimson just kept on and nothing of the wolves were left other than the hides. Crimson was confused, but something made sense. He was completely refreshed and even in the darkness of the room everything felt clear to him. He looked around himself and saw that he was much larger than before. If he tried to stand on just him hind and mid legs his head would hit the ceiling of the room he was in. He observed himself and saw that he was over 2metres in height. His mouth/mandibles were larger and stronger. All his legs were thicker and his abdomen had the most bizarre change of all. Earlier during his growth it had a new section and it protruded outwards a bit, but now it had over seven segments and the final was pointing out into a sharp stinger. Another significant change he could see was that his scale colour which was black with a hint of orange near the abdomen changed to a dark blood red colour throughout and it got thicker with yellow lines towards his abdomen. And his scales were shining even in the darkness like they were reflecting the darkness back to its corners. Crimson was tempted to look at the notification which were blinking since he woke up, but he needed to find the elder and soon. He didn''t know why, but he felt it. Crimson got out of the room and started to follow the path towards the elder. He was now able to sense the elder even in his sleep, but he was also able to identify a couple of other paths as well which he ignored. After having followed the path for a while, he reached lower and lower into the colony and finally reached a chamber. He saw the Elder was lying down and he approached him. "Ah, I am happy we met young Crimson. The name suits you, you look like the break of light on the mountains after the fog." "Elder... Are you..?" "Yes, My time is up and I can rest since my task is done. Now it''s your turn young one. Listen well, Train as you did these days until there is only fog during all cycles and then follow the sound. You will be tested, but never falter in your path and reach the destination. You will find a way to proceed in this life as I did mine.", said the Elder as lowered his head down. "Elder...Elder... " "I''m not dead yet young one, do not shout. I have a final warning to give you. NEVER GO NEAR THE QUEEN.... You will die if you do...." Crimson was greatly confused, didn''t the Queen control the nest. "But, don''t I need permission to leave the nest and train? Isn''t she in command?" "No one commands the colony, not yet at least. The colony knows what it needs and they work towards it. Everyone knows their purpose in this colony and they live to accomplish it. I believe you too now have a purpose, to be strong and understand our true purpose in this land." The elder continued in a slow voice and the shine in his eyes were fading now, "Remember, never go to the queens chambers. Even if a path guides you to resist and be stronger against temptations... Don''t.... go.. near.." The elder went limp and the previously pitch black eyes of the elder were now pale and greyish white. Crimson did not know how to react, he had never seen anyone die before him, but he also didn''t know how to feel at this moment. He only kept saying to himself, This is not real, it''s a game, but why am I sad.... Crimson stayed in the chamber a while longer and left, as he left two workers entered the chamber and picked up the elder. They removed him and went even lower into the colony, Crimson seeing this followed them and he finally reached a largest chamber he had ever seen in the colony. And he noticed multiple wholes on the ground, he thought they were passages to lesser chambers he went close to inspect, but found they were filled with dead ants and other wastes : decayed meat, wood, fruits and even larvae which had lost its white and pale shine. The scene frightened Crimson and he walked back understanding these holes were landfills. He blocked his thoughts from his mind and went back to the chamber where he was in and checked his notifications. He had over 50 notifications.
You have gained a level, stats are automatically allocated. x 4
This is probably for the first bear I killed. Wow, four levels from just killing it. I wonder what level it was.
Weight has increased by 100x, stamina will reduce 10x times faster than normal. Due to having a race which does not lose stamina easily, stamina will reduce by 2x times.
Probably the huge rock the elder made me carry. Spoiler : This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
A new skill has been generated, but cannot be used due to some requisites. Skills will be unlocked but can only be used after resting ( sleeping). x 5
Carrying a load heavier than yourself by 100x times has unlocked a secret stat.
Carrying a load heavier than yourself by 100x , strength has increased by 1.
Vitality has increased by 1
Strength has increased by 1 x 15
Vitality has increased by 1 x 15
Your satiety levels are at cautionary levels. Please eat to avoid death.
Physical resistance to Crushing is Increased by 5% x 5
For having eaten at critical movement before death. You have unlocked a new stat, Satiation.
You are exhausted, you need to rest or the body will be stunned for 60 minutes.
I remember falling asleep here...
You have fallen asleep due to exhaustion. Recovery is 2x times at this time. But you are vulnerable to attacks in this state .
You have woken up before complete recovery from exhaustion. Your movement will be slow for an hour by 10%
No wonder I felt like I had stones tied to my legs...
Due to having avoided continuous attacks from multiple enemies for a longer duration has unlocked a new skill, Instinct
The continuous result of evading the enemy attack has improved the level of the skill, Instinct
The continuous result of doing unknown forms of attacks has unlocked a new skill, Formless Attack Mastery - Passive : The skill is at an advanced level due to repetitive action to generate the skill.
Wow.. random kicking and abdomen slams created this skill...
Continuous evasion has increased Agility by 2 x 30
You have killed an enemy 10 levels greater than you - You have leveled up by 2 x 5
I got two levels per kill. But the bear before I got 4 levels, was it much stronger than these wolves?
Being in the presence of high killing intent from multiple enemies for long duration has unlocked a new skill, Reverse Killing Intent.
mm..I don''t think it was the Wolves''s killing intent that got me the skill..
You have killed an enemy 10 levels greater than you - You have leveled up by 2 x 5
Your satiety is at low levels. Due to having a high satiation stat, your satiety will reduce is half the rate.
Physical resistance to piercing has increased by 5% x 10
I don''t want to remember this...
You have killed an enemy 10 levels greater than you - You have leveled up by 2 x 10
Strength and Vitality has increased by 2 X 10
You have killed an enemy 10 levels greater than you - You have leveled up by 2 x 10
Continuous evasion and quick attacks has increased Agility and strength by 2 x 10
You have killed an enemy 10 levels greater than you - You have leveled up by 2 x 5
Having fought multiple enemies under unfavorable instances has generated a new skill, Survival Instinct . Having already unlocked the skill, Instinct - this skill has merged with the skill Instinct and has been renamed as Primal Instinct.
Need to check this skill.
You have replenished your satiety.
You are eating more than required to refill the satiety and has unlocked a secret stat. Because of having a related stat, Satiation, it is replaced by the secret stat.
Having the secret stat has unlocked a secret stat and it has been modified by the already obtained secret stat.
Your weight has increased by 130x and stamina is reduced by 2.5x speed. Since already exhausted your stamina is reduced by 4x speed.
No wonder I dropped after reaching the colony...
Physical resistance to crushing has increased by 10% x 5
Agility and Strength has increased by 10 x 3
Stamina is at zero, but since your are focused on a goal you have unlocked a new skill, Final Burst.
Final Burst though not available is being used at the moment.
You have fallen asleep due to exhaustion. Recovery is 2x times at this time. But you are vulnerable to attacks in this state.
You have reached your goal. Final Burst is deactivated.
So this skill was the reason I made it to the colony...Cool.. He then saw the already read notifications.
Growth stage started.
Growth has completed. Making modifications to body based on previous actions and stats.
Generating new skills based on previous actions.
Created a new stat : Fighting Spirit Created a new stat : Reflex
Created a rare stat : Gluttony
Created a rare stat : Strength multiplier Pre-requisites : Must have Gluttony and Strength stat.
Cool. This hell training was worth it. I wonder if anyone else has levelled up this much by this time. "Reveal...." Let me change these settings first. Crimson opened up the system options and checked for commands. Under vocal commands, he found the command to open up skill and stat windows and changed the skill window to show when said ,'' Show me skill window'' and to see a particular skill as, ''Show me skill information on..'' and saved. "Show me stats and skill window"
Status Window
Name:CrimsonAlignment:NA
Level:74Class:Warrior
Race:EntomonGender:Male
Life force depleted
26.73
Fame:NAInfamy:NA
-
Health:6700Health Regen:113/ Sec
Mana:1024Mana Regen:17/ Sec
Stamina:980Stamina Regen:16/ Sec
-
Strenght:465Agility:306
Vitality:222
Intelligence:81Wisdom:10
Leadership:1Luck:1
Glutton:-10Strength Multiplier:0.01
Attack:695Defense:110
Physical Resistances
Slashing:0.1Piercing:0.65
Crushing:0.8
Elemental Resistances
Fire:5Water:75
Wind:0Earth:80
Light:0Darkness:0
Racial benefits - +15 STR, AGI and VIT for every 10 levels. ??????????
Spoiler : I will update the skill list later. Sorry!! This is amazing. I power leveled to 74 within a day. I wonder if everyone is having the same progress as me... He logged out finally after over 11 hours. Before logging off he set his character to sleep. ****** He looked around and saw that his roommates were sleeping. Alex checked the time as it was 08:22AM. I played over 11 hours. I''m mentally exhausted. He removed the tech beanie from his head and set an alarm for 12:00PM and laid down to sleep. Alex woke up after multiple snoozes and cleaned himself up. He kicked awake his roommates who were still sleeping. He cleaned himself up and did a few stretches. He had lunch, dragging his roommates off bed again. Making sure they left for lunch. He logged back in. ***** Crimson woke up in his chamber below the hive. He checked his notifications and stats - he gained 6 points in agility. He knew what he had to do. He had decided while having lunch that the best he could do now was grind his skills and stats until the quests begins. He walked out of the chamber and traced his steps back towards the exit. He then stopped near a fungus food section and asked a worker there to pick him some food. The worker quickly ran back into the chamber holding fungus in its walls and returned with a huge roll of fungi in his hands holding over his head and he placed it before Crimson. "Here you are great warrior.", said the worker. "Thank you.", said Crimson and took a piece off the fungi mass with his forelegs like a fork and eat it. He noticed that the worker was still before him and it looked like he wanted to ask him something. "Yes? Can I help you with anything?" "No , no .. It is a great honour to help you warrior. I have never seen a warrior other than the soldiers here. " "Oh, Did you know Elder Et''uan?" "Elder Et''uan is know by everyone. He was the greatest soldier in our tribe. We regard the apprentice of the Elder Et''uan in high regards in the days to come. Please let me know if we can help you in anyway." "I will, Thank you." Crimson had finished the pile of food before him and left the lower levels of the colony. He traced his way back upwards and exited the colony. The ground above was completely covered by fog, but he had already decided to go back to the mountain to start training. He looked around to find the large slab of rock he had carried back from the mountain, when he checked in the chamber he had slept it had been removed along with the hides of the wolves. He walked around and found a rock which was not exactly a slab, but it was thick by a meter and longer than 3 meters. He found that is was no simple slab as it was a mixture of ores as it weight quite a lot and picked it up. He was instantly being crushed by the weight, but this was training and he didn''t want to slack off. He carried the rock in the fog and followed the scent towards the top of the mountain. He walked for over 4 hours and reached the top of the mountain. He placed the rock on the ledge of the hill and sat down on the rock like a human. The exhaustion was not as much as before since his stamina regenerated quickly and the food he had before leaving the colony was filling even now. He sat and recovered his exhaustion, since he knew what he was going to face for the next twelve hours. The fog started to clear around him and he saw the first rays of sunlight fall on the scales of body and giving off a lustrous shine. He heard footsteps behind him and felt the blood thirst in the air. He turned to see that the wolves had surrounded him. He saw all the wolves circle around him and they all were eyeing him to make a move. He lowered himself to a jump and shot towards the group of wolves before him. He smiled as the wolves at the end of circles started to howl to call for backup... End of Chapter 3. Thank you.
Previous Part : Chapter 3 : Training - Part 1 Next Chapter : Chapter 4 : Everyone Else - Part 1 Chapter 4 : Everyone Else - Part 1
Chapter 4 : Everyone Else - Part 1 yO~ guys, sorry for the long hiatus. This chapter was definitely difficult and had to do quite a number of research to write. I didn''t have time as well due to many reasons, but I did make it to about half of what I intended to write. I hope you enjoy reading this. Thanks for your support.
Chapter 4: Everyone Else
Part -1 "Hey lady!!! I''m bored with hunting these small fries..." *SMACK* "Hey lady, watch it...", said the young cub growling at the tigress. The tigress hearing this put her paw on the head of the cub and pushed him to the ground. "You should learn your manners son. How many times should I tell you to call me - Mama" Piff.. Damn AI thinks it''s my mother... "Look at all your brothers and sisters, they all grew up better than you drinking my milk. But, you stubborn little brat, refused to drink ever since you teethed", said the tigress with a tear in her eye while glaring at her cub on the ground. The cub flushed at these words and growled slowly to resist. "Now stay quiet or you will scare away the hares again.", she said releasing the cub frowning at him. "Ok lad...", the tigress pressed the cub harder when she heard him start. "OK ''Mama'', let me go already. I''m hungry..." "Now Don, get down and as I said before and many more times before that, don''t shout when you are sneaking towards your prey..." "Ok...", said the cub and went into a crouching position from the ground. He moved slowly and entered into the bushes and eyed the group of hares hopping around. Don approached slowly and lurked behind the bushes slowly without shaking them until he was just a few feet away from the hare. Suddenly the ground started to tremble a bit and the hare hopped away quickly. "What the hell!!!?", Don said and looked around glaring at the source of the slight tremble of the ground. It was a streak of six young tigers running in his direction. They ran past eyeing him with a scornful look. They all were carrying a piece of meat in their mouths and this left Don''s mouth watering. "Mother, we caught an Ox. We brought it back for you.", said Killah placing the meat before the tigress. "An Ox, that is amazing. I''m sorry I was not there to see it. You brother Don is.... Don... DON... Come here.", said the tigress towards the drooling cub under the bushes. "What you want?!!" , he said without taking his eyes off the Ox meat. "YOU!!!! See your brothers and sisters. They caught an OX!!!. You all were born at the same time and you were born first. Look, LOOK at them!!!, they have grown bigger than you though they are younger than you though only in minutes." Don sheered away from the other tigers cubs and tried not to remember his starting moments in the game... **** "NOOOOO.......", was the most prominent word he said as he was born into this world. He fainted with the amount of detail in the game. He felt sticky, he smelled blood mixed with mucus and combined with the sudden coldness that overwhelmed his senses and nerves he fainted. He then woke up hearing the curious words of other players. "What the...This is the weirdest game. I feel like puking...UWaaaa" "Shit, Did I just come out of a...." "Freaky...." "Oh my God!!! Oh my God!!! Oh my God!!!..." "....Strange" "The miracle of life, amazing..Hey!!! Who are you guys?? I guess this makes us siblings. I''m Sheen." "Hey, I''m Killah." "yo, I call myself FunFreak. You can call me Fun, don''t call me a Freak though." Awesome, we got idiots here, thought Don. "Call me Dread." "Link here, This is AAWESOMEE!!!" "...Yohan." "So finally you big guy. Care to share?", said Sheen turning to Don. "No...*sigh*, I''m Don.", said Don while still trying to stand up without wobbling his legs. He was near the tigress and she was sleeping after finished cleaning all the cubs by licking them clean. "Strange, we can see already within an hour. It usually takes over a week in real life for cubs to see. Let''s see..mm.. Fun, open your mouth wide. " , said Sheen crawling towards Fun, a tiger cub whose stripes on the tail were making it look like a spring. "AWWW... ''ow iz dis, iz dis H''kay?", said Fun opening his mouth wide to Sheen. "Hmm, No teeth yet, but there are small white spots on the gums. This is remarkable, the growth is fast. Thank you Fun, you can close your mouth now." "Children, I see you introduced yourself. I can''t believe my children are the chosen. Well this may be the first, but can you tell me your names?" "Sheen.", Sheen started. "Killah" "Fun" "Link" "Dread" "...Yohan" "Well little one, hey you... son stop trying to stand. Take a rest, you won''t be able to stand for a while until you take some food. So, can you tell me your name?", said the tigress with pride in her eyes. "Don..." "Now, Children are you all hungry." "Yes." and "I suppose so." , responses were given. Hearing this the Tigress laid on her side facing away from the cubs and showed her belly. "Drink!", said the tigress. All the cubs were flabbergasted by the thought and stood still. "Don''t be shy, drink your milk. You won''t grow strong unless." Don seeing this had only one thought in his mind, Never!!! ************** Faster, Faster... Faster!!!!! No no no.. pull up.....!!!! YES!!!!!!!! Karen had completed her growth two days ago and was kicked out of the nest she had hatched into. "Get out and quit hogging up space kiddo. Break a wing!!", were the words her so called mother said before kicking out of the nest. The first thing she did was scoot around for a place to make a nest. She knew she needed one, since she got a quest and a timer along with it.
New Quest: Find a Nest You do not have a place to return to. If you don''t have a nest, you must take refuge in other territories and you are will be attacked without warning if found. Find a nest in the next hour. Caution : The first place you stop at which is not under the control of anyone will be set as your nest. Reward : Experience and ???? Failure : ???
She flew around for a while and flew across a cliff, but the cliff had a sink and she was unable to climb. She reached half way and stopped to rest on the edge of a loose growing plant. The plant was growing out of a root which had sprung out of the cliff. The root protruded out and split into three and it dug back into the cliff from left, right and bottom making it look like a hawks feet. The plant grew from the bottom split and it grew up from there towards the light. Karen sat on top of the plant and bending it towards the right split of the root.
Alert : The spot has been set as your nest. You can always find your way back to the nest. Recovery is increased by 100% when in nest.
OH!!!! I''m stuck in this place as my nest... You did it again bird brain!!!, Karen was pouting as she stood on the root and the plant. The plant when she stood on it was small about 3/4 feet high, but after being set as the nest, it started to grow roots around first the root the plant had grown out of and it spread around the two openings of the roots towards the left and right. The place where the plant was being pressed against by Karen rolled around the right side of the nest and this startled Karen. She flew up and saw what unfolded before her. The plant had now curled around between the three sections of the root like a creeper for over 50 times but it felt more stable now. The result of the plants growth created a small 1.5x1.5 feet opening nest on the side of the cliff which was raised at an angle of 45 degrees towards the sky. The plant stopped growing and the edges of the nest had flowers blooming giving off a nice scent. Beautiful!!! Karen was marvelled with her unfortunate nest location. The nest looked spacious and the view from the cliff was breathtaking. Unable to keep flying steadily anymore due to exhaustion from the sinking air at the cliff, she entered her nest and saw that it lacked a door or a closing. Even after she entered the nest the air around was pushing at her. She then decided to find a large leaf to cover off the top of the nest and also something soft to layer the inside of the nest as she was standing on the root and it had irregular and uneven footing, but she was hungry by now. I need to get something to eat. I will visit ''mom'' and ask for more instructions. Karen stood at the entrance of her nest facing away from the cliff , and turned her neck around to see the surrounding and finally turned her head 250 degrees to check the inside of her nest and dropped. She was falling at a greater speed due to the sinking wind of the cliff, but she had done this before and turned right towards another hill. She was falling steadily and was only 100 meters away from the ground, if she didn''t pull up by now the momentum she had gained will crush her to the ground and kill her, but she maintained her course. Finally reaching near the hill she was only 30 meters from the ground, but she adjusted herself and lifted off due to the updraft of the wind over the hill which propelled and pushed her upwards. She shot out into the sky due to momentum she had gained from falling at high speeds due to the sink. YEAHH!!!!!!!! I FEEL ALIVE!!!!! I LOVE THIS GAME!!!~~, Karen thought as she was floating slowly over the hills. *************** "Laina!!!! Will you stop jumping around, I will need to make some clothes from hide for you next. These leaves won''t do...", Ken shouted at his sister while swinging across trees averting his eyes quickly forward whenever he turns to looks at her. "Brother, I don''t think anyone cares, thought I don''t mind new clothes. ", Laina pouted following him. "Children, will you calm down. No one will dare to touch you under my watch. Son, stop pampering your sister.", said a large chimpanzee hanging from a tree before the sibling. "Woah!! Mot..." ***CRASH*** Ken seeing that the mother chimp has stopped to look at the siblings was not able to control his swing to a stop and diverted his weight towards the right to not hit the chimp hanging before him. The diversion had led to him crashing at the tree. "mm..You need to learn that when you can''t stop your swing, climb upwards to shorten the distance of the swing. " Ken groaning climbed up the tree and saw that his sister had slowed down after seeing him fall. She was trying not to fall as she was laughing her ass off. "Are you...heehehe... Ok Ken?..teeeHehheheeee", said Laina Ken frowned at Laina and then turned towards the mother chimp, "Mother, please don''t stop suddenly unless you tell us before hand." "This is training kiddo and mother would never try to hurt you on purpose. Well except if you go berserk in the community then I would have to kill you, else..", said the chimp without a thought in her mind. "hmm....Ok. Let''s go, I need more training." The mother chimp turned and started swinging again followed by the two chimp siblings. The sun was out and they had only about a few hours until rainfall which would make their return route slippery. No one would venture out into the fog which comes next, some creatures would only hunt during the fog if prey entered its territory. Finally they reached an opening and the mother chimp stopped. As she waited for the following two children chimps, another chimp swung in from the sides and stopped near her. "Hey Anhae, teaching the children to fish already?" "hey Rysh, the boy wanted to eat something other than fruit, but I think he only asked for his sister. He''s very protective of her. Sweet children. So, where are your children Rysh?" "They are still at the community, Anhae, Whining lot they are. ''I want this..What is that...''. I''m trying not to kill them myself. " , said Rysh with irritation in her voice. "Hmm.. mine were the same, but they are more curious. So, what are you doing here?" "The brats are sleeping for a long time, so I slipped out to stretch and it''s been a while since I ate anything other than fruits after the awakening. Might as well bring them something else to eat." "Anhae your brats are here.", Rysh said and moved away. "Children, you take quite a while to just follow me and I was going slowly. You need more training, but that''s for later. Come now, we don''t got much time before the next cycle starts." Anhae called on the children deeper into the forest. As they walked, Anhae looked around the surrounding tree and suddenly jumped up catching the branch of a tree, she swung around back and forth and suddenly the branch snapped. The siblings were watching Anhae and thought she was just monkeying around, but suddenly when they heard the branch snap, Ken moved forward to break her fall while Laina just stood closing her eyes and peeing through the gaps. Anhae somersaulted in mid air and seeing that Ken jumped front onto the place she hoped to land, she landed on Ken''s head and jumped herself forward using his head as a hold. She rolled off the ground with the branch in her hand. "Ken!!! Are you alright son?? Did you really think I was falling...", she turned back alarmed and then shrugging at the young chimp who was rubbing the dirt off his hairy body and rubbing his head. "Oh my God!!! That was FUCKING amazing.. teach me how to do that !!!!", cried out Laina seeing the scene unfold before her. "Mind you language young lady!!! I better not hear you using that kind of language in the camp..." Ken was also glaring at his sister''s words. "Sorry....", said Laina pouting at both Anhae and Ken, but seeing Ken''s frown she ended her sentence "...mom." Matt(Ken) was always protective of his sister, Natalie(Laina) since their mother had passed away due to a brain stroke. Laina was 3 years old and Ken was 7 years old at that time. He remembers his mother faintly, even her face would have been a blur in his mind if it weren''t for all the childhood photographs around their home. Among all those memories the most important memory he remembered was when his mom had once told him to always protect his sister. The reason she had told him was because it was around the time Laina had started walking and she was pulling on the table cloth. The table had a set of knifes on them and other utensils his mother had placed while cleaning. Before she could tug completely at the table cloth, Ken caught the knife by its blade as it was about to fall off the table and near Laina. He had cut his fingers in the process and by the time his mother returned, he picked Laina off the floor and placed her in the kiddie chair. After seeing his strictness and protectiveness over his sister, even their father became laid off seeing his doting son. Laina never remembered her mother, but she always had her brother and she always got her way. Ken had gone off to college nearby and looked over his sister during her high school. But Laina wanted to pursue an education in the arts and the she got a scholarship to an all girls Arts school. He bluntly refused her scholarship, but later their father had to intervene and the result was that Laina got her way, as always. After the first VRMMORPG was released, Ken ordered two gears and sent one to his sister. They started the game together and this was a way for him to keep tabs on her. When they were born again, but as a chimp. He was angry at how stupid the game was, but after having met Anhae, he started to remember those faint memories of his mother. He played the game more often to just be with Anhae and Laina. Anhae hit Ken on the head with the branch after seeing the glare that Ken shot at his sister. "Stop throwing those glares at your sister. One of these days those leaves on her will burn when you do that." "Sorry", Ken stopped, turned and nodded at Anhae. "Mother, why do you need that branch?" "Oh this?", she said showing it up front. "This is for fishing.", she said while pulling away at the leaves and small branches connected to it. After she had removed all the unwanted bits, it looked like a staff. She then took the branch by the thicker end and started rubbing the thinner edge on the hard ground and sharpened it. The result after a few minutes looked like a wooden pike or lance about two and half meters long, but it looked small in the hands of the 2 meter tall chimp. "See, now pick out some branches for yourselves quick." Ken and Laina climbed on the tree and broke off their respective branches, but they were much smaller and thinner than the one Anhae had in her hand. They sharpened the branches similarly to how Anhae had done it and it was ready. Ken''s branch was about one and half meter long which taller than him, while Laina''s was shorter than his by a few centimetres. "Now, follow me, we don''t have much time before it starts raining and it will make it much slower to get back." Ken and Laina followed her into the jungle, but after a while the jungle seemed to stop and the area around looked barren. A few minutes later they had arrived at a huge mound in the middle of the barren land, but the mound looked strange with small chimney like protrusion at the top. Ken soon realised what it was before him, but didn''t say anything knowing the reaction he would get from Laina. "Now look carefully. Ken you go next.", said Anhae as she approached the mound. She poked at the mount near the middle and pushed her branch inside. After a few seconds, she pulled it outside and on the branches were three termites biting hold of the branch strongly. Each termite was about two to three feet long and about a feet in width. Seeing the Chimp holding the other end of the branch, the termites let go of the branch and started to run back into the opening on the mound that Anhae had made. Anhae knowing this, poked at the termites quickly with the pointed end and skewered them. She then walked towards us biting off the termites from the branch in her hand. "Ken, go and do it fast. If something comes up with a pointy head, you should be fine if you don''t let it poke you. Now get it fast." Ken was surprised at the sight before him, he had never seen such big insects, but he was ready to face it. He glanced back at his sister and he face was expression less, he guessed he was either shocked in fear or just shocked. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work!He walked up to the mound and put his branch into the opening Anhae had made. After a few second he removed the branch to see two termites were biting hold of the branch and they had ate through the thin branch a bit. Before they could drop off from the branch, Ken swung the branch and threw the termites onto the ground and suddenly he skewered them. He walked back looking at the termites on his branch and looked at Anhae and Laina. The termite he had caught were smaller about a feet or less in size. "Well what are you looking at, eat. Laina you''re next. Go fast if you don''t want a large ground of pokers on you. " Ken was looking at the branch before him and slowly brought it towards his mouth, he took a bite off the termite with a thought he was going to vomit right after, but to his surprise it tasted juicy and bit sweet. Wow...Tasty!!! Laina was looking at her brother take a bite at the bug in his branch and he jaw fell. If the jaw was not fixed, it would have probably fell to the ground. Seeing him take another bite off the bug, she started saying. "EwWW...Eww..Ewwww...." Ken had finished his first termite by now and seeing his sister making noise, he pointed the branch with the skewered termite towards her. As the branch reached her, he froze in shock and opened her mouth. Ken then suddenly pulled the termite off his branch and put it into her mouth, he then pushed her head down with his arm. Laina crushed the bug in her mouth and she swallowed half. She was suddenly feeling nauseous , but she started chewing the bug in her mouth and swallowed. "OH MY GOD!!! That was gross and tasty at the same time. It tasted like cashews!!!. But Ken why did you push that into my mouth.... I would have tried it..." "No, you wouldn''t!! Now go and catch some. Stop acting spoilt!!! . Remember, I gave you one of mine and you will get me one from yours." "I''m not.... Shesh!!!! OK!!!!" Laina walked over to the mound and slowly pushed her branch into the opening. She waited for a few seconds longer than the others had taken and pulled it out. On the branch were three termites and they had eaten half way through, seeing the termite looking at her, she dropped the branch. "AaaahH!!!! It looked at me.. it looked at me... ", she cried. Unlike the earlier termites which ran in after looking at Anhae and Ken, these three termites moved towards Laina. As the termites moved towards her, she stumbled backwards and fell down whimpering. "Nooo... Ken... Help...!!! They are going to get me..." Suddenly three more termites ran outwards from the opening, but they looked different, these three had a pair of pointy mandibles. Ken knew they were the soldier termites around the area and rushed towards his sister. The soldiers rushed towards Laina, but she crawled backwards swiftly shouting "No.!!! help!!! KEN!!!!" Anhae didn''t move from her place and only face palmed at the scene before her. Ken rushed forward and stood before Laina, he used his branch and skewered two of the three soldiers, but it broke suddenly. The three worker walked towards Laina, but the remaining soldier termite jumped towards him. Ken dropped the broken branch and kicked the remaining soldier in mid air which was moving towards him. The soldier flew and fell on the mound forcefully and landed on it back motionless. He turned around to take care of the three worker termites, but saw that Anhae had taken care of those three with the branch. "Laina...!!! " "Leave it be Ken. It''s her first time. Are you alright sweetie..." "Don''t spoil her mother.", he said walking back to pick the broken branch with two skewered soldier termites. Ken showed the branch towards Laina who was still on the ground with tears in her eyes. Anhae helped her up and comforted her by rubbing her head. "K...e..n....*sniff* I was scared.", Laina said and hugged Ken. "Ok, let''s get back. The next cycle will start soon and we won''t be able to avoid it if we don''t leave now. ", Anhae said smiling at the two sibling. Anhae gave the three workers she caught in her branch to Laina and Ken ate one of the soldier termites he caught, he gave the other soldier termite to Anhae. While eating the termites they had caught, they forgot about the soldier that Ken had kicked towards the mound. As they were eating, a colony of soldier termites were rushing towards them. "Children, start running. Follow me!!!, Anhae shouted towards the children seeing the termites running towards them. "Laina, don''t look back and just run." , Ken told Laina and pulled her along following Anhae. Laina knew what was chasing them and she cried out while being swung across trees by her brother. "UWAaaaAAAHHHhhAAA!!!!!", Her cry resonated throughout the forest. ***** "Get it!!" "It''s mine!!" "Don''t you try to jump in, it''s mine!!" "FUCK OFF!!! I saw it first." "Go back to your coconut shell you noob!!!" On the shore not so far away from the great mountains, an affray among a group of varying sized crabs was unfolding. The price they all fought over was a conch, but this particular conch looked different - it was grey is shade and had many spines over it to protect itself from preys. A large number of shells and conchs were available of the sea shore until two days ago, but the discovery that the first stage of growth for the crabs were completed when they found themselves a comfy and decent shell as their armour. In the beginning, everyone just took some shells in random, but later people found out that based on the different uniqueness of the different shells, there were differing bonuses during growth. A hard and thick shell provided huge defence bonuses and also the Hard shell skill, which increased the defence by 2x times at level one. Some spiky shells provided reflecting damage and other effects. Due to the less number of distinct types of shells around the shore, all the new born (NPCs) and travellers (players) had to fight for their shells. The adult crabs did not interfere in this ordeal as they themselves fought over their shells in the first place. Nel was excited when the new VRMMORPG was released. He anticipated a fantasy genre or even a sci-fi channel and when the game started with him in the ethereal world followed by the GOD''s announcement left him wanting for more, but when he went through the doors to start his journey his dreams of adventures and legendary battles were shattered. He woke up underwater looking like a tadpole - pink, transparent and small. He felt weak and was living off the left over food from the adult crabs who were sloppy eaters. The first day went eventless when he logged off after seven hours in game. On logging in, he was amazed to see that his avatar had grown into a small crab - a pair of claws, a pair of medium sized legs and a pair of small legs on either sides of the claws, these are all connected on a small chest shield and below was a soft and defenceless abdomen. He was happy with the new change, but not impressed by the game. The only thing that kept him playing was the hope on his steady growth. After two days of game play and hunting small fishes under the watchful eyes of his NPC mother. Along with him were over a thousand other crabs and it looked like a cast of crabs belonging and following his NPC mother, whom he later came know as T''chxl. Killing the small fishes and eating the leftovers from T''chxl by fighting with the other crabs, he had reached level 5, but after three days of playing, he had reached a break point and so did the others. Even after sleeping for over three hours which was the minimum time for a growth cycle that someone had found, no one changed. "Children you need to find new homes to grow...", was what T''chxl would say continuously seeing the bunch around her who had not yet grown, but the young crabs thought that she was asking them to leave and hung for themselves and didn''t leave her from their sight. On the third day, of the thousands of small crabs surrounding T''chxl, a crab by the name of G''chit, who was actually a NPC rather than a player moved away from T''chxl and took refuge in a shell on the sea floor. Everyone thought the crab got bored hanging around without any progress and went off on its own, but after a few hours an adult crab with a shell similar to the one G''chit had entered joined the cast. A few gathered around him questioning him and finding that he was G''chit, an even large crowd gathered around him and questioned him relentlessly. After a few hours G''chit started to attack at the surrounding younger crabs. T''chxl seeing this jumped in and knocked him out of the group. After G''chit''s attack on the younger crabs, a few left the cast around T''chxl and went hunting for shells to enter, while a few scared by the instance stood around her. The one''s who left the cast mostly were players. Nel was one of the players who had left the cast to find a suitable shell, but whenever he found one there would be a huge fight where the fight would end with someone slipping into the shell when no one is looking and blocking the entrance with his claws. He was irritated by this and finally after a few days of travelling underwater, they reached a sea shore. Finally as they reached the sea shore, there was a large quantity of sea shells on the shore buried under the soil and many found their shells, but Nel was unsettled by his discovery, he had reached level 10 and grown a significant bit leaving him larger for all the small sea shells available. The adult crabs on the sea shore announced that everyone who do not have shells will be prey for the flying predators. Nel was irritated by the fact that none of the shells fit him and now when he finally found a shell it was fought over by a large group of crabs. Cursing the game, Nel dove back into the sea and went deeper into the bed of the sea there he saw a large conch at the bottom of the sea. It was the most threatening conch he had ever seen, it had spikes on all directions and swirled like a tornado, but as he went closer it was moving. Seeing the movement Nel kept his distance, but always at a viewable angle. The conch was moving slowly, but after a while a grey blob slowly crawled up behind it. Nel missed the grey blob at first, but when he saw it nearing the conch he was amazed as it suddenly enveloped the conch. He waited and saw that the large octopus move sideways and rolling around. The octopus let go of the conch and Nel leaded in with his stalk like eyes, but to his surprise the conch moved slowly after the octopus fled the scene. Nel unrelenting on the opportunity missed he slowly approached the conch as it had stopped moving for a while. He closed in on the conch and saw that it towered over him, as he moved in he found that the conch had retreated back into the shell and it laid motionless. He push the conch gently and it made no movement. He went closer and flipped it with his claws. As he looked into the conch slowly, he found that the conch was dead and it was killed by the attack previously done by the octopus as there was a chunk of tissue missing from the side of the conch. Nel closed in and tried to pull the dead conch out of the shell, but without any success. He then started to cut away at the tissues of the conch and thinking it was going to waste, he fed himself on the dead conch. It was something he had never tasted before. After a few hours Nel was able to completely clean away at the conch interior while eating away at its previous owner. Nel was tired and entered the shell, but it was a bit larger for him. The spaciousness was not a problem, but cleaning up the conch underwater took a toll at him, also it had been hours since he logged in and he logged off by putting his avatar to sleep. A few hours after freshening himself up and having a bite to eat, he logged in and he was welcomed with a large number of notifications.
Growth has started and you have reached the next stage. Shell properties have been integrated with body and growth has been doubled due to the experience gained from the Shell
Learned new skill, Hard Shell - Passive
Learned new skill, Self Defence - Passive
Learned new skill, Neurotoxin
New Quest : Prepare for Growth: Collect and devour different types of food. Task : Collect 7 different types of food substance to lead to next part of growth. List : Number of food type collected : 0/7 Reward : New skill, Experience.
Grateful and amazed by some change in the gaming experience. He went about and collected a sufficient quantity of the food and placed them in a hidden part under a tree on the shore. The conch was different in appearance than before his change. It has become much lighter and more tougher in appearance. The spines around it''s body now felt more threatening and they were a look of envy from other crabs and players alike around him. He had collected over 5 different types of food - sea weed, small fish, clams, wild berries and a coconut, but the quest didn''t get updated about the collected food. He felt hungry and ate the small fishes he had collected which was quite a lot and suddenly the quest updates to 1/7 collected. Realizing the course of action, Nel started eating the collected food and went hunting for more. After a few hours he had ate two more different types of food though he ate quite a lot he still had an appetite for more. The next two food he ate was a sea urchin he found in the sea bed when he was catching more small fishes. The last food was the most surprising of all, he went to a fresh water lake nearby to drink water and after drinking for a full 5 minutes continuously all the items in the list were completed, which lead to him completing the quest and gaining three levels and a skill called, Iron Scale. A new quest was generated after the completion of the collection quest, but Nel was further irritated by the quest, for what it meant and it''s relation to the new skill he just received.
New Quest: Next Growth Mode - Moulting Find a suitable location to start the next step of your growth. The choice of location will affect with new affinities gained. Hint: If the location selected is open to predators, you may be killed. This growth mode can be repeated but a new quest will not be generated for this. Reward : Skills, Experience, ???? Failure : Death, ????
He checked his new skill and found that this would increase his defence a lot, but there was always a catch.
Skill Information Iron Scale - Passive - Level 1 Increases the defence of the scales by 100% after each time growth mode - Moulting. The rate of increase in defence increases with each level. Bonuses - 0%
Nel had never owned a crab or any crustacean pet, but he has heard of the term moulting because of the cat he had a very long time ago and the cat used to sleep on his bed when it was moulting and it shed a large amount of fur on his bed. He hated pets in general after an horrible incident one summer. Nel was irritated, but he had a quest, one more which leads to another. He was full now and felt tired after getting the new quest, the exhaustion was slowly building as he went around looking for a suitable location to start his moulting. He didn''t find any place hidden enough for him to start moulting and he logged off to find any information he could on Moulting in crabs. Lenord had just logged off the new VRMMORPG, Hundred Worlds to check on the facts on crustacean moulting. He picked himself off the ergonomic pushback gaming chair he was lying on and wore his MR goggles. "Read Command : Find data on crab and moulting " "Screen is now showing data on Crab + Moulting." A large number of search results were displayed before him and he opened an article called ''The Miracle called Moulting'' and he skimmed through the article. The article was about hermit crabs where a crab sheds it''s scales and creates new stronger and bigger scales for it. During this moulting period the crab goes into an hibernation by digging itself under ground for a month or more, hence it eats a large amount of food before going to moult. He was disappointed by the fact that the moulting takes over a month to happen in real life, but he was also happy from the fact that adult crabs moult only after a year or so and the growth in the game was very fast in this case. Another fact that greatly interested him was the fact that while moulting any missing limbs will re-grow. Delighted by the turn of events , he quickly logged back in to find a suitable location to start his moulting. Nel logged in and he was standing on the parched ground deep inside the jungle where he had logged off before searching for a spot to begin moulting. All of a sudden he heard a shout echoing around. "UWAaaaAAAHHHhhAAA!!!!!" The sound which followed was a weird clicking sound like small sticks tapping against each others, but over a thousand at the same time. The noises were coming from the right away from the shore and deeper into the jungle. He was able to pinpoint how many distinct clicks were creating the noise and in which direction they were in. This sense of hearing was different to him as it felt like he could just about sense or hear anything if he concentrated hard enough. He walked away from the noise and went towards the path between the parched ground and the shore where he walked around many predators on the way, but the few foxes and jungle cats which noticed him left him alone. His exhaustion had grown incredibly after he had logged in and it was at its peak, as he felt like falling now and going back into his shell to sleep. The place he had stopped at was nearby the shore as it was humid, but the land was parched and the soil was red. Something compelled him to stop here and as he had read in the articles he started to dig out a large hole on the ground with his claws and went deeper into the soil. The soil was looser than it looked and he reached about three or four feet into the soil and suddenly a window popped up into his screen.
You have started the Growth Mode - Moulting. You are logged off and your character will not be accessible for 24 hours.
After displaying the window a countdown started from ten and the screen went blank. He was forced logged off. "Bollocks....", Lenord said removing the VR beanie off his head. ******************** To Continue to next part - CLICK HERE
Thank you for reading. :) Chapter 4 : Everyone Else - Part 2
Chapter 4 : Everyone Else - Part 2 yO~ guys, I tried to write everything in one go and even after five hours of writing I was stuck with the story of Shin and Akane. I do not know if this is an original story or did I just reverberate the stories I had within me into something. I might have gotten influenced in this story by the books, songs, anime, movies or even news I read and I''m sorry if it feels like I stole from something. I started writing a short introduction to Shin and Akane, but it carried on for hours and this is what that is resulted in. I still haven''t finished this chapter and there will be one more part to it. I have stopped the story of Shin and Akane abrubtly and I plan to give hints into their life slowly, let me know if you are interested in knowing more about their life. Thanks for reading and have fun!!.
Chapter 4 : Everyone Else - Part 2
Part - 2 "Mother and father, This is Akane. She is my wife ", These words were spoken by a chick to its parents while cupping a now blushing chick under his tiny left wing. "Ha ha!!, So cute , he already found himself a cutie eh Nigel." , said the mother of the chick towards her husband. "Honey, I don''t think he''s joking...", said the husband. "Kal!! Son, you were hatched into this world, don''t fixate on a wife yet, that too you had to choose Charnel and Reese''s hatchling. Nigel, speak some sense into your son.", said the flustered mother Crane looking at the young chick. The mother crane was taken down by the fact that she hoped the new children will hatch into the world saying ''Mother'', but this was not so. All the creatures around the worlds had came to know that the new young ones born are chosen and different. Their son who had just hatched didn''t say anything and only looked around to see everyone then said ''Interesting''. The male crane looked at the stern looking hatchling holding the younger hatchling under his wing. Nigel looked more closely at the eyes of his son and he felt the steadfast decisiveness in them, like they could never be wrong. "Ginn , let him be. They were a pair made beyond the skies, who are we to hinder.", said Nigel to his wife, Ginn who was taken aback by his words. "Who are we?? WHO ARE WE!!!!!??? I''m his mother and you his father. We warmed him up so that he doesn''t fail to grow strong.", said the frustrated mother eyeing the other young chick, Akane who was comfortably under the wing of her son. Akane sensed the awkwardness and had only one thought in her mind. At least they are better than his real parents. Akane and Kal were married in real life for over 50 years. Kal was a restaurant owner, but now it is taken over by his children and he had retired with his wife travelling the world. When they returned back home after their trips, they had no where left to go, but when the new VRMMORPG was released their youngest son bought them two consoles to play. Kal was speechless at the outburst of these computer generated characters before him. Everything felt real here and the emotions he felt from them were scary. He knew his parents were more dramatic than these computer generated ones, but his parents had left him over 20 years ago and he felt different, he never had to talk up to anyone in his family for the past 30 years. Akane felt the pride of her husband when he pronounced her as his wife. He had done the same before his real parents 50 years back after they married at the local church and that was when they had kicked him out. Alone in the world with no one to look towards, they had a lot of hardships to face before them, but Kal had never bent down to anyone. He worked him way up and finally bought a rundown restaurant and then later became two and carried on. Now they owned over 10 restaurant chains and had nothing to worry, they have seen the world and also the future through their grand children, their elder daughter''s children. "Mother, Father. Please accept me as a part of your family as well. " , Said Akane looking at the adult Cranes in front of her. Hearing her speak the two cranes looked at each other and sighed. They turned back and forth between Kal and Akane and sighed again looking at their eager and stern stance. "They do look determined.", sounded someone from behind them. "Fa..Father.", said Akane. "Reese, I think you lost your daughter the first moment she showed her beak to the world. What do you think?" "Nigel, I don''t think anything I say will clear this. Her first words were ''Shin'', so I believe it would be better to leave ''em be. All the new children are acting different, I believe they are the special ones the winds spoke of." Nigel and Ginn sighed and nodded in response. Akane was taken into the family and Reese along with his wife, Charnel and their other children also joined Nigel and Ginn''s family for their first lessons. Initially, they wanted to do it separately, but Akane refused to leave the side of Kal. Reese tried his last chance, "Dear child, you will have to learn how to find food and the way of life here and it is our duty as parents to teach you. You can join Kal soon after lessons." Akane stood still not knowing what to do. "This is a game my dear. Do what you want to do, you don''t need to ask me. ", Kal closed in and whispered. "I know. It just feels different suddenly being under someone else''s care. " Akane said nodding. Suddenly Kal pushed her forward with his beak and turned around towards his towering parents. Kal was still not used to balancing, so he walked back pacing as Akane taking momentary steps tread back with her parents. ** Kal and Akane went about with their new families and had their first meal, but they were not far off from each other since it was the condition Akane had when going to separate from Kal. She had never been without him and now didn''t feel herself without his presence. Ginn picked off worms and bugs from under the soil teaching Kal how to know their presence by the small movement in the soil. Later which plants to eat and how to eat few bugs which had acid in their stomachs. The lessons ranged from learning how to pick food and also which food to take based on feeling. When Kal asked about flying, Nigel explained that the basic lessons taught to the children since flying was a lesson for much later when they are grown their wings longer than their legs. Kal was taken in by this fresh experience, he and his wife had travelled around the world and seen a lot of the wonders on this world, but the scene before him was different and beautiful. The view he had was more attuned with nature , as he saw which he would have missed as a human for he still remembers the African Safari and Volcano diving he had done with Akane. Kal had started to feel the full wonder of the game since he hatched into this world. His first impression on perspective were on seeing two large cranes standing over him and the detail in the smell, the ground, the wind and even the sound he heard were strange but peaceful. He was smaller than the grass around him and each grain of grass and the insects living off them were visible. Even the rays of sunlight falling on him was different as he could see the different spectrum in all their beauty. The lessons on survival for the day had completed and Kal accompanying Akane was treading nearby their nest. As they roamed around they found other families of Cranes with their young one; roughly over 200 pairs were in sight and each pair had a hatching to look after. All cranes looked a bit different from each other , but also the same. The only distinct difference was their length and size, the female were smaller when compared to males, but some males were smaller than others. Ginn and Nigel were comparatively humungous to Charnel and Reese. After looking around and exchanging words of admiration for the experience, they awaited for a sunset, but it had started raining and when asked, Nigel mentioned to them the periods and cycles in the weather. Enjoying the rain, they logged out bidding their crane parents about logging out to which they were confused, but they corrected that they were going to sleep to which the led them to an opening inside a tree and they logged off. Shin Kyshiro woke up smiling, he turned his gaze towards the right side of the bed viewing his wife as she awoke from the game. He held his right arm forwards as she took it and they stayed motionless. "What do you think dear. Age might have stopped us from travelling, but now we can travel different worlds and that too from home.", said Shin. "With you, I''m happy to go anywhere. I always have.", said Akane displaying a gentle smile at her husband, but Shin knew she was sad deep inside. Shin Kyshiro is a successful business man, the chairman of the a number of restaurants around the world, but it was not so in the beginning. He was born to a farmer family and was the eldest son of three children, it was a time when more children were a boon to the family than the one-child policy. As Shin reached maturity he was more involved in the family business rather than farm work, since his ability to his interest in expansion of the business than farming. His father the late, Kyo Kyshiro was an able man in both farming and business, but he wanted his elder son to take over the family legacy of farming while his younger brother and sister took to business. Kyo Kyshiro had planned everything for his children, but there was something that interfered his plans, Akane Neko, the daughter of the village''s priest. Shin first saw her on his way back from selling the season produce from the next town and wooed by her presence. He followed her towards the temple and found that she was the village priest''s daughter. He didn''t understand why he didn''t notice her a long time ago. He one day opened up to her and was let down softly. He pursued and after few month, she accepted. During this time Shin''s father got wind of this and arranged Shin''s marriage with the only daughter a large farming family equalling their status from the next village. After marriage, they would merge all the farms under the same banner and increase in size, but on the day the engagement was to take place, Shin walked in hand in hand with Akane. "Mother and Father, This is Akane, She is my wife. I hope you will give us your blessings.", these were the words Shin still remembers even today. He had announced to his parents on the day of his father had called for an engagement dinner with the other party. Shins announcement in between the dinner left everyone speechless and slowly the people from the other family seated there shouted words of insults and left. Shin''s mother was speechless and shaken with fear by her eldest sons announcement, not for their future, but knowing the temper of her husband. Kyo Kyshiro was speechless at the turn of events, he never knew his son had this much of a spine to do such a thing. Rage grew within him and he was blinded by his rage, by the time he had gained some sense - Shin was on the ground. He was shaken by his outburst, but his rage never quelled and before he lost his senses he shouted. "Get out!!!! " Everything changed that night for Shin, he had become an outcast. No one in the village would shelter them fearing Kyo Kyshiro''s wrath. Shin took nothing with him the night he left his father''s home and had no source of living as he knew nothing other than the business. He turned to his friends and was able to acquire a few coins for travel, but it took him over a week to do so, as the parents of his friend''s parents had also warned them in talking with Shin. Kyo Kyshiro had later seen his son on the road lurking around to get some help from his friends. Kyo wanted to bring his son home and forgive him, but his pride stopped him whenever he wanted to talk to his son, the memory of the insult he got at the night he announced flashed in his head. After having enough money, he took Akane who was sheltering at a friend''s place nearby and left the village. He travelled far and arrived at an unknown city, he wouldn''t go to the same towns he had previously visited knowing his father''s influence and not wanting to shame his name. Shin was not outspoken, an extrovert as people call them nowadays, but he knew what to say and do every time. Being in the control of his father since childhood had affected his decisiveness, but since he started to take over the business he had started to develop self confidence. On the street, a new city and far away from home his confidence was only supported by the warm grip provided by Akane by his side. Shin tried hard to find a job, but what he knew was less and no one needed anyone who knew less. After a week of searching for a job, Shin got the job as a coal bearer in the city outskirts, he left early morning and only returned completely exhausted by evening. This went on until Akane fell sick and he had to find employment nearby to take care of her. He found a job in a restaurant nearby as a waiter. It was a famous restaurant nearby where he stayed in a rented apartment, the pay was meagre, but at the end of the day he was allowed to take the leftover food home. After working in the restaurant for months he had become quite close with the workers there and the owner of the restaurant was a kind man, he was called Kim Hiroki. Kim Hiroki had a son, Dai who was taking care of the restaurant, but he was aloof with everyone and wasn''t as kind as the owner to everyone. Days passed and the restaurant was not doing well as competition had grown with more fast food joints and the rising demand for modern foods where traditional food restaurants lost their values. The number of customers reduces to half and the restaurant was barely able to make even. The aloof Dai was given care of the restaurant but he had less interest when the business was stable and none after it went downhill. One afternoon the owner, Kim Hiroki came to the restaurant to close down the restaurant as it was spending more than it was gaining and he wanted to give everyone their leaving pay. The workers and cooks knew of this and feared the passing days when the owner would step in since the younger master, Dai stopped coming to the restaurant weeks back and as the owner had come in today everyone was in tears. "I believe everyone knows why I have come today. I am sorry, but I''m not as young enough to carry on with this forward to try new idea and risk. We have been like a family for so many years and it pains me to send everyone away. I have with me this month pay and also an additional month pay to help you until you find another job. I hope you forgive this old man for not sticking with you in this age of difficulty.", said the owner with sadness in his words and his eyes showed sincerity . Everyone collected their final wages from the owner and thanked him for the extra and the restaurant was locked up after everyone had left. Shin walked home but he did not want to return home early as he didn''t want Akane to worry. Her earlier illnesses were due to stress caused and she was easily succumbed to bad thoughts. Shin had only one thought as he walked around the streets and that was to get another job before the end of the day. Even though he had received more than is monthly wages it was not sufficient for last a month since food costs more and the restaurant had been the sole source of food for Shin and Akane for a long time. Shin went up and down every store and business asking for a job, but it was for naught. It was a time where businesses were always within the family and no outsiders were brought in as it would create an unwanted hierarchy. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. After roaming around for a while Shin final stop was near an inn at the western side of the city, it was quite far away and it was where most of the wealthy spent their money. Shin had stayed clear of that side of the city since he did not want to run into anyone he knew, but now was a time of urgency and he headed there to search for a job. Moreover Shin had changed quite a bit since he came to the city, he had become leaner and his face looked rougher and his eyes which were full of strength when he came to the city were now tired and carried the fear for the unknown future. Shin entered every inn and even the bars looking for employment, but he was quickly driven away at his appearance. Dejected he walked back home without a job to make up for the one he lost today, but on his way he saw Dai coming out of an inn, he was laughing and surrounded by a number of people, probably his friends, thought Shin. Dai was quite drunk as he was wobbling sideways as he walked and kept talking loudly. ".. I''m glad that father closed that good for nothing restaurant.... Now he will get me into the trading business...*hic*.." Shin heard a few words, but he was not furious, he knew Dai never liked the restaurant as when he asked the owner to involve him in the business, the owner sent him to the restaurant saying that he had to learn how to serve a customer better and he had to learn that from the restaurant. Dai learned enough to show his father that he had learned from the restaurant, but the owner did not have him take care of other businesses, which left his dejected. Shin was neither furious nor judgemental seeing Dai''s appearance, but he remembered the days when he was such the same. He returned home and let Akane know on the occurance of the day, he comforted her and they shared the food he brought back from nearby since they stopped cooking long time back. Shin comforted Akane as she lay by his side and he went into nostalgia as he held Akane close. He remembered how he was when he stayed with his parents, fearless, without worry, compared to now he had done a lot of mistakes which would have cost a lot of people their livelihood but that never affected him at that time. Seeing Dai he come to understand about all the businesses that were closed because of him at home. He had won over many business deals, but he lost more and had to close down many due to the losses. Shin lay awake throughout the night thinking of his past and his actions, but he was not disgusted, he learned more in these few hours over the night than he ever had in his life. He understood most of his father''s actions when he asked Shin never to treat employees without respect, also he was never asked to announce the closing of any business and he knew why, it hurt him on understanding that his father had carried the fear for him a long time, sheltering him from the harshness of the world, but not anymore. Over the night, Shin had changed, he felt it, as morning emerged the bright sky reflected the burning emotions in his eyes. He had brought a few groceries yesterday night and Akane prepared meal after a long time. "I can''t believe I missed this much of a delicious meal for a long . Will you make me this every day?" "Of course Dear." Shin embraced Akane and left home. Akane felt something was different in Shin, he was more assertive and bold, but his words now had a tone of gratefulness regardless of what he spoke. Shin head straight to the home of Kim Hiroki with the extra pay he had in his arms. Kim Hiroki was a business man with quite a number of different businesses and the restaurant was one of them. It was one of his first businesses and had a lot of sentimental attachment to it. He was hesitant to let it go, but he had other businesses to take note of and the loss from the restaurant was eating at the gains of other businesses. Kim Hiroshi sat before Shin, who was standing before him with an air of boldness no one had ever seen. "Morning greeting Owner Kim" "Greetings Shin, you don''t have to call me Owner anymore." "Kim-san, I would like to discuss a business proposition to you. I know it would not benefit you more now, but I will promise to make it up as time goes by." Kim Hiroki was amazed by the straight forwardness and the boldness in the former caretaker in his restaurant. He had taken Shin to be a shy and as a man of very few words. "Speak Shin, I will like to hear it." "Kim-san, I would like to rent the restaurant for a month. I will take care of all the other costs of the restaurant and if I am able to make a turn around, I would like to rent it again. " Kim Hiroki was more amazed by the words of the youngster before him. He had never seen anyone with such tenacity in his words in this time. Everyone lived in fear nowadays as the economy was unstable with the new western products and traders. As Kim was gauging Shin by his appearance, he knew Shin had nothing with him to back this courage, but the spirit of boldness he resonated was affecting Kim greatly and he agreed in his mind to help this young man as much as possible. Shin took out his extra month pay he had received and presented it towards the owner. "I do not have much to give as a rent now, but please take this as an advance and I will pay the rest in a month time. " Kim looked at the meagre pay in his hand was taken aback. He expected at least a little more, but it even increased his curiosity to know where Shin got his courage from. "Is this all?", said Kim Shin looked nodded and said. "This was the extra month wage, Kim-san gave me yesterday." Kim was even more shocked, the sum was so meagre, it would not be even called as pocket change for his son, Dai. Shin was getting tense at the silence of the owner, Kim and was opening his mouth to convince the elder more, but.. "I accept, I will take the rest of the money at the end of the month and I will come to the restaurant to collect it.", said Kim. Shin''s mouth was left hanging for a second, but that slowly turned into a smile of victory and he thanked the owner. "Thank you very much owner Kim. I shall take my leave now, if you can provide me with the keys to the restaurant." said Shin bowing with respect and gratuity to Kim-san. Kim instructed his servants to bring the keys to the restaurant and he handed them to Shin, wishing him good luck. Shin thanked Kim for his kindness and left Kim-san with his first victory, now he had to do a much difficult task and that was convince the other workers to join him. He went about and around the entire morning and talked with half the people who worked in the restaurant. Luckily and unluckily no one had been employed except for the cooks, but the cooks were working for a much lesser pay and as reserve in other restaurants. Shin conferred with each and every one of them on his plans for the restaurant. He had asked everyone to put in their one month wages they received from the owner to help start the restaurant again and he promised them it would reap benefits this time. The proposition looked too good to be true, it was a time where work was less and spending the only money they had into something which was brought down because it had no profit had left them not wanting to take risks. But they felt something in Shin''s words and asked for a day''s time to decide. Shin found the houses from each of the workers houses and even the cooks houses and shared his ideas with them. He told them that they only had to maintain a month and if it didn''t succeed they can go about again to their other jobs. Everyone was already working for change now and most of them had no work to begin with. Shin asked them to think about it over night and let him know their decision, since he had already rented out the restaurant from the owner, Kim-san that morning. Shin left everyone to their thoughts and went to the market place, he went to their usual suppliers of groceries for the restaurant and told them that the restaurant is now going to be run by the workers there for a month and he asked them to help them with the supplies. He negotiated on most of the prices and good a better deal than they had before, but he said he will come tomorrow to confirm the deal with an advance and he left home. As he reached home, Akane had prepared dinner and he ate the food with a smile. Akane was greatly moved by seeing Shin enjoying his meal. It was simple food, but Shin kept saying, delicious ever so often that Akane was blushing throughout supper. Akane saw a new Shin before her, a more confident Shin and she lay in his arms as she slept. Shin was happy with the course of the day and slept with a smile and Akane by his side. The next day, he went to the restaurant and opened it up. He had asked everyone to make up their decisions and come to the restaurant to give their answer. Shin started cleaning up the place, he had made a plan for everything and if no one turned up as well, labour was easy to find since many were without work, but he wanted to do it with the people he worked with for more than an year as a family. After a while mostly everyone returned and even one of the cooks had returned. He had happy with the number and saw that they also had brought in their share of the salary as well as requested. Shin was grateful and thanked everyone. He explained what his plan was - they didn''t serve any food during the morning, they served lunch and dinner, but they would make lunch boxes as well and sell them on the street, everyone doubted his idea but Shin spoke with such certainty that no one refused. The lunch boxes were cheap to make, but who would buy them were their thoughts. He asked Akane to come to the restaurant as well and help around, since she was all alone and this would keep her engaged and less worried about Shin. Shin went to the market place with a few of the workers and paid a small sum to the traders as advance and picked up their groceries. He then asked them to return and tell everyone to put the sign out and prepare lunch. Shin during his first day after his unemployment saw that most of the manufacturing companies around had no food facilities nearby and it had only a mess where the food was subpar from edible. This was one of the places he wanted to exploit. Another was the mining side which was near the outskirts of the city where Shin used to work during his initial months on arriving here. After all was said and done, there was a slow start, slow but steady start and the demand for more lunch boxes increased and they stopped their in dining for both lunch and dinner and focused on providing lunch and dinner boxes to the manufacturing and mining district and within the month they were able to get about twice their initial investment. Shin returned the money he took from the other, but they refused and took only their wages for the month saying they will consider it next month. Shin took care as the caretaker of the restaurant and it became a hit with the working class. The owner Kim came to collect his rent and saw that the restaurant was not open to public and he was doubtful if Shin had succeed in his task, but as he entered he saw that the insides were filled with boxes of food and the workers who were previously serving quests were wearing carrying backs which carry a large quantity of items around their necks and were packing the lunch boxes into the bags. Kim looked at the spectacle before him and was in awe. He searched for Shin and saw that he rushed towards him as soon as Shin noticed him. Shin stepped forward with an air of stillness and bowed thanking Kim Hiroshi for his faith in him and the restaurant. "Owner Kim, I''m thankful for your belief in me and the restaurant for we have spread the joy of healthy food with the people who need them the most. I have with me the monthly rent as discussed.", said Shin bowing and handed a small money pouch before him. Kim took the rent from him respectfully and that was the day Kim understood the capabilities of Shin completely. Shin later took over contracts within the Manufacturing company messes and a small quarters in the mining district to provide fresh and warm food to the people there and he changed the current Restaurant from the Lunch box factory into a traditional cuisine restaurant with the help of the Owner Kim. Shin after three years saving enough money and courage to buy the Restaurant off Owner Kim, to which Kim was more than glad to offer it to him as no one in the family was interested in taking over the Restaurant business. Shin then acquired more restaurants around the city and started others in the cities nearby, but he never left his goal of providing healthy and fresh food to manufacturing and working districts at affordable prices and Shin''s empire grew. Akane was with him through all these occurrences through thick and thin, she was responsible in taking care of the restaurants when he went to take care of other businesses. Shin and Akane had three children - Ichiro, the eldest son, Kichirou, the second son and Cheiko, their youngest daughter. Shin returned home to see him father after ten years when Ichiro was seven years old, Kichirou was five and Cheiko was two. He came to know that after he left his younger brother, Eiji had taken over the business and his sister was married off to a nearby village elder''s son. Shin wanted to see his sibling a lot after the birth of Cheiko since it reminded him of his sister and brother. He also wanted to see his father and thank him and to seek forgiveness for the hurt he had caused them. To make it short, he made peace with his father after few months of trial and frequent fights, but he later slept in the same house as his parents after a long time. Shin even begged the forgiveness of the village priest for taking his daughter''s hand in marriage without his permission and that too ended in a peaceful result. Shin later after the death of his parents wished to travel around the world since the company he had started had grown to a point it didn''t require his constant attention. He sent his children to the best school, but he didn''t pamper them. During his travels, Akane was always with him and never left his side, but during the last travel they went to Akane slipped and fell causing a tear in her hamstring muscle and separating it from the bone. The femur was also having a few hair fractures and the healing was slow due to her age and menopause. She was bedridden without the ability to stand or walk for long hours. When Kichiro mentioned that even during recovery they can travel, it greatly confused and excited them, but when he explained it was actually computer generated they didn''t feel too much excited. Akane was the main reason Shin wanted to travel as she had always talked about seeing all the wonders of the world and travelling to distant places she only read in books. To support Akane and since hey main source of slow recovery as explained by the doctor was the mental stress she puts herself in. Akane never shared her thoughts to others and not even to Shin, but he could see the difficult in her face and whenever she said she felt fine her eyes said otherwise. Shin also ordered the VR for himself to support his wife and joined in on the fun as always. They didn''t expect much from the game during the initial configuration of the VR, but when they both were brought into the game, they both said the same thing. "Is this heaven!!!" ********************* To be continued....
I hope everyone enjoyed this. There is one more part to this chapter and I hope to share it within this week. Enjoy!!! Chapter 4 : Everyone Else - Part 3
Chapter 4 : Everyone Else - Part 3 yO~ guys, The last part of the chapter is below. Have fun!!!
Chapter 4 : Everyone Else - Part 3
PART-3 " You have entered Eden. Your soul has started energising..." "Soul has bound with your spirit and incarnation has started." "Your soul has chosen to be born as Thor race." Rocky was one of the first people to receive the CAPSULE because he directly went to the shipping company when the shipment tracking said they had received the package and sent an alert saying it would be delivered the next day. Rocky couldn''t stand the a day long wait and just drove to the main office which was 20 miles away and got the package around late night. He was a pro gamer and always strived to be the best in them. When it was announced on the first VRMMORPG to be released with the first full immersion VR console, The CAPSULE, he went sleepless checking the sites and online forums for updates or latest news. On finally logging in, he was breath taken by the immersion VR, from the initial configuration to being a spirit floating on clouds, he was amazed and when he finally started the game, the lack of character creation or optimization did not falter him. On seeing the notification regarding the race. He was hyped just by the name of the Race. Thor!!! OMG, I wonder what kind of race it is. I always was hoping to be a berserker from the start. Rocky was inside a white enclosing and everything was dark around him, but he felt different, he would sense a lot of things around him and it make him dizzy. He couldn''t move as he wanted and was constrained on the movement, but after a few minutes he heard and felt something nudging at his encasing. Rocky didn''t feel afraid and the feeling around him wasn''t hostile and he could sense it. Feeling the need to nudge open from the cramped enclosing, Rocky nudged back at the encasing and he felt a corresponding nudge from outside and after a couple of minutes the encasing begin to crack slowly and within a few hours he was outside from the encasing. Rocky crawled out and he couldn''t stand on his two legs. On all fours , he was able to understand that he wasn''t human, but what amazed him was his sense of perception. He could map out things with his mind, but it was completely dark. Outside the encasing, though it was completely dark , Rocky could sense what was around him and he could feel that he was deep inside the ground and covered by layers of non-living substances as a barrier from outside. Rocky was tired within a few minutes and suddenly he felt a familiar presence moving towards him. He awaited and it pushed in closer crossing the barriers and entered deep inside the ground towards him. "So, you''re awake and finally out of your shell. Come and drink, you must be famished.", said the familiar presence and laid down before him on its belly. Rocky now was greatly famished, but he was over taken by questions and diversion that he didn''t take notice of his hunger until it was pointed out before him. Rocky crawled towards the voice and closed in towards the hairy skin. He pushed forward but he was stopped by his mouth or rather a beak. He was astounded, the race said ''Thor'' and he felt more like a duck, but which duck had four paws and a large tail. He pondered within when a liquid started to secrete from where he had touched with his beak. He drank and it tasted like milk, but very different kind of milk he had ever tasted and it was delicious. After having taken a stomach full, even though he tried to stop himself, he drank till he was a few drops from bursting and a sudden onslaught of sleep took over him. He slept as soon as he reached the pile of soft padding made from dry leaves on the floor. Four hours passed by and Rocky found himself more larger. His sense of the things around him were more distinct now, like an electrical map, but within the bodies of things with life he saw. He couldn''t make out the ground, but the small living organisms were giving off a small electrical charge he could make out everything around him up to a certain limit. He checked his notifications and found that he had completed a few growth stages and his stats had increased by a bit. He waited for the woman earlier to come towards him, but he couldn''t sense anyone. He saw that he had more control over him body now, but still had to walk with four legs since they were quite small. Rocky traced him path towards the exit, but he had to push away a huge number of layers of leaves and leaves which seems to be covering the exit with over 20 layers for over 50 meters along the pathway. As he cleared the layers by pushing and hitting them with his large tail which crushed the twigs in between, which made it easier to remove the complex structure of leaves and twigs. After over three hours of clearing the pathway and resting in between, finally Rocky crawled out and lied down exhausted. Soon after the exhaustion had cleared, he felt an immense urge to eat and overcame with hunger. He got up and was able to sense the being around him and instinctly knew which to eat and not. What he felt before him suddenly was visible to him and saw that from the bank of the river he was on, a number of small fishes inside the water. Famished, he dropped into the water and caught a few after a numerous number of tries by understanding how he could sense their path before they moved. He found many amazing things as his hunger subsided by eating the fishes near the banks of the river. He found that he couldn''t breathe underwater, but he could hold his breath longer than normal i.e. over three minutes. Other thing was that he couldn''t keep his eyes open in the water, but he could sense better inside the water, thus catching other delicacies which he couldn''t by the river banks. He gained a few levels, since he felt stronger, but couldn''t see the stats window and his skills which he was able to see were all passive skills like - Sense Life ( which increased range on level), Water resistance ( which levels quite a lot when he was swimming), Swimming( this was in Gold colour and no levels.) May be because I''m a better swimmer in real life, he thought. And a series of other skills were ????. A few hours sped by and Rocky learned to control his new body, he left more alive in the water and his sense of life around him amazed his senses. He lay beside the bank from where he dug out of the ground and calmly looked at himself. He had a body of a racoon, while his head had a beak like a duck and he later found out that his beak was like an antennae which picked up the electrical signals from the living things around him, since when he turned his beak to a particular direction he could sense things clearly along that side. His legs were small for his body, but they were fast and they were webbed for swimming. His coat was waterproof and if he shook himself after getting out of the water, he was completely dry. The tail, that was something of a wonder, it was like a huge bat at his rear, but it was amazingly flexible up to a certain limit and it was quite strong. He didn''t know what he was, for he had never seen such a creature in his life and he felt the race ''thor'' was misleading. After resting a few hours and roaming around the bank looking around at the detailed landscape, the plant and animal life around him was astonishing. How did a computer generate all these data, moreover no animal had the same pattern was what he observed from the creatures he could sense around him, they all seemed distinct in their pattern. After arriving to the river bank on checking his surroundings, he was without any task to encounter and suddenly he sensed the familiar presence approaching him. It was the lady that took care of him when he entered the game. "So you''re finally out, I went to find you a place to live. So how do you feel?" "I''m fine. Thank you. Place to live?? Can''t I live here?" "No you can''t!! This is my place, but you can visit sometimes to see me, your mother." Mother?? So...I was.... hatched.... I looked like a mammal, but from an egg... I think I read about that somewhere. I''ll check that when I log out. "Mother??!.." "Yes, dear. Don''t tell me you forgot your mother in your hunger. Don''t forget to eat every few hours it will help you grow and I found you a place to live. Go up this river, for a few days and the river will split into two take the left path and move forward a few hours and you should be able to find an unoccupied river bank. Careful not to attract attention from others like us, they will follow you and try to claim the place as their own. Also, if by the time you reach the river bank, someone took it over, you will have to fight him for it. So, off you go." A quest generated suddenly and appeared before him.
Quest : Find a home. Travel across the river to find the spot mentioned by Rivden. If you spot is already taken over by another, you will have to claim it over. Rewards : A new base spot where it''s free from predators. Penalty : None.
"Uh.. um.. Ok...", Rocky didn''t know what to say, she didn''t even ask his name and was throwing him out. "Can I stay here to rest for a while and then leave.." The mother looked at her son for a while and replied sighing.. "Ok, you don''t seem to be like the type to take over my bank. You can stay for a while and then leave." Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. "Take over your bank. That doesn''t sound fair." "Fair!! tell that to your elder brother and sisters. I kind of like you. What do you want to call yourself." "Rocky, ma''am. I do not know your name yet." "Rocky, good, good. You can call me Rivden or mama. Whichever you like." "OK, Thank you." Rocky was confused by the minimal details he got, he always thought animals had more parental instincts. He felt awkward near Rivden and moved away from her and towards another side of the bank and logged out. Brock Romano aka Rocky among his friends got out of his ergonomic gaming chair and was indifferent with the game he just played, but what affected him more was the sense of presence he lost after logging out of the game. He felt vulnerable and a bit tense at not knowing what or who was around him. He sat down and began meditating to clear his mind, he had to do this often now, because he loved games, the adventure and it was better than the normal world around him. When playing the games and after logging out, he would go into a deep thought about why this life was boring and he was not meant to be born in this time. At least he should have been born in the dark ages, where people had to fight to show their dominance. He would tell him friends, "I was not supposed to be born in this time. Whoever is up top, made a mistake!!." His obsession with living an alternate life, made him into a pro gamer and he tried to be the best there is and was one of the best gamers in the industry. He was a pro game tester and was one of the people who tested out the MR gear during its initial days of testing. But his obsession left him wanting for more and blamed the society before him, they were lazy and always took the safer option. Avoiding conflict was the way of the future, if someone wanted to take over a country then give them trade benefits and open up better immigration policies. Investment into another country such that they won''t try to take over that country due to the amount of revenue they get was the booming strategy to avoid wars now. Rocky felt everyone was a coward, when he initially took to gaming as his career path, all his family shunned him and talked to him to think of his future. He told them. "I don''t want to live a boring life like you people. So, just leave me alone." Rocky''s obsession took to worse as his successive career reached different heights. He was more depressed at why his life was still boring with the risks he took. He was not content with what he had and he played game throughout the time without sleep. He was later taken to psychiatrist and told not to think too much and to meditate if he started to have a depression attack. Rocky cleared his mind within a few minutes, since he learned how to control his thoughts. Once he meditated for over three hours and later slept for 24 hours straight. Since then, Rocky always meditated to keep himself in control and he only needed a few minutes to clear his mind. Rocky went to prepare himself something to eat wearing the MR goggles and checked the internet for mammals which lay eggs and it instantly took him to an animal which he was for the past few hours and he read through them. There were a few documentaries and movies on this creature called the Platypus and found that the reason why he had never heard of such an animal was because they were extinct for the past ten years. He watched the videos as he had food and understood quite a bit from the videos, but the video kept referring to the Platypus were a mystery as they didn''t know more about the creature. After logging in Rocky bid his farewell to Rivden and left the her river bank promising to visit sometime to which she said "If you want...". Before he left she told him not to take long rests in between if he didn''t want to run into trouble. Rocky went upstream and it was difficult at first but with time he knew how to evade by using the rocks in the river which diverted and sometimes stopped the waves. On his way he ate some fishes on the way and also some snails along the way. Whenever he saw something he could instantly say which was edible and after a few tries he could eat them without any trouble. After a few hours of travelling he started to get tired and climbed on a rock in the middle of the river and lay down for a while. A few minutes suddenly he felt something coming towards him from upstream and jumped onto the rock. It was another platypus towering over him as he was lying down. "Get lost...", he squealed. "Hi...", said Rocky "I said, GET LOST...MOVE ALONG " "Ok...", sighed Rocky and jumped off the rock and started going his way upstream. Along his way he came to understand that most Platypus were territorial much to as he read, but he didn''t think they would be so antisocial. He read that when human tried to reach Platypus they were not afraid of them, he thought that they were social, but now he knew that they were not afraid. Why would they be afraid of something they can see from miles away and predict every movement. Rocky stopped every few hours on different banks and was suddenly interrupted by the owner of the territory to which he had to set off leaving him more exhausted. Finally his exhaustion took over him and settled himself on a log which took him back since he was going upstream and it stopped on a group of rocks in between. As usual within minutes a platypus was on him and threatened him to leave. He lay there motionless and tried hard to ignore him, but suddenly he jumped at him. Rocky rolled aside to dodge him and jumped up on his legs. The platypus circled each other and the platypus before Rocky was seemingly larger than him and was a full adult of the species. He jumped swiftly and bit at the place where rocky''s neck would be, but Rocky propelled his leg as a pivot and did a spin in place, hitting the platypus with his tail. The platypus was sneering at him and jumped towards him. He bit and also used the tail sweeping Rocky off his feet in small swift movements. Rocky was already out of breathe and stayed motionless on the rock. "Let...*huff* ...me...* huff*.... rest!!", said Rocky. "Sure, take your time. That was the most fun, I had in days. Ha ha ha", said the platypus and sat down on the rock near him. After a few minutes Rocky regained his breathe and sat upright. "You seem different, all the others just threatened me to leave." "Did they now, heh!!!" "Hey!! You know something let me know." "Ok ok, The thing is everyone can find their own river bank if they just tried, but after finding one it just get boring." "So..." "They just want to fight. It''s more fun that way. Moreover, fighting anything else is boring, very predictable. Only our kind is a match for us. So you off to find yourself a home eh??" "Um.. yeah." "Well it was fun, stay as long as you want and if you want let''s have a spar whenever you want. By the way I''m Rill. " , said the platypus and his eyes curved like a smile. "Thanks Rill!! I''m Rocky.", said Rocky still laying down. Rocky rested for a while and got up. Looking around he saw that Rill was not around, but he sensed him underwater a long way from where he rested. He waited for Rill to return and dipped into the river for a meal. After having had a stomach full, he rested on the rock waiting for Rill and he was back. "So, you''re off eh?" "Yup, thanks for allowing me to rest." "No problem. You''re welcome to visit and spar with me anytime." "Sure, I will come often as soon as I find the spot." Rocky bid his goodbye, but before he left he logged off and slept for a few hours. He later logged in and left upstream to find new land to call his home. After a few hours he reached a split in the river and turned towards the left as Rivden had directed. The path across was difficult, there were too many stones in between and he couldn''t move through them with ease. After resting on the rocks for a few minutes in regular intervals he finally reached a river bank, which seemed unoccupied.
Quest Updated: Quest : Find a home - II You have found the place mentioned by Rivden, but in order to claim it as your own. You need to created more than three lodging areas around this bank and also protect this area from others. Rewards : Experience, Skills Penalty : None
"Hmm.. Ok then...", he thought aloud and logged out to learn more about the Platypus. ***************************** An ant was sitting on a cliff as the sun started to shine on the horizon, as the light started to display the ground around him it sparkled with the blood on the leaves and ground. There was nothing left except for a few hides and bones around in the puddles of blood on the ground. Crimson was fighting more than 10 packs of wolves for over twelve hours and he was completely covered blood red by the blood of the wolves. He had reduced the population of the wolves in the area by 50%. Wolves are boring now. I don''t think I levelled up even once after reaching level 100. He picked up the hides and returned back on his way to the hive. The wolves were hiding behind the trees and stayed away from his path whimpering with fear. An announcement was made throughout the forest warning everyone not to face a blood coloured ant, else it would lead to their doom... Chapter 5 : The Event - Part 1
Chapter 5 : The Event - Part 1 yO~ guys, Back from my vacation, so had only a few hours to work on this chapter. This is the first part , hope you enjoy and will work on the next part soon. Hope I can get a review on my FF, so that I can improve further. Cheers and have fun!!
Chapter 5 : The Event - Part 1
The fog had cleared up in the horizon and all the animals were outside their homes to search for food. But not every animal were happy to be alive to see the sun. A group of travellers were brought into these lands for a purpose, but no one knew what their purpose was - they belonged to a world where everything would be told to them on what to do and how to achieve it and they called it Quests. The game had quests during the initial weeks of play - telling them what their basic necessities were, but after sometime no more quests were generated. "What is the status...?" , asked Jin Hye Park finishing his sentence sighing knowing what to expect . Park was bored with the progression, nothing was happening in the game. He expected for chaos and mayhem, but people were lazy and very conservative. After watching few hours of the major highlights in the game created by the GOD AI every week, he was not impressed though he saw many people learning to use their abilities differently. They were happy with the small progress they made every day. "Very few updates since past hour actually, 1. Only seven races were able to be filled. Three are still under pre-prophesy. 2. No traveller deaths till now, I believe it is due to the max growth benefits. 3. Many have broken the level barrier, but haven''t mastered the race. Only a handful have even come close to understanding their race. 4. The self sustaining eco system of Eden is falling apart. People have become gluttonous and eating everything causing the shortage of food. Other animals are spreading territories to compensate, I believe we should see deaths soon. That''s all for the current status of HW." , said the blonde secretary to Park frowning at him who was now stretching his recliner to the lowest level. "Ah, you stopped. I thought you were going to sing me a lullaby next..", said Park lying on the recliner. "Just kidding. Stopping shooting daggers at me Sarah.", said Park straightening his recliner, " The three races still in pre-prophesy are - Salamandra, Boa and Arovilof?", he said looking at Sarah, to which she nodded affirmative. "No deaths?... GOD is being too generous. Is he still not interfering?" "Well HE..said HE will wait until the event is triggered by someone until then he will lazy around.", said Sarah giving Park a menacing stare. "Ah, yeah. I can''t expect too much from myself anyway. Well the next about level barrier. Never cared. Next about the eco system. This is good, the event will be triggered off soon then. What eco systems are compromised now, I only saw that the wolves of the west were reduced to less than 50% in a week and bears were having a hard time looking for food." "Yes, the wolves are the first in the list. Even though the growth is set to maximum, they are less than the sustainable limit. The bears which depend on these wolves were threatened and forced to leave their territory and hunt in other territories causing territorial clashes. Damn... ant..." "Ah yes, I saw those fights , very interesting, who would have thought someone would take advantage of their races attributes like this. Very interesting indeed.", cheered Park seeing the scowling blonde. "So any idea when the Event will be triggered.?" "HE said that it should be triggered within this week based on his ''assumptions''. " "Oh, he said ''assumptions''. He really is taking it easy." "That''s what happens when you give the worlds smartest super quanta the world''s laziest AI personality. " "Hey, I''m not lazy. I''m conserving energy.", Park defended. Sarah chuckled at his response as the super quanta made the same response when she called it lazy; she accepted that response, but she now knew where that came from. Park perked up and sat straight asking, " And what about Project ''Who'', has anything happened in the past week." Sarah nodded a negative saying, "Nothing as of yet, but it''s been only two months, it would take more time to do the impossible." "It''s not impossible, if we are trying to do it. It''s just improbable to reach our goals.", Park let the air around him change into his lazy self, "I will talk with GOD about kick starting this Event. It''s getting too damn boring." Sarah nodded in response and was alerted to her vibrating handheld which flashed a few images and reports which alarmed her. "Well?? Don''t hog all the suspense to yourself. Do share...", said Park eyeing the tablet in her hand with interest. "Someone was able to access the interconnection midway. Not everything, but a part of it. " "That''s impossible, no one can hack into these systems. I don''t think even I can.. though I could, but really I can''t. Did they locate how and who tried to access it?" "It wasn''t someone outside, it was in game..." "YOU MEAN WHILE PLAYING?? How did he??" "He talked to it. " "That''s what I mean, how was he able to access or talk to it. It''s a very complex system and it takes a large number of nodes to communicate with it." "He just did... talk to the system and it replied back." "You mean to tell me, the interconnection midway which connects all our AI''s into place in Hundred Worlds was accessed by someone by just talking to it?" "Yes..." "Who was it?" "The ant responsible for the bear-wolves ecosystem collapse." "Hmm.. interesting. The ants found something... So, what is he doing with the system, learning our secrets?" "He is.. checking it''s arithmetic and logical ability. I have a video which is being rendered if you did like to see." Park''s was flabbergasted, " Wha....", he said as Sarah moved in to close his now open mouth. *********** This is amazing!!!, Crimson thought to himself as he got the reply into his mind through meditation. - What is 123456 multiplied into 3. And within milliseconds a number just appeared into his conscience. [370368] The answer didn''t appear as a notification or as a verbal response but he just came to know the answer in his mind - the answer just incepted. Crimson was stumped as we returned to the hive since he didn''t gain any levels after 100. His stats strength, agility and vitality reached max stats - while his passive and offensive skills were all stuck at lvl9 99.9%. He didn''t know what to do since wolves stopped coming near him and he felt maybe it was the wolves that didn''t give him any experience anymore. He logged out and after food, exercise and sleep, he logged in around 6 AM on Sunday. He went around the hive and found other players who started as the same race, but they looked different though appearing similar. Crimson looked blood red at the ends of his abdomen and crimson like near the centre, while the others looked plain blackish red or brownish, some even grey to blue in shades. The development of the body also differed, he looked more humanoid like when he stood on his hind legs, while the others had shorter legs. On asking them how they fared with levelling, most of them said their elders trained them by climbing trees and help strengthening the hive by building on the tunnels. Crimson restrained himself from sharing his experience and said, "I was taken to hunt small animals nearby" - to which they were all amazed since they most they fought were with ants/players from other hives around. Crimson also met with other ants from different hives namely a group of five army ants, they were stupid and picked a fight with everything in their sight, but when they crossed Crimson it didn''t end well for them. After spending a few hours in the hive, he asked around the hive workers if anything needed to be done and a worker asked him to check around the premise of the hive since recently there was an increase in the bear activity. Crimson stepped out and within a few minutes from the hive entrance he found a bear rolling rocks and lifting decaying trunks. He approached nearby and waited for the bear to react, to which it did and rushed him. He sidestepped and swung hard from right to left using his left hind leg as pivot and slammed his abdomen on the head of the bear. The sub skills under Racial Connections were all level 9- 99.9% and the Hard shell skill was almost max as well which made his body as hard as the ''rocks'' he carried. The bear stumbled after that and again rush in to which Crimson stood his ground and caught the bear halfway by stepping in. Crimson wanted to check how he would fare since the fight started and the bear pushed hard clawing on the ground. Crimson stood his ground pushing the bear back and suddenly he loosed - the bear lost its balance and he lifted the bear swinging it at the tree nearby, which nearly uprooted the tree. The bear dazed after the impact with the tree slowly stood up, saw Crimson and walked back into the forest. Crimson was not in a mood to eat and let the bear go. He surveyed the area around the hive and found two other bears of which he scared away another bear, but the third one stood its ground even after several knock downs and he ate it later on. After patrolling for an hour he returned back to the worker who had told him about the bears. Crimson was actually not sure if he had completed the task since there was no quest generated. When he reported to the same worker whom he found near the storage chamber, the ant thanked him and asked if he needed something to eat, to which he denied politely. No rewards. I figured as much. Crimson didn''t know what to do. He was used to playing games which were completely dependent on grinding to proceed, but he didn''t guess Hundred Worlds was such. He returned to the chamber he often logged out. He started to delve into the mechanics of the game. The virtual reality was reality - there were no super powers or fantasy element except that they were playing creatures rather than humanoid characters. All the tangible elements in this world had a make and break point. Nothing was a misconception in the purpose and making of this world. He realised that when he started to ponder on why bears were moving out of their secluded areas - Food!!! , he thought was the answer. There were no honey or ponds nearby, so the source of food for bears were smaller animals and bugs nearby. Smaller animals around the ant hive were scarce, it was mostly a few bucks very far away towards the north, a couple of foxes and of course their neighbours wolves. Bears were closer to the wolves. I caused the bears to move. He had killed wolves thinking they were re-spawning every day, but the wolves in the area were just spreading their territory when the previous owners of the territory were slaughter by an intruder. Crimson realised what he had done and decided not to kill unless necessary. He sat in the chamber like a human and focused. His eyes were always alert in game, they sensed everything. The weird thing was he could see scents and even changes in the air, but he knew what it was, the human mind is only capable of understanding a few things visually and when it needs to represent something in visual it picks things in random until it makes sense. He saw colours change in his vision when smells changes, but it never over took his vision it just looked normal now and when there was a breeze or a change in the direction of the wind, he could see changes and could interpret them. Crimson sat down and started to meditate. It was very difficult for him to dull the amount of detail he had to discard and only focused on the never changing thing around him - the darkness. It took him a long time to get used to dulling his senses, but finally he was able to do it. Stillness in mind was something he was capable of achieving very soon in the real world, but in the Hundred worlds he had no eyelids and this was a major distraction in itself. He focused on the darkness around him, but not looking at it or trying to understand it.
Level Up : Racial Communication Level -10 All sub skills have also reached Level 10. ? Mana Cost is reduced by 50%. ? Combat skills damage increased by 20%. ? Defence skills duration increased by 20%. The skill has reached maximum efficiency. The skill can be upgraded by ???
Level Up : Pheromone Mastery Level -10 Mana Cost is reduced by 50%. Able to use Pheromone with combat skills. The skill has reached maximum efficiency. The skill can be upgraded by ???
Level Up : Adaptive Growth Level -10 Mana Cost is reduced by 50%. Able to re-grow body parts except head. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.The skill has reached maximum efficiency. The skill can be upgraded by ???
Intelligence increased by 5.
Wisdom increased by 5.
As he fell into a trance something extraordinary happened, a series of notifications had shown up on his view and he noticed only one thing - that all his skills which were stuck at 99.9% levelled up and had become lvl10. A large number of notifications were blinking at the side of his vision, but he ignored them for now. I felt something. I will delve deeper. He returned to meditating, but now he was not focusing on the darkness, but on the sound created in the chamber by the air currents. The sound was not noticeable enough unless you concentrated on it. I feel everything, everyone. Crimson felt different, but he knew this feeling. It was the same feeling he had when the Racial communication link was open, but not as overwhelming as before. He could say bluntly what the difference was between the Racial communication link and the feeling now. Using the skill he felt like stuck in a crowded bus stop where everyone just talked at him without listening, but now he felt like a person who was viewing the bus stop from afar listening into the conversations. He knew what and why they were doing things. He could feel everyone''s presence, but couldn''t understand how many there were. - I wonder how many ants are there in this hive. -[3741] He knew the answer. He didn''t know it a second before, but now he knew. He wanted to test it out again. - How many travellers are there in this hive? -[1325] He was amazed by his discovery and started to play with it. Where are they, he thought and suddenly he was able to sense all the traveller around him, but he was also able to sense the NPCs in the hive as well, it was like the travellers and NPCs vibrating with different frequencies. He didn''t know what he was doing, but it was interesting and increased the depth of the game for him. He came to multiple guesses on what he had just discovered - a new skill, a race related secret or something more, but what was the purpose of this feature. Crimson spent the next hour testing out the capability of the system with even logical questions. -You are in a cabin and it is pitch black. You have one match on you. Which do you light first, the newspaper, the lamp, the candle or the fire? -[the match] But another discovery also astonished him. I hope this doesn''t cause any other problems like in that vintage movie, what was it called.. -[WarGames] This revelation shocked him, he didn''t recall the movie name, but it was prompted instantly. He tried the same with other things in his memory which he didn''t even know and was able to get an answer to which he later would find the answers to. I have found something that even fetches data from my memory, it definitely isn''t a game function nor a race attribute. I wonder... -How and when did I fracture my arm? A few minutes passed by. -[Football practice. Eight grade] Crimson was overwhelmed. He picked up other instances from his life and within a few minutes it became more bizarre than the world around him. -How many races are there in the game? -[Ten] He then asked for the names of these races and it replied - [Entomo, Panthera, Salamandera, Bubo, Macaca, Anomura, Gruida, Thor, Boa and Arovilof.] He further asked of their presence around the land and he felt a large number of consciousness nudging at him from all over. He then concentrated on distinct signatures from a group and was able to discern their location, but he felt only around six other race signatures or he could have missed the others due to the immense concentration he had to maintain to separate individual races by just feeling them. Next he tried to see if he could control the ants he felt around him, he concentrated on them and started to feel their presence. He thought to identify the worker ant he had talked with earlier on and his mind knew or rather sensed his location. He nudged the worker in his mind and told it to bring food to his chamber. A few minutes passed by and the worker entered his chamber placing the food before him. Crimson turned to look at the worker before him and found that the worker was waiting for him to notice him. " Warrior, I hope not to offend you but would you please not divert me from my task again.", "I...", began Crimson, but the worker left hurriedly without waiting for a response "..am sorry." He concentrated on meditating and it was easier than before to slip into the observant state now. He noticed that the worker tried to join into the cycle, but there was a huge break in the chain of collection and distribution of food around the hive. The confusion lasted for a few minutes, but was rectified and the factory of workers returned in order. This was the first time Crimson was left bewildered after meditating for as long as he did now. In order to clear his mind he logged off after eating the food brought in by the worker. ************************* Park was standing in the control room which he himself had created. He had modelled it after the Cerebro room from the X-men vintage TV series. As he entered into the room the lights focused up into the centre and a hologram of a rather bored and aged Park stood before him. "Yo GOD, How are we today?" [Hey yourself, Nothing specific.] "Any idea when you can start doing some work?" [...], the hologram looked at him and sighed shrugging. "That''s what I thought, could you bring me the current visual on Entomo - Crimson." [ The player had currently offline. ] "What level of breach occurred with this incident." [No breach in company policies occured, but a few system level and structure related breaches occurred.] "And what do you propose to overcome and handle this situation." [Nothing to demean the experience the player has created, but the access on servers have been filtered to race] "Also filter the access to databases be limited to race, memories, and current events. Place security filters on the project ''Who'' and related information. " [Affirmative. All filters placed. Anything else?] "Nothing more, just keep monitoring this player and let me know if anything comes up. Anything to report on the project ''Who''." "Alright then, also could you let me know why you don''t appear on my desk hologram and I got to walk down here to talk to you." [Network problems and security procedure.], said the hologram with a smirk. "Yea yea, holler me if something comes up." [Will do.] ************************ Crimson logged in after a few hours when he had cleared his head over lunch. He had thought of different explanations for what he observed from his discovery and thought up many different questions to test his hypothesis. On logging in he was welcomed with a series of notification windows.
Congratulations on discovering the Entomon hive channel. Hive administration is disabled until unanimously accepted by the hive. Full access to communication channel. Found race secrets : 2/5
On discovering one of the most difficult secrets of the Entomon race. Intelligence increased by 15. Wisdom increased by 15.
New Skill : Abate Interference - Level 1 Active/Passive Active : Increases concentration by 2x times for 30 seconds. Time appears to move slowly when skill is active. Passive : Able to access race connection when in deep concentration. Can only be accessed when stationary. Caution : Increased usage will result in headache and blurred vision. Mana Cost : 100
Crimson had already moved out of the hive while reading the notifications and did a patrol around the hive. He found two bears of which one he harassed them out and returned back to the chamber he started to call ''his room'' in the hive. Having arrived to the chamber he started to meditate and it was much easier to connect with the ''Wired'' Network which he started to call it after having the skill, Abate Interference. Suddenly he came to experience the world around him and now it seemed different, earlier the amount of active presence he felt was indefinite, but now it was more clear - he felt the whole hive and a weak vibe from the players. The change was tremendous but it felt a little less overwhelming that earlier since he was not constantly humming like a beacon from unknown sources and now he was able to pinpoint everything he could sense which was all the things belonging to the hive. He started asking questions to the network in his mind and it still provided him with answers, but the delay in the questions were a little longer. Earlier the answers were instant except for things from his memory which were like a second or few. He moved on to the questions he had thought of earlier while having lunch and a few were related to the other races in game, but to his surprise he didn''t receive anymore replies related any race, not even his. He quickly wanted to ask the question which was dawning on his mind. -When will this world end? He didn''t receive any answer. -What is the goal of this world? No answer again. Frustrated without any replies for the further questions he threw at the network, he asked. -When will the real world end? Again he waited for a long time for the reply, but he started to rephrase the questions. -How will the world end? -Will there be another world war? -When will humanity on the world die? -When will humanity cease to exist? -[31st December 2020] Crimson was not sure if this was an answer for something he asked earlier or the recent one due to delay in the answers. -How and when all human beings on the world cease to exist? Expecting an answer he waited, but to no avail. He rephrased it again after waiting a few minutes. -How and when all of humanity on the world cease to exist? Still no reply. -How and when will humanity cease to exist? -[The Virus. 31st December 2020.] -How did the world end twenty five year earlier if the world still exists are alive now. Crimson was left to his company with no answer from the network and the room he was in felt dark and cold suddenly. -What is humanity? {To be continued....} Next Part : Chapter 5 : The Event - Part 2 Previous Chapter : Chapter 4 : Everyone Else - Part 3
Please let me know your comments. Chapter 5 : The Event - Part 2
Chapter 5 : The Event - Part 2 yO~ I apologise for the slow releases. I took an extended vacations as long as I could and as soon as I was back I had quite a bit of work. It''s year end none the less and work is never seldom. Hope you enjoy. Thanks for reading.
Chapter 5 : The Event - Part 2
-[Human beings as a group.] -But you didn''t reply to human beings then why did you respond to humanity. Expecting an answer Crimson waited, but no reply. He then understood the questions had to be to the point than debatable. -What is the definition of humanity in the context "Humanity ceases to exist from 31st December 2020."? He waited for a few minutes and the answer left him even more puzzled than before. -[The human condition] -Define the human condition. -[The characteristics, key events, and situations which compose the essentials of human existence, such as birth, growth, emotionality, aspiration, conflict, and mortality.] - What do you mean by the human condition? Crimson was frustrated with the answer he got. It didn''t explain anything. He retired asking many questions and as it only filled him with rage with the indirect and non-responsiveness he got. It could be a different story line or just a ruse to mislead from the current aspect of the game. But I can''t stop thinking about it. It said the world already ended, he thought as he thought of other things to ask the connection. -What is the current date? He waited and smiled at the reply he received. -[ Unknown - 1 ] The answer does not mean anything or did it really answer any of his questions, but it was a start. Having lost most of his time pondering with the end of the world. He came to a realization there was nothing he could do at the moment for it and will come back to it whenever he can. The other thought he had now was finding other players from other races and it had occurred to him from since he sensed the other races around the land. He first looked at the hive structure completely and saw if anything needed his immediate attention. He knew whom to reach to and found him in his usual place inside the storage cells of the hive. He stood there looking at him and wanted to call him, but, he didn''t know what his name was. He knew how he felt; Crimson had understood how he could identify each and every ant - it was from the way they vibrate, the rubbing of the limbs with the thorax and abdomen caused a kind of rumbling sound and it was actually the way they talked. Every movement of the ants body was language and it''s impossible to decipher unless you knew how to or had it translated to you directly. Crimson went back into his meditative state trying to sense the name of the worker and suddenly as to reflex the worker moved towards him. "You need my assistance, Warrior?" Crimson was taken back suddenly from his meditative state and suddenly understood why the worker had come towards him. He concentrated on the vibration of the worker and his own body seemed to vibrate to a similar frequency calling the worker towards him. "I - um - What is your name?" "It''s is Sham''ut, Great Warrior." "How did you know I was calling to you?" "I felt your call and came to you." "Could you help me with something?" "Anything that I can do." "I will go outside and then call you. When you feel it can you please call me in the same way?" "Yes.", said Sham''ut looking with interest in his eyes or it was confusion that Crimson mistook. Crimson rushed out and reached outside the hive in mere seconds, he felt the way Sham''tu was vibrating. He then repeated it and after a few seconds even though he was not connected to hive network currently, he felt a nudge where his antennae reacted towards the direction of the hive. He again called out of Sham''tu as earlier and within a few seconds he felt a similar nudge. Wanting to understand the full utilization of this he ran across the forest which literally move away from his path as he moved at a steady pace and upon the cliff he called for Sham''tu. A few seconds turned to a minute and then when he thought he was out of range. Something nudged at his senses but it was not as quick and strong as before, but he then called out to Sham''tu and within a minute he felt the call. He was happy with the result and returned back to the hive. He thanked Sham''tu for his help for which he still looked puzzled and told him to call him incase of any help required, but it would take him a while to return as he is going on a journey and would take him a long time. He told Sham''tu to call him regardless if it was of the utmost importance. Sham''tu offered him some food which he consumed slowly enjoying the earthy flavour. Crimson stepped outside the hive and he went into his meditate state. He then started to feel the other races across the land, but he felt nothing. He tried again, but to no avail. He was confused, earlier when he tried to feel the other races it overwhelmed his senses, but now he couldn''t feel anything but his own hive. Disappointed but not discouraged he started moving towards the west where he felt a considerable amount of races. It had started raining and he slowly made his way through the forest which moved away from his path. ********** "HE did it again didn''t HE. ", the rhetoric was intended but the group of researchers and scientists around him lowered their heads as response. Park had picked the most genius minds in the world to work under him and create the best AI. He had given it the name Gnosis and Ontological Decipher, GOD. The AI was unique - when given a particular problem to solve, it would ask questions, then answer them and the loop triggers where it never asks the same questions again until the problem is solved. GOD was a very intuitive AI which learnt from its mistakes and corrected them in the next attempt. But there was a problem with the AI it had a higher percentage of acting negatively when it had to come across a changing decision in various simulations and the more it took towards the negative response the AI changed. Parks resolution to this was to reset the AI multiple times until it took a more positive output. "Failures are the stairway to success, but never for a bad attitude. You fail once, you failed.", was what Park said when asked why not let it learn from its mistakes. The AI lacked an attitude, a personality to begin with and the one it took on by itself always ended up being negative due to its superiority complex. So the next fix he gave to the AI was a personality and first he gave it a mix of valor, but the AI was too naive. Later he gave the AI a philosophical personality, but this was counterproductive as the AI did not do anything rather than observe to learn more. After a mix and match of personalities he gave the AI a scan of his attributes. Park was essentially a genius in his field and frontrunner in everything he did, but he was very lazy. He worked only six hours a day - from 12:00PM to 6PM to the clock, but when he worked, he worked. "Never be serious about your work, but do your work seriously.", he always told his co-workers who put in extra hours to complete their tasks. The AI initially with Park''s personality was rather lazy, but when it understood a task was meant to be done, it acted on it. The personality seems appropriate at the moment, until the AI personality evolved to create complex tasks for itself and thus causing an unpredictable response. Park was not sure how the AI transformed, but by the time he tried to examine the data, it returned to normal. They faced similar instances where the AI personality went berserk, but it was all a calculated berserk where the loss was minimal at that given time. The hypothesis Park had for this was a simple thing faced since the beginning of memory storage - bad sectors. He deduced that these bad sectors of data were from the previous personalities and they sometimes influenced the current AI personality whenever a trigger was induced. The personality was reset a couple of times but this resulted in the same output as before and the AI had learnt another new trait in its personality - self preservation. Today, the AI, GOD had done something not in its objectives. It revealed a few information that was of high priority, but Park always found that the AI even though it appeared to be doing stuffs at random when it went berserk, it actually meant to force start a trigger of events. The damage was done and this was accepted by Park and his associates. They had known the problem they would face and were ready for it. Now when the details that were never to be released got out. They just had to do a few changes in the story line of the game and it was rather easy. The game was created by the GOD AI and it''s sub-AIs which it created to maintain different parts of itself. Park thought this was one of the ways the GOD AI kept itself in control by creating a number of valid sequences and not mingling everything as to not deform the original code. "GOD create the first year in the game. " [What do you want to label the new year system as?] " "Unknown" should do for now. Let the travellers decide for themselves. I going back to sleep." ********** The fog was clearing up as Crimson stopped checking out the ground he cleared during that time. He looked back and saw that that he had crossed a small valley, it was across the cliff he often trained at. He had never crossed these parts but this was the closest he first sensed another player race. The journey was easy as all the creatures of the forest moved away from his path and let him pass, but this would not be so going forward. He looked at his notifications which were nudging with a different colour than usual. It often lit up with light yellowish colour but now it was light blue. He had deactivated the notifications from popping up or alerting him , so he had no idea how long it had been that way. He concentrated on the notifications and said, "Check Notifications".
New! Notification: E-mail Notification: You have five missed calls. The contact ''Mom Home'' has placed three missed calls for you at XX-XXX-XXXX.
Crimson knew it was definitely after he had logged in and before his journey. He checked the logged out button, but suddenly another notification popped up.
New! Notification: You are logging out from the safety of your home base. You will not be protected from predators or other forces of nature during this time. Tip: Find a safe location to log out.
The players body did not disappear when they logged out and this lead to having them always having to log out at their home bases, which was his hive. He never had to think of this before since he always logged out at the hive and anywhere near the hive was also ok since the area was controlled completely by the hive. He turned back towards the valley which was bustling with life and he rushed forward at full speed. As he moved through the valley, the creatures froze and did not make any noise , so as not to gain attention from him. Crimson crossed the valley and found a grand tree across. It looked over a hundred years old and he climbed the tree with dexterity and speed. On reaching a considerable height, he found a branch which was covered from all directions by other branches and slowly clawed away at the trunk of the tree making a hollow opening large enough for him to rest. After a few minutes, he had created enough space for himself and he entered the hollow space covered the entrance with some large leaves he found and logged out without alerting a notification as before. "Hello Mom. How are you?" "Where were you? Do you know how many time I called?" "I was.. occupied. So what happened?" "Nothing, I just wanted to call you and at least are you coming home next weekend?" "I don''t know. I''ll try. I''m busy nowadays." "Ok. So, how is your health? " "Fine." "Are you eating properly. You don''t always eat at the proper time that is what causes health problems. Eat at the correct timings. When you are not hungry just eat a little so that your stomach doesn''t digest itself when it''s hungry." "Ok..." "How is the weather there? Is it cold? " "It is.." "Then always cover yourself when you go out and try to close your ears when you sleep. So what else?" "Nothing much. How is everyone at home?" "Everyone is the same. Your dad had a cold last week and he gave it to me. I wasn''t able to function properly for a few days, but I feel better now. Do you have a cold?" "No mom." "Ah good, but be careful. Everyone is getting sick a lot lately. Take care of your health. OK?." "O.." "OK then bye, I have something on the stove. Call me if anything happens." She never lets me finish my sentences. Not once... Alex removed the MR gear and lied down for a while before logging into the game again. Crimson moved from his hiding place. It was difficult to say he woke up as his avatar never slept nor closed his eyes for he had no eye lids. He walked out again past the valley towards the nearby player race. The life of the forest across the valley was different than the one from the forest of the wolves. The sound and sight of the forest was different, more open and lively, but from his forest the only sound he heard for a long time was the rustling of leaves. It wasn''t because there was no life around, but nothing made a noise in his presence. Crimson realised what he had done and it picked on him and his conscience even though this is a game. He was an insect in this world, where he had killed packs of animals just to level up. ~Crunch ~ Crunch. He was half way inside the forest and for some time he felt like he was being watched. He didn''t know where to focus on until he heard the crackling of leaves from his side. From the crackling of the leaves he knew it was something of small stature for the leaves were delicately crushed but he sensed it due to the leaves being too dry or the person who hid so carefully just got careless. "I know you are out there. Come out" There was no reply and he waited for a few minutes, but still no response. He quickly jumped towards the place he thought he sensed the presence, but there was no one. He continued his journey forward, but the presence of another lingered. After a couple of hours he went back into his meditative state and tried to sense the presence around him. He sensed a weak but a presence behind him and all of a sudden it changed towards his right. The presence was very fast in shifting its presence around such that it blended with the presence of the forest, but there seemed to be a pattern and as the next shift was soon to be done Crimson leaped towards the direction of the presence. Dan was as usual away from his camp. He had grown larger than before when he was a cub but the growth was not yet completed in his stead to become a full fledged adult of the Panthera race. Even though his growth was slow he had mastered most of his skills and was the best in tracking and sneaking than the others he tried to stay away from. The tigress left him to himself as she no longer could keep up with his stubbornness. Dan survived by hunting on the game nearby where he honed his skills and he slept on top of trees or inside the borrows of the game he hunted eventhough the system prompted the unsafe warning which he ignored to wake up completely changed in a few hours. He was now the exact size as a adult tiger, but he wasn''t done due to his appearance still looking like a cub with smaller stripes , thinner body and mainly the ears and whiskers being very small for his head making him look like a cartoon character. On his trips of hunting alone he now understood how the growth worked, it depended on a level of experience being generated and sufficient food to be consumed of better quality to grow faster and stronger. He was faster than before and could take down larger prey than the game he took on earlier and he moved further across the forest looking for a suitable prey. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Dan walked around the forest looking for suitable prey. He found a couple but he had grown in jungle smarts as well to know never to really believe a wolf would roam around alone and he had learned this the hard way when he tried to corner a lone wolf only to be cornered himself by their pack. Luckily for him the tigress claiming to be his mother saved him and it was then she taught him the vital golden rule of the forest. "Remember this my son for this rule is what maintains order in this world. Never kill for the thrill of the kill, but for food" Since when he had accepted those words he walked through the jungle looking for a prey to game on only when he was hungry, but he would just sneak up on prey to hone his skills. On one particular day he found something weird in the jungle and that was an ant. As he neared the ant he got frightened by the mere feeling he felt from the ant and that was of death. The ant smelled as if it was soaked in blood and even though the thought of preying on it felt disgusting he needed to know what and where it was going to, so he followed the ant since it entered into the forest. The sight that welcomed Crimson was a dazed funny looking cub which was stopped in its tracks by the sudden exposure. He laughed at the sight and raised his hand saying, " Hey there, so you were the one sneaking around? " Dan was not sure why he felt afraid of an ant, but the fear was real and he didn''t want to test the reason behind it. He felt terrified when the ant stopped suddenly in the forest and looked at the direction he stood a few moment ago where he mistook dry leaves for damp ones in the shadows, but what followed after scared the life out of him. Crimson was not sure why the tiger cub stood motionless as he even tried a friendly greeting. "Hello, any one home? Hi, I''m Crimson and you from the Panthera race? Hello?" Seeing that the cub was too shocked by a talking ant, he tried to wave his upper legs which he used like hands in front of the face of the cub, but the cub suddenly jumped back in retort baring his fangs against him growling. Dan was scared for his life the second time in-game when he heard the rustling and screeching sound the ant made which sounded like bones scratching against themselves. It hurt his keen hearing a lot and the goosebumps made him shake from his core. Crimson was confused by the reaction he was getting from the cub because whenever he tried to talk to the cub, he growled back with anger. He guessed the cub before him was an AI from the other race and it had ventured out to hunt. Not wanting to waste time with him anymore Crimson returned back towards the direction of the large number of presence he felt leaving the cub motionless where it stood, moreover now he knew the Panthera race were most probably nearby. But the cub roared in response. Dan stood bewildered at the sight of the Ant and thought, It''s just an ant, but why can''t I move. Those blood red buggy eyes feel like they are looking right into my soul. The frustration of acting scared of a bug irritated him and after seeing the ant walk away it hurt his pride to which he shouted out multiple times to himself. "MOVE DAMMIT!!!" Crimson braced himself to find that the cub was growling and pacing around him while trying to jiggle its whole body as if it was sleeping. He wondered if this was the effect his presence had on other creatures, but he could not be in fault it was very difficult to show human emotions being encased in an armor like think skinned shell and an insect body. Whenever Crimson tried to walk away towards his destination the cub would jump in front of him blocking his path letting him know that the cub had guessed it was going towards their camp. He cub had got used to moving freely around him now that it was swift in its movement, but Crimson was faster. Seeing that there was no way the cub would leave him alone, he sat like a human on a rock nearby. Dan was not going the ant to get away after it hurt his pride, but when the ant kept returning to a particular direction he knew it would walk into their camp or somewhere nearby and he had to stop it. Dan shook off the weariness he felt in the ants presence and felt himself able to control his movement after shaking off the stiffness in his muscles but suddenly the ant did something he never understood or fathom - the ant sat down on a stone. Assuming that the ant was mocking him, Dan got furious and rush at the ant who was sitting. The next think he remembered as he neared the ant was the backside of the ant and the ant was upside down. The loss of ground made him realise he was falling and he tried rotate his body to mitigate the impact with the ground as he fell. He replicated the skill he had learned many times when trying to hunt at the stop of trees and it helped him now as it had earlier. He looked at the back of the ant as it sat without any movement nor changing its position to face him. He knew the ant had done something, but the movement of the ant was so quick he couldn''t understand what. He felt intimidated by the presence of the ant and it''s lack of concern that he was behind, but Dan had pride and he moved forward to face the ant again and this time he rushed the ant shifting his pattern in movement only to be stopped dead in his tracks by the ant who was still sitting but holding onto the cub firmly in place. Dan was unable to move as he wrestled against the ant and he was stuck in the grip of the ant which seemed odd to him as the ant just caught him by putting its legs over his shoulder. They were wrestling for mere seconds when a notification suddenly popped up in front of them.
New Quest: The missing link. Follow the tune in the wind with the other and there you will find the means to understand each other.
As soon as the notification had popped up they both heard a sound in a particular direction. Dan jumped back in response and looked at the ant. The sound that he had heard was no more and the next action made by the ant started him - the ant swiped at the air as if to close a notification before him. Dan had set it such that the notifications were transparent so that it wouldn''t affect his view and also be able to see his progress with every action he made. The ant was looking at him and he also moved his paws in the air to close the quest notification showing him that he too was a player. The quest was clear enough that Dan now understood why he couldn''t understand the ant or vice versa. The ant was looking at him, waiting to see what he would do next and Dan approached the ant slowly and raised his paw forward like asking for a fist bump. The ant seemed to have understood the intention and he placed one of his legs on the paw. What they both heard next was the sweet melody in the wind and this cheered up their mind. The melody was like the chirping of humming birds in autumn and the direction was distinct towards a path away from both the direction he came from and the one towards the Panthera camp. They both looked at each other and then towards the direction of the sound and then at each other. They seemed to be in agreement and they did something with amused one while it made the other jump back in retort, they smiled at each other. The communication they each had with each other was short and simple as possible. Crimson was moving his pair of legs, first pointing to himself then to Dan and then towards the direction of the humming making it look like walking by moving them up and down as his legs moved away from his body, to which Dan nodded his head in confirmation. They walked forward and passed through without any problems as no predator stood in the path of them. Whenever either felt they needed to know which direction to take one touched the other and slowly directed themselves towards it. Hours and passed as they walked through forests, valleys and even small hills leaving them exhausted both physically and mentally, but the advancement and the rush of finding something drove their spirits. Are a final checking of the direction of the humming they were sure it was within reach as the humming was louder and it was welcoming. Though the excitement of discovery was great it could only hold they hunger in check for a few hours and it became their first priority as Dan''s stomach growled more than himself. Dan and Crimson had somehow began to trust each other and even so seemed to communicated with just gestures like in charades and they seemed to agree they would catch and bring back the food to the place they were standing at. Crimson was back sooner than Dan to the waiting place with a Large wild boar which he started to cut down with his sharp claw and remove the blood from its body, he then started to cut it down into pieces as usual removing the internal organs separately leaving only the meat behind. Dan was back with something which looked like a badger or otter in his mouth but when he saw the ant munching on a large piece of ham leg he envied the ant. Crimson offered half of the boar to Dan, but he refused, he had his pride and also his incredulity seeing a small but larger than average although smaller than him ant eating the whole wild boar and a few of the offal meat. Dan skinned and also separated his meat before eating it. As they were done with their meal, both set forward towards the direction of the humming. Arriving at the source of the humming made then check themselves continuously with touching. Crimson touched the head of cub to confirm and soon removed his legs as not to offend, but Dan caught the leg as it was about to be removed then let it go looking at the ant then nodding in response. Before them was a opening in the middle of the ground which seemed to be the start of a small hill or rocky ways and as they walked in it opened up into a cavern which got darker as deep as they went, but luckily for them one could sense everything around him while the other could see in the dark. Inside the cavern they both felt the humming without having to be in contact with each other and they felt it warm and relaxing. As the neared the heart of the humming which was much deeper and large cavern than they had guessed it felt very difficult for both of them to ignore the fatigue they felt with every step. It was like the humming was telling their body to stop and rest. Finally they entered into a large path way which resounded of the humming without an echo but the distinct humming was louder and clearer. Dan was unable to move further, but Crimson kept tugging at him to move further and finally crossing the large pathway it started to get brighter. Dan was in his final leg and so was Crimson, they both were exhausted beyond belief and under the fatigue they just wanted to go to sleep. As Crimson was blinded by the light and he was about the log out to sleep he saw a popup before him, but he was too tired to read and just pressed ''Yes'', but he heard something as he pressed the log off button, "I don''t want to read this shit. Yes already!! I - I can''t go on. I''m ou-" Alex had logged off from the game, but he didn''t wake up as well he just slept wearing the gear. The exhaustion was not only virtual but also in real life. Dan was also the same he didn''t get up as he logged off and went directly to sleep in his bed wearing the immersion gear. It was past midnight and they both slept till morning. The week was over and they had to go to work, but the first thing they did as they woke up other than empting their bladders was logging back in. Alex logged in first since he always kept his alarm for 7AM on Mondays and 6AM on other weekdays. The first thing he noticed right away were the large amount of notification and the missing humming. He looked around to see that he was inside a large cavern, but instead of stone walls it was all like crystal or hardened amber. Next he opened up the notifications.
Congratulations. You are the first to unlock the secret of the Entomon Race. You have selected to be the Guardian of your race and you have unlocked many traits and changes have been made to your character. Unique growth stage has started to transform your body.
As soon as he read this, Crimson closed the notification to look at himself in the crystal wall at his side. It was hard to distinctly see the differences, but he didn''t see any changes until the reflection of his back on another crystal made him jump in surprise. He had wings. "I HAVE WINGS!!!" he shouted and it echoed in the cavern causing a small tremor. He was not sure how to use them, but he could indeed feel them on his back and also move them a bit. Curious, but more curious about the remaining notifications he opened them back up.
Gained the title : Guardian of Entomon Race Benefits : All of the Entomon race will respect and value your influence. Can talk with other races without the ??? Skill.
The benefit of the skill was huge as he could talk with any race now, but it said that there is another skill which would also help in doing the same and as usual the game was inconspicuous. The next notification was different and the only one which looked like it was the most important.
New Quest : The Event!! Part 1 Unite an army to march towards the Mountain of the Gods in seven days. The whole race of Boa and Salamandra are protecting the area , they are unwelcoming of intruders. Reward : The truth of this world.
As usual the game was the most unrevealing as possible, but this was a start and the reward looked promising enough to try, Crimson thought, but unknown to him was that the quest was published to every player and NPC in the game and everyone had started recruiting. Suddenly a oversized beast logged into the game and Crimson readied himself in response. Crimson closely observed the beast which looked like a sabretooth tiger, but the sabretooth was looking blankly into space and swiping away at the air saying "Yes!!". "Hey it''s you isn''t it. The tiger cub. " "Huh?", the Sabretooth turned towards the voice closing the notifications. "Hi? there?", said Crimson holding out one of his legs waving. "I can hear you. Speak again" "I think you could hear me before as well. Just couldn''t understand." "You can understand me as well . Cool!!! I''m Dan and you?" "I''m Crimson. " "You seem tinier than before. " "Actually I''m the same. You kind of overgrew .", Crimson said pointing towards a crystal wall before him saying "See." "Huh? " , Dan looked and turned around eyeing every side of the crystal. He kept spinning for a while and he suddenly stopped shouting, " AWESOME!!!" to which Crimson moved his legs to his head like closing his ears, but to no avail as the sound echoed and resounded around the cave until suddenly the whole cave started to shake and icicles of crystal fell from the ceiling. "Oops.." "Come on let''s get out of here.", said Crimson as he hurriedly tried to move out of the cave, but he was unable to find the exit as they had moved deep inside the cavern as Dan followed. Crimson has earlier left traces of his Pheromone behind so that he could easily locate their path but it was faint now after hours, but he could still find traces which let him outside from the chaos inside the cave. They jumped outside as quick as they could else they could have been stuck in a cave in. "Sorry, about that." "Yeah, read through your notifications. I believe I have a proposition for you.", said Crimson with a smile which creeping Dan out. "Stop what every your doing to your face. It''s creepy." "Oh! I was smiling, I think." "Hmmm....", said Dan opening up his notifications and reading through them quickly. "So you''re a Guardian too? The wings rather look exotic on you." "Thank you.", said Crimson seeing it from the edge of his vision - the bee like wings which were long, but also seemed to look like a part of his abdomen glistening in the sunlight. "You look very different than before. Do all adults in your race look like you or is there a difference?" "Everyone in Panthera race I saw looked like full grown Tigers, I believe this Sabretooth look is only for Guardians. I don''t think anyone from my race is as large as I am as well." "You happened to get the quest as well?" "The Event?" "Yup. What do you think?" "I''m all in." "Good. Very good Dan." , said Crimson trying to hold back his smile. THE END. Previous Part : Chapter 5 : The Event - Part 1
I''ve not done any PR on it. Let me know if it needs any corrections. Thank you. Chapter 6 : First Death - Part 1
Chapter 6 : First Death - Part 1 yO~ guys, Please find the next chapter for you to enjoy. Let me know if you have any suggestions or comments. Please submit a review on the story and it would help me in developing my skills along with this story. Thanks again for the support.
Chapter 6 : First Death - Part 1
"Hey what you wanna do?" "Nothing now, I got to go in an hour, I have to get to work. Let''s discuss on the quest. " "Work..uh? " "What do you do Dan. ", asked Crimson looking at the Dan trying to look at himself at a broken crystal on the ground. "I''m a grad student." "You got class today." "Yes... I''m not going.", said Dan not looking at Crimson. "Well do you want to go back to your camp or group and form an army? I think I will go back to the camp and form one ." "I...They...", Dan murmured still looking at the crystal. "What? I can form an army in my hive easily. Moreover I need time to learn to use these things", he pointed to his wings and trying to move them as he did, but it did not respond. "I will come with you. ", he worded quickly. "But I won''t be online for at least nine hours. That''s like 27 hours in-game. In that time you can go back to your camp and form an army, later we can rendezvous at the edge of the forest we met. " "Okay...", he worded slowly, but soon followed with, "Hey what level are you and why do you have a killing intent always. " "I don''t use my skills, they just activate themselves. I''m... wait . Show stats and skills to Dan." Spoiler :
Status Window
Name: Crimson Alignment: The Guardian of Entomon
Level: 100 Class: Warrior
Race: Entomon Gender: Male
Life force depleted
37
Fame: NA Infamy: NA
-
Health: 8883 Health Regen: 148/ Sec
Mana: 1312 Mana Regen: 22/ Sec
Stamina: 1795 Stamina Regen: 30/ Sec
-
Strenght: 506 Agility: 351
Vitality: 267
Intelligence: 101 Wisdom: 30
Leadership: 1 Luck: 1
-
Attack: 759 Defense: 133.5
Physical Resistances
Slashing: 0.1 Piercing: 0.65
Crushing: 0.8
Elemental Resistances
Fire: 5 Water: 75
Wind: 0 Earth: 80
Light: 0 Darkness: 0
Racial benefits - +20 STR, AGI and VIT for every 10 levels. Title - Guardian of Entomon Race Benefits : All of the Entomon race will respect and value your influence. Can talk with other races without the ??? Skill.
Crimson : List of Skills
Skill Name Mastery - Level Experience %
Racial ConnectionBeginner - 100 %
Formless Attack MasteryBeginner - 100 %
Primal InstinctBeginner - 100 %
Pheromone MasteryBeginner - 100 %
Adaptive GrowthBeginner - 100 %
Abate InterferenceBeginner - 334 %
"Level 100 eh. No wonder. Is that the max level?" "I''m not sure yet, but if it is and the quest we got now should lead us into the end game." "What does ''the truth of this world'' mean in that quest." "Not sure, this game is very weird and it''s in its infancy, so lot to experience before we get to comment." "You''re very wordy...", Dan said looking at Crimson and blurted before the uneasiness set in, "Let me show you my stats. Show stats and skills to Crimson." Spoiler : Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.
Status Window
Name:DanTitle:The Guardian of Panthera
Level:45Class:Warrior
Race:PantheraGender:Male
Age
12.00
Fame:NAInfamy:NA
-
Health:3364Health Regen:56/ Sec
Mana:242Mana Regen:4/ Sec
Stamina:637.5Stamina Regen:11/ Sec
-
Strenght:120Agility:130
Vitality:80
Intelligence:15Wisdom:15
Leadership:1Luck:10
-
Attack:180Defense:40
Physical Resistances
Slashing:10%Piercing:5%
Crushing:10%
Elemental Resistances
Fire:5Water:75
Wind:0Earth:5
"Racial benefits - +10 STR, AGI and VIT for every 10 levels.
Title - Guardian of Panthera Race
Benefits : All of the Panthera race will respect and value your influence. Can talk with other races without the ??? Skill. "
Dan : List of Skills
Skill Name Mastery - Level Experience %
Nimble Movement MasteryBeginner - 580 %
Minimise Force WithdrawalBeginner - 753 %
Survival InstinctBeginner -410 %
Precise attack MasteryBeginner - 788 %
Adaptive GrowthBeginner - 451 %
"Nice. You trained your skills quite well. Keep at it. Well I got to go. Bye." "Yeah. Thanks, Bye." Alex logged off from the game and began to stretch. Since he had started gaming, he wasn''t sure why but his senses in the game were more reactive than in the real world. Inside the game, he felt everything, but back in the real world, he felt stuck in a game. He put away his immersion gear in the package it came in and put it away in a safe place inside his cupboard without disturbing his sleeping roommates. He wore his MR gear and selected ''My room''. Alex''s room was small, it was a 14x10 room with an attached bathroom of 6x8 which he shared with two other people. The room was furnished with three beds, three cupboards, three cloth hangers and three separate power ports to which surge protectors were connected to. It had a 5x4 window which was the only source or fresh air and besides that the room was empty, but when Alex or anyone of his roommates selected ''My room'' the whole space changed. The walls which were plan without anything on them were covered by customised display of things the user set up. Alex has set his room to show various news and feeds from various ytubers. The wall facing his bed which has both the entry door to the room and the door towards the bathroom was covered with a BBC, CNN and other hot flash news. The space above the doors were having weather, temperature, time and word for the day - this was a default setting he had got and not changed it. The wall towards the head of his bed containing the window had RSS feeds from amateur writing to facts on zebras. On the fall not containing the cupboard was a screen showing various different stretching exercises and yoga techniques to start the day. On the floor of the room there were other digital items which were not put back into the inventory. There was a football which were lying around from earlier, but it was a digital football. Alex selected the penalty kick exercise and kicked at the digital football onto the wall which was like a goal nest and a generated goalie who stood before it. The goalie was standing and pacing while passing through the bed of one of his roommates. Alex has set it such that animated objects would not co-relate with real life, if he had set it such that they would, the goalie would not be able to pass through the bed and if he tried, the goalie would injure himself by bumping on it. After a few practise shots, Alex turned on shadow boxing exercise for ten minutes and suddenly a mere shadow of himself stood before him. They continued to shadow box and Alex reviewed the score at the end of 10 minutes seeing that he had taken about 20 hits in the shadow boxing, while he returned around 21 and defended around 50. He removed his MR gear to take a hot shower and left for office after having breakfast on the way. He never jogged to office on Mondays, so he went around nuking the early bird monsters which were roaming inside the streets, but he did not use his spells. He took out his blasters which were fuelled by his mana and tried to head shot all the monsters on the way. He never stopped if he missed one and continued on his way, but some monsters followed him and they were blown away by the mines he left behind. People around were also doing something similar, some were throwing bombs at monsters, but everyone took to the side of the roads which were almost ten feet wide. When MR gear was being used for daily purposes the main concern and problem it caused were people not paying attention to the real world on the road. It had lead to many accidents and the government with support from other corporations to widen the road and build separate pathways for MR users. The roads sizes were reduced and it was made such that only one vehicle could travel in one lane due to a divider. Reducing the size of the roads were raged upon and caused for an uproar, but within an year it was calmed down when a survey showed that accidents were lesser and whenever emergencies were there it was faster to evacuate or clear roads because no one would rush to make a mistake and lag behind. If an ambulance wanted the first priority, a prompt will be given to the cars in the way to make diversion to let the ambulance go and since everything was monitored the MR gear gave precise ETA and adjusted your route based on priority so that you do not stop at long signals. Another problem to the single lane was when a car broke down on a lane and blocking the whole route. To overcome this a machine called a floating chassis aka Floater is used. It is a cross like equipment which would be placed at the bottom of a car such that four arms of the equipment protrudes out of the vehicle. On these four arms wheels would be fitted and then controlled with remote control to move it out of the lane. On his way to his office he saw a floater being installed on a car which seemed to be the lead role in a wreckage. It happens less nowadays, but a few people take manual control of the car''s speed. Since the beginning of the single lane a new addition to moderation was the auto driving to every vehicle which communicated between each vehicle in a lane. So, it was possible to control the flow of traffic and even speed. When someone takes manual control of their car in a lane just to take a detour it causes a mishap in the pre-determined route and schedules it causes a few calculations to deviate causing accidents. Alex reached his office and set about another day of mundane work life. Dan was lying down at the same place he stayed earlier with Crimson letting the breeze caress his fur as he felt the small tremors and vibrations on the ground; his senses had started to become more sensitive after becoming the Guardian. He knew what he had to do next, but still a little revolted within him. Finally making up his mind to return back to his pack and even try to form an army, he got up stretching his now larger body and sprung forward. Godspeed, he thought as the terrain blurred in his view. The forest was in a havoc as all the travellers were fighting to take over the control of their camps. At the camp where the young travellers of the Bubo race were kicked out of their nest. Karen was kicked out as soon as she logged in the second day, but by then she had grown all her feathers and claws. "Just open your wings and the rest you will understand." was what her AI mother, H''estha said as she pushed Karen off the nest which was over 400 meters above ground. Karen was freaked out by the reality was going to use her emergency log out, but the feeling of able to control herself helped her open up her wings and liftoff a few meters away from the ground. Karen had now returned to the camp of various natives of the Bubo race which was an ancient tree which stood high above the rest housing a large number of Owls at every branch. "Back already? Just to let you know, No, you can''t stay here. ", said her AI mother while glaring at the others nearby. "No Thank you, I already found a home.", cheered Karen to which the others started to glean at her words. A few even started to crowd around her to know of this location, but before they were going to push her off the nest H''estha stepped in and pulled her back in. "Thank you, Mother." "Yeah yeah, Now what do you want? or Did you just come to get yourselves thrown out...but where did you make your nest. ", "It''s on the side of a cliff quite a bit far from here. I don''t know what to do, so I came to as you what should I do?" "Cliff!!! How did you do that??", the older owl said pulling at the wings of Karen checking her bones hidden under the lush of greyish feathers. "I didn''t know you had grown so much in this small time. Tell me what all you did as you left the group tree." "I didn''t leave you kicked me out... So any idea on what I should do next?" " Huh? How would I know. Do whatever you want...No, tell me first... then I will tell you.", said H''estha. She sounds like a bigger bird brain than me., Karen thought while she reiterate in detail the things which happened to her in search of a nest. Dan had already covered a large distance with his greater speed. Though the new body didn''t show any significant changes to the stats, the changes in the muscle movement and reflexes were increased to a very high degree. Even his sense of smell, hearing and feel were increased. On entering the outskirts of the forest camping his race, he started to feel something following or spying on him from around the trees, moreover it was a couple of them rather than a single presence as he could hear their breathing or to be more clear the kind of whistling sound a nose makes while exhaling to a small degree. Suddenly a pair jumped at him from the left side as he was still moving at a steady pace, it looked like they were waiting for him to cross. He had noticed them before they could jump and their whistling exhaling was quicker pace than normal and he guessed they had leaped or moved suddenly. Dan stopped in his tracks and jumped on the two who tried to gang on him dwarfing them with his huge body. "Get...off .. me" "What.. the..." "Hmm.. is that you killah and... Link I think?" "Huh?? Dan!!! Get the FUCK OFF Me!!!" "Hey guy!!! It''s only DAANNN... COME OUT!!!!", said killah and the other three who were trying hard to keep up came into the view. They looked different - grown and more adult like tigers but their fangs protruded outwards like Dan''s own, but not to his calibre making them look different from tigers. "What happened to you guys... you all look different" "What happened to you. You look the most odd one out here.", said Sheen moving slowly towards Dan. He was larger than the others and his stripes made him look more intimidating, but Dan towered over a foot over him and the others making him look intense. "Why did you guys jump me.?" "We didn''t know it was you D. Did we?", said Fun and looking at the others with a smirk which looked fake. Dan looked at the other around and said " Well..." "Well I''m sure you got the quest saying something is coming and to create an army for the days to come.", said Sheen. Dan was not sure if he could believe Sheen, but even if he knew about the quest, he had to make sure something. "Show me the quest.", said Dan looking at Sheen in him eyes. "Show quest details on ''The Event'' to Dan"
Quest : The Event. A season of changes are coming to this land. Prepare yourself by uniting an army for the days to come. Reward : ???
This is very different to the quest I received which had more detail on what to do, thought Dan as he closed the quest before him. "Now show me your quest.", said Sheen looking at Dan with interest. "It''s the same, so nothing to show." "I don''t think so. If it was the same then you would have not asked me to show it to you. Show it to me.", said Sheen grinning menacingly. "I don''t think so. I going to the camp.", said Dan not caring for Sheen and turned towards the camp with his back toward Sheen. Sheen jumped in front of Dan grinning like a mad man like crazy. "Well...", said Sheen. "Move or I will make you move.", said Dan and he released his blood thirst at Sheen and the others around. He hoped they would move back or stiffen up as he had levelled this skill very high and it could even freeze weak animals, but what he saw was even more amazing. Sheen and all the others dropped to the ground as their feet collapsed under them. Sheen was shaking in his paws as he tried to stand up, What the fuck.. How is he doing this? This looser. When he looked at Dan he looked huge and ferocious. It was like death was walking towards him and he slowly crawled backwards. Dan look at Sheen as he passed by smirking. He had never had such an effect from his blood thirst, maybe it was the new changes to his body, but he liked it, he liked it very much. As Dan entered the camp it was chaos everywhere and on seeing him everyone who were running around stopped to look at him. Not minding the look of everyone at him, he walked towards the area where his mother used to a part of. "Who...Dan...??" "La..Mom..." "You''re the Guardian?? You good for ....I mean.. You''re the Guardian?" "I guess I am, but what am I?" "You''re the Guardian. The most powerful of the race, well supposidly , but how did you become the guardian." "Most powerful eh... That''s a long story and one which I don''t want to share. What is this army thing? Did everyone get this quest?" "...", the tigress looked at the stubborness of her cub which was now the strongest of their race. Sighing she started to reply, "Well suddenly there was a flash of light and everyone of the travellers felt drowsy and slept for a few hours. When they woke up after a few hours everyone had transformed to their final stage and that was when they saw the quest. Everyone is trying to gain favour within themselves and finally someone came up with an idea that they would select the strongest one in the camp as the leader of the army, so everyone agreed and everyone who submitted or said they had no interest in the leadership are inside the camp. Your siblings especially Sheen is aiming to be the leader, but with you here..." " I saw him on the way here...", said Dan smiling. " Is he..." "He is crawling on the mud when I last saw him.", said Dan to the tigress, who was shocked by his declaration. Dan had known his tigress mother looked at Sheen with pride for he was quick learner and witty, but Dan never liked him. "Are you..are you going to take over the army??" "I got no interest, but you will not be able to complete the quest without me. Tell Sheen he can have the leadership and prepare the army. I will come back and then we will move towards the location of the quest. " "You''re leaving..." "I have another army to prepare. You will see.", said Dan smiling. She is awestruck..This is awesome, I look so cool. Dan left his mother to herself and made his way through the camp. He saw a group of adult tiger who were the adults in the camp and they were sitting on a number of boulders which showed their position in the camp. As he moved closer to them, they all slowly moved from their positions and stood. The elders stood as though they would jump at Dan if he showed any resistance, but Dan released his blood thirst in small amount around him which made the elders make their decision quickly. "The Guardian.. You''re Delalah''s son are you not?", asked one of the elders to shake off the killing intent from Dan. So tiger mother''s name is Delalah. So... 80''s.. "I guess I am. Elders I have news for you. Let whoever is leading the army to prepare themselves with the army and I think within a week we will move out.", said Dan lowering his blood thirst. "But.. Guardian, aren''t you going to take on the army?" "I will not. Not yet at least. I am going to get more help." "Help ? From whom?" "Someone is who is more powerful than all of us put together. I will be leaving now. " The elders were curious and confused but this also hurt their pride hearing there was something or someone else stronger than them. Dan moved through the camp looking at all the other players and tigresses who made fun of him as he was still a cub when they had grown in mere two logins. Now he towered over them and his appearance was enough to stop them in their tracks. Dan didn''t like to be the villain, but that was the hand dealt to him in his camp. He moved out of the camp terrain and into the forest. He was feeling hungry and slowly tracked down a buck a long way from the camp. He slowly approached the buck, but every time he closed in he was unable to conceal his body as before as he was much larger and harder to sneak around. The buck moved further away as he felt a small presence around, but the presence was not threatening so it kept grazing and laid down on the ground. Dan seeing the buck lying down pounced at the now startled animal. Dan could control his complete movement and he jumped off the ground again aiming for the neck of the buck which would kill it in seconds. "AAAAaaaAHHHHHHH!!! NO!!!! Please don''t...please don''t.." Dan stopped a few centimetres away from the bucks neck as it squealed out in terror with its eyes closed. "Goddammit, it can talk!!!", Dan shouted out in frustration.
TO BE CONTINUED..... Unexpected hiatus! Who died?!! yO~ guys, I''m unable to post new chapters because my laptop just died on me. I fixed it last week but something else was wrong and it''s with the service centre for a week waiting for the parts.... I tried writing a little with my phone but I just got a neck and headache. I hope to get the new chapter out soon, but on hiatus until then. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Let me know how you think the story will proceed and somebody dies in the next part of the chapter. Guess who?? Thanks for your support. Have fun. Chapter 6 : First Death - Part 2 Long time no post. Took a long break, thinking back saw that I needed to prioritize many things. Travelled to UK, Europe - France, Italy, Spain. Now I will be finishing things which I started, starting with this book. I know it is not perfect, I tell myself, work and rework, so if anything doesn''t fit, will make it fit later. I apologize for my internal struggle, but I will be writing one post very week(regardless of how complete or incomplete it is) , so, Hope you enjoy!
Chapter 6 : First Death - Part 2 "OFCOURSE.. I can...please don''t eat me...", the buck shouted and then squealed continuously as it started to rain. "Grr...SHUT UP!!", Dan growled at the buck looked at the trembling sprouting horns of the buck. He never thought of this, he had killed all the animals before and their squeals and the sounds they made were without meaning, but now they all had a meaning and a purpose and this made him indifferent of how he felt. "You''re too skinny for me. Get lost. ", said Dan as he let go of the buck. "OH YES!!! I AM TOO SKINNY FOR YOU!! ALL SKIN AND BONES HERE!! I DON''T TASTE GOOD AT ALL!!! ..", the buck started to squeal with joy and kept going on how it tasted less than its excretes and on and on.. "Shut up before I change my mind.", said Dan which silenced the buck again and looked at the slowly moving away predator with fear. As Dan slowly slipped away and burst off in the direction of the final meeting place with Crimson still hungry he thought, Had I known I was killing things which had a mind of its own, but this is a game should I care...Don''t worry Dan, you had always hunted only when you were hungry, so you didn''t do it for fun, but for survival, so it''s justifiable or is it? Dan was slowly questioning himself, but the feeling of hunger increased to be heard as growls from his stomach. He ignored them as he reached the meeting place, but he knew Crimson would not be not on for a couple of hours by then a day would have completed in Hundred Worlds. He without knowing how to spend him time, he logged off to have his early lunch. --- Karen knew what she had to do next, but it was not because of H''estha. The quest which she had received suddenly let her know what she had to do next, but how to do it was the question.
Quest: The Event - Part 0 The world is going through many changes, but what changes will affect you is yet to be seen. Find for yourself the truth behind these changes and it might lead to wonder or naught. Objectives: Find the changes around you and unveil the cause.
She knew everyone had got the same quest as they were all swiping at the notifications and closing it. A large number of players on the tree were grumbling at the least amount of detail on the quest, while others quickly flew off searching for the change it mentioned. She too was about to leave to find the changes, but she stopped as she heard H''estha say, "So it had begun..." Karen spent the next hour or more explaining how she had found her home in the cliffs to her mother for she was not able to or not ready to believe it and it had started raining quite a while back since the re-iteration of the story. "And you flew up the cliff and created a home on a plant''s root, ON THE SIDE OF A CLIFF!!!?" "Yes..." Before H''estha could start off with her questions again, Karen questioned her, "What should I do next mother? I know you know something about this quest. Please let me know what it is." H''estha looked at Karen and gave a small laugh which bewildered her, "I was waiting when you would get straight to the point and not beat around the bush... but you seem sincere enough to want to know. Ok, I understand the quest talks about change. " "Yeah,.. um...it says to find the change around you and to understand its cause." "What do you think this change would be?" "A new tree, a new mountain or lakes drying up or ...I don''t know something wrong from the usual.." "What if I told you the change is not to the world, but to the other dwellers in this world. A change to a complete race." "How could they change?" "That is what you must find out. I have told you all I can, the rest lies with you. Good luck young one." "Mother, I have one more question. Why don''t you take part in the quest. You must have got one as well." "Yes, I did get a quest similar to yours, but... Let me show you. Show Quest : The Event to Karen"
Quest: The Event The series of changes have started in this world. Aid those that are worthy of your knowledge and lead them to the path of the truth. Reward : The memory of time.
"... what is the memory of time?" "A mystery in itself, but nothing for now about that, maybe later. GO! go for you know what to look for , but others might have started looking at the same place." Karen nodded and jumped off into a flurry looking for the change. --- Nel had just logged in after his second attempt at moulting, the whole ritual of moulting was tiresome but it made him log off for another 24 hours in game which gave him time to rest. The first time he moulted, his stats grew by a large degree and he grew in size, but his defence which was supposedly in their 300 before moulting were in the 50''s. Then after a few hours it increased steadily and finally reached 400 after a few hours and it was still increasing. Nel was happy with this as 100 DEF points is equal to over 100 VIT and he already got a stat boost of 40 VIT after moulting as well. The process of moulting increased his defence by a large margin, but his attack skills were lacking, except one, "Iron Grip". His second attempt was same as earlier and having logged in the first urge is to claw himself out of the ground he covered himself. He pulled his former exoskeleton with him and devoured it as soon as he reached the clearing. The next urge he felt was of shelter and Nel found a few large counches around, but none suited him later he found another large conch abandoned by everyone by the sea shore as it was too large, but it seemed to fit him comfortably and the feeling of paranoia left him. As if a weight left his mind and onto his back the insatiable hunger took over and he went on an eating spree from the berries in the forest to the delicacies of the sea as he delved deep into the sea. Half way through the sea floor eating everything in his sight was when the Quest blinked at his screen. He was eating his way through a sea weed at the moment and suddenly stopped to read the contents. Delighted he moved towards the shore at full speed. He was more nimble now underwater and his movement was smoother and faster. The new conch was very helpful in protecting him against octopi as it was completely covered by spikes and it had very few weaknesses in its structure. He didn''t know what to look for, but he was sure where he needed to go. While in the forest looking for food and sanctum, he heard wild and peculiar noises away from the shore. This was where he would find what he needed and further proceed with this game. Eating all the way he only stopped himself to hide as he heard/felt something nearby took him deep into the forest. His senses were different than in real life, now he could see things in the air mixed with colour, but he couldn''t make out what they meant. He could feel things over league away and discern what was what based on their movement. The better skill he found was that he could find food around him without even looking and down it all regardless of preference. ------ "It''s a good day to fly. Isn''t it my dear." "Yes, very. It will rain soon, we should stop." Kal and Akane started their adventure as soon as they could fly six feet off the ground and it was just in two days since they started playing. They travelled everywhere together by flying and when it rained they stopped under trees for shelter, and then started to fly as it begins to fog. As they flew above the lands and clouds where they stood afloat without the need to direct the wind. They travelled north and saw the great mountains, hot and dormant which was too mighty to steer high as a pair, the cooler valleys in the east where water from the north diverged into small banks as it flowed south east, the south where it was open shore and covered from west to east. Now they were travelling west to map the land. They tried flying outside the Island which they now assume they are a part of, but as soon as they fly a few league it''s like the strength is drained from their body and even the thought of turning back would make their wings full of energy. The reason behind the drastic but scheduled changes in climate across the lands were known to the birds, and Kal has understood it the first time he went through all these different changes. The wind swirls around in a circular motion inside the Island that was the reason why the climate changes from sunny daylight to rain and then fog suddenly. The cycle of water was clearly seen in this application as winds blew from North to South clockwise and then counter clockwise. The couple were playing non-stop until the Capsule forcefully logged them out for eight hours. They had got addicted to the continuous adventure and the freedom of flying. As they disconnected from the world, or forcefully disconnected from the game. Shin looked at his wife and saw a burden fall off from his heart for since her accident, Akane had never smiled whole heartedly. He knew that whenever she smiled it was just to comfort him, but soon after having been disconnected she looked at Shin and smiled with all her heart. Shin smiled back and they fell into each other''s embrace. ---- Karen was searching throughout the forest nearby and flew across different animals of the forest, she just thought they were NPC, but after having received the quest every animals in the forest were acting different. First she flew towards the south where she has found four large groups of animals - Apes, Tigers, Crabs or something similar by the shore and other birds towards the east. On arriving at the tribe of the Apes, she found a different spectacle and this confirmed that they were players. They were now grouped under different people and they seemed to be a talk between few people who looked like their leaders. Waiting and after more waiting, there was nothing happening in the tribe as they were arguing and what more looked like their parents then talking to them. This went on for over an hour until Karen decided she would try her luck elsewhere. Next she flew south, towards the shores and looked at the crabs( or whatever they were), they were moving around the shores like mice with no notion and suddenly as they saw Karen''s shadow, a large group which looked like a wave went into the sea, which were followed by more crabs going into the sea leaving the shore abandoned. Karen flew across the complete stretch of the shore and found no crab, so she left towards the other animals nearby, the Tigers. --- Toby was called a genius as a kid and he moved through grades every year as a child, but that had a problem, he was younger than most of his classmates and no one wanted to be friends with the smart kid who made their parents think their children are not special. Toby was bullied, but not harshly since every teacher adored him and someone always had eyes on him every time. The treatment from other students grew harsher when there was a PTA meeting and the other parents felt indifferent and praising the young genius even after reaching home. Toby never asked for any of this and he hated going to school, at first it was interesting, something challenging that before, but even after learning things much difficult, it was easy for him. He passed every subject in school, but failed in making friends. It''s not like he didn''t try, but whenever he did more people started ignoring him. One day a senior bullied him to the point of making him lick his boot in the restroom. Toby was pushed down and held there by one of the seniors legs kicking him towards the ground. Toby was crying and pleading for help to his classmates who watched, but no one helped him. He saw the look in their eyes, the look on envy and happiness in his suffering. He finally surrendered and the senior stopped kicking, but he didn''t take his foot off from his back. Toby looked at the grim covered and smelly shoes in front of him, where has he been to make it this dirty or did he just cover it with so much crap to make him lick it, as Toby looked at the disgusting boot in front of him it made him furious. Seeing that Toby was not any closer to the act, the senior kicked him and told him to get on with it and Toby did. The next thing the senior knew before he passed out was that he was lying on the floor with blood splattered across the wall behind him. He passed out. Toby did not come to school for another year as he was home schooled, but by then the rumours about him had spread and everyone one knew who Toby was, the kid who nearly killed a senior almost twice his age. The senior was alright and moved out of the town because the incident had left him slower than before, of course it went to court and Toby''s parent settled the affair for fair price since it was the senior who started it. Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. As Toby entered the school after an year, he remembered the look in everyone''s eyes as they saw him that day. At first, no one recognised him as he had grown taller and started to put on weight as his father made him do yoga and tai chi, it was a recommendation from his therapist for his repressed rage. After having arrived to class and during lunch, he sat down alone in a table at the corner, afraid if something would happen today, but what happened next bewildered and excited him. Everyone knew who he was by Lunch and when he went to return the plates they moved away from him, and cleared a path towards the stall. He didn''t understand at first, but when he looked at the look in their eyes next, he smiled, the look which was of envy and happiness which he remembered were now of fear and respect, but mostly fear and he liked that. He later found pleasure in pain, to be more certain in inflicting pain. He made friends for the sake of using them and by the time he graduated, he was the leader of a motorcycle gang. He didn''t forsake his studies as well, he topped everything and went to a good university, but everywhere he went he was the best at everything, the best student and the best bully. He found later on the thrill in seeing hopelessness, he had turned into a total psychopath which his parents slowly started to realise. Toby loved his parents and listened to them without question, and when his parent asked him to play the game, Hundred Worlds, Toby did just that. Toby''s parents were happy he stayed at home more after the game and that was what they were hoping for, they hoped what no parent would hope for, that their child would get addicted to something, but Toby was not addicted to the game, he was addicted to the thrill of the kill being a tiger. The blood gushing down his fangs as he thrust them into his prey, the look of fear and anguish in their eyes as life flowed out of them till there was nothing left except a paleness, he felt like God. Toby got addicted to the game and wanted it see it through to the end. He saw that people grouped up to him because of his strength and when they had all grown stronger he grew even superior, this wanting him to test it out and as always as they found a larger prey. They rushed at it without reason, but he then had felt the same feeling he had when he was in the restroom all those years ago when he saw the useless and the worm he left alone as it was not even worth giving notice to stood him front of him showing his superiority. "The worm ??", was what he through when Killah identified the monster before them. Toby was confused, "How did this worm get so strong. I was...am better than, but how..." Dan always was hard to predict, he didn''t do things as they were meant to be. He always kept to himself and Toby thought him to be an idiot and let him be, he had a whole new world to discover and take over, moreover this world had no rules. Toby predicted that it could be because of the quest or the quest was because of him, but he was more angry when Dan started to make demands on him, "The worm dares to ask me to show my Quest window to him, the nerve.", but regardless Toby knew something was wrong and went along with showing him, but he needed answers and when he tried to force it out of Dan, he felt helpless after a long time. "Sheen, how?.. what should we do about Dan?", Sheen was not answering and pondering about it himself. "I believe he went towards the camp. What should we do Sheen." "I don''t think we stand a chance against him.." Sheen was speechless, but it hurt his pride. He always thought pride is what gets a man killed, but after having it for so long and having it stomped on gets a man to do stupid things. "SHUT UP!!", Sheen shouted at the others. He had never lost his cool in front of others, but today was different. "I will get him got this, I will show him.", he kept muttering under every breath as he moved slowly towards to camp. --- Karen reached the tigers hunting grounds and saw the spectacle she was waiting for, the tigers were no more tigers, well not all of them. She saw that most of the tigers had evolved into prehistoric like creatures. They looked larger, their fur had turned more reddish golden and the stripes had become different, more alive, and finally their canines had grown outside their mouths like a Sabre-toothed tiger. She stayed around for a long time and saw that there was a struggle for power going on in the tiger village and no one was winning, until the largest creature she had ever seen in the game entered into the village and intimidated everyone with its presence. The creature was not respected, but feared within the camp and he didn''t care less or rather welcomed it. Finally he left the village and moved very far off. Karen followed the creature or tiger, she guessed it would lead her to something, but after a unsuccessful hunt the tiger disconnected. "So he really was a player. ", she thought and went back to the tiger village, but on her way she found the strangest thing. She saw the largest shell moving within in the forest and this was a first. She had never seen such a large sea shell as it was almost as big as herself and it was far away from the sea. Karen followed the sea shell and as found that whenever she went close to it, it stopped moving and stayed motionless until she was far away from a distance. Finally she saw what it was when it started to eat berries from nearby trees. "It''s one of those crabs from the sea.", she thought to herself and found it strange to see one so far away from the sea and as it had started raining, she was sure it took her a lot of time to reach here from the sea, so the crab must be travelling for a long time, she though. Feeling this was a more bizarre discovery than any and it was very different than all those crabs near the sea. Those crabs all were in groups and never alone, so she decided that this is a player and would try to talk to it. --- Nel was walking for hours from clear skies to rainy and only stopped to pick food. He did not know what was driving him non-stop, but he did not want to stop it as well. He was like on a rush and he liked it. Whenever he felt something nearby he would stop all movement and confine himself to the safety of his new conch. He kept walking far inside the forest than he had hoped and now he did not know how far he had come, but neither did he stop. As he kept walking through the forest, he felt a lingering presence around him and it was different. He waited it to pass by, but it kept closing in at times then moved away to a safer distance. After a while when he had stopped to eat some berries on a shrub nearby, the presence came very close to him. He went further inside his conch and suddenly the presence was holding onto him and lifted him up into the air. It was slow and with difficulty, but when he looked out from inside the conch, he saw the ground move farther away from him and now he was just few feet away from the top of trees. "Let me go, you... you..I said Let me go!!!", he screamed, but he got no reply. He only had one option and he saw that the bird or creature that had picked him up was holding onto his conch at one of it spikes while another was near the entrance of the conch. Nel moved his pincers towards the feet of the bird and grabbed at it with force and he heard the creature make noises as it flew unsteadily now, but what surprised him even more was the feeling he got after touching the creature. It was like a compass or beacon in his head pointing towards the north. --- Karen thought only one thing now and that was to pick this crab to her mother and then get her answers from her. She picked up the crab as it was eating and the crab was more heavier than she had ever thought. It was pulling her down, but she could maintain the height up to a trees length, luckily. The crab was struggling for a while and then suddenly she felt the crabs pincers grab onto her feet. "OUCH!!! That hurt, let go, let go!! ", she screamed, but then she realised something else, she felt the strong urge to move in the direction as if a bell had gone off in a distance. The grip was too hard for her to hold onto and she let go. The conch was falling at a steady pace towards the ground and Karen chased after it head down and caught it just few meters away from the ground. Now she left the crab motion less for a while and then felt its pincers on her feet, she also felt that the crab''s grip had loosed as well. The crab then let go of her leg and then suddenly caught hold of it again, and she felt the location in front of them. The crab did it a couple of time before he just touched her feet and not crushing it as earlier. Karen had taken this as approval to take him across to whatever destination they had to take with each other. --- The gang of five had always been together since high school and when the first VR game was released every one of them got a gear of themselves. More crazy than that was that they all got the same race, Entomo and that to all were Army Ants. The Army ants had a bonus which no other Entomo race had and that was as more Army Ants grouped together, the stronger they became. They were trained by same the elder, Tresha and they were unstoppable, until they faced a certain Red Ant which was walking into their part of the hive. The five wanted to show their dominance and stopped the Red Ant surrounding him. Ken was the leader of the group and always took his opportunity to make it well known he was the leader. "Well, well, what do we have here. A lone wolf.", said Ken as the other four surrounded the Red ant. "What do you want?", said the Red ant. "Well we just want to welcome you. We never seen you here.", said Xed from behind the Red ant. "I live across that connection of the hive, neighbour.", said the Red ant pointing towards a direction. "Well you need permission to cross over.", said El from the side of Ken. "Hmm.. Are you the Queen??", asked the Red ant as if he was bored. "No, but..", said Brio in response and before he could continue, the Red ant said, "Then MOVE!!", and let out an aura which frightened the five, but the race benefit of the Army ants came into picture and it was not a blessing in any disguise.
Race Benefit : Activated When facing a status effect as a group the effect reduces by 5 % for every person present from the same race. 25% reduction in Fear status effect.
As the Race benefit activated, their foolishness took over them and moved in to push around the lone Red ant, but before anyone could step in the Red ant threw them across the pathway and walked away as if he didn''t even see them. The five slowly picked themselves up and never talked about the instance and logged out. After couple of hours and logging in, they still felt enraged and humiliated and went out of the hive. They used to gang up on the animals around the hive and slaughtered the wolves of the area, but nowadays there were no wolves nearby and they went deeper inside the forest. As they went closer they found something even more dangerous than a wolf and that was a bear, and it was young. It was lying down and the five surrounded it, but the bear was not afraid. It slowly got up and roared at the unwelcomed guests and this inflicted the fear status onto the five, but feeling the same they got agitated and started to climb at top of the bear. The young bear was not strong enough to resist, but the five were not strong enough to contain the young bear for long. The problem with army ants is that they had mandibles which were used for piercing and not for cutting, so the five kept piercing at the fur of the bear until the young bear bleed to death. The five happy with the victory started to carry the bear back to the hive, but something set fear into their steps and that was the largest bear they had ever seen until today. The large bear was the mother bear and seeing her cub dead and the five pests before her covered in the blood of her child got her into a frenzy and jumped the first ant she could see. The mother bear was roaring and tearing the pest before her limb by limb and the other four ran away as soon as they saw the head of their comrade being chewed off from his body. Ken was dead and he confirmed it by cussing and shouting at the window before him.
You have died. Soul structure is unstable and the instability in the structure has split your soul across the universe. Soul entity remaining 95%. 23 hours 11 hours 59 minutes 30 seconds until you can Login.
Chapter 7 : Army yO~ Rewrote this chapter, deleted a lot of detail and made it simpler. I will be writing like this more often, not much detailed, but enough to walk through the story. Please let me know if you see any difference. I am re-writing the 8th chapter now. I actually wanted to create a really negative character, but found that even negative characters need to be given a chance to tell their story. I am changing the story a bit, well and time will tell. Please let me know if you have any suggestions and corrections, even criticism is welcome. Thanks and Enjoy!
Chapter 7 : Army I have to find out what happens to people who die... Ken was searching the forums and across different discussion groups on what would have happened if you die in the game. There was some groups saying that they would be reborn into the same race, a few that they would be transported to another world like hell or purgatory, but a certain group said that it was the end of the game for these people and they might have to start from the beginning, since a large amount of games did that, which worried him. He has spend too much time and money into this game to start anew. Whenever he tried to login, he would be greeted with a window in the while room saying he had N'' hours before he can login again. So, he as a bit satisfied that he could join the game, be it as an old character or new. He checked to see if anyone else had died in the game, but no one had reported it like him because of the shame or because, I was the first to die in-game, he thought. *** Nel was terrified at first, but later he started to enjoy the view. He knew that the bird or what now looks like an owl is actually a player and with every land, lake and clearing they crossed he grew jealous. Karen was struck by the crab''s weird demeanour. Initially the crab stuck to its shell like glue, but with time she had to balance appropriately because the crab looked like it he was going to jump out. At a regular interval the crab would touch her claws to position themselves in the right direction and it seemed they were going north east towards a valley near the Great mountains. She flew above the clouds as it began to rain with great difficulty, but it was easier that flying in the rain. And finally when the crab touched her claw she dove downwards through the dark rain clouds, but she realised the rain was longer than usual. As she slowly flew down towards the location they reached the beginning of the valley, but this was different. Right in-between the valley stood a Grand tree even larger than the one she was born on. She saw that the crab was bewildered by the sight of it as well. Slowly pacing downwards, the crab touched her claw and the feeling of something was calling from below the Grand tree. Karen slowly circled around the whole length of the tree which by them the rain was followed by fog. She knew she had to search for an entrance or opening else, they would be lost in the fog. As she circled around the crab slowly gripped at her claw and she saw that the crab was pointing his pincer towards a small overgrowth of roots near the bottom, but as she got closer it was a hollow and dark entrance to something. When the crab touched her claw once again, the throbbing feeling inside them confirmed their suspicion and she flew inside as it took them deep underground. "I wonder where he went. ", thought Crimson as he was alone when logged into the game, but he didn''t really hope for Dan to wait for him here as well. He waited for Dan for a while then he started to understand how his new addition looked on him. Crimson looked around for a while then started to concentrate on moving his wings up and down. It was weird at first as he lifted off the ground, but as he flew around he could move more freely. He just had to think of it like a bodily function and he would move in that direction he wanted. It was like the oscillations of a pendulum suspended from a person''s finger, it would oscillate in the direction the person thinks of. After a few hours of practise he could move swiftly between trees and it greatly increased his mobility. As he returned to the spot he found Dan awaiting his company and on seeing or rather hearing the buzzing sound coming closer, Dan stood up greeting him. "Hey! You''re back. " "Yup. What''s up? You look exhausted." "I...", he paused, "I went to the village, everyone was different, the players at least. They have grown stronger, but not like us, very minimal changes, but they have grown stronger. " "I see... I wonder what my village looks like now. ", Crimson said as he imagined going back to every ant flying around with wings. "So you going to come to the Entomo village with me?", asked Crimson, but before Dan could reply. GROOOOOOOWL!!!!! Dan''s stomach seems to have spoken up before he could. Crimson laughed which creeped out Dan, but before he could object, GROOWOWWOLL!!!!! "Let''s ...have... some ...heh.. food ...then.. ", Crimson tried to say . "I... Sure.", muttered Dan. "You stomach is much louder than you.", said Crimson as he followed Dan, who was now moving towards the forest. They found the trail of a creature nearby and it was something larger than normal, the footprint was like two horns dug into the ground, it was the almost more than half the size of Dan''s footprint which was quite large. The trail led them to a group of wild boars or something larger than that which was marking its territory by rubbing it''s tusks on the trees nearby. As they got near the wild board snorted out at them. "Trespassers!" Crimson heard the board speak and as soon as it snorted at them it ran towards them in full speed or all the speed it could muster. Dan stood motionless as the boar approached and Crimson did the same, when the boar was just about to stab Dan, he swat it towards a tree nearby with enough force such that as the boar met with the tree it shook rattling all the leaves. "Trespassers! My land!", it kept squealing as it tried to stand up. Dan stood there doing nothing and Crimson stood there with him looking at the squealing pig before them with its bones broken by the crash and blood gushing through its nose. "I didn''t expect to hear them talk.", said Crimson. "I met something like this similar.", muttered Dan looking at the pig as it fell down again repeating "Trespassers" again. Crimson was conflicted by the change of things before him, but he had made up his mind. He felt the same when fighting against the wolves and the bear, but talking just bring another dimension to it. Dan and Crimson stood looking at the squealing and snorting boar. "We don''t have a hunger bar, but I''m pretty sure yours is low enough to start affecting your stats soon. Finish it off so that we can continue.", said Crimson looking at Dan. "I... it talks. Doesn''t seem ...humane killing it.", said Dan. "We aren''t humans here. Moreover, do you eat meat in real life?" "I.. get what you are trying to say...but...", said Dan as he mustered up some courage as he stepped towards the boar. "Trespasser!! Go away!!" , snorted the boar trying to get up. Dan looked down at the boar and remembered all the time he would bite down on the throat of the prey to finish it off quickly, but now he picked up his paw and snapped it at a speed only few could follow which twisted the boards face killing it with one blow. "I understand that it must be hard, but..", started Crimson " ..the way it works. Isn''t it.", retorted Dan as he saw the boar start to bleed out. The game was 99% realistic, but the remaining 1% was reserved just so that all the players don''t turn out to be psychotic with the game play. The blood drained away in minutes and the carcass laid there waiting for Dan to devour. Crimson looked at his hesitation and he went into the forest bringing out a bunch of dried branches from nearby trees. Dan looked at him not speaking or doing anything; Crimson called him nearby and asked him to use his huge paws to dig in a circle around the twigs he placed on the ground. He then pushed the twigs into the hole and struck both his forefeet quickly enough to create sparks lighting few of the dried leaves. Then slowly picking up the boar carcass and placed it in the space left by the removing of the twigs. The flames slowly grew with every breeze cooking the meat slowly. Dan was surprised at the sight of food cooking before him. The skin from the boar had burned away and the flames burned away all the hair. Within a few minutes, the fire had to be turned down and Crimson nodded to Dan, who pushed in the dirt he had dug out back into the fire putting it out. Dan tried to touch the boar, "It going to be hot, wait a few more minutes for it to cool down.", said Crimson. Dan enjoyed the barbeque and he didn''t feel guilty for eating it now. When he said the same to Crimson, he said, "It deserved to be cooked." Dan couldn''t say thank you, but managed to squeeze one through his fangs as they rushed towards Crimson''s village. They travelled for couple of hours until they crossed the valley that Crimson once actually met Dan and reached the forest of the wolves. But after a few minutes, Dan felt weird as if the whole forest was watching them and he could hear them muttering ." He is back... The Blood ant is back...beware.", to which Dan could only imagine what was happening. If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Karen had taken them deep into the core of the tree''s root which was a labyrinth by itself, with many diversion and dead ends. It was not dark as they had hoped, the moss on the walls were glowing showing them what was a few feet ahead them, but not the way through out as the moss only reacted to their presence. They could sense whatever was calling them, but it was like sensing it through 100 layers of walls. A puzzle before them, with no sight to aid them and as they kept moving until the next dead end. Nel nudged at the Owl''s claws asking her to put him down, but Karen ignored the cold feeling on her feet. Nel then gave her a small pinch which she then noticed and placed him on the ground. Nel slowly went towards the wall of the root and started to eat the glowing moss, he wasn''t sure it was poisonous or not, but he just did and to his surprise it did taste earthy like mushroom. Karen was confused by Nels actions, but she waited for him as he started to eat the glowing moss, her eye sight were perfect in the dark and she could see it clearly, it was pure white in colour and it had many whiskers like hairs on this which were also white and these whiskers were the things that were glowing. When Nel had finished Karen look at the crab with respect. Nel had ate the glowing moss, but only at a few places to make it look like an arrow pointing a straight line which showed them there was a dead end in the direction it pointed. Nel now again nudged at her feet and they again started to find a different path to reach their goal. What stood before Dan was a mystery, but the one more stupefied was Crimson. The underground hive was completely changed and instead stood before him an ant hill. He moved around it for a while, but could not come back to meet Dan so he turned back. He then contacted Sham''tu and waited outside with Dan. Sham''tu came out from the top of the Ant hill and marched directly towards Crimson. "Greeting to the Guardians.", he said looking at both of them and continued facing Crimson, "Guardian Crimson has come at a very important time, the other - travellers have began fighting for the control of the colony. The elders are unable to control them. I hope you can bring order to all this mayhem. " "That should be easy. ", Crimson replied, to which Dan was looking at Crimson with a questioning glance. "Any reason why the ant colony has moved above the ground, I haven''t been gone for over two days and I come back to find so many changes. " "You have changed a lot as well Great Guardian, but the reason why the Colony moved towards the outside is because of the lower chambers have fallen in because of water rising from under the ground. The water raises every day and soon, we believe it will cover all land. " Dan looked at the massive hill before him and felt great pride for the industrious lot. "Amazing.", Crimson said and looked at the mountain before him, "Thank you Sham''tu. Can you call the Elders..., No, I will call them myself. Thank you again and sorry to have called you on short notice. " "Understood, Anything for the Great Guardian.", Sham''tu replied and Crimson replied nothing and he returned back to the hill. Dan looked at Crimson with a smug look on his face and said, "So Greeat Guardiaaan..." "What?" "How did you call him?" "Mmm... Comes with the skills.", said Crimson not wanting to disclose something he didn''t understand himself. "Fair enough, so you gonna fight off the others to take control over your colony?" "I don''t have to fight, I already control it. ", said Crimson with a smile on his face, which gave him Goosebumps. Dan looked at Crimson as he stood and started to rub his scales against himself creating a sort of annoying sound. "Will you stop doing that anytime soon." "Doing what?" "Vibrating..." "Oh, well that''s how ants communicate. " "Oh... then how are you talking with me now." "I''m not sure, maybe it''s a skill." "Oh..Could be..", he thought to himself which Dan did not interrupt. After a few moments a troop which seemed like a veil of dark colour came out of the hill and towards them, Dan was shocked and intimidated by the sight, but they moved in a quick but a pace which seemed non hostile. "Greetings Guardian", said an ant which stood in front to which Crimson nodded and the other behind the elder nodded in his direction. "I believe you might know why I called you here?" "Guardian, that is the only thing we do not know, you are of the hive, but foreign to its society. Unless you speak your mind, we do not know the reason you called us here. " Crimson stood there nodding and thinking to himself, "I see." "- I had called you to let you know, there will be a war coming soon. The hive below is no longer going to sustain us as it will be overrun with water. What do you think?" The ants all stood still for a moment. To Dan it seemed like they stopped processing, but Crimson knew what they were doing, they were relaying the decision across, the hive has no leader, no queen nor any king, it is a self sustaining life force which works towards survival. "Yes, the underground chambers have started to collapse and almost one fourth has been filled with water. If you would lead us, we are ready to move.", replied the elder suddenly. Dan was amazed by the unity of the elders, one spoke for the lot and no one disagreed. What a structured colony, he thought to himself. "Are there any rebellious travellers who do not think for the good of the hive." The elder looked down at the ground and so did the others. Dan did not understand what caused the emotionless and mannered ants before him to drop their head in shame. "Yes, it seems everyone of your apprentices have. ", Crimson replied, " Go and talk to them, let them know of the things to come, and if they do not heed to your advice -", the elders looked at him, "- send them to me. " "We will inform them Guardian.", the ants replied and started to return back to the hill. Before they went out of sight Crimson said , "If there are no objections on my command, everyone moves out in the next eight cycles.", they nodded without any question and continued on their way. Dan stood there unable to comprehend what had happened, and as though nothing had happened Crimson started to patrol around the hill. Crimson surveyed the forest and of its growth during his absence and saw that the borders of the forest were thinning. The ants had moved their territory more into the Wolves luckily due to the decrease in the populace of the wolves, but it also seems the bears have also stretched their territories. A bear would cover around half a mile of space, but now it seems bears have started to move into each other''s territories and thus fighting against themselves. Dan looked at the surrounding lands with Crimson and saw that he would not have survived here, nothing was weak enough for a cub to hunt. Even the weakest wolf was stronger than a half grown cub, but when Crimson walked through their forest it was like a hot blade cutting through butter, everything turned to nothing near him and all life moved away from his path until he reached the top of the sunrise mountain. Dan followed Crimson and as he lay down on the ground. He wanted to get used to his body and looked at Crimson who looked like he was always thinking something. "Hey!" , Crimson turned to face Dan and he waited for a while, "What do we do now?" "We wait for their them and then we move towards your camp tomorrow." Dan was looked at his furry paws which were concealing the hidden talons waiting to tear at something. He felt them itch as he moved them slowly, looking at it like mesmerised in its movement. "So what do you plan on doing until then.", Dan said after having broken away from his self induced trance. "How are you coping with that new body? Want to give it a test run?", Crimson replied with a grin which looked more mischievous as he tried to use his wings. Dan stood up and readied himself with a smirk of his own as he rushed towards Crimson, who was slowly drifting away from the ground. Before Dan could reach Crimson, he shifted his weight towards his right which made him move in that direction swiftly, but before he could control the movement he struck wood. "OUCH!!", said Dan mocking. "So I need to check how that works...", said Crimson to himself as he again drifted off the ground and approaching Dan by swaying within limits of his shadow. Dan charged at him, but Crimson did a quick movement which was a blur, Dan''s instinct buzzed something behind him to which he clawed while turning cutting through the cold air. "Close!", remarked Crimson as he sped sideways dodging his blow. They fight for hours, in the rain and sneaking swiftly around the fog, learning and understanding their new strength. The elders had sent their apprentices towards the hill, but no one interfered with their fight fearing the circumstances. Before them was a fight which was flattening the hill with every bout, but little did they know that the guardians were just playing around. Chapter 8 : Who we are. Part - 1 yO~ As promised, will update every week. Scraped my previous chapter 8 and rewrote it. This is the first part. I might finish this story sooner and make it simple. Let me know if you like how the story is going. Thanks and Enjoy!
Chapter : 8 - Who we are. Part - 1 Another day had passed in the real world, three in the virtual world. Dan and Crimson called it a day after having levelled the land to hold its harsh memories. They had learned to use their new found abilities and also levelled up their skills quite a bit during their friendly bout, and they promised to never do it again when the elders look at them with questioning stares. Dan was unable to understand the blank looks the ants were giving them, but Crimson understood and promised in his stead as well. Karen and Nel had travelled far deep into the root system of the tree, but the numerous roots went far and deep in the ground, leading to dead ends. They searched every root until exhaustion and kept up their strength with the glowing mushrooms until mental exhaustion came over and they logged out. Crimson came to know from the elders that only three fourth of the hive agreed to march while the other one fourth have decided to further build the hive above the ground, they do not want to abandon the colony. He didn''t want to force anyone into a decision and accepted theirs. It was raining currently and asked everyone to get ready by the first sign of sun. The march was quick and organized, Dan was amazed by the militarised efficiency of the ants. It officially was an army counting.. "It''s 3451 ants alone in total, not including me.", said Crimson when Dan asked him. Dan looked at all the different types of ants, he lost count the many types, he saw a bunch of blind ants which could not look over few meters beyond them, they are called the army ants and they worked as a group and a very efficient group, for the most part, except they are a bit rowdy, but they always were in line when Crimson looked back at them. Dan could only wonder what happened there. They soon reached the Panthera tribe, but it was not the type of welcome Crimson or Dan was expecting. Dan was not sure why Crimson had the creepy look of a smile on his face. Unknown to him Sheen had rallied up the other rebellious lot of over 50 pantheras and tried to overpower the ants, but seeing the massive count, they jumped at Crimson, who knew from the start about their presence. He sidestepped with precise movements and piled up the cats. "What do you think you are doing?!!!", roared Dan at Sheen and at the others, which left them stunned for a few seconds. Sheen was the least affected either by his anger or mental fortitude. "We will not give over the control over the pack, you do not have any right, I, we don''t care even if you are the guardian." Dan was furious over their words, but Crimson stepped forward, "He is not taking over you tribe, I am, if you want to take over, try. ". He looked at Dan and nodded, to which Dan looked at the others in pity and back at Crimson nodding in reply. Sheen knew he would not be able to overpower Dan seeing that they were too much of a disadvantage with size and power, but the ant was smaller than him and even though his nose tells him to get away, he thought, "It''s a bug and I''m gonna squish him.". Crimson looked around at his army and they moved behind with precision, such that they cleared the ground for Sheen and himself. Dan also moved to the sides. No one spoke or moved as they both stood motionless. Dan was sure why, Crimson never made the first move, he stood and let them attack, looking like he is in a unprotected stance, but no one would ever touch him. Sheen got tired of waiting, jumped at Crimson, who still stood motionless. Time moved slowly for Sheen as he flung his fangs at the red ant, who stood motionless with a glimmer in his eyes. As he landed hoping to see the ant squished under is paws, he is confused, turning back he finds the ant standing still with his back towards him. Sheen was furious seeing his back towards him and dashed at him with his paws, but they missed. He can see that the ant is still standing at the same place and didn''t move, but he was unable to hit him. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. The onlookers were confused as well, Sheen was missing by a small margin, if he had moved a millimeter forward, he would have touched the ant, but he always missed. Slash after slash and pounce after pounce, the ant moved slowly and never touched the sabertooth cat. Dan looked at Crimson in awe as he had never seen Crimson fight from a far, the way he moved was precise and calculated, he never thought someone could be so quick in their reaction, wondering if Crimson in real life was a martial artist or if the game had enhanced his senses so much, to do these wonders. Sheen was humiliated by Crimson by not even lifting his claws at him, but more by the fact that he always seemed to miss his attacks. Growing weary and short of breath, he continued his relentless onslaught, until he heard, "I believe it''s long enough." and he after a few seconds found himself falling on top of the tree. He did not understand, how, all he remembered was pouncing at the ant, but rather than falling towards the ground, he met with the tree and fell to the ground hard. Sheen had barely any strength after the fall to stand, but the bloodthirst emitted by him was making everyone''s hair stand. "I... will ... squash you!!!", Sheen muttered as he jumped towards Crimson. Crimson moved a bit aside, but this time it was different, he was struck by the sabertooth who was on his last breath ad the impact left the ant swatted towards the ground. Everyone were stunned by this, even Crimson, he did not understand how the sabertooth was able to reach him, he was disoriented, but before he could gather this thoughts, he was flung towards another tree. A reign of cheers and awe were among the gathered, Dan was one of the first to be at awe, he had never seen Crimson under the effect of a bloodthirst snare. The window was probably put on everyone who were gathered seeing Sheen, but probably Crimson had a greater debuff as it was directed at him.
Warning!! You are impacted by murderous intent around. If you have witnessed the act, your reaction and reflexes are dampened by the atmosphere.
Sheen was relentless in his assault, but Crimson slowly started to recover from his sluggishness, probably because Sheen was slowing down or Crimson was able to overcome the presence against him. He had never felt such a presence against him, but he couldn''t let the fight go on anymore as it could affect the morale of his army. He struck at Sheen during his next body slam, he moved forward and lifted Sheen''s legs as he fell in great speed and flipped him over on his back, face first, this left Sheen knocked out and everyone around in awe, even Dan. Crimson was not at his best, he had lost 40% of his hp, but this was his first time actually having difficulty in a fight. He admired Sheen for his instincts, which were better than Dans, who was clearly stronger in terms of statistics. He slowly went back to talk with the elders of the Panthera tribe, but the other players who until a few moments ago were cheering Sheen were accusing Crimson of somehow having cheated from the beginning of the fight. They rushed towards Sheen and slowly licked at his wounds, this improved his appearance slowly. The ant players were getting weary after seeing the fight and wanted to show their skills as well, but the ant elders made sure no one went beyond control. A few gazes from Crimson and Dan also did the trick. The army rested as it rained, fogged and when started to clear, Sheen was not seen. On enquiring it was found that he had left as soon as he got up and said he will not interfere with the army or its plans and left with his streak. There was no victory slogans or defeat, the Panthera elders submitted themselves to be added to the ranks of the army awaiting further instructions. Crimson and Dan had to log off, so they decided the army to camp at the Panthera forest and said they would have a meeting in a few days, but before Crimson and Dan left, they and everyone in the island felt it.