[Welcome to Floor 1.]

[You have arrived on the island planet of Yzmar with the identity of a captured slave from the race of a hostile civilization.]

[The native inhabitants use this island to play a sort of...game.]

[It is a dangerous game where every action may dictate the course of one’s future survival.]

[You are participating in this game for the first time as an ‘enemy.’]

Then, just like at the start of the Tutorial, the difficulty options appeared.

[You have chosen difficulty.]

[Mission Selected]

[Qualify for the second round.]

Soon after that, an announcer came in, and began reading the rules for the first challenge of the ‘deadly game.’ As soon as he announced the start, I got on the move. It didn’t take long for me to start finding points here and there, but what I really needed was an opponent. According to what Mewi had found, with how my stats were currently, I’d start with a slight edge over my “Throskart” opposition, but that would quickly change because the point-coins also strengthened who collected them. The more coins you collected, the stronger you’d get. I’d have to break out of the pack and get toward the top of the rankings ASAP if I wanted to stay alive, let alone competitive.

Finding enough points, as it turned out, was the least of my problems. I started out getting a few coins from the surroundings, but in under 5 minutes I was already being attacked. Since this was the early stages of the game, I stuck to Mana Bolts to conserve MP, since they could eliminate someone in just 2 or 3 shots tops in spite of their hard damage cap, for now.

They retaliated, tried a ton of things to get at me, and it was genuinely difficult to find windows of time to get at my potions when I needed to, but one thing my training regimen had made me exceptional at was evading attacks. And I was no slouch at pushing through the pain when someone managed to hit me, either. Whenever I was badly outnumbered, I variously ran, hid, and did my best to pick them off piecemeal where I could.

It was when a group of about 20 of them, led by a Throskart whose token had already turned red like mine, managed to get to me in a spot where there was hardly any cover nearby that I busted out my fireballs. The “leader” even set me up perfectly for a cool line.

“I’ll give you a little credit, human. Trying to catch you was like trying to hold smoke in our hands. But your luck has run out. Surrender and we’ll kill you painlessly.”

“If you think it’s all over for me, then you’ve forgotten one thing, if I’m smoke. Because where there’s smoke...there’s fire!”

The instantaneous death of the closest to come at me made the rest hesitate, and I took full advantage. After I cast three more fireballs in as many seconds, some of them even tried to break and run. “You idiots, he’s only one human!” said the ringleader, “Show some backbone!”

Kill the spine and the body will collapse. With the others backing off, it was a good chance for me to target the leader anyway. Fireball after fireball exploded on his chest, and he yelled out in pain. Within 5 seconds, he was dead, but instead of fleeing or attacking me, they greedily went for the considerable pile of coins he dropped.

Maybe they thought getting them would improve their chances of survival against me.

They were so wrong. In fact, I wasn’t even about to let them lay a finger on those coins.

How, you ask? Why, Lesser Telekinesis of course! In most situations it may have been a shitty utility spell at best, but it was perfect for gathering the coins without having to physically reach them and pick them up. By now, I’d had plenty of practice at it too.

After using it to gain most of the coins then and there, their attention was back on me. I was still outnumbered, they could still potentially give me trouble...

“Feed me,” I said, giving my voice a guttural tone, and grinning wickedly at them. It had the desired effect, petrifying them too much to resist as I ended them too. Now, my token was a pale orange.

After checking my surroundings, confirming that it was safe to catch my breath, I checked my game screen for the first time:

[Current Rank: 1,527,816]

[Top 5%]

[Total Points: 5,083]

“Hmm, not quite enough, yet.” I needed to finish in the top million to clear the mission.

There was still time in the day before the poison would hit, but best to start making my way toward a safe area, where the poison wasn’t going to appear, now. I used a “Lucky Arrow” item to find the correct direction and sped off.