Level Up +3
The Final Trial
by Dan Sugralinov
Release - March 25, 2019
Pre-oder here - https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07MNXHGDW
Prologue
Hearing's the first thing to go.
Or is it memory, I always forget.
My name is Philip Panfilov. I'm 32 years
old, but I’ve really only felt alive for the last three months. Before that, I
just bobbed about like a turd in a fishing hole: I ate, drank, played the most
massive online game that existed at the time, and was even married. I picked up
cash working as a freelancer. I wrote a blog and was writing a book. And I
drank beer— lots of beer, almost every night.
Chapter
One. More Fire
The thing about happiness is that
you only know you had it when it's gone. You may think to yourself that you're
happy. But you don't really believe it. It's only looking back by comparison with
what comes after that you really understand, that's what happiness felt like.
“Fallout 4”
I
was standing at the edge of a forest, wearing only a pair of tattered jeans. I
was looking at the world as it really was, without the interface. All the icons
and indicators had disappeared. I couldn’t move as something seemed to be
holding my feet. The same could be said about my whole body: it seemed to have
turned to stone. It was as though the air around me had
frozen, holding me up.
A
few feet away from me, a message appeared in the air:
Congratulations! You’ve
successfully passed the preliminary selection!
You’ve been admitted to the main
Trial.
Candidate evaluation complete.
Character generation complete.
What?
So what was that before? This hadn’t been the Trial?
The
message dissolved into thin air, replaced by a new one:
The Trial will begin in 3... 2...
1....
The Trial has begun!
Suddenly
I was free. I lost my balance and fell to the ground. Perfect, now I could
regroup. I took my time standing up. I needed to get my bearings and figure out
what was going on and where I was, and investigate the system message, whose
rotating 3-D icon was hovering in my field of vision. A red balloon was
pulsating and flickering—in other words, doing all it could to attract my
attention. Tough luck. It would have to wait.
Physically
I felt like I was in top form. There was no trace of the scratches, wounds or
burns of the preliminary selection, the one that had the tunnel and the acid
jelly. I turned my neck and body. Nothing creaked or snapped. My body was as
good as new. Hold on, was it even my body? I examined myself and touched my
face and hair. Everything seemed to be mine. But I couldn't feel any of my own
belongings in my pockets—no phone or even a slip of paper. Even the belt had
fallen from my tattered jeans. The Lucky Ring of Veles and the Protective Red
Wristband had also gotten lost somewhere. I was positive I still had them when
I was in front of the portal.
The
air was unusually clean. It was as pure as could be, with none of the pollution
created by people as they live their daily lives. I could hear a continuous
chirping, occasional cracking, and birds trilling. A sort of croaking noise
wafted out of the depths of the forest. I’m not really a nature lover, so to be
honest, I can’t really tell you what was making the woodpecker noise. I’ve
never actually seen a woodpecker.
I
raised my head and my mouth dropped: this wasn’t Earth.
The
sky was so low I felt like I could reach out and touch it. The color was
changing into shades of light blue, dark blue and purple, and in the area where
there were two suns, it was a dirty brown. It wasn’t a very friendly sky. Mr.
Katz, who’s a connoisseur of science fiction, would be interested in this.
Crunch!
A sharp pain suddenly shot through my left heel. I cried out and drew my foot
back.
You’ve been dealt an injury: 4
(baby hedgehog bite).
A
large mouth had me in its clutches. A small, nasty, growling creature was
chewing on my foot. Messages about the injury flickered. I grabbed the creature
and my palm seared.
You’ve been dealt an injury: 17
(acid burn).
Damn,
that baby hedgehog was vicious! The creature was trying to stretch itself over
the sole of my foot like a sock, and my Health had already dropped about 10%
while I was trying to figure out how to get rid of it—its fur was covered in a
burning slime that made it impossible to pick up with your bare hands. I lifted
the foot the animal was clinging to—it weighed around 10 pounds—and slammed it
on the ground.
You’ve dealt damage to the baby
hedgehog: 13.
I
continued to stamp my foot until the level 2 creature died. Six blows and it
was all over. The hedgehog’s body flashed and disappeared, leaving in its wake
a sort of crystal. A long-forgotten term I’d heard in my university days popped
into my head: rhomboidal pyramid.
The tiny crystal of existence.
I
reached out for the crystal, which disintegrated into a silvery dust and fell
into my hand. A notification appeared:
+2 existence resource pt.
The
first component of a new interface appeared in my field of vision: an icon of a
heap of dust with a number 2 beside it. There was no description of it or
explanation of what it was for.
I
tried to call up my old, familiar interface, but nothing happened. Either it
was blocked, like after the ban, or it no longer existed. I tried issuing
silent commands and shifting my eyes, but nothing worked.
There
was only one thing for me to do: open that nagging little red balloon, which
was shaking restlessly and practically screaming for attention. I focused on
it:
“Please
show me what you have there.”
It
flinched and popped. The wisps turned into symbols floating in the air. They
multiplied and morphed into Russian letters. I didn’t even have time to think
about how it was hard to read the letters before a semitransparent background,
like in my interface, appeared behind the letters.
Welcome, test subject!
You have
been chosen. You have successfully passed the preliminary selection. Because
you have done well, the penalties to characteristics in the Trial will not
apply to you.
Your time to complete the
preliminary selection was 14% better than the average time of
all the trial subjects. You will receive: 14% off the cost of character
development.
Your social status level is 17, 6
levels higher than the average level of all the trial subjects. You will
receive: +6 Characteristic points to invest however you’d like.
You have come from an environment
with a low environmental safety index (code yellow), where you managed not only
to survive but also to win the respect of many individual members of your race.
You may keep one of your achievements. Please choose.
An
explanation flashed underneath: “System messages are generated from the
candidate’s preferred vocabulary.” OK, so everything was just like with the
interface—someone had poked around in my brain so they could speak to me in the
same language.
The
message was replaced by two vibrating boxes with the names of the achievements:
The Fastest
Learner.
10% to skill development rate
Altruist.
+1 to all main characteristics at
every level gained.
It
was a no-brainer: I decided to add to the characteristics. For good measure I
tapped the box. The other one popped and “Altruist” was pulled into my finger.
What a circus.
While
I was examining my fingertip, another notification opened in front of me. It
wasn’t on the side, but in my line of vision, above my finger. The letters were
small. I shifted my eyes and the font grew and moved away a little so it was
easier to read.
The Trial is a tradition for the
Commonwealth of Sentient Races, the first but not the last procedure for
selecting candidates to take part in the
next Diagnostics of the race.
Prototype of the Trial site:
Pibellau, Sagittarius Sector.
Participants in the Trial: planet
Earth, “Humankind” faction, Homo sapiens race (these are self-designations),
2018 according to local chronology, fourth wave.
Number
of participants: 169.
Main characteristics of the test
subjects: real-life characteristics are carried over.
So
that meant that all my running and boxing at the gym wouldn't go to waste. All
the indicators I’d earned through buckets of sweat would still have value. That
was good news, and I felt encouraged.
I
continued to study the rules. The previous message flipped and a new one
opened:
The candidate who passes the Trial
will be named the winner. The
reward will be tallied dynamically according to the results of the selection
procedure, along with a vote by the observers. The final decision will be
issued by the Senior Supervisor of the Trial.
OK,
I get what happens to the winner. But what about the loser? Is he sent home?
That’s not the worst thing that could happen. Even if my interface is
uninstalled, no one can take my achievements away. I’ll keep my new friends, my
company, my fit body and my new skills.
Absorb the territory—every
hexagon you capture rewards you with additional resources.
To capture a neutral hexagon,
activate the command center. Cost to activate the command center: 100 existence
resource points.
To capture an enemy hexagon,
you must report in person to the command center of the captured territory
within 1 hour, Pibellau time (13 hours = 1 day), and then activate the command
center.
All
right. This reminded me of something, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Remember
that all the other Trial candidates are your enemies!
When you destroy an enemy, you
capture their hexagon. Any trial subjects who lose all their hexagons will be
disincarnated one day later (Pibellau time), no matter how many lives they have
left.
A captor
may cancel the disincarnation by taking the enemy into his clan.
A clan is not an alliance! A clan
belongs to only one person, and all the resources captured by the clan are
transferred to the leader, who is in charge of them.
When test subjects agree
to join another clan, they become the vassal and surrender all their hexagons
and resources to the clan leader.
OK,
got it. You're surrounded by some enemies, you need to stay on your guard,
dominate, trample them and enslave them. I see what it’s all about. Something
similar, the voice of Khphor, had been trying to get a message across to me
while it used Panikoff’s mouth to advise me not to stop at anything.
I
swiped that message away too. A new one appeared:
Pibellau is an inhospitable place.
The ferocious, carnivorous wildlife is
always hunting for prey, but the most deadly creatures come out at night. Be
alert, keep moving your base and build up your defenses.
Use labor and the skills of
laborers, reconnaissance and military units, which are generated
from the command center. Keep moving your base and improve the abilities of the
units.
Don't forget about yourself. You
will earn existence resources by destroying other participants, the aggressive
flora, hostile fauna and your adversaries’ units, and by
capturing hexagons. The hexagons will help you level up, and after you receive
category specializations with each level, you will gain access to new talents
and abilities.
These are all the rules.
You’re now ready to begin.
Put more fire under your enemies’
feet, test subject!
Screw me dead! I looked around
for the infamous command center but didn't see anything
that looked like it. While I was doing that, the message rolled up and was
replaced by another balloon, green this time and quivering like the other one.
I opened it.
Choose
a name, test subject!
A name? Right, it’s a game.
Maybe Graykill, the pseudonym I used in every
game I played? No, wait. Philip. That wouldn’t do either. Just keep it simple:
Phil.
I said the name and a large message appeared:
Phil,
invest in your main characteristics!
Strength
determines the damage dealt without a weapon and by a short-range weapon. It
influences the damage dealt by your units and the volume of resources extracted
by laborers.
Agility
determines the damage dealt by a long-range weapon. It affects the speed of
movement of the bearer and his units.
Intellect
affects the character development rate, and the rate of generation and upgrade
of modules and the base.
Stamina
determines the number of life points of the character and his units.
Perception
determines the chance of critical hit and critical damage. The chance of
finding lost artifacts increases. It
affects the radius of visibility in the fog of war.
Charisma
affects the rate of generation of new units and the number of units used at the
same time.
The
greater your Success in all aspects of the Trial, the more likely you will be
to encounter advantageous situations.
I fell deep in thought and reflected for a long
while. It seemed that the physics of the world were closely connected to the
trial subject’s numerical ratings. Looking around, I realized that I could see
up to a radius of around 500 yards; the wall of the fog of war stood beyond
that. Apparently, the higher my Perception, the farther I would be able to see.
I collapsed the window into the
green balloon and opened a pulsing yellow balloon. A character window with
three boxes popped up. The first one contained general information, the second
contained the characteristic indicators, and the third—the smallest—contained
my stats.
Character profile
Phil, a human.
Level: 1.
Class:
undetermined. Required level: 10 needed.
Health points:
1100/1100.
Damage without
weapon: 11-15.
Chance of critical
hit: 36.5%
Bonuses: 14% off
the cost of character development, +6
Characteristic points to invest anywhere.
Achievements: Altruism (+1 pt. of
main characteristics for each level up).
Main characteristics
Strength — 13.
Agility — 11.
Intellect — 20.
Stamina — 11.
Perception — 15.
Charisma — 17.
Luck — 14.
Characteristic points available to
invest: 11 (5 main characteristics, 6 secondary characteristics).
Character stats
Lives: 3.
Captured hexagons: 0.
Ranking: 169/169.
Existence
resources: 2/1000.
You don’t have
enough existence resources to activate the leveling
up function!
For the next level
(2) you need 172 existence resource points.
Ah, that’s what I thought. The
Trial is a game. It contains “lives” and you can be resurrected, but the mobs[2] that are around you when you die disappear, leaving loot[3]
instead of bodies. For now I’d been able to loot only the mysterious existence
resources, but who knows, maybe an axe would fall out of the
next hedgehog? It was too bad that the ring and red wristband had not raised my
Luck, and even the Netsuke Jurōjin, which didn't need to be worn, didn’t work
here.
I also gathered
that leveling up didn't happen through XPs but in exchange for currency—that
is, existence resources. That assumed different branches of development: you
collected it or lost it on upgrades of the command center, created an army of
mobs or improved their indicators. I guess I’ll figure it out.
Meanwhile, I
couldn’t figure out if this was the real world or a virtual one, but it was
clear that I was myself, not a virtual avatar. My heel, which ached where the
hedgehog had bitten it, could vouch for that. The memory of the animal’s teeth
was still vivid.
Whether or not
this world was real, I needed a development strategy, and in order to figure
out how to develop, I needed to start playing. That was even more urgent
because judging by the ranking, everyone else had already thrown themselves
into leveling up while I was the only one standing around thinking and trying
to figure out what was going on.
I stood up. The
wound had already healed, and so had my burned palm; Health had regenerated and
the bar was full again. I looked to see where that damned command center could
be, and while I was at it I peered at the ground: maybe there was a stick or
branch I could use to fight off the hedgehog’s parents and their buddies. I
didn't find anything like that, but about 20 steps away, closer to the ravine,
I could see a white, perfectly round stone lying on the ground in the opposite
direction of the forest. It was about a yard in diameter.
When I got closer,
I saw that a handprint was pressed into the surface. I placed may hand in the
indentation, which perfectly matched my hand, and felt warmth emanating from
the stone. Nothing happened at first.
But then I knew: I would need 100 existence
resource points to activate the command center.
Then I understood that the existence resources
were needed for other things, not just to activate the command center. The
existence resources would allow me to live.
Days on Pibellau cost 13 existence points, a point for each hour experienced in
local time.
After
understanding came realization and epiphany: to live, I would need to kill.
To develop, I would need to kill. To preserve everything I achieved there, I would need to win victory here. And to do that, I would need to kill.
Valiadis and
Ilindi had not prepared me for this.
A notification
telling me that I was losing one existence resource point appeared and then
disappeared. I had only one left; that was an hour of life. Resources can't be
negative; I will simply lose “life.”
So my plan of
action for the near future was simple and clear: farm[4] existence resources after setting
up a local armageddon on my hexagon. After I “optimized” the Game, I forgot its
nuances, but it wasn’t the only game I had played, and something buried in my
memory surfaced: an old, pleasant farm was waiting for me.
It would not drag me
into the forest: I could avoid noticing and aggro[5]
a few mobs right away, but that was risky. So I chose the open territory behind
the ravine. It was around eight yards wide, impossible to get around. I would
need to lower myself into it.
The bottom was concealed by fog, but I knew from my gaming experience
that the most greasy mobs and best loot could be found in places like this. The
descent was steep, but there were thick, dried-out, broken-off tree roots along
the walls. Holding onto them, I carefully lowered myself, groping for a
foothold. The ravine was as deep as two men standing one on top of the other,
and when I finally touched down, I breathed a sigh of relief.
There was no one in my line of sight...
A sound like a wet cloth slapping the
wall jolted me. The skin on my chest charred and smoked. I understood full well
that 358 damage points wasn’t a joke as I screamed at the top of my lungs from
the pain and fright of the surprise attack.
A couple of yards away from me, there
appeared a massive hanging...
Kreken
Location boss.
Level 6.
Life points: 1800.
Run, Phil, run! I stepped away, covering
my eyes with my arm. Oh, God, it burned, how can I go on living? The creature
looked like a gadfly with a long snout that was uncoiling again, preparing to
spit napalm saliva on me. I spun around, and inwardly shrinking from the
inevitable spit that landed on my back, ran away. But the Kreken had stopped
attacking. I guess it wandered off.
When I was 50 yards away, I turned
around but didn't see anyone.
I breathed a sigh of relief and was hit in
the face by a new salvo of spit. The
creature’s saliva was eating through my skin down to the bones, but I
stifled a shout. The next attack went into my mouth, which was open in a
scream, penetrating my throat and scorching the tendons from inside. I
collapsed to the ground, dreaming of dying just so I could stop the pain. I
lost consciousness.
You are now dead,
test subject.
Lives remaining: 2.
Until resurrection:
3... 2... 1....
[1] Hexagon: a six-sided shape.
[2] Mob: a slang term for a moving object, usually a monster, that is
found in computer games, especially online RPGs.
[3] Loot: treasures within a game that are received by players after
killing mobs or other players.
[4] To farm: to receive game currency and objects by killing monsters.
[5] Aggro: to perform an action that will lead to an attack by a
bystander on the player’s character.
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