As the area of the floor started to rise, I felt an urge to get closer. It stopped slightly higher than my waist with a loud click. I walked over to the console and looked at it. The console had thousands of buttons, but only two were lit up.
Reading the names of the lit buttons, they were "Waindo" and "Legaral." There was another button with a big red "X" through it. This one read "Tranium." Out of curiosity, I clicked the button "Waindo," and the console changed. Instead of the thousands of buttons, there were only three: "Play," "Save," and "Quit." I clicked "Play" out of curiosity.
In a few seconds, the black room changed to a forest. There was a path in front of me going left or right. I turned and went right. After about half a day, I arrived at a town. In front of the town stood two guards in what I assumed was medieval armor. I tried to walk into the city, and the guards stopped me and asked for identification. After staring at them, lost in thought for ten seconds, they told me, "No ID, no entry." I got the hint and walked away.
I walked through the forest that I came out of. Along the way, the scent of blood started to become noticeable. Just a little off the road was a wrecked carriage with corpses scattered around it. I walked towards the carriage to see if there was anything valuable. Among the bodies, there was a chest. In the chest was a group of books titled "Void Breathing Volumes 1-20."
I grabbed the books and flipped through the pages, letting the chip work its magic. After maybe forty minutes of flipping through the books, I had memorized them. It was about sunset when I decided to end the day and slept under a tree.
By the time I got up, the carriage and the bodies were gone. I continued to walk along this path for the next couple of hours before running into some people. The people were in a group, and a man was in front, maybe the leader. The leader said in a loud and domineering voice, "Hand over your riches to the Mossy Pine Gang, or die!" I looked at them and thought they were joking. I mean, look at me; I'm in shorts and a shirt.
That was a bad idea because in mere seconds of me walking past them, I could see my own back. My vision went black, and in mere seconds, I woke up in a cold sweat on the floor of the black room. I just lay there, thinking to myself that I just died. After what felt like an eternity, I got up and walked over to the console. Looking at the console, the button "Waindo" was faded and had a red "X" going through it.
Blue text appeared in front of me and on the screen:
[Death in the world equals death of that body.]
The text changed:
[You're dead in that world and can't go back.]
The screen disappeared. Moments later, a book dropped down in front of me, labeled "Void Breathing Compiled." It landed with a thud a few inches away from the console. I reached down and grabbed the book, after flipping through it again to see if anything changed.
I sat down in the lotus position and started to breathe in and out as the book instructed. As I was doing this, the blue screen appeared in front of my eyes. The message on the blue screen this time was:
[The breathing style you are using requires ether.]
After a couple of seconds, the text changed to:
[There is no ether in the boîte.]
I looked at the screen for a couple of seconds. Not knowing what ether is, I asked, "What is ether?" Not expecting a reply, I was surprised when the screen appeared again, this time saying:
[Ether is a substance that originates from the birth of the universe. It is everywhere and has multiple uses, some of which include magic, martial arts, and rituals, to name a minuscule amount of its uses.]
After pondering for a little bit, I got up and walked over to the console and pressed the button for "Legaral." My vision went black again. I awoke, this time not in a forest but on what looked like an island.