"BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!"
A young man woke up in his bed at five o'clock in the morning. He had turned twenty-two this month, had a body that was not frail but could be considered skinny, and had dark circles under his eyes from lack of sleep.
"Work again," he muttered.
This person was Maxwell Elwood. He lived in Birmingham, England, and was just another one of those people who had failed their university entrance exams and were seen as disappointments by society.
He was trying to make a living as a delivery driver.
He got up at five every morning, started work at six, and worked until evening. He had no nightlife or anything else.
It would not be far off the mark to say he was a young man who had been cast out by his family, had no friends, and whom no one would care about even if he died.
This would be proven today.
In the dead of night, he changed his clothes, left his flat, and shortly afterwards got on his motorbike and set off for work.
He listened to music through his headphones, while constantly yawning, trying hard to stay awake.
After working all day, he got ready to go home and left work. He got on his motorbike and headed home. The traffic was heavy, really heavy.
Even though he was riding his motorbike, he was stopping every three minutes and couldn't even manage to squeeze through the congested roads.
When the roads cleared somehow, he started riding his motorbike fast. This was a huge mistake.
"HOOOOOONK!!"
With a sudden honk, he turned his head and collided with a lorry.
He fell to the ground, bleeding from his head. Although people gathered around him, it seemed that only one person was trying to call an ambulance. Under the flashing lights shining on him, his eyes began to close, and despite several people calling out to him, his eyes finally closed.
When he opened his eyes, he found himself in a completely white environment. He was lying down, and his body no longer ached as it had just moments before.
After gathering himself, he sat up where he lay and looked around. There was nothing, absolutely nothing around him.
After standing up, he scratched his head and asked, "Where am I?"
As soon as he asked this question, a thin female voice came from his left:
"You are in the transition to the renewed world, young man."
When Maxwell turned his head towards the voice, he saw a woman in front of him, wearing a ball mask, with jet-black hair, dressed in a tight dress, a woman who could be considered beautiful from any angle.
"Umm...Beg your pardon?" Maxwell said with great curiosity.
"As you heard, you are in the process of transitioning to the renewed world. In short, you have died," replied the woman with the thin voice.
When Maxwell heard these words, he froze where he stood. He wasn't sad, he wasn't hurt, he was quite shocked, but even so, if he had to tell the truth, his death didn't really matter to him. After all, he was certain that if he continued living this way, he would die sooner or later.
"Ah, I see..." Maxwell said.
The soft-spoken woman smiled when she saw Maxwell's weary expression and then said, "Life hasn't been kind to you, has it?"
Maxwell had no reply to that.
"Right, now we can move on to the actual procedure. My name is [The Collector]. I am the one who helps those selected to pass into the renewed worlds to begin their journey," said the woman with the thin voice, and then a slot machine appeared beside her.
"You have the right to spin this slot machine three times. This machine will grant you three abilities, and then you will learn what your abilities are by selecting a card from the resulting card system. After that, you will undergo special training specific to the world where your new journey will begin. Following the training, you will earn points based on your success, which you can spend on other abilities before leaving here. With that, your new journey will begin," said the woman with the thin voice, and immediately afterwards, she asked, 'Is there anything you don't understand?"
Maxwell listened to everything she said and replied, "No, ma'am."
After that, as if accepting everything instantly, he walked towards the slot machine and grabbed the lever.
"I know you're not a very lucky person, but luck has no meaning here. The machine will give you what you deserve. Have a little faith in yourself," said the woman with the thin voice, who had, of course, noticed the strange anxiety in Maxwell's eyes.
Maxwell shook his head once and then pulled himself together and pulled the lever of the slot machine firmly from top to bottom.
The symbols on the slot machine began to change rapidly, and the wait began.
After a short while, the symbols on the machine began to slow down and then stopped.
At that moment, the woman with the thin voice clapped her hands and then touched the slot machine, pulling out a card. It was a card shining with a jet-black colour.
"Right, next one," said the woman with the high-pitched voice.
Maxwell did the same thing without stopping, and this time a gold-coloured card came out.
"Next, please," said the woman with the high-pitched voice.
Maxwell then pulled the lever of the slot machine one last time, hard, from top to bottom, and as the machine stopped, another black card came out.
The woman with the thin voice smiled and said, "Well... I may have said that luck doesn't matter, but this is a bit too lucky."
Then, with a snap of her fingers, she made the cards disappear, and with that, the slot machine vanished, replaced by a table with perhaps two hundred cards on it.
"These simple coloured cards you see will give you your main ability, your essence. These cards are green, blue, purple, red, yellow, and black. However, because we want everybody who passes into the renewed world to be equal, even if these people will never be in the same world, people will see each card as the same colour, that is, green. Carefully, think as much as you want and choose."
As the woman with the thin voice spoke these words, Maxwell looked at each of the cards on the table and narrowed his eyes.
The woman with the thin voice had said the cards were colourless, or rather, that each card would be green, but Maxwell could clearly see the colour of each card.
"Madam," Maxwell said with great curiosity.
"Hmm?" replied the woman with the thin voice.
"The colours you mentioned, what do they mean?" Maxwell asked suddenly.
"Have you ever played a game before? A computer game, for example, which is quite popular in your world, isn't it?" the woman with the thin voice asked.
"Yes..." Maxwell replied, sounding puzzled.
"Well, it's the same logic. Green means Common, Blue means Rare, Purple means Unusual, Red means Unique, Yellow means Legendary, and Black means Godly. Green cards are the weakest type, even though they contain incredibly powerful abilities, and black cards are, as you can imagine, the best. Any other questions?" said the woman with the thin voice.
"No, madam," Maxwell replied, glancing back at the table without hesitation.
He saw many colours among the two hundred cards on the large table. Green was the most common, but blue and purple were also quite prevalent, red was about ten, yellow perhaps six or seven, and black was the colour on just one card.
Maxwell scratched his head and then walked around the table to where the black card was. Immediately afterwards, he stopped and, without even thinking twice, pointed to the black card and said, "I want this one, madam."
The woman with the thin voice tilted her head as if she understood and then snapped her fingers. First, all the cards, then the table on which they lay, vanished, and the woman with the thin voice held the card Maxwell had chosen in her hand.
"Curious..." murmured the woman with the thin voice, then asked with great interest, "Are you sure you want to choose this one?"
"Yes," Maxwell replied without hesitation, thinking that this was a ploy by the woman with the high-pitched voice and that she wanted him to leave the black card.
He had no idea how wrong he was.
"Well then, shall we begin your training?" the woman with the thin voice inquired.