♫⋆｡♪ ₊˚♬ ﾟ.ᯓ𝄞 ˎˊ˗
A calm music played in the background, as two pixelated characters fell down from the light blue sky.
The blue eyed pixelated character on left was constantly muttering something as seen from the floating text bubble above it.
On the contrary, the Golden eyed pixelated character on the right side rolled over itself sillyly, not caring of its current predicament one bit.
The cursor hovered over the blue eyed character.
[Party member : Aeon ♂☘︎ ⛓]
[Race : Human?]
[Level : 21/50 (phase I)]
[Path : ???]
[HP : 40/100 (+1 HP/min) ✙]
[STA : 20/100 (-1 STA/min) ⛉]
[Stress Meter : 50%/ 80%]
[Status effects: [Static Mindscape] [??? ✙] [Fated harbinger ☘︎] [Exhaustion ⛉] [Marked ⛓] ]
As the ground loaded in, the blue eyed character panicked, the text bubble started shaking violently.
[Party member, Aeon uses Lvl 1 Law manipulation : Air force!]
[Failed]
[Failed]
[Failed]
[External interference detected, Success!]
Green gale erupted beanth the characters has they safely landed in the desolate street.
[New location unlocked: Sector 07, Temporal looped dungeon!]
[Dificultly : A+ (Recommended : lvl 90)]
The characters exchanged few dialogues.
[Party member : Aeon ♂☘︎ ⛓]
[HP : 44/100 (+1 HP/min) ✙]
[STA : 05/100 (-2 STA/min) ⛉]
[Stress Meter : 85%/80%]
[Character Aeon has entered [Overclocked ⏱] state!]
[No countermeasures taken]
[STA too low to defend against the status effect!]
[Party member:Aeon has fainted!]
[Party member: Aeon♂☘︎⛓⛨]
Seeing Aeon fainted, the golden eyed character huffed a sigh and begin unceremoniously draging Aeon down the street.
They entered a cafe down the street.
Ding~ The bell at the entrance chimed with the opening of the door.
The background ost got darker and lower in volume.
Inside the cafe were columns of pixelated bookshelf lining the edges of the cafe adding a Victorian vibe. Comfy tables and chairs were arranged in middle and near the windows. A radio played in the background.
The golden eyed character moved towards the table top counter directly opposite to the entrance.
Present behind the table top counter was a cute small child with short straight lavender hair and celestial purple eye, wearing a violet mini skirt uniform that complemented her cuteness.
The cursor moved to click on the small girl to view her profile, only to be deflected off her as if pushed aside by an invisible force field. Unable to view anything.
The golden eyed character negotiated with the small girl and gave her some kind of blueprint.
[The player character has successfully negotiated with the dungeon keeper! Their party gains immunity from the dungeon's laws!]
The music changed to a brighter and calmer tone.
The golden eyed character handed a stopwatch to the small girl and then dragged the fainted Aeon up the stairs, not minding the hard steps his head was hitting every step.
[party member: Aeon (- 1 HP)]
Putting Aeon to rest into his room, The golden eyed entered his own room.
While the character was busy with surveying its room and checking itself out infront of the monstrous image of itself, the cursor moved to check its profile.
The music stopped.
[Player character : ??? ⛉⏱⚥𝄞 Race: ??? Path : Heve??? HP : ???/??? STA : ???/??? Stress Meter: ???% Status effects : [Instrumentali-]]
[Error! Error!]
A string of text quickly flashed on the screen, too fast to read anything properly.
Click! Click! Click!
No matter how many times it clicked, the profile didn't pop up. Weirdly...it felt like the character was watching those actions.
Only after a while did the profile popped up.
[Player character: Sky Theobane ♂⏱⊘]
[Race : Human]
[Path : ???]
[Lvl : 21/50 (phase 1) ⊘]
[HP : 92/100 (+0.5 HP/min)✙]
[STA : 22/100 (+0.5 STA/min , -2 STA/min)✙⛉]
[Stress Meter : 150%/80% (suspended) ⏱ⴵ⊘]
[Status effects : [Shattered mindscape] [???] [Universal Rejection ⊘] [Swordmaster's Dillema ✙ X Sage's Dillema ⴵ] [Exhaustion ⛉] [Extreme Overclocking ⏱]]
[Player character extremely overclocked! Please take necessary caution!]
The character - Sky, moved towards the bed. It laid down only after a while.
[Player character has turned off its overclocked inherent trait.]
[STA and HP Ignored due to consequences of extreme overclocking.]
[Gathering Unique Overclocking symptoms of Character : Sky from the Grand Star library.]
[Overclocking symptoms : Memory Expunge]
[- 1 HP ]
[+ 1 HP]
[- 1 HP ]
[+ 1 HP]
.
.
.
[Stress Meter: 80%/ 80%]
[Overclocking Suspended.]
✧✧✧✧✧
phssht...flicker...
The gas lamps present on the ground floor ignited and flickered.
The gas lamp posts outside also ignited, lighting up the dark street in its calm orange glow.
The houses and shops were still desolate with no lamps lighting up. The cafe was the only lively place in the entire street.
Aeon was seated at one of the window tables of the cafe reading a book under the glow of a gas lamp, while slowly sipping on a cup of hot chocolate, eyes fixed on the page.
The title of the book was Beginners guide to manipulate laws and their classifications.
Tap Tap Tap
He could make out the sound of unhurried footsteps comming down the stairs.
Aeon noticed sky comming down from his room.
Sky immediately noticed Aeon, put a stunned expression berifly then broke into a grin,
"We got a model student here~" he teased.
Aeon simply stared and sipped on his hot chocolate.
Sky took a seat opposite to Aeon and ordered a glass of orange juice.
"Missed me?" Sky opened the conversation.
Aeon shook his head, "No"
To this, sky made a crestfallen face and acted hurt.
"..." Aeon heed it not reaction and went back to reading his book.
The silence went on for a while.
"...here's your order." The cute girl owner delivered his order and silently walked away.
"...."
'I forgot he is dull has a rock and doesn't do small talk much' Sky was dejected as his only talking companion -ignoring the owner- was not talking to him.
"Haa~" heaving out a sigh, sky summoned a bracelet and threw it at Aeon.
"?" Aeon caught it and made an confused expression.
"It's called Starlink ID." Sky introduced the item.
"It connects you to Starlink, a network built by the academy to connect every person in every sector."
"You may not know but StarStrek and the academy are different entities. StarStrek is who hosts the trials and the rewards, academy is where it is mostly hosted at due to trial takers density here."
"Academy was built by Students during old Cycles throughout the entire current epoch, the great StarStrek simply built around it and improvised to make it what it is today."
Sipping on his cup of juice, he continued,
"Starlink connects you to the academy database, allowing you free access to many academy facilities such as traning grounds, gates, records of pervious public trials and more. It also acts as permit to freely travel between sectors."
"It also allows you to instantly connect with anyone from your contracted organisation or friends. Furthermore it provides schedule and news on upcoming lectures or events from seniors who had completed many trials and have extensive experience with outer lands of StarStrek."
"The founders belived that if you can share information quickly and systematically without gate keeping, then the death count will decrease and success rate of each trial will increase. It also serves as a moderation tool to report anomalies that threaten the safety inside be it by rouge students or monsters from outside."
Sky ended his lengthy explanation, this was just the peak of the iceberg. It has more features but for now this much is enough. The rest of the explanation is pre written Inside the user manual. Out dear model student will have no issues about it.
Aeon inspected the bracelet carefully then looked at sky,
"Where did you get it?"
Sky srugged his shoulders and replied, "They distributed it outside the StarStrek Realm like candies, I picked out few."
'Thankfully they didn't have tracking capabilities on the ID unlike the brooch.' He muttered inwardly.
Aeon nodded in understanding then put the bracelet away, engrossing back into his book.
"..."
Sky was once again left alone with his thoughts.
'Come on, talk to me!' He urged silently.
Then a brilliant idea struck sky,
"Hey, are you having trouble with the laws?" He questioned, his voice rissing a bit with excitement.
Aeon looked up from his book and nodded.
"Then how about I teach you!"