Two eagles locked in a death spiral outside the classroom window, drifting down far over the school field.
And Faust was transfixed by their downward spiral the whole time. It was beautiful in a way. An act of fearlessness. His mouth was slightly agape, his blue eyes flickered along their path.
Their spiral ended with a crash onto the football field. A loud thump sounded and Faust waited eagerly to see the outcome, but Liora, his girlfriend, tapped his belly, breaking his focus.
She was laid on his lap, glaring up at him. "Did you hear anything I just said?"
Faust took a second to guess based on how this conversation started. "You want to go to your favourite store to shop for prom? Yeah, I'll come."
Satisfied, Liora went on talking. "I can't wear anything too cheap, but the trending styles are so… eugh—"
Faust lent her one ear and glanced around the class bored out of his mind.
William was sitting a few rows ahead, glaring at him and Liora, but Faust stopped paying the boy any attention. Willy was a bully, a small person, tucking his tail and avoiding Faust after getting beat up just three times.
Instead William had gone on to bully Todd, a scrawny dark-haired boy in their class that loved comics.
Maybe I can use that to start a fight….
Faust didn't care much for Todd. The guy seemed like a decent person, but letting others walk over you without a fight was so strange to him.
Was it a fetish or just something Todd was born with?
A thought interrupted his flow. He blinked, reading the clock above the class' whiteboard in slight disbelief. "Where's Mr Brickle? His class started twenty minutes ago."
"Out. He's probably avoiding you. So no class today. Cassie announced the free period an hour ago," Liora said coolly. "You've been out of it all day. Have you even been listening to me? That little bitch cut my bike's brakes again. She's trying to kill me, I swear…"
But Faust wasn't listening after her first statement. She was right. His mind had been drifting recently. It was like he had dementia, or his brain was degrading.
Well, it's been a while since anyone actually challenged me, Faust thought, William is a rat and Mr Brickle can't handle a simple discussion of the Ethics he teaches.
Why has everyone become so boring recently?
It was like no one was trying to do anything anymore. And Faust's dad had put his foot down on travelling and skipping school for tournaments. So Faust was stuck with these sheep.
"I wish something would happen," Faust muttered.
Ding!
[Greeting, denizens of the new world! Your planet has been inducted into the Universal Integration!]
Everyone in the class froze as the same panel flashed in front of their eyes and a mechanical voice whispered in their ears.
"Is this real?" Liora said, sitting up quickly.
An unsure smile tugged at Faust's lips. It seems the universe was listening.
[1% of your population has been chosen to participate in the Origin Trials.]
[The trial will begin immediately. Please do your best. If every participant from this world is exterminated then the planet will be destroyed. Goodluck!]
"What the f—" Liora started, but never ended.
Faust could only glance once at the fallen eagles in the field before it happened.
The eagles soared again.
The world came alight in a glorious flash of white light. Faust felt his body shoot out his chair and hurtle through the incandescent white plane at breakneck speed. His eyes and jaws were tightly shut as the transit occurred.
But the moment he hit the floor his eyes snapped open and he got low, expecting a more forceful landing. He landed too perfectly.
Scanning his surroundings was his first instinct, and it was a confusing yet exciting sight.
They were in a makeshift village of poorly constructed wooden houses and dirt roads.
Before he could even utter a word. The system chimed again.
Ding!
[Welcome to the Origin Trials!]
[This is Novice Village #1, where you will be staying for the tutorial section of the Trial. You cannot die here while the shield is active.]
[You have 24hrs before the first trial, Beast Tide, begins. Train, level up, and master your powers to survive the coming trial.]
[Fight hard, entertain the Patrons of the Trials! So you may receive special gifts from viewers!]
All around him people were appearing in brief flashes of light with faint pops.
People gawked, stumbled around and yelled angrily.
"What the hell is this?!"
"I didn't agree to participate in anything!"
"My son! Has anyone seen my newborn! He was just in my hands!"
The system moved forward, detached from the protests of unwilling people.
Ding!
[You may now view your status. You have received a random skill!]
Faust backed up into one of the empty alleyways instinctively, watching everyone around him carefully. This was a strange situation that could turn deadly if not handled well. But it was also very funny seeing everyone panic.
Status, he said internally.
[Name: Faust Havlicek]
[Level: 1 (0/100)]
[Constitution: 8]
[Strength: 8]
[Agility: 8]
[Spirit: 10]
[Skills: Stealth Lv1, Appraise Lv1]
[Combat Power: 42]
[Origin Coins: 0]
Faust raised an eyebrow at the numerical summarisation of his life. His four attributes were a bit similar except for Spirit which was ahead of the others. Also apart from Spirit they were incredibly easy to understand.
But Spirit will be the magic stat if this is like a game.
Skills however were random it seemed, but self-explanatory too. He willed the skills to activate awkwardly and gasped in surprise.
Stealth was like a layer of brightness over the world, and he knew unnaturally that the brighter a place was the less his stealth was. Like a highlighted leaf on the floor; if he stepped on it he would make a sound.
All the nights spent obsessing over Skyr*m suddenly felt like a skill he could put in a job application.
Appraise, however, was stranger. He appraised the ground and it just showed him some basic info.
[Stone]
[Grade: Bronze]
[Details: You walk on it. Can be used as a weapon.]
Well that's what he gets for appraising the ground, but he had a general idea of what it did, and both of these skills had levels beside them, so they could be upgraded to provide more info.
[Ding!]
[You have received a Starter pack reward!]
[Spatial Bag x1, Food Rations x1, Basic clothing x1, Common Sword x1]
With a flash of white light, a sling bag made of unknown black material appeared around his back and a simple sword in its sheath appeared on his hip.
Faust let out an unbelieving laugh, caressing the blade. Was he dreaming? Was this even real?
If this was a dream he never wanted to wake up. This place was a coliseum, an arena, in which they had to fight and push themselves to survive. It would be a constant battle between monsters, and eventually, people. It was paradise.
Echoes of conversations outside the alley brought Faust back to reality.
"Are you crazy? We don't know what this place is. We are not leaving to go fight some monsters."
"Well that's the game that we're in. We fight and level up now or in twenty four hours we die when we get our first trial."
"Or we just die out there, because we went out like idiots."
"Die here. Die out there. There's no difference. You heard the system. We lose this game, Earth gets destroyed. I am not letting my daughter die, even if I have to be the last human in this godforsaken game."
Faust nodded to the man's words. He didn't have much he cared about on Earth, but he knew staying here was a death sentence.
The system said while the shield is up they couldn't die, meaning the shield could come down.
No. It will come down, he decided. Likely during the Beast Tide.
The exit to the town wasn't so hard to find; all roads led to it. But he enjoyed using Stealth to get there without alerting anyone.
The skill was good for avoiding general sightlines and making unnecessary noise. But it wasn't able to predict where people would look or pass. He had to do that on his own.
He circled a part of the village twice as practice for that, avoiding gazing and paths of people. The village was huge, covering it now was impossible. And there were so many people just walking, crying and shouting in confusion. So many.
Some were even trying to do some weird stuff. But since death and injury were possible while the shield was up, there was a lot of fighting back and general fist fights going on. Both for fun and out of necessity.
During a circuit he even noticed a lot of people from his class gathering around a familiar figure. Faust smiled excitedly. They would make for some interesting fun later.
But first, he got to the Novice village's gate. He had a good hang of the Appraise and Stealth skill, and felt he was very ready to scout out the danger lurking outside.
The tall gates were wide open.
Faust stepped out with an impatiently. To think he had been so bored an hour ago.