As Jack nervously watched the floating messages in front of him, he mumbled, "Status, what kind of status?"
Something flashed in front of his eyes for a second, before he saw the next message floating which said Exiting in 60 seconds.
Before Jack could get too excited, another notification flashed underneath the first one.
2nd Level commences in 24 hours.
He could not believe his eyes when he saw it. In fact, he still hoped this whole ordeal was a dream. He refocused on the seconds ticking away and breathed out a sigh.
He watched the countdown anxiously without moving and as it reached zero the scenery changed. Jack found himself back in the chair on the beach with the sun shining and the gentle waves making noises mixing with the sounds of humans and birds.
He quickly pulled out his mobile phone from his shoe and checked the time. No more than an hour has passed since he got to the beach.
He grabbed his towel and shoes in one hand and his mobile phone in the other as he rushed frantically towards the hotel.
After a quick stop at a shower to clean off the sand Jack wiped himself with the towel and rushed to his room.
In his room, he went straight into the bathroom and showered once again with the hotel provided shampoo. Wiped himself off, put on his clothes, threw he swimwear into the trash, got his passport and ran out of his room again.
He quickly reached the reception. The concierge remembered him from a couple of hours and promptly greeted him.
"Hello Sir, how can I help you?", he asked.
Jack hurriedly answered, "I would like to check out please, and please call me a taxi to the airport."
The concierge gave him a strange look as it was not a common sight for a customer to check out in merely 2 hours since arriving and politely asked.
"Sir is there anything wrong with your accommodation or do you have an emergency?" the concierge asked.
Everything is great I have an emergency at home."Jack quickly replied.
Jack thought to himself, "More like an emergency in my brain."
"I see. Mr. Russel, you are aware we have to charge you for your reserved stay fully."
Jack only nodded, and the concierge quickly filled out the paperwork and printed him a receipt and called him a taxi.
By the time he arrived at the airport, it was 3 pm, and he rushed through the crowd looking for an airline with a direct flight to the USA.
There were none, so he checked his mobile phone apps and booked a flight to Chicago with a one-stop in Athens first. He was bleeding money now booking last minute, but he didn't care. It took him 2 hours from the hotel until he boards the first airplane and it will take him 3 hours from the island airport to Athens and then 13 hours with a one-stop in Frankfurt, Germany then he would cross the Atlantic ocean directly flying to Chicago. He will only have 5 hours to prepare for level 2.
The last notification was his biggest worry at the moment.
Things went rather smoothly in the airport, and since he didn't have to worry about his luggage, he started thinking about this whole mess.
"What did it mean with status awarded." he thought to himself.
And then it happened. A window which looked like if Jack was wearing augmented reality glasses opened in front of him and what he saw stupefied him.
Name: Jack "Doggie" Russel
Strength: 3
Constitution:2
Endurance:2
Speed:3
Dexterity:3
Perception:7
Intelligence:9
Wisdom:9
Willpower:9
Charisma:5
Luck: ???
On the left side of his stats that looked like a standard RPG was a picture of him in a Leonardo da Vinci's Vitruvian man pose wearing the clothes he had currently on.
Below was a button called Details. There was no mouse cursor, and he didn't know how to navigate this, but he still said. "Show details."
The button flashed, and a notification came up, "Function locked."
He turned around, and he could still see the airport with people running around through the gaps in the letters and the image of himself.
Jack said, "Close status.", and the window disappeared.
"Status," it opened again.
"Status," it closed.
Jack subconsciously touched his nose as if to check if someone stuck some glasses on him while he didn't pay attention since he could not fathom how this was possible. He was pretty sure he had schizophrenia now.
Except for the hassle of switching airplanes the journey itself was pretty uneventful. Jack tried to use his status window a couple of times, but he could not find anything helpful in it. It just stayed the same no matter what he did.
As he arrived at the airport and went through customs and was on the brink of getting home, he was red flagged by the Homeland security. After an hour-long hassle, he cleared their suspicions of his short stay and finally managed to hail a taxi to get him home.
He had 2 and a half hours left until the deadline.
After he paid the cabbie, he walked to his door, and as he tried to unlock it, Jack noticed the lock was broken. He rushed inside and started cursing.
In a little more than 36 hours, he lost his sanity and everything valuable he had owned that was moveable in his house. Jack thought if he didn't already lose it before he would lose it now.