When the notification disappeared, more bars appeared on the screen.
There was a long one on the bottom as well as two smaller ones on the top-right corner.
The bottom one had a bunch of symbols as well as arrows on each side which was presumably used to slide through more symbols that were hidden. However, each symbol was grayed out and locked, with their requirement spelled out—the year. Therefore, this game clearly followed a fairly linear path.
The first top-right bar, from left to right, was a green energy bar. Inside the green bar was a percentage. A hundred percent to be exact. And on top of the green bar was a number. "5.4392e+15" was the number… to be exact. Next to the number was "kJ", which was kilojoules of course.
The second top-right bar had three buttons, the pause, play, and fast forward buttons, with the pause button being highlighted. Next to them was the current speed of time, which was one. On top was the year, as well as the day. The year was currently at zero, but the day was at fifteen. And on this planet, a year is three hundred days.
This was what the screen currently consisted of, including the planet in the middle of course.
Then, another bar appeared and text was typed into it.
"Good! Now that you're in the game, let's begin by learning what the master has left for us."
It then highlighted the first symbol on the bottom bar, which was a depiction of the two pages encased in a volcanic resin. Going along with the game, Ran clicked the first symbol.
It triggered a notification saying, "are you sure you want to unlock Human's blessing?"
When he saw the question, his small, thick eyebrows quivered; he really did not want it to repeat itself so many times like it did last time. So, he clicked yes hesitantly.
Thereafter, the symbol was no longer in grayscale and the game then told him that holding the symbol would cause another screen to pop up. When he did that, another screen did show up.
The title which was the name of the symbol was "Human's blessing" and under it was a single sentence.
"Would you like to learn the human language? The runes will remain locked otherwise. Note: learning the language will take one day!"
Under it was giving Ran the option of yes and no. Well, Ran obviously wasn't going to say no, though he didn't know where this kind of game play will lead in the near future.
Clicking yes removed the current screen and returned to the main game. The game then highlighted the time and its symbols, explaining their function—it directed to resume time in the game.
When time resumed, it took merely two seconds for the planet to do a complete revolution around its axis, which was twenty hours. This stunned the group.
Not only because of how the game worked, which was already close to impossible within their inexperienced understanding of runes, but also by how dazzling their planet was from afar. They could see the oceans, the forests, the deserts, the snow lands, and even the golden serpent that acted as an accessory. This was a new experience for them. Only, they were so stunned they didn't notice the differences between modern-day and this past depiction of the planet.
So, when a day came and went, a ding was heard, and the game automatically paused, surprising the group. It was as if it rang directly next to their ears, and looking at the notification, only then did they realize that they had been duped. All this trembling of the tower and loud noises were because of the game and were actually of no real substance.
They were a bit indignant, like a person whose neighbor loved playing music too loud, but they quickly moved on.
"Success! Congratulations on learning the human language."
"Now that you know the human language, you can begin to peruse through the runic page the master has left you. Will you do so? Note: completely learning the page, containing two thousand runes, will take a month!"
Underneath was the choice of confirmation or denial. Of course, with nothing else to do, he clicked yes.
When time resumed, the planet spun quickly again, only taking a minute for thirty days to pass. They watched the planet rotate quickly, waiting for it to finish. After all, they had never seen such beauty, so they felt as if they were being filled with vigor and felt more alive.
Ding!
"Success! Congratulations on fully unlocking Human's blessing."
Then, the previous screen for Human's blessing reappeared and there was new information.
"Human's blessing: the master, being human, left these runes so that humans can eventually reign over the planet and remain safe until his return. These runes, while being the most basic, or rather least complicated, serve as the foundation not only for humans eventual reign over the surface, but also towards your own."
Under the description, there were three options.
The first one was to create the "ritual site" and finally allow humans to have sigils—it would take fifteen days to complete. That was followed by a formula for the energy required to complete the project.
"Wait, ritual site?" Ann was the first to find something wrong about the description.
The rest thought, except for Shirley and Fluffy who felt a little left out, and thought it was somewhat reasonable.
"Hmm, how else do we get our sigil? They all just sort of came to us on our birthdays, no? Their descriptions were even fed into our minds directly after the fact. A ritual doesn't sound so off." Ran reasoned his way to a conclusion everyone came to at least consider, but the words "ritual site" just felt kind of strange. But again, they just took it as their inexperience.
When they saw that it would cost five percent of their total energy to give every human a sigil, about a hundred thousand at the time, they immediately checked the other options. Five percent might not sound like a lot, but it could make or break the game depending on the situation.
The second option was more of a side mission kind of thing, like an optional task. It was simply to complete a survey of their planetary system.
The energy cost was also five percent of their total while it would take a year to finish. This got them thinking.
The third option was probably the most interesting. It was a research option, and its yield would be given a bonus based on all the races' research on runes as well. Not only that, it would take ten years to finish the project. However, it did not specify the reward.
"Don't you guys think that the time property in this game is strange? It keeps emphasizing the time, like it's an important function and it's embedded into every portion of the game so far."
Queenie also seemed to notice something off, but Ann then responded.
"Isn't it just to limit our progress to a set amount? So we don't fly through the game too quickly?"
"Sure, but then why have the fast forward button? That's counterintuitive if they want us to go slow. Rather, time should have another function for it to be this pervasive."
"Like… a time limit?" Ran tilted his head as he posed the question.
The rest had their eyes flicker as Queenie said, "you mean like triggering an event after a certain amount of time passes?"
Ran nodded, unsure of what she meant completely. "I guess…"
"Anyway, we should just do the first one, and we can try the rest later if nothing happens," Shirley interjected. Aw, look at her, actually participating, as if part of the team—good for her.
And so, under everyone's watch, he chose the first option, confirmed his choice, and resumed time.
When fifteen days passed by, a ding was heard yet again.
Ding!
"Success! Congratulations for unlocking Human's blessing: Sigils. Due to the sudden empowerment of the human race, it is projected they will have a twenty five percent increase in birth rate this year, while only losing five percent of their total population to their previous ten percent. Every other race is projected to have a two percent decrease in population overall due to this decision."
Everyone was taken aback; they still hadn't realized what it meant to put one race above the rest until now. And it would probably get worse, or better depending on who you were, as time passed.
Yet, when they saw the second symbol remove its grayscale, they were relieved nothing happened. Ran clicked on it, and it showed a list of all the soulful races that called this place their home.
They were sorted by how much kilojoules they provide the planet every year, from greatest to lowest. Of course, due to the now unique existence of humans, it was starred and placed on top, despite its abysmal rating.
This section was for energy, but there was also a section for total population as well as another for birth rate. Every race either had a green or red arrow beside them, followed by a percentage, depending on whether they are predicted to show growth or shrinkage in each section for that year.
But, other than that, they didn't see anything out of the ordinary or anything interactive to click on.
Now, seeing nothing else happen, they knew that they had to continue with one of the other two options.
"So, should we do this survey, or should we do some research?" Ran was completely open to suggestions as he handled the controls of the game… by clicking. Plus, he didn't exactly know what decision to make.
"Well, duh! Surveying takes less time, a lot less, so we should do that first. What if something happens when researching; it takes ten years! Anything can happen in that time! The chance of something happening in one year is a lot less by contrast."
Ann ranted about the pros and cons and soon they ultimately chose to survey the planetary system their planet rested within.
At first, the planet rotated quickly as normal, but once a month passed by, something changed. Faint black rays shot out from different parts of the planet and extended outside of the screen, so they couldn't follow it until the end. They were mildly frightened at first, afraid that they triggered an event or something, but it just kept on keeping on. So, they just assumed it was a visual effect, since nothing else really came of it.
What they didn't notice, until it was too late, was actually the time itself. Specifically, once three hundred days passed and one year was counted, an alert abruptly woke everyone up from boredom. After all, the remaining seven months and twenty nine days would have taken just about eight minutes, which was too much for their short attention span.
The alert blared and blared, making everyone cover their ears and even the lighting within the tower seem to taint itself red.