----Leo---------------------------------------------------------
We waited after the rules were announced. The room was a buzz of conversation between different E-ranked heroes.
It was strange, we had been separated from every other hero and I had a feeling we would have something extra to do before we could raise our ranks.
My suspicions were proven to be true when a weird tiny man entered. He seemed to be performing a circus act.
This was a member of the order and he called himself the greatest showman. He was known for being so weird his enemies just got headaches.
"Ladies and geeeeentlemen, areeeee you ready for the greatest show of your life? Before you are allowed to raise your rank we need to thin the crowd a little bit, because of this we will be having a battle royale. You need to be in the last 100 people to be able to raise your rank. The battlefields will be divided by what your use is in battle, if you're a crafter then you have a free pass because you people are rare and tend to be unable to fight!
Lastly, you can kill in this royale because it's going to be in VR, now follow me and let's get on with the show!"
Following we entered a room full of VR capsules, most people called them Test-tubes because they looked like ... well, upside down test-tubes. Stepping in the thing started scanning me, it asked me to put any artifacts I wished to use inside some kind of drawer.
I put in my knives, I had decided to not use the pen unless absolutely necessary and I knew for a fact that it wouldn't be in this battle.
Long metallic snakes started moving over my body, slowly slithering upwards, occasionally, one would stop and attach itself to my body. I myself had entered multiple types of Test-tubes but the uncomfortable feeling still remained.
Initiating dive in 3, 2, 1
System check
Life-systems: ... Ok
User: ... Ok
Artifact: ... Available and Ok
Powers: ... Uploaded and Ok
Dive is going optimally
Enjoy!|
With that, I appeared inside a big forest. Next to me, about 10 others appeared, all looking around with looks of awe.
It was understandable, the first time in a Test-tube is always breathtaking. The reality of the worlds, the perfect weight of your body, everything seemed to be just like the real world, only it wasn't.
The, it's allowed to kill seemed to suggest that you needed to kill to win but that wasn't necessarily true. Especially in this game which was, ironically, my own creation. This was the online mode, depending on the game mode there are different win conditions, like a normal game, but also different methods of defeating your enemy.
Another small detail was the fact that everyone could use magic in here, meaning that those who have actually played the game are at a big advantage. It was quite smart of them to do this, it meant that everyone would have to adapt extremely fast, otherwise they'd lose their chance to raise their ranks.
Think about it, there will probably always be one or two people close to you who have played the game, meaning that they will always have an advantage, if you can't adapt, you're toast.
Ironically, it would already be survival of the fittest from the get-go, anyone who had brought an artifact needed to retrieve it from their inventories and everybody needed to put on their clothes. We had needed to enter the pods in our underwear for the snakes to be able to attach themselves to us and for some reason they had disabled auto-equip.
If I may say, 'twas quite a sight, there were six girls around me and they all covered themselves quickly.
I opened my inventory and equipped everything, when they saw me do that they asked me how to, after explaining it to them they all wore clothes. I quickly opened the map function and entered Thea's name, I quickly moved towards her.
When I was halfway there, an announcement sounded. "Now that MOST of you are wearrrring their clothes, it's time to start. Today's game shall be ... ALL OUT WAR."
I had kind of expected this, all out war meant, kill or be killed. nothing more nothing less. I saw that they had turned on the option to see everyone on the map, meaning that those few experienced players were at an even bigger advantage.
When I arrived at Thea's location she was fighting off multiple people in hand to hand combat. Her fighting style was impressive, using quick, thunderous movements to incapacitate and that breaking their necks with a single hit.
I made quick work of two people who were trying to sneak up on her. I also got to see Thea in her underwear and quickly explained to her how to get her clothes and a few simple spells since she could use them.
We looked at the count, 372/100. Time to kill I guess.