[Prepare to fight for your survival]
Red holographic words floated in front of my eyes.
It was not a dream nor I was playing any games. Still, it displayed over my eyes as it existed for many years.
How much I blinked, the words didn't leave the air and made sure it wasn't an illusion.
Maybe, my fate was already sealed the moment the words appeared, since I couldn't get to resist... No, I didn't want to resist... I finally get to... play a serious game.
********
The day continued going normal, nothing special happened. Still, old normal days continued or the humans thought.
Sitting on his chair, a young emotionless boy played with his pen showing his boredom of sitting in the classroom with the teacher teaching the students.
Other students like robots copied the notes and studied. But the boy didn't even pay any attention to the man's so-called teacher, he was in his own world.
Nothing to worry about, this was written on his face.
The day went normally, casually and uneventfully, until the world decided to put humans to the test.
Ding!
"!"
Everyone including the boy and the teachers heard an unexpected sound that seemed to be ringing all over the place, like a telephone bell.
Then a blood-like red color covered a certain bit of the vision of all the students, with black words slowly being written on the red window.
[Prepare
[To
[Fight
[For
[Survival
Slowly by slowly, the words appeared.
[Prepare to fight for Survival]
"What the hell?"
The emotionless boy's eyes widened with his face showing confusion. He blinked his eyes to check whether he was dreaming or looking at an illusion.
But how much he blinked the words didn't disappear, as it seemed like it was glued to the air.
Suddenly, a bright light shone on the earth, blinding everyone for some seconds, until their vision returned back.
But when they opened their eyes hoping to look at their usual surrounding, their expectation got destroyed.
Everyone was alone in different places looking at different scenery. Hot Desert, Cold Ice, Huge Forest, Mountains, Stones Hill, everyone was at a different place.
Every 7 billion people looked at the different scenery with their eyes that was stretched with confusion, and with fear.
However, at the open area filled with nothing but a huge pile of rocks floating on the hot lava that came from nowhere. The emotionless boy stood filled with nothing in his face, no emotion was emitted nor any confusion showed in his face.
He looked weird, as his lips slowly curved upward and formed a creepy smile that enjoyed the situation he was currently in.
[Welcome to Test no. 1 - Area - Hot Magma]
[Test - Cross the magma by stepping onto the stones, falling in the lava will result in death, clearing the test will result in a reward.]
A game-like quest window floated in front of the boy's eyes, and it slowly shrank. It shrank to the size of a small window that rest at the corner of his eyes.
Suddenly, a big window appeared showing the picture of a red area with some brown spots and a yellow arrow on the edge of the picture.
On the top of the picture ' Map' was clearly written, and it also shrank down and floated to the edge of his eyes becoming a mini-map.
Ding!
With that, a sound echoed inside his ears signaling him to start. He looked like a game character with limited function, starting the game with a tutorial.
The boy "Rilley" blinked his eyes before stretching his body. He stretched his arms, and legs, bent his back, and finally bent his front and touched his toe with his hands.
"Warm-up complete"
His mouth let out the words, then he looked around scanning his current ground.
"High ground, one stone below and other stone little farther."
His voice sounded like a robot devoided of emotion.
Swoosh!
He jumped off the stone he was currently in without any hesitation. Fortunately, the height wasn't that high, and he landed without breaking any bone.
Also, he was lucky that he landed on the edge of the stone, a single mistake would have him fall in the lava.
"First step complete."
He examined his mini-map and counted the number of rocks he had to jump to.
"10"
Clearly, ten stones were all floating on the lava a little farther from each other. Just looking at the stone, made it seems like clearing will be easy. Since they were a little close to each other.
But Rilley didn't consider it. He picked up a small stone that was lying on the ground uselessly. He tossed the stone at the nearest stone and...
Plop!
The stone fell on the lava despite reaching the stone, clearing the question that the Rilley had in his mind.
"Illusion... Huh?"
He guessed it correctly. The number of small stones lying on the floating stone was limited. There were currently only 4 on the stone, while others had 3 to 4 simultaneously.
He again picked up another stone and threw it at the side away of the stone farther than the stone he had to jump on.
Again, the stone fell on the lava, despite that, the boy didn't care about it and threw another stone at completely opposite direction he was standing in.
Tud!
Surprisingly, the stone landed in the middle of the air.
And without any hesitation, Rilley jumped straight at the stone causally landing just near the stone with his one leg pressing it.
Just as he did land on the invisible stone, the floating stone that seemed near the stone he was previously on disappeared. Not all the stones disappeared, only the second one.
"Simple tricks"
Rilley smirked. He had a smug expression on his face that was clearly saying 'I figured out the trick'.
And so without any fear in his face, he consecutively jumped in a random direction, landing on invisible rocks.
He landed correctly on every jump as he had figured out the entire path. Not long after, he reached the end of the area, where an entrance or exit was located.
"Time to get out.:."
He chortled out with his eyes fixed on the door with imagination running wild on his head, imagining how much fun he would get after getting out of here.
Just as he stepped inside the narrow hallway that was connected from inside which will lead Rilley to outside. A ringing sound echoed inside his head signaling him that something is coming.
And indeed a big window with a happy smiling emoji at the top, three consecutively sentences up to down appeared.
[Congrulation...
You have obtained
... a Skill]