Hao was looking at his phone while walking across the streets of the city. Just as the app told him, there was indeed a gym taking the lowest three stories of a big building nearby.
There was a big sign outside the building stating that this gym was twenty-four hours open during all days of the week.
"The Rock Gym… Not a unique name," Hao walked towards the entrance of the gym and there he found, unexpectedly, many groups of people either registering to enter at the reception desk or leaving.
"At least they were honest when they said twenty-four seven," he muttered while standing in a small line, waiting to reserve an hour there.
The gym was really lively at such an early hour. Hao used to train early in the morning in his old team headquarter. But whenever he got the chance to train outside during break days, he would usually face up empty gyms.
So seeing all these faces, young and old, men and women, coming here this early and training was indeed refreshing.
He headed to the third floor. After all, even if it was refreshing, it was out of his habit to train among lots of people.
According to the receptionist, the third floor was the least crowded and there were lots of empty zones for him to train at.
"Yeah! Keep the pace up! That's my man!"
Just as he ascended to the third floor, a bizarre scene appeared in front of his eyes.
Two guys were training, or to be more precise it was one who was practising and the other was just shouting like a fanatic!
Hao stood in front of such a scene, not knowing if he should laugh or cry. One was punching a small punching bag hanging from the ceiling, and the other was just jumping around, holding a tablet in his hand while shouting with such words.
"You got this! A record! Come on! Breaking your legendary record is just over the corner. Keep punching it like it's your ex! Don't stop! Don't ever think about that or I'll punch you in the face!"
"Legendary record?" Hao muttered and just before he could continue walking inside, his words attracted the attention of these two youths.
"You…"
"Watch out!"
The one who was jumping like a little monkey was distracted for one second as he glared at Hao in fierceness. But at this moment, his leg hit something on the ground, making him lose his balance and fall.
Hao was still standing in front of the stairs, and that youth was falling in his direction. The one who was punching stopped, tried to react fast but he was a little late.
If Hao moved aside, that youth would take a long journey down to the lower floor over the stairs. Without thinking about it, Hao moved a step forward, stopped that falling dude with both arms.
"Are you ok?"
That monkey dude's friend reached out to him at this moment, pulling him fast away from Hao and asked in real concern. The face of that youth was pale, as he seemed to imagine the worse.
"It's… It's your fault!" the youth, who wasn't even fifteen in age, pointed his finger at Hao while adding in a louder tone, "you made me fall!"
"I'm not responsible for your misdoings, pal," Hao shrugged, and yet that youth seemed to be more agitated and not ready to let him go.
Hao just gave him a cold gaze. Instead of thanking him for his help, that kid started shouting like a maniac.
"Easy Jo," but his friend stopped him. In Hao's eyes, the two were almost at the same age, but the one who was punching earlier had a bigger body than the other.
"But…"
"Just let him go," the bigger one said before turning his back to his friend and extending a hand to Hao, "sorry about that. It's our fault here."
"No problem," Hao didn't shake his hand and simply smiled back.
"You aren't from here, right?" feeling a little awkward, that bigger youth said while retreating his arm.
"I've just arrived here yesterday," Hao said before adding, "I'll go and work out a little bit."
"Good luck then," the bigger youth got the hint, yet the smaller one didn't.
"As if you can train on your own," he said in a tone that held more sarcasm than a gesture of help.
"Do you want to help me then?" but Hao decided to play a little with him, asking him to be his co-trainer.
"I'm not your friend," the youth retorted in disdain.
"You can train together with us if you like," but the bigger one was kind enough to offer this.
"Rayan, you haven't finished warming up your wrists yet!" Jo looked in surprise while hinting with his eyes to let Hao leave.
"He is just a foreigner," but Rayan didn't follow his friend's way, "we shall help him a little."
"Fine," when Hao believed that Jo was convinced to drop the matter and forget about what just happened, Jo added a nice piece. "I'll leave you then."
"Jo…" Rayan looked surprised for a second before he showed a disappointed look on his face, "you need to learn how to control your anger."
"I don't," Jo moved in angry steps, and on his way out, he hit Hao in the shoulder, giving him a warning glance as if the two were enemies.
"What was that all about?" As Jo vanished into the stairs, Hao turned to Rayan and asked in doubt.
"He… It's just his temper," Rayan knew his friend better than Hao indeed. It seemed such an intense reaction wasn't something new for Jo. "Don't think about it too much. Come, let's train together. What are you doing here anyway?"
Rayan returned to punch that small punching bag with both fists in fast movement.
And Hao went to the nearest weight bundle and held one in each hand. "I've joined a nearby academy," Hao started lifting the weights as he added, "and planning to start playing at the upcoming Dawn game."
"Dawn game?" Hao said it without thinking too much, but from the reaction over Rayan's face, he knew Rayan was well aware of the game.
"Do you know it?" Hao was a little surprised about that. Rayan had a muscular body that told him a lot about his passion for working out.
In his eyes, Rayan was a typical gymaholic, one who would spend most of his day training and building his muscles up.
"I do," Rayan returned to punch the bag again, yet he seemed a little distracted as he stopped fast. "I want to ask, is it really worth the trouble?"
"I don't follow you," Hao kept lifting the five kilo weight to strengthen his wrists.
After all, wrist joints were a very important asset to any gamer.
"I have a friend… who has been playing games almost all day long," Rayan seemed to be more interested in this than continuing his training. He walked to stand in front of Hao while the latter kept training.
"What game?"
"One called Apex."
"Ah, it's the most successful one right now."
"Not that much," Rayan shook his head as he raised both fists up, "I play games too, but not this game. This game is for chicks and not real men."
Hao paused for a brief second. This was perhaps considered the weirdest comment he ever heard about his past game.
"Why?" Hao resumed his training. Everyday he used to make five rounds, each was fifty lift ups to strengthen both wrists.
"I play Sniper shot game," Rayan said in pride, "compared to it, Apex is just for pussies."
"Cough," it was still weird listening to such comments again. He just finished twenty lift ups, but he couldn't continue as he felt a little intrigued by Rayan's words.
"First person shooting games are exciting indeed," Hao placed the two weights carefully beside him on the metallic bench, "but they lack lots of strategies and the decision making of Apex."
"An Apex fanboy you are then," Rayan pointed at him while lightly laughing, as if this was some sort of a stigma or something.
"What's wrong in being one?" Hao didn't know why Rayan was acting like this. He wasn't just a fanboy, he was a pro gamer in that game.
"It's not fun bro," Rayan patted Hao's shoulder, and Hao felt like he just punched him, "where is the action? The thrill of jumping around, showing your skills in shooting and killing your opponent? Besides, in your game the players will return back to life after getting killed."
"As if the players won't restart their game and come back after getting killed," Hao wasn't so negligent about that shooting game. He knew its basic rules at least.
"But that will take much time, much longer than the few seconds your players need to respawn again."
"That's not true," Hao shook his head, "after all the issue here isn't about the time but the concept. If your game depended on whoever dies will lose, then I'd say you have a point. But it's like an infinite loop. You play, kill and die, then come again to play. In fact, it's a game without an end goal, not like my game."
"Bro, don't go overboard because you don't play my game," Rayan's face changed a little, telling Hao how much he treasured that shooting game of his.
"I didn't mean anything bad," Hao raised both hands in the air, "what about your friend?"
"What about him?"
"Will he play Dawn?" Hao wanted to know more about this. After all, he planned to recruit players to join his guild. If that friend of Rayan was good, he would perhaps offer him an invitation.
"He will," Rayan tiredly said, "he kept talking about it until I got a headache!"
"He is so excited," Hao paused before adding, "is he good?"
"I dunno bro, I'm not that good at Apex game to begin with," Rayan was honest here, "and that game won't be launched till next week, right?"
"That's true," Hao nodded in confirmation.
"But I still don't get it bro," Rayan spoke in strange seriousness before dropping off his bomb, "how can such a new game have such people willing to pay money for someone like my friend?"
Paying money? Hao asked in his mind while his thoughts ragged right and left. "Is he that good? Will he be a pro?" he asked with a similar seriousness.
"Pro? Like playing for big teams in big tournaments? No, he can't be that good," Rayan shook his head before adding, "but he was offered five hundred bucks a month to join a newly formed guild in the game."
"Guild?!" This time the surprise was much deeper than before. Hao didn't feel himself but standing slowly up from the bench, "what's the name of that guild?"
"So you've heard about that sh*t?" Rayan looked a bit surprised, "since when are there guilds in any game with players getting paid? I only heard about this in stories."
"Guilds were part of many games bro," Hao simply said, while being more curious to know about the identity of that guild.
This was New York city. If there was a guild here, he should learn about it. After all, it would be his first nemesis in the game and real world.
"But they were just a simple gathering in the game world," Rayan seemed to know what Hao was talking about, "this one is different. These people are crazy enough to hire a place and start doing business in the real world."
"So they started already? Interesting," Hao wasn't reacting the same way Rayan expected, "what's their name? Are they in New York?"
"What? Don't tell me you think about joining them as well!" Rayan gave Hao a weird look, like he was looking at a crazy person or something.
"Didn't your friend join them already?" Hao responded without caring about what Rayan was thinking about.
"It's not that…" Rayan couldn't believe Hao wasn't feeling how all this was weird like he did, "it's five hundred dollars per month… Why would anyone in his right mind pay a penny for others to play a game? And for what? They asked him to work like a slave, most of time all over the week… He will even ditch school and go to play there."
"And he isn't going to play as a pro?" Hao wanted to confirm this point again.