"Ahhhh, fuck."
I opened my eyes, finding myself in a colosseum.
Splitting the colosseum in half was a large blue veil that seemed to rise into the sky and cut the heavens.
On the other side of the veil, I saw Hope sitting up and rubbing her head.
'Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!'
[Welcome players to the 10th and final floor of the Tutorial Tower!]
[Congratulations on making it this far!]
[Please stay here until the required number of people show up.]
[Trial: Battle Royal or Capture the Flag
Objective: Either kill everybody on the map until there are 5 people left or steal the other team's flag, advancing your team and killing the other team
Difficulty: Extreme
Rewards: Battle Royale (All stats +10), Capture the Flag (All stat +2)
Punishment for Failure: Death]
[Number of players on floor 10 of Meta-Region 8: 2]
[Trial will start when there are 16 people on the floor.]
[Please wait.]
To explain, the 10th floor trial was a trial that encompassed a whole meta-region which was basically a bigger chunk of the world.
Meta-region 8 consisted of all the countries in East Asia including China, Korea, and Japan.
'This probably means that I'll be seeing "them" for the first time in a long time on this floor.'
Having to prepare for this, I bought one of the only two masks that you could find in the store that could actually hide your information.
"System, let me buy the "Left Tear, Right-Side Smiling" mask."
[You are making a purchase for 200,000 TC, will you confirm?]
"Yes"
[Congratulations on buying the "Left Tear, Right-Side Smiling" mask, please put on the mask and specify what information you want to hide.]
Putting on the mask, I chose to hide all of my information, so the only thing that appeared above my head when another player looked at me was "Anonymous" written in grey letters without showing my level or anything else.
After finishing this, I walked up to the border and waved to get Hope's attention.
I motioned her to come here, and as we couldn't hear the other person due to the barrier, I wrote on the ground with my dagger.
/Buy the "Right Tear, Left-Side Smiling" mask from the store./
(A/N: This is text written on the ground if you can't figure that out.)
/Ok/
I watched as she became pale as the blood drained from her face, probably due to the exorbitant price and the "???" in the description of the object.
/Just buy it will you?/
She made a pouty face at me but bought it anyways. Appearing in her hand, she wore a shocked expression on her face for a second before she put it on.
If anybody was watching this scene from far away, it would have looked like twin devils staring at each other.
One mask had a black tear that left a black line down the pure white mask coming from the left eye, almost reaching the smiling mouth that stretched from ear to ear, with the right half depicting a widely opened, grinning mouth with sharp teeth in it.
If you looked closely, you would find that staring into the "eyes" of the mask was like staring into a deep, dark abyss, where no matter how much you looked, you would only see darkness and not the eye of a person behind the mask. You would also notice the small cracks that seemed to be coming out of the crying eye, while the other eye looked perfectly normal.
When you looked at the other person wearing the mask, you would see the same sight, just with the features on opposite faces of the mask. Your mind would not help but wonder what would happen if you had combined the two masks, would you have gotten a full devil?
/Have you hidden all've your information?/
/Yeah I have... What will be our strategy going into this trial?/
/We'll be doing the Battle Royale option of course. All you need to do is kill as much of your teammates as possible while I do the same thing on my side so that one of us doesn't get killed. Our levels should be much higher than even the top rankers that will appear after us so we're almost guaranteed to pass the trial if we force a Battle Royale./
Stopping to think for a second, I continued on writing.
/Just if you come across "Bam25" or "876", please don't kill them./
/Are they actually your sisters?/
I just didn't respond to her question as I pretended to not notice it and turned around, erasing our conversation with just a kick back and returning to the middle of my team's side.
All we could do now was wait.
After waiting for 3 days, another person finally came onto the third floor of the 8th Meta-Region.
Fortunately for me, he was placed on the other side, so I was relieved that I wouldn't have to talk to anyone else.
I started to study him from a distance, sizing him up for the upcoming battle. He was wearing a grey tang suit* and grey silk pants that seemed to flow in the air with every step. On his back were two sabers and on his shoulder sat a red bird that had 10 or so flaming tails, with what resembled peacock feathers at the end of each tail. Every time it moved, the pattern of its feathers made it look like a flame for a second, but then it looked like a red bird again after it stopped moving.
(*A/N: If you don't know what this is, I'll post a picture in the paragraph comments.)
"Holy shit! He was actually able to hatch a Fenghuang!" (A/N: Better known as a vermillion bird)
The bird on his shoulder was basically the Chinese version of the phoenix, one of the four symbols of the constellations, the bird symbolizing the south and the summer.
'I guess I can't underestimate the other players either.'
I could already guess what the identity of the person was, but decided to check the leaderboard anyways.
[Leaderboard:
1. Anonymous (Meta-Region 8) - 10th floor | Lv. 83 | 175,117,044 TC
2. Anonymous (Meta-Region 8) - 10th floor | Lv. 44 | 46,339 TC
3. Zero (Meta-Region 1) - 10th floor | Lv. 28 | 120, 707 TC
4. Liu Zhang (Meta-Region 8) - 10th floor | Lv. 23 | 22,512 TC
5. Void (Meta-Region 1) - 10th floor | Lv. 21| 76, 555 TC
6. Insurgent (Meta-Region 3) - 10th floor | Lv. 20 | 212, 869
7. Bam25 (Tutorial Tower 82) - 9th floor | Lv. 39 | 124,281 TC
8. 876 (Tutorial Tower 82) - 9th floor | Lv. 39 | 123,931 TC
9. Enigma (Tutorial Tower 2) - 9th floor | Lv. 26 | 111,111 TC
10. Wrath (Tutorial Tower 1) - 9th floor | Lv. 34 | 2, 999 TC
11. Pride (Tutorial Tower 1) - 9th floor | Lv. 26 | 2, 999 TC
12. Envy (Tutorial Tower 1) - 9th floor | Lv. 25 | 2, 999 TC
13. Gluttony (Tutorial Tower 1) - 9th floor | Lv. 24 | 2,999 TC
14. Greed (Tutorial Tower 1) - 9th floor | Lv. 20 | 354, 901 TC
15. Lust (Tutorial Tower 1) - 9th floor | Lv. 19 | 2, 999 TC
16. Sloth (Tutorial Tower 1) - 9th floor | Lv. 11 | 2, 999 TC
...]
Looking at the leaderboard the only person that could be on the 10th floor of the 8th Meta-Region was Liu Zhang. I had first thought that he was only a slightly above average guy because he had been in the top 3 with me and Zero, but then had dropped in the rankings a little bit, but now that made sense, as he probably had to spend some time not grinding to find the resources necessary to be able to hatch that vermillion bird. It seemed like I would have to observe him more before I would be able to form a concrete opinion on his skills.
I also noticed on the leaderboard that it was dominated by people either from east Asia, or North America as region 2 contained the American west coast and Canada while region 1 contained the southern region of the U.S. and Central America.
The only exception to this seemed to be this "Insurgent" character that was in Meta-Region 3, which was Northern Europe.
'Well, they'll be lonely for a while.'
Also, my eyes briefly stopped on the "Seven Deadly Sins" that were at the bottom of the top 15. It seemed like they were working together and that they had given all of their TC's to Greed, only keeping enough for themselves to buy potions in emergency situations.
After gleaning all the information I could from the leaderboard and forum, I swiped away the status window and looked back at Liu Zhang and Hope chatting with each other.
I then injected mana into the cracked, crying eye on the mask and awakened its hidden feature.
[A constant stream of mana has been injected into the relic "Broken, Crying, Tearful Eye of Discerning".]
[You have awakened the ancient relic hidden in the "Left Tear, Right-Side Smiling" mask.]
"Show description"
[Relic: "Broken, Crying, Tearful Eye of Discerning" - SS Rank
Description: The eye of an intellectual god that was betrayed by their most dearly loved. This eye was created by their desire to reveal the true nature of a person, no matter who they are. Half of their anger, resentment, and desire for vengeance is stored in this eye.
Passive Skill - Piercing Eyes: It will be able to reveal the true nature of any environment at all times.
Cooldown: None
Active Skill - Perceiving Gaze: Reveals the race, position, and character of a person.
Cooldown: 1 day]
I was immediately assaulted by thoughts of taking revenge on my family and friends that had abandoned me, but I was able to suppress these feelings quickly at the cost of immense pain.
"Awwwwww... Fuck that hurt!"
'I had been prepared for the pain, but I didn't expect it to be that much. That had hurt way worse than the pain that it caused in the game. Well, I guess a game can never truly imitate real life.'
After taking a few deep breaths to lessen the pain, I looked over at Liu Zhang and activated the eye.
[Human - Vanguard - Extreme Camaraderie]
'As expected, he chose one of the best race position combos in the game, so he should also be at least intelligent or was a gamer that knew what was best for him.'
Looking at his character, I immediately knew that I had to find Hope right away to change our plan because if we were to manipulate him to our advantage using our knowledge of his character, then that would be extremely advantageous to us in the long run, especially in the main tower.
I spent the entire rest of the day formulating many plans, all depicting ways we could hook Liu Zhang in.
As night approached and Liu Zhang fell asleep, I once again motioned Hope to come to the border.
/New plan, stay by Liu Zhang's side as much as possible and help him by all means necessary, I'll just kill all of your share too./
/Alright but why?/
/Let's just say that he'll be very, and I mean very, useful to us later on. Also, just stick with him after the Tutorial Tower, we were going to part ways anyway, and don't worry, I'll be able to find a way to get in touch with you from time to time./
I watched as a sad expression fell over her cute face, but then watched as she steadied herself and walked back to Liu Zhang's side after erasing all traces of our talk.
'I guess she's grown a little in our short time together.'
I proceeded to do the same thing and walked back over to my side. I went and laid down on the ground, and then finally got the rest that my tired body yearned for.
Week after week passed until finally, another person showed up. Well to be more accurate, it was two people.
As I watched them observe their new surroundings from a distance, my heart stopped beating and my mind froze, as complicated emotions arose within me, reaching the point where it hurt to try and not react to them, as both my heart and mind were wanting, but they were wanting different things. Not being able to take my eyes off them, I knew that I had tried to ready myself for this moment, as I knew that it was bound to happen eventually, but a deep sadness and regret still penetrated my heart.
My mind wanted to kill them as they were the sources of my loneliness and pain, thus creating my twisted, emotionless, and dark character.
But my heart felt different.
My heart wanted to feel the warmth of their hugs again, wanted to see their beautiful smiles again, wanted to hear their angelic voices again, wanted to be accepted, cherished, loved by them again.
It took me more than an hour before I was able to regain stability in my body, a delicate equilibrium forming between my mind and heart.
Taking a deep breath, I readied myself, and then approached them.