In a small gym room on the edge of town, a man was repeatedly lifting a heavy weight off the floor.
The plates showed the overall weight was 250kg.
This man was Aardian, a man addicted to pain, as he was doing his due diligence in maintaining his physique.
The gym was basically all he lived for now.
He was never normal, considering how he didn't like technology..
So really, this place was everything to him.
While continuing to lift weights, he heard a lot of shuffling outside.. Or at least enough to make him prepare for the worst.
He chose to grasp a metal dumbbell with his right hand, weighing 30kgs and held it up before approaching his door tentatively.
"Who is it?"
After a little while, a low voice with a deep mumble-accent responded.
"Open the door."
It sounded some bad company.
…
"Okay, come on in."
And the instant he opened that door, some people quickly came swaggering in.
It's just that Aardian felt angry to see they were covered in tattoos, showing they were obviously some stereotypical gangsters.
This was when a dumbbell came fell on the loudest one, putting him out like a candle.
Now, seeing a large man holding a dumbbell and hulking over your friend is a scary thing, so the younger thugs ran back in fear.
Nobody expected this at all.
But then an overweight man quickly swung a steel bar to his jaw, and in that moment, Aardian luckily stopped it with his arm.
Feeling a strong pain assault his arm, he tackled them in a fit of rage.
While he was taking a beating, he yelled for help.
"HIT HIM!!"
The previous bunch returned and kicked him.
Faced with this pain, he only looked angrier, scaring everyone.
The man on the ground could only yell while desperately covering his face, with Aardian pounding ruthlessly.
As he kept getting hit, he was not giving up and focused purely on the guy in front of him, as if he took satisfaction from overpowering someone.
As more and more hits rained on him, people started grabbing nearby things to break on his back.
But...
As if the pain just motivated him to keep moving, he displayed the spirit of a monster..
He sought strength for so long, yet he couldn't even break this one man.
When faced with such an existential crisis, he only threw his fists with even greater force, which just scared everyone off..
In this situation where people were calling the police and screaming as these thugs, people tried getting Aardian off the man.
Faced with this, Aardian just fell down, exhausted from his previous workout.
The thug below him felt his arms werenearly pulverized seeing that demon trying to kill him..
Under normal circumstances, this may have led to Aardian being detained, but he was first given medical treatment along with the other guy.
With police going around asking eyewitnesses about what happened, the story was set straight and so there would not be any major charges considering the life-threatening situation.
The whole interaction from start to finish had been recorded, so he was only sent to a hospital for recovery.
Surprisingly, he was far more hurt than he had thought, and he luckily only fell on the pavement when the police arrived.
And so he was left on a bed in a hospital.
But this little story was about to be the birth of a renowned online presence..
…
Aardian was left on the bed with a sore head and a weak body, watching television.
It was the first time he had watched this stuff in ages and everything seemed really colourful and distracting..
He could only be grateful that the nurse left him the remote, and so he indulged in his curiosity.
But as he kept changing channels, he came across something heart-fluttering.
A live action scene of two people swinging weapons at each other in an arena, with an indescribable level of accuracy and speed, making sparks everywhere.
Aardian felt the intensity resonate with him, and so he kept watching until it explained exactly what he was watching.
Tauthere, a VRMMORPG.
And today was the day he learned about addiction, since he let himself get carried away in watching until he was allowed to leave.
He quickly recovered, as he didn't have any fractures or internal damage.
The only blood was from some flesh wounds so he was allowed to leave not long after they confirmed his condition.
And so he returned home fast.
He made a call to his family for the first time in a year, and felt joyed to hear their voices for the first time in a while.
They were so joyful, and so he couldn't help but talk away.
He talked about what he'd been up to lately, he mentioned some thoughts for the future, and then mentioned the thing that expanded his sights.
Tauthere, as if it were calling for him, had made him speak with great passion.
When hearing their beloved son who was especially reclusive be so passionate, they offered to buy him the gaming capsule.
He was thankful, but they even generously wanted to support him in whatever he wanted to do in the game.
It was surprising that they brought it up, but it must have been because they were worried for Aardian, for being so weird all his life. He wouldn't deny it.
'This is the digital era, why was he purely focusing on his body if he wasn't going through something'?
This was his assumption of what they were thinking, and honestly it wasn't far off lately.
And now, Aardian chose to do some research in his room, with a few aches here and there still reminding him of his weakness.
It's not like he actually knew very much about games after all, so he wanted to stride out as an equal..
But we'll skip this part.