Earth 10th of June 2023:
There was a young man 21 years of age, sitting in a well-lit room. He had short, brown hair and dark brown eyes. He had a somewhat muscular stature, while still maintaining a thin frame. All around, he looked like the exact definition of average. No special style, simple clothes, and about 1.80 meters in height.
His name was Michael, and he was currently surrounded by his friends and family.
Today was his birthday, and his small circle of friends came to celebrate. Even his parents came to the city just to see their son, who is going to inherit the family business.
A happy day, one could think, but for Michael these kinds of gatherings were always tiresome and boring.
He was raised in the countryside and helped his parents as much as he could by taking care of their farm. He was afraid of the farm animals after he almost got picked to death by a hen when he was only 2 years old. After his traumatic experience, he stuck to just taking care of the plants around the farm.
Growing up, his parents wanted to push him to succeed to be the manager of the farm, so he got pushed farther away from his cherished plants and more into the boring world of numbers and business. He graduated from high school and was currently studying economics.
He never complained about it to his parents, since he was the only child of the family and felt forced to retain the farm. It always felt like this was his fate. A fate to complete his studies, then gain more experience managing the farm and in the end taking over and living his monotone life.
Even after he would inherit the farm, he still would not be able to relax and do what he wants, as he would have to manage 10 different farms all around the country. His entire day would be full of boring numbers and tiresome decisions, while being in a constant state of stress as well.
Just thinking about all of this makes him tired. He is bored, very bored with this predetermined life he as an only 21-year-old man will live.
"Happy Birthday Michael!", everyone shouted and sang him a song.
"My son, we are so proud about everything you accomplished this year. Your grades are excellent, and you already look all grown up. You will do great maintaining the farm."
There it is again. Can they talk about something else?
But contrary to his thoughts, he still answered, "Thank you, Mom. I will work hard to make you proud.", he swallows it all as always.
"Bro, you are so lucky. Top grades, secured inheritance and all the parental love in the world. I wish my mother would even talk to me after i failed my exam last month."
"Yeah man, I envy you a lot. I have to fight with my brother for my parents company. You can't believe how much stress I'm in."
That was the second problem. All his friends envied him as he already had a secure job perspective. Everyone has to fight for the chance to manage a successful business, while Michael already had a safe haven. There was no use in talking to them about his slowly growing depression.
After talking for a bit and thanking everyone for their well-wishes, Michael excused himself to the toilet, to take a break from all of this tiresome boring talk.
While casually checking his phone and mails, there was one email that stuck out as the title seemed out of place:
Congratulations you have being selected to participate in Eulers Trial
What kind of scam is this? Michael thought, and why is the senders name even weirder? Immortal Pingdi Guo of the Guardian God Clan? Do you even want to pretend to be real?
Well whatever, let's just look how they want to scam me. Judging by the title, this could be entertaining.
Greetings Mortal,
it has seen through that you will to survival is the top 1 Million people everyone. Therefore you select to participate will in Eulers trial. Participate then respond this e-mail at 0:00 AM and there is trial. While you very well have many victories there is also a chance that chance you will make it to the end if this luck or skills are lacking.
Wish Luck Immortal
What in the world is this? Michael was thinking. This is worse than Gootle translate. There is no way anybody ever falls for this. There is even a concrete time when I should respond? Whoever thought of this is truly one of a kind stupid.
But well, at least I will get some entertainment out of the response. Let's see what they send after I reply exactly at midnight and how they lure you out to spend money. This will be fun.
The rest of the day, Michael was just trying to enjoy his birthday, without sighing too much at every mention of his studies or bright future.
Afterward, he bade his friends goodbye and drove his parents to a nearby hotel, to stay for the night. Michael had finally some alone time watering his home-grown tomatoes and playing some games on his phone.
Times like this were his only enjoyable moments. Taking care of his plants and wasting time on mobile games. Free from all responsibilities and worries. Sometimes he wished time would just stop so he can spend years just lazing around.
11:59 PM
Michael could be seen sitting on his phone while counting down the seconds. He prepared an E-mail to respond where he is accepting to participate, but wanting to clarify a few things since the English was just too bad.
Waiting for the right moment, Michael got strangely excited for some reason, it felt like a new chapter of his life was about to start.
What am I even thinking, I'm just sitting in front of a screen waiting to reply to a below average IQ scammer on the phone. There probably won't even be a response until tomorrow. And even if there is a reply, it will probably be written in this unreadable glibber.
And Send! Message has been sent
Just as the moment the handy message popped up passed, everything turned black. All around him, everything vanished into nothingness. His bed, his plants and his entire room. It felt like he was flying but without any control of his body.
Michaels thoughts ran wide from sudden death through assassination to losing the sense of touch sight and hearing to even the email he just sent. Everything seemed like a dream, but there was no waking up.
Just 10 seconds after his sudden loss of senses. Yes, that was the conclusion. Michael suddenly felt solid ground under his feet. He lightly opened up the eyes that he closed before to calm down, but what he saw next took away all composure a human can muster.
Staring in the horizon as far as he could see, there was nothing but the ground he was standing on. A complete and utterly empty horizon. Every direction all the same, no hills or valleys, no vegetation and no water. There was nothing but the cold gray earth and one sun shining in the distant sky. Not even clouds. Nothing. For a moment, it felt like he was alone in an empty world.
Just as Michael was about to come to senses, an artificial voice sounded from above.
Welcome to Eulers Trial. The trial will begin in 10 minutes, while we wait for all participants to arrive.
As the voice came to a halt, in the sky, a huge clock appeared and started to tick down.
Michael came out of his stunned mind. How is this possible, where am I? "Where am I?", Michael shouted into the world, hoping that the voice from before or that whoever else was here with him would answer.
Unfortunately, silence was his only response.
The voice said something about Eulers trial and participants. But why is no one here?
Michael ran ahead looking for people to explain what was going on, until he finally remembered what he did before getting transported.
I really got transported because I responded to that shit mail. This has to be the worst joke in the history of bad jokes. On a whim, transported to an empty plain. Well, at least this trial or whatever should not be boring.
As his thoughts drifted, the enormous clock infront of him hit 0.
All participants have arrived. It's time to start Eulers trial.