As I walked back down the hallway, I practiced the most obvious light magic: illuminate, create a strong flash (I liked this one since it barely spent any mana), and then concentrated a beam of light as much as I could... I left my old backpack on the ground and tested the results. It was cut in half, as if a laser had split it in two; in fact, a laser had split it in two...
I meditated, sitting with my back to the statue. It seemed to look at me as if to say, "There's less to go." It's not that I was having fantasies about the statue; it's just that its divinity gave me empathy.
Okay, it was time to face death. Come on! The theme was not something that could vary much...
The color of the hallway was a mix of rotten green, haggard gray, with some reddish touches here and there...
A few meters before reaching the torch, I prepared myself, although I had my reluctance to use equipment that I did not know what effects it had, knowing that it was magical equipment gave me a certain confidence, I armed myself with the shield, the spear, I left my long sword, but I attached the set of knives, I put on the cape, the hood and the belt
I didn't look at the stats; I just knew that I felt better, stronger, more confident, although I know you will think that this was a mistake for a cheater, who depended on cheating with numbers, I had my reasons, I didn't know if I could stay with the objects after the tutorial, so why fall in love or depend on a power up that maybe only lasted three more hallways. On the other hand, it was better not to trust numbers and act cautiously as always, fight as always, and let its effects only be a fortunate complement.
I reached the first torch that was lit and examined the hallway in front of me. With my mana senses I could notice a multitude of small round openings in the walls, turning the torch on or off did not affect them in the slightest, from the angles I could see that Not all of them shot horizontally, no, during that space of 25 steps the arrows would shoot in all directions, so that even if I jumped with a rift to the next torch, more than 20 arrows would hit my body.
I created a dense curtain of air parallel to the walls and advanced through the center. The arrows or bolts could not overcome the force of the air, staying on the walls and preventing those that came behind from shooting. The next section had a pit trap with spikes that extended its entire length, I levitated and let a current of air take me to the next point, now they were a multitude of circular blades that I bent with my metal mana, allowing me passage as I could not continue spinning in the mechanism.
Trap with poison gas, air bubble, trap with hidden traps and spikes, I disabled them with my stone mana. For an hour I advanced in the largest collection of traps that you can imagine, some were classic, others were imaginative and gave me some headache, and some seemed straight out of a BDSM fantasy, but luckily I had accumulated a number of resources and possibilities that allowed me to move forward with some peace of mind...
The real test began shortly after. A side tunnel opened to my right, I entered a dimly lit room, in the background I could detect 5 living beings, they were chained to some type of contraption...
I cast light magic so I could see better... I shouldn't have done that... Chained to the torture device were my mother, my father, my sister and my nephews...
I ran towards them. I tried to free them by force from their chains, but I couldn't. I tried with magic, with all the magic I had learned, but I couldn't... The contraption was killing them. They screamed. They screamed at me. Furthermore, they asked me for help...
I injected life magic into their bodies, but it only managed to slow down their wounds... I couldn't even alleviate the pain they felt...
Breathe Lion... It's a game. They're not here. They're not real; they can't be here. With this in mind, I stopped injecting them with my life magic, and the process of their death continued... I held my mother's hand... I think she managed to tell me I'm proud of you... they were suffering... and I couldn't do anything. Even if it was an illusion, it was my family...
In my desperation, I tried to end their suffering with my own hands, but my weapons couldn't hurt them. Something was breaking inside me, and I started to cry...
The lives of the people I loved most in this world were slowly slipping away... it was a double pain because even if I closed my eyes, I could feel the mana of their lives running out...
Breathe. It's just a game...they're not real...it's a damn test....
I sat on the floor and cried like a child. The first to die were my nephews. By the time my father died, who was the last, my hatred was visceral for this damn game, for its programmers, for the evil mind that would put anyone through it. They had no heart; they did not deserve compassion...
Even if it was a game, there were things that weren't played with, sacred things that had to be respected... It didn't matter how realistic or immersive you wanted to make a story... what was so fun about this? What did they want to make us hate them? What was the lesson? I just wanted to give up at that moment and take the first plane to go see them and know that they were fine... I would stay with the trauma; I could report the company, but if you really ask me, what I wanted was to tie them up. Developers on similar torture racks and end their lives with the same suffering as the one they had made me witness...
When it was all over, I left the room with a determination in my mind: I would destroy this shitty game, I would publish all the cheats, everything that was necessary to make it neither fun nor exciting...
My steps echoed in the hallway, I stepped hard, I opened the door of the next challenge without even taking precautions, a figure wrapped in a robe was in the middle of the room, I fired two "lightning bolts" at point-blank range, while my psyche immobilized him, I launched five wind blades, but the being raised an energy barrier that stopped them, but I didn't stay there, I opened a rift in the middle of his waist, but somehow he managed to break the magic and escape, but he was already stuck in my mud until knees, he flew up to free himself only to be met with a ball of darkness covering his head.
Disoriented, the being in the robe tried to concentrate harmful mana in his hands, but before he had time, another lightning strike threw him against the wall. He must have had some resistance to magic because he didn't die, although I did break his concentration.
Just before and without waiting, I had been transported through a crevice to his flank and stabbed him with the spear. He turned in the opposite direction, enlarging his wound but avoiding being impaled. He couldn't see me, and I could see him, if this were a challenge. Of the system, we would start by breaking it into pieces.
Two air bullets hit him as he began to manipulate the sinister energy, forcing him to take two steps back. He must have sensed that he would fall into a crevice because he reacted by levitating to avoid losing his balance. This did not save him from receiving my concentrated light laser that cut off both his arms...
He was still alive; he was like a damn cockroach, but I would be his exterminator; I would trample him until there was nothing left of him...
I projected a psychic pulse that hit him completely, leaving him stunned. Two air blades cut off his legs a second later...
I didn't know what magic he intended to do, nor did I care about a death spell? I'm sorry for the programmers, but in my current angry state, they would have to try a lot harder...
Since there was no token in the previous room, I was not surprised to find nothing in this one, nor in the bloody mass that was this corpse... When I removed the hood, I could see that it was a thin being, without a nose or ears, just a few holes. Small in the skin, it had four eyes and very wrinkled gray skin...
Unleashing my rage against something that had been restorative, I left the room calmer but with the same determination...
I advanced until another side tunnel appeared; this time my anger was more controlled so I prepared myself. With the dark wizard, I had spent a little of my reserves, but nothing serious or that would leave me at a dangerous level...
I began to ascend a little, since the tunnel soon became a set of stairs. When I reached the top, I was in an open field, a meadow of withered grass extended in all directions from the stairs...
The sky was leaden, like a sunset without sun or storm...
If this had not been an immersive reality game that was intended to be realistic, a soundtrack would have been very useful for the scene... The typical tension and suspense music. Otherwise, this was just a meadow where thousands of skeletons tried to get up from the ground with a "cri cri" of scratching the earth...
I put my hand on the ground and released the largest wave of earth mana I could make, emptying myself in the process and solidifying, which left a little less than half of the skeletons unearthed and unable to come out.
I put away the spear, which was of little use to me against them, and I took out my sword while activating my bullet time.
"Let the show begin!!!" I yelled into the air as I shot out like an arrow.