Year 2197
Military training device that soilder use to train their combat abilities without the fear of death and a soilder can enter this virtual world with helmet like device known as Thopi.
From war tactics, hand to hand combat, weapon designing to NPC (non playable character) with AI that resembles human, Thoppi can even simulate all human sensors.
Even if pain can still be inflicted, the life of person using this device is safe with zero injuries.
The one Ray using right now is civilian use only Thopi that released to the public 3 years after the military using this device, mainly used for playing game, and designing weapon and armour for the game company where he work.
Other people can use Thopi as classroom, for meeting, and even using military use only weapon that illegal for civilian to use in real life.
The traffic and air quality is improved, thanks to this device more people can work from their home
Many games such as first person shooter, fantasy, fighting, to survival game is more emersive than 3 years ago.
The United Nations with Human Right Organization only give permit to violence contained game that can be played with Thopi with hope to lower crime rate world wide.
Right now Ray Saif the protagonist of this story, playing the game he work in as weapon and armour designer for the game known as Ghaibus.
The world of Ghaibus is filled with fantastical being, mega structure kingdoms, and wide unexplored biome.
Even though players can choose many variety of race like elf, dwarf, and beastman, i choose to be a human with my real life 175cm height and similar to my own face because I'm afraid when my in game friend disappointed after knowing my features is not as handsome as the player I'm playing.
Ray put his helmet on. "I hope i can make many friends from this game and maybe we can barbeque together like in those novel i read"
"Let's login then, I'm so excited to see the world in the game i work on since before the Thoppi version launched" Ray muttered.
[Please wait 15 second to avoid nausea]
"W-what the...in 25 years of my life, this is the first time realize how bizzare architect can be if they didn't limited by law of physics" Ray says as he trembling.
"I-i expecting the mega structure of a castle from old version of the game to be pretty big but this is beyond my expectation"
A mountain sized castle can be seen from many kilometers away from the starting gate that many new players arrived.
Clean paved road with each side exist markets selling fruit, meat, to cafe, apothecary, and weapon shop.
No doubt this road is a front display of this, Jawis Kingdom's great order and wellbeing to who ever visit their kingdom.
But to my surprise, the moment i first log in, i was pierced with mocking eyes for being the only short human in a majority of tall model like human players in starting town.
"Pfftt..hihi..Is he drunk and customize his character with his stupid damaged brain?", One of the player said with players around him agreeing with holding their own laugh.
"How can someone want to project their tired dark eyes into his character...", One more player said.
"His green eyes are not helping his face either." Another player said with pity.
Swallowing my anger, I went straight to training ground with a feeling of tension in my face.
"Damn you, i will remember each of your face and hunt you down every time you walk outside of this damned safe zone!"
Once i arrived at training ground, i picked random wooden sword and strated bashing the humanoid dummy over and over again for half an hour without stoping, disregarding my numb right arm.
[Warning, wooden sword's durability reaching 5%, please change your sword]
[Breaking training ground's wooden weapon will give player penalty of the following:
Banned using training grounds weapon for 5 hours]
"Like i care!"
After few bashes the wooden sword finally breaks, but my adrenaline still raging
"Aaaggghhhh-"
I bit the shoulder of my straw dummy in front of me with all of my jaw muscle's strength and my fingers keep slashing with no order like savages.
My leg keep kicking and burying my hand and leg's nail so i don't get separated from the dummy.
"What's this crazy guy doing..." Other newbie training besides him frowning.
"Hahahahah..what a savage. I should post this on socials." Another newbie taking a video of the beast like human in front of him .
"Buto...what a weird name, I'll go train further from him." Many player strated to move away from Buto, Ray's in game name.
Other people's comment only make Buto's blood rushing more.
After 5 hours of biting and scratching, suddenly a notification pop up.
[Congratulations you got skills of the following:
-Bite Lv1
-Claw Lv1]
"Huh?", Ray suddenly calm down hearing the notification
"Did i just lost myself? Huhhh...i'm glad this is not happening in real life, my neighbors would call police if they hear me
"I got this animalistic skill instead of getting sword skill, what a joke...", frowning, Buto wanted at least a weapon skill so he can play with his designed weapons as he is a weapon maniac.
"Ugh, I envy them who can get their real weapon first..."
Sitting on a bench in the training ground, Ray sit still starring at red sky as the sun goes down.
Few minutes passed, the dark night comes with magic fireflies lantern illuminating the training ground.
"Sigh...* At least i got a combat skill for a requirement permit to go outside the town..." Ray get up from bench and walk towards the towns gate.
"It's been a while since i lost myself like that, the last time i lose my mind was when i high school, i beat up my bully with a chair, i got bruise from his friends beating me to stop my seemingly endless barrage of falling chair to the body" Ray muttered
"I got house arrested and he got broken bones all over his body exept his head and left arm the time i got to school again fortunately my bullies don't come near me anymore and unfortunately my friends also avoiding me, all eyes in the school feels like they are seeing a psycho".
"I'm just gonna seclude myself in the forest, these players keeps making me frustrated"
Arriving at the gate, the guards lift their halberd and stop him. "Excuse me sir, may i see your permit to go out the city?"
Ray nodding. "Yeah, I got one of the combat skill, thats the minimum requirement right?"
"Yes it is sir, be safe and have a nice day" lowering her halberd, the guard move back to her post.
Opening his eyes more, Ray turned his gaze to the guard "For an AI to be implemented in NPC of virtual world, they are pretty similar to the real life guards or army, I've become curious about other NPC with more friendly attitude". Ray in deep thought as he approaching the forest.
"From what i experience, i got Bite and Claw skill because i use my teath and nails to attack, maybe i can get night vision skill if i stay and doing things in this forest at night like this" Ray analyzing the previous event.
"Rawrrrrr..!" Suddenly a dog like creature jumped him and scratch his body, leaving him a wound
Ray's showed the health bar [Hp 57/100] and abnormal status of [Bleeding -0.5hp/second]
"Ouch! It hurts so much!" Rays feel the pain in his belly
"I thought their gonna turn off the pain receptors for the game, i must run first! This gonna leave this game a very bad review, why would they make it this realistic?!" Ray running through the woods and end up hitting his head on a big tree.
"Ouch..", In panic, he then place his fingers to tree's bark, and pulling his body upward with all his strength.
Slowly he made it to one of the brach. "Huhh..huh..huh..." His breathing become heavier as hi sit on the brach while watching the dogs under him.
"Huhh..how stupid I am thought it safe to go to the wild without armour and weapon" Ray contemplating while he's pressing his arm to the wound to prevent it to bleed more.
One hour passed, three dogs still barking when the other two dogs resting under him, while his hunger become more noticeable as time goes by.
"There's a blurry red like object in front of me, I hope thats a fruit but thats so far away from here...who tought that Claw skill can be used for climing, even my leg is included in the skill's effect. it seems like i can activate the skill without any button or shouting the name".
"In real life i doubt my finger strong enough to do it, maybe i should test it more to see if i can jump and catch the other tree's branch until i can get to the fruits" He then take position and jump to the nearest branch.
"Whoa whoa whoa..", his hand waving as he struggle to catch the branch and almost fall.
"Huft..maybe I shouldn't rely on my level one Claw skill...by the way, that dog seems a little bigger than a tiger" The dogs keep following him to the other trees whille Ray resting his tired arms.
A minute passed, his arm and leg feels okay enough to jump again to another tree.
Few trees Ray jumped on and finally reach the fruit tree he's aiming for
[Congratulations your STR[strength]+7 and STM[stamina]+9, you got skills of the following:
-Bite Lv1
-Claw Lv2]
"Wha.." Ray surprised by the sudden notification, "wow, my claw skill and strengh increased without me having to attack a monster?! Let's check my status shall we?"
[Name: Buto
Race: Human
Stat
-Hp: 13/100
-Mp: 25
-Str: 32
-Stm: 34
-Agi: 25
-Int: 25
Skill
-Bite Lv1
-Claw lv2]
"So as my deafult stat is all at 25, only my STR and STM increased since i didn't dodge the attack, my AGI is still is stay still..."
Reaching one fruit with his hand, Ray begin to take a bite, forgetting to be always cautious as if the fruit is poisonous.
"Wow.. this fruit is so sweet! But It's kinda weird as it taste like manggo with orange combined, sweet an sour... Not that I complained though"
Ray spend his night eating alot of the fruit, his thirst fullfiled too as this [Maruk] fruit contained alot of water and fortunately this fruit is one of the safe to eat fruits in this [Phantom] forest.
Once the sun start to rise up, he immediately log out as he didn't want any players notice him.
"What a tiring game play, it's impressive how this game is so realistic with many possibilities". Ray opening his Thopi helmet off and fall asleep
The next day he spent his afternoon drawing sword and many more weapon concept sketches for his clients until night comes and he logged to Ghaibus, the game he played yesterday.
Ray then begin to wake up at night time in the game and surprised at what he sees under him, "Wow...they really waiting for me while their friends is seeping"
As the night still young he begin to see what the dogs barking to him really looks like, dog with pitbull look and body as big as siberian tiger, its fur is dark green as they smells like leafs.
Ray squint his eyes and begin to see their name [Herb Dog], "maybe they smell like leafs or herb to prevent their prey from noticing them, such a scary creature, just imagine how painfull it is if they tear me apart at the same time..." He shudders.
Chicken with frog like neck can be seen half of its body in one of the dogs mouth. "It seems like they rotate their cicle as som of them hunting and the rest is waiting for me, how can ai be this complex... I can't understand how they do it"
"At this point I'm just become aboreal monkey and spent the rest of the week jumping from one tree to the other while im honing my claw skill until i confident to attack them..."
"Maybe this is stupid, but can i train my bite skill by chewing a tree bark?" Ray begin to scrap the tree bark beside him with his nails easly and start chewing them for half an hour.
"This is so boring and bitter-". Suddenly a notification pop up in front of him.
[Congratulations you got skills of the following:
-Bite Lv2
-Claw Lv2]
"Wow nice, maybe i can hop and climb trees while i chew tree bark on my mouth".
He then spent his hour hoping to many trees as he adapting to his new way of moving from place to place.
[Congratulations your STR[strength]+9 and STM[stamina]+11, you got skills of the following:
-Bite Lv3
-Claw Lv3]
"Hahahahh...I never thought that hoping trees like a monkey could be this fun, moving all of my limbs with ease feel like no one can attack me as no momster can reach me". Ray feel more happy as he forgetting the rage he go through yesterday.
Ray spend the night hoping from tree to tree while he's chewing on tree bark with Maruk fruit with it to cope with the bitterness.
His speed and strength keep increasing. "Now I can keep hopping longer than yesterday, i can feel this improvement...". Six hour of hopping and resting once in the middle because of notification, he begin to stop as notification appeared again.
[Congratulations your STR[strength]+11 and STM[stamina]+13, you got skills of the following:
-Bite Lv5
-Claw Lv5]
"This tree bark texture became more like a steak, I hope also the taste though but with this I'm confident i can inflict deep wounds to those beast."
"I should not attack senselessly so I'm not overwhelmed by their numbers". He began to ponder how to attack these relentless dogs that keep following him with their smell detection skill.
Ray begin to smear the tree leafs to his body and hop to the other tree to flank them with slow and quiet movement.
Slowly he climb down the tree behind the dogs without them knowing, the dogs still starring at the tree he previously leaved.
"Got you!!!" Ray biting the neck of one of the Herb dog and drag it to the nearest tree.
That Herb dog keep growling while Ray dragged it to the top of the tall tree that reach the height of roughly 30 meters.
Once he got to the top of the tree, he pierce the dog's neck with one hand and let the blood splashes as it rained the dog's friend under him.
When the herb dog Ray bited begin to struggle less and less, he then relax his jaw and let the dog fall and make a loud noise as it reach the ground.
"With this, even if it fake dying, it's broken bones will not let it run or attack me again... Man, blood really taste like iron huh...". Ray watching the other dog barking at him while one of its friend twitching a little and begin to not showing any movement again.
Ray keep doing the same thing over and over again to the other four until a notification appeared
[Congratulations your STR[strength]+13 and STM[stamina]+15, you got skills of the following:
-Bite Lv5
-Claw Lv5
-Smell detection Lv1]
"Nice! A new skill!". Ray smiling with the five dog corpses hanging at the tree branch with him. "Maybe i can attracted more monster with this pile of smelly corpses, ugh...my body especially my jaw feel sore" his eyes looked at them sideways.
[Name: Buto
Race: Human
Stat
-Hp: 13/100
-Mp: 25
-Str: 76
-Stm: 85
-Agi: 25
-Int: 25
Skill
-Bite Lv6
-Claw lv6]
With this event, he found his own unconventional way of grinding, a beast-like hunting strategy.