"Brother, you're so annoying, you can't even say thank you... but I'm glad you liked it, hehehe. Now you can quit that garbage job of yours and get back into the world of e-sports," Evina said, a big smile forming on her face as she pushed her phone into her brother's face, almost leaving a mark from how close the screen was.
"Hey, you'll make me go blind like that. Give it here." Dmitry said, grabbing the phone and starting to look at it. It showed the official game page announcing that after the game's immeasurable success in just one month, with over seven million registered players, the first championship was scheduled for the end of next year.
"They'll have the first championship. What do you think? Amazing, right? Your sister here already knew about it and planned everything, aha!" Evina said with her hands on her hips and her nose in the air.
Dmitry didn't say anything. He just tossed the phone back to Evina and quickly turned towards the machine.
"It's been a while since I've seen him smile like that. The last time was when he won the first Empire tournament," Evina said, squeezing her phone in excitement as she watched Dmitry from afar. He was looking intently at the helmet before putting it on and lying back in the machine again.
"Finally, he's back—Dmitry Schariac, the greatest player and my wonderful brother," Evina said, one hand on her hip and a cheerful smile on her face.
Twenty years in the game, equivalent to two weeks in the real world, Dmitry was wearing striped gray armor that looked mirrored. He was holding a sword with a red stripe down the middle and a hilt made of deadwood.
"So you're my next opponent?" Dmitry said, pointing his sword at a huge tiger with enormous teeth surrounded by electricity. Its entire body was yellow, with a large, glowing green rune on its back. Its eyes were dark blue, and it was the size of a house in real life.
The creature slammed one of its paws on the ground, sending out bolts of lightning that cracked the earth and destroyed everything in front of it. Dmitry jumped forward, landing between three cracks, and looked at the creature now surrounded by electricity. "A trick like that wouldn't work on me."
Dmitry counted five seconds with his finger over one of the three cracks, his sword pointed at the ground. A second wave of lightning struck, leaving only four safe spots untouched by the bolts. "So, it's finally over? Can we start the real fight?"
The creature moved its head furiously, letting out a roar as it began to slowly walk towards Dmitry. "So, you're not as dumb as I thought."
Dmitry leaped forward, dodging the creature's claw attacks as the electricity surrounding its body began to dissipate.
'Let's see if you can do that after losing your defense,' Dmitry thought, touching his foot down and then jumping back after seeing the creature's paw slam the ground in front of him, creating a crater where it struck.
"You're not kidding around," the creature roared, and all the cracks in the ground turned into large holes, making it difficult for Dmitry. The creature grinned, its dark blue eyes glowing, as a large number of lightning bolts started shooting out of the ground.
'What a bastard,' Dmitry thought, spinning the blade of his sword and jumping up. He released the sword's hilt for a few seconds, performing an impossible-to-defend attack, hitting the blade and receiving a small residual shock that blackened part of his shoulder armor.
Landing on the ground, he grabbed the sword by the hilt. The blade was now full of black marks, with a spark of electricity circling and stopping at the tip of the hilt, which had a small plastic coating.
"I'm glad it provided some protection against electricity, but if the next attack is on a larger scale, I won't be able to defend myself," Dmitry said, noticing the electricity around the creature's body dissipating as it started throwing chunks of rocks it tore from the ground. Dmitry dodged, getting closer to the creature.
"Now you can't defend yourself by releasing all your energy around you," Dmitry smiled, blocking an attack from the creature's paw with the blade turned backward and jumping from its syrupy attack. Dmitry let go of the sword, grabbing it again after pulling at the creature's paw area, which was unbalanced after placing the paw on the ground.
Taking advantage of the creature's moment of weakness, Dmitry struck its neck, positioning himself behind it and starting a fierce sequence of attacks, hitting its back, belly, leg, knee, and finally driving the sword into the middle of its forehead. He removed the blade from its head and, dragging it along the ground, watched as the huge creature collapsed.
[You have defeated the creature created by Zeus—the tiger that destroyed all with its lightning and crushed everyone who dared to get too close to it in the area that used to belong to you.]
[Zeus's Tiger = 17,800 experience - killed = 1]
[Experience needed for level 29 = 57,200]
[Rare sword has been completely worn down]
"It seems I can only use it one more time," Dmitry said, looking ahead as he stepped on Zeus's Tiger, which began to disappear.
An hour and forty-five minutes later, Dmitry was in the middle of a forest with a broken-bladed sword and a boar roasting in front of him.
"A winter boar only gives 15 experience points, but its meat is really good," Dmitry said, biting into a large piece of meat and looking at a screen with his in-game profile.
[Name = Boredom]
[World = currently in year 20, 79 years of 18,000 minutes, and 146,000 seconds until the birth of the astral key]
[Level = 28]
[Class = They don't exist in the current period of your world]
[Skills = None acquired]
[Equipment = Broken rare sword]
[Areas taken = 731]
Dmitry sighed deeply, leaning back and resting his head against the tree behind him. "No skills, huh. Well, they might as well just say you can't have one since there's no class yet."
Dmitry stopped thinking about what he had said, a sly smile forming on his face.
"If the game is nearly perfect, I don't think they would let that mistake slide. So there must be another way to get a skill," Dmitry said, taking one last bite of the meat and logging out of the game. Sitting at his computer, he started researching various forums and the game's official website until he found the "how the world works" section.
"Many don't know and won't know because they won't look into this part anymore. For those who do, there are some secrets that everyone can know if they come after," Dmitry said, noticing the page had only received two hundred and seventy-eight thousand visits and was quickly suspended, considering the current number of twelve and a half million daily players.
"Strange for a game with over thirty-seven million registered users to have so few visits. Well, I myself would never have visited if I hadn't noticed the hint about skills," Dmitry said, starting to read the page that talked about territories, what creatures are, and how different worlds exist in the same reality.
"Nothing useful, now I know why it has so few visits," Dmitry said, pausing until he read about classes and skills. Ignoring the class section entirely, he went straight to the skills part.
[Yes, skills exist regardless of your world's age. You just need to find a creature that has a jar with the blood of the sages. You can choose one of the skills that will appear before you after drinking it, or choose a skill from a creature after killing it. Then, drink and eat part of the creature's body, and you will see all its skills and be able to choose one.]