Xander was laying in his bed about to go to sleep, staring at the ceiling in his dark room.
"Phew!" Xander heard what sounded like the universe taking a deep breath out.
Flash.
Then a light seemed to quickly flicker, lighting up Xander's room.
"What th…" Xander started, then he vanished.
***
Deep inside a complex cave system inside a large mountain range.
"E f***!" Xander finished as he looked around in a panic, his eyes still adjusting to the darkness of the cave that was barely illuminated by bioluminescent moss spread throughout the cave floor, walls, and ceiling.
[Alexander Stone, you have been randomly selected to participate in 'The Blink.']
[The bare minimum needed from you is to survive, but the real goal of 'The Blink' is to help your fellow humans, demons, and devils of the 536th Tower of Fate conquer this ancient planet.]
[All technology has been taken away from all members of 'The Blink,' which is all G-rank humans, demons, and devils of the 1st universe of the 536th Tower of Fate aged 16 to 22 that were randomly selected, so learn to survive, learn to thrive, and learn to conquer.]
Just as Xander's eyes were getting adjusted to the cave, he finished reading the message from the tower.
'What the f*** is going on.'
"Skreeeeeeeech!!"
"Dammit!" Xander yelled as he heard a large shriek behind him.
He turned around as he heard the beast starting to charge toward him, and when he finally turned all the way around, 10 meters in front of him and closing in fast were three massive beetle-like bug beasts, each the size of a large dog.
[Common Titanscarab - F-rank - Low]
[Common Titanscarab - F-rank - Low]
[Common Titanscarab - F-rank - Low]
Xander was worried when he first saw the massive bugs, but when he saw that they were F-ranks and not G-ranks, he freaked the f*** out.
"Ahhhhhh!!" Xander wasn't proud of it, but when he read F-rank three times, he screamed.
Xander quickly did the only thing he could think to do: he phased into his mirage realm and ran as fast as he could.
Luckily for Xander, the 'Titanscarab' seemed to be very territorial because after he got about 30 meters from their cave room, they quit chasing him and just stood guard at the entrance to their cave.
"Phew." Xander let out a deep breath after running for another two minutes and not hearing anything around or following him.
'What the hell is going on?' Xander thought in a panic.
He once again looked back at the tower notification and read it a second time.
[Alexander Stone…
…learn to conquer.]
'So I have to learn to survive and thrive on this ancient planet? What does that even mean? And why are there demons and devils here as well? Couldn't the tower have left them out of whatever type of game it's trying to make us play?'
"Agghh." He let out an annoyed scoff.
'Whatever, nothing's changed. I just have to do what I've always done. Survive. Only now I'm going to get as strong as I can while doing so.'
'I'm not going to care about anything but surviving and getting stronger. There's no need for me to go out of my way to conquer the planet. There's no need for me to try and have relationships. There's no need for anything that won't make me stronger.'
After making up his mind, Xander thought of his next immediate action.
Get out of this cave.
So that's what he started to do. He began to walk through the long and complex cave system.
The longer he stayed in the cave, the better his eyesight got as he got used to the darkness of the barely illuminated cave.
Before long, he had started to sense movement through his mirage realm. Xander didn't want to have to backtrack and lose all his progress, even though he didn't even know if he was going in the right direction, so he continued to ease his way forward. Before he finally saw it, a half-step G-rank epic Titanscarab.
[Epic Titanscarab - G-rank - Half-step]
'Ok, I should be able to kill this easily.'
After thinking this, Xander eased his way forward, getting as close as he reasonably could before he phased into his mirage realm and unsheathed his katana.
After entering the mirage realm, he was ready to test his mirage realm against an actual G-rank beast.
He walked forward carefully, the bug's back facing him.
25 meters. The bug hasn't noticed.
20 meters. Still nothing.
15 meters. Xander notices slight movement of its antenna.
10 meters. The bug finally starts to turn around.
5 meters. The bug lets out a small shriek as it quickly turns and faces him.
At this point, Xander had had enough, and he ran forward. Once he reached 3 meters, he phased back into reality and chopped down with 'Soul Rend,' hoping to get past the bug's tough exterior armor, attacking the soul directly.
"Bang!"
Xander's katana met the exterior armor of the bug, and it let out a massive, painful shriek.
"Skreeech!!!!"
"Dammit!" Xander said. He had hoped to kill it in one move.
He quickly jumped back as it thrust forward with its two front legs.
As he jumped back, he released a throwing knife from both hands, one coated in death qi with 'Wraith's Touch,' the other coated in lightning qi with 'Electro Blade.'
Both throwing knives aimed for the beast's eyes.
The beast was stupid but still smart enough to try and dodge, so the knives missed their mark, with the death qi knife hitting the cave wall and the lightning qi knife piercing the beast's shoulder.
"Skreech!"
The beast let out another shriek as its body was pierced and electrocuted.
Xander now held his ground and thrust forward with his katana coated with the lightning qi's 'Electro Blade' this time.
The blade sunk four inches deep into the bug's face while electrocuting its entire body, causing it to come to a halt.
Then Xander quickly charged up a beam of 'Necrotic Blast,' shooting it off while his blade was still inside the beast.
This did a large amount of damage, causing the beast to collapse.
Ten seconds later, the beast was dead, and Xander was digging out its beast core.
As Xander was digging out the beast core, he suddenly heard a step. He started to turn around, thinking another Titanscarab had found him. Then he heard.
"Die!"