After a long journey, Alex walked out of the bus. With less than 20 minutes left before his appointment, he was relieved that the bus station was a few minutes of walking distance from Hunt's affiliated clinic.
Alex glanced around and saw thousands of people walking through the market. It was a bit shocking for him, as he had only heard of the border crowds but had never experienced them himself.
Most of these people were borderline poor. They weren't rich enough to afford to live in the city, but they weren't poor enough to stay away from it.
It was a kind of limited resource greed where everyone wanted to stay close to a city, which led to most people living in this overcrowded border region.
He also used to live here during his childhood until his father's business suddenly boomed, and they moved into the city.
Alex shook his head and took out his phone. With a few taps, the GPS location of the clinic appeared, and he started moving toward it.
Soon, he reached a small, two-story clinic with Hunt's "H" logo on it. It was one of the many collaboration clinics present all around the world.
From what he knew, each big city had only one or two official clinics, while others were just temporary collaboration clinics.
Alex saw many people like him walking toward the clinic with excitement on their faces. It was easy for him to distinguish them from the crowd.
Not caring much about others, he walked toward the clinic. There was no queue outside, as all appointments were scheduled online.
Without an appointment, no one could enter the clinic.
Beside the door, Alex saw a couple of people scanning the big logo on the door through their phones. He did the same, and a new notification popped up on his phone.
Ding!
Searching for a scheduled appointment... Result confirmed!
[Dear customer Alex, your appointment is booked for the 12:00–1:00 slot. For the exact time, please contact the reception.]
Around 15 other people around him received similar messages. Not wasting time, all of them moved inside the clinic.
As they entered through the door, the receptionist shouted, "All of you, move down the lobby to the waiting room! I will call you one by one."
Although she was rude, none of them dared to complain and moved down a small corridor toward an empty room on the other side of the clinic.
As Alex entered the room, he saw 20 chairs arranged along the walls with an empty center. He took an empty seat next to the left wall and started examining the others.
A few tried to talk with one another, while most were like him, observing each other.
Everyone in the room knew that they had the best chance to face someone from this room in their upcoming games.
It was because of the HUNT batch base policy, where players of equal experience would enter the game together. Until he reached the higher level, he would most likely face the people who got the capsule injection within this month.
As he was examining them, another five people rushed into the room. Now all 20 people for this one-hour slot were in the clinic.
Alex looked at his phone; there was less than a minute left for the allotted time.
As soon as the clock hit 12, they heard footsteps approaching. Soon, a doctor in a white coat, along with two ward boys in green, walked into the room.
The doctor walked to the center of the room while the ward boys stayed at the door.
The doctor clapped his hand to get everyone's attention and said with a smile, "Hello, everyone. I am Dr. Vikram. I will be the one to inject the dream capsule into your head."
Many didn't know how to react to this. Sure, they were excited, but injecting something into their brain still weirded them out.
Dr. Vikram continued, "Before we start, I need to tell you a few rules about the game and the DR capsule."
Everyone nodded their heads.
Dr. Vikram raised one finger. "First, I will insert all these capsules into the region responsible for dreaming. The DR capsule will not interfere with your memory. If anyone has doubts, you may ask, or you can still opt out for the capsule insertion."
No one said anything, as they already knew most of the information from the internet. There was no way they would learn anything new here, and most likely, many didn't even care about the risk that much.
Dr. Vikram raised his second finger. "As you know, there is a live viewing feature for Apprentice Hunters. This feature will start an hour after your operation and will stay on until you enter your first game. After that, it will only be activated two days before each of your game days, without your knowledge, until you reach Rank 1 Hunter. You will have some features..."
Dr. Vikram then explained how the live feed would work and how to protect your privacy.
Alex already knew about it. After all, for the past three years, he was the gambler on the platform who examined all the games and the players.
So after the DR capsule insertion, it would project their entire life on the live TV on the Hunt website in 2D format.
Everything, from where they lived to what they did and more, would be visible. This was to give gamblers ideas on who they should invest in.
The only saving grace was the randomized 2D feed environment. So no one could guess the players' actual location.
Each player could also assign their home as a private place. Once they entered, the live feed would only show their 2D house from the outside and nothing else.
It was something that freaked many people out at first, but over time, and with the greed to win, privacy concerns became less of an issue for the average player.
However, it wasn't the same for many of the rich ones. Alex knew that once a player became level 1 HUNTER, the live feed would be under their control, and it would be up to them how to manage it. At higher ranks, the HUNT company added many features to protect the player's privacy, even from other sources.
Dr. Vikram didn't stop there and then explained how the capsule would stop working once they died or lost a single game, as well as a few other details.
After a 15-minute-long speech, he made everyone sign an NOC allowing the Hunt organization to insert the DR capsule into their brains.
Finally, it was time to get a dream capsule.