Blaze opened a blue drawer on his left and brought out a new gaming mouse, keyboard, headset and a little book.
He replaced his gaming headet with the new red one with a black miniature microphone which was connected to his headphone and placed close to his mouth, the keyboard, he switched causing the monitor to send a notification asking to connect the keyboard (which he did).
The new gaming keyboard was also red with big black stripes which looked like a claw mark and active backlight, and finally, the gaming mouse (also red) with dazzling light display on either sides with interchangeable side plates.
His new headset was of a Bluetooth connection which made it more convenient and each for gaming.
He connected his computer to the headset and opened the book which contained cheats of different kinds.
It was handwritten and classified as common, optional and ultimate.
The common cheats were that which every gamer knew of while the optional classification were that which was not for mandatory use.
The ultimate whereas, was a cheat known to those that are very--very experienced in the world of e-sport and are rarely used.
All set, he adjusted his gaming chair to a much better stead and got ready as the countdown got to 10 seconds.
9…8…7…6…he counted along till he got to 1… and the game officially began.
The intro of the game was very short and it got players (including Blaze) confused but no one dared using the chat box to voice their opinion. The chat box was as dry as all the great deserts combined.
The intro only states that there'd be five stages:
Stage one: survive at all cost.
Stage two: Quest for a suitable weapon.
Stage three: Labyrinth of shadows.
Stage four: Dungeon of death.
Stage five/final stage: Boss's domain.
All the players had their thoughts but non dared texting, so they just kept it to theirselves.
The game began stage 1: Survive at all cost.
All the game characters were pasted to a very eerie forest with tall trees, bushes and plants for as far as the eyes could see.
They were only given a hint which implies that they should be watchful of their every move and every restrictions had been removed from the chat box, which meant that they could now use it.
As if texting meant winning the prize cash, the chat box blew up.
Players were unsure of what to do, how to process things, what to beware from and the most texted word was I'd win that cash prize.
Players began to navigate the new and foreign area when an unknown player stepped on the arm of a very huge Venus flytrap that began chasing after everyone it saw and swallowed them.
It was chaos in an open world and the chat box once again became silent.
The forest was somewhat realistic for a game but it wasn't anything unusual because advance in technology was a norm.
Everyone was now in high alert as the monster finally calmed down and replanted itself.
They now began chatting again; "does anyone know how to access the headset panel in the game", " now we know what to look out for", " does anyone want to team up" and much money….
Blaze was now, for once in a long time, speechless and utterly perplexed.
For something so simple, they sure feel anxious. Not because of the fact that they die, but because of the fact that, those whose character died, didn't get a chance at respawning. Which meant that they were completely out of the competition for the prize reward of 10 million dollars.
As though,"Not your concern" wanted to make the game more connective, they unlocked the headset link feature.
Now that players could communicate with each other via audio, the tension reduced but not for long...
Suddenly, the game began a countdown of 30 minutes and characters were now fully functional and they could now attack beasts lower than their level.
*Character Stats such as player Names, Levels, Experience Points (XP), Health Points (HP), Mana Points (MP), Strength, Agility, Defense, Attack Power, Magic Skill, Stealth Skill, Speed and Reputation were now added.
It was as though the game was a work in progress but that wasn't what really mattered.
What was important now was how to survive because, earlier when the updates weren't in yet, if a character was hurt, it heals instantly except when death occurs, but now, with the character stat now added, injury meant deduction in HP and a totally depleted HP meant death (even without being K.O by the forest beasts).
To make things fair (after all, everyone was competing for the same reward),the character statistics of every player was the same.
The viewing was now adjustable and the graphics was not a problem since the begining of the game.
Now the real challenge of surviving at all cost.
Players were now finding a temporary partner at bettering their chances of survival but as usual, the Internet--double lifestyled Blaze decided to be narcissistic and pride himself with being a loner because he doesn't want to share his reward (that's if he won).
They roamed/explored the vast expanse of dense, misty, land of full greens and earthly beasts, looking for ones with lower stats and avoiding ones with higher stat at all cost.
He checked his character stat which showed
*Character Stats:
_User432234
*. Name: Assassin predator
*. Level: 1
*. Experience Points (XP): 100
*. Health Points (HP): 100
*. Mana Points (MP): 80
*. Strength: 50
*. Agility: 10
*. Defense: 5
*. Attack Power: 20
*. Magic Skill: 0
*. Stealth Skill: 10
*. Speed: 10
*. Reputation: 10/100 000
He then closed the stat board and decided to level up.
In the open-world game, he was able to move about, interacting with objects that's either on the ground or attached to the trees.
He'd look for low level beasts and defeat them, earning himself a loot which made him increase in level and stat.
Other players too adopted his method and found it useful.
The countdown at this point was down to 10 minutes, many amateur players had been K.O and the players significantly reduced in size.
The monsters were almost everywhere, so walking about with free hands on the gaming equipments was a very stupid thing to do.
After 9 minutes of playing, he checked his character stat again and this time, it displayed
*Character Stats:*
_User432234
*. Name: Assassin predator
*. Level: 16
*. Experience Points (XP): 1600
*. Health Points (HP): 200
*. Mana Points (MP): 100
*. Strength: 300
*. Agility: 280
*. Defense: 100
*. Attack Power: 700
*. Magic Skill: 0
*. Stealth Skill: 200
*. Speed: 250
*. Reputation: 150/100 000.
He sighed and continued, besides he'd significantly improved and managed to survive after countless times of being in danger while more and more players were eliminated.
[3…2…1] the countdown ended and an alarm was sounded as the surviving characters jump in rhythmic motion for success before the list of survivors were posted on the screen and the unfortunate players who were eliminated were on the out-list.
They were then given a 20 minutes break to prepare for stage 2 and this time, they were promised an easy play with a grinning emoji attached a the bottom of the text.