BOOM… SPLASH… BOOM… SPLASH
The sounds of waves echoed as they crashed against the sandy shore, and on the edge lay a man face down in the sand.
Suddenly, the man, who appeared to be in his twenties, opened his eyes abruptly, as if he were suddenly falling from a great height, and he also opened his mouth desperately to gulp in oxygen. Unfortunately for him, he only swallowed a mouthful of sand, as he was lying face down.
COUGH… COUGH… COUGH
He coughed violently, spitting out the sand from his mouth as he got up and headed toward the seawater just a few meters away, not caring at that moment that he was on an unfamiliar beach.
A few minutes later, after spitting out as much sand as possible with the help of the seawater, which did most of the work, he still couldn't entirely rid himself of the grains of sand stuck in the small gaps between his teeth, no matter how much water he drank.
After finishing the job halfway, he finally reacted to the unexpected situation he found himself in.
"What the hell, where am I? I remember I was about to go to work, and as I was leaving the house, some hooded guy showed up with a knife. I remember him suddenly stabbing me in the heart out of nowhere, and then everything went black, and now I'm on this unknown beach," said Fer, thinking bitterly about the hooded guy who had appeared out of nowhere in front of his house.
Fer didn't understand why he had been suddenly stabbed. He remembered never getting into any trouble or making enemies that would want him dead. He could still feel the pain in his chest, stabbing at him fiercely with every second. Instinctively, he touched the spot where the knife had struck him. Fortunately, the area that had been pierced earlier was now as if nothing had happened.
But Fer noticed something was wrong with his body as he touched his chest.
Was he… muscular?
Fer looked down in confusion, and what he saw shocked him to the core. His entire body was toned and muscular, down to the smallest detail. The strangest part, however, was that Fer didn't feel the strength that should come with such well-defined muscles.
As he examined his body carefully, he realized he was completely naked except for a pair of boxers. His gaze then shifted, and his pupils shrank to the size of a needle as he noticed a rhombus-shaped stone with blue lines embedded firmly in his right forearm.
After seeing this rhombus, Fer jerked his head up so quickly that he nearly twisted his neck in the process. Upon seeing the familiar palm trees, plants, and rocks, Fer confirmed his suspicion. He was both excited and terrified at the same time, as he realized he was now on an island filled with all sorts of dinosaurs, from simple Dodos to Giganotosaurus or Titanosaurus.
Fer sat down on the beach to process this shocking information. He was inside a video game, and not a peaceful one at that. Even as a semi-professional player, he could easily die from just a few hits from a medium-sized dinosaur.
After a minute or two, Fer stood up abruptly.
"I can't stand around doing nothing right now. If I want to survive, I'll have to use my 1,000 hours of experience in ARK: Survival Evolved. I'm not the best at this game, but I'm better than most, and I'm confident I can survive," Fer said, a confident smile on his face.
"First of all, I need to check my stats. If this is the same as the game, I'll just have to look at this implant like the game character does," Fer thought, following his plan.
He raised his right arm and brought his forearm into view, and with a thought, he imagined the interface appearing in his mind. Just as he expected, a familiar blue screen appeared before him.
The interface was nearly identical to the game, and before doing anything else, he wanted to see his stats.
At the top of the stats screen was his name, which defaulted to FER, and just below that, his current level, which was obviously LEVEL 1. To the sides were six equipment slots for equipping armor pieces, and in the middle of the screen was a lot of information, like the temperature, which showed 27 degrees, the exact day (Day 1), armor (0), hyperthermia (54), and insulation (30).
Below this information was an XP bar indicating 0/50, and even further below were his stats:
• HEALTH: 100/100
• ENERGY: 100/100
• OXYGEN: 100/100
• FOOD: 100/100
• WATER: 100/100
• WEIGHT: 2/100
• MELEE DAMAGE: 100%
• MOVEMENT SPEED: 100%
• CRAFTING SPEED: 100%
• FORTITUDE: 0.0
• TORPOR: 0.0/200
Fer wasn't surprised at all by these stats; they were basically the same as the game's start. But when he looked at the weight, he was surprised to see it said 2 kilograms, even though he hadn't picked up anything yet and didn't feel any extra weight. It puzzled him that there was some extra weight in his inventory without him adding anything.
Fer glanced to his left to check his inventory. On the opposite side, a 3D version of himself was displayed, but he didn't give it a second look.
In the inventory, there was only one item: a gift box. Curious, Fer clicked on the gift box to see its information. The description simply said "GIFT" and nothing more.
Without much hesitation, Fer clicked on the gift box to open it. After clicking, the gift box disappeared, leaving behind a light blue spyglass wrapped in white ribbon.
"What is this? This isn't an item from the original game," Fer said, frowning in confusion, as he hadn't expected something that wasn't from the original game to appear in the official game.
After looking at the spyglass for a few seconds, Fer's eyes lit up as he remembered that this spyglass came from a mod that could be added to the official game. If he remembered correctly, the mod was called AWESOME SPYGLASS. The functionality of this spyglass was nearly divine, as it could do several things: detect dinos through objects, display real-time information about a dino, and show coordinates in real-time. Its greatest strength was that it didn't need to be held in hand to be used.
Despite being a little worried that an item not from the original game had appeared, Fer couldn't help but feel excited at having this powerful item from the start. He wanted to test the spyglass's features and quickly searched for the item bar, which he found without much difficulty since it was basically identical to the original game.
However, before Fer placed the spyglass in the item bar, he noticed something strange about the interface. At the top of his name, Fer remembered that there were six squares with different icons, but now there seemed to be a difference from the original game.
In the original game, there were the following icons: the backpack, which was the inventory and personal stats, the engrams for learning tools, saddles, structures, etc., the tribe icon for creating a tribe with others, another icon to see the tamed animals' stats, another icon for taming progress, and finally, exploration notes scattered across the map.
But now, as Fer looked at the icons, he noticed there was an additional icon alongside the original six, bringing the total to seven.
Now it's easier to read! Let me know if you need further adjustments.