-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Authors note: Enjoy! please if you read and enjoy this please rate and comment. Helps me keep motivated.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Day gave way to night. Night gave way to day. Virtual reality became my reality as I spent more time in the Great Game than out of it. The distinctions between real and unreal began to blur until they faded away entirely. The Great Game was my life, and my other life where I was locked in my cell was my purgatory. A halfway space of frozen time between heaven and hell.

In the real world I was neither living, nor dying.

Just existing.

It was in the Great Game that I came alive. I became obsessed with training, not only because I feared for my life, but because I loved it. Because more than anything I wanted to be strong.

Because only the weak knew what it was like to truly hunger for power.

I hung suspended from two metal rings connected by a chain that I had secured over a high ledge. Such a simple device, gymnastic rings was what they used to be called. Simple, and yet the level of strength one could develop on them was beyond belief. I never neglected gymnastic training as part of my routine because it was excellent in increasing the strength of tendons and connective tissue.

I moved from a front lever into a back lever then flipped out of the rings into a perfect landing on the floor.

The gymnastic rings had come through the portal some weeks ago along with the other training equipment I had asked Misiki for before I had left. I laughed when I thought of how bizarre my request must have seemed. No one had trained with dumbbells, Olympic bars and plates for over 150 years.

Yet, without artificial enhancements it was difficult to surpass heavy squats, deadlifts, overhead presses, rows and power cleans for developing an incredibly strong body.

Then the areas that weight training did not fully develop, were addressed by my gymnastics practice and rock climbing.

Rock climbing had been one of my favorite past times before I was imprisoned. It developed a number of important physical characteristics and had helped unlock a new stat.

Grip Strengththe ability to exert extreme pressure with the hand, fingers, or both

Every day for the last few weeks I had continued a simple routine. At dawn I would begin Tai Chai and Qi gong breathing accompanied by some dynamic stretching.

Then into complicated series of exercises focused on weight training and gymnastics.

After that I would recover by swimming laps in the river and killing snakes.

Holding my breath for increasingly extended periods of time underwater had also unlocked an additional stat.

BreatheThe power of breathing; life. Ability to hold one's breath for extended periods and increase efficiency and storage of oxygen within the respiratory system

I assumed my ability to unlock this stat was also derived from my daily Qi gong practice.

In the afternoon I would work on sprints for explosiveness and then endurance based circuits.

Then as the sun faded I would climb across the ruins before practicing martial arts, mostly focusing on the unarmed and sword styles I was proficient in. Finally as the deep night came upon me I would finish with a long stretching session.

Night was also reserved for reading, I would log out and research medical texts and then log back in and contemplate them. My intelligence rose from reflective contemplation of the books I read. I felt my understanding of human biology had deepened significantly.

I had fully explored the surrounding ruins as well in between training. Most of it was buried in jungle and I had now determined that, at least in the immediate vicinity, there were no large predators. The most dangerous place I had found was by accident.

A ledge that had a steep drop off that ended in a seemingly bottomless pool. The pool was filled with some kind of electric eels and blue electrical currents would routinely flash in the water.

I shivered as I remembered my experiment with that pool. I had lowered myself into the pool a number of times to see if I could develop a stat that increased my resistance. I had been successful and had created the stat.

Electrical Resistence Ability to resist damage form electrical effects and reduce effects of being electrocuted

What I had not anticipated was the bloodthirsty needle sharp teeth of the eels. It took me numerous sessions climbing in and out the pool to develop electrical resistance and each time I had lost chunks of flesh to the eels biting attacks. After enduring the incredible pain of being electrocuted and bitten countless time my resilience had risen to the point where my skin seemed to harden and was difficult for the eels to bite through.

I still felt my body clenching at the memory alone.

I had dug pit traps around the ruins in preparation in case I was caught unawares. These were simple traps only a few metres deep with wooden stakes buried into the ground and covered by a loose collection of leaves and vines. It would be painful to an unwary person, though I assumed the stakes would probably fail to penetrate through any decent armor. It gave me a small feeling of reassurance though.

All in all in it had almost been a month since I had stepped through the teleporter. I had decided I would leave tomorrow as it had become too risky to stay and I had achieved the baseline level of strength I felt necessary to survive.

I was no longer the weakling that first emerged into the Great Game.

User StatusName:Braizo NakamuraSkills*Unable to acquireLevel:1Class:*Unable to acquireRace:Earth HumanHealth680Strength (unlocked) 60Agile Strength10Explosive Strength20Maximum Strength10Relative Strength16Speed (unclocked) 72Reaction Time30Movement Time14Speed-Strength20Endurance (unclocked) 42Aerobic Endurance10Anaerobic Endurance10Speed-Endurance10Strength-Endurance10Flexibility (unlocked) 70Static Flexibility28Dynamic Flexibility40Locked StatsIntelligence60Luck80Vitality68Perception32Reslience63Hand Strength48Breath50Electrical Resistence75

My entire body had transformed into a chiseled machine. The lack of high level animals near the ruins made it extremely difficult to measure how powerful I was in relative terms, but I felt strong. I my strikes felt powerful and I could move like the wind. My resilience was high enough that my skin and muscles felt like body armor. The small snakes that slithered around could not penetrate my skin when they tried to bite me.

I had still failed to unlock my other major stats which frustrated me greatly. I felt deep in my bones that Vitality would lead to a path of cellular regeneration and would be the single most important survivability stat I would need. My high vitality did give me something of a healing factor as my health regenerated quickly, but I was convinced there were further secrets to unlock.

In the early days to raise my stats I often wounded myself and let myself recover, but unfortunately my Resilience had risen too high and now it was difficult to harm myself just enough to gain a Vitality stat increase. I had given up using my sword QI Xing Long to cut myself because it too had leveled up greatly. It was so incredibly sharp and I feared I would accidently cut my entire arm off as it could easily slice perfectly through solid rock.

All my training had also made me realize the true nature of what stats were. They were the basis of how a human connected to the Great Game. Simple, repetitive actions could raise your stats and even create new ones. But in order to truly evolve them, such as the evolution I had experienced with some of my major stats, this required insight.

At a high level I theorised this is what would separate one Users stats, skills or class from another. The degree of insight they had into their abilities. After a few weeks training I had felt myself on the verge of breaking through to some new understanding, but frustratingly such insight remained on the edge of my mind only.

I walked out to front of the ruins as I mused ready to begin the days training when I hair on my neck stood up and I sensed danger. Instinctively I tried to angle my body when an enormous force hit me like a truck, blowing me backwards. Fuck! I grimaced as I saw something long and sharp sticking out of me.

You have received 280 points of damage

A large metal spike was embedded in my shoulder and it was constantly emitting an electrical current. My body jerked as the current ran through me. It was a substantially stronger effect than the electric eels, but not enough to cripple me completely. Rolling up I ran back towards the cave entrance zig zagging evasively before diving into the entrance. Just inside the entrance was a small recess that I squeezed myself into as I tried to pull the electric prod out of my body.

It came out slowly as I gritted my teeth. The bolt was so long it must have been shot out of some kind of long-range weapon. Finally ripping it out it stopped generating current once it was out of my body.

“Did you see how fast that fucker moved! Like some kind of cockroach on steroids man! How the fuck does a level 1 have that kind of speed?” I heard a voice say.

“Shut up Ray, I’m trying to track his movements and you are distracting me.”

“I thought Calvin’s electro magic super tech, whatever the fuck she calls it, sniper bullet was supposed to knock him out?”

“Well apparently not, now quiet.”

"brah I reckon he went this way.”

“For fucks sake STOP! You are walking all over his prints and it interferes with my tracking skill”

“Dun worry bro I got a big fucking gun. I’ll squish that level 1 bastard good. Ooh Rah!”

Shit if they had some kind of tracking capability they would find me any moment. I did a calculation in my head, it was probability a three-man squad, long distance shooter, tracker and an idiot.

Taking the initiative I burst out from under cover with the metal spike in my hand. I had foolishly left my sword back at the central cave where I trained. The Tracker looked up in shock as I shot out from behind him. As he I drew close he began to raise his pistol, but I moved too quickly and stabbed the metal spike directly into his throat with one hand, while I chopped down at his arm with the other.

Critical Hit! The target receives 500 points of damage. Unless the target is healed, he will bleed out

His pistol hit the ground at the same time as he collapsed holding his hands over his throat. Before I could move the Marine had drawn down on me and fired and my back itched as I expected a sniper bullet to hit me from afar.

I felt two dull impacts hit my body which spun me to the side and I rode this momentum and used it to dive deeper into the cave blocking any line of sight the sniper would have while getting closer to the Marine.

He tried to pistol whip me in the face as I closed in, but I edged to the side as his blow missed me by hair. Like lightning I whipped my leg out and front kicked him in the chest and watched as he flew backwards into the wall like a wrecking ball had hit him.

You have received 2 points of damage

I knew he wouldn’t be down long as my leg ached all the way up to the knee from the blow, which meant his body armor must be pretty good. Recognising where I was, I side stepped past the Marine into a side tunnel and instantly heard the sounds of his footfalls right behind me as I fled.

Two more turns and I led him to where I wanted. I turned around as he burst in and I hit him with an open hand knife strike to the throat between the gaps in this armor. But just as my strike was about to hit, the bastard lowered his chin and protected his neck and at the same time angled his pistol from the hip and started pumping off shots.

Fuck! Bullets richoeted of the cave wall as I blocked his gun angle and stuck inside his reach so I was too close to shoot effectively. We wrestled back and forth as I got inside his punching range and hit him hard and heavy with elbow strikes and knees. But rather than wilting under my blistering attack he just took it head on and I noticed his body change color slightly. Shit this must be a Skill activation.

It was easy to guess what kind of skill he had activated. My blows stopped doing any damage to him and he became tough as nails. As I tried to force the gun from his hand I realized he had gotten stronger as well and he began to overwhelm me.

“COME GET SOME!” he yelled as he let go of his pistol and began to wail on me with body blows. I had thought my resilience was high but his blows blew through my body like it was made of paper, almost shutting down my organs with a liver blow.

You have been Critically Hit for 120 points of damage

Blood welled up in my mouth from somewhere deep inside me and I spat it into his face trying to blind him.

I backed up and extended my hands forward to increase the space between us, which only encouraged him to push his weight forward. The moment he did so I stepped back into his grip, angling my body and dropping my centre of gravity. Using his arm as a lever I executed a Harai Goshi (Sweeping Hip Throw) a classic Judo move. The Marine went flying over my hip and over the edge of a ledge he did not realize was there. I watched him disappear down the hole and hit the bottom with a splash.

Right into the pool of electric eels.

“Argghhhhhhh.” I heard him scream as the buzzing sound of electricity filled the air as the eels went to work.

I picked up his Pistol off the ground and inspected it.

Marine's SidearmType:PistolDurability:500Quality:SuperiourDamage40 - 80Penetration30Ammo Recharge Rate10/10

Hmm if the ammo was anything to go by they were on a capture not kill assignment. If they had intended to kill me the long-range shooter would have finished me off before I even knew what was happening. He was just unlucky I was resistant to electricy.

I felt my body for where the Marine’s shots had hit me. Large bruises had formed above my rib cage and collar-bone, but nothing had penetrated the skin. If anything his body blows while under the effect of that Skill was what had hurt me. My insides still hurt like hell.

“Fucccccckk! It hurts, Jesus Wept it fucking hurts! Arggghhhh!” A voice screamed out from the hole again.

I smiled evilly. I remembered how painful those eels where when I had trained.

I fox walked out of the tunnel as I made my way back to where the Tracker was. Fox walking was an old Aboriginal technique where you placed the front of your foot on the ground before putting your weight on it. Strides were also shorter than a normal one. This placed the centre of gravity on the hips and allowed a person to walk very quietly.

It was a gamble. They would assume I would move deeper into the cave, which means the long-range shooter might have moved in, potentially with others. It was possible they had a larger squad out there and these were just the scouts. But if there was an opportunity to finish one of them off I had to take it.

I listened keenly for sound as I travelled but aside from the increasingly distant screams of the Marine I couldn’t hear anything. I cocked the pistol in my hand and switched the safety off and rotated the setting from Incapacitate to Kill.

I didn’t have any gun skills, but I had a basic understanding of guns in real life, and I was betting my perception and reflexes in game were high enough that my natural shooting accuracy would be adequate. I was sure true gun classes would get over powered skills like auto aim and bonus effects to their damage and bullets. However, the base damage on the pistol was decent and if my attack on the Tracker was anything to go by it appeared that critical hits were incredibly powerful.

This wasn’t a game where you could endlessly take damage. Eyes, throat, groin, liver all were weak areas of the body and, just like in real life, if they were struck with precision they could turn the tide of a fight.

Put another way, it didn’t matter how powerful your character was. It needed to breathe. If you had your throat slit your health would evaporate at an incredible rate as you choked to death. The natural laws of biology were replicated.

This would mean against Users whose bodies were not reinforced through specific skills and class bonuses my attacks would be highly effective. Body armor was a serious problem though.

As I inched closer to the front of the cave I saw a massive blood trail and saw the Tracker propped up against the recess where I had previously hidden. He was still trying to desperately reduce the blow flow and applied a bandage to his neck and was holding it with both hands. As our eyes locked I raised my pistol.

But just before I pulled the trigger my gut twitched as something felt off. There was no fear in his eyes, only expectation.

Just as I was about to fire I quickly threw myself to the side instead as two precisely fired bullets blew into the rock where I had been standing.

I sensed something in my blind spot as I rolled so I grabbed a handful of sand off the ground and flung it that direction as I sprung up. The sand hit something and I saw a shimmer in the air of an outline of a body with gun pointing at me.

Perception +3

We fired at the same time and that is when I realized the difference between me and a gun class.

You have received 78 points of damage. Precise damage has caused a cripple effect. Right arm cannot be used for one hour

You have taken 89 points of damage. Precise damage has caused a cripple effect limiting the mobility of your left leg for one hour

Fuck! It hurt so bad and my whole body began to shut down just from two bullets.

My shots on the other hand had ripped into the stealthy shimmer, but seemed to be absorbed by the body armor. Though the outline of an actual person was now appearing as the stealth mode seemed to be disengaged.

Shit if they used a kill setting I’d be dead twice over. Panicking I threw my pistol at the shooter who instinctively ducked as I tried to dash forward. While slowed considerably by my crippled leg I manage to barrel into the shooter and dropped my shoulder into their hip, grabbed both of their legs and lifted them up and performed a two-leg take down, slamming their body onto the hard rock and pinning them with my body weight.

Rolling into a side control position I wrapped their body up with my body weight as my right arm hung limply by my side.

Finally I got a good look at the shooter. Surprisingly it was a woman, her body armor looked like some kind of advanced Ghillie sniper suit. Her hands struck out as she tried to dislodge me but she was clearly not well versed in grappling. Though I could feel she was actually stronger than me I kept her pinned easily though some basic techniques. As she turned her body into me to try and get distance I flung my other leg over her body and got into the full mount position pinning her completely and began to rain blows down on her face with my good right arm.

The target receives 100 damage

The target receives 54 damage

The target receives 67 damage

She was covering up well and it was difficult to land a critical hit. I saw her drop her hand to her side and it disappeared slightly under the folds of her Ghillie suit which made me immediately panic.

I flung myself into side control and continued to pin her by laying cross-wise across her body as I grabbed her arm with both of my hands. A deadly looking blade that thrummed with some kind of energy was in her hand as I struggle to force it out of her grip.

Fuck she was strong. She bucked and pushed me as she tried to leverage her body out while pushing the knife up against both my arms to stab me.

Quickly i wove my two arms over hers while grabbing her wrist and cradled her arm into a reverse ude-garami, which was a judo joint lock. Cranking her arm at a compromised angle I heard her tendons snap and her shoulder pop as I worked it.

She didn’t scream as I cranked it though I knew she must be in terrible pain. Her hands dropped the knife, and I immediately flicked my hand over to pick it up. Elbowing her in the face as I moved my I drew the knife back to thrust in her face when I heard two loud cracks and stared numbly at the blood dripping out of my chest and onto her face.

Suddenly surging, she threw me off as she rolled to her side and I scrambled up and saw the Tracker still lying prone in his corner but now he had his pistol in one hand. I ducked to the right putting the woman in between us to block his line of sight and threw the knife at her as she was going for her gun.

The energy blade pierced right through her armor and stuck in her leg just above the knee. I had been aiming for her head, but I would take what I could get.

She grunted in pain dropped as her leg flopped out, but it didn’t stop her going for her gun.

But by the time she pulled it up I was already gone as I half ran, half limped through the tunnels, bleeding everywhere. Coughing up blood I realized how bad I’d been hurt as I went.

You are in a Critical State and suffering from internal bleeding. If untreated you could die

Shit that fucker had shot to kill not capture. Seeing me about to knife his partner he must have changed the game.

I staggered back to my main base thinking of nothing but getting to my sword. Only after this battle had I realized how much of a difference equipment made.

With Qi Xing Long Yuan in my hand I was sure I could slice straight through their body armor and annihilate them up close.

Finally I made it to my main chamber and rushed to grab my sword when I saw a shape explode from the river and shoot towards me at an incredible speed.

“RAAAARRRGGGHHHH!” the shape boomed like some kind of ancient primordial beast as it blasted towards me. Before I could even react I was picked up high into the air and slammed onto the ground as blood explode from mouth. Dazed I struggled to move but was fully pinned on my back.

On my chest sat the idiot.

His armour had been cut to shreds and his entire body, including his face, was covered with blood that continued to ooze out of his body.

“WHAT NOW, SON!” he screamed like a madman as his Skill fired off and he rained blows down onto me like some kind of furious god.

You receive 30 points of damage

You receives 40 points of damage

I tried to move but was too injured as I felt his hands grasp my throat and he began to choke the life out of me. Inwardly I cringed, if I had any strength left I would armbar the shit out of him in this position, but I simply lacked the strength.

Slowly my struggles began to cease as I felt my consciousness slip away and my last vision was of the idiot glaring at me like a maniac as he strangled the life out of me.

You have been Strangled. Consciousness lost.