Chapter 8 - A way to find Willy?

Cyan dreamed he was different and everything around him was also different than he remembers, people he never knew and places he had never been however there were things that caught his attention, when he looked to the left there was a long black sword that he was holding with his hand and when he looked to the right he saw Alice beside him holding his hand and when looked back he saw this little robot behind supporting his every step, the name robot he could not remember, however when he looked down he saw he was standing in a mountain of dead corpses and green blood.

When Cyan opened his eyes with a jump, he found out that he was actually floating in a vertical position being suspended inside a tank filled with a semi-transparent liquid and he was being completely submerged into it. Cyan tried to speak but no words come out from his mouth because he was connected to a machine that allows him to breathe inside the tank.

Cyan tried to remember what happened and how did he get here but the last thing he remembers was being sent to the [Training Tower] and then going into the [Rest Area] to start doing a Quest together with Willy and then… nothing, he could not remember anything else from that point.

‘Did I fainted?’ Cyan thought

Thanks that the liquid was transparent Cyan could see the outside of the tank and into the room it was decorated with weird instruments that he had never seen before while a monitor reflected a picture of him and his status [Suspended], he also took notice that there were some robots moving around the room and seemly busy doing stuff.

These robots were a different model than Willy, as they were many differences even though they looked very similar, however, he could tell them apart because they were marked as SR series 3 ####, unlike Willy that has an AR series 2 #105.

One of the SR robots that was passing by took notice that the Player in the [Suspended Chamber] #1 has awakened so it stopped in front of the Player.

[SR####]: “Player #Cyan had regained conscience, did you wish to go back to your room now?”

Cyan thought for a bit and after seeing that there was nothing wrong with his body and he was in a good shape he nodded his head indicating to the robot that he did wanted to go out as soon as possible, even though being floating inside the liquid was not that bad at all he still felt the urge of going outside and move around not to mention find out why he was put inside here in the first place.

[SR####]: “Confirmed, Initializing procedures, it is recommended for the Player to remain calm while the liquid is being drained, this process will take 5 minutes, after that the player will be teleported back to his room, have a nice day”

After saying this information the robot left to continue carrying out his duties that he was assigned.

Cyan pondered why he was being teleported instead when he could just walk outside on his own, he looks around the room and the only thing he could find was a row of tanks like the one he was using right now but no one was inside on those, not mention he could not find any way to go outside this room like a door.

After waiting 5 minutes the liquid was drained from the tank however when Cyan feet’s touched the bottom of the tank he found himself unable to put any strength into his legs or the rest of his body, it was like he had been sleeping far too long and he had forgotten how to move his limbs and all his energy had been sucked dry, and with great difficulty Cyan managed to remove the mask he was using to breath when he was submerged making him cough a few times.

The SR series robot shows up again in front of Cyan.

[SR#####]: “Teleportation will start in shortly, Player is advice too….”

Cyan tried to talk to the robot with much difficulty to ask some questions, but his voice was rough as it has not talked in a long time.

[SR#####]: “Teleportation in 3… 2… 1…”

[Cyan]: “Wait…where I am?”

The SR series robot ignored him and teleported him away to his room after Cyan vanished the robot returned to his routine tasks.

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Cyan opened his eyes after the blinding white light had disappeared, this time he was lying onto of his bed, now he was in his room inside the [Dorms Area], looking around he didn’t found anything special about the room, there was a bed, a desk a chair and a wardrobe, however he could not find Willy around the room.

Noticing his phone besides him, Cyan ignore the unread messages and tapped into the [Midas] app, to check Willy status and location.

[Midas App]

[Status] [Inventory] [Skill] [Quest] [Shop] [Willy] [Map](1) [Inbox](?) [Help/FAQ]

When Cyan opened the [Midas] app he found there were notifications for [Inbox] and [Map] too but he ignore them for now and directly tapped into [Willy] he didn’t knew why but he was feeling anxious to know the status of Willy right now.

[Midas App]

[Willy] [Status] [Inventory] [Setting] …

[Status]

[Information]

Type: AR Series 2 Name: Willy Status: Offline Location: Unknown Level: Tier 0++

[Stats]

Strength (STR): 99 Tier 0++ Dexterity (DEX): 99 Tier 0++ Endurance (EN): 99 Tier 0++ Stamina (STA): 99 Tier 0++ Intelligence (INT): 99 Tier 0++

Note: 1~49 = Tier 0, 50~98 = Tier 0+, 99 = Tier 0++, > 99 = Tier 1.

Willy stats had changed from the first time he checked them they all were all in 49’s and Tier 0+, now, however, they had changed into 99’s and Tier 0++ but that didn’t matter for Cyan right now because Willy’s location has also changed to [Unknown] and even worse his status has changed to [Offline], that could only mean one thing, he lamented himself.

He also notice something weird with the date of his phone, he had arrived on Monday 8 so it should be Tuesday 9 but the date shown to be Sunday 14, after checking the date again he realized it has been almost seven days since he set foot into the [Training Tower] but he could only barely remember his first day meaning he had been sleeping for almost six days, he could now begin trying to understand why he feels so weak after waking up.

Taking that out his mind Cyan returned to the main menu and tapped on the [Map]

[Map]

Location: [Training Tower] #1 Floor 1: Lobby Area Floor 2: Dorms Area Floor 3: Food Area Floor 4: Rest Area Floor 5: Track Area Floor 6: Gym Area Floor 7: PVP Arena Floor 8: Fighting Arena (locked) Floor 9: Suspension Chamber (locked)

Floor 9 had been changed, just before Floor 9 didn’t show anything but [locked] now it has a chance into [Suspension Chamber]

[Cyan]: “[Suspension Chamber]? Did I was put into suspension for seven days?”

Cyan could not understand what had happened, why he was moved into the [Suspension Chamber] in Floor 9 after entering the [Rest Area] in Floor 4 not to mention Willy disappearance felt somehow related to this, not being able to come with an answer Cyan moved to read the unread messages he got, maybe the answer could be found in there he thought.

Cyan started to go through his unread messages from the beginning after entering the [Rest Area].

Message [Midas]: “Quest [Start your training] [2] Cleared, Player Cyan is rewarded with 1 Free Point”.

Message [Midas]: “Quest [Start your training] [3] Cleared, Player Cyan is rewarded with 1 Free Point”.

Message [Midas]: “Quest [Start your training] [4] Cleared, Player Cyan is rewarded with 1 Free Point”.

Message [Midas]: “Quest [Start your training] [5] Cleared, Player Cyan is rewarded with 1 Free Point”.

Message [Midas]: “Quest [Start your training] [7] Cleared, Player Cyan is rewarded with 1 Free Point”.

Message [Midas]: “Quest [Start your training] [8] Cleared, Player Cyan is rewarded with 1 Free Point”.

Message [Midas]: “Quest [Start your training] [9] Cleared, Player Cyan is rewarded with 1 Free Point”.

Message [Midas]: “Quest [Start your training] [END] Cleared, Player Cyan is rewarded with 1 Free Point”.

Message [Midas]: “Quest [Start your training] Completed, Player Cyan is rewarded with 10 STR, 10 DEX, 10 END, 10 STAT, 10 FP and 10.000 Credits”.

Note: FP = Free Point

Cyan jaw almost dropped to the ground, what had he been doing when he entered the [Rest Area]? He could remember now, he had been doing a Quest to do push on the ground but he fainted near the end, even though he could still not remember much of what he did during the Quest he still remembered doing a series pushes while Willy was keeping the count.

As for the rewards, they were pretty much just the same 1 Free Point for every sub-task, it was not much but put together he got 8 Free Points not bad at all, however the true reward came afterward when he ended all the sub-tasks and the Quest was deemed to have been completed, from that he got a massive reward of 10 points for almost all of his stats, more Free points and a bunch of Credits, that was an amazing reward for Cyan meaning that with this reward he has pretty much doubled almost all of his stats in one Quest he could now say goodbye to his pitiful low stats, he wanted to celebrate this with Willy but he remembered he was not here with him to celebrated together making him feel rather more sad than happy.

Not to mention that even if he wanted to jump out of his bed he was feeling like a weakling right now while lying on his bed and even though he was not feeling any pain around his body, by just holding his phone made his arms feel already tired, this let to Cyan question himself about something off of the Quest he completed.

[Cyan]: “Wait a moment, how many pushes did I end doing?”

Cyan moved his finger to check the [Quest] tab.

[Quest]

[Start your training] (Completed) [1] Do 10 pushes against the floor, in 10 minutes (Cleared) [2] Do 100 pushes against the floor (Cleared) [3] Do 200 pushes against the floor (Cleared) [4] Do 300 pushes against the floor (Cleared) [5] Do 500 pushes against the floor (Cleared) [6] Do 800 pushes against the floor (Cleared) [7] Do 1300 pushes against the floor (Cleared) [8] Do 2100 pushes against the floor (Cleared) [9] Do 3400 pushes against the floor (Cleared) [E] Do 5500 pushes against the floor (Cleared)

Note: 0 1 1 2 3 5 13 21 34 55…

At the beginning Cyan thought the Quest would increment by 100 every sub-task but he was wrong, the final task was to do 5500 pushes, if he added them up together it was doing more than thirteen thousand pushes in total!, more than fainting in the ground Cyan arms should have fallen off from his body at that point, in resume doing so many… he could not see himself doing it.

[Cyan]: “Did I really did that many?” he could not help but ask himself

He could not remember doing so and the present feeling of his body being so weak didn’t help to boost his confidence in that regard either, before moving on with the rest of the unread messages Cyan felt curious about what his current status and stats are as he took his phone and tapped in [Status].

[Status]

[Information]

Type: Player Name: Cyan Status: Weaken (All stats a ~10%) Location: [Training Room] Level: 0 Profession: None Sub-Profession: None

[Stats]

Strength (STR): ~2 (16) Tier 0 Dexterity (DEX): ~2 (18) Tier 0 Endurance (END): ~2 (15) Tier 0 Stamina (STA): ~2 (18) Tier 0 Intelligence (INT): ~2 (12) Tier 0 Free Points: 18

As expected Cyan confirmed he was indeed in a [Weaken] status and all of his status were roughly at ~10% but he also confirmed that his [Normal] status has skyrocketed and was no longer pitiful low with all stats breaking past the average line of 10’s and the only thing that didn’t increase was his INT, but Cyan guessed that getting smarter was a hard thing to do and that couldn’t be simply achieved by doing pushes on the ground.

He also noticed something else, even though his INT stat was at ~2 he didn’t feel much different compared to his normal thoughts process or ideas he normally has, meaning he was thinking like himself, the change was in his thinking speed that has slowdown and trying to remember things was hard and slow process.

With this information Cyan could now come out with a simple hypothesis that after doing so many pushes on the ground he had in fact overworked himself into a breaking point and that being put into [Suspension] was something done to save his life, he also has the feeling that Willy was the one that saved him even though he could not remember it, Cyan felt that’s what happened because even after a week of being sleep his stats were only at 10% recovery that served to reinforce his theory, he was in brink of death and Willy intervened to save him somehow, however even if that was the case then where he was now? And why he was taken offline?

Now that Cyan had confirmed his status he returned to read his the rest of the unread messages and found another message from [Midas] in his phone, in the rows of messages he got.

Message [Midas]: “Announcement: All assigned personal robots need to go back to reevaluation, the Assistant Robot Protocol has being terminated”

[Cyan]: “This is… the reason”

Cyan was shocked the protocol has been terminated, to begin with, Willy was his partner and to be taken away from him after just one day, he could not help but want to write a complaint to [Midas], he already figure out you could actually write to [Midas] by using his phone as Willy had told him, the thing was… what to write after all this was [Midas] the one in control of this tower right?.

Reply: “Excuse me but Why the AR protocol was terminated? This has to do with my assigned AR…Why Willy status shows that he is Offline?”

Cyan got a immediately reply

Message [Midas]: “Player don’t have the privileges to access that information, the AR Protocol has being terminated, and all AR series were sent to inspection and schedule for repurposing”

“…” Cyan could not help but swear.

Reply: “Then where is Willy…”

Message [Midas]: “All AR series robots were inspected and repurpose this morning”

Even though Willy was just a robot that he knew for a couple of hours Cyan felt like crying, not to mention he was being affected by the cold words sent by [Midas] reply.

Then a new message came from [Midas]

Message [Midas]: “…Cyan has been compensated 100.000 credits due to loss of resources…”

For [Midas] Willy was just a robot with a few hidden features made with the purpose of helping a Player train even if they were “alive” at the end of the day they were just quantifiable resources, meaning their value could be calculated and expressed in Credits, but for Cyan this was not something he could put a number on it and be happy for receiving…

Cyan didn’t move to confirm his “compensation” for Willy as he replies back at [Midas]

Reply: “Give it back, give me back Willy! You can take the credits away I don’t need them”

Message [Midas]: “Player request is denied, Assistant Robots Protocol has being terminated and All AR series robots were inspected and repurpose this morning”

Reply: “You bastards, give me back my friend”

Message [Midas]: “Player request is denied, Assistant Robots Protocol has being terminated and All AR series robots were inspected and repurpose this morning”

Cyan lamented the loss of his friend once more, talking with a computer was so frustrating that Cyan was about to throw his phone away but he got another message before he could do that.

Message [Midas]: “Cyan is advice to intake food in the [Food Area] to replenish all the resources a human body needs to keep up with his training…”

At the beginning this message only made him angrier until his eyes caught onto something peculiar about this message, in particular, he immediately sends a reply

Reply: “Willy?”

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However no new reply came back after that but Cyan took notice of something else as he reread all the previous messages from [Midas], they all started with Player, but there were two messages that call him Cyan instead, he could only think that he was talking to two different entities and that may be of those was Willy, of course, this wasn’t a confirmation at all but now he just has to make sure somehow.

[Cyan]: “Still it must be him Willy wouldn’t let himself being recycled so easily I know that much”

Even though Cyan could not explain it himself, but the feeling he knew Willy very well came from his mind, and that he would be so easily destroyed no matter what.

Cyan stood up powerlessly from his bed and exited the room, that last message has reminded him that he was actually feeling very hungry so much so that he was willing to move to the [Food Area] and order some food because he felt he would die of starvation if he didn’t eat something quick, not to mention having something to eat was the best thing he could do right now because it was hard thinking a solution to get Willy back with an empty stomach.

Cyan opened his [Midas] app to check up the [Map] now that Willy wasn’t around to guide him anymore, he notices that now the [Willy] submenu was still there making him sighed, he convinced himself that Willy was still alive somewhere.

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Getting to the elevator was easy enough for him to do even though he was walking very slowly, it took 10 minutes to get there but he still managed to reach Floor 3 where the [Food Area] was.

The floor was filled with tables were one could sit and order food from the app and then a TR series 2 robot would come and bring the food to the table, Cyan just ordered the specialty of the day and he ended devouring 5 whole orders and a 3 side dishes together with 2 strawberry milkshake, this ended costing him 2.850 Credits in total it wasn’t until near the end that he fell his stomach starting to get full not to mention the food taste was amazing he had being living a frugal life so eating like this was the first time, eating like this all days should be impossible after all he just spent almost 3.000 Credits in food when his first Quest gave him only 10.000 Credits however he could not help as he just keep ordering food until he was full.

Note: Special Food 500C: Normal Food 100C: Side Dish 50C: 100C Milkshake.

Note2: [Energy Drink] and [Energy Food] Cost 1000C, price wise these are better for removing hunger and getting Stamina back, but Food tastes better and help Players grow with less aim for recovering Player energy.

Note3: 1C = 1 Credit

Cyan felt a little bit of his strength returning back to him but he was still too weak to do anything else than lay down in his chair with his stomach already full, so after having his fill he returned back to his room and into his bed and lay down and as he started feeling sleepy he remembered to check his inventory also.

[Inventory]

Credits: 115.150

[Items]

Ticket for entry to Floors 5 to 7 x30

[Equipment]

School Uniform

After opening his inventory he could confirm something that has been bothering him, how did he end on Floor 9 when he was in Floor 4, that was answered when he opened his inventory and [Ticket for entry to any Floor] x5 was no more inside his inventory, it probably means they all were used up to send him to Floor 9 to the [Suspension Chamber] for saving his life he would gladly use them but he clearly remembered Willy had told him he couldn’t put or take anything from his inventory…, then who did?

Before he could think on anything else Cyan eyes closed and his mind entered into the world of dreams.