The Final Trial, page 2
part #3 of Level Up Series
An explanation flashed underneath:
System messages are generated from the candidate’s preferred vocabulary.
OK, so everything was just like with my old interface — someone must have poked around in my brain so they could speak to me in the same language.
The message was replaced by two vibrating boxes with the names of the achievements:
The Fastest Learner.
10% to skill development rate
Altruist.
+1 to all main characteristics at every level gained.
It was a no-brainer: I selected the one which added to the characteristics. For good measure I tapped the box. The other one popped and “Altruist” was pulled into my finger. What a circus.
While I was examining my fingertip, another notification opened right in front of me, just above my finger. The letters were small. I shifted my eyes, and the font grew and moved away a little, making it easier to read.
The Trial is a tradition for the Galactic Commonwealth of Sentient Races, the first but not the last procedure for selecting candidates to take part in the next Diagnostics of their race.
Prototype of the Trial site: Pibellau, Sagittarius Sector.
Participants in the Trial: planet Earth, “Humankind” faction, Homo sapiens race (these are self-designations), 2018 according to local chronology, fourth wave.
Number of participants: 169.
Main characteristics of the test subjects: real-life characteristics are carried over.
So that meant that all my running and boxing at the gym wouldn't go to waste. All the stats I’d earned through buckets of sweat would still have value. That was good news, and I felt encouraged.
I continued to study the rules. The previous message flipped, replaced by a new one:
The objective of every Trial candidate is to capture all of the Pibellau hexagons.[1]
The candidate who passes the Trial will be named the winner. The reward will be tallied dynamically according to the results of the selection procedure, along with a vote by the observers. The final decision will be issued by the Senior Supervisor of the Trial.
OK, I get what happens to the winner. But what about the loser? Is he sent home? That’s not the worst thing that could happen. Even if my interface is uninstalled, no one can take my achievements away. I’ll keep my new friends, my company, my fit body and my new skills.
Absorb the territory! Every hexagon you capture rewards you with additional resources.
To capture a neutral hexagon, activate the command center. Cost of activating the command center: 100 existence resource points.
To capture an enemy hexagon, you must report in person to the command center of the captured territory and remain there for the duration of 1 hour, Pibellau time (13 hours = 1 day) before you can activate the command center.
All right. This reminded me of something, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.
Remember that all the other Trial candidates are your enemies!
When you destroy an enemy, you capture their hexagon. Any test subjects who lose all their hexagons will be disincarnated one day later (Pibellau time), no matter how many lives they have left.
A captor may cancel the disincarnation by taking the enemy into his or her clan.
A clan is not an alliance! A clan belongs to only one person, and all the resources captured by the clan are transferred to the leader, who is in charge of them.
When test subjects agree to join another clan, they become the vassal and surrender all their hexagons and resources to the clan leader.
OK, got it. You're surrounded by some enemies, you need to stay on your guard, dominate, trample them and enslave them. I could see what it was all about. I’d already heard something similar when the voice of Khphor had advised me, via Panikoff’s mouth, not to stop at anything.
I swiped that message away too. A new one appeared:
Pibellau is an inhospitable place. The ferocious, carnivorous wildlife is always hunting for prey, but the most deadly creatures come out at night. Be alert, keep upgrading your base and building up your defenses.
Use labor and the skills of the reconnaissance, working and fighting units generated by the command center. Keep developing your base and improving the abilities of the units.
Don't forget about yourself. You will earn existence resources by destroying other participants, the aggressive flora, hostile fauna and your adversaries’ units, and by capturing hexagons. The hexagons will help you level up, and once you receive class specialization, you will be awarded new talents and abilities with each level gained.
These are all the rules.
You’re now ready to begin.
Put more fire under your enemies’ feet, test subject!
Screw me dead! I looked around, searching for the infamous command center but didn't see anything that looked like it.
In the meantime, the message rolled up, replaced by another quivering balloon, green this time. I opened it.
Choose a name, test subject!
A name? Right, it’s a game.
Maybe Graykillah, the moniker I used in every game I played? No, wait. Philip? That wouldn’t do either.
Just keep it simple: Phil.
I said the name out loud. A large message appeared:
Phil, invest in your main characteristics!
Strength determines the damage dealt without a weapon and by a short-range weapon. It influences the damage dealt by your units and the volume of resources extracted by working units.
Agility determines the damage dealt by a long-range weapon. It affects the speed of both the user and their units.
Intellect affects the character development rate, as well as the rate of generation and upgrade of modules and the base.
Stamina determines the number of life points of the character and their units.
Perception determines the chance of critical hit and critical damage. The chance of finding lost artifacts increases. It also affects the radius of visibility in the fog of war.
Charisma affects the rate of generation of new units and the number of units used at the same time.
Luck: improves your chances of encountering advantageous situations in all aspects of the Trial.
I fell deep into thought. It seemed that the physics of the world were closely connected to the test subject’s numerical rankings. Looking around, I realized that I could see up to a radius of around 500 yards; the wall of the fog of war stood beyond that. Apparently, the higher my Perception, the farther I would be able to see.
I collapsed the window into the green balloon and opened a pulsing yellow one. A character window with three boxes popped up. The first one contained general information, the second, my characteristics, and the third — the smallest — all the other stats.
Character profile
Phil, human.
Level: 1.
Class: undetermined. Required level: 10.
Health points: 1100/1100.
Damage without weapon: 11-15.
Chance of critical hit: 36.5%
Bonuses: 14% off the cost of character development, +6 Characteristic points to invest anywhere.
Achievements: Altruism (+1 pt. of main characteristics for each level up).
Main characteristics
Strength — 13.
Agility — 11.
Intellect — 20.
Stamina — 11.
Perception — 15.
Charisma — 17.
Luck — 14.
Characteristic points available to invest: 11 (5 main characteristics, 6 bonus characteristics).
Character stats
Lives: 3.
Captured hexagons: 0.
Ranking: 169/169.
Existence resources: 2/1000.
You don’t have enough existence resources to activate the leveling up function!
For the next level (2) you need 172 existence resource points.
Ah, that’s what I thought. The Trial is a game. It contains “lives” and you can be resurrected. The mobs you kill disappear, leaving loot behind.
For now, I’d been able to loot only the mysterious existence resources, but who knows, maybe an ax would fall out of the next kirpi? It was too bad that the ring and red wristband had not raised my Luck, and even the Netsuke Jurōjin, which didn't need to be worn, didn’t work here.
I also gathered that leveling up didn't happen through XPs but in exchange for currency — that is, existence resources. This is turn suggested several leveling scenarios: you could either invest them into yourself or spend them onto upgrades of the command center. You could also create an army of mobs or improve the stats of the existing ones. I guess I’ll figure it out.
In any case, whether this was the real world or a virtual one, it was clear that I was myself, not a virtual avatar. My own heel could vouch for that: the memory of the kirpi’s teeth was still vivid.
Whether or not this world was real, I needed a development strategy, and in order to figure out how to develop, I needed to start playing. That was even more urgent because judging by the ranking, everyone else had already thrown themselves into leveling up while I was the only one standing around thinking and trying to figure out what was going on.
I stood up. The wound had already healed, and so had my burned palm; Health had regenerated and the bar was full again. I looked to see where that damned command center could be. And while I was at it, I peered at the ground: maybe there was a stick or branch I could use to fight off the kirpi’s parents and their buddies.
I didn't find anything like that, but about 20 paces away, closer to the ravine, I could see a perfectly round white stone lying on the ground in the opposite direction of the forest. It was about a yard in diameter.
When I got closer, I saw that a handprint was pressed into the surface. I placed my hand in the indentation, which perfectly matched its outline, and felt warmth emanating from the stone.
Nothing happened at first.
But then I knew: I would need 100 existence resource points to activate the command center.
I also understood that the existence resources were needed for other things, not just to activate the command center. The existence resources would allow me to live. Days on Pibellau cost 13 existence points, a point for each hour experienced in local time.
After understanding came realization and epiphany: in order to live, I would need to kill. In order to level up, I would need to kill. In order to preserve everything I’d achieved there, I would need to win victory here. And to do that, I would need to kill.
Valiadis and Ilindi had not prepared me for this.
A new notification appeared, telling me that I’d lost one existence resource point. I had only one point left; that was an hour of life. Resources can't be negative; I will simply lose “life.”
So my plan of action for the near future was simple and clear: farm existence resources by setting up a local armageddon on my hexagon. After I’d “optimized” my WoW-playing skill, I’d forgotten its finer points, but it wasn’t the only game I had played. Now something buried in my memory had suddenly resurfaced: a good old-fashioned farming experience was waiting for me.
It didn’t mean that I was going to venture into the forest: the risk of me aggroing a few mobs without even noticing it was too high. So I chose the open terrain behind the ravine which was around eight yards wide and impossible to get around. I would need to lower myself into it.
The ravine’s bottom was concealed by fog, but I knew from my gaming experience that the juciest mobs and best loot could be found in places like this. The descent was steep, but there were thick, dried-out, broken-off tree roots along the walls. Holding onto them, I carefully lowered myself, groping for a foothold.
The ravine was as deep as two men standing one on top of the other, and when I finally touched down, I breathed a sigh of relief. There was no one in my line of sight.
A sound like a wet cloth slapping the wall made me jump. The skin on my chest charred and smoked. 358 damage points wasn’t a joke: I screamed at the top of my lungs from the pain and fright of the surprise attack.
A couple of yards away from me, I saw a massive-
Kreken
Location boss.
Level 6.
Life points: 1800.
Run, Phil, run!
I stepped away, covering my eyes with my arm. If the creature burned my eyes, how was I supposed to keep going?
The monster looked like a horsefly with a long snout that was uncoiling again now, preparing to spit its napalm saliva at me. I spun around and ran, inwardly shrinking from the anticipation of its spittle landing on my back.
But the Kreken had already stopped attacking. I guess it had wandered off.
When I was fifty yards away, I turned around but didn't see anyone.
I breathed a sigh of relief and was hit in the face by a new volley of spit.
The creature’s saliva was eating my skin right down to the bone. The next volley of spittle flew into my gaping mouth which was open in a scream, penetrating my throat and scorching my vocal cords from inside.
I collapsed to the ground, dreaming of dying just so I could stop the pain. I lost consciousness.
You are now dead, test subject.
Lives remaining: 2.
Time left until resurrection: 3... 2... 1....
Damn, you’ve organized a local armageddon, all for yourself!
Chapter 2. The Second Half
If it wasn’t hard, everyone would do it. It’s the hard that makes it great.
Tom Hanks
I STOOD before the portals, not knowing which one to choose.
Blue or red?
The turquoise blue or the burgundy red?
Somehow I preferred the latter.
I walked towards it and touched it with my fingertips. My heart missed a beat as it sucked me in.
The next thing I knew I was right back where I started: standing in front of Valiadis, Ilindi and Khphor. I couldn’t suppress a smile of satisfaction: I’d passed the damned Trial and still had the interface.
But they didn’t say anything.
I was bewildered. “Is something wrong?”
Ilindi whispered something to Valiadis who frowned. Thanks to my heightened Perception, I was able to catch something like “lost his life.”
“Mr. Valiadis, sir? Ilindi?” I turned to them with mounting anxiety. “Is everything OK? I’ve passed the Trial, haven’t I?”
“You’ve only passed the preliminary selection, human,” Khphor’s voice said in my head.
“That wasn’t the Trial? Then where is it? What do I have to do to pass it? Where do I go? What do I do?”
“Philip, calm down,” Valiadis said wearily. “I’d like to congratulate you. You successfully passed the preliminary selection, the pretrial. Unlike the first time. But the actual Trial has already started.”
“It's already started?” I laughed nervously. “You mean that I’m just standing here talking to you, and that’s your freaking Trial?”
“It’s not our Trial, human! It’s held by the Senior Races,” Ilindi said nonchalantly, nodding toward Khphor, who was unperturbed. “Philip, you can relax. It no longer depends on you. The Trial has already started. Your replica is participating in it.”
“My replica? What are you raving about? Why not me?”
“The replica thinks it's the real Philip Panfilov. It doesn’t understand its true nature. And your fate is entirely in its hands. There’s nothing you can do to influence it.”
“What will happen there? How is it doing?”
I heard Ilindi say something like “he already lost one life”.
What did that mean? Was Phil 2 already eliminated?
“He has two more lives left, human,” Khphor said in my head. “It’s over for you now. You’ll now return to your world and continue living while you wait for the results.”
“What does that involve?”
“You’ll find out personally if Phil 2 passes,” Valiadis said. “Your consciousness will merge with his and you’ll ‘remember’ everything that happened to him. And he’ll find out what happened to you. If not, you won't hear anything else about the Trial after you go back to the day when you received the interface.”
