Zayn slumped against a low-hanging branch, allowing it to bear all his weight. The trees, for all their stingers, were much safer than the ground below. What he’d experienced back there warranted a deeper analysis.

  Licking his cracked lips, he wrung his wallet out and fumbled through it. Other than a few coins and a couple of overdrawn credit cards, there was nothing of value within.

  Suddenly, he felt a bit grateful about the apocalypse.

  One after another, he tossed them down. The cards were the first to go. Every time he threw one out, his shoulder felt strangely lighter. But when he tried to do the same to the coins, his hands quivered.

  Maybe they’d still have some value.

  What if there was some coin collector madman who bought alien currencies at astronomical prices? One could never prepare enough for these things.

  In the end, he only tossed a single coin out and kept the rest.

  He stared eagle-eyed at the ground, not daring to miss any sudden movement. Nothing changed as seconds rolled over into minutes.

  Zayn felt his eyes shut a couple of times from the drowsiness. Unconsciously, he bit his tongue to stay awake, but with his whole body in pain, the extra bite only helped him sink deeper into his dreams. He woke up dizzy to a flashing notification.

  Ding! Northwalker wants to become your benefactor! Accept?

  He stared. It took a few moments until the realization dawned in him, eyes widening. Just like that? Were there people watching this thing like a reality tv show? And what exactly about his sleeping had attracted a benefactor?

  “And how exactly would that benefit me?”

  A benefector is someone who can provide you with various forms of support, including a periodical monetary payment.

  “Accept.”

  Congratulations! You’ve gained a Benefactor!

  You’ve received 5000 Grade 1 Arax Crystal!

  As a gift, you’ve received a Storage Ring (Apprentice) x 1 from Arax MLC!

  Without warning, something hard fell right on his head. Ouch… Instinctively, he scrambled his hands out to grab it. The price?

  Free-falling from a branch that was tens of meters above the ground.

  Thud

  He groaned, pulling himself together. [Fall damage…what’s that] had reduced the damage significantly, but still, his breath was knocked out of his lungs. Huffing, his eyes zeroed in on his palm, where a pristine, pale ring sat.

  Storage ring (Apprentice): A basic storage ring produced by Arax MLC, containing 36m3 of storage space for use.

  Upon closer inspection, he saw an unfamiliar letter etched at the center of the ring. A logo, probably. His hands strained as he tried to get a closer look. For such a small thing, it sure was heavy.

  Falling from high up had reopened many of the wounds, making blood leak out of them. When a drop touched the ring, he felt something ring in his soul. A call. Then a connection to something vast and unexplainable.

  For a moment, he was dumbstruck, as though he’d seen the naked face of God. The next moment, he lost that feeling, and the ring turned weightless.

  Storage ring (Apprentice) has been bound!

  He quickly checked, and as he expected, inside the ring was space equivalent to the size of a large bedroom. Semi-transparent crystals were piled in one corner of the space. As soon as he willed it, a transparent jade-esque crystal materialized in his palm.

  Arax Crystal: Mana crystal made by Arax MLC. It is one of the most widely accepted mana-based currencies across the greater universe. Do not keep it open in exposure to air or light.

  Rubbing its cold surface, he felt his mind soothe. No idea how much five thousand of these were worth, but that didn’t stop his lips from slowly tugging into a smile. He was five thousand mana crystals richer now!

  More importantly, he no longer had to fight with his tank bag dangling behind him, nor did he have to worry about the ground eating his things.

  Wait a minute!

  That brought him back to reality. Right. In his excitement, he’d forgotten, but what had happened to the things he’d thrown to the ground?

  He rushed to search for them. It took him a while to search through the grass until he caught a glint of light flashing. He froze at the scene. The coin was half submerged into the ground, sinking slowly.

  He felt his heart beat faster in fear. The hair on his skin raised upright. He observed as it sank completely under the ground, slowly devoured without a trace, just like his fork.

  And his credit cards? They, too, were long gone.

  ***

  Zayn frowned, finally understanding why the mana crystals were advised not to be kept in the air or light. Just an hour ago, the mana crystal was the size of his entire palm, and now it was equivalent to his fingernail.

  Interesting. The mana crystal was quite literally dissipating. Something like Osmosis? Or evaporation due to light and wind exposure? Hard to tell since he couldn’t see or understand what happened on a micro level.

  In his growing interest, Zayn made several attempts to absorb mana from the crystal. He could feel it like the thinnest current of air passing past his skin, but his body couldn’t call any of it inside.

  Like a monkey who’d been given the fruit of immortality, he felt clueless. How did people absorb mana in all those stories, anyway? All he ever remembered was that they just absorbed mana. Watching the ever-decreasing size of the mana crystal, he had an idea—to eat it.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  The rational side of his brain reasoned for his safety, telling him not to absorb alien substances. The curious side prattled on, told him it was but a tiny piece: the description had said nothing about not eating it!

  What’s the worst that could happen anyway?

  He raised the walnut-sized crystal and bit down on it. These things were harder than stones. Anyways, off you go. He swallowed it and waited to see its effects.

  As minutes passed, negative thoughts started flowing into his mind.

  What if he got mana poisoning or exploded due to excessive mana? Or maybe, slow, painful breakdown of his tissues by the overwhelming energy until he was shredded into nothingless? Even worse, just outright exploding into pieces!

  His heart sank with each increasingly terrible thought that flashed past his brain. He realized the gravity of the situation and how foolish it was of him to swallow something like that. Sweats dropped in rivulets as he waited, his mind making up precautionary measures.

  But even after another ten minutes, nothing happened, not even a feeling of discomfort in his body.

  Fuck, he was overthinking again.

  He laughed, his voice hollow. Alone, being stuck within a dead forest with no beginning or end was a one-way road to overthinking. For now, he just had to put the crystals to rest. They had no reasonable use for him.

  Store Lv 1 – (Adjusted according to contestant level)

  Loaf of bread (1 Slice) - 3

  Bottle of water(1 Litre) - 10

  Protein bar (1 piece) - 5

  Meat Jerky (1 Slice) - 5

  “Yeah, no use at all.” He dismissed the store for its unreasonable prices.

  A loaf of bread for three pieces! Protein bar and meat jerky for five! Surely, this was Systemadmin007 messing with him once more.

  “And why the hell is water this expensive?”

  Systemadmin007: You are in the hell zone; the prices were adjusted accordingly.

  “No thanks.”

  Systemadmin007: You are welcome to try the water there. Do let me know of the taste if you are still alive.

  Zayn stared at the lakes mutely. The wind stirred quietly, causing ripples across its quiet, serene surfaces. The sunlight struck it in a mesmerizing, otherworldly hue, scattering into the forest in an incandescent glow.

  Yeah, the water looked alright. Drinkable.

  Ding! A bottle of water x 5 bought!

  “Surviving now is more important, surviving now is more important.” He muttered to himself to make the sting of lost wealth less painful. At least he didn’t have to worry about the food or water anymore. Survival first! Money later!

  For the following hour, Zayn spent watching seconds roll into minutes, carefully observing the ground swallow various things. He’d fixed his watch using his toolkit and saw the slow devouring happen in real time, over and over.

  He had the sinking rule in his grasp. Somewhat.

  When something was on the ground, within twenty-five minutes, the first sign of the sinking would show. Once the sinking began, it was irreversible. By the thirty-minute mark, the entirety of the object would be gone. Devoured without a trace. He tried digging the ground once, but the shallow things had vanished, nowhere to be seen.

  If he pulled the things away before twenty five minutes, however, the time limit would reset, and once again, it would only sink twenty five minutes later.

  So he came up with the mental rule—do not keep anything on the ground for more than twenty minutes, not even himself. Always on the move, he roamed the forest with added caution, careful not to make too much noise.

  But once he understood the rules, his apprehension had gone down a level.

  His body had also healed quite well in the meantime. Hard scabs covered most of the skin injuries by now, and his constitution was letting him go strong even after hours. All hail stats!

  Your benefactor, 'Northwalker’, has sent you a text!

  Zayn stopped in his tracks.

  Benefactors could send texts? He was not told about that! He pursed his lips, hung between whether to respond or not, but eventually he decided to at least see the text. What if the guy unsubscribed because he left him on delivered?

  Northwalker : Pardon the intrusion, but I would suggest you not laze around. The faster you are, the better *************. Sure. Censor me, System. Fine. Back to the topic, in terms of classes, what are you thinking of choosing? What type of class do you want for yourself?

  What did he mean by "laze around"? He had been busy gathering important, life-saving information. And information was power! Zayn snorted.

  But now he also found himself asking, what kind of class did he want for himself?

  Casting magic and blowing shit up could be uber cool, but he also wanted a powerful body and bench press a ton with it. He wouldn’t mind the burst speed of an assassin, either, in fact. Unable to decide on a whim, he admitted, “I haven’t given it much thought.”

  Or any thought! He had a tough day surviving this pale, all-swallowing, golem-infested jungle he was thrown into.

  Northwalker: As expected. But do remember to calibrate your stats before you get to your class choice. You do not want to be caught in a situation with ******************.

  The System sure did censor a lot. Huh?

  Northwalker: Pardon. I am not used to this benefactor thing. Just keep this in mind: if you want a brawler or berserker type of class, you need enough points in strength or constitution, preferably above the **‘single’** digit. Likewise, you’d need speed for rogue and vitality for healer, intellect for mage, and fortitude for summoner-type.

  “How do I even allot stats?” Zayn spat out. Felt his chest slowly thump in his chest. Finally, he had someone to show him the way. His very own Gandalf!

  Northwalker: What? That’s so easy. Just pull mana out of your abdomen and will it.

  Pull mana from my abdomen? He stared down and focused. Sure enough, there was a faint, simmering ball of energy within his abdomen. Viridescent, almost imperceptible. He just had to pull it out?

  Quite casual if true.

  Eager, he got up on a tree branch and did his best to scour the mana out. It shimmered and pulsated, and shifted just a tiny bit before retracting like a ball of rubber, whipping at his mind. He snorted, prepared for a fight.

  He will show the stubbornness of a man who didn’t quit a job after staying at the same position for years! Did it think it would win against someone like him?

  Ten minutes later, he found that it was right.

  He’d failed to move the mana beyond an inch. His mana wouldn’t bulge out of his abdomen, as though he was trying to fish a shark.

  Or maybe he was just exhausted. He didn’t have the easiest day, after all. And his head was growing a bit muddy.

  Opening the chatbox again, he stared at it helplessly. How was he supposed to explain to Northwalker that he couldn’t even do something so simple? He had been shown the way, and he still couldn’t do it.

  No.

  At least now, he knew how to allot the points, no longer as clueless as before. He shouldn’t make his benefactor think he was some no-potential scrub, lacking the ability to do even the simplest things by himself. He would figure out the rest.

  Just as he went to close the text box, a new text popped up.

  Northwalker: Pardon the intrusion once more. Might I ask which tutorial zones you are trying to complete? Different dungeon zones and difficulty award different kinds of ‘rewards’. While I wouldn’t recommend you complete the lethal difficulty zone, you should complete the extreme, hard, and lower difficulty tutorials to not squander your potential.

  Zayn stared. So there were difficulties with tutorials, and it appeared that it was possible to choose to do either one or multiple. Kind of neat. There was only one problem.

  “I am in the Hell Zone.”

  The text went radio silent for a minute.

  Northwalker: …there is no Hell difficulty tutorial.

  Zayn shrugged. Certainly no tutorial here, but he was inside, and he was screwed without a shadow of doubt. He didn’t find it in himself to explain how that had happened.

  Northwalker: But everything makes sense if you were in the hell zone. That would explain most, if not all, the discrepancies with you.

  There were no discrepancies with him. It was the world that was acting up!

  Northwalker: When you asked me about allotting stats, I thought you were too lazy to read the induction manual, or ask the zone guide for help, but you weren’t given any manual in the first place…nor do you have any guide.

  Zayn was unsure whether he was being berated or sympathized with. But while rude, this benefactor truly did understand his precarious situation with just a few bits of conversation.

  It made sense. This was a person of immense knowledge. Wise and benevolent at the same time, just like Dumbledore, or Iroh, with white hair, beard, and all.

  Northwalker: By the way…I am aware this is deeply personal, but how many points do you have in Intelligence?

  He felt his face darken.

  What does that have to do with anything?