The sounds of all the other worldly creatures competing to capture rabbits on the field is quickly replaced with the sounds of the wind as Jack rides Sleipner back to the little caged den area where the golden bunny is trapped.
Looking up in the sky, Jack feels strange that his life has shifted so much from where it was just a single month ago. He was a super market worker with a minimum wage job, completely over qualified with his degree but there were no jobs for him. He did have plans on saving up enough to open his own electrical business but now that’s all gone if the stuff about the being essentially being destroyed is true.
Right now, he’s the leader of a village full of hundreds of non-humans and some humans riding on a purple horse that has scales instead of hide and can summon lightning attempting to capture a glowing golden rabbit with his hands.
He’d be lying if he said that this is where he expected to be just a month ago.
Jack sits in silence as he considers everything that has happened in the game so far not sure about the direction he needs to take, the only thing that he’s certain about; This game is much more than what it seems to be.
“Ok time to get serious, I need to catch this damn rabbit quickly”
Jack enters the caged area where the rabbit is trapped at first; he tries to capture it like he was previously by leaping at it with his honed skills and he’s able to retain his previous result, getting close enough to touch it but not close enough to hold it.
He is leaping at the rabbit, slamming into walls and tumbling on the ground from the momentum that he’s unable to stop in such an enclosed area but it doesn’t deter him, as he picks himself up and goes back at it.
“Alright time to put on my bunny ears and try again”
Jack laughs to himself as he proudly puts the bunny ears on, strange energy courses through his body as it feels lighter, easier to move around and most importantly easier to move quickly.
The rabbit is watching Jack’s movements change after he has put on the bunny ears, the golden rabbit has some spiritual awareness and is somewhat smart, even if it was lured by a carrot into a trap that it’s unable to escape from.
Jack spends a few moments adjusted to the improve speeds before leaping and slamming into a wall much harder than before, his head spinning from the sudden acceleration and deceleration but giving it a shake and trying again, this time catching his foot on a lump of dirt and tripping over promptly slamming into the wall again.
‘This is going to take some time…’ Jack thinks inwardly, he needs to readjust all the skills he learnt while trying to catch the golden rabbit previously.
While Jack is doing this, important events are taking place elsewhere.
Universal centre, unknown time, relative time: now.
Unknown to nearly everyone and everything within the universe, there exists a black sphere at the very centre of the universe. This black sphere has existed since the creation of the universe, it contains a world, an ancient world that has also existed since the creation of the universe.
This ancient world is filled with countless beings that fill its endless lands but very few of these countless beings are aware that they’re trapped within this ancient world, this isn’t a malicious trap by some devious person but an act of kindness.
The ancient world at the centre of the universe acts as the final bastion for life in this universe, if something were to threaten the existence of the universe and its life, this world will allow the continuation of life through its defensive barriers that contain the power of the universe itself.
The small black sphere emits a bright white light that quickly covers its entirety before an unseen pulse spreads throughout the universe, this pulse is spreading impossibly fast through the universe quickly reaches the outer reaches.
A blood-red mass can be seen forming as the pulse passes through the outer edges of the universe, this blood-red mass covers 70% of the outer edges of the universe replacing the countless stars, planets and galaxies that were forming, the mass is writhing and wriggling as though the pulse is painful.
The pulse continues to spread but it’s not able to destroy the blood-red mass, it is only able to force it back into its primal state. The energy wave from the centre of the universe loses energy as the blood-red mass quickly recovers its normal look, it’s countless creatures and shapes formed by blood-red masses of flesh and energy.
The countless creatures and shapes including deformed, strangely shaped and sized version of countless insects, animals and other humanoid creatures.
This pulse was the first defensive measure by the universe to repel the foreign universe invaders, our universe has always been located far away and weak enough to not attract any attention from other universes thus we have never had to experience what the others have, now a tribulation that stronger universe will have difficulty dealing with has arrived in ours first.
Our galaxy, the Milky Way is quite far from the universal edge and far away from the blood-red mass congregating there but for some reason, the deformed creatures are amassing around our galaxy as if they’re searching for something, following a trail.
As the pulse passed through our galaxy the creatures were turned into their primal state, blood-red mass of flesh and blood causing our galaxy to have a sphere made up of this mass, cover its entirety as though we’re trapped.
Things revert back to normal as the pulse weakens, no person on our planet will be aware of what happened but the entity ‘A01’ or a ‘godly being’ as decided by the inhabitants of ‘The Secret World Online’ is aware of it.
He is located within a random field, lazing about on the planet surface when he is able to sense the changes that happened through the universe. He ultimately doesn’t care about all of this; his task is to deliver the ‘treasure pearl’ back to the universal centre and nothing more.
“Well looks like this section of the universe is done for” ‘A01’ says without losing his smile, surrounded by many butterflies and flowers.
“Little crow, you are the final piece I need to place and this will be your last chance to awaken” ‘A01’ is holding a small glowing orb that looks like the sun before he lightly throws it into the sky.
The orb immediately pierces through the air escaping the planet, passing through the barrier surrounding the world and disappearing within the brightness of the sun, this is an egg of a golden crow that will be incubating for a year within the sun.
Quietly clouds are gathering over the warehouse where Jack’s body should be located, clouds that contain energy from the pulse and heavenly laws just quietly waiting as if it knows this location has an entity from another universe but is unable to strike it currently.
Back within the game world, Jack has spent the last two hours trying to capture the golden rabbit using it to hone his skills and adjust to his new found speed, his face is bloody from slamming his nose into the wall but he feels like it’s all worth it.
Jack’s mind stills as he concentrates on his breathing and listens to the environment, the only sounds are; the wind, his body and the rabbits’ body. He is able to hear his heart beat, the wind blowing through the grasses outside and most importantly, the rabbit’s heart beating.
He moves his foot causing the rabbit to dash around the cage, Jack quietly listens to it for half a breath before he identifies the time to pounce.
‘Now!’ he thinks to himself as he leaps towards a random wall, he was able to guess the route the rabbit will take after spending so much time trying to capture it.
The rabbit suddenly jerks as it hears Jack move and tries to dash to the opposite direction as it lands on the ground but unluckily for it, that’s exactly where Jack decided to leap.
The man and rabbit are heading in two different directions, Jack is heading directly for the wall while the rabbit is traveling along it but Jack uses his reaction speed to reach out and grab the rabbit while he’s leaping his first attempt isn’t able to hold onto the rabbits fur as it struggles to break his grip.
Jack puts more power into his grip, he was afraid of hurting the rabbit but now he doesn’t care he just wants to grab it.
*BANG*
Jack slams into the wall kicking up dust blocking his view but he’s able to tell that he has caught the golden rabbit, bringing it up to his head he’s able to inspect the rabbit but before he’s able to get a good look at it, it disappears leaving behind a golden Easter egg in his hand.
Jack has a proud smile on his face as he opens this golden Easter Egg;
‘SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT – You have acquired: ‘Blessing of the Easter Bunny Level 3’, this provides your village/kingdom/empire with bonus: Resistance against Pests 30%, Increased small animal attraction 30%’
The first notice he gets is about the buff, it appears that a golden egg has a buff that is 2 levels above the bronze egg with a 30% resistance against pests and a new buff, attracting small animals which seems odd and not very beneficial.
A crystal replaces the egg that was located in his hand, this is the first time Jack has seen a crystal like this as it’s in the form of a rabbit. Jack looks at the information;
[Technique – Bunny Dash] Grade: S Description: Able to kick your legs powerfully and dash across large areas quickly.
This is the second technique or skill that he has acquired, the first being the fireball that has proved to be very useful and this one does seem useful but not very exciting, plus its name isn’t very cool.
Jack lets out a slight sigh as he places the crystal to his forehead and learns the skill, new information appears within his mind as the skill is learnt, this is much easier than cultivation where you can instantly learn mastery of a skill.
He inspects the information within his mind, it’s a simple skill that lets you explosively release power from your leg muscles that doesn’t use any qi.
Jack quickly tests it out but finds himself slamming into a wall yet again, cursing inwardly Jack leaves the caged area that the rabbit was trapped in and tries ‘Bunny Dash’ on the open field, looking at a target in the distance, Jack wants to try to appear before that target without slamming into it.
‘Bunny… Dash…’ Jack inwardly says the awkward skill name as his legs release a sudden explosion of power and he leaps across the ground, appearing before the target before a blink can pass without slamming into it.
Jack nods his head to indicate that he’s happy with it but not terribly excited, before he uses the skill again and appears before a tree 100m in the distance. This seems to be the limit for distance at the moment, but Jack feels that there’s much more to this skill that can be uncovered with time.
He feels like it’s worthwhile to practise this skill and see how many times he will be able to use it before getting tired, it doesn’t use any qi strangely but perhaps it could be used in conjunction with qi?
Jack tries to circulate his qi but finds that he isn’t able to release it properly within his body, his veins are still bruised, stretched and sore from the centipede fight. He gives up using qi in conjunction with this skill for now, and just practises using the skill in general as he leaps across the field going back to the area Drakon is located.
Sleipner is able to easily keep pace with Jack’s sudden leaping almost trying to race him to show that he will still have worth.
Jack makes his way quickly back to Drakon causing a spectacle with his sudden appearance and disappearances while using the skill, after 40 leaps or so Jack finally makes it back to Drakon while panting, it appears that about 40 leaps in a row is his limit but his distance is getting better.
Originally his leap was limited to about 100m but now it’s about 105m, not much but a great improvement for only having the skill a short time.
Drakon gives Jack a respectful salute, “Lord, I see you got a new skill, congratulations”.
Jack smiles at Drakon giving him a nod before looking at out the field, it’s full of kobolds and goblins working together with some humans going between each of the groups helping them with any problems the two other species aren’t able to solve.
A kobold accidently hurts a rabbit and changes colour into green, making it appear similar to a goblin which produces a few laughs from the rest of the group before they get stuck into it again.
It certainly seems like a beginner event with these consequences, Jack turns to Drakon.
"What do you think about the second day of the event?"
"I didn't get much time out there yesterday because I was escorting the kobolds but it's certainly an easy special event, if we can cover a larger area then we'll be able to get a million in a day easily with this method"
Jack places his hand on his chin looking out at the field, it feels very easy but too easy as anyone with a hired large workforce is able to do this. This is indeed the case, nearly all the other players have worked out this method after it was posted online, Jack is in a far better position because of where he is located but it won’t be enough to get those top 10 items before the others.
Looking at the normal brown rabbits that are falling into the pits, Jack feels that it’s wasteful as they’re only the most basic rabbits.
"We need to capture more special rabbits, I caught a golden rabbit earlier in the den we made for the wolves" Jack points to where he came from, "It was a pretty smart rabbit but it liked a reward I got from a blue Easter Egg and easily went into the trap, can that be used more often?"
"Possibly but I feel it’s better to use this method for now as the kobolds and goblins are still new to our village and way of life. If we are going to focus on the tougher rabbits then we need to spread everyone out further and wait until night time to see them better" Drakon responds while thinking for a moment.
"So, we can just dig holes everywhere, place a cage within it and bury the cage so it's hidden putting a bait carrot in there, rigging it so that the cage door shuts automatically” Jack mulls over his idea, “We’ll just need to work out a way to separate the special rabbits and the normal rabbits…”.
Jack and Drakon stand there talking for a while to finalise their plans before Jack feels like it’s time he heads back to the village, he’s unlikely to see another shiny rabbit before night fall and they need to acquire more of the bait carrots that appeared from the blue Easter Egg, he needs to ask Mai if she’s able to grow more.
Jack mounts Sleipner to ride back to the village instead of using the new ‘Bunny Dash’ skill and makes quick time as though Sleipner still feels threatened by the possibility of Jack abandoning it.
The village is very quiet right now, nearly everyone is out in the field.
There are a few soldiers stationed at a guard post, some trap makers passing materials back and forth and the sound of a blacksmith banging away in the distance.
The village has the smell of smoke from the smelter melting down the little metals they acquired from the barren kobold homes, they were a poor and weak race forced to live in tiny rocky outcroppings on the plains area by the larger stronger races.
Nearly all of the hills in the area are made of dirt, like giant ant mounds but so far Jack has uncovered the contents of two, the grey stone when he first started playing and the ant hill. There is also the goblin underground area but DeeYo wasn't very clear about it.
The small rocky out crop areas were where the kobolds could find respite from the elements and fulfill their species like of dark and colder places.
‘What race forced the kobolds to take residence in those small rocky areas instead of their ancestral homes?’ Jack thinks to himself, perhaps he needs to get a map of the area before the region barriers appeared or maybe Mai is able to answer the question.
Jack takes a quick look down the road and is unable to see Mai and enters the first building she will likely be within, the tailor.
