Everything that was happening around him was almost like a dream. A world of imagination. He leaned against the cold stone wall with his back. Raising both hands to his shoulders to warm himself he noticed a button was on his left and right shoulders. Pressing the left did not do anything but pressing the right a menu showed up with the following categories.

Instructions
Spells
Chat and inbox

Immediately he pressed the instructions button and a panel showed up. 
                                                                               
                                                                 General

The player’s main purpose in the death game is to live and survive from the “Waves”, other players and hazards. “Waves” are the challenges prepared by the gamemaster to test who is worthy enough to live.

                                                                   Body

A player’s body in the virtual world will be very similar to their original body before they were kidnapped. However, that is only at the start of the game. Due to the “moldable body” setting any player could train their body to become stronger. Even an old person will be able to have a stronger body if they were to work hard.

                                                                  Spells

Most spells are used by typing codes on the wristboard located on your left arm. Some spells can be voice-activated while others are “passive” spells that will aid you without any commands. The specific usage of said spell will be presented to you at the spell shops or your “spell” menu after you get the spell.  

                                                           Gold/Paper

Gold and Paper are the currency of this world. Or to be more specific the players before the third great abduction had settled upon them as such. Gold is used for buying spells. Paper is used for every humanly need. Food, bed and houses.

                                                   The dimensional bag

The bag on your waist is called a dimensional bag. It can contain any number of items. And no one can take away your bag. It is tied to your body. Dip your hand in your bag and you will immediately know what is in it and how to draw it out. But be careful, other people can dip their hands into your bag.            
                                                                                
                                                              Animas

These are AI monsters that exist in this world. Some are just neutral beings. But dozens of them are ruthless against humans.           

The instructions ended there. It wasn’t close enough to answer his questions and doubts at all. Only thing he knew was that he was inside a video game world. When he lived in Mongolia he did at times think about how life would be better if he was transported into a fantasy world away from all his problems but who could have imagined his wish would be granted in this form. He looked at his instructions again. 

Hmm, I need to find these spells, fast. It seems like its the only way of self-defense I could get around here.     

He slapped his face to make himself more awake and headed downtown.

After passing a few spell and item shops he was attracted by neatly built houses that sold spells. Entering through the door he saw a man with grey hair with a roughly huge build standing behind the counter with a bored expression. But as soon as he saw Bold, a smile formed on his face.

“Hello, how may I help you? If you’re looking for spells then ours is the best place around”.

“Yeah. I am”

“Well, what’s your element, mister?”

“Element? What’s that?”

“Oh, you new here?”

Bold bit his lips and quietly nodded his head. 

“Ahh, your wristboard. Let me look at it”.

He arrived next to the man showed his wrist to him. 

“Ahh, wind type, aye? The small symbol next to the buttons is the signifier of your element. There are 9 of them. Fire, Water, Earth, Wind, Light, Dark, Nature, Lightning and Spirit”.

“I-I see”

“Now, there are dozens of choices you can make. Please look at the scrolls that I have. The spells effects are written clear and cut in here. You need not worry about any deception”.    

Bold scrolled through the scrolls, his eyes rolled through the rolls of papers. It took him a while. About half an hour. But the man was patient with him. After all, these spells did cost a heck ton of a lot of gold. 

“Hey, mister…umm”

“Jonathon Keems” said the shopkeeper.

“Mister Jonathan. Where am I?”

“This place is the town called Mallimou”.

“Okay, but more importantly why is this going on? What is this death game?”

“Oh, yes. If you’re new that question is probably bothering you to death. I’ve been here for the last ten years. I remember being transported to this world just like it was yesterday. I screamed and cursed as hard as I could when that figure told me I was thrown into this death game”.

“Wait, did you say ten years ago?”

“Yup. But trust me. I am luckier than some. Some unfortunate ones, the originals were all put into this program here in December 2030. A lot of people. 300 million people if I remember correctly. They were the first ones to spawn into this world. There were towns, cities and resources already made for them so that they could survive. Otherwise, there could have been a serious uproar.

Nah, my bad. There were uproars and chaos amongst them regardless. Fighting over who gets how much territory and how much they want to make their sect great again by conquering other sects. They split up into kingdoms and fought. Millions died from it. Until finally they decided not to be stupid and had a meeting to decide which dictators or politicians if you were to say it generously, would rule the land. And they split up the towns and cities.”

“So, that means I can’t just travel around carelessly, right? If there are borders”

“Nah, it’s fine. Tons of new players are spawning here recently so they can’t be rude enough to not anyone trespass. Anyways, this virtual world apparently started functioning since 2030 and it's been going on for 30 years. This is nuts”.

“Yeah, nuts. And… it explains a lot too” said Bold while contemplating.

Indeed, ever since he was born the news of dozens of people disappearing from certain areas was huge. There were in history books and on some news.  No one could figure out what was the cause. There was fear amongst parents and children about these cases. And alas to think that he would be one of the captives.

“Ehh, for someone who has been living here for 10 years, life is not that bad. Only the news about the waves is frightening” said Jonathon with a weary face.

“Yeah. But, there weren’t any waves in the past?”

“No. There weren’t any at all. There were animas, of course. But they were mostly found in forests and caves. They weren’t such a big threat. To be frank, people were the people’s enemies in the past. And the death game creators are being suspiciously cryptic about these waves. I’m personally expecting the worst. They probably got sick and tired of feeding us and are planning to butcher millions with these waves”.

While listening to his words Bold made his choices.  A spell known as shagai shoot was bought with 1400 gold and horse summoning for 1300 gold.

After Jonathon enchanted and sealed the spells within him, Bold left the shop and pranced around the town to see where he could train with these spells. He wandered into the park located at the rear of the town.