Matt could feel the cold night air pushing against him as he fell into the darkness below the crane. The two men were shocked that he had just jumped off with no explanation. He seemed stoic as he fell, but in reality, he wasn’t calm.

‘Shit, this is scary!’

He was falling rapidly toward the ground, but it wasn’t for no reason. This was part of his plan. As he saw the ground approaching him at an incredible speed, he quickly made a move.

Matt rolled in the air and positioned himself so that he was facing the sky and carefully counted the floors of the building he was falling from so that he could get the timing right.

Once he saw the fourth-floor pass by, he reacted as fast as he could and activated the dash power on his boots. His whole body accelerated vertically at a dramatic speed, causing his downward momentum to be canceled out.

Though he was still a dozen feet in the air when he used the dash, so when gravity caught back up to him, he hit the ground with a loud thud.

[-4 HP]

‘Ow!’

While he did take a bit of damage, he knew it could’ve been worse. After having played around with his dash skill for the past few days, he had always noticed the instant acceleration that it had and considered it to be enough for this plan. It always seemed to work even in mid-air as well, which was how he dodged objects while jumping through the city earlier. He wouldn’t have tried this if he wasn’t confident in it.

Now that he was on the ground, he looked up toward the crane he was on just a few seconds ago, but it was too dark to see anything. If the two men regained their senses, he imagined they could scale down the building in a few minutes, so he didn’t want to stick around.

‘This is the only chance I have to lose them.’

He was basically out of tricks at this point, so he didn’t want to push his luck.

Matt ran away from the construction site as fast as he could, trying not to make any extra loud sounds, in case they could track his direction from that. He had just used his dash so he sadly couldn’t use its help to gain distance right now.

After being hunted for so long, he felt like it would be best to leave this city and return to his apartment. It was too dangerous here. If he left, then he could only guess which city he left to.

As he ran, the minutes passed. It felt like they couldn’t pass fast enough. He wanted to be able to relax, instead of constantly being harassed. This was all too stressful.

Then 10 more minutes passed and so far he hadn’t heard a sound or alert. He was hoping that trick had actually worked and they weren’t closing in on him.

He decided it had been long enough and changed direction. He didn’t want to only run in a straight line, since that was easy to follow.

‘I think I’ll make an arc to get back to my apartment. If I go straight there, they might follow me.’

He didn’t know the first thing about strategy or stealth, besides what had rubbed off on him from the years he had played games. However, he never really played strategy games. So he was just using what he felt he had seen in a movie one time.

‘I should probably read a book about that soon.’

The cold wind pushed against his face and body as he kept going. He had started on the roundabout path to his apartment. Now, it should only be around half an hour with his speed until he was back home.

He felt safe thinking about being back in the city he knew well for the past few months. It was much more populated, so he was also thinking that it would be harder for a player to attack him without repercussions. They would probably get jail time if they tried killing him.

‘I should just avoid deserted areas from now on. That was too close.’

Previously, he hadn’t even considered that there were other beta testers close by. He knew they were out there, but thought they were rare, or maybe even not psychos. He was careless.

And he wasn’t concerned about anyone without a system. His natural constitution, strength, and speed were enough to stay safe against them mostly.

‘It would be nice meeting one that was normal.’

As time passed, he remembered how the two beta testers who were attacking him teamed up. He realized that once the system was released or if he could find a friendly player, teaming up really did seem like a good idea. Though, he wasn’t sure if he could trust someone with a system.

But as he was deep in thought, he heard a notification.

__________

[Quest Complete]

Survive

+1 Unassigned Skill Point, +5 Unassigned Stat Points, +100xp [XP 208/144]

__________

‘I’m safe!’

He decided to just take the system’s word for it. He didn’t know how it detected survival, but it must’ve been distance or situation-based. If it was situation-based, then it was pretty advanced.

After that popup, he heard another series of notifications once again.

__________

[Level Up!]

LVL 3 - LVL 4

+1 to All Stats

+3 Unassigned Stat Points

+10 Max Health

+0 Max Mana [Error: Mana not found]

[Skills Unlocked]

Message [LV.1], Crafting [LV.1]

__________

‘Level 4! Not bad!’

He was always hyped when he got a level and this time was no different. Now he was only one level away from finishing his quest to reach level 5. Now that he knew what artifacts were, he was very curious to see what he would get from that quest.

With that fresh level, he found a surge of motivation to return to his apartment. He would rather not check out his level up before reaching a safe and well-lit place. It was close by, so he would be there soon anyway.

So, he closed the menu and used his recharged dash to speed home.

-

-

-

-

-

__________

||Stats||

Name: Matt Peterson

Age: 18

LVL: 4 (+1) [XP 64/172] (+100)

HP | 40/40 (Max Heal) [+10]

MP | 0/0

Status Effects: +10% Speed, +10% Defense

-

||Attributes||

[Stat Points]: 8

[Str] - 25 (+1)

[Con] - 17 (+1)

[Agi] - 24 (+1)

[Dex] - 14 (+1)

[Int] - 19 (+1)

[Luk] - 13 (+1)

[Cha] - 10 (+1)

-

||Skills||

[Skill Points]: 1

Inspect [LV.2], Map [LV.2], Help [LV.1], Storage [LV.1], Mind Palace [LV.1] (Cooldown: 20 Hours), Self Defense [LV.2], Boxing [LV.2], Karate [LV.2], Kung Fu (Unspecialized) [LV.2], Wrestling [LV.1], Judo [LV.1], Kickboxing [LV.1], Interpersonal Communication [LV.1], Basic Survival [LV.1], Running [LV.2], Freerunning [LV.2], Message [LV.1], Crafting [LV. 1]

-

||Quests||

-General-

Reach LVL 5 [4/5] [Reward: +10 Unassigned Stat Points, +1 Artifact]

Compete in an event and win [Reward: +1 All Stats, +75xp]

-

-Daily-

*Daily quests not available in beta*

 

||Equipped||

Feet: Sports Shoes of Bursting Speed (Ability: Speed Burst)

 

||Storage||

-Items [4/25]-

Used Bullet [1], Gun [1], Knife [1], Smart Phone [1]

__________