Then you snatch up the virtual headset and clamp it onto your head. You're holding over 20,000 points. Now you don't want to wait a single second.
Begin level one simulation. Target, electric eel. Max it out. Four thousand runs. Your points drop to zero instantly. You don't even blink.
In the virtual pool, you swing the insulated shovel like a madman. Farming relentlessly. Electrokinesis plus one. Electrokinesis plus one.
You're not sure how much time has passed when you finally tear off the headset, collapsing into the bathtub, drenched in sweat. You stare hard at your right hand.
With a crackling buzz, a ball of pale blue electricity erupts in your palm out of nowhere. It rides between your fingers like a wild electric snake. It's no longer confined to your skin. It can finally leave your body.
Electrokinesis mastered.
Your eyes burn red. A wild thought leaps into your mind. If I can discharge electricity, can I charge it too?
You immediately order a 5,000 kilowatt-hour high-voltage graphene battery off the black market. Half an hour later, the battery arrives. You grab two iron forks, plunging one into the positive terminal and one into the negative without hesitation.
Raging current surges through both your arms instantly. There's no pain, only a scalp-tingling ultimate rush. Every cell in your body greedily devours the current. You feel like a shriveled sponge instantly soaked full of power.
Twenty minutes later, you pull out the forks. You collapse heavily onto the bed and pass out instantly. The price of overdrawn power. Extreme hunger.
The next morning, you snag the highest paying physical job. Cleaning a 20,000-ton luxury outdoor pool. Adding chemicals, pumping water, pressure washing, repacking filter cartridges. You move like a tireless machine, plowing through every obstacle at the most brutal pace.
The moment the butler finishes inspecting, you collect your 1,200 credits and walk off. Whatever mansion belonging to whatever celebrity or politician, to you, it's all meaningless.
But back home, staring at your skill panel, you sink into thought. The electric eel gives too little experience, and D-rank training is outrageously expensive. You have no real chance to fight in the real world.
Your gaze slowly drifts to the skill you scored for free from that counterattack. Mech piloting.
If you can't kill in reality, then train in the virtual world.
You log straight into that underground fighting game with no identity restrictions whatsoever, where everything runs on cash. Mech World.
Creating a character, you type a few words without much thought. Name: Old Man 8.
You roll your wrist, joints popping, a faint blue electric arc flickering across your fingertips. Staring at the screen, your mouth curls into a cruel grin. Let's see exactly how much chaos that skill he handed me can unleash.
You stare hard at the holographic screen. Assessment failed. Reaction speed, sixty-five inputs per second. Required, one hundred twenty per second.
Anyone else might have smashed the headset and quit by now, but there's a relentless streak buried deep in your bones. You know full well, in this rigid, stratified interstellar age where lives are worth less than dust, climbing out means seizing every chance to grow stronger, even if it's just an underground game called Mech World.
You pull the sensor gloves back on. Fail. Try again. Fail again. Try again.
Finally, through sheer reckless grinding, a flash of gold light hits the system. Congratulations. Old Man 8 has obtained a level one pilot license.
You don't even care about the throwaway name you typed earlier. Your eyes lock onto the third mech. Code name, Blade. A humanoid assault mech. Built-in rocket pack. Energy shield on the left arm. Plasma cutting blade on the right. Pure aesthetic violence.
This one's mine.
You slam down on confirm, but the system immediately douses you with cold water. Mech repair costs are astronomical. If it's totaled, your IP address gets permanently blacklisted.
In the live combat simulation that follows, your mech is sliced apart like vegetables by the AI opponent. Warning. Your combat reaction time is too low. Not recommended for the live server.
You rip off the headset, breathing hard. Not enough. Your reaction speed still isn't enough.
The next morning, you take all of last night's frustration out on reality. It's the weekend. Double pay. You snatch up a high-value job without hesitation. A wealthy estate garden cleanup, paying 1,600 credits. Pulling up rare red toxic weeds, clearing a pond infested with mutated rainbow shrimp.
You work fast and brutal, showing no mercy. The job wraps up fast. The butler settles payment without complaint. With the full attendance bonus, 4,200 credits land in your account instantly.
You rush back to your safe house, unable to wait. You lock the door and dash into the bathroom. Yesterday's energy-drained weakness still lingers. Gritting your teeth, you grip both terminals of yesterday's high-voltage graphene battery with both hands.
Raging current floods back into both arms instantly. No searing pain of electrocution, just the ultimate rush of a dried-out sponge drinking deep. You can almost hear every cell in your body roaring with hunger.
Twenty minutes later, you let go, energized, your whole body brimming with explosive power. You look at your own reflection, eyes blazing, and you know full well you can no longer call yourself a pure human. In peak condition, you feel like a beast brimming with power.
You charge back into Mech World once more. This time, with your nerves supercharged by electricity, your speed explodes completely.
A crouch roll dodges incoming fire. Your left leg kicks off hard. The rocket pack roars to life. Your Blade mech instantly breaks twice the speed of sound. The plasma blade in your hand becomes a blinding arc of death. It cleaves the AI mech clean in half. Sparks scattering everywhere.
Basic combat training passed. Access to live server granted.
The scene shifts. You spawn outside a gray steel fortress. This game is outrageously predatory. Three hundred credits an hour just for the data service fee.
You don't bother arguing. Just pilot the 115-ton mech straight into the plains' safe zone.
You raise the 16-foot plasma great sword and casually slash at a large tree in front of you. The tree crashes down. The bird's nest shatters, and three small birds die on the spot.
In that instant, three messages burst open in succession in your mind.
Flight plus three.
You freeze in the cockpit. Energy surging straight to the top of your head. You gasp sharply. Killing a bird in a virtual game, and your real body just gained a skill.
A terrifying thought splits open in your mind. This isn't a game at all. This planet, this entire setting, it's all real.
You lick your lips, feverish, sliding fully into a frenzy. You activate the mech's bioscan radar. The radar waves instantly lock onto every bird in the surrounding area.
For the next two hours, every player on the entire starter plains witnesses an absolutely bizarre, borderline insane sight. A 115-ton combat mech, supersonic thrusters blazing, leaping wildly and swinging a plasma blade vibrating at hundreds of thousands of cycles. All just to slaughter handfuls of tiny birds.
This guy's clearly unhinged. Probably some loser getting stomped on in real life, taking it out in the game. Absolute lunatic.
The public chat fills with mockery aimed at you, but you don't bother engaging with these idiots. They don't understand a thing. Watching the number on your panel climb.
Flight, advanced.
You want to laugh straight up at the sky. In just two short hours, 135 birds have fallen to your blade.