Chapter 2
Ace entered the apartment not long after and found Vincent sitting at the kitchen table. Ace walked up to the table and sat down. He just about to speak before he noticed the glowing tattoo on Vincent’s hand. His eyes bulged out, “You too?”
Ace raised his own hand and showed his tattoo to Vincent. Vincent narrowed his eyes slightly. Ace laughed as he recalled what happened, “Man that was painful, I woke up screaming. Alice was so angry, haha.”
Vincent recalled the pain when he woke up and nodded, “It was pretty painful.”
Both their faces became solemn. Ace spoke, “What does this mean? I don’t understand what’s going on at all.”
Vincent folded his arms. He closed his eyes as he organized his thoughts. A moment later, Vincent’s eyes opened as he looked at Ace, “Did you have a strange dream?”
Ace’s eyes lit up as he remembered the black void, “Yeah, it was like I was in space. There was a young man in front of me. He said, ‘What do you desire?’ and then before I could respond I woke up from the pain.”
“Same for me,” Vincent nodded slightly, “Did Alice have this tattoo as well?”
Ace shook his head, “No, she couldn’t even see it. I was so confused I rushed straight here.”
Vincent fell into thought again. He tried recalling the hologram. He focused on the image of the tattoo and a blue hologram appeared in front of him.
Tasks
Challenges
Rewards
0
He looked at Ace as he pointed at the hologram, “Do you see this?”
Ace looked around, trying to find what Vincent was referring too. He shook his head, “I don’t see anything.”
Vincent explained the process of summoning the hologram, “Focus on the image of the tattoo on your hand. A hologram will appear.”
Ace squinted his eyes and focused on the tattoo. He stood up in surprise, “What the hell is this?”
Vincent expected this result as he shook his head, “I don’t know. I haven’t pushed any buttons yet.”
He stood up and walked backwards. The hologram followed him. It maintained the same distance the entire time. He turned in place as the hologram maintained its position in front of him. He turned back to Ace, “I don’t believe humanity has the technology to do this yet.”
Ace nodded in agreement, “Right, I’ve never seen anything like this.”
Ace raised his hand and pushed onto the ‘Tasks’ button. The button turned a darker color, signifying that it was the main window. Ace exclaimed, “A new window appeared.”
Vincent followed along, pushing the Tasks button. The new window had different features. It was split into two panels. The right side was empty. The left panel had multiple buttons. On the far left was a down and up arrow. Some of the buttons read,
1
Perform 1,000 pushups within 1 hour.
1
Run 10 miles within 1 hour.
1
Earn 100 dollars in 1 hour.
Vincent inspected each button. He clicked on the pushups task. Suddenly, the right panel showed information related to the button he just pushed. It read, “Complete 1,000 pushups within 1 hour to earn 1 point.”
At the bottom of the right panel were two new buttons. One said ‘accept’ and the other was ‘forfeit’.
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“Vincent!” Ace shouted at him, “Check out the rewards tab!”
Vincent moved his hand to the top right, pushing onto the rewards tab. A new window appeared. Underneath was a list of buttons. Some of the buttons read,
10
Your physical strength increases.
10
Your agility increases.
Vincent tried to familiarize himself with the hologram. He tried pushing the challenges tab but it was grayed out, nothing happened.
Time passed as they were both familiarizing themselves with the hologram. Ace walked through Vincent’s hologram, appearing in front of him. His eyes were sparkling as he looked at Vincent, “Is this a gift from God?”
“No,” Vincent responded as a frown appeared on his face.
Ace was confused, “What do you mean? You think this is a scam?”
Vincent shook his head, “That’s not what I meant. Go to the tasks panel and type in president.”
Ace followed his directions. A keyboard appeared when he tapped the search panel. After typing in president his face froze, “This… can’t be right.”
“This isn’t a gift from God, but the Devil.”
What they were looking at was a task that said,
10,000
Kill the president of your home country.
Ace staggered backwards in shock, “This… this…”
Vincent continued, “This isn’t the only one like that. There are rewards for robbing a bank, killing someone, punching ten strangers, etc. Of course, there are good ones too, like save someone from death, help the poor, feed a starving man, etc.”
Ace quickly recovered and he waved his hand, “We don’t have to do those tasks. It’s our choice.”
Suddenly he froze as realization dawned upon him, “Vincent, this has to be fake, right? I mean, just look at these expensive rewards, “Gain the ability to turn invisible” or “Gain the ability to cast a fireball”? This is just a bad dream we’re having, right? Right?”
Vincent looked at his best friend and understood what he was asking. This was too unbelievable, and the rewards are clearly impossible. He suddenly chuckled, “Ace… wouldn’t that be easy to test out?”
Ace understood what he meant. He looked towards the cheapest reward,
10
Your physical strength increases.
Vincent clasped Ace’s shoulder, “We can do the simple tasks that involve physical strength. Let’s skip school today and figure this out.”
Ace nodded as his face light up, “Okay.”
Vincent mused as he looked at Ace’s muscles, “This’ll be tough for me, though.”
They both accepted the task to do 1,000 push ups within an hour. Time passed slowly. Each push up they finished, the anticipation built up. Forty minutes later they finished the task. Vincent was exhausted as he collapsed to the ground. Ace laughed next to him, “You have fallen out of shape since a few years ago.”
He stood up as he looked at Ace, “This clearly won’t work for me.”
Ace nodded as he looked at Vincent’s slender body, “For you, at least.”
Vincent looked towards the hologram. The top right number was now a 1. He looked towards the tasks panel, “It looks like you can repeat the same task over and over. I don’t know if there is an upper cap though.”
Ace went back to doing more push ups, “I’ll work hard and try to finish this task 9 more times.”
Vincent began to think. He currently wasn’t able to do any of the physical activities. The tasks were too stringent for him to accomplish. His thoughts turned towards the task that required him to punch 10 people, this one was easy to accomplish. The only problem was he would be arrested. However, he had the perfect solution. The time was now 10 a.m. in the morning. He spoke to Ace as he walked out the door, “I’ll be back within a few hours.”
“Okay,” Ace responded as he did a pushup.
Vincent went to the bank and withdrew a thousand dollars. This was a considerable sum of money for a university student like him. He walked towards campus. His goal was to find lots of people, and the university was the perfect place for that. Arriving on campus, he looked around and spotted hundreds of students. He made sure to activate the task to punch 10 strangers for 1 point.
He walked up to 2 young men and spoke, “Excuse me, if you let me punch you I’ll give you $5.”
The man was startled at the unexpected statement, “You’ll pay me to get punched?”
“Right.”
The man mused before responding, “How about $10?”
Vincent appeared to heavily consider the question before saying, “Fine.”
He handed over $10 and prepared to punch the person. He recalled the boxing stance he learned a few years ago. He raised his arms in front of him and lowered his knees slightly. The young man prepared himself by flexing his muscles. Vincent punched forward, hitting him in the stomach. The man grunted slightly as he staggered backwards, “Damn, that hurts like hell!”
The young man’s friend wanted to make a quick buck so he spoke to Vincent, “I’ll do it for $10 too.”
Vincent summoned the hologram and looked at the task progress. It was now 1/10. He smiled slightly, “Okay.”
Not even two hours later, he entered back into his apartment. He walked in and spotted Ace still doing pushups. He was sweating heavily and had multiple empty water bottles around him. Vincent walked up to him, “How many points do you have?”
“3,” Ace responded.
“Oh, not bad,” Vincent nodded as he said nonchalantly, “I have 10.”
Ace froze mid pushup. He stood up and looked at Vincent, “You do?”
“Yep.”
Ace clasped both of Vincent’s shoulders and shook him back and forth, “How did you get them that fast?”
Vincent laughed, “I paid people $10 to let me punch them once. It only worked once per person so I ended up spending $1000.”
Ace’s eyes widened, “You… cheater! That has to be cheating!”
Vincent pointed his finger at his head. Ace rolled his eyes in jest. Vincent laughed, “I won’t be doing this again. I don’t have the funds for it.”
Ace dragged him to the door, “Come on, let’s go the gym and test how much you can lift.”
They entered the local gym and approached a bench press. Vincent was familiar with these machines. In the past, he worked out religiously with Ace when they were into boxing. Ace spotted him as they tested his maximum limit and found it to be 180 pounds. He could barely lift it up all the way. Vincent opened the hologram. He pushed the rewards tab and bought the physical strength reward. He instinctively felt himself grow stronger.
He noticed that after pushing the button the price changed to (15). He informed Ace, “After buying it the price increased. Looks like it’ll become more expensive each time. I also feel slightly stronger.”
Ace didn’t care at all, “Hurry and lift again.”
Vincent laughed, “Let me recover my strength a bit first.”
Ace groaned but waited patiently. A few minutes later he once again lifted 180 pounds. This time it was way easier, he was able to lift it all the way up and back down. He could barely finish it a third time. He stood up and looked at Ace. Ace was elated, “This means….”
Vincent nodded, “It’s real.”