Asthea and Arsen had dragged the corpses of their companions next to the door. Each body was sitting down and leaning against the wall, filthy with blood. Their eyes were open, milky-white pupils staring sightlessly, their faces taking on a green tinge. Before this, Thorin had reeked like sweaty socks, but now that he was dead, the corpse let out a rotten-egg, spoiled meat stench.
They were going to come back from this? Logan whistled. It was one thing to know that the System could grant powers and suck exploded planes and boats through a vacuum hole in space, it was another thing to realize that it could bring people back from the dead.
Logan looked at Asthea and Arsen and winced. “Sorry about that. I know I crashed your party. You weren’t expecting me to win.”
Arsen glowered, murder in his eyes, but Asthea rested a tired hand on his arm. “It’s a trial. All must compete to the best of their abilities. I’ll not criticize you for doing what any one of us would have done in your place.”
“Asthea, he robbed you!”
There were dark circles underneath her eyes. Her pointy wolf-like ears drooped as if in disappointment. “I’ll not hear it. He won the trial fair and square.”
She gave Logan a soft smile. “Don’t worry about Arsen or my other guards. They’ll get over it. I admit, we underestimated you. We have a word for people like you on our world, noncsolicz, Stealth Player. People who purposely keep their level low and advance their attributes in other ways so that everyone vastly underestimates their abilities.”
“Trust me, that’s not me. The System integrated our world six days ago. I’m not that devious. I don’t know enough to try, bumbling around half the time. There’s….”
Ding!
[The pollution contributors: A quarter million metric tons of radioactive nuclear waste and 413 nuclear power plants, have been purged from planet Earth. Although we commend you for attempting to produce energy that has a minimum carbon output, nuclear waste is a scourge upon the planet and a hazard to the citizens of the Collective. Think before you create, humans.]
[53,430 humans have been eliminated—]
[Recalculating…]
[89,322 humans have been—]
[Recalculating…]
[101,203 humans have been eliminated!]
[Bad news, human! Your ranking has not increased.]
[Current rank: 501 out of 6,059,805,009.]
[You are currently in the 1%.]
[Advance and grow.]
The latest System purge.
Huh.
That was a new one.
For once, it might have done them a favor. The deaths were unfortunate but compared to the millions that had died from the natural gas purge, they’d gotten off lucky. Either that, or Logan had gotten way too jaded. The System had still killed thousands; it wasn’t like it was a walk in the park.
Still, he couldn’t help but admit that there was a benefit to eliminating radioactive waste.
Damn. They might have escaped a major bullet. For once, he didn’t have to worry about Lara, since she wasn’t anywhere close to a nuclear power plant or nuclear waste.
But when would it end? Would the System continue eradicating every single thing that generated carbon each day for the next year? It might as well eliminate all the seismic activity and volcanoes while it was at it.
“Are you all right?” asked Asthea. She was gazing at him in concern.
Logan ran a hand through his hair. The relief of learning that Ernie had managed to survive had distracted him from his main purpose—Lara. He needed to fast-track this trial as much as possible—get strong, take what gains he could—then get out. And get out way earlier than the six days Asthea had initially mentioned.
“Just a daily System purge,” he said. “You said you experienced the same thing on your world? Do you know how long we’ll have to go through this?”
Asthea glanced at Arsen, who was standing with his arms crossed with a mulish expression. She sighed. “The System integrated our world over a hundred years ago. I’ve heard tales, but I don’t have a chronology.”
Logan scratched his five o‘clock shadow. It was turning into a beard rather than stubble; he’d soon be a Mountain Man if he didn’t find time for personal grooming. “Fuck,” he mumbled underneath his breath. “I need to get out of here.”
She gave him a curious look. “You said that before. Do you have a nonxalzinaa to get back to?”
Logan furrowed his brow. A what-a-what?
Asthea laughed and touched his arm. “Someone you have intercourse with? A companion?”
Logan felt a wash of red flush his cheeks. Ooookay. That went in a direction he hadn’t expected. Hopefully she was just teasing and nothing else. Logan had enough on his hands with the apocalypse without having to deal with an alien hitting on him.
He cleared his throat. “We call that a spouse, or a girlfriend. No, no girlfriend, but I do have family. I was trying to make my way back to them when I got… diverted.”
“Family? You have children?”
Logan paused. There wasn’t any reason not to tell her. “Not mine, my sister’s.”
“Ah. Children.” Then, quieter, “The purge.”
Logan nodded solemnly. “It’s screwed up beyond belief. I need to get back to them to help them prepare.” And hopefully get them into the one percent.
Asthea was silent. Her look became far away as she stared blankly at the wall. Finally, she focused on Logan, her face firm. “Don’t believe the System. It’s a lie. Our world never had this chance; we only learned it too late. But if you’re only on your sixth day, you have time.”
Her amusement was gone; her expression was dead serious.
“Time to do what?”
“The purge. It’s a lie that there’s no way out. You can save your people. You can save them all.”
Logan eyed her carefully. She seemed earnest, her eyes passionate. A jolt ran through his body. For the first time in a long time, he started to feel hope. “How?”
“The System will kill ninety-nine percent of your population in one year, but only if you do nothing. There’s a loophole. If you can—”
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“Asthea,” Arsen interjected, his mouth in a thin line. “Why help him? He deserves only your contempt. He’s a selfish off-worlder who took away your prize.”
Rather than looking annoyed, Asthea visibly softened. “A trial of awakening means I’m no longer a child. You no longer have to fight my battles. He was selfish, yes, but that doesn’t mean we have to doom the rest of his world. Children, Arsen, millions of children. Remember what happened to us. Remember our history.”
Arsen swallowed and gave her a respectful nod. “Your words have wisdom.”
“What do you expect,” she teased, “when I was taught by the best.” Giving Logan her attention, her expression became serious again. “Save your people. It’s possible. It’ll be hard, it’ll take ingenuity and ability, but I’ve already seen what you can do, and you might just have a chance.”
Logan clenched his hands into fists. If he could pry the answer out of Asthea by pure willpower alone, he’d do it. If she had the answer, a way to save Lara and the kids, their future might not be as bleak as he feared.
“How?” he asked.
“If you reduce the carbon in the air, the System will cancel the purge and give your people a chance. You’ll still have to deal with… other factors. But no mass genocide, no slaughter of children.”
Logan blinked. “That’s… why wouldn’t it say that? The System integration message didn’t mention any loophole.”
She laughed, a brittleness to her eyes. “When is the System ever fair? It has loopholes, but you must discover them for yourself. The person who programmed it wants blood and tears.”
Ding!
[You’ve received the Quest: Save Humanity! Save 5.9 billion people in less than one year by catching and storing 930 billion tons of carbon. This is a running Quest, and your progress can fluctuate up and down.]
[Reward for completing the Quest: You will save 5.9 billion people.]
[Penalty for not completing the Quest: You will kill 5.9 billion people.]
[Quest Progress: 0% complete. 359 days remaining.]
[Better get cracking, Idiot.]
Logan hissed in a sharp breath. It was real. What Asthea was saying wasn’t a pipe dream, it was possible; the evidence was in front of his eyes. That meant that Logan could save Lara and the kids without having to resort to drastic leveling options; he could save millions, no, billions of people.
But how?
It was just like the System to give him a solution but no specifics. And it had chosen the worst person for the job—Logan wasn’t a tree hugger. He did his part and recycled like anyone else, but anything else beyond that had never been a priority. If anyone was right for this quest, it was a scientist, someone who knew what the hell they were doing.
He had no way to quantify 930 billion tons of carbon, but he knew it was a hell of a lot. What’s worse, the System had eradicated planes and firetrucks, and the fire situation would only get worse. Each burning, candling tree; each burning building—all of it would contribute carbon, escalating the problem and making it easier for the System to win.
And to kill everyone.
Logan paced, his brow furrowed as he mulled over the problem. There was one thing that he had going for him that scientists might not have.
[Life Cycle Master.]
Logan could grow trees. A lot of trees. Was the System expecting him to go from place-to-place building forests? Somehow, he didn’t think that was it. It couldn’t be that simple.
He couldn’t help but think back to his olivine discoveries; Logan had thought it odd at the time that the System would award so much KarmaCoin for discovering what was essentially a rock, but in a way, he began to see that there was a method to its madness.
It wouldn’t give out an instruction manual, a tutorial wasn’t in its vocabulary, but it would give hints, and it was up to the person that discovered them to connect the dots.
If there was one thing Logan knew, it was that humanity could achieve amazing things when they worked together. If Logan was able to convince others; convince what was left of the government or whoever was in power out there, they might just have a chance.
***
[Trial reset in progress…]
[…]
[..]
[Please stand by.]
Logan had helped Arsen and Asthea drag the guard’s bodies out of the circular room and out into the hallway, and then they waited for the System to transform the room for the next trial. They both didn’t look like they were in a hurry, slumped to the floor and leaning against the wall in an exhausted heap.
Even though Logan was tired, he couldn’t do the same.
Too many things had happened, swamping him with a rollercoaster of emotions. First, he’d discovered that Ernie was alive, which had created a surge of euphoria, followed by the let down of the century when he discovered that alive wasn’t exactly accurate.
And the most important discovery of all, humanity may not be doomed after all.
Up to now, Logan may have been looking at everything wrong. Fight, advance, fight. It had been the only thing left to him when the System treated him like a marionette on strings. This whole time, he hadn’t realized that the System integration meant more than life-or-death fights. He’d been given these new powers for a reason. Making him wiggle like a worm on a hook was one part of it, but the other part was power.
Karma was the answer. It had to be.
It was Karma that let Logan utilize magic; Karma allowed him to deploy [Life Cycle Master]. He’d made strides with the skill, but he knew there had to be other uses he hadn’t figured out yet.
It was all tied together.
The mythical Tree Fridge.
A skill to grow trees.
Trees reducing carbon.
Grudgingly, Logan realized that the System might not be as bad as he’d thought. Still sadistic, still doing everything it could to get him killed… and yet, it had given him the tools he needed to survive, he just hadn’t known it.
Ding!
[Trial reset complete.]
He couldn’t overlook the fact that stumbling into this trial had been a major windfall. If he continued to excel and managed to advance his other attributes, that meant for every future level increase, he could throw the extra attribute points into his intelligence and wisdom stats instead of having to divert important resources away from his Karma development.
Logan took a few minutes to gulp down a bottle of water, chewed a handful of green beans and chomped on a tomato, and then strode over to Asthea and Arsen. He nudged the bottom of Arsen’s shoe. “Let’s go.”
Arsen blinked. “You’re a machine,” he said with a glower. “Give us a break. We need to recharge.”
“But—”
Asthea gave him a warning glance.
“…I suppose a few minutes wouldn’t hurt.”
***
Ding!
[You have entered the endurance trial. You will compete individually but only advance to the next attribute as a group. Once the last person concedes or drops, the group will advance to the next attribute.]
[After 24 hours, your overall individual performance will be judged against the rest of your party. The individual with the highest attribute increases in each area will be granted a bonus.]
The circular room had once again been transformed. Last time, the System had created floating platforms out of thin air, this time, it had created a… field.
What the hell?
On either side were the same black stone walls, but the middle of the room was full of short, wild yellow grass, intermixed with the occasional dead-looking tree, like a desert tree with a narrow, gnarly trunk whose leaves had long since dried up and fallen to the ground. As far as the eye could see, Logan saw more of the same—grass, grass, and more grass—followed by trees and the odd jagged rock.
Even stranger was that they appeared to be outside, but Logan could make out the black ceiling, this time the same height as the last trial. Instead of sunlight, the blue orbs continued to illuminate the space, casting a blue glow that made everything seem as if it had been filtered through a lens.
It had to be an optical illusion.
There was no way that this room was still circular on the sides but went on for miles in one direction with no end in sight.
“What is this?” Logan asked.
Arsen barked out a laugh. “You think we’re going to tell you? After what you did in the last trial? I don’t think you need any advantages, little man. You have too many cheats and hidden skills already.”
He turned to Asthea. “My dear, I know this is difficult, and you might feel all is lost, but this trial is still an opportunity. You can advance, you can grow, you can even win if Idiot here finally meets his match. It’s one thing to dart away from cannon balls, and another thing to…” His eyes glinted when he glanced at Logan. “Well, he’ll find out.”
That didn’t sound ominous.
Asthea nodded. “I know, Arsen. I’m not giving up.” Taking a deep breath, she recited, “I’m prepared, I’m focused, I’ll push my body past its limits.” She loosened her ponytail, gathering strands of hair and pulling the wild, frizzy strands out of her eyes before retying the clasp. Clenching her fists, she jumped up and down as if psyching herself up.
Logan looked at the field.
This was an endurance trial. Could it be a simple matter of running? Running until you dropped? Somehow, Logan didn’t think so, not after Arsen’s remarks. But one thing was clear, based on the long distance, that never-ending field, running had to be part of it.
Running meant he’d need better equipment. Glancing down at his feet, Logan dissolved his boot cleats and then let half of the sand fall to the ground, sculpting his boots into something more flexible with a thinner bottom. Then, cracking his neck, he loosened himself up, stretching and flexing as if getting ready for a workout.
Logan then waited.
This time, he was going to start smart, and that meant copying Asthea and Arsen, since they knew something, something that might give them an advantage.
“Well?” Asthea said, winking at Logan. “What are you waiting for?”
With a spring in her step, she leaped into the clearing.