That first few weeks - Marc wasn't really sure as time was blurry with the sky being perpetually grey and light - Marc moved to the center most part of the island - which wasn't very big to begin with - and grinded up his basic skills like [Fire Bolt] and [Sprint]. The wounds the electric eel had imposed had healed in a matter of hours as his health slowly trickled back full from a dangerous low.
Thinking of his family and friends back on Earth, he wanted to return to them - wondering how well they were faring with all these changes and him essentially vanishing off the face of Earth. And all the monsters! He knew he had to get stronger - he couldn't let level 5 small-fry beat him up like this. Especially if he was a to become a 'Demigod'.
After his intense grinding sessions and levelling up to level 13, Marc stood by the edge of the island, the sea unusually still and silent. He knew that one had to prove their worth to become essentially a 'Demigod' and gain its power, since it didn't seem like something anyone could just claim.
So for the next infinity or so years, Marc hacked away at monsters everywhere, slowly making his way out of the dungeon.
Two killing sprees later, Marc discovered that after killing certain monsters, the next island rises from the depth of the sea.
As time dragged on, Marc found himself, as he burned monster meat over a fire, anticipating the strength of the monsters in the sea after a new island emerged. Because the dungeon seemed to consist of many mini dungeons with each island being a dungeon. After slaying the boss monster of that island, the next one would pop up, and as soon as Marc set foot on it, new monsters seemingly spawned into the endless blue.
Marc licked his lips.
And the monsters were always exponentially stronger.
At the end, after slaying the colossal Leviathan - a sea serpent that was the size of the empire state building with thousands of sharp teeth that could shoot a powerful electric, pressurized, steaming water beam - he met a deity, his patron god.
A man with black curving horns and gigantic leather and clawed wings stood on the last island. The one that rose out of the water after Marc collected the equally colossal items the Leviathan dropped. Marc jumped, crossing the span of the sea in one leap. The man was swirling in flames, his skin a glowing red. His eyes were neon yellow, like a cat's with the slit of black in the middle. His left arm was made of black scales and a hand of sharp talons.
The deity looked Marc up and down and rested his human-like right hand on his shoulder.
"Hello! I'm Azar, Deity of Fire." he flashed a mouth full of dragon-like teeth at Marc, "Boy, you are now officially my disciple!" He started laughing. Marc laughed along awkwardly, his newfound survival instincts warning him that his man, this god, is heads above Marc in anything.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
"It took you what, a decade to pass this dungeon? That's mighty quick of you!" He laughed again and patted Marc's shoulder, making Marc wince. Then the god said a bunch of things to him about how things would be like back on Earth, with the system now in place. Trainer's Villages, Paths, Classes, other Demigods, the multiverse, everything.
But Azar's descriptions were shallow and often left Marc wondering more. Like when he talked about the villages. Azar said they were like a safe room for most people who had little to none combat potential but also that without a "Champion", or a resident Demigod, the village wouldn't be able to defend itself from monster raids.
Then why was it considered a safe room?
But the deity had ignored Marc when he tried to question what Azar said.
Azar then touched his forehead with a single talon and muttered some nonsense, helping Marc unlock some boosts to his stats. And then Azar started to ramble on about his responsibility - which Marc found nearly identical to what was asked of every fantasy movie protagonist ever. Really. What the deity said even seemed to be ripped off of the introduction monologues of some games he had played before.
And then Marc remembered what else the deity had told him.
"Well, listen boy. A formidable evil is intruding your world. You were chosen to stop them." Marc frowned when Azar mentioned that, yet a fraction of his mind was wondering if the monster would be as hellish as the Leviathan.
"What is this evil?" Marc was rather calm about the whole "evil" thing, as being attacked by monsters was normal to him now. He could barely remember when it wasn't.
"That... you'll recognize when it comes. It'll disrupt this order created by the system." Azar gestured around him to the waveless ocean surrounding them, an eerie tranquillity like the calm before the storm.
"So something that will cause chaos?" Azar flinched a little, and Marc assumed that it was the deity being a little careless with his words.
"I see that you're smart, boy. So before that whole ordeal," the god used his dragon arm to gesture to a portal, "you should learn what it means to protect."
Then he was teleported back to Earth, in the middle of the forest with a sleeping Kyra sprawled on the ground.
[Time converting...]
[10 years in 'Dungeon of Trials' have been converted to 3 hours on Planet 16372.]
Marc's body flickered with blue light, until his scale armor and toughened muscles faded back to the boney boy he used to be - except his stats remained the same. The only thing that changed was his appearance to other people. He was still the muscley, 10-year-older him - just under a magic spell.
Seeing Kyra on the ground next to him, Marc wondered if he could protect her from this evil. Anything that causes chaos is annoying to deal with, especially in fights. If a lot of people were involved, the battleground becomes bloody and messy. Monsters had killed monsters when there were too many of them trying to kill Marc at once. People are just one type of intelligent monsters.
However, inside Marc, his blood was boiling when he realized he was back. Kyra was there. Excitedly, he knelt down and tried to wake her up. Then he realized that, since only 3 hours have passed, Kyra should still be a level 1 player. And he was 10 years older than he was... It had only been 3 hours since the system was initiated. They had seen each other just hours ago. Marc soaked in that information before he woke her up.
Remembering his own level 1 experience, Marc desperately checked her class. He was even more worried that she might die as one of the casualties of this chaos when he saw her path to be the most common, Path of the Peasant.
Now, the night sky was pitch dark. Marc stood silently in the middle of the forest, reminiscing, and realized all the monster auras had been cleared in a half-mile long radius. Using [Scan], he thought there was something a little off about the campsite. He couldn't sense Kyra or the little boy, even though neither should know how to conceal their aura yet. He rushed back in a flash of an eye but all he heard was the laughter of the little boy he'd saved. He let go of the breath he was holding and smiled.
"What are you guys laughing about?"