Alex looked at the new world that he had just joined. He walked around the city of Lamuar, the capital of the Heavenly Empire of Laurmath. He opened up his inventory, and saw: a strange white stick, a water canteen and 10 pieces of bread. Alex looked around, eyeing each building surrounding the square. Hidden away, squashed between 2 buildings whose sizes each were twice, if not more, it’s size, was a training center.

Each of the buildings next to it were training centers, but to Alex, it stood out, or perhaps, because it didn’t stand out, that he saw it.

He headed over to the ramshackle building that seemed like it was crumbling on top of itself. He walked to the front door and pushed the door open, the area where his hand touched had disintegrated to dust, then a loud screeching noise rang out, and the door cracked and was hanging on an edge.

He called out, “ Is anyone here?”

From the depths of the dojo, an old man came out. The old man looked him over and told him, “Young one who has just been sent to our holy empire, do you really want to train here?”

Alex looked around at his surroundings, it was a place full of rotten wood, and there were rats scurrying from one place to another. He looked back at the old man and decided,

“Yes, I would like to train here.”

“Then get out.”

Before Alex could react, the old man jumped into the air and used both of his feet to kick Alex through the doorway. Alex flew out of the dojo and landed meters away from the front entrance. He was knocked out cold, lying on the street.

The old man looked him over and walked back into the dojo, soon after, scavengers came after him and stole everything he had, except the white stick. Soldiers came later, but by then, it was too late. Alex, who didn’t have much previously, now had nothing. They then took his unconscious body and dragged it to the prison.

Alex woke up on a cold, hard. stone floor. He shook his head and sat up. He analysed his surroundings and guessed that he was in a dungeon. He thought to himself:

Well this is great, first couple of hours in and now i’m in jail.

He got off the floor and brushed himself off. His prison cell was round and had 4 beds. At first sight, it was empty, but then a guard came by, “Hey, newbie, you might not want to drop the soap”. Frightened, he looked around again, and stepping out of the shadows,were some men who looked like they could eat a dragon for breakfast.

“Let’s all be nice to each other…” His voice was shaky as they advanced upon him. Before they could get to him, he quickly logged out of PGO.

“Well, that was horrifying,” he exited his capsule and looked at the time. It was 10pm.

“Might as well go to sleep.”

The next day, he woke up and was still scared about what had happened in PGO. Alex went downstairs and made breakfast. In an idle moment, a drop of hot oil hit him, and jolted him out from reliving that experience.

His twin sister came down the stairs, and Alex served breakfast for the both of them. His sister Elaine asked him, “So how was your first time playing PGO?”

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“So what happened?”

He kept on rejecting her, but she persisted, and eventually got through.

“I met an old man who knocked me unconscious. I woke up in a jail cell and was almost raped by some big hairy men.”

After he told his story, his sister burst out laughing.

“Hey, what’s so funny?”

His sister was still laughing uncontrollably, and fell to the ground in hysterics.

She opened her mouth “I can’t believe--” but quickly broke into a fit of giggles again.

Later that day, at school, his sister had told everyone what he told her, and during lunch, he hid himself on the roof to eat.

Elaine spent the day humiliating her brother Alex, by the time they got home, he was so embarrassed, that he was borderline suicidal.

Alex went back into PGO again, and saw that he was back at square one, or even behind that, since he no longer had any food or water, and was left with a stick that he didn’t even know what it could do.

As he sat down in desperation, the old man approached him. He towered over Alex and kicked him up.

“AHHHHH what was that for!?”

“Now you can only depend on me, follow me, and I will start to train you.”

Alex reluctantly got up and followed him back into the dojo, he noticed on the way, that the dojo had become sturdier than before.

He was led to the underground level of the dojo, and was introduced to a hall with metal walls. Doors appeared periodically along its walls, and extended far beyond what his eyes could see.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

They walked for what seemed to be hours, and finally, Alex’s patience wore thin.

He broke the silence and asked, “Where are we going?”

But the old man did not respond, instead, he stopped,turned to the left, and opened a door.

Inside was a normal training center, that was completely different from what was above ground. On one side of the room were targets placed at different heights, and in the center of the room, there was a ring, with people fighting inside.

Each punch would release a flash of light that burned its surroundings, Alex could feel the heat just from standing there.

Where you would normally find weapons in a regular dojo, was a wall full of short sticks of varying colours.

“Here, the other apprentices train, but you are new, so you will train with me.”

Alex was taken to an empty room and told to stay at his position, as the old man stood opposite of him.

“Come and hit me.”

Alex got ready to fight, and dashed towards the old man. He jabbed his fist at the old man’s abdomen. As soon as he hit the old man, his fist flew through, and he saw the old man meters away from where he had hit.

What the?! I swear he was right there

This clash continued for awhile, every time Alex got near him and swung at the old man, the old man disappeared, but eventually, he saw what the old man was doing.

So he’s using magic to confuse my sight huh.

From the old man’s point of view, Alex was walking around in circles swinging randomly. He chuckled under his breath,“This is always fun.”

Alex closed his eyes and started to walk towards where he thought the old man was. He swung, and opened his eyes again. He felt resistance at his knuckles, but the old man had jumped back.

[New Stat: Insight]

[You can see what others cannot and can discern the truth from lies]

[Forbidden to distribute stat points to this stat]

“Cool, I gained a new stat.”

“It appears that your insight has improved. However, you will pass this training once you can see through my illusion. NO EYE CLOSING.”

Then the training began again.

Alex would continuously try to hit the old man, and each time he got close, his insight improved. This process repeated for a while, and eventually, Alex was able to get past the weak illusion set by the old man.

About halfway through the training, the old man made Alex stop.

“We’ll continue this later. Don’t you have something else to do?”

Alex looked at the real world clock that was in his HUD.

“Crap, it’s already this late.”

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As he got out of the capsule, he found his sister standing there, with her hands on her hips.

Ohh crap.. I’m in serious trouble.

She opened her mouth, and started to berate him for nearly missing dinner.

Alex quickly went to the dinner table, and saw what awaited him. A single bowl of plain rice and some broccoli.

Shocked, he asked his sister what he had done to deserve this.

“What the hell is this?”

“Your punishment for leaving me to eat all alone.”

Alex could not help but accept this cruel fate, and cried as he ate.

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Back in PGO, Alex met with the Instructor again.

“Finally back, are you?”

“Yes.”

“Let’s begin again. However this time, I want you to see if you can find the real me among a large number of copies.”

The old man took a step to the side and disappeared .

“Woah.”

Immediately, multiple copies of him started to appear, surrounding Alex by forming a ring around him.

Alex took a deep breath, and carefully looked each of them over, he found some peculiarities with all of them but one.

He took something from his pockets, a rock, and threw it at the suspicious one. The illusions quickly disappeared when the rock hit him.

“You passed, but I didn’t expect you to have a rock on you.”

“Revenge for kicking me onto the street.”

“Fair enough. Now we will begin the next phase of your training.”