The two respawned at the wall.
"Ready for round two?" Luo Si asked with a smirk on her face.
"Me-Me… M-MONSTER! Help! Keep her away from me." He tripped into the evading crowd, distancing himself even on all fours.
People made way as Luo Si passed through and went to her previous spot. The threat had only been a fluke. There was no time to waste on her schedule. Sitting back down she restarted her earlier meditation.
A handful of foreign looking girls approached her. The oldest one spoke up in English. "Can you protect us, or at least teach us how you did that?"
Luo Si tried to ignore them at first, but the others presences disturbed her a bit.
She spared them a mean I, hoping they would retreat on their own. To her annoyance it had little effect. With the same finger, used to fend off the first troublemaker, the gang was pointed towards the middle of the cage, she made herself clear. "Fuck off."
The girls did not understand since Luo Si spoke to them in Chinese. Her action and annoyed tone were international enough to make them understand that it would be the best to leave.
They clearly felt treated injustice. "Hmph. No wonder she is alone. She probably doesn't even have a boyfriend and eats ice cream all day long."
"LISA!" The oldest yelled at a member. "Let's just go, since we are clearly not welcomed. Maybe those books can give us an answer." The girls walked away.
Luo Si shrugged off their indignity. Did those girls think she was a guide or even their guardian? She had performed that roll long enough in her past life. So called friends, that first ask you for help but actually extort you and abandon you as you became useless or are in times of need yourself.
A kind hearted girl, like her past self before entering the capsule, would never have survived in this savage world.
'In the end everybody's for themselves.' A life lesson; clearing every doubt that she could only trust herself. With that in mind she went back to meditation.
Having shown her rank in the food-chain the next distracting problem appeared. Witnesses of her previous exchange gathered around and imitated her posture. In her favor, it only held on for some minutes. Unable to find any success or meaning behind it they quickly dispersed.
Luo Si's caught those actions with eyes closed. The corner of her mouth hooked up. The interaction with the worldly energy, also going by the name qi, was not as easy as one thought. Besides, one needed patients and dedication. Something that not even a handful of people present had.
'Hmm… it should be about time.' She did not focus too much on getting ahold of that strange breeze again and was actually waiting for something, or rather someone.
While she was meditating footsteps could be heard coming from the outside. The battles stopped as an invisible pressure swapped over the cage.
An elder man, apparently in his 40's, dressed in flaming red robes with the chief's symbol impregnated on, as Luo Si guessed, came from the entrance. The guards bend their backs to welcome the arrived individual. The authority clearly in his hands, he muttered some inaudible words, while looking straight at the caged players.
He prepared himself and spoke in a loud voice. His language was very strange and many felt like having a headache as they listened. Nobody understood what he said. Not even Hong Luo Si did. But she could make some guesses as to what the message was about.
The natives had identified them as 'resentful souls'. Having appeared as a result of a tragic event. The dark room around the cage was actually a tomb, dedicated to send of the deceased. However, changes happened after the ritual ended and a cage formed itself. The sudden change alarmed the natives to take precaution, waiting for answers from the higher ups.
Anyway, the thing was that this happened in some other places as well, which answered the question why some people didn't find themselves among the ten thousands of people.
The elder ended his speech. He stroked his thick black beard in wonder, being rewarded with estranged gazes of the opposite.
This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
Luo Si was in deep thought because the elder was the person she had been waiting for. Well, she had actually expected someone else in general. 'Hmm… It seems like I arrived in a different place than in my past life. The flames on his robe should indicate that this is the fire village.'
'Although time is of the essence, haste also makes waste. It is best to stay lowkey for now.' Keeping calm in uncalculated situations was a trade that came with age.
The elder left, leaving behind many different gazes. The players had never experienced something like this before. The younger ones started to cry in confusion. The majority were confused as well, but also agitated. As for the rest, they were excited. The possibility of trembling your opponent to the knees with words alone was great Banta for them. Firstly, no other game had ever given them such a feeling. secondly with this game being a first of this magnitude they were moved beyond words by all content so far.
Many started mimicking the elder's speech or grabbed a martial arts book to find out anything about speaking in the same way.
In the meantime, Luo Si had turned her concentration back to meditation. The situation calmed down as time passed. After hours of nothing special occurring many decided to log out.
There was one event that had attracted many people back in when other guards entered the tomb, but it turned out that it was just a shift change. The shift changes also happened between the players as more and more Asians left and more Europeans and Americans logged in. Luo Si decided to log out as well when the entrance spared no more light. The indication that it was getting dark outside the tomb as well.
It was already midnight when Luo Si left the cylinder. The flow of time was identical to the outside world and the time zone was just a bit behind Hong Kong.
Luo SI went to bed after eating. Her brother had preoccupied the bed already after eating two boxes of chocolate-eggs this evening.
___
Somewhere else inside Guilin.
"Kuilei, why the fuck, are you calling me so late at night?" Liuxian held is phone on the ear.
"B-Boss, I found Luo Si, she is inside my room." Quan Kuilei said proudly but also a little shy.
"Ha ha, Kuilei I didn't know you had it inside you to abduct that useless piece of shit."
"Umm, no boss. She is inside my cage room, in the game." Kuilei replied.
There was a moment of silence on the other end before Liuxian roared in annoyance. "And that's what you call me for? Of course, she will be inside the game. There is nobody playing anything else. It is a shame though. All the marks I have branded her with might have vanished, too bad that thing can also heal."
"Don't worry boss I know what to do." Kuilei answered, getting the boss's unspoken task.
"Good, tell me when you are finished." Liuxian ended the call.
Quan Kuilei was happy for a second. He had not received a new task from his boss in a long while. But halted the next second as he remembered how Luo Si had killed the fatso.
____
Luo Si woke up early in the morning. Her body was feeling better than the last time she woke up. Some dishes and money were left on the table for her brother.
After her avatar logged back inside, she took a look around. It was still full, but one could now stand without pushing one another.
Most of the people seemed to be from America and South America, domineering the others and even claimed territory for themselves. The rest seemed to be Europeans who were already bored from waiting, reading the books over and over as to search for any hidden secrets in the books or were preparing to leave.
She also spotted some Asians. They seemed to have pulled the most monotonous all-nighter, judging from their heavy eye-bags.
There was another thing different from yesterday. Some barbarians found out that even doing one's business was possible. Without much to do they tried throwing it on a guard. The latter send a mighty fist strike back. It was very cool, as a shockwave appeared from the fist-strike, not only deflecting the excrements, but also killing the evildoer in one strike. Many cheered up, seeing the spectacle, while those around the perpetrator had pale faces, witnessing the might of the fist. There was actually more to the attack than just that. Found out only by a hundred or so individuals, they came to the realization that attacks could travel through the barrier and affect the players. Also meaning that this was not a safe zone. This was already proven by the first days massacre however.
Luo Si found her place and continued where she'd left.
Time was passing as usual and even the American cheerleader gang reappeared, looking at Hong Luo Si from the distance. Since that incident, they had seen her do nothing but meditate, which was very suspicious in the eldest girls' eyes.
Time went on and hours passed. Many people logged out and less went back. Only a thousand remained steady, studying the books and practicing the martial arts. Those who did martial arts on the other side of the wall, had found out some things that differed from normal text martial arts books and appeared in every book.
Every book was marked as a foundation book. The base of one's martial path, so explained. If one mastered those arts, they could open their inner network to collect magical particles in the air and use it to become stronger.
This network was made out of 24-32 knots, depending on the arts. Oftentimes called Meridians. Nobody knew what those were, but the books said the more one opened, the better. Every book had the same explanation, but different starting points.
The part about becoming stronger was very enticing and lead many to practice these martial moves and breathing in a certain pattern, but it seemed to be more difficult than expected.
1 hour… 2hours… 6hours…
The unpresented clock ticked. The peoples' interest dwindled, as more and more logged off.
Some logged back inside the cage, hoping for anything new to happen, but disappeared the next instant, seeing no changes.