“We don’t have all day,” Brian said.

“Make something happen, I’m bored,” Jack said.

“Shut the fuck up and let me focus!”

Lucas was crouching next to a line of ants, with his arms out towards them, trying to activate his Insect Movement Control: Rank 1. Five minutes passed, and he was still failing.

“Insect movement control!” Lucas said.

“Insect movement control, rank one!” Lucas screamed.

“Maybe you have to say insect movement control colon rank one,” Jack said.

“Insect movement control colon rank one!” Lucas said.

The ants kept moving, unbothered.

“You’re full of shit,” Lucas said, while looking at Jack.

…

Blink.

Jack looked up at the blue sky. He quickly got up to a sitting position and looked around the stone plaza. Nearby, Lucas and Brian were also sitting on the ground, looking around.

“Glad you could show up on time this time,” Brian said.

“Piss off,” Jack said.

They spent 10 minutes in the corner of the stone plaza, near the leather balloons tunnel, observing all the groups.

There were five main groups. All interacting with each other.

There was the hispanics group. The white trash group. A group that looked like it was only college kids. And the other two groups looked mixed.

Eventually, a guy from the college kids group approached us. He had a smile on his face and looked friendly.

Jack and Lucas got ready to pull out their combat knives while Brian took charge.

“Hey, nice to meet you. You must be new here,” the college kid said, trying to be as polite as possible.

“Yes, we just arrived, it’s our first time here,” Brian said.

The college kid looked at the backpacks and dirty clothes we all three were wearing and nodded.

“Well, I just wanted to introduce myself. My name is Eugene. I’m the spokesman for my fraternity over there,” he said and pointed at the group of college kids.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“Nice to meet you Eugene. My name is Brian and this is Jack and Lucas.”

“Nice to meet you Lucas, nice to meet you Jack,” Eugene said. It looked like he was almost about to shake our hands, but then remembered how dirty we were.

“Hey, can I ask for some advice?” Brian said.

“Yes, of course!” Eugene said and smiled.

I don’t like this guy, Jack thought.

“This game is super weird. Could you tell us more about how it works? We just got the ad today and decided to swing by. This place is so crazy realistic haha! And that chair creeped the hell out of me!” Brian said, trying to sound as friendly as possible.

It’s weird seeing him being fake like this. I could never do his role of leader and being diplomatic.

“Okay, so here’s the deal. We all only got here yesterday, but it seems like through each of these tunnels, like that one, there are different monsters. We haven't checked out this tunnel yet, but we are organizing an expedition soon, me and my team. So you get challenges when you do new things, and when you complete them you get skill points. To spend skill points you have to do this, maybe there’s more ways, but the only way we’ve figured out how to spend skill points is by saying I want to spend 1 skill point, and then saying what you want. But there’s a big problem…” Eugene said, and paused for dramatic effect.

I hate it when people pause like that. Just get to the point, Jack thought.

“Almost all skills are useless.”

“What?” Lucas said.

“What do you mean?” Brian said.

“We all tried buying cool skills, like fireball, waterball, earth manipulation, flying. But they don’t work! The only skills that seem to work are the knowledge based ones. But those are mostly useless to be honest,” Eugene said.

I would care to disagree, Jack thought.

…

“So this insect skill is useless?” Lucas said.

The trio were taking a break from grinding Balloon Monsters. Jack was holding the marble yellow crystal Lucas gave him when one of the balloon monsters he killed dropped it.

“I don’t think it’s useless. That would be too stupid. I think there’s just a missing link. Something we’re not seeing. We shouldn’t trust everything those dumbasses are saying.”

“I agree with Jack. We’ll figure out a way. So, you two decided what you wanna get?” Brian said.

“Yeah. Game, are you listening? I want to spend one skill point on Knife Fighting: Rank 1 to upgrade it to Rank 2,” Jack said.

Knife Fighting: Rank 1 → Knife Fighting: Rank 2

The same warm feeling washed over his body, but especially his head. Then it cooled down. Though he had tried it once now, it was still weird reaching into his mind and finding artificial knowledge.

His instincts and his knowledge had grown again. It felt like he had spent 10 thousand hours or so training with the knife. Even sparring with it.

The new skill taught him the importance between light slashes and heavy slashes and light stabs and heavy stabs. The rhythms and variations in which they should be used. It taught him different slashes like figure 8 slash, top to bottom slash and bottom to up slash and sideway slashes, etc. It taught him the best way to move and position his muscles to get maximum speed or power or the right combination of both when striking.

To use light overhead slashes in the beginning of the fight to cause damage and protect yourself, and to only use the heavy attacks if hitting is certain and open from a reaction to your light attacks.

He had never tried any variations besides the most basic, and now he also realized how he was doing even the most basic slashes incorrectly. The power and speed he was losing and the openings he was creating.

Jack explained this new skill to to Lucas and Brian.

“Okay, my turn,” Brian said. “Hey game, you listening? give me a skill…”