Jin was lucky enough to find a few garlic plants sticking out next to a tree. He manipulated them with mana to grow bigger and to modify the amount of sulfur inside of them. Lea had done as Jin had ordered her to. It all seemed vague to her but she knew Jin would come up with a decent plan. It was as if she could instinctively tell that he would. There was this weird aura around him as if he had the situation in the palm of his hand.
Lea could see Jin running towards her, his hoodie in his two hands used as a net to carry bunch of a certain plant. He had given his shirt to Lea as a way of starting the fire a while ago and was shirtless now, the closer he came the wider her jaws fell apart. Jin was ripped. Every muscle in his upper body stood out. Veins ran down from his neck to his arms and his entire chest was covered in scars and stitches. This wasn’t the body you’d expect someone who was healing from a plane crash to have. Maybe she would’ve believed it if he said he just came back from war.
“Quickly evaporate the water where you soaked the soil in. There should be white crystals left over. Try to get as much as you can.” Jin proceeded his plan and laid his hoodie on the wet grass. He ran up to the burning hut and started to gather charcoal from the ashes. After gathering enough he took a knife and shattered all the gathered materials into grains and mixed them together with the crystals Lea brought him. It quickly started to look like gunpowder.
“What is it?”, Lea asked. “It’s a weak gunpowder. Even though it’s not the most refined for it’ll do the job. We’re lucky, I expected there to be less and it looks pretty pure”, while answering Jin tied up the hoodie into a sac with all of the explosive powder inside. “You’re going to drop it on the hut again when I give you the signal. Maybe we can add poison hemlock? Did you see any around here? Its sap would evaporate well and create a paralyzing effect.” She nodded and started to look around.
Lea thought about what plant it was again and where she had seen it. Her eyes lit up as she answered: “Yeah, there was some around the tree I climbed in. It’s the one with the white flowers right?” “Yes”, Jin said. She got up and went to go pluck the flowers. It didn’t take her long to return with a bouquet of the flower. She used a part of her cloth from her training pants to protect her hands. All of a sudden she looked into Jin’s eyes with a flustered look and said: “You’re quite a unique person you know? You’re extremely strong and very talented at fighting. On top of that, you make detailed plans like it’s nothing and have knowledge people could only dream of.” Because she felt embarrassed the words came out while stuttering.
Jin gave her a soft smile and sat down on the ground. “Thanks,” he said, “it means a lot to me. I just try to do the best I can. The knowledge is something I learned while surviving. I can see that you’re not short of talent as well. Just by looking at your muscle build you’ve trained your entire life for this. If I’m right your parents wanted you to do this. Do know that the moment we finish this the people will acknowledge you. You’ll become the great Lea and I’ll become that one boy in a wheelchair who leeched of you in the test.” She looked confused. “What do you mean? How would you be the one leeching of me, wouldn’t it be the other way around?” “No, the people won’t see what happens inside of here, we’re too great of cards in their game to reveal. They’ll think that I’m completely paralyzed and unable to move even inside the simulation. When we come out they’ll just see you stand victorious and me in your shadow. It’s also the way I prefer. I don’t really like the attention all that much.” without them realizing.
The timer jumped forward to 0:00 all of a sudden. “The final wave will now start”, a message said. Lea looked at Jin with big eyes and shouted: “Fuck the wave is already starting? That wasn’t 10 minutes, 7 at most!” Jin jumped up and grabbed two knives. “Go inside the tree, when you’re up there cut open the stem of the herbs you plucked and carefully pour them on the gunpowder. DO NOT let it touch your skin.” She took off with the hoodie and a few knives and ran up the tree like a squirrel.
A gigantic portal opened in the distance. Blue light beams came out of it reflected on the droplets of water from the mist. It was spectacular to witness. The birds flew up from the trees scared of what was coming. Two horns rose above the trees storming towards the fire. The mist in the cold and dark woods had gotten thicker by the smoke coming from the hut. “What the fuck is that?” Lea shouted. “A Minotaur? Why’s it so big?” Jin froze up hearing her say it. A Minotaur isn’t that tall. It would be two to three meters tall not ten or fifteen. Please don’t tell me…
The monster reached a distance where you could see it through the mist and trees. It stood at twelve meters with a ginormous two-handed ax. The two horns on his head softly reflected the moonlight into Jin’s eyes. It was clear that the odds were rigged. Encountering a mutated monster even once was a one in a million chance, let alone encountering two within an hour. The cow-like creature saw his prey, a young human boy, and started to attack. Blood red eyes pierced the mist. Saliva dripped down from his cow mouth. With three big steps the monster stood next to Jin and swung his ax with a demolishing force at him. Jin quickly jumped away and rolled over the ground for several meters before coming to halt.
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He crawled back up with haste. The speed at which the beast handled the weapon was unnatural. Once again it began attacking with the big weapon. This time it used it as if he was about to split Jin open like a block of wood. With a wide swing from head to toe the ax crashed into the dirt. The move had taken Jin by surprise and he instinctively used mana to enforce his muscles and dodge. What he had forgotten was that there was almost no mana inside of his body. A few seconds passed by before his body noticed the effect and the pain started to kick in. His right eye had frozen up. Splinters of ice pierced it as it imploded.
When you use more mana than stored inside of you, you borrow it from nature and go against the laws of it resulting in a punishment equal to how much you stole from her. As Jin’s mana was linked to ice, nature punished him with a cold force. A scream of pain and terror echoed through the woods. Jin opened his right eye and looked around searching for his opponent. He was already too late. The two bone blades that were placed on a stick came at him with that incredible speed. He had tried, he had tried to step away but his actions were futile. His own mistake had led him to death. A wide smile was visible on the Minotaur’s face as Jin was sliced into two pieces. His torso and head flew away into a bush while his legs stood there for a while before collapsing on the wet grass.
As his time ran out and his brain started to stop, he heard a loud scream. “Fucking bastard. Come at me!” It was Lea jumping down from her spot up the tree with a knife in her hands. She had just witnessed how her comrade had been annihilated. The beast looked at her surprised as he hadn’t noticed this prey before. It licked its lips and took a better grip on his bloody bone ax. Before the thing even had a chance to swing the weapon Lea ran away. The beast started to chase her until she was out of breath.
Lea grabbed a plank and lit the top part with the fire from the hut to make a primitive torch. Her opponent started his attack again thinking it would be the last time he’d have to attack. He was right about that, it would be the last time he would ever use that heavy ax or any weapon again. Lea got close to him and pushed the burning wooden spike into its strong cow leg. Then she grabbed a handful of gunpowder from the hoodie and threw it on the flaming part of the plank. An explosion the size of a football took place and folded the monster’s knees. The beast as tall as a tree knelled down on one knee. Without any hesitation Lea climbed up his back and kicked the beast’s head down towards the hut with incredible skill. She used so much force you’d think she was already able to use mana.
It all happened so fast the Minotaur couldn’t even notice anything but pain. The moment before the cow head crashed into the hut Lea jumped off him from the front and threw the hoodie down. A huge explosion blasted away the hut and demolished the minotaurus. Lea, who had been blasted away to the border of the mini world by the explosion, had broken almost every bone in her body. With a weak smile she read: “Mission completed. Returning to reality in 5 seconds. Survivors 2/2.”
Even though the two of them were both on the verge of death, they held on to life. Jin had used a technique called “Brain death” to shut down his entire neural system for as long as he could. It would keep him in a plant-like state for around thirty minutes before he would’ve bled dry. The technique was invented by one of his adopted children in his previous life. A boy named John. When Jin had found him he was about to be split open by a double-edged long-sword. After saving him, it turned out that the boy was a genius at modifying his own body. He created multiple techniques and became known as the master of flesh and bones. He died on the 64th floor by a stealth attack from a lizardman.
Jin opened his eyes with a painful glance in them. The countdown reached zero which marked the end of the test. At last they would be going back to their beds. The vortex of pixels in all colors brought Lea and Jin back to a cramped black space. It had the same feeling as when you entered the tower. Sickening like you just turned around hundreds of times. A blue button with “Open” on it was the only thing Jin could see. His mind was a bit foggy because of the transition back to reality.
To Jin’s disappointment, his legs were numb again. The doctors had told him they put a medicine inside that would make him unable to feel anything inside of them until they were completely healed. Even though it was a nice medicine it also made him unable to move them. He pressed the button and got scared for a moment. As the lid of the capsule opened a person came storming at him. She jumped at him and gave him a hug. “We did it! We completed it!” Lea shouted. She was extremely energetic and looked as if she could burst into tears from happiness.
“Well done Lea, you did amazing,” Jin said. He wasn’t lying, when he had been sliced into two by the Minotaur he had thought it was game over and they’d have to accept their defeat. That Lea was able to slay that thing was not calculated within the odds. Lea realized she had been very impulsive by just hugging Jin out of nowhere and slowly got off him. She had a clear blush on her cheeks and looked at him. “Do you want me to help you back in your wheelchair?” she asked.
He accepted Lea’s request and patiently waited for her to put him in the movable chair. They reached the door and opened it. Five security agents surrounded them as they walked in the hallway. “We’ll export you two to the weapon storage. Young miss, I’ll be the one who controls the wheelchair”, the one in the front said. The group was already at the end of the long hallway because they were at the door of room 100. It only took them a few meters before they reached a very secure door. “Titanium”, Lea whispered as she inspected the room.
She was right, the door was made from titanium. He didn’t know what weapons were inside for them to use such an expensive and strong material. All five of the guards stepped towards and used their security cards at the exact same time. Then all of them had to do an eye scan, fingerprint scan and give in a pin code. The door opened upwards. “Because the two of you cleared number 100 you are allowed to request to make any weapon you want from any weapon. Until that weapon is built you can choose a weapon from the 90+ section. Just show them the phone you received at the start and they’ll allow your entry.” The guards lined up in front of the door with guns in their hands. Lea pushed Jin inside to a circular room. It had an advanced type of technology. The one Jin had seen in sci-fi movies when he was a kid in his previous body.
The room had doors with numbers for every five rooms: 0+, 10+, 20+, … All the doors were guarded by two guards in a robot armor. Lea showed the phones at 90+ and they opened the doors. “WOW,” Lea whispered with amazement as she watched the inside of the room.