"Floor twelve. Reward: 150 credits. Starting in one minute."

I didn't even care what the room's monster would be this time. My body hummed with latent energy, hands twitching to strike against something…anything. This loop, this cycle, it was starting to change me. Not just physically—mentally, my focus had a chilling edge to it now. Where I'd once felt overwhelmed and bewildered, a simmering anger started to take over. No more questions, no more hesitation. Only this urge to fight.

This time, a giant troll lumbered forth. Massive club clenched in its fist, and thankfully, a slow gait. Perfect.

"Started."

I moved without thought, dodging the predictable swing of the club with ease. I danced circles around the creature, each lunge aimed carefully: ankle joints, ribs, the one exposed eye. It bellowed in confused rage. Each of my blows left behind not bruises, but something like raw energy, flickering red under its coarse skin.

A final strike, my fist slamming through the center of its massive chest. There was no blood, no spray of organs. Instead, a crackle of electricity, and then the troll simply wasn't there anymore. Not fallen, not collapsed – as if it had just been erased.

I panted, not from exhaustion, but exhilaration. What was happening? And this...electricity feeling, it stayed with me even as the credits poured forth and the exit opened. An icy wave of realization hit: Each defeat of these creatures, it wasn't just giving me experience or points. It was filling me with some force that transcended this broken tutorial.

That was it. That was the whispered purpose, the reason for this maddening repetition.

—----------------------------

As always, the grey room. Yet this time, something caught my eye. Words scratched into a corner, faint enough that I wouldn't have noticed before: "Remember. 1+1 is not the answer." Had someone else gotten trapped here? Did someone figure something out? No time to dwell on mysteries now.

Floor thirteen.

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This one...not a creature, but an entire chamber of swirling black mist. An icy presence pulsed from within. Something ancient, something dangerous. No shape, just endless swirling tendrils of dark energy. And it spoke, not with words, but with a presence that settled in my mind like a thick, wet blanket.

"Turn back. Your progress amounts to dust."

That was my choice? Give up? No chance in hell. I lunged into the fog.

It felt like being pierced by a thousand needles at once. Unlike with the creatures, here there was nothing physical to grapple with, just...this invasive force. Every ounce of my focus bent on resisting it, forcing it back with sheer will. And within my mind, that energy I'd gathered before crackled in response. An internal battle raged, not of blows and kicks, but an unyielding clash of wills.

Time lost meaning in that struggle. Then, slowly, I gained ground. The mist thinned, that oppressive dread weakening. In its place, the same question from the start flickered on my vision:

"Do you wish to leave?"

YES. NO.

An easy choice, right?

Not today. My fist shot out, the swirling red energy now fully visible on my skin. I punched the 'NO' with a yell that could have cracked the concrete.

For a moment, silence. Then the room started to twist around me, the walls warping and dissolving. The room of doom… was this some other step? Another iteration of the tutorial? No, this felt different. A wave of dizziness struck, my vision went gray for a moment…

My surroundings weren't grey anymore. No exit, not even a cave for that matter. I was standing under a starlit sky. There was the whisper of a warm breeze against my skin, smelling of damp earth. A place untouched by Initialization, untainted by that system's maddening cycle.

"You made the right choice." A voice, clear and female, spoke behind me. I whirled around. There stood a woman, her figure almost aglow in the moonlight. Long, grey hair, sharp eyes. Not someone I'd encountered before.

"You," I started, then my words dried up. How did she know? And...was she part of the System? An Administrator? Another prisoner like me? My confusion must have been obvious, because she chuckled.

"So many questions, I know. It's best to keep moving. They always sense when an outlier enters their space.”

"They? Who’s they?!” I was yelling, the calmness gone. I'd escaped that cursed iteration only to find myself in a whole new kind of madness.

"The ones who built it… or what’s left of them. And your little battle of the wills just put a giant target on your back." She held out a hand. "Come. Explanations take time, something we do not have now.”

It seemed insane to trust this stranger. But with that sense of the world cracking apart, of forces larger than I could comprehend closing in, I felt I had no choice. It was the first leap of faith in this entire Initialization...or maybe just the latest.

I grabbed her hand and we disappeared into the night, leaving that silent moonlit clearing behind.