12 A Boy's Determination.

'Where the hell is he ?He better have a good excuse for being this late or he is gonna be in for it when he gets home.'

Pacing around the living room, Hannah thought to herself.

After seeing him off in the morning for his mandatory three hours outside exercise, Hannah had gone off to work in her company, her post as a sales manager being quite demanding. After a hard day at work, she'd come home at 5, groceries in hand, fully expecting to see her son back in his cave, slumped in a chair with a controller in his hands; only to be informed by Emerald, her second daughter, that he had yet to return. Angry at first,she had begun planning his punishment. Sitting comfortably on the couch and contemplating if she should ground him for a while to teach him a lesson, and then wondered if that was his goal, growing angrier at the thought. She then proceeded to think of any other alternatives, muttering "he's in so much trouble" as she did.

Two hours later however,and still no sight from him, all thoughts of punishment had gone out of her mind, anxiety and guilt replacing it as she began to worry.All attempts to reach him had failed, and contacting his friends, little as they were, also proved futile. Getting up from the couch, she started to pace, checking the clock every five minutes and keeping her eyes on the door. Blaming herself for this mess, she wondered if something had happened to her only boy, and the carrier of her husbands legacy. With thoughts of these nature on her mind, she remembered the feeling of losing her husband to cancer, the grief and despair she'd gone through, and how helpless she had felt. As another hour and half passed,and the clock struck 8:30, her heart clenched at the thought of this happening again, only this time the dead one being her son, tears began to gather in her eyes. Blinking them away hastily, she convinced herself that wasn't the case. Deciding to wait 30 more minutes, and then call the police , she sat down again, taking out her phone and keeping her eyes on the clock,old bittersweet memories of the family's past going through her mind.

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Hanna Akua Greene had experienced many joys and sorrows in her life. Growing up in Africa to loving, albeit financially insecure parents that had lost their assets and riches through schemes of "friends", she had grown up in wealth and later poverty, teaching her various life lessons in the process. She grew to value the sincere love and affection of her mother and father, a trait which unfortunately was not shared by her older siblings, that sought to take any advantage in a home that had lost the pleasures of life and was filled with hardship. Vowing to honor her parents, she pursued an education to better her life and her parents.

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Growing up into a beautiful young lady, she had been confessed to multiple admirers, all of whom she had rejected, knowing their aim. She later on ended up falling in love with a certain suave and romantic foreign student in her university however, An African American by birth, Edward Greene was every bit the gentleman. Tall, smart and handsome with an exotic air, he was the talk of the whole faculty that he and Hannah were affiliated.

Charmed by both her beauty and brains, Edward pursued her with dogged determination, the stories of their romance filled with enough drama to be worthy of a Spanish telenovella. Eventually they were married, and she moved to the states with her husband, in a different and foreign environment.

Feeling out of place and unwelcome sometimes, she ignored this and instead found happiness in her loving husband and the beautiful children they had made together. Four girls and finally a boy, the last one a pleasant surprise to the couple that had decided to stop having children, she gave them 'Fie Din' as their unofficial name to remind them of their ancestry, and Hannah was truly happy. And then, disaster struck.

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Like a cruel, sadistic joke by fate, Hannah experienced loss after loss in the coming years. It started with her husbands health. Then first her mother, then her fathers death. Her husband, the pillar of support in her heart and home, soon followed, losing the battle to cancer. With the schemes of her siblings taking any inheritance of her parents away from her, and her husbands family basically alienating her, Hannah was left to her self. Alone and in a hostile world that sought to exploit her as much as possible, she found solace in her children, they gave her the strength to carry on, and fight against all odds. A sweet and kind woman to all in her youth, she had been tempered by all the hardships that life could throw at her, refusing to break, and had come out a woman of steel. She became the new pillar of support for the family, raising her children to value family above all else, and with all the death, sorrow and alienation by others they had witnessed, her children did. A family unbelievably united was born.

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While remembering these memories as time passed, Hannah continued to glance occasionally at the clock .At the fourteenth minute, she started to dial, getting ready to file a missing person report, calm and reasoning slowly vanishing from her mind and replaced with panic. Then, she heard something. Looking up from her phone, she saw the doorknob slowly turning, giving way as the door opened. And there, before her eyes, was her son, his clothes ripped and torn, with blood all over him. But he was alive, hurt but alive. With tears in her eyes, Hannah raced to her son, all facade of strictness and anger gone, grabbing him tight and never wanting to let go. Pulling him close to her chest , she whispered

" You're home."

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( Back to Adam's POV)

After being unceremoniously dumped into the alley which had being the entrance to the dungeon, Adam lay there for a while, recovering the SP he'd spent previously, and also trying his best to calm down and not be so excited. Finally picking himself up again, he noticed a few more messages from the system, but not in the mood to read them, turned to face the direction of his house, racing to reach home as soon as possible.

Along the way, with no threat of death at every corner, and his mind no longer racing and filled only with survival, Adam started to think about all the actions he had performed in the alley, and in the dungeon.

All the lives he'd taken, just for experience, and levels. Probably crippling a human being and almost killing another.

'Although he had been trying to kill me first.' He thought.

'But why did I take him out like that? It's like I instinctively thought of how to kill him rather than incapacitate him. And I did all that with no hesitation. I didn't even feel anything later on, I'm not even feeling anything now. And what about those monster's I killed? The were sapient to at least a small degree, seeing as they were so furious and sad when I killed their kin. And yes it was necessary to survive when they were hunting me, but when I was on my way to escape the dungeon, I didn't need to kill them. But I still did it, cause I wanted the experience, like it was a game or something. I lied to myself in the beginning that It was to make sure I didn't get swarmed, but if I was able to avoid that when I first entered the dungeon, then It'd be a piece of cake now. I did it, wanting to level up, and I don't feel anything from that either.

Who...or rather what am I now? What has this game, this [Gamer's Mind] skill turned me into?

Can I even feel anything now? Love, Loneliness, Hate, Remorse. Will I be able to experience that? If I can't , then can I even be called a human? Am I just going to become an emotionless murderer, slave to the game and hunting anything for experience? Will I hunt humans for experience?'

As he fell deeper and deeper into this rabbit hole of self analysis and contemplation of the psychological effects of the [Gamer's Mind] on him, Adam drew closer to his house.

Stopping in front of the door, his hand on the doorknob, he hesitated. In the 24 hours that had passed in the dungeon, Adam had changed so drastically that he didn't even recognize himself. Could he really just go back and pretend like nothing ever happened ? What was he going to do from now on? What would he tell his mother?The last one was especially important, as Adam thought of how mad his mum would be.

All these thoughts went through his mind as he turned the knob, deciding to face his mum and get through the ordeal as quickly as possible.Opening the door as quietly as possible, he entered the house half-expecting to see his mother holding a huge cleaver, ready to lob his head off. Instead he saw something that shocked him to his core. His mother, the woman of steel was running towards him with no composure whatsoever, tears in her eyes. And then, still shocked, he was enveloped, her arms going around his waist tightly, seeming to cover him completely despite the 5 inch difference in their height, him at 6"2' and hers at 5"7'.

And then they were still, the night calm and silent, the only sound the quiet crying of his mother. Finally she spoke, saying a sentence all but brought Adam to tears if not for the skill preventing him from doing so.

"You're home." she whispered to him.

And then Adam realized it, what he had been fighting for, why he would do anything to go home. Cripple a guy, wipe out a whole village just for a minuscule amount of experience. Just to get that strength, that ability to protect his family, he would do it with no remorse. Because his family was his everything, and he now understood just how true that was.

As an awkward introvert with no people skills and no special talents, Adam had felt completely un-needed in his family. Always messing up, always disappointing, not as good as his sisters, he'd always felt it in the looks his peers and sister's friend gave him, and accepted it as he grew older. Turning to games and fantasy books to escape this world, he turned away from society, having only a few friends throughout his whole school life. At first he was content, but slowly a sense of uselessness and self hatred rose up in him, threatening to swallow him whole. As these emotions grew bigger and bigger in his heart, his only help was in his family, who loved him unconditionally, but paradoxically it also made him hate himself more, seeing how perfect all his sisters were and how ... not he was, compared to them. And so this cycle continued, he becoming more and more withdrawn into games, not knowing his purpose.

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But now, he knew. As he looked at his mother, a woman that seemed so little and weak, and yet, had fought for so long, he knew. His was the role of the protector; one that would bring happiness to them, make sure they smile all the time. And if any forces were to threaten them, the one that would cut them down mercilessly. The role of the pillar of the home had been on his mother's shoulders for long enough, it would be his time to bear it soon, and he'd do it with pleasure.

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With this decision made, Adam suddenly felt like some shackle on his mind had been broken, and his murky consciousness had suddenly become crystal clear, his eyes opened. Suddenly, a flood of notifications appeared.

[Conditions have been met]

[ Congratulations on awakening]

[You have awakened the skill 'Split Mind']

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[ Split Mind] Unique ability.[Passive](Lv.1)

An ability awakened in very few, this inborn power gives one the ability to perform completely different actions, simultaneously .

-Allows user to perform 2 different actions( + 1 per 10 levels)

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[ Checking compatibility with classes...]

[ You have awakened the class "Jack of All Trades"]

[ Jack of All Trades has been absorbed into the game system]

[ Class has evolved]

[ You have awakened the class "Sage of All Trades"]

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[ Sage of All Trades]

A class that specializes in not being good in just one area, but all of them. Unlike the [ Jack of All Trades] class, this class gives the ability to not only learn the basics, but the advanced or even ultimate skill of any field.

-Grants +1 to all stats per level

-Grants +1 to STR, AGI,INT and WIS per level.

- Grants compatibility to all magic and skills.

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Looking at these messages, Adam was shocked again. If he hadn't been an awakened, then what was the Game, and how did it work?

Were there others like him, people that are part of the game?

'None of these are important right now', he thought as he put these thoughts to the back of his head. Standing in the hallway with his mother, his conviction set, he looked down at her, love flowing through his heart and yet his mind cool as always. Lifting his arms, he wrapped them around her as well, whispering as well to her, a sentence and a silent promise.

"I'm home."

[ Welcome to the Abyss].

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End of the First Encounter