Player

"Ithron it's your turn."

At those words Ithron Minya a computer science student snapped out of his thoughts and looked at the card that had been thrown in front of him by his friend Chris. It was a heart queen.

And then up to the cards he was holding in his hands. He had only 4 cards on his hand remaining and if he got rid of them all he'd be out of the game safely.

Ithron pondered about his plan for a second and a wide smile appeared on his face.

He grabbed a card from one of his handcards and slammed it dramatically onto the heart 3 on the table. It was a heart king.

But that smile froze a second later.

Chris shurgged his shoulders but the other player, another friend of his, Lucas pulled out

2 cards one after another only to the shock of Ithron. It were the pike king and clover king.

"Antimate."

It was one of the crucial moments of the card game they were playing - 'Durak'.

Disgruntled the sat back down on his chair and collected the cards that had been placed in front of him by his friends. Now he had a total of 7 cards on his hand. The goal of the game was to get rid of all the card in one's hand.

'Let's hope I don't become the 'idiot'.'

The game had no winner. Only a loser that was called the 'durak' which was russian for idiot.

In order to at least not be the loser Ithron needed a really good plan now after losing the earlier battle against Chris and Lucas. So Ithron glanced intently at the cards he held in both of his hands as he thouht about possible combination attacks while ordering his cards.

"..."

".."

"."

But something was awkward. Somewhere in the middle of sorting the cards the chatter around him seemed to have settled down.

'I still know a good star-wars prequel meme I haven't shared with the others yet, this will definitly bring the mood back.'

"Have yo-"

Ithron was about to pull his smarphone out ouf his pockets to show the meme, as his thoughts came to an abrupt halt.

He couldn't move a muscle of his body! He couldn't even blink his eyes. The last thing he felt was an extremely sharp pain rushing through his head after which everything disappeared. His Friends, the table, his cards, light and sound. Ithron had fallen unconscious...

The faces of Lucas and Chris turned deathly pale. The words they wanted to say suck in their throats. A red glowing crack appearing in the air in front of them right where Ithron was sitting. As if the very fabric of reality was being torn apart by it. It grew thicker and longer reaching 1 m in length and a thickness of about 2 cm in only a second. A string separating from the crack pierced Ithron's skull. Then eerie red light started to pulsate throughout the crack.

Around Ithron chaos errupted.

Panicked screams rang out around the room as the other students noticed the dangerous thing that was growing at a visible rate. Chris and Lucas also stood up from their chairs and looked at Ithron with shocked expressions.

"ITHRON!" Chris screamed at the top of his lungs.

Ithron was sitting on his chair not moving an inch. His eyes were wide open as he was staring on his right pocket where his phone was. Yet his eyes looked unfocused and dark red blood started to dripp out of his skull right where the string had pierced him.

It all happend in a flash. It appeared out of nowhere and took their friend.

'Will it kill me too?' Chris mind drifted off as Lucas was desperately trying to drag himself and the dazed Chris away from that place. But to no avail.

A second later another string pierced Chris's head.

*THUD*

--------------------------------------------------------------

"Data upload complete."

"Analysing received data."

"..."

"Complete. Begin reconstruction process."

"..."

"Complete."

*GASP*

*Caugh* *Caugh*

Ithron abruptly opended his eyes. Everyting hurt around his body. It felt like his bones were crushed and his muscles were on fire. His adrenaline level rose instantly reacting to this unexpected situation. Ithron clenched his teeth.

The only thing he could see was the rough stone floor he was currently lying on illuminated by a dimm lightsource somewhere above him.

"..."

Despite the pain he streched his arms, pressing them onto the floor to lift his upper body upwards.

His arms trembled from the pain that was permeating throughout his entire body. But he was able to overcome it.

Now in a sitting position he was finally able to take in his surroundings.

'W-what the heck happened to me?'

He found himself in a dark cave made out of some grayish stone with stalactites hanging from the ceiling. Well he didn't know how high the ceiling was since Ithron could only see the stalactites hanging a couple of meters above him. Beyond that was darkness.

He could make out the walls of the cave to his left and to his right.

Ithron then stood up and started to walk around the cave.

'I guess this part has a width of about 6m maybe more or less I'm not too profound at measuring distances with my eyes.'

A stray thought suddenly struck his mind. And panic filled his mind. He suddenly touched his face around the eye area.

'Fuck! my glasses are gone!! Argh. I only had them repaired a couple of weeks ago... my mom will kill me.'

Losing his glasses would be really bad news for someone like Ithron, since he was extremely short-sighted.

'Hold up. This isn't right. I can see perfectly around here. Normally I can barely see around half a meter sharply but now I can even make out the details of the stalactites!'

"That's a little gift from the system. We can't have you have too much of a disadvantage. You are already the weakest race so the system at least healed any ailments you have."

Ithron turned his head to face the direction the voice came from suddenly.

"Who ar-" Ithron was cut off.

"I am Alec. Remember my name you lazy human. For I am your guide during this competition. Even if you are trash I wont let you have an easy death. From now on you will have to do exactly what I tell you and win this for me."

Ithron was dumbfounded.

'What did that thing just say?'

He hated being ordered around. Especially if it was people he barely even knew that gave out the orders.

In front of him floated a tiny white marble that was surrounded by flickering black flames. Yet the flames didn't emit any warmth at all. They were cold.

"What are yo-" Ithron was cut off again.

"Welcome to the tower Ithron. I will skip the details since it would be too bothersome to explain them if you die on the first floor already. I'll explain the details later on the second floor. If you managed to survive the first floor that is. So don't worry about overloading your pathatic little brain for now human."

'Now this guy is really offending me like it's nothing after meeting me for a damn minute. I can't believe it. Damn Asshole.' Ithron was indignant

"Listen closely human I will only explain it once."

Ithron set his annoyance towards Alce's crappy attitude aside and nodded his head. Since Alec obviously knew what was going on, while Ithron was still tapping in the dark. He had no idea what was going on so Alec was definitely sitting on the longer lever.

"You have been chosen by god to be my 'player' during this ascension competition. The competition is a place for us 'guides' to prove our worth towards god. We must lead our players to the top floor and make them activate the <Ascension Cross> hidden on the 10th floor. The first player to achieve that will be determined the victor and that will also mark the end of the competition. There can only be one winning entity. Meaning that you can also win as a party of players or as a clan. Every player that isn't part of the winning entity will be slaughered by god once the competition comes to a close. And I'm telling you now since this is important for me.

YOU will touch the cross no matter what and no matter the price! A guide only wins when HIS player touches he Ascension Cross."

"..."

The marble started to wiggle. Seemingly waiting for Ithron's reaction.

Ithron nodded trying to understand the marbles intention. His mind racing to process all the received all the information as fast as possible. And came to a conclusion.

"Alright. But something is bugging me. Do I have to take part in this just to survive? With no benefit of winning at all. Well except for being allowed to keep my life of course. This somehow seems a little unfair. Wouldn't players work far harder to reach the goal if they'd be able to gain something?"

'Is he not scared? Not starting to cry? Hm this guy isn't as dumb as I assumed him to be.' Alec mentally noted.

'Hah. This guy is an irregular. Maybe not all hope is lost.'

"Of course there is something to gain from this competition for you."

"Good. What is it?"

"You will be allowed to return to your world keeping the body and soul modifications you earned during the competion."

"You know such vague promises are always the signs of scams."

"... I told you that I will go more into detail once we reach the second floor. You will see the might of the available modifications early enough young man."

"Well now that I'm here I don't have any other choice anyways, do I?"

"Nope."

Ithron averted his eyes from the floating marble calling itself Alec and focused on his surroundings again. The cave seemed to extend in two directions he hasn't looked at earlier. But there was nothing much to say. When looking deeper into the extending tunnel there was nothing but darkness. Moving his eyes upwards again he noticed the source of light that was illuminating the area he was standing in. It was a small white crystal embedded into one of the protruding stones around the wall of the cave which was emitting a warm but dimm light.

Ithron stretched out his right arm and touched the crystal with his fingers. It was warm.

The warmth soothed the rising anxiety in Ithron's mind.

He was brought into a dark, cold cave with nothing but the basic clothes he was wearing at university moments ago. He had no idea how long he was unconscious, what happened to his friends and what he was supposed to do from now on. But the weirdest part was that he was talking to a floating marble. The one that was seemingly supposed to be his guide and help him.

"I will now explain how the competition will be so listen closely."