Chapter Three - Monoliths

In a dense grassland clearing, the sky trembled as the surface of five monoliths lit up. The monoliths stood erect, like giant towers holding up the sky due to their extreme height. Their surfaces were like polished dark glass with different colored runic diagrams drawn on each, the diagrams snaked up from the bottom to the far end of the monoliths.

It was these runes that had lit up, a different color on each monolith, casting splendorous light on its environment way more magnificent than the three suns that lay overhead or the glowing forest that surrounded the monoliths. Soon, multiple beams of lights began shooting from the top of the monoliths to the ground. From each beam of light, a construct appeared. Thorne similarly walked out of a beam of light shooting out of a monolith with golden runic inscriptions on the farthest left.

"Whoa!"

He was surprised to find that his in-game avatar was the same golden construct that had been drawn in the void. He looked at his hands and found them so surreal, only the glowing golden lines outlined the dimensions of his hands. Aside those, his hands were completely transparent. He tried poking a finger into the palm of the other hand to see if it would pass through it but the result was negative.

"So it's clearly transparent but I can't put anything through it. Interesting."

"I wonder how that comet entered." He looked down his chest and saw the pulsating star with the silver object orbiting it.

"Damn, What is this game?!"

"Is this the rumored ground breaking technology from the Crown Corporation?"

"Why are the colors not the same for everyone?"

"Hey, did anyone get an instruction manual?"

A hubbub of voices that broke out brought Thorne's attention to his surroundings. The first things he noticed were the majestic towering monoliths that loomed over them. Their ridiculously unending height particularly astounded him.

How high do they go?" He thought

Underneath each of these monoliths stood thousands of constructs just like him. But he noticed a stark difference among them; the color. Each runic diagram seemed to determine the color of the constructs underneath the monoliths on which they were inscribed.

Gazing at the farthest left, a monolith with blue runic inscriptions and the thousands of constructs underneath it were blue. It seemed to have the highest number of constructs too and they were rather oddly shaped. But due to the distance, he couldn't make out what they looked like.

Next to them was a monolith with red runic inscriptions. It also had thousands of red constructs underneath it however their population was way lesser than that of the blue monolith. The bright red made them road like a couple of hell spawns that had just descended into the realm. They were followed by a monolith with white inscriptions and a few thousand white constructs. Then came another another monolith with purple runic inscriptions and this time just few hundred purple constructs. Since they were next to Thorne, he could clearly see the blinding suns in their chest which were way brighter than the weak flickering one in his.

The last monolith under which Thorne stood, was one with golden runic inscriptions. Here, Thorne could count barely thirty golden constructs. Not only were their dazzling stars way brighter than those of the purple constructs or his, but they also had usernames above their heads.

"I don't recall being given an option to set a username. Do the others have hem too?"

He turned to the group of purple constructs and saw that they also indeed had usernames.

"I should have one. How do I check though?"

"Oh right, a status window", he facepalmed.

Looking around, he reckoned that was why the other constructs were standing still and looking into the skies. His ignorance was truly embarrassing.

"Bring up my status window"

Quietly, a golden window appeared in front of him.

[STATUS]

Username: The Seventh Son

Racial Distinction: Syntheticon

Core: Cosmogem of Energy (Grade?????)

Energy Output: -

State of Solidity: 1

Structural Integrity: 10

[Starshards]: 1

Quarkite (Grade: Luminous)

Description: Construct any thought into existence.

"The seventh son…", Thorne recalled the incident in the void that earned him this cosmogem whose function he did not know. He was sure it was special though along with his username but he couldn't figure out the reason why they were given to him.

'Maybe its just luck', he thought but he didn't believe it himself.

The other items in the items were just as vague; state of solidity, structural integrity, starshards and quarkite.

They didn't follow anything he had read under VR games but its novelty definitely interested him.

Then there was the description of this Quarkite. It vaguely reminded Thorne of a manifestation skill he had read of but he wasn't too sure about it. And why was his energy output not stated? It definitely wasn't right.

"Oi you, defect!"

A gruff voice broke Thorne out of his thoughts and he looked up to see a burly four armed golden construct standing right in front of him.

'Ah, so all constructs are structurally different', he thought.

"Are you deaf?" the player seemed to be getting impatient.

"Are you talking to me?" Thorne looked behind just to be sure.

"Did you see anyone else?" the burly construct chided.

"We're heading outside the barrier in teams", he continued, leaving no chance for Thorne to retort back. "The others don't want you because of your defect", he lowered his glowing pairs of eyes to Thornes' chest and shook his head regretfully.

"Your energy output might be low but I'm sure your skill makes up for it right. How about you let me know what it is so you join my team", he looked at Thorne expectantly.

To his disappointment, Thorne seemed to have fallen into a daze and wasn't listening to him.

"You know what…. Forget it." He shook his head in disappointment and left. He naturally assumed that perhaps Thorne's skill was trash too and decided he wasn't worth recruiting.

Thorne, who had been wondering how he could hear the other party's voice even when there wasn't a mouth present, was surprised to see him leave.

"Did he call me a defect? And what was this barrier he mentioned?"

He looked around and finally realized the presence of a hazy dome around them. Everything beyond it seemed blurry and unrecognizable. Multiple constructs had already begun moving, disappearing immediately they stepped into it.

Deciding to head out as well, he picked a random direction and headed to the barrier. As for the matter of being called a defect, he didn't mind it at all. They probably did that because of his flickering core not knowing that it wasn't as ordinary as it seemed. He wasn't interested in joining a team anyway. This was his first VR experience. He didn't want to play, he wanted to enjoy.

When he finally stepped through the barrier, he felt a cool sensation wash over him.

Aaah

He savored the feeling. 'Was this how all VR games were like?'

When he finally walked out of the barrier, his question was answered and in a very eyecatching way.

Gasp!

This definitely wasn't how normal VR games were.

Ding!

[You have stepped into the Elysium Forest]

[Current location: Forest Floor]