Ring of Chaos

International Space Station

After several decades of development, the International Space Station now houses a hundred researchers from various fields. They were well aware of the events on Earth but unfortunately could not be brought back in time to Earth. The different organizations preferred to direct their efforts towards the completion of the Hope Project. After all, saving 100 scientists could not be done at the cost of the rest of the planet.

A middle age man in his fifties wearing a t-shirt with the NASA logo entered a very messy experiment room.

-"Professor Wang, was the launch successful?"

-"Yes! New Earth has successfully launched a few hours ago. Apart from us and those guarding the refuges, all humans are in the capsules playing the game."

-"This is good, we useless scientists were abandoned here with nothing to do... What's the point of continuing our research? At least we can watch the players. "

-"Yeah but that will only be replays... The game is being played at a slower pace than the real world, 5 times slower I think. With these levels of radiation, they'll have to play at least 200 years in the real time. I cannot see everyone having this type of dedication... at least 40 years sounds better"

- "Then what about the Black Hand? Did they not find out that the nuclear disaster was all man-made? Fusion would not have caused such radiations!"

- "Yes, they confirmed that toxic elements were added to the reagents. Although they were able to confirm the involvement of the Black Hand, the UN chose to prioritize the Hope Project. They were able to hide under our radars for years. It's not in this one month that they would have succeeded in finding their hideout!"

-"...."

-"I still don't get something though! Why on Earth did we allow Gaia to give a small boost to those she thinks are best suited to lead the people? Did you see who she chose? Out of the 12, none of them have VIP capsules! There's even a life-sentenced criminal, a handicapped soldier, and an orphan..."

-"This does not really matter, it is within her range of authority to give such things to players... Besides, if they do not work hard, it will still be wasted and not affect the outcome. And no, I did not look at the profiles of the chosen"

-"Well! Have a look," said the middle age man while opening a folder on the nearest screen. " Does Gaia want humans to become barbarians when they wake up with such leaders... If only she gave these boosts to those VIP capsule holders..."

Professor Wang lazily moved his eyes towards the screen but suddenly his eyes flickered showing his surprise. He quickly regained his composure and said, " I don't know about the others but for this orphan, the reason might simply be his parents"

-"His parents?"

-"You are not Chinese, so you won't understand, but despite the appearance, there are a group of people that are more feared than the government and the army... and that's the hidden people... I think that you Americans call them martial artists..."

Little Root Town.

Li Wei opened his eyes and found himself in a large white room. There was absolutely nothing around him. 'Wasn't I supposed to be teleported to a town? How come there's nothing? Was the guide wrong?' thought Li Wei. He started to walk around scratching his head.

At that moment, a little jingle rang across the room and was quickly followed by:

"Hello dear players, this is a recorded message from VALOR. You are all aware of the situation in the real world, but we hope that you will all be able to remain calm. I would like to first apologize to all parents out there, children below the age of 14 are not able to play the game due to the explicit content, but we guarantee their safety as they are safely sleeping in their capsule. This is also the case for elderly people above the age of 70. We are also aware that many of you have lost contact between your family members, so exceptionally, you will be able to search for the real name of someone to add as friend, this option will only be available for 24 hours so please take advantage of that."

" You are all currently in a training room in your Beginner's Town. This is to give you the opportunity to get used to your character as well as to the combat system of New Earth. There is not much to say apart from please check your inventory. You should have a recording crystal, this contains a recorded tutorial to the battle style of each class so please use it properly. VALOR is aware that not everyone is happy about the situation but do not worry as a lot of content is not available right now but will be slowly released. We have decided on this procedure to ensure that everyone will have at least some notion of self-defense which will be crucial when we will get out of the refuges."

"Content is also being constantly created. Although all programmers are currently themselves in the game, Gaia, the AI that you all met, will be constantly monitoring the gameplay and derive new content from the massive database we gave it access to. We will leave you with that, refer to the forum if you need more help. We hope that you enjoy the game."

Li Wei attentively listened to this message but did not find anything interesting. He was hoping to obtain some useful information about the game but was disappointed.

He quickly opened his interface to look at his inventory and there was indeed a recording crystal in there. However, Li Wei also noticed another icon and he quickly pressed it.

[Ring of Chaos] (Grade 0) (Upgradable)

Effect 1: Experience gained +2%

Effect 2: Soul Bound-Cannot be dropped/exchanged/sold/unequipped

[An exclusive gift given to those bestowed with a name by Gaia]

Li Wei was startled, "What did I do to deserve this? Is it really because of the name? "

'It is better than nothing but there are no stats associated with this equipment... at least it is upgradable'

After a few seconds of doubts, Li Wei decisively equipped the ring. Compared to the other games, you could not simply tell the system to equip an item, it had to be done manually so Li Wei took out the ring from the inventory and put it on his ring finger. 2% experience was still very useful and he could upgrade it in the future. The ring was totally black and looked incredibly plain but Li Wei did not mind it.

He then took out the recording crystal, it was a plain looking crystal, similar to the cheap imitations that were commonly used as decorations.

[Recording Crystal]

Description: a special item that can only be used inside the training room, the item will disappear upon leaving the room.

[System prompt: Use the Recording Crystal?]

Upon thinking of using it, his hand naturally crushed the crystal and a young man appeared in front of him.

-"Hello dear player, I am instructor Chen and I will teach you the basic of the fighting system. Whatever class you decide to choose in the future, it will be beneficial for you to have an understanding of the rest of the classes as well. So, let's begin with Warriors..."

The 'lecture' lasted for about 20 minutes. It wasn't too long nor too short covering the basics of each class. Li Wei focused and tried to find out more information from the instructor.

Basically, Warriors focus on their physical strength, able to block some damage while dishing out even more.

Rogues relied on doing quick attacks to maximize their damage, they could do quick combos but would then end up defenseless.

Paladins were the 'tanks' being able to soak up a lot of damage with their strong vitality protecting his teammates.

Rangers, despite their name, could do both long-range attacks and use short daggers similar to the rogues. But to balance the class, they did not have combos available. However, when using their bows, the system would help them aim at their desired target but naturally, it had a certain margin of error associated with it.

Mages had to recite incantation whenever they use their skills, it wasn't as simple as just the name of the skill. They also had the option to silently recite so that no one would know which spell they were going to use.

Priests, on the other hand, could just say the name of the skills to use them. They were a class specialized in supporting. However, they also had good offensive stats but very few skills to go with them.

Li Wei played RPGs before and knew about the general characteristics of the classes. After listening to the instructor, he chose to summon a training puppet to test his fighting skills. Training puppets were one of the options provided by the training room, they could infinitely be summoned and were immobile.

He positioned himself in front of the puppet and took a fighting stance. He was just diligently following the instructor's word; slightly lowering his body, putting his left forward and shifting his body by about 40 degrees.

He tried punching the puppet and a "-4" popped up in red. Li Wei simply ignored that and continued punching, alternating between fists. He quickly got the hang of it and started to add more complicated movements; adding kicks, striking with elbows or shoulders.

Strangely, Li Wei did not feel tired, he felt like his movements were becoming more and more fluid he felt at ease especially when striking the puppet in quick succession. It was strange for him since he never practiced any form of fighting sports before. He tried to join dojos in town before but was always rejected for random reasons. His high school PE teacher also refused to teach such sports without any reason.

He felt as if people did not want him to learn self-defense. Now that he was actually fighting, he felt as if something in him was waking up. It was a strange feeling as if something that was long buried was finally seeing light again.

Li Wei felt comfortable, he continued his training, not feeling any tiredness. After a while, he stopped beating the puppet and sat down to reflect on his actions.

He determined a lot from this training, by varying the force he applied, the damage also varied, it was not a standard amount. Sometimes, the damage dealt would also be higher, probably due to critical strikes and it looked like this effect would more likely trigger when hitting weak spots of the puppet like the head, neck, ..., crotch.

Following what Instructor Chen said, Li Wei then asked to summon an obstacle track. "A good warrior should not only fight but also be able to dodge and have good reaction speed."

The track was rather simple, mainly obstacles that forced him to make turns while moving at high speed, he sometimes had to jump or lower his head to pass through some places. Li Wei easily went through these but at some point, the obstacles started moving, increasing the difficulty and Li Wei was unable to dodge everything and got hit off the track.

Despite feeling dejected, Li Wei did not give up and continued trying; this would be essential if he wanted to strive outside.

And after a certain amount of time. An announcement was heard:

-"Dear Player, your time in the training room is almost over. It is 3:55 and the training facility closes at 4:00. Please vacate the room within these 5 minutes. Thank you."

Startled, Li Wei unsummoned the training equipment and sat down to catch his breath and calm down. 'They are so stingy not even allowing us to train how long we want.'

'Never mind, according to the guide, going outside the Town after 6:00 is dangerous since monsters get stronger at night. I might as well visit the town and find an inn'

After making his plan, Li Wei checked his stats one last time before asking the system to allow him to leave the room:

Name: Seven

Race: Human

Level: 1 (51/500)

Class: None

Title: None

HP: 47/60

MP/ Energy: 50/50

Strength: 8

Dexterity: 7

Vitality: 6

Intelligence: 5

Wisdom: 6

Stat Points available: 0

Skills: None

Fatigue: 30%

[Information]

The new stat, fatigue, was added as a measure of tiredness. Be careful as a high percentage of fatigue will lead to a temporary decrease in other stats. Fatigue can be removed by sleeping or eating and other relaxing activities.

His event log also had a new entry:

[Training session complete, 51 exp awarded. Please continue to work hard]

With this in mind, Li Wei started to vanish and left the training room.