Goal

[You have been forcefully transferred to the depths of the ABYSS. Survive until the time runs out]

The system sounded in his head, as the time limit appeared below the text on his interface.

'1 hour and thirty minutes. Depths of abyss.. There's no way this is a good thing at all.' He was forcefully teleported from his location into this abyss, and perhaps, the worst part was the poor visibility of the place. Ezra couldn't really see more than five metres around him.

'I can't stay in one place, mayb-' Before he completed his thoughts, he felt his body being sliced four by some extremely sharp objects, claws.

.

..

'AN ILLUSION.' Ezra said in his mind, as he jumped with all his might, forwards. The next second, claws slashed through where he stood moments ago, barely missing him.

Adrenaline quickly rushed through his system as fright washed through him in an instance.

Looking at the 15ft ape looking monster with claws the size of his entire body, standing before him, he needed no motivation to run for his life. Ignoring all the pains in his body that had magically reduced by a lot, Ezra ran where ever the ape monster was not present without much thinking. The protruding teeth and human sized claws were enough warning, but perhaps the icing on the cake was the look of its body that resembled some kind of failed experiment that secreted slimy goo from its skin like some kind of hybridized amphibian.

Perhaps, the most luck thing that could happen to Ezra at this moment was the surprisingly slow speed of the creature. Not that it was that slow, but for such a creature to be only a little bit faster than Ezra, it was a miracle.

In the end, he was only able to escape by the skin of teeth by repeatedly dodging the monsters attacks and utilizing all the parkour and martial art skills he could think of to maneuver his way around it's attacks and itself.

When the time limit was up, he was immediately teleported back to where he was on his way back to where he woke up, without any warning or heads up.

Stumbling on his feet as the scene before his eyes went blank briefly before he appeared in a completely different surrounding, Ezra crashed face first unto the ground breathing hard, even trying to swallow at that moment felt like hundreds of knives were stabbed into his throat. He did hear the system notify him about his completion of the penalty along other things, but that was all he recalled, as he slowly slipped into unconsciousness. The exhaustion had taken a serious toll on his body. The only thing keeping him awake and running was the looming danger around him as he was constantly chased by his executioner. If he was to stop, even for a second, he would have been either ripped to pieces or bitten in half.

[You have completed the Penalty. This is your first Penalty Quest, rewards will be issued as exception]

[Rewards have arrived]

. .

. .

Unknown, the amount of time that had gone by, Ezra woke up, his body still throbbing with pain all over, only this time, he felt severely weakened in strength.

"Must be the blood loss." He noted.

He then noticed the system interface in front of him and read what was written on. Seeing that he got some rewards from the penalty quest, Ezra was a bit happy about it. Without wasting time, he touched on the message, and it opened up the list of rewards. Looking at the list, he was nothing but pleased to find out what the fourth choice was.

..

[Quest Rewards]

You may choose from one of the rewards below.

1. Status Recovery

2. +3 free stat points

3. +1 Skill point

4. All of the Above (only children choose one reward)

..

Looking at the rewards, Ezra was very pleased with the fourth one.

'Seems like even the system pities me.' He said in his mind. "It surely can't allow me to die so early, right?"

Without much if a choice, Ezra chose the fourth one, and the window closed itself after prompting him that he was going to choose the fourth reward, which he went on to choose.

As though reading his intentions, the system prompted him if he was going to use the status recovery immediately, so he accepted without any argument. Immediately, he could feel his strength return like he had never lost it, he even felt like he could out run the ape monster now. Maybe it was out of fear, but he didn't even check the name of the monster as he scrambled for life at that moment.

"Wow." He muttered to himself, seeing the effects. It was simply insane that this was possible. If nothing, this status recovery was equivalent to the healing spell of a top S rank magician. He wondered if this could be used on other people except himself, but that was not important for now, plus he had no pressing issue concerning anyone needing this. He could only wish that his friend, Oscar, was also given a second chance just like he was, and brought back to life.

"There were also free stat points in the reward. Come to think of it, I have yet to check my stats." He said to himself while thinking of it.

"How do I open my status screen?" He asked himself.

Following the common way it was done, he went the old traditional way and called out, "Status." Good thing the myths were true, and the moment he said the word, the status screen opened before him.

Going through it, he was a bit saddened at the end to find out that his stats were quite low for a normal person.