26: The camp of no return

The first day of training camp began. The children were sent to their designated location in the different parts of the jungle and were ready to start. A green screen appeared before them, giving them their first mission.

[*ping*]

(*mission> Go further into your location and survive for 1-year *).

[ Time> 365 days ]

[Penalty> Death ]

[Reward> ???]

(*Do you accept?*)

{*Yes*} {*No*}

They became bewildered, shocked, and frightened of what was to happen if they accepted the mission. However, the children did have separate opinions on the task, whether to click *yes* or not. The first to complain was non-other than Kain.

"Are you kidding me!? Is that old guy serious!? He expects me to jump into a Gorge!!? There is no way I am doing this!!!! But it does look interesting. I don't know what the reward is. Hmm... I'll click yes for now."

(*Click*)

{*yes*}

The rest naturally clicked yes as they were well aware of why they entered the subspace, but the first one to jump was Kite. He leaped into the dormant volcanic mountain as if he were going scuba diving in the lava, and the rest followed suit. They all jumped and explored deeper into their allocated areas.

Meanwhile, Both Mark and Sage had their business to uphold. After the battle with Necro, they realized that they were still too weak to face other monsters, who had more strength and intelligence than Necro. And the only way for them to get stronger is to train.

"Alright! Mark, let's begin your training since we will be staying here for ten years. I would like you to go hunt and battle monsters five times stronger than your current level."

Mark became a bit startled but, he soon came back to reality as he realized that it was necessary if he wanted to survive in the new world.

"Ok, Sage, send me to where I must go."

"Of course"

(*swish*)

Mark teleported into the core of a stampede, filled with terrifying hoards of monsters. Mark gulped very deeply, showing signs of both anxiety and excitement.

And so Sage was left alone. He had many things circulating in his mind, so he left the subspace. Sage had a worried expression plastered on his face.

Logia, his mentor was recuperating. Darke was no help to him ethier, as he could only emerge when needed. The only thing he could count on was his intel which he had accumulated so far.

He stared deeply into oblivion as he contemplated what to do next.

"First and foremost, I have to search for one more person in other to complete my faction of powerful allies. It isn't going to be easy, not like when the kids got handed to me for free. What should I do? Logia is still recovering from the last dispute. He can't help me right now."

Sage exited the building with a deep sigh. Using, teleportation he dispatched to a different district of City B, a location near the arm's base of operation. Sage stopped at the entrance, filled with deserted tanks and trucks. He soon realized that it was one of the evacuation bunkers.

" So this is where I would have done my military service if everything were still normal. Anyway, there's no time to consider such things right now. There must be a bunker around here. I should examine the area first before anything else."

Sage wondered around three sections of the base, yet there was nothing to be found, that was until a screen emerged. Directed by the system to an entrance embedded with metallic green, Sage faced a new mission.

[*Ping*]

(*mission> The key has been missing for years, since the day of fall. The door has been sealed since the beginning of time. Find the missing piece and unlock the door to paradise*).

[ Time> 30mins ]

[Penalty> None ]

[Reward> Paradise]

(*Do you accept?*)

{*Yes*} {*No*}

Sage looked at the screen and sigh, in annoyance reminiscing about his beginnings.

"There seems to be something that the system is picking up around here, but why does the mission have to involve keys? Just why!!!!??? this reminds me of the fire at home and my very first mission. Although they did impact me in diverse ways."

(*Click*)

{*Yes*}

Regardless sage chose to accept this mission, although it did seem suspicious to him due to the task having no penalty. He began to analyze it thoroughly. Sage sank into the depths of his thoughts.

"So this key which the system speaks of, from what I learned so far, may not necessarily be a physical key. It could be a metaphorically manifested one. Therefore there may not be a key at all. On the other hand, there could be a physical key, but it may not be a key."

Sage pondered for two minutes about the key to the metallic entrance when he noticed a handprint on the door, not just one but seven in the formation of a heptagon. He approached the configuration with curiosity, placing his hands on one of the handprints. To his surprise, it illuminated with the color green.

He lifted his hand and placed it on another handprint, and that gleamed the color white. After that, he checked the remaining five. Sage began to figure out what he needed to do to pass this mission.

"Oh! I see so, that was what I'm supposed to do, let's see there are seven handprints and seven different colors, green, white, red, orange, blue, purple and yellow. In other to open the door, I would have to tap them a sequence, interesting."

And so, Sage began to solve the configuration, with only twelve minutes to spare. He started by placing his hands on the handprints which glowed the colors green and white, which were next to each other, moving to the colors yellow and purple, adjacent to each other, and finally, red and orange, which had nothing to do with each other.

(*Click*)

Ten minutes passed, the configuration was completely solved, with a click as its conformation. The heptagon spun anti-clockwise, slowly opening the metallic doorway. A great beam of light irradiated Sage's eyes, making him completely blind.

<End of Chapter>