The Egg II

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Hot steam rolled out of the bathroom and made the room feel warm and moist. After a hot shower, Kiyro came out of the bathroom in his pajamas. Moonlight cascaded down onto his bed as its soft illuminance gently lit the room giving it a warm homely feel. His bed welcomed him home. It was a long day. He slowly crawled into his bed and put on his Embryo gear Sense.

Welcome to Growth.

Please wait while we load….

Please input your body structure…..

Saving…..

Thank you and enjoy the game.

Kiyro felt a sensation akin to falling backwards into cold water. All his senses connected in sync with his avatar.

Trembling with pure excitement Kiyro opened his eyes to see a pitch black scene displayed.

"What? Is it broken?" said Kiyro, confused. This was something that he never expected to see. Squirming around, he tried to see if his body even worked, but instead he felt trapped. He heard the faint muffled voices of people conversing in the distance. Even opening his eyes were difficult, he felt like it didn't even open because all he saw was complete darkness.

"Hey, look. This one just moved. Do you think it is ready to hatch?" said a man's voice.

"I don't know. Supposedly each hatch time is different," said a young female's voice.

"I heard this is the new implemented pet system."

"Really?"

"Yeah. You can buy random monster eggs and grow them. It's pretty cool. One of my friends has one and he uses it to carry items."

"That would be really convenient. I dislike carrying my bags."

"What do you think about buying this one?"

"Nah. It's too expensive. It's really cute though. I like the happy face drawn on the egg," said the female's voice.

The voices faded off into the distance.

Kiyro once again tried to move but failed. He thought he felt the egg move with him.

Pet system? What the hell! I hope I don't get bought, thought Zero as he started to panic. The thought of being owned was horrible. It was like being a slave. As he calmed down he pondered what the girl had said about his egg. Wait, a happy face? What kind of egg shell has a happy face drawn on it?

"Help menu."

A menu popped up in front of Kiyro.

"What's the hatch date?"

6 days 3 hours 24 seconds left

"You're kidding me, right? What am I supposed to do in the meantime?" He was unamused by the situation and tried to tap against the shell. Can't do anything about it now, he thought. He let out a heavy sigh.

"Log out."

Getting up from his bed, Kiyro went to his computer and searched through the "Growth" forums, looking for answers.

This was the plight of being newbie player: there weren't many game tutorials or guides, so new players relied heavily on the help menu, guides written by others, and scanning through forums.

Growth> Forum>Help for Noobs.

TerryBear >Hey did you know that doing real life activities during the first week of beginner's period can get you some status increase. You can get up to +30 stats.

Vendetta > What you serious? But that's going to hinder your leveling. I think that's a waste of time. The double experience points during that one week will be wasted.

TerryBear > Well it all depends how badly you want those extra stats, even though you'll miss out on a week of leveling those stats will last throughout the rest of the game and it can be a tremendous help at early levels for newbie players leveling up The way to get them is to repeatedly push your physical and mental limits by doing exercise or studying. To maximize the amount of stats you get, its important keep it up throughout the entire week and maintain a rigorous routine. The average human body can take the strain only to a certain degree and so its essential to rest to recover the body. Probably only hardcore athletes or bookworms can do it.

Vendetta > Nope, it's not for me.

Charlie > Goodbye free stat points.

Tino > Only idiots would do that.

K.K> Hey I'm the idiot that actually did it and it definitely helps. Though getting free status points was not easy, I fit it into my work schedule as I do construction work I got them naturally.

"So I was right. You can do actions in real life to increase your status points. Well, I've got six days to kill. I might as well use this time to gain all 30 points."

He didn't have much to do as an egg, so gaining extra points while he waited wasn't a bad idea. Plus, seeing if there were any extra functions and learning the ins and outs of the Alive gear wasn't so bad.

Growth> Forum>Important Events and News.

TJ123> Hey did you hear. Hercules guild just conquered a B Class Quest!

Seaman > You serious? Already?

TJ123 > They got a chain quest and their next one is a special Quest.

Jam > Damn it. I should've joined them when I had the chance.

Kiyro scrolled down some more.

Snow > Hey guys the new pet system batch is uploaded. You can buy it specifically at Tyno's Egg Shop at Terra Kingdom. It's the store that just opened yesterday. There been quite a lot of customers lately.

SilverKnife > Can anyone get one?

Snow >No. You need to be over level ten to be able to get one. A contract has to be formed between the pet and the owner for it to be finalized. Also the price of each varies as well. I've seen one that was over a hundred million gold.

DragonEmpress > You're kidding right? That must be some awesome pet.

Snow >There's a rumor going on that someone found it and sold it to the store owner. Apparently it's supposed to be one of a kind. It's completely white with a smiley face drawn on it. It's so adorable.

DragonEmpress > Hundred million gold? That egg better be able to serve me breakfast every day or becomes a golden goose that poops out gold.

Dino> Nobody in their right mind would spend that kind of money in the game, just for a pet, it could buy an entire city/village/ship/fleet/whatever for that much.

Snow> Did you hear about the strange things that been happening in the game of Growth.

SilverKnife> What do you mean?

Snow> There supposedly this weird anomaly called Seeds that people can get.

Dino> And?

Snow> There nothing much about it. Couple people had gotten a Seed, but they said it just disappeared. It's so strange.

SilverKnife> Probably a data fragment in the game system.

DragonEmpress> Oh I heard about another one. There supposed to be these two special trinkets. The first one is a six pointed star with an eye of Horus in the middle. In the center of the eye is some kind of odd triskele pattern. You can find a lot of those anywhere. The second is the Yami Hikari Logo. There are a lot of duds out there, but there are supposed to be some kind of message embedded in them.

Dino> I heard about that but what use would those do. There nothing special about them.

"Saved by the price tag," Kiyro sighed with relief. He did not want to be someone's pet.

"But why am I worth a hundred million gold?" This was an unusual predicament. He looked towards the two trinkets on his desk. Kiyro turned off his computer. As he got under his covers, he drifted to sleep thinking about his avatar.

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<Kiyro>

Saturday. June 13, 2054. 6:00 am.

Kiyro's daily schedule was as follows:

– Two hours of running from 6 am to 8 am.

– Breakfast at 8 am.

– Five hours of running from 8:30 am to 1:30 pm.

– Lunch at 1:30 pm.

– Seven hours of basic martial arts practice.

– Dinner.

– Shower.

– Check forums.

– Sleep.

Throughout the day, he made sure to examine as many new plants as possible and accumulated 5 more stats points:

+2 endurance, +1 attack, +1 defense, and +1 intelligence.

His intense workout had made him sweat so much that his whole shirt was heavy with sweat. He was glad he didn't wear white for the day. By the time he got home, he stank horribly.

The stinky smell that is coming from your workout has created a new skill. Stink Bomb!

A long silence filled the room. He wasn't sure how to take the message: offended or disbelieving.

"Check Stink Bomb," said Kiyro, with a slight curiosity in his voice.

Skill Stink Bomb. Level 1 (0%)

A special skill where you can let out a foul smelling breath attack. Does a temporary stunning effect. Cannot be used in human form.

Kiyro literally shook his head in disbelief.

"Halitosis? How does my stinky body turn into bad breath? Nevermind…this game likes to offend people quite a lot. I know I brushed my teeth," said Kiyro as he puffed into his hand to check his breath.

Kiyro rushed through his shower scrubbing himself extra clean. Then he snuggled into his warm bed and checked on his avatar.

5 days 3 hours left.

His vision faded into pitch black. Being unable to see, his other senses were heightened, and if he focused he could make out distinct voices coming from the shop. A male and a female voice conversed with one another.

"Hey, look, that expensive egg turned black. Wasn't it white yesterday?" said the man..

"Even its adorable happy face turned into an angry face," said the women in disbelief.

"Did it go bad?"

As he heard the couple approach, Kiyro smiled wickedly.

Let's try this out, thought Kiyro as he formulated a prank.

"Stink Bomb!" yelled Kiyro as he activated his skill.

A pungent smell like a month-old rotten egg was spread across the whole area. Many coughs were heard.

"Ugh, gross! What the hell?" yelled the man in horror.

Serves you right. Heheheh. Kiyro enjoyed his little prank. He hadn't pulled very many pranks lately, even though he loved them. He and his brother had always pulled the pranks, each having turns to see who could get the most laughs, screams, or surprise.

Fame has decreased by 1!

You have damaged the reputation of the Store Owner's Shop.

What? That's not fair. He clenched his fist in annoyance.

"Nobody will want to buy this now. Put it in the back with the rest of the duds," said another man.

That should get me out of trouble for a while. He knew this bought him only temporary relief. A message appeared in front of him.

Child of Adam. We have noticed your crossroad between two paths. Would you like to walk the path of a hero or of an enlightened?

"Again? I thought I got rid of this message." Once again he closed out the message. He did not want to choose either. It was a bother.