Chapter 8

—The trees surrounding the giant makeshift structure swayed calmly in the wind. The sound of the leaves rustling between the branches was muted by the flood of chatter from players below their limbs. Thousands of people lined up to enter the freshly-built mini-arena for a shot at joining the Slayer's Pack.

It was Monday, at around 1:38 PM. The tryouts had yet to start, having been scheduled for around 2:00 PM, but players flooded the site to be among the first few players to try out. Among the crowd were players from across the entirety of the game, spanning all the way from South Port to Oasis City.

Jay's jacket rippled in the wind as he stared up at the giant testing site. Along with everyone else present, he still had no idea what the test had in store for them. He waited patiently for the massive front doors at the front of the arena to open and for someone to explain the tryouts more.

As he waited in one of many lines/crowds of players to get in, he tried to look around for Ivy and Axel but opted to save himself a spot in line before they showed up.

Suddenly, a familiar voice sounded a couple of meters behind Jay. He turns around to see one of his friends, also in line.

"Hey!...do you...how it's...work?" Ivy shouts to Jay, but her sentence is drowned out by the several other conversations from the large player base.

Jay pulls up his game menu and texts Ivy, but he receives a message of his own from another player before sending one to Ivy.

>Look in front of you, Maguire!!<

ˆˆSent just now

Jay looks ahead of himself to spot a smiling Axel at the front of the line. Jay starts to feel a bit of betrayal along with jealousy but then remembers he decided to get in line early as well. He finishes his text with Ivy.

>What did you say? I can't hear you with all these people!< Jay types.

>I asked: Do you know how it's gonna work? (I was referring to the tryouts)< Ivy replies.

>No.<

> :( <

ˆˆSent 1 min ago

Jay assumes it will be some sort of power scaling test, maybe even a practice professional Skirmish match.

As Jay wonders what to do, a figure approaches Axel and grabs his arm, walking him towards Jay. Axel was rabid at the strange figure, who was wearing a long leather cloak, hiding his face inside its hood.

When the figure gets close enough to Jay, he grabs him as well. Now Jay and Axel were both cursing this guy out, and Jay almost pulled out his sword while Axel clanks his gauntlets together aggressively, sending sparks onto the floor as he does so.

The figure walks them to Ivy, who has her hand already in her Quiver, ready to fight.

"Who do you think you are?" Ivy asks.

"Yeah!!" Axel adds on.

"Let us go!" Jay pleads.

The figure promptly lets go of Axel and Jay next to Ivy, only once they were all the way at the very back of the player gathering. The figure then uncovers himself with the hood. Jay and his friends are shocked at who is standing in front of them.

"*HELM-*" Axel starts to yell as he sees Helmet's signature headpiece but is quickly silenced when Helmet covers his mouth.

"Don't make a scene, you imbecile. I'm on schedule." Helmet whispers aggressively.

Jay Stands close by as Axel backs off of Helmet, who stands idly by.

"Hey, what are you doing here?" Jay asks Helmet.

Helmet doesn't answer immediately and instead looks to the extensive line of players waiting to enter the doorway. He points in that direction.

"You guys seriously aren't waiting in that line, are you?" Helmet asks.

"Yeah, we were!! I was in the front!!" Axel yells.

Helmet turns to them, with his digital eyebrows on his helmet conveying an almost confused expression. He sarcastically chuckles and puts his hands in his pockets.

"Well, it's best to watch what you'll be up against first, won't it?" Helmet says, "Being first means you won't have any type of advantage, putting yourself up at risk quicker."

Jay and his friends understand what he means, but without knowing what the tryouts entail, they didn't consider spectating other player's tryouts first. Helmet then draws one of his pistols and starts to fidget with its locks and such. Then he casually drops a substantial piece of information.

"Truth is…" He says,

"The tryouts have already started."

Before letting them have a chance to respond in any kind of capacity, Helmet points towards one of the few large projection screens around the area. Then all of the screens glitch out for a second and show the same thing on their displays.

It looked like the world map, but it had a small circle situated at Oasis City, conveniently front of the metro station. A voice starts to talk, being garbled at first by the mediocre speakers in the area. Jay and his friends recognized it immediately. It was the same voice who narrated the match against Helmet and Dillan.

"*Ladies and Gentlemen!!! Welcome to the Slayer's Pack annual tryouts!!!*" The announcer yells.

All of the players gathered at the arena looked up and noticed the screens' sudden change.

Jay looks over at Helmet, but he is gone.

Axel and Ivy also realize Helmet's lack of presence, and they are all confused. He wasn't supposed to help them, so why did he tip them off like this?

"I'm your announcer!!! You can simply call me 'the announcer' or other such names, but if you would like to know me on a personal level—which everyone wants to of course!—You can call me by my actual name:"

"*«STAN STANLEY STANLINGTON»!!!*" The announcer yells.

Upon hearing the announcer's full name, all of the players in the arena take a moment of silence before immediately bursting into uncontrollable laughter.

"Stan Stanley Stanlington?!"

"This is satire, right?!"

"What a joke!!"

"All aboard the SSS Stanley!!"

"Well, «SSS» is one of my nicknames!!!" Stan yells as the savage group of players berates him.

Even Jay and his friends found it hard to believe a player had such a long name. 'SSS' sounds good for them to use in the meantime. It was less of a mouthful.

"Ok! With the slight bullying out of the way," SSS starts, "I'm sure you are all aware of the giant change in the displays around the arena! Truth is..."

"The tryouts have just begun!"

Everyone—except Jay and his friends—is taken aback by this statement. Several players gasp in shock while others ready their weapons and their Aspects. The sound of clanking metal and several Aspect activations could be heard amongst the crowd of fearful players.

"That's right! This is the first step of the tryouts! I'm calling it the 'Race for a place!'"

Jay looked at the picture on the boards around the arena's outside. 'Race for a place' sounded exactly what Jay feared would happen.

"Everyone here will race to the spot located on the map! For those who are slow—or are too focused on bullying me—you will be racing to Oasis City!—" SSS starts to announce.

"—From there, you will receive one of many 'Slayer Passes,' which you will then bring back here! This race is called 'Race for a Place' because there is a limited amount of Slayer Passes to go around! We're working on a first-come, first-serve basis!"

"—However, even if you do acquire a Slayer Pass, this does not mean you pass the first part of the Tryouts! Players can steal your Slayer Pass if they're smart enough, meaning those who show up here and cross the finish line secure a place in the second tryout phase!"

As SSS finishes this remark, a digital finish line appears out of thin air.

"Only around one-hundred of you all will be able to progress to the next phase!" SSS says.

Jay and his friends tense up, knowing the apparent tension that Stan put on them. Jay couldn't use his Aspect, meaning he would have to go on foot, giving everyone else a much higher advantage than he did.

As the three friends thought things out between them, SSS turned off the screens around the arena.

"I'm sure you've memorized the location of them by now! The official Slayer's Pack tryouts..." SSS continues,

"*Have started!!!*"

There was a pause between players as SSS finished his closing remarks. Everyone just sat awkwardly as they expected something else to happen. Then a player started sprinting out of the clearing and into the trees. Another quickly followed him, and soon the entire group of players—along with Jay, Axel, and Ivy—Were filled with anxiety.

SSS was right. The race was already underway.

—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-—-

Panting from the surrounding players became so common in Jay's ears that he learned not to hear it. It was a mad dash for one of the one-hundred Slayer Passes, and Jay had already lost sight of Axel and Ivy in the crowd. They were probably somewhere up ahead.

Jay knew he couldn't make it all the way to Oasis City in time to get one of the passes, so he thought of an alternate method of getting one.

Their finish line—located at the pop-up arena— was located closer to the South-west, and he needed to race all the way to the farthest part of the map in the North-East. However, there was a catch that Jay spotted before the map turned off.

The Slayer Passes were right outside the metro station in Oasis City, which meant he could catch a ride from any metro station from one of the main five cities. Spahn was the closest city on the way to Oasis City, so Jay took a detour from the main pack of players and headed straight to Spahn.

Since the entire race took place in the Wilds, there was also no risk in using the metro station since an unsuspecting player simply grinding levels in the Wilds could kill one of the players in the race. In fact, as Jay thought about it more, there was no way of telling if you were in the race or not.

'Wait, the referrals!' Jay thinks.

They must allow players who capture the Slayer Passes and cross the finish line a guaranteed spot in the second part of this exam. Jay knows he and his friends got their referrals directly from a Guildmaster, but other players here could've gotten their referrals from several opportunities.

Jay knew that some players won them from one of the casinos in Axtasia, seeing multiple advertisements about them online and on billboards in Spahn.

Another way to obtain a referral is to win a 1v1 tournament in basic matchmaking.

The Nexus is filled with lots for players to do, being a VRMMORPG (Virtual-Reality-Massive-Multiplayer-Online-Role-Playing-Game), and the competitive scene between players garnered a lot of popularity in the game's beta phases. This led to the game having dedicated servers for players to compete in. 1v1s, 2v2s, 3v3s, and the infamous «Xtinction Events» which pit ten players against ten others became the most popular activities in the game.

Winning several tournaments could see players being gifted tryout referrals hoping that the Guild could secure new talent for their ranks.

Jay wasn't skilled enough to excel that high to win a referral, but gaining them from a Guildmaster directly was a better experience anyways.

As Jay enters the region of Spahn, being tired from running so much, he quickly locates one of the many entrances to the metro. He flies down the stairs, sliding past any players around him with ease and urgency. He awkwardly apologizes to those he bumps into and continues on his sprint.

Unlike an actual train station or an urban landscape, Spahn and its metro aren't covered with litter and grime. The game's engines make sure to run the /DESPAWN/ command whenever an item lays dormant on the floor for over ten minutes. The /SEND/ command then transports that item into the player that littered's inventory, typically in their >Trash< box.

Jay recognizes some faces as he runs down the metro, knowing that they came from the tryout arena as well. His strategy was being performed by a small group of players who were also not using their Aspect for transport.

'I guess they have a similar plan!' Jay thinks, keeping up his steady pace.

It made sense to Jay, even though he himself didn't have access to his Aspect or didn't have one altogether. Some Aspects grow into a single class system, which makes its abilities solely on combat or creation. Transportation skills or mechanics found by the players may not be possible.

"*Hyperloop train #676 leaving in 2 minutes for Oasis City.*" A robotic voice over an intercom says.

Jay was almost at the correct terminal but could feel a sense of anxiety regardless. The number of players he recognized from the tryouts only continued to increase, giving Jay the impression that getting a Slayer's Pass using this method would be as difficult as going through the wilds.

As Jay slowed his pace as he reached Terminal #676, he was entirely out of breath and started to grab his shirt in exhaustion. If this were the real world, he wouldn't make it halfway through this jog.

In the Nexus, several «Creation Engines» operate behind the scenes in the world, almost like the gods of this virtual world. The Taste Recreation Engine runs on all of the foods in the game. It predestines everything in the dish, like how salty or sweet it will be, along with the texture.

The Pain Recreation Engine makes a sensation so similar to pain that some people fear playing the game because of it. It isn't the same feeling when someone stabs you in the virtual world like the real one, as it is nullified a significant amount, but it will still hurt.

The Aspect Creation Engine, which creates and regulates the Aspect Phenomena, also serves as the world's weather and structure system. It has an endless list of Aspect users' moves, which isn't generated by the engine itself. Think of it as a sandbox program, letting the players create new abilities over time. Pro players are considered real athletes because their strategies and moves are developed and perfected by them, not the game.

The Anti-Cheat Engine is rarely used since you would need a modified NIE to cheat in a game like the Nexus, but it has happened in several instances.

The Sensation Engine is used to recreate all of a player's senses from the real world into the game. The Pain recreation engine works as an add-on to this engine. This engine is the most important one, working along with the Pain Recreation engine since they tie in directly to the user's nervous system via the LucidCast. If even one of these programs fails, there will be severe consequences for the players in the game.

The Nexus has several different servers globally because of the amount of data stored in each of these engines. It would be too much to process for a server with a billion players, let alone 200 million. Servers are locked in 10 million increments, except for the Decimation stadium, allowing every server in the world to watch the same professional fights from contestants around the world.

Jay's breathing comes to a slower pace as the hyperloop train stops at the terminal. The doors open, and Jay steps inside with the other players lined up for the ride.

After finding a comfortable car to sit in, Jay opens up one of the private cabins so he can think more clearly. The way these trains are manufactured, they contain loads of public seating. Cabin carts are mixed in to provide a luxury appeal. Although a cabin can't be rented for a single player, no one usually asks to sit with a lone player.

"Hey! C-can I come in if I split the cabin with you?" A voice asks from outside of Jay's cabin.

Startled and unable to see their face, Jay walks over to the door and opens it up just a little bit. He doesn't make eye contact with the player on the outside.

"No, but why would you ask?" Jay asks in a monotone voice.

"B-because I can't show my f-face anywhere else!" The voice says with a quiver.

'Whoever this player is must be sad or going through a lot. I can hear it in his voice!' Jay thinks.

"Ugh, fine, but you have to pay half of the cabin rental," Jay responds.

"T-thank you!" the player says.

As Jay opens the door after receiving the refund of half of the cabin, seeing that the other player paid for half of it, He goes back to his seat and looks out of the window, still not making eye contact with the mystery player.

Then Jay noticed that the other player was crying. Glancing over a little bit, Jay instantly knew this player was a guy, based on his build and stature. He had purple hair drooping from his hood, covering his face with his hands. Jay could see tears falling from his face.

"Hey man, are you ok? What happened?" Jay asks.

"I...I..." The player says.

The mysterious player then uncovers his face and looks at Jay. Jay's face went from relaxed to super uncomfortable as soon as he saw the player's face. A purple mohawk? And a coat that Jay has only seen once before? He recognized him only after uncovering his face, and Jay was in shock.

"*I can't believe I lost like that!*" Dillan cries.