Chapter 36: What do you do when three men appear in all black and carrying assault rifles?

A few days had passed since Fernando died. A lot had happened.

All of the members at the bottom of the gang who were forced to give crystals to their superiors quickly rebelled and were pissed off. A lot of infighting. A lot of murders and fights. The hispanic gang fought each other more than they fought the other gangs in the game.

A kind of truce was now in place. The major hispanic gang had split up into many smaller groups. It was hard to create a bigger group because everyone refused it for fear of having to give over all skill crystals and loot again to some kind of leader. No more kings was the catchphrase.

A group of five from a nearby trailer park were standing by their makeshift shop in the stone plaza where they sold stuff like water and food.

“So what happened to those boogeymen?” Annie said. Annie was a 20 year old girl.

“Ain’t sure. They just up and left. Maybe they died with Fernando,” Paul said. Paul was a man in his 40s. He was the leader and protective figure of the group.

“I don’t think that. I think they the ones who took out Fernando,” Steward said.

The stone plaza went silent. Something was going on.

The trailer park gang stopped talking and looked up.

By the Balloon Monster gate, they saw three men in all black had teleported in.

From head to toe, they were completely black.

Annie looked closer and saw that the black part on the top of their heads shined a little. But mainly she looked at the black assault rifles in their hands.

The stocks of their rifles were foldable, and as soon as they arrived they folded them out, and stood with their assault rifles.

They did not move. They just stood and stared around at all the stalls and people looking at them.

They walked casually towards the stalls. One of them looked at Annie, eyed her up and down, then went over to her stall. The other two men behind her followed suit.

“What you selling here?” Brian said.

“Eh– Just some water. Stuff. Food,” Annie said.

“You need anything?” Paul said, and stepped in front of Annie to cover her.

“You her dad?” Brian said.

“I’m the leader of this group. It’s nice to meet you,” Paul said, and extended his hand for a handshake.

“I asked a fucking question,” Brian said.

No response.

“He’s not my dad. Please just leave. We don’t want no trouble,” Annie said, and pushed Paul away.

“Didn’t mean to start anything. You just looked so pretty that I wanted to introduce myself,” Brian said.

“Thank you, that’s nice of you to say. Maybe we can talk another time, I’m really busy right now,” Annie said.

Brian nodded his head, and turned around.

Jack saw Paul eye Brian while he had his back turned.

Jack pointed his assault rifle at Paul.

“Please don’t shoot!” Annie yelled.

Brian turned around and aimed his assault rifle at Annie in confusion.

“You look at my mans again like that and I’ll kill you,” Jack said.

Paul just stared at Jack and made strong eye contact.

“Fuck you,” Jack said, and shot Paul in the head.

Everyone in the stone plaza ran away in a panic.

…

They were now on the border to the big wolf zone.

“That’s gotta be a new record. We just got done with Fernando and you go and make us some more enemies,” Lucas said.

“Brian just went over to talk to that girl. Nobody gives Brian that kind of death look. He was punking us,” Jack said.

“Pfft. You’re fucking crazy,” Brian said. “Please don’t do that again. The fuck is wrong with you? Now we can never take this off,” Brian said, and pulled at the kevlar armor covering his entire body. “Plus, no way I’m getting laid with my little Annie after that.”

“Fuck this armor. Shit’s hot,” Lucas said.

“You know what’s cold?” Jack said.

“What?”

“Death. Stop complaining about how hot it is,” Jack said.

“You wanna talk about death when you keep trying to get us killed,” Lucas said.

…

The past few days, Jack was slowly healing Lucas’ fingers. All of the scar tissue was now gone and had been replaced by pink flesh. However, the fingers had still not grown completely back to its original size. And he had to heal each finger one by one which made everything far slower. Compounded by the fact that Jack refused to do the healing more than one hour at a time because of how much he hated the backlash of the focus ritual.

Before grinding any monsters, they started completing the achievements. They had tested if it was possible to get the achievements from doing them in the real world outside the game, and it was not.

They easily did the throwing skill and acrobatics skill. So now each of them had:

Achievement completed: Throwing completed

Achievement: Acrobatics completed

Throwing: Rank 1

Acrobatics: Rank 1

Throwing gave one a better sense of one's arm in relation to oneself and the object in hand and ways to throw it.

Acrobatics gave one thousands of hours of mental experience of having done basic acrobatics and the muscle memory that comes from that. So they could now each easily do back rolls and front rolls.

Then came the counting challenge. Which was a lot harder than it sounded.

Jack watched Lucas and Brian fail again for the 5th time and have to start over. He laughed at them.

“Okay, shitheads. Lemme show you how it’s done,” Jack said.

They then watched him do the gibberish and extremely complex focus ritual.

Achievement: Counting completed.

Reward: One unfixed mental skill point.

He flawlessly got the achievement. He collapsed the spell and promptly went into scatterbrain mode.

After the consequences had collapsed, Jack took a deep breath and said, “I fucking hate that. Anyways, what should I get?” Jack said.

“Faster reaction time for sure,” Lucas said.

“Wait, can you see if there is something to like make you smarter?” Brian said.

“Okay, yours sounds better. Oh great super system, please make me smarter!”

INT: +1

“Hey, this is new? It gave me… a stat point instead of a skill? I’m not sure? What the…”

“You feel any different?” Brian said.

“Not really…”

“That’s because you’re so stupid you’re too stupid to tell the difference,” Lucas said.

“Fuck off.”

“Okay, my turn! When I complete the challenge, I’m gonna get…”

///////

Jack:

Knife Fighting: Rank 1

Knife Fighting: Rank 2

Python (programming language): Rank 1

Mana Generation: Rank 1

Sand to Glass Conversion Mana Blueprint: Rank 1

Healing Mana Blueprint: Rank 1

Origami: Rank 1

Enhanced Bodily Recovery: Rank 1

Speed Counting: Rank 1

Enemy Weakness Identification: Rank 1

Poetry: Rank 2

Blueprint visualizer: Rank 1

Mana Sense: Rank 1

Blunt Force Resistance: Rank 1

Pool: Rank 1

Mana Manipulation: Rank 1

Specialized Mental Sacrifice Ritual Focus Borrow: Rank 1

Typography: Rank 1

Enhanced Healing: Rank 1

Throwing: Rank 1

Acrobatics: Rank 1

INT: +1

Brian:

Shield Defending: Rank 1

Marksmanship (pistol): Rank 1

Right Arm Increased Strength: Rank 1

Mana manipulation: Rank 1

Mana Sense: Rank 1

Enhanced Propriosense in Toes: Rank 1

Enhanced Bodily Recovery: Rank 1

Flame Shield Dispel: Rank 1

Cryptography: Rank 1

Enemy Pattern Recognition: Rank 1

Airplane Pilot: Rank 1

Mana Generation: Rank 1

Blunt Force Resistance: Rank 1

Finnish: Rank 1

French oil painting technique: Rank 1

Throwing: Rank 1

Acrobatics: Rank 1

Lucas:

Insect Movement Control: Rank 1

Enlarged Penis: Rank 1

Mana sense: Rank 1

Mana Manipulation: Rank 1

Surfing: Rank 1

Arithmetic: Rank 1

Chess: Rank 1

Human Interpersonal Non-verbal Bodily Social  Behaviors Enhanced Perception: Rank 1

Blunt Force Resistance: Rank 1

Changing car tires: Rank 1

Water Mana Affinity: Rank 1

Walking: Rank 1

Mana Generation: Rank 1

Juggling: Rank 1

Throwing: Rank 1

Acrobatics: Rank 1