Beginner

A Type C school bus pulled up in front of a modern two story house in the western suburbs, with a grey SUV parked outside. A short, cute blond teenager with messy hair wearing a white T shirt with a sponge and starfish cartoon, blue short pants, a black Adadas backpack, and sneakers stepped off the bus. As the bus drove away, he went into the house.

His beautiful, petite mom, wearing office clothes with long blonde hair, said warmly as she left the house, “Lucien, your food is on the kitchen table already, don’t forget to eat, okay? I have to go now.”

“Ook,” he replied, walking up the stairs.

**

He got into his room, and the first thing he did was threw his adadas backpack aside and look at his PC. ‘Nicee, it’s done,’ he thought as he looked at the Dungeon Challengers game on the desktop screen. Then he sat down, put in his earphone and opened the game.

He pressed start. The game asked him to create an account, which he did.

Next, it asked him to choose a name, so he typed in XxS1ayerxX.

Then the game ask him to pick a gender or genderless option, and he chose male.

Lastly, he was asked to choose a character. There were male and female characters with brown hair and brown clothes. He chose male.

After a short loading screen, he was in.

He spawned in a lively, luxurious looking kingdom. The place was busy and clean, full of players walking around. Some were parkour across rooftops, while others soared through the night sky on flying mounts, some on birds, some on giant bugs. A few players even flew with white bird wings on their back, some of them are bats wing.

He looked up around the sky and saw, far away in the night sky, an enormous thick ball of cloud with yellow light shining out, making the cloud glow yellow.

“Wuoo…” He was amazed at the view of this game.

On the top left of his screen, there was a bag icon box, an orb icon box, and a map icon box. He clicked the bag box, it showed his profile at the top and his inventory at the bottom. On the profile, the left side showed his character, and on the right side was:

Hour: 0

Name: XxS1ayerxX

Gender: male

Relationship: single

Coin: 0

Status:

In his inventory, there was a normal sword, a wooden bow with 50 arrows, a wooden staff, a wooden shield, and 50 healing potions. He clicked the sword, and a box popped up. In the box, it was written: Slot 1 to 6. He clicked Slot 1, then got confused, because after clicking it, nothing happened.

“Ohh!” he realized and understood why. At the bottom of the screen there were six slot that already had the weapons and healing potions on them, only one slot was empty.

He used the sword swinging around on random players, it just passed through them.

Then he clicked the orb box. It was a friend list, and also a news place. It read: Admin Zabby vs Admin Sandy, WHO DO YOU THINK WILL WIN?!? Come to the far north of Sahara to find out on January 6, 2AM (for Lucien timezone)! The poster of the news showed Zabby’s side face, with white cloud like short hair and eyes shining warm blue light, sparkling with electricity. On the right, facing Zabby, was Sandy, with chocolate skin, long sleek black hair with bangs, and Egyptian eyes.

He closed the news, and clicked the map.

At the left of the map was a land shaped like a fireball, colored in deep red and black. The name written on it was Lavand. To the right, separated by sea, was a large land shaped like a backward L,  the upper part was a sandy land named Sahara, and below it was a green land called Grehan, where Lucien was currently located.

At the center of the map was the enormous cloud ball named Cloud Dungeon.

‘Cloud dungeon!?’ he thought excitedly

His mouse moved to the cloud ball, and he clicked it, it did nothing. He moved the mouse to Grehan, and it seemed clickable so he clicked it, and it zoomed into Grehan, showing he was at a place called Luxanah Kingdom. He swiped around and saw many areas.

‘Wow… this game map is so big,’ he thought.

He closed the map and parkoured up to a building roof. As he was parkouring his way out “Oh!?” he held the space bar a little bit longer and found out holding it could let him jump higher.

“Ohhh!” He jumped his way to the towering wall that surrounded the whole kingdom and got out through the big gate.

Outside, it was a vast, clean, treeless green land. There were many small green slimes jumping around, and a lot of beginner players were killing the small slimes. Then, a giant green slime caught his eye, and the one fighting it alone was a pro player with long black hair, wearing a red kimono, and wielding a cool samurai sword with black aura.

The giant slime leaped high up. As it was about to land on the player, he sent X shaped black slashes at it, cutting the slime into four pieces. As the four slimes were about to land on him, he jumped backward, dodging the slimes from landing on him, and quickly followed up with a line slash, cutting all four. Now there were twelve slimes. He switched his weapon to a cool red staff and shot flames, burning all the slimes. After killing them, he ran off to another place to continue farming the giant slimes.

‘Woow’ Lucien thought as he watched the pro player perform in amazement.

Without realizing, a small slime bounced closer to him. The small slime lunged itself at Lucien, and it didn’t do any damage to him. The slime just kept bouncing onto him again and again and again. He killed it with one slash and earned the slime remains.

Then, he saw a giant green slime bouncing toward him. The slime leaped high up, about to land on him, and he just stood there, watching in amazement as the slime fell and landed on him. Though it didn’t do any damage, he was now inside the slime. The slime continued bouncing away with Lucien inside it.

“Hahaha,” he laughed as he watched his character bouncing with the slime. But suddenly, he lost half of his HP.

“OHH! WHAT!!!” He surprised as he continued spamming the attack button, but the only thing the character could do was twitching nonstop “NOO!”.

He died.

**

He respawned in a hospital, walked out of bed, and saw two doors with windows. He peeked outside and noticed a spacious balcony. Stepping out, he marveled at the stunning night view of the kingdom. The hospital was the tallest in the kingdom, allowing him to see the entire landscape. As he enjoyed the breathtaking view, a beautiful female elf character walked toward him from behind. Her lips were painted black, and she wore several black earrings, a witch’s black hat, and long, sleek black hair with wispy bangs. She was dressed in a long gothic Lolita dress and held a cool black wooden staff, with a deep red aura orb floating at the top.

On top of her character, a white message appeared: “Can u give me some hp potion, I’ll return it to u later.”

“Ok, but how to give u?” he replied.

“Right click me, then click on trade.”

He right clicked her, and her profile showed up:

Hour: private

Name: Rainy

Gender: Female

Relationship: private

Coin: private

Status:

He clicked trade, two empty boxes appeared with a double headed arrow in the middle.

“How many u want?” he typed.

“5,” she replied.

He put 5 in, then the other box showed a cute pink plushie. They traded successfully.

“Thx,” she replied, then she added him.

He accepted her friend request. Then he went and equipped the plushie, swinging it around. “Does this do damaged?” he typed.

“No”

“Ohh…” Then he realized at the bottom of his screen, the slot where he equipped the plushie had an E above it. He pressed E, it made his character do a hugging the plushie emote.

“I can help u get down, want to get down?” she typed.

“Why do I need help for that?”

“Because if ur going down with stairs, it will take a while. With my dress, I can glide down slowly when I jump.”

“Ohh, sure!”

“Quickly jump on top of me after I jump.”

“Ok.”

She jumped onto the balcony railing, he did too. Then she leaped forward, her skirt letting her glide down slowly. He jumped onto her character, landing perfectly on top of her, now standing completely still on her head.

“Niceee” she typed and made her character do a clapping emote.

“Hehe.”

“Usually people fail often at this attempt, but u did it on ur first try!” she typed.

“Really!?”

“Ya, or u a smurf?”

“No, I think I’m probably just lucky.”

The two continued gliding silently through the sky.

He enjoyed the view, then looked at the cloud dungeon and typed “That Cloud Dungeon over there, what’s it like inside?”

“Idk too, I haven’t gotten in myself, u need to have wings or a flying mount to get in.”

“How to get wings or a flying mount?”

“Kill flying monsters, use their remains to make one. I’ve been farming for it. Or u can just pay real money and buy one.”

“Ohhh.”

Then they continued gliding in the night sky in silence. He looked at the beautiful full moon. She saw him looking at the moon and typed, “The moon is also a dungeon too.”

“What!? Seriously!?” he replied excitedly.

“Ya.”

“How do you go to the moon!?”

“Collect all the boss remains and create a teleport key to get there.”

“Ohh, what’s it like in there!?”

“Idk, never been there too, but I heard it’s ocean everywhere and every monster is boss level.”

“Ohhh, Why haven’t you gone there?”

“Because I haven’t kill all the bosses yet…”

“Oh… what about the sun?! Is the sun a dungeon too!”

“No lol.”

“Oh”

**

They landed near the gate. “Thx!” he typed.

“Np,” she replied. Suddenly, a shadow spread out under her feet and formed a shadow horse right between her legs, making her sit on it the moment it appeared.

“Are you going to farm?” he typed.

“Ya.”

“Can I join u?”

“Sure.”

A message popped up on the orb icon, it was her invitation. He accepted, and his character went and sat behind her on the horse.

**

The two rode on the horse under the beautiful night sky. In the middle of the vast green land, several giant slimes tried to jump at them, but her shadow horse was so fast the slimes couldn’t catch up.

“Woaa, this horse is so fast! How do you get this horse?” he typed.

She stopped the horse and typed, “This horse is one of the abilities of my staff. I bought it with real money, because you can only get this staff with real money…” Then she continued moving the horse.

“How much did you spend on this staff?”

She stopped again and typed, “RM5000++,” then kept moving.

“Ohhh,” he replied, he used his phone to check how much that was in dollars. When he realized it was around $1,000, he typed, “1k++ DOLLARS?! SO EXPENSIVE!”

“Ya, this staff is too beautiful to me, and it was a limited auction weapon too. I couldn’t stop the urge…”

“You’re so rich…”

“Not really… half of my life savings are gone D; I’m just glad I won without having to bid all my money. I was lucky to get it at a cheap price too, some people spent even more for this staff.”

“Damn… what else can this staff do?”

“It can create black smoke, shoot black fireballs really fast like a machine gun, charge up a giant black fireball for a huge explosion, and summon two kinds of shadow animal armies, an army of bats and an army of wolves.”

“Wtf, this staff is op as fuck!”

“Right!!”

“How many of these staffs are there?”

“Ten, so if I sold it in the future, I could probably earn a lot of money.”

“Even if u sold it now, u could probably earn a lot too”

“Ya.”

They stopped chatting and continued traveling in silence for a while, passing by many kinds of monsters, scary areas, and beautiful scenery.

**

They arrived at their destination, the place it’s a giant, scary house surrounded by many giant graves. Many players were fighting giant zombie crows and giant zombie rats here.

He opened the map and saw this place was called Graveyard Dungeon.

“So many people here. Wouldn’t it be hard to farm if they kill steal?” he typed.

“Not really, how much remain you get depends on how much damage you deal,” she replied.

“Ohh”

Then she charged into battle, riding the shadow horse toward a giant crow. She summoned an army of shadow bats, and all the bats flew to attack the giant crow. Then she summoned an army of shadow wolves, and the wolves rushed to attack the giant rats, while she spamming black fireballs like a machine gun at the crow. Spotting a bunch of crows grouped together, she charged up a giant black fireball, shot it, and exploded it among them, killing many crows.

“Wow,” he typed, watching her fight while still sitting behind her on the horse.

He looked at the eerie house at the center of the graves. “I’ll go to that house,” he typed, then got down from the horse and ran toward it. Arriving at the massive, already opened main door, he stepped inside to find a vast, grand hall with a beautiful chandelier hanging from the ceiling and giant torches lining the wall. Inside, many players were battling spiders.

Without hesitation, he picked a spider to fight. He switched to his bow and shoot a lot of arrows at the spider. The spider lunged at him, he quickly switched to his shield, blocking the attack, but it still dealt a little damage and knocked him back a little.

He switched to his staff and fired a fireball at the spider. The spider screeched in pain, now severely wounded.

Suddenly, a powerful gust of wind swept through the battlefield, striking the spider and finishing it off. The spell wasn’t even aimed at the spider, it had simply been caught in the aftermath of a pro female player’s magic.

He earned a few spider eyes and legs.

**

Suddenly, the main door slammed shut, and all the torches went out. A few seconds later, the chandelier at the center lit up, revealing a fat towering human zombie with many stitches on his skin holding a massive shovel.

Two long HP bars appeared at the top of his screen, with the name Fat Zombie.

The zombie let out a terrifying scream and smashed the shovel onto the ground, sending out a shockwave. Many players jumped to dodge it, seeing them jumped to dodge it, he followed and managed to dodge too. The pro players immediately launched their spells at the zombie. He joined in, firing a fireball.

The zombie then dug up a chunk of the ground and swung it. Stone pieces flew everywhere. He quickly switched to his shield and blocked it, but it still dealt heavy damage.

“What the fuck!!!” he yelled in shock.

From the hole the zombie had dug, a swarm of bugs crawled out.

He saw the pro players charging forward, cutting through the bugs as they went. He followed behind, helping by shooting fireballs. Just as they were getting close, the zombie smashed its shovel onto the ground again, unleashing another shockwave.

All the pros dodged.

Except him.

He died instantly.

**

He respawned back in the hospital again and walked out to the balcony to admire the beautiful view once more. ‘Let’s just kill slime for now,’ he thought.

**

He’d been farming slimes, frogs, and rabbits for an hour, it was night in real life now.

Suddenly, his mom burst into his room and yelled, “WHY HAVEN’T YOU EATEN YOUR FOOD?!”

He flinched in shock. “I forgot…” he mumbled.

“GO EAT YOUR FOOD NOW!” she scolded, scowling at him.

“Ok…” he replied, quickly walking out of the room.

“EAT THE NEW ONE IN THE PLASTIC BAG!”

“Ok”