As Alioth awakened, it did not feel as if he awakened. The atmosphere felt too, too mellow and dreamlike.
Alioth took a look around, cursing at his luck. Sadly, all Alioth knew was that the environment did not seem to have an ending.
'Where am I now?'
His surroundings looked like he was in the sky, filled with pink clouds and a forest. The forest however, was not green. It was more like a mix between the sky and the forest. Like a place from mythologies.
It felt as his breathing became stable, his mind became too calm, like he didn't have a care for the world, or his dead mother.
Alioth ran towards the pink bushes and touched them, his hand went through them, like clouds, very much like clouds, his hands were now wet. Completely covered in pink juice.
'My hand is covered with, strawberry, lemonade?'
Alioth thought
[Welcome, Alioth]
[Survive]
Alioth suddenly remembered his past. Another school remembrance. He tried to snap out of it, slapping himself on the face multiple times trying to do so. But whenever he gained control, it was immediately revoked by an unknown disruption.
Feeling dissatisfied, he just listened to the memory.
'Remember folks, in your subconsciousness'
But everything else had been blurred, replaced by.
'Roll using the skyline'
[Tutorial completed, safe space has been revoked]
Weirded out by the messages, he wondered, what is a skyline? After a few moments of deciphering the confusing name. He decided that the blue messages he got would be the skyline, after a line is like a chat and, well, it sure did look like he was in the sky.
Suddenly, as Alioth was looking back at the skyline, a part of the skyline became neon pink.
'AH! That scared me'
Alioth had thought it was a jumpscare and was going to be woken up in the morning, all sick and red.
However, none of those came true, Alioth frowned at the skyline, he had just wanted to go back.
Suddenly, the partially pink screen gave a message.
[Would you like to roll?]
{Yes] [No]
Obviously startled. Alioth clicked the yes button. After all, rolling did not seem too dangerous, compared to other abominations Alioth thought he would see.
[Rolling…]
[Common]
[Tier: Basic]
[Mutation: None]
[Forged by the essence of earthly beings, here lies the core of peak humanity]
Suddenly, a black panther jumped out from the wild and tried to down slam Alioth, luckily, due to his great reaction speed. He dodged right in the nick of time.
Something that the black panther hadn't imagined.
Alioth then stepped back and counter-attacked with a pointy stick he found while traversing the forest. Then put his hand up and smashed it down as hard as he could.
The panther was bleeding, but the wound wasn't brutal. Instead of screaming in pain, the monster decided to roll back and camouflage itself into the forest. Alioth quickly looked, shaking his head, but couldn't find where the panther disappeared to.
Suddenly, crystalized fragments started shooting at Alioth, when he looked in the direction of the panther, it was there, but with a different look. It looked much more dangerous, with spikey crystals pointing out from where Alioth had wounded it.
In a quick movement, both the panther and Alioth lunged towards each other. The panther scratched, followed up by more scratches, almost undodgable to be exact.
But, Alioth was prepared, instead of attacking, He ran, he ran to the nearby river he had seen when looking around.
Of course the panther followed.
Alioth was in danger, the panther was catching up towards him, and suddenly, it jumped right towards Alioth.
Panic was what he didn't do.
As he pushed the panther back, it fell into the river, and fell down the waterfall.
The tired Alioth sat, huffing, he sighed, then looked at his limbs.
He had multiple crystals lodged in his body after the fight. It must have come from the close hand to hand battle, near the end.
'Crikes'
[You have defeated, Black Panther]
[Mutation: Crystalized]
[Your luck has gone up!]
Alioth wondered what had just popped up on the partially pink skyline. He never thought about luck being something that you could control.
More importantly, whatever that panther had, it was something Alioth definitely didn't. Because, what kind of panther could shoot pointy crystals from its wounds? Definitely not a normal one.
Alioth fell to the ground.
Then he coughed up blood. Enough to fill a bucket.
***
When Alioth awakened, he couldn't help but feel lightheaded. There isn't much you could do when you cough an unusual amount of blood after a fight. Not even the ones in the streets could match.
It was then when Alioth realized, it wasn't time to be messing around.
This decided his life after all.
As he got up from his pinkish grassy spot. It had hit him, the pain in his legs. More like soreness though, it seemed that his body could heal faster in this realm. Additionally, each step felt lighter than he imagined, compared to yesterday, it was very noticeable.
Coming back to his senses. Alioth searched for the exit of the mysterious forest. Wandering, and wandering. Through the bushes. No encounters, no monsters in sight. No, nothing.
[You have strained your body, you're body will return to great strain]
In a quick, thorough second. It hit him like he was just shot by a gun. He felt heavier, like he was chained to a weight that couldn't be taken off. In a few moments, he was already three feet in the ground.
'At this rate, I'll die!'
Shouting the obvious, Alioth panicked. Looking at the pale pink cloudy floor. Alioth felt nothing below. Rather, this was not the ground. It was an actual cloud. A cloud you could stand on.
Using the stick Alioth found, he stabbed it against the floor, then held on. An hour had gone by, Alioth was already almost sunk into the floor. By the next hour, the only thing keeping Alioth and the floor attached was the pointy stick.
Alioth dared not look down, scared at what would happen, for the next five hours, he held on, for his own life. But finally, it had ended.
[You have returned to normal]
Alioth gasped, and tried to pull himself up through the hole he had made when sinking. Using the remaining strength Alioth had, he held his breath, and threw himself up from the hole.
The very next second, he fainted.
***
As Alioth woke up, he felt great, like he had never before. He could run faster, jump higher. Everything was just, better. But Alioth knew, if he overexhausted himself, he might end up six feet under, really.
When he looked around, trying to find where the river had been, the scenery looked different. Like it was scattered into different places like a puzzle.
The river was nowhere in sight, the forest was gone. Instead, he was just standing on a plain old flat landscape, except it was made of pink clouds of course.
Looking down, Alioth noticed something.
'An extra set of clouds?'
Curious, Alioth made up his mind to go and see what it was for himself.
It was around twelve feet below but Alioth was far too lazy to take the safer path down.
So he closed his eyes and fell.
But did not land.