“Um, no, not really,” Alan cautiously answered after a go ahead from Eve.

“Hmm, that’s too bad.” Aurora then took out her knife, and with a fluid, practiced motion, slit Alan’s throat. Shortly thereafter he died, and Aurora won the duel.

A bit demoralized after the loss, Alan left the dome in a hurry without exchanging another word with Aurora, as he had little to no reason to continue past the initial five duels. Even with the loss he still had 6350 guild points left, and he wasn’t so certain he could continue winning without his hypercognition mode available. He was starting to feel pretty tired as well. The moment Alan left the building, a message popped up before him.

Alan began to slowly make his way back towards the rooms he had been shown earlier, but Eve stopped him.

Aren’t you forgetting something?

What?

You need to regain the abilities you lost from the death. I believe now is as good a time as any, and the training room looks like it would be useful.

Oh. Alright.

Alan then headed to the training room he’d been shown earlier. This shouldn’t be too hard, right?

***

Thirty minutes later, Alan found himself running on a futuristic, omni-directional treadmill within an enclosed space about the size of a small classroom. You could run any which way, and your position would stay roughly constant, while lasers that caused an unpleasant burning sensation would randomly fire from the walls. Drenched with sweat, Alan tried to sprint onwards while dodging incoming laser fire, but couldn’t bring himself to do so, and collapsed onto the floor of the room, writhing in pain.

No abilities unlocked.

Get up. Continue working out. Reactivate hypercognition.

I’m… too tired to go on. Everything hurts. Let’s just… do this another time, Alan sent, doubling over as bile began to rise in his throat.

NO. GET UP.

But—

DO YOU WANT TO HELP THE EARTH?

YES, but—

THEN GET UP AND WORK. Do you think that any player can become powerful enough to change the course of the Game? To influence the future of an entire planet? You must give it ALL of your effort. You must SURPASS human limits. The fact that this is a GAME means that your body’s limits, the pain that you feel, are NOTHING. Push yourself. Push yourself until you cannot physically go on, or let your planet disappear and fall into unknown hands BECAUSE YOU WEREN’T WILLING TO WORK HARD ENOUGH. NOW GET UP.

Silently, Alan heaved himself off the floor, and began to run once more. He reactivated hypercognition mode, despite the mind numbing pain induced, the elongation of every torturous moment into unbearable eons. He began screaming incoherently at Eve as she continued to urge him on. He mutely continued to stagger forwards with all his might, fearful that his mind would break from the unbearable pain. And, finally, he collapsed onto the floor into blissful oblivion, accompanied by a number of messages he took no notice of.