TIMELESS VOYAGE: "The Interface"

Chapter 03: "The Interface"

[" Have you packed the luggages honey?" Asks a beautiful middle-aged lady with dark pupil and brown iris and white sclera with brown long hair to a handsome middle-aged man with dark pupils and dark iris and white sclera with black hair.]

["I have packed it already, let's go." Says the middle-aged man]

["Take care of yourself jack, we will be back in a week. I know it's tough for you afterall, you just came back from the military. However, we have already booked the ticket unfortunately, we couldn't take you together with us." Says the beautiful middle-aged lady as she hugs jack tightly with worry.]

["Why are you being emotional afterall, he is a grown up, my boy is strong enough to hold himself together, he can definitely take care of himself for a week, right jack?" Asks the middle-aged man in a joking tone with a smile.]

["Of course, of course go already, mom, dad, you might mis the flight, remember to call me back after you have landed at the airport." Says jack as he pushed his parents to a car with a smile.]

["Bye jack." Says both his parents in unison with a smile as the car goes down the road.]

[No don't goo, no, Nooo.. Dad, mom... Don't gooo. Shouted jack as he watched his parents only smile at him and says "Jack you're a strong boy, You can surely hold yourself together.] Suddenly the dream shatters as jack feels a huge amount of pain pressing on his head as he starts sweating profusely.

aargh!

aargh!

Jack groans as he clutchess his aching head with his hands, but it feels like some kind of bandage is wrapped around his head with some ice underneath the bandage. Despite the cooling ice, the amount of pain he feels at this moment is something he has never felt before, inspite of working in the army with lots of difficult training nonstop and the injuries and suffering in army drills, those may have been very painful but the pain he is currently suffering is on a whole another level altogether.

Jack tries to slowly open his eyes inspite of his aching head but it felt like he is lifting a boulder not eyelids when he tried to open them due to the great amount of pain he is going through, knowing that he has to open them to at least take a good look at his surrounding after what felt like eternity, jack finally used full strength even his hands to flung open his eyelids as suddenly tears starts oozing out of his eyes making his vision appear blurry, unable to see anything jack first attempts to clean his eyes with his hands but more tears started gushing out causing him to cry his heart out due to pain and anguish. Minutes later as his vision becomes clearer as he starts looking around, the first thing he notices is the familiar, unfamiliar room as he looks around again and again, this confirmed his conjecture that this was indeed the room that he and the old man sat and talked at.

Slowly closing his painful eyes jack tries to remember everything as best as possible including every minute details, he remembered from when he met the oldman, when he was in that club. {server? melina? So why am I here? ohh wait the last thing I remember is some kind of message.} thought jack, as he tries to remember as best as he could and finally remembers the word he heard before he fainted. {"Welcome to the 'Trial Of Times."}

As jack's head aches in pain, he tries to get up from the bed after he sorted out everything suddenly someone holds him down and says "Boy it's not adviceable for you to get up so, better take some rest."

After hearing the words he slowly opens his eyes again and took a look, what stood infront of him is an old woman, average in height but she looks beautiful despite her old age, he was about to shout why the old man tricked him but shut up instinctively because this is cynthia, the wife of the old man roy and she is an innocent party here and the other thing is. {she is very dangerous.} thought jack as he changes the subject to something else.

"Why am I here? Wasn't I in the club last time? Why am I in so much pain?" Asks puzzled jack in muffled voice due to agony as he looks at the old woman in confusion.

"It's the process of system integration, When you integrate the system it will cause you great pain as it slowly adaps to your cell structures and control your cells slowly, the longer the system takes the better it is for you." Explains miss cynthia calmly.

"I see." Nods jack with an understanding.

"So, how long am I here for?" Asks jack trying to calm himself down despite the aching pain.

"A week." Says miss cynthia calmly.

"A week? How is that possible?" Questions jack in shock.

"Why can't it be possible young man? Was it possible for you to have such a system in the first place? Or maybe you think that, it is normal to have a system hmm?" Asks back the old woman cynthia as she rolls her eyes, clearly expressing that she is looking at an idiot.

"Ah, I am sorry, It's just that a week gone by you know, so, I am in disbelief." Says jack hurriedly in embarrassment.

"I understand young man better get some more rest at most within a day you will be fine. Remember to compensate for the door and if you can't control your anger, then better break your own things instead of breaking other's properties, not everyone will be as merciful as me, if you have no money I will make you work in my cafe at most but, other people of my strength might beat you up." Reprimands miss cynthia in a harsh tone.

"Yes mam." Says jack subconsciously as if in military drill and he was also embarrassed of his actions committed the prior week.

"Take some soup and remember to take medicine after drinking the soup." Says miss cynthia calmly as she places the soup on top of the drawer besides the bed and points at a capsule near the edge of the drawer on the closer end to the bed. The old woman gently pulls him by his hands as she makes him sit effortlessly, but during the process jack felt a lot of pain and realised that he couldn't sit by himself even if he wanted to.

"My clothes?" Says jack in embarassment as he realises that his blue track suit that he wore for jogging were replaced by another gray trouser and a long sleeved blue t-shirt.

"The old man replaced it for you after giving you a bath, afterall you stinked a lot." Says miss cynthia with an amused smile.

"Ohh, okay." Nods jack in relief, afterall he doesn't want a woman changing his clothes.

"Young man, Your name should be jack right?" Asks miss cynthia curiously.

"Yes." Answers jack hurriedly as he starts to scoop up the soup slowly.

"So jack it is, you better drop your prejudices against my old man, afterall he isn't the one to force anyone to play such a game that will result in the loss of life. In fact, he started this job to help people such as you to familiarise yourselves to the game before you are sent to a mission." Explains miss cynthia calmly in a serious tone.

"Huh? But isn't he the one who forced me into the game? Even if the game choose me, he should've explained me that I will go through such a painful process right?" Questions back jack with a frown.

"How much time does he have to say you, that he really didn't force you to the game, but it's the game that choose you, how until you come to term with it, as for the painful process, If he really told you that, then you would've had no courage to take the system in and your suffering would've been doubled due to anxiety and other factors, I bet you would've blamed him all the same, afterall he is the one who introduced you to the game." Says miss cynthia with visible anger and disgust across her face. Jack was actually speechless after hearing that and came to terms with reality and decided to embrace it.

"You said that I will heal within 24 hours right?" Asks back jack uncertainly.

"When did I say that?" Ask miss cynthia with a scowl.

"But didn't you say earlier that at most it will take a day to recover?" Asks back jack with a frown as he is clearly dissatisfied with the answer.

"Oh that? I mean you will be joining the game within the next 24 hours, you better check your timer afterall, if you integrate with the system within the next 24 hours, you will be pulled to the game of course, there is a condition, that is you have to be conscious. For example, If you are in deep sleep and timer runs out then the game won't instantly enter you to the game. It will give you 5 minutes buffer time before you are pulled to the game so that you can be ready." Explains miss cynthia clearly.

"Ohh, ok." Nods back jack with an understanding.

"But how to check my timer?" Asks jack again with curiosity.

"Say the word interface or system, or think it up in your mind, then a screen would automatically pop up infront of you. Remember, when you are in the game world, don't look blankly at the system screen because if you meet a player, then they might realise it instantly." Explains miss cynthia as she advices jack seriously. After hearing miss cynthia's word, jack thought silently in his mind "system."

"Welcome to the 'Trial Of Times'. Since it is the first time the player has registered, let's go through an introduction of the system setting." First beginning with the most important of all setting- |the main settings.|

Number one:- |'!' press this button to ask for information, it will always be in the upper right corner of your screen.|

Number two:-| 'T' The second most important button the 'Timer' button, indicates your time for the next mission, usually remains maximized on the center of the screen with days-d, hours-h, minutes-m and seconds-s as the standard time setting|

And the last of the main setting;- |The 'Main Menu'|, It is the only main setting with sub-settings. There are four sub settings to be exact.

1.)| Interface|:- It says everything about yourself including speed, strength, etc..

2.)|Traits|:- Describes what traits you might have.

3.)|Inventory|:- Here you can store the objects you want to keep. At the start of the game, the space limit is automatically set to 32.

4.) |Game points|:- This desribes the amount of game points you currently have. At the start of the game it is at the default 0.

That wraps up all the setting player, may you enjoy a good fortune, see you again." Spoke an emotionless A.I as it explained it clearly to jack. After hearing the system introductions, it piqued jack's curiousity. As he thought.{Just who in the world could create a system like this, how powerful must he be? Making a game setting and implenting it to human brain, This is definitely the work of someone insanely powerful.} Sorting out of his thoughts he first checks his timer.

|Mission Timer: D:00 H:02 M:04 S:49|

Almost threw up his final bit of soup in a moment of shock as he realised that he only has two hours left, so he instantly asks the old woman cynthia in panicked voice:- "mam, didn't you say I have 24 hours left before next mission, but my timer only shows two hours and 4 minutes."

"Hmm? So fast? It seems you have taken too long to rest, thats the only reason I can think of because no one was unconscious for that long till now. From the info we've gathered, the most a person gone unconscious is 2 days and you were unconscious for 5 days more than him. So, how about you check your main menu and think of ways to counter your first mission, while I prepare a mask for you." Says miss cynthia seriously as she hurriedly hands jack the capsule with a cup of water and takes off.

"ok, I got it." Nods jack seriously as he takes in the medicine and starts to proceed to the system and directly to interface.

A window opens as his stats are displayed before his eyes as follows:

|Name: Jack Evans

Race: Human

Age: 18

Auxiliary points: 0 (can be used to upgrade stats.)

Intelligence: 6

Speed: 7

Luck: 6

Charisma: 8

Stamina: 9

Strength: 7

Durability: 8

Dexterity: 8|