Chapter 1: Temporary becomes Regular

Maxwell doesn't like to meddle in other peoples business, but this person in from of him, is really getting on his nerves. This scumbag is a typical sight in his workplace. Always flirting with his employees.

His name is Derrick, an F-level regular worker in the Oakmont Mining area, Number: 226, and Maxwell's foreman, in other words, his boss.

At the moment, Derrick is using his suave, 21st century flirting techniques to tease a young girl, a temporary worker in the third group, who has a fairly clean and cute face.

Max can vaguely remember this girls name, Trisha. A temporary worker in the mines. He could pretty much guess her fate, same as the other girls that Derrick has set his sights to. They couldn't do anything about it either, everyone needs to eat.

As Max focused on Derricks ugly face, a data prompt appeared in front of him.

Gender: Male

Karmic Value: 35

Favorability: 1 (Does not even know your name)

Financial Assessment: Poor

Favorite: His Wife

Fear: His Wife

Hates: Wife's nagging when he comes home

Honesty: 7 (pathological liar)

Charisma: 15

Luck: 25 (be cautious)

Current Demands:

Have Sex with subordinates - 48 percent

Complete the Boss's order - 7 percent

Exit mining area - 29 percent

Give new employees a hard time - 13 percent

Others - 3 percent

His financial evaluation is 'poor' but compare to the 'heavy debt' of others, he can still be considered rich. The girl also had a 54 percent demand to flirt with Derrick. Compared to the other's regular hook-ups, Max wasn't that surprised.

Max withdrew his gaze from the duo, and continue to busy himself with other matters at hand.

Max has been living leisurely here, a place that can be called a 'novice village' in gaming terms, for the past 6 years, and tonight, he will finally be promoted from a temporary worker, to a regular one. He has to deal with the review from the administration department tonight, so he plans to just waste time not finding trouble with others.

Around 6 o'clock, Derrick gave a mischievous smile to the girl, and started ordering a few of the newcomers, screaming at them, his spit about cover their faces.

In Max's eyes though, everything that's happening, it's all converted into readable data. In this Age, where hierarchy is clear, a lower level employee, especially a newcomer, can only lower their heads and let their boss, scold them.

Looking at the scene, the other workers could only turn their faces away, afraid that they might be next.

The monsters in the Mining area appear during the night. Nocturnal creatures that hunt in the night, making it multiple times more dangerous to work. The Mining area, and the real world are separated by something called a space crack, or space portal. In order to reduce casualties in mining areas, multiple Spacial Portals were placed.

When the sun sets and the surrounding turn dark, Derrick and other regular workers are given privileged to leave early, Max and the temporary workers could only leave after 1-2 hours later.

…

Different from others, Max lived this last 6 years using his brain. He had always acted mature and kept himself away from trouble.

In addition, there was an instance when a wounded Female Warrior passed by the area, Max was lucky enough to be the first person to see her and provide help. She turned out to be a powerful warrior, and in exchange for his help, he was assigned a private room.

In the current era, Humans have lived in massive mechanical pyramids. The stronger they are, the higher they can live in the pyramid, the more weight they have to their words.

Max doesn't need to use the public dining area, and public restrooms on the ground floor like other temporary workers. He doesn't need to sleep with more than 100 people in resting areas.

His is room is not big, only about 10 square meters. The separate bathroom is 2 square meters complete with a toilet and a shower. In the ground floor, with this room, he can be considered a big fish.

But, in his entire room, the only thing worth value, is his old cauldron. This type of cauldron stopped production hundreds of years ago. This cauldron, when stuffed with organic material can convert it into dishes and cuisine from ancient times.

This cauldron is considered an antique, bought at a high price, can cook a lot of Recipes. Produced in Red Wind city, a city that loved hot pot.

Max always liked to talk about the dishes from ancient times, their origins and their taste. Most of the time people would ignore him, and he would end up talking to himself. People only cared about Money and Women.

For Max, this seemed like the regression of Human Culture.

Half an hour later, after finishing a bowl of Mapo Tofu Hotpot, He cleaned the table, and while washing the dishes, someone knocked on his door and a voice followed.

"Temporary worker number: 560205278, name: Maxwell Brooks. Please follow me to the 2nd floor.

Max opened the door, in front of him a soldier. Wearing black armor that covered vital organs, carrying a rifle. The design was similar to AK47 from ancient times, the difference being, the metal was bluish in color and Wooden parts were synthetic.

This metal was a product from one of the mines, capable of producing enough firepower to penetrate monster scale of significant strength.

Looking at the Soldier in front of him, the data panel appeared.

Honesty: 78 percent (can be trusted)

Curent Demand: Bring Maxwell Brooks to the 2nd floor promotional department for review.

Seeing this, Max lowered his guard.

"Bring your documents as a temporary worker and follow me."

"okay, thank you"

Max is currently residing in Pyramid No: 39, and there are fifty-six said Pyramid Fortresses in Red Star Country. He doesn't know how many floors each pyramid has, the furthest he went up was the third floor, and that was years ago, in his days as a student.

In this world, people are divided according to their grade. From the age of 12 to 18, everyone has the right to education, free and endless education.

Since the educational institutions are on the third floor, many people consider the age when they are 12-18 as their golden years, Some even refuse to leave.

After reaching 18 years old, all are given exams by the D-class workers, many call it the Heaven Choice exam, as whoever you are, rich or poor, you have the chance to change your fate.

The passage leading to the second floor looks like a tower. Standing 600 meters tall, a vertical bridge. At the entrance, many soldiers were conducting security protocols. Before anyone can be allowed to enter, they must first be cleared, cleared of what? Max has no idea.

A green light showered Max's body, from head to toe.

"Clear" a robotic voice sounded.

After completing the scan, Max entered the tower with the soldier accompanying him. Looking outside the glass of the tower, Max was in deep thought, his eyes clear as he thought about his Heaven's Choice exam 6 years ago.

"I hope everything goes well" Max thought to himself.

…

…

If there was ever a question, then the Mines were the answer. Mines were the salvation of the the World.

As resources in the real world were used up, the spacial portals appeared, and inside those portals, abundant resources. Trees lush and strong, scenes that can only be seen thousands of years ago in the real world.

Clusters or ores and minerals, where their uses are more versatile. Unfortunately, at the same time, monsters appeared.

Horrible and Massive creatures that Humanity has never seen before. Things that were once considered stories and myths. These creatures, one look at a human, consider them as prey.

These shattered the dream of humanity to immigrate to these mining areas through the space portals.

Then they also discovered that one could not stay longer than 7 days into these mining areas. Once you go more than 7 days, your vitality would quickly dry up, at which you age at a rapid speed.

They were forced to leave, it was akin to a game forcing you to go offline.

As people began exploring the Mining areas, they discovered native resources that could help the real world function again.

Everyone can bring their harvest from the Mining areas to the real world.

It seemed to be an unprecedented game, created by God.

Those who can kill more monsters in the mining area, those who can gather more resources, and those that that can gather more mineral deposits has become the criteria for judging whether a person is good or not.

The next task of all mankind, to develop and protect these new mining areas.

The heavens choices exam was derived from this system, and Max, he always had an advantage. He always had high scores on his cultural exam, history was always a bit of a passion for him. He is also proficient in many foreign languages.

There were many that were said to be geniuses in Max's class, but they were all over shadowed by him.

Max is also very familiar with the different studies on mining areas. Sometimes, people even think of him as a native that has lived in this mining area all his life. His knowledge could directly be applied.

As long as you pass the Heavens Choice exam, then you are already an elite, the best of the best. How high the rank of a person, it is only determined by the final part of the exam.

But, in that final part of the exam, Max gave weird and strange answers.

After passing the exam, he can now pass trough the protective shield of the mining area, weapons detection will also be disabled.

At this point, people who enter can see 'data'. The information of other people, like a game panel.

These data is affected by talent. Why these data appear, is still a mystery, much like the mining areas.

Even those with low talents can always see one piece of data, the 'life value'. Everyone with talent can see the life value of the creatures and monsters in the mining area.

With this talent one can pass the final part of the Heavens Choice Exam and become a regular worker. The more data a person can see, the higher they are ranked.

Those who can see at least one data, are given the right to residency in the second floor.

There are only ten types of data recorded. They were the discovered by the people that established the pyramids.

Health value, attack power, defense power, attack speed, movement speed, life recovery, crit chance, crit damage, stamina, and attack range.

When Max told the examiner that he could see eight types of data, both his examiner and classmates almost went wild. Most of the talented people could only see two types of data, and very few specially gifted can see three to four types.

Those who can see more than five types of data, is said to have been born to adapt and rule the mining areas. As for the ones that can see more than eight types, they are legends recoded in the annals of history.

But Max was already holding back, in fact he could see eleven types of data, since he did not conform to common sense, he decided to choose a relatively low key answer.

When he wrote the types of data he saw, he was rewarded with anger and curses.

"What kind of absurd data is this? I'm asking the health and attack power of this elite skeleton giant, Maxwell! I'm warning you, stop joking about!"

"Don't tell me about Charm, Luck, and Demands! These aren't part of the ten data types! Give me a serious answer! ****"

The examiner was fuming, why did Max write such nonsensical things? Doesn't this kid know that many people expect much of him? Doesn't he know that many people want him to fail?

Many people thought that Max cheated on his exams, that why he had one of the highest scores, but the examiner knew max well. He saw max grow up.

"I'm only asking this last time, what is the health value of the Elite Giant Skeleton?"

The examiner's angry and disappointed tone stills appears on Max's nightmares from time to time. Max had fallen, he was branded as a cheater, how can a trash that couldn't even see one type of value score the highest in the exam?

Since there was no evidence it only became a rumor, but afterwards, some big shot came and a few of the teachers license were revoked, stating that they helped a student cheat.

Max was too tired to try and defend himself. But he new one thing, someone with a big wrist was able to revoke the license of multiple teachers, this person was powerful enough to make him go away forever.

Since being at the bottom this last 6 years, he had lived a peaceful life, but he always felt that some was watching him.

Max didn't know if he was being surveiled or protected.

…

…

"We have arrived"

The soldiers words interrupted Max's thoughts. In front of him was a massive iron door. Spanning 5 meters and a bright number 2 was written on the center.

"Seize the opportunity boy" the soldier that seemed indifferent from the beginning suddenly said.

Max gave a slight smile and nodded. He walked through the doorway.