The next bit was spent by trying to lift the damned body off, ignoring my guide’s unhelpful advice.

  “Push, you maggot! You have to lift the head off first!” He shouted.

  “Man, I can’t even touch the damn head! How about you be quiet, and let me do what I need to do?”

  And so it went for like 15 minutes.

  With one last shove, I pushed the body off of my legs, finally free.

  Blue Berry guy sighed, massaging the spot under his eyes. “That took you way too long.”

  What a prick. “How about you try it next time? The beast was not made of feathers, okay?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Follow me now. I’ll explain the rules in a safer place.” He lifted off the ground, and hovered toward the plains. “Oh, and loot the wolf. It’s got items.”

  Now THAT sounded good. Of course, getting rewarded felt fitting! My exploits should not go unnoticed!

  Killing the wolf made it viable for loot collection, and just lifting the body a little rewarded me with several items.

  “What do these do?” I said as I looked at the weird pelt that just appeared in front of me as I lifted it.

  Turning back, he sighed once again. “Think of the image of putting the items into your pockets next time, or absorbing them. That will just put the items into your inventory. As I said, I’ll explain in a little bit.”

  I looked at the items, wondering about their use. A small message passed through my vision as I followed the instruction, listing the names of items as they disappeared. Those included - [Wolf meat],[Archwolf’s hide], three of [Archwolf’s tooth], and several [Torch]. Oh, and some gold coins that the guide claimed are used as currency here. I had serious problems trying to think of where the damn torches came from, just as I had trouble figuring out what to use the coins on.

  Shouldn’t he have mentioned that as the first thing? “And where is a safer place?”

  “I think I saw one not that far off. They are rare, the safe places. Follow now.”

  Sighing, I went after him, watching the nature again.

  As we walked, I received another announcement message.

  Hello, dear players!

  We are sadly announcing that a few of the players have been… underperforming in the aspects of using human brains. We know. Those human bodies suck! It’s actually quite a miracle that they’ve gotten as far as they did, isn’t it?

  But that doesn’t change the fact that half of you are boring as hell to watch. Yes, we’re talking to you as well, Three-toed sloth. Stop eating your damn fingers.

  We will be increasing your cognitive abilities in the next few hours. Especially for those more impaired.

  Thank you for your attention. Now go out there and LEVEL UP!

  I, of course, ignored the message. It was obviously not talking about me.

  The travel only took a little bit, all of it spent in silence, and soon enough, we stood in front of an unnatural looking, human-built building. It was a hunting hut, I knew - a small wood box, a square room barely wide enough for me to take two steps inside, standing on 4 wooden pillars. I climbed inside, scaling the ladder in seconds.

  After that whole ordeal, I finally sat down, feeling the wood under me. Sitting down felt weird, but good in this body. The fact that I wasn’t underwater anymore definitely had its effects, even if I instinctively knew how to move in my new surroundings.

  My glorious guide glided into the room, as if in mockery of me. We found this weird small building just a kilometer away from where I fought that beast, and he seemed positive that we were safe inside, and so, with great reluctance, I went in and sat down. He wanted to explain all this stuff about the tournament, and although I longed to find another fight like the one I just went through, I reckoned that listening to how things worked would probably be a smart idea.

  Especially if I wanted to win.

  "Okay, first off. My name is Mark. Yours?"

  What a stupid question. He was talking to the apex predator of the ocean. I didn’t NEED a name. "Don’t have one."

  He scoffed, as if he expected the answer. "Yeah, you will need one, then. I can’t just call you ‘hey you!’ for the rest of the tournament. And the others will probably not want to either."

  I looked up at him now, tired of this discussion already. "Can’t we just call me Mantis Shrimp? It’s what I am, after all. Or what you humans called me, anyway."

  Mark smiled, as if he knew something that I didn’t. Oh how I hated that look. "You do realize that there are more types of Mantis Shrimp, right? There are probably several in this tournament, too. So no, that’s not what we’ll call you. Choose something else."

  I gave up. He wouldn’t let me go until I chose to undergo this pattern recognition process he called ‘names’. "How about Blue? Or… hmm. Oh! How about Punch?"

  Mark’s smile fell down immediately, a look of confusion and anguish replacing it. "Seriously? Can’t you choose a normal name? Like Mark?"

  "But that’s your name!"

  "Christ, I said LIKE Mark. Okay, how about…hmm, you’re like a toddler. How about Timmy? Seems kinda fitting."

  I didn’t have enough of a frame of reference to understand if that was a good name or not, so I just chose to accept this name for the time being. "Sure, unless I think of something cooler. Okay, now explain. What’s stat view?"

  "Yeah, yeah. Okay, just like before, think the words in your mind. Stat View. It should work that way, at least as far as the book guides told me."

  I did so, and immediately, I was assaulted by a bunch of colors right in front of my vision.

  Name : Null

  Species : Peacock Mantis Shrimp

  Class : NONE

  Level : 5

  Attribute points : 8

  HP : 90/100

  MP : 0/0

  Strength : 25

  Dexterity : 40

  Constitution : 20

  Intelligence : 10

  Charisma : 15

  Skills - View

  Equipment - View

  Evolutions - None

  Status effects : Null

  The whole numbers game just confused me. What did they even mean? Were they big compared to other participants? Not only that, but the chart blocked literally all of my vision. Did Mark plan to kill me when he told me to pull this up mid-fight?

  "Okay, I see you’ve launched it. Before I take you through it, let’s make the screen less invasive. Give me a few seconds."

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  Mark’s hands swished through the air, tapping onto something that I couldn’t see. I left him to it, and, in just a few seconds, the giant tab got smaller, fitting into the left side of my vision.

  "Good. Now, let’s get to explaining. Name still isn’t registered, we’ll do that later. Species is self-explanatory. Underneath that, you can see your physical stats, and those should be easy enough to understand. That last fight boosted you to level 5, by the way, so congrats. You’ve got 8 attribute points that you can spend. Every new level gives you two, until later floors."

  I nodded. "How good are my stats now? Compared to others, I mean."

  Mark looked at something I couldn’t see again, and a relieved smile crept onto his lips. "Good. Very good, actually. Your average human would be somewhere at 10 to 15 on most of these stats, so you’re way above that in most."

  "Okay, but my enemies aren’t humans. They are animals, like I am. The first announcement said so."

  "Weird take. Humans are animals too; we just don’t get to participate as players.”

  I scoffed at that. “Yeah, you get to ‘oversee’ this whole thing. Lucky you.”

  “Oh shut up! It’s not as good as it may sound to you.” He stopped hovering for a moment, coming to sit opposite of me. “Back to the topic. Not every player will be your enemy, necessarily. There can be multiple winners of the tournament, after all. But yes, I reckon most of them will be better than humans too. We’ll have to see.”

  “Okay, and the point is?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Let me finish a sentence, please? For now, I would recommend spending your points while you can, and then we’ll go into the others."

  I scoffed and clicked on the strength button in a rapid, repetitive movement. It jumped over to 33 in seconds.

  Mark looked outside the window as I did it, and then he looked back, his eyes glazed over as he opened his own stat view. His eyebrows shot up, and he lifted off the ground once again. "Dude, DON’T dump all of your points in one attribute. You can’t redistribute them! God damn it!”

  What was his problem now? “Strenght was obviously the correct choice here!”

  He threw his arms to the air, gesturing wildly. “We want your constitution to go up too. It’s directly linked to your survival. And your charisma and intelligence need work as well. But nooo, okay, spend it all on strength. God."

  And why the hell would I need those? I came to win, and punching never let me down. I wouldn’t tell him that, though. I was already feeling tired of this constant bickering.

  "Okay, whatever. Just ask me next time, okay? I’m here to help.” He seemed to consider sitting back down, but decided against it. “Next, we’ve got class. You can ignore that for now, but it will come into play later, once you reach level 25. Your HP will regenerate slowly over time, but we can get some potions to patch you up more quickly as well."

  He scratched his head, and though he had no body, the movement did make an audible sound. How weird.

  "Okay, next. Status effects are for both good and bad effects. Poison, blessings, that kind of stuff. You’ll have to watch that part closely when the time comes.” He rubbed his palms together, grinning. “But now the juicy part."

  I gulped, watching him with anticipation. This part actually interested me, and so I did my best not to interrupt.

  "Equipment is what stuff you’ve got. Think of the word, and a menu will pop up. I’ve already decreased the size, but you probably don’t want to keep it open at all times. Let’s take a look at your unequipped stuff, and then we'll move on. The guides said that there should be a weapon there already."

  I mentally commanded the word, and yet another mess of lights opened up. The thing showed an image of a human body with rectangular slots, and then another hundred or so of the same slots underneath. A few of the rectangles had a picture on them.

  The body though, was not completely human. Was that me? Oh how glorious. Mark must’ve definitely been envious of my looks, that was certain. While I did have some unseemly human features - well, the whole look of one - I did also retain some of my features of a Peacock Mantis Shrimp.

  Tones of blue mixed on my skin, the colors indicating my oceanic origin. Turquoise, the color of an expensive gem, glittered on my shoulders, and the reds set my sharper features like knuckles and other bony areas to look as if aflame. Magnificent. I was truly the most gorgeous human to ever exist, no doubt about it.

  Okay, I could gawk at my body later. Time to get back to work.

  "Umm, what’s up with the rectangles?"

  "That’s the equipment, kid. Just drag something from one place to another to equip it. And by that I mean drag something from your inventory to your equipment."

  I stretched my hand, pulled an item, and then let it go in another rectangle.

  My pants disappeared, which my guide didn’t seem to appreciate. Quickly making up for my mistake, It took even me a few seconds to realize that this behavior of mine was weirdly uncharacteristic - I’ve never worn clothes before, after all. Yet it felt so weird to not do so in this body. Human eccentrics were imprinting onto my soul now.

  I moved the single item that was in my inventory into my equipment, the slot it was meant to be placed in was helpfully glowing a more vivid and light blue color. I lifted my finger and… nothing happened.

  "Nothing changed, Mark. Is this thing not working?"

  He sighed, not an annoyed sigh this time, but more of just a sigh of reluctant acceptance. "No. You have to summon a weapon item, otherwise all of you tournament participants would be running with weird weapons all the time. Just think of a weapon appearing in your hands. That’s literally it. We can inspect it’s attributes later."

  I did as he commanded. The weapons appeared around my wrists, though the weapons were about two or three times as wide as the wrists themselves. They were carapaced shields, covering my hands from my elbow to further than my stretched fingers, and they had yet another protrusion sticking out on them. It was blunt, though.

  "Oh, those look sick, don’t you think?"

  Even Mark seemed to appreciate my greatness for once. "They do, actually. Inspect them. I think you’ll like what you see."

  I didn’t even have to ask how to do that. I just thought of inspecting the weapons, and the letters appeared instantly.

  The Hungarian Shields of the Mantis Shrimp

  Grade - Basic

  The great Hungarian shields of the mantis shrimp are a beginner weapon of one particular player. Oh, that’s you! They offer a good mix of offense and defense, and look stylish while doing so. Are you happy with them? You should be! We’re not going to be giving you a lot items that look good on you. Quite the opposite, in fact. Just think of them as our one good deed of a millennium.

  You might be asking - what the fuck does Hungary have to do with me? There’s a great answer to that. Or there might not be. We’ll let you figure that part out.

  These weapons give 1 daily use of [BLOCK] and a +2 to constitution.

  Okay, not too bad! Though the fact that it was a basic grade sounded lame. I would probably have to find a replacement, but it would be hard to let go of a weapon with such a fantastic name. At least the Mantis Shrimp part. What the heck was Hungary?

  "Okay, you done watching? You’ve equipped them now, so we can move on again. Oh, and you gain more equipment from big feats too. I guess killing bosses would count for this floor. Close the menu.” A small pause. “Done?"

  Ugghhh. He was going so fast! “Dude, my head hurts already. Can we slow down?”

  “Geez, are you made from paper?” He took in a deep breath. “Okay. Go through it again, what I just told you. Let me know when you’re ready.

  I went through my inventory. My stats, and all the other stuff, once again. It wasn’t that complicated, but it definitely wasn’t easy. “I’m ready.”

  "Good. Now, evolutions are a weird one. Basically, if you do interesting stuff in Exercia, and the gods see that - and they will - then, you can be granted a roulette spin. They offer a lot of evolutions, and these can enhance your body in very specific and powerful ways. For example, your legs could get replaced by cheetah legs or something, and you get a +20 in dexterity and a skill. I think the max on how many evolutions you can have was 5, unless they changed it."

  "Why would I want my beautiful legs to be replaced by a cat’s?"

  "For the stats. Stats are your life here, man. You better remember that."

  That didn’t sound very convincing, but I nodded anyway.

  "And last but not least, we’ve got Skills. Again, think of the word."

  Focusing my mind on that single word, another menu appeared, and it listed several items. Instinctively, I knew that I could get to know more if I focused on any one of them, as if a little voice was whispering knowledge into my mind at every opportunity.

  How strange.

  The menu listed off several skills at once, and all of them had the word level and a number attached to them.

  Bullet strike - Level 1

  Dash - Level 1

  Block (tied to an item) - Level 1

  Heat vision - Passive

  Aquatic breathing - Passive

  Analyze - Passive

  Mark nodded to himself, finally closing his own menu, and looked me in the eyes. "I’m not going to bother explaining what your skills do. You can find out all about those on your own later."

  A classic snobby answer from the guy in blue. Honestly, I wasn’t in his company for more than a few hours, yet I felt as if I had such a solid grasp on the dude that I would be able to predict whatever snarky comment he’d say next.

  "How do I gain new skills?" It was the only question that hadn’t been answered yet. Well, sure, there were more, but this was the one that prickled my mind the most.

  That Bullet Strike was really cool! So more definitely meant better, right? The fact that I could apparently still breathe underwater was great, too. Even if I could travel the land now, I’d miss swimming if I couldn’t do that any longer.

  Mark hovered into the air, and out of the room, stopping in the doorway to answer my question. "You gain them by completing tasks. It’s not just new skills that you acquire that way, though. You level up your current ones too. And before you ask, no, you can’t affect whether you get a new one or upgrade one. You get one, but whether it’s new or an upgrade is purely random.”

  He took a deep breath. “This floor is inspired by survival games, so that probably requires you to slay some bosses, maybe building a base. We’ll see.”

  “You were locked up with books for 2 years, and that’s all you have?”

  “Let me remind you that I didn’t know what the floors would be. I prepared for as much as I could. Do you have any idea how many alien game types I went through?”

  Should have predicted better. I didn’t feel like taking that point up further, though. “Okay, okay.”

  “Good. I played a few games like this, so I’m sure we’ll do good."

  That made me remember another point he brought up. "Wait, survival games?"

  Mark looked at me again and chuckled. "Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you. The gods chose video-game genres for the tournament. Survival is the theme of this one."