Hardcore: Qi Worlds Chapter 2: First Steps

Ben's first few moments were like waking up with the worlds worst hangover. 'My head hurts, my back hurts, wait....my back hurts?' Ben tried moving his feet...it was a struggle, but he was able to lift his foot to under his knee. Some people found religion, but Ben now knew exactly what it was like to be born again. This was a new body, it wasn't his.

The haze was starting to lift from his mind, however, control over his new body was progressing much slower. Ben was able to get up on his knees. Time to take stock. This body was about the same height as his real one, six one, awfully white, almost albino in fact. And hairless! Geez. The uncomfortable ground he was on was mostly sandy and rocky terrain. To his right, Ben could see another, player? For want of a better word. Player, test subject or test pilot. Ben and the other ten participants were all of these things.

Ben hadn't spoken to any of the other players. He never even had the chance to see if they could speak English or not. It was obviously not a concern of the management that he interacts with them in any way. Yet, one was starting close to Ben. The other player didn't even look at Ben. He stood up slowly and started bounding away with a steady gait. Ben looked to where he was headed and could see what looked like a walled city or town. 

Ben was going to take a lot longer to get moving. His muscles felt like tenderized meat. No strength to them whatsoever. He was like a baby trying to stand for the first time. 'How the hell did the other player run like that?' Ben finally struggled to his feet. His arms hung by his side, dangling like he had just done a massive workout. His legs felt like they were at the end of leg day, but they still had work to do!

Looking around, Ben could see treeless plains in one direction, small hills in another, the walled town and behind the hills, he could see what was mountains high enough to pop up over the horizon.

Decision time. Well, he was given one piece of advice. Explore. 

The walled town was the obvious choice, probably information, trainers and food. That was the easy road. And also the one was already taken by the other player. 'Hmm, where were the other nine?' Ben contemplated them for a few seconds, before shelving it under not important. The mountains looming behind the expanse of hills were enticing because it was something interesting he could see. It was a much more appealing goal than running into the plains which had no end in sight.

The hills would be a workout, for what was his new shabby body. Hang on. Why was he being so hard on this body? He could fucking walk!!! He could, well just, swing his arms. Jubilation overtook Ben. He savoured it for a moment. Standing under his own power again. He took a deep breath and set off, imitating the other player, at a slow jog towards the rolling hills.

The pains were inconsequential, there was no hunger or thirst, not yet, in any case, the sheer jubilation of moving on his own without the aid or machines or reliance on other people was freedom from a prison he had been in for the last five years. The jubilation was quite a strong drug for his new body, as each hour passed it grew stronger. Ben focused on his breathing, each long intake through his nose and out his mouth was adding fuel to his new body.

This may seem strange, Ben surmised, but he had been naked since his awakening, as had the other player. What was even stranger was, he had no man parts, or woman's either thank god! That was a little off-putting. Maybe it was part of the simulation. He had no hair, no genitalia and no shame apparently. Luckily the climate was mild with not much wind at the moment. Ben had survival training, from his days in the defence force, it would be a concern when he had no shelter, warm clothing, food and particularly water. It was also a concern that he had no idea if any of this was needed in the simulation. His knowledge of the environment in the simulation had been limited on purpose by the management. That didn't concern Ben, he had never been one to read instruction manuals anyway.

After what seemed like three hours of jogging, it was time to take stock of his surroundings. If Ben could hazard a guess he had covered twenty kilometres at worst and thirty at best. Despite the muscles being in an atrocious state when he woke, the more he ran the better he felt. He knew what running ten kilometres in an hour felt like, with no gadgets to guide his progress he would just have to go by gut feel. Wait. Didn't this simulation have a hud or anything? There were no controls. No buttons. How did he bring it up? Well, he was controlling movement by thought, why not bring up the hud with thought also?

He thought hud...hard. User interface go! Nothing.

Hmm. Stats. Ping!

Ben was almost stunned upon seeing this table pop up in his vision on the bottom left no matter where he turned to face. Strength, Speed, Agility, Stamina and Toughness. With his average knowledge of gaming, this seemed a little different to standard, but not by a great amount. If these were his stats, where were charisma, intelligence, wisdom all the mental stats? And Qi, that must be the main goal of the simulation. Ben was under no misapprehension that the main goal of the simulation was for him to develop his Qi. How? Well, he was told he would find out in the simulation, so right now he had no idea.

No matter what else Ben focused on he was unable to bring up any more information. There was no defence or armour class, no skills, no resistances. Nothing. If he had to hazard a guess, his new body or avatar started with ten in each of the body attributes and one in the Qi attributes. Ben's knowledge of gaming was fairly average, however, these days an average gamer knew quite a lot. It was a mainstream hobby that almost every guy and quite a few girls on the planet partook.

Ben's past five years had been extremely hard, he even found gaming hard, after being involved in a training accident in a black hawk, when he had lost the use of his arms and legs. Paralyzed from the neck down sure did curtail a lot of activities. But Ben was nothing if not determined, single-minded, stubborn and probably pushy. That was probably the main reason he was now in this simulation, in an avatar, which felt extremely real he was not aware of the real world in the slightest. The simulation felt real. He felt like he was in this hairless, albino body. With every passing minute, it felt more like his body.

Ben refocused back to the task at hand. The best part about jogging is he was easily able to scan the area while traversing. Although he had no runners, his feet seemed to put up with the terrain quite handily. It was a mixture of low grasses, rocks, bushes and even some varied plant life like flowers, cacti and small trees. What he did notice, which was outstanding, was the lack of wildlife. Heck, there was even a lack of annoying insects.

Ben recalled Murphy's law. Or was it Occam's razor. He wasn't sure. But as soon as he thought about the lack of annoying insects, they arrived. Ben was sure it wasn't Murphy's or Occam's but it was like reverse Deja Vu. Fortunately Ben wasn't hungry or thirsty yet. There wasn't a bar or indicator on his stats for it or health or stamina. It was a very minimalistic hud. Maybe this simulation did not bother with hunger or thirst. Like most of the details, this was not covered in his preparations. Ben slapped a mosquito trying to take a bite of his arm, 'first kill!' 

The hills were becoming steeper and taller. Valleys were starting to form part of the landscape. Once he could spy a cluster of trees and bushes lining a valley he would be sure to investigate for some water. The area was quiet, other than the wind rustling the foliage and the noise of his footsteps and breathing, there were no noises. No man-made noises. Ben found the whole experience quite enjoyable so far. It was like naked hiking.

Ben finally found a stream, and although he wasn't thirsty, which was strange as he had been active for what had to be six hours now. The sun was probably hitting its zenith in the sky, which was hard to determine at this stage. Ben was skilled in navigating by the sun and general bushcraft. However, he didn't know where he was in terms of latitude, whether the simulation was even earthlike. All he did know at this stage is it had one sun and two moons. Ben spied two moons earlier during his jog. So it was obviously not an exact copy. For all, he knew it could be a zone that was 100km x 100km. Or it could be an entire planet with oceans and continents.

Standing atop what was the largest hill in the immediate vicinity Ben surveyed the surrounding area. The mountains were still way off and seemed to form a V to his point of view. They were not a straight line of a zone border covering the northern end of a map. To the east, more rolling hills and that direction would be circling back towards to walled town. To the west, trees. Trees which covered hills ran up the mountainside and formed another V from Bens point of view from this location.

Ben took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Both the forest and the mountains called to him. If he used his head the forest was most likely more dangerous with animals, but in the simulation who knew, the mountain could contain extremely dangerous monsters. Ben made a determination, he knew nothing of this world, using his head in a situation where he had little information wasn't wise. Ben decided to fake it until he made it with his use of Qi. 

Spreading his arms and facing the forest Ben drew a deep breath. Exhaled slowly and smiled. It felt right. It was probably his own conscious making it feel right, but, who cares. It did feel like the forest was calling to him. He would go there to explore. Dying there did not cross his mind.

Chapter end