Afterlife Games

"Just testing your reflexes." Uncle says as he pulls back his punch.

We trained for around two hours before my body gave in, I've already marched the longest distance in my life during Campaign and now martial arts training can nearly kill me.

"Your power level went up." Uncle says while I pour water down my throat, quenching my thirst after the intense workout.

We were sitting on a bench with bottles containing ice cold water in our hands.

"What's my power level?" I thought in my head.

"2791." It increased by two, not bad for only 2 hours of work.

"It grows fast right now because you're just starting, it's growth's exponential phase as they call it." Uncle explains.

"About Campaign, from the recruiter, 1-5 and 1-10 is multiplayer?"

"Yeah, yeah it is."

"Players can kill eachother in those."

"Yep, indeed they can." He said then takes a sip of water, he was still full of energy and barely even sweating after the training session.

Me on the other hand, I almost drowned from my own sweat.

"Then, why would anyone even risk the chance? Just play Endless where it's only npcs to worry about to obtain points for survival, Campaign seems redundant to me."

That's why I asked about the multiplayer campaign stages in the first place, I didn't see the reason to participate.

"At 1-5, the reward is hp bar, which means you won't die as easily. It's like your generic health bar in an actual shooter video game."

Ah, immediately I understood why, the hp bar does sound overpowered, that's definitely what the recruiter meant by 'mandatory in tournaments'.

Playing without it is an immediate disadvantage, players will be incredibly fragile, as they'll be dying to a single bullet or a single stab like a normal human.

"How big of an advantage is that?"

"You won't survive a bullet from the Clubs ambush in 1-1, but if you have the hp bar, each bullet will probably only deal 2% of damage to you. Having the hp bar adds an entire 1000 to your power level because of how strong it is."

That's a massive buff, it's absolutely necessary to obtain the hp bar in that case, 1000 power level is insufficient to do justice for a buff like this.

"Shockwave doesn't have it."

"What?"

"She doesn't." I had briefly scrolled through the profiles of the players on the power level leaderboard with my earpiece back then.

Shockwave, 15th in power level and 3rd in campaign stage 1-1, has only completed till 1-4, not 1-5.

"Woah you're right." I'm gonna assume my uncle checked on it too.

"That's just insane, she doesn't have an alliance too, if she passed 1-5 she would shot herself up to the second best player in the game." He adds.

"What's the reward for 1-10?"

"Super strength I think, adds 500 to one's power level, not as important as the hp bar so my alliance never attempted 1-10.

It's a 10 player stage, it's pretty much inviting war between two alliances for eachother's points, it's not worth it."

Shockwave's current power level, 5306, +1000 from 1-5 and +500 from 1-10 if she completed both, puts her at 6806, above 5894 of the current second place by a mile, and very close to silencer, with 7179, who already completed both 1-5 and 1-10 and is currently stuck on 2-1.

Everyone else on the top 15 power level leaderboards already owns the hp bar, except for Shockwave.

In other words, if we were to judge only by skills and not buffs, Shockwave is the second best player in the game.

"You think we can recruit her?" Seeing as she doesn't have an alliance, I posed a suggestion.

"No shot, she's wanted dead by Living Cemetery."

Living Cemetery again, they've got a lot of people to hunt down.

"What for?"

"Who knows?"

I guess I'll put recruiting Shockwave aside, doesn't seem very possible with the third strongest alliance hunting her, especially with us not being on their good side either.

"I wanna jump in another game, I don't have much points now."

"What? No way, you might get eliminated in this state, 1-2 till 1-4 are all singleplayer games where I can't help you."

Uncle seems triggered when I made the statement of joining another game, I guess he's really concerned that I would not make it out of those stages.

"Are they that difficult?"

"Not exactly, but I don't think risking it is the best idea, we'll train for it first, then we'll get the hp bar for the tournament, and get you back into life. For now though, just let me earn the points."

I'm not a big fan of being dependent on someone else, probably the fault of my pride after breaking the record for 1-1.

"Well, I wanna explore the game lobby building, see what it's like, is that okay?"

"You didn't take a stroll already when you first woke up from there?"

"No."

"It's really dull, I can assure you everything you saw just walking out that building is everything that building is."

"I'll be using that place very frequently soon anyways, might as well get a few looks."

"Alright."

I'm sure he's not gullible, a gullible man can never be 7th in the entire afterlife.

He simply trusts me a bit too much, just as I remember him to be.