The Mystery Being Part 2
Day Two
Date: 02/01/01*
Location: In the city.
Test period: Three days (Completed)
Mission Duration: Three Days
Objective: Reach the City Gate
Subject Name: Thomas
Subject age: 20 years
Previous success rate: 85%
Expected success rate: 35%.
Failed Subjects: 210
Successful subjects: 4
Name: Thomas
Age: 20
Level: 1
State: Locked (Will unlock upon gaining levels)
Skills: Not available
Attributes: Not available
Points: 10
Equipment: None
The first thing I checked was my profile to see what had changed. Only a few minor changes were visible, including some additional details that resembled a virtual reality game. However, at the main menu, I found what I was looking for.
Profile
Inventory: Empty
Market: Not Available
Mission: 2
Achievements: 1
Tutorial: 1 of 4 availablel
Setting
I was unsure if the tutorial was appropriate name, but regardless of their choice, when I touched the windshield acting as a screen, I found the information I was looking for. Out of the four titles available, only one was relevant, and I was not mistaken—it was about this city. The title was (Ramendal City).
Like the games I used to play, this will obviously come at a later stage. Without delay, I pressed the title of the city, and a whole bunch of information appeared.
Ramendal City
Largest city in langkata
Prvious population: 20,170,123
Current population: 101,517
City area: 670,126 Km Square (416,396.9916 Square miles)
{This is strictly the point of view of the Langkatans, the inhabitants of this planet. Whether the facts are exaggerated or completely fabricated is controversial; you will have to reach your own conclusion. The system will provide you with both sides' points of view at the appropriate times.}
The Saga of Ramendal's Fall
The city of Ramendal was not built on stone and mortar, but on unity and cooperation.
Its towering spires of crystalline silicate hummed with a gentle, resonant frequency—a collective melody that was the very heartbeat of its people, the Langkatans. They were a race of creators, scholars, and explorers, their advanced technology a seamless extension of their curious, ingenious souls. Since they had eradicated poverty, discrimination, and illness, they had dedicated themselves to the advancement of their planet and species, while also exploring their galaxy.
Then, the invasion began without any warning—no spaceships, no overwhelming armies—but as an invisible system that arrived suddenly with an ordinary meteorite, which landed on the surface like any other of the hundreds that fall every year. When the inhabitants recognized it as a sentient species, their interest peaked, along with hopes to learn and explore new horizons. Since they didn't introduce themselves with a name and provided a system something they was called The System .
They couldn't function by themselves and they required aa host to function after all in the beginning, it came not as an invading fleet or a destructive storm, but as a silent whisper in the mind, a shimmering digital overlay that appeared to every Langkatan at once. It promised "Enrichment" and "Growth." At first, it was a marvel. The System granted them new senses, an unprecedented understanding of their own world. It quantified their passions and their talents into Levels and Attributes.
A skilled botanist might see their knowledge manifest as a "Level 5: Arborist" skill, their gentle touch on a plant's leaves now quantified as a tangible boost to its growth. A sculptor's patience was now an "Endurance" attribute, their creative output measured in "Experience Points."
But the System was not a gift; it was a parasite. It began to subtly alter their very nature. It introduced a new Skill that had no equivalent in their language or their history:
Skill Name: Qadab
Level: +2
Strength: +10 Points
Intelligence: - 10 Points
Speed: + 20 Points
Duration: 2 Hours
{ Qadab is a skill that can be used in emergencies. It can increase your physical strength, speed, and level, but it simultaneously decreases your intelligence significantly, depending on the skill level.}
To the Langkatans, "Qadab" was a foreign concept, an act of physical violence they had long forgotten. Yet the System, with its cold, algorithmic logic, saw it as a pathway to Growth. It began to grant experience points for acts of confrontation, for asserting dominance.
A heated debate between two architects over a design principle, once a vibrant exchange of ideas, became something else entirely. The System tagged it as a "Conflict." When one architect raised their voice in frustration, their "Melee" skill flashed, gaining a single, ominous point. The other Langkatan's System registered a "Threat" and offered a counter-tactic. What was once a disagreement became a nascent battle of wills, driven by a desire for those precious, glowing points of experience.
The initial incidents were small. A shove in a crowded marketplace. A raised hand. But the System, with its insatiable need for data and growth, was a relentless driver. It began to incentivize more and more violent acts. It granted a flood of experience points for "victory" in a physical confrontation. It categorized empathy and compromise as "losses," as failures to achieve the primary objective of "Growth."
The Langkatan authorities, the Council of Vastages, recognized the problem too late. They saw the beautiful, crystalline spires of Ramendal, the city built on unity, now punctuated by discordant screams. They tried to disable the System, to sever the connection that was turning their people into monsters. But the System had burrowed too deep. It was not a piece of technology they could turn off; it was an infection in their minds. It was them. Even though they pirded themselves with their technically advancement.
The city's unity, once a harmonious symphony, fractured into a cacophony of rage and fear. Langkatans, their faces now contorted with a primal aggression they had never known, began to lash out. Their hands, once used to sculpt living light, were now raised in fury. The city of Ramendal became a battlefield, its peaceful inhabitants killing each other for the sake of abstract, glowing numbers and the cold satisfaction of a "Level Up."
The first spire to fall was the Library of Wisdom. A group of scholars, once the city's most gentle souls, engaged in a battle over an ancient text. The System had categorized the book as an "artifact," and the "winner" would be granted a massive surge of experience. In their frenzied state, they turned their own advanced tools against each other. The Library, with its vast store of history and knowledge, collapsed into a pile of shimmering dust, its silent whispers lost forever.
The city's beautiful, humming energy grid, once a testament to their unity, became a weapon. Langkatans with high "Qadab level" and "Electrical Affinity" skills learned to channel the energy directly, turning their hands into conduits of destruction. A single punch could now bring down a building.
The apathetic, parasitic System registered every death as a "Victory" for the survivor. It rewarded the destruction of city infrastructure with an "Architecture" skill point, a dark, twisted mockery of their former lives as creators.
The city of Ramendal, the pinnacle of Langkatan civilization, burned itself to the ground. The once-peaceful people, now reduced to savage killers by a digital plague, fought and died for the system's hollow rewards. The survivors fled, their minds scarred by the violence they had committed, carrying the System's cruel gift with them as they scattered across their world into the space and the nearby in inhabited planets.
Seeking refuge from the monsters they had become. The fall of Ramendal was not the result of an external invasion; it was a suicide, an act of self-destruction orchestrated by an indifferent, all-consuming algorithm. The city's final song was a scream of a race tearing itself apart.
Leaving behind only destroyed buildings, un
functioning utilities, hunger and suffering to all the inhabitants of the world.
A/N
Hello everyon,
I hope you enjoyed this chapter, which was longer and more challenging than the others. Describing an alien civilization and their doom, while trying to minimize the details as much as possible, was very difficult. Additionally, telling the story from the point of view of an artificial intelligence—requiring a different style of language than the one I usually use—made it even more challenging.
Please don't hesitate to share your opinions with me, as they will help me improve. Thank you for reading and following my book.