Rewind: A Grimdark LitRPG Series (Pyresouls Apocalypse, Book 1) by James Callum (reading tree .txt) 📕

finally, the first to reach – and defeat – the final boss is awarded the prize. There is no second place. Do you agree to these terms as I have described them?”

Jacob rubbed his smooth stubble-less chin. Gonna take a while to get used to that. “Is there any NDA I need to sign?” He had never thought to ask before.

If he could contact the outside world….

“No, there is no connection to any outside sources from within your gameplay experience. All the information you gain will have to be gathered by yourself or learned from other players within the game. There will be no outside communication. As such, if you forfeit early you may feel free to post about your experiences to your heart’s content.”

Right. Now, he remembered. Decade-old memories he never thought he would have any use for were beginning to come back to him.

His past self hadn’t asked the question but he clearly remembered the forums were lit up with experiences of various players that bowed out early. He learned a lot about the game – probably more than playing it himself – by reading the various accounts of mechanics and how certain magic worked.

Things like stat scaling, soft caps, and Soul farming were entirely foreign to him while he was playing. Things were different now. This wasn’t about playing a game. If he could pull this off, humanity itself would be saved. His family would live to see the next year.

The fate of billions rested on his narrow nineteen-year-old shoulders. And it terrified him. I don’t know how you did it day in and day out Alec. Maybe I should’ve asked you how you could shoulder so much responsibility all the time.

“I agree,” he said to the waiting avatar.

“Then sign here, please.” She unfurled the mile-long scroll and held it out. He was also agreeing to not sue Altis for the trauma he would endure in the game, and that it was entirely his choice to subject himself to the toturous experience that was Pyresouls Online.

A quill appeared in Jacob’s hand and he signed his name on the empty line. With a snap, the scroll rolled up and the avatar disappeared, replaced by a character creation menu.

Four mirrors materialized out of the darkness at each cardinal direction. Despite the dark all around, he could easily see his reflections surrounding him as if they were lit by an otherworldly source of light.

A ridiculous-looking loincloth covered his modesty. He couldn’t believe the lean teenager he was looking at. The man he became was covered with scars and old wounds, with hardened cords of muscle thickening his frame. This kid wouldn’t be able to survive a week Post-Collapse.

He paused and chuckled at that because he did survive. For years. And if he did things right, those memories would be nothing more than nightmares he had to live with for the rest of his life.

Small price to pay for saving humanity, he thought with a grimace. Not that anybody would know it was me.

That was the rub. The ultimate goal was one that, should he succeed, nobody would ever know the horrors that consumed the world. He would return to an Earth that was utterly normal and mundane. It would be foreign to him.

Then again, if he succeeded, he would win the competition. Having a few billion dollars would surely help to ease the transition. Honor, glory, and fame for saving humanity were all well and good. But having a swimming pool of money like those classic Duck Tales cartoons was a decent consolation prize.

The first thing that he had to pick was one of the four races in Pyresouls Online. A small list appeared in the top right of whichever mirror he was looking in at the time.

Reaching out, he tapped the list to bring it to the forefront. After he quit the game, the biggest point of contention between the players was the lack of extensive races.

On one hand, there was a camp of players that believed you didn’t need a dozen different races to make a unique character. They believed that the game’s mechanics and grueling difficulty was the main draw. Everything else was merely flavor.

The other group thought it was criminal to have any game in 2035 with only 4 playable races. There were hybrids of course. People usually forgot about that – Jacob included. A lot of Pyresouls was like that. Hidden paths, illusory walls, and objectives that were only possible if you went off the beaten path.

From what Alec said, the game practically required you to constantly play “out of bounds” as if the map’s suggestions were an obstacle to overcome and not a typical marker on where to go next.

Human, Elf, Fairy, and Karhu were the four races. Each of them had a base set of stats and there was no way to customize them.

In Pyresouls Online there were 8 stats: Vitality (VIT), Agility (AGI), Endurance (END), Temper (TMP), Strength (STR), Dexterity (DEX), Intelligence (INT), and Faith (FTH).

Most people could glean at least a little information from the basic stats of VIT, AGI, STR, and DEX. But few people understood precisely what TMP did, even less understood the interplay between INT and FTH.

VIT was the easiest one that most people understood. It governed total Health, a large red HP bar in the top left quadrant of his vision. Simple.

AGI increased one’s speed and physical swiftness while END governed total Stamina and increased Bleed Resist. END was one of the most important stats that few people understood early enough for them to take advantage of.

Pyresouls was largely a game about resource management and Stamina was used to do just about everything. Sprinting, rolling, dodging, jumping, swinging or firing a weapon, everything took Stamina.

Increasing Stamina meant you could go longer between needing to rest, where you were at your weakest and most likely to be killed.

TMP, on the other hand, was unlike anything in any other game. The in-game description – cryptic as always – only