Chương 3: Questions

Waking up on a bed as hard as steel, Li Zhong felt horrible. 'Another unfamiliar ceiling!' Li Zhong tried to humor himself. 'What happened yesterday..? Oh right, Enforcer Ge and his punishment. I guess I was knocked unconscious by that. System notification? Did I press accept after I was done raging? Most of everything is a blur..' Li Zhong had deep thoughts about yesterday.

[Host has awakened. The integration with your hatred has been finished. I hope you remember that this was your decision after you had "raged" at Enforcer Ge. You might not remember yesterday that well as a side-effect of merging with your hatred.]

'So that explains it.. damn.' Now Li Zhong finally knew why everything was a blur! It was like when you stayed up late at night playing on the computer, you obviously wouldn't remember everything in that long gaming session. Little did Li Zhong know, his little fusion caused quite a commotion in this world. It wasn't exactly a daily occurrence for someone to successfully fuse with his emotions. Fusing with emotions granted you a good power boost, and would make you stronger than others at your level as you continued getting stronger. The only issue is that when something that triggered the emotion in the first place appeared, it would cause you to lose control of your body.

"Get your uniform and equipment ready, ladies!" A deep voice that belonged to a ripped body in an enforcer's uniform appeared out of nowhere. Looking around, Li Zhong found he was in a type of room that looked like an army's barracks. Bunks were all around, humanoids of various unknown species were scrambling to get everything nice and tidy, and Li Zhong was the only one idling around. Li Zhong decided he'd also scramble around and get a uniform. 'What's this under my blanket?' Li Zhong questioned only to find a uniform that seemed to just barely fit him. Quickly putting it on, Li Zhong proceeded to scramble and make his bed like everyone else.

"Line up, ladies! We've got a long day ahead of us!" The ripped enforcer said. Li Zhong could agree with the second part. He would need to gain strength, and fast. Who knows how they treat people in this mine? Yesterday's abuse was an example of that. If he had to bear hundreds of whips per day... No. He'd have to become strong to escape this place..

Going back to his original mining spot, Li Zhong started to mine again. Either Li Zhong didn't mine hard enough, or these ores had regenerated overnight.. Trying not to dwell on that topic for much longer, Li Zhong just decided it was the magic of this world doing that. 'I wonder how long I'll have to stay here, mining, breaking my back day after day.' Li Zhong thought in sorrow. Although he had great ambitions, he didn't want to stay here forever and slowly bide his time. He also wanted to go back to Earth, Li Zhong wondered if it had changed since he disappeared. Was his mom and dad worried? What about his younger sister? Shaking these thoughts out of him, Li Zhong started to mine.

After mining and strengthening himself a few times, Li Zhong was approached by a group of miners. "Hey newbie, you need an introduction to this place?" The miner, which looked like the leader of the group, approached him with a slight mock in his tone, but he was also a little respectful. "I'd appreciate it." Li Zhong continued, "So far, nobody has been kind to me in these mines." The leader seemed to understand and gave Li Zhong a guidelines..

"First of all, never anger an enforcer." The leader seemed to feel a little pity for Li Zhong, as he had already broken that first rule. "Second, your daily quota is 15 blood ores." Blood ores were actually quite hard to get out of the walls, as they lodged themselves into the stone. "Third, don't mess with the big guys. They are all usually the boss of big gangs in the mine." Li Zhong wondered what the gangs would even do? Steal your blood ores? Why do the enforcers allow this? Li Zhong had a lot of questions, even more would probably go unanswered. Suddenly, the group slowly walked away.

"Thanks. I really appreciate the help." Li Zhong hurriedly said to them before they got out of ear-shot. 'That was really weird, they gave me advice and were friendly then they just left..' Questioning the situation, Li Zhong was very suspicious. Is this new for all newbies in the mine? Wait.. how does the mine even get newbies..?

Remembering something, Li Zhong thought, 'System, show me my status.' And then a screen appeared before Li Zhong.

Name: Li Zhong

Age: 20

Strength: 1.2

Agility: 1.3

Intelligence: 2

Wisdom: 0.5

Techniques: Ore Strengthening

Li Zhong was very confused at his stats. 'Wait a minute system, you have to explain to me why my strength is only barely higher than one! My wisdom is only half of that? At least I have high intelligence..'

[Your strength is the average strength of a person who goes to the gym weekly. Your agility is above average, but nothing special. Your wisdom is low due to you only being 20, if you had more time to experience life situations instead of being an introvert... This data was compiled with billions of tests, so don't you dare say they are faulty.]

Li Zhong was defeated. The system had left him no room for him to respond. It even sounded like the system was.. angry? Maybe as the system grew along with him, it would develop a personality. But it did seem like the Ore Strengthening technique was working, as low of an increase as it seemed.

For now, all Li Zhong could focus on was getting stronger.