Kai was once again met with darkness.
He didn't have to wait long, as the game system lit up the darkness.
"A thousand questions in ten minutes..." Kai mumbled to himself.
He was unsure if he would be able to answer a thousand questions so quickly.
"It's practically not possible," he said to himself.
"But..." His eyes flashed, a smirk appeared on his face.
"I once did a quiz that asked me to answer 250 questions in ten minutes." He laughed, his face brightened with confidence.
Kai managed to accomplish that quiz in just 7 minutes.
However, that quiz wasn't what gave him his confidence.
"Parallel Madness!" he exclaimed.
The unique ability that allows him to process things both slow and fast.
"This ability can also work as a kind of future sight. If I am able to see the questions before they fully appear..."
"That would buy me at least a second at most. Still, that would allow me to answer all the questions in time!" He counted in his head and realized if a question were to take at most 2 seconds to be stated by the game system, then he would have at least an extra second to think it over and answer!
"Not to mention... there are no rules stating I cannot wing it! I can just state a random answer that matches the question!" he said, but then began to worry.
"It also depends on the questions. Hopefully, they aren't more than five words long."
Kai finished thinking it over and closed his eyes. He took a deep breath, and when he opened his eyes, they were extremely focused.
He then clicked start.
<2..
"Four!" Kai answered before the question could immediately come out.
What an easy question. He thought, feeling a great deal of nervousness vanish.
For the next minute, all that was asked were easy math questions.
Kai's mouth twitched, but he really didn't mind when he realized he was already down a hundred questions in just one minute.
I am off to a good start, but at this rate I won't be able to answer them all! He noticed, and for the first time, he pushed Parallel Madness to the limit!
His mind began to spin. He felt like his left eye was a moving race car at its top speed, while his right eye felt like a moving turtle on land overlapping with one another in an unending cycle.
The difference caused a splitting headache as his mind began processing things rapidly and slowly, his body, especially his fingers, flinching quickly and rather sluggishly.
"Isaac Newton!" Before the question could even come out, he answered.
The veins on his head bulged as if they were about to explode, but he did not care.
"Abraham Lincoln!"
"Adam and Eve!"
"Hydrogen!"
"Mount Everest!"
"1987!"
Seeing he succeeded, Kai collapsed right after.
Leaderboard:
ZenZero | 300 seconds left
Lil' Geek | 197 seconds left
NueroHexagon | 120 seconds left
QuantumHunter | 79 seconds left
ArcaneWitch | 20 seconds left
GalaxyBrain | 13 seconds left
MythCatcher | 7 seconds left
VibeChecker | 1 second left
He didn't hear or get to see what the game system was showing. At this moment, all he wanted was a nap after forcing Parallel Madness so much.
<...>
Just as he entered the dream world, the game system paused, and the darkness swept into silence.
The silence was so loud it felt like someone or something was actually there maintaining it.
Then a voice other than Kai's was heard.
.
When Kai woke back up, he had no idea how much time had passed.
He checked the game system and was surprised to see two hours had gone by.
"I'm never doing that again," he noted to himself.
He got back up but fell back down right after.
This dizziness is crazy, he thought.
He felt like he was seeing a hundred stars just spinning in his head.
Even when he wasn't using Parallel Madness, those stars were blinking in his head both fast and slow.
It was very frustrating.
A short while later, he got used to those imaginary stars and was able to stand up.
Thank God I didn't vomit. He thought to himself in a joking manner.
When he looked around, his face lit up with excitement.
In this dark place, he saw two cards floating in the air.
One of them spun around to reveal itself.
On this card were two diamond-shaped symbols on the top left and bottom right corners.
In the middle of this card was a depiction of a man in a long white coat.
Kai touched the card, and it lit up before disappearing.
All of a sudden, its contents appeared in his head.
Two of Diamonds: Scientist!
The first thing that flashed into his mind was the name of the card.
Then a voice shouted.
Change is a necessary procedure for evolution!
This voice echoed in his head with madness.
Kai even felt the voice contained a craving for something new and revolutionary!
Then the card's ability appeared, and he was greatly disappointed.
"So I become smarter, gain a photographic memory, and can process things twice as fast or twice as slow..." he muttered.
"I already have these!" he shouted.
At that moment, he felt that Officer#9373 conned him.
He processed the information over again and realized he missed something.
"I gain all scientific knowledge from across the universe. That's... insane!" His disappointment became excitement once more as he scanned his head for all that knowledge.
His headache started again as a flood of information hit him like a sudden splash of rain from the sky.
After the headache stopped, he continued.
He took some time to go through what he could and realized these abilities weren't so bad, as he had already memorized about 1/10th of that knowledge.
He also realized something about this card.
"So twos of suits are passive abilities that stay on no matter what," he said and closed his mind to address the elephant in the room.
"Now that I have understood that..." he muttered before turning to look at the other card.
"Why did I get two cards?" he questioned as he looked at the other card that was blank.
He walked over to it and examined it for a while before touching it.
The blank card, at his touch, was no longer blank.
The card depicted a diamond that took up almost the entire card.
And in this diamond was Kai, wearing a crown and sitting on a throne!
"Hell no." Kai shook his head at the offer.
"I didn't expect I would actually become a King..." he mumbled with disbelief as the contents of the card flashed in his head.
"It must be because I beat the world record with such a high amount of seconds left," he thought and felt like it made sense.
"Still, why the hell would I want to live like an actual King? Wouldn't that just ruin the fun of the games!"
"The idea of having actual knights to be my protectors sounds very boring."
"I don't need something like that to ruin my only source of entertainment," he exclaimed as he prepared to leave the room.
As if at his command, the darkness vanished, and he reappeared back at the fountain.
.
In the real world, far away from Earth, was a purple-blue planet, and above this planet was a throne just there hovering in space.
On this throne was a girl who looked like she barely reached 15 years old, as she was very short even for a 15-year-old.
She had long purple hair that surpassed her small height and an adorable face with big, round purple eyes with pupils that had rings rotating inside them.
Her skin was pale brown, but around her skin were patches of green that covered her hands, feet, and her neck down to her shoulders.
Her face also had patches of green around her cheeks that increased her adorableness.
On her head was an overgrown witch hat that was way above her head size. Her clothes were rather simple, and around them was a long jacket that reached down to her feet.
She was currently looking at the purple-blue planet with a lazy expression when space twisted around her.
A man appeared from out of the twisted area of space and knelt before her.
"Princess, I have urgent news! A King has finally appeared!" This man, dressed similarly to her, shouted, unable to contain his excitement.
"A King?" The princess raised an eyebrow, a bit of annoyance in her gaze.
"Does that mean I will have to marry myself off now without my consent after all these years?" she asked.
The man laughed awkwardly. "Well, yes you would, but this King has chosen not to reveal themself."
The man's reply got her curious. "He chose not to reveal himself? Now that got me fired up!" she exclaimed as she got up off her throne.
She waved her hand, and the stars around her appeared to reveal images of new players.
The man, seeing her get so serious, was surprised. "If you find him, what will you do?"
"I will go meet this King," she replied.
"But wouldn't you have to marry him?"
"Yes, but who would want to marry my child form when I have seven other beautiful tall, big breasted sisters?" she asked before stating, "A King can only choose four to be his wives and concubines, after all."
"Your Highness is truly wise," the man already used to her frankness praised, but said with a worried tone, "but what if they don't mind your child form?"
"Then I would smite him down for being a weird freak," she said with a flat expression.
"Speaking of my sisters, do they know?" she suddenly asked.
"No, but they will eventually."
"Uh, what a headache. Some of them can't keep information to themselves. I guess I will have to make a trip to warn them." She slapped her head as she waved the stars away.
"Aether, it's best if we split up," she commanded before space around her twisted, and she vanished.
The man, seeing this, also did the same while muttering to himself.
"A King after so many cycles have passed in the games..."