After a time that was difficult to determine, Jake gradually regained consciousness. He was unable to tell how long he had been unconscious and the pitch blackness around him was not helping. He couldn't feel his body and couldn't breathe. Being deprived of all his senses made him doubt his own existence and it was an extremely disturbing feeling.
After a while his last memories came back to him and he couldn't help but whisper with a real surprise:
"Did I survive? Or did I die during the Ordeal?"
Of course, only silence answered him. There was no air where he was. Without air to vibrate, there could be no sound. He was reassured, however, when he heard Xi's mental voice.
[You were repatriated at the last minute. It was a close call, but you survived.] The soft female voice told him what had happened.
"That means..."
[Congratulations. You've indeed passed your first Ordeal.] Xi confirmed with a tone that seemed... relieved? Excited? Or perhaps a combination of both.
"Where are my rewards then? " Jake asked with some impatience. He couldn't wait to see what he'd been working so hard for those two months.
As he recalled his efforts over the past few months, the faces of everyone he had met during this Ordeal came to his mind. The austere face of Priscus. The nonchalance of Khazus or the simplicity of Gerulf. He remembered Lucia, whom he had only known for a few days, but had changed greatly under his tutelage.
He sighed.
"I hope they made it out..."
[…]
"Xi, you told me that no one really knew if these Ordeals were real worlds or virtual realities. " Jake suddenly remembered. " The Digestor's presence gave us the answer, didn't it? "
[...I, I guess.]
"Isn't it strange that no one noticed earlier? Unless your memories have been tampered with once again..."
[It's possible...] Xi recognized, plagued by doubt. [But I'm certain there were never Digestors in previous Ordeals. Not even to train the new Players. The Digestors are an invisible variable to the Oracle System that distorts every prediction.]
[The Oracle would never intentionally allow these creatures to proliferate in any of its Seed Worlds. When you discovered these Digestors, the Oracle System immediately reacted as expected by activating the assimilation of this world into the Mirror Universe.]
" Is this how it went for Earth? " Jake wondered as he heard the AI's explanation.
[More or less, but there were few Digestors on Earth. I think that other exoplanets in your Universe took the brunt of the Digestors invasion. Earth comparatively was barely affected.]
Very little affected? Virtually every major city was wiped out! Many nukes had been fired and these areas had become uninhabitable and quarantined. At least that was the official version, but it didn't take a genius to understand that this had been a disaster for their planet.
As Jake wondered how much longer he would have to wait for his results, a notification from the Oracle System woke him up from his torpor.
[Participant: Jake Wilderth, Earthling.]
[First Ordeal concluded]
[Type: Historical: Peplum/ Fantastic]
[Aether density: 0.8 or 8 pts]
[Number of participants: 8,658,435]
[Main Mission: Survive two months.]
[Penalty for failure: None.]
[Evaluating the Ordeal in Progress...]
[…]
[Evaluation complete. The result is as follows:]
[-Main Mission; Rating: Perfect= +100]
[-Side Mission 1: Show your value; Rating: Excellent +5]
[-Side Mission 2: Follow the Ludus' Training (60/60); Rating: Perfect: +20]
[-Side Mission 3: Save and Protect (Lucia, Gerulf, Priscus and Khazus survived, Lucia saved directly); rating: Excellent= +20]
[Side Mission 4: Raise Princess Lucia into a true warrior; rating: Excellent= +20]
[Exploration; Rating: Low]
[Proactivity; Rating: Average= +5]
[Fighting; rating: Active= +10]
[ Other exploits:]
[Exploit n°1: One of the two survivors of the Coliseum; rating: +10]
[Exploit n°2: Defeating the General in the Arena; Rating: +15]
[Special Exploit n°3: Discovering the Digestors and a Deserter; Rating: +100]
[Total rating: +305]
[This score is among the top 0.01% of this Ordeal.]
[Distribution of rewards in consequence:]
[Reward n°1: Oracle Rank +3= Private ] Private 1st class] Corporal] Sergeant.]
"Wow, skipping three ranks at once?! " Jake exclaimed with surprise.
If he had really been promoted one rank for every 100 points he had scored, he understood better why the Ordeals were so important. When he looked at the experience needed to move up to Rank 6, a deep sense of despair descended upon him.
[Oracle Rank 5, Sergeant= 0/ 100,000,000]