Chapter 1: Infinite Fortress: Prometheus

“Ting!” A crisp sound from the depth of his soul echoed in his mind, awakening him from that endless darkness

After he slowly and fully opened his eyes, what greeted him was a place that shouts Sci-fi. With about 30 meters of a huge and wide empty space, Xiao Ran was surrounded by white walls made with unrecognizable materials, holographic projections and monitors that were mounted on the walls, showing images of a wide starry sky that seemed out of place here.

Xiao Ran’s eyes showed a confused and blank look.

And he was sure that anyone who woke up and found out they’re not on their own bed would also think like this: “This…where is this? How can I be here?”

Xiao Ran didn’t need to wait until his head became clear, for he heard a voice on his ears that could even reach the depths of his soul.

“Ting~ welcome to the infinite fortress Prometheus.”

“Your serial number is 678.”

“Your assigned area is the real world one, where you will execute your assigned tasks with real world mechs.”

“You have 30 minutes before your mission world starts, you need to perform your very first mission, which falls under the beginner tasks, in which no senior rank pilots will be involved.”

“You have 30 minutes to familiarize yourself with this fortress.”

“Your current attributes are as follow: hit 2 (2) affects your shooting ability and accuracy.

skill 1 (1) affects your fighting skills and strength.

Reflect 6 (6) affects your reaction speed and sensitivity.

Spirit 8 (8) Affects your skill consumption and perception.

Physical 3 (3) affect your physical fitness and endurance.

(The figures in the brackets represent the normal values and the values outside the brackets represent the current body values)

Skills: None.

Comprehensive evaluation: No rating.

After being dazed for a few moments, he opened both eyes wide, and his mouth into a big “O” shape, add in the fact that he was barefooted and wearing a blue colored Doraemon pajamas, his current looks are quite hard to describe.

A few minutes later, Xiao Ran remembered the 30 minutes deadline. He slapped himself, the crisp sound and the burning pain on his face made him realized that all of this was not a dream, but an undeniable fact.

“What the hell? Is this God’s domain?” Xiao Ran looked upwards and shouted loudly while feeling dumbfounded.

The cold and emotionless voice echoed on Xiao Ran’s ear: “This is the real area section of the Prometheus fortress, it’s located at the center of the universe and acts as a junction point for other worlds aside from your original world, this was made by the real Lord God of the universe, and I am the master system that manages everything here”

Xiao Ran didn’t think that the voice will reply to his question, but considering the voice’s answer, everything that happened today is by no means a dream, but the cruel reality. Even those who never felt fear would feel some from this. To pull you out from another dimension and bring to this place, only a God or a super advanced alien civilization could do that, anyway no matter who it is he has no means to resist nor offend them.

Stretch your heart, according to their very heartbeat, there are indeed some unknown panic and fear.
By feeling his pulse, you could see some panic and fear for the unknown, but there was also some trace of excitement that could be detected from it, “How did I come here” Xiao Ran asked

“There’s a program circulating in every galaxy of the universe, it is the key to Prometheus Fortress, once a person downloaded and opened it on their terminals they will be summoned to this place.”

“Program? Terminal?” Xiao Ran’s face suddenly became a bit strange, he remembered that due to the habit of playing games before he sleep, last night he downloaded a game without any description to his mobile phone, the game only shows the pictures of robot wars, gundams, zakus, and Sebastian’s Gaus mech.

As Xiao Ran was an avid fan of these things since childhood, he immediately downloaded the game as soon as he saw it. More importantly, he remembered that the game’s size was a conspicuous 0. Checking it by opening the game made him see a non-stop rotation which forced Xiao Ran asleep, after waking up, he was already on this place.

Xiao Ran smiled to himself, there’s no one to blame for him being on this place other than he and his own cheap hand, due to not having anything to do at night, playing games became his habit before sleeping.

He was feeling a bit uncomfortable, especially because of a certain empty feeling in his heart, but seeing that he only has 15 minutes left, Xiao Ran forced his mind to clear up and asked: “Are there other people on this fortress? Why am I the only one here right now?”

“The Prometheus Fortress convenes everyone who downloaded the keys from every part of the galaxy in every universe, when you finish the beginner task, you’ll be able to go to the other areas of the realm and talk to the other participants.”

His delicate eyebrows frowned, this time he noted some important words – everywhere in the universe, that is to say there are other people on Prometheus or you could say a LOT of people, but they didn’t came from the same galaxy nor planet as him. Xiao Ran didn’t know how aliens look like, or if they could even be called as a “person”. but he assumed that there wouldn’t be a large difference from the “humans” of Earth right?

“However, in the place of jianghu, there are strong and weak people”, Xiao Ran suddenly remembered this phrase from a game and the truth lies on it, seeing his own attributes in front of him, he asked “How good are my attributes in this place? I mean as a new guy?”

“You belong to the real area of science and technology, your planet’s technology and body development are far behind compared to other planets that can receive the key program, so having low quality and unskilled attributes is pretty normal for you.”

Xiao Ran felt drenched in cold sweat, the cold and emotionless voice answers his questions as if they’re irrelevant, but it definitely explained the details of his current situation.

“What are the other people’s basic attributes? Are there no other people from Earth?” Xiao Ran asked again: “You mentioned a mech task before, is the pilot attribute related to this? What about this Real Area, are there other areas beside this one?”

“In the Prometheus fortress the average attributes of a Real Area newcomer are between 15-20, but you can’t rule out the emergence of high profile newbies, and most people will have one or two skills open to them.” The mechanical voice seemed to be void of emotions, but at this time it seemed to be puzzled: “Logically speaking, people like you should be unable to get the key and be summoned to this place, the probability of someone on the same situation being here on Prometheus Fortress is close to zero”

Out of six billion people, it had to be him, Xiao Ran almost collapsed when faced with these words.

“The pilot is who controls the mecha, and your attributes reflect your personal skills, with higher attributes you can pilot a stronger mech, and even when you’re not piloting one they can also make you stronger. You can get combat points from completing tasks and use them to your attributes, you can also exercise on your own to improve your attributes, at the same time you could also use the combat points to buy items or skills, and for the maintenance of your equipments as well.”

Pilots, mechs, combat points, attributes, equipments, these words were firmly engraved on Xiao Ran’s mind, for they are related to his life and death. Especially the pilot and mecha, these two words made Xiao Ran feel a lot of excitement due to it being similar with animes and games. Being able to pilot a mecha is definitely a man’s romance, and for this reason he could face the danger that would come to him head on.

“The Prometheus fortress is divided into the Real Area, Super Area and Fantasy Area. Each area has a limited contact time with the mission worlds and the tasks they need to perform are different, same with the rewards that you will receive for each mission.”

With their ongoing conversation, Xiao Ran realized something about this world. The entirety of Prometheus seems to be a place dominated by Mechas, and they’re needed to finish the assigned tasks on each mission world, and the more powerful you become the more stuff you could gain.

Xiao Ran somehow still felt a bit lucky and he said to himself: “The Real Area, Super Area and Fantasy Area should correspond to the robots of each mission world, the real mech series, the super mech series, and the fantasy mech series, and although I don’t know anything about the super mech systems, I’m still fortunate that I’m in the most secure and stable area, so I won’t just die from mechs of the Super Area without even knowing what I’m facing.”

“Can I still return to my original world?” Xiao Ran asked his most pressing issue.

“Your current authority doesn’t allow you this knowledge. Your current authority is: Private Soldier”

Xiao Ran frowned: “And the method to rank up?”

“By completing the tasks that were given by the Lord God, and obtaining the needed war points to enhance your authority rank.”

Although he didn’t get the desired answer, the mechanical voice didn’t deny the possibility of him going back to Earth. It seemed as if the people back home appeared on Xiao Ran’s heart, giving him hope. He took a deep breath and asked indifferently: “I want to know the mission information.”

“The task you’re going to perform is a group beginner mission. The task is not selectable. The info about this task will be displayed in front of you”

The holographic display in front of Xiao Ran suddenly changed. After looking at the data displayed, his heart suddenly jumped and his breathing became faster. With a trembling voice he asked: “You just said that I’m probably the only man from Earth, is there anyone who will know the situation of the mission world beforehand?”

“What you’ve just said is impossible. Whenever a task is completed, you will return to this fortress. And without any special items, the Lord God will automatically clear all of the memory you’ve gained from that world aside from the most basic ones. Only when you return to that same world will the memories return.”

Xioa Ran’s eyes became bright: “What about the memories you’ve obtained outside the mission period?”

The mechanical voice replied: “Those memories will not be cleared during the task.”

“Hahaha….” Xiao Ran loudly laughed while clutching his stomach, he couldn’t stop laughing, to the point tears started to form in his eyes: “Although I don’t know on where exactly is this, or even if the others are from outside of the universe or super strong, but here I have all the advantage that I could possibly get.”

At this moment, the picture on his virtual display is of an anime from Earth that has action figures, movies and games of it. Although only a picture was being shown, and there’s no explanation about it at all, he recognized it at first sight, because it is the most famous mecha series from Earth, Gundam.

It displays the beginner mission world, and the picture shows Earth and the surrounding huge hourglass shaped satellite colonies on it.

Beginner world, Gundam Seed, will start in…..5…..4….3….2….1….Begin!

TL: Wao my lovely editor made it readable, what magic did you use here!?