Eternum.
Artorias came back to Seattle expecting a normal final year of high school. Classes, old friends, new routines, and maybe a quiet attempt at rebuilding his life after years away.
Then he wins a full-immersion suit for Eternum, the most advanced virtual reality game ever created.
At first, Eternum seems like a dream: a fantasy world that feels completely real, with magic, monsters, ancient cities, living history, and one impossible objective. Find the 100 Chaos Gems, and the player who gathers them all will claim the greatest prize in the world.
But Artorias does not enter Eternum alone.
Beside him is Luna, a quiet and strange girl with red eyes, black gloves, and secrets of her own. Together, under the names Uranus and Nyx, they begin exploring a world that reacts to them like it is alive. The people of Eternum do not act like simple NPCs. The magic does not work like a game system. And the more they learn, the harder it becomes to believe Eternum is just a simulation.
As their guild, Olympos, begins to grow, Artorias and Luna must balance two lives: high school in the real world, and a dangerous new existence in Eternum.
What starts as a game slowly becomes something much bigger.
And much more real.
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This story is classified as a fanfiction because it was heavily inspired by the visual novel Eternum by Caribdis, especially for some of the characters and the general idea of a highly advanced virtual reality world. Most of the plot, lore, magic, future arcs, and worldbuilding changes are original additions or major reinterpretations, but the inspiration is still important enough that I do not consider this a fully original work.
The magic system was also inspired by The Shepherd Wizard, so credit goes there as well for part of the inspiration behind how magic works in this story.
Also, for readers who dislike AI-assisted writing, I want to be clear from the start: a large part of this story was written with the help of AI. I use AI because I have a hard time writing entirely by myself. I often lose motivation quickly, and I am rarely satisfied with the result when I try to write everything alone.
That said, the AI is not the one deciding the story on its own. For every chapter, I write detailed prompts explaining what should happen, how the scenes should go, what the characters should say or feel, and what ideas need to be included. I do this to keep the story from going off track or hallucinating details.
So if you dislike the prose style, that may be partly because of the AI. But if you dislike the plot, characters, pacing, or chapter content, that is on me. I planned those parts myself. :)
Another very important note: I don't have a definite posting schedule, so it might be quite random with some breaks in between, but I should be able to post about 3 or 4 chapters per week. And if you have any tips or ideas, I'm always open to them.
Please also keep in mind that I originally didn't plan to post this story, and was only writing it for myself. I only decided to try posting it to get more ideas, and also some opinions.