Level 100

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/Step step step…/

/Fwoosh…/

After receiving the message that he had leveled up, Dale ran towards a secluded corner of the city and started to check his notifications.

[Player's online 3/100]

[Refreshing...]

[Player's online 2/100]

"..."

'I expected this much, today's morning we had less than 6 people playing.'

The first thing he noticed was the number of players. After nearly 4 weeks of Beta, almost all players had stopped playing.

People had their own lives, and they couldn't spend it all playing a game that has almost nothing to do with it.

Even if they were content creators and streamers, this game was just the Beta after all, and honestly speaking, no matter how patient someone was, there was little to no content to go through in this place.

The quests were all low Level, so even with the XP boost, it took an entire week to become Level 20, and even more to become Level 30, which was about the time most stopped playing.

And in the first 1 and a half weeks, literally, everything there was to the Beta had been done. Special missions, Dungeons, Raids, they did it all.

New content would only be seen later when the game launched.

The Beta was enough for most to understand what the game would be, there was no point investing extra time in it.

Dale and Jelly were the only active players now.

And this had been the case for a little while now, because, since last week, the number of active players was around 9, with the other 7 being people that were just exploring things to try and see if they could find something secret.

After all, it didn't take much for people to connect the dots between the games, and like Jelly, others soon found out more secrets... Though they weren't as passionate as him.

Those players approached them, but both Jelly and Dale did not share what they knew…

Dale had his selfish reasons for it, he would only trade info for more info, while Jelly was simply angry at them due to their shamelessness.

When he tried talking with them, they did not reply that eagerly, but ever since he successfully completed a ritual from the last game, they started approaching him?

They wanted to learn what he had done, and he wouldn't share at all because they were rude and egocentric.

Thankfully, they stopped eventually since it wasn't anything significant, to begin with… Or so they believed.

However, it was true that they eventually realized that the two games were indeed connected in some way, although it was difficult to say if this is also an easter egg dropped by the developers or some part of a bigger secret…

Upon asked, the Developers wholeheartedly denied all claims of any possible connections between the games, that everything was just part of a...

Easter Egg.

And at first, Dale believed their words... Partially.

This wouldn't last long, however...

"So! What do I gain for being the very first to reach Level 100?"

Dale went over the game notifications once again.

[You have Leveled Up!]

[Current Level 100]

[The first chain has been broken through by accumulation and hard work]

[Your Status is changing]

[Your Class is changing]

[Your Skills are changing]

[You did not achieve a Status Evolution nor did you achieve enlightenment]

[Status Ratio has changed from 1:1 to 1:5]

[A penalty has been enforced due to your lacking achievements and qualifications]

[Status Ratio has changed from 1:5 to 1:1]

[Your Class doesn't meet the requirements for LOCKED]

[Your Skills don't meet the requirements for LOCKED]

[Locked]

[Locked]

[Loc…]

…

[A new Quest has been generated, Over Limit!]

[You don't meet the requirements]

[Over Limit!, Quest has been removed]

When Dale finished reading the messages, he felt as if he had been blue balled.

All of that work for this?... Over half of the messages were locked due to some unforeseen variable!!

Though, it already explained quite a bit... That there was indeed something to expect from Level 100 and possibly even beyond it.

/Inhale.../

/Exhale.../

Breathing in and out Dale thought... Looks like the end game of Azimuth would be... Quite entertaining.

"Sigh..."

/Print!/

With a bit of anger and even some lingering disappointment, he sent a picture of this to Jelly so they could discuss in the next few days what all of this meant.

After all, at the end of the day, this was information exclusive to them!

Information was key, by knowing there were things that had to be accomplished before one could rise beyond Level 100, one could monopolize the sources of those achievements.

Or at least capitalize on them, VR was indeed a very profitable business...

Though Dale's reasons for this were far from the plain and simple wealth accumulation...

But to his surprise, it wasn't the end yet!

[DING!]

[You have acquired the Title: Failed Transcendent]

[You have acquired the Title: The most pitiful Transcendental]

[You were the first to achieve Level 100, would you like to record your name in the Hall of Fame?]

[DING!]

[You have received a message from: Elden Throne]

With a distorted expression, Dale grabbed his Status sheet with confusion.

"!! What? There was more?"

"And what does it mean with 'Elden Throne'? Did I gain a message from the freaking developers?"

Checking his Inbox, Dale soon saw the exclusive watermark from the developers...

It was indeed true.

"Cool… But also eerie, I uh... I won't get my account banned right?"

'It's pretty expensive to buy a new account, all of my allowances will be going to that new pod...'

Dale checked the Titles and they were just cosmetic Titles.

In fact, most Titles were like that.

In Azimuth, Titles didn't give their holder any sort of boost and their sole purpose was to look cool toward other players, although... Both he and Jelly confirmed that some Titles do affect how the NPCs view the player.

As such, there is a possibility Titles could perform specific roles and functions within the game other than being a bragging right for the community.

/Press press press.../

Dale skipped the system question since he didn't know what the Hall of Fame was yet.

And although he had a pretty big idea of what it was, he still jumped it to read the next message…

[Dear Player Kindred Flamingo, it has come to our attention that you accomplished something we deemed impossible.

We are baffled by this achievement, and reactions have been... Varied.

Do not fret though as your account won't be banned or suspended, instead, we are here to congratulate you on your efforts…

Bla bla bla…

Hence we would like to give you a reward… And a deal.

We from Elden Throne see our endgame content with extreme care and love, and it would be a shame to have it fall into our player base's hands earlier than intended.

It could even lead to confusion and widespread dissatisfaction from the player base by receiving a piece of content they aren't yet ready to experience.

We have seen how you shared this info with your friend, player Jelly Donuts without Sugar, and although we incentivize friendship and a warm playing environment, we have intercepted the message in your stead.

We are deeply, deeply sorry for having to resort to such a thing, and it will never happen again once the game starts for real on February 1st of next year.

However, we hope this action reflects the importance of this event and that, albeit we love to see our players come together to face greater challenges, some mysteries are better found and solved by oneself.

First, regarding your reward, we would like to present you with the chance to buy one of our Ultra Augmented Reality Pods at a 90% discount, these are currently still in their prototype phase, and we would be more than glad to properly discuss this deal with you at a later date.

A proper document regarding everything discussed here today will be sent to you today before 11:59 Pm, so stay tuned!

Second of all, you will be given access to our game, 10 minutes before everyone else! Just log into your account and the game will open for you 10 minutes before the planned time.

To represent this special authority, a unique redeemable token will be sent to your account. Upon so, your account will be linked with the token and a countdown will start, once it reaches 0, you'll be allowed to join in the servers.

So do pay attention to not redeeming it in another account as the token is linked to your biometric values, so it is not tradable.

Third…

...

]

/Bzzz... Bzzz.../

"?!"

However, at the time he read the third message, his game screen turned dark and his pod turned off on its own.

[WARNING: OVERHEAT]

[INITIATING EMERGENCY SYSTEM LOGOUT]

/Splash!/

"HAAA!... Haaa… Whatefuck!"

Dale woke up taking deep breaths while he felt his entire body sore and in pain.

His head especially hurt a lot, it was a familiar pain, it was the pain of being forcefully returned from a time dilation without being given enough time to sync in…

The Neuryne Solution inside his pod didn't have the time to be flushed into the system and instead made a mess on the floor of his room as the pod's seals were undone.

"Haaa... Haaa..."

Dale gasped for air as his hands loitered around, looking for a small compartment next to the pod...

/CLACK!/

Inside, he grabbed something and pulled it to his face.

"Haa… Fuck… What a mess…" He said slowly as he breathed inside the Oxygen mask

/Clang!/

Dale kicked his machine in anger.

"Why did you decide to do this now, of all times?!"

{Information transferring… Complete}

"?"

Dale heard something and turned to his beeping machine, asking:

"Can you repeat that tin can?"

/Beep Beep…/

But the machine only beeped, it did not reply to him at all.

"Was it trying to download something and it got overheated?... Could it have been… A malware?! Please no, this was my 18th birthday gift!"

'The chances are low but... What if that wasn't an Email from Elden Throne but just a well-made malware?'

'Dammit! I knew it! This was too good to be true...'

{Accessing… Re-adjusting configuration… Parameters have been set}

He once again heard the mechanical voice, but this time, he realized the voice was that of a woman, different from his pod's robotic male tone.

"What is it this time?"

'Who said that? The house AI?'

Dale checked his room, and even his clock, it couldn't have been his brother since he must be at the summer camp with his friends.

"Hello? Someone there?"

[I am here Dale] The house AI replied as a small light lit up in the ceiling, indicating that the AI was now paying attention to Dale

"Did you say something before?"

[Negative, I was with your mother just now]

"If it wasn't you..."

Then what was it?

[Processing, it seems you've been forcibly disconnected from your Pod, this may result in...]

But the more she spoke, the more silent it all became.

"???"

'Everything's so... Low... Oh God... Am I about to dip?...'

'I need to find my mother...'

{$^%#%^}

/Splat!/

A loud, acute noise suddenly blasted his ears, sending him off balance as he fell onto the ground amidst the Neuryne solution.

"ARG, my ears!" Dale exclaimed as he tried to get up again

[... Calm...]

'The AI was trying to say something, but he couldn't quite make it, the world was spinning and many sounds fused together inside his head.'

'He was extremely confused, but Dale tried to keep himself calm.'

"Did I get some sort of mental problem from being ejected so brutally?..."

/Creak.../

"What is this mess, son?" His mother asked as she entered the room, immediately noticing the Neyrine solution on the ground

[Dale has...]

While the AI explained what had happened, he looked to the side to see his mom with a worried look as she inspected the messy room.

And upon realizing what had happened, the first thing she did was rush to him to help him up.

"... Mom…"

'My head hurts... But the world isn't spinning anymore.'

As his sense of balance returned and the pain lessened, Dale became more confident about his current health.

So after a little while to catch a breath, he properly explained what had happened.

"Sigh."

After listening to it, his mother just let out a sigh and said he was unlucky, as everything he described was part of the possible symptoms of his situation.

She kept touching his face and twisting it as she looked for other symptoms but Dale didn't feel any other form of discomfort even after a little while.

So she had him go take a shower and rest, and if he feels any discomfort later on they would seek out a doctor.

So with his ears still ringing from the previous noise, he went to the bathroom to try and relax.

…

/In the bathroom.../

"Dammit, now I am curious about what the developers said… But then again, it could've been a spam message and I got tricked… Shit, it was way too sudden."

Dale removed his special suit and looked at the mirror, his eyes were a bit sunken in due to his many days playing, but he was fine overall.

"I look tired as hell… Once this is all done I will send a message to Jelly and apologize, I will also confirm if that was a true developer message or not…"

"That is if my machine still works."

Raising his hands to the sky, Dale prayed, 'Budda Amitabha make my Pod survive!'.

But the moment Dale was about to turn away from the mirror, he saw something strange in it.

"Hm?"

A small green square was now in the corner of the mirror, it seemed like a sticker but at the same time not…

"Was that always here? Did that idiot stick something else here? I thought he stopped putting stickers in the mirror over a year ago…"

'Because of his obsession with stickers, we had to stay an entire hour cleaning the mirror a year ago, I don't want to go through that again.'

So Dale went to pull it out… But his finger passed right through it!

"WOW! WHAT THE..."

Surprised, he pulled his finger in a hurry and the green square trembled like water.

Dale on the other hand had jumped to the other side of the bathroom out of fear, grabbing a shampoo bottle to use as a weapon as it was the closest thing nearby.

This was a normal reaction to your mirror suddenly turning into water…

"Phew... What was that?" He said in a lower tone as he inspected the mirror from a 'safe' distance

/Clack!/

He walked to it again, but the green square was still there, so this time, he tried to use his toothbrush but there was no reaction as if it was painted in the mirror.

It merely bounced off the mirror as physics proclaims, the mirror wasn't a portal to another world, it was just...

"It isn't a problem with my vision, and it isn't neither paint nor a ticker. So what is this? Did Dad buy some sort of geek gadget and put it here as a prank?" He spoke as he rubbed his eyes

'Doesn't seem to be the case… I never even heard of anything remotely resembling this...'

Dale investigated it a bit more before he manned up and touched the square again… Very reluctantly as he felt fear for his index finger.

His finger passed right through it and it felt like he was touching water…

The square was only big enough for one finger, unfortunately, or fortunately.

"OUCH! MY… "

Dale's greatest fears flared up when he suddenly felt something prickle his finger, and he pulled it out quickly like a lightning bolt, and when he did so, the green square disappeared, leaving behind a faint spiral pattern.

It was as if the box had been sucked into itself...

There was a single drop of blood slowly falling out from his finger, proof that something did happen.

"This is getting out of hand…" He said as he cleaned the sweat from his forehead

'At least my finger is intact.'

{Biological Core has been processed. Parameters have been recalibrated}

"!!"

Dale suddenly looked around the bathroom in a hurry, but there was nothing there.

"Who's…"

{Initiating}

"!"

'Light...'

All of the sudden, Dale felt the world shake and his body weakened…

/THUD!/

Dale fell on the cold floor of the bathroom and soon enough, his parents rushed inside and carried him to the hospital…

…

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Notes

This is pretty much where the plot begins, from here on we just go forward.