Legacy Mode

After opening the game, beautiful scenery appeared before Chris. A lone tower reaching the skies, with a phoenix soaring beside it, casting the blue skies with a tinge of red. Was this the scene to expect inside the game? His curiosity was piqued.

The game soon loaded, and the log-in screen finally appeared. He immediately chose log-in via e-mail, smirking to himself just how much he had spent the last time he used this option.

Upon logging in, he was given a choice of which server to choose. There were already around 16 servers opened, even though the game has only been released today. That meant there was a massive amount of players waiting to play the game.

Of course, the server he chose would be the one Frappe had joined. At the moment, the thought of a strong guild conquering everything made him quite excited. After all, in the last MMORPG he played, he was also at the forefront of the strongest guild in his server, annihilating almost everything that stood in their way. By now, he already had high hopes that such times could be replicated in this new game.

Choosing Server 15 (S15), the next screen he saw was, of course, the class selection. Assassin, Mage, Cleric, and Warrior—the four most common classes in games. He had always played assassin before, so it became a little unappealing to him. That, in addition to Frappe already choosing the assassin class, made him want to try something new, and so he took his time studying every class.

Putting aside the assassin class, he chose the warrior and cleric class one after the other. Warrior has always been linked to being the "tank" type class. There were two advanced classes, namely paladin and berserker. The paladin simply goes further in tanking everything—stronger stuns, higher armor, and skills that would make it invincible for some time. It went without saying that this class would be a staple in every party in this game.

The berserker, on the other hand, was also a class quite common to many games. It brought a range of uses as it has high armor and high damage. It looked like a very fun class to play, but...

Chris really disliked playing tank, a completely opposite role to what the DPS-type (damage-per-second) and burst-damage-type classes he had played before. Although berserker was appealing, to say the least, he just didn't feel like starting the game while playing warrior.

The next class he checked was cleric. It was the healer, another staple in every party in all RPGs. Among its advanced classes was a class he really liked, the ranger, which used bows and has awesome skills. However, he had the same issue with clerics. It would take time to get to the Ranger class, and he didn't want to play very defensive roles during the beginning of the game.

To simply put, since he didn't want to play assassin, warrior, or cleric, the only option left for him was mage. This was a class he had never really played before, and the primary reason why he avoided it was simply because most of the time, they were glass cannons. Once they have used all their skills, they would become food for assassins. In simpler words, they die too fast and too easily. The thought of this made him smirk, though. Since he didn't really want to play anything else, why not try and have fun?

The moment he clicked mage, he saw the two advanced classes: pyromancer and frostweaver. Of course, his eyes twinkled the moment he saw these two advanced classes. Just a glimpse, and he had already decided what path he should take in the future—burn everything in the game.

Tapping on mage, he began imagining the many things that he could do in the game. After confirming, he was asked to set a name for his character. He debated whether to use his most-used name or write something else. Arch, Levantine, Altheria, Clei… These were all names he had used in a lot of games or forums before. However, the one he had used the most was Arch, and many people already knew him with this name. As such, after some contemplation, he decided to just use this.

Typing Arch, he hesitated for a moment before confirming. Next…

He blacked out.

...

"Welcome to Empyrean Skies."

Chris was woken up with a start. When he opened his eyes, what he saw was a white space. Looking around, everything was simply white, and it was unknown whether there were walls, ground, or ceiling.

"The heck?" Chris could only mutter such as a feeling of anxiety welled up inside his heart. He didn't know where he was, and he didn't know how he appeared here.

Turning around and observing his surroundings once again, a realization occurred to him, "Am I dead? Did I finally enter the 'light'?"

"Please refrain from delusional thoughts. You are in the log-in space of Empyrean Skies." A voice suddenly broke Chris' thoughts. He looked left and right to determine where the voice came from before he realized it came from inside his head.

"Am I in hell?" he asked before suddenly realizing, "Empyrean Skies! Oh! The game. Log-in space?"

All of a sudden, a grey figure appeared in front of him. This figure looked just like a mannequin with a mouth and two white glowing eyes. Finally, in this world of white, another color had appeared.

Chris scrutinized the figure before him and then asked, "You are?"

The figure bowed all of a sudden. "Welcome to Empyrean Skies. I am your guide, Telus."

Chris thought for a moment before asking, "So this is that game?"

Telus replied, "This is indeed that game, but it's not at the same time. Empyrean Skies is just one of the representative titles of the many games connected to this world."

Chris was evidently confused. "Can you please explain more?"

Telus nodded before saying, "Your world has been invited to join the millennium-war in Glorious Heaven. Your world's achievements in this great battle will be rewarded. Of course, individual achievements are also greatly rewarded."

Too much information. There was simply too much information. Chris couldn't understand what was happening, and so he asked a few more times before he finally understood what was happening.

Glorious Heaven was a world situated in a place called Divine Realm. As for what sort of place this Divine Realm was, Telus didn't—or perhaps couldn't—really explain. No matter how many times Chris asked, all Telus would say was that it was an exalted place. As such, he turned to the other information.

Every 1000 years, Glorious Heaven would invite the residents of multiple worlds to embark on a quest for supremacy. As for what the goal exactly was, Telus had given two: become the strongest individual or conquer the world.

As for how to achieve this? Telus only said something about exploring the world.

After all this questioning, Chris had confirmed a few things. First, he was not dead. That would have been really sad. He was simply pulled into the log-in space of Empyrean Skies, one of the many portals that would lead to Glorious Heaven. Second, there were as many worlds as there were visible stars. Earth was but a small world in the universe, and it was the first time it was invited to Glorious Heaven after reaching a few milestones. As for what exactly these milestones were, Telus didn't say.

Third, he could freely go back between Glorious Heaven and Earth. There was a time difference of 4:1, which meant that 4 hours in Glorious Heaven would only be an hour on Earth. This meant that, 6 hours on Earth was equal to a day in Glorious Heaven.

There was one clue that Telus had given him, though. After a period of time, the time difference between the two worlds would slowly diminish. When and how, it would all depend on the players' progress. Oh, and the residents of the worlds invited to Glorious Heaven were all called players. This, of course, included him.

More details were given about what to expect in Glorious Heaven, but most of them could only be discovered or understood after entering it. As such, after the briefing that lasted for a few minutes, Telus asked him whether he finally understood everything.

Chris simply nodded as he finally realized the "menu" at the corner of his eyes. With a thought, the menu opened up to show a 3D-model of his body. He was given options to change his overall appearance, albeit within certain limits.

Chris was certainly not a person who liked his looks. He wasn't particularly attractive, and he could be considered extremely ordinary. To sum it up, he looked so forgettable. He had brown skin, short black hair, small brown eyes, a tall nose, and pale lips that were a little bit bigger than average. He was 174 cm tall, and his build was neither fat nor thin.

In other words, he was average in almost every aspect. Perhaps the most eye-catching detail about him was the fluffy hair on his arms and legs. And this was exactly what he modified since it had always been a cause for embarrassment for him from childhood. After lessening the hair on his body, the only other thing he changed was a few strands of hair on top of his head. He added a small streak of red and grey in the middle, something that he believed would make him less forgettable.

Overall, setting up his appearance took less than five minutes since he didn't really feel like changing much. Although he was dissatisfied with his overall appearance, he still put it to heart that it was who he was. Changing too much was not something he wanted. In short, he liked to think too much about pointless things.

Afterward, he was given the chance to review all his changes, and seeing that there was nothing else to modify, he simply confirmed by tapping on the menu in front of him.

Next, a dialogue box appeared before his eyes.

"Would you like to enter Legacy Mode?"

Seeing this, Chris' first thought was to ask Telus. Fortunately, before he could speak, Telus had already begun explaining. "Legacy Mode puts you in a random event quest where you can either earn rewards or get penalized. Whether you can get something or lose something is dependent on your luck and skill."

Chris was stumped for a moment. There was a "yes" or "no" option before him. What made him hesitate was the "get penalized" comment of Telus. Thinking about his luck… well, it was average at best, and more often than not, he would always get the short end of the stick.

He was about to decide when Telus spoke, "What you can gain inside Legacy Mode are hidden Legacies of supreme experts who have entered Glorious Heaven. Successfully acquiring one can give you a massive headstart. Every player will only be given a single chance to join Legacy Mode. As for whether you succeed or not, it's up to you."

Upon hearing this, Chris gritted his teeth as he tapped on "yes." He finally remembered something from the game description. The leveling system here wasn't the normal Level 1-100, where reaching certain levels could help him gain massive stats and advance his class. Instead, there was something called "cultivation" of origin power that enabled a player to ascend to higher stages. As for how this was done, it was through acquiring cultivation techniques. The higher the grade of the cultivation technique, the faster one would progress.

And, after more explanations from Telus, this Legacy Mode was exactly the place to get these high-grade cultivation techniques. As such, it was a no-brainer to try his luck even though there was a chance for failure.

[Entering Legacy Mode.]

[Choosing a random Legacy Mode event.]

...

…

…

[Dreamy Saint's Courtyard has been chosen.]

[Entering in 30 seconds…]

A series of prompts appeared before his eyes before he felt his consciousness sucked into a portal.

Next thing he knew, he was staring in the middle of an empty courtyard, and around him looked like pavilions depicted in ancient Chinese novels. There were two big statues in front of him. One was that of a rabbit running away with a carrot on its mouth, while the other was a wolf who had one of its claws raised up, as if to swipe at the rabbit.

Two prompts appeared before him.

[Escape from the wolf.]

[Hunt the rabbit.]

[4:59 to choose before one option will be randomly selected.]