Chapter 2: Rising to the top

"Scan Completed! Would you like to enter the world of divinity?" The feminine voice again appeared in his head.

The glasses had no speaker, instead, they used bone conduction technology that was perfected over the years.

"Yes. Let's start our journey " Ryder replied instantly.

As soon as he spoke, he instantly lost all control of his body and all his senses. His room disappeared and he now found himself standing in a pitch-black room.

He looked ahead and found a girl floating in the air.

"Hello, I am your artificial intelligence guide, Maya. I will help you with the registration. Please select your Character Name."

The little girl floated in the air in front of him. She looked to be 12-13 years old and had short greenish hair.

"My name is Hades," Ryder answered her.

'Yeah, I know that the name is quite chuunibyou, but I like it. I used the same character name in the online games I played before.' He thought to himself without being even a little embarrassed.

"Hades...Name registered. Please customize the stats of your character. You have been given 25 stats points" The A.I girl known as Maya further said.

A screen appeared in front of Ryder. There were 6 characteristics on the screen with a 0 in front of all 6 of them.

A plus and minus symbol was also placed in front of each of the characteristics. These 6 characteristics that he could use skill points on were Strength, Defence, Stamina, Intelligence, Speed and Dexterity.

A smile appeared on Ryder's face as he kept tapping on the plus icons.

After a short few minutes, he was finally done.

The screen in front of him looked much different now.

He had used 7 points on Strength,6 on Defence,5 points on speed,4 points on stamina,2 point on dexterity and 1 point on Intelligence.

"I'm done," Ryder informed Maya.

"Are you sure? " Maya asked with an expressionless look on her face.

"Yes," Ryder again nodded his head.

"Registration complete. You will be sent to the novice village. You currently have no class. After passing the novice village, you will be able to select your class." Maya informed him before she disappeared in front of his eyes.

The scene distorted as Ryder found himself in the novice village.

It was a place that all players were sent to so that they could learn basic skills and get used to Virtual Reality before going to the real adventures.

Players could get some simple quests in the novice village to increase their levels and when they got to level 5, they were allowed to leave.

Xu Liang went through the novice village and completed some meager tasks like training with the village Sword Elder. He collected herbs for a store owner, helped in finding lost goods and more.

After a few days of effort and a whole lot of quests, He finally managed to pass the Novice City. He was the 25th player to get to level 5. He was sent to the main city by the Village Sword Elder.

He was finally able to choose a class from the class hall.

'I had already decided on the class that I would choose before I even started this game. That's why I put most of my stats in strength and defense. I chose to be a Warrior. After reaching a certain level, I would be promoted to a knight.' Ryder thought as he chose his class.

It was a fantasy world. He wanted to enjoy this place. Enjoy the feeling of real strength. Thus he selected the warrior class.

Ryder went on adventures, completed various quests and increased his strength. He even joined a strong guild. It was the 3rd rank guild at the guild rankings and He had managed to become one of its top members.

"Although Ryder wasn't the strongest player in the guild, he has managed to become one of the 10 strongest players in the guild.

3 years had passed away right before his eyes as he continued leveling up.

He was level 175 at the moment. He had managed to get the class of a Royal Knight. It was the class that came after the Knight class.

After 3 years of hard work for the guild, he was finally given the chance to lead a party for an A-Rank quest.

'The quest we received was to kill the dragon that had appeared in the Malta Valley. The Guild Master sent 20 players with 150+ level and 80 players who had a level in between level 100 and level 150. It does look like a good team, but I still can't feel at ease' Ryder thought as he left with his party.

It took him 3 days to get to the Malta Valley. Their fight against the dragon began.

As Ryder's party was fighting against the dragon, their people kept dying one after another.

Dying in the game was a pretty bad experience that no player wanted to experience. Firstly, even at the low pain settings, they still felt a significant amount of pain.

Secondly, they lost a level when they died. The loss of a level wasn't much concerning for lower level players, but for the higher level players, it was pretty painful as each level required a massive amount of XP.

And lastly, those who died were locked out of Divinity for 24 hours.

'Even our top players were killed. This whole quest is turning out to be a disaster. The information I was given was completely wrong! We were told that the dragon was a level 190 monster, but it is not! It was a boss class monster who had a level in the 200s.'