1 Return to the Past

"Hey, have you pre-ordered your copy of Arthur yet?"

"Of course! I pre-ordered mine six months ago."

"Apparently the entire game is controlled by AI, and the players take the lead in world creation. Everybody says players have more freedom than in any other game ever developed."

"I watched some shots of the game from the trailer and the VR effects are super realistic."

"Didn't the developer say that you could stay in the game for more than four hours while you sleep? The last game that could do that could only do it for about three hours."

"The game servers open tonight! Remember to bring me along, my brothers!"

Zhao Xu looked in confusion at the university classmates discussing the game excitedly in front of him.

The youthful faces in front of him were the phantoms of ten-year-old memories.

And he felt like he had seen this scene before.

His heart tightened and his mind started racing.

Ten years ago to the day, Arthur's game servers opened.

Nobody realized that the curtains of the next era had been quietly drawn to welcome the future that was to come.

On the first anniversary of Arthur's release, meteorites suddenly appeared on earth and destroyed everything, reducing all signs of life to dust.

But humans found that, after the meteorite rain, they had transmigrated to the world inside Arthur.

Everyone who had played Arthur before inherited everything that they had set up in the game.

The players who had reached a high level in Arthur immediately became the most highly revered among the survivors, and all power and rank that anyone had had on earth were wiped out. A clean slate.

In his previous life, Zhao Xu hadn't really cared much about his game. He had been forced to join the game by his classmates nearly eight months after it had started so that they could make up the numbers for his class' gaming league.

He only played a few days a week, so by the time he transmigrated, he had only advanced to Level 2.

Most of the players who had started playing from the beginning were almost to Level 5. There were even some expert-level gamers who had gone past Level 10.

And because Zhao Xu had entered the game late, he was only at Level 2.

But, out of the nearly seven billion people in the world, anybody who played the game before was already considered lucky, and Zhao Xu was now part of the upper class among the players from Earth.

Inside Arthur, thanks to his Character Class level and with the help of his classmates, Zhao Xu soon managed to help his family to settle in comfortably.

But lately, Zhao Xu's luck seemed to have run out.

The little town that he guarded was suddenly attacked by a Black Dragon three years after the transmigration.

More than a hundred people in the town died. He lost his family in that disaster, including his new wife.

Zhao Xu's life was now void of color.

When the attack came, he had been called away to go on a mission and escaped his family's fate. But, ever since that day he had been driven by revenge.

Over the next six years, he spent every waking moment working hard to take revenge.

Recently, Zhao Xu had joined an Adventure Team that was out to attack the Black Dragon.

But before they could enter the Black Dragon's lair, their little team was suddenly attacked.

The last thing Zhao Xu could remember was the Black Dragon's breath coming for him. No revenge for him.

And, with those years of regrets he brought with him into death, Zhao Xu had been reborn and returned to this classroom he was in ten years ago.

He had gone back to the moment before the game officially started.

The entire world, and even the game developers themselves, were unaware of what was coming. No one knew, but Zhao Xu.

Nobody knew that Arthur was actually a real world.

After the transmigration happened, many people beat themselves up, wondering why they didn't play the game earlier.

Even those who worked at the game developer's company felt the same. If they didn't spend any of their free time playing the game, they were as at much of a loss as anyone else one year later.

Zhao Xu took a deep breath and snapped out of his daze. He quickly pulled his phone out to log into TC's game store to pre-order the game.

Arthur had to be paid for upfront, and it wasn't cheap either.

But, even though the game exploded in popularity after its release, there were no new items up for sale either.

As he thought about that, Zhao Xu looked at the packages available in the online store.

Arthur Regular Edition, .

Arthur Premium Edition, .

There was no need to explain what the Regular Edition was. In fact, majority of the players bought the Regular Edition.

The Premium Edition came with an additional piece of clothing for the player, so it was pretty much equivalent to paying an extra for a skin. Besides, this additional clothing couldn't increase your attack in any way.

But Zhao Xu wasn't concerned with this. One year later, the Earth would be destroyed and all the wealth anyone had amassed there would be worthless.

If it only took to get an extra piece of clothing in the other world, then that was like food falling from the sky. Only an idiot would give it up.

Zhao Xu didn't hesitate any more and immediately clicked on the link to buy the Premium Edition.

But just before he went through the iris scan to make the payment, his body suddenly trembled.

He suddenly remembered one thing.

Some years after the transmigration, he had run into a high-level player. This high-level player had told him a legend he had heard with great envy in his eyes.

Apparently, this game had a Double Elite mode. That meant that one player could have two Character Classes.

Dual Character Classes meant that the player could go down two different paths at the same time, but their levels weren't accumulative.

So if an ordinary player was a Level 3 Fighter but a Level 7 wizard, then he would be a Level 10 player.

But for Dual Character Class players, when they reached Level 10, they could choose to either be a Level 10 Wizard or a Level 10 Cleric.

Basically, they were a Level 10 player, but they had two Level 10 Character Classes at the same time.

They also had the Health, Hit Points, Feats, and Saving Throws of a Level 10 player.

But with the resources of an additional Character Class, they could become one of the top players in the game.

According to what that high-level player had said, this Double Elite or Dual Character Class system was something that was released later on. It was a new feature added to a newer edition of the game in order to attract more players.

When the game first started, the developers gave out a very few Tester Accounts on Double Elite mode so that it was easy for them to track how strong these players became and adjust the system accordingly.

As a Tester Account, the biggest advantage they had was that the player could play the game for free.

But the problem was that these accounts were taken back after a year.

That was to prevent some players from reaching a much higher level faster than everyone else. So, since the account had to eventually be taken back, there was a maximum to how many levels you could climb.

In fact, some of those players who initially joined in the testing saw how popular Arthur was becoming and gave up the chance to use this account that would be taken back. They just decided to buy the game instead.

But none of them knew that one year later, just before the accounts were taken back, every single person on earth would transmigrate into the game to become part of it, so their accounts wouldn't end up being taken back after all.

So the one-year testing period became permanent.

Such accounts were a bunch of unique accounts in the world of Arthur.

According to that high-level player, very few Testing Accounts held on until the end of their testing period.

But, as long as the player managed to hold onto it until they transmigrated to Arthur's world, then anyone who had such an account would be far more powerful than everyone else.

After thinking it through, Zhao Xu stood up and turned to walk out of the classroom. The bell was going to ring in a few minutes and it would be harder for him to leave after that.

"Zhao Xu! The next class is history class and Mr. Huang said he'd be taking attendance today. You're going to get into trouble!" Zhao Xu's roommate, Zhang Qi, called out after him.

Zhao Xu didn't even take his textbooks along. He just waved his hands and replied, "I need to attend to an urgent matter."

With that, he scurried out of the classroom and walked past all the students who were now slowly streaming into the classroom for class.

Zhao Xu made it outside and sat down on a nearby bench. He took out his phone and called TC's gaming customer service's hotline to ask about a Testing Account for Double Elites.

He had barely said three words the phone when his expression slowly turned grim.

He hadn't been able to ask much when the customer service person politely read off her script to reject his request.

She said that all the Testing Accounts had been given out two weeks ago.

All players involved in the testing were gamers who were invited by the company, and they didn't intend to open this up to everyone else for the time being.

Basically she was telling him that he could forget about it.

To be fair, no matter how bad a Double Elite Testing Account could be, it was still a free account that could let you become far more powerful than a regular player.

If they really opened it to the general public, then everyone would just want an account to try the game and wouldn't be affected by the two-hour limit to return the base game.

This reply from the company made Zhao Xu frown.

He knew he wasn't some pro gamer.

He had only entered the game about seven or eight months after it had started and even though he didn't get to play much before the transmigration, he had the benefit of having other players find out the games secrets and share all their tips for leveling up, and he also had friends who helped him along. With these two benefits, he barely managed to hit Level 2 after four months.

This one year was the most precious year, one where Arthur's world was still a make-believe universe.

After everyone entered Arthur's world for real, all the players started to level up extremely slowly.

It wasn't much of a stretch to say that this one year of effort would help him for the next ten years.

Zhao Xu was motivated by his quest for revenge, so after going through several dangerous missions and extending his lifespan, he barely managed to make it to Level 5. Otherwise, if he had continued with his ordinary lifestyle, he might have only reached Level 3 or 4 even after ten years.

Without the special abilities of a Double Elite, even with his past ten years of experience, he still wouldn't be part of the top tier among the players.

If he ran into that Black Dragon that could kill him as easily as a chicken from his previous life, then the Black Dragon only needed to breathe on him for him to die again.

He had to reach a sufficiently high level to make sure he was able to protect his family.

After Zhao Xu took some time to calm down, he opened the xFish app.

Besides being able to sell your second-hand items on xFish, many people were also selling all sorts of services and brand new items, and you could even ask the users for something you wanted to buy.

Zhao Xu put up a request for Arthur's one year Double Elite Testing Account.

When it came to the part about how much he was willing to pay, he ignored all the other options and typed into the field, which was the price of the game itself.

That was as good as telling the seller that he could use his one-year Testing Account to exchange for a Premium personal account. The only difference was that the paid account wouldn't have the Double Elite characteristic.

There were all sorts of other types of Testing Accounts besides those that could support Double Elites. There were also some that were no different from an ordinary account.

That's why Zhao Xu had to specify that he wanted a one year Double Elite Testing Account, and that was the longest testing period offered.

As expected, once Zhao Xu had put up his request, several messages came in through the app since his credit rating was high enough.

"I've got a six-month Powerful Races Testing Account. Do you want it?"

Of course, Zhao Xu knew about Powerful Races. They were introduced to the game later on as well.

The good thing about Powerful Races was that they had more features than the base races and the player could even go up against someone who was at Level 4 or Level 5. It was helpful for closing the gap between new players and those who had been playing for a long time.

The biggest selling point about Arthur was the fact that it was open to everyone.

But since it was an account that would be taken back after six months, it would be meaningless to get it now.

The length of the Testing Account didn't start from the day it was activated, but the day the game servers went live.

Otherwise, he could buy it now and leave it for a good friend to use later.

After Zhao Xu rejected that offer, more messages came in.

There were even offers to sell a 24-hour Testing Account for just . Zhao Xu couldn't even be bothered to reply to those. Then there was this one:

"Bro, would you be interested in a six months Double Elite Testing Account? I'll take just ."

Zhao Xu happened to open one of his messages and was initially excited when he saw the words 'Double Elite'. But when he realized it was a six-month account, his joy vanished.

There was actually a six month Double Elite Testing Account in the market.

"This is a really good deal because only veteran level gamers would get a chance to own this account. Mine is six months and it's considered a long timeframe already. There are many others holding onto accounts that can only be used for three months."

After Zhao Xu saw the reply from the seller, he decided to be more patient and try to get more information from this seller even though he didn't want this account.

The seller was offering only because an account like a Double Elite account would become powerful only at a later stage.

If you couldn't continue playing for a long time, you would remain low in level and you wouldn't be able to fully display how powerful a Double Elite could be.

If you could hold on for three or four years, and assuming the game you were playing didn't die out along the way, many major gaming leagues would be willing to invest more than ,000 or even ,000 into such an account.

After exchanging a few more messages, the seller could sense that Zhao Xu wasn't interested in buying and didn't say much after that.

This went on until night. There was only half an hour more to go before the game officially opened at 8 PM, but Zhao Xu still hadn't gotten his hands on a one year Double Elite Testing Account yet.

According to the information he had right now, it seemed like a Double Elite Testing Account was even rarer than he had initially imagined.

Suddenly, Zhao Xu's phone vibrated. Someone had sent him a private message through xFish.

"I have a one year Double Elite Testing Account, and it includes Action Points points."

Action Points points?

Zhao Xu froze for a while. He had never heard of this feature. But it didn't matter, as long as the account was a Double Elite one.

But, judging from the way the seller spoke, the seller was trying to ask for a higher offer.

In reality, no matter how much it was going to cost, Zhao Xu was willing to pay. Even if it cost him ,000, he would persuade his parents to loan him the money.

He wasn't trying to buy a gaming account here. He was trying to buy his life.

"How much?" Zhao Xu didn't offer an amount immediately.

",000." The seller doubled Zhao Xu's offer.

"That's too much." Zhao Xu immediately replied to the seller.

Even though he was already finding it difficult to suppress the joy in his heart, he still wanted to try and bargain with the seller.

If he agreed too readily, then the seller might suspect that the price was too low and end up creating more trouble for Zhao Xu.

So Zhao Xu proceeded to pretend to haggle the price down, but he didn't dare to go too far, in case the seller ended up ignoring him.

After a bit of haggling, he finally sealed the deal at . This entire process was even more tiring than writing a bunch of essays for school.

After the seller agreed to the price, Zhao Xu got him to send him the product via xFish and Zhao Xu transferred the funds to the seller.

There were no hiccups throughout the entire process.

When Zhao Xu saw the game activation code from the seller, he couldn't help being giddy even though, mentally, he was already past thirty years old.

That string of simple numbers was going to be his future.