1 Prologue (1)

*tap* *tap* *tap* *click* *tap* *click*

The series of melodious taps and clicks were all that resounded in my small room illuminated only by a 24" flat computer screen. It only takes one look to notice my hard earned eye bags, which was the result of my extensive and laborious ...well, gaming. Nevertheless, fatigue never struck me nor did drowsiness give me a visit. All I ever had was the eagerness to complete a certain dungeon run, one which i have already raided for tens of times before.

Some of you might ask, 'If you have already passed that dungeon so many times before, then why do it again? Searching for a unique item? Setting a new record? Trying to go solo on a 20-man dungeon?'

Well, first of all, if a person can solo atleast a 5-man dungeon, then the game is bound to crappy. That's not how RPGs work. There are also no 'Unique' or 'Overpowered' items in the game, only those with a very low drop rate. Records? Not Really. It was purely just for fun. Exploring the world of [Aeulheim] was the greatest fun for me. While almost everyone is busy gaining otherworldly powers in games powered by virtual reality capsules, I found myself enjoying the sound of keystrokes and mouse clicks more.

To put it more bluntly, The world of virtual reality, it was not just meant for me.

Let me tell you a story that started about eight years ago. I was only fifteen years old when i was lucky to be invited to Immerse Technologies, Inc. The company was the pioneer of virtual reality games and now one of the richest, if not THE richest, companies globally.

The virtual technology was only in its infancy stage that time and out of the thousands of applicants, I was selected to be one of the few alpha testers for the first prototype engine.

You can only imagine my happiness during those moments. To be able to stand, walk, run and jump for the very first time, the thought of finally being able to experience the 'simple things' made my mornings more enjoyable.

Eh? My bad. Yes, I was ... I am a cripple. I can't feel my lower half for as long as I can remember. The doctors call it late-stage paraplegia, although they are reluctant to call it late-stage since ' I'm too young for it'. For those who are so insistent to ask: No, I never peed and shitted on myself, there is a separate system for those things and Yes, I never experienced what a hard on, boner, morning wood, or erection feels like.

I guess that was also one of the main reasons why Immerse Tech has chosen to accept my application. As the pioneer of virtual reality, their ideals were very high and that included making a system where everyone regardless of their gender, age, status or physical condition can enjoy a brand new virtual world to their hearts' content.

Focusing on the story at hand, a man wearing a white lab coat gestured for me to lay down on a pitch black rectangular capsule. The cover was curved in the shape of a semi-circle where a small square-shaped transparent screen was situated just right above my face. Yeah, it looked very similar to a coffin and it almost made me withdraw from the scheduled test run.

[Immerse Capsule S-0.0.2.1 booting up]

[System Check 1/229... 2/229... 228/229... 229/229]

[System Checks Completed - All systems normal]

[Loading Game Resources 1%... 99%... 100%]

[Art of Swords: Online loaded successfully]

The avatar creation process immediately began as soon as the preliminary checks were done.

The customization was skipped entirely since the test this time focused more on optimizing the synchronization rate of the user's intent and the avatar's movement.

The developers didn't consider the test a great success, but wasn't a failure either. The new adjustments minimized the delay from 1/15th of a second to 1/24th of a second. While the developers were sulking on their desks, racking their brains trying to further lessen the delay to 1/60th of a second, I was happily reminiscing the feeling of being able to feel my legs although most of that time was me stumbling over and over again. It was mainly because it was my first time using legs and it was a whole new experience for me, that and my awful and embarrassing cry which took up half of the test duration. Those fifteen minutes were the best memories of my life, a little shallow yes but for me, it was the best.

Two weeks later, we were called again for another round of tests. The development team supposedly made a breakthrough drastically decreasing the delay of issuing commands.

Same room. Same 'coffin'. Another round of bliss.

Or so I thought.

While others enjoyed a faster and more responsive avatar, I fell to the ground face first and no matter how hard I struggled to get up, I just could not. At first I thought it was just my lack of practice moving my legs but I soon found myself embraced by a feeling of 'usualness', if such a term exists. It was the usual feeling of not being able to feel my legs.

Just a few seconds later, I was forcefully disconnected and a group of white coats opened the capsule. They were not part of the development team. I recognized one of them as the in house doctor tasked with physical examination just before we signed a non-disclosure agreement with Immerse Tech.

They laid me on a metal stretcher and rushed me to the medical room. Multiple apparatuses were attached to me and before I could ask what the hell is going on, the lead doctor told me that sedation would be necessary for the following procedures. Before I knew it, my eyes were shut and I fell into a deep slumber.

I was woken up by the sound of my mother's cry and my father's shouts. I was still a little bit dizzy but I saw them arguing with a doctor, a lawyer, and what seemed to be a representative of Immerse Tech. I can vaguely hear the words "nerves", "fried", "unconditioned", "overload", "negligence", "irreparable", "apology", "compensation", "scholarship", "annuity" and "support".

I am not very intelligent but it is easy to infer that my hopes of walking can never be realized again. In fact, I tried using the capsule again but the result was still the same. A cripple in reality, a cripple in virtual reality. It turned out that the development breakthrough works by 'electrifying' the brain to speed up and increase the volume of information relay. It is normally harmless, normally. The part of my brain responsible for the lower half of my body, however, was not accustomed to the large influx of activity considering that it has only been recently 'activated' last week for a short fifteen minutes. The result was a fried brain only repairable by a brain surgery which has a success rate way lower than the chance of being hit by lightning 3 times on a sunny day while wearing a rubber suit.

My parents' income was just in the low middle class, a lawsuit against a giant company would incur expenses which they can't sustain, my father is a lawyer so he knows. He definitely wanted vengeance but he swallowed it down and settled on discussing the negotiations with the aim of improving my quality of life.

The trauma was there and I had a hard time getting over it. One psychologist recommended playing a game to combat the trauma. That was when I discovered [Aeulheim], a fantasy MMORPG considered to be the best of its time.

The creator was Existence Inc., a rival of Immerse Tech. Existence was rumored to be greater than their rival with regards to research on virtual reality but while Immerse was making billions in profit, Existence fell into an all time low. Despite being named as the most advanced research department, Existence never released a VR game.

[Aeulheim] was no doubt the best MMORPG but it was greatly overshadowed by Virtual Reality RPGs (VRRPGs). Lucky for me though, despite the declining customer base and the commercialization of cheaper capsules, Aeulheim still runs its servers. Leaving 'classic' players like me, and the poorest of the poor, a way to enjoy games and have fun.

My reminiscences were interrupted by a side-scrolling announcement just below the Heads-up Display (HUD)

[Notice: Server will be unavailable from 2pm to 5am inline with the Omega Delta: Alpha Update. Visit the official page for more details. Meanwhile, make sure to properly log out your accounts. Any account, item, or level losses will not be compensated by the game administrators]

[Notice: Server will be unavailable...]

Omega Delta: Alpha. Pffft... What a lame naming sense, Existence has the best content but their naming sense sucks.

I checked their webpage and found a small caption that perfectly described the update. "Aeulheim's last update for a new beginning"

What followed is a small in-game lore connected that described the events after [Advent of Dragon Aldatua].

[The Adventurers (gamers) has successfully defeated the tyrant ruler of northern Aeulheim. However, the clues left behind hints that the dragon was merely a puppet, a tool used by group of entities that hide in the shadows. The Kraken of the South, Tempest of the East, Giant of the West, and the Dragon of the North, all of them were controlled to play a role in a scene orchestrated by the hidden hands...]

The tens of paragraphs elaborated the story but after finishing reading the whole thing, he only had one comment "Lame".

"They should seriously improve their storymaking, or atleast hire a writer. Are they that short on funds? Despite that lame story, Existence is known for having superb content for its content, it would be disappointing to read a well-written lore only to find out what a crappy game it is"

"In particular, this [Uniqueness], a new 'hidden' system, is a bit strange. It could be geared towards combat but it also may not be. It could originate from a skill, a secondary class or even a seemingly normal action. Last but not the least, there are hints of a major rework on the gameplay but I don't know how could they implement changes that won't easily break the balance"

"Existence is hiding a secret..."

"I wonder what that is..."