1 Prologue

April 6, 2053

Today marks the day when the highly anticipated and fully immersive MMO, SoulReign Online, is realized. This game is set to be one of which is not only filled to the brim with hidden content, but also the first of it's kind to be almost fully managed by an AI; The developers of the game were smart, and knew not to fully entrust the game to the AI, for fear of a complete takeover.

The developers announced that the game will be released at exactly 8:00 pm EST. They decided on this time based on the time when the whole world is the most active, in order to negate some of the unfairness that players in different time zones may face. (A/N: This world is not meant to be extremely realistic, so some of the stuff that I put in here may seem impossible or inaccurate in reality.)

It is currently 7:46 EST and, at the moment, there are millions and possibly billions of people waiting for the game to launch. In a house situated along the coast of Cape May, New jersey, sits a man in his mid 20s also waiting for the game to launch. This man goes by the name of Clark Muto. Clark was born in Japan, but at the age of three, Clark's parents died in a plane crash while coming home from a business trip overseas, leaving Clark with a sum of around five million yen in a locked bank account. After that he stayed with his aunt on his dad's side for a few years until they eventually moved to America. At the age of seventeen, Clark's aunt succumbed to terminal illness and he was once again left alone.

But Clark now has a goal: to lead a successful life in honor of his deceased relatives. Unlike other VR games, SoulReign Online devs will personally pay players in the top 5 spots on the leaderboard a fixed salary. Although Clark was born with an IQ of 210, he always had a fascination with games. Maybe it was to cope with the stress of losing his parents at a young age. No matter the reason, Clark was determined to secure himself the top spot on the leaderboard and become a successful gamer.

It is now 7:55 and the game is set to launch in 5 minutes. Clark is currently contemplating what race he should choose. SRO was made to be a no-hands-held type of game so the devs haven't revealed any information about the game. Most of the information about the game will be from player discovery. Although this is true, it's still just a game and most vrmmorpg games have similar basic mechanics.

Returning to reality, Clark looked down at his iPhone XXR and noticed the time, 7:59. It was a minute till launch, so Clark decided it was time to get into his pod. As he stepped into it, it felt really surreal, Almost like he was being covered in melted marshmallow minus the heat and stickiness. Despite the alarming feeling, it didn't feel like it was dangerous at all. As he was submerged in the marshmallow-like substance, he began to lose consciousness. As he was losing consciousness he heard a voice devoid of any emotion counting down from thirty.

[30]..

[29]..

[28]..

….

[14]..

[13]..

….

[5]..

[4]..

[3]..

[2]..

[1]..

[Game client initializing...]

[initializing complete]

[compiling files...]

[compilation complete]

[initiating startup engine...]

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{Welcome to SoulReign Online}

"let's do this"