Prologue: The Average Player, Li Shi Ming

Author's note: I don't know why I started writing this, but it was just a feeling. If people think it's interesting I'll continue since plot is better than the slow beginning. If not I'll stick to just Being a God Sucks.

As for why I haven't updated in so long, I was fixing around some things for my other house and hurt my arms in the process. Literally couldn't write while being in agony, so sorry about that. = /

Another thing I realized is the issue with Divine System. It will spoil WAY too much of Being a God Sucks, and I'm honestly just thinking of directly pausing it.

On the bright side, I came up with this brainchild. How many references can you guys get in the first chapter?

Game start.

...

"Ding!" The email notification finally popped up within his inbox.

Today was the day that this semester's grades would be posted. Frankly, Li Shi Ming didn't really care what he got, as long as he passed his courses.

ACCTG 311- Basic Accounting. C+

BUS 201 - Introductory Business. C

MGTSC - Intro to Management. C

MARK 301 - Intro to Marketing. C

Li Shi Ming sniffed. Thankfully, to get a Bachelor's degree in accounting you only needed to pass. Compared to the previous programs he tried, there wasn't a GPA restriction that forced you to achieve a certain average.

Hopping off his chair, the young man decided to wash up after a week of cramming. He was exhausted from the all-nighters, but it's become a habit to just memorize everything he could and forget it all right after exams.

It was boring though, just like everything else.

Soaking his face with water, Li Shi Ming stared into the mirror with dead fish eyes. His dark hair was slightly messy with a small cowlick on the back of his head. Although not particularly handsome, he was a decent looker before he put on some weight ever since he stopped going to the gym.

With a sigh, he finished washing and felt refreshed, grabbing a bottle of chilled water from the fridge. Inflation has been getting worse and worse, causing living costs to increase. Plus there were his student loans that were piling up from college.

Life was shit. Li Shi Ming was really feeling the adult life now, nearing his mid twenties.

He sank back down into his black leather seat. Li Shi Ming admits to being lazy and unmotivated, but there's always a feeling of heaviness in him that prevents productivity. Opening up the 4Clover Anonymous Message Board, he started scrolling through the latest news.

- Bluebird's Wannabe Police Tries to Cancel Another Straight Artist.

- Block Craft's Content Creator Direct Messages Reveal Inappropriate Interactions with Minors.

- Simp Donates Life Savings to Female Streamer and Goes Homeless.

Li Shi Ming closed the tab, getting a headache. It was the usual garbage news online. Opening up his game library, he tried to burn time by playing some.

First, he tried playing Block Craft again. The game was already fairly old, having a rise and fall and rise again in popularity over the years.

Online personalities had been successful in drawing in followers from speedrunning or doing various challenges, causing a revitalization of the fanbase. Their content was very appealing to the younger audience.

The game was already 2 decades old by now, but it was still a great game despite its flaws.

Block Craft's main theme was to build with blocks in a cube world, like its name suggests, although there were enemies and an optional storyline to follow. There was even an option to create custom servers, where players could play with each other.

Unfortunately for Li Shi Ling, playing the game gave him severe motion sickness. However, he was able to quickly figure out the most efficient ways to get and farm resources, and managed to "complete" the game fairly quickly.

Li Shi Ming opened his save file which had a hardcore modifier. This meant that dying once in the game would permanently ruin the save file, forcing the player to start again from scratch.

The world loaded in, and he was greeted by the intricate and complex buildings he painstakingly built. Li Shi Ming took inspiration from the French-Gothic buildings, as well as designs from ancient Roman architecture.

After feeding some pixelated meat to his virtual pet dogs and cats, the young man sighed and closed the file. Li Shi Ming had already finished completing everything to offer within the game, and rapidly lost interest right after.

The next game he opened up was a game called Harem Impact. It was just one of those standard gatchas where you collected characters, with the majority being female.

Li Shi Ming had also played this game on the side until it ran out of content, where he maxed out and collected just about everything worthwhile to him. Seeing that there was still nothing new to do, he quickly sped through the daily missions for the free premium currency.

"Time for some rolls." The young man licked his lips as his saved up currency dropped to 0 from selecting the "Draw" function in the shop. Sadly for him, gatcha games were probably the reason for starting his gambling addiction.

"Hiya, master." A cheerful voice chirped to reveal a cute catgirl after the summoning light faded, followed by some other fodder materials.

"This girl again..." Li Shi Ming grumbled as his roll was a duplicate of a character he already got.

He sighed, having already spent money in the game before to get the characters he wanted. Once everything in the game content-wise was completed though, Li Shi Ming lost all interest like before. He closed Harem Impact as well and opened another game.

Walkescape. An old MMORPG that he spent a lot of time on before it also got boring. His level and skills were all maxed out, and Li Shi Ming completed all of the premium and free to play quests.

The money inside his virtual bank was so high that he wished it could be his real life bank account, thanks to all the player killing and staking he did in PvP. However, all of it became stale too, once his friends and guild quit a long time ago. Li Shi Ming also closed it.

Shadow Forces. An FPS where he already achieved rank 300 and unlocked all the guns. His KDA was a solid 5.27. Going into a team deathmatch, he quickly got bored of popping the noobs that were unfortunate enough to be on the other side.

"Stop camping you stupid cheating n*****! I f*cked your mom!" An angry voice over the lobby chat could be heard swearing obscenities at him.

Li Shi Ming simply chuckled before typing back without opening his microphone.

"What the f*ck did you just f*cking say about me, you little b*tch? I'll have you know I graduated top of my class in the Navy Seals, and I've been involved in numerous secret raids on Al-Qaeda, and I have over 300 confirmed kills..."

This went on as the match progressed. Snipers were Li Shi Ming's favourite, and he mastered a technique called quickscoping that allowed him to one-shot most players unfortunate enough to come under his sights.

During the mid-animation of aiming, there was a brief window of darkness where the shot will go directly in the center of the converging triggers. This allowed the player to snap off a quick and accurate shot that generally guaranteed a kill.

After finishing the round with 15-2 and 7 assisted kills, Li Shi Ming closed the application. It was still a good game, but only having an endless grind that seemed pointless turned him off since he unlocked everything.

Li Shi Ming tried some new games. Battle royales, rhythm, and even single player puzzles or platformers. All of them were so boring that he began to feel sleepy.

It just felt pointless to him. No real risks or rewards. Just an empty grind that he could complete like how he did with the games he played before.

It just wasn't fun or exciting anymore.

The last game he decided to open was Legends Arena, a 5v5 MOBA game where the objective was to destroy the opposing team's base. It's also been over a year since Li Shi Ming logged in, so he missed several ranked seasons.

Just as he successfully went on his account, a red text bubble appeared. Another player had sent him a direct message. "Yo, Snowcat."

Snowcat was Li Shi Ming's username in the game.

Racking his brain, Li Shi Ming recognized it to be an old online friend named Kevin. The other player's username was Kevin with a smiling emoji beside the name.

Both of them were SS rank, which was the highest rank you could get in the game. Li Shi Ming had already been demoted to Diamond due to being inactive for a couple of seasons, but Kevin was still on the leaderboards.

You had to be in the top 50 players to receive the SS rank. Li Shi Ming's highest rank overall was top 3, while Kevin stayed around the 20 to 30's range.

"Sup. Long time no see." Li Shi Ming typed a casual reply back.

"Come carry me in ranked... Oh sh*t you're diamond now." Kevin sent over a sweatdrop emoji. "One sec, I'll hop on a smurf."

A moment later, Li Shi Ming noticed a friend request by an account with the name Hugh Mungus. Accepting it, he was immediately invited into 5v5 ranked.

After a brief moment, the queue popped. Li Shi Ming and Kevin both went into the lobby, entering the pick/ban phase.

"Damn, Ultimate Man got banned." Kevin typed with a crying emoji. "I have to play Duelist now. Snowcat, play your server best Conductor."

Server bests were the top 10 players per month for a hero. Although Li Shi Ming was no longer on the server best leaderboards, his badge history still showed the times he managed to get them when he used to play a lot.

"Alright, alright, server best Ultimate Man." Li Shi Ming typed back with a laughing emoji as he selected Conductor to jungle.

It was a slender man with snow-white hair, wearing a blue and white conductor's robe. On his hand was a wand made of skeletal bone.

"Wait, that's not the real Snowcat right?" Another player in their team typed, who preselected midlane.

"Yeah. God Snowcat quit like a year ago." The support player added to the conversation.

"Go check his profile after the lobby lol." Kevin typed with a mischievous undertone.

All 10 players entered the battlefield once hero selection ended. Seeing that they were on the blue side, Li Shi Ming opted to start on his blue buff.

Although Conductor didn't require mana, the extra ability power and cooldown reduction were super beneficial for his weak level 1. Li Shi Ming pulled the buff towards the nearest small camp, and using his skill 2 was able to hit both mobs at the same time.

In MOBAs like these, one of the most important rules was that every second counted. Gold farmed was in turn used to buy items, which increased the stats and battle capabilities of the hero.

Kills on enemy players granted more gold than just minions, but the overall objective was to destroy the other team's base as it is the only way to win. There were also 3 towers in each lane that must be pushed in order to reach the opponent's base crystal.

"I'll gank top in a second once I hit 2." Li Shi Ming typed and Kevin replied with a thumbs up emoji.

Walking along the side of the wall, the enemy top laner didn't see Li Shi Ming enter the bush. He waited until the enemy Torturer used his dash before engaging in with his first skill.

"1aa2a." Li Shi Ming muttered his hero's combo.

Each time Conductor uses an ability, his auto attacks become empowered for a brief period of time. Skill 1 was a movement ability that made the hero immune to crowd control while in his shadow form.

The first empowered auto attack also made Conductor appear behind his target. Li Shi Ming followed up his auto attacks with Skill 2, which was a silence and prevented the enemy hero from using abilities briefly.

"First blood!" The system announced when Li Shi Ming killed the enemy with Kevin's assist at 2 minutes in.

Duelist's Skill 1 was a stun dart that helped prevent Torturer from escaping, allowing Li Shi Ming's conductor to secure the kill.

The game became a one-sided stomp once Li Shi Ming got the snowball going. Repeating the cycles of farming and ganking, he used Conductor to invade the enemy jungle and stole all of the camps.

Another foundational rule in MOBAs. Gold taken from the enemy is also gold denied, making it more valuable than simply consuming resources on your side.

He shifted his focus to the bottom lane, but died once when his Conductor got crowd controlled under an enemy turret. The game ended at slightly over 15 minutes with a score of 21-3, with Li Shi Ming having 12 of the total kills while Kevin had 7.

"Man, even when you haven't played in so long you're still that good." Kevin typed with another crying emoji.

"Haha. I'm just your average player." Li Shi Ming replied with a mischievous smile emote ingame.

"Bullsh*t." Kevin sent him an angry face this time.

They played a few more matches together, winning all of them. Li Shi Ming was the main carry as he played his heroes, but Kevin did manage to snag the MVP away a few times.

"I'll head off. I'm bored sick again while playing this." Li Shi Ming typed after their 11th winstreak.

He turned off friend requests in his settings because the randoms they played with kept spamming him with requests.

"Damn, alright man." Kevin sent a sad face over. "Oh right. Did you hear about the new game that's coming out?"

"Which game?" Li Shi Ming raised an eyebrow from behind his screen.

"They say it's going to be a real and non-scam game unlike Metalpunk 2069." Kevin informed him. "The first 10000 people get to try out the Alpha, and anyone can apply."

"It's also free, and there are rumours that you can even earn $$$ by trading in the ingame currency."

"Huh." Li Shi Ming pursed his lips. "Alright, I'll do some research and check it out later. I'm heading off now."

"Keep in touch on Bonfire." Kevin sent one last message with a waving hand.

After closing Legends Arena, Li Shi Ming was surprised that it was already 1:00 am. Time sure flies fast when playing, but he agrees that it's much more enjoyable with others even if the game has long lost its appeal.

Stretching with a yawn, Li Shi Ming decided to wait until tomorrow to check out that "Last Reality Online" Kevin recommended. For now, he just wanted to get some sleep.

...

Hence, Li Shi Ming would be clueless that he'd be soon participating in the death game to come.