Chapter 2

Jhin lay on his bed while blankly staring at the ceiling of his room.

After spending the entire day celebrating his 18th birthday, Jhin could finally rest in his room after eating dinner.

"So it actually worked..." Jhin muttered under his breath.

Throughout this entire time, he thought he was dreaming or was put under an illusion which is why he simply enjoyed his time with his family.

After all, he knows full well that, in reality, his family was dead a very long time ago.

So long that he couldn't remember their faces anymore.

In the same time, the memories of his family also reminded him of how truly weak he was.

It was hard to imagine that the most despicable devil of his time was no more than a failure that failed to protect the people he loved the most.

'If only I had taken this game seriously..' Jhin's emotionless face slightly tensed as his hand subconsciously gripped the case of a certain VR game.

This VR game in his hand was called [Ascended Order]. The URVR (Ultra Real-Virtual Reality) game that shook the entire earth after its release.

It had an incredibly immersive experience to the point where it was dubbed the second world and a special game compatible even with the old generational console of VR Head Gear.

The Ascended Order was a URVRMMORPG (Ultra Real Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game) with billions of players preregistering worldwide.

It was famous for its very realistic visuals, life-like NPCs, and sensible and fluid game mechanics.

A year ago, the game launched a beta testing campaign where influential people were chosen to participate.

Most of the chosen participants were from rich and prominent backgrounds or popular influencers from social platforms.

And they all made the same review:

"Ascended Order is a god-tier game huh..." Jhin murmured as he read the posts from social media.

Then a cold sarcastic sneer appeared on his face.

'Well, of course it is a God-tier game considering that it was a game made by Gods.'

What the players didn't know was that the Ascended Order was a game made by Gods and not only that but what is even more surprising was the fact that some of the NPCs turned out to be the Gods themselves!

This revelation only occurred after the third year of the game's release.

And on the very same day of that revelation, a devastating event befell all of mankind.

It happened on the day the game developers released a new update on a new continent. Naturally, the players looked forward to it since the new continent meant new land properties, quest lines, and equipment.

However, On that same notice, the admins and game masters of the Ascended Order revealed that they were Gods and Goddesses. After that, An earth-shattering quake occurred, but fortunately or unfortunately, no human was left to experience it as all of humanity was transported inside the game.

That's right.

Whether they were elders, children, infants, or people with disability, there were no exceptions as they were all transferred to a new reality.

A new reality— or more precisely, they were transported into the world they dubbed as "The Second world".

They were sent to the Argentia, the world of the game Ascended Order.

Everything suddenly became real.

The pain, the experience, the lives of the people- everything became a reality, including one's permanent death.

Such a shocking and unimaginable event was something that many humans were unprepared for, leading to the death of more than half of the entire humanity that has been transported into the new world.

Fortunately enough, those who had accounts or in other words, Players, retained their abilities and were able to survive in their new reality.

Unfortunately, to those few majority who didn't have accounts in the game, suffered greatly along with the children and elderly as they couldn't adjust to the new harsh environment.

Additionally, the NPCs (aside from the ones that were gods) became real people who remembered each every face of the players they encountered along with the relationship they had with them.

And so those players who treated NPCs badly or had a bad relationship with them became scorned and chased them out of their cities or countries.

Many players who played with that playstyle were forced to live in dungeons or outskirts of the cities to survive.

Remembering the future events, Jhin inadvertently released a sigh.

"Fortunately... that thing worked. Such a cheat item deserved to be called like that."

The item that Jhin used was an incredibly precious and special item that was only granted after completing a very, very, very long and hard questline.

One that started after he had been thrown into the world of Argentia.

Unfortunately for Jhin, he had only played Ascended Order as a hobby and so his in-game character had incredibly low level and stats compared to the other players.

To make matters much worse, The whole world of Argentia was in a state of chaos as the sudden transfer of billions of humans flooded every city and continent. And not soon after their arrival, numerous evil organizations were built and wreaking havoc across the world of Argentia— all of them were players.

It's not as if that wasn't to be expected to be honest.

After all, if a person who had lived normally throughout his life suddenly gained the power he had been wanting in his fantasy, it was natural that they would do everything they ever wanted.

To live as Kings, Rule over nations, Conquer countries, Pillage village— everything and anything.

In the end, Players were the ones that brought chaos to the world of Argentia.

This only made the inhabitants of Argentia start to view the Players as enemies and eventually began treating them as one.

Jhin was one of the people who became a victim to their hatred.

Starting off as a weak player, he was easily caught, detained, and was made a slave along with other low-leveled players by Soldiers from a city in Argentia.

Jhin had to suffer a battered and bruised body for several years, even enduring torture and harassment from Argentian guards.

It was only by chance he managed to escape when a Guild of players was attacking the city he was imprisoned in.

More hardships followed as he struggled to survive whatever fate had in store for him.

Eventually, with his quick wits and intelligent scheming, he managed to create a Mercenary Guild that grew in power after participating in many wars and conflicts.

Only then was he able to begin searching for the whereabouts of his family. At the time, it was his one and only goal.

The thought of reuniting with his family is the only thing that kept him going.

Soon more years passed and at the end of the search... Jhin was faced with the harsh reality that...

It was all too late.

He was able to confirm the death of his loved ones by using a consumable item that reveals the direction of his kin.

And so what followed was years of depression and aimless lifestyle.

That was until he across the rumor of the Holy Grail of Time.

A God-like item that was capable of returninf back in time.

After he heard of its existence, Jhin sacrificed everything just to get a hold of the start of the quest and even then, hellish doesn't even begin to describe the start of that quest.

Not only that, but imagine the hardship of completing a quest, let's say, Quest A.

Quest A requires you to gather incredibly rare materials; some, you have to gather from holy beasts that only appear once every hundred years, while others, you have to kill an entire race and refine their accumulated pools of blood to create the certain item you need.

After that, some of the materials could only be gathered by talking to other characters and getting their quests that were in the same devious nature.

One particular quest forced him to stay in an empty space for more than a thousand years alone to see whether he was worthy or not.

He would have long become insane if not for the quest tab showing how many years have passed.

Meanwhile, collection quests with a 0.00001% drop rate became the norm in his long life.

After that, he spent a staggering thousand more years trying to complete the other quests. He betrayed, steal, deceived, massacred- it was as if he had done every unscrupulous deeds in the book.

And it wasn't forced.

He did it all willingly just so he could fulfill the conditions of the [Holy Grail of Time].

He couldn't help but think back on the last condition for being able to use that item.

[ Reveal your face to Hero Atlas: 0/1 ]

This confused him greatly but he already realized it from a long time ago that the quests of the item was influencing him.

Even his infamous white mask was forced unto him by the conditions of the quests.

In the end however,

"It was worth it."

You would think his thousands of years of hardship were exaggerated, but it wasn't. All of that truly happened and was accomplished by him alone.

All so he could get this second chance.

Heaving a deep breath, Jhin opened his eyes, still facing the ceiling of his room.

He calmed his thoughts as his memories resurfaced, including the unpleasant mind-numbing and inhumane actions he had to do. Actions that would lead a sane person to lunacy.

Due to how much time had passed, he almost completely forgot everything about his world. Heck, as much as he didn't want to admit it, he had also forgotten the faces of his family.

For the longest time, he had only acknowledged their existence but, their faces had turned blurry. He couldn't recall how they looked like, how they spoke, what was their personality- everything.

Perhaps... that would have been the best as remembering them would only make him yearn for them even more.

Which is why when he first arrived in this current timeline, he looked at this family as if they were strangers.

But after carefully spending a few seconds to analyze their faces, perceiving their emotional connections towards him, his numb and dead heart instinctively throbbed.

It felt... very painful.

All of his suppressed feelings, feelings that he thought had long died, poured out all at once.

His family's faces that had long become blurry started to grow clearer and as soon as he felt their warmth, he almost couldn't prevent the tears from falling his eyes.

He never thought of himself as an emotional person.

In fact, he was quite the opposite as he was forced to objectively and rationally analyze every paths and variable he encountered in his life.

Such an attitude was required to live a long life.

Reveal that you care for someone, and your enemies will exploit them and use them to their advantage just as how Jhin had been doing to the majorities of his enemies.

He kidnapped their families, lovers, and friends, and then threatened his victims into doing what he wanted.

And he didn't feel the mildest guilt in doing so.

After all, people who cares about someone were the easiest to manipulate.

And this case did not apply to Jhin as his family had been dead for a long time. Simply put, he didn't have a weakness.

He didn't care about anyone or anything so long as he gets what he wants.

He would pretend and get close to his targets or become the first one to stab their backs and betray them.

If they still had some use, he will keep them. But if not, then they could only be mercilessly thrown away.

That was how Jhin had lived his life.

But now... that will have to change.

Jhin knew he had to adjust his mindset and frankly speaking, it was quite difficult. Not just difficult, but very difficult.

A part of him was telling him to discard his family as they would become a hindrance to his ultimate goal. But a part of him was also holding him back, telling him that the happiness he had been searching for was right in this place.

In the end, he knew.

He had to... accept his weakness.

The very thought of it alone made him feel vulnerable, something that he knew he had to avoid— his rational mind told him so.

He calmed his rational side and told himself that they will not become a burden if he were to achieve two objectives.

One, He becomes powerful enough that he could protect the people he cares about and secondly, he raises his family so that they could become strong enough to take care of themselves.

As easy as his goals were to say, they were extremely hard to achieve.

And that was due to the existence of his number one enemies.

The Gods and Goddesses.

No matter what he does or how powerful he becomes, Those Deities will always be omnipotent compared to a mortal. He knows this, he experienced dealing with them first-hand after all.

No matter how hard he tries to outwit them, he will always fall into their schemes and used as a chest piece.

Therefore, his ultimate goal in mind was to....

Either slay all the deities or... become one.

"..."

"Haaa...." Another sigh escaped his mouth as he rubbed his eyes that had become strained after staring too much at the ceiling.

He often forgets to blink whenever he was in a deep thought.

Additionally, he still wasn't used to inhibiting emotions.

As a being who lived for thousands of years, he had long lost the feeling of emotions, and now that he was experiencing them once again, he had a hard time adjusting to them.

He wasn't used to having his thoughts and judgement influence by emotions.

And so, he took a few more minutes to calm himself down before ruminating on his next steps on his current situation.

As he was doing so, his hands clenched into a fist, and a determined gaze appeared on his face.

"This time... I will save my family... I will reach the top and guarantee the lives of my family...

I won't let anyone or anything hurt them again..." He murmured in a low voice.

His eyes became hateful as he stared at the ceiling. However, he was glaring not at the ceiling but beyond it.

His eyes glinted dangerously as he declared menacingly, "And that includes you Gods..."

After reaffirming his goals, he began to think of the following steps to achieve his goal.

He racked his brain as he tried to remember the initial events, rare titles, and monster drops inside the game.

After all, he was well over three thousand years old mentally in his previous life, and that did not include the time he spent inside the game.

He jotted down important titles and events that he could vaguely remember. Fortunately, he could still recall the most important and powerful special items and titles because some of them were impactful to Jhin's memories.

Jhin spent the entire night planning for his future but even then, he wasn't satisfied with what measly details he was able to recall from his memories.

The Memory Palace

It was an ancient technique invented by Simonides of Ceos, about 2,500 years ago during the Ancient Greece. The memory palace a mnemonic technique used to improve memory retention and recall. It involves mentally placing information to be remembered in specific locations within an imagined physical space, such as a palace or building, and then mentally "walking" through that space to retrieve the information when needed.

A normal person who had been practicing the memory palace from a young age would have a memory palace limited to the size of a single library. However, for a being like Jhin who had lived for thousands of years, his memory palace was in the size of a grand library. With some of the memories, or bookshelves, having no labels and books that became blank.

It was understandable because at the end of the day, no matter what he had achieved in the previous timeline, he was still a human.

But Jhin was fine with the current situation.

He simply has to fill in the blanks with his own thoughts an conjunctions and if that wasn't enough, he had all the resources to research about it and find the answers on his own.

Hours later, Jhin rose from his bed when the rising sun shined through the crack of the windows in his room.

Checking the date on his phone, Jhin muttered to himself, "I still have three days until the game officially starts with the servers opening up..."

His following plans were simple. Hoard all the unique achievements and titles, get his desired special class, take advantage of the loopholes in the unpatched dungeons and maps, make money in the game, and exchange it with real money in order to buy his family the game consoles of their own.

As he was thinking of this, He left his house early in the morning, intending to go for a morning run.

His recollection had entered a bottleneck, and he needed a new pace to refresh his overused mind.

Circling around the district, his mind continued to formulate the things he needed to do as soon as servers opened.

He desperately searched in his memories for the advantages he could give himself in the early stages of the game.

His mind was so focused that the faces of the people he met became a blur, but fortunately, he was paying enough attention to not get himself in an accident.

After running for more than an hour, he returned home while mildly drenched in sweat.

Even a run like that wasn't enough for him to feel slightly tired. Jhin felt that it barely counted as a warm-up.

Jhin was plenty satisfied with his current body's performance.

Upon entering his house, he smelled a fragrant and hunger-inducing aroma, causing Jhin to subconsciously walk towards the kitchen.

Seeing the figure of a woman you would fail to think of as a mother due to her small waist and perfect curves, Jhin smiled as he looked at the back of a very beautiful woman.

"Morning, Mom."

"Hm? Oh, You're up." His mother turned around, finding it surprising that he was already awake.

Looking at his appearance, His mother said. "Take a bath first, then go wake up your dad and sister. Tell them that breakfast is ready."

Jhin nodded and headed towards the bathroom.

The reason why his family found nothing unusual about him was that he knew how he should act.

He had pretended, acted, and deceived on countless occasions in his previous life. To him, acting as his previous self or in other words, "the ideal son" for the sake of his family was nothing difficult.

He could even continue living an entire lifetime with this persona and he will never lose idea of who truly was.

After a brief shower, Jhin went to his parent's room and woke his father up.

"Dad."

"Mmhmm?"

"Mom said breakfast is ready."

His father's forehead creased and murmured, "I'll be there in a minute..."

Jhin sighed before smirking and said, "Alright, It's not my fault if mom's the one to climb up here to wake you up."

As soon as he said that, his father groggily got up from the bed and walked towards the bathroom with heavy steps.

Jhin mildly chuckled at the sleepy appearance of his father before going towards his sister's room.

Knock. Knock.

"Mia?"

"..."

Receiving no reply, he said, "I'm coming in."

When he opened the door, he was welcomed by the sloppy appearance of his younger sister, who seemed to be sleeping peacefully.

"Mia...." Jhin whispered to the sleeping beauty.

Approaching closer, he whispered once again. "Miaaaa...."

"Hnn..." Mia's eyes fluttered slightly, but she just turned the other way.

"Sigh..." Although Jhin sighed, a happy smile was plastered on his face as he wished that their days could go on normally like this.

After experiencing more than a thousand years of hardships, Jhin knew how luxurious this peaceful and carefree life was, and he wanted nothing more than to enjoy it.

But unfortunately, That wasn't what fate had in store for them, as they were bound to be thrown to another world in three years.

Jhin called out to his sister once more, this time with a sterner voice. "Mia."

Mia's beautiful face frowned as her eyes slightly cracked open.

"Bro..?"

"Wake up now or else..." Jhin gave a foreboding warning.

Seeing her brother's face, Mia's drowsiness lessened as she smirked and responded in a challenging tone. "Or else what?"

Jhin had a vague feeling she would do this, which was why-

"Secret brother technique: Wriggling hands of death!"

Jhin proceeded to tickle Mia on her waist, causing the latter to struggle while convulsing in laughter.

"Stop! Stop it Jhin! I- Hahaha! STOP! Hahaha! Stop! I give! I give!"

Mia's giggles resounded throughout the room, but Jhin refused to stop and continued to inflict suffering on his little sister's ticklish sides.

Only after a minute, when Mia's body was convulsing and tears welling up in her eyes, did Jhin finally stop.

Feeling satisfied, Jhin urged her with a smile. "Come on, let's go. In case you're still sleepy, go wash your face."

"H-how... how could I even be sleepy after that.." Mia weakly replied.

.

.

.

.

.

"Mom! You need to hear this!" Mia turned to her mother and complained, "Jhin actually tortured me to wake up!"

Their mother raised her brow. "Oh really now?"

Mia nodded cutely. "Yes! Big bro was actually bullying me!"

"Is this true, Son?"

Jhin shook his head and answered innocently. "Not at all! I think Mia's been having bad dreams lately."

"How dare you!" Mia pouted at Jhin.

"Alright children, settle down and eat your food."

"Okay..."

After their mother told them off, the pair of siblings stopped arguing.

Mia, who still felt wronged, could only hatefully stare at her brother while the latter proceeded to nonchalantly eat breakfast, acting as if he hadn't done anything wrong.

"So Jhin, Your college starts in a week. Do you already know which way it is to your university?" Their father asked while taking a bite of the stir-fried vegetables.

"Mhm." Jhin nodded while continuing to chew his food.

"That's good. Are you sure that your daily allowance is enough?"

Jhin swallowed his food before answering.

"Yes actually- You don't even need to give me allowance since I could just eat at home."

"No." His father shook his head. "It's better if you have money just in case of emergency. If you don't intend to spend it then just save it."

"Mhmm... alright."

Just as Jhin said, he didn't need allowance since his university was within walking distance and his classes only start from 7 am until 3 pm.

But he did not want to reject his father's good intentions for him and so, he simply accepted it.

Jhin smiled at himself inwardly as he still felt unnerved to the feeling of another person doing him a favor without something in return. Jhin was already used to the concept of having an equal exchange whenever he needed another person to do him a favor.

After their meal, Jhin returned to his room and took out a pad of paper.

From then on, he started writing the important future events that he managed to recover from his memory palace.

Unfortunately however, many of his old memories that was without label were mostly unpleasant and mind numbing memories that he had stored away. Forced to remember them again was an unpleasant experience for him.

Fortunately, with available resources and reviews from the internet, Jhin was able to recall more details about the early stages of the game.

And after hours of hard work, he could vaguely remember more unpatched loopholes and the important NPCs with special quests of the game.

He also remembered a few special titles and quests that would surely give him a huge head start at the beginning of the game.

His hard memory rumination wasn't without a cause as Jhin had to lie exhausted in his bed and was forced to rest for at least a day.

Soon after that, Three days passed, and the official launch of the widely anticipated ultra-real virtual reality online game Ascended Order began.

Every social media platform was becoming festive and wild. Even the news channels were reporting the live countdown of the game's official launch.

Wearing his headgear, Jhin lay down on his bed while looking at his phone.

"Ten seconds left."

On his phone was a live video of the international news channel counting down the timer.

[Eight!]

...

[Seven!]

...

[Six!]

...

[Five!]

...

[Four!]

...

As the countdown continued, Jhin felt a rush of excitement course through his body.

It was as if all of mankind was united as they counted down on a worldwide event.

[Three!]

...

[Two!]

...

[Aaand... OOOONEEEE!!!]

[Uuuoooohhh!!!]

Jhin could hear distant cheers, some from his neighbors, while on the other side of his room, his sister was cheering as well.

The world cheered like it was New Years.

He couldn't help but have mixed feelings, especially when he knew what the game actually was.

Deciding not to think anymore about it, Jhin closed his eyes.

After taking a deep breath, he spoke:

A/N: "Link Start!" Just kidding.

"Game Log on."