Newbie Village

With the proper start of the game, Arthur felt the sensations of his body change accordingly.

His vision had turned white and his body had changed as well. While he couldn't look at his body right now, he knew that there were some major differences in it. A few moments later, his vision returned, and he saw the scene of a vast land.

"The land where Legends, Myths and Dreams exist!"

"The land where gods bestow their grace and the demons spread their malice!"

"The land of valor and fortune, the land of mystery and magic!"

"Will you follow the path of a hero and be blessed by the gods? Or will you take the path of the demons and be scorned by them?"

"Or would you rather forge your own path and go to peaks no one has reached?"

"Welcome to the Land of Somnium!"

While the cut-scene played, Arthur paid attention to it.

'The characters shown in the cut-scene are important NPC's after all… some of them even give hints for future quests.' Arthur had seen this cut-scene several times before and could almost remember everything.

And yet it still felt thrilling for him to watch it again.

After the cut-scene ended, Arthur found the camera to be zooming in quickly. The land expanded and its topography became clear. Arthur could see green forests, yellow deserts, brown marshes, blue seas and rivers along with snow-capped peaks.

The land kept on magnifying, and Arthur felt like it was automatically shifting toward a certain direction.

'Come on… go there… go there…' Arthur had spent a lot of effort to get the Dream Pod and to come to the Hypnotek gallery.

And all of it was for one reason… the newbie village.

~DING~

>The player Arzhur, has arrived at Kestrel Village<

Arthur heard a notification and soon found himself standing in the middle of a village square. There was a small fountain beside him, while tens of other players were standing around him with a blank expression on their faces.

"It really is Kestrel Village…. Hahah! It worked! It worked!" Arthur jumped around in joy.

"WHOA! THIS IS SICK!" and he wasn't the only one doing some antics.

"This is so immersive!"

"Shit! I can really jump this high! My fat legs wouldn't allow this in real life."

"Can I do a backflip?"

~THUD~

"Guess I can't…"

There was no lack of people feeling amazed after really entering it. After all, there was a lot of doubt and speculation about whether Hypnotek would actually be able to deliver on their promise, and now it was proven to be true.

Arthur looked at the players around him and couldn't help but chuckle.

"This is always fun to see." He said before looking around for a particular place.

In Morpheus Online, there were hundreds of newbie villages and all of them were divided according to the regional servers. And in the particular regional servers, players would get assigned to different villages simply depending on the order in which they logged in.

Now, this wasn't anything of particular importance for most people. All the newbie villages were almost the same and had the same functions and shops available. While their appearance might be different, it was mostly for cosmetic and aesthetic purposes.

Though there were also difference in the type of villages depending on what kind of area they were located in.

For example, a village in a cold area would have buildings built to retain heat, while those in a desert would be built to cool down.

Basically, what one saw in reality would apply here too.

But while this might be the general case for newbie villages, there were still some unique points to them. Such as the fact that the enemies found around them would be different, and the NPCs would be different as well.

The NPCs had their own lives and personalities and would act accordingly. Thus, one couldn't expect to apply the same responses on the NPCs of different villages.

There were even small secrets that might be unique to some villages and be an exclusive to the players of that village.

The Kestrel Village was one such village.

But the secret that it held wasn't small. In fact, it was so big that its appearance had changed the very plot of the game several times.

And that secret was… A Hidden Class.

'Kestrel Village, also known as (Newbie Village 0001) in internal game database. It is the first village in the numerical order and would be the first to be populated by players as well.' Arthur recalled his notes.

This was the reason why he had to make the effort of getting the Dream Pod V3 in the Hypnotek Gallery.

The launch event was going to be held at the gallery and thus, the first set of players would also be logging in from here. This would place them directly in the Kestrel village.

Of course, on the surface, this wasn't anything different from other villages. And the time difference between other villages being populated wasn't that long either, being merely seconds apart. So it wasn't as if the first comes were getting undue advantage.

In fact, the existence of the Hidden Class in Kestrel Village wasn't even known until three years later.

This made it so that the players couldn't complain about early players getting an advantage. They had missed the quest for the Hidden class for over three years!

"Though it isn't exactly their fault either… this quest isn't straightforward. I still don't know how the original player managed to figure it out…" Arthur muttered to himself as he walked to the very back of the village.

While others were checking their equipment and stats, Arthur seemed to be exploring.

But his destination was something decided.

'It should be somewhere around here…' He turned through a narrow alleyway before coming upon a group of beggars.

"Here they are," Arthur smiled upon finding his target.

He walked up to them and kneeled in front of an old beggar.

"Would you like some bread?"