12 May 2145
It was a sunny day in Chersey. The sun was out baking people and the citizens accepted it with an overwhelming welcome… at least in some locations.
The 22nd century caused people to be heavily reliant on technology, causing crime to be washed down the gutters. Though, just because it was drowned in the gutters didn’t mean it didn’t exist.
On the other hand, due to humanity being so reliant on technology, many people lost their jobs. The newer world for normal people was just downright boring. Get up, wash up, breakfast, lunch, dinner or any other activities you used to fill your routine, was all that was left of them.
This naturally meant a decrease in the economy of the world which created global chaos. The governments then found an extremely weird solution for this. Other than of course moving to different planets, the world introduced the second life program. Creating many different types of extremely realistic games and using items inside those games to earn money proved to be an interesting idea.
But that was all it was. An interesting idea only. Creating extremely realistic games proved to be a near impossible task.
The world could only make due with MMORPGs and because of the fact that you needed a computer or laptop for that, it caused many people to miss out.
That was the situation until 10 years ago. The Hauss Corporation, a multimedia giant dabbling in anything that included technology, had decided to develop their own game, and one that was 99% realistic to the real world.
This got people excited, after all who were the Hauss Corporation?
They were a tech giant, who had developed a special version for everything which normal people used, from smartphones to games. These products would not usually have turned a normal company into a corporation, but due to their own software, which was a lot better than others, being incorporated in everything, the products were received with a lot of interest.
The biggest boost to them was from their games which boasted an impossible to replicate realism. Though they were still not capable to VR (Virtual Reality), the public didn’t buy VR that much. This coupled with the fact that the plotlines were extremely great made them an instant success. Though, the biggest impact to the industry came in 2133, when Sword Master was launched.
A game people thought to be just average turned out to be a gem. This of course felt like provocation to those companies which produced games and they used their own products to fight against Hauss. With the result currently, it was easy to see who the winner was.
With the success of the first one, the company produced Sword Master’s sequels with the series almost being turned into a RPG one.
With the supreme series, they gained an even higher funding allowing them to swiftly develop their VR game.
They kept updating their release date since the last five years and today was finally the day when the closed beta test was scheduled to be.
The real release date was 1 week later and that left people amazed, but for the professional gamers that got the chance to become social celebrities, not gaining the chance to play the closed beta was an action that would cause them to always be 1 week behind.
Though, the delay of 10 years was a big problem for them. Many companies had produced VR games in the past years, with many having become VRMMORPG types. Though they never went beyond 70% realism, the graphics were still better than anything ever experienced.
Many were debating whether the game would be good, since it started developing a decade ago and while they agreed that the game might not be up to the mark, it didn’t waiver their trust at all. Lines of people had already formed on stores and shops, waiting for the grand release of the game.
With the people who were queuing up to get the chance to get the game, getting a cabin in the first month was almost impossible for people without any backing.
Of course, there was someone who had completely different thoughts.
…
The Lake Park was always busy with people. It had many attractions, one of which was the winding roads or as the name was, the three intersection pathway.
On the road, which was responsible for the park’s western access, a young man dressed in black and white overalls was walking with his hands in his pocket. He wore a white shirt, with black pants. He had a watch on his right hand. Many people occasionally recognized him, but strayed away immediately.
Seeing the newspaper flying above his head, Vernon gave the thing one glance before turning his head towards other things.
‘The grass is flying towards the west, so the wind goes there. That lady is feeding a baby and that old man is most likely suffering from arthritis’
He kept marking things around the surrounding and made a mental note to review anything weird at night.
Fwoosh!
Without looking he put his hand up and caught the newspaper flying towards him, making sure it didn’t hit his watch, flipped it open and glanced at the front page.
Though once he took a look at it, his calm expression turned into shock and surprise.
‘Why is she there? How can she be there?’
His mind turned into a jumbled mess as he stared at the paper. Finally deciding on a conclusion, he dropped the newspaper and hurried towards his house.
The newspaper then slowly glided towards the ground. On its front page were a couple of people dressed in weird armor and holding weapons.
…
Opening his house door, Vernon hurried towards his room without hesitation. His house was a double story one. The ground floor had the kitchen, dining table and the lounge with a guest room and a bathroom. Upstairs, were the two main bedrooms and one bathroom.
Due to ample space, the upstairs was also built with some narrow corridors. His room, was thankfully the first one, meaning he did not have to walk through 5 tiny places.
In the corridor’s walls, was a mirror. He stopped there for a second and turned to look at it.
The picture in front of the mirror was of an extremely young looking youth. He had nearly complete white skin, but due to it being nearly complete, he looked extremely pale. It was bad enough, that people might suspect him of never having been in the sun. His eyes were shining blue, captivating though the eyeballs were red, making them scary and his hair was pure black, in a weird spiky hairstyle.
Turning back around, he made his way to his room and turned on the computer. It would be better to call it a server though.
It only had one monitor and said monitor was currently receiving tons of data packages. Beside the monitor was a large box. This was the latest Colossal server.
With technology progressing fast, ordinary items such as mobile phones and computers received an extreme upgrade.
The scientists of Hauss corporation decided to turn everything more compact causing a new type of watch to appear.
The Hyperwatch was a mix of the mobile phone, computer and all normal technological devices.
The one on Vernon’s hand was of the VII generation. Opening it he glanced at the camera once, but then turned towards the web. Going to a specific webpage, he projected the watch to his monitor.
‘Hmm, the process to buy this thing is pretty complicated, thankfully I still have some priority for my work otherwise I don’t know how long I would have to wait.’
He then operated his computer as it immediately loaded in a page that had very realistic images of products with one of them being featured at the top.
Clicking on the buy now page, he was redirected to another option asking him permission to allow the device to withdraw his money.
Clicking yes, the window was once again updated with a line of words saying.
“We appreciate you for trying out our products, the object shall be delivered to your address in 2 hours.”
A notification also came from the watch telling him 8000 credits had been deducted from his account.
'That's neither too much, nor too little. Most people should be able to get the cabin, cause the price is about a week's salary for even the lower class.'
Glancing at it, he turned off his watch and closed his eyes to rest.
‘All done, now I just need to wait. I don’t know why you went away but I’ll find out why, even if I have to sell my house.’
Afterwards he unintentionally fell asleep.
…
2 hours passed in the blink of an eye
With the doorbell ringing, Vernon jerked awake and glanced at his watch. It displayed 15:12.
Yawning, he got up from his chair and went to get the package. Opening his door, he saw a scrawny man with an enormous package- coming up to the height of an average tall door- beside him.
“Would you be Mr. Vernon Elroy?”
The man asked with an extremely tired face.
“Yes, that would be me. Thank you.”
The deliveryman sighed and said.
“Alright, just confirm here and my work will be done.”
Saying so he took out a small device and pointed it towards Vernon. Vernon then also pointed his watch at the device and waited for it to confirm.
Afterward, he bid the deliveryman goodbye and slowly carried the package back to his room.
Anyone seeing this move, would have been astounded as to how a person with normal looking limbs carried something that even musclemen couldn’t properly hold.
Placing the big box in his room, he took a look around to see where it would fit. Most of Vernon’s room was filled with technological devices and random messy papers.
The right side of his room contained some windows which were completely blocked by the blinds. Just a bit away from the window was his work desk, containing weird devices including but not limited to gene analysing, gene strengthening, mind strengthening etc.
The reason for this was of course his job which was being a Human Engineer. It didn’t mean designing robotic humans, rather finding ways to improve the human body.
The rest of the space was occupied by the bed and a small wardrobe. Shifting a couple of devices away around his work desk, he put the device just beside it.
Looking at it front the front, he pointed his watch at the QR code and allowed it to scan it.
Within a couple of seconds, the scanning was complete and the package opened towards the four sides revealing a completely silver metallic cabin. On the right side of the cabin, there was also a syringe with a bluish liquid. There also seemed to be a small manual, that explained what the game did.
Vernon first picked up the manual, and gave it a thorough reading, before focusing his attention on the syringe.
On top of the syringe were some words written: “Inject into arm artery”. Removing the syringe, he read the line again and rotated the syringe to properly check it. Afterwards, he injected the liquid into his left arm’s artery.
Though he felt nothing, Vernon knew that the liquid had done its job after reading its description on the syringe.
‘Capable of mind controlling a metal object, this is amazing technology Hauss has developed. Even crazier, the fact that the starting attributes are taken from your actual body, during scanning. This is something even the governments haven't been able to do. How did Hauss create this?’
Removing his attention from the effects of the liquid, he focused on the cabin itself. It was completely created from a bronze looking metal, the door was built with a glass frame bordered with the same bronze looking metal and had a small h with a ‘+’ in the middle.
This was the Hauss Corporation’s first VR cabin. This was the object which allowed people to experience a completely different world. It was said that taste and smell were actually better than the real world.
Clicking on a small button towards the right side, he watched as the cabin opened upwards. Making sure his limbs were all visible, Vernon got inside the cabin in a resting position.
‘Close the door’
The door closed upon his thought. Looking around, he felt himself inside of a completely dark place.
‘Log in’
He felt something cover his head and then something inject into left arm.
Immediately his surrounding changed and Vernon found himself inside of a small place. Looking around, he noticed the weird artistry and also saw that the place he was in seemed to be a hall, just one that had many sculptures and paintings.
“Welcome to the hall of Galaxies.”
A voice came from his right and he turned around to see a middle aged man wearing a suit looking at him. He was standing upright, his left hand carrying a small plaque. Seeing his gaze, the man started speaking without giving him any chance to ask questions.
“Now considering the fact that you are one of the first 100 closed beta testers, I will give you the absolute basic information.”
“The system’s features can be accessed just by thinking about them. The game will also brief you if you have any high level notification and as for what decides it’s a high level notification, that’s upto Robin, the Controller.”
“The game is always upgrading itself so choices may or may not have consequences that change the game entirely. Robin will also upgrade the system regularly, which will require all users to log off five minutes before the upgrade and they shall be forcefully logged off if the timer runs out.”
“The game system classification is divided into 15 levels with the game currently running on level -1. Each level up increases the maximum level for all types and also allows for more exploration.”
“Now for the final tip, it is completely possible to create anything you desire in the game. Races, classes, professions and even energy types or paths to being the strongest.”
“With this, I wish you a good life. Oh also, Welcome to Integration.”
Saying so the man waved his hand and Vernon found his vision changing once again. When he looked around, he found himself in a city and one that was modernized or even ahead of their ones in real life.
