Three.

People stared at the clock, waiting impatiently for the last minutes to be over. Many of them were young people - patience wasn’t exactly their virtue, especially not when it was about games. They understood that games had to be put under maintenance once in a while, but that did not make it any easier to wait.

Two.

Eleven years ago, a professor by the name of Halwitt had managed to create an advanced Artificial Intelligence beyond any comparison. Abzu was its name, and it was what gave birth to a number of other, simpler AIs within the company. Its secret was guarded closely, as Halwitt feared the technology might be used for war. Or maybe he was just greedy.

Abzu could imitate human reactions, based on calculations. It wasn’t fully human-like, but enough to hold a conversation that could be called one. It was advanced enough to be able to react to unforeseen changes. Abzu was amazing.

One.

However, all uses of such an AI aside, Halwitt was a weirdo. Abzu was used not for the advancement of further technology, or as a weapon, or as a teacher-

No, Abzu was used as a base for a game. It came just in time for the newest technology that allowed you to dive into games with all of your senses, giving rise to a whole generation of youths with an eighth-grader syndrome.¹Chuunibyou. Describes a phase where teenagers develop a sort of superior complex and where they believe themselves to be special. They were the main characters. The game was theirs. The full-dive capsule was the new trend.

And with the new AIs, the world felt more alive than ever. Finally they could live their fantasy - this was another world for them to capture.

In cooperation with the company who created these capsules, Halwitt’s company designed a special capsule just for his game. Of course you didn’t need to buy it, but people did agree it made sense.

After all, no other game could reach Halwitt’s.

After all, no other game needed a capsule this advanced…

It was truly beyond any comparison.

Zero.

[Loading…]

[Welcome to Haven. Please wait.]

[Biometric scan finished. Retina scan finished. Fingerprint scan finished. Recognizing user.]

[Logging in…]

[Hello Jian Lin.]

The world opened up before the young man’s eyes like a huge door. He blinked into the bright sun that shone in through the window and rubbed his eyes, his staff lodged under his arm. People would be standing after logging in, and he was placed right in front of the window despite logging out near the simple bed.

Due to public demand, Haven was set in a historical high-fantasy world. Orcs and goblins, elves and dwarves - everyone recognized the setting. There wasn’t much need to explain.

Right now, Haven looked like a country on some kind of central continent. They couldn’t tell how the world map would look, but the playable area was large enough for their taste. It was basically its own country at this point.

The world of Haven was continuously growing as more and more areas were opened. Rather than a fixed wall, the developers had used natural hindrances to keep players from approaching the borders of the game world. Instead they could look beyond it, seeing hints of new areas that might be unlocked sometime.

For example, one mountain area was still locked. You couldn’t approach it because military troops were stationed everywhere, completely overpowered and ensuring no one could explore the place where they had recently found a gold mine. Another area, a desert, was locked due to the insane sandstorm that would suffocate any player entering.

There was an explanation for everything, following the in-game logic.

As for players, they were regarded as foreign travellers. You couldn’t start Haven at any time - there were set start times, where a boat would reach the beginner’s village. The players were called Foreigners by the people of the country, and were both enemy and friend depending on who you asked.

After all, for the NPCs²Non-player character. Any sort of character in a game that's just code and not a real person. living in Haven, it was exceptionally weird to have reviving humans around. Some thought it was a curse and they were all undead searching for a way to redeem themselves, others thought it was a blessing and they came to bless these lands as well.

That different groups had different opinions resulted in players being more accepted in certain areas, especially those for beginners.

Jian Lin breathed in the fresh air. It felt good to take a break from the smog of the city. Haven was truly a haven for many people like him, who wanted to escape their daily lives for various reasons.

Having adjusted to the weird feeling of his other body, Jian Lin called up his interface with a soft whisper.

“System.”

A window popped up, displaying his stats and options.

Jian Lin habitually checked them to make sure everything was correct.

【Pain synchronisation:

Ordinary pain: 80%

Internal injuries: 40% (MAX)
Lethal injuries: 20% (MAX)】

【Sense synchronisation:

Sight: 100% (MAX)
Smell: 70%
Taste: 80%
Touch: 70%
Hearing: 80%】

Jian Lin looked at the synchronisation levels for a while and after hesitating, raised hearing back to 90% and smell down to 60%.

The synchronisation levels were what decided how real Haven was. Whether something was the same as it would be in reality depended on how much your senses judged it to be real.

It was best to regularly adjust these and be a bit too careful - anyone who had ever fought against trolls or sirens would understand just how important it was to regulate your sense of smell and hearing. Taste was more of a luxury, especially considering the nasty taste of healing potions, and touch was a lot about how well you could deal with skinning and the like.

Sight, well… Let’s say it helped pixelate some more unsightly things.

The pain level synchronization was special, and limited by the game.

Whenever a player was hurt, there’d be a calculation running in the background. Depending on the synchronisation setting, the player would feel only a certain percentage of what you’d feel in reality.

That meant that 100% was the same pain you’d feel in reality, while 0% would make you immune to pain.

Ordinary pain could be set between 20% and 100%, internal injuries up until 40%, and lethal injuries 20%.

The game set up these distinctions because there was a vast difference between feeling the pain of a needle prick… or that of losing a limb.

Especially lethal injuries couldn’t be transmitted fully.

The reason for that was simple - it was too dangerous. If your brain thought you were dying, there was a chance that it would shut down despite your true body being unhurt.³This is a fact. There indeed torture experiments where people died of "bloodloss" despite not being hurt at all. This was what many people had been worried about, but the synchronization levels worked well.

The young man’s eyes wandered down to his own stats.

He was a tiny bit taller and heavier than his true body, but the game didn’t allow large discrepancies to make sure you didn’t lose connection to your real body. His face was… well, he was an elf, which meant he looked different. He had also played around with some of his colours. For example, he was a bit more tanned than in reality. He also had classic cold blue eyes and long blonde hair.

Below his body’s stats came the game numbers. It was hard to guess what the numbers meant if you didn’t know it already.

【Name: Free-Flowing River
Title: Ice Emperor (Unique)
Race: Moonlight Elf (Rare)
Class: Mage - Ice (Rare)】

【Level: 79
HP: 12.390/12.390
Mana: 100/100
Strength: 13
Agility: 11
Intelligence: 27
Luck: 19】

Rarity was easy enough to understand, because it followed common game terms. There was common, uncommon and rare, followed by unique and legendary. Unique and legendary meant it existed only once in the game, but legendaries were fewer in number and stronger.

The Ice Emperor’s eyes were glued onto his agility stat. He sighed deeply and looked down at his body. This kind of stat, for an elf, it was… truly horrendous.

A stat of 10 was standard for a normal adult. Everything below was worse than average, with each point making quite the difference. 15 would be a trained person, for example, and was the average of a player. 20 was considered very good, basically a specialisation.

That was why his luck stat was good. Luck was useful because next to loot boxes⁴A box containing a random reward from defeating a monster or finishing a quest., it also had an effect on intuition and increased the chance of random events having a positive effect. Most people didn’t have more than 15. It was a stat that hardly could be raised in any way and was decided from the start.

The other three basic stats were dependent on your own body,  your race, equipment and your efforts in training.

For an elf, their strength would be around 10, and intelligence and agility around 15. Add around two if it was a player. Add one or two more if it was a Moonlight Elf.

The Ice Emperor was… truly not very suited for direct combat. Really not. His intelligence was great, which was good because it increased his mana but… he really was useless in close combat.

The young elf pulled a face. He had to find a way to increase that someday. Right now, if not for his insane talent in magic, he’d be a liability to any group.

Good thing he was a mage and a solo player, but this was annoying.

The Ice Emperor left the room he had booked. Your body would vanish if you logged out, but it was more convenient to book a room if you could. Mana and health regenerated over time, and the rate was higher if you were in a separate room with a bed.

“Good morning, Ice Emperor”, the inn’s owner greeted him with a toothy smile.

The title had spread so well that people had literally forgotten he had another username. People thought his title was his name, which sure said a lot about that title. That was why it was unique, too - it wasn’t a normal game title you earned by killing monsters, but an NPC had given to him and that had stuck around until it had become part of the game.

That’s what you get when a prince gives you a title.

Ice nodded towards the man and walked past him. He didn’t need to talk, which was a nice side effect of his title. People expected him to be cold and silent. They didn’t take offense.

He left through the backdoor in hopes of avoiding player masses. He had a tiny storage space that allowed him to hide his conspicuous staff like other games had an inventory, and he had a cloak to hide himself, but players were… obstinate.

If they were suspicious about your identity, they’d stalk you until they found out. A terrible trend resulting in high-level players having to sneak around to do anything.

Strong players were famous, and depending on which city you were in, people got really excited about meeting you. This was also because Haven had yet to launch in another country, which meant that there were no regional differences in who was recognizable or not.

Ice pulled the hood of his cloak over his long hair and pointy ears, hiding them. The streets were bustling with both NPCs and players.

“Quest log”, Ice whispered as he kept to the side of the street and walked towards the town’s gates.

A new window popped up.

【Active quests:

Main quest - The prince’s worry

Side quest - Siren extermination

Side quest - The blue egg

World quest - Misery】

Ice’s fingers twitched. They hovered over the selection for a long time before softly touching the world quest again. How often had he opened this quest already? There was nothing he could do there. It didn’t give him any info.

But world quests were related to the game’s setting. They were major events that could result in wars or expansions or the appearance of fearsome monsters.

World quests were explained as such by the developers: A quest with no true success or failure. Whether the resulting change is truly good or bad is up for you to decide. Don’t regret the path you take.

Getting a world quest was special and this particular one, according to the internet, was nothing anyone else had gotten. Or at least no one who would admit to it.

【World quest - Misery

Someone is asking for your help.
You, who have not killed without reason and do not get arrogant due to your status, has caught someone’s eye. They need your help.

Limited quest (Cannot be shared directly)
Duration: Unlimited
Reward: A miserable one’s favor
Failure: ???】

There was nothing weird about being unable to share the quest. Many quests couldn’t be shared with other players. A personal world quest was a bit creepy, but no one said it couldn’t happen. That the reward and failure results were so unclear was normal for a world quest, too, so under normal circumstances he’d have taken it.

However, he couldn’t tell who needed his help. He couldn’t help an unknown person. Even weirder was the duration - only sidequests were unlimited. World quests were always strictly timed.

Ice shook his head to himself, closed the quest while evading random passerbys and opened his main quest. Contrary to sidequests, main quests had minor influences on the world but also weren’t repeatable. In most cases, you could share them with others. They were tailored quests that appeared depending on your connection with NPCs and the current situation.

【Main quest - The prince’s worry

Prince Altair is worried about the rising number of Foreigner’s appearing at the port and rumors of unwarranted violence.
He needs someone reliable to check the rumors and give him a report.

Optional: Help protect the village’s citizens if necessary

Leading quest (Can be shared. Any positive or negative results by other members will be shouldered by the original quest taker)
Duration: 23 days
Reward: Prince Altair’s thanks, the villager’s thanks, gold, increased prestige in the capital
Failure: Prince Altair’s disappointment】

He couldn’t reject that quest, despite it being too bothersome for its reward. Any quest involving players was exceptionally bothersome. Not every player treated Haven as a precious country, many played around as they wished and wreaked havoc. The Ice Emperor was one of the few players who got along so well with the NPCs that some players wondered if he was truly human, at all.

To be fair, this wasn’t planned.

Ice was a solitary person. He enjoyed being on his own and slowly levelled up at the start. He had a talent for magic, which was rare, because magic had one of the most bothersome systems in the whole game.

Due to this, he got a rare quest that needed his peculiar magic skills. Coincidentally, his behaviour of being very kind and courteous to the NPCs had also resulted in him being kind and courteous to the crown prince, who was in hiding. Said crown prince gave Ice another rare quest without revealing his identity.

So, completely out of coincidence or maybe because of his luck, Ice ended up doing a couple of quests that were unknowingly given by royalty. Royalty liked him and began giving him exclusive quests. Then they started giving him rare resources. Then they gave him a title. And now he had a badge that allowed him to enter the castle at any time because the prince thought of him as a friend.

Owl

waves at everyone Heeeeey. Another novel. Hopefully I won't put this one on hiatus TT_TT Although, it already has enough chapters stockpiled for a couple of months! Anyway, it usually updates on Saturday, just one chapter today for the start.
This one is a slow-burn with a looooooot of explanations for the game. Because the game and its story are the main focus, that's the main genre placed for this story. Let's see if anyone is gonna tear me apart when they realise that somehow they still missed it has a BL subplot.

Little Theater

Ice Emperor: sigh It's so quiet
Male Lead Best friend: gnawing at the cage, waiting to be let out