Xinyan and Yang Mi were excited.

They could sense the new lore content ready to be explored!

They had waited in anticipation all week after seeing the trailer for the game. 

Glancing at her phone, it was 2:55, January 15.

They both rushed into their capsules.

Xinyan could not wait!

Soon, a new game became accessible in her library of virtual reality games. 

“Alkesia”. 

She selected the game, and pressed start.

Closing her eyes, she entered the game. 

She opened her eyes again

She stood in a field of grass.

Rustle rustle!

The tall grass gently bent and flowed, pushed by the gentle breeze that flowed around her. 

A sun shone its gentle rays down through the blue sky. 

A cliff edge stood in front of her. 

Feeling the wind brush her clothes, she felt goosebumps on her arm.

This was her first time feeling such sensations in the virtual video game!

Normally, while virtual video games had realistic environments, you could not feel the actual surroundings, instead focusing on the combat and lore content. 

Even in games that focused on recreating tastes and sensations did not feel as genuine as what she felt now. 

Moving her hands to touch the grass, she marveled at its smooth surface. 

Screech!

A hawk flew over her head, off the cliff edge. 

She ran towards the cliff edge.

Her breath caught in her throat!

A majestic city stood below the cliff.

As the sun rose, majestic spires cast shadows onto the medieval style homes. 

A large wall gleamed in the sunlight and small soldiers patrolled the wall. 

Behind the city, a giant forest filled the horizon.

Claiming the hills and mountains, it filled the land. 

At this moment, wisps began to collect into three, pure white words in front of Xinyan. 

Welcome

To

Alkesia

——(:)——

A small angel appeared before her.

"Hello, I am Gabriel, your navigation angel. Firstly, choose a class."

A window appeared before Xinyan's eyes. 

She looked at the classes that were available.

They fell into four primary categories.

Warrior: Guardian, Pugilist, and Berserker

Rogue: Assassin, Ranger, Swordsman

Magician: Magician, Summoner, Psychic

Healer: Cleric, Shaman, Monk

Seeing the choices displayed for her on the system window, she naturally chose to be a swordsman!

There was nothing better than beating them up in person!

"Job selected. Please choose a name."

"Xinyan."

"Confirmed. Would you like to adjust your appearance? You can adjust it up to 10%."

Xinyan adjusted the body and face slightly.

This way, even though it was not as beautiful as her, she could avoid being instantly recognized. 

These things were a must for female streamers!

"Please select a starting point."

Xinyan looked at the map that hovered in front of her. 

A massive continent was displayed. Many countries were visible, from kingdoms to even empires. 

However, a large majority of them were grayed out, except for a single kingdom: Celestria. 

It was the Chinese region, meaning that all the Chinese players would be spawned here. 

Selecting Falstein, a city that bordered the forests, she was sucked into the city.

She arrived at the gates of a city. 

She stood at the side of the road, where people walked to and from the city constantly.

The bustling road assaulted all of her senses, leaving her disoriented!

She hurriedly opened her inventory.

Opening her inventory, she had only five inventory slots.

One held ten pieces of bread, the second held a leather flask, and the remaining three were empty. 

She also had 10 copper coins.

She wore a Novice's leather armor and sword.

She opened her status window.

She noticed that at least a thousand other players had arrived where she was!

In order to stay ahead, Xinyan hurriedly joined the line to the city. 

”3 coppers.”

The guard said. 

Handing over the coppers, she entered the city.

She was engulfed by a torrent of noise. 

Xinyan had thought the noise outside the walls had already been unbearable, but the city was on another level. 

Frantically tapping on her interface, she managed to shift her sensitivity down to 30%. 

While low sensitivity was not ideal because it slowed down her reaction time, it was better than becoming deaf. 

Now that the volume had become bearable, she dashed up the street towards the center of the city. 

There, a large building stood. 

The Adventurer’s Guild. 

It was five stories tall, and had a rustic majesty as it stood. 

Despite being less glamorous than the other storefronts around it, it experienced no less, but rather more, traffic. 

Entering the building, she entered a large tavern. 

A motley of adventurers could be seen having a wonderful time as waiters weaved in between them.

All sorts of people could be seen, from dwarves no taller than 4 feet chugging beer, to orcs laughing with beast men, and humans in between all of this.

The tavern was primarily wooden, with many beautiful engravings along the walls.

From the entrance, she could see the room was massive. 

It was at least as long as a football field!

A large mission's board stood to the side.

Xinyan could already see several players gathered around the mission board, hastily signing missions.

Xinyan quickly moved towards the mission board.

Several missions were listed, from picking herbs to removing monsters. 

The missions were ranked from E all the way to even rank A!

Out of curiosity, she began to read one of the ranked A missions.

"Eh? Isn't this free money?"

A Level 25 berserker NPC next to her who was scanning the mission board saw what she was looking at.

"Little miss, you must be new here, right? If I were you, I wouldn't take that mission."

"Hmm? What makes you think that, mister?"

"The monster waves in Falstein have always been very dangerous. Whenever the monsters in the forest start howling, we know the monster waves come about 5 days later. Honestly, it's not too bad, except for the fear debuff."

"Fear debuff?"

The other players who loitered around the mission board began to listen in.

"If you go within 30 meters of a monster that's two ranks above you, the system casts a debuff on you that reduces all your attributes by 30%. In addition, it incites fear in your mind constantly, making it very hard to foster the emotions needed to cast your skills."

He shivered at the thought of it.

"Couldn't we just stay away from them then?"

"In a monster wave, where is there to run to? If you run into the city, the city automatically recognizes that you failed the mission. If you head towards another part of the wall, there's probably a monster there too!"

Sigh.

"Small fries like us have no chance at surviving!"

Xinyan's eyes widened.

She had almost made a huge mistake!

Thankfully, this NPC had warned her before she could f*ck up!

"Thank you, mister!"

"No problem. It's important for us small fries to take care of each other, after all!"

The NPC chose a mission and moved away.

Seeing the growing number of players arriving at the guild, Xinyan quickly selected an easy herb picking mission, and rushed out.

Di! Di! Di!

Xinyan accepted the call.

"Xinyan! Which town are you in? I'm stuck in Maple town, the one around Falstein!"

"Eh? You didn't land directly at the city, Yang Mi?"

"Eh?? You got to land in the town directly?? Why is your luck always better than mine, boohoo..."

Xinyan smiled embarrassedly at Yang Mi's tantrum. 

"Don't worry, don't worry! I managed to get an easy quest for us to level up with, it gives 50 experience and all we have to do is collect some herbs! Come quickly to me, let's level up quickly!"

"Haiz... your luck is heaven-defying Xinyan! It takes me 5 hours to run to you, and that's not considering my stamina!"

"Fine, I'll go and start collecting herbs first. You should call me when you get to Falstein!"

"Okay!!"

Xinyan looked at the quest again.

After asking a few NPCs what spirit herbs looked like, she headed off towards the forest. 

-----(:)-----

Marielle walked into the tent.

Inside, Celeste and Damian sat crosslegged at a field table, examining a map of the nearby region. 

They both wore their paladin armor partially undone, to give their skin some air. 

"It's confirmed. There's a monster wave coming towards Falstein in 3 days."

"We should probably go and help them then. It'll reinforce the people's belief in Terneim and the church."

Damian said.

"Fine. Do we have any clues on the heretic yet?"

Marielle sat down as well. 

"We only know that he has brown hair, he's not too tall, called Elendril, and..."

Marielle slowly winked at Celeste.

"I heard he's reaaaaally hot."

Damian slapped the table.

"Marielle! This is not the time to joke around!"

"Oh, c'mon Damian! Even if he's a heretic, our angel here can turn him back to the light, right?"

Marielle winked heavily at Celeste.

In response, Celeste blushed.

"St- Stop that Marielle! He's a heretic that needs to be killed!"

Marielle made a pitiful face.

"Oh, but what will I do if my Celeste stays alone forever? I don't know if I'll be able to stay by her side- MMPH! MMPH!"

Celeste had put her palm over Marielle's mouth.

Cooling down, Celeste spoke again.

"Let's head over to Falstein first. Even if we did know where the heretic was, we'd be unable to get very far against the onslaught of the monster wave. It's better to move to the city and help them defend first. And who knows? Maybe the heretic will be there too."

With the battle plans decided, the three squads quickly packed up and moved towards Falstein.