Why do people play games? Do they play for fun? Do they play with hopes to become famous? Do they play to feel like they are a different person? Or do they play for a challenge? Well I am the latter one. Fighting against a sting opponent with everything you have and the accomplishment you feel when you finally overcome it is the best feeling in the world.

Today is March 7, 2051 and two years ago, a company named Core Technology Gaming, CTO for short, released what everyone was waiting for, for the past couple decades, a full dive virtual reality headset called the NL (New Life). On launch the starting price of these headsets were $1500 and the higher quality versions went as high as $5000. Many game companies published all types of games for the NL such as single player RPGs, child games, and the biggest hit were MMO. One of these MMO’s that released the same day NL released was “Emperor’s Road.” This is a typical sword and magic fantasy, but Emperor’s Road has an a massive server to host the game and a high tech AI that overlooks the game and all players to find bugs and automatically keep the game balanced so no one class is overpowered. It is also fitted with the highest quality security system that makes it impossible for anyone to hack into the servers to find a person’s real name or to take over their character. Even the current government’s security doesn’t compare to the security of Emperor’s Road. Emperor’s Road is a massive world with 3 continents that are each about the size of Australia and the goal of the game is to become the emperor of one of the continents in the game. After one person becomes emperor, anyone can challenge them to a battle with the title of emperor on the line but the other party must put up something of equal or near equal compensation compared to the title.

I am the current empires of the west continent known as “Cambria”. My avatar’s name is Delta and I have used this character since the game’s release. I was the first person to become an emperor in the game and it took me a year and a half to do so. Before becoming the emperor, I would live stream and upload videos of PvP battles and boss fights and ended up becoming insanely popular on the streaming website. After becoming emperor, I continued to live stream, but many sponsors and interviews for the NL channel came to me. I made a large amount of money from this, enough money that I could live comfortable for 10 years with our worry, but I still go to school and I am currently in my third year of college.

Right now I am standing at the top of Mt. Cobalt in Cambria and I am about to start a live stream with a big announcement. I open the in-game menu and start the stream. As the stream starts, the viewer count constant rises and after waiting 10 minutes for enough people to join the stream, the viewer count it at 246,000 people. The chat room seems excited for the announcement.

‘It seems like Delta has a large announcement, I wonder if he is announcing the next raid to solo’

‘Idiot, that wouldn’t require I bin announcement like this if it was just about a new raid to solo’

‘It must be about a new sponsorship or something along those lines’

Ok, it seems like enough people joined, time to start the announcement.

“I can see a lot of you are trying to guess what the announcement is but no one has gotten it correct. As of today, I am retiring from Emperor’s Road and giving up the title of emperor to the person in second place in Cambria, ‘Watson’.” 

‘W-W-WHAAAATTT!!???’

‘THE EMPEROR IS RETIRING!?’

‘That means that this is the last stream of the emperor then!!’

“I can see that many of you are upset about this announcement but it is something I’ve decided after thinking it over for the past month. I will not tell you the reason for this, but know that I will be back some day in the future so it is a temporary retirement”

‘Why won’t you tell us the reason!?’

‘How long will the retirement last!?’

‘NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!’

‘^ Someone send this guy some help’

“Thank you all for watching over the past year, I wish you all the best of loot!”

I open the menu and end the stream there. This game has been the best experience out of any of the NL games I’ve play, but then why did I go and retire from it? It’s because I am always seeking a challenge in a game. Plenty of people have challenged me for the emperor title and I’ve soloed most of the raids in the game but I am still not satisfied. I currently have the highest level out of anyone in the game at level 200 but the great thing about the game is that there is no level cap. The AI that runs the game constantly adds new areas to explore with higher level monsters but I wasn’t satisfied with being the highest level. I was 10 levels higher than the number 2, Watson, and everyone that challenged me had a large disadvantage with me being a much higher level than them.

The solution to make the game challenging again, is to create a new character, start from level 0, and try to reach emperor again! By staring the game 2 years later than the top tier players, I will have a massive level disadvantage, and they will constantly increase their levels so I must race against them and reach the top once more! This idea came to me after talking with 3 of my friends from college about the game. With the price drop of the NL, they can finally afford it. I will start from scratch and we will become top players!