Year 2103, April 6th. As Zack was walking, he finally arrived home. A large modern style house with many secret cameras, fake hills, artificial ponds and more. Zack's family is a Alchemy Family, and an Alchemy Family is one of the many types of families in Blackfire City. Whoever is the top family clan in the city, the city will change its name accordingly. There was once a huge joke in the city, where the top clan at the time was from a different country while their surname translated to Long Mushroom. The top clan currently is Zack's family clan, the Blackfire Clan.
As Zack walked inside, a maid saw him, quickly bowed and said: "Welcome home Young Sir!" then walked away to go tell his mother. Zack slowly looked around then went to his room. Even though his home was very big and lavish, his room was rather average and looked quite dull. The only noteworthy and surprising thing in his room would be the gaming setup in the corner which looks like a premium chair on a commercial plane except two times bigger. He put down his school bag and sat in his awesome gaming chair while turning on his PC. Just as he was about to put on his gaming helmet, aka [Cosmic Helmet], he heard a few knocks on the door.
He put the helmet down and walked to the door. He opened the door and his mom, Anna Blackfire was standing there. Standing at 168cm tall, with short raven-black hair reaching her shoulders, a mature and sexy body, and a very beautiful face currently covered in annoyance.
"Zacky, what were you about to do? You were about to play games again weren't you?" said Anna with a slight scowl on her face.
Zack saw she was about to get angrier and swiftly said "Yes I was gonna play games! But mom, this game is different! I can earn money in this one!"
"Zack! We're proud alchemists, we're one of the most important and lucrative jobs on the planet and you want to play games! Look, Zack, I know you love games but please, just treat it as a side thing and study alchemy. After all, you're the little genius of our clan!" said Anna, pleadingly.
Zack, loving video games to the point of addiction but not unhealthiness, pulled his mother into the room and onto the bed then asked her to sit down.
"Mom, wait one second, I'll show you how this game can improve my skills in Alchemy too!" saying that, Zack left the room and came back holding a small tablet.
Zack said to his mom "Here, please watch this"
Anna looked towards the tablet in his hand and saw a video loading.
"A new game or I guess you could say its a new world! [Cosmic Reality] where you can do anything you dream of! Wanna build a house like you're playing Minecraft? You can do that! Wanna slay a demon lord like you're a protagonist of a Japanese Isekai? You can do that also! Just don't become an Ichika! (Author: props to whoever gets the reference). You can also practice real skills from real life inside our game! Come join us at [Cosmic Reality], the new world, as soon as you can!" The video ended 2 seconds later after the badass advertisement.
"See mom! Look how cool it is! said Zack.
"U-Um... Zacky... yes, the video was very cool and all but it didn't show me anything that can improve your alchemy.." replied Anna. "Oh! wrong video!" After saying that he quickly pressed on another video. "Ok mom, this is it," said Zack to his mom.
"[Cosmic Reality]... As we said before, it's a new world. We, at Galaxy Productions, have worked arduously together with multiple banks all over the planet, and also all of the main countries' governments to create the [AEGIS], an acronym for Artificial Efficient Godly Immortal System (Author: I just really liked the name AEGIS and I couldn't think of anything else, so forgive me for the rather childish full name), which will oversee all in-game matters such as "bugs", and more! Thus, our game will be 100% fair, in the beginning at least... We have also built an in-game trade system where you can trade your in-game coins to real life money! But you can only do vice-versa after 1 year of service because of reasons we currently cannot say, last but not least, our main feature! The Skill Creation System! With th-" Zack cut off the video from there since the video was actually 20 minutes long.
Anne sat there in thought, then suddenly raised her head to look towards Zack.
"Zacky! I got it, you can practice Alchemy in-game so that you will not have to do it in real life!" Anna said, happy with the video.
"But mom...! I want to become a Blacksmith too!" retorted Zack.
"Zacky my boy, I will not allow you to not practice Alchemy, you must practice it, after all, it's our family legacy. You can extend life with the things we make, we can make people stronger than an average human. That's the reason our family is so powerful!" lectured Anna.
"Hmm... Wait a moment, Mom, why can't I just practice both of them? and split my time to practice both?" asked Zack confusedly.
Anna was worried Zack would get overconfident and end up being a jack of all trades but master of none so she said: "Aren't you worried you won't be able to get far in both of them if you separate your time this way?"
Zack pondered for a bit, thought of something, exposed a sly grin and said "Then I'll just think about it when the time comes hehehe"
Anna was a bit suspicious about that smile but dismissed it anyway. Anna finally said reluctantly that Zack was allowed to play only if he promises he'll practice Alchemy and earn real money from the game. Zack promised and Anne nodded, satisfied then left the room.
After Zack put his ear on the bedroom door to check if anyone's nearby, he swiftly sat back down in the gaming chair and put on the [Cosmic Helmet]. "Hopefully the game hasn't started yet so I can be first to enter..." he thought "Eh, screw it, Link STA- shit, wrong game. Enter Reality!".
Unknown to Zack or his mother, a small glow from his wrist traveled up his body, and into the helmet...