Chapter 2 – First Class
First Year Building, Classroom 406.
In this classroom, there were over a hundred seats and tables arranged in a quarter circle formation. Each row was elevated, so the students on the back row could see the instructor below.
On the side of each table, a transparent monitor was floating in mid-air. However, students could not use it as it was neither a touch screen computer nor a voice-commanded computer. It was a remote monitor that instructors used them to give the student on the designate table an instruction or a lecture.
At the front of the room, there was a large stage and a gigantic blue monitor behind the stage. It was as if this room was a theater rather than a classroom.
Even though there were plenty of seats, there were only ten students registered for this classroom, Mia included.
Currently, he was sitting on the center front row as he was a timid studious type. He was a teacher's pet in the middle-school, so he carried over his habit into the high school as well.
The other nine students were already inside the room. Each of them was sitting in a different seat as none of them knew each other. Moreover, all of them were boys.
With the pretty face Mia sitting in the front row, he was the center of attention of everybody in the room.
'Such beauty! My high-school life this year will be great!'
'What the hell is that girl wearing a male student uniform?'
'A female student with a male uniform? Is she a tomboy or is that a trap?'
'She is definitely my type! I have to find a way to ask her out!'
'I haven't checked the regulation of this school. Does it allow female students to wear any uniform?'
Each male students in the room had different kinds of thought in their mind. Yet, no one dared to approach Mia as his beauty was too otherworldly, and it blinded their sight if they got too close.
Mia could also sense that 18 eyes were focusing on him, which made him more nervous. He wanted to talk to one of them to make friends, but with the stares, he lost his confidence.
A middle-aged man walked into the room later. He was a professor and this classroom administrator for this year.
He looked around the room to see the faces of the students and nodded in acknowledgment. He stood on the stage at the front room and started introducing himself.
"Greetings my students. I'm your class administrator, and I'm in charge of psychic classes. My name is Professor Fortune Luckyaf. My surname is pronounced as Luc-Karve. If any moron calls me "Lucky as fOOk", I'll grade you "F" on every subject.!"
Every student snickered. Mia bit his lower lips as he was trying his hardest not to laugh.
"First of all, congratulations to everybody here for making it into the school!"
Everyone in the room clapped, including Mia. They knew how hard the entrance exam and the competition were.
"As you've known. The score of the student in this room was between 99.85% and 99.78%, and yet, all of you are still ranked between 51st and the 60th from the 100 students we have accepted. It means that you are nothing but one of the average students in this school."
"But don't feel down because you are average. In the Galaxy standard, we are one of the top high-school of the Milky Way. You should be proud of that!"
Everyone clapped again. It was indeed as the professor had said. The last 100th ranker who managed to make it into the cut scored 99.65%, which barely enough to make it into the school. Only the cream of the crops could be enrolled here.
"For the first year students this year, there will be a change to the curriculum. All miscellaneous classes will be held in the morning. In the afternoon, we'll have you enter the new virtual world that was just released by the Milky Way Government."
The faces of the students changed. They knew about the change of the education programs from the news network.
Twenty years ago, a new scientific breakthrough had been published to the mass. Humanity could transfer their conscience into the virtual world, AKA the game world. The news became the talk of the town, and new trends appeared.
Many gaming companies participated in this research and obtained the green light from the Milky Way Government that they could create any game to house the soul of the transferred human.
At present, hundreds of gaming companies produced many VRMMO games that could be a new world for humanity to reside in, which 25 billion of the combined population from the earth, colonies, and artificial planet citizens already moved their souls into the virtual worlds.
Then this year, a commercial came out and showed the world that Milky Way Government had been creating its own virtual world. It was titled "Lilim Heritage Online", which featured the theme of the 23rd-century earth when humanity first mass-produced giant robots to replace tanks and heavy weaponry. Although the mecha technologies were deemed as inefficient later on the 30th century as the mecha units were replaced with more advanced transformable armor units and spaceships, it was still a favorite era for teenagers and robot lovers.
Mia was also looking forward to the release of this game. However, there was no news about the release date or other information of the game itself anywhere but the commercial on the social networks.
Now that the professor told them that they had to enter the VR world that the government had created, they could not help but think of this game.
"In this curriculum, all students must be able to adapt into both real world and virtual world. You can pick any occupation in the game that you are familiar with, or you can play it normally as you did to other games. The government will monitor your activities and will evaluate your performance and your daily life in there."
"The grade you get will be determined by your morality, your wits, your lifestyle, and your overall ability to handle the change of the environment. It will affect your next year courses and your future career! Although I said you could play it normally, be cautious about the consequences of your own actions! Do not recklessly PK someone or PVP in a gang war without reason, or you'll be branded as a criminal in the future!"
A student on the back raised his hand and questioned the professor.
"Why can't we PK? Is there a meaning to this course?"
"There is. The government is isolating troublemakers in the virtual worlds. Because everyone is pretty much an immortal in VR games, there are transferred people who didn't follow the law and caused troubles in the VR worlds. The government made this game to form a new standard and a new punishment to get rid of these thoughtless people, so don't become one of them, okay?"
The students nodded as they could see the picture. Every transferred people, who migrated their soul into games, could transfer themselves into another VR game easily by paying a sum that they converted from their properties in the game into the real world money.
As a result, many PKs, aka player killers, in the virtual worlds caused a lot of damages to other peaceful players. After they were punished either by jailing or resetting their characters, they could still avoid the punishment by selling everything they had and transfer their soul into another game.
The government treated these people like a plague. They were trying their hardest to isolate these group of people into a separated server.
"Won't there be a PKer in the new game, professor?"
Mia raised his hand and asked. His sweet melodious voice shook the heart of everybody in the room.
The professor coughed and regained his bearing.
"Lilim Heritage isn't opened to the public yet. Only students from prestigious schools will be the first groups to enter. So all of you are pretty much pioneers to this game. If anyone wants to be a professional gamer or plan to move your soul into this game, you'd better be serious."
After hearing that they would be the pioneers of the game, the eyes of every student brightened up. Mia was also excited that he would be able to play this game. He was looking forward to being a pilot of one of the mecha units in the commercials.
"Also, there's one more thing. The transferred and the live players are playing on a different server. Even though you don't have to worry about the residents over there, be mindful of your actions, alright?"
"Yes, sir!"
…
…
After the morning class, the professor registered every student address and left.
Before he left, he told everyone that the gaming capsule would be delivered to the address they provided within today. All student could go home and waited for the delivery and set up their game. They were expected to enter the game within today.