"Samuel Oliveira Souza, congratulations! You've been chosen among 12,098,564,117 applicants. New Virtual wishes you fortune in your adventure in Legendary Era Online. Your prize should be arriving today."

That was the 7th time the boy read the message. Although he did send his application, he never won anything where luck was involved.

But he did! For the first in his life!

"It's real. I'm really going to play Legendary Era Online!"

It was a dream he had ever since he was a kid. He was even afraid that he might wake up anytime now.

In 2043, the first ever VR game was released. It became famous very quickly and was revolutionary. But the technology was at its infancy and was extremely expensive.

Only the rich could buy it and the game mechanics were trash. Still, that was the first VR game with Dive Immersion.

As technology got better and cheaper, VR finally became accessible to most people.

Unfortunately, Samuel was not 'most people'.

Samuel is a brazilian 16 years old boy. He has light brown hair, his eyes are dark and they shine strongly with intelligent light, like the night sky.

He has a handsome face, but that was clouded by his unhealthy appearance. He's still recuperating from a very serious illness. His eyes are sunken and his body is skinny. At least, he's better than last year. He was just like a human skeleton.

Although medicine advanced a lot, new illnesses appeared and evolved along the time and he was afflicted with a rare one when he was 10.

His medium class family, which consists of his father, mother, younger brother and sister, could barely pay for his treatment. They have been paying the debts slowly, but at the current rate, they will need at least 20 years to pay it off.

Samuel's leg nerves suffered damage and still need 5 more years to be completely healed, but whatever afflicted him was successfully cured and won't cause anymore problems.

"Dad, Mom, I was selected! I was selected!"

His mother had brown long hair. She has the same dark eyes as Samuel, but her skin is whiter. Samuel's is slightly tanned.

His father had slightly darker skin. His head was starting to get bald. He's usually very taciturn and of few words, but if anyone threatens his family he turns into a domineering man. Like a lion caring for its pride.

Samuel ran to his parents as fast as his legs permitted. His parents startled and got worried.

"What happened? Please be careful, son. you might hurt yourself."

His mother immediately admonished him lightly. She could see that whatever happened should be good from his face.

"Do you know that big company, New Virtual? They organized a lottery event where 10 people in the world would be selected to receive a free pod for their new VR game, the one I told you about. I thought there was no way I could win that, but I couldn't sleep soundly without at least trying. So I sent them my application and I got selected!"

"Isn't it just a game? If you grades go down because of that game we'll be having a long talk again."

"This one is different. The technology involved is very advanced, even the military use it to train their own. And no need to worry. I can play this game while sleeping, so most of my playtime will be at night, not affecting my studies."

Because of his legs condition and the time at the hospital, Samuel became used to loneliness and a little addicted to games. His father worried about going back into old habits.

Samuel was about to say more when the doorbell rang and they heard Camila, the youngest, receiving someone at the door.

"Yes this is Samuel's house... MOM, THERE ARE SOME GUYS FROM NEW VIRTUAL HERE. DO I LET THEM IN?"

Hearing his sister yells, Samuel got startled at how quick things were moving. New Virtual is certainly fast.

"Mom, please tell them to install that in my bedroom. This game has a pod instead of the usual helmet you see in commercials. It's big but it should fit in my room."

Samuel quickly instructed his parents. After installing, those employees gave him some notes about how to use it and things to take care of and left.

There were still seven days until the game's official release. For the next seven days, Samuel spent most of his time surfing online. Anxious to finally play a VR game, he tried getting most information he could from internet.

Samuel likes anime, manga and light novels too. These were his favourite hobbies at the hospital and even at home, since he couldn't do sports then. He has a natural intense concentration which let him feel as if he was inside every story he read or watched, sometimes even losing track of night and day. Still, nothing beats real dive experience in another world.

Samuel read every single article he found at the company website. He went to the forum and started analyzing every info he could find, even rumors.

Time flew quickly and soon it was the release day.

Samuel finished brushing his teeth and got inside the pod. As he closed the pod, he felt his body being scanned and prepared for dive experience. He was wondering if he needs to sleep himself or the machine will induce him.

Suddenly the world was white, completely white.

"User Samuel Olivera Souza identified. Playing recorded message."

"Congratulations for being one of the few chosen in the whole world. New Virtual sincerely wishes you a fun experience in Legendary Era Online."

"End of message."

He heard a mechanic female voice. Looks like New Virtual left a congratulatory message.

"Legendary Era Online will be released in 10 minutes and 37 seconds. User wishes to wait here or disconnect? Warning, staying here for prolonged time might be uncomfortable to some users."

"I'll be staying. I have to choose my starting class."

Samuel didnt check the clock before entering, but should be 23:49 if there are still 10 minutes left. He used this time to think about the information he got this week. He had to select a class to start the game. As the company said, this game has 7 starting classes.

Acolyte, Magician, Dark Acolyte, Archer, Thief, Warrior and Peddler.

Peddler is a special class which can't be leveled through killing monsters. It can only be leveled by making money through their business skills and their production skills.

All other are combat classes. Combat classes may have gathering skills which let them gather materials from stones, herbs and monster bodies. But they can't produce anything.

Peddlers can't use gathering skills but they can use productions skill. New Virtual's intentions were to get combat classes and merchants working together.

After organizing his thoughts, Samuel started selecting his class in his mind. He discarded Peddler from his possible choices immediately. After finally getting some strength back in his body, he couldn't bear being weak again. He wants to fight and feel himself strong.

All mage classes were also discarded. Although he likes to play with some strategy, all magic classes are usually slow moving. Since his body is completely fine inside the game, he wants to use his healthy body as soon as possible. He misses being able to run till he's panting and feeling his heart beating strongly in his chest.

Among the warrior classes, he felt torn between Archer and Thief. Warrior was not bad, but he never liked playing slow characters much. And didn't feel like being a tank in a game where monsters hit you directly. He didn't feel like tanking a dragon's breath if he could dodge it.

"Welcome to Legendary Era Online!

Player, please choose you class."

Samuel was so distracted that he didn't see the time passing. His heart was beating very hard already. The 10 minutes were gone! After pondering for some time, he went with archer. He felt like archer should be better for solo play.

"Archer chosen. Select your starting point."

"Random"

The game world, Grandaia, is big, gigantic even. It's so big that probably even if no updates happen in 10 years there will still be a lot of unexplored content. All players in the world will start somewhere in the Lohntre Continent. In Lohntre continent, there are 6 kingdoms. Ult is the Northernmost one among them, bordering the Kingdoms of Nuriz and Arim. There also Soler, Maronha and Shugma. Besides their names and location, New Virtual didn't reveal anything else, so Samuel just let the system choose for him. Every kingdom would probably have similar opportunities for fairness sake anyway.

"Kingdom of Ult, Seregard village chosen. Say the name of your character."

"Since I'm an archer then... let's go with Windbow"

"Analyzing... Character name is Windbow?"

"Yes."

"Name approved. Character creation has been finished. Would you like to start your adventure now?"

"Yes, please."

"Welcome, Windbow, to Legendary Era Online."