Alex was glaring at his computer screen, impatiently tapping his fingers on his desk. A loading bar, moving at a snail's pace, was visible on his screen. 15 minutes later, the bar collapsed and a message popped up,

"Deployment Successfull"

"No Errors detected"

Seeing the message, Alex laughed out loud and jumped from his seat.

"F*cking finally! Damn! This is already the 206th time! I finally cracked that stupid firewall. Now, all that's left is to try it out."

Alex hurriedly minimised the message and clicked on a icon depicting a inverted red triangle with an eye in it's centre, below which it read,"The Cheat Engine".

"Huh, no matter how many times I see it, this icon always looks cool. I guess tweaking the illuminati symbol was not a bad idea afterall," Alex grinned as a new window opened up. Navigating the interface, he clicked on a button on the far right corner.

"Export"

A blue spinning circle appeared at the centre of the screen which faded away a few minutes later. Alex was pleased as he pulled out a black USB drive from one of the ports and stood up. He hurriedly approached his "Hizag Ultimate IX" VR Capsule. Plugging the USB in, he pressed a few buttons and the sleek white door of the cabin slowly opened.

"Time to dive and see whether this thing works"

Stripping down to his underwear, Alex climbed into the pod and the soon there was nothing but darkness inside. A few seconds later, a dim light appeared all around him and a robotic voice announced,

"User identified. Scanning..."

"No abnormalities detected"

"Dive Engine on standby"

Hearing the second line, Alex was elated. No abnormalities meant the system did not detect the engine inside the USB drive interfering with it.

Without waiting any further, Alex closed his eyes and commanded,

"Initiate Dive. Load Pandora"

The machine hummed for a second and Alex soon found his light flooding the darkness in his vision. He felt his senses becoming numb, but soon he regained his normal bearing and opened his eyes.

He was lying on a bed, inside a dimly lit room. He jumped out out of his bed and stretched his limbs. A mirror on the other side of the room reflected his figure wearing a dark blue leather armour with brown leather pants. His virtual face was not much different from his real face except his dark blue hair, which was blonde in the real world.

Alex approached the only window in the room, where he gazed at the red moon in the sky. The world of Pandora was a typical fantasy world but thanks to the VR technology, it was a whole new experience in itself. It has already become something akin to a 'Second World' for people, especially the young, to relax and have fun.

Alex loved games since he was a kid and he was very excited when Pandora, the first VR game with a reality index of 94%, was launched a few years back. He had begged his father to pull a few strings and was one of the handful few who got the invitation for the closed beta. His talents were average when it came to playing VR games, but Alex was not discouraged because he had other plans.

Alex had a peculiar habit. He loved cheating in a game. Since the age of 12, when he first discovered the joy of infinite health, infinite ammo and many other features, he was totally hooked with cheating. Average Talent? Bad combat sense? Who the f*ck cares when you are invisible.

Back when Pandora came into market, Alex was thrilled with the idea of cheating in a VR game. Afterall, in normal games, the character maybe be invincible with cheats, but it was just pixels in his PC screen and there was a limit to how much he could enjoy that feeling.

But it was different im VR. It was like a second body where the feeling of Invincibility was something on another level. Just imagining legendary monsters attacking him and not leaving a scratch, or flinging highest tier magic left and right without worrying about mana costs gave Alex goosebumps.

Unfortunately, the company which developed Pandora had installed such strong firewalls in the game system that even the most famous cheat makers gave up cracking it after trying for months. Thus majority of them believed that developing cheats for VR games was impossible and gave up. But Alex didn't.

"Since nobody dares to do it, I will make one myself."

With that thought in mind, Alex dedicated all his time to study the VR system used to make Pandora and how to make cheat softwares (usually called 'Game Trainers'). After 3 years of practice and experiments, Alex was confident enough to try making one for Pandora. By then, he had turned 18 and had no pressure from his parents regarding his studies. Technically, he should have been applying for several Universities for admission but he decided to take a break and spent one year developing "The Cheat Engine".

Recalling all his hardwork and how he finally succeeded, Alex smiled and shut the window. Walking out of his room, he descended the stairs to the lobby and walked out of the inn. "The Fizzle" was a famous inn in Silver City and he had rented a room in the second floor for 1 year straight when he decided to make this city his base.

While walking towards the wilderness, Alex summoned his stats screen. 'Nothing New. Hmm...' Eventually, his gaze landed on a peculiar symbol at the top right corner of his screen. A red inverted triangle with an eye in the middle. Alex grinned.

"Hell Yeah! It works! Now then, I wonder if it will meet my expectations."

Without hesitation, Alex clicked the symbol. Suddenly, a different screen overlapping the existing one appeared in front of him. There were only 5 options in the screen with a toggle button againt each one.

Infinite Health - On/Off

Infinite Skill Points - On/Off

Super Speed - On/Off

Infinite Mana - On/Off

Invisibility - On/Off

These were the only feautures Alex could manage to add. He also wanted feautures like Infinite Money or One-hit-kill, but the codes were too complicated in comparision and it would have taken probably triple the time he spent to develop the above 5 to add those features. He did not have the patience to wait any longer and hastily put together whatever he had managed to crack. He was pretty satisfied with the end result and as long as he had Infinite Health, he was content. The rest could be figured out slowly. Ofcourse, he had to be careful lest he got caught by the AI of the game.

Honestly, he was not too worried about getting caught. His father was the Commissioner of New York City Police and even though he didn't have much power under public scrutiny, the connections he had were prettty terrifying in itself. A minor matter like cheating in a game shouldn't be big deal as long as he didn't publish the cheat in the internet.

Making sure no one was around, Alex took a deep breath and clicked the toggle button of Infinite Health. Immedietly, he felt a tingling sensation all across his body which vanished the very next second.

"Hmm? That's it? Did it work?"

Alex was confused. Seeing that the toggle button was set to 'On', it should have probably worked. And there was only one way to find out. A grin appeared on his face as he started searching for any monster in his vicinity. Finally, he found a Grey Wolf loitering under a tree. With a bit of both anticipation and worry, he picked a random rock and threw it at the wolf.

"Awoooo"

The wolf was enraged and dashed towards him. Instead of running or taking out his weapon, Alex stood still and waited for the wolf's attack to land. Moments later, a huge mouth full of sharp teeth bit his neck. After that....After that....Nothing happened.

According to the game system, a shower of blood (obviously pixelated) should have errupted from his neck and he should have received a message saying, "You have been seriously wounded. Your health is below 60%." The neck was a critical point afterall. But Alex felt nothing. The wolf was still biting his neck but it's teeth failed to pierce his skin and do any damage. It's not like his defense was abnormally high or anything. That meant only one thing.

Alex's eyes shined as he grabbed the wolf's head and used all his strength to push it way. Seeing as its attack didn't work, the wolf backed off a few more steps. Meanwhile, Alex started laughing wildly.

"Hahahah! I am Invincible! Infinite Health, that's what I am talking about!"

Suddenly, Alex felt a piercing pain in his head and his vision blurred. Then all he saw was darkness. In the real world, his VR pod beeped.

"Abnormality detected! Abnormality detected!"

"Scanning..."

"User Status: Deceased"

"Initialting Emergen..."

*Bang*

A bullet tore through the machines as the robotic sound died off. The pod stopped humming. A person dressed in black and wearing a mask was standing beside the pod with a pistol in his hand. There were multiple holes in the surface of the pod and it seemed a bullet had accurately landed on Alex's forehead as he slept inside. The mysterious person slowly removed his mask which revelaed the face of an average middle aged man with a light stubble. His eyes reflected deep hatred and an intense thirst for vengence.

"Charles, I have avenged you. Son, don't you worry. This is just the beginning. Anderson has only lost his son. Soon, he will loose everything. Everything...everything....every...

Soon, the room was filled with strange murmerings and a strong stench of blood.