"ROAARR!!!"
A thunderous roar resounded inside the cavern, making both ceiling and floor shake as if an earthquake was taking place.
Tap, Tap, Tap
Hurriedly footsteps echoed among the vibrations as a figure slid down the rocky floor to a stop right behind a boulder. Panting, the man slid down until his rear hit the floor, sweat dripped from his face on his cotton shirt due to the extreme heat.
Exhaling a shaking breath he extended his head to see if the creature had given up the chase and saw nothing except for the rocky cave walls with its bright orange veins.
Sighing in relief he returned to his sitting position and took a large object from out of nowhere, a look of uncertainty in his eyes.
Hot breath blowed his hair up and a sense of crisis entered his body as the same froze. Lifting his head slowly a horrendous, reptilian like face greeted his view, red lines made of fire and black scales like the endless abyss adorned the creature's head.
'How did things end up this way?' You must be asking yourselves.
Well, it's a long story … so let's start with the beginning.
My name is Mack. I am 19 years old, a former High Schooler and currently a freshman at Iwa University.
Now, that doesn't explain how I ended up inside a cavern, much less how I ended up meeting a fricking dragon, but I am going to get at it in an instant.
It all began when Kai Incorporated announced a new VRMMORPG that, according to them, would change the Gaming Society forever. Of course, many thought it was just talk, like me; but man, were we wrong.
Not only was the development kept a secret until only a few weeks before launching, but no Beta Testers were hired and no official information was disclosed in the company's site.
That made a lot of people intrigued and eager to play the game, even if there were other VRMMORPG already in activity by that time, some of which had become the stages for political and economic struggles between Large Corporations and Conglomerates.
The day the game was supposed to go online I was lying in my bed, the VR Gear already on my head, but right before I could enter it, guess what happened? A blackout.
It was so quick i didn't even have time to blink. One moment everything went black, the other white.
I didn't think it would be a problem until I logged inside. The Gear went crazy, quite literally, with sparks going off all around and, before I knew it, lots of data were being poured inside my head.
The moment I appeared inside the game it was like I was having a seizure, or a couple of them. Thankfully, I appeared in the middle of a desert alley, so no one saw me.
When I came to my senses a couple of minutes had gone by, and I couldn't believe what was inside of my head. At least half of the lore of the game, coupled with information on classes, quests, items, and a lot of other things hidden from the public had been dumped inside my brain!
I sited cross legged right there and while sorting out the information, I discovered why they were so confident this game would turn the world upside down. Turns out, this game was completely crazy!
First, you din't choose a class; the System is the one that will choose for you. During the Beginner's Quest, Players would be led towards the Adventurer's Guild, where they would be tested regarding swordsmanship, spearmanship, bowmanship, sneaking, tracking, affinity towards their control and timing, among other things.
Once done, they would be given a class that better suited them, so, if you knew swordsmanship in real life, then there was a good chance you would receive either the Warrior or Swordsman/Swordswoman class.
If you had great control or could grasp the correct timing, including a few other pre-requisites, you would be given the choice of becoming a mage or a priest. The same worked for the other classes such as Archer, Assassin, Shadow Priest, Paladin, and so on.
Second, there were no attributes, only Life (HP) and Mana (MP), alongside with attack and defense, which would change with the equipment you wore. One's strength would depend solely on their body, so those who were strong outside the game would be strong inside it too.
The only way to change that was with the help of certain artifacts that could enhance their bones, muscles, tendons, mind, senses, you say it. The problem was, no one knew about this!
Well, with exception of me, that is.
Lastly, the mobs and bosses were based on real life animals, so a wolf would act like one and would be as strong, smart and fast as a real wolf. The same applied to other monsters too.
In the case of mythical monsters like Nagas, Golems, Dragons, Goblins, etc., the System would adjust their behavior based on the knowledge of real species, sometimes even fusing known characteristics to create new, more plausible ones.
Once I learned about this I couldn't believe how crazy the creators of this game were, nevertheless, it was something amazing, and I would be damned for not giving it a shot.
I then started to scroll through the data, and found something really interesting; turns out Players could get other races besides humans, but the necessary requirements were quite tough.
For example, if a Player wanted to become an Orc, first they would need to have their "Affection" with the Orc Race maxed out, then, they would need to complete a series of special tasks given by the ruler of that race, in this case, an Orc Chief and finally go through a ritual to change races.
This process would take a long time to complete, so most players wouldn't opt for doing it, even if they received a series of physical boosts depending on the race they changed to.
Another thing I learned was that there were a myriad of hidden classes within the game, and anyone could use them if they fulfilled certain conditions.
Take the Blood Warrior for example. As the name suggests you would need to be of the Warrior-Class to receive it, but you would also need to ingest monster blood while in a Berserk-like state of mind.
With the realism of the game, obtaining the blood wouldn't be a problem, since you would simply need to drain the monster like hunters do in real life. The problem would be to enter in a Berserk-like state; we humans have mental blocks that our brain creates to stop us from harming ourselves, so entering a berserk state would be impossible without external help.
Unfortunately, that help was part of the information I didn't receive, so there wasn't much I could do.
Looking through more data I came across a class that really piqued my interest, the Card Mage.
In real life I am a fanatic for card games, from the oldest types of decks to the most actual ones with monsters, spells, artifacts, traps, you say it and I have it.
So, of course I would get interested in this class.
The description that came to mind when I thought of it were three simple words: "Trash and Legendary".
The reason appeared as I started looking through the specifics of the class.
Card Mages were unlike any other magic-type class. Not only could they use all kinds of spells, they could also use buffs, debuffs, heal comrades and curse enemies. They also could summon monsters to fight for them just like a Summoner, but they would act just like a Beast Master's pet, on their own.
They also could use weapons, different from mages and priests that could only use staffs, but there was a weight restriction to it, so Card Mages could not use War-Hammers, Battle-Axes, Great Swords, or any other heavy weapon. Daggers, short-swords, rapiers, fist weapons and others of the same kind could be used without a problem.
With such Opness, there was bound to be a weakness, and that was the reason why it was called "Trash". Like the name suggested, to use spells and summon monsters this class needed to use cards, so without them, they would be nearly useless.
To make the summoning cards Players would need to make contracts with monsters, while the spell cards needed to be made by mages, priests and other magic classes just like a Magic Scroll would be. This restriction meant that, unless the card was a permanent one, the Player would need to continuously seek monsters and other Players to restock his/her cards.
That wouldn't be a problem if the person with this class were to be part of a First-Rate Guild or a Supper Guild, since they could supply them with a nearly infinite amount of resources.
The problem was that they would be suck dry by those Guilds. After watching everything that happened in other VRMMORPG's it was pretty obvious that those guys would do everything they could to control the game, to the point of driving other Players into near slavery.
And I am not much of a fan of such ending.
So, I decided I would become a Card Mage, and that I would do everything I could to play this game without having to care about what those guys were doing.
It took me half an hour to sort all the information out, and man, was I scared. If the GMs were to know of this then I would be in serious trouble. Reluctantly I opened the 'Notes' function and wrote down a few pieces of information regarding items and quests I should do to improve myself after getting my class. Thankfully, the Privacy Policy of the game tuned everything I wrote invisible to others, including the System.
Once finished with my preparations I stood up and started inspecting myself. My clothes were a little dirty with dust, but a little tap here and there cleaned everything up.
I was wearing a white cotton shirt and brown pants followed by a pair of simple looking shoes from the middle Ages. It was the attire of a commoner, but all Players started like this.
Name : Mesphist
Level : 0
HP : 100
MP : 0
Attack : 1 - 2
Defense : 0
My Status were also nothing to brag about, being a Level 0 Player.
Everything being checked I walked to the end of the alley and saw medieval city with stone and wood buildings in both sides of an earth street.
No Player was in sight, but that was a given. After 30 minutes most Players were either still tacking their Class exams or were already on the outskirts of the Town, hunting monsters or doing some Quest.
So, I exited my spawning point and walked towards the place that would send me on this crazy journey.