[Yami still storytelling]
I spent all my saved up money for the best computer I could afford. I started drinking instant coffee to stay alive and making lots of friends outside hoping to be treated to restaurants.
My work was simple as I remembered it. I don't remember it but it easy.
I just know I manipulated my co-workers to stay fed. It worked...every two days.
One day, I was excited to come home to my empty room. It's empty except some blankets, my clothes, a pillow and the computer.
It's really just a rectangular room with light blue walls. There's a ceiling fan and a small light bulb that couldn't illuminate the corners of the room. There's no kitchen or sink or table.
As I've mentioned, I only ate when my coworkers invited me to.
"Endless Possibility" finally released and I was an hour behind because of my stupid pile of work.
I finished the tutorial and didn't bother to read the game information like the changelog. Finishing the tutorial gives enough Exp to be around Level 5.
I chose my necromancer class but my first skill would be unlocked at level 20.
I used the pre-registration bonus to buy a Greatsword. It's a good thing classes weren't severely limited to a point of unavailability of items and skills for a certain class.
I went on to look for a graveyard and defeat some zombies and skeletons. Necromancers levelled up faster if they defeat entities that could be enslaved.
'Heroes' hated necromancers because unlike summoners, "enslavement" was the term coined by the heroes used for necromancer summoning.
Most heroes filled their heads with pride and a false sense of justice. I hated how the NPCs were forced to praise heroes who brought the newbie necromancers to the town guillotine.
I witnessed a 'Hero' necromancer die by the guillotine too. The heroes were just oppressive.
Heroes that were good though refused to believe that evil heroes exist.
Until the first biggest game threat arrived.
I was guillotined a few minutes later and thus I came back to level 1. The functionality for observing how much time you've played the game existed back then.
Finishing the tutorial for the 2nd time did not bring my level back.
After a horde event killed my character for the 2nd time in the graveyard, I hated the broken mechanics of the game.
A horde event is a wave of monsters coming to attack. Around 20 units if you're lucky and 100 units if you're good at activating 1% rates.
I was clearly frustrated I couldn't progress properly but then I realized there's someone who has experience worse.
I checked the Leaderboards and I was surprised and amazed.
Some 'Hero' was already Level 90 and the username was "Hearts". Hearts was #1 in terms of level, Equipment Power and Hero Power.
The death leaderboards was ironic. A player named "xxX_Death_Xxx" was on top of the leaderboards with 124 deaths and is currently level 1.
The player disappeared. I couldn't find the profile.
It was probably a ragequit. It's when someone gets really mad over a game. Poor fellow.
I attempted to travel to the Kingdom of the Undead in search of ancient books. When the game released, about 5 artifacts were hidden in each kingdom.
And Yes. Errd is the original world for the first players.
Hearts was already Lord of the region and so my first region was the Region of Hearts.
You're probably thinking he must have some sort of power related to love. He's not likeable and rarely replied to the messages of Hero players.
He was a handsome blonde white character always with a poker face.
I despised the unfair mechanics of the game and to this day I still do but to a lesser extent. I am an unfair player myself anyway.
I checked the leaderboards and oddly enough I was 10th. That made me happy.
Top 10 on the first few hours of game release. Something was strange though...I'm only level 20.
I went back to the graveyard and played another 5 minutes with my dark slime summoned. I used to enjoy that skill.
It becomes harder to enjoy skills when you have...too many.
It was difficult to grind with 'Heroes' that ran around looking for Exp. I also lost my greatsword after death. I only had black robes that luckily did not disappear after dying.
Good thing clothes stay one after death unlike the other game!
A party of heroes found me and my character was back to the bottom after my third death. I was lonely again as the dark slime was my only companion. Most 'Villains' back in the day tend to work alone.
I decided to turn off the computer and sleep.
I woke up the next morning and found the urgency to log-in. I immediately checked the leaderboards.
"Top #1 player by level let's see..."Hearts...level 99. Top #2 player...level 2???"
Something happened to the game and it was seriously broken!
I capitalized on the opportunity and immediately became top 2 after defeating my first horde.
I spent a lot of my points increasing my abilities to dodge and inflict physical damage. It worked. After a couple of zombies and faced with another horde event. I beat the event.
"Top #2 player. Ha! It's me now at level 17."
I felt proud during that moment until...
Hearts was suddenly behind my character. I summoned the dark slime but it melted into nothing right away.
"You bullies! You're not heroes! You're evil!"
I vented out my frustration towards heroes. I said everything I wanted to about the stupid Hero side and it all sounded jumbled witht the voicechat function. Hearts showed me something and I immediately understood.
Demon wings grew out of Hearts and long violet horns protruded from the blonde silky long hair. Hearts may look like handsome medieval prince but deep down a demon at heart.
"This is my game now."
Hearts' voice was intimidating. I was right to assume during that moment that Hearts is a pay to win player and so I bickered again about pay to win players and Hearts listened intently.
The game almost lost its popularity because of the pay to win system but it's been removed now. What's a pay to win player you ask?
They use real money to become strong.
Well yes I used 10,000 gold coins to buy a greatsword but gold coins are not real money.
Just listen. I know gold coins are real to you.... Let's call it cash.
Hearts used cash to reach Level 99 and dominated the game.
Pay to win players usually dominate most games and are willing to spend their fortune to stay on top. The bigger spenders wait for the perfect time to unleash their cash and destroy the positions of small spenders in the leaderboards.
Hearts was a bit different. He eliminated the leaderboards repeatedly. Anyone except me who came close to Level 90, we would hunt down.
Well it became 'we' after he shared that he too hated the 'Heroes' in the game.
He did all the work though since I was still Level 50 a week after we met online.
Hearts showed me the mansion, legendary sets of equipment, a museum he owned and the diamond vault he bought using cash.
He gave me the sword I'm still using now, "Nightslash".
Hearts stated he emailed the developers for a "special purchase". He bought the right to choose another class and chose Demon. Hearts was a Demon Warrior. Hearts used cash to attain Demon King rank on the 1st day of the game as he claimed.
He gave me a room in the mansion as assistant. He promised to gather many more who shared our values and form the ultimate party. Our Duo couldn't dominate the Team Leaderboards because ur Battle Power together wasn't enough.
Another week later. Hearts was declared an in-game threat according to the Game News and thus the developers decided he had reached his "purchase limit" and a bounty was placed for his head.
Game News function is only available to players but I'm the one who handles that now.
I was worried my only partner in-game would be banned. Hearts became the first player to be known as Demon Lord and Demon King.
I became the 11th player to claim the status of Dark Lord. It was pretty popular back then to deal with black magic, dark magic or whatever it was called.
There was a "Demon King" as an in-game boss but it looked more like a Higher demon. The demon was designed in an ugly and lazy way easily summoned by a scroll.
[Searching for records of "Demon King" from the first official release day...
Boss: Demon King, Level: 40, Summoned by scroll.
Searching for a boss with exact name at present...Entity found.
Rare Demon: Demon King, Level: 30, Spawns in any demon castle.]
I anticipated and dreamed of the day that Hearts' mansion would be destroyed and Hearts would be defeated forced to restart at Level 1. We repelled many invasion forces and it was fun being hailed as Dark Lord.
The sinister duo of Dark Lord and Demon Lord.