Axel remembered how the sleepover was just something the kids had come up with to target Lily, who despite being incredibly poor, was still popular in the class for her personality and adorable appearance. Despite being in a cheap public elementary school, the other still had parents who worked, and provided for the family more than a measly 400 credits that Uncle Lin gave them. Of course, there were others as poor as Lily and Axel who went to the public schools of the federation, but none of them were as popular as Lily within their class. Take Axel for example, all through his life until his parents returned, he only had a single friend.
The girls picked on Lily for being poor, they ridiculed her, and when she retorted back the 4 girls began beating her up, scratching her and pulling her hair, however, the girl's parents rushed in to stop the fight. The parent even paid for Lily's medical bills, which were rather high, and clearly something he could not afford.
Axel was still incredibly pissed and was going to approach the federation's court for justice, but Uncle Lee had intervened and made him forget this matter, not to take it further, since they did not know what kind of background Cate and her parents had. At least, this was something good he had learned from the incident, to never provoke others since anyone could have some influential contacts and make your life miserable.
That incident had left a deep emotional scar in Lily's heart, and Axel was completely unable to do anything about it back then. But now, he could stop it!
"Lily, I am sorry, but you should not be friends with Cate anymore."
"Why?!" Lily was shocked. Cate was one of her newest friends, and she wanted to have some fun.
"Listen to me clearly. Cate and her group of 4, just stay as far away from them. Let me tell you a secret, that you must not tell anyone. They hate poor people."
Lily stared at Axel with her big jade-coloured eyes for a good 2 seconds, blinked a few times, and then gasped.
"We are poor!"
"Pfft" Axel could not hold it in any longer and busted out laughing at the reaction that Lily had.
"Don't worry too much. As long as you do not tell them anything, and treat them normally, they will not do anything back to you. Just try and avoid going anywhere along with them."
"Okay!"
Seeing that Lily had understood, Axel nodded, and dropped her off at her school, before rushing to his own school. His own high school was nearly 4 blocks from Lily's school, in the opposite direction from his house. However, just to drop Lily, Axel would make this trip daily, and end up late every day for his own school.
Not that being 10 minutes late mattered too much. He would just receive a light scolding from the teachers.
While running to school, Axel reminded himself about the incident that changed humanity's course in history. In his past life, he encountered 3 life-changing experiences. On was the return of his parents from their incredibly dangerous smuggling operations for the government of their zone. The second was the release of 'Evolution Online'. And the third was his parents' newly formed company being completely ruined by the multizonal conglomerate giant; Ray Holdings Inc.
The second life-changing experience not only affected him, but in fact drastically affected all of humanity, which no one expected.
By now, many people had fully immersive VR headsets, and many games had been released, with varying success. The very first games had immense popularity when the concept first came out, but they were incredibly short-lived, as the number of bugs and hackers that emerged from nowhere flooded the games until no one bothered to lay them.
However, 'Evolution Online' was different. The reason was simple, but it was a tightly held secret that no one knew for the first month since its release. It remained just one more VRMMORPG which would be short-lived.
However, unlike most VR games, Evolution Online was being sold for the measly price of 100 credits, chump-change compared to the average price of 1000 credits per VR game. This caused it to still attract around 1% of the gaming market.
This game, however, had a lot more going on behind the scenes. 2 months after its release, conglomerates like Ray holdings, and their rivals, the Ocean Group, began investing vast sums of money into Evolution Online. These two were the two major conglomerates within the entire federation, with their standing only lower to the council and president of the federation.
Due to their immense size and authority, many other powers noticed these movements, and also began investing in Evolution Online, though not as blindly as these two major conglomerates. Axels' parent's company was one of these powers who were testing the water, only to end up missing the best opportunity to invest in the game.
However, no one had understood the reason behind these actions, until the federation released an official statement, that 'Evolution Online' was a product developed directly by Spark, and had been in the process of being built for the past 18 years. They also announced the closing of all other VR games, creating an absolute monopoly in the market.
However, their lard announcement was even more overbearing. They deducted 5100 credits from each and every citizen of the federation, and delivered a VR headset to them forcibly. Those who could not afford it would have a 0% interest loan placed on them, which they had to pay back over time. 100 credits were for the game, and the 5000 credits were for the lowest quality of VR headset.
These series of announcements naturally raised a lot of complaints and protests, especially from the developers of other games, and the players of other games. But something like democracy no longer existed in the capitalist federation of this day and age. The voices of protest slowly vanished, and instead, the almost 80% of humans in the federation began playing the 'Evolution Online'. The rest of them, despite having the game and the headset, due to varying reasons decided against playing the game.
With over 12 billion players, and major conglomerates still investing in the game, 'Evolution Online' was set on an uncharted path to glory. Naturally, there were reasons other than just monopolizing the market that the federation released its statements.
Although the council could still have done this, with the president who was the last voice of democracy in the federation, and Spark, who was the voice of logic, such a decision would not be made for credits.
Before Axel could continue recalling his past memories, he heard a familiar voice from the distance. Turning to face the direction of the school gate he was almost at; he saw an incredible mountain of fat on inside the school.
"Dan!"