A grumpy voice he had not heard in a long time resounded in his ears once more. It was the cutscene voice, that would remain nameless for a long time into the game, until you reach level 50 and finally get to meet him; Ares, the Legendary figure symbolizing war and conquest in the Roland Empire.
"They say, nothing lasts forever. They say change is inevitable. They say The strong are bound to fail one day and become the prey of the weak. But some things, simply cannot be destroyed. Some things, must, and always will remain eternal."
[System: You can skip this cutscene. Do you wish to skip?]
Axel ignore this, since he knew that skipping the cutscene would rob him of a hidden quest that could not be acquired afterwards. Axel himself had also missed out on this opportunity, and only learned about it afterwards when someone actually discovered and revealed the hidden quest.
Suddenly, two circles of light appeared in front of Axel, one white and one Dark.
"Before the world was created, only chaos existed. Within this chaos were born two souls; two sides of the same coin. Two beings, later to be known as the God of Light and the God of Death, were formed in an instance together; their names forever forgotten in the river of time."
The two balls of light and darkness suddenly clashed with each other, resulting in a massive explosion the pushed away all the chaotic space around them.
[System: You can skip this cutscene. Do you wish to skip?]
'This system. Why do you keep giving me pop-ups, it' s so irritating. And the close option is so small and right next to the skip button! Is it really so petty, to trick me into skipping?' Veins bulged on Axel's face as he held back his anger and continued with the cutscene.
"The two gods knew that the only reason they existed was for the destruction of the other. And so, they began a war that lasted an eternity."
"No one knows what exactly happened, but the two, for reasons unknown decided to stop fighting, and instead have the creatures they spawned fight each other. However, anything took time to be formed, including an army, and therefore, they erected the Mountains of death between each other. Only those strong enough were given the authority to pass through to the other side to battle against the enemies"
[System: You can skip this cutscene. Do you wish to skip?]
The cutscene shifted to a circular disk of a world, split perfectly in half by neatly positioned mountains, with one side having a sun and lush green forest, while the other side had black miasma and death.
"This battle will always remain eternal, and cannot be worn away by time, swept away by floods. Its only destiny is to be bathed in the bloods of enemies, raging on for centuries."
[System: You can skip this cutscene. Do you wish to skip?]
[System: You can skip this cutscene. Do you wish to skip?]
"No one knows how long has passed since the world was formed, however, one thing is for certain; there is a danger looming over the Nations of Light, and the only way to put out that threat is by crossing the mountain and killing the enemy"
[System: You can skip this cutscene. Do you wish to skip?]
[System: You can skip this cutscene. Do you wish to skip?]
[System: You can skip this cutscene. Do you wish to skip?]
[System: You can skip this cutscene. Do you wish to skip?]
'AAAARGH!!!! JUST STOP!!!!!!!' Axel exclaimed in his heart but did not reveal any change of emotions on his face, just carefully clicking on the close button of each pop-up.
"However, you are currently too weak. Go forth youngling, and call out my name when you become strong enough."
Axel did not waste time and quickly answered with the line that ended the cutscene and gave him the quest.
"How do I address you?"
"My name is something that even I cannot remember. Just call me Old Man."
============
Quest: Fight for survival
Status: Inactive
Requirements to activate: Reach Level 50 and call out "Old Man"
Task: --Hidden--
Completion reward: --Hidden--
Failure Punishment: --Hidden--
Note: This is a quest given by a hidden character
============
As the voice of Old Man Ares faded, the view of the entire server being presented before him like a board game also shifted, and he soon appeared at the transport point in Vain, the capital of the Roland Empire.
Around him was a bustling city square with 2 and 3 story buildings surrounding it like warriors guarding their treasure. Every now and then, soldiers NPCs were visible, mixed in with the crowd of normal NPCs.
Displayed in front of him, was his status screen hovering in front of his eyes, only visible to himself. Next to that was the player Leaderboard that displayed the top 10,000 players in the games based solely on their levels.
In his past life, Axel had actively tried his best to level up as much as he could to get on the Leaderboard, while grinding away at coins to exchange them for credits in real life. However, when he successfully became placed 9994th on the Leaderboard, countless players began rushing him to kill him. Some came from the guilds of the players he surpassed on the Leaderboard, while some were casual players with no apparent link to him, just wanting to kill him and get lucky by baiting him to attack them first.
And that was exactly what happened, and the first few times, he only lost 50% of his experience bar for his current level, and after dying twice, he had yet to reduce in level because he had also been grinding away at his level to increase it quickly.
However, that last group purposefully irritated him to the point that he attacked first, allowing their entire group to take action against him without becoming red-named. A red named player, would not be able to enter a town, city or village while his or her name was yellow, orange, red or black. Furthermore, then you died, you would drop all your equipped items as well as a whole level. The only way to remove a red name is to either die or to kill enough monsters, slowly removing the colour from your name until it turned white.
This was exactly what had happened to Axel in his previous life, being hunted like a dog and then finally killed while his name was yellow, losing everything he had equipped and a level.
This time around, he would not make the same mistake!