In a huge room with dim lighting, a certain figure could be seen looking at various screens while rapidly pushing buttons on a keyboard and handling a mouse. On the screens, a certain game was loaded and a fight was going on between a human wearing extremely flashy equipment and an extremely monstrous-looking giant creature.
The figure handling the keyboard pushed the keys even more rapidly and the human character on the screen expertly manipulated various weapons to attack the monstrous enemy.
Finally, after one hour of this, the human character finally drove a giant spear through the monstrous enemy he was fighting. With a guttural shriek, the enemy fell and slowly transformed into a whirlpool of glowing energy which was then infused into the human character. When the energy infusion was finished, 12 pairs of enormous wings made of pure energy erupted out of the human character's back.
As the human character floated in the air, slowly flapping his 12 pairs of energy wings, the figure who was manipulating the keyboard relaxed back on his gaming chair with a victorious smile on his face.
"World of Conquerors, Huh?" the figure on the chair muttered with a satisfying grin "One month to finish the entire game, the world's so-called hardest game. Hah, beat that record if you can all you so-called gamers!!"
This person then switched off the live stream he was on and stretched himself. Turning on the lights, he went to the washroom to freshen himself up. He looked in the mirror and admired his tired-looking but handsome face, with the caramel-colored skin and lush dark hair that was swept back in soft waves.
He was Alcor Morgan, a hardcore professional gamer with the Gamer ID: Faint One. He was arguably the world's best gamer and had innumerable game clearing records to his name. He was highly sought after by the world's leading game companies to promote and test out their games. Alcor had never backed down from even a single gaming challenge and had played all types of games.
Unlike other gamers, Alcor took very good care of his body. He ate nutritious food he prepared himself every day and made sure that he exercised sufficiently to keep his body well maintained, flexible and healthy.
Alcor was also fond of learning new things. Behind his gaming personality lay a curious and intelligent brain that had learned all sorts of knowledge and information, ranging from History and Mythology to Sciences and Technology.
Just as he came back from Washroom, he saw that there was a new mail sent to him. Curious thing was, there was no sender's address.
'Have I been hacked?' Alcor thought. He activated all the security software and protections before opening the mail.
[Hello Faint One,
We have long heard of your reputation and have also heard of your public challenge to find you the toughest game which you can't clear. As it happens, our organization is planning to release our new game. We have high hopes for this game to be the most realistic and engaging, yet impossible to clear.
We saw your result in clearing the World of Conquerors, and have decided that you are the perfect candidate for our game's beta test. We have already deposited a million dollars to your account as an advance. Should you decide not to take our offer, you can still keep the money.
However, if you decide to take our offer, then you will have the chance to play the most realistic and engaging, yet impossible to clear the game. If you manage to clear the game in the beta test then you will be awarded an additional hundred million.
If you decide to take the offer, then all you have to do is simply click the button below. All your essential details have already been pre-filled by us and are just waiting for your approval.
Hoping to see you working with us soon. 'A New World' awaits.]
Alcor read this and first checked his bank account. He found out that this was not a prank and that a million dollars had already been deposited into his account. This was a positive gesture for him and he started thinking about whether to accept the offer.
On the one hand, he had never turned down a gaming challenge to this day. But, since this organization was so daring as to give him the money before he even confirmed, were they confident that no one would be able to clear the game? If he really couldn't clear it then it would be a big stain on his career.
Finally, after pondering on it for long, Alcor finally clicked on the button. He had not backed down from a game yet, and he will not be starting now.
A new page was opened and there was a countdown of 5 hours on it. There was an instruction written below that the game would begin after the countdown ends.
Seeing this, Alcor also set up his live streaming equipment so that he would also go live half an hour after the countdown ends. He guessed he would clear the tutorial stages by then and would have begun the real gaming stages.
Seeing that he had time, Alcor decided to take a nap. He slept on a water bed in a corner of the room and closed his eyes.
-x-x-x-x-x-
A bright light shone on him and Alcor blearily opened his eyes while shielding his face with a hand. He saw rays of light piercing through the leaves of the tree underneath with he was lying down. The leaves were lit up in varying shades of green due to the light.
Suddenly, he sat up straight as he realized that this was not his room and he was somewhere outside with no civilization in sight for miles. As he looked around in panic, a holographic translucent bluish screen blinked into existence in front of him. It was two to three feet away from him and maintained the distance no matter how he moved his head and body.
Slowly words started appearing on the screen.
[Greetings Player,
You are now in our 'Game' - 'A New World'.
As a Player in this world, you will have the powers of a 'Player'.
Please use your powers wisely and enjoy the game to the fullest.
Standard rules for 'Player' apply.
Thank you for Playing.]
'What the Hell is this?!!!' Alcor was shocked as he read and re-read the message. His brain worked at incredible speed to make sense of all this. He started formulating and rejecting various possibilities of how he got into this situation and whether he was imagining all this.
After spending five minutes like that, Alcor gave a sigh as he finally came to the conclusion: All this was real and he was actually in someone's 'Gameworld'. Once he accepted that, his player side came to the forefront.
'According to the greeting message, I have the powers of a player it seems. Well, the most common powers of a player are Status Screen and an Inventory. Do I have those? And if yes, how do I access them?' Alcor thought.
'Well, let's try the usual method of calling it out mentally.' Alcor thought 'Status! Inventory!'
Immediately, two screens appeared in front of him. One was a whitish translucent screen and the other was a grayish translucent screen. The grayish screen was filled with a seemingly never-ending series of squares, while the white screen was filled with rows of data.
Alcor smiled on seeing these two screens.
'Well, it seems it's not all bad. Since I have the so-called powers of a 'Player', I guess the only thing I can do now is doing what I know best: Play the Game. I will live my New Life in this New World.'