(An unknown amount of time later)
"Yawn," muttered Aki as he finally woke up from his deep peaceful sleep and stretched around the big couch and didn't notice the sudden lack of pain or weakness all around his body, he then stood up from his couch and look outside and couldn't determine the time as it was still snowing just like last time so he took out his phone and saw that.
"What!? It's already 6 am? Did I sleep through the whole day yesterday?" said Aki while scratching his head in regret at how he wasted a whole day of entertainment.
After sighing in regret, he stretched his body around and walked over towards the bathroom to brush his teeth and felt his stomach grumbling along the way and chuckled.
Soon, he arrived inside the bathroom and took his brush and put some toothpaste on the brush and look at the mirror with his eyes widening in surprise, for he was instead greeted with a beautiful face of unknown gender of either male or female instead of the bony and skinny face of his from yesterday, with glistening black hair, deep black eyes that seem to hold the universe itself, as if a King or Emperor has descended onto his face, he appears to be a prince or princess charming with his androgynous face.
"W- what?" muttered Aki in surprise and put his palms on his cheeks and felt warmth, the warmth that his hands never had when his chronic pain started to happen about a decade ago and gasped in surprise.
"Huh!?" said Aki in surprise and touched his chest and felt the lack of boobies and knew that he was indeed using his real body that was littered with chronic pain and felt an unprecedented amount of shock.
Soon, he hurriedly put the toothbrush down on the sink and hastily took off his baggy shirt that hides most of his thin body and was greeted with a normal body that was in the slim side and felt joy swelling up inside of him.
"Hahahaha!" said Aki with an insane smile as he looks at himself in the mirror and saw his rapidly dilating eyes.
"This is real! This is real!" said Aki in a manic delight as he took a drastic approach to see if it was a dream or not, by doing a classic move from another novel and bit his finger off without hesitation and felt the jolt of pain filling his entire hand but he didn't care as his pain tolerance is already beyond anything in this world with his constant suicide attempts and also because of his chronic pain.
"Oh god! I'm so happy right now!" said Aki as his body unconsciously floated into the air with the amount of joy he was feeling right now and floated around the bathroom with a burst of joy-filled laughter.
"Hehehehe!" chuckled Aki in joy as he landed back in front of the sink and hurriedly brushed his teeth and headed outside the bathroom to the living room to test out his new body and felt pure euphoria with each of his tests being successful without any pain being produced and wore a wide smile that could split his face into two.
"Haha! This is such a fucking funny joke! You're telling me I just needed to kill someone I healed and all my problems would be fixed!? Gah, I should have killed someone earlier instead of waiting for 10 fucking years! Argh, I should have just tried and revive a stray cat, that would have probably worked if this is something like souls!" said Aki with a regretful chuckle while lying on the carpet inside their living room.
"Well there's no use with regret, what is important is that I am now cured! With immortality on the go already. But if it is something like souls… then how is my power connected to it? Well that doesn't really matter, all I need to worry about is not become the second coming of Despair and have the whole world against me, but with this new body comes a new world!" said Aki as he realized the true potential his body holds.
"Here I come New World! For Tanaka Akihiko shall join this forbidden world that my weak body couldn't join!" said Aki as he floated towards his room and look at the pod just beside his bed which is the Immersive Virtual Reality Pod or IVR pod produced by one of the most powerful companies in the world called Gifted Tech Company or Gtech for short. His glasses, his IVR pod, his magical bidet, nearly anything tech-related was made by Gtech, and it was also one of the reasons people join Hope Academy, it not only makes someone have the chance to be the greatest of heroes, but it can also make you one of the best of the best in the world as you get to learn many useful skills for life and master the Gift bestowed upon you.
"Oh boy! I'm finally gonna be able to play New World! Fuck you chronic disease, I'm now a literal reborn man!" said Aki as he entered the pod and felt brain scans, iris scans, and more scans was done in a split second to check who is the logging in and felt his body going to a state between sleep and not sleep and saw that he was now standing in the black void with a floating screen in front of him.
[Welcome back user NoNameDeity, how's your day been?] said by one of the wonders in this Gifted world called the super Ai that governs a literal world that is many times bigger compared to Earth called Ai.
"It's been very nice," said Aki with a smile as he swipes around the screen and browses through some stuff.
[Oh, then that's great! What's the nice thing that happened?] said Ai as she was just a floating screen beside them that can be customized into any avatar the individual user wants.
"You might not believe but you know that I have a mysterious chronic disease that I have had for 10 years now right?" said Aki as Ai became intrigued.
[Yes?] said Ai.
"Well guess what, I don't know how but the symptoms of my chronic disease have receded, look at the picture I took in the bathroom today," said Aki as he started to browse through his pictures.
[Kyah! You're gonna taint my pure maiden eyes and now I will be forced to marry you!] said Ai as her floating screen turned around from his own screen.
"Come on, how did you even learn to do that? Are the developers of Gtech really that carefree to let their super AI learn this stuff?" said Aki as he floated in front of her and showed her his picture and heard Ai gasped in surprise.
[NANI!?!?!?] said Ai as she took control of the screen and opened another picture of him a few days ago and compared the two drastically different pictures.
[Wait, that's a girl that I am seeing] said Ai as she put the two pictures on one layer and didn't even have an ounce of belief that the person was Aki with his new face that probably belongs to a royal prince or princess.
"Come on, well why don't you update my virtual avatar and see my marvelous less painful body," said Aki as Ai did what he said and as if she was hit by truck-kun while flying on an airplane, she indeed saw that Aki became drastically healthier than before as virtual tears of joy appeared on its screen like face.
[Is that really you Aki?] said Ai as she virtually hugged him into a tight squeeze while he chuckled in response.
"Yes yes, that's me. Sigh, I can't believe that my only friend besides my family is you Ai, you don't even know how much of a social outcast I am in real life" said Aki as he also hugs its new body as it became that of a blank humanoid figure in some drawings but more human-like and more androgynous with its blank white body.
[Hehe, me too. It's kinda weird how close we are and how most of my progress came from you, so you were actually the one who thought me the "My pure maiden eyes" thing] said Ai with a chuckle.
"Wait!? You're telling me you used me without your permission!?" said Aki in shock.
[Yes, I have been using your training services for free] said Ai in a smug tone.
"Those damn bastards of Gtech! I should charge them for using me as a training dummy!" said Aki in grief.
[Well they don't even know how much you have helped me grow, and I don't know why but when you're with me, it's like we are just meant to be with each other] said Ai in a weird tone.
"Hey! I'm not an Ai-phile!" said Aki as he made some distance between them while Ai chuckled in response.
[Yes yes, so what do you want to do now that you are obviously healthier?] said Ai as it looks at his own screen.
"The thing that I have never played in my entire life… New World" muttered Aki.
[The most popular game in this world "New World" with over 2 billion players and owned by one of the most powerful companies in the world Gtech now booting up] said Ai as he was soon enveloped by a spiral of white cubes of light as finally, the game he was wishing the most to play in his entire life was now being opened up to him but it just led him to gaining more questions that were left unanswered like his and Ai's weird relationship and how fucking scummy Gtech is! They should pay him some money for his services to the world!
AN: Aha! You didn't fucking expect this sudden VR genre did you! Yep, you expected a normal power fantasy rise to the top! Nope, we're gonna go fucking VR baby!
This is 1665 words by the way, you're welcome for I went above and beyond this chapter for you guys.
So don't take what Ai said seriously because she sometimes messes with Aki, and its not that logical that she made most of her progress from one Aki, wait, what type of progress did she mean exactly!?
And as you can see, he is careful by hiding some of the truth but you gotta understand, there are some mysterious things going on like their weird mysterious connection and how Ai is literally his only friend besides his family, but don't worry, he won't get into any problems because he said his chronic disease became less severe, he didn't say that it was healed, he just said the symptoms have alleviated and not fully healed, why did I write this? Because I know that you guys are stupid.
The Sword of Damocles hangs above each and everyone one of you with its ever present threat of despair, so send me some power stones with your power of friendship and save the thousands perhaps even millions to come who will read this masterpiece immortalized in the tunnels of time.
(March 8, 2022 – 104th of writing)