Drake looked at himself in the mirror once more to confirm that he was back to being young again, back before all the crazy shit with the game started happening. He looked at himself in the mirror and checked out how his body used to look when he was younger. Drake has been a pretty smart man since he was young, a calm demeanor with good learning skills. He had previously used this when he was playing the game to earn rewards for the guild he was working for. He was now standing back to when he was 19, he was a bigger guy standing at 6 foot 3 inches and had a bigger body frame than most people, but unlike most big men prided himself on being physically strong and flexible at the same time. Well at least that was when he was younger, when he grew older it stopped being something he did for his ideals and it became his only way of survival.
Drake was an overall very athletic guy and he was pretty modest when it came to clothing and fashion so he never particularly stood out against others. He had natural black hair but right now his hair was dyed silver, which he now remembers and is internally cringing at this rebellious phase of his. Rebelling against what exactly, he didn't know, but it was one of the things he thought was especially cringe in his past life as he only did that because his last name was 'silver'. It was so obvious to anyone who knew him, but no one ever told him how stupid of a young man he was.
Drake contemplated on what to do now,'Ok, so I have come back to the past a week before the game came out, this is a sign is it not? Maybe whatever that door was that I saw in the afterlife is like a doorway a god (or devil) put there as a way of reincarnation for certain souls?' He thought to himself as he pondered why he was put back into this time period.
Then he thought of something he hadn't before,'wait, I have extensive knowledge from all the info packets and videos of bosses and areas the other gamers won't even know are there to begin with! If I can monopolize all that information, I can make literally billions of dollars!' He thought to himself in excited tones.
Drake spoke out loud for the first time since coming back,"Ok, looks like everything is like it was when I was 19, and even though I should by all rights be dead, I am here and somehow perfectly calm. Weird, but if this truly is some otherworldly power then I guess it wants me to achieve something great and majestic. The only thing I really paid attention to in the years before the game became the economy of the world was this game, I know where all the good loot is and how to properly set a character, all the fine details, everything!"
Drake got out his notepad and started to make a plan on how he would start the domination of the game and eventually the entire world. He opened the first page a wrote 'Step 1. Classes and the advantages of each'. Drake smiled as he started to remember everything about every class that the game had and how to attain it. This was the most important part of a beginners journey and lots of people would end up being stuck with trash classes among other things because of the important choices one must make when beginning off.
==
Drake looked at the helmet in his hands as he lamented that he wouldn't have the pods for a solid 2 years at the very least. Even if he was a trillionaire as the hard cap for the tech to appear is 2 years. Drake remembered the timetable he had set for himself, this game is a full dive vr game unlike others of the new industry, as the NPC characters are all individually controlled A.I.
When people realize this, they will realize that the NPC characters remember every interaction you have with them and will associate you with people they see you fighting for or with. This also had the added effect that other than main story scenarios and dungeons, basically any NPC could give you a quest if you just do events in the correct order. Most thought that the events to activate were random but once again it was revealed that while the events to trigger the npc quest do occasionally change that it was the A.I. in them that was changing, making the quests harder to activate to discourage easy repeatable quests and information bullying.
Drake sighed heavily and said aloud,"I don't know who chose me or why but I will do things others will only dream of. I hope whoever has put me here will be satisfied with me at the end." After saying aloud this message or prayer to no one he put the headset on and laid on his bed. The logo of the game company entered his eyesight and he was slowly pulled down into a deep sleep.
Drake woke up in a slight daze as this was his first time entering the game in this life. Naturally all the information had to be downloaded once again, thus it knocked him out and put him into the game world in a seamless transition that would've amazed others but this was normal for him as he had this happen several times during the major war updates. He was in a circular room with nothing around him but a slowly pulsing blue ring. Most would be a little creeped out by this room but people would come to know this room specifically as the 'void room'. It was actually said that if you got this room as your character selection area that you would be blessed with luck as long your character does not die. This was because the game had a secret filter where, depending on what room you created your character in, it would give you the corresponding attributes. For example, there was a room that was pure white with pillars around the player and this room, although looking heavenly supposedly makes the player more naturally gifted in the necromancer class.
Small slight variations in the different rooms make it impossible for players to all get the same classes. Only 3 rooms didn't affect class types, which were the 'void room', the 'anaconda room', and the 'guardian room'. If you got one of these rooms you were more likely to be perceived as good at the game as if you were 'blessed'. Of course these were findings the community had uncovered after years of experiments and research, no one on this planet knew even 1 percent of the information that drake had in his arsenal. This life he was going to exploit every possible thing he could. This room was the only thing he couldn't fully control and it was bothering him for a while, but seeing that he got one of the 'big three' he was really surprised.
Suddenly a text box appeared before him and asked [ Name? ]
Drake entered "Drake Silver" into the name category.
The system then asked him [Would you like to alter your physical appearance or body structure?]
Drake chose the 'no' option. This was another thing that players didn't know, messing with what your body looked like in-game messed up synchro rates. A synchro rate was how well your mind was 'meshed' into the game world. So if a 6 foot tall man decided he wanted to play a 5 foot tall woman obviously he would not be as in-sync with his character as someone who is fighting in their natural body. One of the tiny details that drake would have to deal with was that since his hair was dyed silver right now, the system recognized that it was silver and now his default hair colour was silver, which was a bit of a pain for drake. Even recolouring your hair can decrease your synchro rate by .03%. It doesnt seem like much in the short term, but it was concluded that when the two top rated players in his last life fought as max levels the only reason one beat the other was by a 0.000008% synchro rate margin. Many things can affect synchro rate but character creation is a huge part, so drake just set it as is and continued to the next question.
The system asked him [City of Origin?]
Drake smiled once again and picked the village of Rosha.
[Rosha Village Confirmed]
[Drake Silver Id Badge is Issued]
Suddenly a faint light shined in his eyes and floating in front of him was a screen with floating text that was displaying his status.
[Drake Silver]
[Job: Novice Adventurer]
[Class: 0]
[Strength 10 / Intelligence 10 / Stamina 10 / Agility 10 / Defense 10 / Luck: ???]
[No items or armour to list]
[No titles to list]
Drake smiled as the all too familiar status popped up. He looked up at the logo slowly floating towards him to welcome him into the game.
[Welcome, Drake Silver to the world of Adella!]