~Pant~
~Ting~
~Pant~
~Tang~
The soft sounds of labored gasps lingered in the room for mere moments before they were quickly overwhelmed by loud clashes of metal. In the small room a young boy who barely looked like he was 18, repeated the slashing and thrusting motions with a metal rod on an armored dummy.
His movements were slow and labored but the metal rod always followed the same trajectory, he had pitch-black hair and a pair of sharp bright blue eyes that looked out of place on his tired face.
He was alone in this small room, his t-shirt wet from the sweat, it was sticking to his chest as he went for another slash when the door soundlessly slid open. The training room was a small 5x5m area with luminous white walls, the door slid up revealing a much larger space, and another kid popped his head in through the doorway.
"You're here early? Did you look at the files sent by the main branch?" Bradley asked, he had similar features as Luke's, but he was a lot bulkier, built like a wall of muscle, Bradley's young face looked a little out of place on his rough build.
~Ting~
~Tang~
Luke chained two slashes together before he thrust the rod with all his might, the solid rod punched through the metal plate armor and pierced the wooden dummy but it failed to come out of the other side.
"Tch~" After an unconscious tick, Luke tapped the smartwatch on his right hand. After a couple of swipes, a holographic projection containing a message and an attached document hovered over the watch.
{###**3132: Account ID- 237835894, Pass: Biometrics. Read through the document before diving, ETA: 4:15:17}
"Did you read it?" Luke asked as he pulled the rod out of the dummy, he slowly walked and placed the rod on the weapons rack. The weapons rack was almost 2 m in length a little bit higher than his height as he stood solidly at 180cm.
Luke never thought he would ever choose a spear over swords and daggers, but somehow holding a spear just felt right to him.
"Yeah, it's about Another World..." Bradley shrugged, the orders clearly went over his head.
"What...? The VDD game? What has a game's launch got to do with orders from the main branch?" Luke was confused, the technology of this futuristic Earth was a lot more advanced than the Earth from his dreams.
Another World was a new Virtual-deep-dive Multiplayer Game that was coming out today, rumored to be supporting 100% realism and a quantum time dilation feature was among its many sellout points.
Yeah, it was like something out of fantasy but having spent the last 14 years in this futuristic world, it wasn't entirely outrageous, if it wasn't for the intrusive advertisement strategy, Luke probably wouldn't even know about this new game.
"Dunno, the mission statement wasn't really clear about it, just the fact that we are supposed to give 2 copper coins daily with a maximum delay of 7 days in between payments. And every resource in the branch, could now be purchased with this new in-game currency? I mean the rewards aren't that bad, at least we could also get access to the gene potions more easily now..." Bradley shrugged as he leaned on the wall.
It's been 14 years since Luke 'transmigrated', or at least that's the only possible way for him to make sense of the broken pieces of memories that are buried in his mind. It turns out that an infant's brain does not have the capacity to digest all the life experiences of a 23-year-old man.... Who knew, so his memories were broken apart and quite possibly saved in some other part of his brain.
The first 4 years were nothing but a blur to him, it took him that long to cope with just the fragments of memories that were left of his previous life, in the early days he wasn't sure who he was, was he Luke or Marcus, this lead to some trouble and a lot of unwanted attention.
This new Earth was a lot different from the peaceful world he could see in 'his' old memories, the current world had made a lot of advancements in the field of gene research, and along with that, there was the existence of the monster disaster like a typical fantasy novel.
Most of the information regarding the initial outbreak was suppressed by the government and even though he was born into a 'noble' family, he still couldn't access that information.
'It's not like it is that hard to guess, something happened, monsters suddenly invaded, and lots of humans died, scientists managed to figure out a way to use the mutated volatile genes of the monsters to develop new tech which in turn led to humans genes getting the opportunity to evolve... it's a typical fantasy setting,' Luke thought before he shook his head and walked towards Bradley, this kind of thought broke his sense of reality a bit so he always tried to stop it.
Whenever these episodes occur he sometimes loses his sense of existence, there was a reason he was out in this military academy.
"Did you find out why? Any rumors going around about why the game is so important that the main branch is asking us to waste time just for 2 copper coins." Luke walked past Bradley and pressed his hand on the wall, a small part of the white wall gave way as the doorway once again opened.
He arrived in a hallway, there were entrances to around 50 rooms identical to the one he was using, the training facilities of the Military Training Institute #O-007 were among the best.
Although most of the time these training rooms remain empty, just because there were monsters baring their fangs outside the walls doesn't mean that everyone would train their asses off.
"Well there are weird rumors going around the forums, plus the game system is a lot more detailed and complicated, wait do you even read through the forums anymore?" Bradley asked.
"No, why?" There was once a time when Luke was a bit obsessed with VDD games too, every new game was a new experience in a new world which made him feel a little less lonely in a strange world, he met Bradley for the first time through a VDD game.
"Dude, it's really cool, do you remember the 'Borken Island', it's like that but only better, there is a reason it is given #1 on the most anticipated game coming out this year. The world-building and power levels are a completely new concept that we have never seen before, instead of normal levels and tiers of classes like all the games, it's completely different, there are no levels but ranks of cultivation I think that's what it was called, wait lemme double che-..." Bradley continued not noticing Luke's movements freezing for a brief moment.
The word 'cultivation' once again triggered his 'Marcus' memories, it doesn't happen often but sometimes some words or scents would trigger these flashback moments. Luke's brain had suppressed most of his memories related to being Marcus, so most of these instances were sudden. Thankfully they happened way less now and they lasted just for brief moments.
"... yes, here it is ranks of cultivation..ummm... yeah, Body Refining Realm, this stage is divided into 10 levels then there Qi Condensation Realm, Qi Transformation Realm, Foundation Establishment Realm, and Core Formation Realm. Apparently, there are a lot more stages of cultivation in Another World but they aren't revealed by the company..."
Luke was walking in front of Bradley, so Bradley did not see the surprised expression on Luke's face. He realized that he remembered most of these realms that Bradley mentioned, they belonged to a trope of online novels originating based on one of the country's cultures in his 'past life'.
Cultivation, a cursed trope that he was apparently quite obsessed with in his previous life, took him a few moments before the familiar stories of snatching pills, herbs, and artifacts appeared in his mind.
But at that moment another thing that had been puzzling him made a little bit more sense. Luke closed his right eye and the familiar words appeared in his vision.
...
[Talent: Tyrant Body[0]]
[Phy: 12]
[Qi: 0]
[Spirit: 6]
...
------------------------------
AN- Welcome to another world!