For a little basis, the story revovles around a mysterious set of developers, or maybe a developer. That made a ground breaking VR game. You could feel pain, feel temperatures, heck, you could even feel the goosebumps that crawl on your spine as you wander through scary caves, desolate ruins of old civilizations, or monoliths of doom deep underwater. The blind gained eyesight, while the paralyzed could move!
The game worked by connecting a bodysuit to your spinal cord and a headset to your brain. There was also a free pod that fed you and nourished your sleeping body as you played the game. And very fortunately, 1 day in the game was just 2 hours real-time. The equipment also wasn't that expensive so even the working class could afford it. The game had no purchase options and it was completely free. You just needed a pod.
The year was XX31 (idk any good year ideas) and the world was so immersed in E-Sports now. Thanks to fort of knight's tournaments and the streams that centered around crafters of the mines a few millenia ago, the gaming world expanded heavily. Pills were made that instantly nourished your body by ripping your muscles apart and reforging them multiple times over, some that erased all fat in your body, that one's untested but still!
A few games even taught martial arts, most were found to be frauds but there was one that actually taught a guy some kung Fu, which was a very very very old art that people last heard of in 2024. Which was so very long ago. The application's name was (NotAScamMartialArtsTrainer2000) it cost like 50 bucks but some said it was worth it. While others stated it a scam.
Anyways back to topic
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Our not-so-great and not-so-mighty orphan protagonist labelled Kinei with a last name of her orphanage robenreltz, was currently sleeping in, unaware about the amazingly shockingly W gigachad event about to befall her.
Kinei robenreltz was awoken by her alarm clock as it rung desperately with the sole goal of waking this sleepy individual. Kinei tried ignoring it, before it got annoying and she tapped the alarm clock on its head. It let out a sad grunt before turning off. (In her head that's what happened) Immediately after she got a call. Kinei stretched out of bed slightly while letting out a small grunt of annoyance. Before picking up her XPHONEXX, which was the cheapest model mind you, and looking at the caller. "Rebecca."
—'pickthecalloryouwillregreatit'— was the mini note set by her friend to appear whenever she called her. Kinei, fearing what her friend would do to her. (Forcing her to lick a doormat or leak her very stupid looking selfies to the internet.)
Immediately the soft and gentle voiced Rebecca was speaking to someone in the background of the call, her voice was gentle like always, as though she was your mother who loved you dearly. "No, I don't think we want that either. Could you show that in black?" Asked Rebecca, before looking back at her phone and speaking to kinei in a slightly grumpy manner, "Where are you? We agreed to meet at the HighJourney's mall..."
Immediately kinei was hit with regret as she remembered, before saying a small white lie to savd her skin, "I'm uh- on the way ... Ah forget it, I overslept and im rushing over, give me a minute." Kinei said at first with a panicky voice, before she sighed and just spoke with her normal voice that was often viewed as cold, uncaring and reserved. Which is honestly what kinei was to other people, besides Rebecca and a few others of course.
"Hmph, your face should be on the word 'Overslept'. Anyways, I'm giving you five minutes, come here quickly so we can buy our pods!!!" Rebecca said cheerily, her gentle yet cheery and energetic voice sent shivers down most people's spine. Really heartfelt warm and fuzzy shivers. "Alright, see you soon." Said kinei quickly as she disconnected the call and rushed to change her clothing.
Roughly two minutes later shd was done and ran straight to outside her apartment. Jumping into her teleporter that sent her straight to the HighJourney's Mall entrance. The vibrations from teleportation tingled but she ignored them and ran inside, sprinting towards the scan room that scanned every inch of your body for dangerous or abnoxious substances or items.
Immediately grabbing onto the rope-elator which was a cool contraption for people rushing to get up without the patience to take stairs or the elevator. It worked by having a platform at the bottom of the rope which spin a lot the rope's knots and reached the top decently fast.
Kinei had achieved all of this in 2 more minutes time, the scan taking a whole minute because of the queue. Anyways kinei slowed down to gaze at the mirror, inspecting her appearance silently, cursing at what she assumed was a horrible fashion sense. she had jet black hair with crimson red eyes, her body was intriguing,save from her medium sized chest and short height.
Kinei chose to wear a Purple V-Neck sweater since it was rather cold, which caused her chest to appear more apparent. She wore a regular pair of trousers which she could grab, they were black in colour and honestly just made her hips visible too, she looked like she was screaming for you to look at her. This is what caused her to curse at her fashion sense as she noticed multiple men and women alike gazing at her silently. Her stoic, detached, elegant and cold demeanor made her look practically unapproachable, but it only added to her charms.
Kinei was about to cry, like actually burst out in tears from the amount of stares she got. She hated being looked at by people hudgingly, however very luckily, she managed to not curl into a ball and sob as she was very shakily breathing, it wasn't visible to people unless they stopped and looked at her very carefully, which was hard as people would be drawn in by her crimson red eyes.
Eventually she managed to reach Rebecca at their agreed meeting spot, the pod shop's entrance. Rebecca had a kind and gentle personality, she hailed from a rich family called the Jewlerltz. (Jew-lertz) Rebecca had white hair with a few gold strips that she added herself using dye due to a dare, she had curves on par with kinei. Just a slight smaller pair of hips which in kinei's opinion made her prettier. She wore a golden hoodie with a nice pair of sweat pants and a small white cap. All in all she looked like an angel descended down to Earth and became modern.
"Rebecca..." Kinei said while calming her breathing slightly. Immediately cheering up a bit seeing her beautiful friend. "What happened?" Asked Rebecca in a slightly worried tone. She was carrying two paper bags that had a few items in them.
Kinei gave Rebecca a small hug before she shook her head, not wanting to worry her friend. "Nothing, now let's get to shopping!" Kinei said, she usually didn't shop at all unless Rebecca forced her, but she decided she might aswell indulge Rebecca here, not to mention she didn't have the courage to sit down somewhere waiting for Rebecca while knowing people would gaze at her. Rebecca shrugged slightly before dragging kinei inside. Immediately searching every nook and cranny.
—————·—————
Time-skip about 4 hours.
Rebecca had non-stop talked about this ground breaking VRMMORPG that was releasing in thirty minutes from now, she said she pre-downloaded it for both of us, strangely enough she was so excited for it even though she didn't really like games. Kinei grumbled slightly as she entered her home finding a jet black pod installed with a gifted black bodysuit and black headset from Rebecca. Perhaps that was what she was buying before calling her.
Apparently the game was made by a single developer which was so confusing since the amount of work would break a guy's back if he was alone in developing, but whatever, kinei didn't know about developing nor was she interested in coding at all.
Kinei decided to play the game, opening it on her pod as she wore the bodysuit and headset. Letting out a small grumble from the strange feeling of ascending.
The game loaded before she was taken to a strange white space, Infront of her was a small black orb with a name above it spelled in the darkest most terrifying shade of red that could be mistaken for black. 'Kronaky' according to the small information about the game the dev gave away that Rebecca kept pestering her about. Every entity had a form and power level, if it appeared as a black orb, that meant that it was so far beyond your league you couldn't even fathom it's existence, and the darker it's name, the more individuals the entity killed. What was infront of kinei was a mass genicidal death weapon that could wipe her instantly. Of course she would be spooked!
'Kronaky' didn't speak but sent a floating white transparent panel towards kinei, it stated the following.
[ |"Pick your race before I lose my patience. I'm only doing this once."| ]
After kinei read the following the panel disappeared as if it knew that she had read it. A new one taking its place.
[| Race options |
| • Dwarf;
Description: A mystical race of powerful creatures that wield hammers and shields, they are masters in the crafts. Unfortunately you become 3ft tall and get a beard regardless of your gender or previous height.
Perks: 10% better luck when mining, forging, brewing or cooking. 3% more syphon gain.
| • Beastman,
Description: A mystical race of powerful creatures that aren't quite beasts or humans, they wield any weapon or no weapon. Masters in violence and conquering. Unfortunately or unfortunately, depending on what kind of Beastman you become, you get their tail and ears. Which could be cute or ugly if you end up rolling pig.
Perks: 10% more exp and loot in your conquered lands or lands conquered by beastmen. 3% more syphon gain.
| • Elf / Sprite,
Description: You become an elf if female and a sprite if male , a mystical pair of races that were previously at war. The two races made an alliance against the beastmen king ragnotar. They possess pointy leaf-like ears and very illuminated skin. Masters in nature and magic.
Perks: 10% more learning speed and casting speed when performing magic. 3% more syphon gain.
| • Human
Description: Thieving creatures that cause destruction and mayhem wherever they go, they can't and shouldn't be trusted with anything. They destroyed the elven forest and blamed the beastmen king ragnator to save their skin. Wielders of swords,daggers and shields. Masters of deception.
Perks: 10% faster body looting. 3% more syphon gain.
| • Ghoul/Demon/Undead
Description: Depending on how you allocate your stats you can be a ghoul or a demon or an undead, the ghouls specialize in agility while the undead specialize in strength, and the demons specialize in intelligence.
Perks: 10% more likelihood to find the abyss god buzenshoi.
| •Monster/Mob
Description: A race of beings that are used as stepping stones to achieve strength, this is a joke race I added to make dumbasses who just want to die, die.
Perks: Every human, elf, sprite, beastman, demon, ghoul, undead and dwarf will deal 30000x damage to you. No EXP gain. 3% more syphon gain. Hourly cost of 10000000000000000000X Fuil]
Kinei thought long and hard about her race. A bit confused on the 3% more syphon gain for every single race, but then she remembered another important detail. Depending on who you roll as your tutorial guide, you get a different starting perk. There were hundreds of options, but the most common was raghinerd. Who gave you 0.01% more dmg against mobs. Which was useless.
Eventually after thinking it through for a while. Kinei chose the beastman race, the idea of conquering was cool, and she felt bad for the beastman king "Ragnator" who was apparently about to go to war against the elves and sprites. After making her choice 'Kronaky' sent another white panel her way.
[ | Select your class now, fledgling beastman. | ]
| • Swordsman.
Description: You journey on the path of the sword to unravel it's secrets.
Grades: All six grades of the swordsman are as follow,
Grade 6: True Swordsman.
Grade 5; Master Of The Sword
Grade 4: Sword Saint.
Grade 3: Tales Of Swordsmanship. Grade 2: Conqueror of The Abyss. Grade 1: Right-Hand of The Sword God.
| • Mage.
Description: You journey on the path of magic to unravel it's secrets.
Grades: All six grades are as follow,
Grade 6: True Mage.
Grade 5: Master of Magic,
Grade 4: Saint Of Sorcery.
Grade 3: Tales of Magic.
Grade 2: Conqueror of Labyrinths.
Grade 1: Right-hand of The Mage God.
| • Shield Warrior.
Description: You journey on the path of shields and defense to unravel it's secrets.
Grades: All six grades are as follow,
Grade 6: True Shield Warrior.
Grade 5: Master of Defense.
Grade 4: Shield Saint.
Grade 3: Tales of Protection.
Grade 2: Conqueror of Fortresses and Forests.
Grade 1. Right-hand of The Shield God.
| • Assassin.
Description: You journey on the path of ambushes and stealth to unravel it's secrets.
Grades: All six grades are as follow,
Grade 6: True Assassin.
Grade 5: Master of The Ambush.
Grade 4: Stealth Saint.
Grade 3: Tales of Assassination. Grade 2: Conqueror of Trickery. Grade 1: Right-Hand of The Stealth/Assassination God.
| • Berserker
Description: You journey on a path of destruction to unravel it's secrets.
Grades: All six grades are as follow.
Grade 6: True Berserker.
Grade 5: Battle-Crazed Berserker. Grade 4: Saint of Destruction. Grade 3: Tales of Destruction.
Grade 2: Conqueror of Mountains
Grade 1: Right-Hand of The Destructive Berserk God.
| • Monk
Description: You journey on the path of war and weapons to unravel it's secrets.
Grades: All six grades are as follow,
Grade 6: True Monk.
Grade 5: War Monk.
Grade 4: War Saint.
Grade 3: Tales of The Weapon.
Grade 2: Conqueror of Oceans. Grade 1: Right-Hand of the Weapon God.
[There are no secret classes or such. Treat npc's respectfully and you will find whatever you need to find.]
Kinei was confused by the large amount of choices, it made her head dizzy. She didn't have the stamina or the patience to read grades or whatever so she just read the names. She was thinking between swordsman or mage, she wanted so bad to be both but knew that probably wasn't possible. So she sucked it up and picked swordsman. Sniffling slightly as she vowed to try everything to learn magic. Who knows, maybe there was a way?
As soon as kinei confirmed swordsman. Another panel appeared. [Please select your subclass as swordsman.
•Dual Sword Wielder.
•Singular Sword Wielder.]
(No dmg buff or dmg will be lost from either choice,]
Although kinei was tempted at dual swords. She realized she'd need two swords and that's way to much effort and she would probably forget how to swing the second one. So she chose singular sword Wielder since it was probably way easier! And who knows, maybe better! (Very hopeful thinking, spoiler: it's not)
As soon as kinei confirmed her choice, 'Kronaky' let out a very terrifying laugh. Before kinei saw another panel.
[You Are About To Begin Viewing the Beginning of The First Tale of the Sword. The Tale 'God of Swords and Blades.']
Poor Kinei who understood nothing and assumed she was going to the starting village was immediately taken to some ancient village, or so she thought as she realized they all looked like Origami. Which became pretty popular to use in games. Immediately the system made her lose her ability to speak and move.
Kinei watched the scene Infront of her, what looked like a hundred villagers, men, women and children included. Were gathered in the village square. They all had panicked and irritated expressions on their faces as the village chief seemed to have forcefully gathered them.
After some incoherent muttering died down, the village speak spoke in a language kinei didn't understand, but the system translated it to English for her, which was her set language on the pod. (The live translation feature allowed communication with foreign individuals while still understanding their tone and way of speech.)
"I know all of you are mad at me for calling you here, however it's very urgent. The village needs to sacrifice one individual to the God of the [BLANK], or we will be annihilated! Will someone please step up?" Kinei was confused on why the god was blanked out, but she assumed it might've been because that was something super important to the storyline that she shouldn't know right now? Or atleast that's what she thought.
Obviously nobody stepped up to just die out of nowhere, the village chief grumbled in annoyance as he rubbed his temples. Before speaking in a slightly upset voice. "Fine, we'll hold a vote. Please place your votes in my hands." The village chief said as he stretched his hands out. After 5 minutes of incoherent blabber, the votes came in. And unfortunately, a small boy who was only 11 years of age, with silver hair and a weak body was voted. The village chief announced the results with a slightly happy ring which he tried to hide since his family or any of his friends wasn't voted. "Sorry Kaltera, seems like you were chosen."
The child was terrified, they didn't want to die. They looked at the village chief and mean grown ups around them as they hugged a rag that belonged to someone dear to them. A few other children stuck out their tongue while most hugged their parents legs or arms, feeling bad for their fellow child. The adults were mostly fine with it since the child was considered a curse, his mother died on his birth, his father drowned in debt and killed himself 3 days after his birth, his uncle died saving him from getting mauled by three hooligans while his aunt threw him out of the house. Since then he hugged the rag of his uncle everyday, eating small scraps of corn or shit that was found on the floor.
Unfortunately the malnourished child who caught a fever was grabbed and carried by multiple men to the army, who were collecting the chosen sacrificial lambs. A kind soldier provided all the males with wooden swords and the females with wands, hoping that atleast one could maybe survive...
They reached a large hole that looked like it went to the abyss. The children were tossed without a second thought. Luckily one of the girls with blonde hair and blue eyes possessed an affinity for magic. Saving most of the children from the fall including the poor Karltera, Kinei almost vomited upon seeing the gory mangled and decimated bodies of the children the blonde girl failed to save in time.
Karltera clutched his wooden sword as the blonde girl failed to keep her magic up any longer and barely managed to let them reach the bottom of the hole safely. Unfortunately that was her end as she failed to notice the swarms of gigantic abyssal black rodents closing in on her, they absolutely devoured her in seconds as she failed to even let out a scream. The other children faced the same, Karltera swung at a rodent closing in on him, the rodents were weak, but they were fast. Open swing and they went down. Karltera continued swinging, and swinging, and swinging, his arms felt like they were going to fall off. But he kept swinging desperately without stop because he wanted to survive, the will to survive and live on. To not die here in this black pit. That was all he wanted at this moment. His breath was shaky and his weak arms couldn't keep up, infact he had passed out from the pain. But his body stood upright and kept swinging at the rodents. Although he couldn't cut them, they died from a smack too.
Kinei was terrified at what she saw. Karltera's eyes were pure white as he kept swinging. Blood gushed out of his nose and some from his ears but he kept swinging recklessly. Not stopping for a single moment. This scene continued for 10 whole minutes as the boy swing the sword on the last rodent. Before falling on the mountain of rodent corpses before and behind him.
Then a panel appeared infront of Kinei as the boy fell on the mountain of corpses.
[This fragment of the God of Swords and Blades memory contains the key to becoming a Grade 6: True Swordsman.]
Kinei was still confused on what the hell she just watched, she just wanted to relax and play cool grind game and have fun but nooo, she had to be trauma dumped on an orphan kid's backstory! Despite how she looked, Kinei was a really sentimental person who was emotional about children and romance and betrayals and actually almost everything. So she silently cursed at the game before returning her attention to the panel.
[Memory Fragment Saved To Folder "Memories Of The God Of Swords And Blades" .]
Their were multiple conditions to upgrade someone's grade, one being levels while the other being random for everyone. Races could also be upgraded and evolved, but they were apparently way harder, or so was what she understood from Rebecca's continuous unending YAP about the game's lore and systems and whatever. She wanted it to enter one ear and exit the other, but because it was actually interesting, it stayed in her head.
Finally the notification she expected and wanted appeared.
[Time Remaining Till CASCADE's True Beginning: 9 minutes 42 seconds.]
A 9 minute wait was nothing compared to what she just experienced so she quietly sat still, or well- whatever a white particle does when it's not moving.
Kinei decided to check her pod notifications to find Rebecca who had completed her entrance to the game and was in the same waiting lobby as her, she sent a call request over with a timer of 8 minutes to ensure she wouldn't miss the game's opening.
Rebecca picked up in less then two seconds with a shaky voice. "Kinei... The Shield God has such a sad backstory! She was just a 5 year old wanting to protect her mute and weak big sister from her bullies in her village and ended up getting 7v1'd and lost! However she let her big sister manage to escape. Then the seven bullies who lost their prey threw her in a forest where she had to defend and fight against multiple wild monsters with a large piece of timber she found on the floor where she fell! After 4 days of continuous suffering she made it to a cabin where she passed out at the front door!!!" Rebecca said while sniffling. Kinei wanted to cry aswell from the really sad backstory and started to tell the sword god's backstory too. "The God of Swords and Blades's backstory is also really sad!!! He was a cute little village boy before the villagers threw him to the army as a sacrificial lamb, he also had no parents and his uncle died because of him!!! And a kind guy in the army gave him and the other children swords and wands to protect themselves. B-but they all ended up dying! Besides the Sword god who somehow ended up surviving!!!!" Kinei said as both of them sniffled and cried slightly, the game's back stories were way to sad!!! She just hoped the other gods had less sad backstories.
The two talked for a bit and discussed their classes and races for a while. Kinei revealed how she was a beastman swordsman who fought with a single sword while Rebecca revealed that she was a elven shield Warrior that fought with a Tower Shield and Short Sword.
Rebecca also told Kinei that their mutual friend, Rezen had also entered the game, he chose to be a mage. Kinei wasn't really fond of Rezen but he was a friend of Rebecca so he was her friend too! Sadly the man also kept staring at her features like most people, which made her very uncomfortable, but atleast he would apologize and stop looking at them, or try to. So he wasn't that bad. leverneo (Lee-vern-o)was the bad one, he blatantly held a crush on Rebecca AND her, saying whoever picked him first would be wiser and what not. Rebecca thought it was cute but Kinei was just disgusted. She could've sworn he had a girlfriend. Bug of course it maybe her imagination so she bares with his blatant remarks on her beauty.
As Kinei thought to herself she heard her timer go off and immediately said bye to Rebecca before going back to CASCADE, she was getting pretty hyped up from the loads of things Rebecca told her.
Kinei watched the timer go from 30 seconds to 5, before going to 4 as she clecnhed her hands, eventually reaching 4, she could've sworn she was about to draw blood from how hard she bit her lower lip as it approached 3. Before reaching 2... Then the timer went to a bunch of question marks and restarted the count down due to a system bug, which irritated Kinei a lot. WHAT KIND OF GAME HYPES THE LAST 5 SECONDS OF RELEASE THIS MUCH?! Were her exact thoughts.
5....
4...
3...
2...
And...
Wait for it...
1 with a cliffhanger.
Authors Notes:
Neba goba gibu yu appu, neba goba retu yu downnu or dessertu yu.
Anyways I might aswell add some random yap here to interest folk, this story isn't actually inspired by others, WELL I MEAN THE ELEMENTS ARE 100%, but the story will progress in a unique way. You might think it's cliche or just trash and honestly I'd probably agree with you, but I'm an avid reader here trying to write something for the masses. Il probably not get a contract for this so most of it might be free (FIGNERS CROSSED THAT I GET ONE) but yeah. Anyways just trust me on the fact the story may be to your liking if you stick around but no promises. This is my first work that I've published on a place besides my notepad. (I have dozens of stories I wrote but I don't think I'm gonna continue them all. My notepad will run out of space ) :( so uh... I'm probably gonna discontinue this series since I'm expecting nobody will really like it because it is purely my taste, I'm not going to adjust it according to the comments or take inspiration from other novels for any elements after the first chapter. (anybody who can notice the things I took heavy inspiration from pls write in comments, it'll make me happy.)
Uhm I don't really know how to continue since I feel this is getting awkward, But uh, even if you end up hating the novel and curse me to no stop, I just wanna thank you for reading this, I really appreciate it. And if I end up blowing up which is unlikely, I wouldn't have been able to do it without the support I'm hoping I may receive??? (Ik it's hopeful thinking on my part.) Anyways I'm planning to end this story on chapter 300 if I fail to get even one person's interest. But if I manage to interest even one person. The novel from then on is dedicated to you. (That's a line I took from ORV, which a few of whoevers reading his should know.)