As he stood in what seemed to be a large opaque hamster ball, Barron examined his hands, genuinely surprised by the realism this “Gaming Helmet” had managed to capture.

“It seems they hadn’t exaggerated when they said it felt identical to moving in real life,” Barron noted, a bit shocked by this revelation.

Although there were already several games released for the Gaming Helmet, he had decided to not spend an absorbent amount on games he wasn’t sure he was going to play when he had already spent a large sum to acquire the helmet. So, he had much earlier decided to just play the game that had come with the helmet, Warlord. It had eclipsed the virtual gaming market within months of coming out anyways, thus he had figured it should have become popular for a good reason.

After familiarizing himself with the basic controls and clicking the 'Games' setting before launching 'Warlord'. The sphere around him gradually shifting colors until it was as if he is standing over an endless lake, stretching as far as the eye could see.

In front of him was a singular giant mirror about twice the size of himself. As he admired the surroundings a soft ‘Ding’ faintly sounded, along with the sound several sliders appeared in front of him as an instructional, yet robotic voice started to explain that they were used to customize his base appearance, yet it could only change so much in every aspect.

Each slider had a little question mark next to it that he could click to have it explain that specific one in more detail. Although, he couldn’t change his height or body mass almost any at all. The system explained it was to prevent anyone from feeling too unaccustomed to their virtual body, or if they spent too much time inside the game, their real body.

Over time technology had advanced faster and faster, even now there was A.I evident in everyday life. In fact, even Barron himself had a relatively budget friendly A.I assistant in his own apartment that could be used to do anything as simple as turning on the lights or as complicated as helping him finish work assignments or submitting orders for groceries whenever necessary.

Even so the extremely high quality of realism shown in this single mirror had surprised him. Barron thought such things as he touched the mirror, feeling something repulse his hand as though he actually touched something, he could only sigh in amazement.

After thinking for some time, he had decided to change his completely average appearance, not to make himself look handsome but instead to change everything possible because he was simply curious. Ending with an avatar that was very different from himself but still extremely average in every way.

Laughing to himself at the ridiculousness of looking like someone completely different he pressed confirm without much thought. Slowly the sliders vanished as the mirror sank into the water below him as a prompt appeared in front of him again, only this time it said, “Desired name” above an empty box.

“Ah-” Barron paused, facing his first challenge since entering in the gaming world, choosing his character’s name.

After he spent more than half an hour in deep contemplation he had decided to go with the name “Barron”. Smiling to himself in satisfaction, proud of his newly chosen name - that was however just his actual name - pressing confirm. A small ding letting him know the system had accepted it followed by his surroundings whirling to life. A voice suddenly appearing from the system:

Loading private tutorial. Please wait.

The water rising and formed into hills and buildings as they gained color, a paved road built under him and within minutes an entire village had been built around him as though the previous sea was just a figment of his imagination.

Still in awe of everything that had happened he felt a hand start pat his shoulder “Hello there, as you’re rather new here it should be my duty to teach you the basics of this place.” As he turned around he was greeted by a burly man that wore what seemed to be some type of soldiers’ garb.

“That is unless you’re already familiar with everything,” the man said kindly as a prompt appeared before Barron and asked if he would like to take the tutorial. ‘So, he’s an NPC… It seems the rumors aren’t at all exaggerated when they said the AI was extremely lifelike.’

He thought to himself as he nodded before he examined the NPC.

“I would be happier if you made a decision. I know I’m rather handsome, but I am starting to feel embarrassed with you staring at me like that,” the soldier said seriously much to the surprise of Barron.

“I- Oh yes of course. The tutorial-” Barron quickly pressed ‘Accept’ on the prompt. ‘How embarrassing’ Barron thought to himself while the soldier indicated for Barron to follow him.

The soldier brought Barron into an open training camp before he unsheathed his own sword and pressed it into the ground in front of himself. “I should introduce myself, shouldn’t I?” the soldier said while he gazed off into the distance, trying to give off the air of a master, before he shouted out his introduction. He gave Barron no chance to respond “My name is Gias! A knight of Riverfoot,” he proudly announced.

After being stared at for a moment, Barron hurriedly introduced himself as well, using his in-game character name. Gias smiled and nodded silently in response before saying “If you wish to learn of swordsmanship from me, I can get you equipped immediately. However, if you’d like to explore the camp and potentially choose another teacher you may as well. I will be here if you have any questions, you may also return after you have decided to choose a class and we can begin your official training.”

“Ah, thank you,” Barron nodded, and then started wandered around the camp. It seemed to only have a small amount of people, that is if one didn't count the guards that paced the walls around the outside that didn’t seem to have noticed him even when he tried to communicate with them.

As he walked into a tent he was greeted by an elderly man, who paid extreme attention to the book in his hands, before he grasped onto something and lifted his hand, above which a small fireball appeared. It burned a bright red, the man seemed to concentrate diligently as the fire slowly shifted to an eye-catching blue before suddenly puffing into smoke, much to the elder’s disappointment as he rested the book back onto the table in front of him.

“Oh my- I hadn’t noticed you came in! My apologies young one, I seemed to have gotten too carried away with my research!” the elder said while chuckling, closing his book and motioning for Barron to sit opposite of himself, “What brings you here child?” the elder asked patiently.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

“I was told by Gias that I should explore these tents and talk to everyone,” Barron started explaining honestly, taking a seat in front of the elder.

“Mm I see, so you’re one of the new recruits! Then allow me to explain since you’ve come all this way. Essentially there are three base classes for recruits to choose, you should carefully decide which you’d like to walk the path of, as you won’t be able to turn back after making your decision,” the elder said seriously while putting a scroll on the table and unfurling it.

Although it seemed to be made of some type of parchment, a screen was displayed on it, almost like a touchscreen made of paper. On which there were three symbols displayed each with a single word under them:

Fighter | Caster | Rogue

After he talked with the elder for a little over 15 minutes he learned that you could only choose from the three listed classes when you started and then when you had reached a certain level you could specialize further, as for being able to change your class later, the elder explained that although it wasn’t impossible it was extremely strenuous to do, however Barron wasn’t exactly sure what he had meant by that.

Barron hadn’t worried too much about it, as he had already decided he wanted to play some type of magical class, after all, who wouldn’t want to control fire and fly in the sky? Barron certainly wasn’t going to let that opportunity pass by him just to be a little bit stronger than your average joe.

Hearing Barron’s decision the elder happily pat him on his shoulder, praising his choice before giving him a few options of weapons he could choose as another prompt started materializing before him:

Wand | Staff | Orb | Grimoire

After he selected the Staff, the elder gave him the basic equipment while he explained how to equip it. With a simple hand motion Barron opened a menu and equip everything, suddenly he gave off the appearance of a scholar, he then walked out of the tent and headed to the center of the field where Gias was waiting.

“Haha! A caster! Wonderful choice, lad!” Gias laughed loudly and clapped his hand on Barron’s shoulder “Now that you’ve chosen are you ready to begin?” Gias said curiously while resting his arm against the hilt of his sword.

Would you like to begin default training?

The system asked with a prompt in front of him. He pressed “Confirm” without much thought before Gias explained how to attack, as a caster all he had to do was point his staff forward with and it would give an extremely faint indicator of where his basic attack would be sent.

Gias pointed his sword towards a few training dummies that were a little over 10 meters away before another prompt appeared in front of him:

Training stage: 1 | Objective: Destroy target dummies | Time limit: Indefinite

Barron was spending some time familiarizing himself with the basic attack as well as the only skill the game had given him “Arcane Bolt” a very basic caster skill that did damage that scaled with his Magic.

After 15 minutes had passed, he talked to Gias, who had gaven him praise every time he had successfully hit a training dummy and told him he was ready for the next stage of training. Gias nodded seriously and led him out of their campsite and into an open field with endless grass that reached at least a meter high. After a few moments Gias suddenly stopped and ducked down, signaling for Barron to follow his lead.

Walking only a few steps before Gias reaches his arm forward, moving some of the grass to the side before pointing out the large rabbit ahead of them, its fur being a similar color to the grass letting it blend in easier. The most noticeable thing about it was the bright silver horn growing from its head.

[Horned Rabbit: Beast]

[Level: 0 | Health: 6]

After staring for a few seconds Barron feels a hand press against his back and push him forward towards the rabbit, looking back he only sees the tall grass and Gias’s hand peeking out giving him a thumbs up. Suddenly hearing a hissing sound behind him again.

Turning around at the larger than normal rabbit, now glaring at him and circling him. The once bright yellow name now turning a bright red as it began charging at him faster than he could react, knocking him over with a red -1 appearing over his head as well as on a transparent screen a bit ahead of him, above where his arcane bolt was lit up, informing him it was able to be used.

Lifting his staff up to aim at it before casting his spell, launching a missile at it, staggering the rabbit as its health went down by 3, cheering to himself at his success he failed to notice that the rabbit had pounced at him again, he tried to quickly pull himself aside as its horn jabbed into him and caused his health to drop down by 1 again, luckily it left him with a manageable 6 health.

Sending another bolt out as his spell was on cooldown it did a bit less, the system notifying him of the meager single point of damage. Regaining his footing while it was repositioning itself now deciding to take initiative he started lurching forward before pouncing on it himself.

After less than 5 minutes passed he stood triumphant over the rabbit. Looking gleefully at its depleted health as well as his gained experience, Gia’s came from the brush while clapping in amazement. “You’ve done well! Although a bit rough the battle will someday be told in legends!!” Gias’s said, nodding to this thought while giving Barron a completely serious look.

“Yes of course-“ Laughing silently to himself at Gia’s exaggeration of his accomplishment of defeating the Horned Rabbit he was still feeling a bit happy hearing the praise. Nodding along with Gias and inquiring about what he was supposed to do now.

Gias happily led him back to the encampment while he explained the basic statuses in combat, such as staggered, frozen, immobile, stunned and feared.

“Now I should explain how transactions work,” Gias said while handing him a small pouch of copper coins and instructing him to purchase an apple from a salesman nearby.

As he inquired about the price, a prompt came up in front of him which detailed the trade. Pressing accept a single apple suddenly appearing in his inventory, taking it out and biting into it as a bright green +3 dancing over himself before wisping away.

Much to his pleasant surprise it wasn’t a tasteless bundle of pixels but instead a very realistic taste flooded into his mouth, something that caused him genuine surprise as he had never before believed those ads of realistic experiences online through the helmet.

Through his genuine surprise he had already finished the apple much to Gias’s surprise as well, “Calm down boy if you need another it isn’t a problem!” Gias said cheerfully, forcefully putting another pouch of copper into his hands so he couldn’t reject it.

Nodding in thanks as he sent it into his inventory as he asked Gias for the next steps. Gias however told him that there was far too much to cover, so instead at this time if he was ready he would be sent directly into the game, or in Gias’s words “The Frontlines” however the prompt he received from the game told him that his character creation was complete.

After bidding farewell to a smiling Gias, who was giving him a thumbs up and affirming him, the world began warping around him again, bringing him back to the character creator as the buildings and trees fell back into a now calm lake. In front of him the mirror was now showing a large map with certain regions and cities highlighted. Clicking on them gave a rough outline of what was inside the city as well as its own background.

He chose a modest Maple Leaf City with the information that it was mostly popularized by Elves and Humans he had decided to play an Elf, obvious by his now pointed ears however there wasn’t really any other change to it.

Loading into the world the lake roared to life, swirling into a whirlpool before slowly climbing up and creating buildings as well as crowds of people, after but a few moments it created the scenery of a large town, and put him in the center of it as well as massive crowds of people. It had seemed he wasn’t the only one who was enticed by the 30% off deal he had seen, nodding to himself that must be the reason.

Unknown to him however was the since the games launch more and more people were coming in regardless and the store he had ordered from was one of the only ones that had such a sale.

Although most everyone here was from one of the three basic classes all their clothing was at least somewhat different at least in color or because of the glyphs and other emblems they added during character customization, and like the system had told him it seemed most of the people here were from the Elf and Human race however you would occasionally see a player from another race like Dwarves or even more rare Goblin player.