Mundane, that's what I would call life if someone asked me. I am 29-year-old office worker Ishikawa Mamoru. And I've squandered my entire life away. I followed the same path most others would consider normal, going to college, earning a degree in a field with a lot of employment opportunities, then working for a company in said field. Once you have that job though life becomes very mundane, you go to work, come home, sleep then wake up and do it all over again. What's the point of it all?

I doubt I would have made it this far if I hadn't started playing Agartha, the most advanced deep dive VR game of our time. The game is pretty much all I do once I get home, thanks to its mind-boggling technology, you're able to spend one hour in the game and only twenty minutes past in the real world. Over 1000 hours have been spent playing this game in real life. That's three thousand hours in-game. So what level am I? Well, it might be hard to believe, but I am still a level one. I know, I know...three thousand hours? I haven't even leveled up once? How is that even physically possible?

Well, I've been searching for the Leviathan Plague, an in-game disease that allows players to gain 5% experience and stat bonuses. It may not seem like something to strive for, and most players won't even bother trying to get the disease until they are as close as possible to level one hundred. I have a theory that if despite all odds, you get infected at level 1, your stats will increase by 5% every time you level up. This may not seem like much, but if I'm right, it will eventually make me the most powerful player to ever play this game.

Now I know what most people are probably thinking, why not just have two characters, and use the second one to look for the plague and the other as my main? Sadly back in 2XXX the game creators banned having more than one character and began trying to save server space. Making getting a second character impossible.

While all those on and off the train heard the train chime as it approached, almost no one noticed the black-haired office worker who grudgingly got off and walked the mile-long return journey to his apartment. But most players had heard about the level one player who somehow managed to travel from his starting area to some of the highest level monsters in the game, so many in fact that message boards had filled with questions about what this player was up to, or if he was even sane. But to Ishikawa Mamoru, none of that mattered.

"Ahh, finally home," Ishikawa said to himself as he walked through the door of his apartment and entered the litter-filled room he called home.

"I better tidy up before my mother visits." He said out loud to no one in particular while looking around. Countless bags were littering every nook and cranny, begging to be disposed of. Some had sticky notes that said "Take me out" or even "Hey dude, the trash can is only two floors down." Of course, these sticky notes didn't appear on them, they were  Ishikawa's way of self-motivating himself to take out just one of them.

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"Ugg, I know, but you guys can wait until tomorrow. I'm going to go get the Leviathans Plague then I'll take you out." He said as he walked past the bags and into a side room. This room was immaculate, in stark contrast to the rest of his house. Even the most diligent person could not find a single speck of dust in this room, let alone a single piece of trash. The room contained something much more important than that, it contained Ishikawa's VR chamber, a cylindrical-like capsule that had a body-like shape outlined inside and had tubes running out the back of it, most likely power cords.

"You drain a lot of power, but once I get infected, everything will be worth it," Ishikawa said as his hand slid down the outer glass separating the inside of the chamber from the outside. "I have roughly twelve IRL hours before I need to start cleaning, that means I have roughly 36 hours in-game to get infected," and with that Ishikawa opened up the chamber, placed the headgear on, and began the link.

"Ah, Tharian, probably the best and only playable continent in the game, where's that hunting ground?" he thought to himself as he materialized in Balika, a late-game city that most players reach after completing a hundred quests, allowing them to access the later parts of the game. Ishikawa swiped his hand, and a large map appeared in front of him, yellow markers covering the screen, pointing to possible hunting grounds that had led him astray. Only one green marker remained, located on the far outskirts of the city where no monsters even spawned, if Ishikawa hadn't read about this location in one of the NPC's diaries then he would have passed it up as well. But after thousands of hours of looking he was out of options.

"If this isn't the place, I don't know what I'll do," and with that Ishikawa began his long and dangerous journey towards his destination, for most players arriving here would encounter no issues, but for a level one, the most common enemies could one-shot him, making every trek a chance for immediate respawn in the beginning town. After about an hour of walking in a dense forest-like environment, Ishikawa finally arrived at what looked like a boarded-up mine shaft, with no way in he fell to his knees bawling.

"This was my last chance, but there's nothing here, not even a goblin hideout, damnit, what am I supposed to do now?" Ishikawa wept as tears rolled down his cheeks. against the boarded-up mine. Slowly, his sadness turned into fury, and he raised his left arm and began to strike the boards with his fist. Following the third bash, he felt them shifting under the continuous assault. One of the boards had come loose, revealing an entrance to the cave. Seeing the unfolding scene in front of him, Ishikawa sat in complete disbelief. Without a second's hesitation, he plunged into the tiny hole, fearing that it would close at any moment. When he entered, he couldn't see anything; an enveloping blackness enveloped him, leaving him blind. After frantically searching for anything he came across what felt like an old wall torch, then with ease, he was able to lift the torch out of the holster and grab it in his hand, it lit up almost immediately revealing a small blue system message that reads "You have entered The Cave of Genesis."