It was the 31st of March and the last day of college for the term. Logan Miles and everyone in class were waiting for the teacher to finish up. Everyone’s thoughts were the same at this moment “Damn it! This is the last day and the geezer is still not cutting us slack”.
The teacher was busy giving out assignments to the students to be completed during their holidays. Everyone was very excited to leave and return home so that they could be the first to play the new virtual reality game “DRAGON’S ROAR”. The game had been publicized a lot as a new world that gave people experience of a fantasy world with monsters, magic, and dragons! As well as sci-fi technology with plasma rifles etc.
The notification for the end of class rang and Logan exited the school and ran to the back of his college campus and free ran his way home. Logan was 21 years old and currently in his final year of completing his DNA engineering course. He lived by himself in a rented apartment. He was staying in New York and alone because his parents lived in California. Logan reached his house and went to shower immediately since he still had some time before the game launch. Coming out the shower he looked at himself in the full length mirror beside his bed. He was 6’2’’ and had a lean physique. He was fair and his looks were above average though not enough to have girls flirting with him. He had a tight knit group of 3 friends whom he knew since childhood. They had different interests than him but still were best friends with him. What attracted them to him was his modest attitude and quiet nature. He had a no-nonsense attitude and was very straightforward. His only interests were DNA Engineering and Martial Arts.
He had been trained in martial arts since 10 years old. A Japanese by the name of Kirito Hakate was a close friend of his father Robert Miles. Apparently they had become close friends when Robert stayed in japan for his research. Robert was a DNA engineer of much renown. He and his wife Lucy Miles were part of GENESIS CORP that was releasing the game today. Kirito had stayed with Logan’s family since he could remember and helped in taking care of Logan since both his parents were busy people. Logan thought of kirito as his uncle.
Kirito had begun teaching Logan Kung-Fu with the usage of Ki/Chi when he saw Logan taking an interest in his training. Before the genetic revolution humans could not make use of Ki but since then genetic modifications have made it possible for people to make use of this energy with arduous training. But not everyone could use Ki, people must have an aptitude for it and the training for it was very harsh and took too long. So people opted for the easier way that is genetic enhancement. This was expensive as well as had a few side effects like affecting the person’s personality and emotions. Still people opted for this because it was easier and the art of Ki utilization was forgotten by the masses.
Kirito was one of the handful of people who still trained in Ki and had reached very close to the pinnacle. He was very pleased to see that Logan was a natural in Ki manipulation and proceeded to drill into him whatever he knew.
Just then his mother called him
“Hi Mom”
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“Hello Logan how was your last day of term?”
“It was boring! And the teacher kept going on and on about assignments for the holiday.”
“Well son don’t forget to do your assignments before the last day kay?”
“We’ll see mom. How’s dad doing? And any news about uncle?”
“Your dad’s doing just fine. As for Kirito we still have no news, wonder where he went off to suddenly”
“Maybe he went off to do secluded training to breakthrough to the last level in his Ki”
“Only he knows where he went. Anyway forget about that are you excited to play DR? (Dragon’s Roar)”
“Eh I don’t know mom, I’ve never played games before so I don’t know how it’ll be”
“Don’t worry about it, Just relax and play the game, I know that you’ll enjoy it. But don’t forget to stop playing and take care of yourself in real life ok?”
“Sure mom, I’ll do that. I’ll call you after I logout from the first session OK? Love you Mom! And tell dad too that I love him”
“Ok love you too and happy gaming!”
The time was 3 in the afternoon. Logan put on his pajamas since he figured that he wouldn’t be going anywhere soon and laid down on the device that looked like a recliner chair and proceeded to connect his altor with HIVE. He felt like falling asleep and entered the White Room. The White Room was a virtual room created within the VR device that had access to all his programs as well as the internet. It also compressed time in a 1:5 ratio. This means 1 minute in real life was 5 minutes here. This was feasible here since perception of time just depended on the person’s mental speed. Since the HIVE accessed just the mind, it could alter the person’s mental speed and give more time, like overclocking the brain. People came here to either study or enjoy themselves in the myriad of programs already released for the device.
He selected the icon for DR program that he already installed beforehand and saw the countdown timer still had 1 min left for the start. He felt a gut wrenching feeling as if he was being teleported as the timer reached 0.