I woke up to an alarm, which was strange because I hadn’t used an alarm in years. I vaguely remembered what happened and expected to be in a hospital but it took me a moment to place where I was. I was in what looked like my room from my university days, although this place no longer existed, having been bulldozed for newer fancier buildings. Nonetheless, here I was. I picked up what I expected to be my phone but instead encountered a much older model. I struggled with the password, the passwords being different from modern technology, eventually remembering the four-digit sequence I used back then. I was shocked when the sequence worked. I was even more shocked when I saw the date on my phone.

I don’t know what sort of prank this was but the date was 15 years ago, 1 week before the launch of Eternity’s Wake. I decided to check the internet, and was even more shocked that everything lined up, and nothing of the past 15 years existed. I finally looked in the mirror and was floored, I was my younger self, all of 20 years old. I sat down, this was all quite shocking and I wasn’t quite sure what to do with myself, after all who’s been reincarnated before. I eventually decided this was the heaven-sent opportunity of opportunities. I could create my own guild in Eternity’s wake and take advantage of everything I knew from 15 years of play along with my younger reflexes to rise to the very top.

My excitement was interrupted by a phone call. My friend Edward was calling. I hadn’t seen him in ten years, our friendship ended when Sorrow dropped him and I stayed in the guild. It was another one of those big regrets in life but this time it will be different. I picked up excitedly. “Hi, Edward, what’s up?” I said. “Where are you, John?” he replied. “What do you mean where am I?” I expressed my shock at his question. “Sorrow is hosting tryouts in 15 minutes; don’t you want to join their guild?” he clarified. I paused and hesitated before deciding it was best to rope him into my plans. “No, I’m going to be starting my own guild.” I said emphatically. “What do you mean start your own guild, it costs 8000 credits for a VR headset and a guild needs at least six and you have barely a thousand credits to your name.” Edward sounded like I was having a crazy idea, which without all my expert knowledge I would be. But I had a plan.

I could buy two headsets on installments and pay the installments with money I'd earn from the game. I’d be able to earn a lot of money because of all the secrets I knew. Earning that much money from a game might sound crazy, but Eternity’s Wake was different. It was the only game in town for time acceleration technology and the only game that you could play while you sleep. The combination meant that fairly quickly almost everyone would play, and most people would spend more time in the game than outside of it (just playing a 8 hour sleep meant 24 hours in game and 16 outside it). As such, people started to spend lots of money in game as it became as important or more so than their real-life situation. Good equipment for cutting edge experts could go for thousands of credits. And soon corporations would be pouring money into the game. I had some secrets that could earn me massive coin, which I could convert to cash in two weeks once the trading system opened.

All that went through my head in a few seconds. “I have a plan, I can get two headsets on installments for us to get started. I’ll pay them off with proceeds from what we earn in game. You know how I went missing a lot over the past few months? I was in the beta test.” It broke my heart to lie to Edward but I couldn’t exactly tell him I was reincarnated. “I know a lot of secrets that will make us good items and good cash, as well as the fastest ways to level up.” I don’t want to waste these skills on a guild like sorrow so I’m going to make my own. I’d really like you to join me.” “Are you sure, John? This really sounds crazy.” “I’m sure, do you really want Sorrow controlling whether you have to delete your account. That might sound fine now, but think what that would feel like five years in.” “Fine, I trust you, I’m leaving the Sorrow sign-up.”

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Seven days was too short. Edward and I trained physically and did our best to get in shape for the game, we trained mentally and discussed combat techniques. I wrote down everything I could remember about the game in a notebook I kept hidden for myself. Years of memories came flooding out onto the page, some of it my own, others from forums.

I decided on taking a big gamble. Sorrow didn’t even start in the continent of Altaea and I’d barely been there myself. Nonetheless Orleans was the nation of artificers and I knew of some amazing growth type equipment that was found there in the early game. People had posted on the forums exactly where and how they found it since these were unique items that no one else could get. If I was lucky I could find the full swordsmen set, two rings and an amulet. Anyone who found one of these items went on to become a tier 5 player; no one had found two in the past. My goal was to find all ten. I mostly knew about the items for my class.

The week of combat training convinced me that Edward was far from ready for playing a close combat class. Fortunately, it convinced him too. He was willing to play a summoner, and I’d play my familiar swordsman in an unfamiliar land.

I suppose I should explain the class system. Eternity’s wake had 6 categories with three classes each: Tanks were made up of Warriors, Knights and Anti-mages. Melee DPS was made up of Swordsman, Assassins and Berserkers. Ranged DPS was made up of Ranger, Archer and Elementalists. Healers were made up of Clerics, Druids and Oracles. True Mages were made up of Wizards, Summoners and Sorcerers. Lastly, Hybrids were made up of Paladin, Samurai and Ninja. These 18 classes offered a rich selection of options, with each class having benefits and drawbacks. Anti-mages were slightly underpowered due to the rarity of high magical attack enemies but were extremely useful vs those enemies. The hybrid classes tended to be great for solo play but a bit lacking compared to specialized classes. My favorite class was Swordsman, which was a solid Melee DPS that generally fought with a two-weapon style. Summoners were also quite powerful as with enough buffs they could summon creatures of higher level and higher tier than themselves. Any good guild would have elites of all classes however as all of them were at least situationally useful.

My plan was to make enough money to teleport from Orleans back to my familiar Verdure kingdom on the Asterith continent then use all the knowledge I had of dungeons and grinding areas to make a killing. Of course, that would require a lot of gold as it was a different continent and teleportation charged by distance. I discussed the plans further with John and we decided he’d start at the city of Rensworth in Verdure and I’d teleport to join him as soon as I found what I was looking for. He was skeptical but one expensive teleport was much more affordable than two.

The day before the game started we finally got our VR helmets. We setup on beds in my apartment, made our characters and waited for launch. I wanted to log-in as soon as possible as every second counted in the race for these rare early items.

Finally it was time: 3 … 2 … 1 .. Game Start.