His eyes slowly opened.
"Oh? I survived?"
"How interesting."
Visdre looked at his surroundings. The walls and floor were cushioned. There was a bed and not much else in the room. The lights were blinding. He also seemed to be in a straight jacket.
There was also a camera in the upper corner of the room.
He calmly squirmed out of the straightjacket and got up off the ground. He then went to his bed and sat down.
The first thing he did was meditate. He focused on his sea of consciousness.
He saw something quite interesting. It wasn't exactly in his sea of consciousness. But he could feel his soul.
It wasn't really his soul. It was the soul of Visdre. It had been transformed into a server. But that wasn't the only thing he felt.
He could feel Mark's soul!
"Interesting..."
It was at this moment. Reality started to break down. No. It wasn't the breakdown of reality. It was more so that he was hallucinating.
As the game world was rendered. Visdre was experiencing an overload of information.
The world was spinning and it was extremely uncomfortable.
Visdre grit his teeth and tried to clear this intrusive information.
"This will take some getting used to."
He got up from his bed and walked to the corner with a camera.
"I have to use the bathroom."
A few minutes later. The door was opened. He was taken to his assigned room. This had far more functions then the one he was previously in.
There were light switches. A bench. Two beds, as well as a bathroom and shower and sink.
The doctors were surprised in his change of behavior. But they didn't release him.
Visdre had 'neighbors' now thanks to his good behavior. He was put in isolation due to constantly trying to hurt himself. Now that he was no longer exhibiting this behavior. They didn't restrict him as much.
He was fed three meals a day. He had a roof over his head. There was also a few recreation activities. There was basketball, television, and group meetings.
"This is the perfect place."
A nurse went to him to tell him it was time for a group meeting. Visdre went to the recreation room and sat down in a chair.
Soon, more people had gathered.
A women started crying after seeing him. She pointed at him and stuttered some random words.
Visdre pointed his finger at himself and stood up. He slowly walked towards her as she called him a devil.
"Me? I'm no devil unfortunately."
Soon. The nurses had taken her away and the group meeting continued. This scene wasn't completely uncommon. Most people here had various mental illnesses or disabilities.
"Let us all introduce ourselves and why we are here."
Soon the group was discussing random topics.
Visdre put his hand up.
"Yes, Visdre?"
"I have an idea."
"An idea?"
Visdre suggested guided meditation.
"That's a great idea!"
Visdre said:
"We should take turns guiding the visualization."
Soon everyone took turns describing different environments. Some described parks, others beaches or the ocean. Soon it was Visdre's turn.
He first used Mark's soul to get some information in binary by making him perform certain actions.
"I won't be describing a specific scene. I prefer japa meditation. We will be repeating a mantra."
"Repeat after me..."
'01010111 01101001 01100101 01101100 01100100 01100101 01110010 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01000111 01101111 01100100 00100111 01110011 00100000 01000100 01100101 01100001 01110100 01101000 00101110 00100000 01000011 01110010 01100101 01100001 01110100 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01110100 01101000 01100101 00100000 01010011 01111001 01110011 01110100 01100101 01101101 00101110 00100000 01010011 01110101 01110010 01110110 01101001 01110110 01101111 01110010 00100000 01101111 01100110 00100000 01000110 00110101 00110101 00110101 00101110 00100000 01001001 00100000 01100001 01100011 01100011 01100101 01110000 01110100 00100000 01011011 01110000 01101100 01100001 01111001 01100101 01110010 01011101 00100000 01110001 01110101 01100001 01101100 01101001 01100110 01101001 01100011 01100001 01110100 01101001 01101111 01101110 01110011 00100001'
Nobody thought they were saying anything in particular. Even the person in charge of therapy for this group didn't realize the meaning behind this.
Wielder of God's Death. Creator of the System. Survivor of F555. I accept [player] qualifications!
In an instant Visdre felt six additional anchors.
He smiled.
"It worked!"
Visdre continued his peaceful life.
He was lying on his bed meditating. He then went to sleep.
[System]: Do you accept system integration? Y/N?
"Oh? How fascinating. The system I constructed doesn't seem to recognize me as the admin."
"Yes!"
[System]: You have received an invitation.
[System]: Do you accept? Y/N?
"Yes..."
[System]: Welcome to the Tutorial!
[System]: Tutorial has started!
[System]: Please choose a username:
'Visdre'.
[System]: {
Name: Visdre,
Title: None,
Race: Human,
Class: None,
Level: 0,
HP: 100/100,
MP: 100/100,
Strength: 10,
Perception: 10,
Agility: 10,
Vitality: 10,
Intelligence: 10,
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
Attribute_Points: 0
}
Visdre felt information flow through his mind. It was mainly engraving an instinct within him. The 'feeling' for how to use the games functions.
[System]: Rules of the game will now be explained!
[System]: When you die. Your stats will be reset.
[System]: When you die. You will drop all items (Not including those soulbound).
[System]: You can respawn at an unlocked temple.
[System]: There is no level cap. But it will become harder to level-up as you progress.
[System]: You will be kicked upon death back into the real world.
[System]: You cannot return to the game until your next sleep cycle.
"I wonder what will happen when I meet those 'gods'. Those fake constructs, this should be interesting. I have to form a fake contract either way to unlock the ability to respawn lore wise in this game world."
[System]: Begin class change? Y/N?
"Yes."
[System]: Warning!
[System]: Proceeding means creating a source.
[System]: System functions will be offline during this process.
[System]: Note: Prepare yourself.
[System]: Begin? Y/N?
"Yes."
[System]: Beginn-ERROR!!!
[System]: Shutting down...
Visdre noticed that he was standing in an arena.
"Here we go..."
At the edges of the arena. He saw creatures made from shadows approaching.
Visdre already knew the characteristics of these creatures.
"Brute forcing won't work in this case. My body in this world is also ordinary. I wonder..."
The shadow creature rushed at him. Visdre didn't really have much fighting experience.
He narrowly dodged some of its attacks, but in the end of things. He still ended up dying.
Everything went black.
----------------------------------------
Visdre felt as if he spent an eternity in darkness. But he wasn't too worried. He knew this was all part of the process. This wasn't a real abyss either way. If it was, he would've been kicked from it.
Soon, he felt something grab him and pull him out of this nothingness.
"His consciousness... are you sure it is that of a mortal?"
"He seems to be the most qualified of them all!"
Visdre knew exactly where he was, he wasn't confused at all.
He seemed to be in a void. But there was a single ball of light.
The gods were confused. Because this ball of light looked like a blackhole. It looked nothing like a proper source. It was as if it was corrupted.
Within it. They saw the foundation for the entire universe.
"This! What are YOU?!"
Visdre laughed.
The blackhole vanished and millions of lights flashed through his vision as the environment shifted. The blackness transformed into a room.
Visdre was surrounded. It was like a gathering of gods.
"I know you guys wish for me to be an apostle. But I'm going to have to decline."
"You see... I am actually the creator."
A body manifested from out of nowhere. Visdre quite enjoyed this feeling. He grasped his hands and felt infinite power.
Visdre ignored the confused look of the gods. He didn't feel like messing with the existing order and backstory he had created.
Visdre held out his hands and a blackhole appeared within it.
The scene was mixed as if reality was thrown through a blender.
A 'contract' was formed with an unknown god in this Celestial Cemetery.
Visdre felt like he was about to go through the process of selecting his class. But he directly used his soul which had become the server of this entire game world.
He was an admin!
The source was entirely different then soul. Visdre had created a special source that gave him more permissions.
He had directly skipped his class change mission. This meant he lacked a class!
A map appeared in his mind. It was time for him to select a temple to spawn at.
The game world was quite small. It was possible to traverse the main continent in just a few hours of walking. There were only a few towns.
Tempus
Materia
Libra
Infinita
Luxa
Umbra
Loca
Visdre ignored the prompts telling him to choose a temple. He directly manifested in Tempus. A priest welcomed him to the world.
Because of the class change mission. You were given a set of soulbound items and a class. Visdre didn't plan to 'play' this game at all. He was merely curious about the state of this world. It was entirely constructed from the soul of this version of himself after all.
Visdre looked at the priest that was talking to him. He felt that the intelligence was a bit extraordinary. It was as if this person wasn't simply an NPC. But someone with real consciousness.
Visdre blinked and time stopped. He could control all aspects of this 'world' through his soul.
Visdre had witnessed Mark creating his class from the Maverick title. He also saw him go through the class change process.
At this very moment. There were six others in separate simulated arenas. They were going through the tutorial.
Visdre felt that this system was inherently flawed. He decided to remove the soulbound items and work out the flaws in the system. He wanted it to appear more 'realistic'.
Instead of there being infinite resources. Perhaps he should make things have limits. Visdre waved his hands and the template for the system was being modified.
Visdre directly removed the inherent inventory all players had. He then removed the concept of soulbound items. He still left the class, title, and race system in place. But he removed the tutorial entirely.
While he was making these adjustments. He directly froze the consciousness of the new players. These were the people he had made chant his mantra during guided meditation.
"I'll make it so the players have zero contact with the gods. I'll also have it so that every player enters the world without a class. They will need to find the proper NPC to acquire their class. There will be limited opportunities."
Visdre wanted them to explore this world. The world right now only had seven towns, some bandit camps, a few ruins, mines, ancient portals and inheritances.
There was just one continent and it was more like a giant island. Visdre planned to have 'expansions'. But, he needed more processing power. He was already pushing the limit of the soul he was using for the foundation.
"Limited resources... less game interface."
Visdre left the properties. But removed the equipment slots. He was satisfied with the changes. The next thing he did was re-design the tutorial. Instead of it being a test of strength. It would directly be the creation process of the 'source'.
Visdre waved his hands. Time seemed to rewind as his actions were undone. The very rules of the game world were being changed.
Although there was one person in this game world that carried the previous legacy. They had an inventory and soulbound items already.
That person was Mark Teld!
Visdre woke up from his sleep and looked at his environment. He then went back to sleep.
Everything was black.
[System]: Do you accept system integration? Y/N?
"Yes."
[System]: You have received an invitation.
[System]: Do you accept? Y/N?
"Yes."
A white ball of energy appeared.
[System]: Please name your source.
'Visdre'.
[System]: Source created.
[System]: You have acquired the blessing 'player'.
[System]: This blessing means you can respawn.
[System]: All stats are reset on death.
[System]: There is a chance to drop items on death.
[System]: {
Name: Visdre,
Title: None,
Race: Human,
Class: None,
Level: 0,
HP: 100/100,
MP: 100/100,
Strength: 10,
Perception: 10,
Agility: 10,
Vitality: 10,
Intelligence: 10,
Attribute_Points: 0
}
Visdre felt his consciousness spread across the world. There were different anchor points.
"Time to decide my temple..."
Visdre chose Libra this time.
----------------------------------------
Wymond's POV:
Wymond was a blacksmith. More importantly, he was the only one in this town. He had recently made a killing. This wasn't of benefit to him though.
A customer had recently killed a dragon.
He was extremely jealous of this persons existence.
Why?
There was a big mystery in this world.
Some people were born with special powers. But these powers came with certain restrictions. For example. Wymond had the most common power.
Invulnerability!
He was also immortal. He had been around since the dawn of creation.
But there was a gimmick to this power. A curse.
He wasn't able to leave the boundary of the town. He was cursed to be a blacksmith for an eternity. He had honed his craft over the centuries.
He wasn't alone.
Many people in this town were 'cursed' in this way.
So why was he so jealous?
Essential roles in the town all had this power and ability. But those less important characters... They had no powers or immortality. They could have kids and explore any corner of the world!
They could even die!
These people were called the unblessed.
While he was considered a 'blessed'.
But it was more like a curse.
Wymond grew tired of his life. He did the same actions everyday for decades.
Wymond knew the everyone in his town. He had explored every inch of it to find a way to escape. Today he heard some news from his friend.
"They are real?"
Many decades ago. One of the priest in the town that was an unblessed said they found in an ancient ruins the purpose of the gods.
This existence was not a blessed or unblessed.
They called this thing a 'player'.
A being that had infinite growth potential. They were immortal, didn't age, but didn't necessarily have the same abilities as the blessed.
They also weren't bound to a specific area! This had caused a shock among the blessed back then. But time soon made them forget about this mythical creature.
Until today.
In the temple of his town.
Such a being manifested!