A few minutes later, I was back in my room. I glanced around until my eyes landed on my old phone – something that had once felt was the height of technology now looked so outdated. With a surge of nostalgia, I lifted it from the charging pad and looked into the optical sensor.

Thank goodness I didn’t have to remember the password. That would have been a problem.

The phone unlocked and prominently displayed a text message I had apparently missed before logging into the game for the first time.

Jenny: Don’t forget - Pylos and Velantraeth!

Ugh, that’s right—the mermaid quest.

I swiped to check the date. It was nearly thirty minutes after midnight, Saturday, June 15, 2030. The four-times time dilation in the VPS, where character creation took place, meant the others were probably a lot farther along than me by now. They might even be waiting for me in Pylos already.

My first impulse was to ignore my previous path and go somewhere completely different. Not only would I be able to train the way I wanted to, but I also wouldn’t have to worry about people who knew me noticing a difference in my personality.

After everything I’d gone through, there was no way I could act the same way I had as a carefree teenager. The gap between the person I once was and the one I’d become was huge. It would be hard enough to stay under the radar with my family.

Yet, these people had been my friends at one point. Ghosting them would be a crappy thing to do. Besides, shouldn’t I at least try to help them out, too?

Since I planned to do more training than gaming, it would be easy enough to compromise and stay in contact with my childhood friends without joining their group. I’d go to our meeting location and make up an excuse to pull away and do my own thing. It would probably help to text Jenny first and let her know. She almost certainly had her phone linked to her user account already.

Me: Sorry, some family stuff came up. I’m running late. Probably not going to be able to play Atlas as much as I thought. Go ahead and start without me. I’ll meet you at the tower.

I sent the message before quickly grabbing my headset and lying on the bed. I didn’t bother disrobing. It wasn’t like it would interfere with anything.

It didn’t take long to log back into my VPS. The introduction ‘video’ continued playing from where it left off as I considered my situation. Now that I’d texted Jenny, there was no reason to rush through this process. I had plenty of time.

It was too bad I didn’t have a notebook and pen in my VPS. Writing down my thoughts really helped with brainstorming.

I looked around the space.

A chair or recliner would also be nice, even if I felt no fatigue from standing.

There were just under four years until the reintegration – what the Alliance dubbed the date that neural interfaces came online, and life changed on Earth forever. Everyone native to Earth remembered the date during my first timeline.

April 3, 2034.

4/3/34, or 3/4/34 for those from other parts of the world. So much had changed that day.

But that was what I needed to plan for. I knew what was coming, so I should be ahead of the power curve already. I just needed to iron out my goals.

First and foremost, I needed to keep my family alive. My parents had been murdered less than a week after the interfaces were activated last time. I needed to ensure that didn’t happen again.

Similarly, I needed to keep my brother and niece from disappearing again. Aside from ensuring I was with them when the interfaces activated, I wasn’t sure what else I could do. They’d literally disappeared without a trace while at the beach. It probably happened at the same time that the interfaces activated, but since I wasn’t there, I couldn’t be sure.

The best thing would be to have all of us together when it happened. That shouldn’t be too hard to manage.

Those two things were my primary goals. Everything else was secondary. Stopping the apocalypse would be worse than letting it happen if the Alliance was to be believed. From what I knew, they were likely telling the truth, so interfering was not an option.

I needed to focus on reaching my primary goals as effectively as possible. While I could easily manipulate the situation to ensure we were all together when the interfaces activated, that wouldn’t help me keep my family safe during the transition. For that, I needed power.

I needed to get physically stronger and train like I had when I joined Ros’s party. No, I needed to train a lot more than that. Even after joining the more skilled adventurers, I hadn’t put my all into training like I could have. I’d still held on to the perception that a Mage didn’t need to know how to fight. They’d insisted otherwise, but at best, I’d given it a half-hearted effort.

Between my spells and the enchantments I’d created, I hadn’t seen the need to learn how to fight. The others had always been there for that. Even in the lone instance where I had to rely on myself, I had magic to keep me safe.

But I couldn’t count on that always being the case, especially not in a newly awakening world.

This time, I’d take their advice to heart and focus on becoming a better-rounded adventurer. I wouldn’t ignore my magical advantages – that would be crazy, given how strong my spells were. Still, I had four years to train before the apocalypse. I couldn’t improve my magic without access to mana, so focusing on what I could improve seemed like a logical alternative.

It would have been nice to dedicate four years to improving my ability to use mana without spellforms or system-provided spells, but that was impossible without access to the resource. I’d only spent a couple of years training Direct Casting and Mana Manipulation, but that would still place me leagues above almost anyone else on Earth.

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I didn’t need to worry about spell-casting over much.

Rifts started appearing within days of the interfaces activating, so it wouldn’t be hard to acquire mana-infused materials and create low-tier manatech weapons. That would provide a huge amount of flexibility for me and my family.

Guns wouldn’t work for long without being modified with runes or using alchemical bullets. I doubted I’d have the materials needed for either option right away. I’d likely be better off relying on the manatech I could create instead of bothering with mundane firearms and hoping to adapt them.

Bows and crossbows would work, as would melee weapons. However, I was an absolute crap shot with a bow.

I’d tried.

I sucked.

I was a lot better with a crossbow, but using one would be slow, especially while my attributes were still within the realm of normal. Once I reached superhuman levels – or maybe beyond mundane would be more accurate – using a crossbow would be much faster. It was a viable option after reaching Tier Two, so it may be worth training.

As an adventurer, I’d leaned heavily on manatech tools, so I didn’t have as much experience fighting with regular weapons as I’d like. My best weapon skill was Quarterstaffs by a large margin. However, I’d also taken a few spear lessons with Edgar after adding a blade enchantment to my staff. Though I had little need of a melee weapon with a strong party supporting me, I’d trained enough to become proficient with the staff, even when one end was pointed and covered with metal.

I didn’t really consider my staff a melee weapon since it had been enchanted to allow me to cast several different spells. Still, the others had insisted I learn how to use it as such. Staves were considered the best weapons for a mage for a reason.

My attention was drawn as the introduction shifted to a tutorial of sorts, and the narrator began discussing mana affinities and how they impacted what spells an individual player could cast. Though I already knew most of the information, I still paid attention just in case there was something I missed before.

“…Since most of you will have missed the opportunity to uncover your affinity while still on Earth, you should report to the Training Tower nearest your destination to discover your affinity. You will also be granted free training at the tower during your initial processing. This training is critical to your future success, so please ensure you make the most of it.”

That was mostly a game mechanic. In real life, you couldn’t go through a portal without doing affinity testing to ensure everyone got the chance. Training was critical, that was true, but there would be no training towers on Earth. At least, not for a while. However, they had set up training facilities near the portals, so there was at least that.

The screen showed pictures of various training facilities available within different towers. None of them looked like the one I remembered, nor were they anything like the training facility I’d seen on Earth before leaving. Still, the gist was the same.

“Available training includes a variety of popular skills that will help you earn funds and improve your ability to progress. While spellcasting is a common offensive option, it is difficult to train without specialized conditions. –” (aka, not in the game) “— Further, all spells must be purchased through the system, obtained through spell crystals, or learned via private tutors. Unlike skill training, tower personnel are not required to assist travelers in manually learning new spells. It is recommended that all system purchases are completed as early as possible since costs increase proportionally to one’s level.”

That was critical information. Twenty-five percent of the next level in experience per spell or ability was dirt cheap when the cost for the next level was just a few hundred. When it was 50,000? Not so much. And, of course, there was no hoarding experience to avoid leveling. You could only hold up to the following level’s worth of experience in reserve, essentially allowing someone to level twice if they wanted, but no more than that.

But those were the little details the game was supposed to teach us through experience without ruining our ability to grow. Why didn’t they mention the five-spell per-tier limit for purchases? I didn’t remember that being a thing at all within the game. It would have been helpful to know about the limit before buying spells initially.

Then again, it wasn’t like you could figure out spells or intuitively cast in the game. Both were entirely possible with a bit of effort in real life. It usually required some kind of traumatic experience or duress to learn. At least, it had for me. The Mage I trained with claimed it had been the same for her, but she also hadn’t attended a Mage’s Academy.

They likely had ways to learn Direct Casting without being in danger.

“While conflict builds character and spurs growth, there is a limit to what is considered appropriate. Fighting and potentially killing others within the same tier is an understandable method of promoting progression. However, attacking those in lower tiers directly violates the Accords outside of sanctioned quests, self-defense, or declared states of war. The system will mark those violating the Accords, and offenders will find their freedom of movement significantly impaired. In the Atlas Online universe, Themis is the deity responsible for adjudicating all incidents involving offender labeling.”

That was absolutely applicable outside of the game. Maybe not the bit about Themis, but the system labeling part was accurate. A lot of people thought it was just a game mechanic when the interfaces first activated, only to find out that it very much was NOT as soon as they reached Tier Two.

The system marked offenders so that anyone with a basic identification spell would know they had committed an act of murder or depraved violence against someone of a lower tier. Then, those offenders became fair game for anyone to target, regardless of their tier. It was a big deal when bounty hunters started appearing.

The rule had almost certainly saved my life when I arrived on Pylos. I had been young and naïve, flashing my enchantments around without any strength to protect myself. I also made the mistake of joining an unknown party after being rejected from an Enchanter’s Academy without verifying they were trustworthy. Instead of killing me outright, they just robbed me blind in a rift and locked me behind a stone wall.

Even now, several years after the fact, it was still a bit of a sore spot for me.

With the tutorial briefing finally over, character creation started with the warning that all travelers from Earth would begin the game as humans, though our race could be changed through quests by those dedicated enough to seek them out.

I…wasn’t really sure if that applied in reality or not. I’d never heard of changing races outside of the game, so it might have been just a game mechanic.

A mirror appeared on the wall previously used as a view screen and my attention was drawn to my avatar. Since it started out as a near-perfect scan of my body – minus the hair since the headgear kinda sucked at capturing it properly – I only had to make a few modifications to get my avatar the way I wanted it.

I made myself look a little older since I was mentally older than I looked, and I didn’t want people to treat me like a teenager. Though I was nearly seventeen, people often asked if I was younger. I also shifted my hair to light brown with ombre purple tips – squashing any trace of brass. While I love the reddish color on other people, it didn’t suit me well.

I would have gone with pink for the tips since it was more in line with my preferences at seventeen, but after having a Space affinity for more than a decade, I’d become partial to purple.

Besides, it wasn’t like I could ombre shimmer, which was the ‘color’ that represented Time. It would be a pretty neat effect, though.

Finalizing my avatar, a prompt appeared in bold lettering on my HUD.

[By what name would you like to be known?]

After so many years, I couldn’t remember what my username had been when I played before. Even if I could have, I wouldn’t use it this time. I wanted a name that reflected who I now was, especially if I was going to live by that name for a long while. Since time passed twice as fast in the game, I would essentially be going by whatever I chose for the next eight years.

While I was no longer the girl I was the first time around, I had also left behind the woman I’d become when I used the formation. I remembered everything, but my past failures and weaknesses didn’t necessarily apply anymore.

I was free to become someone new, no longer burdened by things that hadn’t come to pass. Both old and new—a Duality.

With a smile, I entered the username and grinned wider when the system accepted it.