Chapter 1 - 1: Avalon

Asaka, Saitama, Japan. 10:53 PM JST

Tsukasa Yuuki sighed as he wrote in his mathematics workbook. It had been hours, but he still worked on the homework his teacher assigned him earlier that day. He was taking an English-immersion program, so the word problems would naturally be in English. Despite the logic of the workbook's chosen language, Tsukasa struggled to decipher strange - no, 'Latin Alphanumeric' characters that the language used. He was more skilled at understanding foreign speech than letters, as he had lived in North America for the last 8 years of his life. However, returning to his home country, and language hadn't been easy. Not possessing mastery in either of the two languages he studied, Tsukasa had to work harder than the rest of his classmates, especially after returning from summer break - more homework was assigned than before the blissful two weeks of peace free from high school.

After a few minutes, Tsukasa wrapped up his final question then stood up and stretched. He squinted at his alarm clock, whose crimson display read 10:57 PM. If his parents were around, they'd tell him to sleep. 

He was tired. Really tired. But not too tired to log some Reality/Shard hours in. He withdrew the circular ring of steel and wires, reminiscent of an angel's halo from a drawer under his bed and firmly pressed a button. In a mere second, the machine's various display buttons sprang to life, inviting him to escape from his reality. He lay down on his mattress in preparation to abandon his physical body and without a second thought, he slipped the steel halo over his tangled sable hair and on his eyes with a practiced, fluid motion. 

As soon as he slipped the machine on, he could not sense his surroundings. Suddenly transported from his comfortable bed, he was floating in a black void. He felt completely numb, but could still move - a result of the Reality/Shard's influence. 

"Calibrating..." an automated voice declared as seven brilliant orbs of white light popped into existence, forming a ring around an equally bright logo of StarShard. "Calibration complete."

The feeling flowed back into Tsukasa's limbs, starting at his fingertips then branching out until he felt normal - well as normal as one could be floating in a dark abyss devoid of gravity. 

"Select game to launch," the voice said. "Based on your current location and time, Reality/Shard has prepared some options for you." A taskbar appeared out of thin air (or whatever stuff was in this void) in front of Tsukasa. It bore the symbols for several applications.

"I wonder what I'll play tonight..." Tsukasa mused. "Ah, whatever," he said, lightly tapping the icon for his favorite game - Avalon, the Realm of Adventure. He didn't actually have many games, and his collection consisted solely of Avalon and two other games that were installed by default, but Tsukasa never felt any desire to purchase more of StarShard's various games - he was engrossed in Avalon to much to give the others any thought.

After he pressed the glowing icon, the black void around him melted away, transforming into a breathtaking landscape above which Tsukasa floated. Snow-crested mountains loomed at the edge of the horizon, while verdant hills and fertile valleys lay below the floating player. Next to the plains lay a great citadel with colossal walls of stone. Golden alphanumeric characters greeted Tsukasa, but these he read gladly, in contrast to his earlier reading of the mathematical problems. Avalon: Realm of Adventure. In his opinion, the greatest game ever created. 

Tsukasa initiated a basic, unarmed attack - a simple punch. This triggered the [Game Start] function, which, obviously, started the game. As a result, the ornate, golden letters that had greeted him vanished along with his [Floating] status, a condition temporarily granted by logging in or by using the high-level Monk class skill, [Levitate], which Tsukasa had not learned - for good reason, as hadn't learned any unarmed combat techniques that were important to Monks outside of the game. Unlike most games, Avalon could make use of the player's experiences outside of the game. 

Tsukasa bent he knees as he landed absorbing the shock of his landing, which was rather redundant as for the first 30 seconds after spawning a player was invulnerable and his Racial Bonus as a heteromorphic Dragon Avatar virtually negated fall damage. However, it was a habit that allowed him to stay on balance, which saved him several times in the past. 

His 'home' server, [USWest3], was virtually unpopulated at this hour, making it the perfect time to solo raid bosses and claim all the drops for yourself. This was also risky because soloing dungeons and events were extremely dangerous. However, Tsukasa had hit the level cap, 100, granting him a bonus to all his stats and greatly reducing the danger. Tsukasa had forgotten to specify his spawn point, so rather than be spawned in the city of Logres, the citadel on the other side of the plain, he had been dropped in the fields. Sighing, he activated the spell [Basic Teleport]. It consumed no mana at all but could only transport one to a [Teleport Gate], also known as Portals. Tsukasa felt a twisting sensation in his gut, then suddenly he appeared in the middle of a vortex of light. He stepped off, like someone alighting off a fancy carriage and strode confidently on the well-paved street.

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The only people he saw were strangely NPCs, but this wasn't too uncommon at this time. He turned left at the first intersection and walked into a large building with a large sign that read [Adventurer's Guild]. Unlike the title screen, these letters were supported in Japanese kanji. However, it didn't seem to work. Tsukasa checked his hand, making sure his [Auto-Translate Ring] was still in place, which it was. Strange. He tapped it, and several green forks of electricity flickered around the ring. This signified that someone was working to fix it. Red signified that the glitch was undiscovered and required the player to fill out a support ticket. Tsukasa was rather pleased that he was saved the hassle of filling out the ticket. Since he could read English, he should be fine for the moment. 

The Battlemage strode into the Guild Hall, which was empty. The NPC at the counter warmly greeted him, and he replied in kind, despite the fact it wouldn't be registered. He walked over to the empty quest board. Wait, what? Empty?! Since there were none of the usual PVP events on now, as the staff were busy or asleep, he had nothing to do.

At least I got the final [Daily Login Point], Tsukasa thought. He walked up to the Guild Receptionist and said "Claim Reward - 100th consecutive login." He reached into his dimensional rift of an inventory and withdrew a blue and silver token bearing the emblem of Logres. The number on it read '99', but as soon as he took it out it changed to '100'. He slid the medallion over the counter to the NPC, who picked it up.

"Thank you very much. Enjoy your reward!" The Guild Receptionist placed it in a drawer then took out a black and crimson medallion. It was an Epic tier item, designed as the crown jewel of a new player's collection, but to a 'maxed' player like Tsukasa, virtually worthless. However, Tsukasa had been seeking this particular item for a while.

"Thanks!" he said, dashing out the door of the Adventurer's Guild and onto the street. He started running to the NPC [Alchemist]'s shop. [Alchemist] was initially a player-only class, but since not many people selected the [Runesmith] or [Rune Knight] classes necessary to gain the [Alchemist] class, there were virtually no [Alchemists]. The [Alchemists] provided a valuable service - transmutation, and the lack of them made the game much less enjoyable. Tsukasa had the [Rune Knight] class but didn't have enough levels in it to unlock [Alchemist]. He supposed he could modify his build, but Edward would still have a higher [Alchemy] level because the NPC was able to entirely bypass the [Runesmith/Knight] phase and could invest all of his levels into Alchemy. The crappy devs had decided for once to help the players rather than make things harder, and as a result [Alchemist]-class NPCs appeared in major cities. Thankfully Logres had one, whose services were accessible for a high price. Maybe that was the devs' true intent - to make more money, Tsukasa thought wryly. Regardless, he walked into the [Alchemist]'s shop. The Logres [Alchemist] was named Edward and wore his long, blond hair in a single braid, which made Tsukasa laugh every time he thought about it. As soon as Tsukasa stepped in Ed's shop, the [Alchemist]'s ahoge perked up. 

"Hey there, Tsukasa. What's up?" 

Unlike most NPCs, Edward had a very detailed AI and could recognize unmasked player's names. 

"Nothing much Ed," he replied. "I'd like to transmute these, though." Tsukasa reached in his inventory and pulled out nine Epic tier [Freshblood Amulets], the same item he recently received. He had been collecting them for a while now. 

"Alright. That'll be one million gold, please." Tsukasa wordlessly transferred the money to the [Alchemist]. He was lucky to have so much money now, as he participated in the last major boss battle and had been rewarded tens of millions of gold. However, he hadn't gotten any World class items from it, since the raid had been composed of players with much higher DPS stats such as [Bloodmages] and [Paladins] - and drops were rewarded to players who dealt the most damage. Edward reached out with his metal arm and took the gold and [Eclipse Amulets], then placed them in a transmutation circle. Then, he placed his hands on the mat and in a flash of blue light, the [Amulets] disappeared. In their place lay a pulsating black stone with a warm red light, beating like a heart. It was a raw material, and a Divine tier one at that - the most powerful craftable tier.

"Thanks, Ed."

"No problem." said the [Alchemist]. Tsukasa slid the material into his inventory, then used the spell [Guild Teleport]. This 5th tier spell randomly transported him to a Guildmate, or the player's [Guild Hall] if no one else was online. Tsukasa felt the familiar sensation of teleportation then stepped out of the Guild Hall Portal. His Guild's base wasn't the biggest because they didn't focus on the base - only Tsukasa did, but the others always invested their resources in raids and Guild Wars. Tsukasa regretted this - he wanted to have an awesome base with NPC Guardians, just like his favorite light novel, but he couldn't have everything, could he? Despite him being the Leader of his Guild, no one had the time or items to help so he couldn't order them to. 

Tsukasa looked around at the hall he constructed, feeling proud of his past work. The black, ornate walls made it look like a lavish (and somewhat evil) castle, but no one minded. He walked over to a discreetly placed door, then walked in. Two silver and gold gates guarded the treasury, which had been reinforced with absurd amounts of defensive wards.

Tsukasa pressed his hand against the gate. which opened a slot. He then cast the Divine material inside a slot in the door then walked out, closing the door behind him.

Suddenly, Tsukasa twitched. It seemed like everything, yet nothing had shifted. 

"What the..." he whispered to himself. He concentrated on the menu and willed it into existence. However, it didn't seem to materialize. He tried again.

And again.

And again. 

"Well, shit."