Adam and Fanatic exchanged conversation with one another while on their walk towards the jungle, and Adam learned that, according to what the guard that Fanatic talked to, the "Players" were prophesied about 5 decades ago. The NPC's, or inhabitants of this world rather, were warned of a mass migration of people of every race who would not die once killed, but regenerate. Since it has been 5 decades since then, the prophecy has fallen into the back of the minds of most people, and the arrival of the players in this world the original inhabitants must be feeling a little worried, as they don't know if the immortal players come with good or evil intentions.

From this, Adam was able to infer to himself and share his thoughts with Fanatic that this world must be an extremely in depth simulation, that the world has existed for a long time and that it must have been developed through simulating hundreds of years of history, but to have such a simulation, all the inhabitants would need intelligence. The company that produced this game however, was extremely secretive of the methods they used for the hardware and software made to develop this game. Adam further discussed this with Fanatic, saying that if the ai were intelligent and could mirror sapient species, then they might need to play this game like it is not a game. In usual games, NPC's are just tools to give you quests, battle, and trade with but in this game they are actual simulated beings with their own lives, so if the players treat the people like mindless NPC's it is possible that the "Familiarity" stat Adam saw will drop, which may cause players to be blacklisted from quests, traders, or whole cities depending how harshly they treat these people.

Adam and Fanatic didn't want to discuss artificial sapience, as the thought of being able to simulate real humans that mirror reality gave them both more questions than they would have time to ask, and any answer they got to the questions they have would be majorly unsettling. Instead, Adam switched the conversation to a more introductory one, where Adam asked about Fanatic and what he did for a living. It turns out, Fanatic was the son of a well-off manager at one of Korea's top businesses that his father was the owner of, and ever since he was a kid Fanatic was put into taekwondo and it turned out to be his passion in life, so since then he has dedicated himself towards the refining of his martial prowess. Of course, in the real world having martial prowess meant little to nothing unless you want to kill someone in a bar fight, but really it's practical use was more of staying fit than earning a living. The game had no sort of region-lock and all players languages were instantly translated to the in-world one, meaning communication from anywhere to anywhere is possible, which was a massive feat for humankind.

With the release of "Universe Lithalris", everything changed for Fanatic though, it was finally a place he could put his skills into use and refine them through vicious, real combat. The game started out as one companies mysterious delve into starting a full immersion video game, but governments saw the appeal in such a game, and by the time the game had released it was bound to become played by almost everyone who could have access to it, as banks and governments became tied to the game. After one month of opening, the game would open it's first step of real money to in game money conversion, with it only being able to go from real money to in game, however one month after that the introduction of in game money to real money would be included. You could tie your bank account to the game, and the idea is that in a simulated reality with infinite resources, humans would try to earn money here and thus companies and the government could work together to decrease global climate emmissions to save the planet. Fanatic just wanted to prove to his father that his skills and passion for his art were not in vain, and that he could become as successful in the virtual world as his father wanted him to be in the real world.

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

By the time Fanatic was done with his story, the two arrived at the outskirts of the jungle, and immediately Adam saw more than a couple herbs, so he stepped down to look at them. Knowing that his objective was a plant that had a red stalk and green petals, he got to work looking through some flowers nearby to look for the specific herb, though he was warned that the vibrancy of the colors related to the tier of the flower itself, so the more faded the colors of the flower was, the lower tier it was. Searching through a soft bush, Adam saw the flower he was looking for, and as he reached for it he heard the rustling of grass in front of him, and knowing that it couldn't be anything good, Adam stepped backwards and held his head down.

Fanatic, who was practicing some of the more basic kicks he could do was watching over Adam bent over some bushes, when suddenly he ducked back and an arrow flew over his head. From the tree above, a yellowish-green creature with a club in one hand used it's other to slide down a vine. One more came out of the bush directly, rushing at Adam while the one with the bow slowly rose over the grass from his kneeling position, revealing himself.

"Goblins!" Adam shouted, scrambling back to his feet, before hastily casting "Poison Javelin". Adam held his hand back as if to scratch his back, but green, oozing mana poured out of his hand into a crude stick shape with a pointed end, that he quickly threw at the goblin who was trying to rush him down.

-7 (Poison applied)

-2

The goblin staggered from the impact, and the opened wound on his shoulder seemed to be foaming, the goblin clenched his teeth and Adam could see the rage in its eyes as it looked directly at Adam. Before the goblin could get closer to Adam, a shout could be heard before the leg of the human it lost focus on entered it's vision, and closed the distance rapidly before it felt the shin of the man impact his fore head knocking the goblin who was already off balance four feet back, and onto his back. Before the two could reorganize another arrow rang out, hitting the distracted Adam in his chest.

-35

Adam held his chest, he lost a third of his HP in one attack? He was dumbfounded and cursed himself, before finally remembering to use identify.

[Goblin Archer: Level 6. Hp: 150/150]

Holding his breath, Adam finally took in the reality of choosing this city as his starting point, nothing was going to be easy.