Dear readers,
I learned about the LN format a few months ago, reading the Legendary Moonlight Sculptor and Sword Art Online. I found the writing very entertaining as it "skins" most of what makes a novel into impactful, easy to read, fast stories. I take inspiration from the previous two stories but I am very much trying to build my own. I draw also a lot more from novels, essays, movies as I am a wannabe writer, film maker, and a university student; however if you know a thing or two about how the writing process gets done, then you will understand that these similarities aren't deliberately put in but a result of all my previous readings, which helped me getting a take on the Fantasy/SF genre and the LN format. With that said, I hope you will like it and don't forget to give me some feedback.
Welcome to Transcendance !
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Friday, October 16th 2020 - Chicago
Steve was lying on his bed, waiting for one of his friends to text or call him. They were supposed to go to the pub this evening.
Bip...Bip… He reached his phone.
“Hey man it’s Marv, I’m sorry I can’t make it tonight. Too lazy I guess … Up for a quick Outerfield session ? The others are totally in !"
“See you in a bit” He answered.
They used to play this really cool cyberpunk mmo on PC called Outerfield. It was fun, you started as a party of 5 and the difficulty and the bosses’ tactics evolved depending on which classes the players in the party were playing and their level, to ensure the difficulty of the challenge. It was a really good game.
Steve hated it. They all started playing a week before him and when he finally got on it, his party compelled him to play the battlefield-control type class which was definitely not the kind of class he would have picked, he would rather have played some kind of area-damage dealer or even a simple soldier. It took him months of work but he did turn into brilliant battle strategist as he couldn't wreak havoc on the battlefield as much as he used to.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
He managed to become the head of their guild and got level 100 despite being far behind everyone in terms of dps (damage per second) and in terms of mana/health regeneration. The good times became the worst, as they made fun of him not being able to loot anything or kill any level 100 monsters. He was still the one running everything “behind the scenes” which is something they forgot. They stopped thinking of him as the team leader and just considered him the burden they had to play with. He also started to be really tired of saving them from themselves every evening.
Steve liked playing mmos even though he always had been a solo player. He always found the different tricks to beat the games alone, especially because his friends (and/or party) usually stopped playing with him each time they got their hands on a game he had a chance to master. Steve was not becoming too much of an ass to them or anything, they just did not like him leading them or something... Steve was never really sure and never asked them. Until this evening.
After the session , he asked them. They were on their guild chat.
“It’s not that we don’t like playing with you Steve, you know,... It is more that you are, you are yourself and you are a nice guy, and a good person as well, you just don’t belong with us.” said Sarah.
“yeah mate, you are one hell of a guy but we’re just too different I think. Plus we don’t like the same games or anything else.” George just added.
Sarah used to be Steve’s girlfriend a few months ago. He invited her into his group of friends and she never left the group, except him. She hooked up with George for a short period and was now supposedly dating a 40-something guy. Steve tried to get used to her but he couldn’t, and slowly she started to push him out. At least she had been subtle and clever until this conversation.
“Okay, I get the message guys.” Steve was getting seriously angry behind his computer screen.
“But you can still hang out with us, we don’t mind you being around at uni if you need friends” Marv said quickly, trying to repair the damage. He just made it worse.
“Fuck you all !” Steve shouted.
He left the chatroom and the game.