Chapter 2: Another World
Another World
Author: Saint Dragon Marshal
In the morning, the sunlight once again spread across the land, illuminating the still sleeping teenager lying in his bed. The glaring sunlight on his face put an end to the lazy teen’s desire to continue sleeping, “ seriously, why’s the sun always so punctual? Occasionally taking a day off would make you seem more important!” Muttering these complaints, the youth had no choice but to get up, put on his clothes, and then head to the restroom to clean up.
Well, while the owner is away, let’s take a look around this room. The room is about 40 square meters in size, with a comfortable small bed placed against the wall. The walls are adorned with posters, most of which feature beauties in light clothing. To the left of the bed stands a large bookshelf filled with comics and novels featuring illustrations of young beauties on the covers. From a conclusive perspective, this should be the room of a heterosexual youngster. Of course, cough, let’s not bother checking under the bed where the H-books are probably hidden.
Opposite the bed lies a large photon game pod, approximately one meter in height occupying around five square meters, in which a person can lie down and connect to the virtual photon network through a neural interface device for social interaction and entertainment. This is the primary entertainment method of the people in the 30th Century. Compared to the crowding in real-world society, the virtual community offers a better place for relaxation; not to mention the variety of games. The pure white shell of the game pod is inscribed with flamboyant calligraphy that reads, “Amber Sword,” indicating that it was a prize given away in a lottery. Rumor has it that the account linked to the game pod includes multiple mysterious gifts to be randomly selected, a scheme devised by the developer, Rainstorm, to increase popularity.
With a “click” of the door opening, a black-haired teen walked in with a piece of bread still in his mouth. His name is “Saint Dragon,” which is his in-game moniker. Of course, his real name remains undisclosed in the novel to avoid charges of breaching personal privacy, which would otherwise result in a series of beeps (indicated by “[]”). Thus, we shall refer to him as “Saint Dragon.” I trust the readers will not mind. Ahem, I’ve digressed too far, so now we’ll start the main text.
”What? All that talk was just nonsense! Brothers, attack him with your weapons!!” (Due to the author being beaten up by the angry readers for excessive procrastination, it now transitions into the first-person perspective.)
Slowly chewing the remaining half of the bread in my mouth, I settled into the photon game pod. Experiencing the comfort of the ergonomic seat, I couldn’t help but express my contentment once again, “Indeed, it is a specially customized game pod, how comfortable!” Next, I placed the single-crystal hanging interface device on my ear and activated the power. Immediately, the originally bright game pod turned pitch black, with only the system prompt sound coming through my ears:
[Power On… Normal]
[Iris Recognition Beginning… Normal]
[Physical Status Scanning… Normal]
…
[Game Login Starting… Successfully Connected]
The moment the last sentence was announced, the previously pitch-black world was once again bathed in light. A golden ripple began to expand outward from my position, and sounds started to fill the once silent space. It was the hymn of life and light, elegant and noble in tune, a melody so beautiful that despite having heard it countless times, I again chose to close my eyes and listen.
Opening my eyes once more, before me was a magnificent panoramic view. Around me was a void of pure whiteness, the only object existing being a floating altar. On the pedestal of the altar rested twelve symmetrical white domed columns intricately carved with elaborate patterns, adorned all around with white roses symbolizing sanctity and nobility. At the center of the altar stood a towering golden tablet, reaching high into the sky, carved with intricate and complex patterns and striations, embodying mystery and solemnity. Leading away from the altar was a long staircase, stretching upward endlessly toward the heavens.
This altar bears a grand name — The [Temple of Heroes]. It is the resurrection point for all players who choose the Light Alignment. Upon death in the game, if nobody revives you, your soul will return here. After three real-world hours of cooling down, you can re-enter the game. If you die more than a certain number of times, you will have to create a new character. Of course, this rule applies to the Dark Alignment as well, their resurrection location being the [Icy Throne].
Every time I come here, I am left impressed, unable to express, unclear, and yet feel some kind of warmth filling my heart. Perhaps, this is the pure feeling of moving emotion. However, there’s no time now to linger in such sentiment. Yesterday’s battle was incredibly intense; I wonder how many of our side perished. Those undead skeletons of Madara were too many to count, unkillable, which led to my own demise in the end — tragic indeed.
With this in mind, I hurriedly opened my status panel to check my condition:
A set of pale data sequentially appeared on my arm, thigh, joints, body, and heart area.
Strength 21, Agility 13, Constitution 20.
Then, another set of data hovered like ghosts in the air.
Intelligence 13, Willpower 10, Perception 11.
Absolute Strength 30 — Ability: Terrifying Presence (The mortals will kneel before thee.)
Under these stats, a cascade of texts and numbers appeared, creating a page that seemed almost illusory:
Character Name: Saint Dragon
Class (Special Template): Young Red Dragon
Level: 102 (Time’s flow stirs the dormant power in the bloodline, causing it to awaken continuously.)
XP: * (Young Dragonling:— Juvenile Dragon:— Adolescent Dragon:— Young Dragon:3121/??????)
Life (Awaiting Resurrection): 98% (Remaining Time: 00:05:24)
…
…
Well, after checking the stats, it’s definitely a hidden race, incomparably stronger than normal players. The only downside is the enormous amount of experience points required for leveling up—everything else is amazing. After wiping the drool, I compared the time and rushed upstairs to resurrect. Resurrection in the [Temple of Heroes] begins when one ascends the stairs, though one can never finish walking until the time is up.
The moment I thought about the game, a sense of frustration once again overtook me: Madara’s skeletons were too strong, achieving absolute dominance early on. Yesterday’s battle took place in an ambush in the Orkas Mountains against Madara’s undead army, a scene of utter chaos with skirmishes everywhere on the ground and in the skies as well. The situation was initially very advantageous to us; the members of [Might of the Divine] bravely charged forward, piercing deep into the core of the enemy. Unexpectedly, the rear guard of [The Blaze of Jing] was flanked, causing us to lose control, and I had to sacrifice myself to cover the retreat by enduring the bites of seven skeletal dragons until I died. I don’t even know if they managed to escape.
At that moment, the system prompt arrived:
[Your friend “Lazyheart” has initiated a call request.]
”Answer.”
”Saint Dragon, have you revived yet?” There was an underlying tone of mischief and smugness in his voice, this bastard, all because we made a bet on who would experience their first death in the game first. He’s also one of the old friends in my team [Guardians of Goland].
”Not yet, a few more minutes to go. How about you guys at the back?”
“Oh, thanks to someone, most of us managed to escape alive! Though, you’re in bad shape, Queen Ai says she’ll chop you once you’re back. Ha ha, good luck to you.”
”What?” My pants suddenly felt cold; I thought I had heard it wrong, “Didn’t you say it was because of my help? Why am I still in trouble?”
”Ah, Queen Ai says since you’re her mount, you don’t even have the right to die without her permission, and she claims to still have the contract with you. If you breach it, get ready to be her slave for thirty days!” Lazyheart’s tone was unmistakably malicious glee. Well, this is my fault too; Queen Ai, whose name is [Dust Fairy Ai], despite her sweet name, is actually a super cunning and domineering queen.
Back in the early days of the game when I couldn’t yet transform into my human form to prevent being farmed for experience, I had to sneak into the forest to play hide and seek. One day, a cute-looking female NPC approached me for help, and I foolishly signed a bunch of unfair contracts. It was only later that I discovered she was another player. How regretful that made me. As a result, I became her mount: rushing into battle for her, while getting no cuts of the loot and not even workers’ compensation—this was worse than slavery. Thinking of it made my eyes water; I’m a dragon after all, and all I get to eat are buns. Dragons have rights too! It wasn’t easy for me to grow this big.
Alright, I shouldn’t dwell on this; I’ll just run away when the time comes. Although I’m not sure what the penalty for running would be, just imagining Queen Ai’s “oh-ho-ho-ho-ho” laughter sent shivers down my spine. Tragic indeed. However, that’s not something to ponder about now. I asked Lazyheart again,
”Did anyone else from our team die?”
Lazyheart answered rather promptly this time: “Many good hands in our unit fell this time, Big L, our top infiltration thief who first noticed issues at the rear, was turned to ashes by a disintegration spell, and Uncle Red, after initiating a berserker rage and whirlwind strike, charged into the skeleton pile. At first, he was wreaking havoc, but two skeletal dragons froze him solid and disintegrated him.”
Speechless; over 30 years old and still so impulsive.
”Leysen had it rough too, even with the blessing of the gods he suffered under a finger of death, a spell with such low probability, and he just happened to meet it after coming from St. Orkath without setting a resurrection point first, so he was directly sent back.”
Eh, that was indeed tragic. With the divine blessing, the chance of being killed by a finger of death was incredibly low, less than one in a thousand, and yet it happened to him, a high-level paladin.
”And Parasite the Fish attempted to stab a necromancer in the back using his advanced invisibility skill, but alas, he was dessicated into a fish jerky by a necrotic drain.”
”The worst case was Sinking Shadow, the new arrival young man, who was stepped on to death by a dark mammoth after being afflicted by an idiot ray.”
Speechless again, such a miserable death method. Poor young man, his psyche must have been severely affected by that.
”Hey, by the way,” Lazyheart’s voice suddenly became louder, “Saint Dragon, do you remember that person who single-handedly completed the silver-level body building task?”
”Oh, Sophie, right?” Speaking of it, when I first heard the name I almost burst out laughing especially knowing he was a guy. I remember he was pretty capable. “What about him? I think he surpassed level 130 already?”
”Yeah, but it seems he’s gone today. His buddy said the name doesn’t exist anymore, so maybe he deleted the account? Probably couldn’t bear the name anymore?”
Eh, deleting a level 130 warrior account, couldn’t he have crossed the timeline by mistake? Haha, just joking. It seems that name really weighed heavily on him. Truly, people should be kind.
Just then, the countdown for resurrection ended, and a huge vortex appeared above the steps of the [Temple of Heroes]. By passing through it, one could return to the game. I ended the conversation with Lazyheart hurriedly and stepped onto the platform above the steps.
”It’s coming,” I muttered to myself, “This time I will definitely drive the skeleton army back!” I stealthily activated my Draconic form, immediately feeling intense pain as red magical runes seemed to brand my entire body. Hot breath spewed from my mouth, and the sensation was like melting — alas, the downside of a hidden class is that the transformation process is quite painful. With the vortex spinning faster, I wasted no time, leaped in, and roared,” Madara, your grandpa is back!!!”
Amidst the tranquil skies of the Orkas Mountains, a great vortex suddenly appeared. With a red glow, accompanied by a sound that shook the heavens, a colossal beast began his next journey.
On the azure sky, the crimson light shone brightly as the dragon danced through the air.
