Chapter 3

"Congratulations sir for obtaining the Legendary Holy White Dragon Empire legacy and lineage" the NPC woman says with a big smile on her face, Jack's mind is still whirling from everything that he just been through, he has been to his past, to some field and rescued a snake then got beheaded for it, after which he was some king and had to resist the charms of countless women.

He has no idea how any of them are related and he would like to ask the woman infront of him some questions about it but she replies, "Sorry sir but all Hall of Trials tests are unique and I don't have any more information on it" so that stopped that line of questioning.

Not knowing what to do Jack just tries to push it to the back of his mind, "So now what?" he asks the NPC. He truly has no idea what to expect, this should just be starting to play some VRMMO game but the experiences so far have been anything but normal.

"All you need to do is place your hands onto this city creation stone and you'll be randomly teleported into The World, as you have obtained the legacy of a nation, you will not be placed in your appropriate region to ensure fairness to the average player" the woman says while holding out her palm with a small glowing pearl in it.

Jack reaches out his hand and touches it, information flows infront of his eyes:

Holy Dragon City – Creation Stone – Special city creation stone to create the capital of Holy White Dragon Empire, various production bonuses and able to create 5 different type of soldiers. To use place within an empty plot of land.

Jack nods his head after reading the information and the pearl flies into his body, his eyes have an unfamiliar orange tinge to them as the pearl flies into his body but no one notices it and his body is teleported randomly into the world.

'WELCOME TO THE WORLD, PLEASE ENJOY YOUR STAY AND HAVE FUN' a big prompt appears infront of his eyes, he clears away the prompt and takes a look around. He's in an empty field somewhere, it looks like somewhere in Europe but there's no trees everywhere.

The grass is lush and unmaintained but not long, there are few trees around which look somewhat familiar but have that fantasy feel to them. Jack tries to bring up his status screen and it appears infront of his eyes: Name: Jack Hunt

Title: None

Profession: None

Achievement Points: Commoner (0/200)

Race: Human

Age: 25 (110)

Stats: Strength: 9, Intelligence: 8, Constitution: 4, Agility: 3

Cultivation: Stage 0

Cultivation Technique: None

Skills: None

Equipment: Rough Cloth Clothes, Simple Cloth Shoes, Twine Cloth Pants

He truly has nothing and is in the middle of nowhere, not knowing what to do Jack decides to start walking towards the nearest hill, hoping that he'll be able to see something. While walking he can see the game influences and how it's truly not his world.

There are huge creatures flying in the sky, two of them even had a weird mid-air battle that was full of magic, one shooting wind blades at another shooting fire. He makes his way through the field and up the hill, it doesn't take very long but when he gets to the top he is greeted with a sight of nothing, a few mountains some distance away but nothing that looks like buildings, a road or even a stream.

Not knowing what to do, Jack sits down on a tree stump on the top of the hill and starts thinking about what to do. He needs to find some sort of civilization but perhaps he could just setup his town here and get started on that, getting frustrated he shouts "Where the hell am I?" and lays down in defeat.

"User, I have detected heavenly Qi fluctuations 20 metres below your current position" a voice resounds in his head.

"Who's speaking?" Jack quickly responds but gets no response to his question, the voice is familiar but he can't quite place it.

Getting no response and having no other idea about what to do, Jack starts to dig with his bare hands. This quickly results in very sore hands forcing Jack to find some piece of wood to act as a shovel. He quickly gets to work and surprisingly makes quick work of digging a 20 metre hole.

Jack looks around where he thinks 20 metres is and can see nothing except dirt. He has spent a few hours on digging this hole and there's apparently nothing within it so he's pissed off at the voice that he listened to that seemingly lied to him.

He again lies down in frustration down the bottom of the hole, thinking that he should log off and get on with the day in real life, he still needs to replace his phone that was stolen. Thinking that he'll do that he reaches out and takes a final look at the city creation stone that he acquired.

When he takes it out, suddenly a huge pressure is coming from below him. He's laying down but quickly stands up wondering what is going on, he can feel that something is pulling the creation stone down into the dirt but he doesn't want to let go of it so he lowers his hand and when it finally touches the ground and loud boom resounds.

Jack is blown out of the hole and the city creation stone is floating in mid-air above him, there is some sort of glowing line that is next to the city creation stone and it looks like they're both glowing with the same colour, slowly getting closer together.

The pressure on Jack's body increases as the two glowing things get closer together finally to the point where Jack coughs up some blood from the pressure on his internal organs but he doesn't move from his spot and keeps his eyes on it.

*Roar* a loud roaring sound resounds across everywhere nearby as the two items finally touch, the glowing line is absorbed into the city creation stone and it finally falls down onto the ground after a few second, all the pressure and fluctuations instantly disappear.

People in some nearby towns and villages can hear this loud roar that sounds nothing like a normal animal in this region, some people are worried and decide to step up their patrols and hunting team to ensure the safety of the region, even sending out messengers to nearby villages to find out if they know what is going on.

Jack has no idea what's going on so he walks up to the City creation stone that's on the ground and picks it up to look at the information.

It all looked the same apart from information about a Guardian beast that is new but the glowing line couldn't have been a dragon since it was far too small and obviously buried underground for a long time, how could it be alive?

Jack not knowing what to do now decides that he'd better log off for now and goes through the interface to log off but instead of waking up on his bed, he is back in that boring crystal room.

All the crystals on the ceiling are still glowing in their usual random fashion, if one would look closer you'd notice that one of the crystals now has an eye that is watching Jack but the eye is so faint that it's easy to miss.

"Where is this? How do I log out?" Jack asks out loud. He yet again gets no response in this room and as he's about to sigh, his vision shifts again and he's back in his room. He sits up and takes the crystal off his forehead and takes a look at the time, 1pm. He was in the game since 6am and went through so much and it's just past lunch time?

He could've sworn that he was digging that hole for at least 12 hours but he doesn't feel it was wasted time, that experience was certainly something else and very few people would go through it. This is actually true, the hall of trials is unique to each person and is based upon peering into heavens secrets.

Jack proceeds to get up from the bed, turns on his computer and heads to the kitchen for something to eat and drink. Strangely enough his body didn't get hungry or thirsty while he was within the game, while in the Kitchen John walks in too.

"So what was that about this morning? Why'd you get a delivery so fuckin early?" John asks, obviously high as he's pouring a huge bowl of cereal. Jack grabs a few slices of bread and a can of energy drink.

"Oh I got invited to The World Online and apparently they deliver it very quick, I only signed up last night when I got home" Jack replied truthfully. He has nothing to really hide from John, he's abit of a loose lipped person but he's still a good guy.

"You actually got invited to The World Online? How'd you pull that off? Why did you sell it for some sweet cash and live it up for abit?" Tom replies with a smile on his face, as though he can see the money that he'd make if this was him.

"Someone from high school invited me, he might want to play with me at some point so I figured I might as well give it a go, see what all the hype is about, anything has to be better than living my current life and I certainly can't get high all the time" Jack replies with a bigger smile on his face, he used to get high all the time but it was just too costly.

"Haha, everyone can get high all the time and society will have no problems at all, everyone will just wanna sit on the couch all day and watch tv" Tom replies, he's certainly said that in the past and is an avid advocate about personal rights.

"Yeah I bet, well maybe if you try The World Online you'll change your tune, I honestly feel great, like I just woke up from a nap on a rainy afternoon, you should try it out when you can" Jack replied while grabbing his food and drink. John quickly follows with his bowl of cereal and 2ltr bottle of Fanta.

"Sure, if you can hook me up I'll give it a go and wont sell it, might even give you a little bud as thanks" John says as he follows behind Jack and quickly proceeds to sit back down on the couch.

"If I can get anymore invites, I'll swing you one" Jack replies and enters his room, he hears a "Thanks bro" while closing his bedroom door so that he isn't inundated with the smell of weed.

Eating lunch John quickly jumps onto his usual websites, nothing interesting in the news, bank account still under $50 so unable to get a replacement phone, no new shifts at work so a few more days off work while still unable to afford anything.

Jumping back onto the chatroom, there's the usual questions about getting invites to The World, comparing it to other games based on the promo material, plenty of people wanting to buy access.

Ignoring most of the posts, Jack just keeps browsing and shortly gets a message from Tom.

'Did you try out The World?'

'Yep, got it delivered this morning, damn it was fast and my roommates are pissed at me for that, it's pretty good but that hall of trials thing was really weird'

'You went through the hall of trials? Weird… Well hope you got a good item from that, you shouldn't tell anyone about it'

'Why?'

'You'll find out eventually, just listen to me also I'll invite you to some private The World forums'

'Ok, thanks uhh do you have any more invites, I've got at least one friend that might want to try it out'

'I've got a couple more but it's better to let your friend wait until the general opening, he will be able to use your referral code'

'Ok no problem, thanks where are you in game?'

'I'm at my region capital but since you went through the hall of trials then you will be at some random location and can't reach me so I'll be in touch when region travel opens up, just use the forums and contact me on here if you need anything else'

'Ok thanks for the help'

'No problem'

Tom then proceeds to send a few links to invite only forums, the highest population being 20k people on one of the forums but it's mostly Chinese posters. The largest English speaking forum is only at 11k people.

Browsing through the topics, Jack is able to uncover a lot of information that he didn't know about, only a couple of people have gone through the hall of trials and that several of those people are bragging were somehow hunted down and killed, losing their legacy completely.

This explains why Tom was so adamant about not saying that you went through it.

There's also information on the regions, the size of The World is 5 continents with the largest landmass being in the very centre of the world and 4 smaller 'islands' that are still bigger than Eurasia.

Each continent is divided into regions, with the central area having 7000 regions and each of the other continents having 3000-5000 each, they are mostly divided into countries with your spawn region decided on that. If Jack didn't go through Hall of Trials then he would end up in the eastern most continent somewhere. Not that he knows where he is now.

Someone had even created a primitive map of the world after doing some maths as each region has the same area, no one is sure how accurate it is but it's good to have a general idea.

After reading about it some more, Jack has some food in his stomach and is feeling motivated then decides to re-enter the game. He lays down on his bed and grabs the crystal, it feels so weird that all that is needed to access the game is this little crystal but he doesn't question it and places it on his forehead.

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