Starter Zone

...

[You can see ruined cities all around you as monsters of unknown origins haunts your world enshrouding it with a layer of suffocating darkness. It is the year 2090. The world you once knew is no more during the age of apocalypse, many came forth with claims of having supernatural powers while others claimed to harness a mysterious energy called mana. These claims had blown away the last bit of common sense as a new age was coming to being.]

[After 50 years of the apocalypse and the reveal of espers and mages many people began to hold these as the norms. In this new world whether you become a mage or an esper, whether you choose to hunt monsters or safely farm, whether you choose to kill or communicate with these people, it all falls on you. Be what you want to be!]

When this small introduction to the world's history was over Han's looked around him and felt a slight excitement. He moved his arm and touched his own face. He closed his eyes and gently felt the wind swaying about.

'They really didn't lie when they said it was 99% realistic.' He thought. When he looked around if it wasn't for the fact he knew this was a vr game he would have literally thought this was reality. Everything felt extremely real.

But this realism also caused Han's to feel a slight worry. 'Judging by how this game is meant to be played, the inner dark side of humans would fully show in this world.' A lot of peoples bottom lines would be blurry as this is after all just a game. Han's was a typical role play type gamer. He didn't want to be like these types of people.

He fully wanted to experience the game as if he was part of this world from the start. Talking and interacting with these npcs as if they were real people and forming some good connections with them. Since it was 99% realistic this also meant that the npcs were identical to real life people as they had their own wills and intentions or at least it looked like they did on the trailer and the comments said by the beta players.

After accessing the situation around him Han's checked out his menu. When he did so he could see a few icons. Almost all of them were grayed out as if he couldn't use it and the only thing that was active for now was the setting. On it were options for such things like pain sensitivity, log out button and so on.

For now Han's knew that a new player wouldn't unlock their status screen until they either choose mage or esper. Both choices would give the user a different version of the status screen. Their ways to earn exp would be the same but gaining things like skill points and other such things such as skill proficiency would be different.

Overall until the time was right the game wouldn't unlock these functions. Especially the inventory system.

Sighing a little Han's looked around and felt how destered this place was. The buildings were ruined and no signs of life could be found anywhere. Rubble and debris could be seen everywhere with dust and garbage laid all around the place.

'So this is the starter zone.' He remembered that when the player first spawned they would be sent to an area where no humans or monsters existed. This was to help the players get familiar with controlling their bodies and to let them explore around.

Han's decided to do a quick search around him. He checked inside half opened buildings and buildings that once looked like they were stores.

From his first search he had found a few items.

[Item: Rusty Pipe] (Type: Weapon)

[Rarity: Trash] (Durability: 13/20)

[ATK DMG: +1]

[Special Effect: Has a 5% chance of losing all its Durability.]

[Requirement: Have Hands]

[Tag: It's not the best but what else do you have.]

Seeing it's special effect Han's wanted to curse the game company.

[Item: Water Bottle (Empty)] (Type: Storage)

[Rarity: Trash] (Durability: 10/11)

[Water Stored: 0/500 ml]

[Special Effect: Can preserve water for 3 days before it's ruined.]

[Requirement: Have Hands]

[Tag: It would be great if it was full.]

This one wasn't that bad of an item but since it was only for storing water it couldn't really help him until he found water.

[Item: Small Battery] (Type: Material)

[Rarity: Trash] (Charge: 10/10)

[Tag: Could be useful in the right hands.]

The last item he had wasn't really that useful since it was material but thinking that this was kinda of an apocalyptic scenario Han's thought that it might be useful.

Since he didn't have a storage space yet Han's could only put them on the pocket of his default clothes. He laughed a little as he thought about how everyone would be wearing these clothes when they first entered the game.

'I wonder what the npcs reaction would be seeing strange people appear out of nowhere and all of them wearing similar clothes.' Thinking this useless thought Han's kept exploring this ruined city.

He would check every so often for any item he could find. Overall he found 1 more water bottle and 3 more batteries. It was about 1 hour in when Han's suddenly noticed a difference in this city. A cloud of fog covered sky and caused this place which already looked dark to entire nightfall.

"Oh so this is how they allow the new players to understand one of the basic functions of this game." Saying so Han's looked over at something that glowed on the right side of his vision.

[Life Points: 20/20]

[Stamina: 100/100]

Seeing these two things Han's also knew that there was a good reason why it was showing it right now. This was because in front of his eyes, white boney hands emerged from the ground. From these hands a boney arm and head slowly showed up.

It was a skeleton head, inside it's hollow eyes a red flame stared straight at Han's as it slowly crawled out from the ground. When Han's saw this event he couldn't help but laugh a little.

'These are quite the cuties.' Thinking this Han walked straight up to the slowly emerging skeleton.

"Ah, I feel bad but since the game purposely made you emerge so slowly I can't help but take advantage." Saying so Han took the rusty pipe in his hands and like a baseball player swung it straight for the head of the skeleton. The skeleton could only watch as the rusty pipe smashed against its head. The red flames in its eyes flickered as something similar to a damage number appeared above it's head.

[-5!]

A big crack could be seen on the skeleton's head. The red flames in its eyes grew larger in fury. The skeleton understood that it needed to emerge faster but this was not something it could change or effect.

Seeing it's reaction Han's shook his head feeling a little bad for it. But he still swung the rusty pipe on its head again. This time the damage was more since he had hit it's weak point.

[-8!]

A huge chunk of skull was crushed. This left the skeleton with only half of it's head. At this point the red flames on the intact side of it's face slowly grew dim before fading away. The body of the skeleton didn't disappear like in most vr games they laid on the ground motionless.

'Pretty easy' Han thought.