Chapter 4 - Continue The Game

Chapter 4 – Continue the Game

[Play the game. Keep Sword Beast's identity a secret. If you tell anyone, I will report you to the Grentz Union and you know what will happen to people who hacks a game under the union's control, right?]

Ethan read the message and he shuddered. 'A hacker? How can a hacker outwit the powerful AI or is the powerful AI only a rumor?' Ethan's mind was in a mess.

'Why me?' He wanted to ask the question but the message disappeared and was replaced with a new one.

[Play Next World every day. Don't ask any questions and just play the game. Make sure you play both the characters. I know everything you do] Ethan read the new message and his body started shivering. He was too scared.

A second later, the message vanished.

"Why am I so unlucky?" Ethan spoke to himself. He did not know what scheme was this hacker had and he was extremely afraid. It looked like he was forced to be in some kind of plot or something.

Ethan went to the kitchen and had a cup of water. He needed to calm down. Even so, he could not calm down. Everything that had happened earlier was too scary. A timid person like him would not be able to handle everything by himself and he was too scared to tell anyone about it too.

It took Ethan an hour before he fully calmed down. He still felt scared but he was already a part of this and the unknown enemy was too scary for him.

'Who is it? Is it Shawn? But Shawn is a nice person but maybe that is all just a front? But Shawn is a nice person. He will not try to harm me and we don't have any problem with each other,' Ethan tried to list down people who he suspected the one behind all of this.

'Is it that girl? Or, the guy who fixes the VR device? That guy is working at the Diamond Dragon Tech so, he is possibly the only one who is capable of doing this?' Ethan thought about everything.

A few minutes later, he just stared blankly at a wall in front of him. He was not sure who did this and he did not know the purpose he was chosen. He suspected Shawn, Clarisse, or Clarisse's brother but he was too scared to investigate them.

"Whatever happens will happen. Everything is like that all my life," Ethan spoke. He looked listless. He gave up on thinking who was the perpetrator. "I have a more important matter to care for. I need the money and if this cheat can help me with this problem, I should just use it…"

"That person did not tell me the reason he chose me and my purpose of using this hack or cheat, so, I should just play it normally. Once that person gives me more instruction, I will think about this later. Now, I need money…"

Ethan glanced at the VR device and sighed. He wore the device and lied on the bed. He turned it on and dived into the game.

[Choose your character. Ethan or Sword Beast?] Ethan chose his original character and appeared at the same plaza he appeared earlier. There were a lot of people around but Ethan looked the most noob of them all.

Since he was new to the game, he only wore a plain white t-shirt, pants, and slippers. Ethan walked to a nearby bench and checked on his menu.

The game menu had nine options. They were status, skill, equipment, storage, map, mission, chat, notifications, and login/logout. Ethan clicked on chat and registered Shawn's phone number but it looked like Shawn was not online.

So, Ethan checked on his status. When he clicked the status menu, he was given a choice to view his and Sword Beasts' status. Ethan checked his original character's status first.

Name - Ethan

Level – 1

Experience – 0/100

Basic Status

Health – 20 [Max: 100]

Energy – 30 [Max: 100]

Stats

Forging – 5 [Max: 10]

Crafting – 0 [Max: 10]

Refining – 0 [Max: 10]

Mining – 0 [Max: 10]

Farming – 0 [Max: 10]

"So, all the stats have the same limit," Ethan nodded, and then, he checked on Sword Beast. Since he now knew that the character was functional, he wondered if Sword Beast had indeed done stats training.

Name – Sword Beasts

Level – 1

Experience – 0/100

Basic Status

Health – 100 [Max: 100]

Energy – 100 [Max: 100]

Stats

Strength – 10 [Max: 10]

Endurance – 0 [Max: 10] (5 min 25 sec)

Dexterity – 0 [Max: 10]

Sword – 0 [Max: 10]

Beasts – 0 [Max: 10]

When Ethan saw Sword Beast's stats, he was shocked. Sword Beast was level 1 without any experience points but his stats were now more than what he should have at this moment.

Every Player in Next World would get 10 total stat points in the beginning. This was something Ethan had read on many forums since the game launched last night and he had experienced it too when creating the characters.

When leveling up, the Players would only be able to get 3 stat points for each level and 10 stat points to increase the stats' limit.

However, increasing the stats could also be done by training or continuous use or movement of the related stats. According to the information, he read online, for one stat point, the player needed to accumulate 5 hours in-game time of the stat's training or movement or uses elated to the stat.

In Next World, 1 day was equaled to 1 hour in real-life. Ethan logged in an hour after what happened earlier and Sword Beast's stat should not be this much.

Sword Beast had maxed out his Health, Energy, and Strength stats. Not only that but he was currently training his Endurance stats as stated by the timer at the side of the stat.

Sword Beast had his stats increased by 20 points in 24 hours which was impossible. Since 5 hours was needed to increase one stat point, in 24 hours, theoretically, a player would only be able to increase at most, 4 points.

Even so, 4 points were still hard to gain because they needed some rest too but Sword Beast did the impossible. He had increased his stats by 20 points!

"Is it the multiplier? Did the multiplier decrease the time needed for training by five times? I made Sword Beast's multiplier by 5 so, is this it?" Ethan wondered and he remembered that he put his original character's multiplier to 2 so, his training would twice as fast as other players.

"Will anyone get suspicious later?" Ethan was scared but even though he felt that way, he was smiling. Ethan realized this too and remembered that his character's personality was happy and humble which was different than his real personality which was timid.

"…It feels weird smiling like this…" Ethan spoke weakly but his character spoke differently.

"It feels weird smiling like this~" while smiling. Ethan was smiling happily when he spoke this sentence.

"…" Ethan went silent as he was not used to smiling. Even so, his character was smiling showing a bright face. 'This feels like my soul is inside someone else's body and that person's soul was also inside that body…'

Ethan looked around as he was not sure what to do. He did not know where to start. According to the forums online, they needed to go to the training center and learned basic skills and after that, they were free to do whatever they wanted.

The missions were generated based on situation and the players needed to grasp the opportunity themselves if they wanted missions with high rewards and so on.

So, Ethan got out of the plaza and searched for the training center. As he was walking, Ethan felt the view was different from that he used to in real life.

The reason was that Ethan's character was walking while looking forward and his body was straight. The character was unlike Ethan who always walked while looking at the ground and his back hunched a bit.

Ethan was not used to this view as he saw many people's faces and looking at them filled him with anxiety. Even so, he was not able to evade seeing them as there were too many people around and he was unable to look at the ground.

This was a new experience for Ethan. He wanted to embrace it but it was too hard for him to feel comfortable in this situation. After walking for a few minutes, Ethan saw a massive building and on the signboard was the training center.

Similar to the normal fantasy world, Next World used the style of the middle ages for their building. There was no technology in the game's world. So, the building in front of Ethan right now was not a common modern building but a stone building following the style of the middle ages.

Many players and NPCs were walking in and out of the building and all of them looked like a newbie. Ethan walked inside and there were many counters inside.

"New Adventurer can choose either to learn basic skills of your choices or go to the training ground behind the building to train your stats," an employee of the training center shouted.

"If you want to train your stats, you don't need to register at the counter. If you want to learn a basic skill, choose a counter you like and register. If you want to become a swordsman, register at the Swordsman counter! If you want to become an archer, go to the Archer counter and so on!"

Ethan heard the shout. Then, he looked for the forging counter and there was one, and compared to the other counter, it was quite empty. It was understandable because everyone preferred fighting in a fantasy game.

However, Ethan's aim was not the fun of the game but money. He needed money and thus, production playstyle might be the best choice. Ethan registered at the counter and after that, he and a few other players were led by the staff to the workshop to learn forging.

On the way there, Ethan passed through the training ground and he was shocked to see that Sword Beast was there and he was training his Endurance by bumping his body against a thick log.

'H-H-He can move by himself?!' Ethan was shocked. Sword Beasts suddenly stopped his training and he turned around to look at Ethan.

"!!!" Ethan was shocked because Sword Beasts looked so much alive as a normal person. It did not look like a computer was controlling him.

Since Sword Beasts was set with a cold and domineering personality, Ethan was sweating on his back due to the pressure. Be that as it may, Ethan was looking straight to Sword Beast's eyes and smiled at him.