Chapter 2

When Ryan returned home, he almost stumbled at the door. Arnold made sure he had one of the most terrible workouts in his life. However, Ryan managed to hold on. He was still not used to how lazy and unresponsive his body was, but he persevered. Years of struggling inside Stellar Ambitions had tempered his mind and forced him to hang on as Arnold made him work his body to the limit before sending him home. In fact Ryan was mentally prepared for an even more severe workout, but Arnold kicked him out, saying that going too hard would cause his body to burn out.

Even the triathlon expert was surprised by Ryan's almost death like determination to persevere and his attitude changed considerably within the span of a day. Ryan found the large capsule that could house his entire body neatly packed at his door, ready to be assembled and put into use. He dragged the large box into his house before carrying it into his room and setting it up.

In the previous life, people expected newer versions of capsules to come out over time. but to everyone's surprise, the capsule remained the absolute same until Ryan's last breath. The realism and full dive experience was so prolific when it came out it was almost unbelievable to the masses at the time. Even Ryan himself had only managed to get the capsule after the closed beta ended and entered the open beta phase when new capsules were sold to the masses.

As Ryan sat down to have dinner, he carefully tried to categorize the activities he planned to pursue once he entered the world of Gaia, Stellar Ambitions' fantastical world of magic and strength. His memory of activities in his past life, were quite accurately intact to the extent of being almost crazily memorized. This wasn't unexpected since Ryan had an autodidactic memory since he was a little child. However, he wasn't quite sure if the memories would carry over to this new reincarnation.

Another factor he had to keep in mind was the ramifications of the butterfly effect. His very change in behavior and his plans would cascade major changes to the history of the world in a way that would make predictions about activities in the future unreliable.

"I can only rely on my advantage of the precognitive knowledge in game and my vast experience with it. Nothing about reality itself can be relied upon with any predictive certainty. Strength will be my only ally." Ryan thought to himself as he had his fill of a meal. Once he was done, he went to what used to be his parents room. In their haste to escape, they had even left their family photographs behind along with their only son. Ryan was in half minds about whether he should leave the house and go to another apartment to rent, but then he shook his head. In the past life, he was never able to find out what happened to his parents, but that wasn't necessarily the case this time.

Ryan walked into his room and activated the Full Dive Capsule. He took a deep breath as his identities from the past, the present and the future merged and he entered the capsule, allowing the hatch to shut over his face and then anesthetizing him into a state of deep sleep. The darkness that pervaded all his senses, however, quickly transformed into a blissful bright environment. Ryan felt the gentle tug on his soul, a familiar feeling he experienced every time he would Full Dive before being pushed through a tunnel of bright light.

Objects began to materialize around him according to his desire. Intuitive information flooded his mind, allowing him to customize his appearance and attaching the beginner equipment as well as binding the spatial storage that every player would receive onto his identity. Finally, the intuitive thought asked him for his name as he would like on Gaia. Ryan directly mentally assigned the name he had always chosen - Vergil, the ancient Roman poet.

The white blindness slowly dissipated away and Vergil found himself landing on the town square of the beginner town of his assignment. Around him, several other individuals were also appearing, though not many. Not a lot of individuals would actually take part in this closed beta - if Vergil remembered correctly, it was around twenty thousand and they were vastly distributed across the map. As Vergil looked around his surroundings, he already understood which nation he had spawned in. This was the New Longhorn Kingdom, a tiny nation in the global south.

Vergil ignored the other players who were testing out the features and in awe of the realism. He was long used to the experience. Instead he directly walked over to the old guard in iron armor guarding the entrance to the town.

"Sir, what is the name of this town?" He politely asked the guard. The guard looked at him, saw the ragged clothes of beginner's garb and snorted. However, Vergil's politeness certainly disarmed him a bit. "This is Red leaf town. Who are all you new folks?"

"Red leaf town!" Vergil's eyes lit up with excitement as he immediately remembered a sequential history pertaining to this place. He coughed and politely replied to the old guard. "I am a villager looking for a job. I heard that this town accepts locals like us who escaped from monster attacks on the lower villages."

The old guard nodded. They did indeed have a shortage of laborers in the town. "Very well, you seem to have good intentions. You may enter the town." While the town had no gate or barrier, Vergil was sure not to intrude into the boundaries of the town without permission. Once the guard permitted his entry, a dialogue box showed up within his vision.

[Quest completed. New Faction unlocked. Red Leaf Town resident. Set as Beginner Spawn Point?]

Vergil simply thought the word yes and his faction had already been set. While other players were still jumping and moving their arms, Vergil had already completed the basic quest requirements. He quickly summoned his status to observe his statistics.