CHAPTER 4 - To advance

By this time he could use his skills from the real world in Aincrad quite well enough. Feeling prepared enough, he went back into town to get better equipment and get some quests from the npc's. Running around town and doing some gathering quests, interacting with the npc's to find the ai's limit.

It was quite refreshing for him cause he wasn't getting mixed signals from them and he's been avoiding the players.

Going back to the wild zone, feeling satisfied with himself having found an outlet to use his skills beyond human limits and discovering a new challenge.

Making up his mind to develop his new style to keep himself entertained which decided to call the      "adeptus style". It consists of both offensive and defensive moves and can be used with Swords for now. It was based on an advanced form of kendo that he has been experimenting with.

So far he has unlocked a lot of skills but nothing impressive in his eyes, suddenly he noticed a boar from the corner of his vision and immediately reacted on instinct by cutting off its head under a second. Looking around, he discovered that he was about to be surrounded, Deciding to keep himself busy. Instead of standing around. He started to go on a killing spree And when he was done he already levelled up.

 Level 4

Hp : 600

Str :   13

Agi :   16

The sun began setting in Aincrad, When he started making his way back to town he came across two peculiar individuals, they were all alone in the Wilds and one was teaching the other one how to kill boars, Delaying his plans for a bit he decided to watch them. He realized that the dark haired boy was kind of awkward when interacting with the other red headed youth.

Watching them for a while he was impressed by the black haired boys tutorial but had his suspicions that he was a beta tester. He wanted to approach them and ask a few questions of his own because he didn't know all about the game and wanted to find out more about the monsters and other floors but decided against it and instead went back into the town, this time maybe trying to speak with some other player and get some info about events.

By the time he got to town it was close to sunset and he was starting to get tired. Deciding to log out for awhile and get some grub, He opened the game interface to log out but couldn't find the button, this immediately triggers alarm bells in his head but he chose to ignore it thinking it was some kind of error only to find out in the next few seconds that he was wrong and his instincts were right.

Loud sounds of bell chimes were heard all over the floor of beginnings continuously until there was a bright flash of light and all the players were force teleported into the square.

The sky turned red With red thick and murky liquid dripping through the gaps in the sky Only to coalesce to form a humongous figure donning a full red cloak with it's hood up and white gloved hands. Its appearance itself was eerie and ominous but that was the appearance of the game master himself.

People began to panic and mumble to each other but before things could become heated, the figure spoke.

"Attention players, welcome to my world.  my name is akihiko kayaba, As of this moment I am the sole person in control of this world."

He continued  " I'm sure many of you have already noticed the absence of your logout button, this is not an error or a glitching code.  I repeat this is not an error, it is a feature of the game And no one from the outside we can log you out forcibly."

" Any attempts to do so would  lead to the transmitters in the nerve gear emitting powerful microwaves which would fry your brain thereby ending your life." Announced the GM.

"Unfortunately some friends in the family having  ignored this warning  and tried to disconnect the  nerve gear Leading to the loss of 213 lives from both the real world and Aincrad." He added with complete apathy.

"As you can see multiple news outlets have been recording the ongoing news about the coincidental deaths of all these players, this is proof that all of this is proof so relax and attempt to clear the game" he said all this while showing clips of the ongoing news of weeping families.

"There will be no more means of revival in the game. Which means once your hit points hit zero, you die and Immediately the nerve gear sends microwaves into your brain and ending your life in the real world." States the Gm.

"There is only one way to escape and that is to clear the game. You are currently on floor 1 and you have defeat each floor boss to get to the next floor. By defeating all bosses and getting to floor 100 and defeating the boss, the game will be cleared". He said before adding "I have left a gift for all of you in your inventory space open it and see".

Checking their inventory space everyone started bringing out the gift, they are faced with mirror which causes their to glow brightly when the light settled, they had all reverted back to their original appearance in the real world.

(Mikey's pov)

"This isn't good at all. This is bad right, yet why am I smiling " I thought to myself.

Paying closer attention to others around, I could spot some familiar faces but they were only acquaintances and were not that close.

Turning around I noticed that beta tester once more but he now looks a lot smaller than before, I contemplated going to him for info but decided to take the high way as It makes  this more interesting for me anyways.

"you are probably wondering 'why', why did akihiko kayaba do this. Well the answer is simple, I simply created this world so that I could intervene in it. Now it is done. This ends the tutorial for Sword Art Online. Good luck players." He finished and began glitching out of existence then vanished like an illusion.

Taking a deep breath, It took 10 seconds to recalibrate my state of mind and began making a plan of action. Done thinking, I began to pay attention to the people around me and noticed the despair, fear and confusion in the air with all other negative emotions mixed in except for a select few people.

I just couldn't empathize with their situation cause for me this is the closest to feeling a real challenge I have felt in a long while.

Getting out of dodge before people regained the bearings I began making my way over to the next town in order to get stronger faster and stay above the average level curve.