Another Era

Jack walked into the next room and he had to close his eyes for a moment to adjust to the bright lights.

"Ugh..."

He opened his eyes and as he looked at his surroundings, the first thing that came to his mind was 'plain'.

It was just a white room with a bed like chair in the center and a lady holding a clipboard, standing beside the 'chair'.

'Wait, a lady? She wasn't there before. Something is wrong with me today.'

"Welcome, applicant #A018 Jack Zeus to Cubic." Her voice seemed programmed and robotic. "This is an hologram room, I am Sasha, your personal AI in Greek Online for the duration of this beta test. Please sit, and put on the VR headset."

"Woah. Did I time travel to the future?" Jack thought out loud in shock.

"No, you didn't. This is still the year 3023." Sasha–the AI replied.

Jack took a step forward and he tired to feel the ground properly with his foot, thinking he was dreaming.

"A moment please, I have received word from the higher ups. Would you like to beta test our newly made MMO suit?" Sasha called out as a manequine was brought out of the ground.

It wore a greyish black full body suit. Just looking at it, one would know how tight it would be on them.

"Don't worry, you can modify it on the manequine to your liking." she added.

"O-ok, I'll beta test it. So... um... what are the advantages?" Jack inquired, already moving closer to the AI and the manequine.

"It allows us to monitor your vitals when you're in the game and it send you an alert in-game when your body needs rest. If you don't answer that call after 10 minutes, you'll be forcefully ejected from the game."

"Is this really 3023?!" he almost shouted but then he thought of something else. "Is it possible to change that time range?"

"Yes it is, the default setting is 10 minutes.The highest that you can increase it to is an hour and you can also make it an instant ejection."

"I see. I'll do it." he replied. He started to get excited a little as he walked towards the manequine. Whe he reached it, a system screen opened up in front of his face and his reflexes came to life.

His hand moved forward at inhuman speed and it "hit" the screen but his hand only went through.

"W-what's this?" Jack stammered in surprise.

"Fret not, it's an hologram too, just like the rest of this room, the only things that are real are the chair, the manequine, the headset and the body suit. Please place your hand on the screen, we need your palm and finger prints and some of your DNA."

"My DNA? What for?" Jack frowned.

'That's sus to be honest.' his thoughts rang.

"It's for security reasons, Mr Jack. If it's ever stolen, you can use your DNA as proof and if another person wears your suit and the DNA isn't registered, the suit will send paralyzing electric shocks into the person, damaging some internal organs."

"Scary."

"Please, we've wasted some time. Other applicants have started. Please place your two palms on the screen before you."

"Ah, yes." A little nervous because the blank face of the AI had started to frown a bit. Remembering some movies he watched, he didn't want to deal with robots with glowing red eyes that chased him while shooting blasters and plasma lasers.

Removing all those thoughts from his head, he placed his palm on the screen and it went through again but this time, it glowed green and it disappeared and another one came up. This time, for his fingers.

He did the same for his ten fingers and it glowed green and disappeared too. Then a little white rod came out of the ground. On top of it was a little tube and inside that tube was a tiny pin.

His index finger shook a bit as he slid it into the tube and it kissed the tip of the pin, drawing blood and sending a stinging sensation up his finger.

He removed his finger after letting the blood drip for a few more seconds and another rod came up with some transparent liquid that looked like water.

"Put your injured finger in the liquid." Sasha instructed.

He did as he was told and he put his finger into the liquid and what met him was PAIN!

Immediately he withdrew his index finger and looked at it and he saw that the little hole had closed up.

"What was that?" he asked.

He was ignored though. The rod with the liquid went back into the ground and Jack started at it with hatred.

"Place your hand on the manequine and close your eyes."

'Damn, this is getting annoying.' Jack's thoughts trailed as he did as he was told.

He closed his eyes and then he could feel something creeping onto him, starting from his hand which was on the manequine. He was tempted to open them and that desire grew every second.

Finally, he opened his eyes a little bit and then he saw the body suit on him. He didn't have the time to express shock as the AI instructed him to lay on the bed like chair.

As he did, it felt surprisingly soft and he had a little urge to sleep and never wake up. He snapped out of it and he placed the headset that was in his hands on his head and laid back.

He smirked in joy as he closed his eyes wanting to see how this new world would be.

(Meanwhile at the MMO company, Cubic. CEO's office)

A silver haired man sat on a black soft chair sipping some alcohol from a red disposable cup. His long silver hair dropped behind him like a water fall and stopped at his waist.

He opened his eyelids revealing teal eyeballs that could be mistaken for diamonds and he frowned a bit because he heard footsteps.

Immediately, he dunked all the contents of the cup and he squeezed it and threw it under the table. He took a pen and put on his reading glasses and grabbed a random paper on his table out of the hundreds and acted like he was working.

The door to his office opened up and a black haired office worker came in holding a tablet. He had a serious look on his face as he walked towards the man at the desk.

"Pardon my intrusion, Mr Fredrick. I bring surprising news." the office worker started.

Mr Fredrick at the table, CEO of cubic raised up his head from the paperwork and asked. "What is it? Did Cleo blow up a lab again?"

"No, sir. It's completely different. I was in the worker's lounge for a little snack during my break and I saw this video that my daughter, who is a social media influencer posted. Please watch it, Mr Fredrick."

He handed the tab to Mr Fredrick who collected it and tapped it. The video started to play...

"Hey guys, the girls and I just got back from the mall and we got some–"

>PAUSE<

Mr Fredrick paused the video and he looked at the office worker with a questioning look.

"Is this edited?" he asked.

"No sir, there are several eye witnesses of that scene. It was close to this place at 11:00am. Two boys disappeared at the speed of light leaving a crack in the road and what's more surprising sir is..." the office worker trailed.

"Is what?"

"The two of them came here at 11:01am as applicants for the beta test of Greek Online. I have confirmed this with the CCTV footage."

"What are their codes?"

"#A018 and #A019. Jack Zeus and Jasper Dalac."

"Jack Zeus eh?" Mr Fredrick muttered.

"Sir?"

"No it's nothing. Does anyone in the public know their identities?"

"According to my daughter, sir, no. They didn't see their faces. These two boys wore hoods."

"I see. Then it's better like that."

"Uh?"

"Fan the flames. Make ten thousand TokTik accounts and post that video. Send someone to take photos of the crack in the road. Let the world know that times are changing. We're in another era..."

_–_–_–_–_–_–_–_–_–_–_–_–_–_–_–_–

The power stones section for this book has been opened so let's vote!

2 P.S = 1 bonus chapter

4 P.S = 2 bonus chapters and on and on

First person to drop P.S get's a character in this book! Tell me if you want an NPC or Player, your class and name and race and strength!

LET'S GOOOO!!!!!

(P.S means powerstones)