Prologue.

"Thank you for coming to Tommy's mechanics!. Make sure too visit us again next time your engine starts to malfunction like that again!."

An older looking man standing outside a mechanic shop said this in a happy voice as they waved off a pick up truck as it drove out of the parking lot. It seemed as though that truck would be the last customer for the day but that didn't really bother the man as he walked back inside his mechanic shop. He had a pretty decent amount of customers today and the day was almost over so the man was in a pretty good mood as he walked into their mechanic shop.

The inside of the mechanic shop looked pretty standard for a mechanic shop as the inside of it was mostly just a big garage meant for multiple cars to park inside to get whatever work they needed done on their cars. But at the moment the mechanic shop was empty and only had the shops employees either talking to eachother while the more tired employees were already preparing their things too leave as they waited for their shifts to end. All they wanted to do was just go home and relax and prepare for another day of work.

"Hey good work today guys!. I can tell a few of y'all are improving!." The man said causing a few of the employees to just give them a thumbs up. The man just smiled a little as he saw this until he noticed one employee was missing.

"Hey has anyone seen Micheal? wasn't he fixing some guys tire a few minutes ago?. I wanted to talk to them for a second." The man said as he examined his surroundings.

"I'm pretty sure hes been in the break room after he fixed the guys tire." One of the employees said motioning to a door on the other side of the shop. This caused the man to walk too the other side of the shop and open a door as they walked into a small room.

The room sort of looked similar to a small locker room as their were multiple small lockers covering the walls for employees to put their things in before they went to work. Their was even a small table in the corner of the room that had a coffee machine sitting on it and a bench in the middle of the room for employees to sit on.

"HOLY DIVER YOU'VE BEEN DOWN TOO LONG IN THE MIDNIGHT SEA. OH WHAT'S BECOMING OF ME?."

And at the moment a man who seemed to be in their 20s could be seen sitting on the bench who had a pair of earbuds stuck in their ears which were blaring heavy metal at a volume loud enough to be heard by outsiders even though the headphones were in their ears. The man was slightly banging his head to the music to the beat of the music while scrolling through his phone completely oblivious to the man standing behind him.

The man relaxing on the bench seemed pretty normal as they wore a casual pair of black jeans and a blue T-shirt that had the mechanic shops logo plastered on the front of it. They were seemed to be in their 20s and had lightly tanned skin and a lanky but muscular figure that could be seen through their shirt. They had an average looking face and short scruffy black hair and dark brown eyes which were covered by a pair of glasses. And for some reason they had a cane sitting next to them.

The man named Micheal was to absorbed in their music they didn't notice the other man sneak up behind them and only noticed when the man took one of their earbuds out of their ears causing them to flinch a little due to surprise.

"Jesus christ man you gave me a heart attack!. You can't just sneak up on me like that!." Micheal said in a joking tone while clutching his heart due to surprise causing the other man to chuckle a little as they brought the earbud in their hand up to their ear just enough to hear the music coming from it properly. As they heard the music the man nodded their head approvingly.

"Killswitch engage huh?. I didn't know you were into the classics." The man said as they nodded approvingly while handing Micheal the earbud back.

"You know I'm only into the classic metal however bands like Sabaton are an exception. Anyways do you need something old man?." Micheal said causing the man to chuckle because he knew it was true.

The man was obviously much older then Micheal as they were in their 60s or 70s but were in surprisingly good shape for their age. They were around 5'11" in height and wore a similar outfit to Micheal and had short scruffy hair and beard covering his face. They had an average looking face that was covered in wrinkles like a grandpa and a surprisingly muscular figure. They weren't anything like a bodybuilder but looked more like someone who went to the gym everyday.

"Well I recently heard the news that your sister has just gotten back from her base and I just wanted to ask you too tell her I said thank you for the birthday gift she got me last month. I wasn't able to tell her in person or call her because she was on deployment. I also wanted to make sure you didn't accidentally stay here after work because you got to caught up in your music like you did last week." The man said.

"I'm sorry are you trying to throw shade at me with that last sentence?. Hehehe but anyways yeah I'll make sure too tell Sarah uncle Tommy wanted to say thanks. Now if you excuse me I'm pretty sure my shift ended exactly thirty seconds ago so if you excuse me I gotta go home." Micheal said as he grabbed the cane near him as he used it too lift himself on his feet. For a split second Micheal winced a little as he did this before he began walking out of the room.

"Hey Micheal if you don't mind me asking but does your knee and ankle still hurt even after a year?." The man named Tommy said while motioning to Micheal's right leg.

"Oh I don't mind answering these types of questions. I mean when I'm not doing anything my leg doesn't really hurt but if you put to much pressure on my leg and knee it can kinda hurt. Luckily its not enough to stop me from driving but it still sucks." Micheal said as he and Tommy began to walk out of the shop along with the other employees as they all prepared to go home. It was already getting dark so even Micheal was excited to go back home even though he liked his job.

"Anyways Micheal I have to lock up the shop for the night so see you later. You know one day we should go out for drinks one day." Tommy said as he began to close the garage doors of the shop.

"That'd be cool I'll let you know if I ever have the time to do something like that." Micheal said as he walked towards the parking lot and approached his car a large black pickup truck. As Micheal crawled into the driver set and closed the car door he let out a sigh of relief like he was exhausted from something.

"God that was enough social interaction for one day....How can someone be mentally tired even their not physically tired?." Micheal said to himself in a tired tone as he rubbed his face due to exhaustion.

"God I need something to get me through this car drive....Hey siri play my disturbed playlist." Micheal said after he pulled out his phone and spoke into it while maxing out the volume on his cars speakers. Micheal's car was actually in pretty good shape and had enough room for him too put multiple speakers in his car which his phone could connect too. He did this to listen to music better even though he already had earbuds for this purpose.

"Playing stricken by disturbed. But first would like to answer this survey about cat mem-"

"CANCEL ADS!."

"YOU WALK ON LIKE A WOMAN IN SUFFERING!. WON'T EVEN BOTHER TO TELL ME WHY!."

"God that's better. This music always is enough to help me relax." Micheal said loud heavy metal began blaring inside his car as he drove out of the parking lot. He had already soundproofed his car to prevent people from hearing his music from the outside of his car after one too many angry old people cussed him out while on the road because of his loud taste in music. In a weird way Micheal found those types of situations funny but to prevent annoying any decent people who won't cuss him out he decided to soundproof his car.

(A/N to any old people who actually like heavy metal who wont cuss people out on the road I don't mean to offend y'all keep on rocking to whatever you like. However now that I think about it what are the chances of an old person who happens to like heavy metal reading my story out of all the stories on webnovel?. Eh I'm still gonna keep this in here you could never be to careful.)

*Micheal POV*

Whats up everyone my name is Micheal Lane no relation to the Lois lane from the very popular comic book. And while I spend the next 30 minutes jamming out to my music while I drive home I might as well tell you about myself.

I am currently 25 years old and I guess appearance wise I look pretty average when it comes to my face except for my glasses. Another thing I ended up getting from the marines after some shrapnel got out into my eye. Luckily I still have both eyes and one of them didn't have to get replaced but its still pretty blurry without my glasses so I guess I was pretty lucky in that situation. But if your confused as to what I'm talking about let me just give you guys a quick summary about my life.

As a young man growing up in Texas in a family that has a military background he grew up hearing legendary stories about past soldiers and their exploits and about my own family members. My dad an old Marine veteran my grandpa an even older Vietnam vet and apparently my great grandpa was also an old marine who fought in WW2. One of the few lucky bastards who was around long enough to brush shoulders with the likes of Chesty puller and Daniel Daly. So he was pretty much a certified badass. Anyways for some reason it seemed like a majority of my family craved war even though we were never pressured to join because my twin sister Sarah who is a whole 5 minutes older then me (trust me she constantly rubs it in my face). Decided to join the airforce and that is also her subtle way of telling me she is the smart one out of the two of us. Because while growing up she brought home straight A's while I was always more of a B and C type of student.

Anyways it seems like even I wasn't immune from my family curse of wanting to join the military so after graduating from high school at the ripe young age of 18 I joined the military and wanting to follow in my dads footprints joined the marine corp and was surprisingly good at my job. Anyways after a 7 year long career as a sniper and front line soldier where i brushed shoulders with death an uncomfortable amount of times and a few tours later my career tragically came to a stop after an enemies ambush permanently injured my right knee and ankle making it impossible for me to walk without a cane.

However that did not stop me from joining my uncles business and became a mechanic. He showed me how to work with cars and stuff like that growing up so I know what I'm doing and now I just kinda live a pretty normal life as a marine turned veteran mechanic. Who likes to occasionally listen to heavy metal in my free time because why not?.

I mean when you get past the awesome guitars and drums metal music is some of the best in my opinion.

As I drove into the parking lot of my apartment complex I reluctantly turned off my music and got out of my car making sure to lock my cars door behind me as I began walking up the stairs of my rather large apartment building. This was one of those apartment buildings where they have like a million floors and I live on the eight floor and even though it'd probably be faster to just use the elevator the apartment has to go up I like the stairs. The walk is pretty relaxing if you ask me and I gotta get my exercise in somehow. Ever since my right leg got screwed over by a few stray bullets its been kinda hard to get some exercise in.

Besides I can't let myself get lazy just because my leg got messed up. If their is one thing I learned from my dad and the marines it is this one famous quote said by the holy man himself Chesty Puller.

And that quote is:

"Pain is just weakness leaving the body."

Chesty also has a few other inspirational quotes but this one is just my favorite because it sounds hardcore. Like something Gehngis Khan or some other badass would say right before a fight.

After about two minutes of going up multiple flights of stairs I finally reached my apartment door on the eight floor and stopped for a bit as I noticed a small but kinda big package sitting on the front of my door.

"Huh I don't remember ordering anything....Eh maybe I ordered some old powerwolf merch a while back and forgot." I muttered to myself as I reached into my pocket and pulled out my apartment key which I used to walk inside my house while bringing the package in with me.

"Finally I'm home lets go baby!." I said to myself dramatically as I walked into my pretty small apartment. My apartment was pretty standard it had three rooms which were my bedroom the bathroom and a guest room which I don't really use. And in the living room their is both my kitchen and living room which was pretty empty as my living room only had a single couch and a TV propped up in front of it.

I don't really mind the lack of well things in my living room since I live alone and I don't really need much to survive.

"Now lets see what you are random box...And please don't be a bomb sent to me through the mail." I said to myself jokingly as I sat down on my dining table which was more like a desk as I forcefully tore the box open like a kid during Christmas. I mean their wasn't really any need to use a knife when I got perfectly good hands to open things with.

"What the hell a box inside of a box?." I thought as I tore off the brown box covering the contents of the package which was another black box which had the picture of a weird looking headset plastered on the front of it. The headset was kinda weird looking it wasn't something you would use in the military but was more like a VR headset but was more sleek looking then the ones I've seen growing up. It was like a strange helmet like a football helmet that was made of a sleek black metal material and had a pitch black visor on the front of the helmet which would probably cover the eyes of anyone who put the helmet on.

Confused as hell I turned the box around and begun to read the back of the box which had some sort of company logo plastered on the back of it which had the words "Asgard industries" and "Heimdall" plastered in white letters.

"Top of the line gaming visuals?. Guaranteed quality gaming?. Run by the most advanced AI in the world and is given a 5 out of 5 rating from gamer's everywhere?. What type of weird helmet thing is this?. And who the hell sent this to me? Or did someone accidentally send me their package by mistake?." I felt confused as I read a few of the things on the back of the and was seriously contemplating whether or not I should toss this box into a cupboard and forget it ever existed when my phone rang.

"Huh why is Sarah calling me?." I thought to myself as I saw the number calling me was my sisters so I answered and brought the phone up to my ear while examining the strange box in front of me.

"Hey Sarah how you been?. If you don't mind me asking but why are you calling me?." I said into my phone as I heard a woman's voice reply.

"Oh I'm good Micheal I'm just taking a little break from some of my school work and I wanted to make sure my present actually got to you." I heard a woman's voice reply as my sister Sarah replied.

"Wait you were the one who sent me this weird box?. I honestly thought someones package got sent to me on accident."

"No I had it delivered to you a while ago. A couple days I got a really good deal on that headset and so I had to buy it but I already had one so I decided to be the awesome sister that I am and just send this awesome gift to you. Think of it like an early birthday present."

"Oh well uumm thank you for the gift but if I'm gonna be completely I kinda....Don't really know what this thing is." I said awkwardly as I just read off some of the things I saw on the back of this box. It was mostly just random instructions on how to set it up and people saying how good it was.

"WHAT?!. HOW DO YOU NOT KNOW WHAT A HEIMDALL HELMET IS WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN FOR THE LAST 7 YEARS?!. This is why I'm 5 minutes older!." I got caught off guard as Sarah suddenly shouted at me almost causing me to drop my phone as I tried to ignore that 5 minute old comment she snuck in their.

"Um well if I must remind you I spent the last 7 years of my life in the marines and I didn't really use the internet or anything like that back then. So I'm kinda behind on this...Heimdall helmet stuff. Also if you keep on bringing up how your five minutes older then me I will take one of your shoes." I said into the phone.

"Oh yeah I kinda forgot how you never really showed an interest into games and stuff like that." I heard Sarah say almost like she was trying to make fun of me.

"Hey Its not like I never played videogames before. I used to play some good ol doom and the occasional mario party whenever I wanted to beat you guys at some of those games." I said into the phone.

"Didn't you only play doom because you liked the background music and stopped playing when you got a disk of the theme song?. Does that really count as playing a game?." I heard Sarah say.

"I don't know what has to do with anything. Just tell me more about this Heimdall thingy because I honestly have no idea what to do with this." I said while trying to open the box. I wanted to get a better idea of what I was dealing with.

"Well if you must know the Heimdall helmet is the most advanced state of the art VR helmet in the world. Its compatible with any VR game in the world and the company that made these things Asgard industries made it so every Heimdall helmet already has a game called Valhalla installed when you buy it. Their also the ones who made the game Valhalla and it is without the most popular VRMMO in the world maybe even the most popular videogame of all time." Sarah said excitedly almost like shes been dying to tell me about this.

"Ok first of all what is a VRMMO?. Secondly why is this Valhalla game such a big deal? Isn't it just another VR game? Only a handful of those VR games actually do well last time I checked." I said as I continued trying to open the box in front of me but it was surprisingly hard. They must've really wanted to make sure no one could steal this thing or something.

"Ok first of all you uncultured swine a VRMMO is one of those fantasy games where you play as a character you made but instead of it being on controller or something like that you use a VR headset. Secondly the difference between normal VR headsets and games is how realistic the game is. I've played a couple normal VR games in the past and when I played those games it was obvious they were VR and not real but Valhalla is just so realistic its on a different level!. Everything about Valhalla made it feel like I was playing in another world it was unbelievable!. Also its the only game to ever constantly evolve." Sarah said almost like she was an excited kid telling their parent about their new toy.

"Evolve?. Don't all games sort of evolve when the owner of the games add new stuff to the game?. How does that make this Valhalla game any different from any other game?."

"Well that's the thing apparently Asgard industries made this super advanced AI that is in charge of controlling the world of Asgard. That way each NPC and creature no in fact the world constantly changes and evolves. Every action a player makes can change the world around them. Its not like your just playing a game but literally existing in a whole different world." Sarah said as she finished her little rant about this Valhalla game.

"Well that sounds cool and all but if you don't mind me asking what was the point of you randomly sending me this gift?. I've known you long enough to know that their is always some sort of hidden meaning behind your actions." I asked curiously.

"Well if you must know I may have heard a rumor that you aren't a social butterfly. You apparently don't have any friends other then uncle Tommy and all you do is just spend your days by yourself. And I decided that too prevent you from getting lonely you should get a hobby so why not videogames?." Sarah said casually as a dead look appeared on Micheal's face.

"....Look just because I don't have a lot of friends like you doesn't mean I'm lonely." I said almost like I was offended. WHICH I WASN'T because their is no truth behind Sarah's words!.

"Sure sure whatever you say. Look I have to go get some school work done now so I'm going to end the call but just try out the game for a bit and tell me how you like it. I mean what's the worst that could happen from you playing a videogame?." This was what Sarah said to me as she ended the call.

"Huh well that was a pretty weird conversation.....But you know after all that talk about this Valhalla game I'm kinda curious now....Maybe I could just take a little peek as to what the game is like after all like she said what's the worst that could happen?." I thought to myself as I stared at the box in front of me curiously.

And so I proceeded to spend the next two hours trying too set up this stupid headset like an eighty year old woman whose never used technology before. It was only after connecting the headset to my internet and electricity that I was able too get the headset working.

"Ok lets see here it says here that its recommended for users to lay on their bed while they play. Huh apparently it says you cant move while the headset is active almost like your unconscious which is pretty weird." I thought to myself as I laid on my bed while reading the instruction manual that came with the box. And in my other hand I had the same headset plastered on the box earlier.

"Welp here goes nothing!." I thought to myself sarcastically as I reluctantly put the headset over my head blocking my eyes with the helmets visor and laid their on my bed like I was going to fall asleep.

"I think that turn this thing on I need to hit this power butt-OH CHRIST!." As I pushed a small button on the side of headset my vision was suddenly blinded by a bright yellow light almost like an explosion as I slowly lost all feeling in my body like I was entering a trance like state.

Suddenly a flurry of words began too appear in front of my face.

[Downloading important data]

[Vision downloaded]

[Sense of Smell downloaded]

[Sense of Touch downloaded]

[Sense of Taste downloaded]

[Language Translator downloaded]

[Combat System downloaded]

[Class System downloaded]

[All important features downloaded]

[You currently only have one game installed]

[Would you like to launch Valhalla?]

[Yes] [No]

"Uh yes? How do I choose options with this thing?. Wait how am I talking I can't feel my mouth!."

[Yes]

[Launching Valhalla]

Once again my vision was blinded by a bright wave of energy and rainbow colored light for some reason blinding me before my vision turned black.

And this was how my first experience with Valhalla begun