Beginner's Dungeon

Soon, the darkness cleared, and Kaden found himself floating in the air, the wind whipping about on his face.

He was currently in a plain white shirt and matching trousers, the starting uniform for all the players, leaving him vulnerable to the biting cold.

The 100% realistic feeling was not for nothing. The fresh air instantly filled his lungs and breathed new life into his tired body.

Even though this was not his first time entering the game, he couldn't help but enjoy this sensation.

After all, it's been a while since he had enjoyed small and simple things like this, that too the air inside the game was pure and pristine, unlike the polluted air of the outside world.

Kaden wondered if this had ever changed in the future. With mana everywhere on Earth, did the outside world's air also become pure like this?

Being a comatose ghost, he could only look outside the window, he had never personally experienced the new world. He had also missed out on so many things in his life.

He had never traveled anywhere interesting, never had a good feast in a nice restaurant, heck, he never even had a girlfriend and, in the end, became a virgin coma patient.

Kaden sighed as he thought back to the past or rather his future that was about to happen. There were really too many things that he wanted to do.

As his mind wandered to places that other people had no idea about, a slightly annoyed voice loudly cleared her throat.

"Greetings, earthling!"

Kaden broke out of his thoughts and finally looked at the beautiful woman in front of him who had already greeted him a few dozen times, only to be ignored by him.

"Right." He flatly replied, making her pretty face twitch.

This woman was none other than the A.I. interface of the game who appeared every time a user asked for help, not that she was of any real help.

The game was very stingy about sharing any extra information or helpful tips.

However, it was always a fun pastime to interact with the A.I. because the woman was very seductive and alluring to look at with a mage robe that clung close to her figure, showing off all the curves.

To make things more interesting, she was also very reactive, like a real-life person, and made numerous expressions that included blushing and flirting.

Some people in his last life even ended up wasting most of their time trying to get the attention of this woman.

Kaden was pretty sure at least this part of the history was definitely going to repeat. But he couldn't care less about this woman as he had a lot on his mind that he needed to accomplish.

He first pulled up his status screen.

[Ding!]

Player Name: Kaden Wright

Level: 0

Class: None

Race: Human

Attributes:

Strength: 10

Agility: 10

Intelligence: 10

Stamina: 10

Skills: None

Equipment: None

Inventory: None

Quests: None

"Hmmm..." Kaden frowned. "Of course, it is going to be the same pathetic status screen. Why would this time be any different?"

In 'Apocalypse Online,' when a player started, their stats were typically distributed based on their current condition. This meant that trained athletes and fit people had better stats than most in general.

Kaden had mostly neglected this part of his life and never gave much time to working out or building his body and such. So his stats were squarely in the average, neither too impressive nor too bad.

It sucked that several people received an advantage over him right in this very first stage, but there was nothing he could do about that. So he quickly closed the status screen.

As for the character creation, name selection, and appearance settings, everything was mirrored to reality, and no one had control over these things.

One's avatar in the game was a ditto copy of the person in the real world.

He had also heard this welcome speech and the introduction about the game several times, so he quickly interrupted the woman before she could start.

"Skip. Skip. Skip. Skip. Skip"

The A.I.'s face once again twitched. Nevertheless, she continued to keep a smile on her face and replied, "As you wish, earthling."

The next second, Kaden experienced a sudden pull on his body, and he started plummeting down to the ground at an insane speed, the world around him twisting and turning.

Once again, the feeling only lasted for a second before he found himself standing on solid ground inside what looked like a cave.

"Finally!" Kaden sucked in a breath of air and took a look around. He already knew that this was not the true beginning of the game.

In 'Apocalypse Online,' after entering the game, one was first exposed to a beginner's challenge, which was an instance dungeon.

This was essentially to get all the users accustomed to the realistic nature of the game and experience moving one's hands and legs and so on and so forth.

At least, this was what everyone thought at the beginning.

Many people ignored the beginner's challenge and coasted their way through it, impatient to experience the actual game and find out the secrets of the game.

However, some hardcore gaming experts even cleared this beginner dungeon seriously, and to everyone's surprise, these people received special rewards.

The only drawback was that these rewards were on a first-come, first-serve basis, and they were limited.

In his last life, Kaden couldn't even dream about getting something like this as the rewards were exhausted within the first couple of days, but now he didn't want to let this nice opportunity slip by.

It was time to conquer this game by starting with this instance dungeon right here!

Kaden took a step forward, and immediately a prompt screen flashed in front of him.

After the message, a familiar bright blue-colored portal also appeared in front of him. However, Kaden did not hastily enter the portal.

"Hmmm?" He stared at it for a moment, and then a wicked smile appeared on his face.

In his last life, he had picked the easy mode and still hadn't been able to clear it properly but now he was different.

He had more experience and he also knew what he was going to face beforehand. There was no way he was going to pick easy again.

This was his second chance. He did not want everything to turn out the same way all over again. He wanted to push himself to do better, to be better.

"Change the mode to Horror."