The credits Zen received from his settlement was surprisingly good, and he had gained a few more credits than he thought he would. The reason he tried so hard to break away from the contract wasn’t entirely because what they did to him. He had two more years left in his contract and the only reason he even took it was because he wasn’t of legal age yet and his desperation for money to live on his own.

Zen came from a wealthy family so he understood Vincent Deluci to some degree, because his own siblings acted like him. The reason why he detested Vincent was more because it reminded him of his two older brothers. They too took life as a joke, and made a game out of ruining peoples lives, and his parents had a similar view of society holding everybody under them in contempt.

The only person Zen ever got along with was his grandfather, which made his life bearable. He just turned 15 when his grandfather died, and his relatives descended on his assets like carrion crows on a dead animal on the road. The memory of those weeks still left Zen with a pent up anger toward his family and relatives, and that was when he left the house to be on his own.

His family at first didn’t even notice him leaving, but soon they started making things rough on him. His parents froze his access to the money his grandfather left him. Even though they had no right to any of the funds in the trust themselves. They could and did block him from getting any till his 18th birthday. That birthday happened one month ago, and he now had access to his trust and there was nothing his family could do about it.

One of the things that let Zen keep sane was planning what he wanted to do after he turned 18, and also avoiding returning back to his hell in reality. Unfortunately, he was forced to do that by law once every 12 months, and he volunteered to do it right after he left the Arrise Guild. The two weeks in real life was spent talking to the trust officials, and hiring a lawyer to take care of things in real life. The process went relatively smooth, and when he returned back to virtual reality he found out he had been black balled from many of the guild corporations because of what happened.

It didn’t surprise Zen this happened, because this was typical of harassment tactics that occurred in virtual reality. They thought Zen came from a poor background, which was the appearance he wanted people to believe. He didn’t take the mapping job with Arrise Guild, because he didn’t like playing virtual reality games. He did it to help prepare for what he needed to do when he became of age. He knew his family would keep a close tab on him, and try to step in anytime they could to cause trouble. That is why he never showed interest in joining the combat or trade skills of the guild, and stuck to searching out what game he truly wanted to invest his time in.

Zen mapped a number of different virtual worlds over the last three years, and because of that he already knew which one he wanted to play. The game called General’s Call created a multi-faceted online game that went well beyond just hack and slash. General’s Call Online or GCO was a massive online game had over 20 million sustained players. The players could be broken down similar to many other fantasy based games. The difference with GCO was the interplay between the players and the NPCs, because in GCO NPC didn’t stand for Non Player Characters but Native Player Characters.

The improvement of game AI’s allowed each NPC on GCO to have a personality that responded to the actions of the players and other NPCs. This both made the game more challenging and exciting when playing. The largest portion of players took the role of soldiers and mercenaries that raised there skills and fought in the nonstop war between different continents. Most of the guilds focused here because of the active battles. The second largest population moving toward merchants and trade skills, while the least players, which were typically the most wealthy, used the noble options. These players became nobles and lords of villages, and cities and not only responsible for growing themselves, but also the maintaining and growing of there territories.

This gave GCO a civilization building option which few other online games had. Few people took this option and most of them came from wealthy families with a number of guilds already under there control. People like Vincent Deluci and his brothers were more likely to take these roles. Zen on the other hand gave off the impression that this wasn’t his type of game. Those that believed that didn’t know Zen very well, because he loved strategy and creating things. It was the option giving him the most anticipation, and the option that he decided to choose.

In virtual reality information was the true currency, and those that wanted to keep there valuables would guard against others. This was one of the focuses Zen had with his lawyer when he escaped his contract. In battle the initiative goes to the bold, and the victory is because of quick thinking. The moment he left Arrise Guild he knew he had to protect himself especially from those type of people, and went into full protection mode. This was the topic he most stressed with his lawyer in reality.

He updated his virtual capsule to the top rated one on the market, and through his lawyer he purchased a Platinum VIP 3 year subscription for 3 million credits. 3 million credits was a lot of money even in virtual reality, but the conversion rate was currently a little over 10 credits to 1 dollar. Real life currency was more valuable at the moment, but he had a little over 500,000 credits available to him and the rest was paid from his trust. His cost came up to a little under 300,000 dollars to complete everything.

Zen couldn’t help but still cringe at the cost, but his inheritance from his grandfather was much larger than that, and this amount was something his brothers spent on a monthly bases. The next step was investment in the GCO, and that was something taken care of by his lawyer. The investment was necessary to help and protect his information in GCO’s system. His name and account would be placed in a shell company so it would be harder for people to discover his real identity. Some would call his actions paranoid , but he knew his family and other wealthy children. Protections were needed so he could just live his life in the game without any drama.

General’s Call was a massive game and easy to get lost in, because there were just to many options. Zen went all out by becoming a platinum VIP member from the start. The game accounts came with three subscription options and five levels. The levels were grinder, basic, advanced, elite and VIP, and the subscriptions were silver, gold and platinum. Grinder and basic didn’t have a subscription level and had to be paid on a daily, weekly or monthly rate. The first 2 weeks was given free for the grinder and basic accounts and they were much less costly.

The advanced, elite and VIP could also save money by paying for three months, semiannual or annual time frames. The VIP could also pay for multi years in advance as well. The cost was huge, but in the long run it was much cheaper the more years he paid off in advance. The annual would typically be 1.5 million, but Zen shaved off half a million a year for paying a 3-year subscription upfront.

It was extravagant to say the least, but the reason he did it was because that was the only way he would receive his own personal AI to be his assistant in game play. This AI would be given by the Master AI in General’s Call and would help him with tasks. Platinum VIP Lord players were the only ones that received this gift, and that was because they paid the highest amounts. It totally went against the personality everybody knew, and that was another reason why he did it. He knew Vincent or his brothers wouldn’t give up, and sometimes being in plain sight gained him much more cover than trying to hide in the shadows.

All of these things were reasons he wanted to play GCO, but more importantly he just wanted to test himself. His family never missed the chance to put him down, and the guild always mocked him. Zen wanted to test himself and create something he could be proud of. He also wanted to get lost in this new world, so he could at least for a while, not dwell on the memories he tried hard to bury. Here he could start new and lead others with his own strength.

He already knew what type of person he wanted to be in GCO and had planned for this for quite a while. He couldn’t help but smile as he locked down his virtual apartment and actually took the transit to where the GCO main game hub was located. He could of linked it to his current residence, but decided not to. The moment he entered the GCO hub he was truly excited, because soon he wouldn’t be Zen Archibald the son of the fifth wealthiest family in the world. He would be Rozen Martell a minor Lord of the continent of Epsilon.