William found himself in one of his many classes, this one in particular taught by a professor Doodles.

He proposed a question regarding our instincts when it came to telling real and virtual apart.

"What is reality? We can feel it, sense it, taste it, touch it and do many things within it. But what is it and how is it different virtual reality?"

William rolled his eyes, knowing that, out of the class currently containing close to a thousand students in this lecture alone, someone just went off the deep end to insanity. Because when one was in First, there was no difference. Your virtual experience was your reality until such a time that you left the experience. If someone started looking for differences, they wouldn't find any and could only go mad trying to find what didn't exist.

The question was a trap but still, there were decent responses in the crowd.

A hand went up.

"Professor, we do not 'play' reality"

"Yes, it's a good answer, life is not a game though there are still those that treat it as such. Anyone else?"

Another hand went up.

"We can die in first and continue living."

"Ah yes, the immortality factor of virtual reality. I think it goes hand in hand with the comments of the one before you as it is the single factor that makes it a game. But, you can't run that test in reality because to die here means to really die. How can they be compared?"

William raised an eyebrow. Had anyone here actually experienced dying in First? It wasn't the flashy flash of light and bang, you were alive again. You had to die and up to the point of death, like everything else in this game, it was at 100% realism. It was painful, gruesome and terrifying.

Still, in the end, you lived. It was worth mentioning.

"During the virtual experience it can be said within reasonable certainty that there is no way to tell it apart from reality besides the final option of death. So what is different?"

The professor pointed his finger at the crowd of students and swept it across the crowd of students and said one word. "You."

"Now I expect a minimum 10 page report to be handed in on what I've spoken about today, to your respective teaching assistants by the end of classes next week. And don't forget about the meet up in the Halo capital in 6 months, if you plan now you will have plenty of time to make it there. Those without first access can ignore this, there are spare capsules with generic settings available for use when the time comes. But if any of you miss that day, I may think of having you fail this class."

The halo capital was the capital of the second human nation of First. The first had a powerful ancient artifact anchored in its capital city and flourished under its area of influence. Outside that influence came the second nation and with its ring like formation around the first became known as halo. More nations existed beyond these two in the human regions but the two could still be considered as having more then 70% of the race's military, economic and political power.

Seems the professor had procured a large aircraft for the day under great effort and didn't want anyone to miss it.

William opened his back back along with the other students and put away his materials in order to leave. Unfortunately this lecture hall only had 6 exits the students could leave though and it would take a bit to clear everyone out.

Someone grabbed John's shoulders from behind, the hands were small and gentle.

"William!" It's was Amy.

"Hey Amy."

"Hehe, where are you in first? Getting closer to Avalon?"

"Yes, making good time but it will still be awhile."

"Well as long as your making progress. Here, there is someone I'd like you to meet."

By this time John had turned around to find another girl hiding behind Amy. Amy bent her waste to the side without warning and revealed her friends truly stage frightened figure.

"This is Jennifer."

Her figure was slim but sculpted and well proportioned while maintaining a flawless milky white skin. Her chestnut brown hair rolled off her shoulders effortlessly and proceeded down her back. Light blue eyes like ocean water crashing against a cliff starring ahead with a slight quiver, in parallel with her pink tender lips.

She was beautiful.

Amy reached behind her and pushed, almost tipping her over like a statue from her being so very stiff.

"Eek!" Jennifer let out a quite high pitch squeal as her body was forced to move without her consent and quickly reassert her former position. Movement was fluent like a small stream while her voice was like wind chimes on a calm summer day. Quiet to the point that no one could tell where it came from yet capable of reaching everywhere.

"She's a friend of mine that plays First, and also a new recruit of paroxysm."

"I see... Nice to meet you, I'm William."

William took out a hand but it wasn't received.

"I'm sorry, she's just really shy. See..."

Amy poked Jennifer's cheek, forcing her cheek up and her head to tilt. But even though she did that, Jennifer remained in her statue state in every other way.

"Amy, that's mean." John pointed out.

"It's fine, it's fine. Anyways, I just wanted to introduce you two. It would be nice if those playing first in our semester or even school could play together."

"Sure but I'm not sure what good my scouting would do."

"You can call out targets for me and let me take care of them. I'm pretty strong you know."

"That. Would be pointless. The targets I'd be able to see that you couldn't would be way outside your effective attack range."

"Ah. Well there is that. Don't worry, I'll figure something out." But the look Amy had on wasn't one of confidence.

"Take care William."

Jennifer finally moved as Amy left, burying her face in Amy's sleeve which effectively hid her face.

***

After class William hit the gym. It was quite popular to train with weapons as a work out after the release of First. Any number of them were used extensively but for William, it was the staff, one of the most popular weapons to learn. This was because staffs were the ideal weapon of choice for mages. In first, staves helped immensely in controlling magic spells while also working as a spare battery for their mana reserves. If mages lost their staves they were effectively sitting ducks, so they trained with it for the chance that it wouldn't happen to them.

This made for allot of large classes that William could slip in and out of without notice.

Today wasn't like any other, or at least it wasn't supposed to be.

He found a staff he liked, a short staff that was a little over half the size of regular staves.

John's weapon of choice wasn't actually a short staff but their weight, size and shape were similar.

Following others he got in line with others and thrusted. It was a simple move but an effective way of using limited strength to push back an opponent. Next was moving the staff in circles, it made it hard for an opponent to grab the staff but wasn't its strongest attack.

Like this the work out continued. Until some side characters decided Williams's small staff was wimpy and that they needed to provide some pointers.

"Hey what's with staff, it's too small." One of the men said as he attempted to grab Williams's staff.

It didn't work though. William moved the staff to the back of his hand and when he rotated his wrist to try again, William had it moving up his arm where it once more, could not be gripped.

This act of defiance infuriated the man as he brought his own staff to bear. It was clear he was not skilled and was probably here for the girls as many of them chose the path of mages.

The man jumped back, pulled back his staff and thrusted with all his might.

William met it with a light one handed thrust of his own, forcing the tips of the weapons to strike head on. The result being William's staff being pushed back.

But this was favourable as William used the force to start and accelerate a spin. His left arm grabbed the staff, pulling it out of the man's hands and forcing his spin to go even faster. Yet William didn't follow up with his staff that was now coming around, instead he pulled it close to his body to, accelerating his spin again. It was a fear that had his staff hit at such a speed, it could leave serious harm. He had the skill within him to not use lethal force and so he did as his palm, having let go of the man's staff, came around and struck the chest.

The man was blown off his feet and left in a daze at what had just happened. He was fine, just winded and with a sore ass having fallen on it. Though it wasn't over just yet as a friend of his decided to intervene. At least he wanted to but William didn't give him the chance.

William launched his staff like a javelin at the inside of his leg, grazing it. It was surely only but a graze yet still, it stung and numbed the area and forced the 2nd man to take a knee. The toss was even more fluent then his previous attack but that was because it was the way he usually used it.

In less then a few second, two were on the ground. A third thought better and didn't approach.

His workout spoiled and with no reason to stay, William left before instructors caught wind of this.

As he left, a man holding presence watched him from within the crowd. He was extremely curious about someone he didn't know that could move like that. There was no information of a First player using a short staff like that, it was shorter then a quarterstaff, and if there were, he would know about it. So this was someone who didn't play first? He had to get him to play, those quick moves, reaction time, and decisiveness would make him strong.

But he lost sight of William as a pouty woman grabbed his arm. "Hey, you said you would help me with staff training. Don't get distracted."

While distracted, two soft lumps pushed into his arm seductively without subtly.

"Alright, sorry about that. Let's continue."

With a forced "humph" she continued though in a way that kept her body connected to his. Haven gotten this far, she was not letting go.

The man sighed in his heart, 'why me?!?'

Little did he know that William was indeed a player of First. That he was John Ryder, an avatar that no one in this entire institution had met in the digital flesh.