Welcome to Endless

Obtaining Biometric ID.

User: Luke Trebe

No Profile Found. Proceeding to character creation.

Luke stretched and looked around, he was standing on an endless white plane. His arms felt heavy and his eyes were a bit tired.

"I guess this is that immersive virtual reality experience they promised. Interesting..."

Please enter your preferred name. If it is not available, you will be asked to enter a different name.

A floating holographic keyboard appeared in front of Luke. He grinned and reached out to it.

"Let's see... my first pick of course is..."

The name "Prince" is already taken.

Luke sighed but he figured this would happen. It's alright though, he had a good list of name he'd like.

The name "Czar" is already taken.

The name "Alucard" is already taken.

The name "Grid" is already taken.

The name "Leon" is already taken.

The name "Ryu" is already taken.

The name "Weed" is already taken.

The name "DrDisrespect" is already taken.

He didn't really want the last one, but chuckled at the possibility of getting it. His list was getting shorter, but he still had a few good ones left.

The name "Turk" is already taken.

The name "Genie" is already taken.

The name "Djin" is available.

Would you like your name to be "Djin"?

What luck! He didn't think Djin would be available if Genie was gone, but he accepted it immediately!

Confirmed, Djin has been linked to this profile.

Please note that you can not change or create a new character without contacting customer support. A valid reason is necessary to facilitate these changes.

Luke nodded, this was supposed to be an ultimate MMORPG with no limits. It wouldn't be very amazing if people could just reroll into something later once they learned more about the game.

Luke... now Djin... watched as three doors raised up out of the ground in front of him.

Tutorials are available. New players are recommended to use these tutorials to get a better understanding of the game.

1. Physical Tutorial

2. Magic Tutorial

3. Social Tutorial

When you are finished with the tutorials, please logout to continue. When you login again, you will begin the game.

A class will be recommended to you based on your performance. This class is only for guidance and does not need to be taken.

"Physical, magical, and social tutorials huh? Well it shouldn't be too hard to do, may as well learn about the game some."

Djin went towards door 1, the Physical tutorial, and entered.

Two hours later, a tired and sweaty Djin crawled back through the door. The cuts and bruises fading from his skin and his clothes mending back to how they were.

"I SERIOUSLY DISAGREE THAT THAT WAS A TUTORIAL."

Wolves, bandits, and a time limit. No one would be able to beat that kind of crazy challenge. He had been given a package to deliver to a nearby town within two hours.

"They said I could walk there in an hour, how the hell was I supposed to do that when I got attacked a few minutes out the gate?!?"

Once the town was out of sight, a few bandits had set upon Djin, demanding he give up the package or they'd hurt him. He refused, of course, feeling confident since he was armed with a dagger. But he wasn't really prepared.

"The combat! It's street fighting, it's dirty and rough!"

Indeed it was, there were no turns, no skills(well not yet), and while waiting for some kind of prompt he got kicked in the stomach. He fell down as he lost his wind, but the bandits weren't going to wait until he got up. They jumped on him and started pummeling his head. It... well it didn't hurt, but it wasn't comfortable being pinned like that.

However the beating stopped shortly after when another wagon started coming down the road. The bandits grabbed for the package but Djin held onto it tightly. They quickly gave up and made for the woods to hide. The wagon came closer and Djin heard a voice call out:

"Get out of the road you idiot!"

Djin scrambled to roll to the side, narrowly avoiding being run over by the cart. Having avoided that, he quickly got up and ran to keep up with the wagon. He wasn't able to catch it, but he did manage to keep it in sight long enough that the bandits behind him gave up chasing him.

That was the only lucky break he had though. Another 15 minutes of walking and he found himself set upon by wolves, he glanced at his shirt, bloodied from the earlier attack. Then he groaned and started sprinting down the road.

"Why... Pant the hell Pant did they Pant make this Pant so hard?!?"

He ran as fast he could to outrace the wolves, but they were going to catch him. He looked around and immediately started to climb a nearby tree. A wolf nearly nipped his ankle but he got high enough off the ground that all they could do is circle the base of the tree.

"Fuck, how am I supposed to get there now?"

Well, he didn't come down. When the time limit was up, he found a door of light open near him and he scrambled through it.

Physical tutorial finished.

Please proceed to the next tutorial.

1. Physical Tutorial

2. Magic Tutorial

3. Social Tutorial

"Great, I bet the Magic tutorial involves blowing myself up!"

Djin sighed and sat down, he sat there for about ten minutes before finally getting up.

"Alright, if it's going to be like this, then let's do the social challenge. Anyone can talk right?"

He went through door number three.

Immediately after going through the door, Djin found himself in a shop stall.

"Ah there you are, I've been waiting for you."

A merchant greeted Djin. The merchant had a round belly and a short grey beard, neatly trimmed, as well as gold rings on his fingers and a wide grin.

"You are going to sell at my stall today, try to sell everything here before the sunset."

Djin nodded at the man, unsure of what else to do. The merchant, satisfied, walked away.

"Okay... selling stuff, I guess that's a social tutorial."

Djin gazed over all the goods the stall held. Mostly potions, weapons, and a few shields.

"Must be a stall that caters towards adventurers... but what do the potions do? They aren't labeled, maybe they are for healing?"

Djin gazed over the marketplace and saw other vendors setting up some displays to attract attention. Djin set to work himself, hoping to quickly sell out his wares and end this tutorial.

"Doesn't seem like this is very necessary to learning the game, I'd be on the otherside of this stall anyway wouldn't I? Maybe this is to help players get an insight into purchasing items from NPCs..."

Soon the marketplace became crowded, the food stalls were selling at a decent pace but slowed down just at lunchtime, with the exception of one or two people running for more food because they ran out. However Djin just sat and waited, calling out to anyone who looked like an adventurer, or might have been on an adventure, or might ever one day go on an adventure.

"This is ridiculous, how am I supposed to sell these kinds of items to common villagers? He wants me to sell everything in the stall, but no one can afford these things!"

Djin settled onto the stool behind the counter and thought, what was he supposed to do? He had to empty this stall.

Wait...

He had it.

The merchant returned to an empty stall and a grinning Djin.

"Ah, you must have worked hard today. You sold everything?"

"Yep, here is the money."

The merchant frowned at the small purse Djin was passing to him.

"This cannot be all of it, there was at least 20 gold worth of goods at this stall!"

The merchant dumped the coins onto the table, they bare totaled 2 gold and 50 silver coins.

"Where is the rest of the money? Don't think you can hide it from me, you wretched thief!"

Djin just shrugged and shook his head.

"I didn't steal anything, you can ask the guard over there, he was watching the stall all day. I simply sold everything in the stall... at a discount."

"Discount? I never said you could give a discount!"

The merchant fumed but Djin was already tired of this. He made his way back to the door to take him out of the tutorial.

"Ah, you said I had to sell everything, you never gave me any other instructions. Everything is sold, the losses are not my problem."

Djin closed the door behind him, leaving a pitiful merchant behind.

Social tutorial finished.

Please proceed to the next tutorial.

1. Physical Tutorial

2. Magic Tutorial

3. Social Tutorial

"I technically succeeded there right? Oh well, I wasn't looking for a trader or merchant class."

Djin looked at the clock, he'd been playing only 8 hours, but that meant only 2 hour passed in the real world.

"The time dilation is going to be amazing, even if I wasn't into the game I'd want to play it just to get more free time. One tutorial left, and I still have 40 hours I can play before I need to logout."

Djin grinned, having 4x as much time for playing is every gamers wet dream, the pods made this possible. They removed the limit of time and made it speed up inside the pod. It was almost imperceptible really, but you would crave sugar and starches when you stopped playing. Which is why Luke had a box of Krispy Kreme donuts waiting for him when got out.

"Well, let's learn about Magic shall we?"

Djin entered door 2.

Hundreds of books on shelves, scattered papers and bound scrolls lying on desks, even some curious knick knacks strewn about. There wasn't someone waiting for Djin this time, there was however a book floating in front of him. Curious, he grabbed it and read the cover.

"The Basics of Magic"

Djin skimmed the books pages and sighed.

"Almost 200 pages and small print too. Why is it so complicated? Who would bother with this?"

Djin threw the book away in frustration, but it floated right back to him. Djin ignored it and started looking at the desk of papers. He found sets of scrolls, sealed with twine and colorful wax. He picked up one with red wax and looked at it's pattern, the wax was embossed with a flame symbol.

"So is it a spell scroll? How do I use it?"

He tried peeling at the red wax, but it wouldn't flake. However he did notice a small knife on the table, he grabbed it to cut the twine on the scroll.

"Please don't blow up, please don't blow up."

Djin cut the string and the scroll burst into flames, reshaping into a ball just above his palm.

"AHH FIRE! GET IT OFF!"

Djin flicked his wrist, trying to get rid of the fireball, but it stayed where it was... relative to his palm that is. After a few seconds of panic, he calmed down.

"It's not burning me. It's... wow..."

He stared at the ball of fire in his hand. For five minutes he stared, a burning ball of fire... such a simple concept really... just a fireball. Djin stared at it though, how the fire swirled and licked at itself. He looked at the center of it, a super concentrated sphere of... plasma? mana? in the middle was feeding the fire, and it was shrinking.

"It must only have so much mana, makes sense since it's a scroll. I wonder..."

Djin looked around and found an alcove with a straw dummy in it. Grinning somewhat maniacally, he took the ball of fire and pitched it at the dummy.

FWOOM

"Huh, less explodey and more enveloping. Good to know."

Djin picked up a second fireball scroll, repeating the process, a fresh orb of flames sprouting in his palm. He took aim and tossed it at a new dummy that appeared where the old one had been.

BOOM

And got a pretty big shock.

"WOW, Okay so the first one didn't explode because it was weaker. So less mana in the fireball let it cause a fire but not erupt. Good to know."

Djin moved onto the next scroll, it had a yellow wax seal with a lightning bolt embossed into it. He picked it up and cut the twine binding it. The scroll unraveled into strips that sparked into lightning, then traveled into his hands.

"Whoa, that feels crazy, like thousands of static shocks."

Djin played with the lightning, letting it arc between his finger tips. Feeling the power trying to find a balance between his left hand and right, between each finger. Seeing how far he could get the arcs to stretch before they broke. The distance got smaller over time, which Djin attributed to the mana in the scroll fading.

"Power is fleeting or something I guess... still, we can try this before it's gone."

Djin squared up on the training dummy, holding his hands together before thrusting them out at the dummy.

"LIGHTNING BOLT!"

...

Nothing happened, Djin got closer and tried again.

"LIGHTNING BOLT"

Frustrated, he took a step and tried again. Repeating this more than a few times.

"LIGHTNING BOLT, LIGHTNING BOLT, LIGHTNING BOLT, LIGHTNING BOLT."

Soon he was standing only a few feet from the dummy. The power in his hands a fragment of what it once was. He sighed and reached towards the dummy.

"Lightning bo-"

BOOM

The electricity shot from his hand and into the dummy, making it explode. Djin could only stare slackjawed at what was now just a post sticking out of the ground, straw falling around him.

"That... that was... but I hadn't even had it at full power, it was almost three minutes before it..."

Djin blankly stared as a new training dummy poofed into place where the old one had been, he could smell a faint trace of ozone in the air. He slowly walked back to the desk where the scrolls were and eyed the ones with the yellow wax seals.

"No way will I try that at full strength, not unless I can figure out how to make it travel the distance first."

The other set of scrolls on the table... blue wax with a snowflake embossed in it.

"Ice magic, I wonder how it works."

He picked up a blue scroll, cut the twine and felt the scroll pull into his hands. His hands felt cold and numb.

"Well, t-this s-sucks."

His whole body felt colder, but his hands started forming a layer of frost on them.

"Is this a touch spell? Do I need to place my hand on the dummy to use it?"

He turned towards the dummy and took a step, but fell. His hands hit the ground and the ice transferred from him to the ground, creating a slick patch of ice. Which... he proceeded to slip on again until he was flat on his front.

"Ice magic... SIGH."

Djin got up, the ice patch fading already in the warm room. Djin grabbed a second blue scroll and walked over the dummy with it. Cutting the twine, letting the magic flow into his hands again, he immediately touched the dummy. This time the magic traveled from his arm into a chunk of ice that was quickly growing over the dummy. The ice encapsulated a third of the dummy before Djin felt the magic was gone.

"So... it can form a large block of ice or a patch of ice... the idea is it freezes."

Having looked at the set of scrolls, Djin started perusing the other objects in the library. One thing caught his eye immediately.

"Is that a wand!?"

Djin grabbed it without a moment's thought, the wand was light and practically a stick as far as his eyes could tell. Holding it however told him it truly was a wand.

"I can feel... I can feel power moving from all of my body and towards the wand."

Truly, the wand enabled him to concentrate the magic in his body, soon the tip of the wand began to glow and leave a trace in the air. Djin concentrated and found that the trace would last longer if he willed it. He laughed and drew in the air with it.

"It's like painting in 3D, is it solid?"

He put his other hand up to touch the marks in the air and felt nothing. The mana was like smoke frozen in place.

But it did give Djin an idea, he grabbed the yellow scroll again. First he drew a line from the dummy to a spot 15 feet away, he set down the wand and used the yellow scroll. The electricity coursed into his hands and he felt the tingling of static shocks again. He reached towards the trace of mana in the air with his fingers. As he touched it the power coursed from his hands and into the mana, traveling all the way to it's end as it struck the dummy with awesome power.

BOOOOM

The dummy was gone, the post it had been on was smoldering, there wasn't even straw floating down, it was vaporized.

"So... mana can be used as a medium for elemental magic. I suppose I would've learned that by reading, but this is more fun."

Djin picked up the wand, ready to try again, but paused. It wouldn't make sense to draw a line in battle, how else could he do it? He reeled the wand back and cast it like a fishing rod... a ball of mana emerged from the end of it and traveled out, leaving a trace in the air behind it until it reached the spot Djin imagined it landing.

Satisfied, Djin drew out another yellow scroll and repeated the process. The lightning left his hand, traveled along the arc but when it reached the end, it pooled into the mote of mana he had created. The mote became a ball of lightning that arced out wildly at the dummy near it. It wasn't explosive, it was more... hazardous per say.

"Amazing... the mote of mana completely changed how scroll worked. This means... the fire and ice magic too. Interesting..."

Djin was lost in thoughts, how else could he use the wand, the magic, how could it interact?

He spent the next few hours working on different combinations. Ice magic could become frostbolts if he held a mana mote in his hand, fire magic could burn along the trails he left in the air, however his biggest surprise came after he was done experimenting.

Curiosity had gotten the better of him and he decided to read the floating book that was there when he first started.

"IT COULD'VE TOLD ME ALL OF THAT?"

Djin's hours of experimentation were summed up in the first 12 pages of the book, from how to manipulate and create elemental magic, to using mana to shape it. He was actually able to create his own fireball after reading the method in the book, creating a magical flame and applying it to a thick mote of mana he created. The ball of fire looked weaker than the one the scroll made, but HE made it.

Amazing...

Djin had been in the magic tutorial for nearly 40 hours, his alarm letting him know he was nearing his desired logout time.

"But the message said if I logout I would login where the game started. There's still so much to read and learn, so much about magic that I don't know... ummm Game? Endless? Is it possible to login to the tutorial again? I'm not done yet."

After logging out, the character is automatically transitioned to a starting area. The tutorial is unavailable to anyone but new players to the game.

"Shit... time for desperate measures then. Endless? Game? Gah what do I call you?"

This AI can be addressed as All-In.

"All-In? The intials are still AI... what lazy ass... nevermind. Can I talk to someone outside my pod?"

Players can utilize their menu at anytime by closing their eyes and focusing on accessing the menu.

"What? I didn't know... oh... right."

He had read about that when purchasing the game. Djin sighed and closed his eyes, the menu appeared before him.

"Let's see... Status... System... Effects... Filters... Communication. there we go."

Djin selected the call option and rang his friend Alex.

"Hello, Luke? Where have you been? I've been waiting for you to login! I already set it up so you'd start in the same town as me."

"Really? How did you manage that?"

Djin checked the menu for that option.

"It's disguised when you start playing, if both players have less than 100 hours played, you can ask an npc to summon your friend to your spot. I have your ID but it says you haven't played even a minute yet. What have you been doing?"

"I'm still in the tutorial..."

"What!? Why? What can it teach you that you won't learn in the game?"

"Alex... did you not try the tutorial?"

"No, I skipped it. What's the big deal?"

"The physical and social tutorials don't really matter much, but the magic tutorial... Alex it's everything, every question I could have about magic, it has the answers. When I think I've run out of questions, a new book will give me a hundred new ones."

Luke waited but his friend didn't answer immediately... until...

"Is it possible to redo the tutorial? A lot of players have no idea what to do with magic, they all skipped it or didn't take much interest in it. A lof of them thought it would be easy to pick-up in game, but not many of us have figured it out. The ones that have are acting all haughty and arrogant about it."

"No, I even asked All-In, uhh the AI, and it told me it's not possible once you logout, which... brings me to why I called you. I need you to help me stay logged in so I can study longer."

"What? How long have you been logged in?"

"About 12 hours now, 48 in game, I've spent 42 of that in the magic tutorial."

"42 hours in a library?!?! That's insane!"

Luke nodded, it would be insane if this was an ordinary library, but this was a game and he didn't even feel tired.

"Look Alex, I know it's a lot to ask, but help me."

"Okay, what do you need me to do?"

Luke laid out his plan to Alex, he wanted to get another 200 hours in this library before being logged out, and it wasn't going to be easy.

"An IV? Are you crazy? Why is it so important?"

"I know Alex, but we're both pre-med students, we can do that much. If I can wring every bit of knowledge out of this library, we'll both benefit from it."

"Okay... I'll take care of your body, but the moment the pod gives me bad vitals for you, I'll eject you myself."

"That's fair. Let's both get to work.

Djin ended the call and went back to studying. About 4 hours later, he felt a prick in his arm... Alex must've put the IV in. Luke hadn't asked because he needed fluids, Alex was going to help him stay awake with a steady drip of caffiene.

With the plan set, Djin set to work learning everything he could about magic. He would make this count.

Alex sat outside his friends pod, he was frustrated... frustrated that Luke was getting to learn so much that he had spurred.

But there was a bright side to this, Alex now understood why those other players were acting so superior, they took the time to learn the magic, but they had a few hours whereas Luke would have days... more than a full week to learn.

He turned on the TV and began his vigil over his friend, he was sure he could keep him going for the next 48 hours at least. To give him the time he needed.