Jay lay sprawled in bed staring at the ceiling, a blank look on his face.

“What am I going to do?”

Rolling over, the sound of the blankets shifting was followed by a loud *Thump!*. Jay’s tired figure slowly raised from the ground like a zombie getting to his feet.

He moved into the next room and plopped himself down on an old couch before reaching for the remote on the coffee table in front of him. The TV flashed on and flickered through the various channels before finally stopping on a news channel.

“We turn now to news from Listonia, where the Fortune 500 guild has conquered the tier 5 dungeon Abyssal’s lair!”

A perky female reporter with long black hair turned to her co-host and was talking about the VRMMO sensation Listonia online. Listonia online was a game that Jay had played on and off since its inception. The game itself had been dominating the VRMMO market for almost 10 years. There had been some competitors throughout the years, but most gamers felt they used a watered down version of the Dive technology developed by Origin Entertainment.

Origin entertainment Released 2 games with their VR Dive technology, Listonia Online and Irrasia Online. Both of them launched with a 90% immersion rate. Over the last decade, the immersion rates escalated to reach the current heights of 98%! When these games released, they had a profound effect on the Entire world!

The immersive nature and the freedom they allowed for players was unheard of on the scale in which these games presented it. Naturally, this excited gamers all around the world and the results were that these two games quickly outstripped all competition.

Jay stood up, walked over to his computer desk and started checking his various information channels. After a couple of hours of furious work, the noises suddenly stopped. Jay leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes while stretching his neck.

~sigh~

A dejected sigh left Jays lips

Why am I stuck here doing such tedious work?

Jay’s head craned to look back at the TV now depicting the scene of a guild leader talking about his glorious clear of the tier 5 dungeon.

I should be the one standing there right now...

Jay always regretted not taking Listonia online more seriously. He had been one of the Beta testers when Origin had initially launched the game. At the time he only played the game casually, there was even a time where he stopped playing altogether for almost a year! Around the second year after it’s launch, they started hosting the Realm Wars and the game took off with mainstream popularity.

Jay had started playing with his old account around that time, he even made a guild with some friends. They became a fairly reputable power in Listonia but their time in the limelight was short lived as they started building their power too late.

His strength was always good enough to participate in any major guild dungeons and could always be counted amongst the stronger ranks of veteran players. Because he had played the game on and off from its inception, he started to gain a pretty good insight into how the game worked. He started realizing that he had a talent for picking up on clues and information from the system.

However, it had already been a few years since the game’s launch and while he might be able to figure out which quests to take or dungeons to raid, he didn’t have the strength to take advantage of it. It was in this way that he started selling his services as a researcher and got himself into his current situation.

Jay turned his attention back to his computer and started to finish up the work he had started. When he was done he went to take a shower and get dressed, he needed to head to the game studio in the afternoon as he knew his higher ups were going to want to talk about the news of the tier 5 dungeon raid.

*****

Jay parked his car and made his way to the large glass building that was home to the Millenium Gaming studio. As he scanned his badge and opened the door to head in, he was stopped by a voice yelling from behind him.

“Hey!~ Hold the door please!”

Jay turned around to look and spotted a man in his early 20’s with shaggy brown hair. He had a handsome face and was on the shorter side, with vibrant green eyes and a sturdy looking body.

“Hey Ayer, you here for the meeting as well?”

“Yeah, I think they’re calling in everyone they can for this one. The boss seems pretty mad.”

The young man standing in front of Jay was one of the more promising new stars in the millenium gaming club.

Jay walked in while holding the door open for Ayer and spoke.

“Yea I figure Joe is gonna be pretty upset this time, especially because it’s Fortune 500 again.”

Jay and Ayer chatted a bit as they made their way up the stairs and into the conference room. Jay took his seat near the back and noted that all the major powerhouses in the studio were present.

The Millenium Gaming studio has been one of the premier gaming studios for the past couple years in Listonia online. They had been able to consistently place in the top 5 rankings over that span of time, which meant many of those present were the cream of the crop.

Everyone filled up the room and started talking amongst themselves,but the atmosphere was stifled when a certain individual walked into the room.

Joseph Markand- the current head of the millenium gaming studio.

He was a large and burly man that stood over 6 feet tall. He had short cropped hair and piercing brown eyes. He was often made fun of for the perpetual scowl that seemed to be on his face and even though he generally seemed to talk loud and have a prickly personality, it was rare to see him actually angry. This seemed to be one of those rare occasions, as the aura he projected currently made it seem like anyone that came within 5 feet of him would be cut to pieces.

Joseph brought himself to the front of the room and silence immediately enveloped them.

*****

An hour of tense conversation and scolding later and the crowd began to disperse out of the room. As Jay was moving to leave, he heard the voice of Joseph call out to him.

“Jay, stay behind. I need to talk to you.”

Jay stopped and looked at the still brooding Captain as a sigh escaped his lips. After everyone else had left the room, Joseph moved to his chair and slumped into it. He brought his hands to his temples and began massaging them.

Jay laughed as he said

“Heh… you know you shouldn’t be so hard on them, it’s not like they can control what happens elsewhere.”

“You might be correct, but you know as well as I do they’ve been getting lazy lately.”

Joseph stopped massaging his temples and looked up at Jay standing across from him as a smirk formed on his face. He waved his hand and said

“Forget it. how are things coming along on your end?”

“Coming along with what?”

Joseph's eyes narrowed

“You know damn well what! im talking about your research into a tier 5 class!”

"I haven't been investing in you to get back talk!"

Jay put his hands up and shrugged his shoulders

“Do you want my honest opinion or do you just want good news?”

Joseph thought for a minute before showing a curious expression

“Just give it to me straight.”

Jay nodded and continued

“it's possible.”

Joseph’s face flashed surprise

“What!? You actually found a path to create a tier 5!?”

Jay shook his head

“It’s not really feasible...”

the anger began to swell in joseph as he said

“If its true just tell me and ill be the one to decide if it's feasible!”

Jay put on a stern expression and spoke his thoughts.

“The Basis for the class was that solo player Ignus. He was able to create incredible self buff skills using a massive HP stat. While looking into potential evolution routes for his skills, I discovered that its possible he may have been able to change to a high tiered race early.”

There was a pause before he continued

“The problem is that the route for evolution is incredibly specific in it's requirements. Most of the quests are also quite hard to complete and they also would need to race change to a high tiered race before Tier 2.”

There was a pause as Joseph thought about the information, then he looked up and spoke

"The preparation to complete the quests would take a lot of time and resources but i dont think something like that could prevent us from completing it ...What's the catch?"

Jay smiled wryly and let out a sigh before giving his answer

"It requires the character to have an Evil Alignment."

There was a long silence as Joseph contemplated for a few minutes while digesting the information, an unwilling look was on his face as he spoke.

“Is there really no other way but to have an evil alignment? Considering we ourselves are part of that alliance, the second it was found out we had a high tier evil character in our ranks it would give those vultures plenty of reason to gang up on us...”

Jay shook his head while answering

“That’s what I've been spending most of my time on. while it might be possible to have a good aligned character, I figure there’s an over 90% probability that it redirects the character down the redemption route. The leader of the Haze guild took this route so we know it only leads to the tier 4 god’s army commander.”

Joseph shook his head

“Of course it wouldn’t be so easy. There’s a reason a tier 5 class hasn’t appeared in the history of the game. I should be satisfied you were even able to get this far.”

Both of them talked for a bit longer before Jay left and as Joseph watched the door close behind jay, a bitter smile crawled across his face.

*****

Jay stared at his computer screen before leaning back in his chair and staring at the ceiling.

What am I supposed to do now? I’m not satisfied!

Jay managed to hide it well in front of Joseph but he really was indignant! He had finally figured out a route to bring about a tier 5 class! However, he would never be able to see it come to fruition!

The power structure in the game is just too well defined! if it was even 5 years ago…

His thoughts trailed off as he began to reminisce about the past. His mind flashed through all the moments he failed to take advantage of, and the opportunities he let slip by, he had too many regrets!

If I had this knowledge back then I wonder what the outcome would be?

As this thought crossed his mind, the push he gave himself to lean back in his chair was a little too strong. He felt his momentum continue backwards and tried to stop himself, but without success.

Jay suddenly felt as if he was being pulled under a whirlpool. His breathing continued to get more ragged and his chest was tight and painful. He could feel his vision getting smaller and smaller as darkness invaded.

Am I going to die!?