Inside the city was awe inspiring. The translucent hexagonal pathway that I used to reach this place had morphed into a theme matching that of the city walls but was separated from each other by having the inner city wall colors be lighter than the pathways. The city buildings were aligned in a manner which allowed for ease of mass movement in a single direction whilst the buildings themselves were stylish in design as they had a glossy exterior that softly reflected the light from the city pathways and not make it obtrusive to the eyes. Over head, there were flying vehicles of futuristic design moving at moderate pace with some preparing for vertical landing at designated areas. Some of the buildings had display screens advertising several item shops or just had the developer logo on it whilst others had holographic display areas showing simulated duels, store logos and the rest were simply being unused at the moment.

From this point, the players scattered in multiple directions muttering things about equipment and items for adventure. Some were even planning to venture back out of the city they spend time to get to. My plan was to simply stroll within the city and observe a few things whilst I had Novir help out with identification of certain places and items. The NPCs of this game are almost life-like in their interactions and if they were human, I'm afraid that I may not have been able to tell the difference so easily. Thankfully, they were not. The NPCs were a mixture of fantasy races such as dwarves, elves and beastkin which managed stores, simply walked around blabbering flavor text or gave out quests by hailing out to any one of us.

As I moved through the city, I got called by one of those quest NPCs who with long, pointed ears and was dressed in a robe, an elf, beckoned to me.

"Greetings sir, are you perhaps one of those that come from outside the main shard?"

"I am."

"Then if you can, would you be willing to go to the city's central auditorium? The city is going to hold a welcoming ceremony soon and those who are present should receive a gift."

"Sounds good. Where is the auditorium?"

First Request Accepted!

Go to the central auditorium.

[You can view details of current requests by selecting the status option of the menu.]

After receiving instructions from the elf, I moved towards the auditorium. On the way, I saw several other players who appeared to be going in the same direction as well with them discussing with their peers about how they received the same request from different NPCs. It is a nice way to increase immersion but I wondered why the faerie Novir didn't guide me there in the first place. When I asked, I got this reply.

"We were supposed to guide you to the city is all."

With that kind of answer I gave up. The developers probably wanted to allow players some form of exploration freedom which I quite liked but some of the other players thought it was slowing them down.

Inside the auditorium, players began to pool and seats began to fill up. I was in the central area engaged in conversation with some other players to pass the time whilst Novir sat on top of my head.

"Hey, I'm Nicky, You all here for the request reward too?" asked the Hispanic looking female player on my left. So far in this game world, although the ratio of male to female players was large, it wasn't like in other MMORPGs where it was something like 5 to 1 or 10 to 1.

"Yup, hope the reward is good. I'm Jason by the way"

"It should be for wasting our time like this!" said the Caucasian dude on my right. I agreed with him though, this was extremely boring to just sit here doing nothing whilst we wait.

"You two want to see something awesome?" he asked drawing the attention of Nicky and I. After which he made a 'Z' gesture with his finger and opened his palm to reveal a blue flame hovering within a semi-transparent white sphere shooting off electrical bolts and was shrinking rapidly. It was a surreal sight and ours plus some other surround players' expressions had the guy grinning like an idiot and he continued saying.

"I spent all day yesterday and the day before working on this in the shard before they game opened up. It's a really efficient magic that only I can use!" after saying that, the sphere completely dissipated.

"Unfortunately, the mana consumption is HUGE so I haven't had the chance to really try it out yet..."

"That's really amazing to achieve something like that though. I still can't do anything other than the match flame right now..." Nicky lamented.

"Hey, looks like it's starting!" said one of the players from behind me drawing all of our attention to the stage to see a player walk out?

In this game, players apparently had green nameplates which popped up when you focus on them whilst NPCs had blue and objects had grey. To see a player walk out on the stage was shocking but I guess I can expect the game developers to want to address the players on the first day of the game's public opening. The other factor which contributed to the shock was that this player's face was hidden behind an opera mask which had one side smiling with the color black and the other side frowning with the color white. The mask didn't hide any other features of the player which showed they were wearing clothes with a color scheme much like the mask with one half being white and the other, black.

The player, possibly game developer, walked to the center of the auditorium stage and then began speaking.

"Welcome players in the central auditorium and those outside who view this presentation on the city display screens. I am the chief developer, Wayne Frag, and I would like to welcome you all to your new permanent home."

Permanent home? Beside me, Nicky opened the menu only to have a confused expression whilst the Caucasian guy next to me was glaring at the developer, Wayne, as if his eyes could bore holes in the guy. I figured I'd just listen to the guy but eventually murmurs began escalating until some others began swearing out loud. The figure raised their hand and a flash was emitted followed afterwards with a loud metal screeching sound.

Seeing that everyone quieted after that scene, Wayne continued, "I am sure by now you would have noticed that the [Log Out] option has been disabled and a new option, [Home Shard], has been added as a substitute. Another thing that has changed is the addition of a new rule to the game. Should your die, your home shard shall be destroyed and your connection towards the game's main shard, Zera, will be severed and, those who have their connection severed for longer than 12 hours will be, deleted both in reality and in this world."

After saying this, one of the auditorium chairs, which were hovering in flew towards Wayne only to be stopped by a barrier. Several other players followed suit with various objects and magic only to have the same result whilst man ignored them and continued. Noises could be heard coming from outside the auditorium which meant that this was being broadcast even outside and being here only had the benefit of the reward most likely.

"Do not concern yourselves with what occurs in the outside world, we have prepared for this beforehand. If you still wish to [Log Out], you may do so after the [Fragmentor] has fallen." said Wayne with a wave of his hand and the next thing I knew, I was inside my shard once more with the faerie Novir.

Request Complete!

Go to the central auditorium

Reward: Random Skill [Mana Vision] has been learnt!