A man with a clipboard held the door open. He peered into the badly lit room. Rows of plastic chairs lined up in this shabby waiting room. There were plenty of empty chairs with only a few people scattered throughout the room.

“Group eleven? Group eleven?”

He started calling out for the next group. I look down at the card in my hand. I tried to shined line on the card as I sat next to one of the only windows in the room. The card matched with the number that the man called out.

“Line up and then follow me.”

The man with the clipboard counted the people on line and then walked through the door. The people on line started whispering.

“I can’t wait.”

“It’s finally happening.”

I kept to myself but I also was excited. My hands started shaking and my legs trembled with every step. Others were jumpy with an uncontrollable smile.

There were various types of people on this line. From different ages and clothing. Some appeared to be as little as ten years old and others as late in their thirties. I was only wearing a plain t-shirt and jeans. Others were wearing jumpsuits or fancy clothing.

We entered a bright room. As my eyes adjusted to the light, I see rows of chairs with a familiar machine next to it. Everyone sat down in their assigned chairs labeled in their cards. I sat down on the twenty-fourth chair.

I put on the machine on my head as instructed by a young woman that sat beside me as my observer. I plugged in the necessary plugs and switches. It wasn’t too complicated as I have a similar model.

Once activated, I dived into virtual reality. A simple menu room appeared. I was prompted to log-in to my account and put in my name, “John Frost.” Then I input my password.

A voice can be heard, “John? It’s me.” It was my observer. She was to keep track of my time during this beta test to collect data.

“Okay, there should be a new program popping up right about… now.”

I looked around and notice a new menu button appearing. It read ‘Strife of Celestials.’ I immediately press on the button and the world warped around me.

Instantly a cabin appeared in front of me. I found myself in the middle of a forest. Birds were chirping and the sun shined through the leaves of the trees. I could smell the dirt and feel the plants brushing on my legs as I walked.

I was wearing the generic clothing for any VR program. Just a simple tank top and tight shorts. It was to avoid nudity in almost every VR program.

Inside the cabin was a bunch of tables with various clothing and weapons.

“Here, you can try out the equipment menu as well as the inventory. Try it out.”

I walked over to the clothing. It was a simple white shirt along with a leather vest. I knew I could just wave my hand and a menu would pop up in the air. I looked closely to search for the equipment menu.

“You could also just wear the clothing too. It’s a feature you couldn’t do in a traditional game.”

“Oh,” I whispered to myself. I then took the clothes and put it on.

I walked over to the table with weapons. There were various swords and shields. I couldn’t tell the difference so I took one that looked pretty generic. It appeared to be a medieval sword.

“It’s actually light,” I said while waving the sword around.

“We want to make combat easy to access,” The observer said.

“I see.”

I walked out of the cabin and deep into the forest. I was instructed to just explore and test the combat.

I found a slime after five minutes of walking. Held my sword up with both hands. The handle seemed small so I then switched to one hand. I kind of regret not picking up a shield. The slime noticed me and starts bouncing towards my direction.

I started swinging indiscriminately. I put as much force as I could and hoped I would land a hit. I didn’t realize that I had my eyes closed the entire time. The harmless slime eventually died.

A window popped up showing that I had gained experience.

[1 Experience Point Gained]

I ignore it and moved on to the next slime nearby.

This time I try to actually look at what I was trying to hit. The slime had a bar above it. There was a health bar along with a number inside it. The level was to the right of the health bar. It read 10/10 HP.

I tried to thrust my sword at the slime. Instead of the edge of the blade, I hit the slime with the tip of my sword. It took five damage with that hit.

I attempted to sway my sword with precision instead. I held the sword up above my head and brought it down on the slime. The sword went through the slime and deals another five damage. The slime vanishes slowly and I get a drop. It was a bracelet. Since I could just equip it manually, I had put it on.

I went on slaying more and more slimes. The combat itself was very simple. It wasn’t like your average MMORPG. It was very action oriented. I was having too much fun killing slimes to bother with my stats. It seems like they help but aren’t the end all to this game. Or at least that’s what I believe. I can see difficulty scaling with the AI of monsters rather than raw stats.

I was interrupted after killing my tenth slime.

“John? I’m sorry but we have to cut your beta test short.”

“Why?”

“Because there’s a bug in the system that can cause further harm to your playthrough.”

I was disappointed with this unexpected event. I logged off the VR set and walked out of the facility. The other beta testers that played alongside me were feeling down. We were told to leave early after all. It was also bittersweet to be the last ones to play the game before release.

Before leaving, I tried asking what was the problem. No one could give me an answer as it was confidential. I just brushed it off and moved on with my life.

That was just a few months ago when I went on to beta test for Strife of Celestials. Today was the day the game finally released. Many around the world were ready to play the game of the century. It was the first in the whole world to be a VRMMORPG.

“Finally!” I screamed at the top of my lungs. As soon as the package came in, I ran from my front door to the stairs.

“Stop running,” My mother said as I passed by her.

“Okay,” I said ignoring her.

As soon as I got to my room, I prepared my VR headset. The wiring was a bit of a mess but I didn’t mind it. I sat on my bed then started up the VR headset.

I appeared in my menu room. The whole room was filled with promotional images for Strife of Celestials or SoC for short. I had various VR programs like one that lets me tour around the world and very simple remade games. Most of them were retro games and nothing too good. Nothing was as ambitious as the game I was about to play.

I press the button to start the game. The whole world warped around me and a text appear above me. It was the title sequence.

[Welcome to Strife of Celestials]

I click on the start button and was immediately loaded into the world.

“Strange, I should’ve been sent to a room to create my character.”

I tried to take a good look at my character. It was hard to see as only torches lit the dark room. The stone bricked wall seemed cold. Banners hung around the place. It seems that I spawned in the starting area. Hundreds of players wandered around the dim damp room. The room was designed to hold all these players. It was wide and tall. There was a stair that led to a balcony that overlooked the whole area.

One by one, the players walked up the balcony. Once I reached it, I had a better view of the spawn area. There were hundreds in front of me, and hundreds still spawning behind me. At this rate, thousands will enter the game at the end of the first hour of the game.

It felt like I was in line at a theme park. Slowly we wandered outside of what seemed to be a castle. We met an NPC at the entrance that introduces us to the game. About fifty of us at a time could listen to the NPC while the others behind wait for their turn.

The NPC went on to tell us of our quest. Most of the players were too excited to bother to pay attention. I could tell who were the hardcore players as they paid attention to most.

The players of this game were meant to be knights in game. The NPC called us soldiers of the kingdom. This was a game designed with swordplay in mind. There was magic involved but it wasn’t the main focus. Our quest was to defend the kingdom from various threats. There was more to it but not much information was revealed.

I sighed in relief as I finished listening to the NPC and finally left the castle to go on my own. The first thing I did was run out into the wilderness and find monsters to fight.

As I was walking, I went through my menu and found a sword in my inventory.

[Starter Sword]

[Req: Level 1]

It had no description as it was just a plain starting sword. I assume everyone else had the same one. It was just a single-handed medieval-looking sword. Similar to the one I had during the beta test. The only difference was the hilt was designed differently. The guard curved a bit and the handle was wrapped in leather.

To no surprise, I eventually found a slime. I attacked it as my first instinct. I tried to swing a sword. Since I had previous experience in the game, I took my weightless sword and thrust it towards the slime. And like usual, it did five damage.

[5/10 HP]

Immediately after my thrust, I was close to the slime. I wanted to kill the slime in a combination of attacks. So I raised my sword, kicked my left foot forward and pushed myself with right foot behind me. This lead to push more force to my sword’s impact at a closer range. After that, the slime had disappeared.

“That was awesome!”

I spent the rest of the day slaying slimes as it was just too much fun.

After two hours of practicing how to use the sword, I took a break. I instinctively wiped my forehead. What was I doing? There are no physical restraints in this world. So I wouldn’t be sweating in the first place. I laughed to myself as hard as I could. I couldn’t stop until other players just stared at me from the distance.

I moved on to a more secluded area. I then wanted to see my progress.

[Exp: 99/100]

Huh, I’ve been fighting almost a hundred slimes. I just need one more then.

I find a nearby slime and do a thrust slash combination again. I wait a bit but no menu pops up to tell me that I leveled up.

[Exp: 99/100]

I opened the status menu again and it just says the same thing.

Once again I find a slime and do a thrust slash combination.

[Exp: 99/100]

“What?!” I screamed.

I can’t seem to level up!