《Rank Zero: Cyberlinks Book 1 (LitRPG)》Chapter 4: Realism
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Emmett opened eyes and found himself surrounded by pink walls, submerged in a viscous fluid. A mask kept the liquid out of his eyes. Attached to it, a tube led up to the tank’s ceiling. Before panic set in, the liquid drained. He sank to a kneeling position and panted.
Why did the game developers insist on a stupidly realistic entry sequence? Why couldn't he just magically appear in the world like some of the other mainstream games? He looked up at the small metal door in front of him. Mila peered through the viewport. She stepped back as the door opened and a medical tech hosed him down.
The freezing cold water jolted Emmett to his feet. "I hate this fucking part," said Emmett. He’d gone through this ordeal too many times this month. Reminders of his failure stung more than the hose.
With the shower done, Emmett stepped out of the pod and accepted the robe Mila held out.
"I didn't think you’d meet me here," Emmett mopped up his face with the sleeve of the robe, “at the pod.”
Mila gave a professional smile, but the strain in her eyes suggested genuine concern. "We don't often do these types of things. Your satisfaction is pretty important to us."
"I'm not exactly satisfied with this body," said Emmett. His new throat burned, making him envy the players with the APRS turned on. "Are you aware of my prior profession?"
Mila narrowed her eyes. "I am. We didn't think you'd be particularly pleased with it, but this is what we had on hand." She waved her arms in front of her. "We can't get you through the initial character creation process without a new account. You can just alter the body later when you have the money."
Emmett sighed through his teeth. "Fair enough. I might not even go down that path again."
"Why take the path that led you here?" Mila glanced around the room. The other tech left, leaving them in a dull white room with a few pieces of monitoring equipment. Emmett took a moment to take her in. She had the same bob cut as before, but her age lines stood out even further. Maybe it was that look of concern drawing them out.
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"Who knows? By the time you can afford genetic alterations, you might like this body."
An antiseptic smell burned Emmett’s sinuses as his shock wore off. He let out guttural hacking sound.
Mila winced. "I take it your brand-new sinuses are pretty sensitive?"
"That's an understatement," gasped Emmett as he walked towards the door. The new body sequence was designed around the APRS. Players felt none of the horrible sensations when coming out of the tank. Not even the smells! They just watched a movie through the eyes of an actor doing all the suffering for them. Emmett stumbled over to a sink and hacked a moment before talking again.
"What else do you have for me? I take it I get more than the usual newb handouts."
Mila caught up with him and opened the door. "Most of your assets were seized in the transaction, but we kept a few of your items in a lockup across town."
"Where are we?" Emmett stumbled down the empty hall. His new muscles needed to break in or something. "And what things do I have left?"
Mila let him put an arm around her for support. "A few of your most used items. A couple of weapons. Some armor kits. And one of your combat cars. Oh, and we’re on the west side of Breaker District."
Emmett felt some of his muscles ease. Starting players needed years to afford a combat car, months at the minimum.
"Any linkware?" asked Emmett.
Mila shook her head again. "I'm sorry, but we can't preserve any of that with a reset."
Without any Certification Points he couldn't use his old linkware anyway, but those assets led to his biggest success. He fired up his link interface. A bare-bones display overlaid itself across his vision. As fresh meat, he only had access to basic scans and damage reports. He tilted his head to get a look at Mila. She lacked a link signal, identifying her as either a player that cut her signal, or an interesting NPC.
With the massive NPC population in Cyberlinks, only some of them had developed personalities and capable intelligence. But a few here and there got a nice processing boost, making them harder to distinguish from real people. They always had a few tics though. The biggest giveaway was their repulsion to those with a link. They referred to players as link riders.
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The two staggered over to a locker room. Mila read off a number as Emmett made his way around the bend, his hand along the wall. He set himself down on a wooden bench. The moment of privacy took the edge off.
Without the APRS, Emmett needed the break to remind himself this was a game. He literally switched off the shield that obfuscated the unpleasantries of reality. Basically, he played in military training software. With stat points.
Mind clear, he opened his locker and took out a set of clothes and a padded backpack. He donned the oversized T-shirt and cargo pants before scrounging through the pack. Inside he found a Glock 34 holstered to a thick belt. Next to that a plastic box held smartplugs for his ears. He clipped the weapon to his belt and stepped out of the locker room, feeling lighter as his muscles activated. Mila waited for him.
"You look a little bit better," said Mila. She stood with her hands behind her back and looked Emmett up and down.
Emmett allowed himself a smile. "You guys couldn't spare me a soft armored vest?"
Mila pouted. "We left you with more than enough money for basic equipment."
She led the way to the building’s front lobby where Emmett finally saw sunlight. Stepping through a set of double doors, Emmett felt the rest of the tension in his body give way as he looked up to the high ceiling. Sunlight sparkled off a crystal chandelier, leaving streaks across Emmett's new vision. Beige walls replaced the sterile whites of the medical rooms.
"So, how much did you guys leave me?" asked Emmett.
Mila walked past a receptionist, ushering Emmett to a private office in the corner of the lobby. She closed the door behind them before answering. "A little over $10,000 cash. That's what a highly skilled new player could amass in a few weeks." She looked up for a second. "Your remaining assets are worth around 100,000. It you wanted, we could seize the rest and give you the cash value."
Emmett sniffed as he waved her off. "No thanks. That’s fucking robbery." He knew the combat car alone would fetch three quarters of a million on the open market, but he couldn’t move anything big as a Rank Zero without raising suspicion.
"The banks came up with that number, not us." She took a seat behind the desk. "You’ll want to find a storage solution soon, then. We can only hold the assets in our lockup for about a month. You won't be able to afford it after that."
Emmett nodded. He figured as much. Even after a month, he won't be able to use any of those items. High-end gear required rank.
"Anything left to do here?" asked Emmett.
Mila pulled out a signature pad. "I just need you to sign these release documents, then we seal off everything here and pretend this never happened."
Emmett grabbed the stylus. "Is there a way anyone can discover me?” He stared down at Mila. “I pissed off some powerful people."
"Unless the admins open up an investigation on you, this will stay between us." She sent Emmett back the same stare. "We have far more on the line if discovered than you do. Nobody can push a button and start fresh. If you expose this reset yourself, we will come after you."
Smiling, Emmett signed the pad. "Of course you will."
They shook hands and then Emmett made for the door.
Pausing, Emmett asked, "I gotta know, are you linked?"
Mila leaned back in her chair. "I'll let you try and figure that out."
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8 1916A Blacksmith's Tale. A LitRPG Story
The world is getting overpopulated and the countries are reaching for the stars. We have achieved the technology to allow us to travel to our neighboring planets and begin a terraforming project. There has been a problem though. This issue has forced the government to look into a direction that it has never needed to before - Virtual Reality Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. The government's involvement in the leading game in the market is starting to change the game itself. These new changes will change the way that the game itself works for everyone involved. New gamer, Aaron, has just started a character. He is hoping to earn some extra money for a family vacation doing blacksmithing. His brother has been playing this game since it launched a year ago and is leading Aaron into the game for more serious reasons than just a trip to the beach. Aaron quickly finds out that things are getting more interesting in Arella Everlasting.
8 203Masking Tape
“Well, I do sometimes wonder why we’re sent here, considering we never consented to be born. I’ll just go about living my life, I guess." A supposedly ordinary year in Semangat Junior College proves to be anything but normal for its students when a freshman gets attacked by a mysterious creature prowling around Bishan. That is just the beginning. Unexplainable bursts of magical energy begin mushrooming all over Singapore following the attack. An intern at Divyane is sent on a mission to investigate these strange happenings. Unfortunately for him, nobody told him that the life of an intern was not going to be easy. For one, there is an overly-enthusiastic supernatural fan who insists on following his every mission. Then there is the issue of the rogue mage who has been attacking the school's students and the unresolved disappearances around the island. Will Frankie be able to find the answers to his investigation? Most importantly, who is the rogue mage responsible for the unexplained attacks on regular students? What do they want? The first novel in the planned Rugged Backpack Series, Masking Tape combines elements of the magical girl genre with Southeast Asian mythos through an ensemble cast as they get tangled up in the affairs of a realm they never knew existed beneath their feet. New chapters every Monday and Friday!
8 54Grey Worlds
A mysterious incident occurred on a otherwise normal science centered world where all of the children from the age range of eight to sixteen suddenly vanished. “Where have their kids gone and will they ever return?” The now childless parents never got to really ask that question, because a strange new element replaced their lost children. This element slowly mutated the various animals that they once ruled over with their technology to the point that they were immune to their modern weaponry. The barren land of savages on a continent far away from theirs also had their children taken, but they easily mutated just like the beasts and only grew stronger thanks to the incident. A revolution of animals eventually took place after the mutations started to cause the animals to understand just how badly the humans ruined their lives and planet. Humans were the slowest to figure out how to use this strange new element to evolve, while their opponents were evolving and growing stronger by the day they couldn’t even surpass their modern technology. When humanity was on the brink of extinction a long forgotten event finally ended and their children finally started to return from the various worlds they were summoned to! It turns out that the mysterious new element that they didn’t know what to call was mana and that it’s everywhere in some fantasy planets. The children brought back a increase in technology and techniques to grow stronger with, which caused the humans to finally be able to build safe havens for their race. They grew stronger and started to finally adapt to their brand new environment. This is the story of a orphan who was taken away from his world, before he could gain a sense of attachment to the world. Who only has his older sister to care about and how he ends up adapting to the new world in front of him.------------------Dog notes by doggo First 'five' chapters aren't what the story is really about and is more of a prologue. The reason why some are separated into parts is because Doggo originally posted them as a entire chapter. The main setting is Ghost's actual world and not any foreign world. So this story was already posted once to another site or this site three years ago… and Dog is finally ending that three year hiatus! The explanation on why Dog was on a three year hiatus would of been written in the review section, but rrl doesn't allow self reviews. I'd have to create a alt just to self review which they obviously don't want even tho I'd not give myself any stars so its going to be here instead. The update schedule is a chapter a week till Dog get a editor and then two chapters a week till Dog gets enough money to pay for Dog’s bills. The final goal is to release a chapter every other day. Dog writes 4k word chapters so they are about twice as long as some of the other authors so every other day is actually more like once a day. ------------------- The part that was supposed to be the 'review' which Dog wont bother editing out repeat infomation since it wasn't supposed to go here in the first place. The first thing Dog will go over is what changed for the first 5 chapters, so that anyone who still remembers Dog's little novel and wants to continue from where Dog originally left off can decide whether or not to reread it. Also Dog is moving over to qidan simply because dog like the app they have. Dog won't go premium even if Qidan tells dog to and will simply move back to royalroad or create a blog.The things that changed over the years are mainly two important things. The first is that Dog changed the first person point of view to a third person, because Dog read a really bad first person novel and it reminded dog of dogs own novel. Dog also changed the thoughts of the character to be - - instead of italics. Finally dog changed chapter 3 completely to make the mc not seem like a homicidal maniac and introduced a important character in chapter 3.What happened to do in the three years that dog was away? Was dog at college and now needs money to eat? Was dog off in space after successfully becoming a astronaut and has now returned home with a completed novel or two? The answer is actually quite plain dog graduated from highschool and was supposed to only spend a year at dogs owners house to choose what major dog wanted to go to college for.Dog didn't do that and is still stuck with dogs owners and is sick of being a neet. Dog wants to move and buy doggy food, but dog is antisocial and doesn't want to work a simple 9 to 5 job for the rest of dogs life. Dog is a reader before dog is a author and the reason why dog got into writing was because dog wanted to write a novel without all the things dog finds annoying. Dog spent the first year reading various novels and dropping various novels. Dog is all caught up and has to much free time on dogs paws. The first year that Dog took off was the very same year that qidan came out so dog was naturally overloaded with free chapters. But now that pemium exists dog naturally has to limit the amount dog can read. Dog is addicted to reading like my very own readers and can understand your frustrations for dog disappearing for 3 years.Dog decided that dog will go back to writing 2 years ago. Dog wanted a decent stockpile incase dog has any other emergency so dog didn't post for a year but then dog decided to change the point of view which took another year.Dog has a patreon page https://www.patreon.com/mclaindog but there isn't any tiers there or goals till dog gets a editor. My final goal is to release a chapter every other day, but as long as Dog gets a editor Dog will do two free chapters a week.Dog will probably also make a kofi for anyone who just wants to send dog a tip and can't afford to donate money monthly while maybe having bonus chapters if the tip jar gets filled.
8 137Tahneen
Is life fair? Of course not. Have you ever considered yourself lucky? Of course not. Do you have a family? Of course I don't. Do you know who the people who are the really lucky ones? The people who have something they can call a family. Once you actually lose them, you question the whole world, wondering what God or the Gods have planned for you next. The really unlucky ones see the death of their entire family within grabbing distance and still couldn't do anything. You think your life should just cease to exist because you have nothing if you don't have your family. Now what happens to people like this? Simple. Most of them either kill themselves, move far away so they aren't haunted with ghosts, or get revenge. Now what if you have accomplished the revenge part. What's the point of your life now? You actually think you can finally move on with your life but what if there's something you never knew about your family. That there are secrets so hidden that everything you knew about your family is just the tip of an iceberg.Author's Note: The story will not progress in the fantasy and adventure part of the story until much later. All pictures will be drawn by me and might possibly lengthen chapter timings.
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Они заставляют её только краснеть,наблюдая в стороне. Прикрывать глаза рукой от немыслимых движений и пренебрегать правилами хореографии. Но что делать ,когда бывший учитель ушёл? Спасать ситуацию профессионально? Нет. Делать все как One Direction.Натурально и естественно, с улыбкой на губах.# 23 в choreographer(05.09.20)# 22 в choreographer(06.09.20)# 13 в choreographer09.10.20# 4 в choreographer
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