After extricating himself from the low-quality bed, and some ratty blankets, Sam spent around an hour in the shower contemplating the existential dread of his own death, alternating with kneeling before and staring at the porcelain throne and trying to hold back the vomit that would threaten to come up every time his own, or the body previous owner’s death resurfaced in his mind.

Then, with some herculean effort, he managed to wrestle his scattered mind into some kind of working order; the memories tinted with rage and despair were shoved into a deep hole, yet Sam knew sooner or later he would have to do something about it. He couldn’t live like this…

Still, first, he would have to get more information about his new life, the resources he had to work with, and decide on a general direction for his future.

Sitting before the futuristic computer, or as it was known to the people of his present reality: a piece of crap, he did a few calculations based on the information he had access to in his new set of memories without triggering the rage that their last owner left behind. He could, of course, based on the received memories, invest in a few companies and live off that while looking for something else to do.

Or…

Or Sam could make use of the memories he inherited, and make a living in the game (while also investing on the side just to be sure) while making sure to avoid the pitfalls that caused such rage and grief for the other Sam, and making use of his knowledge of the genre, as even a cursory search of the internet showed him that there was a glaring absence of virtual reality novels. Yet, this path also had a lot of negatives.

The popularity of the game would naturally attract the attention of all sorts of people, just as the other Sam experienced. And he couldn’t say for sure that he would be able to avoid all of them, even with the memories and his own knowledge.

Looking up the people responsible for the release of Magic Unbound, he found that the appropriately name Future Unknown company (it was a little on the nose for Sam, but after transmigrating, he couldn’t really complain) would be releasing the game in three months on the first of January, celebrating the new year.

Satisfied that his short research matched what he knew, Sam stood up from his computer and walked back to the bathroom to wash his face and do a little more thinking.

Standing over the sink, he looked into the mirror and finally took a good look at his body. It was remarkably similar to the body he had in his last life. Tall, with an average face, black hair, a beginning of a stubble. The differences were the deep dark circles under his eyes, the gaunt, almost starving look, and, of course, the almost thirty kilograms of difference in weight.

Sedentary life before the computer as a programmer did not lend itself well to healthy living.

Unfortunately, Sam was very lazy, but he would have to keep in shape if he wanted to play Magic Unbound, as, on higher levels, his body’s health actually affected how the game reacted to inputs from his body. A healthy mind in a healthy body, and all that jazz. Of course, this was known to the elite way before the populace at large got this piece of information.

And as he stared into his own eyes, he felt that it wasn’t really a question of what he should do. He was in a new world, with a new body, with a second chance to make it, and as well the chance to play a game that was the dream game of everyone in his previous life.

Leaning on the sink with both of his hands, he looked once more deeply into his own eyes and nodded, then pushed himself away, and turned around to leave the bathroom, now with an actual purpose.

It took him a week to get a handle on the life he was granted anew.

He went to the bank, consolidated the accounts (changed the password just to be sure), made sure they were ready for his plans (death and taxes were the only true things in life), bought some books that would help with handling traumatic memories, got a set of new clothes and began looking for a new home, as according to his memories, the first act that the other Samuel blamed for causing him to fall into deep poverty was burning down of his current apartment building (later it came out it was actually arson to make developing a new high rise easier).

But for all that, he would need money.

Thankfully, he technically had traveled back in time, so the knowledge rattling around in his skull would provide more opportunities to make money than he could make use of. The question was, how much attention he wanted to get…

After all, there were those betting opportunities that became famous around this time; or a few choices of investments that would make him enough money to get out of his current location.

But all of those would attract more attention than he would be comfortable with.

In the end, he made use of something that not even the other Samuel would have expected would become useful for anybody.

After Magic Unbound became the mainstream game that everybody played, other games logically began to decline, but before that, they were great money makers (even for Samuel) with a great many secrets. However, after their decline, the people who invested their time into them still wanted to make money off their investment and used their know-how to create internet videos talking about the game histories and explaining their methods to gather money, equipment, and win fights among other things.

Among these game history videos, the most famous were those that removed the veil that hid the exploits and glitches they used to soar to the top of the game. The other Sam watched these videos for relaxation, sometimes laughing at people if they weren’t talking about a game he played in the past or cursing them if they were talking about one he also played, mourning the unrealized opportunities.

And now Sam could make use of these exploits and cash in on them.

Sitting before his computer, he punched in the address to a site that dealt with selling and buying secrets about games, named, appropriately, Shadowland. It wasn’t exactly legal, but it wasn’t also illegal. But for Sam, it was perfect.

He made an account and uploaded an obligatory piece of information that would be made public on the site upon his registration, to prove he was legit (also making sure that not everybody would be able to register; granted, if you had money you could just pay for the registration). And then sat back and waited.

He simply uploaded a guide to acquiring a small space skipper in Conquest of Nine Realms, that everybody was after. It wasn’t the best or most famous ship, but currently, in the game, the most popular thing was to race with small skippers amid asteroid fields, and to do this, players had to acquire technologies with which they could upgrade their racers.

And the easiest way to acquire these technologies?

Rip it out of existing ships.

And according to every research, one of these coveted ships was the same skipper Sam provided a guide for.

In the grand scheme of things, it wasn’t worth much, but he knew, from his inherited memories, that the same information would be leaked by a disgruntled member of the only guild that had access to this kind of ship, in around a month, mostly because the other Samuel cursed at missing an opportunity also acquiring it.

Sam, to be sure, made sure to check the game out, but the simple space fighter, travel, and trader game didn’t really grab his attention. So he simply sold off the materials and equipment on his account and never looked back.

After making sure the post went through, he spent a little time just browsing the net, checking the news, and waiting for the results to come in. And he barely had to wait an hour before the first thank you came in, along with an email that his registration was complete and he could proceed to fully utilize the site. Though he made sure to wait another hour to get more credit and recognition before he was ready to make money by posting his prepared guides.

He clicked on the list of requests with anticipation and went hunting.

In two weeks of continuous work, Sam made enough money to pay the deposit for a better apartment in a better area of the city, while also making a lot of enemies and friends among the player bases of several games.

He shared dungeon locations, mount guides, material gathering routes, quest NPC locations, planet coordinates, combos for fighting games, and so much more.

Watching the gaming communities freaking out every time he posted a new guide or released some kind of information was endlessly entertaining.

Though Sam made sure not to release any of the big pieces of information or glitches, as those were used by people who actually had both economic and probably other powers to cause him trouble. The site touted that everybody was anonymous, but Sam knew that was just a window dressing. The moment somebody pulled out a wad of cash or a baseball bat, they would tell them whatever they wanted.

He stood in the middle of the room of his small apartment for the last time and took a long look around. In barely a week, everything he could see would be burned down into ash, and Sam would only be left with memories of the dilapidated building. Not that they were nice memories, as the neighbors were loud, something definitely smelled a floor down, and Sam was pretty sure the people one floor above were making some kind of drugs.

For a fleeting moment, he thought about leaving a hint for the police about the arson, but if the rumors in the other Sam’s past life were true, then it would be useless or even cause him trouble as the police were in the pocket of the man behind the perpetrator.

Sadly, the other Sam didn’t really pay attention to news that were about things outside of his interest, namely games, though thankfully, those were seared into his mind.

As he slowly walked towards the door for the last time, he almost expected something to happen. Maybe Fate would force him to stay on the same course that the other Sam took. But no catastrophe happened, or accident befell him that would compel him to stay as he stepped outside of the apartment, so he let out a relieved sigh, carefully looked around, closed the door behind him, and began walking towards the closest public transport station that would take him to his new home.

Sweet glistened down on his naked chest as he raised the weight in his hand, illuminated by the fall sun through the windows of his new apartment.

With great willpower, Sam managed to keep to a simple exercise routine with some cardio and weightlifting. And thanks to his new income, paying attention to his food (which was rather hard, as the new world was full of new and exciting dishes), and the exercise itself, his former gaunt and sickly body graduated to a normal, somewhat healthy body.

He had more meat on his bones, and the black circles under his eyes were almost a thing of the past. Sam would say that he almost looked handsome…

Placing the weight down with a small grunt, he took a towel from the stand next to him, cleaned his face, and walked to his window. The sight that greeted him still took his breath away; even after a month of living in the apartment.

The futuristic city that he now lived in was amazing to see. There were no flying cars, but the buildings were definitely reaching higher than he was used to, and the lights and styles of the buildings distinctly reminded him of the many cyberpunk novels and movies he read and saw before his death.

The apartment itself was nothing special. It was on the seventh floor of a skyscraper, with rather nice rent and almost nonexistent neighbors with excellent soundproofing. It had a living room, with a workout corner and an open kitchen. A bathroom with a very futuristic shower, a bedroom for his bed, and finally a room dedicated to the game.

Currently, it contained his desk, an updated computer, and a very comfortable and ergonomic couch where he could use the VR helmet. In the future, there would be VR capsules, but they would only come out half a year after Magic Unbound’s start. Though the other Sam always suspected that it was released much earlier, but only to those with connections, and Sam had to agree. That seemed something that the current world’s society would do. Or even his.

He had only spent a few months in the new world, but Sam already could tell that while it wasn’t a full cyberpunk-style civilization, it wasn’t all sunshine and happiness. Every day there were news both on the television and the internet that showed that people with power used those and abused them as they saw fit.

The ‘little people’ had only a few chances to make it…

Sam hoped he would be one of those.

Based on the full notebooks in his gaming room, and plans he had already drawn up for when the game started, there was more than a small chance for that.

Now he only needed to see what butterflies his action would result in…

For Christmas that year, he decided to visit a small cemetery near his home that contained a small shrine, not specifically dedicated to any religion or deity.

Shivering, a little from the cold winter, he shook off the snow from his jacket, then walked into the building housing the shrine. Sam took out a few candles, lit one of them, and placed it on the shrine. Then he put his hands together in a praying motion and began to murmur.

“Mom, Dad, I don’t know if you can hear this, but I’m alright, didn’t even feel the steel pipe…” he let out a quiet chuckle at his own lame joke, then continued. “I’ll make sure to continue to live and make the best of the situation. I will make you proud!”

Then he closed his eyes and stayed like that for a few moments just letting his thoughts drift before taking out another candle, lighting it, placing it next to the other, putting his hands together, and restarting his murmuring. Though he made sure to check out if anybody else was listening, but it seemed everybody there at the shrine was only paying attention to themselves.

“Sam… God, it’s so weird. Samuel, I’ll remember you, and I’ll make sure that everything you worked for… hoped for would come to pass. I’ll make good use of your memories, don’t worry. I can’t guarantee I’ll take revenge, but if an opportunity arises, I’ll take it, rest assured. Please, rest in peace…”

As the last word left his mouth, a small breeze traveled into the shrine, bringing with it the cold winter weather, but Sam strangely felt as if a warm spring breeze passed him.

He tidied up after himself, made sure that the candles were burning right, then turned and left the shrine.

It was only a few days until the opening of the game, and he wanted to make sure everything was alright with his preparations.

As he stepped outside, drawing his jacket close, Sam looked up at the giant skyscrapers populating the city and watched as the falling snow swirled around while the gray clouds obscured the sky. And despite the ominous nature of the weather, he couldn’t help but look forward to the future.

On January first, Sam lay on his comfortable couch, with one of his monitors showing the countdown for the game start, while he fiddled anxiously with his VR helmet. Then, as the countdown reached two minutes, he let out a shaky breath, laid back fully on the couch, trying to get as comfortable as possible, and put on the helmet.

For a moment, there was just an all-encompassing darkness and silence as the helmet robbed him of his senses. Then a small white text appeared in front of him.

[Please wait as the game loads…]

He barely managed to read it when the scene changed again, and he was face to face, with his body floating in nothingness, with the starting screen of Magic Unbound.

Magical energy in every color swirled around in the background while a mighty warrior faced a titanic dragon. As on one side, several magicians were standing in the circle, with Sam hearing a low, ominous chanting in the background, while on the other side of the screen, a blacksmith was feverishly hammering a white-hot piece of metal while a noble in finery was watching him stone-faced.

And in the middle of all this was the title of the game, shining in silver, and radiating a mysterious feeling:

[MAGIC UNBOUND]

Under it was the sentence that he was half looking forward to ever since he reincarnated and dreading for the exact same reasons. Sam knew that with the game and how it would affect the world, nothing would be the same.

[New Account Registration]

He hesitated for a second, then couldn’t help but chuckle. “You only live once, right?”

And with that, Sam pressed the button that would take him towards an untold amount of adventures.

The text blinked out of existence and was replaced by another.

[Please, choose a name!]

Sam didn’t even hesitate.

“Solar.”