James’ body jerked as the adrenaline coursing through his body caused him to tense as though he was still fleeing, only to be caught by the soft but firm cushioning of the capsule holding him in place. Coming to his senses, James slowly calmed down as the capsule’s padding withdrew and the hatch slowly opened up, releasing him.

“Damn it, there was a notification just before the log-out… I must have died in-game that means a 24-hour wait… grr… I need a break anyway.”

Gingerly getting out of the capsule, James flexed and stretched his muscles which felt oddly sore as though all the exertion he made in-game has been transferred over.

James went about his business sullenly as his mind fixated on his current in-game situation, his annoyance evident from the forcefulness of his actions.

James checked the clock and was shocked to realize that it was already 9.42pm, more than 30 hours after he first entered Athal, meaning he had gone without rest for more than a full day.

Whipping up yet another meal of instant noodles and finishing it within moments, James went to bed and was out of it the moment his head hit the pillow.

*RING* *RING*

“Nngghh… I don’t have to work anymore. Screw waking up in the mornings.”

James blindly groped around for his ringing smartphone and swiped away the call and dropped back to sleep immediately.

*RING RING RING*

“GAH.”

James opened his eyes blearily and shut off his phone entirely without even checking the caller and happily continued snoozing.

*BANG BANG BANG*

“… What the heck. Can’t a man get some peaceful sleep.”

James woke up sluggishly, yawning and stretching and slowly trudged over to get a change of clothes, yelling out as he went about dressing himself.

*BANG BANG*

“COMING! STOP BANGING ON MY DOOR!”

‘Oh shit. I knew I forgot something important.’

Staring at the quietly fuming beautiful girl standing in front of his front door, James briefly wondered if he would be better off closing the door and pretending to not have seen her… Nah, that’ll only worsen his punishment…

She politely sidestepped past him as she entered his house, though James could clearly sense her anger as she petulantly jerked her face away from him, her long straight raven hair whipping into his face as she did so.

Spitting out the stray strands that got stuck in his mouth, James sighed and silently closed the door, preparing himself to pay the piper.

“Explain.”

The girl seated herself in the living room sofa, her long slender legs crossed… Oh those nicely shaped calves never fail to catch his eyes…

“Ahem.”

His eyes snapped up to meet her unamused eyes staring at him imperiously, clearly waiting for his response.

Deciding that survival was paramount to his pride, James unabashedly groveled before her feet as blurted out his excuses.

“I’m sorry for the lack of the contact over the past few days, Leena dearest! I was kicked out of the company for a few million and they gave me the pre-release Ascension as well and I have been playing it to…”

James’ words trailed off as he beheld the erupting volcano before him as his girlfriend hauled him up and threw herself into his arms hammering away at his back… Only instead of being cute and girlish, each blow literally drove the wind out of him and stopped him from even speaking as she launched into her rant.

“DO YOU KNOW HOW WORRIED I WAS? ABSOLUTELY NO CONTACT FOR NEARLY A WEEK? I WAS AFRAID YOU HAD AN ACCIDENT OR SOMETHING! IF IT WASN’T FOR ME CONTACTING KELVIN I WOULDN'T EVEN HAVE HAD A CLUE WHAT WAS GOING ON!”

Seeing her tear up as the words spilled out of her mouth, James croaked out an apology as best as he could… only to be interrupted by the flood of tears and an emotional hug from her.

A bone-crushing hug which nearly snapped his back especially with her shaking him around, luckily it was stopped when she realized what James said earlier.

“Such an important thing happened to you and you didn’t tell me? How could you! You got the early release and didn't tell me!! You knew I really wanted to get my hands on it!”

… Or perhaps not so fortunate after all, though Leena’s mood took a complete three hundred and sixty degree turnaround, she went on to rapidly fire questions at James with her eyes shining in excitement and shook him excitedly…

“What level are you? What class or type are you playing? Knowing you, you must have chosen some broken OP crap… Have you gotten a pet? Do they have cool weapons? Cool monsters?”

*CRACK*

Hearing an unnerving crack from James’ body and his completely pale face, Leena worriedly checked on him.

“James! Are you alright?”

“Just give me a moment… you got over-excited again. Please control yourself dear...”

James extracted himself from her grasp and sat down gingerly on the couch before stretching his back gently, sighing in relief as the kinks in his back were loosened with soft pops.

"Oh my God! I lost control again and hurt you, didn't I? I'm so sorry..."

Leena apologized contritely and sat down next to James with her face in her palms.

Seeing dampness and some tears dripping from her eyes, James put a hand on Leena's face and kissed her gently before reassuring her.

"I'm alright dear, it's fine. Didn't we talk about it before already, we'll deal with your issue together slowly, one step at a time ok? Don't worry your pretty head about it ok? Now don't you want to hear about the game?"

James felt Leena pull him into a gentle hug as she planted her face in his neck, the dampness from her tears seeping into his shirt.

"T-thanks dear, you are the best..."

*A few hours later*

“Can I start a look at the game? I really really want to see what it looks like.”

Leena vibrated with excitement after hearing James’ progress in Ascension, a complete turnabout from her previous state.

“I can’t, I just died. I got killed by the fire dragon whelps, remember… Plus how do you watch when it’s a single capsule?”

James looked down at floor angrily at the thought of losing, only to feel Leena's soft hand on his hand squeezing gently.

"Cheer up, I'm sure the penalties wouldn't be that bad. Besides, you'll definitely be far ahead of other people anyway!"

Perking up slightly at her encouragement, James broke out of his frustration and kissed her hand affectionately.

"Thanks dear! What would I do without you..."

Leena grinned cheekily as she replied.

"Probably be wanking over your magazines still... and eating cup noodles... Speaking of which, I bet you haven't been eating properly.... 'Fess up now."

James glanced off to the side and played innocent as he tried to quickly change the topic.

"So anyway you still haven't told me how you intend to watch when its a single capsule..."

“As usual, you ignored all the multiplayer functionalities… The capsule allows you to plug in a normal screen to play what the player is seeing… Wait! No trying to distract me... Hmpf, I bet you haven't had anything proper to eat in a while. Let me whip up something for you... but could I first get a quick look at the game?”

Faced with Leena’s large puppy-dog eyes and pleading expression, James quickly capitulated despite the fact he could probably only log in to the waiting room and they head over to the capsule.

‘What’s the point of looking at it if we can’t do anything yet… Oh well, at least I'll get some really good food after we have a quick look!’

James entered the capsule, feeling the familiar padding slowly expand and engulf his body as the lid slowly came down. His last sight before the lid hissed shut was that of Leena hooking up a laptop to the machine via a hidden port he had previously completely overlooked.

In the next instant as he opened his eyes, Feng was back in Athal… in the exact same spot before he logged out.

“Wha? I’m not dead? Oh shit.”

Looking around him, he noticed the area was completely devastated by fireballs, the ground blackened and previously ruined walls were blasted away with the shattered bricks scattered all around… Leaving Feng completely out in the open and a jolt of adrenaline shot through his veins as he noticed a few salamanders roaming the area, though thankfully no dragon whelps in visible sight.

Jogging away from the blast zone to quickly duck behind some cover, Feng hid himself and carefully scanned the area for any salamanders who might have detected his presence. After a few minutes of tense observation, Feng concluded that the monsters must have thought that he had died in their assault as the normal movement patterns of the monsters seem to have resumed.

With immediate danger out of the way, Feng checked the last notification he got before his log out, curious what it had been if it wasn’t indicating his death.

Warning: Logging Out In Combat

You have lost a level due to logging out in combat, while not prohibited players are to note that such actions will result in an indeterminate amount of experience loss. Additionally, should players die within the ten seconds countdown period prior to log-out, their experience loss due to death will be doubled.

‘Holy-‘

“Wow. That sounds really bad. Seems like you got off lucky James! Ooohh.. The environment looks so cool, the rendering is so realistic…”

Feng’s thoughts were disrupted by a familiar melodious voice sounding in his head and he looked around wildly, wondering how on earth Leena managed to enter the game.

“Silly, I’m speaking through a microphone. You really didn’t pay attention to any of the multiplayer functionalities… Ooo look at that castle over there! Oh. Sorry, I must be distracting you. I'll promise to keep quiet from now on! Jia you!” (Encouraging Words in Chinese)

‘Sometimes it's great to have a gamer girlfriend who understand things!'

Feng grinned as Leena went quiet and focused on getting out of the dangerous area and back to the safe room.

Successfully avoiding all the salamanders, Feng soon reached the entrance only to find a lone salamander guarding the passageway…

Seeing no way to sneak around it considering the narrow entrance, Feng checked around to ensure the other wandering salamanders were a distance away before initiating his sneak attack.

Leaping onto it, he quickly slaughtered the salamander and dragged the corpse much further down before proceeding to skin it…

“Ew. That’s disgusting… But I guess it makes sense to loot them... This is kind of gross though, I'll go start cooking first, call you when I'm done.”

Feng simply nodded gratefully as he concentrated on carefully skinned and declawed the salamander corpse though he greatly appreciated the silence after her gushing over every single detail of the game.

Jogging back to the room he initially appeared in, Feng did not bother sneaking this time given the utter lack of monster encounters previously and soon returned to the room where he sat down to rest and take stock of the situation.

“Alright, I prepared most of the ingredients and set the rice to cook. Hey, safe zone, yay! Ooh, can you show me your status now? I'm really curious about your build!"

Feng silently complied as he pulled up the list of notifications to clear before opening his status only to be bombarded by a huge list of notifications and quickly shut them all only looking at the summary window.

Through your efforts and killing Salamanders, you have leveled up sixteen times and gained:

+5 Strength

+1 Dexterity

+3 Perception

Stealth has leveled up to Novice 6

Skinning has leveled up to Novice 3

Anatomy has leveled up to Novice 2

Combat Instinct has leveled up to Novice 4

Sense Hostile Intent has leveled up to Novice 8

Acrobatics has leveled up to Novice 4

Dagger Mastery has leveled up to Basic 4

“Wow, your stats look way overpowered for your level… but why do you have so much un-allocated stats?”

Feng looked flummoxed for a moment before he face-palmed at the realization he had a bunch of un-allocated stat points from his level-ups which he completely forgot about as he got used to earning his stat points from his efforts…

Feng’s finger hovered over the different stats as he contemplated what he should increase in order to take out the lizard elite yet keep up with his long term goals. He really wants to save stat points for the most-OP stats likely intelligence/wisdom related for magical combos but needs to survive and get past the lizard and most of his skills are physical…

“Eh. Why are you so weak, your strength is like your lowest stat… It's probably even lower than your real-world strength, maybe I can finally beat you!”

Feng’s eyebrows twitched at the perceived slight at his manliness and held down the plus button on increasing strength… only to stop after his rational side woke up and screamed at him that he needed agility to dodge and survive and definitely extra constitution to ensure he survives.

After allocating mainly to those three stats, Feng contemplated and decided to allocate a few more points to round out some of the other stats to nice round numbers and saved the remaining point before surveying the final results.

Status NameFengGenderMaleLevel28RaceHumanProgress34%Health870Stamina1020Mana1130Strength80Intelligence44Constitution60Wisdom40Endurance50Willpower14Dexterity70Charisma18Agility70Luck50Fame110Faith1500TitlesGreenhorn AdventurerCougar BaitBlasphemerPhysical SkillsRunningNovice5PassiveBalanceNovice4PassiveAcrobaticsNovice4PassiveEvadeNovice4PassiveUnarmed MasteryBasic4PassiveSword MasteryBasic3PassiveDagger MasteryBasic4PassiveDual-wielding MasteryBasic1PassiveThrowing MasteryBasic1PassiveQuick DrawNovice7PassiveCombat InstinctNovice4PassiveToughnessNovice3PassiveStealthNovice6PassiveBreathing TechniqueNovice7SustainedChain PunchingBasic2ActiveMental SkillsSense Hostile IntentNovice8PassiveConcentrationNovice1PassiveAnatomyNovice2PassiveObserveBasic1Passive/ActiveMeditationNovice8SustainedSocial SkillsOratoryNovice5PassiveNegotiateNovice3PassiveMagical ContractsNovice2PassiveCrafting SkillsAlchemyNovice6PassiveSkinningNovice3Passive

Grinning as he realized his effective level from all his stat increases should place him on an equal level to the giant lizard monster, Feng quickly returned to the lizard cavern.

Egged on by Leena cheering him on for an epic fight, Feng almost rushed into combat… but remembered where his lack of caution had landed him and decided that overkill is better than dying from overconfidence. Retrieving two vials of potion gunk from his inventory, Feng carefully slathered both his knives with the gunk and left the empty vials on the ground.

Observing the cavern for hiding spots, noting the few rocky outcrops in the circular cave, Feng planned out his approach before observing the slumber giant lizard again.

Giant Comodon Lizard

Type: Lizard Monster (Elite)

Level: ~60

Attacks/Weapons: Claws, Bite, Tail

Traits: Tough Scales, *Hidden*

Stats: *Skill Level Too Low*

Weak Spots: Underbelly, *Hidden*

Description: A monstrous lizard with striped patterns on its back, the scales on its body looks extremely tough and the claws on its thick limbs can easily shred flesh. The scales appear to grow thinner towards its underside.

‘Damn it, fat lot of good that weak spot does for me.’

Seeing the lizard lying flat on the ground with its underbelly entirely covered, Feng seriously doubted he had any chance at that weak spot. Hoping that the giant lizard shares a similar anatomy to the salamanders, he sneaked up close by and leapt at the large lizard monster from the shadows with both daggers out and plunging towards the monster…