Today is my final day of school, I have just completed my last exam for my high school life. English, not one of my best subjects although I still expect to get at least 70% thereby completing my final grade at high school. My father suggested that I help him with the company in which he is a co-owner. Genesis Interactive, a company which is soon to release a fully immersive virtual reality fantasy role playing game. For the past 8 months I have been beta testing the game which has been running at a speed of 3 hours to every 1 hour in real life. I have clocked 1320 hours playing the game, that's a whopping 3960 hours in game.

As I left my exam I heard students in the hallway talking about Wing' to Tomorrow the game to be released by Genesis Interactive.

"Hey, Alicia!" An attractive girl called out to me. The girl was about 5 foot 5 inches tall with piercing blue eyes, wavy blond hair which reached to her shoulder blades and an element curvy body.

"Vanessa" I cheerfully called back. Vanessa has been my best friend since kindergarten. Other than my father, she is the only other person in the world who I confide in.

"It's finally out tomorrow! Wing's to Tomorrow. I'll finally be able to see what you have been talking about".

Shocked, I replied "really? I thought it wasn't due for another couple weeks".

"How can the owners daughter not know that the release date got pushed forward because the maintenance completed early" said a frowning Vanessa.

"I have been too busy playing the beta to check my emails lately, and my dad has been working late so I haven't gotten to talk to him properly in almost a month" I solemnly replied.

"Oh well never mind that, I have been so excited listening to your stories and awaiting the game that it hadn't clicked until now. I'm a pacifist! How am I going to fight monsters?" Vanessa blurted out.

"It's quite a complicated game, you don't actually have to fight monsters, you could be a merchant or storekeeper, or even take up a trade" I calmly replied.

"Yeah but I wanted to play with you" Vanessa said whilst pouting.

"Well then I guess you could take up a support class such as a healer or troubadour" I answered.

"Hmm, a healer might not be so bad" said a somber Vanessa.

"In that case why don't we meet at the Holy City of Heaton once your probation is over?" I said. In Wing’s to Tomorrow, you are restricted to your starting area until either you join a guild, get a class, receive a quest, attach to a caravan leaving the city, or spend 30 days within your starting city. This is commonly called the probation period.

" it's a capital of magic and a capital dedicated to the goddess of magic Hecate" I stated.

"Sounds like a great idea, I'll meet you there as soon as I'm able. What's the closest starting city?" Asked Vanessa with a radiant smile on her face.

"Probably the human capital of Stormbridge" I hesitantly answered.

"Well I have to go home now then and diagnose my VR pod to make sure it's ready for midnight, see you soon" Vanessa cheerfully said giving me a hug and running off.

"Cya later" I whispered back belatedly causing me to blush with embarassment.

The VR pods were sent out to the general public starting a month ago. Until the official release date they would be inactive and unusable. In order to active them they received a highly encrypted key which would unlock their features and allow a simultaneous worldwide release without a rush to the stores and long midnight queues. It is the standard release for hardware nowadays to help prevent shortages on release day.

Once I arrived home I decided that since I haven't viewed my emails lately I would check them before preparing dinner. In my bedroom on the left side there was a queen sized bed with a purple bedspread, the walls were an ice pink, and a computer with a desk was sitting in the corner of the room. On the right side of my room had 3 bookshelves full with books and an egg shape machine. This machine is the VR pod I use to play Wings to Tomorrow.

Logging into my emails I saw 247 unread email. To put it simply I was shocked. After looking at the emails most of them were junk emails and I thus deleted them. Amongst the emails, there was one which caught my interest. It was an email from Genesis Interactive.

Subject: Conclusion of the beta

Hello Alicia,

As of the 18th November Wings to Tomorrow's servers will be brought offline. During this time we will be maintaining the servers installing our final updates and wiping sections of the beta characters. As such, your character will also be reset although some date will be kept. All beta characters will be resets to lvl 1 lose all their fame, their class, items, gold, and titles. The good news is any other stats and skills along with their proficiency which are not class specific will remain.

Once the servers go back online you will be able to adjust your appearance one final time and choose a new starting town. The probation period will be active for you once more after which you can play however you wish.

May you be able to find the freedom to create your own adventure.

Genesis Interactive.

Sighing heavily I closed the email. All the work to make my lvl 270 magician and I lose most of it. Looking at the time I realise that it's just past 5:40pm and it is time for me to start cooking dinner for myself and my dad. Heading into the kitchen I see that nobody got anything out to defrost. Due to this I go to the refrigerator and pull out some carrots, capsicum, onion, cauliflower, and snow peas. I place some olive oil into a pan and add onions. After the onions start browning and the aroma fills the air, I add the rest of the vegetables some firm tofu and some udon noodles to the pan. Letting the vegetables heat up I toss them to mix them up and add some pre-made satay sauce to the pan. After mixing the vegetables some more a place a lid over the pan and reduce the heat to low to allow that ingredients to absorb the sauce. After 5 minutes I remove the food from the heat and place the food into two separate bowls. Just as I finish I hear the door open.

I run to the door and see that a man about 6 foot tall with short greying hair, wearing a suit is standing there with a smile on his face. "Hello Alicia" the man says.

"Dad!" I screech before quickly hugging him, "what are you doing here, I thought you would be busy with the launch".

"Can't a man see his daughter once in a while" he replied.

"Of course you can" I giggled.

"I have to go back to work in a couple hours and won't be home much until things settle down with the launch so I wanted to see you one last time" my father sighed.

"Of course" I pouted "Well you're just in time for dinner".

"What is it?" My father replied. "Satay vegetables" I replied.

"Good I'm starving". We went to sit down and eat at the table and talked until 9:00pm where my dad had to leave. Taking this time I decided to clean up and take a bath. Getting out it was 10:20pm. I decided to read a book until 11:55pm prepared to enter my pod.

I opened the lid of the pod and inside was a dense film of a gel like substance designed to mould to the shape of my body when laying in the pod. On top of the dense gel, there was a second layer of gel. The second layer was thinner, more like the consistency of water. When I enter the pod, the second layer of gel will completely submerge my body. It is possible to breathe through this second layer of gel so it is completely safe. The role of the second layer is to cling to a user’s body and receive electrical impulses from the brain and receive life sign reports. The second purpose of the gel was to send impulses to various parts of the body to simulate the virtual world. If you get attacked in the game, you will get a small impulse at the same place on your body.

I undressed and climbed into the pod. I don’t have to undress to get in the pod but, I don’t like the feel of the gel on my clothes, and the virtual simulation seems to work better when the gel can access all areas of my body freely. The gel feels warm to the skin and it relaxes me. I pull the lid of the pod down and ready myself to enter the virtual world.

When the time finally ticked over to 12:00am I shouted "System start!"

My surroundings went white and I felt like I was falling. When I first tried this I had a horrible feeling of vertigo. Over time my body and mind adapted to this although, it could just be due to updates and advancements in the technology used.

After 3 seconds pass my surroundings change. I appear in a round white room with column and walls made of marble. In the centre of the room is a fire approximately 1 metre in diameter and half a metre tall. Surrounding the fire are six low benches in a semicircle, and a step on the other side. Up the step is 11 chairs all of different styles. Sitting by the fire on the step is a beautiful elegant lady with wavy golden blonde hair, blue eyes which held a hint of sadness and despair, and subtle curves clad in white garb.

"Welcome back Elyssa" the lady said in a calming tone.

"Hestia! I haven't seen you in ages, how have you been?" I said surprised. Hestia is one of the gods of this world, an A.I. or artificial intelligence which helps govern and look over the world. Hestia’s role is to protect players from within cities and create a safe haven.

"Pretty good actually, many young heroes have found their way back to the hearth recently" Hestia said excitedly "But, I'm so busy that we don't have long together today."

Frowning I replied "that's a shame. So for what reason do I have the pleasure of seeing you?"

"Well as you know your body has been reborn and as such we need to confirm your new body and send you back to Arendula."

Sighing I said "well, I guess we better get it over with then."

In front of me appeared a figure that looked just like me. In the beta because nobody was around I decided not to alter my appearance in any way. As such, the body in front of me was a clone of me with long waist length strawberry blonde hair, piercing blue eyes, voluptuous breasts, curvy hips, and unfortunately a small amount of fat around the waist and thighs due to my time spent isolated at home. The body was approximately 5 foot 4 inches tall thankfully because altering your height tends to make you lose balance. The one difference from the body to the real me was that this body had pointed ears. Yes the body was that of an elf. The complexion was flawless with pearl white skin. I chose an elf during the beta because I loved the idea of living with nature and controlling magic.Who doesn't love magic? The type of elf I chose was a high elf.

In Wing’s to Tomorrow there are various races which one can play however, currently there are only a small number activated. The races include human, elf, dwarf. You can also choose a half breed of any of those races. Elves of the three races alon has sub classes. Elves can choose between wood elf, high elf, and night elf. I chose high elf because of its bonuses to magic. A high elf's racial traits are an increase of 5% to skill experience, and NPC's treat them as noble born. The downside is a high elf has the weakest physical constitution causing them to only earn 4 points of stamina for every 1 point in vitality instead of the regular 5. This means the tire out easier. Not a problem at all for a magic class.

Because I would show this body to those around me I decided to make some minor modifications. I modified the hair colour to a light purple and had it tied up in a ponytail. From experience the hair gets in the way, I can't count the number of times I've burnt my hair with a poorly targeted fireball. Thankfully the system automatically regrows hair after a short duration.

"Ok I'm done" I said to a patient Hestia.

"Ok then where would you like to begin your new life?" Hestia replied.

Since the game is opening as if the world is unexplored, there is currently only three choices as starting locations. Stormbridge is the human capital, and the largest of the three choices. It is a large medieval style village with a grand castle in the centre and surrounded by farmland rivers, and a forest.

Kolduar is and underground citadel which houses the dwarves. The citadel prioritises crafts and mining but, shuns elves due to their love of nature, which is problematic for a race which lives from mining.

Fynelone is a forest, the home of the elves. The elves live with nature and thus, make their houses out of the hollows of trees using magic to grow and shape the trees. Fynelone rejects metals as a material and relies on the bounties of nature.

"I guess I'll start in the human capital of Stormbridge since I promised a friend I would meet them nearby" I answered.

"Would you like to replay the tutorial?" Hestia queried.

"No there's no point, I know how to move and I know the backstory of this world" I answered. The history of the world called Arendula follows stories similar to the Greek creation mythology, and with the Gods and Titans existing it's not a stretch to say that most of the mythology exists in Arendula.

"Ok may you have an enjoyable adventure" Hestia said smiling. My vision went white and once again I felt that sickening falling feeling.