Author's Note: SO... originally I was going to wait until I finished the entire chapter, but it was taking too long. So I split it up into parts, so that it'd be faster for you guys.

ALSO: I need ideas for a name for an elvish man, but it has to start with "K". Any ideas?

An easy guide to the story (tells you what it means if I put things in bolded brackets, and stuff like that).

Spoiler :

EASY GUIDE TO THE STORY

(* *) means author's note (which I generally use to make comments as inside the story chapters).

[ ] refers to a skill or ability that is used. Right now there are no different markers for passive and active skills

'things in italics' Things in italics with the little apostrophe marks are someone's actual thoughts

***** If the asterisks form a small line and the next sentences start a line or 2 below it, it means either:

A) A change of viewpoint

OR

B) A time-skip

(which basically means stuff happened in-between 2 events, but I'm skipping over it to get

to whatever is happening in the present)

------------------------ Dashed lines in bold refer to where the chapter starts and/or stops

I'll add more if I do more things.

An easy guide to the different measurements (for people that are familiar with the metric system, and vice versa)

Spoiler :

GUIDE TO THE DIFFERENT MEASUREMENTS

10 feet is around 3 meters

1 mile is a little more than 1.5 kilometers

I'll add more if I find out more

Characters:

Spoiler :

Wahshi: The Main Character. Real name Raes Bastion, framed for a crime he didn't commit and separated from his daughter while he was sent to prison for 20 years. What he wants to do now is earn enough money through the Virtual Reality game so that he can start searching for the daughter he lost, and maybe a little revenge on the way there against the people that framed him. Currently an unspecified (no class). Currently level 1.

PREVIOUSLY:

Spoiler :

Was betrayed by Zhang and his party. They left him behind as a tribute to the "Elder Dragon", in order to escape with their lives. The Dragon squashed Wahshi with a single talon.

-----------------------------------

My name is Raes Bastion. I am currently in a game called Awakening, on a world called Ralia, where I am known as Wahshi.

And I have just died for the 1st time.

One month before I started the game, I’d made sure to do research on the game. Some things, like what would happen when you first started the game, as well as what people would normally do in the beginning of the game, I’d never even paid attention to any of it.

After all, if you know what to expect in a game where every choice you make actually matters, then you can only do what the people that came before you have done.

But if you know nothing, then you have a chance. A chance at doing something which has never been done before.

I didn’t actually care much about becoming the trailblazer, being the one to forge a new path. All I wanted was a chance to go back to that day that’d been taken from me. But to do that, I knew I couldn’t just limit myself to blindly following what others had done.

So I deliberately blindfolded myself when it came to the things that would happen in the game.

The mechanics of the game were different though. I’d made sure to go find and go through every bit of info on every single thing I could think of. From recovery items to poisonous items, from the publicly known skills to death and what happens afterwards.

I’d made sure to study it all.

But it still didn’t prepare me for the familiar sight that greeted my eyes when I snapped them open.

I was fully corporeal in a roiling sea of Mist.

I was back in the Mist of Souls.

“OH HELL, NO!!!”

********

After a few minutes of shouting and pounding the ground beneath me, I stood up. After hours of travelling and almost dying a few times, I’d just been betrayed, and started all over again. Anyone would’ve been as mad as I’d been just now. I was already calm again though.

I’d already let out enough of the pressure that’d been building up in me since I first entered the capsule.

I closed my eyes, breathed in, and let out a deep breath.

I was sure that my breath had probably already crystallized and joined the rest of the Mist that was swirling around me. With my eyes closed though, I didn’t see anything.

Images of all the things that I’d researched raced past me as I sorted through all of it. I might not have researched about the things that had already happened in the game, but as far as the natural laws and game mechanics in Awakening went, I already knew more than what the average person did when they first logged in.

Which was why none of what was happening now, made any sense whatsoever.

The images racing past in my mind stopped, and a video suddenly appeared out of the thousands of other images.

It was one of the first videos I’d watched, a tutorial video on YouTube by a user named I-HEART-BATMAN. In it, a man in his early 30’s stood in full knight armor, talking about the different things about the world. He’d just about finished speaking about all of the things that someone first entering the game would need to know, when he suddenly stopped and walked to a nearby cliff. The view suddenly shifted from 3rd person to 1st person, and we saw the vast ocean below as he looked out over the cliff.

The air was filled with the sounds of birds; the air was filled with the sounds of waves crashing onto the rocky cliff that the man stood on. The man started talking again, but this time we only saw through his eyes, and didn’t actually see him speaking.

“You know, there’s actually one last thing that you should all know.”

A blue [Inventory] window opened up in front of the man, with a human outline next to it. The outline looked like an exact copy of the man that had just been speaking, armor included. One by one, the man took off each individual piece of armor from the human outline and put it back in the [Inventory]. The human figure on the screen now just showed the man in plain, medieval garb.

A hand waved, and the screen disappeared.

“Before you start the game, the number one question on everyone’s mind is, oddly enough, the same question we ask in real life too. What happens when we die?”

With that, the view suddenly changed from looking out over the ocean, to looking towards sharp, jagged rocks that were rushing up towards us!

The screen went dark. The next moment, it was back up. The view was once again in the 3rd person, and we saw what looked like a ghost of the player standing on top of the ocean next to a pile of bloody, jagged rocks.

“And this is what happens folks!”

He smiled and gave a bow, as if he was an actor that had just finished putting on a play for us all to watch.

“I doubt that anyone can answer the same question in real life, but when we die in the game, we turn into ghosts! The usual other game mechanics apply, armor that you wear can lose durability, items that you have in your inventory or on your person might drop, and you’ll lose experience, levels, etc.”

The man paused before continuing.

“Nobody’s been able to figure out why exactly we turn into ghosts, or why the things that aren’t from this world, like monsters and players, just disappear soon after we die. There’s a great mystery behind it, and maybe you’ll be the one to figure it out. Until then, we’ll all just have to accept it as a rule of the game, especially since the creators of Awakening won’t release any info on it.”

The view switched back to 1st person, and we were suddenly staring at a blue notification window that had appeared in front of us.

TELEPORT TO LAST MEMORY? YES/ NO

“This is the other thing that happens,” the man’s voice booms out. “You’ll be given a choice to “teleport to last memory” which is basically the last safe area that you’d been in before you died. Generally, they’re cities but they can be campsites as well. Regardless of whether or not you say yes or no, you’ll be stuck as a ghost for 10 hours in-game. That’s 2 hours in real-time, where you won’t be able to interact with the world at all. Most people choose to just log out and wait the 2 hours in real life, but some people choose to spend the 10 hours exploring the world as a ghost. DO NOT DO IT!”

The man took a deep breath before continuing, “Most people won’t be able to see you. In fact, the only reason you can see me now is because of the game’s [Record] function, where you can only see me, and anything that happens to me. To everyone else, you’ll be invisible. But monsters, and people with special skills can see you. They can even hurt you while you’re like this. If you die as a ghost, your character will die a PERMANENT DEATH. So just teleport to a safe place and wait out the 2 hours in real life, instead of risking it all. It’s your choice, but I’m just giving you fair warning.”

The video stopped there, and the memory went scuttled back to the other thousands of images that floated past me.

After seeing that, I’d felt a little intrigued by that user and had done a little more research on him.

The user I-HEART-BATMAN had become insanely popular in the game thanks to his tutorial video. Obviously the part that everyone remembered the most was where he jumped off the cliff. Anything that he lost when he died was easily outweighed by what he gained in popularity.

I breathed in deeply one more time, and all of the images disappeared. I opened my eyes to see the Mist spiraling around me, hugging tight to my body almost like a mother embracing her child.

‘This doesn’t make any sense at all… I should’ve turned into a ghost somewhere near where I died. Why am I back here?’

A flickering icon near the bottom right corner of my vision got my attention.

NEW NOTICES AVAILABLE. VIEW? YES/NO

After I hit YES, a flood of notices popped up in my vision, one after the other.

YOU HAVE DIED!!

[SOUL ORIGIN] SKILL ACTIVATED

RESURRECTION AT THE MIST OF SOULS IN PROGRESS…..

RESURRECTION COMPLETE

I could feel my eyebrows furrow as I read the notifications.

‘One of my skills activated? [Soul Origin]? What the hell?!!’

After seeing the notices, I immediately opened my skills and abilities window. With a SHIIING the shimmering blue window appeared in front of me. It lay there in mid-air, almost begging me to look through and find its secrets.

I scrolled down to the Active Skills part of the list, until I found what I was looking for. What I read made my eyes widen in shock.

SOUL ORIGIN (BEGINNER RANK):YOU HAVE ACCOMPLISHED A FEAT FEW WOULD KNOW ABOUT, AND DISCOVERED THE BIRTHPLACE OF YOUR SOUL. TRAVEL TO THE MIST OF SOULS IS NOW POSSIBLE UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS, IF THE COST IS PAID.ACTIVATION METHOD 1:REQUIREMENTS:DEATHACTIVATION COSTS:ANY AND ALL PENALTIES FOR THOSE THAT KILLED YOU WILL BE NULLIFIED; YOUR KILLERS WILL RECEIVE TRIPLE THE AMOUNT OF EXPERIENCE THEY WOULD NORMALLY RECEIVE*AUTOMATICALLY TRIGGERED UPON DEATH, REGARDLESS OF WILL OR INTENTACTIVATION METHOD 2:REQUIREMENTS:???ACTIVATION COSTS:???

I couldn’t believe what I was seeing!

Out of paranoia I quickly looked around to make sure that there was no one else around me. There was only a seemingly endless fog which swirled around, which let me breathe out a sigh of relief.

‘No one can ever know about this. It’ll be open season if word of this ever gets out.’

Lucky for me though, the thing that had killed me was a Dragon the size of a mountain.

With the level that IT was probably at, I doubted that it would get any experience from killing me. So that means my secret is safe so far. After all, 0x3 is still 0.

I waved the blue window away.

I didn’t want to come back here so soon after I left, but the fact that I was already here wasn’t something I could change. Right now, I didn’t know if the fact that I would ALWAYS be “resurrected” here was a good thing, but I had to at least try to keep a positive outlook on things.

After all, if the costs were this bad, then the skill resurrecting me here had to be a good thing, right?

Making up my mind, I cleared my head of all thoughts about my new reality.

‘Since I’m here, I should check up on Gaia and see how she’s doing.’ The only way out of here that I knew of was at the bottom of that tree that Gaia lived at anyway. I’d meet her there regardless of what I actually wanted, but I realized that I didn’t mind. The kid had grown a little on me in the short time that I’d actually known her.

I slowly turned in a complete circle, trying to figure out which way I should go.

‘Last time I’d just picked a random direction and ran, and somehow got lucky enough to stumble across the way out of the Mist. I can’t always rely on luck though… There has to be some way that I can tell which way leads out of here.’

I looked in all directions, but at least as far as my eyes could see, there wasn’t anything out there in the distance no matter which way I turned.

Twin streams of air could be easily seen as I tried to keep breathing normally. The thought of never being able to find my way out of this Mist wasn’t one that went away easily. I didn’t like the idea of being trapped either, it was too much like prison, regardless of the fact that I could always log out.

Suddenly, inspiration struck!

It was like a flash of lightning on a dark night, illuminating everything.

It also made me feel like an idiot for not realizing it sooner. ‘The last time I tried to get out, the Mist got thicker and harder to get through the more I got closer to the exit. Why can’t I just use that to figure out if I’m going the right way?’

I didn’t have any other good ideas, so off I went.

I headed towards whatever was to my right side, the Mist flowing around me as I went.

After 5 minutes of this, I realized that whatever “force” or pressure that the Mist had on me was actually lessening!

Clearly I was already going the wrong way, so I turned around and headed in the opposite direction.

10 minutes later I could tell that I was already heading the right way.

As I ran the Mist only grew thicker and thicker. If before the pressure felt like someone embracing me, now it felt like that person was trying to hold me back so hard that the more I ran, the bloodier I got as my skin was ripped open. Blood flowed down in small rivers.

What felt like hours later, but was actually only 20 minutes afterwards, it had gotten so bad that my skin wasn’t ripping open anymore. Chunks of bloody flesh ripped off my body as I kept running. There were no more tears of pain left to shed as the pressure only got worse. At one point it felt like I was running through steel walls, feeling every second of pain the impacts could give.

My mind went white…..

I woke up some time afterwards. A fresh, earthy aroma filled the air. An enormous tree in full bloom stood atop a small hill, with a pond near the base of it.

I couldn’t help myself. Laughter bubbled up out of me in relief.

I’D FINALLY MADE IT!!

---------------------------------------------------------------

Author's Note: Don't forget, if you have any ideas for a male, elvish name that starts with "K", let me know!!

DON'T FORGET TO RATE/REVIEW/COMMENT!!!

Wahshi's Status:

Spoiler :

STATUS WINDOWNAME:WAHSHILEVEL:1RACE:HUMANGENDER:MALECLASS:NONEMONEY:0G 1S 0C, $0

TITLES:FIRST-BORN OF THE MISTFAME:100INFAMY:0HEALTH:105 (+5)MANA:120 (+100)

STRENGTH:18 (+10)INTELLIGENCE:10 (+10)(+3)DEXTERITY:10 (+10)(-2)WILLPOWER:2 (+10)(+7)VITALITY:10 (+10)CHARISMA:0 (+10)AGILITY:10 (+10)DEFENSE:10 (+10)(+1)LUCK:7 (+10)

*Mana= 100+ (Willpower*10), Health=(LVL*100)+(Vitality/2)

Wahshi's Skill/Abilities

Spoiler :

SKILL LISTPASSIVEFIRST-BORN OF THE MIST:

ELDEST: YOU ARE THE OLDEST CHILD OF YOUR CLAN, AND THEREFORE THE STRONGEST. +1 TO ALL STATS FOR EVERY MISTBORN IN THE WORLD, EXCLUDING YOURSELF (CURRENT NUMBER OF MISTBORN: 1 [YOURSELF])

PLAYER:

PERSEVERE: YOU HAVE GONE THROUGH INCREDIBLE PAINS TO ACHIEVE YOUR GOAL. WHEN HEALTH IS LESS THAN 50%, PAIN DECREASES 1% PER ADDITIONAL PERCENT OF HEALTH LOST

ACTIVEBORN OF THE MIST:

SOUL ORIGIN (BEGINNER RANK): YOU HAVE ACCOMPLISHED A FEAT FEW WOULD KNOW ABOUT, AND DISCOVERED THE BIRTHPLACE OF YOUR SOUL. TRAVEL TO THE MIST OF SOULS IS NOW POSSIBLE UNDER CERTAIN CONDITIONS, IF THE COST IS PAID.

ACTIVATION METHOD 1:

REQUIREMENTS: DEATH

ACTIVATION COSTS: ANY AND ALL PENALTIES FOR THOSE THAT KILLED YOU WILL BE NULLIFIED; YOUR KILLERS WILL RECEIVE TRIPLE THE AMOUNT OF EXPERIENCE THEY WOULD NORMALLY RECEIVE

*AUTOMATICALLY ACTIVATES UPON DEATH, REGARDLESS OF WILL OR INTENT

ACTIVATION METHOD 2:

REQUIREMENTS:??? ACTIVATION COST: ???

ABILITY LIST[tr]PLAYER:

MENU: Access to a game-like interface

RESURRECTION: May be re-born 10 hours after death (game-time)

INVENTORY: Access to a small, pocket-dimension which can hold belongings up to a certain limit

LOG OUT: Return to your original world

BORN OF THE MIST:

MIST FORM (LVL 1): FIRM CONVICTION IN WHAT YOU THOUGHT WAS TRUE ABOUT YOUR ORIGINS HAS ENABLED YOU TO TURN BACK INTO THE MIST THAT SPAWNED YOU

AT 1ST LEVEL, TURNS YOUR ENTIRE BODY INTO MIST. HIGHER LEVELS WILL ALLOW YOU TO CONTROL WHAT PART OF YOUR BODY YOU WISH TO TURN.

AT 1ST LEVEL, MIST FORM CAN STAY ACTIVE FOR A MAXIMUM OF 2 SECONDS. ABILITY MAY BE CANCELLED AT ANY TIME.

ACTIVATION REQUIREMENTS: NONE

ACTIVATION COST: 2% of Max Health

TITLE EFFECTS

FIRST-BORN OF THE MIST: +10 TO ALL STATS, ACCESS TO MISTBORN ABILITIES WHEN DISCOVERED, ACCESS TO UNIQUE ABILITIES GIVEN ONLY TO THE HOLDER OF THIS TITLE (IF DISCOVERED), PASSIVE SKILL “ELDEST”

Wahshi's Equipment

Spoiler :

UNKNOWN SCHOLAR’S ROBE (MODIFIED)[NO LEVEL REQUIREMENT]A ROBE OF UNKNOWN STYLE AND DESIGN. ONCE, IT GAVE OFF AN AIR OF SCHOLARLY NOBILITY. CHANGED TO MAKE IT BETTER FOR BATTLE, IT IS NOW PROOF THAT EVEN THE LOFTIEST OF SCHOLARS WILL FIGHT IF NEED BE.DEXTERITY -2, INTELLIGENCE +3, WILLPOWER +7, DEFENSE +1

TRUSTY IRON KNIFENO REQUIREMENTSA GIFT FROM THE SPIRITS OF THIS WORLD, TO ALL WHO HAVE COME TO ITSTRENGTH +1

BOOTS NO REQUIREMENTSA GIFT FROM THE SPIRITS. ALTHOUGH LOW QUALITY, IT MIGHT LAST IF YOU TAKE GOOD CARE OF IT. IT WON'T DO MUCH BUT SLIGHTLY PROTECT YOUR FEET THOUGH.