Week 1:

The Teenager lounged on one of the couches in his TV room, his little brother and sister sat on the main one. They were animatedly playing a giant robot game set in some dystopian future ruled over by companies rather than governments. They were competing to see who would be able to challenge him next for the title of the best.

“Aarrrrgghh! Don’t just spam missiles! That’s so cheap!”

“Too bad, you should’ve built your mech better!”

Both had two very different philosophies on how to play the game. But he eventually got bored of watching them as they went back and forth. So the Teenager opened up the his favorite gaming news site, it had only been a few days since the world had seen Weed ascend to godhood and saw that Royal Road wasn’t quite over. Flipping through the news topics he came to the recent updates page.

American company Haptix releases new VR gear!

Curious, he opened the page and as he read through the contents his face broke into a massive grin. Haptix had announced several years ago that it would create a VR system better than the one offered by the Korean based company called Unicorn. They had even received a little backing from the Government which was eager to have an American based company take a chunk out of the VR market that Unicorn had almost dominated. The gear that Haptix released was a cheaper, smaller system; the thing could fit in a 2ft. square box. It was composed of only a helmet and a square cube that apparently did all the complex calculations that made VR possible. Then came the kicker, Haptix had declared it would be cheap but no one had known just how cheap it would be. The official pricing was at only $2000!

“YES!”

“Jack?”

“What are you shouting for?”

Jack flopped back onto the couch still smiling. His little brother and sister looking at him expectantly, it was actually an amusing sight. They were twins and yet looked completely different, the only physical similarities they had were their facial expressions. He laughed as he looked over at them.

“Sorry but you guys are gonna have to duke it out between you two who’s the best, I’m officially pulling out of the running.”

They looked confused as plodded down the stairs into the dining room. Jack continued from there to the entryway and as he was pulling on his shoe he heard his mom call from her office.

“Is that you Jack?”

“Yeah?”

“Ah, good,” she came slipping out from the back room where here home office was, “I have your Uncle Albert on the phone,

he was telling me he wanted to talk to you.”

“Ok?”

Jack quickly got up and stuck out his hand for the phone, his face making it clear that he was in a hurry to be somewhere, namely the electronics store. His mother gave him the look that said he had to be polite.

“Thanks mom – Heeeyyy Uncle Albert, how are you?”

“I’m good, how about you?”

“Oh I’m doing fine.”

“Ah that’s good, have you checked out the news lately?”

“Just a little bit, why?”

“Well knowing you I assume you heard about Haptix’s release of their own VR gear, the Accessor.”

“…..Yeah,” his heart thudded slightly, his Uncle Albert was loaded. He had started off as a patent lawyer, but after a few years

he had grown bored of it and had started investing. One of his first investments was a small amount of Unicorn’s stocks while the company was still relatively cheap. From there he came into a wealth of money that he had placed into many other, ‘safer’ stocks.

“Well as it just so happens, I have a small share of that company. They sent over a few of these Accessor systems as a gift, three in fact, but we don’t really need them… I was wondering if you guys wanted to have them, consider it a belated Easter gift.”

There was a small chuckle on the other end of the line, Jack however stood there with his mouth wide open and his eyes wider. There was a slight escape of air.

“uh, Jack?”

“YES! I’m sure Pete and Ju will love to have one as well.”

There was a slight pause as his Uncle laughed, while mother looked curious and slightly amused.

“Alright then, I’ll send them through the mail. It may take a while but hope you enjoy them.”

“Thankyouthankyouthankyou Uncle Albert!”

“Yeah yeah, if I see you in-game you better give me all your loot at the time as pay-back.”

“Hhmmmm, I don’t know.”

“humph! You’re just like you cousin Alexei, she refuses to help her own father out!”

“She sees it more as a beggar merchant demanding her loot for free.”

There was a small cough of embarrassment, “well that’s in the past now, anyways I have some business to take care of. All the companies I have voting share in are in an uproar over this whole hoopla Unicorn is putting us through, I can’t wait till this month is up.”

“Me too, thanks for the present; bye!”

“bye.”

*Click!*

Jack set the phone down as he began to pull off his shoes. He could hear his mom bustling in the kitchen which was adjacent to the dining and entryway rooms. He walked in as well to pour himself a drink.

“Oh…I thought you were headed out.”

“Nah, Uncle Albert saved me the trouble. Apparently he got some of Haptix’s VR gear as a gift and decided to re-gift it to

Pete, Ju, and I.”

“Oh that was nice of him!”

“Yeah, now just to figure out how to pay the subscription fee.”

“Well since it’s something the three of you can do together… I wouldn’t mind chipping in a bit of money.”

“Really? That’s awesome!”

His mother and father rarely bought anything for Jack and his siblings, other than clothes and food and such. If they wanted any special designer brand clothing or electronics other than a phone, they had to buy it for themselves. It was done in their words to teach them the value of money, which it had. All of their friends said they were very stingy for kids living in a rich suburb.

Jack finished his drink and turned to leave before turning back.

“Oh and thanks!”

“You’re welcome.”

His parents had also pounded etiquette into them. He and Pete were regarded by more than a few of the girls at their school as gentlemen, while the guys regarded Ju in awe as an untainted beauty.

Jack rushed back upstairs to find Pete and Ju were back at it, trying to show who was dominant.

“Ju! Imma take you down Bitch!”

“Whatever stinky Pete, I’m clearly kicking your ass right now.”

‘The people at school have no idea what these two are actually like.’

“So Jack, what was the shouting about downstairs?”

“Yeah, you seemed pretty happy about something. Did Veronica confess to you or something?”

They both were looking at him now with the same suggestive expression. His eye ticked as he cleared his throat.

“No, it was Uncle Albert. Apparently he received some VR gear from one of the companies he invested in as a gift and decided to offer it to us.”

“What!”

“No way!”

“And, mom said that she and dad may help out with the subscription fee for whatever Unicorn was putting out next.”

Ju squealed as Pete shouted. They had wanted to play Royal Road just as much as he did, however they hadn’t been able to due to the fact that they had saved up enough money for one capsule between them, with Jack having priority of course.

“So until then, I’m back in the running. Let’s see which one of you can take my throne.”

Jack grinned maliciously as his two younger sibling re-focused on their futuristic duel.

‘It won’t be long now, instead of firing lasers, we’ll be casting spells’

Jack flopped back down onto his usual spot on the couch and began to flip through the news on his phone again. He noticed an article about enrollment in martial arts classes and gym subscriptions rising drastically. He had a smirk, it had only been roughly an hour since the announcement and already normal people were frantically prepping themselves for the world that the rich and the lucky had been enjoying all to themselves for the past decade.

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Chapter 1.25 -> http://www.royalroadl.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=285&t=2633&p=17393#p17393

So it's the first week of waiting! We finally have the name of our new protagonist and the revelation of a new system! What's going to happen when Royal road is no longer for those with an absurd amount of money!? (I always wondered about that, does the author realize how ridiculously priced the capsule was? I partially think he just tossed out an absurd number because it sounded good) Anyways comment below on what you think. And oh yeah happy belated Easter `:^:^)~