Chapter Text
Chapter 0: Prologue
Jaydin Miller was a special first grader, he was a track star. Ever since he was young he had a gift for running. He was always faster than his peers somehow. Today he was in gym class, his school had a track field which the school usually let him use. He took a deep breath and started running, just because he was good at running doesn’t mean he was bad at schoolwork either. The lowest grade he had gotten this year was an “A”, his intelligence wasn’t a shock given the fact his father was a smart-man himself.
After a few minutes he stopped running and was out of breath. He liked running because it let him feel free from the burden of having to be the best. His mother left his father for a younger man when he was about three so he didn’t remember her much. Since it was just him and his father, his father worked two jobs. At a grocery store in the morning after he dropped him off at school at 7:15 until he got picked up at 3:45. Then at 7 pm he started his shift at a local hospital, sometimes he’d bring Jaydin if he didn’t have school the next day, and it ended at 4 am. His father was a locum tenens physician.
Before Jaydin could leave the field to go to class the 8th grade gym teacher asked him “You want to try a tournament?”
Jaydin thought about it, then said, “Maybe, I don’t know.”
The coach handed him a paper and said, “Look at it and see if you’d want to go, it’s in the neighboring town and it’s in two weeks for talented youth.”
Jaydin looked at the paper then saw that to compete it was eight dollars but to watch it was fifteen dollars. It was pricey and he knew that he could afford it but it would take away from his father’s money for things he wanted. “I’m sorry but the tickets are too expensive,” Jaydin said after more deliberation.
“I can pay for your ticket,” The coach said.
“No, it’s the tickets for the audience that’s too much,” Jaydin said before starting to walk away.
“Wait!” The coach said, “If I can make it a school trip, we will need chaperones and your father will be able to come for free. If I make it a field trip will you participate?”
“Yeah!” Jaydin said with a smile, it wasn’t a surprise the coach knew he was asking for his father. Everyone knew it was just him and his father, he wanted to participate but he didn’t want to burden his father more than already.
“Alright I'll see what I can do, and here,” The coach said as he handed Jaydin a pass on why he’s late for class. As Jaydin walked to class some students gave him a nod as he walked past. Jaydin noticed someone crying from around a corner leading towards one of the exits, instead of going to class and ignoring the sound he went towards it. Behind the corner was an older kid cowering balled up crying. Jaydin sat beside them and asked, “What’s wrong?”
The kid looked up at him and said, “Leave me alone kid. Go to class.”
“What’s wrong?“ Jaydin persisted with a smile.
“You wouldn’t understand, you’re just a first grader,” the kid said.
“Well I don't need to understand, I'm just here to listen. Sometimes just saying what’s wrong makes it a little bit better!” Jaydin said excitedly.
“Fine… my mother recently died and I miss her,“ the kid said as more tears started flowing.
“That’s it let it out,” Jaydin said as he pulled the kids head into his shoulders, his father would also do this whenever he cried.
After a few minutes the kid whipped their face then the kid said, “Thank you, Jaydin”
“No problem, let me walk you to class,” Jaydin said as he stood up and stuck his hand out and helped the kid up.
“Shouldn’t I walk you to class? I mean you are only late because of me,” The kid said, suddenly sounding guilty.
“It’s fine, I’m always late,” Jaydin said casually.
“You shouldn’t be late, you’re learning things you’ll need in the later grades,” the kid said.
“My father re-teaches me everything anyway,” Jaydin said as he grabbed the kid’s arm and pulled them then he said, “Where are we going?”
“Just follow me,” the kid said. After Jaydin dropped off the kid at their class he walked to his own. Based on the time he saw in the classroom he came from to drop the kid off he thought it was around one o’clock so when he made it to class they would be learning science.
When he made it to class his teacher asked, “Where were you?”
“I was helping a student after coming from the gym.” Jaydin said as he gave her the note then sat in his seat. He looked at the board and there was a graph of the plant cycle, he knew this already. His father had taught him this as well as having done the exam because the week after this he would be going to Brazil with his father on a trip for his job.
The classroom intercom came on and said “Jaydin Miller for check out,” then turned off.
“Do you know why you’re checking out?” the teacher asked.
“Not really,” Jaydin said as he shrugged. He packed his stuff then left, when he made it to the office he saw his father smiling.
“You ready?” his father asked as he rubbed his son’s head. He lifted him up and put him on his back and Jaydin wrapped his arms around his father’s neck. Once they made it to the car His father said, “I checked you out because there is a new MMO game that’s on sale for the physical and digital copy and it comes with an action figure for the game!”
“Yay!” Jaydin exclaimed. He had been waiting for a new game for him and his father to play since Elder Scrolls Online came out. Him and his father would play RPGs most days because he wasn't good at shooter games or other PvP games. They made it to the mall and Jaydin got on his father’s shoulders as he walked to where the game sale was. This was a new game usually hundreds would line up for a game like this but this game was made by an indie company.
Indie games are not liked currently, especially after the many flops that came out, but his father was a trusting man so if he liked the premise of a game he would get it. One of his father’s friends was a beta tester and gave this game high praise, it was apparently 720p and had realistic physics. 720p was very high quality especially for an indie game. They made it to the store and there wasn't anyone in line.
His father called his friend but he didn’t answer the phone, he wanted to make sure of the name of the game. He called a few more times but they didn’t answer. After they purchased the game and made it home his father had a bad feeling about the game and told him not to play it until he made sure it was safe. His father was very superstitious so if his instincts told him something, he would follow them. His father put in the code to his Xbox and started installing it. The game was 56.9GB so it would take five hours to install.
Once the game was installed Jaydin tried to play it, but his father told him to wait until tomorrow because his shift started and he wanted to make sure the game was safe. Jaydin started watching One Piece, he was caught up in the anime and was starting on the manga. The current episode was “Moving Across the Ground! The Giant Statue Pica's Surprise Maneuver!.” After the episode was finished he walked over to his PC and started playing Elder Scrolls Online.
“May I stream?” He texted his father.
After about forty minutes his father responded, “Sure, just make sure your webcam is off and don’t respond to dms since I'm not there.”
Jaydin turned off his phone then turned on his stream, he smiled and said, “Welcome back chat. It's been a few weeks since my last stream but I'll post later today. I’ve been busy with school and stuff but that doesn't matter, we are going to be playing Elder Scrolls and trying to find something fun to fight!” he didn’t know what he was going to do he was just going to goof around being an evil doer. Besides being an academic weapon, he was also a popular streamer who has played and finished over a hundred MMORPGs with his dad.
Even after all those games, he wasn’t tired of the genre and still played some of the old ones or platformers for his stream. After he was done streaming, he still had several hours before he would go to bed, it was a boring Friday afternoon. Before he turned off his PC he checked the time and date it was November 13, 2015. What could he do?
He then remembered the new game his father had bought that day. He went into his father’s gaming room which was parallel to his room and opposite of the bathroom. He entered his father’s room and turned on the Xbox.
As he waited for the game to start, he had second doubts, Should I do this? Father told me not to, and even though he’s superstitious he has never led me wrong. Before he could doubt himself anymore the game screen turned on. It was pretty lame, the screen was just the logo and no movement. He pressed “A” to continue then a sword flew at a screen and then the character creation screen came. It wasn’t normal, the first thing was difficulty selection not “ new game, continue game, settings, etc.”.
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Extra-Easy Mode
You will gain experience 30 times easier than normal mode.
You will get six extra skills.
This mode is for people who have never played video games before.
Easy Mode
You will gain experience 10 times easier than normal mode.
You will get two extra skills.
This mode is best for people new to MMOs.
Normal Mode
This is the standard difficulty.
This is the median difficulty.
You will be able to get a random amount of skills of any rank.
This will limit your growth to ascension two.
Pick this mode if you are a casual player or if you don’t know which to choose.
Hard Mode
Gaining experience will be 20 times harder.
You will be able to allow your character to ascension five.
You will be able to get a normal skill.
Hell Mode
Gaining experience will be 100 times harder.
You will be allowed to ascend your character fifty times.
You will get no extra skills.
It will take longer to learn skills.
“I Don’t Know What to Call This Difficulty so Theseus Create a Name Please” Mode
Gaining experience will be 1,000 times harder.
There is no limit to the amount you can develop your character.
The skills you start with are linked to your class and there will be no extra skills.
Gaining skills will be ten times longer and five times harder to level up.
You will not be able to restart and choose another difficulty. However, should you not give up and you level up you will receive all the world has to offer and more.
This mode is currently in beta testing-Theseus 🥰
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From reading it, it gets much more difficult with each difficulty. Also what is that last difficulty? Is it an isekai title?
Jaydin then weighed his options. He wants a challenge but he doesn’t know if he should choose idkwtctdstcanp(Acronym for “I Don’t Know What to Call This Difficulty so Theseus Create a Name Please”) Mode, he re-read all the options then thought, Why is the name of the hardest difficulty so long? It couldn’t be that hard to think of a shorter name, right? He knew he could do it but he wasn’t sure if he should do it. But it sounded fun.
Beta testing? And who is Theseus? Must be a dev thing.
He clicked the difficulty. Then a loading screen popped up showing the classes with stars beside them.
Based on the number of stars that go up with each name, it’s ranking difficulty in ascending order from lowest to highest. The first is swordsman, this really is a basic RPG huh?
He scrolled through the list of classes. He was surprised when he saw the Sword Lord and Martial Arts god, but then he thought that each class might have an advanced version of them.
Hero? I thought everyone would be the hero but now the thief and demon general class makes sense. As he reached the bottom he was surprised by two classes, “10 Star Demigod” and “12 Star Alchemist”. Demigod might be the advanced version of Brawler or Hero, it must be right. Every demigod in Percy Jackson had a hero's quest they needed to complete so Hero makes the most sense. But, what could Alchemist be the advanced version of? And more importantly why is it sixteen stars? I thought the highest was supposed to be ten? The only thing that makes sense would be mage but there is the Archmage class. So?
Jaydin spent the next fifteen minutes pondering; he then decided to give up the thought and picked the most interesting class as usual. As soon as he clicked Alchemist a warning screen popped up saying, ”Choosing this class may result in the next screen being changed. Are you sure you wish to proceed? Press ‘A’ for yes. Press ‘B’ for no,”
Jaydin didn’t hesitate before pressing ‘A’ and then a wheel appeared in the middle of the screen with two options but one had more odds of being picked, those choices being "Slave " and "Serf.” Jaydin then decided to read the text at the top of the screen which said, “Use the wheel below to choose your starting social rank at birth”, it was simple but was enough for him to understand. He rolled the wheel and as it spun he realized that his character could start as a slave which he definitely didn’t want. He wanted to start grinding as soon as possible but as a slave he’d be trapped until he got freed. He started to sweat because the side that was larger was the side that had “slave” on it.
It was about eight tenths of the wheel which was very scary for him. The wheel started to slow down and it didn’t look good for Jaydin as it was going past Serf but it suddenly stopped causing Jaydin’s soul to leave his body. When he regained his composure he let out a loud cheer and thanked every god he knew existed, for helping him be a serf, then he pressed start.
“WHAT!!!!” He exclaimed as a realistic animation appeared of a Swordsmen and a Demon king fighting. It was hyper realistic, it looked like a youtube video and not a video game but it couldn’t have been real because the demon king was using magic. He analyzed the video in front of him and gasped, the hero fell and was killed. That isn’t how things work, the hero always wins. He didn’t even get a flashback. After a few seconds, a screen that said“Press ‘A’ to start”. Without thinking much Jaydin pressed ‘A’ and the room was filled with a bright white light.
Jaydin Miller was no longer a vessel in this world.