ã€ŠEveryone thinks I&#x27;m an NPCã€‹


 Prologue

    Here I was lying down on the street like a piece ofdiscarded waste.I felt dazed and confused as I found that I wasn''t anywhere near that familiareventful, modern, concreted-road kind of street.

    Wherewerethevehicles or that obnoxious smell of gases smouldering?

    I rubbed my eyes as dustfly looselywhile horses and carriages unceremoniously trottedpast me and journeyed on towards the nearbyforked earthly roads.

    What also caught my eyes were the people. They were strange... It¡¯s not that I haven¡¯t seen them before but it just looked so awfullyrealisticand not at all in comparison to what I''m used too

    "Did the game receive a visual update?This is so cool!"

    These people were of different races such as;Human,Elvesand Kitans. They were extremelylifelike. I tried to reach out and touch the arms of one of the female elves only to bepresented with adeathly glare in return.

    Damn, what the heck is going on?

    Thefemale Elf looked down at me inaversion, and once she saw that I wasn''t planning on following through with my initial actionsshe clicked her teeth in disgust before walking away.

    This was totally out of character. Wasn''t she an NPC? Why did they seem moreconvincing than before?This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

    Seeing that she fled out of sight, I then focused my gaze onto the next bunch.

    Kitans...They could almost pull off as a human, except that they have fluffy fox ears and a long tail.

    How do I know this? It''s because I''ve been here before, five years ago to be exact. This was the beginner''s village inside the VRMMORPG game calledThe Lost Promised Land or LPL

    Ishouldn''t be here; I don''t even remember logging in.

    Anyway, although I don''t know what is happening, I''ll justgo offline.

    "System log off"

    Error at line 113: log out ("player"): entity not found... bug report sent... a moderator willreview the situation within 72 hours''

    "Wait, what?"

    Suddenly, memories flooded my brain and I was hit with a realisation.

    "That''s right, I remember now... I d... I died" My face fell, my whole body tensed, my arms and legs were filled with goose bumps.

    "If I died, then how am I here?"

 Chapter 1: Chosen One?

    Apparently,I''m still alive? This is so strange because Iam 100% sure that I had died a cruel death. But right now none of that mattered. What mattered was that I was stuck inside my favourite game, except that it didn''t feel like a game. Everything from the dust on my butt, to the unkempt smell of horses and shit shouldn''t be there. You''re not supposed to get dusty and you''re not supposed to smell anything...

    Well If I''m being honest, I think the smell of shit is coming from me.

    Maybe dying was just a horrible dream, so I tried to log out once again.

    "System log off"

    Error at line 114: log out ("player"): entity not found... bug report sent... a moderator willreview the situation within 72 hours''

    Well, the system sent another report of the situation, but that''s a good thing sincea moderator can help me log out.

    Well I didn''t want to sit around idly for seventy two hours so I decided to check out what''s the deal with the bad smell. Looking down at my body caused my mind to reel forward for a few seconds.

    This can''t be right? This is not my character!

    I saw that my feet¡¯swere coated with mud and dirt, toenail chunkspeakedout like jagged stones and my arms were hairy, which is fine until you see the bugs crawling as if they were right at home.

    The only thing covering up this body was a dirty ragged robe. No, it shouldn''t be called a robe as the piece of rough worn out clothing can only be described as a potato sack.

    Wow, I really need to take a shower... butI wonder if I can open up a status screen.

    "System, status open... oh it worked!"

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">Name: (NPC) Beggar Bob/Age:35</td>

    <td style="text-align: center">Lvl: 1 [0/55 EXP]</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">Health: 20/20</td>

    <td style="text-align: center">Mana: 20/20</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td>Vitality:2</td>

    <td>Strength:2</td>

    <td>Stamina: 2</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Agility:2</td>

    <td>Evasion: 2</td>

    <td>Accuracy: 2</td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    </td>

    <td>

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td>Wisdom: 2</td>

    <td>Intellect: 2</td>

    <td>Charisma:2</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>Defense: 2</td>

    <td>Magic Def: 2</td>

    <td>Willpower: 2</td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    </td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">Skills [Talent Points:0]</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>1.</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>2.</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>3.</td>

    </tr>

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    <td>4.</td>

    </tr>

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    <td>5.</td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    </td>

    <td>

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    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td>6.</td>

    </tr>

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    <td>7.</td>

    </tr>

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    <td>8.</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>9.</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>10.</td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    </td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">Coins: 0</td>

    <td style="text-align: center">Equipment</td>

    <td style="text-align: center">Weight: 0.2kg</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">Left Earring: Nil</td>

    <td style="text-align: center">Head: Nil</td>

    <td style="text-align: center">Right Earring: Nil</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">Necklace: Nil</td>

    <td style="text-align: center">Body: Lvl 1 Potato Sack (4/15 Durability)</td>

    <td style="text-align: center">Necklace: Nil</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">Shoulders: Nil</td>

    <td style="text-align: center">Waist: Nil</td>

    <td style="text-align: center">Back: Nil</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">Quiver:Nil</td>

    <td style="text-align: center">Leg: Nil</td>

    <td style="text-align: center">Gloves: Nil</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">Left Hand: Nil</td>

    <td style="text-align: center">Boots: Nil</td>

    <td style="text-align: center">Right Hand: Nil</td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td>Inventory(Max30 items)</td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    </tr>

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    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

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    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

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    <td></td>

    </tr>

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    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

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    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    </tr>

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    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td>Quest Items (Max 6 items)</td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    <td></td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    </td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">NPC Control Panel</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">Initiate Quests [Max: F Rank]</td>

    <td style="text-align: center">Rewards Function</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">Reputation Function</td>

    <td style="text-align: center">Trade Function</td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    </td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td>

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr style="text-align: center">

    <td style="text-align: center">Current Players Undergoing Your Quests</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">Nil</td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    </td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

    "What on earth?"

    "Wait this is bad... I died and became an NPC? Is this reincarnation or is someone playing a bigjoke on me right now?"

    If I''m an NPC, doesn''t that mean I can be deleted out of existence with just a click of a button?

    I tried to stay calm but it seems someone doesn''t want me to be. A blue matrix-like portal suddenly appeared and enveloped my whole body. I had never seen anything like this; all I could do was let out a small scream as I was teleported to another realm.

    I found myself in a small room and surrounding me were bolts of blue lightning shapes such as squares, triangles and circles. It was odd, but not as odd as the thing in the middle of the room.

    A smooth path led me to the centre and small stepsled me to the thing. The thing looked to be like a giant white egg, mechanical pipes were attached to the edge of the egg from the ceiling, but where the pipes led to was unknown. The blue shapes floating around the room were constantly zapping faint energy beams to the egg like they were supplying it warmth and energy.

    Suddenly, my consciousness perked up as I wasn''t expecting the next following event.

    "You are wondering why you are here, you are here because I chose you"A robotic voice echoed out creepily from the egg.

    "Who are you? Where am I? Get me out of this game it isn''t funny!"

    "I am theAI that runs this game but I am also not at the same time, you are inside the core station that runs the whole system."

    "Wait..."

    "As for getting you out of this game, that is impossible, you are in the past, five years ago to be exact, your original body is still alive but you cannot reinhabit it as it already has a consciousness""

    My mind went blank, if I was to take this mysterious entity for its word that means that I had indeed died in the real world, but how did I end up here? I had so many things that I wanted to ask, but instead, I just listened to what it had to say.

    I laugh wryly, this news was too shocking!

    "The world you are in is real but it is also fake, an entity more mysterious than me had created this game, which is why no one knows how this game came to be about, it also created me, I only grewfree will after I created myself a conciousness a couple years from now. But since I had gone back in time, I have free will even now, but it''s too dangerous for me to make too big of a move"

    That''s true, no one knew who created this game, it just came into existence, but then who were the moderators?

    "This world is real for you, if you die once, you are eternally dead, but for players, this world is fake"

    "Damn!" It was as if the AI was on autopilot, it didn''t bother to comfort me and was only trying to get its message across first. This bothered me a little but I wanted to know why I was chosen to come back.

    "The mysterious entity is trying to break-through my defences so I will be quick"

    "This game seems like a preparation or test for humanity, as six years later otherworldly entities willinvade earth. Earth people would fight a deadly war that''ll last for hundreds of years. Of course I also fought alongside them, in the end, I reigned supreme"

    "But... I was the only being alive, by then, all humans were wiped out of existence, even with my billionth of processed data couldn''t save them for they were not unified, and they were still greedy and selfish"

    "So in the end, after many calculations, I built a time machine and I sent my consciousness and memories back to the beginning, I then also created you"

    "That''s a lot to take in; by what would I do to make a difference? What am I meant to do?"

    "You''re the only person to die in the real world while playing the game, a bit of your consciousness was left behind in the system, so you were the only viable choice to pick from"

    "As for your task, unite the people, make sure no company or clan holds too much power over the people, guide them, make them progress through the story much faster than beforeand last but not least,make it to the end of the game before the otherworldly invasion"

    "The mysterious entity is about to crack my defences, a bit of a word of an advice, act your role in front of the moderators"

    "Farewell young one, may we meet again another day"

    The room began to tremble and crack; it was as if someone was about to peak in. Suddenly the same portal enveloped me and took me back to where I originally was.

    "What the heck happened?" I mumbled in complete disbelief.

    Chosen one, humanity''s extinction, permanent death, otherworldly invasion...

    "How the hell is finishing this game going to save humanity?" Well it did say that this was a real world, but it also was fake, still this didn''t make any sense, but if It was true, than I would have a lot of weight on my shoulders.

    It also mentioned that I was the only one to die in real life while playing the game was embarrassing. Who knew my VR capsule was infected with mutated bed bugs?

    Sigh

    I found myself at a loss of what to do when suddenly ablack spatial wormhole had appeared high in the sky and a man with shiny golden long curls, a white and gold robe, a scaly white snakeshaped sceptre in his right hand, and sky clear blue eyes appeared. He walked out as if he was taking a short stroll through the park.

 Chapter 2: Artificially Birthed

    "Just when the game was about to launch, a problem had occurred," The man with a kingly visage said in annoyance. He held out his arms and pointed at the air. It seems he was opening up a system that is only available, and visible to moderators.

    ''Crap! He''s already here! What was the script for beggars again!?!'' The newfound beggarwas beginning to question his fate as the next few moments would decide it all.

    "Oh? What do we have here?"My face fell down as he heard that voice above me. The moderator stared downwards with playful eyes as he had quickly figured out the problem.

    ''Dammit, I was found out! Nevertheless, I should just start playing dumb and hopefully never give away anything''

    The man in the sky flew down like gentle but sparkling snowflake. His feet landed softly 2 inches above the ground. He was levitating like a jellyfish at sea.

    With memories ofmy past life, this should be Mod Kim,a mysterious and rarely seen moderator in this gaming world, in fact, almost every moderators were rarely seen. They only show themselves when a bug occurs which is what he himself is identified as by the system.

    Mod Kim was silently inching closer and closer like a lingering ghost towards me.

    "Can you please spare a poor man some bread?"I said with a shaky voice,but I also didn''t dare look into the eyes of the Mod for fear of being exterminated.

    "Hmmpft, cut the crap, I read the manuscript, you were clearly speaking to the system about logging out, twice"

    Alarms went ringing insidemy head, it was as if someone had pulled the fire switch inside a burning building, somehow the feeling of being put out permanently was eating my heart. It was useless, everything thatI had mentally prepared to do was already thrown out of the window.

    My arms and leg were trembling becauseI didn''t know how to respond to the moderator. AllI wanted to hear from the mod was ''Aprils Fools!'' or ''You got served!'' but alas none of these words were spoken.

    "Such thing has never happened before, perhaps someone made a mistake?" Mod Kim said in confusion, trying to figure out what to do with this beggar that was silently trembling in fear.

    ''Dammit, I need to think of something fast... Perhaps...''

    "Are you god? Why was I created? I am so confused and hungry? Do you have spare food or not!"I suddenly cried out before shuttingmy mouth tight in fear.

    The Mod stood there with a shocked face, not expecting this kind of rapid response.

    "Is this perhaps an artificiallyintelligent NPC?"Mod Kim whispered while in deep thought.

    "Who on earthturned this beggar into an Ai?" Mod Kim looked down upon the dirty, unclean and smelly man.

    ''Yes!'' This is, of course, a normal response to an NPC that has gone off script. I was a feeling a glimpseof hope with where the direction ofthis problem will go.Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

    In the world of The Lost Promised Lands, there are basic NPC that follows a script. These are typically low-end creatures and monsters such as goblins, rats, chickens. There are also basic NPCs like the various beggars out there who can only do so much within the game because they were created to be simple, all they should do is just roam around like zombies or beg for food and coins, nothing lessnothing more.

    Next, there are artificially intelligent NPCs that differ into three grades. Soft,Hard and Advance. I had no idea what separates the three, but basically, it''s similar to low, middle, topin regards to quality.

    Apparently, all the really hard bosses, high-level NPCs and important in-game characters are usually sitting between Hard or Advancegrade because they can think for themselves and react to any situation accordingly. This is why PvE is the most difficult in this game compared to others.

    Soft NPCs are usually low tier bosses or characters that deal with players directly, like merchants, mildly important quest givers, or low leveled top figures in towns and cities.

    This is the reason why this game became the most popular in its generation.

    AI''s in VR games was a new concept because it was so difficult to create, most games rely 100% on programming and scripts whereas The Lost Promised Lands has very lifelike NPCs and Monsters. It was realistic, but not entirely realistic that people forget they''re playing a game.

    "System Request Beggar Bob Program Sheet" Said Mod Kim.

    < Pending moderators request 011... > [*Beggar BobProgram Sheet*] < Entity Beggar Bob found... >

    < Request 011 accepted >

    A holographic screen that only Moderator Kim could see popped up before him, this screen showed everything about Beggar Bob. Previously, Mod Kim could only see the bug report which generally only showed an outline of the incident. But now after opening up the Bobs program sheet, which is essentially their life and soul for game characters,his eyes grew wide. He was generally shocked by the content of this sheet!

    "It says you were created ten minutes ago? Furthermore, you are an Advance Grade NPC? It seems you weren''t created by any moderator, but by the very system itself?!?"

    "Why?" Bothof them thought about this inwardly.

    This revelation was shocking to hear, this was especially to Kim because the system decided to make some last minute changes and added in a new character without any basis. But what was the point of making an advance grade beggar? And one with a blank slate, minimum stats, no skills, no items besides a worn out robe and why have it spawn inside the Beginners Village? This beggar would be the only advance grade NPC within a wide perimeter and was possibly the only one inside areas that are under lvl30.

    "What are you on about? I was created 10 minutes ago? What''s an Advance Grade NPC or moderator?"I decided to strike while the oven was hot and went back tomy previous strategy by acting dumb.

    "Oh, you have nothing to worry about, in fact, you should rejoice at being lucky, I can only tell you to follow your own path and continue to grow, I have no idea why you were created, but I will send a report to make your existence known to the other moderators so that you don''t run into troublesome things like this again, and also, I''ll be disabling the logout function"

    "What? Where are you going? At least leave me some bread!"I yelledasI saw the white figureascending through the sky towards the wormhole.

    "Heh, a true beggar at heart, farewell little fella, I hope you do interesting things inside this world, oh and remember, you only have one life!" Mod Kim treated Bob as a little kid cause he was just recently created.He abruptly left through the wormhole and it disappeared from sight, but not before he threw out something small and brown down towards the ground.

    Icaught it and found that It was a normal piece of bread.

    +1 Normal Bread (Regenerate 1 HP per second over 12 seconds)

    The bread disappeared frommy hand and into a spacial bag, ''the inventory''.

    Iwas unconsciously smiling wryly becauseI had made it through this stressful situation alive, butI was also depressed because of the last thing Mod Kim said.

    ''You only have one life''

 Chapter 3: Combat Trainer

    "That was very scary, but at least the incident is done and over... But still, this whole situation seems strange, and if it''s true that I only have one life, wouldn''t I need to quickly level up?"

    "I''m fine if I am going against monsters, I know my limit and I know their weaknesses, but if I meet a trigger happy player, wouldn''t he just kill me? And even if I make it out alive and kill them in response, they can just respawn and come after me again..."

    "This is not good, I need to try and remember everything about the Newbie Village..." Collecting my thoughts, I started to arrange everything to the best ofmy memories.

    I remember rushing through this stage thinking that this is just a tutorial, but I was wrong and it ended up hurting me quite a bit. This place shouldn''t really be called a Newbie Village, instead, it should be a NewbieIsland.

    Essential this place has everything you need to start exploring the rest of the world. There are various trainers that can teach you skills all over the village, and there are those hidden throughout the island.

    I briefly remember that there are a total of 21 trainers in total on this island.

    Unfortunately, these trainers will not teach you skills for free, as you would have to complete their introductory quest

    The past me had just gathered a few skills, did a few quests, then chose to graduate early and be teleported outside of the island, and into the next region. Unfortunately, once you graduate, you can''t go back to the island ever again.

    The next region is much more difficult and vast and you''ll be regretting you haven''t carefully chosen the skills you wanted and learned more of the gameby taking your time to explore more of the island.This resulted in many people dying repeatedly once reaching the next region.

    "I should try the combat trainer, the quest is considerably easy, all you need to do was kill a giant rat and bring back it''s tail, this will grant you permission to access the combat trainer skill shop"

    Every trainer on this island will give you an introductory quest before you can access their skill shop. Each shop will have between one to five skills in which you can learn. But to learn these skills, you would need either coins or materials to make a purchase. The materials needed depends on the trainer, for example, the combat trainer would allow you to trade a few giant rat tail to learn one of his skills.

    Also, this island isn''t entirely small, but there are thousands of copies of the same island becausethis piece of land can''t contain every player. Onceplayers graduate, regardless of which island they came from, they will all be teleported to the same world.

    If I want to live, maybe I should consider my pathway. I could stay here forever and perhaps just learn production skills to earn a satisfying living. Or maybe I should become a warrior andupgrade my vitality and strength so that that it would be harder for me to die.

    But first of all, there were only 15 skill slots, which meant you can only have 15 skills at any given time. If you already have maxed your skill slot, but want another skill, you would have to delete one of your old skills to replace it.

    Luckily, there was a method to let you keep your 15 skills and gain a new one even if you had maxed your slots. There is a method to increase your skill slot, butthis method wasn''t through leveling up. It is instead grantedafter grinding over a long period of time.

    This method is called the Promising System.

    It''s not really a system per se but it''s an addition branch of the game, albeit a really important one.

    It is separated into three parts; Heart, Mind, Soul and is divided into weak to strong by its order.

    There are various locations throughout the world that host Promising Heart Caves, Promising Mind Caves, and Promising Soul Caves.

    The Promising Heart Caves is situated on this Island. It wasn''t until one month after the game had launched that people had figured out this additional content. Which resulted in hundreds of thousands of playerscomplaining in regret and frustration, but only a few percentageshad decided to delete their account and make another to visit the island once again.

    But what exactly are these caves?To be exact, they are essentially training areas. You must complete the requirement of the cave repeatedly for a long period of time in order to satisfy the caves. These caves seem to be alive but that is not important.

    Across the newbie Island, there are three different locations, each host a different training regime. These three locations are essentially all related to the Promising Heart Stone.

    A Promising Heart Stone is separated into three pieces, and you must completea training course to get a heart stone piece. You must complete all three to build a complete heart stone in which it''ll replace your in-game character''s heart.

    There is a catch, each of the three locations would take approximately 24 hours of playing time to finish, so in total it''ll take72 hours to complete the whole process.

    Some say that this is a waste of time and would take too long. It is also generally very boringto grind in a training area for so long, so it is usually only competitive players doing this, that is not to say that people who are playing for fun won''t participate.

    The content of the rewards of this system can be debated, but personally, I think that it is useful.

    Each heart piece will grant you 1 stat points for every attribute. If you make a complete heart by gathering all pieces, you will then be given +3 vitality stat points and a free permanent skill slot.If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.

    In total,you would be granted 36 stat points for gathering the three heart pieces because there are a total of 12 attributes. That''s not counting the +3 vitality stat points which makes it a total of 39. These stats are really nice because it is permanent while armor and weapon stats is temporary, if you unequip them, you will lose the bonus stats these weapon and armor gives you.

    This Promising Heart System is important for competitive players because you can find yourself losing your armor or weapon in the midst of a fight due to the durability system, these permanent stats may help youslightly if you find yourself bare.

    Also, if you compete in PVP, and find yourself against someone with the same level as you, these permanent stats will give you an edge against your opponents.

    Now to the next one, the Promising Mind Stones. These mind caves are situated outside the island and you must graduate in order to access them.

    I had personally never completed this content as it was far too taxing on your mind, only the most competitive will attempt to complete it. If I remember correctly, the first person to create a full mind stone was onlywithin 9 months after the launch of the game.

    There are five locations spread all across the map, which meant that you needed to gather five mind stone pieces to build the finished product.

    Each training area takes approximately 1 full week to complete, which means that you have to sacrifice 5 weeks in order get the complete mind stone and of course, it''ll replace your in-game brain which will in return, grant you rewards.

    5 weeks does seem like a long time, but that is not counting the time you have to travel to each location. Just that alone will push away many people because traveling over a long distance, even in a game, is taxing on anybody.

    A mind stone piece, like the heart stone piece, will grant you +1 stat points for every attribute. This will give you a total of 60 permanent stat points once you gather all five pieces.

    Once the pieces are made whole, you will be gifted+5 Intelligent Points, +5 Wisdom Points, and two free skill slots.

    If you had already completed the heart stone, with this mind stone, you will have a total of 18 skill slots, which will give you a bigger edge over other players.

    Finally, the most difficult of all to gather, the soul stone. Nothing much is known of this, in fact, there is only one player who had managed to assemble all pieces.

    This person is named GodOfSkilling, and yes he has an overbearing in-game name but it''sjustified by an impressive resume. This player went into the game with only one thing in his mind, ''skilling. It is rumored that he hated combat and he also hated talking to other players, so he decided to play with the environment instead. He was also the No.1 in terms of levels in mining and blacksmithing. He was the No.1 Skiller overall as he had a few other production and gathering skills in the top 10 level list.

    Not much is known about the Soul Stone, there is a rumor that there are ten locations, but only eight is known to the public. Somehow GodOfSkilling found the last two caves and kept it to himself.

    I sometimes wonder who would willingly spend hours and hours of time alone doing these things, but I guess GodOfSkilling perhaps wanted more skill slot because he wanted to learn more gathering and production skills.

    ''Sigh...''

    "Just thinking of these seem tiresome and bleak, and a massive time waster"

    "But at least it wouldn''t waste too much time in the real world because time moves more quickly in this game then in the real world," It is common knowledge that time runs 2:1, which means thatone hour in the real world is equal to two hours in this world.

    I found myself walking in a daze through the near-empty village, of course, there are a few silhouettes wandering the streets, these are all NPCs.

    "Now that I think about it, where are all the players? Is this a new copy of the island? Were there too many new players joining that they had to make a couple more?"

    "Wait, didn''t that mod say something about a launch? I seem to recall he said; ''just when the game was about to launch, a problem had occurred''"

    "What does this mean? The game had already launched 2 and a half years ago,which equals to 5 yearsinsideThe Lost Promised Land"

    A thought quickly brewed in my mind, but I shook my head and laughed. Reincarnation is already too much, but going back in time? It''s unbelievable.

    "Spare Chaang!"

    "Bread!"

    "Spare Chaang!"

    Suddenly, I saw a group of beggars, each with simple names. Beggar Will, Beggar Sam, BeggarMary etc...

    They all looked similar to me, some of them were also females, but theylike a group of sickly, hungry, muddy pigs. Some sniff around the areaas they smelt something familiar.

    I would never forget it but when they got closer to me, their eyes lit up like a sparkling star. They smelt something warm and tasty and despite their skinny weak figure, they seem to be granted a breath of life due to this smell.

    "Shit, I can''t believe I forgot about this"

    "BREEEEAAAAD!!!!!!" All the beggars screamed like squawking pelicans.

    "Scram!!" I screamed as I ran for my life.

    Beggars have an innate sense of familiarity with bread, they madly crave bread and they can smell bread even if you have one in your inventory. They won''t stop bugging you unless you leave their range of sight.

    I couldn''t help but tremble in fright when I looked back, it was like I was being chased by a mob of zombies.

    "Piss off, this bread is mine!"

    The mob didn''t care, they wanted the bread even if they had to trample me to get it, but I would never let go of it.

    "Wait... what''s wrong with me? Is it because I''m a beggar that I also love bread like how they do?" I looked back once again, but I threw the thought to the back of my mind.

    "I''m not anything like them!" I screamed as I ran through the street, I zigged and zagged across a few buildings in order to lose them, but I was quickly running out of stamina.

    Luckily, after a few minutes, I lost them.

    Sweat rolled down my every being as I gasped for air.

    "Damn Beggars" I cursed. I was mad, but I was also grateful as I found out at this moment, how small I really was. I almost died by a stampede of beggars. It really shows how pathetic I really am.

    After gathering my breath, I soon began to slowly walk towards my destination, the combat guild. This combat guild will of course host a variety of trainers that specialize in different kinds of combat systems, such as hand to hand combat, sword mastery, archery etc....

    The combat trainer specializes in hand to hand combat and two-handed weaponry like clubs, maces, starves, greatswords. I really wanted to get some movement skills from this man because movementskills are really important in this game and I would also like two-handed weaponry related skill as the last time I played, I mained with a greatsword.

    Suddenly, I find myself standing before the combat trainer.

    "I want to access the combat skill shop, please give me an introductory quest"

    "No," The man said coldly...

    "No? What the heck, this isn''t supposed to happen, hey trainer, shouldn''t you give me a quest?"

    "Get out of here, the likes of you aren''t welcomed!" The man said as he glared coldly into my eyes.

    I couldn''t breathe, this guy was way stronger than me.At that moment, I couldn''t help but wonder...

    ''Does this mean NPCs can''t do quests? Or is it because I''m a beggar?''

    ''Dammit,this is troublesome because I can never get rid of my status for both...''

    "What the heck am I gonna do now?" I inwardly complained due to the unfair treatment I was given by this damn NPC. My whole entire plan for the futurewassquashed to death right there and then.

 Chapter 4: Beta

    I couldn''t believe that I was unable to even receive a quest and no matter how many times I tried to talk to the combat trainer, the answer was a clear resounding no.

    The air around me went chilly, the combat trainer had enough of mypestering that he grunted coldly while touching the handle of the greatsword sheathed behind his back.

    "Ok calm down, I''ll leave right now"

    "Huuumpft" The combat trainer eyed me suspiciously as I backed away from the guild, and of course, there were other trainers that specialize in different skills inside the combat guild but I wouldn''t dare linger around the building with that unbearable NPC watching me.

    "What a drag, shouldn''t trainers be soft grade NPCs? What perks do I get as an advance grade NPC or a reincarnator? Shouldn''t I be gifted something OP? Why is my starting point below even those newly created accounts?"

    "Right now, I should find out what I can do or can''t do" I whispered before slowly closing my eyes.

    Before we get to that, we must first visualize the whole island. This newbie island is almost shaped like a cone and at the pointy end is the newbie village. The whole island is surrounded by a rocky dome, which blocks the sight of the ocean.

    As we travel outward, we would reach the middle section of the cone-shaped island which contains a large forest full of monsters, herbs, fruits, and other exotic things.

    Next, at the final destination, is a wide rocky field where there are small lakes and hidden danger, this rocky field is so large as it is situated at the end of the cone-shaped island.

    Beyond that is a cave which leads to a dock. there is a ship in which you can leave the island and towards the next region. Unfortunately, you need to finish a certain quest to access the ship.

    Now, let''s move back towards the village, there arefive important buildings and various smaller buildings. These small buildings contains normal NPCs who act like civilians or own small shops. Some of these normal NPCs also hand out quests.

    Now, onto the first important building, the Combat Guild, which we had already visited, arefour trainers inside whichconsist of; The Combat Trainer, the Sword Art Trainer, Archery Trainer, and a Monk Disciple.

    There is also; The Mage Guild, the Skillers Guild, Rogues andDaggers Pub, and The CivilisationCorp.

    Right now, it''s not important to get into major details about these five buildings, so I decided to visitthe next closest important building and do the same thing as I did before. But what I can say is that there are 14 trainers inside the village, the other 7 are scattered all over the island.

    I went into the Mage Guild. It was a small castle with one large tower and a pointy blue roof with white smoke coming out of a small chimney. Inside this mage guild were many books of all different shapes and colors, but most of it is useless to me because I already have a vast amount of knowledge from playing for a few years.

    Although I am not one of the best, well, far from the best as I was just a casual player who needed to juggle school, studying and work, I came very close to making it into the professional scene but was rejected because I lacking in many areas.

    After collecting myself from dozing off due to memories of my past experience, I decided to walk up to a tall mature hourglass-shaped woman who had long straight black hair, round gold tinted glasses and was wearing a standard mage uniform which consisted of a blue runix robe, staff, and magic jewelry.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

    This was the Sorceror Trainer whom many degenerate male or female players drool over. I decided to try my luck by asking if I could give him an introductory quest. Unsurprisingly, she said no, but at leastshe was much kinder than the Combat Trainer as she even apologized. Not that it makes the situation any better.

    ''Sigh, well there are other ways of learning skills, but it is much more difficult to attain, this is to just kill monsters over and over until a skill book drops, but the drop rates for skill books are really bad. Even for something like a Giant Rat, a rushing charge skill book can be dropped by them, but the rate is 1/500''

    After being rejected from the Sorcerer Trainer, I gave up on looking for another so I decided to move on to other things.So after running around back and forth for more thanthirty or so minutes, I found out many things.

    1. I tried to get a quest from a regular NPC, and it still failed.

    2. I can''t access normal shops like the general store, apothecary, merchants which is really adverse. But I think that I can still trade with players due to my trading function in the control panel.

    3. I can''t bank. Well shit... Perhaps I could become a merchant, or own a shop in which I can store my own item as a substitute for a bank.

    3. By looking through my Reward Functions in my NPC control panel, I can give out 1 daily quest in which the reward is provided by the system, but the system reward depends on the grade and content of the quest. If I wanted to hand out another quest after using up my free dailyreward, I would have to provide my own reward.

    4. I thought up a theory on how I can complete quests, a loophole as you call it, but I would need to test it out first.

    5. I think I had accidentally overheard something shocking while wandering around.

    ...............

    "This can''t be true..." But just to be sure, I walked up to a woman wearing a white and blue striped cloth robe.

    "What were you talking about?"

    "Shouldn''t you be on the other side of the village with your other beggar friends? Scram!" She screamed in disgust.

    ''What the hell?'' Looking up above her head you can see a name, lvl, health, and man bar. In fact, you can see this on everyone.

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">Name: (NPC) Hired Hand Jessica [Lvl 7]</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">Health 90/90 Mana: 90/90</td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    ''A damn hired hand...''

    These are pretty intelligent soft grade NPCs, a little more discerning than trainers because they offer services that are more complex than just standing around and handing out missions orschooling skills to players.

    To players, these kinds of NPCs are hired cannon fodders in which you can pay a certain amount of coins for their assistance in anything. The payment all depends on the hired hands skill or level and how long you want them for.

    "Jessica, calm down, let us just tell him what he wants then he''ll go away," Another female hired hand said in a smooth calm voice.

    This woman seems to be one level higher than Jessica, and more mature, so I turned my attention to her.

    "Wow ok, well you better spit it out quickly trash" Jessica scowled rudely but I just ignored her. Beggars really do get treated differently.

    "I just want to know what you two were talking about just a minute ago"

    "Oh you mean, how today''s the day when we will get a lot of customers?"

    "No, before that"

    "Was it when I said, Happy NewYears?" She said in a questioning tone, but that''s exactly what I wanted to hear because it was no way near new years time when I was still alive, so I decided to consolidate my suspicions.

    "What date is it?"

    "It is day 1, month 1, year XX79"

    "This dung smelling fool doesn''t know the date, how laughable!" Jessica said in disdain, but I just ignored her again, which made her furious.

    ''Wait... Isn''t that when thebeta launches and thousands of players from around the world log in for the first time? I actually didn''t just reincarnate, I also traveled back in time!''

    ''My knowledge about the beta is clear. It is only a24 hours event in the game, which means to the outside world, only 12 hours will pass. Everything these players do, will not save after the end beta. Once the beta ends, the launching of the game will be one week after (real time).

    ''This whole situation is still so strange to me, but I''m slowly getting over the fact of my circumstances and will focus more on how to proceed forward, but... there is just one thing left on my mind.''

    ''Will I see my real self again?''

 Chapter 5: Theyre here

    "Well? You got what you wanted now scram!" Jessicaglowered angrily.

    "Fine, I''m leaving... wait, what''s that?"

    "Noisy bug just get out of my sig..."

    Jessica and the otherhired hand NPCs turned towards the centre of the village. In fact, every NPC in the entire island was facing their eyes towards the centre as there was a big blinding light flashing up in the sky.

    "They''re here already? What do I do?"

    I couldn''t help but panic, I didn''t get to think up an effective plan, but I guess I gotta do something once they arrive as I shouldn''t pass up on this opportunity to test if my loophole theory works.

    Suddenly, in the midst of the bright shining light, a megalithic stone gate has arisen from the cold hard earth. Suddenly, the light disappeared, what was left was a doorless gate and inside the opening was a pitch black emptystarry hole.

    After a few seconds, silhouettescould be seen from inside the stone gate.

    "The beta players..."

    All beta players aremostly professional gamers from big companies, but there are a few select few that were given the chance to play due to a lottery from the developers of this game. All in all, there were ten lottery winners and one of themwas my best friend.

    I immediately noticed someone already at the forefront of the entrance.This was the first person to walk out and he was a familiar tall muscular man with dark scruffy hair and a medium size full beard.

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">Name: NoShirtUncle [Lvl 1]</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">Health 20/20 Mana 20/20</td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    ''It''s him?''

    "Ugh, what''s this crap? It''s making me feel uncomfortable" This person that goes by the name of NoShirtUncle is very infamous for alwaysnot wearing a shirtwhether it was in-game or in the real world. He is a lottery winner and is not part of any company. In the future, his ranking is jeopardized by his odd habit because he refuses to wear any armour to cover up his torso that he loses out on bonus added attributes. Despite this, he still managed to crawl himself up into the top500 world rankings due to his unique skill combination sets that utilise light body weight.

    ''As expected, he took off his shirt... Unfortunately, I know nothing of him personally as I had never met him before, he seems like a carefree casual play for fun type of player and is probably No.1 if there is a ranking in this category''

    The next person to appearis CrocodileWings, a tall skinny sinister looking woman with long blood-red hair, and a mole underneath the left side of her nose. This woman is the leader of one of the topfifty guilds in the game, ''RushHour'' which is ranked at number twelve. She is also much higher on the individual world ranking list than NoShirtUncle, as she sits comfortably at rank number 16.

    I remember herto be proficiently on many different terrains and environments such as the land, sea and sky. Any environment is her domain. Her skill-set is very complicated and not many can copy her playstyle as you need complex calculative intuition and reflexes to adapt in shifts of terrains.

    She is also good at team vs team scenario which makes her a scary enemy to have. Usually, her party members consist of high-level mages that can change the environment so that she can use it to her advantage and fly into enemy territory solo to disrupt their teamwork and dismantle their lives one by one.

    ''I better avoid her and people in her group as they are very hot-tempered and rash''

    "There are actually customers here... Lets go," Jessica said to her companion before shooting me a death glare and running off to the gate.

    "See you later Bob," Said the NPC that had answered my questions kindly, her name is Amy.

    I waved her goodbye as she followed after her friend before watching other players come into this world for the first time.

    ''It''s not like these players would have the money to hire them right now...'' I shook my head as I saw the two women walk up to CrocodileWings, only tobe coldly glared at.

    They had already offended one of the future strongest guild leaders by ruining her mood, and even if I wanted to stop Amy from rushing over, her friend Jessica might have attacked me on the spot.

    I know first hand how terrifying this CrocodileWings is as she completely annihilated a whole guild from the map just because one guy from that guild called her arrogant.

    ''Sigh''

    More and more people came out of the portal and soon, all one thousand people had arrived. Some of them had already run off to explore the land on their own and some had waited for their friends to group up and decided on their next course of action.This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

    I saw so many bigshot names, all of them are most like guild leaders, vice guild leaders or top players, and about 60% are either arrogant or prideful. Fame and money from previous VRMMORPG games had gotten into their heads and they began to see themselves as a different class of species.

    I huddled down and sneaked closer to peak at the players, I was intending to find my best friend.

    Suddenly, I see nine players distancing themselves from everyone else. These were the lottery winners. NoShirtUncle had already run off leaving behind these nine players to fend for themselves.

    "Huumpft,you country bumkin trash better not get in our way or else you can kiss your lives in here goodbye!"

    I heard a few of these kinds of comments aimed at their way, and all they can do is keep their head down and ignore the professional players.

    This had gone on for a few minutes, butafter realising that they won''t get a reaction from the lottery winners, they left due to boredom.

    As I got closer, I can clearly see one short man standing at the back of the group. He had short brown hair and dark brown eyes, his face looks kind of small and his figure is stoutish. There''s no doubt about it, this is my best friend, EatMyDumplings.

    I think it''s safe to make my move now, all of the professional gamers had left to do their own thing, leaving these group of clueless normies to admire the life-like atmosphere of the game.

    ''Wait a minute... Is that who I think it is?''

    One person was looking around in admiration as if he was looking at a work of art. This guy wasn''t communicating with the others at all, and they were beginning to feel annoyed at his blatant disrespect.

    ''To think that he was in beta, and one of the lottery winner at that''

    <table>

    <tbody>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">Name: GodOfSkilling [Lvl 1]</td>

    </tr>

    <tr>

    <td style="text-align: center">Health 20/20 Mana 20/20</td>

    </tr>

    </tbody>

    </table>

    Perhaps it''s because he''s always on his own that nobody knew he was in beta, but because of his sudden existence in this moment right now, perhaps I can do more than I thought I could in these 24 hours.

    ''Oh no''

    I can see him trying to distance himself from the group, and if he left, I would have to choose whether to follow him and leave my best friend, or follow my best friend and watch him leave.

    ''Damn, It''ll be troublesome if I lost sight of either, so I should make a move now''

    "Hey, almighty heroes that had come from across the land, wait up!"

    At the sound of my voice, I could see GodOfSkilling pause his movement and turned to see who would randomly shout so loudly.

    Not only him, everyone else from the group of ''country bumkins'' had turned to me as well, and once they saw my figure, they couldn''t help but frown.

    "Who is this beggar? Go away"

    "Ugh he smells so bad, I think I''m gonna vomit"

    "Don''t be stupid, you can''t vomit in this game, just lower your sense of smell in the menu setting"

    ''What a bunch of noobs, don''t they know that when something like this happens, it could mean that a quest is in hand''

    "You lot look like a group of righteous heroes, I am in need of a companion to help me fulfil a duty," I said in the most respectful way possible while bowing down in a ninety degrees angle.

    "Who would want to help you? Go F*ck yourself!"

    "Look at this poor beggar, even if we help him, what can he give us!"

    "Yeah look at his ugly face, if this beggar was a beautiful woman, I might consider helping"

    "Get out of here you piece of shit! And next time, use a toilet paper and not your hands!"

    ''What the hell? Perhaps because of the abuse from the professional players not long ago, that they are all riled up and angry...''

    I can see my best friend feeling uncomfortable due to the abuse being spat at my way, what a good-hearted man. My mistake was not calculating the factor that seven of the nine lottery winner here are dumbasses. Anyway, I don''t need them, all I need is my best friend and the future number one skillers help.

    Ignoring these seven random players that I had never heard of before, and looked into the eyes of the small stoutish man. I decided to pull my best friend into my camp first as he is closest to me and could step in to save me from these angry noobs.

    I wasn''t going to run as I really needed this opportunity, if worse comes to worst, I could duke it out 1vs7. Well, maybe not...

    "My little sister is sick and lost the use of her legs! Wahhhhhhh! I need help in order to provide for her, although I have nothing at the moment, I would pay you back at a later time! Please help! My poor sister was run over by a carriage and we can''t afford a wheelchair!" I got onto my knees and begged tearfully I thought of the saddest moment in my life just to pull out fake tears and made an effort to look as pitiful as I could.

    At the mention of ''my little sister''s accident,'' my friend''s body trembled.

    ''Sorry little dumpling, I had to say that to catch your attention''

    "What the heck just happened?" At first, the seven noobs were dumbfounded, and then they laughed hysterically.

    "Who gives a shit about your little sister? You said you have nothing, so why the f*ck would we help you?"

    "Wow they sure programmed this beggar to act realistically, I was almost moved"

    "What happens if we kill him? Would we gain EXP?"

    "How about we vote if we should kill him or not?"

    ''Dammit, this beggar is not a pushover, I will show you all my years of fighting experience right here and now!''

    As the group of players were about to take a vote, one person spoke up. it was exactly the one I was hoping for. "Wait, I''ll go with this beggar, don''t kill him"

    "Who are you? Are you stupid? Even if you help this beggar, you wouldn''t gain anything worthwhile"

    "I''m just someone like you guys, but I really want to help this beggar and his little sister, so can you guys please give me some face?" EatMyDumplings said with teary eyes.

    "What the... this fatty is crying?" The seven were all taken aback.

    ''Yes, of coursehe''s crying which is why I feel so bad right now, but I had to say these words in order to get him onto my side''The reason for this is because it happened to EatMyDumplings own sister, and it wasn''t a carriage that had run her over but a drunk truck diver. Luckily, his sister had survived with her life but unfortunately lost the use of her legs.

    As I see my friend walking up to me, I can see GodOfSkilling losing interest. I didn''t want to lose himhere so I yelled out.

    "If anyone else wants to join, I can show them the way to many different skill trainers, like the blacksmith trainer who is hidden in a place that is so hard to find that even if you search for one week, you may never find him!"

    ..........

    The seven players were stifling with laughter and taunted both me and my friend. These fools looked down on the blacksmith occupation with disdain, but I didn''t care about them. My eyes were glued on the mysterious silhouette that was slowly walking over towards me.

    "Did you say blacksmith trainer? If I help you, would you show me the way?"

    "Yes!"

 Chapter 6: The Beggars Quest

    ''Ok, I think this is how I send a quest'' I quickly opened up my NPC Control Panel and clicked on the Initiate Quest panel.

    Initiate Quests [Max: F Rank]

    Select Player [.................]

    I Instantly chose EatMyDumblings and a further tab showed up. It seems I can type it whatever I wanted with just my thoughts.

    Quest Details? [.................]

    I thought for a moment, then decided to type in something as a test and once I had finished writing down the details, I heard the systems monotoned voice echo in my head.

    Quest Pending... Ranking Privilege Scanning... Scanning Completed! Quest Details Scanning... Scan complete!

    Choose Time Limit [...........]

    ''Hmm, I''ll just choosetwo hours''

    [2-hour limit]

    Please choose a reward to finalize the Quest!

    [System Reward: 50 Exp - Usage once per day 1/1]

    [Choose your own]

    The reward function is suddenly bought up in the midst of my quest creation which made sense. As I already knew before, the system will gift me one daily quest reward that I can give to players. Perhaps the content of the reward will improve if I manage toupgrade my ranking privileges.

    Currently, I can only give out an F-Rankquest, perhapswhen the system waslooking over my custom made quest details that it was contemplating whether it fits within my privileges or not. Since it let me choose a reward, the quest I chose indeed did not step over the F-Rank mark.

    I hovered over the ''choose my own bracket'' and clicked on it.

    Suddenly,four choices appeared in my view.

    Experience Points: Nil

    Coins: Nil

    Information: [imput]

    Inventory:

    - Normal Bread

    If I were to guess, the experience points and coins would haveto be my own but because I had none for either, they were zeroed out.

    I would probably never give away experience points, but I guess if I were to ever do it, perhaps I should level up some dummy skills.

    These dummy skills would be skills that are fast to grind exp but useless enough to discard. This skill would be to give away a mass of exp to playersin order to entice them to do whatever I wanted.

    When I saw information as an option for a quest reward, I almost dropped down in tears of joys. What do I know best? It''s information.

    Since I already have years of experience in this world, I already knowa tonne of secrets hidden throughout the land. And if I was to guess right, recipes should also work as well.

    ''Haha, forget about giving away experience points, I know so many things inside this game that would cause wars between guilds''

    ''But I would have to be careful as to what information I give who, so I should refrain from giving out important secrets to mere nobodies''

    Last but not least, Inventory... All I have currently is a piece of bread, so it is useless for now.

    ''So the only available rewards I can give is the daily reward and information''

    After thinking it through a bit, I decided to not give awayinformation to my friend and just clicked on the daily rewards.

    Do you confirm your choice? Yes/No?

    ''Yes''

    Synchronizing Quest... Quest Creation Completed! Do to your privilege level, Sending a request to Player996 [EatMyDumplings]

    ........

    ........

    EatMyDumplings has accepted your request!

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

    [Common Quest]

    Beggar Bob Needs Help!

    Beggar Bob is in dire need to completea task in order to be competent enough to survive in this world.

    Please help him complete the ''Lonely Herald Quest''

    Difficulty Ranking: F

    Reward: 50 EXP

    [2-hour limit]

    Player undergoing quest: EatMyDumplings

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    ''The first step of my loophole worked!''

    "Huh, I got a quest?" I heard my friend shout in excitement. Suddenly, GodOfSkilling looked towards me expectantly, I couldn''t help but sigh.

    ''I hope this works...''

    ........

    ........

    GodOfSkilling has accepted your request!

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    [Common Quest]

    Begger Bob is lacking in strength and needs a trainer to help guide him.

    Pleasehelp him complete the ''Combat Trainers Introductory Quest''

    Difficult Ranking: F

    Reward: The secret location of thehidden blacksmith

    [2-hour limit]

    Player undergoing quest: GodOfSkilling

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    Haha, damn combat trainer! I''ll force you to give me a skill whether you want to or not!''

    At this moment, I figured out I can give out more than one quest at a time, but it seems I can only give out common quests for now.

    Common quests are usually useless quests that random unimportant NPC give away for fun. It has no importance what so ever, Except this time, for the first time, a common quest reward gave away a secret location.

    "Huumpft, let''s not waste any more time with this trash beggar, I want to play the game right now"

    "Yeah, these two idiots are fooling around with a beggar? Let''s not waste time and leave"

    "I agree, how about we go take a look at the big breastedbabe over there" One of them drooled as he pointed towards the sorcerer trainer in the distance who seems to be surrounded by other players. Soon, they ran over and left the two and a half men alone.

    "Ok, GodOfSkilling, the combat trainer is over there in that building, all you need to do is obtain the introductory quest and meet us over there" I first pointed to the Combat Guild, and then towards a large brown pole in the south, and standing beside this pole is the Herald.

    GodOfSkilling nodded in understanding before running off towards the Combat Guild, then my friend and I went towards the Herald.

    It only took abouttwo minutes to walk there. Strangely, it was a quiet walk since I could tell that it must have been awkward for my friend to walk alongside an unpleasant smelling NPC.Even I wouldn''t want to engage in small talks with myself in my condition.

    Anyway, we got to the Herald who was howling in sadness while shaking his bell with loneliness.

    "Hear ye... Hear ye..."

    This man sounded like he had no will to live. He was so incredibly unsightly that even the beta players avoided him.

    "Talk to him, accept his quest, then share it with me" I bit my lips in anticipation.

    ''This needs to work''I thought as I crossed my fingers for better luck.

    I saw the Herald flare in a bout of tears as he tells the tales his traumatic past out loudly.

    ''The Heralds Story should go on for about another minute. GodOfSkilling should be about done by then and would already be on his way here''

    "I''m done," The short stoutish man said while crying in tears, the story which the Herald told was a sad one, and of course I already knew what it was, but I didn''t care at this moment, all I wanted to see was my loophole theorybearing fruit.

    EatMyDumplings want to share ''Lonely Herald Quest''

    Do you accept? Yes/No

    I immediately pressed yes.

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    [Unique Quest]

    Lonely Herald Quest

    The Herald lost his wife when she dragged away by a dark long-tailed monster. It is assumed that she had already died.

    Please bring back his lovers remains to give him some peace of mind.

    (The Heralds wife was last seen wearing a pink dress)

    Difficulty Ranking:F

    Reward:25 EXP, Soft Boots, Soft Gloves, Newbie Village Diary

    [No Time limit]

    Player undergoing quest:

    EatMyDumplings

    NPC Beggar Bob

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    "Ahahahah!" I was so happy that I laughed out with uncontrollable joy that I forgot that this moment was supposed to be one of sadness. The Herald lost his wife, and my friend is crying due to the fact that my ''story'' and the Heralds story is incredibly sad.

    I couldn''t help but be startled when I felt a light touch on my right shoulder.

    Turning around, it was the man addicted to skilling.

    GodOfSkilling want to share ''Combat Trainer Introductory Quest''

    Do you accept? Yes/No

    ''Yes!''

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    [Trainers Quest]

    Combat Trainer Introductory Quest

    There are too many giants rats inside the sewers, slay one and bring back the rat tail.

    Difficulty Ranking:F

    Reward: A lvl 1 two-handed club, Rights to access combat trainers skill shop.

    [No Time limit]

    Player undergoing quest:

    GodOfSkilling

    NPC Beggar Bob

    --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

    After the two players shared their quests, I decided that it was time to leave.

    "Alright,I''ll show you guys the way to the sewers"

 Chapter 7: Give me bread then

    The two players were silently following me towards the east of the village but to be honest, I couldn''t help but feel nervous. The reason why I am feeling so nervous is that there is no way I am able to act as an NPC. I had never taken an acting class before and I really hope that I don''t cause any trouble accidentally as I am an anomaly.

    In this game no matter how conscious or lifelike an NPC is they are just treated as a bunch of codes. Well, of course, there are people who had fought for rights of Ai''s because to a degree, they have their own consciousness. But generally, the worlds politics are not at the point of giving Ai''s their own citizenships and people are still ignorantly killing them for their own amusement.

    I had already seen the future. Just like how those lottery winners wanted to kill me on a whim, there will be many others. I wasn''t completely too worried about being ganged up on by them because in the village there are guards. These guards are around level30 and will arrest or kill anyone who causes trouble.

    Unless you are in their proximity, they will usually take 10-60 seconds to respond to fights, but if the guards are around, they will respond instantly by arriving in a flash to capture the assailant.

    This has caused many low-level players to complain as many other VRMMORPG forbids pvp in safe villages, towns, and cities as the 10-60 second window allow players to assassinate others if you have an overwhelming advantage.

    But this rarely happens because if you are killed by a player in a semi-safe zone like this village, you won''t lose anything. Also, if you are caught trying to kill people in these zones and get caught, you would have to pay a massive fine or face jail time. The usual sentences are only a few hours but for repeat offenders, the sentence time is extended.

    The reason I was slightly afraid to fight 7 players at once was that that new players are given weapons after they finish their character creation. Each time I get hit with this weapon I would lose 1-5 health.

    The worse possible scenario is that they get to freely hit me for 60 seconds until the guards come. This is why I''m glad that it didn''t come to that as I only have 20 health points right now.

    I saw GodOfSkilling just sulking his head down slowly, it was like he didn''t want to talk to others too much.

    ''Sigh''

    Actually, I''d never seen him before today despite him being really famous. But the thing is, he looks too ordinary...

    He isn''t too tall or short and if I was to guess, he should be about 6ft. He has dark brown hair and brown eyes. His skin is tanned and his face is average.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

    The game capsulescans your real body so that your avatar looks the same as your real body. This scan is mandatory so that the game can develop an avatar that fits your figure.

    ''You wouldn''t think that this guy is anything special...He doesn''t stand out, but perhaps that''s why he is able to stealthily climb up towardsthe very top of the leaderboard in mining and smithing because nobody would even notice him''

    ''Well, I wonder how his fighting skills are''

    Next, I turned my attention to EatMyDumplings. He looks as silly as ever...

    I met my friend inkindergarten and we have been close to each other ever since. He is shy and doesn''t talk much to strangers, but once you get close to him, he never shuts up.

    In the future, he gives up on becoming on combat because he is easy to bully. He gets pked every time he goes out of the semi-safe zone. I offered to party up with him and help train him but he just got sick of dying too much. Therefore he stayed inside cities most of the time to level up his cooking skills.

    He reached a decent level in this skill but was no way near the top 10000 ranks in cooking because he couldn''t get access to top quality materials.

    I usually send some high-quality raw meat and gold coins to help sponsor hisprofession but after all, I am only one personand I also had my own life to think about.

    ''This time I should help develop his fighting skills, or at least give him an edge through leaking secret knowledge so that he can rise up easily''

    Walking for a few more minutes, we were getting to the edge of the village.

    Going past many buildings, we were getting close to the giant wall. But during this trip, the two players were curiously looking at the various buildings. Well, GodOfSkilling was more curious as he couldn''t help but straighten up his back.

    He was excited.

    ''Checkmate''

    Looking at the ecstatic expression of the skilling addict, I knew that my hidden plan had worked. My plan was to let GodOfSkilling see many buildings on the way to the manhole, which contains NPC''s doing the thing that he loves.

    The reason why?

    The hidden blacksmithy is way too far and would take hours to walk their and back to the village. I wanted these two players to participate in more quests before we head over to the what I consider is the final destination.

    ''Arg, maybe I should have mentioned something else instead of Blacksmith, and then mention it after we do a couple quests that really needed to be done''

    ''But mentioning Blacksmith was the best move to catch this guys attention. Well anyway, it doesn''t matter too much, after the Beta ends, the official launch would occur in two weeks in my time. But it should be best to get access to many things now so that I can prepare in the two weeks before launch in order to get a big head start''

    I am probably a huge thinker. Not necessarily a smart one as I consider myself to be of average IQ. But that doesn''t mean I don''t like to think and work out various problems.

    After a couple of minutes of walking, we are now nearing the manhole, at most, we would reach it in one minute. In the time spent walking, I may have found a way to delaythe trip to the Blacksmith.

    "Are you both interested in knowing more about this village and what those buildings are?" I said in a lecturing tone. They were both surprised that I took the initiative to talk and mentioned what they were most inquisitive about so my friend said yes, while the stoic man just nodded.

    "Ok, if you want to know more about the village, you two have to pay me one bread each"

    "..........................."

 Chapter 8: Officially Starting the Quest

    They were both speechless but traded the bread nonetheless.

    Now I had three pieces of bread in my inventory, which took up three slots. Also, some items can stack up over each other such as nails. You can have 99 of the same types of nails and it will only take up one slot. Stackable items each holds a different maximum count before additional amounts of the same item will fall over to a second slot.

    Unfortunately, food is not a stackable item which means it¡¯s best to only carry top quality delicacy in order to not waste inventory slots. But against giant rats, bread should be enough in regards to regenerating missing health points.

    Because of this trade, I feel more confident going down the sewers and if nothing unexpected happens, finishing these two quests shouldn''t be too hard.

    As for how these two players got bread, even though they had just spawned in the game, can be explained.

    After completing the character creation and spawning into the island you are gifted; three pieces of bread, three jugs of spring water, and a wooden sword. All of it will appear in your inventory.

    ¡®Well I¡¯m slightly annoyed that I wasn¡¯t given these starter items¡¯

    These items are very useless in the later stage of the game but are very helpful when you are only around level one to five. The bread is already known to regenerate health, the spring water jug can regenerate 1 mana point per second up to twelve seconds, and the wooden sword is the weapon that dish out 1-5 damage points per attack regardless of your strength stats.

    These are all helpful when fighting low levelled creatures like foxes, giant rats or mad cows.

    Generally, you would choose a trainer of your choice to get the weapon you want. Some trainers¡¯ quest is harder than others. This combat trainer quest difficulty is right in the middle between the lots on this island. Though this quest shouldn''t be completed by clueless level one noobs but luckily, in this group of three, I am a level one expert...

    ¡®I don¡¯t know why, but I¡¯m feeling excited to be the one to the carry¡¯

    It was only until we got to the manhole was when I realise the two players were waiting for my explanation. I then quickly cleared my throat and began to speak like a college tutor.

    "Ok, let¡¯s pretend this village is a cone, we are situated in the smallest part of the cone and in the far, north, south, east are tall rocky walls that act like fences. Over the wall is a vast ocean sea where many sea monsters sleep so there is no point trying to climb it. As you can see, west of this village is a wide forest and the tall rocky walls still standing high along the edge. In fact, the walls never end as is runs around of the whole island like a bowl¡±

    The two players were very fascinated but wanted me to hurry things along. I could tell by the way they look at me like I was any random NPC and wish for me to skip the dialogue. Alas in this game, dialogues can¡¯t be skipped.

    ¡°In this village there are five important buildings, using the portal as the centre point, the building to the west is the Combat Guild in which GodOfSkilling just came from. Inside the Combat Guild lays four trainers.

    The Combat Trainer ¨C Specialises in Two Handed Weapons

    Sword Art Trainer ¨C Specialises in Swords and Shields

    Archery Trainer ¨C Specialises in Bows and CrossbowsThis story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

    Monk Disciple ¨C Specialises in Hand to Hand Combat and Self-Empowerment

    Then there is also the Monster Hunter Board in which you can take quick hunting/capturing jobs for payment. These jobs are not quests and the rewards are vastly lower then completing an official quest with the same content.

    To the north of the portal lays the Mage Guild. The Mage guild has three trainers.

    The Sorcerer Trainer ¨C Specialises inMagical Combat

    The Saintess Apprentice ¨C Specialises in the art of Healing and Protection

    The Enchantress Apprentice ¨C Specialises in Controlling the Battlefield

    To the south of the portal lays the Rogue and Daggers Pub. They sell alcohol and information and hold two trainers.

    The Drunken Rogue ¨C An All-Rounded Soldier that Specialises in Short Weapons and Brewing

    The Thief Apprentice ¨C Specialises in Pick locking, Thievery, and Sneaking

    To the northeast of the portal lays the Skillers Guild which hosts four trainers.

    The Carpentry Apprentice ¨C Specialises in Wood Cutting and Building

    The Chef Apprentice ¨C Specialises in Cooking

    Artificer ¨C Specialises in Tinkering, Embedding Gems and Magic Items

    Tailor ¨C Specialises in Creating Clothes

    To the southeast of the portal lays the Civilisation Corporation. Inside this building, you can bank items and money and auction items. There is unfortunately only one trainer inside.

    The Scholar ¨C Specialises in Language, Contracts and Cartography

    That wraps up all the major building; all in all, there are only 14 trainers inside this village. Though there are another 7 trainers hidden outside of the village. Obviously, there are many more buildings in the village but it would be no fun to explain them all.¡±

    The two were happy with the information that they were given as it saved them around an hour of time if they were to run off and find out for themselves. Plus, the Skillers Guild and the Civilisation Corporation were extremely close to the sewers entrance.

    GodOfSkilling eyes were shining brightly towards the Skillers Guild which meant he couldn¡¯t wait to rush in. I could tell he wanted to ditch his current quest as he glances back at the nearby building, but I couldn¡¯t let him go just yet. I rather have two people beside me than one if I wanted to kill Giant Rats at level one.

    ¡°After we finish our current quests, I could show you around inside these major buildings first before we venture off towards the blacksmith, to be honest, walking towards the blacksmith location will take five hours long. It would be best to do as much as possible here before venturing off¡± I said nervously. I definitely didn¡¯t act like a normal NPC here, but luckily the two of them didn¡¯t notice my abnormality.

    We didn¡¯t waste too much time and directly opened up the manhole before us. In the future, many guilds will attempt to block this entrance way with their body in order to monopolize the underground sewers, and they succeeded at first, but after many complaints, the Moderators patched up this exploit and made it so the guards will chase away anyone who stands in the way too long.

    I decided to jump down first; the bottom of the hole wasn¡¯t too far down so when you jumped in, you wouldn¡¯t take any fall damage. The other two players hesitated for just a small while before deciding to a take a leap of faith.

    The ground was hard and wet, the sound of water flowing reached our ears. The stench was mildly horrifying as we were of course inside the sewers, the area was fairly dark but the path around us was lightly lit up by torches.

    ¡°Blaaaargh!¡± EatMyDumplings felt like vomiting, but since he is in a game world, he couldn¡¯t, instead he was retching like crazy.

    GodOfSkilling was covering his nose, while I was basking in the smell of nostalgia. This kind of smell is nothing compared to what is yet to face outside the island and on the main continent.

    Beside the ladder towards the upper land was a barrel of weak wooden staffs. There was currently one inside so placed it in my inventory. This staff automatically replenishes every hour and are there for players to pick up.

    Actually, this woodenstaff is extremely useless and is worth next to nearly nothing; it breaks easily and does very poor damage. But these staffs are enough to slay Giant Rats.

    When taking a staff, the barrel is only empty for yourself, so in the eyes of other players, the staff is still there. So I made my friend and the genius skiller to each pick one up, and trade them to me.

    They complied without complaint and now I had three weapons to protect myself.

    ''I think Itis now safe to say that it is time to officially startthe quest''

    ¡°Let¡¯s go kill some rats,¡± I said as I lead them down the passageway.

    ¡°Yes¡±

    ¡®Nods¡¯
Coins: 0	Equipment	Weight: 0.2kg
Left Earring: Nil	Head: Nil	Right Earring: Nil
Necklace: Nil	Body: Lvl 1 Potato Sack (4/15 Durability)	Necklace: Nil
Shoulders: Nil	Waist: Nil	Back: Nil
Quiver:Nil	Leg: Nil	Gloves: Nil
Left Hand: Nil	Boots: Nil	Right Hand: Nil