《New Way of Life》


 1. Standing at the Forefront of Change

    "It is now the year 2247. It has been six years since the creation of the spacecraft ''Arklight 73'' and five years since we made contact with the Pathos, our first contact with alien life. After the ongoing talks that lasted for three years, the World Government signed a trade agreement allowing us to purchase common non-military technology that can improve our daily lives.


    The most exciting and talked about technology that they have allowed us to purchase is, as I''m sure you all know, the ''Neural Interface Capsule'', NIC for short, also known to many people as the ''VR Capsule''. From the reports that we have received from the WG, the Pathos and all other races use Credits as their currency. What''s more is you can earn Credits by playing the game, Universe, at a 1:4 ratio of real to ingame Credits! From what the WG has release, all countries will be slowly transitioning to Credits as their main form of currency as all other races only accept payment in the form of Credits.


    You might be wondering how on earth will we be purchasing technology from them if they only accept Credits. Well, that''s a good question. According to the trade agreement, the Pathos will allow the WG to purchase on credit for two years before they..."


    Sophia turned and walked away from the store that was playing the news on the radio. Although the news was important to the human race as a whole, to Sophia, whom was from a poor family, it didn''t really matter as the technology from the Pathos would most likely take years or even decades before it would reach them. And to be honest, Sophia didn''t have time to be worrying about such things as she needed to worry more about how support her family as she has been for the past four years.


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


    When Sophia was 8, Sophia''s father found a job in the United States with a decent pay and moved over from China with his wife and two children. A couple of years later, Sophia''s father lost his job and he disappeared the very same night. Left alone, her mother had to work multiple part time jobs in order to support Sophia and her little brother, Anthony.


    When Sophia turned 15, her mother came down with an illness, that if not treated, could be fatal. With her mother sick and unable to work, Sophia had to withdraw from school and work multiple part time jobs in order to support her brother and mother.


    Sophia worked in almost every trade that would accept her, even some that were not exactly legal for her age. Her jobs went from dishwashing to chef to even working as a mechanic for a short period of time.


    When Sophia was 17, she managed to land a job at a modeling agency that paid very well. With this new job, she was able to support her family and pay for the medical bills. It even put more money in her savings than when she worked multiple jobs.


    Now, Sophia was 20 and she managed to save up almost forty thousand from all the jobs she worked. Unfortunately, Sophia''s job at the modeling agency came to an abrupt end when after a photo shoot, her manager approched her while talking indecently and started touching her even when she told him to stop. Eventually, she kneed him in the balls and left. Once the agency found out about the incident, they let her manager go. As for Sophia, they decided to let her work for the last couple months of her contract and not renew.


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


    After working the final day at the modeling agency, Sophia walked home thinking about which jobs she could take in order to make up for the income from the agency. According to the news just now, Credits will be the main form of currency in the upcoming years and from what she remembers the exchange rate from dollars to Credits was about 3:1. Thinking about it more, as the US fazes out of the dollar bill, the exchange rate for Credits will grow because dollars will be outdated and useless.


    Even though Sophia dropped out of school, she was by no means stupid. And with her job experience working for a stock broker in the past, it was obvious that earning Credits early on reaps more rewards. Thinking along these lines, exchanging for Credits might be the way to go and with more people exchanging with each passing day, the exchange rate will definitely increase exponentially.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    The only problem is that in order to earn Credits, she will have to play the game, Universe. Will she be willing to risk everything in order to make Credits? If Sophia doesn''t do well in the game then she would only have a little left over to support her family. So far most businesses in the US are still using the dollar, thus Sophia won''t be able to earn credits without playing the game.


    Sophia shook her head thinking no matter what she had to exchange all her money to Credits as the dollar will be outdated. Once she exchanges it then she can slowly think about earning Credits through the game.


    With her thoughts made up, she rushed home and created a Credit account and exchanged all her savings into Credits. Looking at her account, she currently has 12,807 C. Praying she made the right choice, she logged out of her account.


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


    Sophia walked to her mother''s room.


    "What were you doing just now? I heard you rushing to your room."


    Her mother spoke in Mandarin as she walked in. She was laying sitting up in bed reading a book.


    "Mom! You''re suppose to be resting!"


    "Oh come now. I can sleep all day, no matter how hard I try."


    Sophia sighed and looked around.


    "Where is Anthony?"


    "He''s still at school of couse. Why are you home so early today?"


    With another sigh, Sophia finally told her mother what happened three months ago and her thoughts about her future plans playing the game.


    Her mother cursed Sophia''s manager for about five minutes before Sophia was able to calm her down.


    "Sophia. You are a smart girl. I let you suffer over the past years and I wish I could have let you enjoy your school life with your friends. Even though you had to work hard and long hours, you never complained and did what was needed. If you think that these Credits are the future and the game you talked about is the way to make money, then I trust your judgement. Everything we have is due to your hard work. Even if you lose everything, I have no right to complain. Just make sure to take care of your brother."


    Sophia''s mother smiled and held her hand. After talking a while longer, Sophia let her mother rest and went to pick up her brother from school.


    After returning home and cooking food for her mother and brother, she decided to play the game. So she went to the public library and did some research on Universe.


    She found that the game was based on the real universe and was constantly being expanded as more races joined the game. Actually according to one article, the game is basically real life except you can''t die, resources respawned, it had game menu and elements, and time moved four times as quickly as it did in real life. Everything else in the game must adhere to the laws of real life. Finding another article, she learned that the game was basically a sci-fi game where you use guns to kill monsters.


    If the articles are correct, then Sophia need to begin training as the game was a simulation of real life. Sophia contact several people that she met that was in the military to see if she could join in on just the training and not the actual military.


    Eventually, one person she knew from her part time job at a restaurant managed to get her permission to join the training of the Marines. Feeling surprised that she actually got to join, she stopped looking for gyms.


    After researching a bit more, she went and purchased the cheapest NIC available at the cost of 10,000 C. After comfirming her purchase would be delivered in around four months, she went home and slept.


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


    Sophia spent a couple of days making preparations for her family. Afterwards, she left for boot camp.


    After three months of Marine basic training. Sophia was able to run several miles without losing her breath. She also learned how to clean, maintain, and fire different types of weapons. The Marine instructors were impressed with her training and asked if she wanted to join at the end. She politely declined and thanked them for allowing her to join. She then flew back home.


    When she arrived back home, she happily met her family. Sophia began taking care of her family matters and made sure everything would be ok even if she was in the game for months at a time.


    After close to another month of training by herself, her NIC finally arrived and was installed in her house. Opening the NIC, she saw silvery goo like substance on the inside. According to her research, those were the nanites that connected her to the game, prevents muscle atrophy, disposes waste,and provided sustenance if she wanted to stay in the game for long periods of time.


    Taking a deep breath, Sophia steeled her nerves. She had to do this. This would be a great opportunity and if she does well she would be able to make enough money to finally pay for the surgery her mother needed. Sophia''s eyes flashed with determination as she entered the capsule.

 2. The Mall

    Sophia woke up in a white room wondering where she was.


    [Welcome to your lobby. This is your customizable home that will serve as a platform for many applications. What would you like to do today?]


    Seeing pop up boxes materialize before her eyes, she stood for a bit in shock.


    "Um, I would like to play the Universe?"


    [Understood, please step through the door behind you.]


    Turning around Sophia saw a black door and above the door were the words Universe. After a few moments, Sophia walked through the door.


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


    [Scanning brain waves...


    Connecting to uplink....


    Uplink established.


    Welcome to Universe.]


    Sophia opened her eyes and saw that she was in a mall with thousands of other people of varying races walking about.


    [The first part of the tutorial will begin in 6 hours. Please make preparations as you will never be allowed to enter the Rookie Mart again after the tutorial begins. As a beginning race, please head to the information broker for more details regarding Universe.]


    After asking around for a bit, Sophia managed to find the information broker. From the information broker, Sophia learned how to pull up her character status, log out, options, etc. Apparently she was already level 25 due to her training from the military as the game calculates your starting level based on how fit and strong one is. She also learned that the game translates all languages spoken to the receivers most prefered language which was a bonus as far as Sophia was concerned. Having to learn multiple languages just to talk to someone next to you would be a downer.


    Looking at her Credits, she found that she had 10,000 C. After a brief talk with the broker, Sophia found out that all players would start out with the amount they paid for their Neural Interface Capsule. Talking a bit more with the broker, she almost cried as she paid 200 C (1,600 USD after the exchange rates rose to 8:1) for general information about the game that she would not have found outside of the game.


    After about 30 minutes of reading, she found that everyone needed to have power armor and a weapon in order to do well in the tutorial. Classes were select after the tutorial based on performance. She also found that you could choose three jobs to support your character. Although one didn''t need to choose their jobs in the tutorial, it was better to do so as everything in the rookie mart was 70% off for new races. Otherwise, once new races leave the tutorial and the shield that protects them from being invaded by other races ends, without strong players, the new races would be wiped off the map.


    After looking at the different jobs that could support her character, Sophia chose mapper, mechanic, and programmer as the three jobs would support each other. Mappers required drones in order to map out unknown areas which could even detect lifeforms. A mechanic could make or repair the drones and other mechanical devices. A programmer could program the drone to do more than just map and she could even learn how to hack eventually. Sophia mainly chose these jobs in order to save money as she could do almost everthing herself, saving her a lot of expenses.


    With a solid plan in mind, she went and purchased the jobs that cost her a total of 5,000 C. After gaining the skills, she felt information flow into her mind and she just knew how to map and program. The mechanic job added to her existing mechanic skills which, interestingly, lowered the cost of the skill a tiny bit. After thinking for a bit Sophia decided to go purchase her weapons and armor. Depending on how much Credits she has after purchasing weapons and armor, she may come back to purchase the tools for her jobs.


    Sophia walked to the weapons store, which surprisingly took up half of the second floor. The other half was taken up by power armor. Taking a look a the power armor in the window display outside the store, her face paled.


    The power armor on display was a whopping 7,000 C! Stunned for a minute, Sophia then ran to the weapons store to check the prices thinking that weapons made by humans can''t be that expensive. Luckily, she was right. weapons ranged anywhere from 150 C to 6,500 C depending on the weapon and the stats and the company that makes them. But even that was high priced considering everything she saw was already 70% marked off!


    Without purchasing anything, Sophia then ran to the power armor store hoping to find a cheap power armor, praying for something that was at most 4,500 C so she could buy a decent weapon as well. Unfortunately, her hopes were dashed. The cheapest power armor she could find was 5,500 C and the highest priced one was 22,000 C! Steeling her nerves, Sophia walked up to the Pathos shop keeper and made some small talk. From that she learned that she was actually speaking with the owner of the store! This raised her hopes as employees can''t discount the prices as much as she need and only the owner could.


    "Hi. I have a quick question. Would you by any chance have any cheaper power armor? With the 70% discount, I thought I would be able to purchase power armor and a weapon after purchasing my jobs. I didn''t realize that weapons and armor would cost so much..."


    Sophia''s voice trailed off as she notice that the Pathos'' expression changed to a harder tone.


    "Get out of my store if your not going to buy anything. These prices are already discounted 70% and you want me to discount them more? Are you out of your fucking mind? If it wasn''t for the fact that I can get my Credits back because other races buy them at the normal price, I would already be out of business. All of my products are quality products. If you want cheap shit, then go to the 20th floor you might find something there that might last you till the end of the tutorial."


    With a snort, he left to help other customers.


    Sophia, on the other hand, felt hopeless. Power Armor that ''might last till the end of the tutorial''? That wasn''t good information, but it was all she had to work with. So she went up to the 20th floor of the mall. As she went up the elevator, she noticed that there were less and less people shopping on each subsequent floor. She also noticed that the shops seemed to become shader and shader as floors passed by.


    By the time she reached the 20th floor, there were no people shopping in the stores. In fact, there were barely any stores on the 18th-20th floors from what she could see. After looking around for a good bit, she finally found the shop that sold power armor. The interior was so dark she passed by the shop a couple of times thinking it was empty.


    Upon entering the shop, she noticed that the shop had both weapons and armors. Sophia also noticed that the power armor in the shop were surprisingly sleek. In fact, some of the power armors looked more high tech than the one on the 2nd floor! Only around 3 power armors in the store looked like the trash that the Pathos had implied she would find here.


    Feeling confused while staring at the armors, she didn''t even notice when the shop keeper walked up behind her. Once she heard his voice, she jumped in fright.


    "Welcome to my humble shop. May I ask what you are searching for? If you have any specifications for your power armor, you may let me know and I will direct you to the one that suits your needs."


    "Um, hi. I was wondering if you have any cheap but good power armor that would cost at most 4,500 C? I didn''t realize power armor cost so much and I wasn''t able to afford any downstairs..."


    The shopkeeper looked at her silently for almost a minute before speaking in a rough tone.


    If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it."Well, none of my power armor here is that cheap and don''t look at those 3 that look well used. Even those cost over what you can afford as I have personally refurbished them and just haven''t had time to clean them."


    "Oh, ok. I''m sorry to bother you then."


    Looking down, Sophia turned to leave the shop.


    "Hold on. I didn''t say there wasn''t anything you could do to for me in order to purchase one from me. Hmm, let''s see. If you clean those 3 well used power armors over there I would be willing to let you purchase an armor for 5,000 C."


    "If I buy the power armor for 5,000 C, then I won''t have enough to purchase a weapon. Even if I have power armor, without a weapon I don''t think I can do anything in the tutorial."


    "Hmm. How about this after you clean those armors till they shine, and I mean SHINE. I will provide you with both a weapon and a power armor. The weapon will be a sidearm while the armor will be an experimental armor."


    "I can work with a sidearm but what do you mean by experimental? What is wrong with it? Will anything go wrong with it?"


    "The experimental armor is a skin tight suit that I created to perfectly fit the user''s body. No longer will you have to wear bulky armor that might cause you to be unable to squeeze through tight spaces. It will also give you the same strength benefits as traditional power armor. It is considered experimental because it has not been certified, hence the offer."


    "Ok but isn''t power armor made with all those metals to protect you?"


    The shopkeeper started laughing so hard, he almost fell to the floor.


    "You must be one of the new races correct? Only you new races wouldn''t know about power armor. If you take a standard B-95 Laser carbine and shoot it at any power armor, the person wearing that power armor would be dead as a ratus stuffed full of nitrogen."


    "Stuffed full of Nitrogen?"


    "You know... the liquid that children play with to freeze stuff for fun? You know what nevermind. Anyways, back to the main point. What protects the user of the power armor isn''t the power armor itself. It is the energy shield that is installed in the power armor. Well they also have air conditioning and tactical visors but mine comes with those things as well.


    The ES-132 bio suit automatically converts the temperature outside of your energy shield to your specified setting and it also comes with a tactical eye which are lenses that you can put in your eyes. They are made with nanites so you can keep them in your eye indefinitely."


    "Ok...Sounds great, but just to make sure, it works and doesn''t have any problems? What about breathing in toxic or no atmosphere?"


    "Of course. If you have any problems with the suit at all then you can return it and I will personally double what you paid for. As for breathing, the suit will automatically adjust the energy shields to allow only the specified atmosphere to pass through so you don''t even need air cartridges. The only problem is if you are in no atmosphere conditions. Under such conditions you will only have up to 12 hrs of air depending on how much air you are using. You are able to check your remaining air through the tactical eye."


    "Wait. According to my tutorial info, I won''t be allowed to return here. How would I find you if a problem does occur?"


    "Oh that''s easy. You can find another one of our stores through the tactical eye as we would be the only ones who know how to fix or upgrade your suit. Our stores...are not very well known so you can only find them with the eye."


    Sophia thought about the deal for a while. Under normal circumstances, she would be hesitant to accept the deal as she doesn''t know if he is telling the truth. But regardless of normal circumstances, she could only accept the offer as she didn''t have much of a choice.


    "Wait. I just thought of something. Even if I wanted to clean those armors it would take me well over a day and the tutorial stated that I need to be ready in about 4 hrs."


    "Oh that''s no problem. Let me give you the quest now."


    [Quest - Shiny Armor


    Rank - H


    The shopkeeper of @#%^@#$ wants you to clean 3 power armors till the are VERY shiny. In exchange the shopkeeper will sell you a custom made revolver and the experimental bio suit, ES-132 for 5,000 C.


    Note: Tutorial count down will be paused for the duration of the quest.


    Accept / Decline ]


    "I accept."


    "Well then get to work. I expect them to be spotless and shiny. So shiny, it shines even in this dark store."


    After handing Sophia a towel, oil and other solvents that remove rust and dirt. She got straight to work.


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


    After about 2 days, Sophia finally finished shining all 3 power armors. Even with the powerful solvents that the shopkeeper gave her, it still required at least half a day¡¯s work to get just the rust off of one armor.


    "I''m done."


    Sophia took all the supplies and gave them back to the shopkeeper.


    Hearing that, he went and did an inspection on the armors before nodding his head.


    "Good job. You did better than I would have expected."


    [Quest Complete - Shiny Armor


    You have made the armors shiny enough to impress #$%#^@.


    Note: Tutorial count down will now resume.


    Reward: Custom made revolver, 50 rounds , and the experimental bio suit, ES-132, with the transaction of 5,000 Credits.]


    After paying everything she had left, the shopkeeper took her measurements and took an hour to tailor the suit to her size before handing over her equipment and explained how to wear the suit. After entering a fitting room for a couple minutes, Sophia came out in her new bio suit that covered every inch of her body up to her neck.


    The suit was completely black with silver lines. The lines ran through the entire suit, similar to blood vessels running through the body. On the upper part of her back, a small 4 inch circular disk glowed softly, powering the suit.


    "The tactical eye works the same as your menu. All you have to do is concentrate on what you want and it will pull it up."


    [Prototype ES-132 - Experimental Tactical Bio Suit


    Grade - D


    Made by an expert mechanic combining nanotechnology with biotechnology to create a skin-tight suit that offers the mobility and power of power armors while maintaining the flexibility of the user.


    Shield Level - E


    Energy: 800/800


    Energy regen +0.1/sec


    Auto Repair Function (Does not work if durability = 0)


    Durability 100/100]


    Sophia tested the suit multiple times and changed many of the default settings to suit her.


    After finishing up with her suit, Sophia picked up the revolver from the counter. She immediately noticed that the gun was a lot bit bulkier than a regular top-break revolver and it also only had a single chamber for ammunition, so she pulled up the item description.


    [901 - AT "Hell''s Revolver"


    Grade - E


    Made by an expert weaponsmith with too much time on his hands. The 901-AT was made as an experiment to increase the usefulness of Human sidearms against shielding. By creating only one cartridge chamber, the weaponsmith was able to increase the caliber to 2.00, increasing the effectiveness of this sidearm by 15x compared to other Human sidearms at the cost of firing speed.


    Normal damage: 150-200


    Durability: 100/100]


    "I was experimenting with your race''s weaponry and notice that most of your sidearms had low stopping power. Perhaps such weapons would work on your world, but out here weapons need to kill in as few shots as possible because every second that your enemy lives is a second that your enemy has to kill you.


    That is where this beauty comes in. By forging it using tungsten carbide with a single round chamber, I increased the caliber to 2.00. Using the custom rounds that I created with Vertium, which if you didn''t know, is 5 times more powerful than gunpowder, you will only need a single shot to pierce through any energy shield below level E. Although this would normally be too much for a human to handle, with the help of your bio suit, you will barely feel the recoil."


    [2.00 AT Round


    Created by an expert weaponsmith with too much time on his hands. The 2.00 AT was created to increase damage of physical firearms towards shielding.


    +500 vs energy shields]


    "If they are custom rounds, then where can I buy them once I run out?"


    "Any store that makes ammunition can make it. It will just be a bit pricier than normal rounds."


    Sophia smiled bitterly thinking that even if it has amazing firepower, if multiple people charge her at once, the only outcome would be death. What''s worse is she actually has to spend more for special ammo. Thinking of this she could only feel like crying. After all, she entered the game to make money, not spend it. Sighing, she could only hope that she would loot a better weapon once the tutorial began.


    Sophia then grabbed the ammo pouch off the counter, realizing another problem.


    "Do you happen to have a belt to hold my revolver and pouch?"


    "You don''t need it. Your suit can create an electromagnetic field in the area that you desire, holding them in place, that''s why the pouch has a metal piece built into the back."


    After figuring out how to attach her weapon and ammo pouch, she thanked the shopkeeper and turned to leave before stopping.


    "I was wondering, why is it that no one comes to your store? The owner of the power armor store on the 2nd floor seems to think you have nothing but junk which I can see is not the case."


    "Ah. Well, I just opened this store recently and that guy saw me moving those used armors into my store. Furthermore, most stores cost less the further up you go in this particular mall. Due to that, many have opened stores up here that sell knock offs and some even sell...less than legal products."


    Sophia thought a bit about what he said.


    "This suit wouldn''t happen to be one of those less than legal products, would it?"


    The shopkeeper gave her a smug smile.


    "You don''t have to worry about that. No one will stop you from using it. You might have a bit of a problem if you want to sell it though."


    Sophia gave him a hard look then shrugged. As long as no one stopped her from using it, it really didn''t matter. As the saying goes, beggars can''t be choosers.


    After thanking the shopkeeper again, Sophia left to find a place rest and wait for the tutorial to begin.