Sword Art Online, or SAO for short.
The game that uses the Nervegear and the Full-Dive system to it's maximum, it can reproduce any of the 5 human senses, it's almost like your being alive inside a game. SAO is a new type of genre in the game world, VRMMORPG, Virtual Reality Massive Multi-player Online Role Playing Game. The people who tested the Beta couldn't believe what they saw when they entered the world of Sword Art Online. SAO had a unique game mechanism, there was no magic in this world, only swords, maces, axes, and all kinds of melee weapons you can use.
The lack of magic was replaced by something called [Sword Skills], these skills allowed the player to power up their attacks with more attack power, an elemental attack or attacks with a status attached to them, like burn and poison. The world of SAO is called Aincrad , it is some kind of flying fortress, and the game can be beaten, by clearing all the 100 floors. The games skills also work a bit different, each skill can reach the maximum level off 1000, which can be considered a lot, since most games have a level cap off level 100.
The most anticipated game off all time. Only 10.000 copies will be sold in the first batch, and I have one, I can't believe I have one! I put the disk in my Nervegear, and read the manual. Since this is the first time I'll be using the Nervegear, I want to make sure I don't screw up something when playing SAO. When I finished reading the manual, I put the Nervegear on my head, it instructed me to touch various parts on my body, to make my avatar as realistic as possible, when I was done with 'calibrating' my body, it showed me the stats, showing me if it was right or not. I've started reading the stats out loud. '..197cm tall...97kg..that seems about right..'. It all seemed correct, so this was it, I lied down on my bed, and I said the magic words that would bring me into the world of SAO. 'Link start!'
The world around me faded, and unknown to me or anyone else who started playing SAO, what seemed to be a dream come true, was soon turning into a nightmare we wouldn't be able to escape from...
The game took me to an avatar creation screen, here I could customize the look off my avatar for SAO, I kept it fairly simple. After a few minutes off customizing, my avatar was ready. Looking closely at it, my avatar was tall, probably taller than most other players, it had long blond hair, and I had it put into a samurai like ponytail, I went with no facial hair, making my avatar look younger. My avatar had bright blue eyes, just like my real self did. Now all I had to do was choose a nickname, Which wasn't easy, I had to come up with something fairly simple, which was easier for people around me to call out to me. I went with just [Mitchelo], it was easy to use, and I just made my real name longer, I could have done something with my last name, but this was good enough.
I pressed the OK button, and everything went white and slowly faded to black. I blinked a few times, I couldn't believe my eyes, surrounding me was the world called Aincrad, I was now officially playing Sword Art Online. I saw various people spawning around me looking around and being just as amazed as I am now. Now it was time to get familiar with the menu system, since this was all new to me. I used my right hand to make a swipe motion downwards, and it opened a menu, the method of opening the menu was new, but the menu itself was sort of familiar, having played a lot off other MMO's and other type of games. I see Inventory/Equipment, Friends/Guild, Messaging/Chat, Maps/Quest and finally there is Settings/Main-menu. Firstly I look at what I have as equipment. I pointed at Inventory/Equipment, it opens another menu, I point at equipment, and then weapons. The only weapon listed in my inventory was an basic sword called [Iron sword]. I pointed at it and the [Iron Sword] appeared in my right hand, I gave it a few swings. The sword feels heavy, but it isn't taking a whole lot of effort to swing this around for a while, a sword like this will probably tire me out in real life. I decided I would check up on my other not so important settings later, now I couldn't contain my excitement to really go out and play SAO.
I ran around town, to see the visual wonder this game truly is, the shopping area is filled with stands that sell various armour, weapons and items like healing potions. I reached one of the gates this town has, and walked past it, leaving the safe zone. Not much further I spotted my first enemies, a pack of wild boars, at level 1. I took my [Iron sword] and got into a combat stance, this felt unnatural, other MMO's were played behind a computer and it only took a few clicks on the mouse and keyboard to attack an enemy. While it felt weird, I could feel the adrenaline rushing trough my body, it was like I was about fight a real boar. The hostile boar spotted me, and was about to charge at me. I awkwardly held my weapon in front of myself, and got ready for the boar to attack. After a few second, the boar ran towards me, and I jumped out off the way. The boar ran past me, and I took this as an opportunity to attack. I ran behind the boar and stabbed it with my sword, as I did, I noticed the HP bar of the boar going down. The boar turned around, and it wasn't pleased with me, and ran at me again, this time a bit faster. I dodged him again, and slashed at him. This was the last attack I needed to do, as I cut through him and saw the boar explode in blue bits. A messages appeared in front of me, containing the item I got from the boar I just killed, and some Col. Col is the in-game currency and is similar to what would be gold in other MMO games. So far I now have 1 [Boar skin] and 16 Col, I just need to to kill a few more enemies, and I should reach level 2 soon.
A few hours later, the sun was setting in Aincrad, which would mean in the real world it would also be getting dark, I opened my menu, and indeed, it was now 18:12, which would also mean, it was almost time for dinner. It would mean I have to log out, so I opened up my Settings/Main-menu, and I looked in the tabs. That's weird, there is no log-out button, maybe it's somewhere else? I opened up other menu's, but I couldn't find it. Maybe it was a bug or some sort of glitch? Well until that is fixed I can't log-out. Then something strange happened, I was being teleported to the town center, along with a bunch off other players. Everyone looked around, confused, freaked out, some of them calm. Maybe this is some introduction? It was until a dark red figure appeared in the middle of the town center. ''Attention players, welcome to my world.''. The whole crowd was quiet as it waited for the figure to speak. ''My name is Kayaba Akihiko, as of this moment, I am the sole person who can control this world.''. Some people started whispering, questioning if it was really him, others being impressed that he made this world. The figure continued speaking. ''I figured some people noticed this already, that the log-out button is missing in the main-menu.''. So the GM's did notice, is this why he teleported all of us here? The next words he said, would give everyone nightmares, for the rest of our lives. ''This is however not a bug or glitch in the game, I repeat, this is not a defect in the game, this is a new feature in Sword Art Online.''. I said my thoughts out loud. ''A-A new feature in Sword Art Online...?''. The figure continued talking. ''You cannot log-out of SAO yourself, and no one from the outside can remove or disable the Nervegear.''. ''Should this be attempted however, the Nervegear will transmit a powerful microwave, destroying your brain, thus ending your life.''. People around me started yelling at the figure, saying that what he just told us was a bunch of lies, or at least doubted him. The dark figure continued talking. ''Unfortunately, several players, friends and family have ignored this warning, and attempted to remove the Nervegear, as a result, 213 players are gone, from Aincrad, and the real world.''. He showed several pages from news sites, reporting that indeed, 213 players have died, in real life. ''I hope you all will relax and clear the game.''. How could he say that...in such a calm tone, 213 players have died! It was then he gave another warning.
''But I want you to remember this clearly, there is no longer a method in the game to revive other players in the game, if your HP drops to zero, not only will your avatar be lost forever, but you won't wake up in the real world either.''. I widen my eyes and my breath hitched, and various scenarios of me dying in this game flashed into my mind. ''There is only one way to escape from this game, that is to clear this game.''. Everyone was standing still, waiting for what he had to say next. ''Currently your in the lowest floor in Aincrad, floor 1, if you manage to get trough the dungeon and defeat the floor boss, the floor above will open itself up to you all.''. ''Reach floor 100, and defeat it's floor boss, and you will clear the game.''. I heard some players yelling that he just made this up, other questioned if it's really possible to reach floor 100, it was yet then, he had another present for all off us. '' I've added a special present into your inventory, please see for yourself.''. Everyone, including me, started going through our inventory. ''[Mirror]? What kind of item is that?'' I said out loud. I used the item, and it summoned right into my hand. It was then, bright lights started to cover other players, and soon I found myself covered in the same light. When the light was going away, everyone gasped. I looked into the [Mirror] and...I saw myself, not as my avatar, but as the 'real' me. I still had my blond hair, only now it was some sort of an medium-long hair style and it was just hanging down free almost in front of my eyes, I also still had my blue eyes, but my face was now exactly the same as in the real world. There were even female characters that turned into male characters. While everyone was surprised at how they now look like their real life counterparts, I started thinking, how could this item know our real life faces? Then it hit me, the scan you needed to do before starting SAO, but to be this accurate, it's insane. Then the figure continued speaking, thinking it has paused long enough for everyone to get all this information in. ''You are all thinking probably, why? Why would Kayaba Akihiko, developer of Sword Art Online and the Nervegear, do all this? My goal has already been achieved. I created Sword Art Online for one reason... to create this world and intervene in it.'' Some people started to have panicked looks on their faces, others showed confusing or anger. The figure spoke it's final words. ''This ends the official tutorial for the Sword Art Online launch, good luck, players.'' The figure now started to disappear, slowly but sure.
Quiet...it was dead quiet, everyone still shocked after everything they heard, nobody moved a muscle. This Kayaba Akihiko, something about his tone, this was real, he wasn't lying about all this. We are now trapped, in a game of death, with the goal far away from our reach, the only is to clear all the 100 floors this game has, if I die in this game it wont be only in the game, I will die in the real world as well. This game of death, we have to survive... I have to survive. It was at that moment, one girl started to panic, it triggered an explosion of reactions, several players started cursing, other trying desperately to escape to where ever they could hide. It was then the barrier that kept us inside the town center disappeared, I took my chance to escape the masses of people surrounding me. My mind was blank, I kept running forward, not even looking where I'm going. I even nearly tripped a few times, but I couldn't care less. I and another thousands of players, were trapped inside this sick game of death. Will I die in this game...Will I be strong enough? These thoughts spooked inside my mind, until something snapped inside me. Fuck that...I will not die inside this death game, I'll become stronger, and clear it with the other players! I ran outside the city, and once I was out far enough, a boar spawned on my path, I took out my weapon and ran straight at it. I let the Sword skill assist take over, as I slashed at it in an extreme rate. The boar exploded in blue bits in a matter of moments, and I continued forward, screaming at the red sky, that was trapping us in this for who knows how long.
I'm Mitchel, and this is my story.