Chapter One
Step back, block, step forward swing, a simple yet very effective technique.
When fighting your enemies, one can't simply charge at them with wild swings and pray for a hit. One must analyze their opponent's moves and find the right opening at the right time.
It was these reasons that I became the fierce opponent that I am today, but it wasn't always like this, every legend starts from somewhere.
It was a cold November morning, the air had just started getting much colder, preparing for the winter to come, and I, along with many other people, was standing in line, waiting to get my hands on the new age of technology.
The NerveGear, a simple design with the capability of taking you to a whole new world, was the highlight of gaming history in 2022. With it, according to designer, Akihiko Kayaba, all five of your senses would be utilized in the true virtual reality that he gives the appropriate nickname, FullDive. By putting the body in a dreamlike state, much like a REM cycle, the NerveGear sends different waves of information that's processed by the brain, and is then shown in the virtual world. In fact, it's even said that people who may be deaf, or blind, would still be able to see and hear using the NerveGear.
The NerveGear started small, with flight simulators being the games that were released with it, but when there was a rumor of an MMORPG in the making, everyone was excited, which brings me to today, November 5, 2022. Though the servers aren't open till tomorrow, today's the day that the NerveGear, along with Sword Art Online, could be bought. At the time, it didn't make sense why they would release it the day before, however, after hooking everything up, I quickly realized that the tedious calibration process, which I had to undergo a few times due to messing up, took quite a bit of time.
After spending the last two hours with the calibration, I was ready to log into the game, though the servers were still down, the manual, which I normally don't read but this is a completely new system to me, highly recommended that I made my avatar as soon as possible, and I'm glad I did.
Due to the perfect 3D environment, the avatar creation gave you amazing customizability, instead of choosing your avatar from pre-made styles, you practically construct it, just the way you want! Normally in MMORPG's, I choose to play a female, mainly because they are more fun to look at when spending hours staring at the avatar you make. However, considering that the entire game is in the first-person perspective, and I can literally make the male anyway I want, I decided to go ahead and be a male avatar for once.
I'm not sure how long I spent making my avatar, but when I was finally finished, I noticed that the sun was reflecting a yellow-orange tint into my room. I looked at the clock, which was about 1:00 when I started the calibration process, it's neon blue numbers showing that it was 6:00. I had spent five hours creating my character. I wasn't really surprised thinking about the customizability, and was thankful that tomorrow was a weekend. I decided to head downstairs for breakfast, when my little brother barged into my room.
"Oh! You're awake!" Both the look of surprise and concern was in his eyes.
"Yeah? Why wouldn't I be?" I raised an eyebrow at him.
"You were just asleep for a while, that's all." He shrugs. "Anyway, breakfast is ready, so I thought I'd let you know." He waves and leaves my room as abruptly as he entered.
Well, I am hungry so it's a good thing... Then it hit me. Breakfast?! I looked at the clock again, and after a closer examination, I realized that the clock indicated AM. I hadn't spent nearly 5 hours making a character, I had spent much longer! Coming to this realization, my stomach growled for food. I quickly grabbed my clothes, rushed to the bathroom, and took one of the quickest showers of my life.
"Look who finally wakes up! How late did you stay up last night?" My mother questioned me while serving me a plate of pancakes with cut strawberries, bananas, and topped with blueberry syrup.
"Technically, I went to bed at 1:00 last night. However, I didn't wake up till a little before you had him," lazily pointed at my little brother, "wake me up." I shrugged and realized that I was being a smartass to my mother, but I quickly drowned my worry taking my first bite of the breakfast in front of me. Maybe it's because of the fact that I hadn't have eaten anything since breakfast the day before, that the food is exceptionally delicious this morning. Before I even realize it, I finish chowing down my stack of pancakes, and rub my stomach as the familiar feeling of being full engulfs me.
I pull my chair back from the table, get up, and rinse off my plate. "Thank, that was delicious" I smile heading towards the door.
"I think you were just saying that because you were hungry!" My mother teased. Though she was partially right, I've always liked my mother's cooking, but I especially loved it today. I leave my remark to myself and walk outside, the familiar cool breeze welcoming me, as I start my jog.
I always go for a jog in the mornings for multiple reasons. The first one, is so that my little brother can't outrun me. It's a childish reason, but I don't care. The second is to stay healthy. For the past few summers, I would sit around lazily and play too many MMO's and would have to diet during the school year to get healthy again, just for the pattern to start all again once school was out. But the third, and most important, was that it gave me time to think. Sometimes I'd think of politics and how the economy was doing... Rarely, other times I'd think of how my life was doing, and my current school academics, this time I was thinking of SAO.
According to the manual, there are thousands of skills to learn within this game. Ranging from your usually combat skills, to some other skills like scan, or hide, which can be the make-or-break in some combat scenarios, and it even has the profession skills, fishing, blacksmith, and cooking. Though I'm not really surprised that an MMORPG would have the skills, I'm surprised at the fact, that a game as errersive as SAO is suppose to be, would include such mundane skills as these. I shrug off my thoughts and get back to the main topic.
What do I want to play? I guess you could say that I'm at least experienced with MMORPG's, so figuring out the play style of a character is very important to do as early as possible. Luckily, SAO doesn't have a class system, and the individuality is all determined by the Sword Skills you choose to level, and the governing attributes you increase which each level. Like many other MMORPG's, choosing the best attributes to most benefit your skills, is the way to separate yourself from the average players. Unlike most MMORPG's SAO doesn't have a magic system, nor are there any special ranged skills. Meaning that all of your combat will be face-to-face, only few feet from each other's avatars. Because of this, SAO only has a choice of a few different attributes to choose from; Strength, the most common in any RPG, it governs how much you can carry on your person, but also the damage you deal with each swing. Agility, how fast you move, and how long or far you can jump. It also branches off into different abilities such as wall running, or being able to climb next to impossible surfaces. Dexterity, how nimble you are in combat, and how fast you can swing your sword. Unlike most games RPG's where you want to choose one or the other, Strength and Dexterity tend to go hand-in-hand within SAO. Vitality, increasing the amount of maximum health gained per level up, and the amount of damage you can withstand. And finally Luck. Like most RPG's, Luck is the most underrated, overlooked attribute. By increasing your Luck, you not only increase the chance for rare drops, but also increase your chances for critical attacks. And like most people know, a critical attack can very easily turn an entire fight around. As previously mentioned, the game doesn't have "classes" that you have to choose from, so I can choose to hoard my spending my attributes until I have a good idea on what style I want to play.
There will be players out there who'll, more than likely, spend the points equally on the attributes, causing them to be able to do anything, within an average level. However, those players play the game for the fun, and enjoyment it brings. Then you have people like me, who take games to a whole new level, by only raising certain states by a certain level, in order to minimize wasted points, and to create a character that's amazing at doing the thing he does, but is poor at doing anything else. The way I'll probably build my character is high Str, and Dex, with medium Vit, and Luck, a very effective build.
I'm not sure how many times a circled my block, but my watch had beeped, signalling that it was time to stop jogging, and to head home and take another shower. My entire walk home, I continued to ponder on how I should build my character.
"Hey, you're back!" My little brother exclaimed. I looked up, startled for a moment, but relaxed to see him waving at me. I waved back, and entered the house.
"You're not just going to hide in your room again, are you?" My mother was scowling at me, and used that tone of voice, saying she has authority. I gulped.
"I just spend a lot of money on my game, and I'd like to be able to play it. Plus, it's not like I just sit around playing games, I actually play competitively, and make a lot of money from it. So much money, in fact, that I've never had to ask of you for anything after you helped me with my first computer, and I have enough money saved up to pay for my own college. So while I already have a good future ahead of me, and I'm still making money, why can't I play the game, that I bought?!" I realized I was yelling and looked away in both embarrassment and frustration.
My mother just looked with very saddened eyes, on the tears of crying. I immediately felt a wave of regret, before my mother opened her mouth, her voice quivering with rage.
"Don't EVER talk back to your mother like that! I swear! Your father accepting that job and causing us to move overseas was the WORST thing that has happened to this family! Fine, you know what?! Be that way! If you're so confident that you don't need me anymore, then you can start paying, and making, your own food, pay for your own clothes, and start paying for the rent, utilities, and internet expenses, because believe me, paying for your high speed internet is NOT CHEAP!"
"FINE! I think I WILL! I'll be going to my room now!" I yelled back, and immediately ran to my room, shutting the door before letting out a huge sigh. Though I feel bad, I figured I'll just apologize to her once we've all calmed down. I checked my watched and was happy to see that there was still plenty of time for my shower, before the servers were online. So I grabbed my clothes and took a nice relaxing shower. Afterwards, I hooked myself up to the NerveGear, and stared at the time.
The minutes began to roll by, what seemed like hours. I began to literally count the seconds remaining in anticipation, before the clocked finally ticked 1:00. I took a deep breath. This is it! I smiled and issued the wakeup command that I had calibrated just 24 hours ago.
"Link Start!"