The grassy plains spread far, dotted with trees and... strange platforms raised out of the ground? That cant be normal. As I turn around I see something else out of the norm, a giant pillar shooting into the sky, seemingly melding into it at the top.

"where the heck am I? This has to be a dream right?" my voice comes out in a whisper

Welcome User, to The Gamer System (v7.4)!

You have been randomly selected to be inserted into the anime of "Sword Art Online" (Altered Edition)!

You have gained the ability to live your life with all the benefits of being a video game character!

Gamers Body: the Users body has the traits of a video game! Lose health instead of taking physical wounds, no need to eat or sleep, and you never degenerate! (currently locked due to Sword Art Online's unique situation!)

Gamers Mind: the users mind is impervious to outside mental influences and is resistant to negative emotions and disorders!

The game has many functions such as:

Inventory: the User can store objects around them inside an alternate dimension only they can access! (modified to allow use inside of SAO!)

Skills: the User can collect skills and train them faster than even a genius prodigy! And their proficiency will never decrease with time!

Perks: the User can modify their self with various Perks that allow special actions or abilities!

Stats: The User can grow beyond the average human. Their stat growth has infinite potential, and affect how their abilities and power grow! (Warning: physical stats are functionally useless while trapped in SAO!)

Quests: The User can receive and complete quests for rewards, bonus objectives can be completed for additional or increased rewards

I guess I'll look at my stats?

Stats:

Level: 1, EXP: 0

Name: Nokraz, Age: 20, Race: Human

HP: 250/250 Regen: 1 per hour

MP: 50/50 Regen: 1 per minute

Strength: 5 (Locked due to SAO), 3 (SAO)

Dexterity: 6 (Locked due to SAO), 3 (SAO)

Vitality: 4 (Locked due to SAO), 3 (SAO

Intelligence: 7

Wisdom: 7

Luck: 10

Money/Col: 0

Stats govern different aspects of your abilities, some are obvious and some less so.

Strength: governs physical power and output, for movement attacks, or defending.

Dexterity: governs your agility, reflexes, speed, and accuracy. (known as agility in SAO)

Vitality: governs your physical endurance, your defences, stamina, and ability to shrug off harmful status effects.

Intelligence: governs your ability to process and store information, your magic pool, and spell complexity, also increases magical damage.

Wisdom: governs your perceptiveness, willpower, general wisdom, and increases magic regen, and spell efficiency.

Luck: allows the die of fate to roll in your favour more often, better drop rates, random events with better outcomes and rewards, increases hit chance, and overrides a video games natural "luck stat".

HP and MP: these are essential to your survival, if your HP (health points) fall to zero, you die and your game ends, your MP (mana/magic points) can reach zero with no repercussions, and is spent to use spells or special abilities.

'Glad to see that most of my gaming knowledge is useful with this thing, hope SAO has a decently simple system too.' I thought as I looked around, trying to spot a town or other safe zone. When a *Ping* sound rang out.

Quest Received!

Survive Sword Art Online!

Objective: survive until the players are released from SAO

Bonus Objectives:

engage with at least 25% of the floor bosses

engage with at least 50% of the floor bosses

engage with at least 75% of the floor bosses

engage with at least 100% of the floor bosses

"Glad to see my first quest is simple and easy" I sarcastically drawled as I rolled my eyes. 'My options are either "wait for kirito to do it" or "work my ass off and fight to the death against monsters" fantastic, better get some good shit for this'

As I finished searching the horizon I saw the massive Town of Beginnings in the distance, and it certainly looked like it could hold 10 thousand players at once.

"Guess I better start walking huh? Not gonna enjoy this one..." I whined as I began walking.

I felt like I had been walking for hours before I heard a snort, I turned and faced my first enemy on my noble quest! The fearsome starting enemy; the Frenzy Boar, it had glowing red eyes and was covered in dark blue fur, its two tusks seemed unusually sharp for a wild boar, but I guess in a video game its gonna be like that.

"Wait... I don't have any weapons... aw shit." with a louder snort the boar charged, I rolled to the side only to notice the boar didn't actually seem to course correct. 'I should have known the first enemy was gonna be canon fodder'

I looked around for some sort of weapon, but I only saw a couple small rocks. "wait there's a throwing skill in SAO right?" I grabbed a couple rocks and got into a pitchers stance, reeling my arm back before I felt the game take psudo-control of my arm. I threw the rock forward with surprising speed, pelting the boar in the face. The Frenzy Boar's health dropped a lot, at least half!

"throwing is pretty strong huh? I should grab some more rocks, maybe make a build out of it haha." with another couple rocks and dodges later and the frenzy boar was slain. And my reward? About 24 exp and 30 col, awesome, 'wait. How does SAO exp compare to Gamer exp?'

Exp for The Gamer and Sword Art Online are synced for ease of use, leveling up in SAO will level you up in the Gamer as well, and vice versa for quests completed for The Gamer.

"oh that's broken broken, I can grind harder than Kirito ever could!" with a renewed vigor I collected as many rocks as I could find, eventually the day turned to dusk, and I had collected more rocks than my character inventory can hold, so I shoved them into my Gamer inventory for even more shenanigans!

As I rejoiced in my new found "throwing random shit" build, I glowed with a blue light and was teleported away, now standing in a large open area with a large clock tower in the center of the plaza, people were scattered around looking confused, then multiple red hexagons labelled with "Warning" and "System Announcement" popped into the sky, before spreading from horizon to horizon, bathing the sky in a deep red color.

What seemed like blood started leaking from between the hexagons, forming into a ball with electricity crackling through it. Before it formed into a large hooded figure, face covered in shadows, a red cloak with golden trim billowing in the wind, his hands covered in white gloves.

Then he began to speak, "Attention, Players. Welcome to my world. My name is Kayaba Akihiko. As of this moment, I am the sole person who can control this world." the crowd is filled with mutters of surprise. "I'm sure you've already noticed that the logout button is missing from the main menu. But this is not a defect in the game. This is a feature of Sword Art Online. You cannot log out of SAO yourselves. And nobody on the outside can shut down or remove the NerveGear. Should this be attempted, the transmitter inside the NerveGear will emit a powerful microwave, destroying your brain and thus ending your life."

As the crowd started to get nervous I grabbed a rock from my inventory, I wanted to start this game off with a bang, plus it was gonna be funny.

Kayaba continued his speech, uncaring of the players fears. "Unfortunately, several player's friends and families have ignored this warning, and have attempted to remove the NerveGear. As a result, two hundred and thirteen players are gone forever, from both Aincrad and the real world." Kayaba then brought up multiple images and videos of news reporting's "As you can see, news organization across the world are reporting all of this, including the deaths. Thus, you can assume that the danger of a NerveGear being removed is now minimal." the screens were showing how multiple people have been reported as dead from SAO, the players around me are shocked into silence.

"I hope you will relax and attempt to beat the game. But I want you to remember this clearly. There is no longer any method to revive someone within the game. If your HP drops to zero, your avatar will be forever lost. And simultaneously, the NerveGear will destroy your brain." he takes another pause to let the info sink in.

"There is only one means of escape: To complete the ga-" his speech was interrupted by me throwing a rock at his big stupid head, a purple hexagon saying "immortal object" may have blocked the rock, but the shock of it showing up still made him flinch.

He recovered from my attempt and continued his speech, I zoned out because I already know what hes gonna say, so I started looking around for main characters, particularly kirito and klein, when a mirror dropped into my hands I knew what happened next.

As the area shone with a bright blue light I gave a quick glance at my "real" appearance, short light brown hair, green eyes, and pale skin. About how I normally am if a bit slimmer than usual.

Glancing around I finally spot Kirito and Klein, Kirito has black hair and dark grey eyes, a blue shirt under his brown leather armor. Klein has bright brown hair, a bit of stubble, and brown eyes, he's wearing a red band around his head, a cream colored tunic with brown leathers. I made my way over to them as everyone freaked out about their appearance.

Kayaba had resumed speaking at some point, I only caught the tale end of his speech, with a "good luck, players." as he dissolved into red smoke and flew back between the hexagons in the sky before they disappeared as well. The crowd got over their shock and all started shouting and yelling, I saw Kirito drag Klein away and hurried to follow them.

I followed them into an alley, Kirito was talking to Klein about running away to another village as I walked up. "Howdy! I couldn't help but overhear you were going to another town? I kinda want to get out of here too, but I've got no clue what direction its in."

Kirito looked at me with suspicion, "Who the hell are you?" he asked as his eyes narrowed. I raised my hands. "I'm Nokraz, I saw you two run away and figured I'd see what was up, so hearing you wanted to skip town got me interested."

Klein spoke up "hey Kirito? I cant go with you anyway, I got this game so I could play with some friends, I gotta stay with them. So don't worry about me." a smirk appeared on his face as he spoke. "I used to be a guild leader in my last game. I can use what you taught me to get by!" Kirito looked surprised. "guess this is goodbye then, message me if you need anything Klein." "Goodbye Kirito!" Klein walked off as Kirito turned back towards me.

"So, whats your gear? I don't see any weapons on you." he said as his eyes trailed up and down my body. "You don't have any armor either? Are you trying to get killed or something?" I gave a shrug in response. "I don't know, I spawned without any weapons or armor, I can throw rocks pretty hard though, killed a couple frenzy boar out in the woods."

Kirito had a look of pity as he regarded me. "Throwing doesn't scale very well on later floors, you should probably pick up a weapon too, knife builds usually use throwing too. We can see about getting you some armor when we get to the next town, come on."

as Kirito and I ran out of the Town of Beginnings I only had a single thought on my mind.

'I already know how this story ends, but I'm gonna make it have a better ending, like a new game plus or something...'