“Test subject number 24. The subject lasted for two minutes and forty-five seconds after the administration of Chimera. Time of death: 4:22 AM.”
A voice. But I should be the only one at home.
Lin Fan’s eyes fluttered open, only to be met by a blinding light. The familiar curved hatch of his VR capsule was gone, replaced by a flat, white ceiling. The walls surrounding him were the same sterile white, forged from a cold, hard metal that looked like something out of a science fiction film. The room resembled an intensive care unit, and he was lying on a metal table, bare-chested and hooked up to a dozen whirring machines. The chill of the table seeped into his back.
He noticed a group of people in white lab coats standing around him, their expressions a mixture of shock and disbelief, as if they were looking at a ghost.
I was just accepting a leveling request. Where am I?
Suddenly, a torrent of data flooded his mind, making his head throb with an agonizing pressure. His last clear memory was of creating a new character in Starlight. Then, just as he was finalizing the details, he thought he smelled burnt eggs…
“Quickly, inform Ms. Freya! The test subject has come back to life!”
As the researchers erupted into a commotion, Lin Fan realized with a jolt that he could understand them perfectly, despite the fact they were speaking a language he had never heard. The words they used—‘test subject’, ‘back to life’—sent a shiver of dread through him. A moment later, he heard the frantic pounding of footsteps from the corridor outside.
Run or stay put? The choice was made in an instant. Lin Fan was never one to wait for his fate to be decided for him. He shot up from the table, ripping the wires from his chest, and made a clumsy dash for the door. The researchers scrambled back, making no attempt to stop him, more concerned with getting out of his way.
He burst out into a long white corridor, only to be met by a dozen guards in black tactical gear advancing on him from both ends. In their hands, they held crackling electric batons.
Lin Fan’s breath caught in his throat when he saw the crest on their uniforms: a stylized image of half a plant.
The Genesis Foundation… from Planet Cerulea in version one? Weren’t they wiped out ages ago?
A guard lunged, swinging his baton. Lin Fan instinctively threw up an arm to block. A paralyzing current surged through him, and his entire body convulsed. It felt as if his bones were about to shatter. Numbness spread through his limbs.
Is the pain calibration set to 100%?
In Starlight, the pain setting was capped at 40%. Anything higher risked causing nerve damage. The VR capsule was supposed to monitor a player’s vitals to prevent this, but his was clearly malfunctioning.
The damn thing is only seven years old! The repairman I paid three hundred dollars to just last week swore it would last another six months! I want a refund!
The guards hauled him to his feet and dragged him to a small, windowless room, shoving him inside and locking the door. He was plunged into pitch-black darkness.
Lin Fan grimaced, massaging his wrist while his head continued to pound as more and more foreign information poured in.
It took him a long moment to sort through the chaos in his mind and accept the impossible truth.
I’ve… transmigrated into Starlight?
His eyes widened in the dark.
Starlight was a fully immersive virtual reality game with servers across the globe, boasting a peak concurrent player count of nearly sixty million. Its universe was vast, its worlds and landscapes procedurally generated by the latest quantum computers. The scale was so massive it was rumored to be able to support a billion players without a hitch. Entire organizations and companies existed within it, dedicated to gold farming and dungeon runs. The best gear could sell for upwards of a million US dollars.
It was an extremely popular game, and balance was paramount. While paying players had their advantages, it wasn’t so skewed as to alienate the casual player base. Skill and competitiveness were the true keys to success, which was why Starlight had such a strong allure as an e-sport.
Lin Fan made his living from the game, but ‘professional gamer’ wasn’t the right term. He was a power leveler—one of the reviled solo grinders who played the game for profit.
He had been playing since the very beginning. Through countless version patches, he had made a name for himself, even placing 47th in the last annual top 100 rankings. He had the skill to go pro, but what he truly loved was the simple satisfaction of leveling up.
“The Genesis Foundation,” Lin Fan mumbled to himself in the dark. “They were on Planet Cerulea, one of the starter planets from Version 1.0.”
Before he’d woken up here, Starlight had been running for over a decade. Version 1.0 was ancient history.
“Have I gone back in time, too?” His expression soured.
“Does that mean I’m never getting my three hundred dollars back?”
He slapped himself hard across the face. “Am I an idiot? That’s the least of my problems!”
His memories were a confusing jumble. He couldn’t recall a thing about his original life—not even his name. All that remained were his encyclopedic memories of this world. He was in the year 687 of the Starlight calendar, a full year before the game was set to launch.
In this era, the three universal powers—the Radiant Confederacy, the Scarlet Imperium, and the Mystic Conclave—were still upholding the ten-thousand-year peace treaty signed at the end of the age of exploration. The Argent Rebellion had yet to form. The man who would one day trigger the Psionic Cataclysm was still fighting for his life on some backwater planet. The Luminous Sphere was not yet born, the civilization of the Arbor Vitae had not invaded from beyond the galactic fringe, and the Sundered Zone, home to Planet Cerulea, was just an inconspicuous cluster of stars at the edge of the explored universe.
To keep the game fresh, Starlight’s developers had borrowed an idea from classics like WoW, centering each major update around a new disaster or world-shaking event. Lin Fan had loved the thrill of it from the safety of his VR capsule. Now that he was actually here…
The Genesis Foundation might be small fry compared to the interstellar empires of later updates, but to the powerless man trapped in this cell, they were an insurmountable threat.
“Planet Cerulea was based on Earth. The Genesis Foundation’s goal is to overthrow the planetary government. And if I remember correctly, the Chimera test subjects are all brainwashed to be used as cannon fodder.”
The body he now inhabited had been subjected to a memory wipe. Besides some basic knowledge, all that was left were fragmented images of captivity and painful experiments.
He felt about twenty years old and, strangely, looked a bit like his old self. His health, however, was a mystery. The researchers had mentioned Chimera, one of the Genesis Foundation’s genetic enhancement drugs used to strengthen the brain. It had a survival rate of only thirty percent, but somehow, this body had pulled through.
Suddenly, a line of glowing blue text materialized in the darkness before him.
_____________________
You have been injected with Chimera!
You have learned a new ability: Concentration.
You have learned a new ability: Low Level Willpower.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
“The interface!” A surge of pure joy shot through Lin Fan.
_____________________
Race: Human/Carbon-based (Yellow)
Model: NPC (Countdown to Version 1.0 launch: 358 days, 11 hours, 03 minutes)
Sub-class: Civilian Lv. 1 (0/50)
Attributes: Strength 2, Dexterity 2, Endurance 3, Intelligence 3, Mystery 1, Charm 2, Luck 1
[A piece of trash with a combat strength of 5. Any random NPC off the street could wipe the floor with you a hundred times! A hundred times!]
Health Points: 23/30 (Injured)
– Concentration: +10% to learning and crafting speeds.
– Low Level Willpower: +3 Resistance.
¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯¯
“Thank god I still have the interface!”
Lin Fan’s elation was short-lived as he noticed several alarming details.
NPC, not player? A countdown timer?
He furrowed his brow, forcing himself to think clearly.
First, whatever magic had brought the interface here with him, he had to treat this world as reality. If he died, there would be no respawning.
Second, he was classified as an NPC but still had access to the system interface. This was good news. It meant he could level up like a player.
Third, the countdown timer confirmed his suspicion. He had traveled back to a time before the game’s official launch. Did that mean that in one year, ‘real’ players would start appearing in this world?
Finally, and most importantly, he was in mortal danger.
A wave of indignation washed over him. Weren’t people who transmigrated supposed to get some kind of perks? Resources, a powerful ally, maybe an ex-girlfriend with a secret? At the very least, he should have started in a safe place! The war hadn’t even started, and he was already a lone hero trapped deep behind enemy lines. One mistake, and he was dead for good. He might end up in a Hall of Heroes… if this world even had one.
He only had one life. If he died, that was it. It would be a pity.
Yes, that was the word that came to mind: a pity. A normal person would be screaming, I want to survive! He wasn’t one for dramatic declarations like, My fate is not for the heavens to decide! If the heavens wish to erase me, I shall erase the heavens! That sort of thing was for kids with overactive imaginations.
“What the hell,” Lin Fan lamented. “Why am I the only one who got SAO-ed?”
His senses screamed that this was all real, but a doubt lingered.
What am I, exactly? A living, breathing person? Or just a collection of data? Did my soul travel here, or is this something else entirely?
He sighed. No use dwelling on it. He would have to take things one step at a time.
The only thing that mattered now was survival.
With a year until the players arrived, he had time to prepare. It was the only glimmer of hope he could cling to.
Just then, the door to his cell creaked open, flooding the small space with light. Several figures stepped inside, their forms silhouetted against the bright corridor. Lin Fan couldn’t make out their faces, but the outline of the person in the lead was unmistakable: a woman with a dangerous, hourglass figure.
“The subject’s condition?”
The woman’s voice was as smooth as rich coffee but laced with a faint, intoxicating rasp.
“It appears the test subject has calmed down,” the lead researcher, Dr. Aris Thorne, answered. He was staring at Lin Fan with a proprietary passion, as if gazing upon a priceless treasure.
“Who are you people?” Lin Fan asked, his voice raw.
“Hmm? Amnesia?” The woman’s eyebrow twitched.
“Chimera stimulates the brain,” Dr. Aris Thorne said, squinting. “Memory loss is not an unexpected side effect.”
As Lin Fan’s eyes finally adjusted to the light, he was struck speechless by the woman’s appearance.
A cascade of luscious, burgundy hair fell across one side of her face. She was poured into a tight-fitting, jet-black bodysuit that seemed barely able to contain her curves.
Her features were distinctly Western, yet they held a certain softness characteristic of the East. Perhaps her mixed heritage had blessed her with such an exotic and lethal beauty. She looked like a demoness from an old legend, cloaked in human skin.
If Lilith had been this beautiful, Lin Fan thought, then King Sardanapalus’s ruin was completely understandable.
“I am Freya, the commander of this facility,” the red-haired woman said, her eyes fixed on Lin Fan. She gave a slight wave of her hand. “Conduct a blood test. I want the report on my desk immediately.”
Two stone-faced guards stepped forward to grab him. The sheer size of them, combined with the pistols holstered at their hips, crushed any thought of resistance.
He knew her. Freya, the ‘Scarlet Viper’. This was the Chimera Research Lab, a key base for the Genesis Foundation and a starting scenario on Planet Cerulea.
In Version 1.0, Freya had been an infamous boss who brought endless grief to beginner players. They had called her the ‘Death Maiden’. In time, she would ascend to the Celestial class, becoming a major power in the Orion Expanse.
Lin Fan could only laugh bitterly to himself. He was trapped in the laboratory of a monster from the game’s early days. The situation wasn’t just bleak; it was a death sentence.