Hi, I'm Alex. I'm a 17-year-old teenager living in America. I have been confined to a wheelchair for 9 years due to a traffic accident I had when I was 8 years old. Life? As you know it. As good as it can be in the world of 2038. I live with my mom and dad. I'm an only child. I'm antisocial and I've spent almost 60% of my life playing MMORPGs. The remaining 40% is school. I study through distance learning and my grades are average. Although I don't really want to study, my family wants me to. Whatever happens to me in this state, I don't know. I have been depressed for a long time and I have already lost a few friends. The only thing I love is MMORPGs. And exactly 3 years ago, NOI - Nova Interactive Online - released the Full Dive Gear (FDG). FDG was a technological marvel that could be charged with solar energy and could work for a whole week without charging. Of course, we could only use FDG continuously for a maximum of 6 hours. After 6 hours, the account would automatically log out and FDG would shut down. Anyway, NOI had already announced FDG 5 years ago and everyone was eagerly waiting for it. But no one expected it to be this good.

Along with FDG, they also released the Full Dive World (FDW). People would put on the FDG, lie down on their beds, and say "Connect!" to dive into FDW. FDW was a world the size of a city where you could create your own avatar, hang out with friends, go to the cinema, see prehistoric creatures with your own eyes, and do dangerous extreme sports like skydiving without the fear of dying. In FDW, you could feel everything you experienced 100%. It was literally no different from reality. It was a groundbreaking technology. And it was free. You only had to pay for the FDG headset. Even though no games had been released yet, FDG had already taken the world by storm. There were thousands of conspiracy theories about FDG. Some said it would take over our brains, while others said it could even destroy humanity. Well, that was understandable. Over the years, we had read many stories like Ready Player One, Sword Art Online and much more. But in the end, this technology became real.

NOI made two great announcements 2 years after releasing FDG. The first one was the introduction of AWO (Adventure Worlds Online), which would be the first game for FDG. The second one was that people would be able to create their own games on FDG, just like in SAO. The games created by people would be accessible from FDW. But they didn't give any details. They didn't say when it would happen, how it would happen, or if it would be paid. Anyway, a year ago, NOI announced that they were looking for beta testers for AWO. I applied immediately. Maybe it was because of my years of experience and plenty of free time, but I was chosen as one of the 100 users selected for beta testing.

For a year, I played AWO with the other 100 testers. I have to say, it was incredible. Ultra-realistic graphics, amazing worlds, intelligent NPCs, incredible locations, and a wide variety of mobs. AWO was a 200-floor world. Each floor was a different world. The first floor was an NPC area, while the second floor was a marketplace (where players could set up shops). The hunting grounds were between the third and ninth floors. The first boss was on the tenth floor. There was a boss every ten floors, yes. So there were 20 main bosses in the game. And a miniboss every five floors. There were also hundreds of bosses that only appeared in quests. There were thousands of items you could find or craft.

Because I had been a beta tester for a long time, I would start the game way ahead of ordinary people. I knew most of the secret locations and important tactics. Well, we were doing this tester job voluntarily, but there would be an in-game reward, of course. Our names would have [BT] (Beta Tester) next to them, and exclusive outfits would be given only to beta testers. Today is the day AWO will be released. I'm currently waiting for it in FDW. All beta tester accounts were reset, and a countdown started in FDW. Under the counter, it showed the number of people waiting to log into AWO in real-time. It was exactly 2,734,916,348 people. (2.73\~ billion) I was among those waiting. The counter reached 0, and everyone slowly disappeared from FDW. I was left alone. Everything around me turned completely white, and in front of me, a blue text appeared.

...Adventure Worlds Online...

...20:00...

...Welcome, Zeth[BT]!...

I entered AWO. A small window appeared in front of me. In the window, it said:

...Server 1...

...Server 2...

...Server 3...

...Server 4...

...Server 5...

I already knew it would be like this. It made sense. After all, we are 2.7 billion people haha. I observed the servers. While they were all slowly filling up, I chose server 3 and entered the weapon selection screen. The game didn't have the class system that we are used to in MMORPGs. It had a "You are what you wear" system. The equipment, not the character, had abilities. During the beta test, the weapons were randomly assigned to each tester, and we played that way. I played as a wizard. -which I hate.-

There were 6 main weapon types in the game. These were:

One-handed sword,

Two-handed sword,

Bow,

Daggers,

Spellbook and gloves.

Each had different builds, abilities, and playstyles, but except for the support build, their damage was more or less the same. You could choose whichever you enjoyed. Which was a great thing. Of course, some weapons were more effective tactically against certain bosses, but here we are talking about damage. Also, if you were using a one-handed weapon, you could also take a support item in your other hand. This was not possible with two-handed weapons, but they had more damage.

Anyway, like in every MMORPG, I chose the one-handed sword and pressed the "start" button. -with my hand.-

Just 2 seconds later, I was in Nown on the 1st floor. Nown was the blue area I mentioned before, filled with NPCs. By the way, let me tell you about the areas. There are 6 different areas in the game.

White, blue, yellow, red, black, and gray.

White areas were where people could buy houses and establish farms. We can say it was a kind of "city" or "safe zone". PvP was prohibited in this area and there were no enemy mobs. Only birds, insects, NPCs, and such.

In the blue area, PvP was disabled and only PvE was allowed. This means we could only kill monsters, not attack other players.

In the yellow area, players could enable PvP if they wanted, but the only benefit was a little bit of experience and NC (NOI coin, the local currency of AWO). Dying to another player in the yellow area only resulted in losing experience.

In the red area, players could also enable PvP like in the yellow area, and players who didn't have PvP enabled couldn't be attacked. However, if you die to another player in the red area, you lose all of your current experience and 60% of your current NC. If you kill another player, you take all the NC and experience they lost.

In the black area (except for those who have Ronark's cloak item), PvP was mandatory for all players, and if you die in this area, you lose not only NC and experience but also all of your equipment. Similarly, the player who kills you gets everything you lost.

In the gray area, your account gets reset if you die. You lose everything.

The first 40 floors were blue areas, floors 41-80 were yellow areas.

Floors 80-140 were red, and

Floors 141-189 were black areas.

Between floors 190 and 200 was the gray area.

Also, without exception, there were hidden dungeons on every floor in AWO. These dungeons were places where you fought all the way to the end and defeated the dungeon boss to receive your reward. There was no downside to doing these dungeons. Even if the mobs and boss didn't give extra experience, it was always profitable. The good thing was that it allowed you to defeat bosses one after another. Additionally, the experience, NC, and items obtained at the end of the dungeon were based on luck. Of course, you couldn't get a level 500 equipment from a dungeon on the 1st floor, but it still gave you the opportunity to obtain items that you could get in the later floors early on. But as I said, it depended on your luck.

The AWO world had 200 floors, but this didn't include the white areas. The white areas were 30 floors, and like all other floors, you teleported to them. When I say floor, don't think of it as a building. Each floor was a separate world. For example, the first floors were like the real world. -At least the old version of it.- Everywhere was green, the sky was an endless blue, and the sun was shining. But some worlds were different realms. I will go there eventually.

Furthermore, the game had a map system. This was crucial because each floor was the size of a city, and there were 200 of these floors. The map was personalized and was a direct copy from the Sword Art Online anime! Once you discovered a location, you could revisit it later, but undiscovered areas did not appear on the map. Additionally, you could obtain Map Fragments (MF) from other players. For example, if there was a place you wanted to explore, see, or know about in the world but didn't want to risk discovering it yourself, you could obtain an MF from someone who had already explored it and permanently unlock that area on your map.

I looked around. It was quite crowded, but the Anti-Crowd System (ACS) of the FDW (Full Dive World) was active. This meant that even if there were billions of people around me, I would only see a maximum of 200. I looked up and saw my name. It said "LV1 Zeth[BT]." I opened the settings and turned off the title [BT] at the end of my name. I didn't want people to judge me or swarm around me. I checked my inventory. Apart from the single one-handed sword in my right hand, I had nothing. I looked at the character information screen.

...Name: Zeth#None - This is the clan tag....

...Level: 1...

...Stat Points: 0...

...NC: 0...

I looked at the people again. They were busy exploring the game, the menus, and everything else. Fortunately, I already knew a lot, so I set off right away. The place I was going to was Nown Farm, just 200 meters ahead. I needed to hunt snakes there to earn some NC and level up, as well as obtain equipment from NPCs.

...Alright then, let's get started!...