2 Getting ready:

Ding ding!

'Finally, it's here!' Eldrian sprang from his couch and hurried towards the door.

He lived in a small apartment relatively near his university. Close enough that when cycling it would take only about 15 minutes there and about 10 back, since most of the road was downhill when going back.

The apartment was just what any student would need when living alone. A small, cozy place. It had a kitchen/living room. Other than this, it had a pleasant bedroom, which could fit a double bed and a bathroom with a bath-shower.

As Eldrian opened the door, he saw a young man nervously handling a clipboard while holding a box in his other hand. It truly looked like he would soon fail in keeping the balance between the box and the clipboard.

"Whoa there!" Eldrian said, catching the falling clipboard. Luckily, the delivery guy had prioritized the box over the papers. "Give me that paper for so long. I'll start reading it and if everything is in order, I'll sign it." 

"Ah, yes. Thank you." The man replied, clearly embarrassed at this point.

"I am guessing you are new at this job?" Eldrian said, as he started reading the contents. Not much needs to be said, it was a standard notice of delivery paper that needed his signature as proof of delivery. Strangely, there was another thicker pack behind it.

"Ah yeah, sorry. And please note that there is a notice under the first. I am not too sure what it is. They just told me it also needed to be signed. A notice on accepting the conditions of the new technology or something in that line."

"Well, that sounds interesting. Let me see." Eldrian quickly flipped the first page and started reading through it.

The notice, or rather a contract, had a lot more to it. It indicated that, because of limited testing, the use of the deep dive headset was still in the testing phase. So, if any problems arise, then this contract essentially protects the company from backlash.

It also stated a few confusing terms with which Eldrian wasn't familiar with. Luckily, he could understand the gist of it from the context in which the words were used in. Besides, everyone agreed to these contracts without much fuss, so Eldrian didn't read too much into it. 

Basic conditions in the contract stated firstly that the person who will enter the game must be 18 years of age or older. With permanent banning as a punishment if this rule is broken. The reason given is that the content in-game isn't suitable for younger audiences. Eldrian being 19, had no problems with this rule. He wasn't planning on letting others play with his headset, either.

Another clause was that no person will be allowed to game for longer than 16 hours. If a player does not log out on their own by this time, then they will be forcefully logged out. Receive double the death penalty and be punished with a 24-hour cooldown before they can reenter the game.

The reason for this was that the untested effects of such a deep dive system capable of replacing sleep haven't been fully investigated. But if the time spent in-game is limited, then the effects are lessened and can normally be controlled to an extent, or so the contract claimed.

Regarding play time, Eldrian didn't feel he would likely go over this since he had classes during the week and on weekends he would like to go out when the sun was out.

The last clause of interest was on the pain scaling in-game. This stated that in-game, to make full immersion possible, pain had to be included. By default, the pain will scale to a maximum felt for each given painful feeling.

For example, being stabbed will feel like receiving an injection on default. A cut would feel like a shallow cut of up to 2 mm to 4 mm deep, depending on a person's pain tolerance. Blunt force would feel like a friendly punching match with a friend.

A condition was stated here in the contract that if a person enhanced the pain setting, they themselves must take full responsibility for all traumas they may then develop.

Naturally, this clause scared Eldrian. This would mean that if you scale the damage, it could lead to real-life problems, or so it implied. Luckily, he wasn't a masochist. He would keep the pain on the default and minimum amount. Not much else was strange, so Eldrian signed where needed.

"Thank you, enjoy your day," Eldrian said as he handed the signed papers back to the young man.

With everything done, Eldrian looked in the box to find the manual, which he also promptly started reading. The instructions were quite simple. Before using the device, one must ensure that it is properly charged.

This is to ensure that if a power outage were to happen, then you would not be rudely taken from what you were doing, but rather be warned and given about an hour to log out and find out what the problem is.

Plugging in the headset to start charging it, Eldrian took out his phone to also message his sister that the headset has arrived. Telling her that she should really get one too. Of course, she was never a gamer like himself, so he would have to get some actual proof of the game's benefits to convince her.

After sending a long-winded message to his sister, Eldrian started going onto the forums the company made for all prospective gamers to chat on. Two different kinds of users were allowed on here.

One being verified players, who have bought the headset and created their avatar. After which, their account will be linked to the forum. Thus, their name will be in silver color, along with their profile being bordered with a silver color.

The company stated it was a method they took on to make posts to have validity to them, rather than just being any random person, it will be a person with real experience in the game. Only one account will ever be linked to each person, since the device would link a person's specific biometrics when logging in.

The other common users would be fans or onlookers. Their names will be standard black with no border on their profile. They will be allowed onto the forum to increase community knowledge on what the game has to offer. A flip to this is that all their posts can be seen as unsupported, since any person can make multiple of these accounts.

There are also other account holders, but these would be special cases. Such as moderators with a purple color to their name and border, or celebrities who would have a golden color.

—

After browsing around on the forum, Eldrian found some relevant information. Such as that the in-game persona of players would be Chosen. Starting off as Chosen Adventurers and depending on their actions in-game, this title will change.

So, for example, if a person takes saving the world as their goal and actually accomplishes major feats, their title will become: -Chosen Hero-

The basic background is that with the monster invasion, the Goddess of Life chose to summon willing people from another realm to help defend the residents of Gaia. They would be immune to death, except from old age. Thus, when a Chosen is killed, they will be revived in the temples of Gaia. This comes at a cost, which the players will have to learn with time.

Another important note Eldrian found from a moderator was that technology wasn't present in the game. This moderator stated that there are in-game reasons for this, and as such, players would be allowed to talk about almost anything in-game.

Some sentences or words would be censored. The moderator did not explain how, except that he stated that the game system will be responsible for smooth communication with the NPCs, since they actually talk a different language from any earth-known language.

Eldrian was a bit frustrated since the moderator basically gave no information away, making him just even more curious. Glancing at the time, he saw it was about time to log in. Turning off his PC and went to his room to log in.

—

Eldrian found himself drifting off to sleep when he tried logging in, not expecting this he was confused as he lost consciousness. His deep sleep was then interrupted rudely by a very pleasant voice. But Eldrian felt that this voice was not so pleasant at all because he had never fallen asleep so easily since he started high school.

"Dear user, as this is your first time using the Driven Headset, a few moments of your time will be required. Do not worry, this process will not take long and in a few minutes, you will find yourself in an entirely new world filled with endless possibilities."

'It really felt like I was falling asleep just now. This technology is scary and can be so useful to people with insomnia. I wonder why they didn't sell a simplified version just for that.' Eldrian muttered to himself as his mind became clear and he realized he was actually trying to log into A New World and not fall asleep.

"We will start with the basics. Please look at the wisp that will appear before you."

Hearing this, Eldrian saw a ball of blue light appear before him. With this light ball, he finally realized that he was in a very dark room. Even with this ball giving off a soft, warm light, he could still not even see his feet clearly.

Only being distracted for a moment, Eldrian soon started doing as the voice asked of him and looked at the ball. As he did, the ball moved around. The movement wasn't very complicated with it moving backward and forwards, left and right, up and down. With time, it started mixing the movement and flew around the room freely, increasing its own speed as time went on.

'Why does it feel like the light ball is enjoying itself?' This perplexed Eldrian as the ball was vibrating seemingly in joy, moving even faster than before. This continued until Eldrian could finally not follow the wisp ball anymore.

"Connection stabilized. Next, please try to keep up with the wisp."

Again, Eldrian heard the pleasant voice. Not having much of a choice, he started following the wisp. He found the first steps difficult, almost falling over his unstable feet.

After a while of walking clumsily, Eldrian started getting used to it. The best description of what it felt like is if someone is drunk and then you have to follow a person who was walking straight as an arrow.

Eldrian followed the wisp for a long time, soon having to run to keep up. In the end, he also had to sprint or the wisp would leave him behind in its luminous dust.

When Eldrian finally collapsed onto the ground, he heard the system voice again.

"User's physical speed limits have been tested. Next…" And so Eldrian followed the instructions.