1 Chapter 1: Shangri-La

'Shangri-La' the new online world had just been released. After a month of playing there was nothing Jared's classmates would talk about. They were all gathered around Peter Fromme's desk shouting about the things they had experienced so far. Peter was one of the first in their class to get the immersive game device. He was rich, good looking, and popular....everything that Jared hated.

Jared sat in the back of the class, alone with his arms folded staring out the window. He was an average looking boy, with dirty blonde hair and gray-blue eyes. He was being raised by a single mother, who worked two jobs to support them. They had food to eat and a roof over their head, but he lived in a rough neighborhood riddled with crime and drugs. He hated school and loathed the fact that he was forced to be there every single day. The subject matter was boring and felt like it was a waste of his time. His grades were rather poor and he was ranked near the bottom of his class.

Last night he had asked his mother to drop out so that he could get a job and help her out. He was surprised when she started crying. His mother had always been strong, loving, and supportive. This was the first time he had seen her cry and it scared him. He immediately apologized and hugged her, "I'm sorry mom, I'll do better. I didn't know it was so important to you."

"All I want is for you to go to college, get a good education, and live a good life." she sniffled while holding him tight.

Tears started to well up in his eyes. He felt ashamed for letting his mom down, and with only two more years of high school left, he wasn't sure he could fulfill her dreams.

*SLAM* a book was dropped on his desk

Jared jumped in fright and was shocked out of his daydream.

"Hey Doofus!" sneered Bill Werner, one of his many bullies. He was a jock who played offensive line for the football team. He was big, but it was mostly fat. Big enough to push other people around, especially with his football training. "Are you too poor to play Shangri-La?"

A chorus of laughter rang out in the classroom, which only emboldened Bill even more. "By the time you start we will all be conquering warlords! We'll need some Serfs for our armies, come find me when you finally join." he laughed before slapping Jared on the back of the head and walking away.

Jared rubbed the back of his head while his anger steadily grew. "Like I would play that stupid game with those retards."

"Stop bullying him, Bill!" shouted Sofia Mohr. Sofia was one of the most beautiful girls in their class. She was friends with everyone and easily moved between the different cliques. She had excellent grades and was nice to everyone. Everyone calmed down after she called out Bill and shortly after the teacher walked into the class.

Jared was surprised she spoke up for him. They had never really interacted before. For the most part he thought he was invisible and that nobody noticed him. When he looked over at her she was staring straight at him. He blushed and mouthed, "Thank You." A beautiful smile spread across her face and he began to blush furiously. He looked away in embarrassment.

"Good morning class, today we are going to have a new change in our curriculum." said the teacher, Mr. Sims. "I am sure you all are familiar with Shangri-La. I am happy to announce that as part of Virtual Corporation's community investments campaign they have launched a new education campaign. Our school is one of several hundred across the country that have been selected to participate. They have generously donated enough immersive capsules for all of our students to take part."

Peter interrupted the teacher, "So we get to play Shangri-La during school?"

Mr. Sims nodded his head with a smile and the classroom erupted in cheers. Jared snorted to himself rather annoyed. Bill, who sat behind him whispered, "So it looks like even beggars get to play after all."

"BUT" Mr. Sims said in a loud voice which quieted down the classroom. "I am sure you know about the unique properties of this game. Because each second of real world time is approximately 1 hour of game time Virtual Corporation is using this program to study the resulting academic achievements of the students participating in this program. I expect you all to do your best during our class time in-game so that you can enjoy the rest of your free time."

The classroom once again erupted in noisy chatter. Jared was stunned by this news. 1 second feels like 1 hour in the game? Only 24 seconds for an entire day? So their teaching time would be 8 seconds long?

Jared pulled out a notebook to do the math. There are 60 seconds in a minute, so that is 60 hours per minute. There are 60 minutes to an hour, which would be 60 * 60, so that would be 360 hours for one hour. There are 8 hours in a regular school day so that would be 8 * 360, which would be 2880 hours of relative game time per school day. If I divide that by 24 hours for one day, that means one normal school day works out to 120 days of game time.

Jared took a long deep breath at this realization. Every school day will feel like four months? He wanted to cry immediately. He already felt like a day at school was too long and now it would be four months long? He began grinding his teeth in anger as the teacher continued to speak.

"Every four days in-game we will have a lesson. There will also be class assignments, that everyone is expected to take part in. We will also have occasional school wide activities where we will compete against some of the other participating schools for rewards offered by Virtual Corporation."

Everyone started chattering and whispering again. Mr. Sims realized he had finally lost control of the class so he clapped loudly. "Lets go to the game room. We'll get started immediately!"

The recent construction suddenly made sense to Jared. They had closed off the gymnasium for "renovations" about a week ago. Once everyone arrived to the gymnasium they could see row after row of shiny capsules lined up. They looked like coffins to Jared.

"Those are all limited time, legendary issue capsules..." Bill said in amazement. He turned to Jared and sneered, "Even if your mom worked four jobs for 200 years, you would never be able to afford one."

Jared scratched his chin and acted like he was deep in thought before saying, "I wonder if there is one here big enough for you, fatso."

Bill flushed red in anger and muttered through his clenched teeth, "Wait until I get ahold of you in game."

"Over here class! This is our section." shouted Mr. Sims. In the northeast corner of the gymnasium were several rows of capsules, each with a number on them. I will be assigning a number to each one of you. That is the capsule that you will use every day. You are not to use any other capsule. Since the beta-testing ended yesterday, Shangri-La has been officially reset. Official launch will be at 9:00 am today, so that should give us plenty of time to login and get setup."

Mr. Sims pulled out a sheet of paper and began calling student's names and telling them their number. "Jared Hendrickson, number 32."

Jared wandered over to number 32 and stared at the spherical little chamber. "So this is where it all starts..."