1 Chapter 1: Nu Beginning

"Well shit. I didn't think I would spawn in the fucking air!"

A message appeared in his vision.

[Welcome to Nu Life's Starting Tutorial! Version: 0.135(Beta)]

[Enjoy your time here learning from real world experts' consciousness ported over before their deaths! Please proceed down the dirt road ahead to enter the main city!]

Our main character, Crius, is currently 150 meters in the air and falling. The only redeeming thing about his current predicament is the armor he is wearing. Granted, it is only leather and could be akin to wearing nothing at all. Normally when one gets transported to another world, they have an overpowered item or skill of sorts to get them through the main quest. Yet in the game Nu Life, there are no restarts. Of course, some bugs still need to be fixed, such as the one Leader has found himself the victim of.

Tall green trees covered all the ground below with mountains on either side. No birds could be seen, and no tree existed directly below him. A totally random area with his first spawn displaced high in the air. In fact, there existed the only clearing in the entire region directly underneath him. And so, our hero impacted the ground very quickly, turning into a pile of contorted flesh.

Crius felt time pass by quickly, as if he was half asleep in the mornings at his job's check-in time. Weightless and without form yet flowing in an indescribable amount of separate twisting and intertwining directions, then tensing. Light flooded his eyes as he awoke.

"Didn't I just die in the game, what is going on?"

[Welcome to Nu Life Version: 57.1, Running Check for Display Interface…]

[Display Version: 1.5(Unique NPC Build)]

[PC Character: Crius]

[Occupations: Unique NPC, Blacksmith]

[Class: Transcendent]

[Level: 0]

[Base Combined Stats: 5]

[Strength: 1, Dexterity: 1, Constitution: 1, Intelligence: 1, Charisma: 1]

[Resilience: 0, Focus: 0]

[HP: 100]

[Energy: 5]

[Skills: Immortal, 57th Wave Member, System Revoked, Uncapped]

[Immortal: Respawns upon death after a time with loss of levels and stats.]

[57th Wave Member: A member of the Unique NPC 57th Wave.]

[System Revoked: Unstable Data, dumped as misc. for release.]

[Uncapped: No maximum input for stats, level, active and passive skills, classes, and occupations.]

[Character Card loaded. Joined Player's Rankings Chart! Joined Unique NPC Hall of Data. Data available publicly. Please take some time to get accustomed to your Nu Life and enjoy your stay in our specialized NuL-chip program Player!]

Crius felt his body against a soft surface, similar to the bed he fell asleep on when entering the new game endorsed by the government. He was given a Beta key and told that he would be testing the game for the betterment of humanity for a tidy sum and a head start of mega-corporation pros. With his internship in a workshop, he was looking forward to getting paid by the corporations for the slightest of hints at getting through the game. But things don't always work out. He jolted upright, feeling his face.

"Right, this game would have respawn mechanics, that's what my character card says… but it didn't say that before…"

Crius looked around him. He was in a wooden house of sorts and could hear people outside his door arguing. He breathed a sigh of relief, and immediately noticed something wrong. His breath produced mist and he felt the need to breathe! He could feel his blood coursing through him! His body felt real!

"This wasn't in the Beta notes!"

He got out of the bed and felt the ground firmly on his toes. Things felt too real. If he hadn't received the character-card earlier, he would think this was real life. Crius reread his card and saw that he was listed as an NPC.

"Was I thrown forward in time or some stupid shit? Where the hell is the logout button?"

Crius looked through all his menu options and only saw the areas indicating inventory and global game-time. No logout button, health bar, energy bar, currency count, net-worth value, or map. At least he could see the numbers for health and such in his card, but they were probably just static figures to know the max.

"Weird shit man."

He checked his inventory box and found only two items.

[Contact Crystal: Handheld device for communication through the contact list. Unable to send videos or photos.]

[Hammer: {Common, Tier 0, Lvl 0} Craftsman's Item. Unused by many, useful to some. 10-15 base damage, +5 blunt damage on weak points.]

"What am I? A fucking blacksmith of all things?!"