It is now the 10th of November on 2125.
A full five months had gone by ever since my first contact with YGGDRASIL, nearly half a year of unrelenting patience, persistence, and endless waiting.
But finally, the long-awaited day had arrived. The day the beta test of YGGDRASIL officially launched has started.
To some, it might have seemed like just another game.
But to me, this was everything.
It was more than escapism, it was hope incarnate.
A new chance. A third life.
Over the past six months, I had carefully laid the groundwork.
Diligently rekindling my connections, forming networks, slipping more than just pleasantries into my exchanges with the developers.
Let's call them "investments." After all, one needs to grease a few palms to get things done in this world.
With enough money, there isn't a whole lot that's truly off the table.
Of course, I wouldn't ask for something too absurd.
Afterall the future is not set in stone, what if the actions I did affected it somehow.
I wouldn't want the server shutdown to be actually a real server shutdown.
That is why instead of asking using my too high profiled identity, I instead used a forged one made by Alden.
My request being for a personally tailored race, an entirely custom existence molded to my will.
At first the rejected the idea completely, but with enough "gratifications" they did offer a compromise.
A hidden race.
One known only to me.
The conditions to obtain it?
So absurdly specific, so time-consuming, that no average player would ever stumble across it by chance.
It was perfect.
After double-checking my new neural interface, filled with top of the line nanotech with the latest firmware enhancements.
I connected, the transition was seamless.
The digital world unfolded before me, a vast blue screen appearing in the void:
{ Insert Name to be allowed entry }
I didn't hesitate.
With practiced fingers, I keyed in the name I had long prepared
{ Eion }
A simple yet elegant name
{ Welcome 'Eion' may your journey resound throughout the world of YGGDRASIL }
A smirk crept onto my face. I always did have a knack for names. And this one? It held meaning.
Eion meant God is gracious.
And after all that had happened, I can't deny his existence nor kindness that he had given me.
Then came the next prompt:
{ Create an avatar to represent you in this world }
{ Choose your Race }
- Human
- Demi-Human
- Heteromorphic
Now here comes the difficult part. Or rather, the boring part.
You see, in order to unlock the hidden race I had "suggested", I had added an absurd requirement.
In order to unlock it I needed to fulfill one very specific condition, which is to remain idle on this race selection screen for more than twelve hours.
Yes twelve straight hours.
So now we wait.
--Twelve Hours Later--
{ Choose your Race }
- Human
- Demi-Human
- Heteromorphic
"Never doing that again for the rest of my life" I muttered aloud.
My entire back ached, my legs had long gone numb from sitting.
Even the high-end neuro-interface couldn't completely trick my body into ignoring the discomfort of inactivity.
I chuckled, the sound dry and borderline delirious.
"Well, I can say with confidence, no sane person is ever going to discover this race by accident."
I paused.
"Keyword being sane."
This new world had taught me that sanity was relative, but that's a tale for another time.
With my patience finally rewarded, I moved the cursor and selected the race that had taken me months of planning to secure:
{ Heteromorphic }
This race group was infamous for its unique strengths and severe weaknesses. But within it lay the crown jewel I had forged into existence.
{ Aster }
A race with the purpose to observe everything there ever was, with no regard to how menial or grand it may be. The Asters are beings of ancient memory, born of the void before time, composed of pure mana. They are entities of knowledge and understanding, their abilities derived from the very essence of reality itself.
A perfect race that is mysterious, timeless, and most importantly immortal.
With that done, I've finally taken a step closer towards my goal.
Next came the appearance customization. As expected, there wasn't much to modify. The Aster race lacked most features one would consider "human."
No skin, no eyes, no face. Just a humanoid outline, its form comprised of swirling jet-black energy.
It resembled the night sky incarnate, a living silhouette of the cosmos, with tiny constellations flickering across its form like twinkling stars.
There were only a few customization options available
which is height, posture, and body ratio.
I went for a neutral middle ground.
standing at 170 centimeters tall, with an average build that neither screamed power nor fragility.
After all, I wasn't here to show off muscles.
I was here to rewrite my destiny.
{ Avatar creation complete. Welcome, Eion. }
The world began to shift around me as I was transported into the introductory zone. But my mind was still stuck on the implications.
The Aster. A race not bound by time. Born before the concept of "life" itself.
Was this not the perfect metaphor for who I had become?
Kendra Arata a man who had lived a life, died a digital death, and been reborn into a world one hundred years in the future.
A relic of the past masquerading as a man of the present, now forging his future in the eternal world of YGGDRASIL.
In my life, I was just some nobody.
A wanderer through the road of life, a ghost in the machine. But here?
Here I would become something else entirely.
A god?
No.
An observer.
A being who would learn, watch, and endure.
There was still time before the official release.
Thirteen years, if the anime was to be believed.
But I wasn't worried.
Time was now my ally, and by the time the real players entered this world.
I would already be a legend, a phantom written into the bones of the server.
I was Eion, the last Aster.
And this was the beginning of my final life.
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Final life be damned, I got only one life man...
Don't forget to leave some comments and power stone, and maybe I'll waste my time some more and post something?