Second Life: Welcome to Gaia

"Ye Yang, look at this!" Qian Zhong yelled so Ye Yan could hear him.

"What the hell! You know what time is this now?" Ye Yang yelled back, throwing a pillow at him. Qian Zhong has been using his desktop computer lately, so Ye Yan had started to sleep with headphones because of the noise, but it didn't work well when someone has the intention to wake him. Qian Zhong is short and a little on the fat side with a heart-shaped face and an undercut hairstyle. Because of his appearance and happy-go-lucky personality, he always looks cute but imagines himself as a virile man.

"CyberTech released new information about Second Life! Come to see this!"

Ye Yan and his three friends decided to join Second Life together. Qian Zhong is the most anxious of the four friends. He spends all day long looking for new information about the game and some nights too. He normally is very carefree but since he knew about Second Life, he became a little obsessed with the game. He didn't have access to VR before, so now, he is almost going crazy wanting to try it.

The quartet has already purchased the game helmets and are only waiting for the game to be released. The helmet isn't exactly cheap and not everyone can afford it, but with the incentives that the government is giving, more and more people are buying it, even more so, after the announcement that the game will be free. But nothing is really free in this world, probably there are many ways for CyberTech to make money in the game, so they exchange the money to buy the game for the increase of Second Life's population which will bring them even more money.

"What it says? Ye Yan gave up the idea of continuing sleeping because his friend wouldn't let him.

"First it's some information about the duration of gaming time. We can't play more them twelve hours a day. If someone stays logged in for eighteen hours, the game will disconnect him and will make the person only stay connected 8 hours a day maximum for the next 5 days. And if someone stays logged in for more than twelve hours a day for three days, he will receive the same punishment."

"It's not good for health anyway. And it will make things fair for people that work and don't have much time to play." Ye Yan thought of something else and said. "Imagine what would happen to someone like Tang Yunfan. He sometimes forgot to eat playing console games, what would happen if there is nothing stopping him to play? Maybe one day, we could find him half dead in his bed, without the energy to even get up[1]."

"And some people are worse than him and don't have anyone to go and see if they are dead or alive. Thinking better now, this restriction is a good thing." Qian Zhong looked afraid when he thought of the implications that a VR game could have on some players.

"What's more it says? Something about the classes?" Ye Yan wants to know about classes and skills so he can make his character build and prepare for the game. The faster you progress into the game, the better will be the rewards and the advantages compared to other players, and planning is essential to have a fast start.

"It says we will begin with level 0 and…"

"I never imagined that!" Ye Yan said in a sarcastic way. Be awake at 3 a.m. to hear useless things was making him irritable. Even more, because he could know all that after dawn.

"Hey! Let me finish first!" Qian Zhong yelled, starting to lose his patience.

"Go ahead."

"So it says that everyone will begin as a novice and can apply for the job change class at level 5. It will be a basic class and we can do another job change at level 20, where we can choose a specialized class."

"Probably, in the beginning, we will only be familiarizing with the game and the real start will be only after level 5, like in other games. And if we can change classes again later, it means that the game will get more diversified later." Ye Yan analyzed.

"It makes sense."

"Anything else? It says which classes we can choose from?" Ye Yan is more interested in information that could help him make his character.

"There are seven basic classes: fighter, swordman, thief, mage, archer, doctor, and merchant. There's nothing about the specialized, but it mentions hidden and unique ones. I think I will choose to be an archer. What about you?"

"Hum. A fighter will suit me well." He has lots of fighting experiences in real life and as this is a VR game, he could use it to his advantage. "Anything else?"

"There will be two factions in the game: the Righteous and the Dark. Some races are exclusive to each faction. And that's all. It looks like we don't will be getting more news until the game release in two days."

"I think it is enough to not let people feel lost about the game."

"Yeah. And about the factions? I prefer to play as a righteous man." Qian Zhong said, what makes him earn a raised brown from Ye Yan.

"I will choose the righteous faction too because I had enough of the dark side already." Ye Yan started laughing remembering their wild days in high school[2].

"Too bad. Our teachers always thought of you like the devil himself". Ye Yan was often challenged by people from other schools that heard of his fighting prowess, and even if he didn't want to fight, others always go to him to make trouble. And as he always ends up beating the crap out of them, leaving them black and blue, plus his serious and confident face, he became known as Evil Monarch (Jun Xie) in the neighborhood. But even before he got this title, he already had another nickname, The Devil, that was affectionately given to him by his nanny when he was only 7 years old because he made her life hell.

"Hey! At least, my scores were high." He never neglected his studies. His mother would never accept a score less than perfect and the only time that it happened was when he was 10 years old, and his ass becomes redder than blood as a result. She was the only person that had made him feel fear in this life.

"Now that we know the classes, we can choose which one to play, it will be better for us to start thinking of our party composition too." Qian Zhong started to become excited again. "I hope that Little Ling will choose to become a doctor. Yunfan isn't gonna be one, I'm sure. And we will need a healer for our party. Or maybe we can invite some girl to beautify the team too."

"We will need to count on Little Ling then. He is the one popular with the girls." Ye Yan sighed.

......

[1] Someone I know played Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, on Nintendo Wii, a long time ago for 18 hours straight, only having a 5 minutes interval for lunch.

[2] They are just remembering their rebellious days. There is no BL (boy love) here. My sister's dirty mind thought more about it, so it's better to clarify.