Night fell slowly in Heaven's Gate Online.
The stars above looked impossibly real—more vivid than anything I'd seen in the polluted skies back home. They shimmered in deep constellations I didn't recognize, but they pulsed with rhythm, almost like they were alive, watching.
I sat cross-legged beneath a twisted juniper tree, its roots half-submerged in a nearby stream. The gurgling water became my meditation's backdrop, a subtle heartbeat in this world that now felt more real than my own.
I hadn't moved much since the system failed to appear.
It wasn't fear that rooted me to the ground.
It was awareness.
Every breath I took felt raw and unfiltered, like I was no longer just a player in a game. The world responded not with menu prompts or tutorials but with silence. Silence, and presence.
Most players I saw earlier had logged off for the night, returning to the real world to eat, sleep, stream, brag. They had goals—power levels, PvP ladders, rare loot.
I had nothing.
No level.
No skill tree.
No interface.
Only the memory of what brought me here.
Back in the real world, they called me obsessed.
Not to my face, of course. My older brother, Daisuke, would just shake his head as I practiced breathing techniques in the corner of our cramped apartment.
"You know it's just a game, right?" he'd mutter, pulling another night shift as a delivery driver. "No one's gonna care if you try to 'cultivate Qi' when they've got cheat menus and pay-to-win perks."
He wasn't wrong.
Most people treated Heaven's Gate Online like a massive casino-slash-sandbox. Flashy streamers had already built empires by abusing crafting exploits and cash-shop enhancements. One week after release, people were already showing off Level 30 prestige classes with perfect build guides and sponsored content.
But I hadn't bought the game for fame or profit.
I bought it because of Version Zero.
Before Heaven's Gate Online went public, there were rumors on niche forums about a prototype build—something ancient, before the company streamlined the mechanics for mass-market appeal. In that version, there were no systems, no overlays, no shortcuts.
Players cultivated by breath.
By discipline.
By focus.
It was said to be impossible to master.
And also… perfect.
Those threads were buried deep. Hidden beneath layers of NDAs and deleted logs. But I found them. Read every word. Studied them like sacred scripture. Even tried to mimic their breathing patterns and meditation methods offline, long before I ever touched a VR rig.
I didn't expect much. Just… a connection. A different way of experiencing the world.
But now, sitting in this artificial world under a hand-painted sky, I wondered:
Was I the only one who got in through the old path?
Had the system glitched?
Or had it chosen me?
The wind shifted slightly.
The leaves of the tree above rustled as if disturbed by more than the breeze.
I opened my eyes slowly.
Something had changed.
A faint shimmer moved through the air—not quite a sound, not quite a vision, but a pressure. Like the world itself had inhaled and was holding its breath.
And then I felt it again—that warmth in my chest.
Subtle.
Alive.
Like an ember refusing to die.
I focused on it.
Back in the real world, I had spent six months practicing what little I could understand from ancient cultivation manuals posted online. Breath control. Body stillness. Mental clarity.
People laughed at it. Called it LARPing.
But I remembered what one of those old forum sages had written:
"Before the system, there was the Dao. Before stats, there was flow. Before progress bars, there was awareness."
Now, that awareness stirred within me.
I inhaled deeply through the nose.
Held.
Exhaled through the mouth, slowly.
Inhale. Feel the air enter the lungs—not just as oxygen, but as something more.
Vital energy.
Qi.
The shimmer in the air grew clearer. Threads of light—faint, but real—coiling through the grass like tiny streams. I reached toward them—not physically, but with my awareness.
And they responded.
They didn't rush toward me like a system skill.
They didn't spark or glow dramatically.
They simply flowed, drawn by attention.
Drawn by intention.
For the first time since logging in, I felt a connection—not to the game, not to the interface, but to the world itself.
It was faint.
Barely perceptible.
But real.
Footsteps broke my focus.
I turned, startled.
A young player wandered up the stream bank, muttering to himself.
He was dressed in the basic mage robes every player started with, but his system glowed brightly. His skill bar floated next to him as he swiped menus in the air with practiced ease.
He didn't see me at first.
Then he paused, frowning.
"Whoa… uh, are you bugged?" he asked.
His tone wasn't mocking—just curious.
"I don't see your system overlay. Did you hide it?"
I stood slowly. My limbs felt heavier after the brief meditation, but grounded. Solid.
"I don't have one," I said.
He blinked. "What, like… at all?"
I shook my head.
He whistled. "Damn. I heard there were glitches like that, but I thought they got patched. You might wanna log out and file a ticket."
I didn't answer.
The moment passed.
He shrugged and waved a glowing staff, casting a minor light spell that hovered around him like a firefly.
"Good luck, man. You're gonna need it without a system. These mobs scale fast once you leave the valley."
He walked on, disappearing into the woods.
I looked down at my empty hands.
No weapons.
No armor.
No stats.
Only breath.
Only the ember of energy that now felt a little less faint.
I sat back down.
Night deepened.
The first true day would begin soon.
I would be behind everyone else.
Weaker. Slower. Systemless.
But I wouldn't quit.
I couldn't.
Because something about this world was responding to me differently.
Because I had been preparing for this path long before I knew it was real.
Because while others relied on shortcuts and code, I was walking something older.
Something deeper.
A path buried beneath layers of code, ignored by the masses.
A forgotten way.
The way of cultivation.