The circuits were still fucking buzzing in my ears when my digital body finally materialized. Christ, that white light was blinding—like staring into the sun while getting electrocuted. Then it faded, and I was there. Standing in some twisted cyberpunk nightmare that actually looked beautiful.
Erasthia. The starting city.
Buildings floating in mid-air like gravity was just a suggestion. NPCs with faces so real it made my skin crawl. Players everywhere, loaded down with gear that probably cost more than my entire setup. This was it. This was my escape.
> "Welcome to the world of Genesis: The Eternal Hunt."
The voice hit me like silk wrapped around a blade. ORIAS. The AI goddess of this digital realm. She wasn't just a program—she was watching, always watching. Judging. Waiting.
The interface popped up, all crystal and light:
**[STEP 1: CHARACTER CREATION]**
Username: Z3RO
Starting Race: Human
Gender: Male
Base Class: ⚙️ Techno-Mage
Specialty: Drone Manipulation, Energy Amplification, Object Hacking
---
I knew exactly what I wanted. My avatar looked like me, but better. Same dark skin, same fire in my eyes, but stronger. Faster. Those blue circuits running up my left arm like lightning frozen in time. The technomagic prosthesis at the base of my skull pulsed with raw power.
"Z3RO... the Code Hunter." The words tasted like freedom.
Fuck the tutorial. I had a pulse pistol, an inactive drone pod, and a hacking interface. The town NPCs were offering their bullshit delivery quests—five credits to carry apples? Are you kidding me?
"No time to play errand boy. We're going straight to the deep end."
The outer zones were crawling with Cyber-Wolves, those glowing-eyed bastards, and Corrupted Data Creatures that looked like nightmares made of broken code. My drone responded to my thoughts, striking from distance while I hacked their movement patterns in real-time.
The combat AI whispered in my ear like a lover sharing secrets: "Combo: Close-range attack + hack = Guaranteed critical damage."
Those first fights... Jesus. My heart was pounding so hard I thought it might explode. But I was alive. More alive than I'd ever been in that cramped room back home. Level 5 in under two hours. My drone evolved into the Type-02 "Spectre"—a beautiful killing machine with its own tactical AI.
This wasn't just about power. This was about becoming someone else. Someone who mattered.
In here, I wasn't the broke kid counting 5,000 CFA francs like they were diamonds. I wasn't the dreamer everyone looked at with pity. I was Z3RO. A fucking pioneer.
I saved my progress in a zone sanctuary, watching the servers light up with thousands of new players every minute. None of them caught my attention. Not yet.
But somewhere out there, in another corner of this digital universe, another player had just arrived.
The meeting wasn't happening today. But fate was already pulling its strings, and I could feel it in my bones.