Chapter 1 : The Beginning

Daniel was frustrated. This was the third time his business failed. Since it was a small business he didn't go bankrupt, yet was left with a $150,000.00 Debt. His constant debts caused his family to lose their faith in him; and his friends and relatives distanced themselves from him.

"The fault lies in my incompetence."

Daniel loves commerce and he loves the idea of running his own business. Once, he dreamt to build his own small nation where he is the king and his employees became its people. At least, he want to try it once, where he walked on his owned building while his employees line up while bowing to him at his sight.

After his first business, he started to learn how naive he was. Since he didn't want to hear his family constant nagging about his failure, he moved out and started to live in a $150 rent apartment.

“I will pay my debt on my own."

The apartment is quite cheap for all its medium quality fittings and fixtures, yet it is in a place where there are a lot of abandoned projects from land developers. He heard, after 1/3 of the development was done, the developer went bankrupt after an apartment built by them collapsed. They were facing 350 lawsuits against them. The result is, 3 fully built apartments, 5 incomplete buildings and incomplete roads.The fifty unit building, Daniel lives in, is only half occupied.

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"A failed development, just like me."

Now, Daniel was desperately trying to live by doing all kinds of part-time jobs. Since he still wanted to run his own business, he refrained himself from taking any full-time jobs. At one point he gave up and he finally thought to himself ‘I should settle down and live a proper life.’’

After much thought, returning to workforce only will lead him to zombie life, where he does not have passion and work only to pay of his big debt. He regained his courage after he started playing an mmorpg based on virtual reality for 1-2 hours a day.

EMPEROR SAGA

The first and maybe last virtual reality mmorpg in the world. Emperor Saga reached the pinnacle of mmorpgs where the player can see, touch, hear, taste and smell as the character itself!! Since the adoption of the in built gaming capsule, other game companies that relied on computer graphics and sound were also developing their gaming systems and one by one they slowly influenced the market.

Initially, the capsules were quite expensive to buy.As a result from the technological upgrades,after 8 years, everyone could buy a gaming capsule. Now, it has been 10 years since Emperor Saga’s release and it still going strong. Critics say that, after the capsule became affordable, the critics say that Emperor Saga had reached its peak, since anyone could buy it.

In those 10 years, only 5 entities, including one NPC, managed to become emperor and conquer all of the continent.No one had ever received the emperor’s seat by challenging the current emperor. All four previous emperors relinquished their title and war broke out between kingdoms until the new emperor emerged.

Everyone thought the emperor was invincible. There was a time when the top guilds tried to combine all the continent’s players and NPCs to challenge the emperor’s seat, but it was in vain. When one becomes an emperor, one can command millions of troops; summon high level boss monsters from around the world; . - has a wide range of rare artefact weapons and a huge sum of money.

In Emperor Saga, Daniel has a character named Chrono. He is a level 24 merchant. Since he does not t play often and merchants are hard to level, he only managed to get to level 24 after 5 months. Back in the day, he was quite a notorious gamer himself. Ever since he was a kid, he had played various mmorpgs and became top player in some of them. Some of his clan mates even followed him in various games. His skill and character builds became another player’s reference.

"Yesterday I met Chrono and he said dexterity isn't really important for assassins in this game. Invest in intelligence instead since assassins have an attack speed and dodge buff, investing in intelligence allows them to sustain it a lot longer."

"So that’s why Chrono can solo with his mage, he invests in wisdom instead of intelligence, then he spams high level spells like crazy....even with low intelligence, high level spells can still pack a punch."

"My friend is THAT Chrono’s clan mate, his character is built very different from this, try again noob."

"Does anyone know how Chrono can one hit kill with his assassin in yesterday‘s war? Enemies just run when they see him lol."

"How can you attract minions to attack each other like Chrono?"

Back then, capsules were unaffordable for the average family income, that’s why a lot of mmorpgs with computer graphics were still popular among the general population. When capsules were mass produced, he quit being a gamer and focused on his business.

Now, Chrono is content with just playing as a normal merchant. In this game, Chrono can trade and earn in game money quite successfully. As a level 24 merchant, he had already earned 120 gold! Chrono had learned all kinds of manufacturing skills beside his merchant skills. He levelled up to 24 without killing a single monster, by just trading with npcs and players.

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Daniel logged out after playing for 2 hours and went to sleep. The next morning, Daniel woke up early for his part time job;a construction site for 12 hours per day for five days. Thanks to immigrant workers flooding construction industry, the payment isn't worth it compared to the hard work and the risk. This construction site is full of immigrants, they treat Daniel like an alien.

"Hey, watch your step."

"The lift is full, use the stairs"

These immigrants were especially hard on him today because they were scolded by their manager in the morning meeting. Since Daniel is a local citizen, they direct their anger at him. It’s the fifth day, Daniel tried to be patient. After working for a full 12 hours, Daniel headed to the construction site office to receive his payment.

"Its already dark I should get back home fast."

On his way back, his phone buzzes.

"Hello Daniel."

The phone number was unrecognized. "Errr....who is this?"

"It’s me, Alex. Your ex-clan member."

Alex was one of his regular clan members when he used to play mmorpgs. There were a few others, they met in real life a few times too.

"Ah, I see....how are you?"

"I'm fine, right now me, Shila and Shana are together, do you want to join us?"

"Sure, its been a long time since I met you guys, tell me where it is."

Daniel hurried back to his home and took a shower. Then took a taxi to the designated place. When he arrived, Alex, Shila and Shana were already there and greeted him.

"Hello there, long time no see."

"Yeah, its been a long time."

Unlike Daniel’s simple attire, the three of them were wearing expensive clothes and accessories. Daniel also noticed their cars were not cheap either, especially Alex’s black Ferrari.

"Pretty successful." Daniel thought.

The 4 of them hung out and talked all night. Most of it were stories of the past when they used to play online games together. The 4 of them were quite famous in the online game community back then, but because of Daniel’s skill, people considered him the leader. Before, even when was Alex the one who started the clan, his clan members still respected Daniel more.

"Do you play Emperor Saga, Daniel?"

"I do."

" Really? Why haven't we heard anything about you?"

"I started 5 month ago and have just been playing casually."

"Your job and level?"

"Level 24 merchant."

The sight of relieve appeared on Alex’s face for some reason. "He is not a threat."

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"Do you want me to drop off at your home?"

Normal people would answer no, but Daniel’s answer was:

"Sure" Daniel wanted to save on the taxi fee.....

On the way home, Daniel opened his mouth.

"How did you become this successful?"

"I just do what I love."

"So what is it? I don't remember you loving anything more than playing games."

"That’s exactly what I do."

"You are a professional gamer?" Daniel seemed surprised.

"Yes, I play Emperor Saga." While smiling, Alex continued,

"You can try it too, that is if you can catch up with me." Alex said that while looking at Daniel.

"Is that a challenge?"

"Maybe, I don't know."

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When Daniel reached his home, he sat on his sofa in silence.

"Professional gamer, huh."

Daniel opened the capsule and logged in.

[box border=1 cellpadding=0 cellspacing=3 width=80% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5][col colspan=4 valign=middle width=100% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5][pc]Do you want to connect to Emperor Saga?[/pc][/col][col colspan=2 valign=middle width=50% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5][pc]YES[/pc][/col][col colspan=2 valign=middle width=50% bordercolor=#202020 bgcolor=#f5f5f5][pc]NO[/pc][/col][/box]

"Its time to get serious."

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On the way back, while Alex was driving his black Ferrari.

"Now it will finally get interesting after a long time." He smirked.

"If you can even rival the current me, you will truly be a legend."

Alex was confident. His confidence isn't baseless. In Emperor Saga his name also Alex.

The one who reached max level.

The one who got the strongest weapon

The one who has the greatest influence in the game

The one and only, the current Emperor

ALEX

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*ps: It's proofread now, credit to Obsidian

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