Chapter 0 : Prologue, Vasyl Raul

Note : Sorry i edited the prologues, it was actually kept in the dust quite long and yesterday i finally decided to publish it, but after reading through i decided i was very not satisfied with the story and decided to redo little bits of the part. And please rate & comment it would mean a lot

Vera The Glory Samurai, a name quite well known among Lost Continent players. A charismatic and alluring player in the heights of Lost Continent’s popularity. Which, taking account to Lost Continent’s popularity itself at the time, could even count to millions who knew his name.

However, one day. He was banned for using a cheat program. Cheat programs for Lost Continent was rare and even if one were to put up, there's a 99% chance it’s a scam. Well, it could have been a Hundred percent were it not for one but infamous cheat.

The cheat was up on a forum for weeks, but none dared to try. Why ? Well, the program requires players to be above lv 250 to use, which at the time was a level where players were considered to be a top player

No players with their right mind would try to download the program, much less use it. One could sell their IDs for more than a thousand dollar with a level that high. Why would anyone risk it ? Especially when the program itself stated that it does not protect the players from being detected by GMs and ban.

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Vasyl Raul, is just like any other kid you can find. He had a loving mother and father but rarely meet them because of their work, But he was not sad, as he could visit the kind dojo masters beside his house everyday and watch the pupils train

The dojo masters were very kind and loving to him. To Raul who rarely meets his father and mother, they may be more of a fatherly figure to him.

As he became to age, he started participating in training too. At first, it was hard. But he stuck through it and improved rapidly as he always wanted to be praised by his masters.

He keeps dedicated to training and rarely skipped. it was not long when he began to be able to defeat opponents older than him and winning competitions. Usually someone like him would attract jealousy and bullying from his fellow dojo mates, but not him. The other fellow dojo members could see his dedication in practice and admired him instead.

Although Raul is strong enough to be abuse his powers, he never did it and even hid the fact that he was strong. as his dojo masters always said " Whether it is the sword or martial arts, it serves one purpose. to protect, not to abuse. " he held it deep in his heart and never once did he try to abuse his power.

However, Raul is quite a timid kid and a bit socially awkward, he had friends but in his friends circle he was more like a background character. If one asked who Raul is they would just answer " Ah, the kid in A's group "

He never stood out among his friends and prefer to read books and training in the dojo instead of actively hanging out with his friends. Of course, that is all until the day the fateful game was released.

An MMORPG that was said to have developed a powerful AI system that has the highest degree of freedom ever developed was released, it was Lost Continent.

A game itself that was said to be ahead of the current technology by 20 years managed to release and dominated the gaming market instantly

In fact virtual reality has existed for 8 years, but all of them were all but a fabrication of the “ true “ virtual reality that people was dreaming of. People would feel groggy after playing them for quite a time and the technology had never made a breakthrough.

It was to the point that people are starting to have doubts whether a " true " virtual reality world could ever exist. But virtual reality is still virtual reality and it is 2-3 times better than handheld or pc games and everyone would rather play a virtual reality game than a pc game.

However, one game suddenly appeared without any notice and immediately stood tall among the other games. Yes, that game was Lost Continent, it's incredible diversity and gameplay attracts gamers all over the world and continued to be the apex of the gaming industry for years to come.

Lost Continent became the game everyone talked about and Raul just like anybody else in his school tried it too. He quickly became entranced by the game, in fact he had played games before but found few to be worth his time and only played it in his free time.

But Lost Continent was different ! It's battle mechanism that isn't like any other game, graphics stunning enough to be called a movie, storyline that has no set ending . It hooked him up just like any other kids

This was when he began to stood out among his peeps, he joined one of the top guilds and got a hidden class : Glory Samurai. It was a class very suited for commanding in battles as it gives out incredible buffs that affect the whole battlefield. Classes that gives an Aoe buff that could effect all the people around could be counted with fingers. And most of them are hidden ones, it just shows how rare and vital they are to large scale wars

He quickly became famous as not only his class was great in war battles, his gameplay tactics that proved his ability as a top level palyer, his leadership and commanding ability to make the best out of his troops, Diverse war tactics that he gain from reading war tactics books. It was truly made possible because of the realism level in Lost Continent.

His school friends were jealous of him. especially his group's leader, Mako. He didn't think that the quite kid in his group would become better than him in the game and is steadily gaining popularity.

Although Raul was never able to crack a decent joke or two and continue long conversations before, but when talking about Lost Continent it was like he became a different person, he quickly got along with everyone and started bringing friends home to play Lost Continent together.

The dojo masters were actually quite glad at the fact he began to play with friends like normal kids. even if he was playing the game actively, he was never absent in his dojang practice, as his master always says “ Diligence and practice is key in martial art, at a time where you may laze around others will be actively training, slowly but surely getting better. “

Mako was fuming mad, he was deeply jealous of him. Before Rave got popular, he was the one who is considered the top of his class. But now his position was in jeopardy. He and his “loyal” friends or lets say “ followers “ decided to bully him but didn't know what method to use. If he used a straight forward bullying he would definitely be ridiculed by the others and will be the one who will be hated instead.

It was around the time when the rumored cheat program was released in the web, and Raul have told them his game id and password before to them. They quickly planned to use his ID to use the cheat. not only they could send their own IDs the hacked goods, they could also ridicule Raul for trying to use the cheat program and he will definitely lose friends if he wasn't a Lost Continent top gamer anymore. It was killing 2 birds with one stone !

And the plan worked out perfectly, they downloaded the program in an old broken down net cafe and used Raul's ID to use hack the game. Mako and his friends gifted themselves the rare items but made sure that he gifted everyone on Raul's friend list and anonymous in the game, it totaled up to more than hundreds of users receiving his ' gift ' and some of those users are top well known users.

The GMs found out about it 30 minutes after and banned Vera only as there were Hundreds of other users and there are lots of top gamers that the GM wouldn't dare to unnecessarily ban.

Raul was training in the dojo when it happened, as he returned home he noticed he wasn't able to log in and was banned. He contacted the GMs but they just told him he had used an illegal program that's why he was banned

Raul was shocked, he countlessly asked if that truly happened and begged the GMs to check but they just ignored him and didn't reply him anymore, they said he could start over in the game as they didn't block his IP address but that didn't matter to Raul, his ID was level 252 ! he spend hours grinding to get to that and even sometimes missing sleep. He was utterly in tatters

He immediately called his friends but they just laugh at him and told him that's what you get for being such a show off. Raul was shocked, he was betrayed by his friends..it was truly the first time he had experienced the cruelty of the world...

He had always lived a happy life, although his father and mothers weren't here often. He still had his dojang masters and with a good book. life was not bad for him and it was even better when he met Lost Continent but now it was gone..Vera was gone.

The next day he met Mako and his friends they were laughing and ridiculing at him, the others who had heard the news since it turns out to be quite a big event were asking him if it was true but Makoto just played his role beautifully and finished raul.

the words he said still ring in his ears as it was yesterday when he heard it.. " I was disappointed in you Raul ! How could you do that when everyone was working hard to gain levels and rare items, so you had been using the cheat program all the time! And I even advised you to not use it ! "

Raul was engulfed in rage, he wanted to snap Mako and his friends in two. He knew there was no turning back anymore, everyone had thought he was a cheater. He had nothing to his defense. Beating up 6-7 kids won't make things change so much. He was going to beat up Mako and his friends when he remembered his teachers words.. " martial arts is used to protect the weak, not to abuse the weak. If the strong bullies the weak than he is not a martial artist anymore, but rather an insolent using the name martial arts "

He held his teacher's teaching deep in his heart and punched the table in front of Mako instead, the table was crushed into pieces. although it was a wooden one it was in absolute tatters and the voice of everyone in the class immediately died down. It was a complete silence..they could only hear the gulping sound of Makoto and his group. Who knew the quiet kid had been hiding such strength?

But Raul stopped at that and didn't try to do anything to them, he just left quietly and stared them down one more time before he left. For the first time since birth he saw the true natures of human.

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After that incident Raul was quickly avoided by others and was hated, the ones he thought were his friends avoided him. but he was still lucky it didn't last long since when he graduated, Mako and his group transferred school and was never to be seen again.

In that time he spent his days in the dojo training the ways of the sword and further deep into the basic martial combat. His Masters were worried for him, but as they didn't know what had happened, and Raul himself refused to talk about it they trust it to the child himself and was there to support him when needed

After Mako and his friends had leave he began to have friends again but instead of the old, naive and childish him he began to see the true form of humans and the ways of the world.

One could say that his maturation process that time was amazing and he began to use the potential he always had but never used, Raul was always good in observing people and judging them but never particularly payed attention to it. His grades wasn't where one would call outstanding but it was decent, his IQ isn't that high, only slightly above the average. But his EQ was astronomically high, the testers were very astounded and redid the test a couple of times before they were fully convinced.

His EQ wasn't always this high, it could be said that the betrayal triggered his potentials that he never used and increased his maturity, EQ and intelligence by leap and bounds.

He became more open to people, had more friends than before and he had fun with his friends but actually, he didn't particularly enjoy it like other people would. deep down he knew that this is not what he was looking for, as he still felt something was missing. his days were fulfilled but something was missing, he could never trust people that much anymore besides his dojo masters and parents. It was as if something had been missing for him, something that was gone from him... Something like a part of his body had left him... and that was Vera...

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It was around this time another shocking revelation came to him when he was searching the web and found his father's name, his father was actually the owner of a multinational company and had lots of assets. He was shocked, and he even check it for a few times, it was indeed his father. But it does explain so many things..

How his father and mother had been so busy, they rarely visited home. How they could have the newest brand of technology when they were not released yet. However Raul never suspected a thing as he lived in a quite a modest house.

He thought his father probably hided the fact that he is his son to avoid him becoming spoiled or to protect him from the media or even his father's enemy. It wasn't normal for people to do that and it was a scenario that will only appear in movies but he thought if it was his father then it's possible.

Such thing could shock any 15 year old kid and immediately made them big headed. But it wasn't the same for Raul. His consciousness has already passed that of people years older than him.

Genius people are different, they could do things that normal people needed months in days, years in a month. But not him, Raul was smart but he wasn't a genius. He could never do things like them, but geniuses were prone to being too lax as they thought they were better than normal people and didn't require any hard work. That is one reason why Raul had thought that non-geniuses like him could overcome them.

Raul after knowing his father's job , entered all kinds of economical and business simulation competition, Which at the time was very popular among young hoping business man and old.

That was also the time he made a bet with his father.

" if i could win the national business & economics simulation contest, i want to choose the way i live for myself "

He did it, and he won the competition, after he won it there were lots of invitation to him to be a business advisor of a large company, scholarships from prestigious universities, But he rejected them all

To get away from the prying eyes of the media, he went away for a year overseas to finish his studies

If you would ask, how is he able to win the national competition ? Well, he had always the talent for economy and business. But it was after he was betrayed that the talent he kept began to blossom. Using his talent to sense people and places, the good and the bad ones, he won the competition.

In short his betrayal may be a blessing in disguise itself, but Raul is not that kind of a person.

" I may Forgive , But I will never forget. One day i will return the favour "

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After he won the competition, he has been living a joyous life. He meets his father and mother twice a week now and he rapidly improved his sword & martial arts. This days were joyous to him..but still he felt empty, Vera has left such a huge whole in his heart. Those days were none like other, everyday was exciting! Quests that made him shudder upon it's mysteries, boss monsters raced his heart like never before. It was truly the most fun he had in his life..

Raul looked at his computer once more, since that day he never again touched his computer anymore, if he needed to use it he would just use the laptop or tablet. But now, he began strengthening his heart..once more he would dive into that world..