Author's Note: SO.... I've decided to make a few changes to some KEY facts about the story.

#1: The game has been out for 3 years (EARTH TIME). Previously, it was 5 years. With the time difference, that means Players have been around in the game world for 15 years

#2: The properties of the Willpower stat. Before, I said that it was used to determine how much Magic Damage you would receive if someone attacked you with Magic. The new description for the Willpower stat is now: "A reflection of the amount of Will that you have, which can be used to affect yourself and the world around you"

Sorry again (I feel like I'm always making excuses for being late) but I was almost mugged last week coming back from college late at night. I've had a lot of bad luck this month, but keep me in your prayers everyone! Hopefully something good happen soon...

BUT IT TURNS OUT YOU GUYS HAVE GOOD LUCK!! Because I finished TWO chapters of the story this week, and a 3rd might come out soon. I'm just doing the coding on them (making sure the appropriate parts are in bold, others are italicized, etc). But then again, if you're able to read this, that means that I'm already done with one of the 2.

So WOOHOOO!!

An easy guide to the story (tells you what it means if I put things in bolded brackets, and stuff like that).

Spoiler :

EASY GUIDE TO THE STORY

(* *) means author's note (which I generally use to make comments as inside the story chapters).

[ ] refers to a skill or ability that is used. Right now there are no different markers for passive and active skills

'things in italics' Things in italics with the little apostrophe marks are someone's actual thoughts

***** If the asterisks form a small line and the next sentences start a line or 2 below it, it means either:

A) A change of viewpoint

OR

B) A time-skip

(which basically means stuff happened in-between 2 events, but I'm skipping over it to get

to whatever is happening in the present)

------------------------ Dashed lines in bold refer to where the chapter starts and/or stops

I'll add more if I do more things.

An easy guide to the different measurements (for people that are familiar with the metric system, and vice versa)

Spoiler :

GUIDE TO THE DIFFERENT MEASUREMENTS

10 feet is around 3 meters

1 mile is a little more than 1.5 kilometers

I'll add more if I find out more

Characters:

Spoiler :

Zhang: Arrogant, greedy, manipulative and smart, with a surprisingly protective side when it comes to Misa. Likes to play the warrior/tank role, but is actually an unspecified (no class), which means he is a jack-of-all trades. Thinks that Wahshi (although he calls him "Washy") is an NPC which will lead him to a great quest. Still, he won't hesitate to use him for his original intended purpose (to be a meat-shield) if things get too rough. Currently suspected of being over level 200

Misa: Bloodthirsty, sadistic and uncaring, except for when it comes to the people she likes (which currently includes only Zhang). Has the overpowered hidden class Sun Mage which is supposed to focus on peace and pursuit of knowledge. She uses it to do whatever she wants, which usually ends up getting her in trouble with the Sun Spirit, whom all Sun Mages are contracted with. A mysterious event involving at least herself and one other person seems to have shaped who she has become. Her Sun Mage powers are currently sealed, due to her misuse of them during the fight with the living trees. Currently suspected of being over level 200

Alexa: Cautious but with a good heart. A mysterious event seems to have caused Zhang and Misa to hate her deeply, but she still sees them as her 2 best friends who have been there for her for a long time. She struggles to try and make up for whatever happened in the past, causing her to more than once overlook Zhang and Misa's hatred and wrongdoings, even if it hurts herself in the process. Rogue-type player (actual class not mentioned yet). Currently suspected of being over level 200.

Wahshi: The Main Character. Real name Raes Bastion, framed for a crime he didn't commit and separated from his daughter while he was sent to prison for 20 years. What he wants to do now is earn enough money through the Virtual Reality game so that he can start searching for the daughter he lost, and maybe a little revenge on the way there against the people that framed him. Recently survived a trip through the Mist of Souls, which gave him abilities no other player has. He suspects that its not normal for a player to have started out that way. Currently an unspecified (no class). Currently level 1.

CURRENTLY:

Spoiler : Walking through the Boundary Forest after realizing they were lost and picking a random direction to go. Zhang hopes they're headed deeper, but everyone else is hoping they're headed out of the forest. Misa and Alexa suspect the MC of being more than he says, while Zhang remains oblivious.

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In a large mansion, there was a room where two capsules could be seen.

One of the capsules was empty, and the other was occupied. Clanking noises could be heard from the capsule that was unoccupied, as it parts of it were removed and thoroughly examined.

The man who had been taking apart his capsule slowly stood up.

“Cr*p! I can’t believe it… They actually decided to go forward with it…”

He looked over at the person that was in the capsule next to the one that he partially dismantled.

The man inside it wasn’t even a few feet away from him, but he knew that at that moment, both he and the man might as well have been standing on different planets.

A complicated look was in his eyes as he stared down at the almost 40 year old man lying down in the capsule.

“Stay safe Raes. I hope to God that I’m wrong, and it’s all just in my head.”

With that, Caesar went to task putting his capsule back together before the man he considered his brother decided to come back to Earth.

**************************

A weird feeling washed over him. Wahshi had the strangest sensation that somebody had just been staring at him.

Looking back, he only saw Misa and Alexa walking together.

Both Misa and Alexa immediately averted their eyes. Most people wouldn’t have caught it, but Wahshi was not the average person.

‘Something’s off here…’

Their surroundings were far from quiet. The sounds of birds, insects and different animals were always with them.

Even though he’d never had to trek through a forest before, even he knew that the most dangerous time would be when everything went silent.

Being around so much wildlife, it was normal for it to be noisy. You knew there was something wrong if everything suddenly went quiet.

But it didn’t feel like that at that moment.

‘It’s still noisy in our surroundings which means that none of the insects, birds or small animals have run away from a dangerous predator yet. Which should mean that there’s no danger around us. Why does something still feel off then?’

As the last rays of the sun disappeared, he suddenly realized what exactly might’ve been happening.

Zhang was clearly leading them all deeper into the forest, since the last bits of direct sunlight was now covered by the tree canopy. The forest vegetation had gotten so thick that he was almost up to his knees wading through it.

Despite the obvious signs that they were headed the wrong way, no one said anything at all. That, coupled with Misa and Alexa’s strange behavior meant only one thing.

‘Sh*t, they know I’m a Player!’

It was clear that they were luring him deeper into the forest to kill him, where no one would know about it.

Wahshi’s eyebrows scrunched up in thought.

‘Wait, that doesn’t make sense. If they’d wanted to kill me where no one would know, then I’d already be dead. There’s no one else around here. They’re definitely strong enough to kill me without a second thought.’

Almost like a lightbulb had just lit up, he suddenly had an epiphany.

‘Unless they don’t know that I’m weaker than they are. Or they think I’m just faking being weak. If that’s the case, then they’re probably bringing me all the way out here so that I’ll just die from one of the monsters that attack us!’

Everything made perfect sense. It was one of his own Prison Rules after all. If you weren’t sure that you were strong enough to kill your opponent, just make it so that he goes up against someone who is strong enough.

The only thing that he didn’t understand was why they wanted to kill him.

‘Alright, so I might have led them to think that I was an NPC that could lead them on some great quest, but that shouldn’t be a reason to kill somebody! This isn’t back in the prison, after all. People don’t just kill other people out here without a big reason to.’

What he’d forgotten though, was the fact that the normal rules of “society” didn’t apply here. This was a game after all, where many Players would kill for a lot less of a reason than for tricking you into thinking you were a quest-giving NPC.

Regardless of why they wanted to kill him though, he wouldn’t make it easy for them.

A wry smile flashed onto his face, and disappeared as quickly as it came.

It wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to fight against someone stronger, and it was doubtful that it would be the last either.

He casually tossed a glance over his shoulder at Alexa.

Still, seeing someone that reminded him so much of *#&---….

‘No. I won’t even think about that woman. I’m only hesitating because they haven’t really given me a reason to doubt them yet, and I don’t want to have to end up doubting someone the first time I play this game!’

Hoping that it was all in his head, he called out to Zhang.

“Are you certain that this is the correct route out of the forest? It seems as if we are only going further in. The vegetation grows only denser, and it seems as if we are so deep into the forest that almost all of the sunlight can no longer penetrate the trees.”

There had to be another reason for all of the warning signs.

“Don’t worry,” Zhang said over his shoulder. “Some parts of the forest are naturally denser than the others. It doesn’t necessarily mean that we’re heading deeper into it.”

Seeing how neither Misa nor Alexa contradicted Zhang, he felt slightly less suspicious. Still, he knew that since he didn’t have any first-hand knowledge about trekking through a forest, his guard was still mostly up. He’d read books and survival techniques on many of the different landscapes in the game, but it was completely different from actually being there himself. Many important details couldn’t be written down, and thus couldn’t be read.

They could only be learned from experience.

But because of all of these weaknesses that Wahshi knew he had, he’d also put in time to find a solution. He had to create a skill!

Creating a skill in Awakening wasn’t exactly easy. There were only a few known methods of creating a skill that were known to the public. One was to spend a long time trying to perform the action while consciously making the decision to try to make a skill. You could always tell if the process was working, since your mana gauge would be consumed as time went on.

The other known way was to find out more information about yourself and your current abilities. This was the way that Wahshi had created his [Mist Form] ability.

It was a lot like a kid who discovers that he can make his eyes go cross-eyed. He always had the ability to do it, but he just didn’t realize that he could. After learning a little more or just by trying out different things, the kid is just suddenly able to do it!

Although this wasn’t the extent of Wahshi’s knowledge of the game, it wasn’t far from it. Of the 4 months that he’d spent preparing for the game, 3 of those months had been spent building his body back up and training his skills in the different martial arts that he’d learned while he was in prison.

That meant only 1 month had been spent learning about the game!

It might sound like a lot, but the creators of Awakening had outdone themselves when they created the game. The only currently known continent after 3 years (Earth Time) of playing was still the first one they’d started out on.

This was because the size of the continent was slightly larger than Pangaea! Since it was bigger than the giant landmass that all of the continents on Earth could combine into, of course it would take more than 15 years (in-game) to find out all of the secrets! People were still trying to find out if there were other continents in the world, but if anyone had found out anything, they were keeping it quiet.

Up ahead of Wahshi and Zhang, the trees had started to thin out, and sunlight was once again pouring through the trees.

“I did say that we were headed in the right direction, didn’t I?” Zhang called out over his shoulder to Wahshi.

“Indeed, you were correct. I apologize for doubting you, Zhang.” Even though Wahshi had said that, he didn’t really mean it; this was because he was sure that he’d heard a slight disappointment in Zhang’s voice when he’d confirmed that they were apparently heading in the right direction (meaning out of the forest).

Wahshi’s gaze flickered over to the top right corner of his vision where his health and mana gauges were. The green one representing his health and the blue which represented his mana.

His mana gauge displayed the number 23/220 after the bar, while his health was still completely full at 110/110.

Even since before the battle with the living trees, he’d already decided what kind of a skill he’d needed to help him survive. Especially with all of the secrets and suspicion which surrounded the group he was with.

Which was why for the past few hours, he’d studied everything he came across, trying to identify what it was, what it was made of, etc. Any question he could think of about the different rocks, trees or insects they passed, he would try to find an answer by carefully observing the subject. He’d even tried to figure what exactly Zhang was; at least he did, before Zhang had just come right out and told him that he was class-less.

The first hour had been torturous. Nothing happened at all! He’d spent the time doing everything he could, but his mana gauge hadn’t dropped at all!

Saying that he felt like an idiot would’ve been an understatement.

But he hadn’t given up, and once the 1-hour mark passed on the local time display above his Health gauge, his Mana bar had immediately started going down!

Now, it felt like it had been days since he first started the game. Even though it’d only been 5 hours (in-game) at the most. He wasn’t physically tired, his 3 months of training made sure of that (*and since his character’s body is taken mainly from his real life body, the results of his training showed in-game too*), but he was mentally tired. Being on guard all the time, while constantly scanning his environment to try and make his new skill would’ve drained anybody at this point.

Still, he kept trudging forward through the dense forest vegetation, which was becoming more and more sparse with each step he took.

Up ahead, he could see that the trees had stopped growing past a certain line, and Zhang had stopped walking right after he’d crossed that invisible (and imaginary) line.

‘I’ve got a bad feeling about this…’

As soon as his foot stepped outside of the trees, he heard a sound.

SHIIING!

NEW SKILL CREATED: PART THE MISTS

PART THE MISTS: CONSTANT, UNCEASING EFFORTS TO DIVINE THE TRUTH BEHIND THE WORLD AND EVERYTHING AROUND YOU, HAS RESULTED IN A STRANGE ABILITY TO DO SO.GATHERS ALL INFORMATION FROM YOUR CONSCIOUS AND SUBCONSCIOUS, BOTH KNOWN AND FORGOTTEN

CAN BE SWITCHED BETWEEN PASSIVE/ACTIVEPASSIVE: DISPLAYS ALL RELEVANT KNOWN AND FORGOTTEN INFORMATION AND DISPLAYS IT IN YOUR VISION.

REQUIRES: PERMANENT USAGE OF 10% OF TOTAL MANAACTIVE: IN ADDITION TO DISPLAYING ALL RELEVANT KNOWN AND FORGOTTEN INFORMATION, IT REMOVES ANY AND ALL FALSEHOODS

REQUIRES: CONSUMES 20% OF TOTAL MANA (MANA CONSUMED CANNOT BE RECOVERED OR USED UNTIL ABILITY IS SWITCHED TO PASSIVE) 5% OF TOTAL HEALTH/SECOND (CANNOT BE RECOVERED UNTIL ABILITY IS SWITCHED TO PASSIVE)

***************

As soon as my foot stepped past the line of trees, my vision was immediately cluttered with notifications. I read through them as fast as I could, trying to make use of the little time I had before Misa and Alexa caught up to us.

I still wasn’t sure if by looking through all of these game-like notifications, I would somehow be recognized by these people as a player. Just in case they hadn’t already figured it out, anyway. Lucky for me, Zhang was still a little bit in front, with his back turned towards me.

Reading through all of these notifications, I had mixed feelings.

There was a light, happy feeling in my chest of accomplishment. I’d finally finished creating that skill!

But then again, the skill couldn’t be turned off!

I could only switch back and forth between the Passive and Active effects. That means that no matter what, at least 10% of my mana was gone forever!

There was also one other thing…

The skill was obviously related to my status as First-Born of the Mist!

‘Does this mean that any skill I create from now on will be considered as a ‘Mistborn’ ability?’

The thought worried me. I only had 2 examples of ‘Mistborn’ abilities so far, and both of them needed my health for me to use them! True, [Part the Mists] didn’t need it as long as it was kept Passive, but the best effects, the part which only showed which parts were true and correct, needed my health!

I was fine with using Mana, since I had plenty. (Although I wasn’t happy with a constant 10% drain on it), but my Health was half of what I had for Mana!

I wasn’t sure what would happen if I ran out of Mana, but I already knew what would happen if I ran out of Health.

I’d DIE.

Plain and simple.

I didn’t even want to think about what would happen after that. A successful person doesn’t focus too much on his own death after all.

All of it took a while to describe, but in reality less than a few seconds had passed.

As I dismissed the notifications, I saw the first thing that my new ability had used its passive effect on.

I also heard Misa and Alexa come out of the forest vegetation next to me, and one of them gasped.

We were all thinking the exact same thing.

‘Oh Shit!’

This is what I saw in the floating box that marked the first thing that had been affected by my [Part the Mists] ability.

IT’S EITHER A DRAGON, OR A REALLY, REALLY BIG LIZARD WITH WINGS.

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Author's Note: Don't forget to RATE/REVIEW/COMMENT!! I always love hearing what people have to say, and it's what keeps me going!