Beast Enchanter

The Soul Frontier is the most prominent and first Virtual Reality game of its kind to hit the market, boasting 100% realism. The creators of the game are from a relatively new company that didn't hold much presence in the gaming industry before this. There called Total Storm, and recently they have released news that along with the game a new state of the art game helm which we call visualizers should increase total awareness to 100%. Current models on the market only reach 70% at maximum, and that usually comes with the cost of being a power guzzler, and that's something the newer models of visualizers are not going to have to worry about anymore.

It's a big claim to say they can reach 100% with minimum power drain within the game. For current visualizer models even if there are excellent graphics for a game, there's always a feeling of disconnect from real and fake. Total Storm's claim of eliminating that feeling and even releasing a new state of the art game that is scheduled to release a week after the game. People are excited but also skeptical some are claiming we entering a new era were gaming going to start breaking the borders of reality, although that claim to me seem to be people just riding the hype to me.

Although the hype for the new helmets is massive, the game itself didn't fall short. Total Storm has left people mostly in the dark about to ponder what it's about as they only released short video clips of in-game content of NPC villages, to showing off a few monsters but there were all short and didn't give much away. Curious as we are the developers said they wish for the world to be explored by the players to give everything away would ruin the learning experience, but they at least released that at the start of the game there will be a solo island tutorial made for every player, so players won't be left entirely in the dark.

They lastly mentioned that we would have to pick our classes at level 10. They state that based on your performance on the island and the challenges you accomplish you'll be able to select a basic class that will be available for everyone no matter your results or a few hidden class's that won't all unlock at once but depend on results. They left out what all the classes were going to be, which got everyone curious but as they said before they wish for us to be as in the dark as possible to have a feeling of exploration.

Lastly, they stated there would be an in-game currency for money exchange, but it will only be available after you get off the island. That piqued people's curiosity after all only games that are confident in their balance of win/loss incorporate such a system after all. There have been fail attempts in the past of companies that went bankrupt overnight and having to close down the servers to the game.'

Well with having all that said the game was released three days ago and as much as I would have loved to have played on launch, but life told me no as I had been busy packing my visualizer and other necessities that I'm going to need at the new place. I had imagined there not going to be loads of space in my new apartment, and It had been a seven-day drive. Once I was giving the A-ok by the landlord to start moving in, It didn't take long for me to get everything in my car and head out. I didn't have anyone I needed to say goodbye to so I didn't waste a second and hit the road. I didn't forget to keep an eye on the forums reading the top posts here and there but after the wave of posts from launch. I got impatience and decided to drive for 24 hours straight until I got there. Luckily my impulsive decision didn't cause any crashes, but I'm used to having to pull all-nighters from my past gaming history. I arrived at my designated area to park the car that the landlord informed me about before I left. It was one of the perks of renting this place beside the low price. I headed towards the apartment complex and entered the main door to the recipient room on the bottom floor there seemed to be a rather old woman in a black and green sitting at the desk reading a book.'

"Hello, I rented an apartment here do I get the key through you?"I said a bit awkwardly

The women put her book down and pulled out a giant binder just asking for my name and last address. I told her what she needed to know and she handed me my key.

"Your deposit Is good for this month your roommate's footing half the bill since he wanted someone to rent it out."

"...Roommate? You never said there was somebody else living in there as well."

"Is that going to be a problem, hmm…?" she said raising her eyebrow.

"No, no I just didn't know that there was someone else here as well. I had wondered why the rent here was so low, but if my new roommate paying half that means he must be a nice guy but do you know why he wants a roommate so much he paying half the bill for my room?"

I may have said he might be a nice guy that but I just didn't want to piss off the landlord. I was worried he might be a weirdo or worse and then I would have to move again. What a pain that would be.

"How would I know he just told me some useless crap and said he would pay half to get a roommate."

"Ah... I see I guess I'll ask him myself then, and thank you for letting me rent out here."

I started walking towards my new apartment I got this place because my college classes will be starting in the next two weeks. The landlord here mentioned the rent was low but skipped on why when I asked, but I guess I can't help it now. I'm just worried about what kind of guy it's going to be, I mean consider myself a pretty tolerable person but if it's someone that does stuff to the extreme in an annoying manner. I might have to start looking for another place... I would have defiantly preferred being alone. I started looking for the room, and I had number 72.

"65..68...70.. ah, here we are." I quietly mumble to myself.

Upon entering I was honestly a bit surprised I was preparing myself for the worst and I thankfully that wasn't the case. Everything looks to be pretty clean although he might have cleaned it expecting me but if not it seems like I lucked out or at least that means he is not a slob. I started to look for an open spot in the corner of the room to start dumping my stuff off when I suddenly I hear the door open behind me, and a someone walked in. I turn around to get a look at what I would assume to be my new roommate he's a bit above average height guy, long blond hair, dark blue eye, and he had a very handsome man, one the ladies would love. Oh no, he's not some playboy, is he? I quickly thought to myself. He appeared to have just gone food shopping as he was carrying groceries in both hands. The guy took noticed me had a surprised look flashed across on his face.

"Oh hey! You must be the new guy the landlord told me about, and I thought it was going to take you at least a few more days to get here. However, that's nothing but good news to me if you arrived so quickly."

The way he had said that had me a bit confused as it reminded me as to why he was footing half of my rent, but instead of asking, I decided to introduce myself first.

I reached out my hand. "I'm Arthur Telasane nice to meet you."

He took my hand after setting the bags on the counter and said, "I'm Felix Loan nice to meet you as well."

I decided to tell him why I was here so early as I did pull an all-night drive to get here faster, but I left out that I pulled an all-nighter.

"I left as soon as the landlord confirmed the room so I could get moved in getting everything to unpack as I didn't want to be too late as I missed launch day for that new game that came out have you hear of it, The Soul Frontier?."

I asked him because I wasn't sure if he as a gamer he appeared to be a ladies man and might not be into much gaming, but most people play games now, but you never know, right?

He gave a light eye roll to my question "Of course I've heard of it, at this point I don't think theirs a person on the planet that hasn't heard of it, after all, it's been all over the news since its announcement. Its reputation is so high before launch that it shocked all the other companies."

I lightly laugh at myself as I expected that to be his reaction.

"Ya, I guess it was a dumb question so what level have you gotten to, I haven't gotten started myself yet."

Felix gave a smirk

"Watch and be amazed."

He lifted his right hand revealing a black bracelet and said the command, S.P. Ron. His bracelet lights up then a ghostly or should I say holographic black wolf cub appears and jumps out of bracelet and floats next to him. I was definitely shocked but not by the holographic wolf but by the fact he could summon one already. You only get your soul pet at Level 10 along with your class as stated by the people on the forums along with the fact that there's only a handful of people who have reached level 10.

"You already got to level 10? I had heard that only top players have gotten to level 10 so far although it's been a day since I last checked the forums."

I mean the games only been out for 3 days even if the visualizers have a time dilation of 1-5, The game just says online for 14 hr a day as to try and prevent people from completely forgetting about reality, and the server hasn't opened up today yet so I shouldn't have missed much since I last checked.

He raised an eyebrow at my statement and gave me a questioning look.

"That's not quite right. You seem to have read some bad posts as most players have reached level 10 already. It's actually that the top players had not reached level 10 yet and had only reached it yesterday. The longer you spent on the island, the more potential you have, as stated by the game. It's a test for you to determine your skills and capability and obviously, the top player want to do the hardest test there able to, but even though I finished my test, it feels kind of like a gamble on what you are getting at the end although the results are fair. I won't spoil it for you as you'll figure it out once you start as it might just distract you instead, but you should probably try to stay away from they misinforming posts."

I didn't realize I was so out of the loop for just missing one day. I was only checking the info on my phone once in a while, so I can't say to be extremely informed of what was happening in the game. I had been reading top posts that I could find off the forums, but it looks like they had been posted by some dumb players that had got to level 10 first and thought there were amazing.

"I was checking, here and there but I hadn't been watching the forums closely. So that's your soul pet I've read about them on the forums, but it's the first time I've seen one from this game they supposedly hatch at level 10 at the end of the island tutorial right?"

The ability to summon virtual pets isn't some new technology it's something that was invented a while back although Total Storm did release these black bracelets to go with the game as they have their own set of commands. They mention that they can only be learned through gameplay, which is something people found that strange but wasn't a problem.

"Yep and this is my soul pet I named him Ron. He hasn't developed enough intelligence to talk, but I lucked out this time he's a black legend rank Lightning/Water Wolf," Said Felix In a very proud manner.

"Wait isn't that high rank did you get a hidden class?"

I was pretty surprised and although I didn't know the full listing of ranks yet I was assuming with my experience gaming. Legend was usually used for high grades although not always the absolute best. I did read on the forums the questing on the island can boost the status that your soul pet will get although it's unknown what the pets are based on when they hatch.

"Ya, I was a bit disappointed at first since it was a wolf. I was hoping for something that seemed a little bit stronger like a dragon or a phoenix, but once I saw I had a black legend rank pet, I couldn't complain as most people are getting normal to elite rank pets. There's also the people with high scores sometimes had a weaker pet than people with lower scores than them although we have some guess as to why that is. It's also the only one you will get as we were told by Total Storm. It's also still unknown if you can increase its rank further, but it's only the beginning of the game, so players still have hope."

"I still don't know the full rankings of the pets are so I don't know exactly how amazing that rank is."

"They explain all the information once you get to level 10 we were left in the dark as well until that point. I don't know why It isn't explained at the start at the start, but it's not my choice. You'll probably be surprised, but I picked the hidden class, Holy Priest. After all the healer class is going to be in high demand with how hard it is to unlock the hidden classes and with my pets high rank my heals are gonna be top notch, although I wish Ron had more intelligence instead of strength".

He was right I didn't expect him to be a priest, in most games priests were one of the basic classes I had known there were a set of hidden classes that were hard to unlock and that they were separated from the basic ones. I hadn't look them up but I'm sure someone has posted a list somewhere, but I hadn't looked up many things, which is entirely on me, but I just figured I'd find out as I go as everyone else did. If what he said is true a lot of top players are going to be demanding healers in their party even if they are unskilled as long as you can heal they'll probably take the time to teach you.

"Why is the priest a hidden class? that doesn't make much sense."

" I'm not sure, but I haven't had the time to explore off the island yet, but it seems that those who can get a hidden class are treated much better than those with a basic one. seeing as priests are weak fighters, it must be to make it easier on them in cities."

Felix glanced at the clock and said "The servers are going to be coming back online soon, so I'm going to need to make my food and get ready with my guild since we're going to be heading out together to try and gain control of the farming areas that the low tier players have fill up. They got to leave the island faster than us so even though they got weak pets, there a couple of levels higher than us. Oh, and my in-game name Hanson devil send me an invite one you log on, if you need help, send me a voice chat."

"I'll be sure to send an invite, and also I ate before I arrived, so I'm going to just unpack and get on."

"That's... fine."

Couldn't help I forgot something but I'm sure it will come to me if it important enough and at least It doesn't look like I'm going to need a new place as Felix seems like a pretty cool guy. The apartment wasn't huge, but it was at least big enough to house three people if one slept in the living room it had two bedrooms, a kitchen and, one bathroom. It was good enough for our needs as I don't need much space to do my thing.

After I finished unpacking and setting up my visualizer I deep breath to collect myself for a second, I've never been one much for talking much, but I needed to be friendly with my new roommate as it would be rude to ignore him. In high school, I only ever had one good friend while he was great at socializing with many people. He was my only friend, and It's not like people didn't try to socialize with me but its just that I enjoyed keeping to myself. Sometimes I even think a little too much so when I finally felt like hanging out, I had no one to look to as they had already distanced themselves from me. They were mainly looking for constant parties and outing, so just hanging out just once in a great while isn't good enough for them.

"Well let's stop think such depressing thing," I said to myself.

I looked at the visualizer I was holding. It was black with white lining and relatively slimmer than most. It's the newest model that Total Storm hadn't even released yet. There set to release in a week but I had parents that work for the company, and they have a relatively high standing in it, so I was able to get one ahead of the others. I don't know how much of a difference such helmets were going to have, but it should be at least helpful somewhat right? I turn to look at the clock, and It read 6:15 p.m. which mean the servers have already been online for 15 mins. I laid down in bed and put on my helmet...