Dying In Real Life Is Another Way To Play

The Game Monitoring Department team was completely silent as they looked at the countdown on the main screen. It showed a 23hour waiting period which was continously decreasing as time passed by.

Vice-Chief Liu started to speak from the back of the room as he said in a serious tone.

"Ladies and Gentlemen in a few hours time, all the "Pantheons" in the Kingdoms of the Elkadi Empire will undergo the updates after the upgrade of the "Sylvannas Pantheon" had turned out to be a success..."

"After the success of the Genetics team from extracting the blood that was left behind together with the sword, we have been able to identify a new race which was dubbed in the Elkadi Ancient text as the "Royal Demon Race" unlike the demons that we have seen so far, all members of the Royal Demon Race, even it's lowliest "Dregs", are "Legendary" types..."

"In order to accomodate this sudden change, we will also be updating our system interface and patch our database. Since we have previously sent out notifications to all players, they can still access the game if they want to continue playing during the upgrade, its just that they wouldn't be able to pull up their system interface. Logging out can be manually done by going into any safe zones and falling asleep"

Yang Sun raised his hand and asked "Sir what about deaths?"

"Death penalties would still apply as our avatar factory would still be operational on the other side." Vice-chief Liu answered.

"Would our players be capable of handling these Legendary Beings?" Fan Gou Xing raised her hand as she asked.

"Good question, our genetics team have reversed engineered the blood composition of the first Legendary class and unofficially called him "Royal One" his genetic structure and modifications were already updated and had been classified by the system AI accordingly a day after the event."

"In order to make up for this gap, all players above level 80 can access any of our facilities and access the "Ascension" patch which would allow their avatar genes to be upgraded... although they couldn't fight with "Royal One" in a one-on-one, a team of six or seven players could attack him and leave with 90% chance of success, while a guild would have a chance of making it retreat... Killing him though may require two or three guilds ganging up, unless we are talking about the most skillfull players who have "God-like" micro control." Chief-Liu completed his speech.

Wang Lie tried to confirm "Vice-Chief Liu, if we are talking about micro control, do you mean to say the "Pantheon Watch List"?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean't, aside from the Company's "Kingdom Deleter Team" and "Bug Cleaner Team" we might expect the "Pantheon Watch List to perform quite well"." Vice-Chief Liu answered.

The "Kingdom Deleter Team" were the company's group of players consisting of 1000+ real life experts that were initially part of the first trials during the development phase. These players are scattered all through out the continent doing company based tasks. These employees are mostly retired military personnel all across the world and China.

The "Pantheon" are Artificially Intelligent Avatars that were created to safe guard players or put them in line as the "Kingdom Deleter Team" wouldn't have enough time or man power to do so.

The "Bug Deleter Team" are a group of company-hired beta players whose main job is to destroy "game bugs" that may undermine the players "gaming experience" these players are mostly Professional Gamers of the VR scene who transferred to "Alternate Realm Chronicles" after experiencing true freedom of movement and game play.

The "Pantheon Watch List" on the other hand are players that are unaffiliated with the company but have micro-control that could rival the Gods of the Pantheon. Each Kingdom has their watch list and in order to be "listed" here, a player may have to be capable of killing a God or at least fight on par with them.

In the Kingdom of Sylvannas, you could consider the unofficial titled players as part of these list. As an example we have (in no specific order):

Ye Qing the Juggernaut

Lan Ranyan the Snow Queen

Miel De Fleur the Wandering Merchant

Lystis Vandermein the Shadow Fox

Marcus Orleans the Puppeteer

Leito Alcantara the Legion

Vanessa Dobson the Mad Alcemist

Riley Stuart the Necromancer

Lee Ho Min the Zerg

Choi Ahn Khoa the Arbiter

Yue Jing raised her hands as she asked "Vice-Chief Liu, is the "Sylvannas Pantheon" now capable of killing "Royal One"?"

Vice-Chief Liu smiled as he answered "Unarmed, they can fight on par and retreat on a one-on-one fight, but as soon as the Metallurgy Department have finished sending orders and request to black smiths all across the kingdoms for the new ores and weaponize them. They can kill "Royal One" with the same material that his sword has."

After his speech Vice-Chief Liu asked everyone to continue with the monitoring task and told Yue Jing to deploy Reschel and meet with the "Sylvannas Guild Alliance" for their compensation.

....

Garam together with the Sylvannas Guild Alliance leaders met with Reschel at the waiting area of the Discovery Facility in the City of Magic. Reschel came in carrying a large sack which kept jingling.

"Thank you for visiting us God Reschel" Garam greeted him with a smile.

"It's nothing much, I was sent here to explain and give renumeration in line with the recent events for the past few days." Reschel said in a dismissive tone

"God Reschel you truly are The best among all the other Gods!" Garam stated while bowing, the other Guild leaders did the same

"Really? I guess you can say that, other Gods are nothing before me, I just have to make do with them due to the Masters." Reschel replied his face showed pride and appreciation

"Anyway" he dropped the large pack he was carrying as it jingled. "Here's the compensation for the guilds. That's 10,225,000 Selas, you may distribute to the guilds that participated as you seem fit." after which he also gave a scroll that contained all the guilds and players that died during the event

"God Reschel really is the most generous God of all! I hope that the masters would make you the leader of the pantheon in the near future" Garam said as he kept kissing a.s.s

Reschel smiled grinning ear to ear and spoke "At the same time, although no one was able to clear the mission, but in regards to your efforts, all Guild Leaders and Vice-Guild Leaders can drop by the S class Rental shops to claim and choose one S-class weapon that can be used permanently."

"Thank you very much God Reschel, God above all Gods!" Garam continued to praise him as he kept bowing together with the other Guild Leaders

Reschel was still smiling as he gestured everyone to calm down. Afterwards he explained the events that had transpired.

The Game Masters have tried to release a live beta-test of a new race called "Royal Ones" and that it was to check the capabilities of the guilds in face of a "Legendary" being. At the same time the "Pantheon" was summoned to minimize destruction in the City of Magic.

Reschel mentioned that these kinds of live beta-tests may happen in the future. They will receive system prompts accordingly.

After the meeting Reschel left happily as he strutted arrogantly outside the building. As soon as he left three people came out from hiding.

"That stupid prick really is an asshole" Ye Qing said

Lan Ranyang approached Garam as she said "You're acting was so f*cking obvious that even normal NPC's would try to avoid you."

Garam laughed as he answered "Well, the asshole fell for it anyway. So what's there to worry about?"

Ye Qian butted in and said "I think Titiana is still the best AI unit that was programmed though."

Garam smiled and said "Although I haven't met her, She sounds more like someone you idolize?"

"Yeah! I do, Lan Ranyan introduced us to her and even taught us. A few things, she was the one who mentored Lan in micro controls" she added

"Well at least she knows how to be human and all. Not that you reminded me, I wonder how she is." Lan Ranyan said

Ramses, Guild leader of the Supreme Harmony guild interrupted as he said, "Actually, the last sighting we had for Titiana was during the event, she zoomed past us as we were racing towards the event site. I haven't heard any news about her since then."

"True, the alliance intelligence exchange have not mentioned seeing her while the other Gods have already been sighted." Garam stopped to think as he said this.

"We'll meet her in time anyway so there's nothing much to worry about, I bet she's staying again at her favorite hang out in the Kindom of Escalar" Ye Qing finallu spoke after being silent for a while.

"Anyway, what's the update about Zhang Shan? have you found him yet?" Garam asked as the guild leaders listened in.

"No news whatsoever, we already split up to make the coverage farther, each of us already went to three kingdoms each, via land and teleporters, but no luck at all... I was hoping to ask if you guys have any news?" Ye Qing answered

"He must be very good in hiding... I tell you, I'll kill him again and again and again.. once I see him." Lan Ranyan said gritting her teeth

Seeing this Garam laughed, "Ha! Ha! Ha! You must have fallen for him to be that interested, Snow Queen?"

"Do you want to die right now?" She said in response

"Woah! Were team mates here, I'm just asking due to curiosity." Garam backed a bit as he raised his hands in surrender while smiling

"Well... I have reasons to be angry and look for him as he pissed me off, What about you? are you looking for him in order to know the secret of crossing over?" Lan Ranyan asked.

"Well, I am interested in crossing over of course, but we had prior commitments that needs to be concluded that's why I want to see him as well." Garam answered.

"Anyway, we have a long day ahead to distribute these contribution prizes to guild members that participated, I see on the scroll that your names are included for the prize money and S-class equipment too." Garam said.

"We're a bit busy right now, but make sure to take care of our prize money, I'll drop by some other time to get it." Lan Ranyan waved as she signalled the two to leave

"What about the equipment?" Garam asked.

"Sell my equipment and Ye Qing's too, convert it to Selas and add that to our reward. Have Ye Qian's ready, she has yet to get an S-class weapon." She said as she turned around while walking away with the two.

"You sure about that? That's an S-class equipment though" Garam asked slightly bewildered.

"Me and Ye Qing's weapon are S-Class already and it didn't work well against the "doppelganger". The S-class weapon right now might be theoretically "downgraded" in the patch later... so it doesn't really matter." Lan Ranyan answered without looking back.

"True..." Garam murmured to himself

.....

"5...."

"4...."

"3...."

"2...."

"1...."

"Patch update in progress...."

"All system interface are being turned off.." Fan Gou Xing reported

"Begin the upgrade!" Vice-Chief Liu shouted

"Upgrade in progress.." Yang Sun replied

.....

Professor Xuan Ye's smart phone has vibrated in his pocket, as he answered it.

"Yes.... I see... Continue monitoring and send me updates via the encypted network." he answered

As he dropped the call, he dialled another number, it rang for a while and as soon as he heard a response from the other side he spoke

"Proceed with sending the packages..." then he dropped the call

Looking at the scientists that were gathered in his office he looked at them and said.

"My friends, the race for time has begun..."

.....

Back at the Game Monitoring Department.

"Vice-Chief Liu, Sir, something seems to be wrong" Fan Gou Xing reported

Bewildered with her statement, Vice-Chief Liu became agitated as he spoke "What do you mean wrong, this is a stable patch, there shouldn't be anything wrong at all!"

"W-well, all system interfaces are patching up, i-it's just that there are three system interface's accounts that are not registered in the data base that seems to be r-receiving the patch as well." She stammered as her face looked surprised as well

"What? like hackers?" asked Wang Lie

"Don't be stupid Wang Lie... No one knows the programming codes aside from the Game Development team" said Vice-Chief Liu

"Show it on the main screen." Vice-Chief Liu ordered Fan Gou Xing

She did as she told and flashed the system interface on the screen. As it showed up everyone started to read it first and then later on rubbed their eyes as they re-read them again, half a breath later, everyones mouth was agape with shock

"T-that's i-impossible..." Yang Sun stuttered

"Get me Chairman Guo and Professor on video conference... Now!" Vice-Chief Liu ordered in a shouting manner

On the screen as part of the system update, players faces can be now seen rendered by the system AI

Three Demonic faces appeared alongside their details.

Zhang Shan, Titiana and Carnalia....