Chapter 18: The Dark Side of the World (Part 1)
The forums for 'The Pirate King' was created less than 24 hours ago. Even though Alvin knew that this game would be very popular, he didn't expect it to be a sensation so soon!
When Alvin logged into the official forums under the Username: 'Insane_Leveler', he realized that there were more than a million people currently logged in!
Everyone was sharing their experiences on their initial two days in the 'One Piece world'. Even though Alvin knew that those who really mattered, that is the children of the huge Aristocratic families wouldn't share such valuable experiences on such forums, but reading through would provide him a gist of the general levels of players in the game.
After reading through most of the comments, Alvin came to a realization that most of these players were still stuck on Level 0 and had not even leveled up once.
The reason for that is that the difficulty in killing even the simplest Level 0 beasts is beyond imagination even for the most experienced players. One had to know that the attributes that all players started out with was weaker than even a Level 0 beast. Therefore, unless a player is exceptional gifted in some skill, or very experienced, it is very difficult to hunt alone.
At this point of the game, it is very difficult to form teams to hunt considering players do not even know their own locations let alone find other companions to form teams.
Another reason that had made leveling up become so difficult for these players is that the skill that every player was given, i.e. [Force Fist] was too weak to effect any damage to the beasts that had very hard skins.
Alvin knew that the main effect of this skill is to train and not to fight. That is why its battle efficiency is so low.
But as he continued to read, Alvin found something interesting!
There was a player under the username 'Silent Killer', who claimed to be the first player to log into the 'Pirate King' world. Because of this, the system awarded him with a better Bronze grade fist skill called [Golden Iron Fist] and a movement skill [Wind Walker]! Surprisingly, like Alvin, these skills were automatically upgraded to the peak of the first stage when they were awarded to him. Because this player was a profession gamer who had accumulated a lot of experiences in hunting in VR worlds, with the help of these two skills, he was able to struggle to Level 1 on the second day.
The player also stated that because he was using a pretty advanced VR set with a synchronization rate of 20%, when he woke up, he felt that his whole strength had increased. He even posted the results of strength measurement equipment before and after the game which really showed that his overall attributes had indeed increased.
This player had a very big reputation in other VR games so thinking he was in a very big lead ahead of other players, he decided to announce his achievements to gather fame.
With this, other professional players also started announcing their achievements with some claiming to have successfully hunted Level 1 beasts! But there were very few who had actually been able to level up on the first day.
But from the experiences of those who had leveled up, everyone got to know the effects of the synchronization setting of the VR game leading to its popularity reaching an all-time high!
After these comments were posted, a lot of people started to invite these famous players to form teams with them in the future.
As Alvin continued to read on, he realized that more and more people started to flatter the player 'Silent killer' claiming that they wanted to form teams in reality to share experiences.
A lot of promises were made with some even promising him £1,000,000 to just form a team with them. What made Alvin more speechless as that this 'Silent Killer' actually posted his private chat address online.
If this player had a big background or had very strong strength, this wouldn't be a problem. But Alvin could guess that this player was from an ordinary background since he was foolish enough to post such an achievement online for everyone to see.
Alvin knew that if it was really true that this guy was an ordinary person, he would be surely targeted.
True to this, after just four minutes of posting his address, this player suddenly stopped posting! Alvin looked at the time of log off and he was shocked! It took only four minutes! Even though he knew that this guy would be targeted, he didn't expect it to be this fast.
However, Alvin did not close the forum but kept on waiting, waiting for what will happen next.
Sure enough, after a few minutes, 'Silent Killer's' account logged on again posting this comment,
[Sorry, I'm too tired today. I will contact all my fans again later! I want all those who have similar experience with me to PM me so that we can form a team later. See you later]
Seeing this message, Alvin was instantly convinced the guess and couldn't help but feel a little shocked. These guys are too fast.
Sure enough, there are no stupid people in the world. A lot of organizations who know the impact of this VR world would not give ordinary people a chance to rise up.
After all, Urahara Kisuke had stated that this is a new evolutionary direction for humanity. The information revealed by Ares Corporation on their website was also released by the government. For powerful Aristocratic families, it is very simple to get these basic information in advance.
So how can they allow power to drift away from their hands and allow ordinary people to rise up. As soon as someone is noticed, they will be immediately taken out!
It took just four minutes for this guy to be taken out. Alvin could imagine the determination of these higher ups to hold on to their power.
Alvin began to rejoice that he had used a different name and changed his appearance in the game so nobody would recognize him.
He realized the kind of crises he would have found himself in if he had let on any clue about his current level and abilities.
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
xeros01
xeros01 4th out of 5 guaranteed chapters for this week.
Part 2 coming soon!
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