Sacred Souls: Genesis

Eight days later.

Home base of JC Kings.

The daily team training went on as usual. During noontime break, Zhao Mengwei browsed through the various forums and message boards of several mainstream games on his phone.

However, he couldn’t find any news about Sacred Souls on any chatroom, boards or even Weibo.

On the other hand, there were a few players who posted threads on the forums that read ‘Just played a game comparable to real-life called Sacred Souls!’

However, most replies to the post were conveying doubt.

After all, it was claiming that Sacred Souls delivers a hundred percent genuine experience for all senses apart from pain, with the texture of clothing detailed to the tiniest thread.

Present standards VR games would never reach such level, and as such the other players thought that the Sacred Souls post were merely boasting.

Soon, the thread itself sunk to rock-bottom on ratings and visibility.

If Zhao Mingwei had not played Sacred Souls himself, he would have thought that the post was some nonsense.

After all, it was too unique a game—too far beyond the ordinary.

All it took was clicking on the login button on his phone, and the game would run a hypnosis without the use of VR headgears.

In fact, Zhao Mingwei had tried to play Sacred Souls overnight. The next day, not only did he not lack vitality, he was full of it instead.

From the login method of the game alone, Zhao Mengwei was sure that it wasn’t something humanmade.

Could it have been aliens?

That being said, the number of players in the server is pathetically few—Zhao Mingwei had played eight days but only made two friends: NoUpdatesToday and Free Milk.

It appears that Sacred Souls was not being given any publicity either, nor did Zhao Mingwei know how to download it. It was as if the game chose him and not the opposite.

“Smiley, do you think that game is real?”

Lin Xi asked him with a mysterious tone, suddenly appearing out of nowhere with a lunchbox in hand.

“Definitely fake.” Zhao Mingwei replied straightaway without thinking—the JC Kings management enforces tight discipline on their players. He was allowed to play some mobile or computer games, but would receive a verbal warning if he joins the club of another major VR game.

That was also why Zhao Mingwei had a strained relationship with the management. Regretfully, he signed the enslaving contract during his young and naive days, and for the two more years he could only exist as ‘Giggle’, star of JC Kings.

“I think it’s real.” Lin Xi said, chewing on a mouthful of rice. “There are special discussions on the game forum posts, and it was actually quite fun.”

“Fun? You… played it?”

Zhao Mingwei realized then that Lin Xi was not just there to gossip about the game, but to goddamn show off that he has a Sacred Souls account or login rights!

“Of course I did. It’s just that I don’t know how to stream or use screencaps for the game, so I can’t prove it.” Lin Xi appeared rather unconcerned since his own contract with the club was more relaxed.

“Meet up tonight?” Zhao Mingwei whispered.

“No way… you too, Smiley? Alright! Lionheart City, tonight!”

Having been friends for years, both Lin Xi and Zhao Mingwei understood each other, and the former quickly returned to his seat after downing another few mouthfuls of his lunch.

***

Three in the morning, Lionheart City—a location in Sacred Souls.

A time when professional players should be resting.

Jiang Qiao was doing stretches at the Temple of Revival in the city.

After all, character growth in Sacred Souls would be fed into the player’s body in real life.

The most obvious proof was that Jiang Qiao had no more neck or back pains after working through the night. As such, little exercises were a must to better maintain his body.

“Sorry, I’m late.”

‘Happy Gamer’, Zhao Mingwei’s avatar had appeared beside him. He had reached Level 25 after just eight days of playing, while Jiang Qiao was himself Level 26.

Jiang Qiao also received his Summoner class advancement quest yesterday. Three choices were available after reaching the Level 25 requirement for summoners: Undead Summoner, Elemental Summoner, and Beast Summoners.

Since he liked his water spirit familiar, Jiang Qiao picked the Elemental Summoner class.

It was a little disappointing that he did not manage to trigger a class change when he took his class advancement quest, but there was also a chance of triggering a class change quest halfway through his class advancement quest too.

“Have you taken your class advancement quest?” He asked, turning towards Zhao Mingwei after finishing his stretches.

“I accepted it from the guild. I think I’ll take the Brawler class.” Zhao Mingwei seemed pleased to have a class system similar to [War].

For the basic fighter class, players could develop their class to three advanced classes: Brawlers, whose specialty was strengthening their fists and various martial art techniques, Qi Benders who fight with qi and Judoists who focus on grappling.

Jiang Qiao himself found the setting familiar and that he must have referred to a certain game when he was in Maker Mode. In fact, he even remembered adding a fourth selectable class for Fighters—the Hoodlum, who uses three dirty tricks of poison, bricks, and sand.

But where did it go?

It was only after a search of his memory that Jiang Qiao realized that the requirements to trigger the Hoodlum class change quest was negative ten points in Charisma, and having made connections with the gangsters of Lionheart City.

“How much Charisma points do you have?” Jiang Qiao asked at that thought, attempting to set up a class change event for Zhao Mingwei.

“Fifteen. Do you have some new strategy?”

In the two days that Zhao Mingwei and Jiang Qiao met up and played overnight, the former had also shared many conditions that could start hidden quests from NPCs.

The Charisma setting is the most important aspect which activates hidden quests. Higher levels meant it’s simpler to speak with NPCs, whereas low Charisma also means appreciation of certain special NPCs.

Moreover, the player’s job and lifestyle, which in turn affect their eloquence also had an impact on NPCs.

Overall speaking, the system of Sacred Souls was exceedingly complex that even Jiang Qiao himself was still feeling around.

“It’s a little high. That said, are you interested in beam-spamming?” Jiang Qiao asked, making a Kamehameha stance.

“Are you suggesting that I pick Qi Bender?” Zhao Mingwei had asked about it in the Fighter-class guild, and had found out that only Qi Benders could unleash beams.

“There’s actually a hidden class on the extreme side called the Aura Master. I heard about it from an NPC over there, who introduced it as a class that specializes in throwing beams.”

The truth was that Jiang Qiao had a private agenda for his recommendation: the invading plane would arrive on the day after tomorrow, and Zhao Mingwei was the closest to it.

Given that most of the monsters from the invading plane had Dark attribute, Aura Benders had a restraining effect over them with their auras.

“Aura Bender? Where did you hear about that?” Zhao Mingwei asked, remembering that Jiang Qiao was supposed to be a Summoner.

“Well, my Intelligence points are more than 250 and my Charisma above 15,” he replied. “When I passed by the Fighter-class guild yesterday, an Aura Bender came to me, asking if I wanted to join them.”

“Is that even possible? Though to be fair, the system for Sacred Souls NPCs is just weird… there are times I thought they were real.”

In his eight-day worth of game time, Zhao Mingwei himself had encountered different bizarre NPCs. They appeared programmed as much as they didn’t, occasionally standing idly waiting to assign a player with a mission, just as they would suddenly leap in front of you to say something that completely made no sense.

“The Aura Bender class requires 250 points for Intelligence and 15 for Charisma. As I recall, you managed to pick up a Potion of Amnesia from the Dark Swamp day before yesterday too… I have another, do you want to try it?”

Jiang Qiao took out the blue bottle of potion, shaking it.

While Zhao Mingwei was a fighter-class who focused on adding more points to his Strength attribute, he could use the potion to clear things up and redirect all his points to Intelligence. Then, with the help of some equipment he would easily increase his Intelligence above the required 250.

“Well, I guess I could give it a go.” Zhao Mingwei agreed after some thought. In [War], he was proficient with the Fighter-class, which was why he maintained that role in Sacred Souls too.

Still, one should try everything in a game, just as he did not hope that he would be bound to the glory of ‘Giggle’ for his entire life.

What was more, he was quite interested in the class-change system of Sacred Souls.

Meanwhile, Lin Xi had yet to log in since the team coach was scolding him.

As such, Zhao Mingwei could afford to make a trip to the Fighter-class guild.