Sword of Salvation - Chapter 20: - Battle and the Truth (3)

In the year 2090, technology has advanced to the point where Simulation Boxes, (Sim Box for short) are common place, allowing for the user to link up their brain's neural network to a full dive Simulation. While initially used for educational purposes, recently a large gaming company, Averon, released a fully fledged immersive MMORPG simulation where users can become anyone they desire, level up, choose their class, and become a hero or a villain. The name of this simulation is The Shattered World Online.

Eli Winters had no interest in playing it. His father, a jobless bum who spent his entire life playing games in the hope of becoming a famous player or streamer, was able to use the release of The Shattered World Online to gain wealth and fame, quickly becoming the number one player and a household name as the game took the world by storm. He immediately abandoned Eli and his mother in favor of being with someone from his guild, despite his mother having worked two jobs to support them and raise Eli by herself. Eli had nothing but spite for his father and the game.

When Eli's best friend convinces him to try out the game, his father's fame begins to interfere, culminating in him being singled out and shunned by his peers, and his father offering to pay for his university tuition in return for Eli hiding their relationship and quitting the game. Instead of complying with his father's wishes, Eli decides to prove to everyone how useless a guy his father is by challenging him that if Eli is able to surpass him in the game world he must delete his account and quit his streaming career. His father accepts the challenge believing his son to be useless at games - but Eli will soon show him just how ambitious a spiteful person can be.

Qiao Shao, who worked hard to stay up all night and study, was first in class — if you count from the bottom.

Tong Yao never expected that getting a milk tea could result in getting struck by lightning on a sunny day, and then waking up in the 1980s. She became a mischievous, spoilt wife of a top-tier doctor from the future. Rather than leading an ordinary life, she was caught eloping and stealing money, and reacted with crying, making a fuss, and hitting walls.Under the hopeless circumstances, she discovered she could understand animal language. While other time-travelers were busy making money to support their families, she was just enjoying the show.“The deputy director's wife accepted five jins of pork from a patient's family. The old couple is squabbling behind closed doors right now.”“The Dean has had a flare-up of hemorrhoids these past few days and can't sit on a chair.”“Mr. Li's wife is a tough woman. That missing tooth on the left was knocked out by her.”“Tong Yao has improper conduct. She used to secretly meet people in the village.”Tong Yao didn't expect the day would come when she would be the talk of the town....One day, Tong Yao heard a stray cat at the door muttering, “Dr. Si is having a date with a nurse in the corridor.”Furious, Tong Yao went to catch them in the act, only to find the doctor was discussing a patient's condition with a nurse who was over fifty. Wanting to run away, Tong Yao found her escape route cut off by the doctor, who backed her against a wall, “So I heard you came to catch us, huh?”Tong Yao never expected the saying, 'Those who always walk by the river eventually get their shoes wet,' to come true.

Humanity achieved dominion over the galaxy long ago.Once that was accomplished, they turned their ingenuity inwards. With their prowess over biological engineering, they transformed themselves into deific beings now called the Gene Tyrants. For centuries, the Gene Tyrants terrorized the galaxy, designing and abusing their genetically engineered servants and serfs as their whims took them.No tyranny can last forever, though, and the Gene Tyrants were eventually overthrown. The rebels discovered a strange light of the mind called Aether, which gave them the strange and fantastical powers they needed to eradicate their creators. Once that was done, however, that by no means meant peace.In the thousand years since, the face of the galaxy has changed. The most powerful human civilization is called the Supremacy, the homeland of 'might makes right'. In the Supremacy, a crime committed by the strong is no crime at all. With their military strength and mastery of Aether, the Supremacy has spread across the galaxy -- with the other powers able to do little but stall their advance. This struggle has developed into a cold war, and that cold war has frozen over for years now.Dragan Hadrien, a low-level administrator in the Supremacy, cares nothing for any of this. Dragan's primary concern is getting himself a promotion and taking it easy for the rest of his days. When a mysterious prisoner is brought aboard his ship, he thinks he has found the means to do just that.How naive of him.