Making Online Friends As An Immortal

The sunlight coming from the window shone on the figure covered in fuzzy blankets. In this country, winter lasted long and traces of sun could be rarely seen, which led to the development of the holographic sun. This sun was used to determine the position of the sun during the day, and it also warmed up the city, keeping the area assigned to it warm.

Alra slowly sat up in his comfy bed, still rolled up in the blanket looking dazed. Waking up has always been a challenge to him, ever since he was small. "Today is maintenance day..." he mumbled as he struggled out of his bed. His body which peaked out of the blanket was thin but powerful. In this age, all houses had high tech warming system, so he slowly put his foot onto the warm carpet flooring which was heated from beneath.

"Alra, good morning!"a cheery voice greeted him. He looked up to see his android assistant Zan, who was a good looking man with black hair and blue eyes, looking at him expectantly as if waiting for an answer. "Good morning Zan, how are you feeling today?"he replied in a quiet voice. "Feeling fine, found a few viruses while I was scanning on the network, also checked your mails as usual. I sorted them out for you the way you taught me. Do you want me to get you some breakfast?"Zan replied as he took out a comb to brush Alra's messy red hair. Alra was already used to the way Zan acted to he simply sat there, trying to wake up as Zan straightened out his hair in a gentle manner. Even though Alra allowed his android to have free will, he never expected to have an android who acted like his whole living reason was to dote on Alra by his side...

"Zan, I want fried eggs." Alra said as the movement of the comb stopped. Zan looked at him happily, as he nodded. He exited the room in a good mood.

After watching Zan leave, Alra opened his holographic screen to check the mails. Zan had already separated the important ones from others. He sighed as he looked at the number of messages in the spam box. "People never change no matter how much technology improves..." he muttered. Using his slender long fingers, he quickly went to the inbox for the company mails. Most of them was about how good the game sales were, some of them were requesting him to make a public debut. "Blazing Garden" was a company where the employees never saw the president in life. Most meetings were done in voice chat, if it was a video chat, president would send his assistant to replace him. Since the game release, "Blazing Garden" met in game to do the company meetings and this was followed by other companies as well.

"Guess I will join a meeting in-game."he muttered, as he started cl.i.c.k.i.n.g on the holographic keyboard. This matter reminded him that he was still level 1... He was depressed after not finding any friends, and logged off. Who would have expected, after logging off that day he had to deal with company business, which lead him to be unable to play again. Now that a month had passes since the launch, everyone was at least level 30.

This thought made his hands stop. If the company president came using a level one character, won't this be an embarrassment in front of all the employees was the thought on his head. He quickly started typing on a new window, mentioning he didn't have time to level yet to the employees, and wrote out that after he was at least level 20, he would start joining company meetings in-game. After sending out the mail to the assistant he had in the company, he felt a gaze on him. He turned back to see Zan staring at him with a tray in his hand.

"I have brought breakfast." Zan answered happily as he set the tray on the work desk in the room. "Zan after eating I will play games, so you can do as you wish." Alra said to Zan as he sat down on the work desk. "Alra, is it possible for androids to play that game you made?" Zan asked curiously. Alra looked at Zan, a look of surprise was on his face. "Well... I never expected for an android to have interest in it, since most of them are not equipped with self development and freedom to choose."he answered. "In the future, I will try to see if you can play with me. Have patience until I reach end game content though."seeing Zan having a dejected look, Alra quickly added.

Zan seemed to be satisfied by this answer, his usual smile returned to his face. Alra started eating the breakfast in front of him. He was always eating quickly, so his plate was clean after a few minutes. He slowly took the gaming helmet to his hands. "Zan, I will be playing for a few days, so don't worry about my food."he said as he placed the helmet on his head.

Suddenly, he was in a lush forest. Looking around him, he realized how empty the area was. "I guess a month of inactivity really left me behind everyone else."he muttered as he opened up the system menu.

Lifegiving Blaze, Level 1 Angel Priest (No Path), his status menu was same as a month before. After seeing there were no changes, he looked at the skill menu to see only one skill was available to him as a Level 1 player. "Holy Flame" was the spell available for all priests after their creation. "Following the guidance of the holy one, priests burns their enemies for 12 fire damage. If the enemy is from demonic origins, 12 holy damage is added."was the information given about this spell. Alra placed the spell into the action bar screen he had, just in case his set up was not working well. After that, he used the racial skill of angel race "Hide Wings" which allowed them to blend in with others. System 01 once said red wings were only available to him, so he has been hiding them ever since he started the game.

He started walking around the forest, looking for the quest giver. There was supposed to be a quest around here somewhere. As he was walking he noticed flowers growing around the area. He was not busy anyway, even though he wanted to level up, he still wanted to enjoy the game rather than racing to the end. So he bent down to pick the flower. "Lifegiving Blaze gained the Herb Collecting skill! The skill is now available on Profession Skills page." The voice of the system said in a cheerful voice. This was a setting where the System would directly announce inside the head of the player. He knew this voice. System had many avatars, which led to each avatar having different voices and personalities. These avatars were assigned to different duties. System 01, was assigned to Character Creation Helper duty a month ago. Perhaps the main system changed her duty to "System Voice" now. Alra felt happy. He was happy to see that the system he developed was working the way intended.

He opened the Professional Skills page, to see Herb Collecting skill which was currently Level 1. This skill was a group of skills, as he leveled the main skill, other skills would level as well. His eyes rested on a skill, which seemed useful.

"Herb Detection now active."a calm voice sounded in his head. It was possible to activate skills just by thinking about it. Alra knew from the game forum that players usually shout out the skill name rather than simply thinking. "Guess they haven't found out about this yet."he muttered.

After that, he continued walking, as he collected the flowers and herbs around him. He saw few players around but none of them paid attention to him. A Level 1 player wouldn't drop anything decent and wouldn't give PvP points. In other words, killing Alra was a waste of time.

After a long time of gathering herbs, Alra reached his destination, in front of him was a man who was covered in blood, holding on a box. The man seemed to notice him as his eyes lit up.

"Hey, young man, can you help this poor villager with his dying wish?"he said in a pained voice as he tried to give the box to him. 'You have received a Quest for the first time! You can find your quests in the Contract Book."the cheerful voice of the system sounded. "I will." Alra said, as he took the box. "Last Wish" was the name of this quest and the requirement was to deliver the box to the daughter of this villager. This was the quest to lead players to the starting village where more quests and starter professions awaited.

Alra took the box, and looked back at the man who was stabbed by a cheap dagger. It looked like he was attacked by some poor bandits. He wanted to see if he could heal an NPC but he didn't have any healing spells yet. The game allowed players to make their own decisions as they would do in real life. Their actions could trigger new quests made up by the system or new rewards from the system. "I can kill some wolves in the forest to level up."he thought, and took the box into his inventory. "I will return shortly."he promised the man.

The forest was filled with low level creatures such as bears and wolves. There were some Elite creatures which dropped quality items, materials, skill books or pets. This forest only had one and it was Level 10. Low level players had to run once they saw it because they were no match for that monstrosity. Alra went deeper into the forest once again, trying to be cautious as he collected herbs. The path behind him was filled with charred corpses of animals and his inventory was filled with herbs and items such as wolf meat, bear claw, fur, leather and few pieces of copper. His greatest loot was the low quality sword looted from a wolf though. The game did not limit the weapons to class. There were different stats for each but each class could use all weapons available. The ability of the player was the main point. Skills could be made by the system specific to the player capability. Priests who had no melee skills could gain a skill by using a weapon in professional way. This was also a way to promote the importance of real life skills in the game.

Alra had already lived for 418 years. He trained with many masters and had mastered most of the weapons and martial arts. His way of living was not hinting at his skill though. The basic healing skill "Holy Touch" was available at level 5. He was already level 3, a level he gained by killing animals in the forest. His equipment was still the set with 0 stats, which was acquired by creating a character. The players would gain new equipment after questing in the village for a while, but Alra had started levelling by killing monsters just to test if he could get a hidden quest from the dying villager NPC. He looked at the sword dissapointedly, at least it was a bit more satisfactory than the starter level staff given to each priest. The weapon he liked the most was swords after all. "A bit more then I can finally go back..."he sighed as he went even more deeper into the forest, unaware of the warning sign next to the tree near him.