December 21, 12:30 PM.
It had already been half an hour since the game launched. A player with the name “Let Me See See” floating above his head stood still, tapping repeatedly in the air in front of him.
“Damn, this game is such a scam. No starting class, and not even any quest guidance?!”
Like most players, he had just entered the game and was completely confused by the current state of things. With no idea what to do, he could only open the in-game forum and search for some guides.
Fortunately, the forum had a prominently featured section labeled “Premium Posts,” where the class selection guides were conveniently located.
“Class Guide — Priest? Nah, I’m not playing support, pass. Archer? That name’s lame, next. Swordsman? Too common, nope. Warrior? Too rough…”
“Hmm, from the looks of it, only Knight and Mage suit me.” Let Me See See looked troubled as he tapped into the Knight section first.
“This class is an all-rounder, but due to the harsh conditions for class advancement, it’s not recommended.” As soon as he clicked in, a bold red sentence appeared at the top. The explanation below clarified that closed beta players had found the Knight’s advanced class transitions extremely difficult, requiring many specific conditions.
Let Me See See was quickly dissuaded and chose Mage instead.
When he opened the Mage section, there were plenty of details listed. Ignoring the technicalities, he jumped straight to the class quest description: “To begin the Mage class quest, go to the Mage Association in your starting zone and register. Upon successful registration, the quest will be unlocked.”
“Please note: Before completing the class quest, you may abandon it. However, once a class is selected, it cannot be changed!”
“P.S. The registration fee for all classes is 1 gold coin. The system grants 3 gold coins at the start, so every player gets two chances to change their mind.”
Let Me See See opened his inventory and saw three gold coins resting quietly inside. Delighted, he headed off to register at the Mage Association.
This same scenario played out for many other players. Most of them chose stable-progress classes like Mage, Swordsman, or Rogue. Knights, however, were picked only by a few stubborn die-hards who didn’t believe the warnings.
After finally locating the Mage Association, Let Me See See was just about to enter when the system notified him that the area was overcrowded and offered him the option to switch to a solo story mode. Seeing the huge crowd inside the building—he could barely get through the door—he opted in for solo mode.
A wave of dizziness hit him, and his vision blurred. About two seconds later, his sight cleared up again, and the Mage Association was now completely empty.
Let Me See See walked in. After paying 1 gold coin, he successfully received his class quest and a skill book. Upon opening the skill book, it was automatically consumed, and he learned the following skills: Meditation, Mana Control, and the basic elemental magic spells of the Mage class.
Beginner Mage Class Quest —
- Condition 1: Learn at least five spells from the same element
- Condition 2: Reach Level 20
Meditation – Active Skill: While in a meditative state, mana regeneration increases dramatically.
Mana Control – Passive Skill: A required skill to cast magic. Cannot be unlearned.
‘This game’s class quests and skills are so weird… completely different from other games I’ve played.’ Let Me See See muttered in his mind as he stepped out the door.
Solo story mode automatically ended. After a brief spell of dizziness, he returned to the bustling, crowded street.
At 5 p.m., Zhang Cheng finished his work at the company for the day and began packing up his workstation to go home.
His role at the company was in operations and maintenance, and since today marked the official launch of the game’s open beta, monitoring the server status required significant manpower. The team leader and other colleagues were all still working overtime and were expected to spend the night at the office.
During such a crucial period, the more hands available, the better. However, the project supervisor, aware that Zhang Cheng was both a university student and the CEO’s son, did not require him to stay and work overtime.
As he left the office under the envious gazes of his soon-to-be coworkers, Zhang Cheng walked to the front desk to clock out and noticed that the previously pale wallpaper on the wall had been replaced with a massive game poster.
In the poster, a silver-haired woman with horns stood atop the head of a silver-white dragon, arms akimbo, her cold gaze staring ahead. Beneath her, the dragon raised its head and spewed pale blue flames from its mouth. Along the edge of the poster, people on the ground raised guns and shields, aiming their weapons at the dragon, as though a fierce battle was taking place between both sides.
Zhang Cheng furrowed his brow deeply. This image of the horned, silver-haired dragon girl seemed oddly familiar—but no matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t recall where he had seen it before.
Shaking his head, Zhang Cheng put the thought aside. Ever since that incident, he had focused on his studies and hadn’t touched a game in over two years.
Landing an internship at a major gaming company like Eternal World in his junior year of college was something he had earned purely on the strength of his skills—not because his father was a high-level executive at the company.
When he got home, the delivery from a high-end restaurant he had ordered arrived right on time. It had been arranged by his mother, who was worried he wouldn’t eat properly after moving out on his own. She had insisted on setting up daily deliveries—two meals a day, delivered at specific times by a designated person.
Taking the food inside and changing into more comfortable clothes, Zhang Cheng habitually turned on his computer monitor and searched for news about Eternal World on his browser—a routine he had maintained for the past two years.
Today was the game’s launch day, so unsurprisingly, all the news was game-related. Zhang Cheng was already familiar with most of it, but as he scrolled through the top search results, one post on the Eternal players’ community forum stood out.
The post was titled: “Let’s Chat: Discussing the Worldview and Main Plot of Eternal.”
The article piqued Zhang Cheng’s curiosity, and as he skimmed through it, one particular paragraph caught his attention:
“According to the game developers, the flow of time in the game world is exactly the same as on Earth. Based on the map’s scale, the equator in Eternal is only slightly smaller than Earth’s. That raises an interesting question: do different regions in the game world follow Earth’s time zones? Or does the entire game run on a unified time?”
“This question is something we’ll all have to explore and verify together. But the next issue isn’t quite so simple.”
“Anyone who’s played the game today can already feel just how real the world of Eternal is. With today’s most advanced supercomputers, this level of realism is not impossible to achieve. However, a single supercomputer can only support the simulation of an environment the size of a football field. And yet the world of Eternal? From the game’s map, it’s almost as large as Earth!”
“Even if not all of that map is accessible, based on what the developers have released, just the southern continent and nearby seas already cover roughly 12 million square kilometers. In contrast, a football field is only 7,000 square meters. That’s a difference of nearly 1.7 billion times! How could Eternal Group possibly have the power to simulate a world of that size?”
Zhang Cheng chuckled. The article sounded professional, but anyone with insider knowledge could tell it was just a paid post by competitors trying to stir up controversy using outdated data found online.
The claims about simulating a football-field-sized environment were from before Eternal Group’s tech revolution.
Thanks to their groundbreaking innovations, their supercomputers could now simulate up to 22,000 square kilometers of data—technology that had remained tightly controlled by the company. Without such capabilities, how else could their holographic tech have helped the company rise to become a global tech giant in just a few short years?
In fact, two years ago, the company’s research experts had already developed the latest generation of supercomputers, with processing power nearly a thousand times greater than before. Though it sounded unbelievable to outsiders, these things were entirely achievable—and Eternal itself was proof of that.
Though Zhang Cheng still harbored resentment toward Eternal World because of the Lu Qiuchen incident, he had always admired the company’s R&D strength. And the more he learned about Eternal Group, the more respect—and fear—he felt.
Scrolling further down, at the bottom under the Eternal World Main Storyline section, Zhang Cheng found another passage:
“The place I was randomly sent to belonged to a kingdom called Tara a few months ago. When I asked the NPCs here about its history, I noticed they were very sensitive to that word.”
“After I spent enough gold coins, these greedy NPCs finally told me about this place’s past.”
“The Calamity Dragon destroyed the Druids.”
“But even after that, no matter how much I asked, the NPCs refused to say more. All I know is that the Calamity Dragon is a silver dragon.”
“Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? Yes, a few days ago in the official promo PV, a silver dragon appeared. I think the devs are clearly hinting at something—the dragon is deeply connected to the main storyline.”
“Since the developers love acting like cryptic riddlemakers hiding information, I can’t guarantee my analysis is correct. If anyone has more info, feel free to leave a comment below so we can figure it out together.”
Zhang Cheng found this quite interesting and scrolled down to the comments section.
“OP, haven’t you been following the leaks from Game Weekly? They already revealed the game’s final boss is a white-haired, red-eyed non-human girl! That’s the silver dragon you mentioned. Just a heads-up, her name is Cecilia!”
“Haha, OP, you’re down bad. I got randomly teleported into the Holy Nation. The Calamity Dragon’s already been wanted all over the continent—every bit of info is out there. And you paid to dig around? You’re the definition of a clown.”
“You guys are too harsh. OP’s just trying to share some info!”
“You clearly don’t know the full story. This OP got famous on the forum in a single afternoon. Click their profile—you’ll see how many wild posts they made trashing the game. This post even sounds like a conspiracy theory. Total paid shill! Most players are flaming them now.”
Zhang Cheng didn’t bother reading further. He remembered the poster he saw at work today and suddenly grew curious about the PV mentioned in the article. After eating and washing up, he sat down to watch the game’s promo PV from a few days ago.
When the silver dragon girl appeared, the bullet comments exploded in chaos, covering the whole screen and making it hard to see. He turned off the comments and stared at the silver-haired dragon girl with a calm expression—and then, that strange feeling of familiarity hit him again.
Zhang Cheng racked his brain but couldn’t figure out where that feeling came from. He rewound and replayed the scene several times. Then suddenly, he remembered something from two and a half years ago—Lu Qiuchen had mentioned she created a dragon girl character in a game.
A dragon girl! White hair, red eyes! Well, this one had silver hair, not white, but close enough. He was the one who got Lu Qiuchen into anime culture, after all, so he was very familiar with his buddy’s tastes.
With that in mind, Zhang Cheng rewound the PV back to the scene where the dragon girl appeared, paused the video, and mentally tried to overlay Lu Qiuchen’s appearance onto her…
Uh, not even close. “The kid” might’ve had delicate features, but her looks didn’t match the dragon girl at all.
Wait a minute… this dragon girl’s eyes—
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