When Sunghye entered Arceldia, she took a deep breath and marvelled at the fact the designers even focused on the details such as smell and sound. The bird chirps filled her ears lovingly and she could smell the nonexistent flowers that surrounded her.

The sun that was in the game was also blinding and so in turn she imagined a wheel that would bring down the intensity. Instantly she was greeted with less of a glare and she smiled.

Over the past fifty years, technology advances had grown exponentially especially when it came to virtual worlds. Big companies that usually weren’t invested in entertainment like that, started to fund them when they realized the marketing niche of gamers and citizens alike. With money behind the foot of the developers and engineers of the first ever project, it was expected to grow and it did in time.

Arceldia was just one of the many games created for the software called Ninowatt.

As explained by the creators, Ninowatt was the first of its kind with its sense of mind teleportation into a virtual world. The system was designed to look like a pair of glasses and it gave the ability for full body immersion into a game of the player’s choice in which their body would be in a temporary state of sleep. Or the option of semi-immersion in which case the player could still function in the real world as well as play to a certain extent—sort of like a portable game boy.

For the most part however due to the feel and experience, most which played chose the first option just like Sunghye.

Over the past year she had worked hard to collect enough money at her job as an assistant cook in one of the many meal trucks rolling around the city. With the rise of Ninowatt gaming, the meals on wheels grew popular and were more readily available everywhere as the decline of restaurants and fast foods were on the brink of extinction. The reason for that was the fluctuation of people who stayed inside to game and was too lazy to travel far for some food, because of that Sunghye was able to get money a little faster.

Buying the software itself was the priciest purchase out of everything but given how many different virtual worlds people can visit at the touch of the those glasses, it was well worth it.

At first when Sunghye was scanning the wall of games and trying to decide which world to pick, Arceldia wasn’t ones she was contemplating about. With the advice of a couple of friends whispering into her ear, Sunghye was about to reach the newly released game The Renegade's Sword that was an instant hit for its development of realistic deaths and endless list of skills achievable for anyone (with a few hidden skills for the best of the best). It was one of the first that wasn’t in the fantasy genre so it was a wonder that it was highly accepted by the Ninowatt gamers.

Just when Sunghye was about to reach for that game however, she noticed one with a simple cover of a beautifully sunlit sky and elegant words that spelt out Arceldia. Bewitched and intrigued, Sunghye purchased that instead.

Once Sunghye arrived in the comfort of her apartment, she quickly rushed through her human functions as the itch to put on the Ninowatt grew stronger with every second that passed. When she was finally done and sitting on her bed, Sunghye inserted the microchip containing Arceldia into the slot on the side of the glasses.  The first thing she had to do was establish her settings that recorded her personal and physical information before she was finally able to enter the virtual world.

Taking in the scene before her, Sunghye didn’t regret buying Arceldia at all.

Just when she was about to venture and explore the world a blinking exclamation came into her vision and with no choice, Sunghye clicked it.

Instantly the world went dark and a voice echoed into her ears.

“Welcome to Arceldia, the land of enchantment and mystery.”

It was a male voice, Sunghye noticed.

“If you look to your left you’ll find a menu, please click on the item that has been added to your inventory.”

Following the instructions, Sunghye did so and was surprised to see a full length mirror appear before her. The voice continued on.

“Now the exciting part, you get to pick what species you want to be a part of. Here, the world is divided into six races; the Elves, the Faeries, the Warbeasts, the Demigods, the Sirens, and lastly the Humanoids.”

At his words, she saw in the mirror a different version of herself six times turn in a circle. The first was the one that looked exactly like her with brown medium length hair and brown eyes. Automatically she assumed that was the Humanoid.

“What are the Humanoids?” Sunghye asked, not seeing any obvio