(Brain storage)
"Come back to life, my love!!"
At eleven that night, a heart-wrenching roar shattered the quiet of the room.
Su Li stared at the phone screen, at Lao Bu's dismal 0–12 record, and let out a soul-deep howl.
"Bang!" The bedroom door flew open, and a petite figure stood in the doorway, radiating menace.
"Su Li! You idiot of a brother! Do you know what time it is? Why aren't you asleep? What are you yelling about?"
Su Lin Yue wore loose pajamas, and her messy hair made her look like a hissing Hajimi. Her eyes brimmed with murderous intent.
Su Li hunched his shoulders and gave an awkward chuckle as he tried to tuck his phone under the pillow. "Ahem, Yueyue... I'm just playing a few more rounds, then..."
"A few more rounds?"
Su Lin Yue froze for a moment. Then, as if she'd thought of something, her little face turned bright red. She glared at him before slamming the door and leaving.
"Stupid brother! If you play so much you can't have kids, don't come crying to me! You pervert!"
"Uh..." Su Li rubbed his nose and sighed helplessly.
Did that girl get the wrong idea about something?
Still, even after getting scolded by his sister, there was no way he was going to bed. He'd never turn in early—not in this lifetime!
Su Li dragged a silver briefcase with a high-tech design out from under his bed, his eyes instantly alight with excitement.
Just three days ago, he'd received an invitation from a mysterious gaming company called Eternal Technology.
The company claimed to have developed a groundbreaking virtual reality game with a realism rating of 100%—Eternal Realm—and invited him to be one of the first closed-beta players worldwide.
There were only 100 spots worldwide for the first test.
As a veteran Big Boss on a well-known gaming forum, Su Li had been lucky enough to claim one of them.
"Even if the company's name sounds like it belongs to some villainous organization, I'm not turning down a free helmet."
Su Li glanced at the wall clock. It was 11:30 p.m.
There were exactly thirty minutes left until the first closed beta of Eternal Realm began.
"As a future top-tier player, I have to make every second count."
Su Li eagerly lay back down and put on the high-tech helmet.
[Scanning genes... Identity successfully bound...]
[Welcome to Eternal Realm.]
His consciousness wavered for a moment. When Su Li opened his eyes again, his breath caught.
A vast, desolate scene stretched out before him.
Gigantic floating islands crumbled among the clouds. Ruined temples still blazed with golden flames that would never go out. A broken greatsword lay across the land, and in the distance, some indescribable shadow writhed slowly behind the clouds.
The epic grandeur hit him like he was standing right in the middle of the battlefield at the twilight of the gods.
"Damn, no wonder they call this a groundbreaking virtual game. The scenery looks incredible."
Su Li floated in midair from the perspective of a spirit. He tried reaching out to touch the ashes drifting by.
"With detail this good, it's already impossible to tell whether this is a game or reality. My graphics card's going to melt..."
A countdown ticked away in the center of his vision.
[Time until launch: 25:00]
His character couldn't move yet, but a [Character Creation] window had already appeared.
"Obviously, I'll start by customizing my character." Su Li opened the menu with practiced ease.
[Please select your race]
[1. Human]
[2. Random (???)]
"Hm? Only two options?" Su Li raised an eyebrow. "That's it? Was the game's development team so behind schedule they just ran off?"
He decided to check out the human option first and clicked [Human].
[Reading player's real-world physical data...]
The next second, an image of a shirtless man appeared in the light screen.
"Whoa, this model looks just as handsome as the readers currently reading this!"
Su Li stroked his chin and nodded smugly.
[Notice: Players may only enhance their appearance by up to 30%. This game does not support changing gender. Please do not attempt to create a female character.]
"Tch. Not being able to play as a girl takes away half the fun." Su Li pursed his lips and looked at the option beside it.
[Random], with a small line of red warning text underneath:
[Warning: If you choose Random, your race will be randomly selected from all races on the Aiseland Continent. Possible races include elves, dwarves, orcs, dragons, elemental beings, and other rare bloodlines. This choice cannot be changed. Please proceed with caution!]
"Dragons? Elves?" Su Li's eyes lit up.
As a seasoned player, he knew the drill. Random selection usually meant high risk, but it also meant a chance at an overpowered hidden class!
"If I get a dragon, I'll be invincible from the start! And if not, maybe I'll get a succubus... Ahem." Su Li licked his lips, his gaze growing sharp.
"You have to understand, I, Su, am a cautious player. So at a time like this, of course I should..."
"Take a gamble and turn my bicycle into a motorcycle!"
Nothing could stop the soul of a gambler. Su Li clicked the [Random] button without hesitation!
Whoosh!
Countless phantoms flashed past: a mighty dragon, a holy angel, a fearsome demon...
At last, the pointer slowed to a stop.
[Ding! Random selection complete. Congratulations, player! Race obtained: Little Skeleton.]
The light faded, and the handsome young man disappeared.
In his place was a tiny, pale, brittle-boned skeleton that looked like a single bump from a dog would knock it apart.
"..." Su Li opened his stats panel with trembling fingers.
[Race: Little Skeleton]
[Level: Lv1]
[Strength: 1, Agility: 5, Constitution: 3, Spirit: 8]
[Talent: None]
[Evaluation: Weak as hell! You're probably at the very bottom of the food chain—no, you're not even a living creature. Even a slightly sturdy slime could squash you into bone dust. We recommend staying indoors so a stray dog doesn't run off with your thighbone.]
"Damn it!!" Su Li stared at his Strength stat of just "1," his face darkening.
"How am I supposed to play like this? One-tenth the strength of an adult man? You damn dog of a developer, give me my money back! I want a reroll!"
But the four gray words on the screen—[Cannot Be Changed]—coldly mocked him for his impulsiveness.
"Whatever... I'm already here." Su Li took a deep breath and recalled one of the four great tenets of Chinese tolerance.
"At least it's a hidden race. Maybe it has some advantage later on. Like not needing to eat?"
Just then, the countdown reached zero.
[Game begins.]
A flash of light swept over him, and Su Li's consciousness plummeted. The sensation of falling was incredibly real.
Then a CG animation unfolded before him. The scene was bleak, as though viewed through a thick curtain of rain.
"Fallen leaves bring news..."
"Since the War of the Gods, the great Aiseland Continent has faced the corruption of the Abyss. The gods are gone..."
"Chosen one, blessed by the world, cross the mist and seek the flame that can grant eternity! Save this world!"
A weathered voice-over rang out alongside the sweeping image of the ruins, prompting Su Li to complain, "Holy crap, this opening CG feels so familiar. Did the developers play too much Old Man Ring? Still, there's no faulting the graphics."
The scene shifted to a dim, damp wooden hut.
A figure in a dusty gray robe and hood knelt before a crude plank bed.
The figure looked like a child, filthy from head to toe, chanting some kind of spell.
"O great God of Death... take pity on your humble follower..."
"Come back to life, my friend!!"
At the child's low cry, a ghostly blue flame ignited over the plank bed.
To Su Li's astonishment, the body beneath the white sheet slowly sat up.
The sheet slipped away, revealing a bald skull.
Two ghostly blue Soul Fires flickered uncertainly in its eye sockets.
[System Notice: You have arrived. Current mode: cutscene. You cannot act.]
"Oh?" Su Li focused his view on the skeleton and immediately understood.
"So this is my body? Is this my backstory? That's awesome—I even get a personal intro cutscene!"
Before he could admire his own "bony beauty" any further, someone kicked open the hut's door.
"Bang!" A burly man with a face full of flesh barged in.
"Damn you, Rosalia! I knew you were up to something!"
The man spotted the skeleton sitting on the bed, and his face twisted with disgust and fear.
"You dare bring a filthy skeleton monster into the village? It's a monster! If the church finds out, you'll drag the whole village down with you!"
Then his expression turned greedy. "Good thing I'm here. I can smash its skull and sell the soulstone for some drinking money. Hahahaha!"
The child called Rosalia trembled all over and hurriedly stepped in front of Su Li.
"No! Please! Uncle Lainer, this is my friend! She won't hurt anyone!"
"Friend? Hahaha! That's hilarious. Who'd be friends with a skeleton monster?"
Lainer sneered, stepped forward, and grabbed Rosalia by the collar, lifting her off the ground.
"If you want me to spare it, hand over all your food..."
"But... that's for the winter..."
"Shut up!" Lainer took a cloth bag from the room and weighed it in his hand, still seeming unsatisfied.
His murky eyes roved over Rosalia's dirt-smeared face. Then he suddenly smiled wickedly and lowered his voice.
"Well, well. Look at you. You're a little dirty, but you've got a pretty face. If I sent you to the House of Joy in the city, I bet the priests would like you..."
Rosalia turned deathly pale and struggled desperately. Su Li couldn't move on the bed, but a line of system information appeared before his eyes.
[NPC: Rosalia (human girl)]
[Status: Malnourished, terrified]
[Talent: Necromancer]
"Hm? A girl? And a necromancer? Am I playing some kind of summoner?" Su Li looked at Rosalia, dressed like a beggar, and wondered to himself.
"Is she the princess I'm supposed to save? The girl-disguised-as-a-boy-and-getting-bullied bit is a little clichéd... but the villain's lines are seriously disgusting."
The story continued. In the end, under Lainer's threats, Rosalia handed over all the Copper Coins she'd been hiding for a long time.
To protect her friend, she had no choice but to carry Su Li out of the village that night.
The scene shifted to the outskirts of the Undead Mountain Range, in the Forest of Death.
Rain poured down. Rosalia, drenched to the skin, set Su Li down at the edge of the Forest of Death.
With red-rimmed eyes, the girl stroked Su Li's cold skull and tearfully said something along the lines of "I'm sorry," "You have to stay alive," and "I'll find a way to bring you back to life."
But Su Li had run out of patience. The raindrops pattered against his bones.
"Damn, is there no skip button? One star!!!"
As Rosalia walked away, looking back again and again, Su Li suddenly felt the restraints disappear.
[Cutscene ended. Free control enabled.]
"I can finally move!" Su Li reflexively tried to jump up, but—
"Crack!" He used too much force and still hadn't adjusted to his new body, so he landed flat on his face and dislocated his left hand in the process.
But at that moment, Su Li couldn't care less about the pain—or rather, he couldn't feel human pain at all.
Instead, he felt something strange and unprecedented.
The chill of rain sliding over his ribs, the breeze passing through the gaps in his pelvis, and the strange sight of seeing everything around him without needing to blink.
"Holy crap..."
Su Li used his still-attached right hand to put his jaw back in place. The Soul Fire in his eye sockets flared wildly.
"This feeling... so this is what it's like to be a skeleton? This is way too real! It's like I've actually become a different species!"
He looked down at his gleaming white finger bones and deftly made a friendly hand gesture.
The friction of every joint and the knock of every bone came through with perfect clarity.
"Eternal Technology... you've got something here. If I ever switch careers and write novels, I can say I've been a skeleton. No more making stuff up!" Su Li excitedly spun around twice.
"So, what do I do next? Is this game going to be like that obscure Light of the Soul, with no guidance at all?"
As he wondered, a translucent blue window appeared before his eyes.
But before he could check it...
"Holy crap, help!"
Before you continue