Rebirth Was No Reason to Stop Gaming

"Could I really be the protagonist? Or a hidden Lucky Player?"

Li Si looked at the time displayed on his smart wristband and sank into deep thought.

Being transported to another world once had been lucky enough, but he hadn't just been transported here—he'd been reborn, too.

Although he'd planned the rebirth himself, the actual odds of success had been less than one in a hundred million. It had practically come down to pure luck.

If he hadn't been backed into a corner, he wouldn't have dared use that shoddily made time machine.

And yet, he'd just given it a try—and it had actually worked. Even he couldn't believe the odds.

He didn't know whether it was the protagonist's luck or the materials used to build the time machine, but he'd returned to exactly three years earlier, the day Earth OL officially launched.

Earth OL was a virtual game. Yes, the kind commonly found in webnovels about online games from his previous, previous life. And, following the usual formula, players would eventually be able to bring their in-game abilities back to reality.

In his previous life, he'd accidentally taken part in the game's beta test. The game recreated another Earth, where players could only work odd jobs and earn money. It had seemed incredibly boring.

But then he'd realized that this wasn't an ordinary Earth setting. In the game's version of Earth, he'd found all sorts of things, including Stark Industries and Oscorp Industries.

He'd known those names all too well. He'd immediately realized that this game wasn't some business sim where you got to experience a second life. It was a hodgepodge of all kinds of Marvel Comics and movie universes.

More importantly, although the world he'd been transported to was also called Earth, it was supposedly an Earth that had undergone a cataclysm. Civilization had since rebuilt itself and reached an advanced level, but the people here had never even heard of things like DC or Marvel Comics.

What happened next was simple. Taking advantage of his foreknowledge, he joined the military after the game's official launch, got his hands on a Hulk serum, and successfully underwent the transformation. After that, he spent his days crushing players, showing off, and slapping down anyone who crossed him, eventually reaching the pinnacle of life. He'd been the perfect embodiment of a protagonist.

Unfortunately, in the later stages of the game, players could bring their abilities back to reality—but not all of them. In the real world, he couldn't fight off a crowd on his own, and he hadn't unlocked the Hulk's most important talent, Infinite Rage. The consequences were predictable.

With too many enemies, he'd been left with nowhere to turn in the real world and could only keep moving from place to place, while the gap in power between him and his pursuers continued to widen.

In the end, relying on his knowledge of the story, he'd risked his life to obtain the Time Stone and the Space Stone in the game, then pinned his hopes on a shoddily made time machine built from the two stones.

Calling it shoddily made was being generous. The thing was just two Infinity Stones and a basic activation device—a no-name product through and through. He'd cobbled the device together based on what a few physicists in the game had told him.

And yet that thing had actually opened a passage through time and space, bringing him back in one piece.

"By my calculation, the official game pod should be arriving soon."

After checking the time, Li Si got up and headed for the door.

Even though three years had passed, he still remembered exactly when the game pod had arrived. During the beta test, after discovering that the game was set in a Marvel Comics world, he'd waited for the official game pod with bated breath. Every second had felt like an eternity as he watched the clock.

The excitement he'd felt back then was still fresh in his memory. But now, all that remained was a sense of calm.

Li Si walked silently to the door, and the doorbell rang right on cue. He opened the door to find a short, thin man wearing a black vest with a starry-sky logo on it.

Behind the man was a small delivery robot. Its forklift-like mechanical arms were carrying a large cardboard box.

"Hello, I'm here from Astral Gaming Company to deliver your game pod. Would you like me to install it for you?"

The short man spoke.

"No need. Just put it in my room. I'll install it myself."

Li Si shook his head and gestured toward his room.

"Sure."

The short man nodded and directed the delivery robot to carry the game pod into Li Si's room. Then he returned to Li Si and said,

"Sir, here's the delivery receipt. Please sign it. Also, since the beta-test headset has been discontinued, our company is offering beta-test players a trade-in discount. If you have a beta-test headset, you can give it to me to be recycled. Once we confirm it's undamaged, the company will refund part of the purchase price."

"No need. I'm not short on money, and I'm planning to keep the beta-test headset as a memento."

Li Si briskly signed the delivery receipt and handed it over.

"Then I won't bother you any longer. Enjoy the game."

Seeing this, the short man said nothing more. He nodded politely, then turned and left.

Li Si watched the Star Realm Company employee leave, then smiled and turned around to fetch a pile of tools and a black headset with a metallic sheen.

"I thought it was useless junk. Who knew it'd come in handy for me?"

Using a screwdriver, Li Si took apart the black headset and removed a fingernail-sized chip from its densely packed circuit boards. Looking at its crystal-clear, sapphire-like surface, he smiled, half wistfully and half admiringly.

He had no idea what the chip was made of, but he knew what it did. Earth OL's fully immersive virtual mode existed thanks to this chip.

Although the beta-test headset didn't have that mode enabled, the function had been built into both its hardware and software. It was simply hidden and inactive. The official game pod, however, had had that part of the hardware removed.

Even Astral Gaming Company, the company that distributed the game, didn't know about this hidden feature. It wasn't discovered until more than two years later, when a tech-savvy player stumbled upon it.

By then, however, the fully immersive virtual mode had already been released. The discovery was nothing more than a bit of trivia to chat about over tea.

But things were different now. Using this chip to activate the fully immersive virtual mode early could give him a huge head start over everyone else.