Chapter 1: The Trash Player Gets One More Chance
My name is Jake Miller and I was about to delete the game that ruined my life.
I sat in my tiny apartment, the only light coming from my crappy laptop screen. The room smelled like instant ramen and regret. Empty cups were stacked on my desk. I hadn't showered in three days.
My VR headset was already strapped to my head. I'd been wearing it for the past hour, wandering around the starting town one last time before I quit forever.
On the screen visible through the visor, my character stood in the starting town of Eternal Quest Online. Level 1. Trash equipment. Zero friends online.
Just like me in real life.
EQO launched six months ago and became the biggest thing in gaming history. Full dive VR that felt completely real. A massive fantasy world where players could become heroes, make millions of dollars selling rare items for real cash, and live out dreams they'd never achieve in the real world.
Everyone I knew was playing it. My old college friends were already level 50, running dungeons and making bank. My little sister quit her job to stream EQO full time and now she made more in a month than I made in a year at my dead end data entry job.
Me? I was stuck at level 1.
Not because I didn't try. I tried so fucking hard it hurt.
I picked Mage as my class on day one. Seemed like the right choice. Big damage, cool spells, glass cannon fantasy. Except I didn't know that Mage was considered the worst class in the game. Terrible early game. Skills cost too much mana. Cloth armor meant everything one shot you. Other classes could solo level. Mages needed parties.
And nobody wanted a level 1 Mage in their party.
I spent six months getting rejected. Six months watching other players zoom past me. Six months being called trash in zone chat.
"Just reroll a better class," people said.
But I couldn't. The game only gave you one character slot unless you paid real money for more. And I was broke. Completely broke. I'd spent my last savings on the VR headset just to play this stupid game.
So here I was. Six months wasted. Still level 1. About to quit.
I opened the menu with a thought and navigated to the character deletion screen.
My hand hovered over the confirm button in the air.
This was it. The end of my EQO journey before it even started. I'd go back to my shitty job, my shitty apartment, my shitty life where nothing ever worked out.
I reached out to confirm the deletion.
Then my apartment went dark.
Not just dark. Completely black. Like someone cut the power to the entire building.
The game screen in my headset was the only light left, glowing blue in the darkness.
And then the screen started glitching.
Lines of code ran across it. Not game code. Something else. Something that looked almost alive, crawling across the display like digital worms.
"What the hell?" I said out loud.
The deletion menu disappeared. A new message appeared in blood red text.
[SYSTEM ERROR DETECTED]
[TIMELINE ANOMALY IDENTIFIED]
[PLAYER: JAKE MILLER]
[STATUS: FAILED PLAYER]
[CORRECTION PROTOCOL INITIATED]
I stared at the screen through my headset visor. My brain couldn't process what I was reading.
Timeline anomaly? Correction protocol? This wasn't normal game text. This looked like someone hacked the server.
The red text disappeared. A new message appeared in gold.
[YOU HAVE BEEN CHOSEN FOR THE REGRESSION EVENT]
[RETURNING PLAYER TO OPTIMAL STARTING POINT]
[COMPENSATING FOR TIME LOST]
[INITIATING TRANSFER IN 3... 2... 1...]
The headset flared bright blue, so bright I had to squeeze my eyes shut.
I screamed.
Then everything went white.
When I opened my eyes, the full dive VR had intensified somehow. I wasn't just seeing the starting town through a screen anymore. I was actually standing in it.
Complete sensory immersion.
I could feel the sun on my skin. Smell the fresh air mixed with bread baking from the nearby NPC shop. Hear the sounds of other players running around, shouting, laughing.
My heart was pounding. This felt different. More real than it ever had before.
I looked down at my hands. My character's hands. I was wearing the starter cloth robes that all Mages began with. Brown and ugly and offering basically zero defense.
I opened my status screen with a thought.
[Name: Jake Miller]
[Class: Mage]
[Level: 1]
Same as always. Still trash.
But then I noticed something else. A new notification was flashing in the corner of my vision.
I focused on it and a message expanded.
[REGRESSION EVENT COMPLETE]
[WELCOME BACK, PLAYER JAKE MILLER]
[YOU HAVE BEEN RETURNED TO DAY 1 OF ETERNAL QUEST ONLINE]
[CURRENT DATE: LAUNCH DAY]
[ALL KNOWLEDGE FROM YOUR PREVIOUS TIMELINE HAS BEEN RETAINED]
[SPECIAL COMPENSATION AWARDED FOR FAILED TIMELINE]
I read it three times before it sank in.
Day 1. Launch day.
I was back at the beginning. Six months in the past.
This was the day EQO launched. The day I first created my character and picked Mage like an idiot.
But this time I had all my knowledge. I knew which classes were good. I knew where the best grinding spots were. I knew which quests gave the most experience.
I knew everything.
A laugh bubbled up from my chest. Then another. Soon I was laughing so hard other players nearby were staring at me like I'd lost my mind.
Maybe I had. But I didn't care.
I got a second chance. A literal do over.
The notification wasn't finished though. Another line of text appeared.
[SPECIAL COMPENSATION: HIDDEN CLASS UNLOCK]
[YOU HAVE RECEIVED: ARCHMAGE CLASS (MYTHIC TIER)]
[THIS CLASS IS NORMALLY LOCKED UNTIL LEVEL 100]
[AS COMPENSATION FOR YOUR FAILED TIMELINE, IT HAS BEEN UNLOCKED AT LEVEL 1]
[MAGE CLASS HAS BEEN UPGRADED TO ARCHMAGE CLASS]
[ALL MAGE SKILLS HAVE BEEN ENHANCED]
[NEW EXCLUSIVE SKILLS HAVE BEEN GRANTED]
My jaw dropped.
Archmage. The strongest Mage class in the game.
I knew about it from forums and videos. It was the final evolution of the Mage class tree. Players had to grind to level 100, complete an impossible quest chain, and sacrifice rare materials just for a chance to unlock it.
Less than ten people in the entire game had achieved it in my previous timeline.
And I just got it at level 1.
I opened my skill list with shaking hands.
[Arcane Missile] - Enhanced Version
Mana Cost: 5 (Normal version costs 20)
Damage: 500% (Normal version does 100%)
Cooldown: None (Normal version has 3 second cooldown)
[Fireball] - Enhanced Version
[Ice Spear] - Enhanced Version
[Meteor Strike] - Mythic Skill (Normally unlocked at level 80)
The list went on and on. Every basic Mage skill was supercharged. And I had access to endgame skills that shouldn't exist until level 80 or higher.
This was insane. This was broken.
This was my revenge arc.
I closed the menu and looked around the starting town. Hundreds of players were running around, excited for launch day. They had no idea what was coming. They didn't know which classes would dominate. Which guilds would rise and fall. Which players would become legends.
But I did.
And this time, I wasn't going to be the trash player everyone ignored.
This time, I was going to be the strongest.
A new player ran past me, some warrior type already bragging in zone chat about how he was going to be top ranked.
I smiled.
Good luck with that buddy.
I pulled up the world map and marked my first destination. There was a hidden dungeon just outside town that nobody discovered until week three in my old timeline. It had level 10 monsters but gave insane experience.
In my previous timeline, I couldn't have soloed it even at level 20.
But now with my Archmage skills?
I could clear it at level 1.
I started walking toward the town gate.
My second chance had begun.
And I wasn't going to waste it.