William’s laughter boomed through his dorm room as he threw his arms wide, his face alight with pride. “Third stage! That’s right, I’ve done it! Finally! Took me long enough, but now I’m officially ahead of every other player in the game once again!”

  [Player Overall Ranking: 1]

  “Hey, quiet over there! I’m trying to imagine myself sleeping with my waifu!” came a voice from the room beside his.

  Not giving it any attention, he could hardly believe this achievement himself. As a first-batch player with the inferior bright-grade aptitude — the highest mana aptitude possible for a player without a powerful magical beast bloodline — his progress hadn’t been the fastest of late. Yet, here he was, standing at the pinnacle, if only for now.

  “This is all thanks to you.” He kissed the empty vial of the Mana Aptitude Enhancement Elixir, cradling it as if it were his most cherished treasure. Though it couldn’t raise his mana aptitude beyond inferior bright grade, the boost to his meditation progress had been nothing short of miraculous.

  Still, he couldn’t help but doubt how things had been so smooth sailing a little.

  After all, the second-ranked player on the overall rankings, ButterflyWingsAreDelicious, was a Bloodline Magus. She might have suffered grievous injuries during the undead invasion and had to recover in the Nexus Tower’s healing pool for days. Yet, that shouldn’t have hindered her enough to stop her from catching up to him by now.

  And then there was KuroUsagi. He’d received a Magus inheritance, and it had become a boost that sent his progress skyrocketing, nearly overtaking William’s in the rankings. But then, his ascent stalled, and his ranking even began to drop a few.

  Something about all of this felt… off.

  Incredibly off.

  The only plausible reason for the slow increase was that KuroUsagi hadn’t logged in for an extended period of time. But what kind of important matter could possibly make him focus more on real life than to play this game?

  It didn’t add up. The game could be played even while sleeping, and with the two-to-one time difference between Earth and the game, it was practically like extending your lifespan. On top of that, you could earn a decent income by converting mana crystals into real money, taking care of most real-world necessities. It was like a dream come true.

  “Whatever. It doesn’t really matter what the reason is. All that matters is that I can brag about this to my friends,” William muttered, smiling in glee.

  With that, he set off to find his friends.

  Five players were gathered, their chatter echoing through the new cafeteria building of the academy.

  Zero groaned as soon as he heard the news, leaning back against the wall with a theatrical sigh. “Great, another week of you going on and on about you being the first one to achieve a new stage. Just what we needed.”

  “Going on?” William smirked, clearly enjoying himself. “Face it, Zero. I’m officially the first third-stage Initiate Attunement acolyte among the players. You should be taking notes!” He held up the empty vial of the Mana Aptitude Enhancement Elixir as though it were a trophy. “This elixir is worth every spirit coin we earned.”

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  Storm nodded his head enthusiastically. “Agreed! I splurged all my spirit coins on that and experimented with it to see how to increase my mana aptitude most effectively. While it’s stated it can only increase the aptitude once, I discovered that my inferior glimmering-grade mana aptitude managed to increase to advanced glimmering grade. I’ll be writing a guide on this soon for the internet and raking in a ton of views.”

  “Whoa! As expected of a veteran game streamer and guide maker,” Mike chimed in, clapping his hands in mock admiration.

  “Hahaha!” Storm laughed, slapping his knee for emphasis. “Still, it’s so damn annoying how Aphrodite managed to snatch that Gender-Changing Potion. And guess what he did with it? He didn’t use it on himself but experimented with it on animals! That splurging bastard!”

  Zero snorted. “What are you even complaining about? You wouldn’t have gathered enough spirit coins in time anyway.”

  Storm crossed his arms, pretending to pout. “That’s not the point! It would’ve been a once-in-a-lifetime chance to experiment— I mean, to create some seriously popular content. Just think of the engagement I could’ve gotten on my channel!”

  William chuckled. “Pfft. I’m pretty sure your channel would get an inappropriate content warning the moment you upload something like that.”

  “True, true.” Mike nodded astutely before smirking. “Maybe you should switch platforms from the red to the yellow and become one of the pornstars there.”

  “You are the pornstar! Your whole family’s a bunch of pornstars, dammit!”

  Laughter echoed as William and the others struggled to catch their breath as the joke settled in.

  “Forget the potion,” William said, wiping a tear of laughter from his eye. “What’s more important is that we still haven’t heard the full details of SuperNova’s hidden mission…”

  All heads turned to SuperNova, who was seated on the bench, his bluish undead skin standing out starkly against the vibrant, lively tones of the other players. Even after regaining access to his Shadowlink Mark and returning to the real world, his in-game avatar remained trapped in its undead state. In fact, he hadn’t been able to speak clearly for a couple of weeks and had to remain in the castle of the Ghost Necromancer until recently.

  The group exchanged glances. It was common speculation that he’d need to kill himself in-game and rely on the incubation pod for resurrection to regain his humanity. But there was also the unnerving possibility that his “master” might resurrect him as an undead again, trapping him in this form indefinitely.

  “Come on, SuperNova,” Storm pressed, leaning forward to listen. “Don’t leave us hanging for so long. What’s it like being undead? Can you even eat? Or do you just spend all your time scaring the crap out of NPCs and players?”

  SuperNova finally let out a long sigh, the sound dry and raspy, as though befitting his current form. “You really want to know?” His eyes flickered as he glanced at the group, who nodded eagerly. “All right. Let me tell you about the moment the mission started — and what it feels like when you become an undead…”

  He launched into the tale, recounting how it all began during a standard exploration mission while the others were away on the grand expedition. When exploring deep into the forest, he had fallen into a well-hidden pitfall trap, and before he knew it, he was dead. That death, however, wasn’t the end. Instead, he was resurrected as an undead minion under the command of the Ghost Necromancer, bound to do her bidding.

  “But it wasn’t all bad,” he added with a wry smirk. “In between the tasks she gave me, she taught me powerful magic and how to cook. My progress in magic was faster than I ever thought possible. I’ll admit, being undead has its perks.”

  “Still,” SuperNova’s tone darkened slightly, “the moment I realized I couldn’t log out was… terrifying. I seriously thought the game had turned into some kind of SAO scenario. You know, a death game.”

  The others chuckled nervously at the mention of the infamous trope.

  “But honestly,” he continued, a little bit positive in his voice, “the hidden mechanic turned out to be fun in its own way. Plus, the mechanics of being undead are way more interesting than I expected.”

  “Mm, I get that,” Storm chimed in. “In this regard, this game is not too different from others.”

  It wasn’t uncommon for players from opposing factions to mingle once the intensity of war subsided in games. Still, something about this felt peculiar — almost as if the academy and the undead army had reached some unspoken agreement, continuing their conflict as a mere charade for the players. However, such thoughts were baseless; after all, this was just a game.