Yone stepped through the open secret door and arrived at what appeared to be a black market underneath some sort of building.
He couldn't pinpoint his exact location, as even his map wasn't functioning since he hadn't yet discovered his current position. However, from the images he recalled from his past life, there was no doubt this was a black market. The only difference Yone noticed was the absence of players and dark guilds, with only NPCs operating here.
'Now this is truly troublesome,' Yone felt his heart tighten as he darted his eyes through the black market, which consisted of simple stalls and shops spread over a vast area spanning several kilometers, if he wasn't mistaken, since his eyes couldn't even spot an end wall at the far side.
'Walking in like this with my real identity is literally suicide, these NPCs after the first major update are no joke,' He knew the intelligence of those game characters and could vow that this wouldn't be any different from a real-world black market. Some sort of mask is needed, alas, he had none.
Suddenly, as someone resembling a guard approached him, Yone felt his mind spin. He was about to log off instantly after inspecting him, but several error messages appeared before him.
Name: ???
Level: ???
Tier: ???
The only explanation for a character with such a panel was if the other person was two tiers above the one inspecting him, and in this case, Yone had no idea why a quest in such a low-level mountain range would lead him to this place.
" dozheoqkdh????dzjsp," The guard spoke as he extended his left hand seemingly asking something out of Requiem, his other hand tightened on his sword hilt as he was ready to slash at this non-wanter guest at any moment's notice.
'Crap, I'm done for,' Yone felt the world spinning around him as he truly didn't understand what was going on in this game, but at this moment, he knew that he would be lucky if he survived this with only one level loss.
As Yone was frozen, struggling to find a way out of this impossible situation, his vision flickered with sudden data and countless unknown numbers in front of him.
Then...
[Global System Announcement!]
A severe anomaly has been detected within Eclipse Online!
Error Code: 404X-BlackMarket-Override
Due to a critical game integrity issue, the server will be undergoing an emergency shutdown for maintenance.
Estimated downtime: 5 minutes.
All players will be forcibly logged out in 10 seconds.
The moment this message appeared, the black market fell into complete chaos. NPCs began screaming in that incomprehensible language, and the guard who had just been about to demand something from Yone...
Vanished.
Not just disappeared. No! But his entire model was de-rendered in a glitchy, pixelated mess, as if he had never existed in the first place. The once bustling stalls flickered, some losing textures, others turning into distorted, half-loaded data fragments.
"What the hell...?" Yone muttered, but before he could even process what was happening...
[System Message: Forced Logout in 3... 2... 1...]
Darkness.
When Yone opened his eyes, he was no longer inside Eclipse Online.
He was back on top of his bed with his helmet on, staring at his room's ceiling absent-mindedly.
Yone didn't linger around as he quickly took off his helmet, went to his seat and opened the computer as he opened the world forum of Eclipse Online. Seeing the first message sent by the game company itself, he could guess that his fast development had something to do with it, especially after he saw what was updated...
[Global System Announcement!]
A major exploit has been detected! To ensure game balance, system adjustments have been made:
Player Killing (PK) is now prohibited.
Engaging in PK will result in a bounty status.
PKers will have a colored diamond above their head indicating their level of infamy.
Yellow (1 Kill), Orange (5 Kills), Red (10+ Kills).
Experience can only be gained by eliminating PKers and cannot be acquired through killing casual players who do not have a bounty on them.
The leveling speed of some individuals was pretty astonishing, so the AI has made some adjustments and released the dungeons pre-its regular timeline of half the player base reaching level 5.
Dungeons are now available for all players in three modes: Easy, Normal, and Hard.
Special Note: Hell mode is better off not being touched. This is only given your current levels, and feel free to do anything past level 10 when stats can be acquired by leveling up and more items are available, otherwise, you will be losing experience for no reason.
All changes are permanent.
Silence. Then, the entire game world exploded in the forums.
Messages flooded the world forum. Guild leaders spammed their members on the side as they planned things over. Smaller forums were overwhelmed with people debating, raging, and questioning everything.
"Holy, this is insane, how can one player be responsible for all of this? They truly need to check his account for any bugs being used."
"You idiot, are you senile? Didn't you read the message of the developers clearly stating that its some players and not just Requiem? This means that other players' leveling speed is also comparable to his." One of the keyboard warriors went over the comments one by one as he was fixing their misunderstanding.
"Still, this is beyond insane, Requiem needs to go into the Legends Guild as fast as possible. His potential can only be met there." One guy commented, placing Requiem at the same standard as the top players in the world.
"Hhaha, you are delusional if you think Requiem is at the same standard as Legends' top raid group. You clearly haven't played End World and haven't seen their raids or PvP battles, their top players are worlds apart from random people like Requiem guy is just lucky with no skills whatsoever."
The forums were exploding, with some talking about the new game mechanics, while others comparing players and guilds. And in the middle of it all, one name kept coming up.
"Requiem."
However, this time, the name Requiem wasn't coming out of envy, anger, or hate for either being a hacker or a bug abuser. But was instead taken as the pioneer of Eclpise Online, as dungeons would have waited for a few more days, if not more, before being released.
Yone slowly exhaled as he turned off the PC and stared at the black screen, his mind only had one thought,' Eclipse Online is moving faster and adapting to the anomaly, which is me. But I don't know whether this is a good or a bad thing.'
Yone felt that his seven years of experience were being reduced with each hour he spent inside the game; he even felt that they would be reduced to a few years, if not a couple, if he kept triggering such announcements and forcing the AI to adapt to him.
Time slowly passed, and after five minutes, Yone logged back into the game. But when he was inside, something was wrong...