He also realised the feeling he had before, like how lightheaded he felt after waking up, and the rising sense of unfamiliarity within familiarity along with a bit of uneasiness... all of it felt way… just way too real…
"Where the hell is this place anyway?" he said in frustration. "And why the heck am I feeling this sense of familiarity in this place when I know that in all my life I have never been here once!!"
He even banged what looked like the central console of this place !! Which quickly flickered, and an interface came to life, floating above the console, which showed a miniature design of the ship he was within!!
"This is…." he muttered. Though surprised by the sudden appearance of the holographic interface, the design of the ship shown quickly attracted his attention and he focused on it!! For the interface that was in front of his eyes was a bit familiar—no, not a bit, but almost completely….
And the ship's miniature 3D holographic images floating before his eyes—he was familiar with those as well, extremely familiar… isn't… isn't this Argonaut? From Celestial Conquest??
No matter how he looked at it, the design reminded him of the custom ship that he had in the game called Celestial Conquest, of which he took delivery just a few days ago!! A game he had been playing for a couple of years now….
This game was a VRMMO!! A game that one could say was one of the most unique of its era, built and designed with a lot of freedom offered to the players…. Celestial Conquest was, just as its name suggests, built around conquest—just that it was set in a vast universe wherein any player could go on a grand adventure, find star systems that are undeveloped, conquer them, and they shall be theirs….
They could even form their kingdoms, powers, and whatnot around the Celestial Conquest world…. And those not with such grand ambitions could enlist themselves as mercenaries and make their own special mark on the celestial world!!
Participate in wars of galactic empires and federations!! Explore living planets and sell them at great prices… hunt pirates and whatnot to earn prizes on their names….
There, one could purchase fully armed spaceships of various kinds, shapes, and sizes, and if rich enough, maybe even build one yourself!! And engage in a variety of missions!!
And because of these perks and an almost unlimited map, Celestial Conquest attracted different kinds of players to play this game and interact with each other, giving it even more colour.
Because of this, it became the world's greatest game to ever exist—even though more than four years have passed since its launch, yet no game comes even close to it!!
And he generally played the game with a motive of earning a huge sum, which could actually translate into real currency!!
That was because of huge demand and supply, value was created in the form of resources = production = power = control = more resources!!
And because of the higher demand from almost 2 billion players and lower supply, the economy stayed active, while at the same time players drove production—from equipment, weapons, and ships—giving real value to labor and specialisation.
And because of these variables, the economy of Celestial Conquest began to affect the real economy. For it was treated as a real workplace by many individuals, with salaries offered by already invested companies.
It was then that governments throughout the world, recognising the value of this second world that Celestial Conquest had become, under pressure from various privately owned conglomerates and long-established institutions, accepted and integrated real-world currency with Celestial Credits.
Only after it was guaranteed by the owner and creator of Celestial Conquest, who remains mysterious still today, that the game would remain stable, with no random events like resets or wipes, and along with guarantees from several conglomerates, did the governments make these amendments.
Afterward, many other companies joined in and invested in the game, giving rise to even more jobs and opportunities.
And because of these and other changes, Celestial Conquest soon outgrew many national economies throughout the world and became almost 10 trillion dollars in worth, still growing at an extreme rate.
And being one of the leading players, of course, he struck rich.
Yup, that was possible, but aside from that, striking it rich was another matter.
For he started playing the game with a goal and intent of getting a powerful ship with decent enough combat capacities.
Following that, he farmed for credits once again, and this time, with his own ship making many things accessible, he started undertaking mercenary work with a bigger pay outs.
With his previous ships—and finally after three whole years of gameplay where he changed many ships and even set up his own guild with ten thousand talented and trustworthy members—only he knew the struggle of forming a big guild with a fleet of close to 40 ships!!
However, all his guild members, though talented, they were Epic or higher Grade NPCs, with none being real players—though he never minded that, and he actually preferred it!!
Regardless, after more than three years, he had enough resources, and with his talented shipbuilder clan-mates, he started building his dream ship…. Which, after a year and a half of construction, was finally completed!
He, along with all his guild members, barely even had a chance to take it out for a test drive before they had to leave for a mission that was suddenly found on one of their test drives…. It was related to an Elven race who wanted them to protect their worlds as they were being invaded by an Insectoid race, and so they left….
Because the journey was long and would have taken about a week—which translated to about three and a half days in the real world—he disconnected, for he had a school trip to attend….. Remembering that, he had a flashback as to what had actually happened during that trip… as it was only afterwards that he found himself here, right!!