VR was wonderful. It was the ability to create a world, and experience it as though it were reality. To recreate aspects of the real world in perfect detail, and craft experiences that simply would not be possible on Earth's surface. Exploration deep beneath the sea without scuba gear. Exploring the depths of space, wandering brand new worlds. [i]Flight[/i]. Creatures that had never existed suddenly could walk off the page and right into a world that you experienced as though you truly were there.

The SAO Incident, as it had come to be known, had scared a lot of people away. By all rights, Abraham Martin should have been one of them. He had been a single choice away from joining the ten thousand people trapped within. Ironically, it had done the opposite. He wanted to learn about the wonders of virtual reality more, and strive to understand how it worked. What people enjoyed. And how to craft worlds of his own.

It was this desire that brought him to a computer lab in Japan, watching the clock in the bottom right of his screen tick towards the end of the period while he pretended to read from his textbook. Not that he was goofing off, mind. He'd finished reading the chapter fifteen minutes ago. Now he was waiting for the period to end while thinking about what he'd need to retrieve once he logged on to ALO.

There was a boss to be killed, after all.

It took him exactly sixteen minutes to get from the lab to his home once the period ended. He counted. He hurled his bag on the couch, practically sprinted to the desk, and hurriedly jammed the Amusphere on his head. 

"Link start."

Simple worlds, but what they heralded was anything but. Where others saw a meaningless startup sequence, he saw preparation. The sequences he knew were running unseen to make this new world his reality. Fortunately, he had expected that he would be in a hurry and left his avatar tucked away in a corner of the city nearest the boss in order to save on travel time. He had most of his gear already, he just needed a few potions, and then maybe to see if anyone knew anything about the boss yet.

This was going to be [i]fun.[/i]