Eli’s morning rendezvous with Selena in the Shattered World went on until his ear implant buzzed him out of the game world with another alarm. He silently climbed out of his sim-box and went to his shared bathroom without waking up his roommate, going through his morning routine.

Showered, shaved, brushed, and dressed, Eli stepped out of the bathroom to see his roommate staring at him with wide eyes of disbelief. He stood like a statue and followed Eli with his gaze while Eli did his best to ignore it. He shuffled through his belongings on his side of the room, loading relevant sim-discs and textbooks into his backpack. He could feel his roommate's eyes still locked onto him throughout the entire process until Eli couldn’t take it anymore.

“Is there something wrong?” Eli turned to look at him.

“Oh. No, sorry. It’s just… you’re really him, right? Eli Winters? Aegis?” His roommate asked excitedly.

“Uh…” Eli eyed the poster of Aegis on his roommate's side of the room and spotted an action figure of himself on his bedside table that he hadn’t noticed in the dark. “Yep.” Eli reluctantly shrugged.

“Cool…” His roommate gasped. It did nothing to deter the staring. Eli sighed and threw on his jacket before heading out of the room.

“Gotta head to class. Cya,” Eli waved and shut the door behind himself.

Outside, he was on a third-floor outdoor walkway that extended left and right, doors lining the walls in either direction. In front of him was a railing overlooking the apartment complex's parking lot, and across the street was a tall building with a digital billboard.

The advertisement on the billboard was of a restaurant Eli was unfamiliar with when he’d first stepped out, giving him time to collect himself by zipping up his jacket, throwing his pack straps over his shoulders, and taking in a deep breath of cold air that left a trail of mist as it left his mouth.

By the time this finished, the advertisement had changed to a short clip of Aegis in the Shattered World. It showed Aegis jumping in front of Yumily and protecting her band members from Seraxus’ sword. Text flashed across the bottom of the billboard reading, ‘You’re not getting past my shield,’ followed by a transition from the clip to a rotating display of an Aegis action figure and its price of $99$.

Eli rolled his eyes and took off down the walkway, leaving the building for the parking lot. When he got to the lot, he spotted a bus stop symbol crowded with other people his age, backpacks over their shoulders like his. As it pulled up, he rushed over to join them just in time to catch the bus.

He climbed on and swiped his wrist implant over the payment module inside the bus to pay his fare. Looking over the crowded seats, he saw the faces of his peers, along with some adults. No one looked up at him with any recognition as he found a comfortable window seat, much to his relief.

The bus moved through the busy streets, mostly filled with self-driving autopods. Nearly every building that lined the roads had some form of holographic or digital billboard running various advertisements. Tall buildings, homes, industrial warehouses, and restaurants—there were no exceptions. Most of the advertisements were centered around the Shattered World Online, either for the game itself or for merchandise or streamers revolving around it. A large portion was sponsored by VGN, showing off a variety of streamers, top 10 countdown shows, and news updates. A couple of Aegis, his new co-worker Serenity, and other networks and shows, but VGN’s presence dwarfed them.

Even the chatter Eli could overhear from the others on the bus around him centered on the game. The two people seated behind him were planning a strategy to defeat a dungeon boss while the pair in front of him discussed alchemy ingredients and recipes.

The alchemy discussion caught his interest, and he had half a mind to jump right in and add his 2 cents, but he resisted the urge. In doing so, he smiled at his reflection in the window, thinking about how he might’ve reacted to this exact scenario a year ago. He’d undoubtedly be annoyed by how everyone was obsessed with the game. But now, it didn’t bother him in the slightest.

The bus stopped in front of the Equinor University campus. Eli piled off alongside the vast majority of the other passengers. They rushed off in various directions while Eli paused. He’d gone through orientation, so he knew where his first class was—the pause was to take it all in.

When he got to his classroom auditorium, he found an unoccupied sim-box near the front. The room was full of them, rows upon rows. They were nothing like the sim-box he had in his room. Much smaller, designed for use in an upright seated position. They were sleek but not state-of-the-art and showed signs of wear on the outside.

The front panel shifted to the side so that Eli could sit in it, and the device immediately linked up with his wrist and eye implant.

Please enter your student ID and Password.

A message appeared with a floating keyboard in his peripheral vision, visible only to him through his eye implant. He entered his ID and password, and another message popped up.

Welcome, Eli Winters. Loading your calibration settings into this machine…

Your calibration settings have been loaded. Please wait until your Professor instructs you to join the Equinar Class simulation.

Eli waved the message away and leaned back into the sim-box chair to get comfortable, setting his bag beside it. With nothing left to do, he looked around and saw other students, all his age, filing into the auditorium, many of them traveling in groups. Having started one semester behind everyone else, he figured he would be a bit of an outsider but didn’t mind either way—he wasn’t exactly known for being very social in high school, and he wasn’t planning on changing that here.

Once again, the chatter about the Shattered World picked up. Eli had a hard time spotting any cluster of students that wasn’t talking about it, though he wasn’t the only one sitting alone in silence. From what he could overhear, they all sounded much lower than him and were discussing strategies or plans for things Eli thought were way too easy to warrant any form of planning.

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“If only Makaroth were still streaming,” A student sighed to two of his friends, the name Makaroth catching Eli’s ear. Curious, he tuned into the conversation, eying the three gathered around sim-boxes at the back of the auditorium.

“What would Makaroth do differently? He’s VGN, too.”

“Yeah, but he wasn’t such a dick. Feng is restricting anyone who isn’t a VGN streamer from using his Elder Tree base in the abyss. It’s bull,” The first student replied.

“Did you try to go there?”

“Of course, I’m level 152. There’s some crazy good grind spots down in the abyss.” He shrugged. “They fired at our airship and forced us to turn around before we got anywhere close to the Elder Tree.”

“Wow, that’s lame,” His friends sympathized.

“No kidding, especially since they didn’t even figure out the Elder Tree seed thing themselves. They stole the idea from Aegis,” His other friend chimed in.

“They stole everything from Aegis. Airships, Voidsilk, Mithral…”

“Don’t get me started on Aegis,” The first boy growled back at his friends. “He’s the whole damn reason Makaroth’s gone. He takes the best streamer away, then quits. Complete tool, that kid.”

“There’s a reason Makaroth nicknamed him the spiteful healer.” His friend shrugged. The conversation switched from there, and Eli lost interest. It wasn’t the first time he’d heard sentiment similar to this—though typically, the exchanges took place within Rene during the brief moments he spent playing the game.

When the professor finally stepped into the room, a warm jolt of excitement filled his heart. It was his first day, his first class, and his first professor. The door shut, and the clock struck 8. Eli was officially a university student studying medicine to become a doctor. He straightened his back and tried his best to contain himself while the Professor made his way into the chair of a large sim-box at the head of the class.

The other students went quiet, and those not seated in their sim-boxes quickly settled in. Without words, the professor sat in his sim-box, closed the top, and entered a simulation. A second later, a prompt appeared on Eli’s eye implant.

Professor Albrin’s session has now begun. Please enter the Equinar Class simulation.

Eli waved the message away, hearing his peers shutting their sim-boxes. He followed suit, closing it to begin the simulation. The sim-box’s functionality was minimal, and it didn’t give him any options to alter any settings or change the simulation. He was forced into the classroom that he was invited to. The only information he was given was that the Simulation Speed was locked at 4, causing his mind to perceive time passing by at four times the rate it actually was.

He appeared in a large room with elevated rows, looking down at the professor below. In front of each student in every row was an operating table with a person on it and a tray with surgical tools. The rows were angled so that, despite the number of students, tables, and cadavers, they could all see the professor and his table at the bottom of the simulated auditorium staring up at them.

The professor held his hands behind his back, his neck straight, and his eyes piercing as he scanned the room, waiting for all the students to load into the simulation. One by one, their bodies materialized all around the room until not a single table was unattended. Eli watched it happen with wide eyes of excitement, but when he finally turned back to look at the professor, he found him staring straight at him.

“Welcome to ANAT 101. My job is to drill into your heads everything there is to know about those meat sacks you walk around in. Don’t get too excited by the tools and cadavers in front of you that this simulation has by default. We won’t be touching them for a while,” The professor began pacing along the bottom of the room, panning his eyes over the students.

“We’ll start with basic terminology, and I expect you to have it all memorized by the end of this class. Let’s start by seeing how much you’ve studied before coming here today. Who can sell me the anatomical term for the front of the human body?” The professor asked, and hands shot up across the room, including Eli’s.

Eli quickly looked behind him to see that not a single student hadn’t raised their hands, and he felt a smile grow. Unlike high school, where he was regularly the only one who knew the answers to his teacher's questions, he was surrounded by peers who knew their stuff. The same competitive spirit he had from the game world was bubbling up inside of him.

The professor motioned to a student near the back.

“Anterior.”

The professor chuckled at their confident faces. “Too easy, eh? Who can tell me the difference between proximal and distal?” The professor watched a few hands go down, but most remained up. He pointed at a student who answered correctly.

“Good, let’s keep going, just for fun,” The professor’s grin grew mischievous. “What’s the main function of the cerebellum?” More hands went down, but Eli’s stayed up. Another student was selected to answer.

“It’s for coordinating voluntary movement, " the student replied. Eli looked up to see that it was the same student who had complained about him earlier.

“Very good,” The professor nodded excitedly.

“Who can name me the regions of the vertebral column from top to bottom?” The professor stopped pacing to look up as all hands went down save for three. Eli, the same boy, and a girl on the far right side of the class, opposite Eli. The professor gave an impressed nod to the three of them. “Some of you might not even need this class,” he laughed, motioning to the girl.

“Cervical, Thoracic, Lumbar, Sacral, and then Coccygeal.” She replied proudly.

“Very good. What’s your name?”

“Ashley Mistmoor, " she replied as all eyes fell on her. She had long, wavy brown hair that fell down her back, dark brown eyes, and a bright smile.

“Very good, Miss Mistmoor. Okay, a few of you seem hard to trip up,” the professor eyed the envious stares of the students toward Ashley. He cleared his throat as he pondered his next question momentarily. “Can any of you tell me the path of blood flow through the heart when starting from the right atrium?”

Eli had to think momentarily, recalling what he’d been studying the past months in preparation for his first day. He got so caught up in challenging himself to see if he could answer the question that he forgot to stop and consider whether or not he should. All hands lowered in the classroom, and the professor shrugged.

“Worry not, that’s why you’re all here to lea-” the professor was getting ready to move on, but Eli’s hand shot up. “Ho?” The professor's eyebrows raised as all eyes fell on him. “Let’s hear it.”

“From the right atrium, it moves to the right ventricle, pulmonary arteries, lungs, pulmonary veins, left atrium to left ventricle, and finally the aorta. I’m pretty sure,” Eli said with a look of uncertainty on his face. The eyes of the class went from Eli to the professor, waiting for his answer.

“Very impressive. And your name?” The professor asked, and the moment he had, Eli realized his mistake.

Eli hesitated, looking around the room awkwardly.

“You can answer questions on blood flow, but not your name?” The professor grinned wryly, getting a few chuckles from the class.

“Eli,” he answered succinctly.

“Lots of Eli’s in this school. Got a last name?”

Eli took a deep breath of defeat, tilting his head down. “Winters.”

The classroom filled with gasps, murmuring, and whispering.

“Not only good at video games, eh?” The professor nodded in recognition. “Alright, quiet down.” He addressed the chatter. “Today, we’ll be starting with the skeletal system. By the end of the week, I expect you all to have it memorized. There will be a quiz, so ensure you’re all paying attention.”

Eli became attentive, but for the remainder of the lecture, he felt the eyes of the other students burning into the back of his head. Anytime he looked over his shoulder, he saw excited grins or glares—there was no in-between.