Alexander's alarm clock went off at 6 a.m.
It was one of the hardest wake-up calls of his life. Yet, if he wanted a chance of succeeding in his quest, he had to get back in the game as soon as possible.
He grabbed some food from the refrigerator, then returned to his room and put the VRI helmet on his head.
System: Welcome to the Galaxy of Horus!
Server: (posted 2 hours and 12 minutes ago) Congratulations to the player "Akira" for being the 100th player to reach lvl 5 on the continent of Aurora! A public dungeon has been unearthed at global position 1807056, 45608.
"Shit!" Apophis growled. He'd slept too much, and other players were catching up to him.
Now, his top priority should be clearing that dungeon. He left the command post, then returned to the surface and found his bike.
Apophis looked at the map, realizing that he was forty minutes away by motorcycle from the dungeon's location. He set off at once as fast as he could.
The dungeon was located in a beautiful area full of greenery, which was a nice change from the scorching sands which made up most of the Gobi Desert.
When Apophis arrived, he found that at least 1,000 other players had beaten him there. The whole area was overwhelmed with players, many of whom were present out of simple curiosity. After all, only the genius players—or those who had no-lifed the game—had reached lvl 5 and unlocked their class by this point.
Dungeons were designed to be played by parties of five players—ideally, a composition of three DPS, one healer, and one tank. There were 5 levels of dungeon difficulty: Easy, Normal, Hard, Nightmare, and Ironman.
Apophis remembered that in his first life, most Easy dungeons had a successful clear rate of about 80%. Normal dungeons were successfully cleared between 30% and 40% of the time, depending on the individual dungeon.
Hard dungeons varied quite a lot in clear rate, because they employed encounters and puzzles which required very specific strengths and knowledge to complete. Depending on the dungeon, Hard mode had only a 1% to 10% clear rate.
Then there was Nightmare, a difficulty so intense that only between 0.1% and 1% of attempts ever succeeded. Just like Hard, the Nightmare difficulty posed such intense challenges that even Nightmare dungeons with a 1% clear rate were seen as "pretty easy" compared to most 0.1% clear rate Nightmare dungeons.
Last of all, hardly anyone ever attempted dungeons on Ironman mode.
Why would they? In an Ironman dungeon, dying meant permanently losing your character.
Even professional players stuck to Nightmare difficulty, unwilling to play in a mode where they couldn't resurrect afterward.
In Apophis's former life, he recalled only one team of players who'd ever beaten an Ironman dungeon.
They'd been led by one of the 7 Gods, "Lucifer," a Esper who'd mastered unarmed combat to a further extent than any other player.
As everyone had found out once his team succeeded, the rewards for beating an Ironman dungeon were insanely good. They rewarded Epic and Legendary-rarity items—and had even proved to be the only source of artifacts, the most powerful items in the entire game.
After beating the Ironman dungeon which gave him so much fame, Lucifer was renowned as the only player in the entirety of "Horus" who possessed an artifact, called "The Creator's Armor."
The fact that Apophis knew so many intricate details about "Horus's" dungeon mechanics meant that he would have a huge advantage over most other teams to attempt them!
His very next step would be to find a team capable of beating this first dungeon's Nightmare mode. As in every MMORPG, 90% of players had specced into DPS. Almost all who remained were healers, and only a handful were tanks.
Finding a good team would be tricky.
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