Firestorm Online

My eyes opened to find myself back on the main menu of the game with a flashy new rank.

'System, did I black out?'

[User experienced extreme sensory overload, the experiences of hundreds of hours of combat overwhelmed your mind causing a brief blackout. Time since event: 4 hours 36 minutes and 22 seconds]

'I was out for 4 hours!?'

[Stress Mitigation module deployed…]

"Ugh.."

'System, will that happen every time I gain these new experiences?'

[User will inevitably experience some discomfort while gaining new knowledge however the effects will lessen comparatively each time]

'Hey… why does my body hurt so much? I'm aching all over.'

[Exercise is the process of breaking down and then reforming muscle over time, muscle memory is built into the experience package, while user was unconscious your muscles were ripping apart and reforming continuously. Not only this but your bone structure gone under fundamental changes to optimise user's physical attributes]

'Oh… well I feel like crap so I'm going to take a break, that's fine right?'

[Indeed, rest is suggested after vigorous exercise]

I pulled off my VR helmet and sat down on my bed.

'I've still got some attributes to assign right? Bring up the attributes window.'

[Displaying statistics]

Agility 1.5

Acceleration 1.5

Balance 1.3

Endurance 1.4

Strength 1.7

Reactions 1.4

X-Factor 0.1

"Wow…" I gazed at my new attributes and sighed, I was too impressive…

'Hey System, why have I gained 0.1 X-Factor points?'

[User has 1.6 attribute points remaining, please assign them]

'1.6? Didn't I only get 1.5 from that match?'

[…]

'I guess I must have misread it or something, get all of my stats up to 1.7.'

[Displaying statistics]

Agility 1.7

Acceleration 1.7

Balance 1.7

Endurance 1.7

Speed 1.7

Strength 1.7

Reactions 1.7

X-Factor 0.1

[User has 0.1 attribute points remaining, please assign them]

'Yeah just throw them into reactions.'

[Displaying statistics]

Agility 1.7

Acceleration 1.7

Balance 1.7

Endurance 1.7

Speed 1.7

Strength 1.7

Reactions 1.7 + 0.1

X-Factor 0

'Huh? Oh, so the X-Factor points are just free points? But why are they displayed like that then?'

[User has successfully unlocked X-Factor definition from database]

[X-Factor: Free points that may be reassigned at any time to increase any attributes]

'Seriously!? So if I had 5 X-Factor points I could put them all in agility and become a gymnast? That kind of thing?'

[User's assessment is roughly accurate]

'Awesome! With this I should be way more adaptable, right I almost forgot about the profits from last match!'

I grabbed my laptop and quickly brought up my account's inventory and was immediately joyous.

"I'm rich! Or at least slightly less poor than I was before…"

My profits were excellent, one Desert Eagle pistol, one M249 light machine gun, one Kevlar vest and even a flashbang!

I quickly equipped the Kevlar vest, flashbang and Desert Eagle. I then sold my old P250 along with the M249. Due to tax as well as it being a cheap pistol I only got $25 for the P250 but I got just over $100 from the LMG. My account balance was now a cool $126.16, while I wasn't rich I could afford a submachine gun if I wanted to, that wasn't my goal though. I scrolled through the pages of virtual weaponry until I found my dream gun, the AWM or "Arctic Warfare Magnum". British by design and deadly by nature, this bolt-action sniper could kill a man from almost 2.5 kilometres away without leaving behind an intact corpse, this was a beast.

Sadly this godly sniper rifle also came with an equally godly price, $500,000.

That was the way the game worked, the lower performance guns were cheap – allowing the masses to enjoy the superb realism. The best guns in the world though had their prices inflated massively. After all there were only 500 or so AWMs in the game, unless the developers decided to release another couple hundred for sale the price would remain stupid high.

This insane price though was also the reason that companies were willing to invest big bucks for a professional team. The average pro team had equipment totalling to around about $5,000,000 and if you won a major tournament, excluding the prize money and advertisement you could easily make up to $50,000,000 from the equipment dropped alone.