Fantasy

Within the popular VRMMORPG "New Genesis", there was a ranker by the name of Arthur Holmes, commonly known by his in-game alias “Merlin”.

Arthur was one of the few original beta testers still playing after 30 years, he was originally a ranker, a player whose entire goal was to stay at the top, ahead of everyone else.
However after 15 years he sacrificed his player ranking in search of knowledge.

Arthur became a lore hunter, a player who indulges himself with the world's vast lore and unexplored history, preferring to uncover the world’s secrets rather than endlessly fighting monsters.

At the age of 48, 30 years after the game came out, Arthur uncovered the greatest secret of all, and yet, ironically, his negligence in levelling up was the one thing holding him back from realising his goal, he knew he would never be able to catch up to the rankers, a gap of 15 years was Impossible to overcome.

If only he could restart…