VRMMORPG: Dragomancer Reborn

"Thank you for your purchase!" The store clerk said with a bright smile, as Arthur left the tech store, his wallet about 1000 UC lighter.

"Man, they\'re really good at convincing…" Arthur muttered as he gazed at his new smartphone.

The sleek fold-able Smartphone looked like a piece of modern art in his mind. Its screen reflected his face, which was a mix of excitement and regret.

He had set out to just get a new smartphone that was better than his. His old phone was nearing its life and had long since become obsolete. Arthur couldn\'t even get it repaired, since there weren\'t even any parts available.

But at the tech store, he was swayed by the staff. While he tried to resist, he still ended up getting a Smartphone that was way more expensive than he had wished for it to be. 

\'I would\'ve been fine with a base model but they still got me a higher tiered one.\' Arthur shook his head.

Knowing there was no use for him to regret it, he just decided to accept it.

"At least it\'s by Hypnotek as well, so will pair well with the Dream Pod V3." Arthur consoled himself.

He had spent what was basically half of his current savings. 

\'Though I should be able to make the amount up by tomorrow.\' He reckoned. \'And I won\'t have to suffer, trying to read between the screen cracks.\' He thought.

Shaking his head to wave off the thoughts, Arthur quickly went to the bus stop. He took the next bus back to his home and reached it soon. Climbing the stairs to his apartment, he only relaxed once he was inside it.

He took out his smartphone after resting for a few minutes and tapped it on the Dream Pod V3.

>Hypnophone 6 Detected!<

>User identified: Arthur Grey<

>Do you wish to pair the Hypnophone 6 with the Dream Pod V3?<

"Do it." The process was rather quick and Arthur gave his approval.

>Hypnophone 6 has been successfully paired with Dream Pod V3!<

>Biometric Encryption enabled<

>Remote Access functions will be enabled<

"Nice, that should help when I\'m out," Arthur said as he looked at his smartphone.

Pairing the phone with the Dream Pod allowed him some conveniences that would make his work easier when he was out. 

\'Though most of them will only become available later…\' Arthur thought to himself.

Right now there weren\'t many benefits to this feature, but once Morpheus Online launched auctions, player stores and more, things would become a lot more hectic. Usually, these would only be accessible when one was logged in using the Dream Pod V3. 

But now as long as Arthur\'s phone was paired with it, he would be able to use it outside too. Since the time difference between the game world and the real world was that of three times, he could quickly sell and buy items while outside.

Arthur could recall there were even players who did this all day long similar to day traders who watched the stock market. They would buy and sell different items and goods in game, according to the price fluctuations.

For people like those, this kind of function became necessary.

"That\'ll take some time to happen. Right now they still have the eight hour restriction for playtime." Arthur muttered.

The company hadn\'t let players play for more than 8 hours right now, as they needed to test the effects of long term play on the players. Of course, they had done beta tests on their own, but when one considered a large data set, there were bound to be some anomalies.

Thus for now, they had limited the play time to eight hours. But eventually, they would raise it to twelve hours, allowing players to log in for longer.

\'In my time, the maximum one could stay logged in was about sixteen hours.\' Arthur knew there could be side effects if one played for too long.

There was no lack of people who had turned delusional or had developed Alice in Wonderland syndrome as well from playing too long.

Professional E-sports players even had dedicated psychiatrists in order to make sure that they were mentally well. 

"Though with synchronization stat unlocked… I might be the worst patient of that syndrome perhaps… Hahaha." Arthur laughed, feeling a bit amazed.

The game was still a mystery and he needed to see how things worked. At the very least, he wanted to see just how much the game could impact is real body and the difference in his strength. But all that would come later, and Arthur needed to do other things right now.

~hiss~

The lid of the Dream Pod V3 opened, allowing Arthur to lie down.

"Log into Grand Nexus Forums." Arthur quickly commanded.

>Welcome to Grand Nexus Forums!<

Arthur was greeted by the forum\'s home screen.

He first checked how his posts were doing and saw that people were still excited about them. By now, most of the players had exhausted their play time thus there were more people noticing it. He also noticed that his paid post was also rising in revenue.

But he didn\'t check it.

\'I need to resist it. It\'ll be way better to see a large number later on.\' Arthur was tempted but didn\'t waver.

He continued to scroll through the forums, reading the posts made by others. After all, there were many players, and all their experiences would be different. Other than his two posts that were at the top of the forum, there were other posts that were doing well too.

The third ranked post, for example, was about good equipment.

<My dagger and sword broke, and I ran out of coins, what do I do?>

<These weapons are trash! I can\'t even hunt enough to replace the coins I used for fixing them.>

<The blacksmith is a scammer! Do not repair weapons in the village!>

"They never stop complaining. These posts will always be there, every day." Arthur was used to them.