CyberWorld (Original)

CHAPTER 03

After I found a empty spot in the parking lot and parked the Audi, I closed the car door, and made my way to the void deck of my apartment block, also known as an Housing & Development Board block (HDB for short).

I entered a nearby lift and pressed the button for level 14. When the lift doors opened again, I approached the entrance of my apartment-#14-08 and unlocked the gate and front door.

I dumped my backpack on the floor of my room at its usual spot near my desk and had a quick shower, before getting dressed in my room. 

Then, I began moving some pieces of furniture, like my bookshelf, toward the walls of my bedroom, in case I hit them unintentionally while playing CyberWorld, leaving a large empty space in the middle of the room. 

 I opened the clear transparent case on my desk which contained my gear for playing the game, grabbing the haptic gloves first, and slipped them onto my hands. They still felt like normal gloves when I put them on, despite the fact that it had been four years since I bought them online, but the haptics were still quite descent.

The new haptic boots I'd purchased online were quite interesting, called Levit8 Footwear. When used, it would enable a player to walk around in CyberWorld, and it felt realistic enough, in my opinion. 

Its technology ensured that the user remained in the same spot without blindly walking into something while it hovered, by using magnets to reverse the pull of gravity.

Many jokers on YouTube had posted videos of themselves wearing Levit8 footwear on top of a hill and attempted to test whether it would allow them to slide down, but it didn't work-they just remained in one spot. 

One insane person suggested using it to walk up walls or buildings, and when he attempted to do so, he nearly broke his spine from falling onto the ground about a hundred and twenty centimeters up. Then another one suggested water skiing with it.

This is probably why women live longer than men.

There were several other additional pieces of gear for CyberWorld, like a two-piece haptic suit (that came in various colours) and something called Fla4our Tasting Liquid, which could be poured into a transparent tank which, in turn, could be attached to a player's headset. 

When the player tasted anything in CyberWorld, the liquid would squirt into his mouth through a tube connected to the tank, giving him the sensation of actually tasting something. 

However, it would only work with drinks, since food couldn't really be tasted with the liquid.

I hadn't purchased both sets of gear, for two separate reasons. Even though Kakushin said the Fla4our Liquid was non-toxic, I decided not to take any chances. Jon actually got the Fla4our Liquid and tried it out, and his exact words were "Well, I'm not dead, so it must be okay!"

For the haptic suit, it was a pretty simple reason-I had decided that I didn't really need the full suit, and it was way more convenient to just slip on my headet, gloves, and footwear.

After I donned my Levit8 footwear, I stood up, and grabbed my headset from the case and strapped it to my head.

"Power on." I said, and I saw a brief flash of light, before I found myself looking at the game's logo.

"Welcome, RaptorSlasher93. Please enter password." The default female synthesized voice said.

I had been through the login process thousands of times, but it still made me grin every time.

"Life, uh, finds a way."

"Login successful. Spawning in 3,2,1."

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