Breathing Techniques in SAO

Two months pass in an instant.

It was now 1:00 PM on November 6th, 2022—the official launch of Sword Art Online.

Tomioka Akimi held the NERvGear in his hands, fingers trembling slightly.

With an excited expression, he put it on.

Lying down on his bed, Akimi closed his eyes and said, in a voice full of anticipation, "Link Start!"

As the words left his mouth, he felt his consciousness sink.

After passing through a tunnel of vibrant, multicolored pillars, he arrived in a vast, empty space.

A system prompt echoed in his ears.

After quickly customizing his character's face, Akimi hesitated briefly at the username selection screen before entering [Tomioka Akimi] as his ID.

With a flash of white light, Akimi felt his feet touch solid ground once more.

He opened his eyes, taking in the surrounding medieval-style buildings.

The system prompt displayed the words [Starting Town].

Looking around, Akimi found himself standing in a very large plaza.

In the center of the plaza hung a large clock inside a clock tower.

Glancing at the time—13:10—he noticed many players with different appearances and hair colors had already gathered in the square.

Some were probably people they knew from the real world, grouping together and chatting happily.

Watching these excited faces silently, Akimi turned and headed toward the weapon shop.

A month ago, Akimi had already received firsthand information about SAO's closed beta through the Tomioka Group's internal accounts.

It could even be said that Akimi knew this world better than some of the closed beta players.

Using the in-game starting currency called Col he had been given, Akimi bought a one-handed sword at the weapon shop, then rushed as fast as he could toward the leveling area outside the city.

Upon arriving in the leveling zone, Akimi drew the sword from his back and faced a monster named [Berserk Boar], preparing to strike with a sword technique.

"Horizontal Slash!" Akimi called out softly.

A layer of blue light appeared along his blade.

Akimi swung the sword, and as the blade cut through the air, it left sparkling blue streaks behind.

The slash hit the Berserk Boar's head.

The Berserk Boar's HP dropped rapidly, and when it was fully depleted, the creature's body swelled, exploded, and shattered into countless glowing shards that resembled fragments of glass.

A white panel appeared in the center of Akimi's vision.

The lower part of the panel displayed the words [EXP +10] in purple, while the upper part's loot section showed [Boar Hide ×1] and [Col ×17].

The Berserk Boar, equivalent to a slime, was only a level 1 monster.

Its attack and aggro AI were at the lowest level, and it could basically be defeated with a single sword skill.

Although the Berserk Boar didn't grant much experience, it was quick to farm and posed no danger.

Naturally, Akimi, who still had some reservations about this world, chose it to level up.

After several hours, Akimi had already reached level 2.

Looking around at the now mostly empty leveling zone with very few monsters in sight, he took a short breath.

The time displayed at the bottom right of his vision showed [17:28].

The game's incredibly realistic sun cast an orange-red glow that looked no different from the real world, making it somewhat hard to distinguish between reality and the game.

Watching the ticking time display, Akimi whispered softly, "It should be coming soon."

The moment the time reached [17:30], Akimi was enveloped in a swirl of blue light.

The dazzling brightness forced him to close his eyes.

When the light faded, Akimi opened his eyes and found himself already teleported to the square of the Starting Town.

At this moment, the square was packed with people, and more players kept teleporting in.

Some looked confused, others were very anxious, and a mixture of voices filled the square.

"What's going on? Why are we being teleported back to Starting Town?"

"Where's the logout button? Why is there no logout button?"

"The game just launched, and it already has this kind of serious bug. What are the game officials even doing?"

"Where's the GM? Someone call the GM to fix this now!"

Akimi silently watched the restless players and thought to himself: The game no longer has any GMs; the only person with authority now is SAO's developer—Kayaba Akihiko.

Just as the players were shouting, "Let us log out quickly!" the sky suddenly darkened.

About 100 meters above their heads—the bottom of Aincrad's second floor—a red, hexagonal, chessboard-like light screen instantly appeared, blocking the sky.

The hexagonal light screen was filled with the words [Warning] and [SystemAnnounce].

Seeing the light screen, the players thought the GM had come to fix the bug and breathed a sigh of relief.

But just as they relaxed, blood-like substances began to seep through the gaps of the chessboard grid in the sky.

Instead of dripping to the ground, these blood-like streams gathered in the air, forming a gigantic red cloak.

That deep crimson cloak was exactly the style worn by the GMs employed by ARGUS during the closed beta test.

Players who had experienced the beta test relaxed a bit, although this cloak was somewhat different — the face area of the cloak was completely hollow, and the entire cloak showed no sign of any physical presence inside.

"Hey! GM! Let us out now!" the players began shouting again.

"Fix the bug quickly! Being trapped inside the game is no joke!"

The cloak then spread its arms wide, revealing gloved hands wearing white gloves, and spoke a sentence:

〈All players, welcome to my world〉

The plaza immediately fell silent at these words.

At that moment, among the crowd stood a player with shoulder-length short hair and a youthful face.

Upon hearing the sentence, his pupils constricted slightly as he murmured, "My… world?"

His ID displayed in the upper left corner read Kirito.

Standing beside him was a slender figure wearing simple leather armor, looking like a samurai from the Warring States period, who asked, "Kirito, what does he mean by that?"

Before Kirito could answer, the cloak spoke again:

〈My name is Kayaba Akihiko, and I am now the only person who can control this world.〉

"What are you talking about, you jerk!" many players shouted angrily.

The cloak seemed to ignore them and continued:

〈I believe all players have already noticed that the logout button has disappeared from the menu interface. But this is not a bug in the game.〉

〈Let me repeat, this is not a game malfunction, but rather the original version of 『Sword Art Online』.〉

The man who looked like a samurai spoke in a hoarse, low voice, "The... original version?"

Kayaba's voice remained calm and emotionless as he said:

〈From now on, until you all reach the top of this castle, you will not be able to log out of the game by yourselves.〉

As soon as these words spread, all the players erupted in uproar.

"Are you kidding me?!"

"How is this even possible?!"

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