Hope you guys will enjoy my first try on an original fiction of mine.

  *Please Note that English is not my first language and there will be quite some grammar mistakes*

  Prologue:

  [Cheat], when you hear the word [Cheat] what do you think? What comes to your head? Is it cheating in a test? Cheating death? Cheating someone out of something they have? Maybe cheating on your partner?

  What I'm talking about when saying [Cheat], is cheating in a game.

  I have always loved to start up a RPG game, play a little and then after seeing that my character is too weak I'd just [Cheat].

  I'll load up a 'trainer' or even use a 'CheatAngine'. I prefer to avoid using in game cheats as they always come with a cost of not being able to save progress or gain achievements. Sometimes I would just mod the game data files with save editors.

  I hacked and slashed my enemies with ease, cast any spell I wanted on any tier and power without the cost of any mana! There was no cooldown on any skill or magic that I had.

  I'd just be the god of the game!

  Well as much as I love cheating I only did it when playing the game alone or so called 'Single Player', I'd never cheat in online games though I wished some times that I had… Playing fair isn't fun, well at least not for me.

  When I was around 23 years old, a new console came out. It contained a never seen before technology called [Reality Dive] and the console name was [Reality Dive Gear].

  "… Very original…"

  Sounds really stupid and the naming was not that original. This device was developed by a new up and rising gaming company which I can't really remember it's name… Any way, it allowed the user to 'dive' into another reality.

  "Awesome!!!"

  I yelled out in my room after watching the amazing graphics and mechanics it offered in the teaser that was leaked. It was breath taking! I have never seen graphics so as real as those before. It actually made me think that the video was fan made but after a day of media scavenging it turned out to be the real deal.

  In the teaser, it showed the game that would come out together with the console, a neat RPG game, to be exact a MMORPG. I was a bit disappointed as I wished it was a 'Single Player' game so I could [Cheat] in it. But I was far too excited to dwell on that aspect.

  It would take another six months until they release the console and the game but as a game freak I knew they are going to commission a huge Close Alpha or Beta testing for this so I looked it up on the net.

  "Lucky! I found a way in."

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  I found an assured way to get into the alpha. The company I was working for was a game publisher and it was one of the 2 main publishers for the [Reality Dive Gear] game, that I found out was called: [Second Reality].

  "Jeez the unoriginality just overflows from them"

  The reason I said that it was a sure way is because our company got 300 alpha tester tickets for the employees, and well, my boss just owed me big time for all the bug fixes I did in his code.

  You see, in my company I was known as 'Azura', the legendary programmer, though technically my name is Rei. My colleagues changed my name after they found out that I had a female character called 'Azura' in one of the games I owned. For some reason it stuck and everyone was calling me that.

  Last week I stayed up all night in the office fixing bugs in the code that my boss (the lead programmer of my team) made. Well it was easy enough for me as I was some kind of a genius when it comes to coding. I could learn a new programming language in a day and master it in a month.

  As I said, my boss owned me, and when I found out he received one of the tickets, I just claimed my debt. He was a bit disappointed to lose his ticket but not as much as lose his paycheck had I not helped him that night.

  On the ticket was written:

  "Congratulations on being one of the thousands few who will partake in the Alpha test of [Second Reality].

  The Alpha test will start on the 8th of November this year.

  For more details please visit on our site: "

  "Well better check that out."

  In the site I was requested to enter the serial number that was on the opposite side of the ticket, so I just entered it. The page was redirected showing me the usual mambo jumbo for registering an account, I filled it quickly and accepted.

  "Ah?... What the?!"

  On the next page it showed the following message:

  "Dear Alpha Tester,

  We congratulate you as you have been selected to be the first and only pre-alpha tester for our game [Second Reality].

  To make this valid please arrive at our main office on the 1st of November 9:00am PST.

  Best Regards,

  Head Designer Shiro Akimura, Reality Tech"

  "So it was Reality Tech…"

  "…"

  "…"

  "… WHAT?!?! I got invited to be a pre-alpha tester? And I'm the only one?! I can't believe my luck!"

  I was so damn lucky, I was chosen out of a thousand people to play the game a week earlier then every other alpha tester. Little did I know that my [Cheat] RPG fantasy would come into existence by dying on the 1st of November.