Chapter 2: Born Without a Name

August 31st, 2256, was a very special day.

Even decades later, people still remembered this day, even recording it in various publications—

Simply because this was the launch day of the phenomenal game that changed the entire world and practically became humanity’s second world—【Horizon】.

The current time was 11:21 AM, a mere 39 minutes away from 【Horizon】’s launch at 12:00 PM sharp.

And it was only 9 minutes until the opening of the 【Horizon】 virtual community… it could be said that the entire world was waiting with bated breath.

The launch time for the game Horizon was synchronized worldwide, but due to time zone differences, the launch time was bound to be somewhat unfriendly for players in certain regions.

Although it was jointly developed by countries all over the world, from both the world’s number one optical computer “Pangu” serving as its server and the game’s name “Horizon,” one could tell the primary developing nation—which was also why the launch time was set for twelve noon in the local time zone.

However, for those who had long been eager to enter this game, a mere time zone difference was certainly not a deterrent.

They had all adjusted their schedules to be in optimal condition to enter Horizon at the first possible moment.

“Eh… It’s about time, right?” Only then did Mo Ming leisurely make his way back home.

Mo Ming first glanced up at the time, then walked over to his game pod… After all, it was a game Han Ge had personally recommended, and he had already agreed, so it was best to go in and take a look.

The virtual community was something akin to the internet of the past, which could be understood as a VR version of surfing the web.

The reason for opening the virtual community half an hour early was, firstly, to let people new to virtual holographic games acclimate to the environment, and secondly, to allow players to create their game characters in advance—at least, that’s what the officials of Horizon claimed.

As time slowly trickled by, the launch of 【Horizon】 was fast approaching.

“5…4…3…2…1… Connect.” Glancing at the clock inside the game pod, Mo Ming counted down in his mind, and then—

After a brief moment of darkness, a magnificent hall appeared before Mo Ming.

“Oh, this is much better than those previous games… The control precision is already very close to the real world; ordinary people probably wouldn’t feel the difference… I suppose that’s to be expected of a globally promoted game?” Mo Ming ignored the hall before him and instead stood in place, moving his body around.

After moving about for a while and getting used to the sensation of activity in the virtual world, Mo Ming finally stopped and focused his attention on the hall in front of him.

“Hmm… I’m supposed to go in, right?” Mo Ming looked around, and after confirming there was nothing else, he stepped into the hall.

“Welcome to the world of Horizon.

Navigation Sprite No. 2, at your service.” As Mo Ming reached the entrance of the hall, a small sprite flew out from within, her voice exceedingly pleasant as she bowed to Mo Ming, “You’re finally here… Would you like to create your character immediately?”

“Yes.”

“Please select a faction.” The little sprite waved the staff in her hand, which was no different from a toothpick, and two translucent boxes, one black and one white, appeared floating in the air before him—【Light】【Darkness】.

“Light Faction.”

“Faction confirmed as Light Faction.

The Light Faction has six major races: Human, Elf, Dwa—”

“I’ll just be Human,” Mo Ming interrupted Sprite No. 2, directly choosing Human.

“Race confirmed.

Please confirm your character’s development direction—” The sprite didn’t show any displeasure at being interrupted, “Please choose a development path: Physical or Magical.”

“Physical.” Compared to a mage, Mo Ming preferred a warrior-type class, which would allow him to better utilize his own skills.

“Development path confirmed.

Please adjust your appearance.” The little sprite nodded, then waved the tiny staff in her hand.

A virtual projection identical to Mo Ming appeared before him along with the sprite’s movement.

“You can choose to manually adjust your original appearance, or you can have the system automatically adjust it for you, with a maximum alteration of 40%.”

Only the appearance could be changed; the gender, naturally, was unchangeable.

“This is fine, no need to adjust,” Mo Ming waved his hand… he had never been one to care much about his appearance.

“Next are the attribute points.

There are three distribution methods.

Please choose.” The little sprite clapped her hands, and three light screens appeared before him—

In Horizon, there are five basic attributes—Strength, Agility, Constitution, Spirit, and Intelligence.

The functions of these attributes were similar to those in other games: Strength affected physical attack and attack power, Agility affected movement speed and attack speed, Constitution affected health and physical resistance, Spirit determined casting speed and casting range, and Intelligence affected magic attack and spell precision.

However, these were only the basic functions of the primary attributes; deeper effects would have to be discovered within the game.

The first distribution method was free allocation, giving the player a total of 40 attribute points.

10 of these points were evenly distributed among the five basic attributes, while the remaining 30 could be allocated freely.

The second was random distribution, where all attributes were randomly assigned, with a minimum of 1 point and a maximum of 25 points per attribute.

This method was a complete gamble on luck; with good luck, one could get 125 attribute points, which was who-knows-how-much higher than free allocation.

But just thinking about it, one could imagine how low the probability was.

The third method was based on the player’s own physical constitution, combined with a degree of system randomness.

The minimum for a single attribute was 5 points, and the maximum was 20, with a fluctuation of 2 points up or down based on physical assessment.

“The third one,” Mo Ming chose the third option without hesitation after silently listening to the introduction—as a Transcendent Being, Mo Ming was naturally supremely confident in his own body.

Even in the worst-case scenario, he should have 18 points in all attributes, which was far better than free allocation.

As for random distribution, Mo Ming hadn’t even considered it; he wasn’t someone who particularly relied on something like luck.

Although Mo Ming disliked games that were too unchallenging, challenges were also based on normal circumstances—when fighting someone of the same level, taking off all your equipment to fight them isn’t a challenge, it’s idiocy.

Therefore, Mo Ming naturally wouldn’t pass up attributes that could be obtained through normal means.

“Attribute points confirmed.

Please enter your character name.”

“Eh… Can’t I confirm the attributes first?” Although he was very confident in his body, Mo Ming still wanted to see it with his own eyes.

“Players can view their attributes at any time after entering the game,” the little sprite smiled and repeated, “Please enter your character name.”

“…Can it be random?”

“Character name set to 【Can It Be Random】… This name is not registered.

Confirm?” The little sprite showed a mischievous smile, waving her hand to summon a light screen displaying the character name.

“…Do not confirm.” Although Mo Ming was tempted to just confirm this name as his character name, he ultimately gave up on the idea.

“Born Without a Name.”

Mo Ming didn’t know who his biological parents were, or if they even existed.

Having no relatives, his name, Mo Ming, was one he had given himself—

Mo meant ‘to not have’, and Ming meant ‘name’; the name Mo Ming meant 【No Name】.

Therefore, Mo Ming felt that the name 【Born Without a Name】 was, in every sense, very suitable for him.

“Character name set to 【Born Without a Name】… This name is not registered.

Confirm?”

“Confirm.”

The game 【Horizon】 allowed for duplicate names.

After all, it was a joint global promotion with the goal of throwing all of humanity into it.

If duplicate names weren’t allowed, players who joined later would basically only be able to use gibberish for their names.

However, while duplicate names were allowed, they obviously couldn’t be completely identical—players with the same name would have something like a numerical ID after their character name to differentiate them.

Of course, the first person to register a name would not have a numerical ID.

And to prevent people from preemptively registering the well-known IDs of those already active on the internet for fraudulent purposes, the officials had opened a special application channel back in April—this channel was for those internet celebrities.

If you had enough fame and could provide identity information, your ID would be locked by the officials upon successful application.

This way, even if someone registered the ID first, they would only get an ID with a suffix.

“…Character creation complete.

Proceed to the game?” Following the sprite’s words, a character model that looked exactly like him and was dressed in cloth clothes appeared before Mo Ming.

Since Mo Ming hadn’t modified his appearance, the character model looked identical to him.

“…Can I enter the game now?” Mo Ming was taken aback upon hearing the sprite’s words.

Because Mo Ming’s character creation process was extremely fast—skipping the race introduction, passing over the face-sculpting part, and not allocating attributes—even though he had wasted a lot of time at the entrance initially, it was now only 11:46 AM.

There should still be 14 minutes until the server launch.

“Nope, just kidding~” Seeming to think she had successfully teased Mo Ming, the little sprite giggled uncontrollably.

“…”

“Alright, there’s still a little time before the game opens.

How about I give you the race introduction you skipped just now?”

“Mm… Thank you for the trouble.” Mo Ming figured he had nothing else to do standing here anyway, so he might as well listen.

After speaking, Mo Ming extended his right hand, palm up, in a supportive gesture.

“…Thank you~” The little sprite paused for a moment, then immediately understood, flying down to sit in Mo Ming’s palm before beginning her introduction.

Although it was called an introduction, it was really just some basic information.

If one were willing to look on the forums, information of this level could easily be found.

However, Mo Ming had only learned about this game a few days before its launch, so he naturally hadn’t thought to gather any related information.

To him, this was all quite new.

And so, Mo Ming chatted with the little sprite in his hand, and the 14 minutes passed by quickly.

“It’s about time… You’ll be able to enter the game soon.” The little sprite, who had been sitting on Mo Ming’s palm, stood up and straightened her little dress.

“Yeah…” Mo Ming nodded, less than thirty seconds remained until launch.

“Will we be able to meet again in the future?”

Although they had only known each other for a few tens of minutes, Mo Ming had quite enjoyed chatting with this little being whose intelligence was no different from a human’s.

“Maybe~” The little sprite flapped her wings and flew up.

“Because you arrived here so late, I didn’t tell you before… you are actually the second player to enter the virtual community, so there’s a special reward for you.”

“Second?” Mo Ming raised an eyebrow.

He didn’t focus on the reward, but rather became somewhat interested in the person who had entered before him… was it good luck, or was there another reason?

“Please confirm your reward in-game.

You’ll know as soon as you enter~” The little sprite winked her right eye at Mo Ming, twirled her staff in her hand, and a door made of white light appeared in front of him.

“Well then, goodbye.”

Then, Mo Ming suddenly felt himself being pushed by a mysterious force, causing him to stumble through the door—

【Welcome to the world of Horizon.】

With a strange sensation, Mo Ming found himself… high up in the sky.

As a Transcendent Being capable of flight through psychokinesis, Mo Ming was no stranger to the feeling of freefall.

Thus, the very instant he truly entered the game, he realized he was falling.

“Eh… Is this how it starts?” Mo Ming showed no panic at suddenly appearing in the sky, but instead calmly observed his surroundings.

Directly below Mo Ming was an enormous village.

Flashes of white light continuously appeared on the village roads, heralding the arrival of players one by one.

Seeing these players who appeared directly on the ground, Mo Ming suddenly realized that something seemed off.

If nothing unexpected happened, Mo Ming would land on a house directly below him in three seconds.

Mo Ming painstakingly adjusted his posture to ensure he could land in a very composed manner… If it were his original body, even flying directly would be no problem; the idea of struggling to adjust his posture was nonexistent.

However, it was unclear whether the game 【Horizon】 was simply too realistic, or if Mo Ming was just not used to moving in a holographic online game, but this Transcendent Being had forgotten one thing—this was a game.

The houses in a small village like this were naturally not very sturdy.

The instant Mo Ming landed on it in a perfect posture, the entire roof collapsed.

A few people who had noticed the strange movement looked up and saw Mo Ming falling from the sky.

These people watched with their own eyes as a person fell from the sky, smashed onto the roof, and then caved in the small house, creating a huge noise.

【-45】 A blue number popped up above Mo Ming’s head.

【You have died.】