Ai stared at the digital clock, counting upwards to midnight. Tonight was the last day Yggdrasil's servers would run. Her HUD had her health and status bars on display, as well as her quick-cast spells and abilities.

She was Level 100, but only recently was she able to achieve this feat every other player had achieved within weeks of grinding. Yes, she had spent the last 11 years of playtime leveling her character up to Level 95 exactly.

Since she was initially invited to playtest the private beta a year prior to the official launch of the game, she and the other beta testers knew of the secret classes one could unlock by gaining certain levels in a specific class. However, almost all of the beta testers took this secret to their metaphorical graves, as many of them had quit the game by this point.

Although players eventually learned about the existence of the secret classes, it was not popularized enough for players to invest time and energy into them. One had to fulfill certain checks before even getting to the point where leveling the secret class was possible. Even then, the job and racial levels one had to grind through might not have been suited for a game where PVP abilities were largely more relevant.

Pkers, and those who exacted revenge on Pkers, were numerous among the player base, most notably among the roleplayers who looked down on others for playing as a non-humanoid race. Even Ai was at risk of PKers when she was leveling up her character.

Ai's ambitions were aimed at finding the ultimate hidden secret class, one which stood above all others. Indeed, her suspicions were spot on when she deduced the devs had decided to name the game 'Yggdrasil' for a reason.

The [Allfather] class.

As she stared down the clock, she had indeed succeeded in her endeavors. Ai's last 5 levels were spec'd in obtaining the hidden power Odin himself wielded. The devs might have been shitty at balancing the game, but she had to give them credit when it came to the extraordinary detail they had laid hidden.

They had created the game as an exploration-type game, where players could do almost anything as long as they had discovered the means to do so. However, there was an aching pain running through her chest. It was deep regret for not finishing her grand quest earlier. She had finally attained an impossible height, only for there to be no spectators to behold her efforts, nor anyone she could talk to about it.

The game was ending… no, her life's work was ending. The real world she lived in was bleak and devoid of anything joyful. The skies were covered in dangerous black clouds which would rain down acid at any time. Cities were overcrowded, work was as long as it rigorous, and people ignored each other.

Ai was especially guilty of the last one. Her entire experience with Yggdrasil was comprised of mostly a single-player experience. She would level and do quests on her own. Even when it came time to raids and guild wars, she was the sole member of her team. However, she did not mind the solitude.

The hours she had spent preparing for single-player raid clears had earned her renown among the community, and soon, the game's Wikipedia page had a page about her in guides on dungeoneering. The fame came with its drawbacks, however, as many players soon began questioning the devs how it was possible a non-Level 100 player was single-handedly clearing raids aimed for 6-player parties.

She then made the biggest mistake by clearing up the confusion. Although she was not yet level 100, she had a World-Class item she would use during raids. 12 hours after she had posted the response on the community forums, she was relentlessly hunted by treasure seekers and PKers for her equipment.

There was PVP, which required both parties to agree to the terms, but PKers could attack anytime Ai was not in a sanctuary-type area. Soon, the World-Class item was worth more trouble than the usefulness it had brought her.

Ai would soon get another note on her Wikipedia page afterward. She put her World-Class item on the global market for sale, the first ever to do so. The minimum bid was 1000 times the total held in the Grand Bank of Myrkheim, home of the dwarves. She had intended to put an impossible asking price in order to keep the World-Class item in limbo, so she would later become stronger and take it down from the market.

The plan failed 1 minute after the item was publicly listed. 6 guilds had started the bidding war and by the end of the hour, she became the 3rd richest player in all of Yggdrasil. Some would say she had failed her plan successfully. However, she was quite hard-pressed to relinquish such a fond treasure.

She had sold the [Olive Branch of Athena]. When a player equipped the item, everyone in their party would become neutral to all enemy AIs in the game, meaning they could clear raids without having the boss ever attacking once. The gold she gained, however, was able to fuel her blind ambitions in the end. She no longer needed to clear raids for data crystals, as she could now buy it from the open market.

Ai smiled fondly at the memories of Yggdrasil she kept within her heart. This game had become a part of her life. The bleak days and long work hours would bleed into one another, to the point where she could barely differentiate what was happening in her real life. However, if there was one thing the real world had that Yggdrasil did not… it was her mom.

Yes, her mom worked an office job, which soon became a manager job, which also soon became an overseas job. Ai was almost glad her mother had moved overseas to work. She would hate to make her mother cry at the sorry state her life was currently at. Unmarried, no children, no friends, and no ambitions to advance her career whatsoever.

Her real-life was a tragedy, but in Yggdrasil, nothing else mattered. She had achieved the goal she set out to, and that was that. There were tinges of sadness she had no one to share this moment with, but in the end, she had done all of this for herself.

Ai sat on her golden throne, or rather, she was seated upon Odin's. If one were to view her right now, it would be as if a child climbed onto an adult's seat. She had created her character to be that of a young girl. Her original thought was that in a game where PVP was prevalent, some would hesitate to openly strike a small child.

In some cases, this had worked out and she was able to gain a winning advantage against her opponent, but most of the time, players in the PVP scene did not hold back no matter what she looked like.

She had named her character 'Toreii', after finding out all the other names she had wanted were already taken. She had customized Toreii to have the appearance of a 12-year-old girl, with crimson red thigh-length pigtails. However, that was the only thing normal about her character.

Ai had split Toreii's Levels into 40 in racial and 60 in job classes. Due to being a beta tester, she was allowed to migrate her original character over. But, there were keen differences in the races available to players between the beta and the official release. The beta had [Deity] as one of their races – but it was later reworked into the [Divine] class job.

Since she transferred her character over, she still had the racial perks of [Deity], where the most important one was the lack of penalties for spells and abilities which relied on one's karma values. It was due to this non-restriction that she could afford to create such a destructive spellcaster build on her character.

In the last 60 Levels of job classes, 5 were in [Sage], 5 in [High Sage], 5 in [Elder Sage], and 5 in [Eldritch] – the secret job class of completing the entire Sage job line. The [Eldritch] class had allowed her the use of a free Super-Tier spell once a day, which did not cost her mana or put it on cooldown, but cash items could not be used in conjunction with the ability.

Next was 15 levels in [Ragnarok], the highest magical DPS job class in the game which relied on one's karma to determine total damage. If one had positive karma, the spells would do higher base damage to the opponents. If one had negative karma, the spells would have lower base damage, but ignore a certain percentage of the target's resistances. Since she was of the [Deity] race, Ai had the bonus of choosing which effect she wanted from her spells.

After that were 10 levels in [World Champion]. Due to her ability to readily buy data crystals, Ai was able to forge her equipment to the Legendary scale. Having entered the Asgard world tournament, she came out victorious, despite the lack of levels between her and her opponents.

The prize for winning the tournament was a complete set of Asgardian armor which boosted one's base stats to by an unnaturally unfair amount. Of course, Ai had refused the armor, but instead, asked for a prize which allowed her to learn the job classes of the Asgardians.

The devs were initially hesitant on Ai's refusal, but since she had won while also being under-leveled, they honored her request out of respect. Instead of the armor, Ai had received a tome aptly named [Anthology of Asgard], the first of its kind.

With the tome, she was able to learn the most important precursor to the [Allfather] class. Ai could have used it to learn the most sought after job class – [World Forge] – which granted one knowledge of all World-Class items as well as how to craft them. It would have put her into stardom if she learned that, but it was not the path she wanted. Instead, Ai used the tome to learn 10 Levels of [Æsir], the pantheons Odin directly hailed from.

Which left her at Level 95. Ai would spend the next several years learning, researching, failing, accidentally leveling, and most dangerously, dying to reset her levels. Some of her original job levels did not meet the criteria of an [Allfather], which meant she had to lose levels in certain jobs to re-spec into other jobs. Dying meant PKers could spawn camp her, killing her over and over until she had lost all of her levels.

It was only in the last year of Yggdrasil's lifetime that Ai finished her character leveling, but the effort had paid off immensely. The final dungeon in the game was the [Ascension to Odin], which a raid party or guild would have to fight their way upwards from the outer rim of Asgard to the inner circle, where Odin's castle stood.

What had made the dungeon impossible to clear was the fact every citizen was an Æsir. They were a race with supernatural durability and might, and that was just an ordinary citizen. The royal guards were equipped with magical weapons and armor ranging from Ultra-Rare to Legendary. Indeed, the devs had intended for this to be the final fight within the game. Each Æsir was comparable to a level 100 NPC whom guilds would create to protect their bases. Since Asgard was filled with nearly 100,000 Æsir NPCs, players gave up after finding it too difficult to clear just the outer walls of Odin's castle.

However, the guild who had originally bought the World-Class item from her, [Olive Branch of Athena], believed they would be the first and only guild to have the prestige to clear it. With such a lax attitude coming into the dungeon, the guild was promptly wiped out immediately by the Asgardians. Several long pages of complaints were sent to the devs immediately, which outlined how the World-Class item was broken and that they expected compensation for the bug.

A day after the complaints were posted, the devs sent out a reply that was as blatant as it was cruel. "Would you kneel before the symbol of a foreign God? Or would you defend your country according to the rule of the Gods you believed in?" It was another shitty move by the devs in order to keep the dungeon from being cleared. Players concluded the devs cared more about keeping to the game's lore than actually balancing the mechanics of the game.

Yet here she was, the last moments of the game, sitting atop Odin's throne, the Æsirs kneeling at attention. The [Allfather] class had a special bonus perk after reaching 5 levels with it, called [One Above All]. The passive skill treated her as if she was Odin herself, which allowed her entry into the castle without so much of a fight. Instead, she was welcomed by the Æsirs when she first took over the Asgardian base.

The entirety of Asgard was protected by a magical barrier which kept out anything Odin did not allow inside. Also, by sitting on Odin's throne, Ai had a complete comprehension and overview of all of Asgard. The regular NPCs would walk the streets, while soldiers in magical armor would patrol all over the golden city.

Ai looked to the special NPCs who kneeled before her, as well as the single NPC who was allowed a seat beside her. Seated on a smaller silver throne was Frigga, queen of Asgard and wife of Odin. Ai found it incredibly weird the NPC treated her as if she was Odin herself and would sometimes find Frigga waiting in their shared bed chamber. It was most probably due to the backstory the devs had written for her that Frigga acted in such a way, but that did not mean Ai would become more inclined toward the same gender.

She could not help but sigh internally about the fine detail put into the NPCs of Asgard. Beside both her and Frigga, stood another two female warriors outfitted in magical silver armament. They were Valkyries, Odin's personal guards who showed loyalty only to him – therefore to Ai as well. In front of her, the only two not kneeling were Odin's sons, Thor and Loki.

Thor had a warrior's gaze directed intently at her, which she saw through his storming blue eyes. The God of Thunder was very much how he appeared in the original Norse mythology, from his blond hair to the same hammer, Mjolnir, which the ancient being wielded. His stance spoke of the countless battles he withstood and won, but the fresh appearance of his armor meant he had not seen combat lately.

Next to him stood his brother Loki, dressed in an emerald green garb covering his entire body. The outfit looked very pristine, with gold accents laced into an intricate design all over his chest. His head was protected by a golden helmet with horns which almost doubled back into a full circle. When compared to the battle maniac beside him, Loki looked more fit to be a ruler than a combatant.

Behind the brothers were the lesser-known gods, like Lady Sif and the Warrior Three, but directly behind Thor and Loki was Baldur, the only son Odin had with Frigga. That was all the important NPCs Ai could remember at the top of her head. Norse mythology was very old, and mostly forgotten in her time.

There were still several other NPCs Ai wished to meet before the closing of the servers forever. So, getting up from the throne, Ai issued a programmed order to her subjects, "Protect Asgard."

All the NPCs nodded their heads in acknowledgment, which she took as a signal to teleport to another tower within the castle. Her finger had the [Ring of the Æsir] which allowed teleportation through all of Asgard. Similar to how guild members had rings which allowed for unlimited teleportation through the guild's base, this ring had that effect as well as combative stats, which made it all-around the better ring by comparison.

Ai had teleported to the tallest tower inside the castle, which also housed one of the nation's treasures, the [Bifrost] and its sole protector, Heimdall. The celestial overseer was well over twice her height, whose bulky build emphasized his muscular arms and chiseled features. His eyes gleamed with a brightness only a stargazer would have. He immediately began kneeling before her sudden appearance.

It was the third time she had ever visited the guardian, but his presence was that of an old friend. Ai signaled him to rise, and issued what was probably the last command as the Allfather.

"Thank you for your persistence. Please keep watch," she softly muttered. The NPCs could only respond to specific commands set out by the devs, so more than likely Heimdall had only acknowledged the 'keep watch' part.

With that out of the way, Ai teleported again toward a secret chamber within the heart of the castle. Inside, the chamber had an emptiness where the ceiling should have been. The room's walls were decorated in runic patterns etched into the black obsidian. In the center stood a withering tree, whose branches were lifeless, save for 9 leaves.

It was Yggdrasil itself, the Tree of Life, although it looked like it barely hung onto life in the first place. On the tree branches sat two black ravens, Muninn and Huginn, which were Odin's personal information seekers. Beneath the massive tree was an oval golden chamber, almost like a capsule.

[23:56:32]

These were her last moments in Yggdrasil. Since she roleplayed as the Allfather, Ai might as well complete the act. She laid inside as the lid softly hissed shut. The chamber's only purpose was to protect the Allfather during his most vulnerable state: the Odin Sleep, which would be her closing act on the game she was so endeared with.

[23:59:02]

Unbeknownst to her, the Allfather class also had a special skill which could be used when in close proximity to the World Tree… [New World], which was a combination of the spell [Wish Upon a Star] and the World-Class item [Five Elements Overcoming]. Yggdrasil was able to grant the Allfather a single irrefutable wish, which the devs would have to comply with, no matter how unbalanced.

In her last moments, Ai used her wish.

"I wish to see a new world…"

A/N: This is the updated version of the first chapter. Leave a comment about your thoughts or some feedback for me! Anything is helpful.