"Why have you called us woman? I could be training." Vegeta growled impatiently.

"I'll tell you when piccolo and Dende arrive." Bulma replied annoyed.

Most of the z gang were here in Capsule Corporation, Trunks, Vegeta, Yamcha, Tien, Krillin, Piccolo, Bulma and me – Gohan. that could mean only one thing, we all knew it but no one said it. There was a global crisis that needed our help not that I was complaining if I wasn't here mom would be making me study. Looking about the faces of everyone here, I realized that this had become a normal part of our lives.

We all stood about awkwardly waiting for piccolo and Dende – they took the longest as they had to go slow and were coming all the way from the lookout. I could sense they had arrived, all eyes par Bulma's turned towards the door as it opened.

"Now what is it woman?" Vegeta asked straight away clearly wanting to get back to training.

"This" she said flicking the TV on and onto a news channel.

"10, 000 gamers are trapped in the first virtual reality game. If you know one of the gamers do not try to take the nerve gear off as this will kill them, I repeat do not take off the nerve gear. If you have one of the few untouched nerve gear helmet do not enter the game as you will become trapped. Do not enter the game . . ."

As the news continued to trickle in it became clear that there was nothing the government was going to do, that apparently they had to clear the game to escape and potentially 10 000 people could lose their lives. Everyone looked shocked par piccolo, Dende and Vegeta. Dende probably already knew something bad had happened what with being kami, Vegeta probably didn't really care and piccolo hid his reaction.

"So?" Vegeta said.

"So? So! . . . So we have to help them!" Bulma responded looking on the edge of tears.

"Can't you override the systems or something? I mean you're a genius can't you do anything?" Krillin asked confused.

"I can't do anything because I helped design the entire system to prevent people hacking into it; I also design the nerve gear and programmed the physics engine." Bulma whispered looking ashamed.

"Can't we wish them out with the dragon balls?" I asked that seemed the easiest way.

"No." piccolo cut through the almost hopeful silence. "I don't like this but we can't rely on the dragon for everything, what if we use them now and then a bigger crisis comes next week and we need the Dragonballs again." Piccolo stated calmly leaving no room for argument.

"Well what can we do?" Tien asked knowing Bulma wouldn't call us without reason.

"I have one of the nerve gear helmets, I kept one of the prototypes after we finished, we could send one person inside the game to clear it faster." Bulma offered.

"Is there nothing else?" Dende asked clearly not liking how helpless we were right now.

"Umm . . . no." Bulma looked thoughtful before making up her mind.

"Well who goes in?" Krillin asked.

"Me!" Trunks had sensed the seriousness of the conversation and stayed quiet but he couldn't resist this opportunity.

"No you won't young man!" Bulma said sternly.

"One of the fighters will go" Vegeta stately gruffly.

"You idiot you don't take your body with you, you'll be just as weak as me in there."

"True but when you fight at the speed we do, your mind and reactions are almost impossibly fast." Tien stated calmly.

"What kind of game is it?" Krillin asked wondering who would be best suited to trying to complete the game.

"MMORPG, so it's killing monsters levelling up. You know swords, spears, bows and arrows but mainly swords." Bulma said.

As soon as those words left Bulma's mouth Piccolo's head snapped towards me, from the look on his face I could tell what he was thinking.

Clearly my throat to get everyone's attention I said "I should be the one to go." I paused to let it sink in. "I learnt some sword fighting techniques under piccolo's tutorage."

"But Gohan what will Chichi think?" Bulma said not wanting to deal with a hysterical Chichi. (Chichi had stayed at home to look after Goten)

"10 000 lives are more important than my mother's approval." I replied without skipping a beat.

"Ha! The brat's finally got some backbone!" Vegeta's mocking laugh echoed across the room.

Ignoring him I said: "anything extra I need to know about this game?"

"Yeah . . . lots." Bulma was almost smirking and trunk's was grinning.

An hour later and we'd gone through the basics; levelling, the different stats, quests, NPCs, monsters, EXP, Bosses, sword skills, weapons, different character builds and specific Sword art online knowledge like the flooring/ boss system of Aincrad or the multitude of different skills ranging from cooking to battle healing.

The different stats and how you allocated your skill points was something trunk's (who apparently was an avid gamer) said was very important; in Sword art online most improved each time you levelled up but you could further improve them with skill points.

Trunks and Bulma were like walking encyclopaedias of Sword Art Online, with this in mind I asked; "why did you help in making this game so much anyway Bulma?"

She looked down at her feet looking like she was deciding how to answer, looking back up she spoke. "Think about the uses of Virtual reality, it could be used to train someone for a dangerous job giving invaluable experience with no risk to human life. It would be a breakthrough similar to my father inventing the capsule . . . but with this setback"

I nodded in understanding, but with this setback no one would trust virtual reality and it might go to waste.

"One last thing . . . the physics engine works perfectly." She said quietly.

"You mean Ki? Super saiyan?" I asked hopefully as they'd give me an edge.

"As far as I can figure they should but . . . I couldn't tell for sure. Come on kid it's time to log on." Bulma tried to be cheery but I could see how much she hated that she had almost caused this.

She led me to a lab room with a bed in the middle, an I.V. drip and a nerve gear helmet. The walls were a pale cream and there were no windows making the room look dreary. Attaching me to the I.V. since I wouldn't be able to eat for the foreseeable future.

"I'll gather the others." She said grimly as she left the room.

I sat in the room going over what I had learnt from Trunks and Bulma over the past hour or so trying to plan what I'd do once in the game but with so many variables it was an impossible task. My heart beat rose in response to the challenge set before me but I knew I needed to stay calm for now and act rationally at first.

Before I knew it Bulma was back with; Krillin, Piccolo, Tien, Vegeta, Trunks, Dende and Yamcha in tow. Looking at each face individually I saw different reactions. Tien, Yamcha and Krillin looked worried. Trunks looked excited and was still grinning. Dende and Bulma looked like they were ashamed that they couldn't help and were concerned about me. Vegeta looked serious but said nothing only folded his arms over his chest and nodded at me which was probably the best I'd get from Vegeta. Finally Piccolo managed to look both serious and stoic but also worried and concerned.

From the looks on their faces I knew no words were needed they were worried but I'd been worse situations much worse, they knew that and trusted that I'd survive and help as many as possible. Picking up the nerve gear helmet I put it on my head and laid down on the bed.

Taking a deep breath I shouted. "Link start!"

The room I was in faded to black whilst the faces of my friends blurred and disappeared altogether. I slipped into unconsciousness and a completely new world filled with new challenges and death every step of the way.

Darkness surrounded me, in every direction as far as the eye could see. Silence. I waited a moment then an enlarged version of my menu appeared that allowed me to customize my character name and appearance, except the appearance part was blocked out. I stood Staring at the name section thinking for several minutes, before smirking and entering my choice and pressing confirm. There was a few seconds when the system checked whether that name was taken. It wasn't. From then on I was known as Saiyan.

There was a few moments delay before a new world came swimming into view, I was stood in an open plaza surrounded by renaissance buildings, the sky was clear and there was a quiet chatter of NPCs and players in the city in the background. Taking it all in I paused for a second this is all in my head? The thought was astounding.

Breaking out of my trance like state I checked my inventory, I had 1000 col. strolling through the city I found an NPC weapon vendor. Buying a sword that was similar to the one I had used as a child – a long sword with balanced build (it had average stats and average swing speed). That left me with 500 col which I decided to save as I was unsure if I'd need and armour yet.

Stopping as I remembered what Bulma said about the physics engine, I tried to create a Ki ball . . . nothing happened. I tried to reach into the well of power that was my super saiyan transformation but again nothing. I could feel my Ki but it was so minuscule that I couldn't make though I could still sense where people were and how strong they were.

Leaving the city I stretched my senses outward searching for the nearest monsters – their Ki was different primal and very primitive but not evil. Finding a boar about as high as my chest I approached it whilst manipulating my menu to equip my sword. In a flash of light there it was on my back. My slow walk transitioned into a light jog then a flat out sprint as I tested my limits in this avatar, as I reached the boar it noticed me a second before I embedded my foot into the underside of its belly. The boar fell onto its side from the impact, but as I checked its health the blow had done very little so I can't use martial arts then. As I was about to glance away I noticed something next the health bar was a flashing icon depicting a head with three birds flying around it. The dazed symbol! The flashing meant it only had a few seconds of activation left. Smoothly transitioning into one of my basic katas I watched in amusement as each hit caused the dazed status preventing the boar from attacking back.

A minute later I stopped and checked the boar health – it had barely dropped. I stopped deciding to let the boar attack. To my eyes each attack was slow and predictable making dodging them very easy, letting one hit me I saw my health drop by a tenth and felt a slight pain. So the pain is just enough that you know that you've been hit. Drawing my sword from its sheath upon my back, I slashed at the boar dealing a third of its health leaving it with just over half left hmm no dazed status. Side stepping a charge of the boar I slashed down into the back of the neck of the boar, scoring a critical hit and killing the boar instantly.

A screen popped up showing what the boar dropped and the experience I had gained. Taking the few items, I moved onto the next boar. Remembering what Trunks' said about sword skills I got the attention of the boar with a lunge of my sword before jumping back and readying my sword for a simple Slash skill. My sword glowed light blue, as the boar charged towards me. I waited and waited, then released my sword skill obliterating the boar and dealing a large amount of damage compared to a normal swing however after the skill I couldn't move for several seconds. That was what Trunks' had called cool down. Sword skills offer more damage but leaves me open to counters

Moving on I continue to kill the Boars until I reached level 2 at that point I decided that my character would be a balanced build so I could deal enough DPS but defend myself, I decided against tanking as the creatures moved so slowly my reactions would be good enough to save me and not pure DPS as I'd probably be soloing and wanted to maximize my survival chance. To this end I placed my skill points on each stat with a slight emphasis on strength to increase my damage. After which my experience per Boar dropped I continued to kill more Boars but then my Experience rate dropped again and a message appeared. It read; you have killed 100 Frenzy Boars, after killing 100 of the same Enemy you have learnt all you can from it and so your experience gain drops.

Deciding that this was a good a time as any to stop I glanced at my health expecting it to be around half from when two Boars attacked me and caught me by surprise, however it was closer to three-quarters of my full health. Realizing that my health must regenerate slowly over time I returned to the starting city.

After buying some potions and selling my drops, par the old long sword, to an NPC. I equipped the rusty long sword as it had much better stats. I strolled around the starting city until something caught my eye an NPC called the skill trainer.

Talking over to Him I asked "what's a skill trainer?"

"I'm a skill trainer, I can teach you a multitude of skills and allow you to switch between different skills if you want?" it replied.

Intrigued, I said "please."

As soon as I said that a menu appeared with two tabs the first allowed me to learn new skills like blacksmithing or tailoring, the second showed which skills I had unlocked already and how to put them into my two skill slots. At the minute I had only unlocked one skill, Basic Sword Skill at 20/1000. Pressing it gave a description; Basic sword skill said everyone started the game with this. Switching back to the first tab I scrolled through the options before picking one handed sword, sprint and parry. One handed sword skill improved my damage with one handed swords, their swing speed and unlocked more advanced sword skills, Basic sword skills improved the damage of my sword skills reduced the cool down and I presumed allowed me to unlock advanced sword skills, parry unlocked sword skills that blocked different attacks and reduced the damaged taken when parrying and sprint increased the speed at which I moved whilst this seemed trivial in a battle if I could dart in do some damage and retreat before a monster could retaliate it was worth it. There were more that I could get from this NPC and probably some you could get in specific ways but I thought that four were enough to level up for now considering I could only level two at once.

As I closed the tabs, a golden question mark appeared above the NPC's head – the symbol for a quest. I stepped back wondering how I activated it before the NPC began speaking.

"Wow! You're eager to learn new things. There's rumour of a Cloth armour skill, wanna hear about it?"

Considering my options, I'd need armour soon but I was disinclined to wear mail armour because of the speed reduction despite the stat gain and leather had the same problem.

"Yeah tell me about it." I replied, if I decided to go for Mail or Leather I lost nothing in gaining this skill. The NPC told me of a small village in the north east of the third floor that was home to a master tailor. I was mildly surprised no one told me about quest that spanned different floors. Sighing I turned to leave the starting city.

"Time to level some more." I mumbled.

Stretching out my sense as far as I could encompassing most of the first floor I moved toward a group of monsters that's Ki suggested they were around level 3 or 4. Since my experience with the Boars I realized I could easily fight above my level if only by a few levels.