Vivi opened her eyes to the Burial Room of the Ashen Hierophant.
维维在灰烬教宗的葬室中睁开了眼睛。

Having run the final boss fight of Seven Cataclysms at least a thousand times, she instantly recognized the scenery surrounding her. She groggily pushed herself up against the armrest of the massive obsidian throne, blinking around at the yawning spires enclosing the arena. Lava bubbled a dozen feet away, heat licking at her face, the sensation strangely vivid.
她已经把《七灾》最终首领战至少刷了一千遍，立刻认出了周围的景象。她迷迷糊糊地撑着巨大的黑曜石王座扶手坐起身，眨着眼环顾四周高耸入云的尖塔，它们像巨口般包围着这片竞技场。十几英尺外，岩浆咕嘟咕嘟地冒着泡，热浪舔舐着她的脸，触感异常真实。

“What?” she mumbled, head foggy. “Where…how…?”
“什么？”她含糊地嘟囔，脑袋昏沉。“这……哪儿……怎么……？”

Hazily, she looked down at herself. She was dressed in a hooded black robe covering her from neck to ankles, a thick, luxurious garment gilded with swirling purple designs. It was a familiar piece of gear. As the best-in-slot robes for mages, she wore them around constantly. But they'd never felt so real. Uncomprehending, she tugged at the fabric, and it shifted across her skin.
她迷迷糊糊地低头看自己。她穿着一件带兜帽的黑色长袍，从脖子一直盖到脚踝，厚实奢华，袍面上用紫色纹路勾勒出旋涡状花纹。这是一件熟悉的装备。作为法师的毕业装，她几乎一直穿在身上。可它从未像现在这样真实。她茫然地扯了扯布料，布料贴着皮肤滑动。

The natural conclusion was that she’d fallen asleep still logged into the massively popular VRMMO The Seven Cataclysms. But there was one problem with that. Technology was improving fast, but even the most advanced games couldn’t imitate real life. Not to this degree.
最自然的结论是她登录着超人气 VRMMO《七灾》时睡着了。但有一个问题：科技再进步，最先进的游戏也无法把现实模仿到这种程度。

The sound of bubbling lava, the sweltering heat, the feel of this robe brushing against her skin—those subtleties couldn’t be imitated.
岩浆咕噜咕噜的声响、令人窒息的酷热、长袍拂过肌肤的触感——这些细微之处都无法被模仿。

“What in the world?”
“这到底是怎么回事？”

Unsteadily rising to her feet, Vivi swept her gaze around the Ashen Hierophant’s arena, her brain working into overdrive.
维维摇摇晃晃地站起身，目光扫过灰烬教皇的竞技场，大脑飞速运转。

“[Status],” she said.  “[状态]。”她说。

A screen appeared in front of her.
一块界面在她面前浮现。

***

Vivisari Vexaria  维维萨莉·维克萨莉亚

<Usurper of the Ashen Throne>
<灰烬王座的篡夺者>

(Vanguard)  （先锋）

Level 2109 Demon [Archmage]
等级 2109 恶魔 [大法师]

STR: 162,196  力量：162,196

AGI: 102,342  敏捷：102,342

CON: 1,188,232  体质：1,188,232

MAG: 24,923,239  魔力：24,923,239

WIS: 7,693,326  智慧：7,693,326

***

For a long while, she stared at the status screen, numbly trying to comprehend what had happened.
她盯着状态面板看了很久，麻木地试图理解到底发生了什么。

“Might have gone crazy, I suppose,” she said. Her voice sounded weird to her own ears—like it wasn’t her own.
“大概是疯了吧。”她说。声音在她自己听来都很奇怪——仿佛那不是她自己的。

Because it wasn't her own.
因为那确实不是她的声音。

She looked down at her pale white hands. The creases were in the wrong spots. That might seem like something a person wouldn't notice easily, but she did so instantly. She traced one of the lines, then closed that hand into a fist. She shivered. Her hand quested up to touch her cheeks next, and she marveled at how realistic the sensation was.
她低头看向自己苍白的手。掌纹的位置不对。这似乎是常人难以察觉的细节，她却一眼就发现了。她沿着其中一条纹路划过，然后握成拳。她打了个寒颤。手又抬起来摸了摸脸颊，惊叹于那种逼真的触感。

She was definitely here, in the flesh. There was no denying that. And it was no dream; she would have woken from shock alone.
她确实就在这里，有血有肉。这一点毋庸置疑。而且这绝不是梦；光凭震惊就足以让她醒来。

On top of that, she wasn't even in her own body, but that of her character, Vivisari Vexaria.
更糟的是，她甚至不在自己的身体里，而是在她的角色——维维萨莉·维克萨莉亚的体内。

As for the name…look. She’d made the character when she was fifteen. Sure, she could have changed it, but she’d grown attached to the slightly edgy imaginations of her younger self. And honestly, she’d only sort of outgrown that love for flair. Enough so that she recognized, fine, it was dramatic, but she secretly kept liking it anyway.
至于名字……唉。这个角色是她十五岁时创建的。她当然可以改掉，但她已经对自己当年那点中二幻想产生了感情。说实话，她也没完全摆脱对华丽风格的喜爱——只是成熟到能承认：好吧，确实有点夸张，但她还是偷偷喜欢着。

“But how?” Vivi asked, head spinning.
“可怎么会这样？”薇薇抱着脑袋，天旋地转。

Yesterday had been a repeat of her not-very-admirable lifestyle: grind all day, go to bed with bags under her eyes. Nothing explained her transmigration. Certainly she hadn’t thrown herself in front of a bus to save a clueless child, then after being splattered across the road, been granted an audience with a sympathetic goddess with an offer to reincarnate into a world of her choice.
昨天不过是她乏善可陈的日常重演：整日刷级，顶着黑眼圈上床。没有任何迹象能解释她的穿越。她可没为了救一个懵懂小孩而扑到公交车前，被撞得血肉横飞后，又被一位心软的女神接见，还获得自选世界转生的机会。

She giggled at the idea, the noise tinted with panic more than amusement, and she cut herself off and took a calming breath.
想到这，她咯咯笑出声，笑声里更多是恐慌而非好笑，随即又赶紧止住，深吸一口气让自己冷静。

Well, anyway.  总之……

She needed to focus on reality. No amount of pinching herself was helping. It was only reminding her how real the tactile feedback was.
她得把注意力拉回现实。掐自己多少下都没用，只会不断提醒她——这触感有多真实。

It made no sense whatsoever, but she was here, in the Burial Room of the Ashen Hierophant.
完全说不通，但她确实站在这里，在灰烬教宗的葬室之中。

Almost because of how strange it was, she focused on the practical. On what she could actually do, as a way to distract herself.
正因为这一切太过离奇，她索性把注意力放在实际的事情上。专注于自己真正能做些什么，好让自己分心。

“[Inventory],” she commanded.
“[背包]。”她下令。

She scanned the grid-like display, flipping through pages to confirm. The scant few items—a set of potions and some miscellaneous consumables—jogged her memory as to what she’d been doing when she had last logged off.
她扫视着网格状的界面，翻了几页确认。寥寥无几的物品——几瓶药剂和一些杂七杂八的消耗品——让她想起了上次下线前自己在做什么。

Seven Cataclysms was a skill-based game, with almost all attacks being dodgeable or counterable, so technically, it was possible to clear even late-game raids solo. Even the final raid. And she’d done just that: cleared The Burial Room of the Ashen Hierophant on mythical difficulty. She had earned the unique title Usurper of the Ashen Throne for it.
《七灾》是一款以技巧为核心的游戏，几乎所有攻击都可以闪避或反击，理论上就算后期团本也能单人通关。最终团本也不例外。而她确实做到了：在神话难度下独自通关了“灰烬教宗的葬室”。为此，她获得了独一无二的称号——“灰烬王座篡夺者”。

Point being: in Seven Cataclysms, unsecured items and gold were dropped on death, so she’d been doing those challenge runs with a set of minimal supplies. She had barely anything.
重点是：在《七灾》里，未绑定的物品和金币会在死亡时掉落，所以她一直用最少量的补给进行那些挑战。她几乎一无所有。

Her best gear was equipped at least, since that wasn’t dropped on death.
她至少把最好的装备都穿在身上了，因为那些装备死亡时不会掉落。

“[Guild],” she voiced next.
“[公会]，”她接着开口。

Unlike when she’d tried to open her inventory, the voice command didn’t yield a status screen. Brow furrowing, she tried again.
不像刚才尝试打开背包那样，这次语音指令并没有弹出状态界面。她皱起眉头，又试了一次。

“[Guild]. [Guild Status]. [Guild Management].”
“[公会]。[公会状态]。[公会管理]。”

None worked.  全都没有反应。

Hm.  嗯。

So, the game functions weren’t one-to-one. Whatever had happened, she couldn’t rely on this world to act identically to the game she knew.
所以，游戏功能并非一一对应。无论发生了什么，她都不能指望这个世界和她所熟知的游戏完全一样。

“[Skills]?”  “[技能]？”

A screen cram-packed with abilities appeared. Nothing looked out of place, but it would take a while to confirm.
一个塞满能力的界面弹了出来。看起来一切正常，但要全部确认还得花些时间。

“[Quests].”  “[任务]。”

No response. 重试    错误原因

“[Map].” 重试    错误原因

Nothing. 重试    错误原因

“[Crafting].” 重试    错误原因

That was interesting. But she would deal with that later. 重试    错误原因

“[Friends].” 重试    错误原因

Once more, no result. 重试    错误原因

“[Settings].” 重试    错误原因

To be fair, she hadn’t expected that one to work. 重试    错误原因

“[Log Out]. [Quit]. [Force Quit]. [Request Moderator]. [Report]?” 重试    错误原因

Nor any of those. 重试    错误原因

She rattled off a few more commands to little avail. It seemed there were a few screens she could use, but most of the meta-functionality of the game had been removed. 重试    错误原因

She mulled over what to do. 重试    错误原因

There was one immediate factor that would determine her next steps. 重试    错误原因

Could she die? 重试    错误原因

Rather, could she respawn? There were no resurrection spells in Seven Cataclysms. When a player died, they were reborn in the nearest temple, all unsecured items and gold dropping on their death point. 重试    错误原因

Did real life work that way? 重试    错误原因

“Not that this is real life,” she muttered. 重试    错误原因

Though it was. Her head hurt thinking about it. 重试    错误原因

If she could die, she needed to be cautious. A visit to a temple would give an answer, so that was her first goal. 重试    错误原因

To the nearest city then? 重试    错误原因

Scanning her ability list, she found the skill she was looking for: [Greater Warp]. Before she teleported out, she hesitated. 重试    错误原因

There was one more thing she needed to check. 重试    错误原因

Looking around, her eyes landed on the obsidian throne. Walking behind to gain access to a large, smooth section of glassy black material, she rubbed her sleeve around to polish herself a mirror. 重试    错误原因

Her in-game avatar stared back. 重试    错误原因

“Oh, no,” Vivi said with dawning horror. 重试    错误原因

Her flair for the dramatic extended beyond how she named her characters. 重试    错误原因

“Why?” she groaned. 重试    错误原因

She had long curling demon horns, which she tugged on with amazement. A pale face with a neutral expression and bored red eyes. Long white hair that cascaded down to her mid-back. 重试    错误原因

All of that was fine. It was in the realm of normalcy for a fantasy-world character. 重试    错误原因

But one particular aesthetic choice made her wince. She traced a finger down her cheek, mortification growing at the two blood-red tattoos starting at her eyes and descending, imitating tear stains. 重试    错误原因

She sighed. 重试    错误原因

Maybe she had enjoyed the aesthetic when it was an avatar in a game—and secretly did even now—but now that she was living in this body, she looked at her reflection and decided, no, definitely not. She would not be walking around in public with red tear trails going down her cheeks. 重试    错误原因

There wasn’t much evidence supporting the claim, but she did have some sense of shame. 重试    错误原因

Unfortunately, scrubbing furiously at the marks didn’t help. 重试    错误原因

“At least I have magic, I guess? [Illusion] should be able to fix it?” 重试    错误原因

As a band-aid solution, anyway. 重试    错误原因

Getting rid of the distinguishing trait was probably smart from a tactical perspective, regardless. She wanted to gather information about the world and remain incognito. As the game’s highest-ranked player, and someone who had been—what, reincarnated?—straight into the game’s world, she suspected the name ‘Vivisari Vexaria’ would draw attention. And there probably weren’t many demons walking around with blood-trail eye tattoos. 重试    错误原因

So, some quick magic to clean up the mistakes of her former self, then off to civilization. 重试    错误原因

“Magic,” she said, musing over the word. 重试    错误原因

Magic was cool. She had always thought that. She picked some variant of a mage class in every game she played. If a game didn’t have a mage class, that usually meant she wasn’t playing it. 重试    错误原因

One of the reasons she’d fallen in love with Seven Cataclysms was the excellent design behind abilities and especially spells. There were a seemingly endless number, and each had been so fun to use. The visual design of the game was unparalleled for its time, and the tactile and other sensory feedback, while primitive, was good enough that certain spells and fights could get her heart racing even after tens of thousands of hours of gameplay. 重试    错误原因

Magic in real life—for a twisted meaning of that phrase, ‘real life’—was even cooler. And it didn’t work at all like how it did in Seven Cataclysms. 重试    错误原因

She would only realize she should be disturbed after the fact, but her brain knew what to do despite having definitely never cast a spell before. Mentally reaching inward to a glowing ball of energy sitting somewhere high in her stomach, she funneled mana through the many channels running through her body and extruded that white-hot resource into the air. 重试    错误原因

And then things really got weird. Through instincts she shouldn’t have, she molded the mana with her mind, shaped it, twisted it into proper form, folding long strands of molten energy into swirling shapes and patterns that began to take on their own meaning. Until eventually, somehow, she had finished. 重试    错误原因

“[Illusion],” she incanted. 重试    错误原因

The air in front of her shimmered, and she was done. She peeked into the glassy mirror of the obsidian throne and confirmed she no longer had red trails running down her eyes—and also, the recognizable design of the Vestments of the Voidwalker had lost its purple designs to appear instead as plain black robes. Those too, after all, might draw attention, and it wasn’t like she had a change of clothing on hand. 重试    错误原因

But more importantly. 重试    错误原因

“What was that?” 重试    错误原因

Nothing had felt unusual about the process of channeling and shaping mana. It had felt as natural as breathing, something she’d done a million times before. And it had definitely been her first time casting magic. 重试    错误原因

Where had that familiarity come from? It wasn’t like a VRMMO like Seven Cataclysms could hook so thoroughly into a person’s brain. While she loved how diverse the spells were, actual spellcasting was as simple as invoking the appropriate vocal commands or using an assigned series of gestures. 重试    错误原因

So she hadn’t just been given a new body. But also a new mind? Or rather extra stuff had been packed in. Stuff appropriate to the character, Vivisari Vexaria. 重试    错误原因

That was…weird? But kinda cool? She had extremely mixed feelings. A person's mind was what made them them. 重试    错误原因

That said, she felt like the same person. She was certain nothing else about her had changed. She'd just picked up a few tricks. Still, it was bizarre enough to unnerve her.

As weird and slightly terrifying as it was suddenly having the instincts of an experienced spellcaster lurking in her brain, though, she had just used magic. In a far realer way than any game ever could imitate. That made up for almost anything.

Forcing herself to move past the experience—in the same way she was ignoring the whole, somehow-in-a-different-world thing—she began to layer protective spells into herself.

“[Adamantine Aegis].”

“[Shell of the Fallen].”

“[Mind Fortress].”

“[Vortex of Negation].”

And so on and so on. That process she went through whenever preparing for a serious fight. Each spell was fascinating to cast, requiring a different shaping of mana to create the desired effect.

She added two more effects to the list, just in case.

“[Invisibility].”

“[Conceal Presence].”

By the time she was done, she’d gotten a good taste for what casting real magic was like, and there was a satisfied buzzing in her skull. Yes, she was very much going to enjoy messing around with what she could do. But later. She had more important goals.

Ready for whatever she might find in the capital, she began casting her final spell. [Greater Warp]. But halfway through shaping the mana, she crashed into a brick wall with a sudden realization.

She couldn’t complete the spell, because she had no target. There were no [Warp Anchors]. Her items and levels had carried over, but her warp points had been wiped clean.

She pulled the mana back into herself, grimacing. It wasn’t a pleasant experience. But releasing that much half-shaped mana into the air would result in something catastrophic, with the mana taking a life of its own and choosing what it wanted to be. Which never ended well. Magic, given a choice, preferred chaos. Another aspect of spellcasting she just knew somehow.

“Huh.”

So [Greater Warp] was out. The next best option was Fast Traveling, but she wasn’t able to access the map.

“Am I going to have to walk?” she asked incredulously.

Well, no. She had spells to speed up travel, flight and acceleration to name the obviously useful ones, but the world of Seven Cataclysms was huge. Even with those, it would take a while to move any great distance.

“There’s still [Gate To Nearest City],” she mumbled. “That’ll get me to Prismarche, but Meridian is thousands of miles south.”

Not that she had any idea how space would translate. Clearly, she couldn’t trust everything in this world being one-to-one. But the final Cataclysm had been as far north on the continent as possible, and Meridian, the capital city of the human kingdoms, was roughly two-thirds down.

“Can I really not warp?”

Getting to Meridian was important for a few reasons: that was where both the Guildhall and her personal house were located, and thus a majority of her items…assuming those hadn’t been wiped clean too, which she hoped wasn’t the case. When she looked at her status, she was still in the Vanguard guild, so that at a minimum hadn’t disappeared. Even if she couldn’t access the Guild tab.

Unfortunately, she couldn’t think of a way to instantly transport herself there if [Greater Warp] had no [Warp Anchors] to link to. Just like in the game, she’d have to get there manually and set one. That meant tons of hours on a Greateagle, probably, or flying herself.

That didn’t actually sound so bad. Flying through the sky and watching the world of Seven Cataclysms pass underneath her? She was marveling at simply existing right now. The arena of the Burial Chamber was breathtaking, the huge black stone spires engulfing her like the open maw of a giant beast, lava surrounding her on all sides.

There was a whole world like this to explore. What would the Sky-Pillar Range look like? The Ossuary Isles? The Gloamwoods? And a thousand other places that had been stunning even in the digital world, much less this higher fidelity one. What would the people be like?

So, while inconvenienced, she didn’t find herself too upset.

Logically speaking, it was better to visit a smaller city first, anyway.

“Off to Prismarche, then.” She dropped a [Warp Anchor], took a breath, then activated a skill. “[Gate To Nearest City].”