Level 01: Sign-up

Level 01: Sign-up

Offline:\Sinagtala Relocation Site>

In a temperate earlySunday afternoon, a 15-year-old athletic emo-haired boy strolled his way toMamang Abe’s bakery. The stout baker hollered at the boy,

          “Oi, Ren!You and Butchoy must sell the remaining sweet breads before sundown!”

Ren glanced at MamangAbe, and then he replied with surprise,

          “There’swhat?”

“Ren, we’ll have newsweet breads from another supplier tomorrow!”

Ren scratched his headfor a moment, and even cajoled,

“These little coconut buns are stilldelicious, even though they’re fewer than before, Mamang Abe”

Mamang Abe chuckled,and then she playfully brushed Ren’s hair,

          “You’reflattering me, Rene-boy!” Mamang Abe laughed back.

“Yeah, our supplier told us that they’removing to another business, in fact, they’re already tired of doing bread!” thestout baker added.

The stout baker calledsomeone on the other room, “Butchoy!”

          “Just amoment, mama!” yelled by a child.

Moments after, a shortstubby boy, wearing oversized jersey shirt and faded blue bear-printed pajamas,is seen walking fast towards Mamang Abe.

“Butchoy, you and Renwill sell all of our sweet breads at 4pm, okay?” Mamang Abe reminded.

Butchoy nodded happilyand hugged his mother. The caring baker glanced back at Ren, and she requested,

          “Ren,take care of my Butchoy, okay?”

Ren nodded, and thenthe two went to the bakery’s garage. They began loading their bakery bike withdifferent sweet breads. The stubby boy started a conversation,

          “Ren, Iwatched something awesome today!”

          “Eh? Whatis it?” Ren curiously asked.

          “Theycalled it NOAH” Butchoy answered.

          “NOAH?Isn’t that the old soap opera?”

“Nope. It’s totally different, Ren! It’s a bigonline game made in the Philippines!”

“You are not jokin’,Butchoy. Is that for real?” Ren exclaimed with a surprise.

“Yeah Ren, definitely! You can create atotally different character now, that you can be a penguin, a semi-realistichuman, or even be an anime-like character!” Butchoy explained.

“Most games have thatfeature already, Butchoy!” Ren snickered.

“Oh, what’s interesting is that some of thegame content is designed by players themselves! Better yet, to acquire many ofthe player-made content, the game will give us quests to come up with thoseitems, and of course, there are lots of characters to mingle with!” Butchoyspun further.

“That’s… reallyinteresting, Butchoy!”

The two were able topack all of the sweet breads onto the bakery’s cargo-cycle. Moments after,Mamang Abe approached the two, and then she reminded,

          “Becareful on your way, boys, and make sure you sell all of it!”

The two boys gleefullynodded at Mamang Abe, and they moved out.

In the streets ofSinagtala relocation site, Butchoy started hollering out potential buyers,while Ren slowly drove the bakery’s cargo-cycle. Three gossiping mothersnoticed the boys, and immediately approached them.

          “Butchoy,one pack of ‘pan de coco’, please?” asked by one of the gossiping mothers.

The stubby boyimmediately brought out brown paper bags, and cheerfully filled them withcoconut breads.

          “Wow, Iwish I have sons like you” adored by another gossiping mother.

The three moms paidthem twenty pesos each and both boys smiled at them.

The boys were soenthusiastic with their current task, which other kids of their age wouldrather play around the streets, or play in computer shops for hours. Fiveyoung, slender boys, with oriole complexion, hollered the young bread peddlers,and the boy, with buzz cut hair, bade,

          “Twoensaymadas please!”

          “Twococonut breads for me!” asked by a boy, wearing large basketball shorts like apair of pajamas.

Ren alighted fromtheir bakery’s bike, and helped out Butchoy in serving five boys’ orders.

          “Ren, twoSpanish bread rolls for me!” a boy donning large, tattered, ash white teeshirt, requested.

          “Fivepieces of muffins please!” bade by another boy from behind.

The two peddlersgleefully handed out the boys’ requests, and even one of them begged atButchoy,

          “M-may Iwork with you guys? You look happy doing this job!”

          “I’lltell my mom first!” Butchoy simply answered, as he handed out the final order,while Ren accepted the boys’ payments.

The boys went to thenearby sari-sari store and exchanged stories, while enjoying Mamang Abe’s lastsweet breads. Ren and Butchoy looked at them, and smiled for their doing.

Three minutes after,the bread-peddling duos went to the nearby basketball court, and peddle theremaining sweet breads. One of the basketball players called for a time-out fora snack, and then both playing teams approached Ren and Butchoy to buy all ofthe remaining sweet breads.

          “Guys,since we all played so nice today, I should shoulder our snacks then!” the baldbasketball player gallantly told the rest of the teams, and handed out hismoney to Ren.

Ren and Butchoy smiledat the whole team, and began putting all of the breads to paper bags, untilnothing is left. Butchoy hugged Ren, and he happily expressed,

          “We didit Ren! We did it!”

After selling all ofthe bread in the city, the two went to a computer café near Ren’s tenement, andglanced on a catchy, colorful game poster that bore the name NOAH.

“So Butchoy, this isthe NOAH you’ve been telling me, back home eh?” Ren asked his partner.

“Yup, from what I hearfrom my classmates, the game is so good!” Butchoy answered casually.

“Hmmm… I might try playing that later on, butfirst… Let’s go back to your mom’s bakery” Ren replied with interest.

On their way home,Butchoy finally asked Ren,

“Ren, you fortunately have the eagerness towork, even though you are already at middle school. What drives you to workhard?”

“To admit, Butchoy, I’d like to earn as muchas I could, so that I can buy things, and help out my parents too. In my earnings,I spend a few of it in playing games on the computer café” Ren casuallyanswered,

“Eh? You’re working sohard, that you’ll be playing the rest of the weekend?”

“Yeah, that’s how I roll. But the games Iplay, tends to have prize money sometimes” Ren confessed, as he drive theirbakery’s bike back to the store.

“T-therefore you arebetting with your savings on BD-Strike?”

“Y-yeah, I work andplay for money, for I have skills that I constantly hone” Ren admitted hisalleged vice.

“Did your mom knowabout this?”

“Yeah, and she’s quite upset about it atfirst, that she believe that it’ll endanger my studies”

They finally arrivedto Mamang Abe’s bakery, and Butchoy excitedly exclaimed,

          “Mom, we did it! Wewere able to sell all of the bread!”

          “Really?” Mamang Abeis surprised.

          “Because alot ofcustomers saw us coming, that’s why, and it worked so well!” Ren chuckled, withboth of his hands on his head, smiling afterwards.

          “There’s even twobasketball teams who bought all of our bread, all paid by one boy!” Butchoyadded.

“That’s surprisinglygood, boys!” Mamang Abe praised the boys, and she asked for the earnings.

The boys simply handedover the earned money, and then Mamang Abe started dividing the earnings.

          “Butchoy, Ren, both ofyou will have thirty pesos for this day, okay?” the stubby baker informed herpeddlers, and then she handed their earnings to them.

Five minutes after inthe bakery, Ren went back to the tenement with his bike. He saw his mothertalking to their father working overseas on the phone,

          “How are you there in Melbourne, Papa?”

“Ehehehehe! Doin’ fine here, commander!” the man on the other lineanswered, which is actually Ren’s father.

“Say, why don’t we talk online, with a webcam? I miss your facesover there” suggested by Papa Carlito.

Ren’s mother saw Ren at their doorstep, carrying a bag of coconutbread for their afternoon snack. Then she conversed back to Papa Carlito,whilst Ren prepared mugs of coffee.

“Sure, maybe next week” Ren’s mother answered.

The mother looked at Ren’s cheerful visage, and shared a littlestory to Papa Carlito,

“Did you know that Ren’s going around town selling bread, andnewspapers?”

“R-really, honey?” Carlito, Ren’s father, exclaimed with adelighting surprise.

“Yup, he is!” the mother replied.

“Ren got it from me, Desiree!” Carlito giggled

“I bet he’s doing it for something he wanted someday, honey” thefather reasoned.

Then, Carlito heard his boss calling him back to work, and lefthis message,

“Ren, Desiree, I’ll call you backtomorrow, got to do something, goodbye!”

“Take care, honey!” Desiree badegoodbye to her husband, then she hang up the phone.

Ren, and his mom sat on a dining chair, at the same time, Ren placed a plate of coconut breads on the table. The diligent lad then prepared two mugs of coffee, for him and his mother. After making coffee, Ren brought them on the table, and a hearty bonding between a mother and child started,

“You are reliable as your father; you’re really good at it, Ren!” Desiree praised, and then her son nodded gladly.

The two enjoyed their coconut breads, and then sipped their coffee. While at it, Ren shared his experience,

“Mom, Butchoy and I were able to sell all of Manang Abe’s sweet breads!”

Ren’s mother smiled at him, and then she praised her son,

          “How good of you, Ren!”

          “Well mom,I’d like to help out too and…” Ren replied

Ren’s mom is slightly surprised at his stalling response, and then her son continued, with honesty brimming at every word,

“I get my allowance through my earnings. Also, I find it fulfilling that I get to buy things with my earnings”

The honest son approached his mother, and embraced her tight.

Moments after their snack  and his brief confession to his mother, Ren went to the internet café,to try out NOAH for himself. Inside the café, he found out that many of the patrons were playing the talked-about online role-playing game. Many of their players were still at the character creation screen, personalizing their characters to the extreme. Ren is impressed, that he asked the owner of the internet café about this new game,

          “What’s with this game, it seemed so nice!”

“Well, if you've noticed that most of the games we play are almost the same, different clothes, different worlds, yet weplay the same game”

Ren waggled his head again, and Mang Mario added,

“Then, certain games changed our ways of enjoying their worlds, thus becoming the new trend. Before, you get only to order your character by pressing keys, and watch him fight the enemy”

The owner gasped for a moment, and continued discussing,

”But today, it’s much like playing BD-Strike, since you’re totally involved, you wanna jump and slash your enemy mid-air, you can do it pressing appropriate buttons, and even control how high should you cut your enemy in half!”

While discussing, he noticed one of the patrons hollering him for his time-out. Mang Mario approached the boy, and collected his rent, and then left the café. The owner enticed Ren,

          “Say, why don’t you try the game now?”

          “Sure! I’ll play it for thirty minutes, Mang Mario” Ren affirmed, then handed out ten pesos, and occupied the vacant cubicle.

Ren clicked on a bluish sun icon named “NOAH”, and the game’s splash screen welcomed him with few buttons, and a cat girl in shiny white armor appeared at the right of the buttons  He clicked on “Sign-up”, and then a small dialog box appeared over the splash screen. The dialog box asked out his desired username, password, and his email address. Ren immediately typed in his user information, and then he logged into the game.

In-game, he is welcomed by the armored cat girl from the splash screen, and guided him in creating his first character. The first screen brought out a photo album-like menu, showing many of the game’s playable races. Ren chose the anime-styled human race, and then he is taken to the next screen, allowing him to customize his avatar well.However, creating his very online persona isn't that quick and easy, that he aimed to create his character nearly close to his personality, hence it took him twenty minutes to finally create his character.

Ren’s avatar so far consisted of a slender, teenage, anime-styled human avatar; maroon eyes; cyan athletic emo hairstyle; His avatar wore navy blue turtle-necked long sleeved shirt; Maroon short sleeved jacket with chest pockets; Knee-length fitted shorts, and plain brown boots.

          “I’m fine with this guy, and I’ll call him… Rennin!” Ren thought to himself, as he finally named his avatar, and entered to the game.

All of a sudden, a dialog box outside the game popped out, informing him that he only has ten more minutes to use the computer.