Primordial Awakening: I Breathe Skill Points!-Chapter 47: Dirty Grandpa! (2)

’No wonder esports exploded here. Who wouldn’t want to experience this?’

A screen materialized in front of him, startling him despite the lack of actual danger.

[Integrating with System...]

The loading bar filled slowly, and Zeph watched with fascination as his vision flickered slightly. Not painfully, just... adjusting. Calibrating.

[Integration Complete]

His status window appeared, floating in the white space exactly as it would in reality.

```

[STATUS WINDOW]

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

Name: Kai Mercer

Age: 16

Level: 35

Class: [Warrior]

Title: [Sole Survivor]

▼ ATTRIBUTES

Strength: 120

Agility: 156

Vitality: 220

Intelligence: 9

Wisdom: 7

Charisma: 4

▼ SKILLS

[List of skills...]

▼ RESOURCES

HP: 2200/2200

MP: 1560/1560

SP: 1560/1560

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

```

’100% accurate. It pulled my entire System profile.’

Zeph mentally reached for his Primordial Architect interface, wondering if—

Nothing.

The VR system couldn’t detect it.

’As expected. The Primordial Architect is soul-bound and invisible to System scanning. VR operates through System integration, so...’

He allowed himself a small smile of relief.

’My cheat stays hidden. Perfect.’

The status window minimized, and a new prompt appeared.

[Welcome to NeuroLink Virtual Reality]

[First-time user detected]

[Would you like to create your Gamer ID?]

[YES] [NO]

Zeph’s heart rate spiked with genuine excitement.

This was it.

His identity in the VR world.

The name that would appear on leaderboards, in tournament brackets, in chat channels.

The name that could become famous if he was good enough.

He selected [YES] without hesitation.

A keyboard interface materialized in front of him, hovering at the perfect height and angle for comfortable typing. He could interact with it either by touching the virtual keys or by thinking letters—the neural interface responding to intention.

[Please enter desired Gamer ID]

[Character limit: 3-16 characters]

[Alphanumeric only, no special characters]

Zeph didn’t even hesitate.

[GHOST]

The name he’d been called in the ruins. The identity he’d built over three years. His default username in every game he’d ever played in his previous life.

He hit confirm.

[Gamer ID "GHOST" is already in use]

[Please select a different ID]

’What.’

Zeph stared at the rejection message, disappointment settling in his chest.

’Someone already took Ghost? Seriously?’

He tried variations.

THEGHOST - Already in use

GHOST47 - Already in use

GHOSTKING - Already in use

GHOSTWALKER - Already in use

’You’ve got to be kidding me.’

He shifted to other favorites from his gaming past.

SHADOWBLADE - Already in use

VOIDREAPER - Already in use

NIGHTSTALKER - Already in use

DARKPHANTOM - Already in use

’What the hell! How are ALL the good names taken?!’

Frustration mounted as he tried increasingly creative variations.

SILENT_DEATH - Invalid: no special characters

SILENTDEATH - Already in use

DEATHSILENT - Already in use

SILENTKILLER - Already in use

’This is ridiculous. There are millions of players. Of course all the cool names are gone.’

He sat back—or would have, if he’d been in a chair instead of infinite white space—and tried to think strategically.

’Alright. Unique name. Something nobody would have thought of. Something memorable but weird enough that...’

His eyes landed on a feature he’d initially ignored.

[Random Name Generator]

’No. Absolutely not. I am not trusting RNG with something this important.’

He tried five more variations of names.

All taken.

’...maybe one random generation. Just to see what it suggests. I don’t have to accept it.’

Zeph clicked the Random Name Generator button with the resignation of someone who’d run out of better options.

The interface spun like a slot machine, letters and numbers flickering past too fast to read.

Then it stopped.

[Generated Gamer ID: DIRTYGRANDPA]

[Accept?] [Generate New]

Zeph froze.

His brain completely short-circuited for a solid three seconds.

’Dirty. Grandpa.’

’DIRTY. GRANDPA.’

’The random generator—the supposedly sophisticated algorithm designed to create unique usernames—looked at the entire pool of possible combinations and decided that DIRTYGRANDPA was the optimal suggestion.’

His hand moved toward [Generate New] automatically.

[DIRTYGRANDPA has been confirmed as your Gamer ID!]

[Thank you for using Random Generation! This selection is final and cannot be changed for 90 days per Terms of Service.]

’WHAT.’

’NO.’

’I DIDN’T CLICK ACCEPT!’

[Welcome to NeuroLink VR, DIRTYGRANDPA!]

[Enjoy your gaming experience!]

’IT AUTO-CONFIRMED! THE SYSTEM AUTO-CONFIRMED WITHOUT MY CONSENT!’

Zeph stood in the white space, staring at the cheerful welcome message, experiencing emotions that couldn’t be adequately expressed through language.

Horror. Disbelief. Rage. Resignation. More horror.

’I’m DirtyGrandpa now.’

’I can’t change it for 90 days.’

’If I become famous—when I become famous—I’ll be famous as DirtyGrandpa.’

’Tournament announcements will say "DIRTYGRANDPA advances to the finals!"’

’Leaderboards will show "1st Place: DIRTYGRANDPA"’

’People will cheer "DIRTYGRANDPA! DIRTYGRANDPA! DIRTYGRANDPA!"’

’This is my villain origin story. This is how supervillains are created.’

He took a deep breath, trying to find calm in the chaos.

’Okay. Okay. It’s fine. Usernames don’t actually matter. Plenty of professional gamers have stupid names. It’s about skill, not identity.’

’Besides, 90 days isn’t that long. Three months. I can survive three months with a dumb username.’

’And honestly, in a world where people have usernames like "LootGoblin_Official" and "TeethCollector," DirtyGrandpa isn’t even that weird.’

’It’s memorable. That’s... that’s a marketing advantage. People will remember the name.’

’For all the wrong reasons, but they’ll remember it.’

Another breath.

’I can work with this.’

’I HAVE to work with this because the system won’t let me change it.’

’DirtyGrandpa is my gaming identity now.’

’Time to make DirtyGrandpa a name that strikes fear into opponents’ hearts instead of just making them question my life choices.’

The welcome screen faded, replaced by the main VR hub interface.

[Welcome, DIRTYGRANDPA]

[Available Features: Game Library | Social Hub | Training Grounds | Settings]

Zeph stared at his new username displayed prominently at the top of every menu.

’At least I’m still breathing. At least I’m still generating PP with every breath even in VR.’

’See? Silver lining. While I process this username tragedy, I’m still making progress toward my actual goals.’

’DirtyGrandpa will become a legend.’

’Just... maybe not the kind of legend I originally envisioned.’

’But a legend nonetheless.’

He selected [Game Library] and prepared to dive into the competitive VR scene.

As DirtyGrandpa.

Definitely as DirtyGrandpa.

’My old guild would never let me live this down.’