A year later, a streak of light descended on Hero Island, revealing a figure as it faded. He had been transported from a nearby sea fortress by a short-range Nen teleportation ability.
In front of him stood a round arched bridge that served as the entrance to the island's core, where players could rest and socialize. Oboro had named his creation "Hero Island" to distinguish it from the open-world format of Greed Island. Here, players would line up for matches before being teleported to the battle map.
Under the covered bridge was the "game hall," where players registered accounts, stored information, and signed the required agreement. As Oboro entered, several NPCs wearing data helmets greeted him: "Welcome to Hero Island. Please register your player information.
The hall was filled with electronic screens displaying cryptic data and symbols. A robotic arm extended a computer terminal toward him, displaying the registration form. After filling it out, he was bathed in prismatic light.
"Number 001, welcome, player 'Dragon'. Your loot package contains the game manual. Please read it carefully," the lead NPC instructed before Oboro was teleported from the central platform.
He materialized on a street lined with buildings, his assigned residence marked on the newly displayed interface map. The sensation felt strange to Oboro, given the separate system within himself.
Due to the limited space and capacity of the island, players usually had to queue up for matches. Being alone, Oboro activated "Training Mode" and disappeared, reappearing on the smaller island, a scaled-down version of the game map. He stood at the resurrection point of a well, surrounded by the camp base, walls, and defense towers. Beyond that was the wilderness, with its rocky terrain and cliffs.
A materialization-type NPC merchant stood by the well, selling equipment. Though different from the original League of Legends he remembered, the basic structure remained. Creating an exact replica would have been impossible with newly trained Nen users, regardless of their numbers.
This small map served as Oboro's personal training space, separate from the larger island where actual player combat would take place. In training mode, he could freely adjust his gold, level, and equipment.
The base's simple design featured high walls, flags, and three defense towers. The surrounding wilderness was home to a variety of monsters - the three-wolf pack, magic frogs, and others that might remind locals more of Warcraft than League of Legends.
He left future content updates and template loading to the NPCs and agents. Through the interface, he disabled minion spawning, preventing the usual lane battles, though enemy towers would still attack if approached.
Health and mana bars appeared above his head, but his appearance remained unchanged unless a hero was selected. His unique status as both player and NPC required special modifications that wouldn't affect game balance. These changes were unique to him, limited to training mode, and separate from normal player matches.
As with League of Legends' regular hero releases, this was in keeping with the "concept of the game". Each new hero's abilities had to be derived from existing game content to maintain consistency in the rules. However, Oboro's new Hero would remain offline; it was for himself alone.
Later, several flashes of light at the well announced the arrival of NPCs. Their leader approached Oboro holding a map: "It's done."
"A new hero with four abilities and a passive," they explained. "The passive is Senna's Absolution, which allows you to absorb black fog, increase your attack range and critical strike chance, and provide life steal. The Q skill is Thresh's Sentence of Death, modified to actively harvest souls for armor and magic power. W Skill is Nasus' Siphon Strike, which deals physical damage and permanently gains power from kills. E Skill is Sion's Soul Furnace, which gains Health from unit kills. The ultimate is Ekko's Chronobreak, which includes both time reversal and healing effects.
"We've adjusted the values of these abilities to match your abilities," they added.
"Perfect!" Oboro's face lit up as he examined the card with his likeness. He left silently, re-entering as a player after selecting the new hero, runes, and summoner spells.
When he reappeared at the well, he felt the difference of having five new abilities at his command. The other NPCs left, leaving him alone on the island.
Each ability served a different purpose: Absolution increased his range and critical strikes, essentially extending his killing range. Death Sentence absorbed souls to boost physical and mental defenses. Siphoning Strike grew permanently stronger with each kill. Soul Furnace increased vitality from kills. Finally, Chronobreak manipulated time itself, allowing him to rewind seconds and restore health, his most powerful tool for survival.
With the exception of Chronobreak, each of these abilities shared one crucial trait: infinite potential for improvement. With enough time and kills, his power would grow endlessly, without limit. With Absolution alone, he could absorb enough black mist to strike from thousands of meters away, undetected by his enemies.
His next task was to separate this state from training mode. Instead of a normal exit, the game had to remain active. Oboro channeled his Nen ability, "Endless Fantasy Game Treasury," and the familiar interface appeared in mid-air.
With his accumulated experience, development progressed rapidly. The interface no longer displayed simple "power on" or "start game" options. Instead, new text indicated the development of the ability:
"Reading program in progress.
'Reading completed, starting to load modules '
'Loading successful, copying data packet completed '
'Quitting game, 3, 2, 1 '
When the countdown ended, the interface disappeared. A beam of light transported Oboro to the entrance of the game in front of the registration bridge.
He had succeeded.