Breathing Techniques in SAO

At the beginning of SAO, the players were roughly divided into four different groups.

The first group chose to remain in the Starting City, scraping by with the initial amount of Cor they were given.

This group made up about half of all players.

They didn't believe what Kayaba Akihiko had said, but they were too afraid to go out and level up in the wild, so they hid in the inns of the Starting City, waiting for rescue from the outside world.

The second group made up around 30%.

They chose to help one another and actively try to survive.

Their leader was the administrator of the largest online gaming news site in Japan.

They divided themselves into different teams, each with a specific role—hunting, gathering information, and so on.

The leader's team took over the Black Iron Palace across from the Starting City's plaza, stockpiling supplies and issuing orders to the others.

At first, they didn't have any special title, but after they began wearing matching uniforms, many players jokingly referred to them as "The Knights," and they didn't deny it.

The third group consisted of around a thousand players.

In the beginning, they recklessly spent large amounts of Cor but were unwilling to fight monsters to gather resources, so they quickly fell into hardship.

Since Sword Art Online still simulated both sleep and hunger, expenses in those two areas were unavoidable.

People needed to sleep because the brain couldn't distinguish whether the incoming sensory information was from the game or reality.

So when players felt sleepy, they had to go to an inn in town, or spend a massive amount of Cor to buy a house of their own—which required an astronomical amount of money.

What was truly surprising was the issue of hunger.

Obviously, no matter how much one ate in the game, it wouldn't fill their real-life body.

Yet in-game, eating food actually did eliminate the sensation of hunger—most likely thanks to advanced brain-interface technology.

Although starving in the game wouldn't result in death, the stabbing sensation of hunger could drive someone insane if left unaddressed.

So, when players got hungry, they would obediently stuff virtual food into their mouths.

However, there was also a disturbing question that people didn't like to dwell on: while avatars in the game didn't need to relieve themselves, what about their real-world bodies?

Back to the main point—most players who squandered all their Cor eventually ended up joining "The Knights."

After all, while one could theoretically sleep just anywhere in the game, food was a different matter.

"The Knights" distributed food in an organized manner, so those who could no longer survive on their own chose to join them.

As for the rest—some players never even considered joining a group.

Instead, they started working as thieves in the slums of the Starting City.

Because towns had the "Safe Zone" mechanic, players couldn't harm each other within city limits.

So these individuals would lie in wait outside in the wild, ambushing other players to earn far more money than they would by simply hunting monsters.

While it was the sort of thing only bandits would do, they didn't kill people—at least not at the beginning.

The fourth group consisted of various guilds, both large and small.

Like the others, their goal was to clear the game.

Their total number was around five hundred, split into roughly fifty different guilds.

Of the remaining players, two to three hundred were crafters or merchant-type players.

Though they weren't numerous, they too formed guilds, earning the Cor they needed to survive through trades and services.

And then there was the final group—just over a hundred players, including Kirito—those known as the "solo players."

They didn't belong to any group and relied solely on themselves to gather resources and level up.

This was a group of self-centered survivalists using the most efficient method available.

Nearly all of them were beta testers who, armed with insider knowledge, rushed forward at full speed from the very beginning of the game, rapidly gaining levels in a short amount of time.

To put it bluntly, once they had the strength to fight monsters alone, there wasn't much benefit to teaming up with other players.

After all, there were no magic skills in SAO.

The few magical elements that did exist were limited to teleport gates between floors and a few special crystals.

So with enough skill, a solo player could take on multiple monsters at once.

Naturally, gaining all the experience alone was far faster than sharing it with a party.

However, the downside of being a solo player was also clear: you could only rely on yourself.

If something unexpected happened—like getting hit with a debuff such as paralysis—there was a high chance of death.

But if you had teammates, your safety increased significantly, since they could heal you or remove your debuffs.

So in the early stages of the game, solo players had the highest mortality rate among all players.

But high risk also meant high reward—their levels were also the highest.

There was another problem: the experienced, fast-leveling solo players inevitably came into major conflict with other players, which was unavoidable.

In the Black Iron Palace occupied by the "The Knights," there used to be a "respawn room" during the beta test period.

But now, inside that room stood a huge metal monument engraved with the names of all players.

The names of deceased players were crossed out with a horizontal line, along with the time and cause of death recorded beside them.

Excluding the initial 213 players who died unknowingly, the first name to be crossed out was not due to monsters but suicide—just three hours after the game began.

This player believed that, given the structure of the NerveGear, simply disconnecting from the game system would restore consciousness.

So he went to the southernmost edge of the starting town, to the very edge of Aincrad's fence, and leapt off the floating city.

Inside Aincrad, there was no sign of land below—only endless sky and clouds.

Two minutes after the player jumped, a line was drawn across his name, with the cause of death listed as a fall from a great height.

Two whole minutes—it's hard to imagine what exactly he experienced.

Equally hard to imagine is whether he actually returned to the real world.

However, nearly all players believed it wasn't that simple to get out, because if it really were that easy, people outside would have already removed their NerveGear.

Still, some clung to hope, since death in Sword Art Online felt incredibly unreal.

After death, players would dissolve into light and vanish—a phenomenon impossible in reality.

It made one think not of death, but of a game over screen, because it lacked any sense of reality.

Although SAO is a game, the real monsters—designed with great effort by the game developers—still instilled fear in many players, making them unable to hold their weapons steady, or even forget to run away, let alone use sword skills to defeat the monsters.

Even some closed beta testers reacted this way.

And so, nearly a month passed, with the number of dead players reaching a terrifying two thousand.

Yet, despite this massive death toll, they hadn't even cleared the first floor.

If things continued like this, not to mention reaching the hundredth floor, all players would die before even getting past the first.

However, on December 2, 2022, the first floor boss raid was finally approaching.

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