In what friends and family are calling a ‘spiritual awakening,’ 34-year-old Derek Fenwick finally cleared the introductory tutorial level of ‘Chronicles of Eldrath: Awakening’ on Tuesday evening, ending a six-year ordeal that began when the game was purchased during a Black Friday sale in 2019. Fenwick reportedly let out a scream so primal that neighbors called in a noise complaint, mistaking it for a medical emergency.
The tutorial, which the game itself describes as taking ‘approximately 12 minutes to complete,’ had stumped Fenwick due to what he describes as ‘an unreasonably specific jump puzzle designed by a sadist.’ Over the years, Fenwick estimates he attempted the sequence upwards of 4,000 times, developing what his therapist has termed ‘tutorial-induced complex trauma.’ He reportedly stopped attending his cousin’s wedding reception early in 2021 to ‘just try it one more time.’
Dr. Linda Marsh, a behavioral psychologist who has been informally tracking Fenwick’s case as a personal favor to his worried mother, says the achievement represents a genuine psychological milestone. ‘What we’re seeing here is a textbook case of sunk cost fallacy merging with raw stubbornness,’ Marsh explained. ‘Derek could have looked up a walkthrough at literally any point. He chose not to. That’s not gaming, that’s a form of penance.’
Fenwick has reportedly already progressed to the game’s actual first level, where he was killed within four seconds by an enemy the tutorial never warned him about. He says he is ‘taking the weekend off to process everything’ before returning to the fight. In a related development, his girlfriend of eight years has quietly begun looking at studio apartments.
