《Infinitum Online》 CH001 - Login Clay floated once more around to the front of his potential avatar. It was starting to look real good. He had spent the better part of a half hour on this ¡®character creation¡¯, while he waited for the game to start proper. ¡®Infinitum online¡¯ That was the name of the game. And ¡®game¡¯ might be selling it a bit short. It was the main promotional title that was developed for the brand spanking new, state of the art, ¡®Deep dive¡¯. Clay looked over his avatar once more, the visual acuity still astounded him, he had never experienced anything like this before. The ¡®Deep dive¡¯ was the newest generation of ¡®Incepted reality¡¯ hardware, boasting a fidelity entire generations ahead of anything that had come before it. It literally promised a true-to-life experience. And thus far, even though in this holding room, Clay was just a disembodied soul floating about and dealing with his character creation, with his only available sense being that of sight. Just that one sense alone so far, was perfect! He could not possibly tell the difference between it and his own sight IRL. ¡®Incepted reality¡¯ was not something new, it had been around for many years now, with many different headsets and related equipment. But they all fell in the realm of offering something more akin to a dream-like experience when you used them. Senses were dulled, concepts vague and fuzzy, and a little bit of difficulty remembering in any great detail, what you had experienced while under. ¡®Incepted reality¡¯ despite its shortcomings, became very popular, very quickly. Rather than the previous technology of ¡®virtual reality¡¯, which could only really fake out to some degree, sight and sound with simulated computer graphics, ¡®Incepted reality¡¯, or ¡®IR¡¯, scanned and transmitted signals straight into your brain. Instead of trying to properly simulate the information that would come from all your senses, it shortcuts all that and communicates with the deeper parts of your brain directly, instead of trying to simulate anything like graphics or sound, it instead negotiated with your brain directly using concepts, ideas and understanding. So rather than: here is a cat, this is what it looks like, this is where every strand of its fur is located, this is the individual sequence of vibrations made by its vocal cords, etc. Instead, we have: here is a cat, you understand what a cat is like right, good, yes, then it¡¯s like that one cat you saw that time, except maybe a little fatter here and there, oh and it sounds like that other one you saw when you were a kid. In this sense, the tech is very similar to how our brains themselves work. All the sensory data ultimately gets shaped into ideas and concepts and those ideas and concepts get interacted with other ideas and concepts. And when we encounter something unknown, the ¡®Deep dive¡¯ reacts to it the same way our brains would, making sense of it by drawing on existing ideas and concepts. So even though the only sense available to Clay right now was sight, he was completely mind-blown by just that one alone at the moment. As a disembodied soul stuck in this holding area all he could do was float about and customize the avatar he would be using in game. There was about five minutes left until the game officially launched. ¡®Infinitum online¡¯. Touted as a ground-breaking MMORPG with an extreme focus on realism, at least for a fantasy RPG at any rate. The game made many claims, very few of which could be tested by the public or showcased, since it was difficult to show what was going on inside someone''s mind, so most promotions were surrounding the tech and artists depictions of the word, etc. There were of course a number of live demos at shopping malls, tech conventions, etc. and that was probably how word spread so widely about how incredible the ¡®Deep dive¡¯ was. Clay made one final adjustment to his avatar, changing the shape of the eyebrows with just a light thought. One of the coolest things about the ¡®Deep dive¡¯ in an RPG context, was the ability to interact with the game using your mind. The deep dive was after all built to understand your thoughts, so it is a matter of course that you should be able to interact with menus, options and other traditionally ¡®UI¡¯ interactions, with rather using your thoughts instead and simply ¡®willing¡¯ things to happen. Clay was quite excited about its applications further into the game, especially in combat. No more, press ¡®3¡¯ for ability or skill ¡®X¡¯, now just activate it with a thought! Still two minutes left until the game starts. Interestingly enough, even though there was a visual countdown in the room, thanks to the ¡®Deep dive¡¯, Clay could instinctively tell how much time remained without even looking at it. Clay made one final adjustment to the shape of his avatar¡¯s eyebrows. Perfect! He had modelled the avatar¡¯s face to look as similar to his own as possible, while still handsoming it up of course. A slightly sharpened chin of a ¡®U¡¯ shaped face. Slightly over large ears, with the rest of his features being on the finer side, even the beard and mustache was of a fine stubble, carefully carved into an attractive shape. His eyebrows also fine and arching upwards while ending in a slight bend on the farsides of each. They also protruded a bit more than normal, giving him a deep and mysterious look. Overall the face was on the mid range side of age (as far as RPG characters went), probably late twenties and adorned with short and slightly tousled hair. All body hair being a deep dark brown. As for the rest of the body, it was average on all accounts, shape, size, build, etc. Clay did not like things that were over the top in appearance. He was quite proud of his appearance, if it were real, it would have no trouble at all getting chics IRL. As far as he could tell and with what little information that was available to the public and from those who were lucky enough to try it out beforehand, the game did not feature any classes per se. So the only part left to character creation was starting equipment and skills. You were given no armour, but allowed to choose two weapons and skills each. Clay had chosen a spear as his primary weapon. In realistic or semi-realistic fighting games, Clay had always found that he favoured weapons with more reach. Given the choice, he would have preferred something like a bardiche or some such, but this was what was available to him. For his secondary weapon, a dagger. The extreme counterpart to his spear, in the hopes of having a backup weapon that could cover the spears weaknesses. Sure, most people would have argued a shield for the secondary, but Clay was planning on going with an agility type build, or whatever this games equivalent of that is and would rather (A) not have a shield slowing him down / getting in the way, and (B) have a surprise attack weapon, with the usual critical hit advantage typically associated with daggers. Or poison attacks or whatever else you could do with it. Depends on what the game offers, but there should be something powerful that makes up for the daggers ¡®smallness¡¯, there usually is. For skills, it had been quite difficult. There were many seemingly good choices, although he could not have been certain if they were actually any good. Not having seen the game yet, meant he was severely lacking in information and context. So he decided to stick with ¡®safer¡¯ more broad ranging skills. He was also a bit of a solo player, not one for socialising, so in the end the skills that stood out to him were those that fit that role. He chose two passives, one for health regeneration and one for faster stamina regeneration. To be fair, none of the available starting choices were overly fancy or ¡®class¡¯ specific, they were all quite miscellaneous stuff or very basic weapon skills, etc. Makes sense for a general purpose starting character choices I guess. For character name, Clay couldn¡¯t come up with anything good that wasn¡¯t already taken, so he settled upon ¡®Veil Piercer¡¯. As for stats, well there weren¡¯t any adjustments that could be made. It seemed everybody was going to be starting with the exact same base stats.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!
Status:
Name: Aaron Title: Freshie
Level: 0 Next lvl: 0% Char pts: 0 Skill pts: 0
Attributes:
Strength: 10 Poise: 10 Vitality: 10 Constitution: 10
Dexterity: 10 Agility: 10 Perception: 10 Charisma: 10
Spirit: 10 Will: 10
Condition:
HP: 100 / 100 / 100 Stamina: 100 / 100 / 100
Skills:
Basic HP regen: lvl 1 Basic Stamina regen: lvl 1
Status effects:
None
The things that stood out the most to him, were three-fold: One the lack of a mana stat. Even though they claim the game doesn¡¯t have much in the way of magic, it still has skills. So what then will the skills use if not mana? It¡¯s possible they are all just on cooldown timers and don¡¯t require anything but time to use. Another possibility is that maybe they¡¯ll also just use stamina. Will have to wait and see. The second strange thing is the fact that both ¡®HP¡¯ and ¡®Stamina¡¯ have three numbers. If the first is your current, then the second would normally be your max, but there are three numbers? Clay wasn¡¯t sure what to make of it. Checking in on some of the character trait descriptions yielded the following: Strength: Ability to carry or move heavy objects without significant stamina drain. Also allows you to hit harder with all manner of physical attacks. Poise: Makes your defenses sturdier. Less chance to lose your balance while defending. Defensive actions like blocking require less stamina. Vitality: Increases maximum HP. Increases resistance to status effects. Constitution: Increases maximum Stamina and regen. Reduces effects of hunger, thirst and crippling injuries. Dexterity: Cat like movements: Balance while in motion, quite movement, acceleration of movement and flexibility. Agility: Improves maximum movement speeds and running speeds. Reduces stamina usage of all fast movements. Perception: Improves all of your senses and understanding. See things, others can¡¯t. Charisma: Increases your likability and trustworthiness to both NPC¡¯s and players. Spirit: Improves the effects of all non-physical skills. Improves resistance to non-physical effects. Will: Reduces the effect of fatigue on your max stamina and HP. Reduces the debilitation level of things that affect your faculties, like loud sounds / sights or blood loss / pain. A few things had stood out to Clay when he first reviewed those explanations. One was the description of ¡®Will¡¯ that mentioned the effect on max stamina and HP. Perhaps the three numbers of each were along the lines of current / currentMax / max, based on this ¡®fatigue¡¯, whatever that was. He would have to test this in game or something. The second thing that greatly concerned him was the need to reduce the debilitating effects of pain. There wasn¡¯t supposed to be any pain! Or at least not anything beyond the level of mildly uncomfortable. The headset does have safeguards in place after all to protect your mind. Perhaps it''s just some simulated supposed effect of the pain that you won¡¯t actually be feeling, like making you all groggy or something. The third thing was the effect of charisma on both NPC¡¯s and other players! That was mind-blowing. Nothing like that had ever effectively been done in a game before. It was easy to apply it with computer controlled NPC characters, how much they liked you, etc. But obviously such a thing has never really applied to other human players before. After all, a game can¡¯t change a human¡¯s mind on its own. But I guess with the ¡®Deep dive¡¯ it can change a persons mind? Not at all a totally alarming thought! Will have to try and pay close attention to how this works in game, just in case. All in all, ten separate stats and for a game that doesn¡¯t really even have magic, that¡¯s a lot! A ten second countdown, finally began. All right! Getting started! Clay had spent long enough lounging around the character creation room. Even though the headsets had all been purchased quite some time ago, It¡¯s first proper application: ¡®Infinitum online¡¯ was only released some time after. For the most part people just used their existing IR headsets applications on the ¡®Deep dive¡¯, since while those applications were not designed to make use of the more advanced hardware, the ¡®Deep dive¡¯ was still able to improve the experiences they offered quite a bit. Of course ¡®Infinitum online¡¯ came along soon after the headsets release and we all snapped up copies of it immediately. It was after all the first title that would make full use of the Deep dive¡¯s capabilities. But the game was setup to have one massive launch, so the game itself was locked until thirty minutes ago, where everyone was allowed to do their character creation before the world wide official start of the game. So no spoilers, we¡¯re all going into this as noobs together. ...3 ...2 ...1 ¡°Aaaaarrrgggh!¡± A voiceless scream was ripped from Clay as his ¡®vision¡¯ was blanketed in white. Panic filled him as an intense searing pain ripped through his mind, it felt like it was being torn apart. The pain was so intense that he could not even gather his thoughts together enough to even will a logout. The pain and noise subsided as a massive influx of sensations suddenly bombarded him. The pain all but forgotten, for the smells of old wood, the feeling of soft bedding, the sight of a dim orange morning light and the sounds of chickens going about their business. Clay didn¡¯t even realise he was holding his breath, so subdued was he by the experience that was filling his being. They were right, it really was like real life! No, it was somehow all sharper, clearer. It somehow seemed ¡®better¡¯ than real life. Incredible! As Clay sat up in his bed, and before he even had a chance to process his surroundings properly, a message flooded his thoughts:
Admin Warning! Infinitum online is not what it seems. This is a permadeath game with your life on the line. Time in-game has been accelerated 120,000 times faster than the real world. The ability to logout has been disabled. Pain reduction and other safeguards have all been disabled. If you die in the game, your mind will be lost. This is as real as it gets for a fantasy life experience! Good luck on your adventures.
¡°What?¡± Clay¡¯s immediate feeling was to simply dismiss the message as either a prank or a publicity stunt of some kind. Or maybe a part of the games flavour text? I mean, just the 120,000 times thing alone was not possible. Even if the hardware was certainly capable of processing at those speeds and most computers nowadays, still our brains can only run at normal speed, so that was completely impossible. And if that¡¯s bullshit, then the chances are, so is the rest of that message. Still, the thought of 120,000 times was terrifying and he would not likely soon forget that intense pain, what was that even? No matter how unlikely, the situation seemed quite threatening. Enough for Clay to immediately will a logout. But nothing happened. A sick feeling was welling up within his gut. This was impossible! The logout was an immutable law of every IR headset ever made. The amount of failsafes and government, NGO, community and company oversight that goes into ensuring it works no matter what is mind boggling. If there was ever the slightest whiff of a problem with it, someone, somewhere would raise alarm bells. Such was the severe nature and severity of messing with someone''s mind with a consumer product. There is just no way that it¡¯s possible to disable the logout. Panic was now blooming in full glorious swing and erupting out of his very being. Clay quickly mentally reviewed the message he had received. If the disabling of the logout had been true, something that should not be possible, then the other parts of that message no matter how improbable could also be true. All the ¡®rules¡¯ come into question. Mass time acceleration. Permadeath. LIfe on the line. What had he gotten himself into? CH002 - The noobs gather Clay sat there for a while, simply reeling from the shock of the situation and the weight of the potential implications. This is insane. This can¡¯t be happening. It was like some isekai type story come to life. Except of course this wasn¡¯t real life, but then again, it doesn¡¯t really matter. If the situations conditions were to be believed, then it might as well be real life to him, for all intensive purposes. He was fucked. Fuck this! He was absolutely not moving from this god damned bed. A fantasy world filled with monsters that want to eat you, except pain is real and your life is on the line! Absolutely fuck that. It¡¯s joked how this situation is a geek¡¯s wet dream, but try actually being here in it, and see if you still feel that way. To hell with this. If he just stays here for a while then surely someone from the outside world will realise somethings wrong and he¡¯ll be rescued. Not that anyone would even notice he¡¯s gone for at least a week, he lived alone after all. But he surely is not the only person in this mess. Clay highly doubted that he was the only person entrapped like this. Yep, that¡¯s the answer, just stay right fucking here till help comes! He almost felt relieved by that sentiment, before it all came crashing down, like biting into a sugar coated grapefruit. The time dilation! If that message was to be believed, then he could be stuck here for like a hundred years before anyone on the outside even knows something is wrong. Fuck! This explains why they needlessly mention such a detail in that admin announcement. It¡¯s so that you know: there is no help coming. No, there¡¯s no point in panicking! No good will come of breaking down, or just sitting here, given the assumed circumstances. He needed to take stock of the situation and he couldn¡¯t do that from inside this room. Clay, for the first time, took in his surroundings proper. He was in a room with a single window, currently closed off by ugly wooden shutters. The room had an equally ugly table and mirror above it. The bed he was currently sitting on was old and stained, like something thats been around way too long in a cheap motel. Clay immediately kicked the covers aside, disgusted by the thought of what must all be living inside the thing. Looking down, he noted that he was wearing some rather haggard clothing that had seen better days, seemingly made from some kind of hemp, but that was just a guess on his part, since he did not know what hemp was like in real life. He was also wearing some tacky and mouldy smelling boots. Why was he wearing boots inside a bed anyway? Especially boots this gross. Then again given the condition of the bed it probably didn¡¯t matter all that much. It was likely that the ¡®game¡¯ ¡®spawned¡¯ him here in full kit. But if that was the case, then where were his weapons. He wasn¡¯t wearing a belt or anything like a holster, so they likely weren¡¯t going to be carried physically. Then what? An inventory? Clay thought about accessing an inventory and found it quite intuitive. It was revealed to him, what he was carrying, as well as the weight of those items. Naturally, he was carrying one, poor quality iron dagger, one poor quality iron spear, two poor quality minor health potions and thirty nickel coins. Clay tried equipping the spear to his right hand and it appeared after a brief delay. He almost dropped the weapon due to the suddenness of it. Despite the shaft being made out of some kind of hard wood with only the head being iron, it still felt pretty weighty in his hand. Was he really going to be able to use this thing in a fight? No, wait, he was getting way ahead of himself here, who says he¡¯ll even be doing any fighting. Clay stored the spear back in his inventory and immediately felt weighed down by it. Like his entire body had just grown ever so slightly heavier. Weight and carry capacity hey. It would seem that¡¯s how it worked. Inventory is not free. Clay got out of bed and stood up. Despite himself not weighing all that much, the wooden floorboards creaked noisily. Probably rotting wood. He was sure he could smell the frikkin mould. This reminded him once more of the fact that none of this was actually real. He had been so absorbed by the disastrous situation that he had forgotten all about the ¡®Deep dive¡¯. Everything was so real, the mouldy smell irking his nostrils, more than they probably should, the feeling of the spear that was in his hand, the sounds of the floorboards as he stepped over to the mirror and the clarity of his vision. It all felt, more than real. This thought actually scared him a bit. If he were to return to the real world, would it actually seem dull, like it was ¡®less real¡¯. More than that, if he stayed here too long, he felt like he would simply accept it as ¡®reality¡¯. Clay shook the errand runaway thought train from his mind, there was no point worrying over intangible things like that, especially right now. He looked into the mirror and saw exactly what he expected to see. His avatar, looking right back at him. Clay was once more impressed with the ¡®Deep dive¡¯. Here he was moving about in a body, not his own, of a different build, height and bone structure, and yet, it felt perfectly natural, like he had been born with it. Clay went over to the shutters and opened them. He was momentarily forced to squint as the orange morning sunlight assaulted his eyes. As soon as his eyes adjusted a bit, he was able to make out a sprawling and lively city. There seemed to be quite a bit of commotion going on. In the distance was a huge stone wall. It seemed to wall part of the city off. A part that was on a slanted hill and seemed to hold what he could only describe as ¡®upper class¡¯ houses, compared to the deluge of dull greys and browns that were exhibited all throughout the lower city. The upper city, as well as a portion of the lower city that extended around the outside of the wall found its back up against a steep sprawling mountain range. There was also a smaller wall in the distance, that seemed to border and protect the lower city along the left side, not that he could see more than one side of the city from his third story view point. After gawking at the scenery for a few more minutes, Clay reinforced his resolve and closed the shutters. He exited the room and followed down the hall. This was apparently some kind of inn, as he passed a number of numbered doors, presumably more rooms. Clay idly wondered as he descended two flights of wooden stairs, if these rooms were housing more ¡®players¡¯? When he arrived at the ground floor, he was greeted with a large open space, housing some tables and chairs, as well as a fireplace and a reception desk. A rather plump looking woman quickly ended her conversation with a much younger man and scurried over to Clay. ¡°Hi there, I¡¯m sorry, I don¡¯t remember you coming in at all?¡±, She asked in a half curious, half accusatory tone. ¡°Ahm, well- I¡±, Clay could only stutter unsure of how to deal with this. Clearly she had not been expecting him. He was however saved by the young man. ¡°OH! I know! He¡¯s one of them, a world walker!¡±, the young man exclaimed rather excitedly. Wait a second? Were these NPC¡¯s? The woman suddenly regarding Clay with a warm smile, ¡°Oh dear, please excuse me. You¡¯re our first one. You lot have been popping up all over town, but you be my first. Caught me off guard, that¡¯s all.¡± ¡°Um, that¡¯s fine I guess.¡± ¡°What¡¯s your name son?¡± ¡°Clay.¡± Clay only realised a moment after he spoke the name, what he had done. His name should for all purposes have been ¡®Veil piercer¡¯, yet he had given his real name without even thinking about it. The conversation was just such a natural one, like you would have with any person. But these were not people, they were NPC¡¯s equipped with artificial intelligence. The fact that they were so natural that they would be indistinguishable from any other human being was really throwing him for a loop. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. AI tech had gotten really good in the last few years, but this was light years ahead of even that. Sure, ¡®Infinitum online¡¯ had advertised the next generation of AI as part of their sales pitch, but this was so much more than what he expected. Would he even be able to tell NPC¡¯s and other players apart at this rate? There were just too many major things happening for him to keep up, he was seriously starting to feel overloaded here. At any rate, talking to an AI so realistic they might as well be human, it did not seem right to give up a childish name like ¡®Veil piercer¡¯. He would probably stick with ¡®Clay¡¯ from here on out. ¡°Hey what¡¯s your stats?¡± The young man interrupted Clays musings. ¡°Ten in all stats.¡± Clay answered, seeing no reason to withhold the information. ¡°Don¡¯t be rude!¡± The rotund inn keeper scolded her son. ¡°Huh? Ten? All? My two year old sister has better stats than that! What the heck?¡± ¡°Hassum!¡± His mother clearly getting more than a little irritated with him. Clay was also getting a little ticked off now, ¡°Jeez dude, I just got here, I¡¯m only level zero you know!¡± ¡°Level zero?¡± Both mother and son looked at him in shock, before looking at each other seemingly puzzled. ¡°What the heck?¡± Hassum suddenly burst out. ¡°What good is a level zero gonna be?¡± ¡°Hassum, stop being so rude!¡± ¡°Oww, Oww, Oww!¡± Hassum complained as his mother literally dragged him along by the ear. ¡°I am sorry for my son¡¯s behaviour. If you¡¯ll excuse me, I have to discipline him a little. If you go out that door, turn left on the street and then follow the road all the way down, you¡¯ll come upon the main market square. Can¡¯t miss it, it has a functioning water fountain, quite pretty it is. Anyway, the mayor has instructed us innkeepers to send all the world walkers there for now.¡± ¡°Ah, thanks?¡± Clay mumbled after the women as she dragged her son through a door behind the counter and out of sight. Clay sighed. This was already exhausting and he hasn¡¯t even left the bloody start location yet. And what was up with that kids rude behaviour? So what if he was level zero, he would just level on some monsters in the end. Well, the whole pain and death thing still rang true, fresh in his mind, so maybe he wouldn¡¯t. Either way this little encounter actually answered a whole lot of questions for him. But in turn, it also raised a bunch of new ones. With nothing better to do and no better leads, Clay followed the woman¡¯s instructions, exiting the inn, he began walking down the compacted dirt road. The sights, sounds and smells were once more bombarding his senses. The smells being the most prominent, as he could smell the smell of wet earth, the smells of piss and shit and the smells of delicious food being cooked. Honestly he did not quite know what to make of it all. He instead tried to distract himself from the sensory overload, and pondered the earlier conversation. There were clearly other players all abound. But the NPC¡¯s clearly can¡¯t tell them apart from other NPC¡¯s any better than he can, even if they are aware of the concept of the players, as indicated by the term ¡®world walker¡¯. Things were certainly getting interesting. Also some of the kids remarks while rather insulting were also quite strange. Why was his stats or his level such a surprise. It was a given that new characters started at level zero. Even if NPC¡¯s didn¡¯t share such general real world knowledge, they surely would have been instilled with such obvious information for the sake of the game. And it was more than that, not only were they surprised by the information, but it almost seemed like the woman was pitying him at that point. What the heck was the big deal, he would level soon enough. The whole time while Clay was walking down the street, past many houses, establishments and food and item stalls, he was assaulted by his various senses. This was clearly going to take some getting used to. There were many people around all milling about and apparently chatting quite excitedly. The few conversations that he did overhear, seemed like most were talking about the ¡®world walkers¡¯ and what it means for the city and the world. Although he did not really catch much of the conversations, instead focusing on not being overwhelmed by his senses. Clay eventually reached a sizable open plaza filled with people all wearing the same outfit as him. There was a pathetic excuse for a water fountain in the center of it all. Pretty my ass. It did not take a genius to figure out that these were all players. There was at least a few hundred of them present. Clay wondered if this starting town was perhaps instanced. There should have been at least tens of thousands of players online for the launch and this is not that. Also you could not fit that many players in a town. On the other hand ¡®Infinitum online¡¯ did brag a lot during marketing about its infinite procedurally generated game world. If that were true, there may have been no need to instance anything at all. Either way, it would be hard to answer right now. As Clay approached the group, he noticed that the tension in the air was positively palpable. The mood was indeed quite dire, it left no doubt in his mind that everyone here had received the same doomsday message. There were a lot of serious hushed conversations going on. Clay also noticed that the entire plaza was lined with what could only be described as city guards. Even though they all had a wide variety of weapons and equipment and all looked rather shabby, they all gave off the vigilant watch dog type aura only city guards can. Clay was certain, this plaza, full of pensive rowdy and foreign elements, probably had the guards all on edge. At least that was the impression they gave off. Clay also noticed a couple of women amongst the players, only a handful mind you, but those that were present were all talking and carrying themselves in a very unladylike fashion. It only took a moment for Clay¡¯s brain to catch up¡­ They were all most likely guys! A bunch of guys trapped in female bodies. Given how the game let you create any human avatar you wanted and the way the ¡®Deep dive¡¯ strove for realism and integrated the avatar seamlessly with you mind¡­ Being stuck inside a female body under such circumstances, must be a real mind fuck. I mean, there are considerably differences between men and women, beyond physical appearance. There are differences in mindset, in hormones, emotions and a host of other things. Clay doubted the ¡®Deep dive¡¯ was simply going to gloss over these details, based on what he had seen so far. He also suspected it perfectly capable of and willing to make changes to your thought patterns. Clay was seriously concerned about the long term repercussions of a gender swap under these conditions. Come to think of it, there were only a handful of female avatars present. By any RPG¡¯s standards there should have been a lot more. Where were all of them? Clay pondered the thought for a few more moments, before realising the answer was in the question itself. If you as a guy woke up, in bed with a fully functioning and most likely hot female body that was perfectly lifelike and integrated with your mind, what would you be doing for the next few hours? We would likely not see the bulk of the female avatars for some time to come. Clay almost envied them, but ultimately the concerns over the gender swap and its potential issues were too much for him to regret his choice of male avatar. ¡°All right, good morning everyone.¡± A suddenly loud and authoritative voice called out across the plaza. Everyone, both the players and the crowd of NPC¡¯s that had gathered, quieted down. ¡°I am commander of the city watch, you can call me captain Angsun. I welcome you all, world walkers, to the great city of Belloram.¡± The aged and strong looking man, with a head and beard full of greying and unkempt hair and a face full of old scars, suddenly signaled, and all the city guards started clapping. The crowd joined in too, as if to celebrate the arrival of the players. Well this part is feeling a little more like a games opening ceremony at least. The captain continued speaking once the clapping died down: ¡°We have been expecting your arrival for quite some time now and as such, the king has handed down instructions on how to welcome you and assist you in this world.¡± He paused for a moment to make sure all the players were following him and paying attention. ¡°Myself and various other volunteers from the guard will be talking groups of you out into the wilderness to get a feel for the local environment and monsters, and assist in any questions you may have. We will do this a couple of times as a welcoming and an introduction of sorts.¡± ¡°Also there is a large communal lodging being set up, just outside the main market district to house you guys, until you can get on your feet. Some very basic rations will be supplied if necessary, courtesy of our kind mayor.¡± Angsun indicated to words a rather fat and well dressed man, who in turn waved while the crowd once more clapped on. ¡°Alright before we go any further, I just need you guys to provide me with a bit of info. First up, I don¡¯t see any of you carrying anything, can I confirm that you all have inventories like the rest of us?¡± There was a lot of nodding. ¡°And do any of you have weapons that you can use, stored?¡± More nodding. ¡°Great, that¡¯s good news. Okay, I know it¡¯s a bit rude for a stranger to ask, but I need to know what I¡¯m working here, for safety sake. Can you guys just give me an idea of what the average level is amongst you?¡± Clay noticed that a lot of NPC¡¯s especially the guards started smiling, seemingly in eager anticipation. The mayor especially so. And then came the answer. Many people answering ¡®level zero¡¯ and many more nodding in agreement. It didn¡¯t take long for the captain to realise that every single player present was level zero. It didn¡¯t take long for the crowds noisy chatter to completely die down to the point that you could hear the birds chirping in the distance. Nor did it for most of the guard and crowd to have a mixture of pensive looks, shock and outrage on their faces. The mayor especially seemed to turn a deathly pale shade of white and looked like he was about to throw up. Angsun turned to have a heated whispering match with the man next to him. There were several furious hand gestures involved, some clearly indicating the players other seemingly praying to the gods above. Eventually as the crowd had started becoming noisy once more, this time for very different reasons, Angsun once more turned to address the players. ¡°Okay. So, um. We are going to still go with the same plan. Your levels are admittedly a little lower than we expected, but we¡¯ll just have to compensate. Prepare yourselves, we will soon be leading groups of you to go-¡± Angsun seemed almost physically pained by what he was about to say next, ¡°- frog hunting.¡± The crowd grew even louder and the mayor, well he seemed to simply storm off in quite a huff.