《Daily Life in a VRMMO》


 Character Creation, Part 1

    The year was 20XX, and everything was fine in the world.


    Climate change had been finally addressed and mostly resolved, through a massive international effort between almost all major countries. Famine, poverty and inequality worldwide had reached their lowest levels yet and the planet''s population had stabilized at a sustainable 10 billion people, with a sizeable population in space helping provide for all the materials humans could ever ask for. Life was not perfect for everyone, far from it in fact, but it was undeniable that never before had so many people lived such good lives.


    It is in this world, in a small, perpetually rainy city in an unremarkable corner of the North American Union, where an average-looking young man calmly slept, the pitter-patter of the rain on his bedroom window acting like a soothing lullaby even as the light from the rising sun threatened to wake him up.


    Eventually, his sleep, like all good things in life, had to end, and he drowsily got up and prepared himself for the day ahead, his breakfast a simple omelette with toast, and left his small apartment still quite early in the morning, hoping to get to the store and back before midday, a hope that was quickly shattered when he saw the massive line that had formed at the entrance.


    Sighing and blaming his poor sleep schedule for not allowing him to wake up earlier, the young man resigned himself to waiting and decided to browse the internet in the meanwhile. More than an hour and a half later, he had almost finished reading a rather fascinating interview with one of the last surviving soldiers from the 3rd American-Byzantine war before he realized it was finally his time.


    Shortly after, he walked out of the store carrying a large, colorful box, weighing more than 10 kilos, and he cursed himself for the umpteenth time for being stupid enough to pay 4 thousand bucks for something like this. After arranging for a taxi to bring him home, he carefully brought the box up to his apartment and set it down gently on his table, before calling his friend, the one that had convinced him to make this purchase.


    "Jess, before anything else I''ll just say that if you''re wrong and there is no pre-order bonus like you keep saying, know that I will personally obliterate every atom in your body." The young man said as soon as the call was answered, his voice as serious as possible given the absurdity of his statement.


    "Shut up Cass, just trust me on this, this will be absolutely worth it. Besides, I know you, you would buy the game regardless of the bonus." Cassiel, Cass for short, heard the annoying voice of his best friend through the phone, her tone of smug confidence.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.


    "I mean, maybe, but the Pre-Release copy is three times as expensive as-" He pointlessly tried to argue, despite having already made the purchase.


    "Trust me Cass, this is very important." Jess interrupted, a hint of urgency in her voice. "You need to be connected to the game servers before they open for the first time today at midnight, ok?"


    "...ok, fine." He meekly answered, not used to the sudden intensity in his best friend''s voice.


    The two of them spent the following few minutes just chatting a bit more before ending the call, with Cass now seated on his sofa, looking at the gaudy looking box on his table with a bit of confusion in his eyes, wondering if there was something he was missing about this new VRMMO title. Regardless, he got up shortly after and got on with the day, deciding that if neither his friend nor the game''s annoyingly cryptic advertisement would tell him what was so special about it, he would have to figure it out by himself later.


    He spent the rest of the day cleaning up his apartment, taking care of his cat, managing the investments that his father had left him with and setting up the Direct Neural Interfacing Equipment that had come alongside the game he had just bought, being impressed at how advanced the equipment looked and felt compared to the ones he had used before.


    Finally, an hour before midnight, with everything else done for the day, he decided to settle down for the day and get ready for the server''s opening. Laying down on his bead, he put on his custom, form fitted helmet, a birthday present from his step-father, and connected it to the DNIE, already turned on and ready for use.


    The first few minutes were always the worst, as the helmet scanned his neural activity and sent it to be analyzed by the DNIE, which then directly interfaced with the brain. It always made him feel quite strange, like he was halfway between being asleep and awake, and he was quite grateful when it was quickly over, substituting the vision of his bedroom ceiling with an expansive black void, all of his other senses telling him that he was floating peacefully in the infinite nothingness.


    Within his sight, a timer slowly counted down to zero, the glowing white digits having no sense of scale or distance from him. Right as he entered this space, he received a message from Jess, asking if he was online already. He answered, and the two of them spent the next few minutes talking, mostly just chatting about their days.


    "Good luck Cass." Jess suddenly said to him when there was less than a minute left on the timer.


    "...Good luck to you too Jess." He replied, slightly confused. Cass was not stupid, and had realized that there was something Jess knew about the game, but for some reason had decided not to tell him about. For his life, however, he couldn''t figure out what exactly that was, or why it was so important to his friend, but he had decided to simply trust her, knowing that there was probably a reason behind her weird actions.


    With that, he simply waited for the timer to reach zero, silently counting down the seconds.


    And then, at exactly midnight, the game server opened.

 Character Creation, Part 2

    First there was silence, then came a reverberating bang followed by blinding light.


    When he finally regained his senses, Cass found himself within a small, cozy wooden cabin. Outside, through beautifully carved windows, a bright, verdant forest could be seen and the wonderful sounds of birds and flowing water filled the environment with a sense of calm and peacefulness.


    Looking around, he found that, on a small wooden table nearby from where he first appeared, rested a few hand-sized stone tablets, each one inscribed with a word or short phrase: ''Create Character'', ''Settings'', ''Start Adventure'' and ''Exit Game''. Additionally, on one of the walls of the cabin, the one opposite to the entrance, the name of the game was written in large, gently glowing letters.


    ''Lands of Freedom''


    A quite generic name, if he had to say so, but it fit the extremely free-form nature the game seemed to have, even compared to other MMORPGS. Taking all of this in, Cass'' first impression with the game was quite positive, especially with its life-like graphics and sound design, practically indistinguishable from the real world, far better than anything he had ever before. He also thought that the diegetic integration of the menu options was also quite a nice touch.


    Finally, after an embarrassing minute of being amazed by a small, mostly empty room, Cass realized that he should probably just get on with the game already, chuckling to himself about how Jess would certainly scold him if she knew he wasted so much time in the menu. Moving to the wooden table, he picked up the ''Create Character'' tablet and was transported from the cozy cabin to yet another dark void, this time with a blank white mannequin floating alongside him. All around him, quite a few menus appeared, mostly related to customizing the character''s appearance.


    After looking around for a while, Cass was disappointed to find that the only option for the character''s race was that of a Human, since he usually liked to play the animal-like races in these kinds of RPGs. Additionally, he was slightly confused by the complete absence of any kind of Class selection or Stat distribution systems, normally staples in any kind of fantasy game. In fact, there were only three things he could find amidst all of these menus that seemed to relate to gameplay at all, and, interestingly, all of them were marked as Pre-Order exclusive options that were only available to players who were present when the server first opened.


    The first one, the ''Talent Selection'', simply contained three seemingly random options, and he just had to choose one of them. Apparently, according to a vaguely worded blurb at the top of the menu, these options had been chosen after a ''careful analysis of the Player''s brain activity'' and were supposedly the Talents he was ''most compatible with''.


    Beyond how weird and sketchy this seemed, Cass was also very confused about the fact that the ability to select his own Talent was a pre-order bonus. Would players that entered the game later just receive their Talent at random? That seemed like terrible game design to him, so maybe he was just missing something about how all of this was going to work. With that in mind, he decided to simply check out the options, make his choice and move.


    His three options were as follows:


    [Visionary Treasurer: Has immense talent in all things financial, can steward an economy better than any other. A favorite of any king or emperor, beloved by the people, they can change the fate of a nation with ease.]


    [Divine Watcher: Can stay hidden from all things under the Heavens, can see and not be seen, feel and not be felt. A perfect fit for a wise hermit or a deadly assassin, invisible passive observers until it is their moment to act.]Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.


    [Hidden Dragon: Has a body made for holding a spear, and a mind destined to wield it. Inside, a monster endlessly cries against the Heavens. Shake the world with one strike.]


    All of these options seemed quite unique and interesting, especially the [Visionary Treasurer] one, as he had absolutely not idea how that one would affect his gameplay. However, the one that grabbed his interest the most was undoubtably the third option, [Hidden Dragon].


    Besides just having a cool ass description, Cass had been craving playing a Melee character for a while in one of these RPGS, given that his last few characters had all been mostly mages and summoners, and this was his chance to do so. Playing as an assassin with the [Divine Watcher] Talent might have also been an option, but he wasn''t really a fan of lurking in stealth in the search for the perfect opportunity to backstab someone, so he decided to pass on that option. With that decided, he selected [Hidden Dragon] for his Talent and moved on.


    The next gameplay-related choice was on a very similar menu as the last one, this one called the ''Affinity Selection'', once more with three options he had to choose between. It even had the exact same blurb at the top about choosing the Affinities that were most compatible with him. Deciding not to focus on that, he checked out what was available to him.


    [Metal-Attuned Core: Resilience, Flexibility, Might. Endless variation through all forms of nature and industry, the power to build or destroy, to kill or protect. Usually gifted to those destined to be perfect soldiers or diligent craftsmen, but can be infinitely forged and reforged to fit or break any mold.]


    [Lightning-Attuned Core: The majesty of the Heavens, the wrath and judgement of the Gods. The extreme of speed and power, limited only by what nature can provide. It is never granted, only stolen, by those who wish to defy their fates or desire the power to shake the world.]


    [Elementally-Neutral Core: Jack of all trades, Master of none. To be one among many, lost in the faceless crowd, usually granted to those who wish to hide themselves, or who have nothing to hide. It excels at doing a little bit of everything, and rarely more than that.]


    Once again, a very interesting set of choices. Cass had no idea if the exceedingly flowery descriptions meant anything at all within the game besides flavor text, but he figured that these Affinities were simply the game''s way of categorizing its magic system.


    Once again, knowing that the ability to choose this was an ability exclusive to him and the other players that had bought the pre-order edition of the game, he couldn''t help but wonder if normal players were supposed to get completely random Talents and Affinities whenever they created a new character. What if you wanted to play as a pyromancer mage, but the game decided that you were supposed to be an axe-wielding barbarian? It just didn''t make sense to him.


    Regardless, he looked at the options available to him, namely [Metal-Attuned Core] and [Lightning-Attuned Core], disregarding [Elementally-Neutral Core] entirely since it seemed incredibly boring. Given his [Hidden Dragon] talent, it was almost certain that his main weapon in-game would be some kind of spear, so he figured that [Metal-Attuned Core] would be the safest choice in order to enhance his combat ability as, given his experience with similarly themed elemental magic in other games, Metal Magic would almost certainly enhance his weapon''s offensive power and grant him increased defense, making it a good overall choice for any melee fighter.


    However, even as he tried to convince himself that the [Metal-Attuned Core] was almost certainly the optimal choice for his character, his eyes couldn''t help but wonder to the [Lightning-Attuned Core] option, for really no good reason other than the fact that being a lightning-wielding Spearman sounded cool as hell to him.


    Besides, while lightning-magic would probably lack in the defense department, it would definitely be exceedingly offensively powerful, so he could just make this character a glass cannon of sorts. Those were always fun.


    With that thought of, he decisively made his choice and selected [Lightning-Attuned Core] as his chosen affinity, then turning his attention to the final important decision he would have to make during the creation of this character, the ''Background Selector''.

 Character Creation, Part 3

    Interestingly, the little blurb above this choice, beyond mentioning the usual text about brain-scanning, also explained that this was a feature intended primarily for roleplayers, with minimal gameplay effects, and was in fact entirely optional. It also mentioned, practically offhandedly, that characters created after this first server opening would not actually be granted a Background at all, and would all appear as generic Adventurers, showcasing yet another rather baffling change between the pre-order version and the normal game. Cass was, at this point, completely bewildered at how the game designers could think that all of this was a good idea.


    He knew that Pay-to-Win games were all the rage nowadays, but he had never heard of a game like this, where you had to pay extra and be playing the game at a very specific time in order to have access to seemingly basic game elements. It all just baffled him, to such an extent that he wondered if this was the reason Jess was so insistent on him playing the game right now, some kind of deranged prank she was playing on him. It didn''t make any sense thinking about it logically, but it was all his mind could conjure to explain all of this.


    Regardless, he put all of that aside for the moment, unwilling to let himself be bogged down anymore with questions that could probably be answered when he finally entered the game, and looked at the options available in this section.


    [No Background: You are an unknown Adventurer, seeking your own way through these lands.]


    [Once Venerable House: You are one of the last members of a small noble family with a once prestigious past. Can you bring glory to your name once more, or will you allow it to finally fade to obscurity?]


    [Call to Adventure: You are the child of simple farmers, who tragically lost their lives due to another''s actions. Will you get revenge for them, or will you live a better life in spite of the tragedy?]


    [Like Clockwork: You are an aspiring member of a Crafter''s Guild, brought to this position through the effort of those who care about you. Will you live up to their hopes and expectations, or will you try and strike out on your own?]This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it


    He didn''t even consider the option of having no Background, first because it would be incredibly lame not to utilize this seemingly unique opportunity that he''d been given, and secondly because he quite enjoyed role-playing in these kinds of games. Beyond that, he also noted with some curiosity that the descriptions used for these potential Backgrounds were much clearer and less confusing than the ones for the Talents or Affinities, although he had no idea why that would be the case. Disregarding that, he analyzed what each choice would offer him.


    [Call to Adventure], he figured, would be the most basic and straightforward of the options, with a clear-cut goal right from the start, a focus on combat and the potential to play out the scenario in a myriad of different ways. [Like Clockwork] also seemed easy to understand, obviously based primarily around learning the game''s crafting skills while presumably also managing the politics and relationships within the Guild in order to advance his career, which definitely had the potential to be incredibly interesting. The option which caught his eye the most, however, was definitely [Once Venerable House], as it seemed to have the most unclear path forward in terms of storyline progress and held the potential for some interestingly messy noble politics, both things that intrigued him and drawn him to make this his choice.


    Deciding not to think too much about this and just go with what his gut was telling him, Cass chose [Once Venerable House] as his Background and was finished with the most important parts of character creation, with what remained being simply the customization of the character''s appearance. Since he didn''t want to spend much more time on this, he simply decided to use his own real appearance as a base and make some small changes to it in order to hide his real identity, like making his character a bit taller, darkening his already dark brown hair even more and changing his eye color from dark green to a very light blue, which he thought looked nice, alongside some other small cosmetic changes. At the end of this, the previously blank mannequin floating in the void had transformed into a near, but not identical, copy of himself, wearing some generic-looking colorful medieval drabs, and he was finally done with character creation.


    Before he could exit this space, however, a silly idea came to his head and made him frantically search through the menus for a set of his sliders he had made note of earlier. Finding them, and chuckling to himself for being so immature, he set all of them to the max, giggling as the bulge in his character''s pants doubled in size, before he finally exited this dark void and returned to the calm and comforting cabin, satisfied with his creation and ready to finally start the game for real. With that, he picked up the stone tablet labelled ''Start Adventure'', and watched with wonder as his vision was quickly taken over by an endless sea of bright white particles, drowning out all of his senses.