Darkness. An endless black expanse stretching into infinity. John peacefully floated there, a serene expression on his face. As his eyes gradually opened, the word STATUS, shimmered into existence, gigantic and glowing. He floated forwards and tapped the sign, and the world exploded into colour.
Two chairs and a table appeared, as well as a bunch of retro arcade machines. To his right, there was a bar, and to his left, a snooker table.
Beneath him, glowing blue arrows led in a trail towards the table. He strolled towards it and sat down. In front of him, sitting in the other chair, appeared a fairy.
She was beautiful. She was perfect. Her image was radiant. She was the very image of what John thought a perfect woman should be like up until he heard her speak.
"Hullo." She said, in the blandest, most dull tone he had ever heard. "This is VR Game Corporation Fairy Advisor. "I am pleased to welcome you to the wonderful world of -"
"Wait. Hold up." John held his hand up in a pausing gesture. "Aren't you supposed to be an A.I?How come you're not more, like, enthusiastic?"
The fairy sighed, exhaling deeply. "I'm a GM. A very unlucky GM, you could say. This morning all the GM's drew lots and the losing GM's temporarily become fairy advisors on the opening day. I'm one of the unlucky ones.
Ah. So that explains it.
"Well, anyways, lets get down to business." She waived her hand and a screen shimmered into view in front of my face. On the screen he could see various creatures and races, as well as their names and stats.
"Character creation I presume?"
"Yep" She replied. "Go ahead, just do your thing."
John scrolled through the various races, until he found the image of - you guessed it, the high elf. Yeah. It's been a long time coming, Mr. High Elf. Better known as either the squishy or the ruler of battlefield warfare depending on who you asked, it was a race which had overwhelming magic based stats and poor physical ones. A real min-max race.
There was a warning label underneath it which read [Recommended For Experts Only]. John clicked on it and the character expanded to fill the screen, showing an elfish version of himself, with paler skin and sharper ears.
He messed around with the appearance, increasing the height to a solid 6'2 from his original 6'0 and making his six-pack more pronounced. A little more muscle didn't hurt either. Not that it would help much.
A starving, wizened old man could blow away a castle wall if he had enough stat points in his strength stat, while a hulking monstrosity with bulging muscles wouldn't have the strength to truss a chicken if he had 0 points in his strength stat. It really emphasised the importance of stats in the game.
Satisfied with the appearance, he resisted his narcissistic urges to increase the size of his 'tool' and pulled up the status screen for his character.
Name: Flashing Sky
Race: Elf (High Elf)
Level: 0
HP: 100/100
MP: 100/100
Title: N/A
Class: N/A
Affiliated Kingdom: N/A
Stats:
Strength: N/A
Agility: N/A
Constitution: N/A
Intelligence : N/A
Wisdom: N/A
Charisma: N/A
Skills: N/A
Talent: N/A
Innate Trait: N/A
Free Attribute Points: 30
John peered at his status screen pondering over how to distribute his stats. "I can't min-max at the beginning of the game," he thought. "Otherwise I might really become a squishy."
"I believe it was 10 Hit Points to a point of constitution and 10 Mana Points to a point of intelligence. Wisdom is a 1% boost to mana recovery per point. The other stats are unnecessary for my build."
He distributed the stats, and pulled up his screen again.
Name: Flashing Sky
Race: Elf (High Elf)
Level: 0
HP: 120/120
MP: 250/250
Title: N/A
Class: N/A
Affiliated Kingdom: N/A
Stats:
Strength: 2
Agility: 2
Constitution: 2
Intelligence : 15
Wisdom: 5
Charisma: 4
Skills: N/A
Talent: N/A
Innate Trait: N/A
Free Attribute Points: 0
"Yeah, That should do it." John thought. "Pretty min-maxed, but still doable. Considering I'm gonna be a pure mage this time."
He swiped the screen away and looked back to the GM. "Ok. Since you're done, let me keep explaining as there are some new functions which were previously unavailable in Countrywide VR Game." She said patiently.
"First, there are Talents." She pulled over a blue screen hovering besides her and expanded it, showing me a list of names. "Players may select 1 talent which will greatly assist them in their journey, as only 1 stat point is distributed every two levels. There are other ways to increase stats, but they are rare and usually expensive."
"A player's talent will be their auxiliary method in increasing stats. So choose carefully." She said.
The Fairy GM passed over the screen to him and he scrolled through it.
He clicked on the mage type talents section and began to browse.
Talents:
Flash Cast
Mana Recovery
Elemental Fortitude
Erudite
Evocation Specialist
Abjuration Specialist
Conjuration Specialist
John stopped scrolling and clicked through the various talents. Finally, he settled on Erudite.
Talent Name: Erudite
Talent Class: Rare
Talent Type: Magic Based
Description: The smart get smarter, the dumb become dumber
Precondition: 15 Intelligence, 5 Wisdom [minimum]
Effect: +1 intelligence per level, +1 Wisdom every 3 levels, +20% speed towards learning magic based abilities, +5% towards learning non magic based abilities.
John finalised his choice and turned back to the GM. She pulled over two more screens, and expanded it.
"Pick a class now and a kingdom. As for innate talent, thats for you to find out whether or not you possess it."
Classes: Mage, Assassin, Warrior, Priest, Archer, Thief, Healer
He picked the mage without hesitation. He turned towards the kingdom selection screen and picked the Hesse Kingdom, a kingdom in the far north. It was far away enough from other kingdoms that he would be guaranteed relative peace, enough time for him to become strong.
The north would give him enough time to grow as well as level up in preparation for the kingdom wars and city wars in the future. Plus, it was so barren that many players wouldn't travel there.
The only players willing to travel there would be the ones like himself, wanting relative quiet and a place to train, or opportunistic players, those sought treasure and rare loots.
His status now looked like this.
Name: Flashing Sky
Race: Elf (High Elf)
Level: 0
HP: 120/120
MP:250/250
Title: N/A
Class: Mage
Affiliated Kingdom: Hesse Kingdom
Stats
Strength: 2
Agility: 2
Constitution: 2
Intelligence : 15
Wisdom: 5
Charisma: 4
Skills: N/A
Talent: Erudite
Innate Trait: N/A
Free Attribute Points: 0
He turned back to the GM once more. "I'm ready," he said simply. "Send me in."
"Any more advice or information you need to give me?" John inquired.
The GM face scrunched up in thought, her hand on her chin. She considered it for a second, and then spoke. "Do your best to forge a firm foundation. What I mean is to take the time to learn and understand how to flexibly use your abilities and skills, don't just rely on system assistance."
"Also, there is a special award given to those who get the first kill on any type of monster, or for those who are the first to complete a certain repeatable quest.
"A special reward?" John questioned.
"Yup. A 'named' gift, straight from the creator himself." The GM smirked, and left it at that.
"Now, enter into the wonderful world of Worldwide VR Game!" she shouted as enthusiastically as she could. A door appeared in front of him, and the GM shoved him roughly through.
John screeched and tumbled through the door, into the game.