Arthur wasn't a real-world yet, but, because Zhao Xu has deen how powerful the gods in the game really were, he didn't dare be disrespectful, even if they weren't real yet.
He quickly focused his attention again and looked at the instructions before him.
Once a player finished the initial setup page, he could go up the stairs and enter the world of Arthur.
If a player died, he would come back to this Palace of Character Creation again before losing a Revival Stone.
Zhao Xu looked at the prompt in front of him and didn't want to waste too much time. He used his thoughts to enter the same username he had used in his previous life: Zhong Xia.
After keying that in, the next menu was a series of races to choose from, and seven floating images of the available races appeared in front of him.
They were: Human, Elf, Dwarf, Half-orc, Halfling, Half-elf, and Gnome. Each race had differences in Character Class, Ability Scores, and Racial Traits.
"Human." Zhao Xu chose it without hesitation.
In all honesty, Humans were considered a strong race in the world of Arthur. Humans came with a bonus Feat and a bonus Skill, but too many players looked down on this race in the beginning.
He didn't intend to live the rest of his life as a different race, even though an Elf could live for a few hundred years.
As long as his plan succeeded, he would have plenty of ways to extend his lifespan.
On the other hand, there were a number of people who went crazy after they transmigrated and took on the form of the race they had chosen, especially those who chose to be gnomes.
The system had chosen "male" for him already, and this would also prevent any mishaps after transmigration.
His size was medium, which corresponded to most human beings.
He didn't change much when it came to eye color, skin color, and hair color, just making a few small adjustments. The system wouldn't allow him to make too many changes anyway.
After that, the last screen was Alignment selection.
Arthur's Alignment table had Law, Neutral, and Chaos on the x-axis and Good, Neutral, and Evil on the y-axis.
The two axes formed the Nine Major Alignments. A player could choose what Alignment to start with, or he could go through a series of questions to determine his Alignment.
Zhao Xu chose Neutral.
Actually, he was considered a Neutral Good sort of person, but these days, Alignment determined everything from one's Character Class to spells and even NPCs.
So, he went for Neutral, which gave him the least limits on his choices, and he could push his Alignment in a different direction depending on what came his way later on.
As for his religion, he temporarily fixed it as his Alignment.
The game didn't force the players to choose early on, either. Even Clerics were allowed to use their Alignment as their religion. Most people only decided which deity they believed in after playing the game for a while.
After going through a few rounds of selection, his final stats menu appeared:
Name: Zhong Xia
Race: Human/Living organism from a different world (Earth)
Age: 22 years
Sex: Male
Size: Medium
Weight: 76 kilograms
Height: 183 centimeters
Background: None
Alignment: Neutral
Religion: Alignment
Eye Color: Black
Skin Color: Yellow
Hair Color: Black
Base Walking Speed: 30 feet per round (Around 9.1 meters every 6 seconds)
Languages: Not set yet
Race Traits: Level 1 will receive 4 Skill Points. Every level increase will earn you 1 Skill Point. Level 1 will automatically receive 1 bonus Feat.
After checking to make sure that all the details were correct, Zhao Xu exhaled quietly.
Many people would have picked a Character Class and entered the game by this time, but Zhao Xu had seen for himself how, after everyone on Earth eventually transmigrated following the complete destruction of the planet, those high-level players had become such important and revered characters, and top-level wizards had managed to change the direction of a battle all by themselves.
He knew very well that in the world of Arthur, how powerful one's character was would decide one's fate.
There was no point in trying to rush through the front to gain more time to play, because he would get dragged behind by the basic Character Class training that was coming up next.
Those who finished the training fast completed it in several hours, and there were many who took an entire week.
And that was according to the fastest player of each Character Class.
The stats menu slowly faded in front of Zhao Xu's eyes, and the palace was filled with singing that sounded like a holy chant of sorts for the first time.
Six identical Ability Score pillars of light stood in front of him: Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma.
Zhao Xu's chest tightened. This was the most stressful part of character creation for him.
After transmigrating to the world of Arthur, everything in that world was decided entirely by these Ability Scores.
Intelligence affected how high one's IQ was. There was a Half-orc player who started with 8 points, but because of a racial disadvantage, he was left with only 6.
Before transmigrating, as a gamer on earth, he could use his own intelligence, which was likely to be equivalent to at least 10 points in the game, to control his character.
But after he had transmigrated, he inherited the 6 point Intelligence, making him pretty much mentally disabled.
Many players just pushed their Ability Scores to the max here, but Zhao Xu didn't dare do that.
Being able to use each Ability Score to its fullest was an advantage that Zhao Xu definitely had over all the other players.
The Ability Scores in front of him all started at 8 points, and the pillars of light were stuck at the 8 point height.
His Testing Account came with 28 points.
If an Ability Score was anything between 8-14 points, he could exchange 1 point for an additional point on his Ability Score.
If the Ability Score was between 15-16 points, he needed to exchange 2 points for an additional point on his Ability Score.
If the Ability Score was between 17-18 points, he needed to exchange 3 points.
Eighteen points was the maximum an Ability Score could reach at the beginning.
If he wanted to increase his Ability Score later, he would have to count on leveling up as well as gaining equipment that would help him.
In his previous life, Zhao Xu only managed to get hold of a +2 Strength belt, and there was a chance to increase one's Ability Scores only every four level-ups.
Zhao Xu looked at the right side and saw that there was a +4 beside his total of 28 points.
That meant that he had 32 points. That was a special prize for those players who logged into the game within the first 24 hours of the server going live.
This would also be the only time 32 points would appear in the game.
Zhao Xu didn't have such luck in his previous life. He had started with only 22 points and had ten points less than those who started from day one.
But he was still lucky. There were millions of ordinary people who didn't even have a game account when they were suddenly transmigrated to the world of Arthur. They didn't have any miraculous encounter, so their Ability Scores were all at an average of 10 points, which was equivalent to a 12 point character.
Knowing what the next ten years would hold made Zhao Xu the biggest cheat of the Arthur game.