Alex was shocked. This was the first time he had been in virtual reality, and no description of it could ever possibly explain how real this felt.
He looked down to his own body. He was currently naked with no clothes on. He looked in front of him where he could see a lot of customization options. There were so many options that he got overwhelmed with it.
He saw a randomize option to the side and pressed it. The randomize option gave him a tall and lean body with well-built muscles. He now had blue eyes, compared to his real-life brown eyes. He had long hair and no facial hair.
'This doesn't look bad.' Alex thought to himself, and clicked 'Create'. He heard something speak into his mind.
"Hmm… username? Should I just keep it as Alex? Probably not. Uhh…" he couldn't come up with a name, so he decided to randomize the username as well.
He saw a notification pop up in front of him. 'Hmm... Yu Ming? Doesn't sound like a bad name.' He thought as he pressed OK.
Suddenly everything turned white.
Alex found himself in the middle of the jungle. He looked around and saw nothing but tall, densely packed trees all around him.
'Am I still in the game?' he thought. There was no health bar or anything to imply that this was the game. This was just way too surreal.
Alex got worried. He remembered he was naked and looked down. Thankfully, he had clothes on now.
He was wearing a simple blue robe with blue pants on. He noticed something weird at his side. There was a small bulge on his left waist.
He tried to touch it to see what it was when suddenly, a transparent blue screen appeared in front of him. The screen had the name 'Bag of Cosmos' on top and inside the screen were a bunch of squares neatly ordered.
He looked at the squares and realized there were 2 icons in the small squares. One looked like a book and another looked like a treasure chest.
Curious, he tapped the book and suddenly another blue screen appeared in front of him.
[Tutorial]
[This game mostly works through voice commands. Say 'Settings' or 'Status' to open up settings or your info. Your first job is to make time and HP bar visible for your HUD from the settings. Say 'Settings' ]
"Settings"
A new screen appeared once more that had a bunch of little settings in it. He didn't know what most of them did as they were turned Off, but he quickly found 2 settings related to HP Bar and TIME. He turned both of them ON.
Suddenly on the top left of his vision, a green bar appeared representing his current HP amount. On the top right, a bunch of numbers appeared representing the current time.
It seemed the time in the game matched the real lifetime.
[Tutorial]
[Congratulations on using the settings. You can later change the different settings as you see fit. Now, to check your info say 'Status']
"Status"
Another blue screen appeared in front of him. This time it had a bunch of information about him.
[Player Name: Yu Ming
Cultivation: Mortal (1 Qi: 100%)
Body: Sun God's Divine Yang Body
Talent: God
Spiritual Roots: 5 elements Yin-Yang roots
Cultivation Method: None
Qi: 0
]
"Oh, is this my info?" Alex looked at the status with curiosity in his eyes. He didn't understand what most it meant though.
The tutorial screen popped up again.
[Tutorial]
[Congratulations on opening your status. Here is an explanation of what each of these info means.
Cultivation: is your current cultivation realm and level. It shows you how much Qi you have to invest to increase cultivation, and what your chances of breaking through are.
Body: is your potential in cultivation. It determines how far you can cultivate. Special bodies also give other benefits.
Talent: is your talent in cultivation. It determines how fast you can cultivate.
Spiritual Roots: Spiritual Roots represent your spiritual affinity towards the element. You can learn and use elements you have an affinity to more freely than the rest.
Cultivation Method: this is the technique you use to cultivate. It teaches you how to gather Qi and use the Qi to increase your cultivation.
Qi: this is your source of energy. The more Qi you have, the stronger you can become. The speed at which you gather Qi can depend on your location, your cultivation method, and your talent.]
Alex was truly overwhelmed now. He couldn't understand half of what was happening right now. He had decided to play this game because his new friends had told him it was the best out right now. So, why were there this many explanations?
Once he read it all, he clicked on 'next'. A new set of texts popped up from the tutorial panel.
[Tutorial]
[you can use the following commands.
Logout: to logout
Cultivation methods: to see all the cultivation methods you have learned.
Weapons: to see the list of weapons you have.
Pills: to see the list of pills you have.
Techniques: check the different techniques you have.
Inventory: to see your inventory. (shows items from all of your different spatial bags or rings)
Finally, congratulations on completing the tutorial. You can now open the chest in your inventory to obtain a random technique, weapon, pill, and cultivation method.]
He closed the Tutorial by clicking the 'X' on the top. He tried saying all the commands, except logout, to see if they worked. As expected, all the commands worked.
Every single panel those commands brought up was empty, except for the inventory.
"Alright then, let's see what the chest gives me. Hopefully, it's something good." Alex clicked on the chest and a notification popped up.
He clicked 'Open'.
"Weapons" he decided to check weapons first.
The weapons panel now had a new addition to it. From the icon, it looked like a sword. Alex clicked on it and the option to equip or description popped up. He chose description.
[Iron Sword
Grade: Mortal
]
There were no more descriptions than that.
"What's the mortal grade? Is that good or bad? Also, is there no attack bonus or anything? How is this game if the item has no stats on it?" Nothing of what Alex had learned from the little video games he played on his home computer helped him at all right now.
He then checked the pill.
[Qi providing pill
Grade: Mortal
Gives you 10 Qi]
"This is not bad. Didn't my status say I need 1 Qi to level up or something like that?" Alex was quite happy to find this pill.
"How do I use the pill though? Is there a button to use it?" Alex looked into the options that popped up but didn't understand what to do.
"Since this is a pill, like a medicine. Do I just eat it?" he wondered.
"Whatever, here it goes."
POP
He put the pill into his mouth. As soon as it entered his mouth, as if the pill melted, it slid down his throat before he even noticed.
"Oh. I was right". He quickly opened his status page to check the change now.
[Player Name: Yu Ming
Cultivation: Mortal (1 Qi: 100%) [Breakthrough]
Body: Sun God's Divine Yang Body
Talent: God
Spiritual Roots: 5 elements Yin-Yang roots
Cultivation Method: None
Qi: 10
]
Now that he had enough Qi, he had a [Breakthrough] option in his Cultivation.
"Ah, there it is. So I can become a cultivator now? Is that what it is?" Alex wondered as he pressed the [Breakthrough] button.
"Oh! I need a Cultivation Method huh? Let's check my Cultivation method then." Alex opened his Cultivation method page and saw the book icon in the panel.
The Cultivation method had a separation of the panel that divided the panel into 2 sections. 'Learned' and 'Ready to Learn'. The book was in the 'Ready to Learn' section.
He clicked it and two options popped up. 'Learn' and 'Description'. He clicked on the description.
[Starry Sky Qi Absorption Method:
Grade: Heaven
Absorb 20 Qi every minute. The amount doubles during the night]
"Woah. 20 Qi every minute? That's crazy," Alex thought. "Wait? Does that mean the pill I ate wasn't actually good.?"
"Do I learn It now?" he thought. He quickly went back to the same panel and clicked learn.
"Nice. Now I can breakthrough right?" Alex quickly set the new method as his cultivation method. After that, he clicked [Breakthrough]