While on a plane going back to England Andrew was wondering what to do. Should he just let it go and finally settle down as his family wanted him to. he just couldn't see what the future holds, he tried everything on earth to palliate for his high curiosity, he has a PhD in math and did an apprenticeship with the greatest craftsman on earth. He could easily become a teacher if he wanted to but his mind couldn't take it, he had to discover new things.
As he was planning everything, he overheard a conversation from a kid to his mother.
" Mom I really want to play the new game 'The Creation Path' can you please , please buy it??"
"Of course I can't my dear we've already discussed it, if you want a new game you will have to wait for Christmas, you know I don't like to buy new things during the year, it's not good for your grades."
"But Mom it's already summer I don't have classes for a whole 2 months! and all my friend are going to play it the day of release."
"I know you don't have class for 2 month silly but it's still not a reason for you to stop working, if you finally want to be the first of your class you have to work harder than other people."
"But mom..."
" Stop it, I'm trying to sleep, it is a 10h flight and I want to optimize my sleep schedule, if you can't sleep remember that I bought 'Discourse on Voluntary Servitude' for you to read in you spare time..."
Andrew was intrigued, he tried to play games before but he just couldn't get around the fact that every game he played felt so fake, it was always a pale copy of real life. In all the games he tried, he could only feel that he was limited , either by the storyline, or by the currency system, or by the map,... He would ragequit pretty fast usually after a few hours of gameplay when there was too much limitations for him to enjoy it. But he was also aware that recently there was a new kind of game that made it into the News, VR games. The VR games are a new kind of games that are supposed to makes you feel as if you were actually part of the game. Some years ago already the world was made aware of the VR prowess when the game 'Wolf And Wildlife' was released, the game was pretty simple, you are a wolf and you chase after preys. This was revolutionary as it was the first game that felt completely realistic . But the game still lacked something, the interaction with other beings with intelligence. 'The Creation Path' on the contrary was supposed to be super realistic because it is said to be be everchanging thanks to some kind of Super AI.
A new spark was ignited in Andrew's mind, a bolt of confidence arise. He finally knew what to do , he will play this new game. It didn't matter if he was bored to death , he just had to find new things to do, it didn't matter if there was nothing else for him to try in this world, he just had to go outside the world to experiment, and the new game was just perfect for that.
The flight was finally landing, for Andrew it seemed like only a few minutes has passed, he was so focused on his new life path that everything was going extremely fast. It was not the case for the kid next to him though, it seemed that reading 'Discourse on Voluntary Servitude' didn't make him really happy. Rather his face was so gloomy that he looked as if he's killed someone. Andrew looked at him and couldn't help but giggle, he knew very well what it was like to have a strict mother, he could only pray that the poor soul will be able to let go of his mother in a few year and have a happy life.
It was finally time to go shopping, directly leaving the airport he went to the shopping mall and started looking around, it's been a long time since he went to a mall for the last time , but it didn't change at all, everything seemed so crowded. He went to the videogame store with the hope to buy the helmet and the game before quickly leaving. But he had clearly underestimated the amount of people that were going to buy it a few hours before released. After waiting in line for a couple hours he was finally able to buy it. He quickly vanished from the store before going home.
The way home was way more peaceful as he only had to drive his car trough the country side. He finally arrived to his 17th century styled manor, it was an extremely huge mansion, with a few employees attending to his needs, you may wonder why Andrew was so rich, well for quite some time he tried painting, one of his piece was deemed a Masterpiece and he was able to sell it for a few billion £.
While entering the mansion he removed his clothing and directly went to the kitchen. He grabed a few things to eat than went upstairs. He ran to his bed and unpacked the device. Usually while unpacking packages he would play with the bubble wrap but he didn't have the time to do that right now, the game was only a few minutes from released and he had no time to waste.
he jumped into his bead, put his helmet on and everything went black...
a female voice started talking
" Welcome to the game The Creation Path, The first truly operational VR game in the entire world "
"Let me explain how the game works first : during the first month of you playing the game you will have to create a bloodline by incarnating an evolving beast , I say the first month but it is in fact during ten months in game time as their is a 10:1 time ratio in the game , for every 10 hours in the game only 1 hour pass in real life."
"The next part of the game will be explained as soon as you reach the end of the first part"
"now it s time to start the game, please choose your starting beast."
8 choices appeared inside Andrew's mind, it was the 8 beast he could start with :
After Andrew analyzed it carefully he noticed that one of the beast was different from the other : the wisp, it is clear that it s a magical beast and that the game would be magical. But Andrew didn't want to choose the wisp as it clearly had no body to speak of so it wasn't an option for him who wanted to feel the world around him inside the game.
He than remembered that when he was little he always had wanted a goldfish, but his parents never let him have it. While pondering for a few minutes, he made his decision, a goldfish it is.
"You choose the goldfish, are you sure about your decision? it is irreversible"
Andrew clicked on Yes a few second later, he was magically transferred on the border of a giant lake. He was feeling quite disoriented, living as a fish really felt different, his vision range was so small but he could perfectly see and breath underwater, he didn't feel cold at all which felt weird for him as that was the main reason he avoided swimming in lake usually . He instantly remembered to open his Status window
strength - 0
agility - 3
endurance - 1
intelligence - 2
magic - 0
charisma - 3
Traits :
Skills :
The skills all seemed pretty easy and straightforward, Andrew was pretty happy with the results, he did expect the increase in agility for being a fish and swimming, however the intelligence and charisma were totally unexpected. One thing however popped into his mind, how can he level up, everything thing in the lake is probably way bigger and stronger than him, so what was he supposed to kill? Or was he even supposed to kill to level up?