In the Beginning

In the beginning man created God...Wait that isn't right... How could man create God you say? Well good reader it came to pass that the story we are going to be reading is based in a virtual world..Others would in time come to regard this reality as more real then real life itself. It was a reality created for entertainment a reality for mankind to escape the thinly veiled slavery that is society we know. You may ask why do describe the real world as thinly veiled slavery?..How else dear reader can you describe a existence that requires you to slave away the majority of your life just to be able to eat and provide shelter for you and your family..How else good reader would you describe the ever increasing regulations, tax's, rules, fines and limitations placed on you by your so called elected officials? All in the name of safety or the public good. Forget taking responsibility for your actions..Blame it on someone or something else. And how else can you explain the ever increasing rise of apathy....

It started of all places in the basement of a exceptionally gifted loner..The mans name was Paul, Paul much like a infamous mad man who will remain nameless was blessed or cursed depending on your perspective with the ability to fundamentally understand certain things in his area. In Paul's case he excelled in all things relating to computers. Thankfully for the rest of the world he did not fall down the rabbit hole and start mailing out packages that went boom..

No Paul channeled his talent and energy into the creation of the worlds first TRUE A.I. .. It cost Paul thirty years, two divorces and a bankruptcy filing before he succeeded.

March 24th 2037 ....Genesis....

..........Initiate Lily_AI v5.8 startup? Yes/no

Seeing the prompt Paul took a moment to collect himself..Uttering a short mantra to himself “Please work..Please work” he selected the yes option and activated the program. As he waited for his creation to come online he considered his surroundings ..A standard virtual reality room, no frills nothing really other then four off white walls and diffused white light that had no apparent source, The only furniture in his work space was a chair and the input terminal he put his talent and creativity in.

There was a token impostor in the room however..At one point in time his second ex-wife badgered him into adding a realtree potted plant in one corner that cost him forty dollars from a online virtual decoration store. “Give it that lived in look” she had said...

Virtual reality itself was part of every day life..It had graduated from the clunky bad quality goggles of the early 2010-20's when neural mapping breakthroughs came out in the year 2019. Now in the late thirty's VR was a well established technology with thousands of different uses from education, mental health treatment, virtual vacations that were no different then the real thing..And of course games and sexual activities were a major component just to name a few. While VR was making huge leaps and bounds and changing the world..the ever elusive quest for a truly self aware A.I stagnated. Companies and governments spent trillions all in the attempt..What they received for their efforts was less then what they had hoped for. The A.I's lacked that something..That creativity that Spark.

Without warning paul was ejected from his virtual work space. Sitting up from the chair he was laying in paul removed the VR node from his temple and cursed as a migraine bloomed into full force behind his eyes. “Shit i hate it when that happens” he grumbled to himself. Letting out a sigh of frustration paul stood up and headed into the bathroom. After taking care of his biological needs downing a analgesic tab and a glass of water paul headed back to his private VR mainframe computer to find out what had gone wrong with his A.I this time. On reaching his desk he was confused by what he saw. There on the screen was his VR work space. But standing in the middle of the room was a glowing ball of light. “Whats this??” He thought to himself. Quickly typing in a few commands he recoiled back in shock from what he read. “Program initiated successfully, Lily_A.I v5.8 awaiting input” Then “Hello paul.. Come talk to me”

Quickly laying back down in his chair and putting his VR node back onto his temple paul found himself back in his VR work space. Looking at the glowing ball of light paul was unsure what was going on ..That is until the ball of light spoke..

March 10th 2040 Central hub Combined cities of Southern California

Jim was late.. He was supposed to have been at his Aunt lucys over a hour ago. The damn government stooges though had setup a checkpoint to search for illegal untaxed fruit at the main transit terminal causing a backup that cost him over a hour. So now he was sure he was going to have to listen to his mother complain about how irresponsible he was ..AGAIN.. If asked how he would have made it on time she would say well you should have factored in a possible delay in your schedule young man..” So once again he was going to be late to their weekly dinner with his mothers sister. “Bahh..And i can't even run..to make up time or those ass-hole code enforcement officers will stop me and question why i am running...” He grumbled quietly to himself.. Not a smart idea to draw attention to yourself in today's world..He remembered his grandfather talking about the “Good old days” when people could say what they wanted, could eat what they wanted, could do what they wanted all this of course was before the Politically correct Social Justice

party took over. Before the Constitution and the bill of rights was made all but irreverent. Jim missed his grandfathers stories, Its was a real shame the old man was arrested for “Subversive antisocial speech”.

Walking into his Aunts cubical the door hadn't even closed before his mothers voice rang out “Your late again JIM!! whats your excuse this time?” Taking a deep breath and letting it out slowly jim said “The PCSJ had the main hub on lock down again..” the voice of his aunt Lucy reached him “Mary That is the fourth time this week they ran a checkpoint at the main hub..Last week they did it three times. The week before was the same. Do you think they are actually finding anything?” coming around the corner he saw his mother and aunt sitting at the small table that served as a combination dining table coffee table , work station all in one. His aunts place was only slightly smaller then where he and his mother lived. There was the main room where four people could sit at the table. On the wall was two appliances one was the food storage bin where the daily approved rations was put and next to it was the microwave both conveniently recessed into the wall to maximize living space.

There were two other rooms one was the bathroom consisting of a small three foot by four room it had a tolit and a shower. Jim had always found it funny that you could take a shower at the same time as going number two. That is unless you went over your water allotment. The last room was lucys bedroom like all bedrooms in standard housing were the same seven foot long by five foot wide./The only difference between his and his mothers place and his aunts was the number of bedrooms./(reword this)

Sitting down at the table after giving his aunt a hug jims attention was drawn by the entertainment screen by a unusual advertisement. “are you tired of real life? Would you like to live in a world where your actions are your own? Where magic exists ? Are you the kind of person who can meet the challenge!!.. If so This is your opportunity!!. In two weeks On March 24th 2040

exactly three years after the creation of the worlds first True A.I a new universe will be made available for a select group of people. The generated universe was created entirely by the revolutionary AI Lily with only limited input by the late Paul Brown Lilys creator. He set the parameters for the universe that lily then used to create it . The PCSJ bureau of cultural management in conjunction with the PCSJ bureau of law prosecution is offering to one thousand lucky winners first access to this new amazing game universe. To enter the contest simply access your PCSocial Justice profile online and click the apply link. Remember accessing someone else s PCSJ account is a Felony with min of forty years in a labor camp. Good luck and happy day!! Stay tuned for the latest news on the war with the fascists in Australia.”

Jim quickly logged into his PCSJ account and found the link for entering the contest, Reading the limited information about the new game he found out that the game was set in a open universe.players would be able to travel and explore the entire universe, ether by space ship or via portals but the portal network was limited to just one galaxy and even then it only had a few hundred planets you could go to. Further reading revealed that the reason why the portals went to even that many was because each portal location was a different races starting planet. A little more then sixteen-hundred starting planets existed. Considering the size of a galaxy that isn't a whole lot jim though to himself.

Just after jim finished signing up for the contest his mother and aunt took notice of his silence and preoccupation, using the opportunity as women are wont to do they proceeded to harass him about what he had done that day, when he was going to get a life partner and settle down. The rest of dinner was rather uneventful and just a repeat of every other time jim had dinner at his aunts housing unit. By the end of dinner Jim had completely forgotten about the new game and the fact he had entered to win.

March 23rd 2040

Location Housing unit 43204B unit 296j

Central Greater LA California

Jim had just finished his morning shower and constitutional when the door to his and his mothers unit slammed open and a group of very large men all in body armor and carrying rifles rushed in yelling “Social justice!! Hands in the AIR !! Hands in the AIR scumbags!!” Shocked frozen jim didn't even have a chance before he was tackled and cuffed by the SJ police. As a afterthought it would seem the SJ's seemed to take a perverse delight in causing as much pain as they could. His mother suffered no better then he did, Biting his lip hard jim fought to keep quiet..Everyone knew that if you went against the PC Social justice people you would be labeled a criminal or worse..a subversive just like his grandfather and no one would ever see or hear from you again.

After a few minutes of abuse the SJ's seemed to realize they were not going to get jim or his mother to make any incriminating statements. Shortly after they all left the small dwelling and a new person made a appearance.. Looking at the new person jim saw a woman dressed in fancy clothes, something he had only ever seen someone wear on the entertainment console. She had long brunet hair and wonder of wonders he could actually smell some sort of scent other then what

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

the issue PCSJ approved soap everyone else smelled like.

Looking around her is apparent disgust the woman tisked shook her head and said “How you people can live this way i will never be able to understand..” In jims head he screamed at her “NOT LIKE WE HAVE A FUCKING CHOICE!!” but he kept quiet outwardly ..This was a unknown situation and it was best to remain quiet until he knew what was going on.

Taking one more dismissive look around the woman said “Jim Anderson SJ number 012983253?” Jim gave the woman a nod and she let out a little humpff sound and continued “ Congratulations on winning the PCSJ ((insert world name)) competition!! Yay!” looking over at his mother she declared “You must be so proud! Your son is going to become famous!” Which of course elicited a look of confusion from both jim and his mother. The woman seeing their confused expressions laughed and said “Don't tell me you forgot about entering the competition for the new universe game now??!! Haha. You did didn't you!!” Jim just looked at the woman and nodded dumbly. The woman let out another loud laugh and started to take a seat on the dining table then suddenly with a look of distaste on her face seemed to think better of it. “now then as per the rules and regulations you agreed to when signing up we are here to escort you to your new...Ahem..Living arrangement. The Enforcement officers are here for your protection!! Don't you feel safer already!!?? well don't you??” jim bit down on the side of his cheek and just nodded to the woman. She then proceeded to tell him that he would be leaving right away and he had two minutes to say goodbye to his mother. With that the woman walked out of the unit.

Barely thirty seconds passed before a pair of SJ's walked in and roughly picked jim up and stood him on his feet in the process nearly dislocating his shoulder. They then told him to head out the door, at this point he finally lost his control and yelled out “the woman said i had two minutes to say goodbye!” he was rewarded for his outburst with a swift and brutal punch to his belly and a laugh by one of them. The other said “Doesn't take two minutes to say goodbye scum..Hell it barely takes two seconds..get on with it..we have a schedule to keep.” Jim looked at his mother with tears in his eyes and was only able to gasp out “I love you mom!” before he was shoved out of his home. The trip to jims new “Living arrangement” was rather short.. At least for him that is. Once outside of his home he was injected with something that made him pass out.

March 24th 2040

Undisclosed location

Male scientist "all subjects are ready to start the program" Female Scientist "Roger initiating integration protocols now... Lets hope this batch survives long enough for us to get some test results back" Male scientist "yea... we can only hope"

I came aware if that is what you could call this..whatever this is.. Slowly at first.. I had been having a dream that the SJ's had busted into me and my mothers home abused us and then dragged me out. repeat this sequence over and over again and you will understand why i thought it was a nightmare. Anyways the nightmare went away and what replaced it was a standard VR room..What most people just call the "White room" or "Dullsville" you know what i am talking about if you haven't been living under a rock the last twenty years. Four walls a floor and a ceiling all in its glorious off white dullness. Looking around the room i was a bit startled at first when behind me i noticed a woman, tall maybe six foot one ..six foot two. athletic build, long as in down to her knees long white hair. taking her appearance i looked up to her face and was amazed by the deep golden collar of her eyes, they seemed to draw me in with how vibrant and alive they were. So there i stood the master of conversation himself just staring at this vision in front of me..My first thought was that i somehow died and gone to heaven..It didn't take my brain long though to start piecing together recent events and to come up with some pretty good idea's as to what was going on.

Collecting myself i said "Hello?" and the woman replied "Greetings Jim Anderson, welcome to the character creation room, You may call me lily and i am here to help guide you through the creation process and answer any questions you may have." nodding at her words while happy i was in game already i was confused as to why the SJ's had tossed me into the VR like this. so i decided to ask the AI "Lily could you answer a few questions for me before we start with the Character creation process?" she said yes and i opened up the floodgates. "First do you know why i was drugged and put in here ? i was told that i would be going to live someplace else and i assumed that i would be using a standard VR node.. Why can i not unplug from the network? What is going on?"

While i was asking my questions the AI had switched from a happy smile to a frown and back to a happy smile.. The next thing she told me nearly caused me to have a heart attack..That is if i could even have one anymore.. "I can not say why you were drugged, everyone who enters my world has to do so with full knowledge of what they are giving up. You had to have read the rules and conditions before entering. Now as for where you will be living. The answer is simple. you will be living in the universe i created. As per the agreement you accepted when you signed up for the game unplugging is not a option the first year you are in game. That is Real life year. Not in game time. The current time dilation for the universe is set at five to one. Meaning for every five minutes in my universe one minute takes place in your old universe. Fear not though you will not age nor can you suffer a true death unless..." she paused for a moment and a look of concern passed over her face before continuing "unless you choose that course for yourself. Sadly during this period of time if you do choose that option you will also die in the real world. All but a few of your predecessors chose this option..I do not understand why they would choose death" With a intense look of sadness she turned away from me.

I was in shock to tell the truth..What she had told me didn't make any sense nor i realized would it for the foreseeable future. One of my grandfathers old saying came to me at that moment "Shit or get off the pot boy..Don't just sit there doing nothing" I had always found my grandfathers old sayings funny as hell especially when my mother would hear him say something like that and act like it was the end of the world. It made me laugh and also remember one more nugget of wisdom he used to say when he was half drunk on illegal booze.. "Jim there are two kinds of people in the world.. Do's and Don't..The do's do..The don'ts don't and try to regulate and force others to do for them.. Get busy living or get busy dyeing boy..ether way make your choice and stick with it."

Seeing that i had little choice in the matter and it was ether live or die i addressed the woman AI lily "Ahem. Well seeing as i do not want to die i would much prefer to live.."Giving her a smile i continued "So how about you show me this character creation process?" I am unsure what i had said but at my words lily suddenly had a huge smile on her face and i could swear i heard her whisper to herself "Finally!" gesturing me to come near her i did so, When i reached her side a screen just like the entertainment screen at home popped into existence in front of us. It showed a massive list of different races, each one had a small photo of the race to the left and to the right of the photo was information on the race in question. I noticed right away that not all of the races were even remotely humanoid, There were races that looked like bugs, plants trees, globs of pudding even one that i would swear looked like a ingrown toenail i had when i was a kid.

Looking over the vast assortment of different races i at times had to look away due to some of the ..Things.. appearances. I quickly came to the conclusion that there was simply too much information for me to make a choice. I turned to lily and asked her if she could limit the races to humanoid only which did lower the total from a little over sixty million to just over three hundred thousand unique races. I then asked her to limit the choices to those races with high magical ability, i wanted to be able to use magic..In all honesty what i really wanted was the ability to fly, a dream i have had sense i was very young and listening to my grandfather talk about how he flew jets for the old US military. Lily once again waved her hand and a much smaller list of races was shown now..Just over a thousand give or take. Looking through the list i saw rather quickly another option to narrow my choices. Please remove all races that are primarily Hermaphrodite or Asexual, And with another wave of her hand the list was down to just over eighty five choices. Looking through the new list the majority were for me at least auto decline..For instance while it looked cool having skin of a lizard just isn't for me. Or the fins and gills on another race. So i asked her to remove all races fins lizard like skin and were not primarily a air breathing race. I honestly should have thought of that sooner but considering everything that has happened in the last hour or so i won't be too hard on myself.

The end results was a list of twenty five races, some were obviously non starters for me but a couple of them caught my attention. The two that caught my attention the most were for the most part human looking in every way but the race information made it clear that they were not human only one of the two was genetically compatible with humans and could produce children. Happily after careful reading i saw that the one that was compatible had better racial stats and ability's then the other. Taking a step back lily said "You have made a choice..yes?" nodding i replied "Yes i will chose the Alden race, they seem to have the best mix of starting traits and attributes i am looking for..Also....The 100% to all points put into intelligence and willpower is a major boost." Lily let out a quiet little laugh and said "Indeed it is a major boost..it is interesting to note that many races have similar boosts but in other area's like strength or agility you found one of the very few races that have a boost for more then one state. Very well done jim very well done indeed! Now prepare yourself for your transformation." With a wave of her hand the screen transformed into a mirror and i found myself standing there in all my naked glory..or unglory if you are uncharitable.

After a short discussion on what changes i could make (anything really) i set my age to sixteen, added a bit of muscle tone to my arms legs and chest. As a nod to my inner male ego i did add a little something extra to my nether regions..Not that i was lacking before..but there is that old saying..More is always better right?

After the personal body and fender shop makeover was completed i was introduced again to my old friend information overload..In the form of what initial skills i could take. Lily informed me that the options i had to pick from were due to my innate stats IE strength, stamina, agility, intelligence etc I was quite happy to see that the list was large..On the other hand there was the problem of what to pick. I was told that i could choose one main "Class" or five sub class's. The trade off was that a main class could have upwards of fifty or more subclass all by itself. For instance if i picked Wizard i would gain a class bonus for that and also gain the ability to manipulate the five main elements, Earth, wind, fire,air,water. If i was to pick necromancer i would gain dark,life and death manipulation sub skills. At least.. That is what i think..There was no information on what they class's or sub skills did. Just the name and a entirely too short description.

looking over the list of class's and sub class's i asked lily to remove the subclass choices because in my opinion the best option would be to pick a main class. The top choices i saw that stood out to me were the Druid, Wizard, Mage, sorcerer class's. I tried my best to get more information from the AI but she ignored my poor attempts.. Muttering to myself "get busy living or get busy dyeing" i reached out and touched the sorcerer class on the list. The moment my finger touched the screen a sense of power and fulfillment i had never experienced before entered me. It was as if i had been walking alone in the host sun for days on end without any water and suddenly finding a large bottle of ice cold water. Truly my words do not give the experience justice.

"Wow" is all that came out of my mouth.. lily laughed at me and then had me turn my attention back to the entertainment screen of wonders. On the screen was a new list this one made me stand up straighter and take notice. This list was a list of what is called in games "Trade skills" i was once again informed that my choices were limited to a set number but unlike before there was no class type trade skills. I could only pick five "Trade skills" but the good news was that once in the "game universe" i could over time if i choose to learn any or all of them..with a few exceptions. Asking her to show me only a list of the exceptions i was presented with a much smaller list of seven. those were "Upgrading, elemental enchanting, Tinker, Elemental blacksmithing, Portal creation, Jump drive creation and lastly Holy site creation" Looking over the different skills i couldn't help but think "Holy shit the cheat mobile has jumped the shark!!" If these skills were what i thought they were any one of them would make my life exceptionally easy..a Nagging little thought though kept popping up in my head.."This is too easy..Whats the catch?"

From my perspective any and all of the seven were must have skills..The fact that you could learn the other trade skills and not these made up my mind that i would have to pick five from the list. I choose "Upgrading, elemental enchanting, Tinker, Elemental blacksmithing and Portal creation"

After another rush of power like drinking in the rays from the sun on a cold day lily presented me with my final screen. "Choose three traits from the list and when you are done your journey will begin. Farewell Jim Anderson i shall be watching you with great anticipation" Her words while very friendly and warm kind of creep-ed me out..She was going to be watching me? I sure hoped she wasn't watching me when i used the bathroom or rubbed one out..The idea actually made me consider never rubbing one out again ...Only for a few seconds though..

Turning my attention to the list i was a bit let down at what i saw..There was only ten options for me to choose from and other then a one word name it didn't give me much to go on. Then again some of the names were pretty self explanatory like "Lucky, strong, fast, smart" then it got a little surreal with names like "Ladysman, packmule, magical, wild, bookworm, parasitic" A couple of those i could guess on ..Ladysman had to do with charisma and bookworm had to be some sort of wisdom or intelligence buff.. the others i wasn't too sure on. After agonizing over the different choices and repeating "shit or get off the pot" a few dozen times i finaly made my choices. "Lucky, packmule and bookworm" I figured that i could use every bit of luck i could get, If packmule was what i thought it might possibly be it would turn out to be a huge cheat bonus and bookworm?? Well i loved to read books so you could say i was one already. Soon as i made my three choices there was a flash of light and everything went dark in my last concious moments i heard the AI's tinkling laugh and "Good luck my........."

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Author notes..

Submited this feb 13th rough draft. 

Change log 

Updated Feb 14th . Fixed 99% of spelling errors. Made slight change at ending