Having drank his coffee downstairs—to allow enough time for people to reply to his post on the forums—Tobi returned to his computer with carefully restrained hope and expectations. He doubted many people had replied yet, so he didn’t want to be too disappointed if the replies failed to answer his question. If indeed there were any replies at all.

Sitting at his computer with a second cup of coffee already brewed, it was with more than a little surprise that Tobi found his post had been visited more than a thousand times already. The amount of replies weren’t nearly as many, but there were definitely plenty to read.

I don’t know if this counts, but I learned how to make a fire the same way they do in the scouts. Using just twigs and dried grass, I was able to make a fire in Aevitas. When I tried the same thing in my back garden at home, it worked! It was a bit harder to do and took more effort, but I still did it.

The first comment didn’t answer his question how he intended, but it certainly opened his eyes a little. He’d meant for someone to post a list of skills people had learned in Aevitas and used in Life; not give an account of a skill the person learned themselves. Even so, Tobi hadn’t considered basic survival skills at all. It was quite a surprise to realize how limited his thoughts had been. Unfortunately, the first poster managed to set the bar and started the trend. Almost all replies were about personal experiences and what they had used in real life after learning it in Aevitas.

Reading through the replies, Tobi finally found one that tried to answer his question properly.

I see a lot of people posting what they learned but not giving the Original Poster an answer to his actual question. He asked for a list of skills. A LIST!

I am guessing you don’t mean professions though, right? Almost all professions have skills that can be transferred to reality. Tailor can teach a person to knit, sew, dye clothes, tan animal hide and much more. Many of it can be skipped by using the ‘automatic’ process—which certainly saves a lot of time—but to those that want to simply gain experience, they can follow the process step-by-step and gain huge experience rewards in exchange. The process is almost identical to reality, so the skills can really be learned.

Note to OP: The skill has to be practiced and honed in reality. You can’t suddenly become a master at knitting because you do it in Aevitas. You have to teach your physical body the skill as well. Does that make sense? Knowing and doing are different. You can know how to ride a bike, but actually riding it isn’t the same. And being able to ride a bike doesn’t mean you can join the olympics or win a race. Same deal.

While I still don’t know what kind of answer you are actually looking for, here is my ‘off-the-top-of-the-head’ list of THINGS that Aevitas can ‘teach’ you:

Patience. Math. Strategic Planning. Forethought. Perseverance. Leadership. Map Reading (Orientation). Social Skills. Tracking. Hunting. Archery (limited and requires real life practice too). Scouting. Stalking (for you psycho’s out there). The Art of War. Business Development and Trading (especially for Merchant class). ...

Can learn way more than that, but before I make a bigger list, was it those kind of things you meant? As one extra thing to add to the list, I learned mountain climbing and abseiling in Aevitas and I have used it three times now in real life. So Awesome! ^_^

Tobi continued to read one reply after another. As was with the case of the first poster, the majority continued to write their own experiences. Learning to fight, learning to swim, learning to build; the list of skills people had learned continued to grow.

By the time Tobi finished reading all the replies, he was already eager to test out the game for himself. He wasn’t so concerned by setting a specific goal anymore. It was more that he wanted to experience the world itself. He wanted to see what he learned whether he intended to or not. From all the replies he read, the majority hadn’t tried to learn anything. The game gave them scenarios which forced them to learn certain skills in order to achieve their aims.

The one who learned to fight could be considered a given, as he’d been a warrior in the game and slowly discovered he could train his real body based entirely on what he did in the game. The swimmer was a little different. He was out on a boat levelling his ‘Fishing’ profession and the boat capsized. He managed to blunder his way to a rock sticking out of the water and survive, but that had been his mistake.

Had the swimmer simply drowned the first time, he would have resurrected back at the city. Due to his fear of drowning however, and managing to reach the rock, he couldn’t resurrect back at the city at all. Seven times he tried to swim back to the mainland and seven times he drowned. The company gave pity to him in the end and sent staff out (on a boat) to rescue him. The experience had still taught him the basics of swimming though.

After learning the basics, the man continued to practice swimming in case something like that ever happened again. He swam close to the shore and practiced often. Eventually he gained a swimming skill and, can not only swim in Aevitas, but can swim in real life too. His swimming in the game is much better than real life, but that was mostly due to his level of fitness. In the game he could swim for a thousand meters without tiring. In real life he would be too tired to continue after just two laps of a 20 meter pool.

Taking a mobile phone out of his pocket, Tobi sent a quick text to his dad to ask if he could use the Dive Unit. As Tobi never planned on playing the game he didn’t have a VR-Dive Unit of his own. Both his parents and sister had one, but he didn’t. His dad was at work though and wouldn’t be home for a few more hours. Plenty of time for Tobi to test the game for himself.

The text from his father came back just seconds later; the reply being a simple one word confirmation: ‘Sure’. Another text followed immediately after, saying that if Tobi liked Aevitas they would get him a Dive Unit and help him build up his character. Tobi was pretty sure he would definitely continue playing the game. If nothing else, it would still take a while for him to learn a few skills and test what he’d learned in reality.

In his father’s study downstairs, Tobi looked at the large incubation-pod-looking-contraption with more than a little hate. Even if he was planning to use it, the machine still reminded him of Niamh and the end of their relationship. The amount of times he’d seen Niamh spend her time inside one of those things instead of spending time with him was beyond count.

‘Well, I guess I will finally see what is so good about you…’ Tobi told the machine mentally as he turned it on. According to the instruction manual, a small light on the side would indicate when the machine was ready to be used. The light would first be red before turning yellow and finally changing to green. Only after it turned green could he open the lid and climb inside.

It didn’t take long. The machine went through its startup relatively quickly and Tobi was already inside before his hesitation kicked in. Pushing the doubts to the back of his mind, Tobi grit his teeth and found the two pads that were to be placed on his temples. They were attached to two long, white chords; not too dissimilar from a set of headphones.

Placing the two pads on his temples, and being slightly surprised by how well they stayed in place, Tobi pulled the lid shut and lay down. All he had to do now was wait. The first thing that should happen, he knew, was a relaxing of the muscles. The company warned it would happen and instructed the user not to panic, as it was perfectly normal.

Curious about how the machine managed to relax a person’s muscles, Tobi deliberately tensed his right leg and waited. Without warning, the muscles relaxed. Not just the leg muscles though, even the muscles he didn’t realize he was using were relaxed; even going so far as to include his butt cheeks and jaw.

Before Tobi could begin to wonder about it or make any sense of what he was feeling, he felt his eye-lids slowly close of their own accord. It was such a slow and simple closing, he half imagined it would be no different to dying. At the same time as his eyes closing, the little green light on the side of the machine turned yellow; indicating the machine was in use and the lid was closed and locked. Forcefully pulling someone out of Aevitas was considered dangerous and was the reason for Dive Unit’s design. It allowed the machine to safely log someone out in the case of someone tampering from the outside.

If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

“Welcome User. Identification not found. Please enter your username and password.”

Tobi heard the voice before he saw anything. The first thing he did see was a floating blue screen with two rectangular boxes; one above the other. The top one was marked with the title ‘Username’, while the bottom was marked with the title ‘password’. Below the blue screen was a simple and inelegant looking keyboard.

Reaching out his hand, or at least mentally intending to reach his hand out, Tobi saw an arm extend forward. It wasn’t his own arm though. It almost looked like the arm of a manikin, complete with a manikin hand at the end of it. Bewildered and amused at the same time, Tobi tested the use of his limbs and laughed. It truly felt like—but not quite the same as—using his own hands.

Getting over his amazement enough to continue, Tobi entered the same username and password he registered on the official website when accessing their forums.  

“Username Inq.Mind, accepted. Messages: Zero new messages. Subscription: Zero time remaining. One week free trial has not been used. Would you like to use your one week complimentary free Trial?”

“Yes.” Tobi answered the space, surprised to hear his actual voice resound in the air. He didn’t know who or what he was talking to, but the keyboard and screen had already disappeared. His only option was to call out his response.

“One Week trial initiated. Time remaining: 6 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes. Time paused. No Character for user detected. Initiating character creation. Please choose your race.”

Several figures appeared in pairs ahead of himself. One male and one female of each kind. Unlike Tobi who appeared to be standing on nothing but air, the paired groupings were standing on different kinds of landmass. To the left was what appeared to be a fair-skinned Elven Race with the typical, long, silver hair. The land they were standing on was covered in green grass and beautifully coloured flowers.

To the right of the Elven pair was a simple message box describing the race. Another box to the left of them described the possible class tree’s, basic starting attributes, and other racial characteristics. All in all, they—the Elves—seemed to be focused on either Archery or Magic, with limited paths to follow in the warrior and assassin trees. There was also a merchant tree, which was listed as a class rather than a profession. Tobi didn’t know much about gaming so he couldn’t understand what the use of a ‘Merchant’ class was. A class for making game money? What’s the point of that?

Among the various differences of the race’s in front of him, Tobi noticed several that seemed significant. The humans were well balanced in all respects, with strong skills in diplomacy and leadership. Other than being well balanced and two unique racial traits, there didn’t seem to be much benefit in being human. Among the several ‘significant’ differences of the race’s was ‘Satiety’.

Satiety could affect physical attributes such as strength, agility, health regeneration, energy regeneration and defence, among other things. But not all Race’s had the same level of Satiety. It was measured by a numerical number and would obviously pose potential advantages and disadvantages to each race.

Elves, whether Light or Dark, had the best Satiety with 200; meaning that an Elf could go longer than any other Race without eating or being affected by a lack of food. According to what it said, an Elf didn’t eat much food either. Where a human might require a small meal, an Elf could be satisfied from a simple apple.

A Dwarf on the other hand had just 60 Satiety and required regular, hearty meals: Up to as many as six large meals per day. So unbalanced!

The beastman race known as ‘Racian’—due to their ability to transform between ‘human’ and various animals—had a satiety of 150. While they didn’t need to refill their stomachs too often, they did require a large quantity of food to return to optimal condition. An Elf may need only a bowl of fruit, but a Racian could devour a buffet and still have room for more.

As the balanced race of Aevitas, humans had 100 satiety. They could sustain themselves equally well on either limited food sources or by stocking up their energy reserves with good sized meals. They weren’t fussy on diets and could miss a meal or two without too much of a problem. They did prefer to be well fed though and liked to have a minimum of three meals per day; plus snacks.

While Tobi was considering the pro’s and cons of each race, he finally decided to test the human one. As it had the best balance among the races, there were no obvious disadvantages to being human. At the same time though, there was no obvious advantage to being human either. In fact, it actually looked like the game favoured Humans, while also discouraged people from being human. If a player wanted to be an Archer, it was obviously better to be an Elf. A Dwarven or Racian warrior would beat a human one too. An Elven mage or healer would probably beat a human one too. So why be human?

The answer was actually quite simple. The various races of Aevitas were divided by land, race, culture and beliefs. For those reasons and others, a race would stick with their own kind and not form parties or groups with others. Even if they wanted to, a large distance between their lands prevented it. This gave the non-human races a problem that was not easily solved.

A Dwarf may be a powerful warrior, but their magic was limited and their healing skills were poor. For that reason, Dwarves relied on Alchemists and Tailors for potions and bandages to tend to their wounds. They had no healers during battle to give them support. Nor did they have any powerful mages to deal Area of Effect Damage. They only had Earthen Shamans able to help with certain buffs and defencive spells.

A similar problem occurred in every race. They either lacked strong warriors to act as meat-shields and tanks, or they lacked long distance fighters such as archers and mages. Or some other problem that acted against their natural advantages. Humans however, while lacking any natural advantage, had no natural weakness. They were capable in all fields. Perhaps not the best in any given field, but definitely able. Magic, Warrior, Assassin, Archery or whatever else; they could do it all.

The players of Aevitas obviously noticed this problem too. While many were willing to join the other races regardless of their disadvantages, the majority of people stayed as human. Having a full party with a warrior, mage, archer and healer was an absolute necessity. They may have wanted the strength of a dwarf or skill of an elf, but if that meant giving up a meat-shield or healer—No thank you!

All things considered, Tobi was sure his choice to stay as a human was the best one. Even if it was the best choice though, he still ‘kind of’ wanted to be a Dwarf.

”Human.” Tobi finally sighed, informing the system of his decision.

“Human selected, please enter physical parameters.”

Tobi quickly found himself in what appeared to be a changing room. Three walls with a curtain at the back simply fell from the sky and landed around him; leaving a mirror on the wall directly facing him. The mirror shown a figure very much like a manikin in a shop window. On the top left of the mirror were two symbols; one for male and one for female. The default gender was male though, so Tobi left the manikin as it was and looked to the other options on either side.

On either side of the mirror were instructions and arrow keys, allowing Tobi to transform the mirror image to whatever he desired. The controls on the left were for minute features and details, such as eye-brows, eye colour, hair, nose protrusion and so on. The controls on the right were much simpler, being that of height, weight, build, muscle, toning, skin pigment and other, broader features.

Starting with the right, Tobi bashed the ‘Up’ arrow key next to the word ‘Height’. He continued until the numbers displayed in the box reached 183cm. In real life, Tobi was 181cm, but it had been something that always bothered him. Being so close to 6ft-tall and yet not quite making it had always managed to annoy him. A true 6ft was 182.88cm, but as the system only measured to the nearest cm, Tobi chose to go over rather than remain under; finally ridding himself of the fact he was ‘almost’ 6-foot.

Immediately satisfied by just the height alone, Tobi smiled to himself and began to play with the features at his disposal. The myriad of grotesque proportions he played with had amused him for a good seven-or-eight minutes before he finally started to be a little more serious. In the end, it took almost a full hour before he managed to create a slightly-more-handsome version of himself. And by slightly, it was naturally a lot. Every flaw, no matter how small, had been dealt with to the best of the systems—and Tobi’s—abilities.

“Finished.” Tobi called out, unable to find any button that would indicate he was done and wished to continue.

“Character creation, complete. Synchronizing. Synchronization complete. Please choose your character name.”

The changing room location Tobi was in remained in place, only now there was a blank box above his character; undoubtedly the place where his name would appear. A small keyboard also appeared, much the same as the one when he was logging into his account earlier. Reaching his hands out to type, Tobi finally paused and was unable to continue.

What should he call himself?

Thinking of all the famous characters throughout history, Tobi tried a couple of the ones he liked. Names he would be satisfied with even if they didn’t fit his character. Gilgamesh was first, as one of Tobi’s favourite tales from history. The name was already taken though, so he was forced to look for another.

Dozens of names were entered, dozens failed. Even obscure names that Tobi doubted would be considered by anyone else was taken. Even ‘Icantthinkofaname’ was taken!

Annoyed, Tobi finally entered his own, real life name: Tobias Donlan.

“Can’t use your real name. Please select another.”

Annoyed, Tobi began to delete his name and stopped once it got down to just ‘Tobi’. Smiling to himself and wondering if the system would notice the difference, Tobi re-entered his surname.

“Tobi Donlan is available. Would you like to use this name?”

“Yes!”

“Tobi confirmed. Entering Tutorial Server. Please stand by.”

‘Welp, didn’t expect that to work…’ Tobi mused absentmindedly right before the world around him began to shift.