"Hmm. That's certainly an ... interesting request", Sarah finally commented.

She cupped her chin, eyes closed, in a parody of thoughtfulness. In all reality, I could tell just how amused the woman really was by her body language, as it practically oozed malicious intent. Not malicious in the way that would be directly harmful to me, but I had learned from our prior communications that my caretaker had a tricky streak to her. Ms. Hughes had no doubt been looking for something to lord over me and I had given her something just like that. Of course, this was all subtext, because Sarah had been nothing but outwardly courteous and polite so far. Still, it was just my luck to be assigned what could only be called a bully.

"Have you spoken to John about it?", she inquired.

"I have. He was evasive about answering me directly and in the end decided to pawn off the decision to you", I truthfully answered, tone flat.

That was an understatement. The man I that had set up my deal under KALI, John, had been initially ecstatic hearing from me. The man had clearly taken an interest in my case, but that didn't stop him from subverting my question over and over again. I could tell he was nervous about even discussing it with me, and I could only surmise that I had stumbled onto something of a sensitive topic.

Sarah, on the other hand, seemed downright giddy.

"Oh? Is that the case?", her voice practically dripped with could only be called anticipation, "I do suppose that I've got enough pull to make that happen. What can you offer me in return, though?"

Before I could even respond, Sarah raised her hand with a glint in her eye.

"Don't answer that! I think I'll just settle on you owing me a favor for now", she said.

Oh, fantastic. A vague and indefinite price with no time limit. Not that I could argue. I was asking for quite a lot in the first place.

"I appreciate it", I thanked her nonetheless. As much as I mentally complained about her constant poking and prodding, I was thankful towards the woman for standing up to the veritable storm of questions I had for her as well as her overall nice treatment of me.

She waved her hand in a "don't worry about it" motion, instantly conjuring a keyboard and rapidly started typing away at it. It didn't take long for her to finish, dismissing the keyboard as she did.

"Alright, you're approved. You are now an alpha tester for Royaume, congrats! I did take pulling a few favors, but the process made easier because you were already slated to be a beta tester", she explained, "Ah, I should probably tell you since this is your first program - you can summon it whenever you like in the form of a door. You've already done plenty of research so I'll spare you the spiel that I normally give newbies, but I will say that you should be careful. There are dangers that come with using virtual reality for long periods of time. It can seriously mess up your mind in more ways than one."

The conversation didn't last much longer after that. I gave my assurances that I would be careful and Sarah gave some more instruction of how to operate the program properly. Nothing that I didn't already know but it was good to brush up.

After saying goodbye, I cracked my digital form's knuckles and breathed. It made no sense to delay any further. Time is money after all. Sarah had given me a precious advantage by allowing me to start early and I wasn't about to waste even a moment of it. My head was full to bursting with game knowledge so any attempts to research any further would have been fruitless.

I quickly navigated my program menu and clicked the only entry, Royaume, and tapped "open". After a rather fancy light show, the door abruptly appeared on the wall closest to me. Made of cherry wood and sporting a shiny brass doorknob, it stuck out like a sore thumb against the room's white blandness.

Not wasting any time, I swung it open. Beyond the door frame was a vast expanse of darkness, populated by tiny twinkling dots of light here and there. I hesitantly entered, my feet finding solid ground underneath me somehow. I had barely made it all the way in before the door slammed shut and popped out of existence. Shrugging it off, I started walking. It didn't take long before I was surrounded by a sea of stars. nebulas, and galaxies. I didn't spare any time to gawk though, pushing past a cloud of cosmic dust.

I finally found what I was looking for after about ten minutes of searching, which was pretty good time if I was to believe the forum posts. It was a simple leather bound book with the title "Genesis" on the spine. Flipping it open projected a screen interface, filling most of my vision.

Welcome, Aleister Page.

We are preparing the necessary data for your entry into Royaume. First, we will scan you to determine your affinities.

This was the part I was the most anxious about. From my research, I could tell just how integral affinities were to success in the game. It wasn't really exaggerating much to say that it was the most important aspect of character creation.

As for what affinities actually were, the answer was simple: potential. The system would determine from your physical body and mind how much potential you had regarding in-game statistics. A naturally smart person would have a high intelligence (INT) affinity and an athletic person might have a good endurance (END) affinity. The higher your affinity, the faster that stat would grow. Of course that was an overly simplistic explanation, but it was the most common one I came across.

The interface whirred for a moment before producing a pleasant sounding chime, signally that it was done with its scan.

Your affinities have been determined.

Agility

Medium

Charisma

Low

Endurance

Medium

Intelligence

High

Perception

Medium

Strength

Very Low

Will

Very High

Ouch. Having something as unbiased and untactful as a machine judging you was bound to hurt, but wow. I supposed my abysmal strength and charisma came from having my nose in a book for most of my life, so those made sense, as did most of the rest. What I didn't understand was how amazing my will affinity was. I generally regarded myself as a pretty easygoing guy, one that would go with the crowd more often than not and shied away from confrontation. What made me even more confused was just how rare it was to see a high will affinity in the first place, let alone a very high one.

All in all, my affinities were average. Nothing horrible, but then again, nothing like those monsters with two or three very high affinities from the get-go. But I wasn't out of the fight just yet, because affinities could be raised via your choice of race.

Speaking of which, another screen appeared, demanding my attention.

Please select your race.

It was a deceptively simple choice, and one that most players blindly rushed through. But I couldn't afford to do the same. A player only got one shot at this, because Royaume only had one character slot and no redos. You couldn't even delete your character and try again.

One aspect that many players ignored was the hybrid option. Sure, it allowed for a near-infinite amount of combinations, but most people found themselves frustrated after messing around with it for a short period of time. It was complex, to say the least, allowing you to determine the hybrid's lineage down to a hundredth of a percent, and it even forced you to determine how each race chosen presented in the resulting creature. The more races you added, the more complex the choices became and the higher the chances that the outcome would be a defect. So most of the people who chose hybrid only combined two or three races for the sake of simplicity. But I was not planning on doing the same.

Thankfully, I had access to my cloud storage, so I quickly referenced the notes I took as I navigated the race menu. The strategy guide that Faux wrote was actually quite flexible, accounting for the differences in each player. In the end, it had several paths laid out, depending on the user's natural affinities. Naturally, I chose the one that fit best with my best affinities, intelligence and will. I immediately went to work.

A projection appeared in front of me, previewing the potential appearance of my custom race. It initially just looked like a blank mannequin, but that quickly changed when I selected the first race of the mix. The projection's body became angular and delicate, taking on a sort of refined elegance, even completely nude. The facial features were sharp and hawklike and its ears were pointed. The first race was an elf, and I wasn't very happy about it. I generally disliked elves but I could never quite put my finger on why. Maybe it was their haughtiness, their superiority complex, or any number of things. I was already putting quite a lot of faith into Faux and their post, hoping that the power would be worth it.

Next came the giant, which added quite a bit of height and weight to the projection, as well as rounding out the elvish features somewhat. I was already feeling better about this. Next came dwarf, then celestial, then tiefling, and so on and so on. It quite honestly boggled my mind just how many races the guide managed to cram into the final build. The number of choices didn't include all of the races, not even close, but it was still a considerable amount. Even so, the guide was very strict about which order to add them in, so I was careful to follow it in case I messed anything up.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

The final outcome looked ... less than impressive. Standing a bit shorter than average, the projection gave off a vague feeling of wrongness about it. The skin was splotched with different colors, some parts black, some parts green, some parts red; there were simply too many colors to count. Its bald head was covered with numerous scabs and wrinkles. The projection didn't have any sort of impressive physique either. In fact, it looked painfully thin. Its face was probably the worst part, as it was even uglier than a goblin, with its crooked nose, vague eyes, and sporadic facial hair. Any way you looked at it, it seemed like I had failed and made a mutt.

I thanked the powers that be that it wasn't over just yet. I navigated over to the "advanced" tab of the hybrid menu and applied the "undead" option. From the list of option that flickered to life, I immediately chose "skeleton" and overwrote its base settings with the "holy" variant.

The result was encouraging, as the projection shifted to a skeleton of the same height. Its bones were glossy to almost an absurd degree, like polished steel. I toned that down in the settings until they were simply white as a cloud.

Good! I was definitely satisfied with the result. When I first read the guide, I had my reservations about playing as a skeleton, but my concerns were brushed aside by the long list of benefits. Not having to eat, breath, or sleep were some of them, and there were others like having a killer poker face. Normally it would come with quite a few downsides as well, including a 500% radiant damage weakness and an aversion to sunlight, but choosing the holy variant took care of that in exchange for the cold damage and necrotic damage immunities. Really, this choice allowed me to eke out as much game time as possible, so I was content with the decision. Even if being a skeleton would instantly make quite a few people hostile to me, but meh, I would find a way around that.

Not only did your choice in race have an impact on affinities but also conferred special abilities that couldn't be gained anywhere else. Choosing to combine races also combined their abilities as well, meaning there were almost endless combinations you could create, and each resulting ability would be completely unique.

The special abilities I got when I was finished made me whistle out loud in appreciation. I had my doubts, but that guide definitely knew what it was doing.

Special Ability gained - Natural Mage

Your magical heritage is varied as it is palpable.

Magical effects are twice as powerful.

Learning and refining a spell takes half the time.

Special Ability gained - Arcane Bound

Your body is saturated with mana, bolstering it against attacks.

The intelligence stat is added to the defense stat.

Special Ability gained - Forbidden Rites

Defeating your enemies confers a small portion of their power to you.

Reducing an enemy to 0 HP recovers some mana.

Incredible. Absolutely incredible. I had no doubt that any mage worth their salt would kill to know about this build. But no, I was the lucky son-of-a-bitch who had the exclusive knowledge, and I planned to keep it that way.

In the end, I managed to get three affinity upgrades in addition to the special abilities. From my understanding, that was the absolute maximum amount you could get from a race. I found myself thankful that the super powerful abilities didn't get in the way of maxing out my intelligence and will affinities, which I did. As they went from "very high" and "high" to "MAX", the menu produced a nice little congratulatory tune. As happy as I was about that, I couldn't help but remind myself that there were those out there with three maxed out affinities. I couldn't get cocky just because I had a good race.

Next came class. These were much more limited in number, at least starting off. You weren't even limited to choosing just one, but it was highly advised not to choose multiple classes with too much overlap because then they would both grow much slower. It was frankly a beginner's trap. Choosing something like a berserker and warrior combo would be no doubt powerful initially, but would quickly fall behind those who chose one or the other alone. The game was full of little cases like those.

In the end, I chose the wizard and craftsman classes. The overlap was zero, skill wise, and they even had subtle complementary effects. A craftsman who went into enchanting would have a better time if he had the working magical knowledge of a wizard. And a craftsman would earn money to fuel the expenses of being a wizard. Not to mention that they both heavily relied on the intelligence and will stats.

From the wizard class, I gained the "Mana Control" skill and from the craftsman class, I got the "Dextrous Hands" skill. Because they were learned from a class, they were already at Apprentice rank level 1, instead of Novice rank level 1 if they were learned manually.

Finally came the last piece of character creation, another wild card. The system would basically rifle through your mind and give you in-game skills that you had in real life. A gourmet chef would have a great cooking skill and a person who actually knew how to wave a sword around would get a decent swordsmanship skill. I braced myself in anticipation for what I would get. It was taking a long time though, the system seemed to be whirring for what seemed to be ten minutes.

We apologize. The system has only detected one skill.

You have gained the "Flow" skill!

It has been determined your expertise is the following:

Legendary rank Max level

Congratulations!

As the first player to achieve Legendary rank in the "Flow" skill, the effects of the skill have been doubled.

"What the hell...?", I muttered aloud, rereading the screens again and again.

I knew that I had basically done nothing for seven years but only one skill? I was more than a little upset about that. And what in the blazes was that skill? I quickly pulled up my skill menu and inspected it.

Flow

Legendary Rank

Max Level

No description available.

This was new. I hadn't even heard of this skill before, even in the most remote and obscure forums. And the fact that it had no description only deepened my confusion. Having a completely unknown skill's effect doubled also gave me pause.

Yet, I wasn't worried about it. It wasn't all bad. Having a legendary rank skill from the get-go was a huge deal, and from what I understood, only about a dozen people managed to pull that off. So I ended up feeling vaguely proud of myself. In the end I decided to prioritize researching it ASAP.

After being assigned my skill, I finished up character creation by giving my character a name. Eventually I decided on Azin. It was a name I often used in video games when I was younger so I felt an attachment to it. At least I would be able to respond to it. I cringed, recalling how some players had chosen names like "Darkheart" or "Bloodedge" unironically.

Finalizing everything, I pulled up my status screen for the first time.

Azin

Race

Holy Skeleton

Wizard

1

Craftsman

1

Titles

None

Hit Points / Regen

100 HP / 1 HPpM

Mana / Regen

100 MP / 10 MPpM

Stamina / Regen

100 SP / 10 SPpM

Agility - 10

Intelligence - 10

Charisma - 10

Perception - 10 Defense - 10

Strength - 10

Endurance - 10

Will - 10

I smiled. This was good. The guide had worked after all, but this was pretty much as far as it could take me, as all that it had left were some vague guidelines. The rest would be up to me. And I wouldn't have it any other way.

After some thought, I decided to activate hardcore mode. That would essentially mean that I had only one life, and after I died, I would be booted from the game permanently. It was a risk, sure, but I needed to get as many advantages as I could, and hardcore mode's description said that it would offer just that. Although, it didn't outright say what those advantages would be. Besides, I needed to be in the top 100 of players by the end of the year. Dying even once would basically prevent that because of the 24 hour ban you would get after dying. Losing an entire day meant falling too far behind the competition to even think of catching up.

Satisfied but eager, after the hour and a half of character creation, I clicked "finish".

Congratulations! Your character "Azin" is ready.

The only spawn available for alpha testers is the city of Dynstad.

Would you like to spawn now?

"Yes", I replied immediately.

Before I could even comprehend what the screen said next, my body disappeared in a flash of light.