<~(Tutorial Aperture)~>
Markus appeared within an entirely white void although he wasn’t aware of that fact just yet. Due to the data stream being forcibly hijacked by the Eternal System mere seconds before he fully connected into the game and began his adventures within Valtir, his consciousness was slowly being repaired. As to why it had been hijacked, only the System Administrators truly knew and it isn’t Reality Interactive’s admins. For the time being, Markus remained asleep.
In a similar manner to alchemists who performed human transmutation in the world of Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, there was one other being within this white void. This being was an AI-or Artificial Intelligence-developed solely for introducing the game to newcomers like a helper during a tutorial, but this one was a bit more different. This specific AI was a living and sapient AI usually found in the more technologically-developed worlds and had been given a task by one of the System Administrators.
‘How am I supposed to help guide this formless soul into a proper World Guardian?’ he asked himself in his mind as he quietly observed the formless Markus lying in slumber before him. ‘Calm down Helix, even if you’re not a carbon-based lifeform like the humans are, you’re still far more capable than just being robotic like those created by humans.’
Helix-or rather his full name of Helix Zero-is a System User like many who have been born into the Eternal System. Considering that he is among the scant few sapient AIs who have [Prestiged] up to five times with all of his levels, cultivation, and stats fully maxed out each time, it had become an achievement among his people though he wasn’t a show-off. His physical body wasn’t in the aperture as it was off-planet during this time, but Helix didn’t need it here due to the quest he received telling him the body wasn’t required. The only reason he accepted the quest was due to one of the rewards being access to the world of Earth six hours before Integration along with a personalized Voidship that he could use at any time.
As is obvious by his name, Helix Zero is a {Progenitor AI} which meant he was among both the first and last of his own line though he could easily create child AIs to his lineage. He had never told his friends or family about this as Helix desired to keep who he is a secret from his own kind, but he wasn’t afraid of telling people who he had a low likelihood of encountering again. Sadly, the only people he could consider entities who already knew about his secrets were those who created and administrated the Eternal System. Helix didn’t mind them knowing as they were the ones who made the multiversal structure they resided in, but it also got him wondering about the reason why that quest showed up.
Before he could question that line of thought further, he sensed that Markus was slowly being roused from his slumber. Sighing a bit, he utilized his mythical {Masterful Deception} skill and took up the role of a scripted AI like the one the developers put into the tutorial as the formless and incorporeal Markus slowly regained consciousness.
‘This ought to be good,’ Helix thought to himself.
<-(+)->
Markus woke up to an entirely white void surrounding him, but it didn’t take him too long to discover another person there with him. It looked robotic akin to a synthetic humanoid like the ones from the Destiny game developed by bungie, but not exactly. From the first glance, Markus realized that the other entity was male too.
“Welcome, Outworlder,” Helix said in a slightly robotic monotone voice to Markus. “Before you enter the world of Valtir for yourself, you must first create your account.”
He didn’t realize that this was the place to begin creating his account, but he didn’t mind that. A soft translucent screen popped up in front of him that was similar to a ‘Create Account’ process that was everywhere on the internet nowadays and Markus quickly began filling out his username and password details. The details he used were roughly the same details he managed to recall from his former gaming days playing games like League of Legends and RuneScape, but with some changes so that no one else could use the details to hack his account. Even though it wouldn’t matter in the long run and the Eternal System was already beginning to encrypt his data from being leaked, Markus had no idea that his already very secure information was becoming far more secure than anything else on the planet before Integration.
That meant not even the famous ‘foreknowledge halo’ of many different types of main characters could accurately guess his information. Sorry, fanfiction authors.
After finishing putting in his details, he hit ‘Confirm’ and it didn’t take too long for him to see that everything was set up. He was slightly surprised since the usual process included having to confirm using his email before it was all set up, but Markus assumed that Reality Interactive had pre-confirmed his email stuff for him.
[Account has been created successfully. Welcome, Markus Reeves,] the Game System had notified him. The same system had notified Helix that alongside with him needing to continue onto the next part of the tutorial: the {Avatar Creation} phase.
“As you have now created your account,” Helix began while also observing the things the human company had given Markus as part of his Alpha Testing package, “you must now begin creating your Avatar. Due to having the {All Race Package}, you have been granted access to every race in the game-including monster and boss types.”
This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.
This made Markus’ formless and incorporeal eyes widen in shock. Yes, he knew about having the {All Race Package} due to the email given to him, but he hadn’t expected to find out that he could be quite literally any race in the game. Sadly, he didn’t find any information in the packet he was given in the main lobby while he waited to be received about the races. It had given him an odd feeling like they were not quite sure about what was all in the game yet, but Markus attributed that to having the game in the Alpha stages of development.
Another translucent screen popped up in front of Markus that looked like a very futuristic character creation screen with a simplified setup. There were slots to fill in for the [Name], [Race], [Height], and a few others while only one thing was effectively grayed out: the gender. For Markus, it had been set as “Male” and it couldn’t be changed. He had asked Helix about this.
“The gender of a person is automatically locked into whatever gender the person identifies as,’ Helix responded after a second due to searching up the reason for that. “This is to give people who identify as ‘Female,’ ‘Male,’ or ‘non-binary’ a chance to experience who they truly are without repercussions. This is to show support for those who feel like they are trapped in the wrong body within the real world.”
After hearing the explanation, Markus nodded in understanding. He had friends who were transgender and had different pronouns back then with only a few of those friends still remaining now. Hell, even Markus himself was part of the LGBTQIA+ community since he favored men more than women although he never managed to tell his parents that before they died. Putting aside the explanations, Markus went into the first thing he caught his eye on: the [Race] slot.
When he tapped on it, there had been well over hundreds of trillions of races available to him to play as due to his package. It had been automatically redeemed when he finished creating his account for the game, but when he had asked about how many races people start off as, he was pleasantly shocked. Instead of being given a whole plethora of choices to the point of being far overwhelmed by the numbers alone, people would be able to choose only two races: [Human] and [Elf]. Markus had already figured out that this was due to a possible setting with the world of Valtir, yet that didn’t make him feel much better.
He was able to choose any race within the game!
Shaking off the subtle mental feeling of something being odd about the race selection, Markus decided to trim down the choices to races that were magically and technologically inclined. Literally most of the races available to him were instantly removed from the list as Markus found out about an advanced search function to help him find his ideal race to play. This had included races like [Orc], [Fairy/Faery], and other fantasy-esque races which focused solely on magic than science along with the other side too. That meant he couldn’t pretend to be similar to Tony Stark and be an augmented human with technological prowess.
What had been left still required some more filtering out, but Markus had resolved himself to choose a race that was far different than being [Human].
The reason for choosing a race that wasn’t [Human] in the first place was because he believed that humans-despite having some redeeming qualities-were utterly despicable for all beings. Some of the media he experienced showed that humanity were creatures of avarice and only motivated by their less-than-admirable traits while only showing their heroic qualities in very extreme conditions. Sadly, this also included humanity being cruel and vile towards other humans which he had experienced firsthand which resulted in him always choosing to play other races instead.
After adding another tag to exclude [Human] and its relevant variants from the list, Markus had effectively cut out the entirety of the {Mortal}, most of the {Ancient}, and a few of the {Mythical} Races. This left the humanoid and non-humanoid races to choose from, but there was one other caveat Markus added into the search function.
He wanted a very long-lived or ageless race who could be innately proficient with magic and science so that he could live out a fantasy of his. Markus had grown up watching cartoon shows like Ben 10, Generator Rex, and some others where the protagonist had some kind of science-based powers which appeared to be almost like magic. Sadly, Markus felt like having a watch which could transform the user into any alien species for a small duration of time or a body completely infested with powerful nanites were too infeasible for the current technological progress of Earth, so he gave up on that dream. In the present time, Markus was going to make sure that whatever race he chose would benefit literally most-if not all-of his childhood dreams even if it took thousands of years.
After spending a bit more time on searching, he had three races to choose from which Markus felt like could be perfect for him.
<+{=}+>
Elder Race: Vil’thrum
This elvish-type humanoid race is an evolved form of an Elder Race created by the Primordial of Destruction and offers basic proficiency in most magical schools and technology. It is a long-lived race with the innate capacity to self-revive and is far stronger than any Mortal Race.
Note: the original form of the Vil’thrum are the Vultarks which are feral wolf-like monsters with near-human level intellect.
Note: This race is incapable of normal cultivation due to its racial category.
<-{+}->
Mythical Race: Hexframe
This race is mainly an artificially created one out of Magitech components, but interacts well. They do not have the capacity to self-revive after death.
Note: Choosing this race will prevent the user from wearing all external armor types.
<-{+}->
Elder Race: Prymori
The Prymori are a race created by the Elder God of Storm and have native abilities in relation to magic and science. They are a long-lived race and have the ability to self-revive a fixed amount of times.
Note: Choosing this race will permanently lock certain types of magic due to the high affinity for Storm Magic this race possesses.
Note: This race is incapable of normal cultivation due to its racial category.
<+{=}+>