Interestingly, the little blurb above this choice, beyond mentioning the usual text about brain-scanning, also explained that this was a feature intended primarily for roleplayers, with minimal gameplay effects, and was in fact entirely optional. It also mentioned, practically offhandedly, that characters created after this first server opening would not actually be granted a Background at all, and would all appear as generic Adventurers, showcasing yet another rather baffling change between the pre-order version and the normal game. Cass was, at this point, completely bewildered at how the game designers could think that all of this was a good idea.
He knew that Pay-to-Win games were all the rage nowadays, but he had never heard of a game like this, where you had to pay extra and be playing the game at a very specific time in order to have access to seemingly basic game elements. It all just baffled him, to such an extent that he wondered if this was the reason Jess was so insistent on him playing the game right now, some kind of deranged prank she was playing on him. It didn't make any sense thinking about it logically, but it was all his mind could conjure to explain all of this.
Regardless, he put all of that aside for the moment, unwilling to let himself be bogged down anymore with questions that could probably be answered when he finally entered the game, and looked at the options available in this section.
[No Background: You are an unknown Adventurer, seeking your own way through these lands.]
[Once Venerable House: You are one of the last members of a small noble family with a once prestigious past. Can you bring glory to your name once more, or will you allow it to finally fade to obscurity?]
[Call to Adventure: You are the child of simple farmers, who tragically lost their lives due to another's actions. Will you get revenge for them, or will you live a better life in spite of the tragedy?]
[Like Clockwork: You are an aspiring member of a Crafter's Guild, brought to this position through the effort of those who care about you. Will you live up to their hopes and expectations, or will you try and strike out on your own?]
Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
He didn't even consider the option of having no Background, first because it would be incredibly lame not to utilize this seemingly unique opportunity that he'd been given, and secondly because he quite enjoyed role-playing in these kinds of games. Beyond that, he also noted with some curiosity that the descriptions used for these potential Backgrounds were much clearer and less confusing than the ones for the Talents or Affinities, although he had no idea why that would be the case. Disregarding that, he analyzed what each choice would offer him.
[Call to Adventure], he figured, would be the most basic and straightforward of the options, with a clear-cut goal right from the start, a focus on combat and the potential to play out the scenario in a myriad of different ways. [Like Clockwork] also seemed easy to understand, obviously based primarily around learning the game's crafting skills while presumably also managing the politics and relationships within the Guild in order to advance his career, which definitely had the potential to be incredibly interesting. The option which caught his eye the most, however, was definitely [Once Venerable House], as it seemed to have the most unclear path forward in terms of storyline progress and held the potential for some interestingly messy noble politics, both things that intrigued him and drawn him to make this his choice.
Deciding not to think too much about this and just go with what his gut was telling him, Cass chose [Once Venerable House] as his Background and was finished with the most important parts of character creation, with what remained being simply the customization of the character's appearance. Since he didn't want to spend much more time on this, he simply decided to use his own real appearance as a base and make some small changes to it in order to hide his real identity, like making his character a bit taller, darkening his already dark brown hair even more and changing his eye color from dark green to a very light blue, which he thought looked nice, alongside some other small cosmetic changes. At the end of this, the previously blank mannequin floating in the void had transformed into a near, but not identical, copy of himself, wearing some generic-looking colorful medieval drabs, and he was finally done with character creation.
Before he could exit this space, however, a silly idea came to his head and made him frantically search through the menus for a set of his sliders he had made note of earlier. Finding them, and chuckling to himself for being so immature, he set all of them to the max, giggling as the bulge in his character's pants doubled in size, before he finally exited this dark void and returned to the calm and comforting cabin, satisfied with his creation and ready to finally start the game for real. With that, he picked up the stone tablet labelled 'Start Adventure', and watched with wonder as his vision was quickly taken over by an endless sea of bright white particles, drowning out all of his senses.