AN: I've read a few fictions about people becoming gods, so here is my take on the theme. It's a light project for me, the updates will be slow.

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The sun had already set when I left the college campus. The night was quite cold, being at the end of January. I slowly went straight home, with a slght limp in my steps and an annoying headache. It got worse once I got in my room, so I quickly took a pill and went straight to bed.

I hate winters, it's too cold and I always get ill. And I can't do anything with this headache, not even sleeping. The pain is killing me and the only thing I can do is weakly turning around and around in my bed, trying to distract myself from the pain.

After a mind-blowing surge of pain, my consciousness fadded away into darkness...

…

I slowly regained consciousness. I didn't know why, but I felt like something incredible and dreadfull happened to me when I lost consciousness. I felt like I went beyond a forbidden limit and lost something very important. For some reason, my mind was full of fear and grief.

Then I noticed that my situation was very odd. Even though I was fully aware, I couldn't feel a single part of my body, I couldn't feel anything at all, and I couldn't move a well. Also, I was no longer in my room, as I could see a planet bellow me, and it definitly wasn't Earth. Even the most pitiful geography student would notice that the continents didn't have the right form.

Not only could I see the planet bellow me, but I could also see everything around me without turning my head or eyes, which I couldn't even feel. I could see the 2 moons behind me, the blackness of space and the countless stars making up the galaxy.

I was without a body, above an unknown planet, alone. Thinking about how I could end in such an absurd situation, I though back to what happened before I went to bed. I remembered the headache, and the paralysing pain that shot through my head before losing consciousness.

I though hard on other possibilities, but I didn't believe in them and couldn't help coming back to the same conclusion. I had died. I had died and I was experiencing what is called “afterlife”. I wanted to scream, cry, trash around. But I couldn't. I was just a mass of awareness. After a little while I calmed down, gazing at the planet bellow me.

Welcome to the world of Gaia

Suddenly, a window similar to those pop-ups on the internet appeared in front of me. It stayed in front of me for several second, then it disappeared, promptly replaced by another.

You and 899 other recently released souls have been selected to become the gods of this world

I screamed in my mind reading the content of the message. The first thing that grabbed my attention were the words “released souls”, as in released from the constrains of flesh, the written confirmation that I truly had died. Then I realised I wasn't the only one in this situation, and the idea of becoming a god almost made my mind go blank.

You will start your new life in this world as demi-gods.

To become true gods, you must earn divinity points and increase your divine rank. Once your rank is high enough you will be able to ascend to full godhood.

Beware, for the number of seats as god is very limited

After the surprise from the possibility of becoming a god came the schock from knowing that all of us recently dead people will have to confront each other for a place at the top. Even though I didn't how all of that would work, I was already having a bad feeling about it. Since the reward was godhood, it couldn't be that simple.

I wasn't naïve. I came from a Third World african country, living in one of the least favored area of the town, with the lack of security and sanitation, and the occasional power failures. It was thanks to my uncle and godfather that I got to study in France starting from highschool up to college. It was a giant improvement in my life style, but I still had to work to live besides my studies.

Now you shall proceed to select the area you will be sent to, and customize the vessel that will contain your soul.

Gaia has 3 main continents. Each continent is inhabited by differents sentient races. In 1 minute you will be able to select the continent in which you wish to be sent. There are 300 places available for each continent.

CONTINENTMAIN RACESXamanHumans, Dwarves, ElvesLimoreiElves, Faeries, BostiansOnyxonBostians, Demons, Humans

I was once more shocked. This world had 6 sentient races, and there were races from mythology and fantasy stories. Some races would certainly be more attractive than the others, like the elves.

I could already see what kind of development each continent would have. Elves and faeries are often depicted as nature loving races, human and dwarves would develop industry, and the demons would be the bad guys trying to spread chaos...

No, it couldn't be that simple. There was nothing telling me that things would be the same as in the stories, and there were differences between areas concerning some races. Would the demons be the same as what was depicted in the religious book and other mythologic tales? What were the bostians?

Why wasn't there any informations about the races? I could feel I can select an area with a mental command, but no matter how much I concentrate on the races there were no details given. Why tell us about the races but not giving any informations about them? It felt like scam to me. I selected the third option and waited for the end of the 5 minutes.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

You have 10 minutes to chose your gender and name

I was born a guy, so I choose to remain one. I though it would be akward to be a girl when I used to lust after them. Having guys lust over me was a terrifying idea, and thinking that I might lust over other guy was as terrifying. Thinking about sex, I also though the girls had the short end of the stick since they could suffer during the act, wether due to hymen, the size of the tool or the amount of lubrification. Guys really had it easy.

That also got me thinking about Earth. To my knowledge, there were more guys trying to become girls than girls trying to become guys. More guys wished to be girls. I though that there might be a fair amount of guys changing their gender, and got anxious about the possibility of meeting a hot “girl”.

As for my name, I simply chose to use a part of my name and my surname and somehow link them. Back on earth I was named Issa Bakar. I turned it into Ish'Kar, which was a bit similar to Ishtar, and I loved the name Ishtar, so I was quite satisfied with my new name. I guessed that the next thing would be to customize our appearance and I was quite eager to do it.

You have 30 minutes to customize your appearance and voice. The base model has traits from the main races of the continent you chose, and the modifications you can make will be limited to what is available for these races.

After thinking for a bit it clicked in my mind. If we chose our appearance before chosing our continent, we could end up in a place with no familiar race, which would make things difficult. After all, people are more likely to follow someone similar to them rather than something completely different.

It also reminded me of something else. We would be sent to that world as demi-god, which mean we would still be mortal. We could very well be attacked and killed by the natives. With how things proceeded, that risk was reduced, but not erased. I made a mental note about that and started to modify my appearance. I had only a little more than 25min left, and there was a lot of things to do.

First, I set my height to 190cm. Thanks to a friend that was into fitness, I learned a bit about body type, so I choose what was called an ectomorph-mesomorph body type. If 1 was skinny and 5 large, what I chose was 2, below average. A fit body with a low amount of fat. Women needed a certain amount of fat for sex appeal, but not me.

Thinking about it, I was sure no woman would have less than C cup. I also though a lot of guys would go with mesomorph type, the built type. The apparent age of the body could also be modified, with a minimum of 12 and a maximum of 40. I didn't know about other, but I prefered to have a mature body, and by mature I meant the end of the teenage when the stop growing.

Those first modifications only took a few minutes, but it was the easiest part. The eyes, nose, ears, hairs, skin and extra appendages. My base form looked human, with a furry tail, eyes with a vertical slit pupil, furry ears and 4 small horns. I guessed the furry parts were from the bostian race and the eyes and horns from the demon race.

After experimenting for a bit, I realised that the demon race and bostian race offered a huge amount of possibilities. I started with what I wanted from the human race that I was already familiar with. As a former african, I kept my brown skin and black hairs, though contrary to my past self I chose long hairs, dreadlocks style.

I got myself a handsome, but not overly beautiful face, like some might try to do, because I knew beauty could be a curse. Back when I was in middle school, I had seen a girl being beaten up by other girls because she was pretty and popular. It was in an abandonned building where I often played, and when I heard the people coming I hid in the ceiling. There were holes that I could use to see.

It looked like one of the bullies loved a guy who fell for the pretty girl, while the other were jealous of all the succes she had. After hitting her the bullies called some guys. I watched as 3 guys gangraped her, the other girls also watching with satisfaction in their eyes. When the guys were done, the girls took pictures of the sullied victim and they all left while laughing. I watched as a girl 15 or 16 years old experienced what had probably been the worst day of her entire life.

The worst part was that despite seeing such a terrible scene, I got hard and released a big load in my pants, and when the guys left, I didn't help the sobbing girl and ran away from that place. I had been both very scared and very excited at what happened, and I was to ashamed to have gotten off from that. I never knew what happened to her after that and didn't try to know. The guilt from that incident never left me, as I could have helped to find and punish the perpetrators.

Enough about that. From the demon race I got myself a pair of dark silver horns that started from the top of my forehead and curved backward before curving once again and pointing skyward. (AN: the horns from Kurosaki Ichigo's hollow mask, at least how they were when he killed Ulquiora, because I've long stopped reading/watching it) I also got a 150cm long black tail with an arrow head tip. From the bostian race I got emerald wolf-like eyes and white hawk-like wings.

There was so much choice for change, I could even change the size of my penis so I made it 18cm long, but still average thickness. I didn't want to hurt any future partner. For my voice I chose a strong but melodious tenor voice. Because all the changes were made using mental commands it went quite fast. I though 30 min would have been too short, but that wasn't the case. Though I bet it would too short for some women... And some guys as well.

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AN: Hope you enjoyed