A morning like any other, Jack had woken on his own time, starting his day with a now near ritualistic trip to the bathroom. Bothering himself on whether to even take a shower today, he continued on to his room, putting on the clothes he wore yesterday. Sitting in front of his computer, readying himself to waste the day away between reading manga, and the light novels he’d taken a liking to. Occasionally scrolling through the curated news feed on his phone, hoping some new game would come along and occupy a few days of his time. Before he even knew it, his late start to the day, and the few new chapters of manga had taken him to the afternoon, now needing to find which light novel he was behind on that he wanted to read. Not helped by the fact all 82 of the light novels he had bookmarked had unread chapters.

Realizing his thirst, and that his own water bottle was empty, he left his room, into the silence of the house, only broken by the creaking of the old wooden floor, followed by the shuffling of items in the fridge. Grabbing the pitcher of filtered water, realizing he had forgotten to fill it the last time he was in the kitchen, filling his water bottle, he sighed. Placing it under the sink, waiting as he filled the top reservoir, Jack had forgotten to yet again get anything at the store for the rare few times he would actually make himself lunch. And with the pitcher now partially filled with water, though warm, he filled his water bottle shuffling back into his room as his mind wandered toward his usual daydreams. Each a fantasy he truly wished he could fall into, away from his mundane life he had not bothered to fill outside his reading.

Whether it was him, even with his lack of understanding of things, somehow recreating modern technology with fantastical thinking using only magic. Or as some master of intrigue controlling the world through a precarious cast of clones, each living thousands of lives throughout some fantasy land. Or, finally, the only fantasy he was unwilling to tell anyone, the one he thought the most on, less a dream at this point. More absolute, fantasy, he wanted to be a dragon, he knew it wasn’t an uncommon idea, and he wouldn’t indulge this fantasy of his in any physical manner. But it was still his, something he could cling onto, pretending it could be his reality. Ironically, he had spent so much time daydreaming in his life, it felt to him that he had lost the ability to have dreams while he slept, or at least to remember them consistently.

And as he finally managed to reach his room, something different. All too unexpected happened when he went to sit down, he fell, *though* his chair and continued falling well past the floor, his vision shifting to black as he did. And as it came back, he found himself falling still, unable to steady himself as he fell, he tumbled over himself, even the wind would not stabilize himself as he found himself surrounded in an endless sea of clouded sky. Even if he wasn’t tumbling, he would have a difficult time making out any ground, even while falling he could not make out which way was up, let alone see any ground.

With his fall he would notice that even with his lack of reference, none of the clouds would be any further or closer than they were a moment ago. Less a conclusion he reached, much more a feeling, as if it was an inherent property of this space he doubted would be the same universe he had been in just moments ago. The second thing he realized, as with the lack of visible ground, there wasn’t a sun, or any noticeable source of light, the clouds didn’t cast any shadow on him, or each other.

The very second Jack had thought himself stuck in this fall, another bizarre, and yet much less novel concept had happened. A window, or rather display had appeared, not in front of him, or fixed to be within his view, off to his left the display had widened, and stretched. Now much larger than it had been, with brief moments he would realize it was almost as tall as him and twice as large. In the center, a reflection that had followed him, rotating with him. Filling the left, and a small sliver of space on the top were words, too small to make out while he was falling as he was, though he could tell it was densely packed.

‘Alright’ a faint, distant voice, near indistinguishable, and yet clearly spoken, under the sound of the wind rushing past Jack. With it, he had noticed the wind had noticeably slowed, now a much calmer wind, one he would expect if he were to ever go outside.

The voice came again, ‘Enough’ now much clearer than before, beyond just a whisper at the edge of the wind, and with it, Jack finally came crashing down, into a nonexistent ground, transparently incapable of holding Jack’s shadow. More surprised than injured, Jack peeled himself from the ground, righting himself he could finally get a clearer picture of his surroundings. What he thought were clouds now looked painted, each a stroke in a different medium, some looked cartoonish, others looked as if they had been pulled from the sky.

Standing in a place between anywhere and nowhere, stuck in the middle, Jack finally found his eyes landing on the window. The words now legible, standing before what Jack had now realized was a character creation screen, though more a copy of an overall design of one rather than a specific one. Oddly the more intricate design seemingly inconsistent, the flourishes static yet shifting design every second, as if trying to recall a near forgotten memory.

>Species< SWIVEL Skills

...

... Dragon ... ...

(Imagine a reflection here)

Before even reading a single word, Jack brought his hand, his fingertips to the screen, almost an unconscious act, touching the vertical bar and letting his hand fall. Watching as it continued to scroll through the words as they flew onto and off the screen in an instant, the scroll bar barely moving as it did so. Looking up, noticing the highlighted word above the still scrolling list, Jack saw the word Species. When it had finally stopped scrolling, he hadn’t realized at the top of the list, seemingly translated, but foreign words to him. Though he had made attempts to learn other languages, they were half-hearted at best, and his failing grade in each while he was in high school shows. Knowing either wouldn’t help him here, as none of the words, even translated, were from his universe.

He had, however, recognized a word he had managed to scroll to, and he couldn’t restrain himself when he saw it. Reaching out for a second time, he pressed a finger against the word, and the instant after the word had highlighted, his vision darkened for the second time that day. When his eyes opened again, he found himself looking down at the window, now miniature to him, as he watched it grow to match him. Staring back at him in the reflection was a dragon, just as he had imagined it, as he wanted it. Feeling almost natural to him, as if he was accustomed to the now massive body he possessed, looking to his left, he saw the word highlighted. Unaccompanied by the text that would follow any other character creator, rather it was unneeded for him.

Swiping his now claw at the top of the screen revealed a new screen, unexpectedly different from what he was anticipating, but a welcome change from what he was accustomed to for character creators. Having replaced the mirror, the now smaller display had no need to be so large, words filled the left half, while boxes filled with numbers in the right. Strength, Willpower, Intelligence, Vitality, Endurance, and Luck, each number far exceeded one hundred, but Jack wanted to try something, though greedy as it was, he was tempted, and his temptation rewarded him.

Species >SWIVEL< Skills

Strength

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132000

Willpower

162

Intelligence

138

Vitality

153

Endurance

184

Luck

420

Raising a claw to the box for strength, he found a digital keyboard fall into view, as a test, he added a few more digits to the number, but after hitting enter he didn’t feel any different. A new idea had come about in his mind, it wasn’t just a number pad but a keyboard, so instead, in his greed, filled the box with a single word, infinity. No prompt interrupted him when he hit enter, no red warning, it had accepted his input. He already had a result he wanted, though he could not realize it now, maybe after he finished here, he would get a reference for what each stat normally was. After filling out the rest with infinity, he swiped again.

This screen had followed the first, an absolute absurdity, a list of skills filled the left side of the screen, less sorted alphabetically seemingly haphazardly even. Pressing a claw on one raised a prompt, describing the skill,

Species SWIVEL >Skills<

>Ultimate Mage< ... ...

___ ___ ___

[Ultimate Mage]: users of this skill level find even the creation of whole branches of magic trivial, and rival even the gods in the field of magic.

Without a second thought, he pressed add skill, now resting on the right side of the screen. In a span of less than ten minutes, Jack had gotten two of his fantasies fulfilled, with such ease, at least with his initial fantasy. He had though he would at least need to work his whole life in a new world to scratch at the ability to use magic, not to just be given it before he even stepped foot in a new world. Though to his surprise when he read the skill again, he had realized that it didn’t have a level or rank like he thought it did, so many of what he had read had the same. He brushed the thought as he continued to add skills, some granting him knowledge of languages across thousands of universes, dimensions even. Others gave him otherworldly knowledge on technology billions of generations ahead of what he thought possible.

When he was done, he hadn’t even realized that he had added every skill that was on the list, his greed had blinded him to the time he had spent adding each skill. Blind, he didn’t even bother to read any of the skills he added. He had hovered his left claw over the list, and his other over the add skill, and had just gone as fast as he could. Watching the ever shrinking list move over to the right, giving him talent in skills well beyond what any mortal could have.

With a swipe of the claw, he found himself at a final screen, asking for a name, it had so kindly had a random name button. One Jack willingly pressed a few times until he found a name he enjoyed, Koveg, While he had skills that filled him with an unfathomable amount of knowledge, even knowing cultures, he willingly ignored them for the coolest sounding name he saw, regardless of how dumb it might sound when he actually had to deal with another individual.

When he was finally done, he looked over the screen, content with the endless scrolling of skills he had. He thanked whoever was smiling upon him, who had let him become what he could only assume to be a living god for whatever world would have to contend with him. The skills he had selected, or rather all of them, allowed him to so far exceed even what he wanted, but that was a minor grievance for him, having this much power was a fair enough trade in that regard.

After he had finished reviewing the final screen, he pressed his claw against the finalize button that had stayed with him throughout his time with the character creation display. Much to Jack’s surprise, he began falling again, though not in an expected direction, falling forward, into and past the display, falling toward an encroaching wall of clouds, darkening upon his approach. On the other side of the wall of clouds, a night sky filled with stars he didn’t recognize, the horizon expanding well into the darkness in each direction.

Finally, Jack attempted to orient himself in the air, attempting to use the wings on his back, only for nothing to move, nothing catching the wind slowing his descent, plummeting toward the ground as fast as before. Panic filling his mind, for the first time in a long time, an actual sense of dread washed over him. He couldn’t even recall the last time he felt this much dread, not even a nightmare compared to this, watching as each second passed the ground closer. He had frozen stiff, not even screaming, he silently fell, cursing this fate, as it slammed into him, darkness filling his mind.

When he came to, the sun was beating down on his face, feeling more dazed than confused, he pulled himself up from the crater his landing had caused. Surprised that he isn’t a puddle of flesh and bone, or a ghost over the same corpse. But when he was finally vertical, he realized he wasn’t towering over the trees, nor was the crater he had caused that large, standing barely a quarter of the barren trunk section of the nearest tree.

To his luck, there was a lake nearby, rushing over, finding the same face staring back at him that he had while he was using the character creator. Though attached to a short little creature, while also keeping the same proportions he had before, as to say mildly overweight. In the corner of his vision, a window opened, familiar in design. Jack looked at it, confirming his torment, reading across it, he found the words adolescent kobold, and as if to mock him, it was large enough to display anything else, and yet it didn't.

Adolescent Kobold

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(pretend there's nothing here, I gave up on actually trying to force set a size with so many different methods)

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