Welcome, Joshua Stevenson.

Please select a race:

And now I have to handle character creation. But first, sleep.

thud

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I wake up when my phone buzzes in my pocket. There's a couple texts from friends telling me to check the news, and an e-mail from my school saying they're closed until further notice.

I walk over to the living room, the blue box apparently having vanished while I was asleep. The TV is already on. It's an old model, from the early 20s, but it still works and that's the important thing.

"Breaking news: Strange blue boxes appearing in front of people. The governments of the world have all issued statements urging citizens to not interact with the boxes until further research has been conducted. Elon Musk has tweeted, confirming this isn't one of his projects, but he appreciates the boost to genetic manipulation research."

I'm suddenly very happy I didn't put any sort of information about me on the nanobots.

"Reports say that selecting a non-human race during the 'Character creation' results in major genetic and physiological changes. We've got a researcher specializing in genetics on the phone and we're going to see what he has to say about it."

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A man with pointed ears appears on the left side of the screen.

"Hello, I am Doctor Jacob Smith. I specialize in genetics research and genetic modification development. I finished 'character creation' before the government warning was issued and as you might see I decided to choose the 'Elf' race."

"Hello Doctor, I've heard that you've performed some basic genetic scans of the various 'races'. Did you find anything interesting?"

"Well, one of the first things I found was what looked like a finished version of an experimental longevity treatment in the elven genome. There is also a difference in genes coding for brain and body growth, seemingly slowing both by a factor of five. The combination of these point to the age of maturity being around one hundred and a lifespan of up to one thousand years. My colleagues also performed some tests on the so called 'Beastkin', humanoids with minor animal traits such as a tail and some sensory organs. The ears were completely replaced with their counterparts and the sense of taste and smell were enhanced to approximately 50 percent of the version found on animals. We also-"

Static started blaring out of the speakers as the video stream of the doctor was replaced with a government emblem and the words 'Stream terminated'

"Wha- This just in: Massive continent found in the middle of the pacific ocean. Initial images show a medieval society, with minor differences. Also new is reports of mutated animals found wandering the earth. They appear to ignore anyone that has not finished character creation."

It seems like I won't find any of the information I need on the TV. Time to go on the internet and search... Shouldn't I be able to use the neural interface to connect to my computer. I think that's a function I threw in somewhere. Wasn't is something like Show Computer

Huh. That worked. Now I have to find some sort of guide.