Second Earth Online, it had come out two months ago now. It's no longer just another MMO, it's THE MMO to play. It boasted translation software that made it so that language barriers were never an issue. It is because of this that over half the world's population currently played the game. It's slogan to attract players was "A second earth means a second chance to be the you which you always wanted to be." Sounds pretentious and boring and it almost sounded like that old game that was basically just a regular old virtual world where the market was dominated by programmers and early gamers who had the capital to buy land and such. Then they started showing the previews, "Second Earth Online, the Earth that was limited only by your imagination." There was actual footage of the α and β tests, it had every single class you could think of showing all the different skills, so everyone thought it was just another MMO boasting but not delivering. Then it went on to show the actual system, and it got everyone excited. Monsters with unique AI that actually leveled! It had an unparalleled customization system, unique leveling system, and a crafting system where only the imagination is the limit. It showed avatars with all sorts of unique weapons, clothing, and even some weird looking structures made by testers.

I sigh and look away from the old commercial running on the screen. The game looked fun, and the subscription fee wasn't that bad especially if you pay yearly, the problem was that I was flat out broke. It was completely compatable with most of the old VR units, and my 5th gen pod would definitely work. I might have been able to afford it if I hadn't decided to live on my own instead of move in with relatives when my parents died. My brothers moved in with them and they had wanted me to play with them on the system too, especially this new game. So many could have's, I thought as I started to walk out of my office.

I own a few extremely profitable restaurants, but I'm swimming in debt. It sounds contradictory, especially if you go by historical standards as I'm only 21. I own the restaurants free and clear including the land, but what weighs me down is my student loans. It's not unusual to enter the workforce with a master's degree by the time one is 18 with the rise of VR schools, but I dove through program after program forgetting about the cost of paying for them. My income is enough to pay about $1000 over the monthly bill for my loans, and I can live leisurely. I do not however have any room in my budget for any recreational activities.

Sighing I think about dipping into my em to buy a few more food trucks or a new place to open up a restaurant to up my income. It would allow future recreational activities, but that won't happen for a while. I reach the back door to the restaurant and was about to head out when I hear a voice call out to me.

"Hey Chef, wait up!"

I turn around to see John, my general manager who's stuck with me since my dish washing days, behind me trying to catch up to me with a rather large sack in hand.

"Yo John, what's with the bag?"

"I'm playing Santa remember?" Oh right it's Christmas Eve I forgot so busy with work during the holidays that it’s easy to lose track of time. "I bet you forgot its Christmas again, don't worry I already grabbed the usual 'backup' envelops from your drawer and left you a note. I left the note yesterday, have you not gotten around to it yet? Anyways I know you're off for a little while, so how about we meet up on Second Earth later?"

"Ah yeah I saw the note, I just haven't gotten to read it yet what with all the business rolling in. I'd love to get on but you know I don't have the game."

"I never really got why you went to school for so long, now you can't even buy a game but...." He pulls out a box with the words Second Earth on it, and boasting a year's worth of subscription. "All of us decided to get you this so that we can all meet up online from time to time. Merry Christmas!"

"Oh man I don't know what to say, you guys are the best!"

"Hehe, well get it set-up and get started on learning the system. Your friends list in game should sync up with your contacts. Most of us were in the β and got started anew after the official launch so we're pretty far in already. Just do what you can, and we'll meet up sometime as there's no level restriction at the moment..."

"Enough chit-chat I can figure it out from here I think. Oh so excited! Thanks again guys!"

Before John could say anything I ran out the door and dashed into my car. A few minutes later I was in my apartment lying in my capsule while booting it up. I started to launch Second Earth Online, and I was in an empty space except for a mirror. I saw an exact replica of myself, black hair, brown eyes, medium height, plain face except for the small eyes and flat marking my Filipino heritage. It immediately prompted a character creation, but I just went with defaults and skipped it.

"Welcome to Second Earth Online! Would you like to customize your appearance and genealogy, or connect your public profile

"Genealogy? What do you mean connecting to my profile?"

"A player may select from numerous races or alternatively create an entirely unique entity by editing their ancestry. This is limited to 25 generations or 33554432 ancestors, more than enough to make it so that every race is mixed in. It can be further customized by finding specific individuals that were average of that race (at level 1) for that generation with varying attributes to influence the starting attributes of the player. The player may then customize their appearance as long as it is within the bounds of their ancestry. The player may forgo this process and instead connect to their public profile. This profile is constituted of social media, public records, and in rare cases any verifiable private records in the system that the player allows. Appearance will be set by a full body scan, and stats will be influenced by both the scan and records. The records will also allow a player to start with extras such as skills, talents, fame, and notoriety. All this is to create either the best version of the player or become an entirely different entity in order to 'be the you which you always wanted to be.'"

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"Can I see the races and their benefits and weaknesses?"

A scrollable screen appears before me, on one side it has the races, on the other side it has a list that either has a + or a - listing the pros and cons of the race. The list was overwhelming, and as I fiddled around with it I found that races had limitations on their partner. Just like in real life a Tiger-type and a Lion-type together made a sterile Liger-type life form, and thus can only be put together if it would be the player's parents. Also, some combinations just didn't work due to their conflicting biology, and thus needed an intermediary or intermediaries before they could be put together. The only race that could be with any species was a human, for two reasons. One, was the face that any race weather beast, monster, magical creature, etc. could acquire a skill to assume a humanoid form. Secondly, the human race was considered an empty palate along with their high fertility supposedly left room in the DNA to bind together with any race. The problem was doing so lessened both weaknesses and benefits of their partner, in some cases so severely that it became so that it became entirely different altogether. A good example is a fire type dragonkin, one of the many base hybrid races (fire dragon+human), plus a human resulted in their fire breath degrading to being able to breath-in fire.

I fiddled around a lot and found two forms to my liking. The first was hydra with enormous wings, a venomous snake tail, and a different head for each of its nine heads (dragon head, unicorn head, griffon head, wolf head, etc...). The second was a human with a lot of mixed blood making him not needing to breathe and various slight bonuses including shape-shifting into several forms, but not into the hydra form I wanted (this involved several were-type, such as werewolves and werebears, and adding in the hydra and a few elements of my awesome mythical creature). The former I was warned that I would have a hard time adapting to having so many appendages to move, and even normally players have a hard time adapting to even normal non humanoid beasts like the aforementioned liger (apparently a favorite of the staff during the α test). It should also be mention that I would need to start off in the wilderness and couldn't enter any humanoid settlements until I could assume a humanoid form.

I sigh but knew that I would probably spend weeks if not months trying to adjust to my ultimate chimera-hydra if I picked it. The same probably held true to my shape-shifter's other forms. If this was an old fashioned RPG I wouldn't hesitate and create both characters before me. Mouse and keyboard controls would definitely be easier than trying to figure out how to move to different heads or mastering several different forms.

I think for a while and tried to think of a goal. What came to mind is that I should try and catch up with my staff as soon as possible. There were several races that had increased growth in skills, attributes, and experience points. I try making that and just ended up with a human with stats starting at 1, but had massive growth perks. That felt too vanilla, if I was going to just end up as a human wouldn't it be better to just connect to my profile? I wonder what that would be like?

I ask and I receive, and... WOW! The perks are amazing, but there were a few demerits as well. The biggest was that I would only start with a plain shirt and shorts (I would even be barefoot), no money, and can only start in the poorest town of my region. This must be due to my massive debt... There also seems to be a massive experience debuff to all players that connect their profile. It seems because of the extra skills the developers added on a 50% experience point debuff on all experience gained from monsters and quests for a month. Well the pros outweigh the costs for me, maybe if I can make more characters I'll try making the hydra at a later time. I confirm my selection and move on to the next part of the character creation.

"In Second Earth there are 6 main attributes. [Strength]/[STR] which affects [Attack]/[ATK], [Defense]/[DEF]] and how much you can lift and carry without penalties. [Endurance]/[END] affects your [Satiety]/[SAT], [Hit Points]/[HP], ailment resistance and pain feedback. [Intelligence]/[INT] affecting [Magic Attack]/[M.ATK], [Magic Defense]/[M.DEF], and learning skills. [Mind]/[MND] this affects [Mana Points]/[MP], [Mana Regen]/[MR], comprehension skills and status resist. [Dexterity]/[DEX] affects fine loco-motor skills and attack/[HIT] and aim/[AIM] correction. [Agility]/[AGI] affects acrobatic movement and attack and aim correction on more orthodox stances. All players start with 5 points to each stat unless you are connected to your profile. These 6 are the keys to learning your first basic skills. They are also unlocked by repetitive actions or understanding concepts behind them. More advanced skills have other requirements that you'll need to discover yourself to unlock. However, any skill can be learned as long as you meet the prerequisites, and there is no limit to the number of skills one can learn. Skills determine your level, skills are exponentially improved in various directions for example if a level 1 skill was crawling a level 2 skill would be running then level 3 would be something like running silently and acrobatically or running at almost inhuman speeds. This is just an example though and not actual skills. Furthermore every 5 levels you will be awarded a talent, a talent grows your character exponentially in a given direction. At level 1 you are given three talents, the first is {Language Comprehension} which lets you understand any spoken language. The other two is up customized by you, would you like to do so now?"

"Yes"

"Level one talents available are as follows: {Literacy}, {Attribute Enhancement}, {Specific Attribute Enhancement}, {Mana Manipulation}, {Crafting Knowledge}, {Market Knowledge}, {Born Rich}, {Specific Tool/Weapon Knowledge}, {Healing Knowledge}, and {Specific Basic Elemental Knowledge}. Which would you like learn more about?"

It looks like this is how you direct which way your life goes. I can see how some of the talents would fit together so that you can become a classic class in MMOs. There has to be more to it that that though, otherwise you just get stuck doing the same thing as other MMOs. It said understanding things unlocks skills I wonder...

"What does {Literacy} do?"

"{Literacy} grants the passive skills -Reading- and -Writing- granting the player the ability to write in and read the written language of Second Earth by auto-translating this form of media to their native language."

Interesting so it grants skills. It said you can learn any skill so that means you can learn to read in game. Which means you have to understand the letters of the MMO? So you can actually cheat and get this so called "talent" just by learning the letters? But it might be hard if it's an actual talent it must have to do with [INT] and [MND]. It said they affect learning and comprehension.

"What's the difference between {Attribute Enhancement} and {Specific Attribute Enhancement}?"

"{Attribute Enhancement} enhances one of the 6 main attributes by three points while {Specific Attribute Enhancement} enhances any specified attributes, if it is a sub attribute such as [ATK] or [DEF] it is enchanced by 50 which would usually take 10 points of a given main attribute. Hidden and special attributes are enhanced at varying quantities."

"Can I get a list of all the attributes I can enhance with {Specific Attribute Enhancement}?"

"I can not do so as hidden and special attributes must be found in game, however many users have found and posted some on the web. I can compile a list of sub attributes and the publicized hidden and special attributes."

"Please."

A huge list of attributes are shown to me, and I casually browse through until 2 catch my attention.

"Can I get two {Specific Attribute Enhancement}s one for learning skills and comprehension skills?"

"Yes"

"I'll take those two then please."

"Understood this has given you the skill passive -Fast Learner-. Finalize character creation?"

"Yes"

"You are now being transported to the first town, Alpha. We hope you enjoy Second Earth!"