I yawned widely and stood, stretching muscles stiff from hours gaming. Sighing contentedly to myself, I carefully put my computer to sleep, lay down on my bed, and went to sleep myself.

“What the heck?” was my first thought when I woke up. I was standing in a vast white plain beneath a white sky. In front of me was a giant old man glowing white.

“Am I dreaming?” I asked him.

“No, you died in your sleep,” he said, stroking his long white beard.

“Bummer. So, you would be God right?”

“The God of Reincarnation, yes, though people are normally more distraught at finding out they'd died.”

“It was going to happen eventually and, well, I was curious about what happened after. Apparently it's this. Not very impressed so far.” I said, looking at the featureless realm.

“Hmmm.”

“Sooo, what happens next?”

“I reincarnate you.”

“Oh, so that is a thing. I had thought it was mostly a subject of mostly bad fiction nowadays. Still not sure why none of the gods in the fictions automated the process, I think it would have saved a lot of time.”

“The wheel of reincarnation is automated, it just seems to be faulty for people from your planet: they always retain their memories and don't move smoothly into their next life, I always have to help them along.”

“That sounds annoying.”

“It is,” he said, grimacing the grimace of a frustrated game dev, “I just can't figure out why you lot are so incompatible; I've patched the system over and over again, none of the other worlds have this problem.”

The God coughed, as if noticing I was still there, and straightened his robes to recollect his dignity.

“Moving back onto topic, this is the world I'm going to reincarnate you in,” he said, majestically waving an arm.

A flood of basic information poured into my head, but somehow I was able to process it all.

“Huh, so there’s magic in this world. And monsters. And gods. Hey, is that the Moon Lord?! I exclaimed incredulously. “Why is it so similar to the game I was just playing?”

“Well,” the god stroked his beard smugly, “all stories' inspiration come from somewhere, some are simply from the author's experiences, but others are the creators getting a glimpse into another world. However, the author isn’t always limited to just writing about the world, sometimes they can influence the future, present, and even the past of a world through their writing, but the strength of the influence varies from author to author and world to world. It’s a delicate balance between how much the author creates the world and how much the author describes the world.”

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“This is relevant how?”

“If an author is writing about your adventures and life, which is likely since there’re infinite worlds, with infinite authors, if you badmouth them they may be able to drop a brick on you. Or may not.”

“So not much relevance then.”

“Maybe. Returning to the original point; it tends to be a good idea to reincarnate people into worlds that aren’t too unfamiliar, so as to make them as likely to survive as possible. I’m not a devil after all. With the ungodly number of hours you have in that game, you should fit right in.”

“So is this the world the developers based the game off?”

“No,” the god replied bluntly, “it’s just similar in places.”

“This… goes beyond just ‘similar in places’ it’s exactly the same! Same items, same monsters, same bosses- oh hey! The Moon Lord’s name is xrk... xrcl-”

“Do you mean xrklkscyrzd?”

“Yes! Completely unpronounceable, just as I was saying! You can’t tell me that the world is just ‘similar’! Though there are some differences… like the Eastern continent.” I glanced at the god. “Please don’t reincarnate me there.”

“I wasn’t planning to.”

“That’s a relief.” I went back to skimming my information about the world; a moment later I chuckled softly. “Ooh, that's cliché. The Demon King's going to be revived in a few years.”

“Err, you weren't supposed to know that,” the God mumbled, “Let’s have you forget that; hope you don’t lose anything too important.” The god snapped his fingers.

I tilted my head to one side. “Did I just say something?”

“Is there any ability I can grant you before I reincarnate you?” He asked, seeming oddly rushed to me.

“Yes!” I replied enthusiastically. “Since this world’s like that game I was just playing, can you make it so that I would be my character with my character's abilities as well as having access to all the materials I've collected?”

“Just that? I thought you'd pick some kind of overpowered ability like 'Give me the ability to make whatever I write happen' or 'give me the ability to instantly kill anything I please,' or something.”

“Well, it would also be cool if I could summon my other characters as assistants. Oh, and make me have all the knowledge of the wiki. That's fairly essential.”

“That should be fairly simple. Are you sure you don't want anything else?”

“If you could make it so my growth limits are the usual for the universe. Also an unaging body like my character. And my health, armour, and mana are translated. Also, merge the armour and the vanity outfit. Oh and make the-”

“Stop. Let me just read your mind,” he said, sounding exasperated.

He placed one hand on my head for a brief moment then lifted it off again.

“Ok, I see. Most of these are just ways to integrate the game mechanics with the world.”

“What about the depth vision? Or the block placement? Or knowledge of items on the hotbar and inventory? What about accessories? The grappling hook? Respawning?”

“You won't respawn. I'll figure out the rest.” The god waved his hand tiredly. “Anyway, just go reincarnate. Oh, and don’t tell anyone you’re from another world; a cross-world traveller made a bit of a mess a couple thousand years ago and the Gods of the world haven’t really forgotten that. I'd advise you avoid the Church for the same reason. Some of the clergy can be a little... fanatic. Oh, and by the way, there’s no way back. God luck in your new world.”

With those parting words, a powerful force gripped my ethereal form and seemed to pull me inside out.

“Thanks for the heads up! Don't forget to make me an adult! And tallish! And, and… was that a pun?” I queried as I vanished from his realm with a faint 'pop'.