The list that pops up is longer than any other character creation screen I've ever seen.

"You realize this will be your real body, right? You're not creating a character."

"Do you want me to go back to sobbing uncontrollably?"

"... The graphics on this game are crazy, right?!"

There are upwards of 150 different sapient species on this list. Some of which don't seem like they should be sapient, but somehow have managed to make the list, anyway. In any case, it's a lot of life. Especially Sapient life.

"Is this list for the whole Universe or just Ackellia?"

"Just Ackellia. There are way too many races in the Universe—2,247, to be exact—for you to go through all the options, especially because, since Ackellia is the planet you'll be on for the foreseeable future, you can consider the others non-playable-characters."

They're proud of themselves for that, I can tell. If I had eyes to roll, my face would be a bakery.

"Ooo, good one!"

I ignore them, flipping back through the list. Grelsh, Bucci, Merin, Vishta, Minotaur, Elves etc. Name after—wait, is that....

It is. The race is called a Mlem. There's no way.

"Why?" I say, simply. They know what I'm talking about.

It's not a race of cat people as I might have hoped. It's just what Aethos had called them because, as the flavor text explains, "it's the sound that they make when they're eating you."

They're sapient and they have their own language, apparently, but the only reason anyone had figured that out was because of the way Mimics—the actual term for a Mlem—seemed to know and do things they wouldn't have been able to if communication were not taking place. Knowing how to place themselves to defend certain areas, for example, where an adventuring party is headed.

The kicker? They only mimic furniture. There are different kinds of Mimics, but they're not on the list, apparently, as they're not considered sapient. Apparently, though, the Mlems are. Their real bodies, however, look grotesque. Their mouth is too wide, with a huge, fat, disgustingly long prehensile tongue inside. Their legs are thin, long, horrifying little things jutting out from their body with seemingly too many joints. Their teeth would put a dinosaur to shame and their eyes, which they can move around their bodies at will with their only Skill [Morph], are small, sickly yellow, glassy orbs that give intense feelings of uncanny valley. Overall, they belong in a horror movie because holy fuck.

I shiver. I thought spiders were bad. I mean, they still are, don't get me wrong, but the level of 'Fuck-That-Shit-I'm-Out" I get from the comparison isn't even close. Imagine going to sit down in a comfy recliner only to get chewed to pieces when suddenly the whole damn thing turns into a mouth.

"That name was there before I knew about meme culture, Zed. I swear it. It is funny. I didn’t really put much thought into it. Especially since you're going to choose one near the bottom."

"Right. The illusion of choice you mentioned."

"I have to put every sapient race option down despite how stupid it would be to make that choice. It's not my job to make your decisions for you. People have made that decision before. If I had a gold for every time someone chose Mlem, I would have two gold, which isn't a lot but it's weird that it happened twice."

"There's no way you didn't just quote 'Phineas and Ferb,'" I accuse.

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Suurreee. You know about why the name 'Mlem,' would be hilarious, but not one of the most iconic quotes from one of my personal favorite shows?"

"Well, I'll be honest, I don't really understand," Aethos says, voice deadpan.

"And here you are, no fingers to glue to any records," I point out.

"Nope. There's no platypus controlling me, either."

"Say what?," I finish the joke, rolling my nonexistent eyes. "Anyway, I assume you have suggestions, then? Since choice is only an illusion?"

"I'm glad you asked! The first option—my personal favorite but, again, illusion meet choice—is the Zenithal. They're a humanoid-avian species—in appearance, though they don't actually have any relation to any birds—that descends from the son of Zephyria, the Goddess of Air herself. He was the Grand Air Elemental, Gesh, though he died long before I was born. He mated with Ferinee, Queen of the Zenith's, and thus the Zenithals were born."

"That sounds a lot like inbreeding took place after that."

"Excuse me?"

"How did the Zenithals multiply if they descended from the same parents?"

"Obviously I left out a lot of information there!" Aethos sounds actually offended on their behalf, which I find amusing. "Gesh and Ferinee bore three children, all girls. Susurrus, Murmur, and Hum. They themselves weren't Zenithal. They bore the form of the Zenith herself. Triplets. No one knows what a Zenith looks like anymore. Not even me, actually. Yes, before you continue, those were their actual names and, yes, it was ironic for a variety of reasons. Not the point. Each of the girls married powerful members of The Folk, each with a powerful bloodline of their own. This is where the Zenithal gets its humanoid nature from."

"I'm still not hearing 'no inbreeding.' Three triplets having children would all genetically be closer to siblings than cousins, and even then ew."

"I'm getting there! Each of the girls were Blessed—a separate function of Deification than that can be carried out during Apotheosis—by Zephyria in such a way that guaranteed their descendants access to an affinity for Air Essence. When they mated with the first of The Folk, Trinity, each created personally by Algref the Naked, Algref granted the girls another boon. He would give them seeds to plant in the womb of whomever they wished—eh, hold on, getting ahead of yourself; thank you—so long as they were willing and so long as they promised to care for each Zenithal seed as if they were their own children and grandchildren and so on."

"Okay, I have several questions. The first being: Zenithals are plants?"

"Please stop talking."

"They grew from a womb seed! That has to be some kind of plant. Did the seeds have roots? Do they do photosynthesis?"

"I'm going to ignore that you said any of that. When the three girls bore their first children, each of whom more powerful than most creatures on the planet at the time, Algref gave them each ten seeds, to be bestowed as they wished. The Zenithals grew to be as we know them today, though significantly weaker than they were back then so as to keep them from being hunted to extinction the way the Igolith was. Every woman who chose to give a seed life was given everything she needed for as long as they lived. As you can imagine, people are long lived in this Universe."

"Alright, the plant thing and the fact that a lot of that is very problematic aside, how would that even work? You said souls are Essence and that every sapient has a soul, but also that Spells cant affect them. I'm assuming that also means create them. How did the Gods create all these people?"

"That's an excellent question. The answer is: we don't know."

"You don't know? That flies in the face of your whole assertion that Essence, Conscious Essence especially, can't be affected by magic."

"Allow me to clarify. I mentioned that Divine Essence is the supersaturated crystallization of Conscious Essence. I also mentioned there was a few exceptions to Divine Essence being able to control Conscious Essence. The first time this can happen is during Ascension, and is how a God is born in the first place. The process by which Divine Essence forms called Apotheosis. I should have said they don’t know. On Ackellia, that is. I do, mostly. Now that I’ve gained access to the knowledge in your world, anyway. It’s remarkably well explained by some concepts in what you call quantum theory.”

“Like super-positioning?”

“You know it doesn’t help you to pretend you know something when I can read you like a children’s book, right?”

Jeez, tough fuckin’ crowd, huh?

“In any case, yes—gold star to you—super-positioning, even though I know you have no idea what that means, is essentially how Divine Essence exists inside the Universe at the same time it exists to the side of it. What I imagine is happening to the Conscious Essence is something akin to the conditions behind superconductivity or superfluidity where normal rules are sidestepped, somehow. Quantum entanglement also plays a part, there, but these are all big things you’re not going to understand.”

“Yes, yes, I get it. I went to art school. I don’t know a lot about a little, but I know a little about a lot, okay?” There. Crossing my metaphorical arms now.

“Don’t pout, Zed. You’re very pretty.”

“Shut up, Aethos.”

“Do you want me to explain in a way you might understand? It won’t be entirely accurate, exactly, but it’ll give you an idea.”

I mean, duh? Why wouldn’t I want to know how something as big as that works?

“So superpositioning refers to the idea that a particle is existing in all possible states at the same time until it is observed or measured, upon which the particle’s potential collapses into a single state. A box with a hypothetical quantum light inside that could be any color is every color until you open it up, upon which point that light's potential to be any color collapses because you've observed it."

"Oh! I've heard of this actually. Schrodinger's Cat."

"Yes! Well, what that has to do with Divine Essence is that Essence in general seems to be a quantum particle in nature, and Apotheosis is to Conscious Essence what absolute zero is to magnets, where it defies prior laws of behavior because of some condition met leading up to the phenomenon, if that makes sense. But it also acts like light in the sense that the same way light can be either a wave or a particle until observed, Divine Essence is any and all types of Essence until it's observed. Except the nuance there is that it can't be observed after Ascending, except by other Gods, meaning that this must be how Divine Essence maintains its link to the Universe around it while not displacing anything."

"I thought you were going to explain in a way I understood?"

"I'm glad you're feeling well enough to be so adversarial, Zed. I said I would do it in a way you might understand. I apologize for, though; I just had my own revelations."

I roll my eyes. Nerd.

"I don't have to explain this to you. Honestly, it's probably useless to explain it at all considering you're not going to be needing it for thousands of years, if ever. The notion that a God is both extra-dimensional and multi-dimensional is a concept that I could explain, but would take a long time."

"Yeah, you're right. We should probably get back into choosing my race."

The "stock image" of Zenithal men and women that Aethos had chosen looks kind of awesome, not going to lie. Humanoid forms, large digitigrade legs that could be either golden-brown like an eagle's or gray-black, golden eyes. I don't know many birds so I'm not sure what bird I could liken the feathered legs to. They're gorgeous, honestly. Zenithals, I mean. As if sculpted from clay by Michelangelo himself, though if Aethos is right that makes sense considering Fae—The Folk—were all said to be unearthly beautiful. Their hair is all feathers, long and colorful, and their eyebrows seem to be made of super tiny feathers the same color as their hair. Their arms and hands have some smattering of feathers, too, to match the ones on their head, but it looks graceful and elegant somehow despite the interesting placement.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

"One more thing, then, since I didn't answer your question. I miscalculated how complicated the topic was, if I'm being honest. Basically, what I imagine is happening is that the oversaturation of Conscious Essence in the body serves to create a sort of quantum state between Conscious and Reactive Essence, allowing the Divine Essence, which is 'heavier' than the Conscious Essence, to have some form of control over the latter as it has entered a lower energy state, thus making it possible to otherwise defy those laws. Additionally, as with the superpositioning I mentioned earlier—among other things, I imagine, as well—Gods can use their own stores of Divine Essence to do things you otherwise would not be able to do as if they were using those states of Essence."

"So the rule is only breakable in that, when you're a God you can utilize your own Divine Essence as Conscious Essence as though it were Reactive due to some science bullshit?"

"Yes. You can control your own Conscious Essence due to some science bullshit. You still can't control another's Conscious Essence, though. That's still immune to any sort of manipulation. When a God is creating life, they are, through aforementioned science bullshit, gifting their own Conscious Essence to this container they've designed which then is given individuality when the God is no longer part of this plane. Normally a soul is created when a bit of the mother's Conscious Essence branches off during birth into the baby, but that process is skipped here in a more direct manner."

I imagine I might be here for several hours trying to understand exactly what's happening. After all, I have no prior experience with quantum physics and I know nothing about how the Universe works, really, so as much as I want to continue talking until I truly, truly understand, it would take too long and I would be stalling.

"Okay, so not inbreeding. Plants."

"...Fine. I can see why you would say that and I should definitely not be personally offended by your assertion that the Zenithal is a plant." Their voice is most definitely strained.

"Right. Why would you be?" I chuckle softly. "So why should I choose Zenithal?"

"They have some of the best senses of any other race in the Universe, actually. There are obviously some that are better, but you're not looking to be any sort of scout. You're going to be a Warsmith, obviously. You'll hear, see, smell, and sense things better than almost anyone else out there. Zenithals are incredibly fast due to their ancestry being of Air. Should you master Air Spells, you'll be able to fly quite well due not only to your innate Air affinity, but also your bones being hollow. They're honeycombed, however, for support."

That sounds like I'll be brittle.

"No, most definitely not. Your strength will be in the upper echelons, and Essence will suffuse your flesh to provide support beyond what your Earthen flesh was capable of. You'll have no need for weapons since you'll have those talons on your feet, and retractable ones at the tips of your fingers for killing and grip. You'll have your swords, too, since you'll be a Warsmith. Your eyes are avian in appearance and not human, necessarily, but you'll see for miles as if you were twenty feet away. Most often Zenithals' eyes are gold, though there are exceptions in some cases, depending on if they're pure Zenithal or not. Your feathers won't molt, either, the way most do, and their color is dependent on the second affinity. They're a symbol of the great Zeniths who predated you and cutting them as you would a human's hair is just not done."

"So it's a crime to cut the feathers because they're sacred?"

"In the eyes of most other Zenithals, yes, but you wouldn't want to do that, anyway. That would just look weird. You don't cut something so majestic, so beautiful, so pure."

"Did you have a fetish for Zenithals when you were alive or something?"

"Hey! I resent that! Whatever proclivities I had are none of your business!"

'So what I'm hearing is yes. I'm correct."

Aethos changes the subject instead. "It's just the best option for you. If you were going to pick a different Class, then I would still recommend them because of their raw physicality and affinities, but you're not going to do that and will instead pick the perfect one I've already come up with for you."

"Warsmith, right?"

"Yes!"

"So why are we—"

"Illusion of choice, Zed. I told you already."

"I can hear you saying illusion, you know."

"I'm not literally making the choice for you; I just know you're going to choose it and it's my favorite anyway so I figured I'd just open with that."

"Can you let me see the other options at least?"

There is a small sigh and then the list shortens to three options.

Dark Elf Solari Vygar

Starting with the first option, I go through the information about each race for a bit. Contrary to the perception of Dark Elves on Earth, here in this Universe they are almost the exact opposite. They represent love. They worship the Goddess of Shadow, which, in addition to their gray skin tone, is why they are called Dark Elves, though it's a bit of a misnomer that no one truly cares about. They're warless, apparently, though they have more than enough power to protect themselves if necessary. Shadow is a weapon, of course, but it's primarily used for travel.

They can traverse shadow as if it were a portal, stepping inside on one corner of the world and exiting on another. They would have had to have been there before, though. Apparently the Dark Elves live in hidden cities because there are religious tensions with the Light Elves they prefer to avoid, but when they gain access to the System, each new adult is sent out on a "mission" to simply travel to as many places as they can so that they can connect to Shadow more completely.

They can see even in total darkness, are connected to each other through the Shadow—I imagine they can speak to each other through it? It doesn't actually explain that in depth—and have natural defenses against Spell damage. They 're also an academia and crafting focused race, due to their status as warless.

It's interesting, for sure, but it doesn't call to me. I'm also not religious and the idea of all that doesn't make me very eager to choose it.

"That's why I didn't think you would go with it, despite the crafting and connection aspects."

The second option, Solari, looks awesome; I won't lie. They're a race with an Essence-affinity, which apparently means they're purely Spell focused considering Essence manipulation is intuitive to them. They understand Essence in a way that no other race does. They have no physical defenses at all, though, nor any physical strength, though the tradeoff is each Solari has the potential to become an Archmage with envious ease. There aren't that many of them, though. They learn "Systemless" magic better than any other race and don't age, as such, but they have to live in the core because it's the only place with enough Essence density to keep them alive, since they use Spells for just about everything and are literally born of it. They also don't eat, apparently, as a result of the aforementioned.

Their skin, which is iridescent, changes colors based on their emotions and their hair is always long and white, save for the last inch or so which matches their skin color at any given moment. They essentially all look the same as far as their shape goes, but Solari apparently can tell each other apart based on the way their emotions are painted across their skin. Their language is literally emotion and they all—every single Solari—live together in the core.

"Why did you think this was a good option other than the magic and their physical appearance?" I ask, genuinely confused. This race sounds ... sheltered, to say the least. No exploration?

"Community. It's an immediate and forever community that would accept you wholeheartedly and implicitly. You would be able to work through your trauma almost naturally because of the way their society and biology work."

"So I would exit this portal, somehow blast everyone to hell, and immediately go find my people where I would live forever in an emotional cult family?"

"Well, when you put it that way..."

"Yes, I do put it that way. Next option."

The next option is a race called the Vygar. They're a race descended from a dragon-esque creature called the Igolith. The Igolith, apparently, is the mother of all Draconic races, save for True Dragons themselves who were created by the God of Might, Azhuruoth. There are apparently only around a dozen of them left in the Universe, all of whom are above "White-rank," whatever that means.

The Vygar are like Dragonkin in a way, except they have humanoid faces for the most part instead of reptilian faces. Their wings are suited for grace instead of excessive speed or power, though they're still large, just much less unwieldy. They don't have any specific affinities native to their race, as with the Zenithals and Air, but they all develop at least one affinity they closely align with. They have natural healing properties native to their blood that increases regenerative capabilities by an incredible margin.

Vygar also apparently have two forms. They have their smaller, humanoid form, with wings that are slightly taller than they are—which is still pretty tall—and mirror-like scales covering much of their flesh. They also have their "Igolith" form which isn't them changing into a huge flying reptilian creature or anything, but is instead a larger, more combat focused build where their scales encompass the whole of their forms, including their wings which are normally a pinkish-flesh color otherwise, and have their combat abilities buffed quite a bit due to natural born strength and speed.

Both forms apparently are able to camouflage themselves using those mirror-like scales to a certain degree, though the battle form is more suited to the task because of the heavier covering, despite how much larger the form is.

"Why on Earth would I choose something else? This is literally the coolest sounding shit I've ever heard," I say incredulously. They're super-people who have a battle form, can camouflage, have healing blood, are basically physically perfect, and look cool as hell. I mean, come on, Aethos.

"Yes, they're very cool. I won't lie about that. It's a good choice to be sure, but I don't think it's the right choice. They're very individualistic to the point that it's written into their genetic code, essentially. The same way butterflies migrate during specific times of the year over several generations but somehow still end up where they're supposed to be and return to where the original generation was located. There are not very many of them left alive due to that. They don't even have a mating drive! Vygar cannot stay around people for very long, even other Vygar. You're already lonely, Zed. You'd have to stay that way forever, essentially."

"Why, though?" I didn't see anything in the blurb about that.

"Because the Igoliths were hunted ferociously to extinction. They were more accessible than Dragons, and just as magical in nature. Their blood was used in every high end healing potion, their bones could pass through even the toughest of armor, their scales were used in so many ways due to the sheer utility they had, their Essence bladders were so developed they would harden into an Essence core inside them by adulthood, which was basically a battery for enchantments, and so on. Over time their reclusiveness must have become a genetic necessity, though I'm unsure why it wasn't ever bred back out of their descendants like the Vygar."

It's a shame. I don't want to be alone, so I won't be choosing the race, obviously, but I would have if it weren't for that trait.

Begrudgingly, I find that I'm enjoying the process of this. It really does feel like a character creation in a video game, despite how ultimately real it all is. It helps me cope with it and put my head in the right space, I would say. If I have no choice but to accept all this, then I might as well start with a body I like, right? I don't want to be a victim, which includes in my mind. I hate feeling like that. Powerless, afraid, worthless. I am none of those things, despite how my brain makes me feel sometimes.

"No, Zed, you aren't. Nothing that happened to you is your fault."

"Thanks, Aethos. I see what you mean about the Zenithals, but can you just... sell me on it a bit more?"

"I would be happy to. Zenithals have two affinities: one is always Air, as stated previously, and the other is random, though yours would be Metal since I'm directly creating your form. They have digitigrade legs which end in four extremely sharp talons that aid in combat and stability when running. Zenithals can run better, faster, and longer than most other races due to several factors like bone-makeup, proportional strength, affinity, and so on. They're incredibly strong and have amazing reflexes. You actually start off with physicality rivaling those who've just reached Green rank before even learning how to use your Aura, whereupon your power goes up even farther beyond that."

"Green rank?"

"A power ranking system based on the visible wavelengths of light, starting at red, ending at white."

"You mean the rainbow?"

"Yes, that's what I said."

"You made it sound more esoteric than it is. It's the rainbow."

"Fine!"

"Okay, anything else?"

"They also live for upwards of two millennia even at no advancement because of their ancestral Elemental nature."

"Does the Air affinity make up for what surely has to be lower blood levels? You'd have to have less oxygen in the blood, and less red blood cells in general because of the hollow parts of the bone, too right? Or does the Essence mean they don't need that anymore? Marrow, I mean."

"I can't answer that for you. Before you came here, I wasn't even aware of any of that, to be honest. The only reason I was able to connect the dots with the quantum physics and Essence is because Essence is my whole job. I know more about it than literally anyone else. I've been thinking about it for two hundred thousand years now, after all."

"Alright, thanks anyway, I guess. I have one last question. Why are they not more prominent, then, if they're so strong? Were they hunted or something? They sound like they have some pretty serious advantages," I ask, already having settled on the race, but wanting to know anyway.

"Zenithals were... really big assholes long ago. So, yes, they were pretty much enemy number one. It led to Zephryn being the home of most Zenithals under the High Priestess of Zephyria, who is a Zenithal, though that might have been obvious. They're largely non-combative now, as their arrogance has toned down ... a lot, and they're not disallowed from going other places, but they tend to stick around their own kind."

"Let's do it, then. Zenithal. Maybe I'll visit one day."

"Perfect!"

Species Chosen: Zenithal!