Chapter 3 — A New World, an immersive game experience

A tired Eldrian was lying in the emptiness trying to catch his breath. After trying to keep up with the wisp he was asked to try and catch, or rather just touch, the wisp. This proved near impossible for Eldrian. When he collapsed from tiredness the voice next announced he should avoid the wisp, and a few other wisps also joined.

Straining himself Eldrian managed to barely avoid the wisps, red and blue. Luckily, they started slowly giving him some time to gather his breath. But as time moved forward, they started speeding up, until they moved as fast as he could move. After dodging these wisps for about the 10th time a green one joined. This was when Eldrian knew he was cornered.

Barely managing to dodge three coordinated wisps two times, a tired Eldrian felled down onto the ground again. “Data has been collected and saved. User thank you for your cooperation. Quality of user’s connection and control is excellent.” The system voice ranged in an almost sleeping Eldrian’s head.

“Next,” –’Fuck me, not any more’ Eldrian thought as he heard next,- “please create your avatar. This avatar will be your connection to the game world, Gaia. Please ensure that user doesn’t deviate too much from your real look and body, as this will cause the rise of affinity issues.” Stated the system voice, greatly alleviating Eldrian’s mind as he realized he could lie down longer to recover.

As the voice faded, the room Eldrian was in started changing. It created a view like he was a celestial being. Eldrian was now floating over Gaia, with galaxies and even the moon and sun over him. Yet strangely Eldrian understood how he was supposing to go about this ‘Character creation system’.

As such Eldrian first thoughts were on his favorite fantasy race elves. As he thought about them a visual representation was shown to him. Not via any interface but rather with the world and celestial bodies. Looking around Eldrian found that there was Moon Elves information flowing into him as he stared at the moon.

[Moon Elves]

[All elves are graceful. Emphasizing agility and intellect over other characteristics. Moon elves are often depicted as dancers [Attribute bonuses: 10 Agility, 10 intelligence ]]

[Moon elves are an elven sub-race who are excellent in high magic. This magic includes healing, blessing, and prayers. Generally, moon elves do not use magic offensively. [High magic bonus: 20%]]

[The most favorite weapons of Moon Elves are two-handed swords [Two-handed swords bonus: 10% increase in damage, 5% increase in speed.]]

[Moon Elves are naturally attuned to cold elements. Any cold-related items would gain increased effectiveness. -Silver types materials included- [5% up to a maximum of 40%.]

‘What a beautiful way of choosing a race.’ Eldrian thought, ‘Look at the relevant place the race has a connection to, and basic information is shown inside your mind.’ Next he turned to the sun to see what or if there is an elven race connected to it.

[Sun Elves]

[All elves are graceful. Empathizing agility and intellect over other characteristics. Sun Elves are often depicted as warriors.[ Attribute bonuses: 10 strength, 5 agility, 5 constitution ]]

[Sun Elves, also called valley elves or nomad elves, a though elven sub-race. Due to their living style and culture, these elves excel in offensive situations. [Fire type magic bonus of 30%]]

[Favourite weapon of Sun Elves are swords of any type. They also excel in the use of shields. [Sword damage bonus: 7.5%, Shield speed bonus: 7.5% and 10% less fatigue gain]]

[Sun Elves are naturally attuned to hot elements. Any heat-related items would gain increased effectiveness. -Golden type materials included- [ 5% to a maximum of 40%]]

Next Eldrian turned to a forest, since commonly elves are depicted as living in woods. Surprisingly two elven types were sown depending on where he looked. When looking at the typical forest he got the information of Wood Elves.

[Wood Elves]

[All elves are graceful. Empathizing agility and intellect over other characteristics. Wood Elves are often depicted as Archers. [ Attribute bonuses: 12 agility, 8 strength ]]

[Wood Elves is an elven sub-race who always lives in wooden areas. The more nature elements are in the area the more likely one is to find wood elves there. They are typically xenophobic since most other races use woods as a source of, well many things. Due to their natural attunement to nature Wood Elves have a strong affinity to nature magic, as well as elemental magic -except for fire magic- [Nature magic bonus: 30%; Elemental magic bonus: 15%.]

[Wood Elves excel in speed and stealth. Their preferred weapon is the bow, with short swords as their common backup. [Bow bonus: 12% increased damage, 3% increased accuracy. Short sword bonus: 5% increased speed]]

[Wood Elves have a strong affinity to nature. Any item made out of natural items -Which was gathered without harming the source- has an attunement to them. These items can include, wood, leaves, hides, bones, feathers, and so forth -As long as, say the animal wasn’t killed for the aim of getting its materials- [10% up to a maximum of 70%] {Stronger bonus due to difficulty in finding materials.}]

Lastly, if Eldrian looked at the father/mother tree of the forest he was given the information of High Elves

[High Elves] {Extremely difficult race}

[All elves are graceful. Empathizing agility and intellect over other characteristics. High Elves are depicted as supreme elves[Attribute bonuses: 15 Agility, 10 intelligence, 5 Spirit, 5 Strength, 5 Constitution ]]

[High Elves are not a sub-race of the elves but rather the true, pure bloodline. They are stronger than all other races, except High Demons and Dragons. But this is only true if the High Elf was allowed to cultivate. High Elves are also known by the descriptions; True Elves, Noble Elves, Gaia’s children or in their own language Tareldar.]

[High Elves excel in all forms of magic except for demonic magic -including but not limited to necromancy, sacrificial magic, blood-magic or any other magic that defies nature- They can also not use divine magic, since they are in a sense divine beings themselves -They are aligned to nature and can thus not borrow any powers from other divinities- [Nature magic bonus: 60% ; Other magic bonus: 40%]]

[High elves excel in all forms of fighting. [True combat bonus of 5% damage and 5% speed]]

[High Elves are attuned to nature and good-aligned magic by their very being. Due to this, they gain an increased attunement to all magical items [5% up to 60%]]

[Warning!!! High Elves, while a very strong race, have no in-game help. The only game functions available to them will be the standard interface and its related abilities. No skills, attacks, or spells will be helped/guided/done via the system. Thus, any player choosing this race will have to learn the in-game method of using mana to be able to use any abilities, be they spells or skill.]

[Warning!!! Players choosing this race will also have some system interface actions blocked. Player will also only be given the ability to understand the universal common tongue in-game. As well as elven. Any other dialect will be foreign to player.]

[Warning!!! This race is only playable as a first choice. If player has ever entered the game before then that player will no longer be able to choose the High Elf race.]

‘I choose the High Elf race’ Eldrian said in his head. The bonuses this race gains from just being a semi-divine race were simply too good to pass up. While learning how to wield magic sounded very difficult, Eldrian also thought that it would be an amazing thing to learn and not just use.

“User has chosen High Elves as a race. This race is extremely difficult to play. User, please beware that most in-game system functions will be unavailable or limited.”

After the system voice stated this Eldrian found himself standing in front of what seemed to be a mirror. In this mirror he saw himself, except this he had slightly pointed ears and a bit slimmer body type. Unfortunately, this avatar of his also had a slight belly.

“User may alter your in-game avatar appearance. To do this user has only to think of the change you want and it will be reflected inside the envision mirror.”

As the voice faded Eldrian was reminded of one of the developer’s posts on the forums. The developer stated that when creating your character, one should take care to not change too much. While the gaming system will try to balance the differences between your IRL body and avatar, there is a limit.

The post also mentioned that the ideal affinity would be above 95%. As Eldrian recalled this he called out to the system to display his affinity.

[IRL body to Avatar Affinity: 97.83]

Seeing that he had some room to play with, Eldrian entered the classic character creation mentality of gamers.

‘Change the hair, mmm yeah longer, up to the shoulder blades. Silver color, please. The eyes, change it… Ah yeah, ice blue, please. Shave a bit of the belly, dang below 95. Curses! Revert. How about…’ After about 30 minutes of tweaking Eldrian was happy.

Looking at the finished product, a smile glowed on Eldrian’s face, until his eyes went down to his stomach. ‘For god’s sake. Who has ever heard of a chubby elf? Oh, look at that fat elf, people will say. I can see it now, I am going to become a meme.’ Eldrian complained to himself.

Seriously has there ever been an elf in fantasy who was overweight. It wasn’t even that Eldrian was very overweight, he just had a beer belly and a slight one at that. For normal humans, it is a natural look. But for an elf… ‘Sigh, I will just have to deal.’ He tried to settle his mind by saying this.

After all the tweaking his affinity ended at 95.67%. Which he felt was decent. Unfortunately, if he cut his belly then it dropped to 94.18%, just too low for him to accept.

“User has unlocked a hidden condition. Have an affinity of 95% or more with your avatar. Due to this, actions in-game will give the user a bleed effect, causing your muscles to exercise unconsciously.” The system voice ranged as Eldrian confirmed his avatar.

“Cation should be exercised by user. Longer gaming will lead to an increased bleed effect. Physical changes in users’ real body will be reflected with user’s avatar.”

Hearing these two messages Eldrian’s jaw almost hit the floor. These side effects were simply amazing. ‘Why on earth did the company not mention this? Did they want to keep it as a surprise for prudent players? Or is there something more?’ Eldrian wondered.

“To finish user’s avatar creation, and be born into Gaia please name your avatar.” Stated the system voice.

‘Haru’ Eldrian said mentally to the system. It was the Japanese word for spring, and he felt it fit really well. Since this will be his new beginning.

Soon after saying Haru, Eldrian was surrounded by a soft white light. He also felt his body changing subtly. It was a queer feeling, not painful but certainly strange.

“Oh, another one just arrived, and look a High Elf.” A strange male voice entered Eldrian’s ears.

“Haha, what a strange elf. How did he even manage to gain weight?” A female voice echoed.

“So true right! Normally elves find it impossible to gain weight above the ideal amount. This one is truly talented.’ The female voice commented again.

‘Dang, seems like the meme is going to start from the NPCs side.’Eldrian thought as he felt his face becoming hot. Certainly, no man would like it when that, is the first thing a female commented on. And to add insult to his injury she was quite attractive.

After looking at his commentators Eldrian started to look around the room he was in, trying to distract himself from their looks. He was standing in a strange circle. This circle had pillars at 6 points, which somehow fit into the drawings or rather runes it was created out of.

‘This must be the spawn point.’ Eldrian thought as he looked ahead to observe the crowd ahead.