So this is my first FF and I would like to get feedback from you on it. It's going to be sci-fi themed. Some chapter I would work longer as I want at last do little research on some tech. At last theoretical.

I sincerely hope you would enjoy it.

For proofreading I want to thank Tomolone and Ulvr. They really helped me with makeing it better.

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Finally, the day I’m going to log in the game for the first time. I bought a helmet for the Virtual game from half a year of savings. I installed it myself in my bedroom so I could play while I was asleep. I didn’t want to buy the whole capsule as it was too expensive. I lay on my bed and plugged the helmet into the network port.

On the helmet monitor, I could see progress bar of my brain scan. It said that it would need the next five minutes. I was so excited that I started to think about what I would pick for race and class. This also caused me to not notice the popup for the next phase. Once I saw it I immediately selected yes. At the same time, I could feel my consciousness fade.

At first there was darkness, but after a few seconds the room started to illuminate from beneath my feet. I could see, I was in some sort of room. Bad surprise for me was that my right hand was gone, same as when I was born. I just hoped, I’ll be able to change it somewhere.

I was standing in nicely furnished room. It looked like reception with counter and all. Behind counter sat a woman in late thirties with bright red hair. She looked at me and frowned, “So even someone like you wants to try this game.” Then she turned away with angry expression, “Just pick one door and go!”

I was annoyed with her because she was obviously a real person and knew who I was. I came here because I didn’t want people to find out who I was. Still I looked at each door and could see an inscription on them. Strength, Agility and Intelligence. From that I could tell, I would have to pick what my character main attribute was. I didn’t want strength as I liked to use finesse more. So that left me with Intelligence or agility. My pick would depend on character I want to go.

I looked at woman behind the counter and asked her politely, “Can you tell me what the difference between agility and intelligence is?”

She looked back at me like I was something disgusting, “No, can’t help you.”

I stared back at her. At least she should help me, even if she hates me. It’s her job. I smiled back at her and started to record this conversation, “Please call your superior. I’d like to speak with him and for your information, I’m also recording this conversation from now on”

She looked at me with so much hate that I was startled, “Ok. I’ll call him.”

After that she disappeared. Two minutes later, an older man in a black suit appeared in her place.

“Good day. I apologize for my colleague. She’s young and hot-blooded. I hope you can forgive her behaviour.” He said nervously.

I looked at him and could see he was afraid I would continue press the issue with his colleague, but I have had enough of this in real life. I didn’t want to be there with them any longer then I have to. “Sure, no problem. Just answer my question please.” I said finally.

Thanks and what would the question be?” he said relieved.

I went straight to the point, “Can you tell me the difference between Agility and Intelligence doors?”

“Of course, agility is your ability to move more freely and it boosts your reaction time. It helps with coordination and flexibility of your body. Intelligence is ability to comprehend and use information. It also helps with learning new things.” He said.

I could tell that myself but at last he did tell what I wanted, “Thank you, that would be all for now. I think this will be easy for me then” I said and went to the door with the Intelligence inscription.

There was flash of light and I was standing in a meadow. It was full of short grass and flowers of every colour. In the middle of it was a small girl making flower crown. There were four circles in an imaginary cube shape around the little girl.

“Hi my name is Leya. Could you help me find someone to help me pick my race and create my character?”

She looked up at me smiling, “I can help you with that.” And she changed to young woman with long blonde hair and gorgeous body and face. She continued “Hi my name is Virtua, also known as the AI governing this world. I’m here to help you start your new life in this world.”

She started to point with her hands, “If you look to your left there is platform where you can pick your race, and on right you can pick your starting skills and traits. Behind you, you can pick your equipment. And in front of you is the last circle which will transport you to my world.

She surprised me. Not only because of her sudden change, but also because most AI I met were without personality. They were just tightly focused on one aspect of their job.

“Thank you, then I’ll go and start by picking my race and after that I’ll continue and pick my skills. Can you tell me something about them while I pick my race?” I moved to pick my starting race.

I scrolled through them to found one that would be ideal for me. I wanted a race that could build things, but were good at piloting a spaceship. Also it would change my appearance so no one would recognize me. I tried a lot of them while Virtua was telling me about skills and how they worked.

“At start you have thousand points for which you can buy skills or traits. There are a lot of skills with different cost. There are placed in four categories: Combat, Magic, Engineering and General. You can learn all skills in the game but it’s harder to get some of them as you have to fulfil some requirements to get them. So try to think about how you want to play and pick skills corresponding with it.”

I listened to her while scrolling through thousands of races. I knew it would take too long to go across all of them, “Can you help me pick a race? There are just too many of them. If possible I’d like a race that’s good at engineering and piloting a spaceship. It would have to be race thatwill change my appearance, so no one can recognize me.”

“Wait a second while I browse through them.” She looked thoughtful for couple seconds, “I found fifty races with these conditions. Three of them are ones you are looking for probably.”

“Can you show me three races that you spoke of?”

Before I could finish saying it there were three races before me.

First was some kind of a small alien with slim body, almost anorectic looking with long fingers. It had grey skin without any hair and big dark black eyes. It was like alien from old movies. They were little too creepy for me.

Grey lords

Name which they got because of their grey skin and attitude to other species. Because of experiments on other species, they were hunted almost to extinction. They are exceptional engineers with one of the best ships. They lived mostly in space so their strength is almost none compared to other races. They are forced to use suits on planets to help them function.- Their strength is quartered compared to normal

- Their engineering skills have better growth than normal

- Because of their living in space they have exceptional orientation in space. That gives them bonuses while piloting.

- They can multitask with their mind

- 61 bodies left for players

Second race was some kind of bug. Whole body was covered in an exoskeleton and it was at last two and half meter tall. It looked like tall cockroach but at the end of hands it had some sort of retractable tentacles which could be used for fine work.

Cherobin

Cherobins are military based and from young age are trained to work in space. Because of this, they are one of main powers in the universe. They may look clumsily but thanks to short retractable tentacles, they could manipulate really small objects without problems. In universe they aren’t very liked because they mostly stayed in secluded community.- Bonus to attack with bare hands

- Because of retractable tentacles they can use small object with greater care then most species

- Their ships are half living and as such they can use them to make different set of propulsion then others

- From beginning they have access to some special technologies

- They can get faster basic skills for ship handling and repairing it

- They are shunned in most of universe

Last race looked like normal human and I could not found much difference, at least not in appearance. Only difference were cat like eyes and ears.

Gorians

This race, even if similar to human is an alien race. They came from planet similar to Earth, but their culture is completely different. From a young age, they’re thought to hide their faces and reveal it only to their close friends, family and partner. As a species, they are genius engineers and capable pilots, but after war there are only couple of them left. They have cat like eyes and ears and because of this they are sometimes hunted for slavery.- They learn engineering skills much faster than normal

- They start with head gear or armor item which you have to pick

- Augmentation are normal for them and they are resilient to their negative effect

- From the start, they have access to some special technologies

- They lived mostly in space and every point in strength cost them two points

- They have problems with learning other languages

- They are sometimes hunted for slavery because of their engineering skills

- 3 bodies left for players

I liked this last one most as first two were just too much alien for me. Both had the skills and second had even some special skills which I would like to look at, but they were just to disgusting for me. I don’t like bugs so playing as one would be weird.

“How do I pick one?” I asked Virtua.

“You have to make changes first then you walk into it.” She explained.

“Thank you.” I said to her and then started to look at changes I could make on my character. I played about fifteen minutes with it and in the end, I just reset it. I took my normal appearance and change my hairs to long. It just didn’t matter as I would have my head hidden anyways. At last, I walked in to it.

When I touched it, I was changed to this race instantly and with it came new experiences. Like my hearing was much better, probably because of the ears. I also had sharp teeth. I noticed this because I cut my own tongue on them. For negatives, I could tell I was weaker than before. My sight was normal, but I could see slightly farther than myself. In the end, I was satisfied with my choice.

But biggest change for me was that I had a right hand. I tried to move it and there were no problems, no twitches and no jerkiness. There was instead an instant response from it. I pated it with my other hand to ensure it was there. I played with it and tried some exercises, but after five minutes I moved on. I was glad for it, but you can’t do many new things with an arm.

Now came time to pick skills. I went across the meadow to another circle, where I could pick my skills. There were four smaller circles representing one of each skill tree. I looked at skills and there were vast differences in strength of them. Stronger, of course, cost more, but on other side they let you do more than normal skills.

In every skill tree there was one skill for 1000 points. They bring some special options for the character, but they were more late game skills. At the start they didn’t give as much benefits as the smaller, less strong ones, but late game they would shine.

The combat tree, there was skill focused on controlling certain body parts to a higher extent. That could translate to a really strong fighter who could use short bursts of speed or strength, or just run really long. You could wield heavy weapons with less strength and learn to fight efficiently. The downside of this skill was that you didn’t get full access to it from beginning, you had to train it. It was a skill for players that had some real life experience with martial arts or fighting in general.

The magic tree had skill that focused on the gathering of raw mana. One could make a fireball or lightning strike out of raw mana without depending on wind or fire mana. All one has to do was change a mana type and he could use it. This enabled players to access all magic in the game. Downside for mage was that you lost a lot of skills in the beginning which made it harder to level up. You also had to change between different kinds of mana all the time.

The engineering tree gives you ability to understand all technology which brings you access to special items. Like with others it was more late game skill as at beginning, it would be tremendous luck just to find some powerful technology.

Last skill was for General use and it gets you nanobots or mana option to use your blood-vessel. If you don’t have nanobots you get them from start injected into you. If you don’t have race with mana you get one mana core placed into you. This enables you to control either mana or nanobots with thought. You can use them on yourself to heal, or in fight to enhance your body. From all other skills, this one was most versatile but didn’t get you instant access to some special actions.

I I looked at the other abilities, but I didn’t have good feel about them as I have with the 1000 point ones. In the end, I picked up Skills for nanobots to move into your body. I have some thoughts on how to use them to get others unique abilities.

I looked back at Virtua, “So what do you say?”

“Not what I thought you would pick, but it has a lot of potential.” She moved to third circle in meadow, “There you can pick your starting equipment. You can pick four items or three with your race.”

“I’ll go look at them, but just one quick question about this race. What would happen if someone saw my face? Is it such problem?” I asked with confusion written on my face.

“Your race would excommunicate you, and you would be probably hunted for slavery as your species are asked for in some communities.” she answered than looked thoughtful, “If I played your character, I would take armor as a starting item and not only head gear. As on some planets they hunt persons who don’t want to reveal their face. With armor you have at last better chance to defend yourself.”

Then with smile continued, “But that would only be me as I can’t give tips to players.”

I smiled back, “Ok, so no face showing in public. Thanks once more for the hypothetical situation.”

I went to third circle to pick my equipment. There was a lot of it and I could pick only four items. If I pick four equipment items then I would not have any water or food or even money and I had to pick armor or headgear so one item down.

First I looked at armors there. There were a lot of them from heavy to light with a lot of specialization. After 4 minutes of looking through them, I picked a medium type armor with specialization for direct access from the user. It enables user to access all sensors in it and use them as one’s own. I’ll have to try to connect with nanobots to an access ports and make it work with it. It even had a removing mouth piece for eating. From my perspective it looked ideal.

With this I had only three items left. Next I picked the multi-tool for engineering. With that I could build basic equipment pretty fast. Now for last two, both food and water for ten days with weapon or weapon and money. There were 2500 credits as this was neutral currency. I pondered about it, but until I know how much food and water cost it’s same as a coin toss.

“Can you tell me how much water and food costs?” I asked turning to Virtua.

“Normal traveller’s food and water for three days cost about 1500 credits, but you can buy plain food which would cost you 500 credits. It doesn’t satisfy as much though. It would last max two days.”

“So it’s probably better to just pick food and water with weapon.” I mused then looked with smile at Virtua, “Thanks for answer. I should have almost everything now. Where would I go after that?”

“All you have to do is step on last circle and you would be transported either to tutorial or to a random starting location in game.” She looked at last circle, “In the tutorial you would be taken through basic movement, piloting and better explanation of your skills. You can try some ideas there without penalization and after a maximum two days you would be transferred to random starting location.”

Food and water was not problem, but to pick right weapon for me was another. In the end I picked assault rifle as it looked easiest to handle.

I moved to last circle, but I looked behind me once more time, “Thank you for all you’ve done for me. It was long time since someone spoke to me so kindly and if you want in the future something, just call.”

She was obviously startled by this, “Not many people speak to me like to another person. I too thank you for this. Just enjoy your time in my world and I would be happy. Now go already and kick some ass.”

So I went to last circle where window came before me.

Type your name please:LeyaCONTINUE

I clicked continue on the popup window.

Do you want to play tutorial forst?YesNo

I clicked yes as there were some things I wanted to try first. I was immediately transported to a meadow. Almost same as one before, except on one side was something like shooting range, on other was a ship and on other two sides of imaginary cube were some engineering parts and magic circle.

First thing I did was equipping armor and trying to interact withit through nanobots. This was harder than I thought, so I started with something simpler. I tried to feel nanobots which was not hard, but when I tried to move them that was another story. If it’s like normal life, then my brain and body would have to adapt to having them, so with time I should have better control of them.

As I could be there 2 days I went to the ship to try pilot it. I was disappointed when I could only play a simulation in it. It was almost real, but without hum of drive and power source it was only game and nothing else. It was bare minimum to learn how to fly.

For the next six hours I flew in the simulator. I tried different scenarios and found out it was pretty hard to control a ship. Surprisingly, I didn’t have problem with 3D orientation, but more with my eye to hand coordination. I used to much thrust to move the ship around, but that should go away with more experience.

After this, I tried some weapons but focused mostly on a assault rifles. In the end, I found that best pick for me was pistol as my strength was lower than others. I could even dual wield pistols but not for long. It was really tiring. I would have to change my assault rifle for pistol when I get a chance.

Once more I tried to move nanobots in my body. After hour of trying I could move them little, but not enough to make connection with my armor. Still I have another day and a half. During this time I should focus on controlling them and to connect them with my armor. I started to get hungry after whole day, so it shows that even in tutorial some time is measured. I ate and drank little of my provisions.

Halfway through next day I managed to finally connect to my armor but I could not make much of the readings I got from it. So last half day I used to moving in armor and staying connected at the same time. It was harder than I thought it would be. I had to make all connections flexible. In the end I could maintain this connection for about 10 minutes before I could not concentrate enough on nanobots. As refreshment, I used piloting simulator and shooting range.

When the time came for me to end this tutorial, window popped up before me with ten seconds timer. After that there was flash and I was transported to my starting location.