“Now that your appearance is set, would you like to modulate your voice?”

“Yes, let's do that.” Carl jumped at the opportunity. He could absolutely not sound like the boyish, sickly him.

After bestowing himself with a powerfully resonating tone, Carl was beside himself with joy. It perplexed him, why would Cybercore allow such unrealistic alteration. It wasn't as noticeable when he was talking normally, though he could still feel some goosebumps when he heard his avatar speak, but when he shouted, it resounded … mightily!

“Holy Smokes! I can only hope they don't patch it after launch.”

Smiling with gratification, Carl remembered the irritating AI.

“System, do you have any other voice?”

“I do,”–

Carl facepalmed. “Why didn't I ask earlier?”

–“but this is the default setting for you, Carl. If you wish to change my voice, you will have to purchase another one from the interface shop.”

Carl gaped.

“Are – you – kidding – me?!”

Now that was low!

Cybercore was already going to charge a monthly subscription fee for the service once it fully opened, though they promised this could be paid with ingame currency. Carl was exempt as a VIP customer, having purchased their pricey helmet, but this …

Was there really a need for cosmetic microtransactions?

How many billions was Cybercore going to make from the fees, peripheries, advertisements and licenses? Hundreds? Possibly even trillions of dollars?

That still wasn't enough?

Well, okay, they were horrifyingly in the red at this point, having spent tens of billions of their capital, and borrowing over a hundred billion on top of that. They invested their fortunes, hearts and souls into the product, making it otherworldly. It was all worth the expense, but they should at least have given him a neutral announcer as a default …

“Please choose your starting skills and proficiencies.”

“Oh well, tough life.”

“You can select from a wide variety of preset professions, or customize your own build.”

“Customize!”

An endless list appeared in Carl's vision, sorted alphabetically, divided into combat, gathering and crafting, also tagged by magical, non-magical, prerequisite, standalone, grade 0 or grade 1. Many options were grayed out, as they were race and attribute dependent, and despite being all basic … there was still over a thousand of them.

Carl sensed a headache coming. The previously publicized ones only amounted to a few percent of what was now offered. It would be morning already when he familiarized himself with them all, and he really didn't want to miss out on something with unforeseeable potential. After all, he was extremely adept at exploiting loopholes, and even something as polished as Immortal Frontier was bound to have some.

“Should I just give up on trickery and play in a straight-forward manner? Hmm …”

If it wasn't explicitly forbidden, then it wasn't cheating, only shrewdness, but people were still bound to be outraged, and things were going to get patched eventually – not to mention, that this was one of the main objectives of a trial version. After the month was over, there would also be plenty of research done on all the skills and proficiencies, and the initial meta would be established through mega-crowd analytics. It was likely Carl would be changing his choices during open launch anyway. But this would only take a few seconds, which was nothing in comparison to sculpting the appearance.

“System, highlight magical grade 1 battle skills for compact weapons and unarmed close-combat, as well as related proficiencies.”

He couldn't care less about non-magical skills, as they could be manually learned for free. Although they were cheap to acquire, they only assisted the players with correct force application, puppeteering them to some degree. He also wasn't going to use swords or staves, at least at the beginning. Not with his terrible agility. He had no prior real-life experience with those, and legacy technology was no good for mastering them, either.

Immortal Frontier was going to be ludicrously, outrageously, shockingly realistic. Carl's scuffles with the lion had shown him exactly, how much of a challenge the game would present to the average player. He would never be able to hit his enemies with a sword, much less inflict any serious wounds on them.

Combat experts, on the other hand, like soldiers, commandos, special agents, Olympic fencers, or even assassins, would breeze through the beginning stages and rapidly accrue an advantage. That's if they could be bothered to spend time in VR. Some surely would, though.

All this was because Cybercore's dedicated quantum supercomputer and their whole platform were built to emulate the established laws of physics, based on the 7 fundamental SI measurement units of time, length, mass, current, temperature, amount of substance and luminous intensity: second, meter, kilogram, ampere, kelvin, mole, and candela. From these seven, every other compound measurement could be derived.

And although they had to drastically simplify the microscopic scale, as it would be impossible to supply the necessary computing power even for a small room, much less an entire planet, the macrocosm was simulated so well, that without looking carefully at the details, it felt uncannily real.

Objects were marked with hitboxes accurate down to a fraction of a millimeter, they had their acceleration, inertia, momentum, kinetic energy, potential energy, heat capacity, electric resistance, magnetism, hardness, elasticity, tensile strength, phase transitions, and even sound wave propagation. Liquids and gasses had their fluid mechanics, they had viscosity and adhesion, they produced drag and shockwaves.

Specialized AI used streamlined algorithms to compress and decompress the data in real time, always on the lookout for what was static or otherwise predictable and could be relegated into background. The moment a player arrived and started messing about, it would spring into action and appropriate computing power to fill in the blanks and expand the scale of detail, taking a lot of shortcuts difficult to detect with the naked eye.

The whole system worked in tandem – the servers handled all the sensitive assets to prevent data mining and hacking, sending encrypted, compressed, low-resolution streams to the users via internet, where the user's personal units unpacked it, interpreted it, resolved the textures and effects, and gave a polished look. The better the machine, the better the visuals and sensations. But even the standard helmet was sufficiently powerful, its quantum processor thousands of times faster than a whole supercomputer from a hundred years before.

And although the matter of hacking the players' inputs themselves to improve the handling of their avatars remained, this turned out to be so difficult, that it was a non-factor. Cybercore had long known, that only a multi-billion dollar neuro-scientifical venture could safely and accurately decipher the signals going in and out of the brain. Anyone who tried hacking their personal units would only be inviting tragedy.

Now, because of such realism, Carl had to reach for drastic measures.

All objects involved in battle would be of top priority. As a consequence, everything mattered, just like in real life – the stance, the angle and speed of attack, the flick of the wrist, the shifting of weight, the leverage. Carl found out the hard way, that it's one thing to deliver the tip or the edge of the blade to the enemy, but another one entirely to pierce and slash them.

He thus needed a hands-on approach, so to speak.

“What's a karambit?”

An image of a small, curved knife resembling a claw with a finger ring popped up, peaking Carl's interest.

“Okay, not bad. The ring will help prevent being disarmed.”

Carl nodded.

“What other knives with a hand guard are there in the game?”

A whole array of common quality daggers and knives appeared on display, as requested.

“Oh, that knuckle dagger looks sweeet! Yep, I'm going for it.”

Having foreknowledge of the tribulations ahead of him, Carl resolutely spent 10 points on Vicious Hook, an empowered knife attack meant to pierce hard targets, followed by 10 points on Ripping Claw, an empowered knife attack meant to inflict massive wounds on soft targets, then 10 points on Jarring Fist, a likewise empowered punch meant to deliver concussive trauma, as well as 6 points on Basic Hand-to-hand Combat, a proficiency focusing on strengthening the grip, the fist and the wrist.

[Vicious Hook] (activable, cost: 10, requirements: Basic Hand-to-hand Combat)

Dagger skill, grade 1 (low), entry level.

Effects: 20 mana per use, doubles the attack's momentum and coats the tip of the blade in a self-sharpening forcefield extending up to 5 cm.

[Ripping Claw] (activable, cost: 10, requirements: Basic Hand-to-hand Combat)

Dagger skill, grade 1 (low), entry level.

Effects: 20 mana per use, doubles the attack's momentum and coats the edge of the blade in a self-sharpening forcefield extending up to 1 cm.

[Jarring Fist] (activable, cost: 10, requirements: Basic Hand-to-hand Combat)

Pugilist skill, grade 1 (low), entry level.

Effects: 20 mana per use, doubles the attack's momentum, locks the wrist and coats the surface of the fist in a hard forcefield.

[Basic Hand-to-hand Combat] (passive, cost: 6)

Proficiency; prerequisite; improves handling in close quarters, strengthens attacks, and lowers chances of being disarmed or injured.

“Wow, if I had these, it would be so easy to kill that lion …” Carl fantasized.

He planned to use Vicious Hook on a knuckled dagger with arch in, so the blade didn't get in the way as much when punching, and Ripping Claw on a karambit, either reverse grip arch out, or hammer grip arch in, like it was shown on the pictures, and the basic proficiency combined with the knives' secure grips would all but guarantee he didn't lose them in a scuffle. Jarring Fist, on the other hand, could be used either with a bare fist, or with fist-load weapons for improved effect.

There was also Intermediate Hand-to-hand Combat and even an advanced version, each requiring the purchase of the previous one, but they would only improve on technique, not on handling, so Carl saw them as a waste of precious points. Even though they unlocked stronger magical attacks, these attacks also used more mana, offsetting their output, and most importantly, they cost far too many points – roughly 20 each for grade 1 medium quality, and 40 for grade 1 high quality skills.

Carl only had 50 points for skills and 50 for proficiencies, and there were plenty of lifesaving skills and strengthening proficiencies available, so he had to be efficient with his spending.

Following his attack skill choice, Carl went straight for the bottom line, selecting Arrest Bleeding active skill and several pain resistance perks.

[Arrest Bleeding] (activable, cost: 20, requirements: 15 intelligence, 15 perception)

Medical skill, grade 1 (medium), entry level.

Effects: 1/s mana upkeep for each 1 ml/s of blood loss, target: self, completely stops all bleeding.

[Pain Enthusiast] (passive, cost: 4, requirements: 10 willpower)

Proficiency; prerequisite; reduces the effects of involuntary flinching and the chances of fainting.

[Pain Aficionado] (passive, cost: 8, requirements: 15 willpower, Pain Enthusiast)

Proficiency; prerequisite; further reduces the effects of involuntary flinching and the chances of fainting.

[Pain Fanatic] (passive, cost: 16, requirements: 20 willpower, Pain Aficionado)

Proficiency; prerequisite; greatly reduces the effects of involuntary flinching and the chances of fainting.

These were absolutely essential for him. Although they only affected the character, and not the player, it was still a must. Even if the players handled the pain and reflexes well, or if they simply opted for no pain realism, their characters would still suffer some effects of panicking, reducing the players' grasp on their controls in those key moments. As stated, this would manifest as involuntary twitching, interrupting the player's actions, like activable skills, and – more importantly – executing magical formulas, which often took a while to complete. It was thus an indispensable ability for mages, who needed high willpower anyway.

Additionally, the character could faint after sustaining sufficient trauma or blood loss long before its health hit 0, severing its connection with the player. It would then be at the mercy of its enemies and allies – a very bad fate, if one wanted to play solo.

There was also [Pain Freak] (passive, requirements: 25 willpower, Pain Fanatic, exposure to pain 0/1 000 000) listed as a continuation of the tree, which was just godly, as it made one immune to flinching and fainting, but the requirement of exposure to pain was a big barrier. Carl didn't even know how much was 1 million points, but it sounded like an awful lot.

And [Arrest Bleeding] was and advanced skill that stopped all bleeding for as long as the user had mana to keep it running, expanding on an inferior [Slow Bleeding], that did just that and required 10 of each attribute instead of 15. This was an invaluable ability for survival, as blood loss was already stated as the silent killer of Immortal Frontier, based on all the gossip, and Carl could see that his character info stated 0/s health regeneration, which was likely the standard across all starting races.

After careful deliberation, Carl Spent the remaining 16 point of proficiencies on [Mana Conduit] (passive, cost: 16, requirements: 20 perception), which granted extra 100% mana regeneration, neatly emptying his allotted pool. Although he foresaw consumables like potions for restoring mana, which might make the ability obsolete, he also had a hunch Immortal Frontier was not going not be this easy on players. Yes, resources that restored a fixed amount of mana like a battery would make Mana Conduit rather useless, but they were probably rare and expensive, while basic ones were bound to temporarily increase the innate regeneration rate – where 100% boost would do wonders.

“Okay, I'm ready. Show me the equipment shop!”

Carl rubbed his hands in anticipation.