In a flash, everything around Jack disappeared. He was now standing in utter darkness and the only thing he could see was another version of himself, standing there with a strange text above his head.

Unnamed

This avatar didn’t have his sickly, bald and emaciated appearance from the last years of his life. Instead, it looked exactly how he did before things went downhill. It had medium height, around 1,75m, a lean physique, short black hair and ordinary facial features. It was strange for Jack seeing his old self like that. While he was lost in thought, the voice of the woman he was talking to before sounded on his ears.

“All right, first choose your name.”

“Jack is fine.”

The text before his other self changed.

Jackisfine

“It says here I need to ask you if you want to keep this name.”

“Is this a joke? No.”

“Why a joke? Oh, sorry! I’m not very good with this system. Ok, done. Choose your name again.”

“Jack.”

The text changed again.

Jack

“I assume you want to keep it?”

“Yes.”

“Ok, now what race do you want to be?”

His avatar began to alternate between different versions of himself. He became a dwarf, an elf, a gnome, a halfling, an orc, and many other races. It was weird to see how he looked like in all those different versions.

What should I choose? Each race has different advantages and disadvantages. If only I knew for sure what kind of class I want to be in the future I could choose accordingly. In the end, I think going with human is for the best. They’re always well-rounded, so I can choose whatever kind of class or playstyle I want afterwards without many drawbacks. Plus, I’m not sure I’d ever get used to have the short legs of a dwarf, being feminine looking like an elf or monstrous looking like an orc.

“I’ll be human.”

His other self stopped shifting and returned to his previous human appearance.

“Ok, now for attributes. This is what you start with… wait just a sec, how do I send you an image again? Argh, this is so annoying! Oh, found it, here!”

A window popped into existence in front of Jack.

Basic Attributes

Pts

Basic Description

Strength

5

+ attack power of STR weapons, + carrying capacity, + lift/drag/pull

Dexterity

5

+ attack power of DEX weapons, + attack rating, + critical chance

Intelligence

5

+ spell power & critical chance to INT based spells

Faith

5

+ spell power & critical chance to FAITH based spells

Vitality

5

gain more hp, hp regen and stamina

Agility

5

gain more speed, armor rating & evasion rating

Wisdom

5

gain more mp, mp regen and increases your chance to get extra lives

Luck

0

affects everything in countless small ways, points can’t be added on lvl up

Starter Points

40

number of available stat points on character creation

Jack tried to use his translucent finger to touch the screen, but nothing happened. He changed his approach and focused his thoughts on moving the starter points around, but again, nothing happened.

“How do I interact with it?” asked Jack.

“You can’t. You’re still just a soul stuck on Purgatory, so you can’t interact with the World System yet. Just tell me how you want your stats distributed. It says here the default should be to put five points into each.”

“Put everything in luck.”

There was a brief moment of silence.

“Are you sure? Here it says that the normal is to put five on each and that smart people will choose 3 or 4 attributes to strengthen…” asked that feminine voice.

Jack didn’t have to think twice, he already learned his lesson from what had happened to him before. He gave up on many of life’s little pleasures to be someone fit and healthy, to live to the maximum age humanly possible, only to die young at seventeen years old.

In the end, what ruled the world was luck! Your choices and efforts could sway things lightly, but ultimately it was luck that decided it all. How many times had he heard famous and rich people say “You know, I think I was just on the right place at the right time” to how they made their big break or fortune. Previously he thought they were all being smug, downplaying their achievements to gain greater popularity, but now he could really see it. It was all just dumb luck!

Since that was the case, Luck was the most important attribute for Jack. He was really saddened to read that he wouldn’t be able to further increase his Luck on levelling up. In the end he would have to be content with forty points on it and hope it was enough to sway things in his favour.

“I’m sure, put it all on Luck.”

“Ok. It says here that two skills will be generated based on your race, attribute distribution and other miscellaneous things. You’ll be able to see them afterwards.”

“All right. What’s next? Class selection?”

“No, you don’t start with a class, or profession, as it’s called in the Game World. You’ll have to obtain that on your own in the future.”

That’s good, I’d be really unsure about what class to pick. I also would like to see what two skills I’ll get first. Perhaps they will be really good to a specific class, then I can go from there.

Lost in his own thoughts, Jack didn’t catch what the woman said next in its entirety.

“…. and that’s it. I wish you the best in your afterlife. Bye, Jack.”

Jack felt his awareness tremble, like he was falling asleep, and everything faded to darkness once again. He could no longer see his other self standing in front of him, nor hear the voice of the woman at his ear. He zoned out.

He came to again a short moment later, gasping for breath. That took some time to sink in. He was breathing again, he was alive. Jack couldn’t help but smile and think about the entire surreal experience he’d just gone through.

“Holy crap, that was… that was… I don’t even know what that was.”