Falling. That was the very first thing Andrew was subjected to when the game systems took over his brain processes. He screamed out into the black void he was in, fear making his heart pound like a drum as the rushing wind deafened him. During his animalistic fear, a text box flashed to life a few inches from his face.

Thank you for being one of the first thousand players to enter the world, Below are our Terms of Serv-

The text box promptly vanished as Andrew checked the accept button, wanting to get out of this falling hell immediately, not even bothering to read them. Who actually read those things? As soon as the notification was cleared, the falling sensation went away as well, and he found himself suspended in the air as a white room suddenly materialized around him, four pillars ascending up to a ceiling that was so high he couldn’t see it, seeming to simply go on and on to the edge of his sight. A new notification flashed to life, this time far enough away for him to actually read.

Welcome to Astrala, where the fantastical is reality, where your dreams have substance and your desires can be fulfilled. A choice lies before you; you may accept a base stat of 10 in every attribute, or you may take the proficiency tests and prove your skills.

Andrew tilted his head to the side, a proficiency test? None of the games he had played before had done anything like this, but then again, Krowsford industries wasn’t a gaming company, so maybe they wanted to do things their own way. Strangely there wasn’t any buttons on this notification, but the choice was obvious. “Take the proficiency test.” There was a brief stutter in the world, just a momentary darkness that Andrew hardly noticed. With a few blinks, the groggy feeling that had washed over him faded away, greeted by a new notification.

Proficiency test complete, Below are a list of starting sets you are qualified to select based on your proficiency. Please select one of the sets listed before continuing into the world.

The list wasn’t incredibly long, things like archer, rogue, wayfarer… Attendant? Scribe? These were weird class options, who would actually choose something like this? Andrew shrugged and looked over the list for a moment, he usually played either a support or a DPS class, he didn’t much like playing as a tank, and in a world where pain was actually a real thing, he’d be trying to avoid maces to the head as much as possible.

With that thought in mind, he was torn between the rogue and the archer. He wasn’t sure what a wayfarer was, but something told him it wasn’t nearly as useful as these two classes. As an archer, he could keep his distance from Melee fighters entirely and pick them off, but as a rogue he could sneak about and get stealth attacks off, easily dodging blows that would kill him.

Andrew nodded with a smile and selected the rogue class, items suddenly falling to the ground in front of him.

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Simple Leather Cuirass

Durability: 50/50

Rarity: Common

Protects one’s torso from attacks.

Value:???(Object is not appraised)

——————

Simple Leather Greaves

Durability: 20/20

Rarity: Common

Protects one’s legs from attacks.

Value: ???(Object is not appraised)

——————

Simple Leather Vambraces

Durability: 20/20

Rarity: Common

Protects one’s forearms from attacks.

Value: ???(Object is not appraised)

——————

Simple Leather Boots

Durability: 30/30

Rarity: Common

Protects one’s feet from debris and attacks.

Value: ???(Object is not appraised)

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Crude Iron Dagger(x2)

Durability: 50/50

Rarity: Common

A simple instrument for skinning and attacking, the favored weapon of less savory types.

Value: ???(Object is not appraised)

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Travelers Cloak

Durability: 10/10

Rarity: Very Common

A simple hooded cloak designed to shield against the elements.

Value: ???(Object is not appraised)

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3 Silver Coin

15 Copper Coin.

——————

Andrew’s smile grew even wider when he saw all of the gear that he awarded, setting about putting them on as fast as he could, surprised that he had to do it manually rather than just dragging it into a slot in his status page. It took him some time to finally get the armor all situated, but it fit him perfectly, and it didn’t hamper his movements at all. He looked over himself now, smiling at how he looked, like a proper rogue ready to go on a big heist!

A sense of excitement came over him, something as simple as getting geared up with starting equipment felt so awesome, imagine how fun the actual game itself will be? With a simple mental flex, his status screen flashed to life in his face, looking over his gains from the proficiency test.

Name: ???

Level: 1

EXP:0/100

Specialization: N/A

HP:100/100

Stamina:190/190

Mana:0/0

Strength:8

Determines melee damage with strength based weapons and carry weight.

Dexterity:19

Determines agility and stamina, as well as accuracy with ranged weapons and damage with finesse based weapons.

Constitution:10

Determines HP as well as resistance to certain status effects.

Intelligence:12

Determines Mana, as well as influencing certain skills.

Charisma:23

Affects certain inborn abilities and social grace.

Wisdom:7

Determines instincts and Mana Regeneration, as well as resistance to certain status effects.

Andrew couldn’t help but be a tad confused at his status sheet, where was his class, and what was a specialization? He also noted that he doesn’t have any mana whatsoever, despite having a 12 in intelligence! “What the hell? I thought even martial classes had Mana in most MMOs?” He complained aloud, getting no response from the system.

He could do nothing but sigh and accept his fate as a player without magic, for now. He would find a way to fix that in the future if he could. His strength wasn’t that great, but that was to be expected since he never really put much effort into working out in the real world, but seeing such a high dexterity did put a smile on his face! “Guess I’m not completely out of shape, huh?” Constitution was at what he assumed was the average, which made complete sense to him. After all, what had he done in the real world to make himself tougher?

Intelligence made him frown however, he had thought himself pretty smart, but the game apparently had labeled him at barely above average. Sure he knew he wasn’t a rocket scientist, but come on he had to be smarter than that! Of course Charisma was a stupidly high stat for him, since he worked in customer service for a long time, but it was basically a dump stat unless he had some inborn abilities he didn’t know about. At least he wouldn’t piss off any NPCs any time soon… probably.

Wisdom… well he had no comment on that, they say wisdom comes with age, so he wasn’t in any rush to increase that, it didn’t sound too useful anyways. While he was distracted with his own thoughts, a notification window had popped up, and he finally noticed it now that it was flashing red at him to draw his attention.

Congratulations on completing character creation! The last step is to state the name you will go by in this new and exciting world, after that your starting location will be randomly selected. After this point, the system will no longer assist you in any way beyond what your skills are able to facilitate. The world is a harsh place but is filled with opportunity, your success and failure is dependent on no one but yourself!

Well that was a foreboding message, but at least it meant he was finally going to be able to get into the game world! He thought for a while what he would name this character, this was never his strong suit, and he always picked a name that was rather silly or was some kind of inside joke.

But this didn’t seem like the kind of world for that, if anything, this game would probably be heavy on role-play, and hearing NPC’s call him something like SniperLord39 would get old pretty fast… Well, if he wanted something that would fit the theme and not sound ridiculous, he should go with…

“My name is Andius.” There was a thrum in the air, power churning around him in ways that he did not understand. This was the start of an epic adventure, and he was determined to leave his mark on this world!