Today is final the day, November 5th launch day of the uninspiringly named World of Magic . Name aside Palton was excited as he climbed out of the pod he had been sleeping in since Sunday, when the pod rooms were opened to renters like himself. Thinking back to how much he paid for the 3 months Palton cringed to himself “well too late to change things now I suppose.” And with a shrug he proceeded to go to the rooms bathroom to preform daily maintenance activity's for the last time for awhile as the pod once online will take care of all that, part of getting the most expensive model he reasoned to himself ineffectively. After some more cringing and self assurances he finished up showering and such with still half an hour before the pod would be online, he settled himself within the pod and prepared for a wait, annoyed at himself for once again being prepared too early. after some self admonishment and waiting his phone that was hooked into the pod gave off a small *ding* signaling to him he had only one minute left. settling himself one last time and pulling the pod closed he eagerly awaited the launch time. After an excruciating 30 seconds that felt more like an hour Palton felt a weird disconnect from his body as if he would be unable to move even if he wanted to before he was able to open his eyes, recognizing this feeling from when the calibrations almost a week ago he knew he was logged in. Opening his eyes Palton found himself in front of a mirror in a plane of nothing showing him a copy of himself, he took a moment to examine and the reflection reflected how he looked when he did his calibrations. After a moment he heard a voice “welcome to character selection. to change as aspect of your person please just say what you would like to change.” The voice certainly had a robotic feel to it. Palton just hoped the rest of the npc's in World of magic didn't share this flatness, either way he wouldn't dilly dally he wanted to get into game quickly as possible so he wasn't gonna spend all day on this. “can you give me medium length black hair and randomize my face but keep it male” Palton knew he had no intention of messing around with his body too much figuring any drastic changes would make it harder to move around naturally which would be a detriment in combat. after inspecting it and then asking for randomization a few dozen times he settled on something bland with the only standout feature being this almost black iris. looking at the completed character. a somewhat tall lanky figure with black hair that came just above his nose in length. figuring that there will be other ways to customize in game if he wanted to change it anymore, this should be good enough. and after relaying that thought vocally the mirror lowered into the floor, and then he heard the voice again. “What kind of player do you intend to be? This will be used to determine your starting equipment and skills ” Palton didn't have to think much for this one as he had spent weeks trying to decide a playstyle. “adventurer specialized in monster hunting.” Palton spoke. “ Alright and what do you plan to use to kill said monsters?” “Daggers thrown and held as well as any magic I can learn easily” “For the magic would you prefer sorcery, wizardry or would you prefer to learn once in-game?” “Uhh could you give me a brief description of the options?” “Sorcery is magic attuned to an element that you are blessed in, picking this will have you granted a random blessing, you can unlock more later but to start off with the magic will be limited, sorcerers focus more on changing spells to focus on the situation and less on pre prepared spells like the wizards which use unattuned magic that can be changed to other elements through producing spells, wizards focus on creating versatility though a wide array of different spells for every situation but struggle changing spells in the moment. and not picking one here would just mean you hope to find a more preferred option in the world as these aren't the only ways of unlocking magic just the only available from the start. you can still change the kind you use it will just be more difficult than if you started with it.” “so essentially its creating spells beforehand for specific situations as a wizard but with less restriction's or creating spells on the fly with elemental restrictions with sorcerer or just hope I run into something else in game?” “correct” After the exchange Palton took a moment to think. “On one hand wizard sounds better in the long run if I dedicate some time to it, but sorcery would probably be better if I just want to learn some magic to supplement my fighting as I go.” After a moment he spoke up. “I would like to go with sorcery, and how is my element selected?” “The element is random with rarer elements being less likely to selected. Are you sure you would like to go with sorcerer you cannot easily change this? once you agree I will immediately roll an element you can choose to reroll 2 times if you do not like the element chosen. be aware after choosing to reroll the previous option is lost you must select the new one or reroll once more in which case you will be locked in.” “Yea sorcery is what I'm going with.” “understood” After this was said a roulette wheel appeared and began spinning. And after about 3 seconds it slams into a stop showing the word Fire written on its face. Thinking to himself Palton decides that fire isn't the play and that he wants his magic to be more utility than damage and for it to act as supportive of his main form of attack. as he is about to speak up the voice returns “You have rolled fire magic is this what you would like to keep or would you prefer to give it another shot?” “Reroll please.” With a whirl the slots begin spinning again and its previous actions repeat themselves, but instead of fire the face reads Fog. This time while thinking about it Palton begins to nod head head appreciatively. “Much better this should work well with daggers, I could be a rouge who can create his own cover.” after speaking this the voice returns. “You have rolled Fog magic is this what you would like to keep or would you prefer to take a chance on your final roll?” “Nah I think fog will work well for me” “Understood now that you have your magic decided on time for your starter skills you will be given 9 skills to chose from and you may pick 3 to start with these skills will level about 50% faster than naturally acquired skills up to uncommon rank at which point that bonus goes away.” After saying this the roulette wheel sinks into the floor like the mirror did and in its place a small table with 9 cards and 3 card shaped slots rose up. “Place the 3 skill cards you wish to keep in the 3 slots to proceed.” Palton picked up the pile of cards and read through them one after the other. Throw dagger Increases accuracy and power of thrown objects. Dagger stab Increases accuracy and power of stab attacks. Dagger slash Increases speed of and power of slash attacks. Dodge roll Increases speed and chance of avoiding damage while dodging. Shadow sneak Decreases noise and chance of being noticed while sneaking. Monster butcher Harvest monster parts with a higher success rate. Monster tracking More easily spot discrepancy's in an environment. Running Increases speed when moving. Dexterity increases range of movement and reaction time as well as control over your body. Taking a moment to read the cards Palton started speaking to himself out loud. “dexterity seems kind of out of place, doesn't that cover almost every other ability? Either way these all seem pretty important. Should I go for the stuff I use most or the stuff I need but wont use as often to help them keep up?” After thinking it out for a few minutes Palton spoke up again. “I guess I'll do throwing so I can get accuracy up quickly, monster butcher so I can get better quality drops early, and dexterity since it cover the most ground.” While speaking he placed these 3 cards in the slots and after he finished the voice spoke up again. “Are you sure you would like to select these skills?” “Yea” After responding the table and cards sank into the floor again and in their place rose another table this time with 6 daggers on it as well as a target about 10 feet away from Palton. “Huh I guess I still gotta earn the skills.” while speaking Palton walked up to the table and grabbed a dagger and attempted to throw it at the target, for it to spin mid air and bounce off its handle on the edge of the target. Frowning as the dagger landed on the ground Palton threw another one after the other none managing to even connect the blade into the target until he was out at which point he walked up grabbed the daggers and tried again, and again, and again till he finally got one to actually stick into the target. *Ding* After the sound resounded the table and target sank into the floor and then a small dead crab and a dagger rose up to take their place. “Well at least it didnt start with a mammal” Palton spoke before sighing and kneeling to get a better look at the crab. The crab body was about the size of his torso with each main arm was thicker than his carb and ended in a claw that could easily encircle any of his limbs. After a small shudder Palton grabbed the dagger and began taking the crab apart by separating all the limbs from the body at the joints, afterwards he pried the top of the shell from the body and after laying all the parts out on the ground and standing up to admire his handy work he heard the sound again. *Ding* With that out of the way the crab and all its bits plus the dagger sank into the floor being replaced by a yoga mat. “Well I should have figured.” Spoke Palton as he stood on the mat. Deciding to just do the stretching routine he had to do back in high-school gym class. After a few minutes of stretching in silence he got back on his feet and relaxed afterwards another sound rang out. *Ding* Followed by the return of that oh so familiar at this point voice. “Congrats to access the menu to inspect your skills as well as magic, inventory, and player tools simply act as if you were trying to grab a phone out of the air” Listening to the voice Palton does as instructed and a large phone like device appears there are no buttons on it and the screen is on already and he begins to read it. Skills Magic Inventory Player tools Palton reads the options then taps skills, and it opens a new page. Skills *Throw dagger lvl 1 (common) Increases accuracy and power of thrown objects. *Monster butcher lvl 1 (common) Harvest monster parts with a higher success rate. *Dexterity lvl 1 (common) increases range of movement and reaction time as well as control over your body. After messing around for a minute Palton figured out he could go back a page by swiping right. After doing that he clicked on the magic tab. Magic Fog lvl 1 create lvl 1 When he pulled this page the voice spoke up again. “To learn how to cast magic simply press on the skill under the element” Following the instructions he pressed create and suddenly became aware of what felt like a muscle in his chest that he could flex and after a moment of thinking flexed the new muscle and felt a small draining sensation before noticing a small amount of mist flowing off his skin. “Woah” He flexed the muscle harder and the mist became thicker and after a moment he felt a snapping sensation from the muscle before he was hit by a headache and the mist started to thin out and he realized the muscle untensed itself trying to flex it again just caused the headache to worsen. “Fucking hell!” “you are currently experiencing mana sickness from running out of mana, you just have to wait a moment to regen enough mana to clear the symptoms.” and not long after the pain subsided but he still felt slightly empty, Palton just assumed that this was his way of sensing how much mana he was at, waiting for him to feel full took about 5 minutes. afterwards he backed out of the magic menu and opened the Inventory menu. Inventory Dagger Starting equipment After opening this page the voice returned. “To take something out tap the item and then reach into the screen and grab and then pull your hand out.” Palton tapped on dagger and reached in, afterwards he pulled his hand out now holding a dagger identical to the ones he used for throw training. “Huh that felt kind of weird” “to identify items simply tap the item with the phone” Again following the instructions Palton tapped the dagger using the phone and a new page opened up Dagger (common) standard dagger found in tutorial nothing of interest. “And to add something to your inventory all you have to do is drop the object onto the screen, you can only store objects you can lift with one hand by yourself, and there is no limit to your storage capacity.” Palton put the dagger back in his inventory before going back to the start screen and pressing the last option. Player tools Player marketplace (Locked) Log out (Locked) Leave tutorial “You have finished the tutorial, please press leave tutorial to begin the game and enter the world of magic.” With nothing left to do Palton pressed leave tutorial.