For brevity's sake, this will be Chapter 1A. I'll post the rest of Chapter 1 tomorrow as I'm running out of time here and people are telling me to go to sleep already. Note to self: Never upload a chapter right before going to sleep, better do so in the morning.

I'm trying to refit the chapter for better viewage

Chapter 1-A: Introduction into...

*Click*

The TV turned off as a young boy clicked the remote control in his hand. The boy was lying in a bed with white sheets covering him from the stomach downwards. He had a bright white hair and steely silver eyes. His skin was pale, but colored slightly light brown as if the reason for his skin color is more related to lack of exposure to the sun rather than genetic.

The room he was in was a medium sized room that had a bed, a TV, a dresser, a fridge, a microwave, and an indoor bathroom. There was also a wheelchair right next to the young boy’s bed. The boy looked at the chair with a difficult to read expression and took off his sheets. He slowly, carefully stood from his bed and dragged his feet towards the fridge while tumbling slightly. Once there, he took out a carton of milk and poured himself a glass, then returned to his bed, sighing in relief as the pain he felt calmed down slightly.

He gulped down the milk and placed it in the cup holder in the wheelchair before taking out his phone. He searched for one of his friends to chat with.

*KNOCK* *KNOCK*

Savi quickly stashed his phone in his pocket and jumped in his wheelchair. He’d like to avoid making a show of himself by falling over in front of the installers. He touched the mousepad on the right arm of the wheelchair and operated it to move the wheelchair towards the door. There, he opened the door with little difficulty.

There were two men outside carrying a large box. They seemed pretty annoyed about waiting so long at the door, but quickly changed their expressions once they saw Savi in a wheelchair. Savi sighed internally as he waited for the two men to install the capsule next to his bed. After he received the instruction manual, he bid them farewell and jumped back on the bed while leaving the manual back in his wheelchair. He took his phone back out.

Savi looked at the manual. He knows he said he wouldn’t, but he was considering taking a quick review just in case. Just then, his phone rang a tune that meant he had received a message. Savi looked as saw:

Kris: “Don’t even think about the manual.”

Savi sighed and wondered how she knew what he was thinking. The woman mind is something he still doesn’t get even with the time he has been spending reading and chatting with others. He sometimes wondered if it had something to do with his reclusive life, but after chatting with other males he figured out it had more to do with him being male and less to do with that…

Savi took a look at the capsule. It was a rather large machine that had a helmet attached. The machine had several screens that project what he is doing in the game at 10x speed as well as several plug ins which he could use to connect his phone or computer to the machine in order to transfer data. The helmet was the key point to the machine though.

The helmet sent the electromagnetic pulses of the brain and converted them into data, then connected the data to the Terminal: The Helix. Then, the signal would echo back to the helmet which would transfer the signal directly into my brain, thus causing me to fall asleep and transferring my consciousness into the Terminal.

In was a process simple to explain, but rather difficult to realize. Savi still marveled at the company that made this Capsule design, which was much better in terms of space and quality to the huge coffin-sized capsules of old. That’s were their name came from, even though these don’t look like capsules and coffins anymore, the name stuck.

Savi shook his head; this was no time to be lost in thought. He took the helmet and put it on before lying in bed. He pushed the button near his right ear and waited for the signal. Soon…

*BEEP*

The world turned white in an instant. Savi tumbled a bit as he was now standing instead of lying in bed. While he had gotten used to the feel of being able to move as he willed with his personal Terminal, he had never been able to get used to how different it felt when he entered them. He looked around and saw a familiar scene, an empty room entirely white. The Initializing Program had begun and a conglomerate of many voices speaking as one resounded at once.

*CEREBRAL CORTEX HAS BEED DECRYPTED*

*NEW PLAYER IDENTIFIED*

*SAVIER O. POLLUX*

*PLEASE CONFIRM*

*YES/NO*

While Savi had read up on the Initialization Program, he was still a bit taken back at both the voice that came out of nowhere and the fact that his name was in the database already.

“Yes”

*YES*

*PLEASE CHOOSE A NAME*

“Xeno”

*XENO*

*PLEASE CONFIRM*

*YES/NO*

“Yes”

*PLEASE CHOOSE GENDER*

*MALE/FEMALE/BOTH/GENDERLESS*

Now is when Savi was going to begin asking questions he was dying to know, but no one online was capable of answering.

“What are the benefits and detriments of each choice?”

*PLEASE CHOOSE GENDER*

*MALE/FEMALE/BOTH/GENDERLESS*

Savi thought for a while… He was sure that whatever he became, he would not make much use of Charm or other stats and skills that influence the mind of others. He dislikes using those types of tactics, though he would not mind having a partner with those skills. Still, he might encounter enemies capable of using skilled such as these. Savi plainly remembered gossip about some players who were attacked by a combination of Succubus and Incubus and were completely annihilated due to being unable to attack due to their attraction to them. In fact, the demons forced them to fight amongst themselves to determine who would get the honor of being killed by them. Nasty stuff…

Without giving it much more thought, Savi said:

“Genderless, please…”

*YOU CHOSE: GENDERLESS*

*PLEASE CONFIRM*

*YES/NO*

“Yes.”

“PLEASE CHOOSE YOUR RACIAL TREE”

“RACIAL TREE WILL PLAY A PART IN THE RACES AVAILABLE FOR THE PLAYER TO CHOOSE FROM”

“THERE ARE 15 RACIAL TREES IN THE HELIX”

HUMAN

ELVEN

DWARF

GOBLIN

BEAST

AVIAN

AQUAN

RAPTOR

HIVE

PLANT

DAEMON

DIVINE

FAERY

UNDEAD

MACHINA

Savi smiled. This was another feature that made this game different from others. Rather than giving you a small number of races to choose from, this one gave you access to a huge variety. First choosing the Main Race or as the game refered to it as Racial Tree, then choosing the Sub-Race the player wants to belong to or the Blood-Line. Even further than that, some Sub-Races require you to determine the Tribe you want to belong to, though this was usually a measure reserved to the more animalistic races: for example the Jaguar Tribe and the Lion Tribe and both Beasts of Felid Blood-Line.

When this measure was first revealed, the number of capsules pre-ordered sky-rocketed.

Given the high number of posts about the different Racial Trees, Savi already knew which he would choose, but he had yet to determine the Blood-Line he wanted to be.

“I wish to be of Elven descent.”

*YOUR CHOICE: ELVEN*

*PLEASE CONFIRM*

*YES/NO*

“Yes”

*PLEASE CHOOSE YOUR BLOOD-LINE*

*THERE ARE 9 BLOOD-LINES OF ELVEN DESCENT*

SYLVAN

DHIONE

MAOMER

DROW

MYTHRAL

LUNARIS

SOLVEN

AVARIEL

ELADRIN

The moment of Savi had been waiting impatiently for:

“Please give analysis of each Blood-Line.”

Savi finished reading up on the Blood-Lines, besides each window was a sculpted image of a male specimen of that race which he also looked into, and began to think. He can easily discard several of those options as he doesn’t want to deal with the personality of those Elves… Especially those Solven Elves give him Goosebumps all over… Luckily, he chose to go Genderless or he might be afraid of being put under their hypnotic obedience. Savi also didn’t enjoy the idea of imposing himself unto others, as he always believed in free will, so Eladrin, Lunaris and Avariel are also out. While the Sylven seem like a nice race, their passiveness is a bit too much than he can take, furthermore the race seems too similar to the classic elves to give him much desire to be them… Dhione and Drow seem good when reading what they can do, but he knows that the way other races looks at them will come into play sooner rather than later.

This leaves: Maomer or Mythral. On one hand an underwater race that offers an entirely different world to explore than other races (except Aquans) and on the other hand a race basically devoted to creating magic weapons. On one hand an exotic looking race with deep, black eyes and on the other hand a race that seemed made of silver, bronze and with something red for eyes. Savi didn’t even need to think about it from this point onwards.

“I choose Maomer.”

*YOU CHOSE: MAOMER*

*PLEASE CONFIRM*

*YES/NO*

“Yes”

*DETERMINING POSSIBLE SPAWNING LOCATIONS*

*ONLY ONE LOCATION CURRENTLY AVAILABLE FOR SPAWNING: MAOMER*

*UNDERWATER VILLAGE OF SED*

*WOULD YOU LIKE TO SPAWN HERE?*

*IF YOU DECIDE YOU DO NOT WANT TO SPAWN HERE YOU MUST RE-SELECT YOUR RACE*

“Only one option available? Weird… Very well, I accept.”

*PLEASE SELECT HOW YOU WOULD LIKE TO LOOK LIKE IN-GAME*

Now a holographic image of myself appeared before me of how I’d look like as a Maomer. Other than my skin and eyes, there didn’t seem to be much difference.

“Please give me longer hair. A bit more. Yeah, that’s it. Can you make it blue with a white stripe down the middle? Yeah, that’s it. Now, can you give me control in order to change the facial features?”

Savi wanted to create a new persona from scratch and waited for a moment before a sculpture of his face appeared before him along with several tools. He swiftly picked one and applied it to a small portion of his chin to see its effect. To his surprise the applied area started to shrink slowly. He continued to experiment on his face with the tools until he knew what each did, then said:

“Please reset all changes done to my face.”

The monstrosity that originally was his face instantly returned to what it was before he massacred it. Now knowing what he was doing, Savi slowly sculpted the face he saw himself in his dreams. It wasn’t too handsome, but not ugly in the least. It seemed kind and dependable. Like an All-Type-Kind-of-Guy that was just hard to hate, only younger.

“Ok, I’m done”

*DO YOU WISH TO USE THIS AVATAR?*

*YES/NO*

In front of Savi stood the Avatar he had created, the handsome, but not too handsome face mixed well with the well-built body. Though the eyes make him a bit scary-looking, the rest of the exotic portions of the avatar, the webbed hands and ears, make him look a bit mysterious, at least to races other than Maomer.

“Yes”

*CONGRATULATIONS IN COMPLETING THE INITIALIZATION*

*WOULD YOU LIKE TO TAKE THE BASIC TUTORIAL?*

*YES/NO*

Savi thought for a bit… He had read constantly about how many players did not find the information of the tutorial useful, but he also has heard that many avoid the tutorial altogether… Savi sometimes wondered if the tutorial gave you common information that may seem useless, but could be useful early on. However, the contents of the tutorial could not be found anywhere in the web, contrary to the contents of the capsule tutorial…

“Yes, I’d like to take the tutorial.”

*COMMENCING TUTORIAL*

Prologue: The Helix Chapter 1-B: Tutorial Mode