Sara PoV

“Welcome to Grand Dream Online”

Such a beautiful woman, I wonder if she is an npc.

“Hello?”

She smiles, it’s hard to believe such an expression comes from an npc.

“Hello, I am the one in charge of receiving new adventurers to this world, I will now proceed to explain about your character creation”

I look at my hands, at the moment I’m in my own body.

“To prevent privacy problems in your original world, it’s been decided that adventurers must choose a body different from their original one. Which means I will present you different choices for your new body and you will be able to modify it until you feel satisfied with its appearance.”

She stares at me a couple of seconds then continues.

“Do you have any questions about this process?”

I think for a moment.

“No, I don’t have any questions”

“I will now proceed to scan your brainwaves so I can show a suitable choice for you”

Suddenly the woman makes a movement with her hand, a female body appears in front of me.

She has a beautiful pale skin, a couple of big green eyes and long dark hair. Her height is almost the same as mine with a similar body type.

“I suggest this appearance, what do you think?”

Somehow this is exactly the body I would like to use, quite different from my real body, as I have light brown skin and my hair is really short.

“Can I test it?”

As if to answer my question, the woman makes a gesture with her hands, then a light starts surrounding me, the body disappears.

I take a quick look at my hands, my skin has changed color.

I move around, I don’t feel much of a difference.

The woman makes a mirror appear next to me.

Even though I look completely different, it doesn’t feel strange at all.

“Do you like your new body? Would you like to change something?”

I examine myself, I’m pleased, the only thing I’d like to change is the size of my breasts, they are as big as the real ones, which are D cup.

It isn’t that I don’t like my breasts, but I have always thought they are uncomfortable to move around, so I’d rather get rid of that while I play.

“Could you make my chest smaller?”

She makes another gesture with her hands, I feel the weight in my chest decrease.

In the mirror I see that they are now smaller, between B and C cup.

As I move around I feel this way more comfortable.

“I’m satisfied”

The woman claps and the mirror disappears.

“Now you’re ready to begin your adventure, I will send you to the starting point, any questions you have about the game system will be answered there.”

A light wraps around me, my vision goes white.

Three seconds later I’m in front of a huge city.

A huge number of people dressed with the same plain clothes is around me, most of them walking into the city.

At the entrance door you can read in big letters.

‘Initia Academy’

Michael PoV

After choosing my avatar to play I’m surrounded by people outside the city, almost everyone is

walking towards the entrance.

I see some people dressed in different clothes over there, my guess is that they’re NPCs. Looks like it’s necessary to talk with them before entering the city.

I take a look around me, outside of the city there are tiny monsters roaming through the grasslands. A really tiny slime, it could probably fit in the palm of my hand. It’s possible to see some small rabbits walking too.

“Welcome to Initia Academy”

In front of me is standing a man that looks around forty years old, dressed in different clothes as the players. He pulls a sheet of paper out of thin air and hands it to me. I unconsciously grab it.

‘Choose a name for your avatar’

The sheet disappears from my hand. Now that I think about it, I have yet to choose a nickname to use in this game.

“When you decide the name, just say it once and it will be registered”

Even though I’ve been waiting for a couple of years to play this game, I didn’t prepare a name for my character beforehand, so I stand there while trying to decide.

“After your name is registered, you will be able to access the Academy and learn all you need to know about this world”

After saying that, the man walks towards another player and starts talking to him.

It’s always hard to choose a name, the last game I played my username was will99, as people couldn’t have the same nick.

“William”

The previous message disappears and it’s replaced by a new one.

‘Your name will be registered as William, is that correct?’

“Yes”

A new windows appears.

‘The name William has been registered, you can now use the command Show Status’

After I read the message, the windows disappears.

“Show Status”

‘Name: William

Class: None

Health: 25/25

Mana: 10/10’

That’s strange, there are no status like STR or AGI. Normally games like this have that kind of info on the status window.

I guess it’s necessary to enter the city to get more information, so I walk towards the entrance.

Players all around say their name or use the Show Status command.

As I walk through the entrance I’m surprised by the size of the city, you can see the endless quantity of buildings.

There is an NPC next to a building that appears to be a library, I hope he will be able to provide some info.

“Good afternoon”

The man looks sleepy, when he hears me for a second he looks annoyed by my presence.

“Hello boy, how can I help you?”

“I was wondering if you could answer some of my questions”

He remains silent for a moment.

“It is my job to answer your questions, we are here to provide information and teach you about this world”

“We?”

“Oh.. you really don’t know a thing about this place, just as the headmaster said”

Now I’m confused, the man notices my confusion.

“Look at this emblem on my clothes”

The he points his fingers towards an emblem in his clothing, an open book sewn with a gold colored thread.

“All the people in this academy wearing this emblem are instructors, tasked with the mission to teach you adventurers about the world you are currently residing”

There are other players listening to our conversation, I’m sure they’re as curious as me.

“This is Initia Academy, the place where all adventurers must pass through to find their place in this world.”

“So, this isn’t as city?”

He raises an eyebrow.

“Well, I can understand why you would think this place is a city, considering that our academy is as big as most capital cities in the main continent”

A girl moves right next to me, I ignore her.

“What should we know about this academy?”

The man looks toward her and smiles.

“Every building in the academy has a different purpose, there are different martial arts dojos, sword training centers, magic guilds, you can even find restaurants which will teach you how to cook, every skill needed to survive in this world is taught here”

“So we can learn everything we need here”

Then I see a crowd of people gathered around us, the girl walks away.

“Thanks for the information, now I will go look around the academy”

“Wait, there is something you need to know”

He looks around all the players.

“Until your class is decided, you can only learn three common skills”

His voice is louder than before, so that all the people around can listen.

“Common skills?”

“Class?”

“Only three?”

People all around starts bombarding the man with different questions, so I decide to walk towards the center of the academy, considering that most people are gathering near the entrance.

I walk for about twenty minutes, there are a lot of NPCs surrounded by players asking questions.

Finally I reach an enormous building.

‘Examination Center’

It’s the biggest building in the academy, probably located right at the center. There are few players walking around here, I guess most people remained at the entrance asking questions to the instructors.

I enter the building. Inside there are a lot of npcs, most of them have a desk in front of them and a lot of paperwork in their hands.

A man near the entrance guides me towards one of the workers, a middle aged woman wearing glasses.

She looks at me with a serious face.

“Would you like to take the graduation exam?”

Just like me to come to take a test barely minutes before starting this game.

“Yes, please”

What can I lose? I’m just starting so there’s nothing for me to lose.

She grabs a document from the pile in her desk. That looks like the registration form I got at the entrance.

“Let’s see”

She raises one eyebrow.

“Mr. William, you can’t take the exam yet. First you need to learn three common skills in the academy, and I would recommend getting some stats points too”

“Stat points?”

“Your abilities in this world are ruled by stats, for instance the power behind the swing of a sword depends on the strength of the user, or the speed of the attack is measured by their agility.

There are countless stats which work with different skills, as you use your skills, stats will raise, also it’s possible to raise a stats by training, if you run a lot, you will get agility, if you read books you will get wisdom”

“I see”

I remain silent for a while thinking about this information.

“Is there anything else you would like to know?”

I smile at her.

“Besides common skills, is there another type of skills?”

“Of course, there are two types of skills, common skills and class skills. The first are those that anyone can learn, such as sword mastery or cooking, while class skills are those unique to the class of the user”

“I understand, then, how are classes decided?”

“Once you graduate from the academy, a class will be suggested to you by the divine power that governs the world, but it’s possible to refuse the suggestion and choose a class by yourself.”

Divine power. I want to see that.

“Well, I hope that I have been of help to you, now I need to return to my work, with all of you adventurers arriving today, there is a lot of paperwork to do”

She waves her hand signaling for me to leave.

“Thanks for everything”

I proceed to leave the building, it’s time to learn some skills.

Gabriel PoV

After registering the name of my character I started walking around the academy, I got some information about the game from people asking the NPCs around.

“Three skills huh?”

It’s going to be quite hard to choose only three skills to learn.

I’ve been exploring the academy for a couple of hours, sword skills, archery, hand to hand combat, crafting skills, it’s even possible to learn fishing or painting.

While looking around I found myself in front of NPCs playing a card game, I entered the building, for some reason I’ve always liked the mini-games within the games, such as card games, board games, racing games, in fact, for me it’s possible to spend most of my time playing those mini-games rather than the main game.

“Welcome to the monster card collecting club”

An old man stands in front of me, smiling while holding some cards on his hands.

“I would like to know more about this cards”

The old man laughs.

“Of course you’d like to know more about them, you look like someone who can recognize an interesting game”

Then he grabs my shoulder and guides me to a table.

“Sit here, I’ll explain”

As I sit, the old man sits in front of me and puts two decks of cards on the table, he picks a card and hands it to me.

The image of a cute little dog is drawn on the card, and it has written on it.

‘Baby Wolf

Attack: 5

Defense: 1

Mana: 3

Ability: None ’

“That’s a Monster card, as you can see it’s got some attributes which are used to play the game”

“Cool, can we play?”

The old man looks at me surprised.

“Don’t you want to learn the rules first?”

“I believe it’ll be more interesting to learn while playing”

He starts laughing again.

“You’re an interesting one, let’s begin”

He hands me five cards and takes five for himself.

My cards are Baby Wolf, Little Slime, Small Rabbit, Birdie and Young Goblin.

“There are different types of games that can be played with monster cards, in fact you can create your own game. We’re going to play the simplest game”

Looks like this is going to be fun.

“For this game, you are going to be spending your mana, the cost to play a card is written on the card”

I check my cards they all got a cost of three, except the Young Goblin which takes four mana.

“Let’s begin, choose one of your cards and put it on the table facing down”

I set the Baby Wolf card on the table, the old man sets a card in front of mine.

“Action”

Magically both cards turn around, his card is Birdie.

I feel something escaping from my body.

“Show status”

‘Name: Gabe

Class: None

Health: 25/25

Mana: 7/10’

Interesting, so my mana is used with the activation of the card.

The Birdie card turns around facing down.

“Very good, you see how my card turned, why do you think that happened?”

As I examine my own Birdie card, its attack is four while its defense is two.

“Is it about their attack?”

“That was easy, the first round is about attack, the winner decides if attack or defense will be used the second round, no need to tell me, just set your second card on the table and say Action”

So, the Young Goblin has four attack and defense, I’m guessing it’s the safest one to play. I put it on the table, the old man selects a card too. At this time I want defense to be the attribute that is used to select the winner.

“Action”

Both cards turn around, he went with Little Slime, defense five, my Young Goblin is defeated.

“Somehow I guessed you were going to choose defense”

The old man laughs.

I think I get it now, so I have to guess what he will choose next, attack or defense.

He sets a card on the table, I will go with my Little Slime, being the one with the highest defense.

The old man activates the cards, both of them face each other, he used Small Rabbit with both attack and defense of three.

His card turns around, I win.

‘You have used up all your mana for the first time

Mana +1’

‘You have won the basic card game for the first time

Luk +1’

“Beginner’s Luck, do you want to go again?”

Once the game finishes, I feel my mana coming back to me.

“Sure, I will show it wasn’t luck”

We play again and it is my defeat, he won the three rounds.

“Again”

The old man plays with me another five times, the result is the same, I always lose.

“Do you want to give up? If you manage to beat me again I will teach another game using more cards”

Looks like I’ll be playing this game for a while.