“-are you stupid or something?”

Those were the words spoken to me the day I asked the pretty girl I was interested in out in a date. But it ended with a total dismissal. I could only look down in shame as she then laughed and then walked back to her group of friends where she whispered a few words, to which they all turned to me and laughed together.

That really hurts, you know. We had worked on a science project together. I did most of the work while she slacked off with her little clique of friends. In the end, I got her full marks and thought this would have meant something. However when seeing the disdain on her face now, I realized I was just used.

After class, I hurried out of school - in part to avoid any more sniggering aimed my way - and made it home on my bike in record time. My house was empty, as usual. Sadly, my father died a few years ago in a train accident, and my mother worked all the time at the sushi bar. Worse off - I had no siblings. That meant no cute sister to tease or little brother to bond with. Well, that was probably for the best. I was pretty much an outcast at school and would be an embarrassment to them anyways.

That was why I wanted a girlfriend. I had quite the lonesome life. Even after another bad experience - the third this school season - I just wanted to just have a relationship with someone. And I had no friends save for some digital acquaintances. I sighed as my stomach grumbled. There would be no food unless I got up to make something.

After boiling up some water, I opened up a pack of instant ramen and ate it. The quality of food was poor but my mom did not make a lot of money and the settlement she got for dad's death and his army severance was only enough to keep the same four room apartment, barring needless amenities. It was rare when I could have a meal that wasn't precooked or sushi leftovers.

But I really could not complain here. My mother never had the time to cook as she was always too tired to do anything off her work hours, so I ended up having to fend for myself most of the time. And sometimes the leftovers she brought home were pretty good.

After eating, I headed to my room and sat down in front of my 22-inch monitor and booted up the computer. Picking up a bag of disks I had purchased from a used media store, I started glancing through them. I had to be thrifty, so the games I bought were from the discount bin or rips off the net. My favorites were RPGs as their more engaging stories helped pass the time and my boredom.

Lately I have been finding more VRs in the bin - games that utilized a special visor interface to give players a 360 view of its game world. In the beginning, each VR game had to be run with its own specialized VR pad to run concurrent with the staple helm. However, the tech has improved to the point now where a single 'universal' pad could run most virtual games. And many VR games made in the last five years have been modded to work off the keyboard system.

“What is this one?”

I noticed a game I did not remember picking up at all. It was a VR disc, golden in color, with no labels on it. This was odd because whatever casing it came from was also not in the bag. I neatly stacked all eleven contents in the bag out, just to make sure, and this left me wondering to-

Where did this come from? But it made me more the curious.

Booting it up, the screen quickly flashes a series of matrix-like patterns before its archaic symbols settled on two romanized words in large gold font - RPG World. Then what looked to be its intro-sequence began to scroll in common rpg fashion:

Are you tired of your mudane life? Then escape to a world of adventure in... the RPG World. Its land of high fantasy awaits you. Take on quests, hunt monsters, discover lost dungeons, find hidden treasures, and earn glory. Click > to forge your destiny!

“RPG World…” I repeated the words and then shrugged, never heard of this game. After putting on the VR visor, I used the game pad to mouse the cursor over the start function on the screen and hit the button.

This time the screen of matrix-like patterns flashed all around me within my 3D view. It was a pretty cool sight but ended with me (as a shadowed avatar) stuck in complete gray space. Seriously... a system crash already... but soon enough a bright light shone before me. Its bubble had the words {{ Create New Life }}.

While this looked surreal, it reminded me of the Dungeon Life startup. Perhaps this RPG World was a knock off on it. Using the game pad, I had my formless avatar move towards the bubble to interact with it.

After another matrix-like flash, I was in what could be considered the character creation start-up menu. This time I had three bubbles to choose from: Character Model, Class Creation, and Bonus Allocation.

I first went into the [Class Creation] tab and was given a small tutorial of how this game's class system functioned. Apparently after scrolling through all the text - the base classes were divided into four categories: Physical Attack, Shield Defense, Magic Attack, and Magic Support. And each category had three subdivisions.

I was astounded here by the amount of class choices available at startup. It was more varied than the top end mmorpgs. Gazing through - there was atleast an odd 20 in each category. What's more was reading, {{ Each class will dictate the type of skills you will gain to navigate the RPG World. Choose wisely as advanced classes are based upon your first. }}

So apparently this game used the common 'rank up' feature in that base classes unlocked a more tailored pathing to stronger classes. I once maxed a character in the online Final Fantasy tactical VR so I was familiar with this system. But the thing I couldn't get my head around was how I never heard of this RPG World game. Such an interesting premise should have warranted threads in the gamer forums. The only thing I could surmise was this game was a literal knock off which would not allow it to be officially distributed.

I scrolled through the class categories again. Rather than having just traditional classes like Bard, Cleric, Monk, Ranger, Warrior, or Wizard, each category held classes in its subdivisions with more specificity. Classes in Weapon Offense also included Swordsman, Ranger, and even Magic Fighter. Paladins and Shield Fighters could be found in Shield Defense. Magic Attack held Sorcerer, Elementalist, and Shadowcaster. Some classes were even shared in multiple categories like Paladins and Druids. But it were the classes in Magic Support that caught my eye.

Some where classics like Bard, Cleric, and Druid, yet many were really random like Alchemist and Sage. One was even a Chef, why would anyone pick this one, to a Blue Mage - a caster more akin to a monster hunter. However the one in Magic Support I ended up picking was Adept Mage. Its tooltip gave the info of the class being a dual caster of holy and arcane spells, though being locked from specializations within those schools. However in a game where advancement stages was a 'thing', Adept Mage was (in my mind) a unique and versatile starter among all the magic classes.

I selected the Adept Mage class and another bubble option popped up asking me to choose a {{ Primary Setting }}.

“What is this?” I could only wonder to this option until I read its ! tooltip. Seems like each class in this game has a primary function - a stacking bonus connective to the class level. A nifty little feature. I had three choices in front of me: [Upcast] which gives a percentage bonus to any spellcast, [Holy Spirit] which gives a 'Spirit' bonus to spellcasts, and [Mana Focus] which reduces 'MP' costs of spellcasting.

It was a tough choice between the three. Each had their own merit, especially when considering endgame potential. [Mana Focus] seems to be the least useful of the three because its current value was set to a fixed number (10) while the others were based off higher percentage values that would be more beneficial in the early levels of an Adept Mage.

I finally selected [Upcast] as having a flat percentage booster on top of any spellcast seemed the best starter setting but a couple line of words flashed in orange below my choice -- Primary Settings can be re-configured and more even unlocked through level advancement. Discover the right balance in your Life. --

So it seems this choice is a bit of a soft-lock mechanic. Which is good to know. These Primary Settings coupled with the advancement system for classes, this RPG World seems to have a very expansive character customization. It seems 'overpowered' on its face which means this game must have a long playthrough to warrant such an investment. Perhaps even a New Game + mode.

But speculating about this now was rather moot and so I continued on to the {{ Bonus Allocation }} tab. Within it showed a stat page common with the RPG style. It showed the HP and MP bars with a longer EXP bar below it. Below that tally was the main stat listing of Strength, Vitality, Agility, Dexterity, Magicka, Spirit, and Luck. The bottom most section was a Skill Settings tab, which was currently minimized. And off to the side floated another bubble that read {{ Bonus Points: 100 }}. Apparently I could use these hundred points to improve my starter stats.

Hovering over each Stat showed me a tooltip for what in-game function they added towards, like a 'Rating' system relative to the typical rpg genre. These scores of -- Power, Resistance, Critical, Accuracy, Evasion, and Speed -- seemed to be subfactors of one's total stat pool rather than direct features like in other games. So for Adept Mage - I had to focus on the Magicka and Spirit stats as they affected both the Power and MP score the most while giving side bonuses to Resistance, HP, and passive health and mana regeneration. I would also need to stack some Vitality to up my overall HP, Resistance, and regens while getting just enough Agility and Dexterity to improve my Critical, Accuracy, Evasion, and Speed scores to appropriate levels.

It seemed Luck was the only Stat that could not be improved through this allocation process as it was grayed out. Although the tooltip showed this Stat seemed to greatly influence the Critical ratio and even affect experience gains. So being able to affect this Rating was likely gained at the higher levels, and it seems I can ignore the Strength stat for now since I will be a primary spellcaster.

All my base Stats were set at 10. Each Bonus Point I spent into a stat raised it by 10 points. It was a good tradeoff so I started dumping points into the Magicka stat only to find that after it went past 100, it took 1 Bonus Point to give the stat a +2 increase. I paused my Magicka on 102 and looked at my Bonus Point tally of 90. I then did the same for Spirit, spending another 10 points to raise its value to 102. I had 80 Bonus Points left. Then I did the same for Vitality, Agility, and Dexterity, making each stat a 100 for a 9 point investment.

Glancing over each Stat's subfactor, I could see my character's 'Ratings' were raised to a proportional level. I thought I may as well do the same for the last untouched stat. Strength was raised to 100 for another 9 points spent. This left me with 44 Bonus Points to spend. However I paused on calculating this remainder to expand out the Skill Settings tab to see what laid within. To my surprise, I was shown a wide and varied listing of customizable features, many of which I had never seen before in these types of RPGs.

The first of these parameters was an Equipment tab filled with bonus gear for your character to summon and start off with. Some items appeared to very overpowered for starters, one in particular being a sword called Durandal that gave a +300 increase to Attack Power and Accuracy while having a [Critical Boost] passive buff. Even with all my stats at 100, each of my 'Ratings' was under a 40 value. This was sorta offset with its 50 Bonus Point cost value, but it still seemed quite cheesy for a newbie player. Mayhaps this was THE power-level item for warrior classes.

I almost wanted to reset my class choice right then and there but decided against it for melee classes not being my typical play style.

The second parameter was more to my liking being an Experience tab filled with bonus features that affected experience gains. One increased rate gains while another decreased bar value. However two in particular stood out in this tab - [Skill Gainer] and [Reset]. The tooltip for [Skill Gainer] was that it you gained an extra skill point upon any skill point gain, with this being increased to a +3 value. [Reset] was read being an investment that allowed a player to refund their skill points and respec their builds with no penalty. [Skill Gainer] costs 10 points for each rank while [Reset] was a flatline 20.

The last was a tab full of purchasable skills. Some of this latter were magic spells like [Warp] and [Meteor] but again, two really stood out. The first was [Scan] which read as an all-appraisal skill. The second was basically a self-resurrection skill called [Phoenix Heart] that allowed the player free 'restarts' to game saves. In comparison: [Warp] was worth 10, [Meteor] 40, [Scan] being 10 for its base cost and another 5 for a +insight bonus, and [Phoenix Heart] was worth 30.

With 44 bonus points remaining, I couldn't get everything that struck my fancy. I could roll [Scan], [Reset], and a rank of [Skill Gainer] while resetting a point in my Spirit stat to then buy [Scan]'s Insight bonus. And I was just about to do that until my eye caught the last purchasable option in the Skill tab. It was called [Bonus Roll].

The tooltip revealed its function: it was a literal gamble, a random of 1-99, and whatever value it gave was added to your Bonus Points. But it came with a catch - a red exclamation showed this was a non-refundable option of its cost value, 10 points. So if bought and a bad number was rolled, I would have to restart the whole game over to remake the character from scratch to then buy another [Bonus Roll]. I could already see this being the birth of a really tedious effort to score a high 90.

I hated these games of chance... but having nearly a double of Bonus Points in the character creation process was too good an opportunity to pass up. I could literally start off with many more bonus feats and I really did not want to play this RPG World a second time around since it sounded like a game with a long play time already.

I could only sigh out loud, "-let's get this done." I prepared myself for a long and dull exercise when I spent the first 10 points into the bonus roll, only to see its purchased option fade and for two large 9s in bold to appear in its place. Hardly believing my luck here, I looked again to my bonus counter and saw 133 points remaining.

"Thank God!" I exclaimed in relief. I was prepared to do this for over an hour if need be but for it to happen on my first attempt was a stroke of good fortune that I would not have to waste any more time on this shit.

I immediately went into the Experience tab and got [Skill Gainer] at its three ranks and [Reset]. Fifty points were downed giving me 83 left. I then went back and refunded the two extra points spent in my stat pool to bring my Bonus total up to 85 to purchase [Scan] and its insight bonus. Another 30 was spent on [Phoenix Heart]. Reason being having a non-reliant self-rez was a godsend in these long RPGs. I now had 40 points remaining.

[Warp] seemed useful but considering my base class was a magic caster, I would likely get a teleportation spell in the future so I felt its 10 points would be wasted there. Also none of the other purchasable spells in this Skill tab were worth the investment in the long run since I'll be running as an Adept Mage.

I went back to the Experience tab to look at increasing my XP ratios, knowing the faster I leveled up the better off my character would be doing the game's end content. Scrolling again through the available listing - I decided first to spend 30 points in the three [XP Division] ranks. This would reduce the overall size of my levelling bar by fractions of a fifth, a fourth, and a third. The last 10 points were spent on two of the ten ranks in [XP+] giving me a 10% passive bonus to all XP gains.

The above combo should reduce any levelling needed by half. Now with all my bonus points spent, I went back to the Equipment tab just to double check its listing to make sure nothing was worth grabbing. There was a [Ring of XP] whose effect was a 20% bonus on equip. It was worth 10 bonus points to grab but I figured an extra 10% wasn't worth it since my character would likely acquire better ring items in the future.

Settling on my {{ Bonus Allocation }} being complete, I left its window and entered the last untouched bubble {{ Character Model }}. Immediately a panned view of my shadowed avatar came into focus. This tab had a plethora of bubbled options to contort the body's shape in height and weight, one for skin color and texture, hair in style and color, facial settings for eyes, nose, and mouth, and another tab for various physique tweaks. There was even a racial change bubble to become a non-human character. But at the bottom was an [Upload] function which I assumed was to produce a randomized appearance. I clicked on it to see the shaded avatar morph into what can only be described as my digital self.

I was stunned looking at my carbon copy. "How" was the first thought that entered my mind. I've heard of retinal locks in the latest visor modules but never a full body scan through the virtual interface. But the 'how' soon gave way to the detail present in this model. This 3D of myself was in quite the hi-resolution. It was not exact replica mind you, my skin was never this clear and the mole on my cheekbone was gone. Still, I was astonished to see how detailed it was from the pale shade of my skin, to the dark shades of my hair and eyes, and even the shape of my thin body to a numerical precision.

Normally in games, I would tend to make my player characters as close to my own resemblance as possible but to see this digital avatar as a near exact reflection was 'weird' to say the least.

Neato... I thought but there was no point in trying to figure out how this game just accomplished this. My best bet was that it somehow used my gamer profile, since it had a picture of me in a tight-fitting Tron costume.

Since the [Upload] was my little doppelganger, I started to fool around on improving my 3D appearance. First of course was the Height feature in {{ Body Shape }}. Naturally I was barely 5'5" but I quickly changed that to a 6'1". Doing this also made me pencil thin since my weight was still set to 122 pounds. Going into [Weight] next, my figure gained another 80 pounds to even out my form. {{ Skin Tone }} was next - my white skin was usually quite pale, but I was able to even it out with an undertone. Already I wish I looked like the figure on my screen. It was akin to thinking of myself as the proverbial 'stud'.

I then went into {{ Facial Settings }} and tweaked around with my eyes, nose, and mouth. I made only small little changes here and there. For my head, I thinned my brow so my eyeline was more level than in the real. Then I lightly rounded out the slant of my dark eyes and faded the bag line underneath. The best of plastic surgeries could not have achieved this effect. Back into {{ Body Shape }}, I choose to give my current shape an [Ectomorph]. Surprisingly it kept the avatar's visible shape and only added tight definitions in certain areas of the arm, leg, and chest regions. My weight went down to 193 but there was no reason to change it back.

I kept my {{ Hair Style }} pretty much the same. Did not even alter my ash black color at all. However I did trim up my curls into a faded cut.

The last tab of {{ Physique Changes }} had the funniest options of all. Most were novel such as an age variant choice between [Teen] [Adult] and [Veteran]. Mine was already set on [Teen] so I didn't change it. Another marker was set for piercings and tattoos which I kept blank. I did a double-take on the last option being [Endowment]. Sure enough when I clicked on the box, I got a faded shot of my avatar wearing nothing but a fundoshi loincloth. I laughed out loud to the bulge showing.

Was I really that size? The [Endowment] tab only had a setting 1 to 10 with it being currently at a 5. I immediately set it to 10 to see the bulge visibly protruding from the loincloth. Snickering, I lowered it to 9. It was probably still too big, but it held a more moderate look in its wrapping. Heck... why not? Perhaps this game had some 18+ quest chains or something.

I was tempted to lift the [Endowment] back to 10 but pushed it off. I spent over 15 minutes customizing my human appearance and that was long enough. Finally existing {{ Character Model }}, I went to the > button at the bottom to get one last message of-

{{ Choose Variation }} with there being a choice of six between: Hume, Braham, Norse, Erudite, Farsi, and Amazon... though that last option was grayed out for me. It seemed the human player race in this RPG World game had a further customization model as each variant gave specific bonuses to your startup. The standard Hume it was set on now was just a flatline 10% bonus to Stats with a profession bonus but changing it to one of other options gave my character a bigger bump down a particular path. It even affected the visual.

Braham showed my highlighted character with a steampunk flair and blonde hair. Norse looked to be the go to for warrior types as the avatar became more ripped at a foot taller. Farsi made my character look even more oriental, like a chinese guru styled with an orange mantle and a bald head with tattooed pattern. It was sorta obvious Amazon was a female given. But it was the Erudite option that caught my eye.

My character's complexion only had a slight change - hair getting a spring curl with highlights and the skin's undertone having a touch of olive. However the visual aside, it was this variant's magic bonuses that more intrigued me. I would lose the 10% bonus to Stats but would in turn gain a boost to my MP bar and a bonus feature called Wizard's Grace. Just reading the options in the latter was enough to select it here.

Upon my choice, my avatar digitally fazed in and out to reflect the change before another window popped up-

{{ Enter your name to start your Life }} and the layout of a hologram keyboard was shown. Using it, I quickly entered my given name (with an extra K) which I used as my gamer tag - Rikku. Then I pressed the Enter button. A quick flash of the screen showed a character tab of:

Name: Rikku

Race: Erudite

Class List

lv.1 Adept Mage

+ Upcast (10%)

Stats

Strength - 100, Vitality - 100, Agility - 100, Dexterity - 100, Magicka - 100, Spirit - 100, Luck - 10

Skillset

- Holy Magic: 1, - Arcane Magic: 1, Scan +insight, Phoenix Heart

Feats

Bonus Roll: 99, Skill Gainer, Reset, XP Division 1/5 1/4 1/3, XP+ 10%, Wizard's Grace

Titles

n/a

{{ Finalize, Yes or No? }} I clicked on Yes again, then {{ Soul Marker ***: Accepted }}!

A strange connotation there...

My thoughts of it were interrupted by another matrix-like event of flashing symbols surrounding my avatar as a prescreen began to load in the distance. It was like a magical gate to another world. However another bubble floated before me. Interacting with it gave me the coded message: Enter Tutorial Mode. The selection box was currently on Yes.

Well I played enough of these games to know the RPG system in and out but I guess it wouldn't hurt to see this Tutorial in action. Perhaps I'll learn a thing or two.