5) Character creation

*gasp*

When Luca woke up the first thing he did was draw a long breath. After feeling like drowning on the egg he was still shaken up.

'It never gets easier' *sigh* 'where am I anyway?'

He looked around and saw rows and rows of bookshelves. They were so high that he could not see the ceiling, all he could see were some clouds when he looked up and the bookshelves cut through them like skyscrapers.

The floor was made out of light-colored wood, it was smooth to the eyes but it had a sort of raspy texture. He looked down and could not see his hands or his body. He knew it was the character creation part of the game where you start without a body, sort of a soul, and you slowly build your body.

He would then pick a name for himself. It was easily the most exciting part of the games. He was wondering what class should he chose as it was an RPG when he heard some flapping sounds coming from the clouds above. When he looked up, he saw a huge shadow, and it was getting closer by the second.

At this moment he had already forgotten about everything that had happened and was super excited to start playing. There was always a certain type of rush to the virtual world. After a few seconds, disappeared.

"What are we looking at hoot hoot?"

"Ahhhh!"

Luca jumped when he heard a voice talking to him from the side, or well, his soul jumped. He looked over and saw a brown owl, around 60cm tall, with huge eyes, small legs, and a green wizard hat. He looked like a cute animated character.

"Why are you screaming hoot hoot?"

"Who are you?"

"They call me… (dramatic pause) "The Guide" hoot hoot. I am in charge of guiding you through your body selection."

"Oh, I see, alright owl-"

"The Guide hoot hoot" -he said while crossing his wings over his big belly.

"Alright "guide" - said sarcastically- what do I have to do?"

"Well, sir hoot hoot, first you have to select a gender."

"Male"

"Alrighty hoot hoot"

As he said that, he removed his wizard hat and pulled a small blue orb. He then threw it into the air, it circled Luca for a while, and then it grew into a perfect replica of his human body. On the sides, some panels allowed the modification of his body.

"I will not allow you to change your body too much, otherwise it would be a problem hoot hoot."

After a while of editing his character, he ended up with a man with black short hair, silver eyes, slightly taller than he was, and his build was slim. He had beige skin and thin lips. He was quite handsome, to be honest.

"I am done Mr. Owl, what now? Should I chose a class?"

"Alright hoot hoot. No, there are no "classes" in this world. The only things we have are affinities and talents. They are two different things. People with talents are called Espers, they have a peculiar one, no Esper has the same talent hoot hoot. Affinities are the type of spells someone can cast, everyone can become a caster as long as they have an affinity and there are even neutral spells that can be cast by everyone. There are a total of 32 affinities if you count neutral as one. So technically, you will have two affinities, neutral and a random one. If you do not like your affinity, you can retry once again hoot hoot."

The clouds opened up and a holographic animal pawprint descended from the clouds above.

"Looks like you have an affinity for beasts, would you like to make this your final choice or gamble everything hoot hoot?"

"Beasts? So a summoner or a beastmaster huh? I have already played one before, I want to try something new, alright sure, gamble everything."

"Good luck, hoot hoot!"

The beast pawprint disappeared and the clouds opened up again. This time, a knife and fork image appeared.

"Amazing! Hoo hoot! You have an affinity with food magic!"

"Wait what? Food magic? What type of bs is that???"

"Sorry hoot hoot, no takebacks hehe. Now for your unique Esper ability."

The Guide took out his hat.

"Stick your hand in there and pull out a crystal, there are millions of different crystals. The crystal chooses you Mr hoot hoot hehe."

"I don't have my body yet, are you making fun of me?"

"Oh yeah, I forgot, sorry hoot hoot. I'll transport you to your body now then."

He then clapped his… wings and Luca felt himself being pulled towards his new body. When he entered he felt like getting close to a mirror and seeing his reflection, then, the mirror turned around and he could only see forward with his new silver eyes.

He looked down at his hands and turned them around, this feeling of first entering your body was intoxicating.

"Great! Now stick your hand in my hat hoot hoot!"

Luca rolled his eyes at this comment but did as instructed.

He stuck his arm in the hat until his shoulder, he tried looking into it but he could not see past his elbow. He felt a lot of palm-sized crystals in there, they were all different but he had no idea which one to pick. He was drawn to two crystals, one was a smooth diamond-shaped crystal but was vibrating a lot, and the other one was two smaller diamond shapes linked together with a bridge in between them. He ended up picking the second one.

Once he took his hand out of the hat a message appeared on his vision.

[New Esper ability acquired - double shot]

[Double shot- Every time the user uses a ranged attack or casts a spell, a copy of the attack or spell will also shoot to the target]

'This is so OP! So every time I use a ranged attack I use two huh? This game is more interesting than I thought, I have no idea what to do with my food affinity tho."

"Okay hoot hoot! That is it. Now off you go, you have an adventure waiting for you! Wait no I almost forgot hoot hoot, what would you like your name on the game to be?"

"I want a mysterious name, one that inspired fear in the heart of my enemies! I could go for Silverfang? Nono that is too long, Silver? Nah too basic. Should I choose a normal name?"

He suddenly had a ray of inspiration.

"I know! I want to be known as Ryker."