I ran as fast as I could. I was late for my interview already, not that it would matter. I kind of gave up once I lost count of how many jobs I applied for. But I still applied, and I was still running to get there on time. Eventually, I couldn't run anymore. My breath was ragged, my sides splitting in pain and my heart was racing faster than I thought possible. My legs were throbbing with the exertion. Hell, my whole body was throbbing. Except my arms, they were fine. Could barely even feel them.
It was around then that I collapsed. Everything was getting dark. I wanted to struggle, but I just stopped caring. So what if I never made it to the interview? I would only be rejected yet again. And if I wasn't? I would be in a shitty job until I either got fired or it sucked my whole life away. Maybe it was just better to give up, let Death take me into its warm embrace. Maybe the next life would be better. My final conscious thoughts were, 'I only wish that something interesting happened. Just once. Then I would be happy.'
I died.
XxX
GAME OVER
YOU DIED
- LOAD
- NEW GAME
- OPTIONS
- QUIT
Whatever I expected the afterlife to be, it certainly wasn't this. I expected mass amounts of clouds, a pearly gate, a fiery pit, anything that religion - as much as I don't believe in it - could have taught. Needless to say, a glowing blue box that looked like it had been ripped right out of an RPG was not one of those things. Without any other options, I pressed LOAD.
A smaller screen popped up.
ERROR! Unable to load save files as no save files were detected.
Well good. I didn't want to go back to that place again. I tried pressing options instead. This time a much larger screen with a scroll bar appeared. I scrolled through the options, seeing a lot of things turned off. One things stood out to me though.
GAME MODE: Realistic
I tapped it and sorted through the options. There were many boring ones, quite a few funny ideas and some plain disturbing ones. As I was scrolling through I quickly went backwards. This game mode was one that I could guess what it would do. I set it and saved my settings
GAME MODE SET: The Gamer
I remembered reading The Gamer during my free time, and I was awestruck by the thought of turning my life into a traditional RPG. If I had this setting, then maybe my new life will be some fun.
"Well, I probably should leave QUIT to last, better to be safe than not existing and all that," I said to to the empty void around me, pressing NEW GAME, "Might as well see what this gives me."
NEW GAME SELECTED
Choose your new world:
- Reality: The real world. Nothing special about it, just the normal world.
- Pokemon: The world of Pokemon. Catch and train your own team and be the very best, like no one ever was.
- Dragon Ball: The world of Dragon Ball. Train to become the strongest and use your Ki to save or subjugate the universe. Just watch out for the screaming.
- Naruto: The world of Naruto. Train to become a shinobi and protect your village and become the best. Believe it!
I stared in disbelief. Not only could I start a fresh new life as the Gamer, but I could also be in a universe of my choosing. I considered my options. There was no way I was going back to the normal world, I had enough of that hellhole. The Pokemon world was quite tempting, but I had no idea how that would work with my Gamer abilities. Would I be the only one affected or will my pokemon be too? I scratched that off my list. I almost picked the Naruto world, but my abilities would draw unhealthy attention and the plot had so many layers that it would all spiral to chaos far too easily. That only left the Dragon Ball universe. I selected that one. A new window then popped up.
DRAGON BALL UNIVERSE SELECTED. CREATE YOUR CHARACTER:
Below that was a very Xenoverse-esque character creation screen, only with more options. A lot more options.
I definitely did not want to be human again, especially not in this world where they are the weakest of the weak. Similarly, Namekian could be interesting, but they were also fairly weak and not very well respected.
Majin would be very cool and powerful, but the biology would be so weird and I would not be able to justify using most of my abilities. Saiyan, however, would not be confusing with the biology and fairly powerful, and I was tempted to select it. But when would I be born? No point in being born into a cool new life only to be blown up by an overpowered tyrant. Nor would being born far too late in the main story. That poses an interesting question. What is canon anymore? GT? Super? Movies? Well, cross that bridge when it comes to it.
I continued cycling through the race options, going past some races I recognised as Frieza's soldiers whose names I had no idea about. There were even some that I had no idea existed. Who knew that there were a race of people who survive from eating their own flesh and regenerating it? And what the hell was a Kudamonian?
I eventually came across the one race I knew I wanted from the start. Born incredibly powerful, highly respected and a sparse population. Arcosian, race of Frieza. Without anymore hesitation, I selected it. I was then greeted with a new interface. This one described itself as an imagination creation screen. All I had to do was imagine what to look like and it would form.
After what felt like hours, maybe even days, I was happy with my new look. I would be 5'6 in final form once fully matured with gold bio-gems, dark blue skin and dark grey armour plating. Near my eyes, I had two strips of blood red running down to my chin. My eyes stood out the most. Contrasting against the rest of me, I had deep green eyes, similar to the colour of rainforest trees, a homage to Earth. My hope was that they would unease my opponents and yet make me seem more friendly.
I took a deep breath and submitted my character. I had excitement welling up inside of me. What would I change? What could I change? I then face faulted when yet another screen popped up.
SELECT STARTING PERKS (3 AVAILABLE):
- Heir to the Throne: Be born as the heir to the Cold Dynasty and inherit the PTO (Planet Trade Organisation)
- Memories of a Past Life: Retain memories from your previous life and get + 5 INT.
- Natural Power: The planets being lined up perfectly resulted in a more powerful child (you) being born. +15 stat points (Total: 30).
- Anomaly: ?
- The New Emperor: Natural command over others greatly increases diplomacy and persuasion skills.
- Natural Ki User: Ki abilities come easier to you and improve faster. +3 KI, INT and WIS, -2 STR, CON and DEX.
- Natural Fighter: Physical abilities come easier to you and improve faster. +3 STR, CON and DEX, -2 KI, INT and WIS.
- ESP: You are born with a Sixth Sense, warning you of danger and improving Ki senses.
- Berserker: Rage fills your body and boosts your power when low on health. +50% to all stats and Berserk status when below 10% health.
The rest of the list was greyed out. I didn't know whether I could get more of these perks so I selected so I got the three perks I thought would be useful and entertaining: Memories of a Past Life because what use is information about future events if I can't remember it, Natural Power removes the need to grind early or could be saved up for when getting stats is harder, and finally I chose Berserker. That one was 1. Useful and 2. Hilarious. +50% to all stats means I will become 1.5x more intelligent as well.
After confirming that I wanted those perks, yet another window popped up.
ENTER D.O.B (DD/MM/YYY)
I put in May 9 and then considered the year. I considered being the same age as Gohan but I wanted to be able to prepare for the start of Z so earlier than that. Plus, with the assumed slow ageing of an Arcosian, I would be roughly his age relative to the rest of my species. So I settled for a few years younger. With my natural power and growth rate bolstered by the Gamer ability I would have no trouble keeping up. I entered May 9, 753.
I sighed, confirming the date, expecting another window to appear. Instead, I felt tingly. I looked down and saw my skin was now blue and I had strange bone-like plates on my body. I had become my character.
ENTER NAME:
And there's that window. Might as well keep the Arcosian puns going, I thought to myself. I entered "Glacier." And yet another window appeared. That was what? 7 Windows now? As if the game was reading my mind, the window said
ONE LAST WINDOW
ALLOCATE YOUR STAT POINTS TO BEGIN THE TUTORIAL
"Oh so that's how we're doing this, huh?" I said irritated, "You get me to sort this all out and now I have to do the TUTORIAL? Fine, I'll allocate these stupid points."
I finished up and looked at my stats
NAME: Glacier
- HP: 1400/1400 (+1.4%/min)
- MP: 1500/1500 (+1.6%/min)
LEVEL: 0 (0/1000)
AGE: 0
TITLE: The Gamer
RACE: Arcosian
STATS:
STR: 3
CON: 4
DEX: 7
INT: 10
WIS: 6
KI: 5
SKILLS:
- Gamers Body
- Gamers Mind
PERKS:
- Natural Power
- Memories of a Past Life
- Berserker
I sighed yet again and exited the New Game screen. And then the pain came. A energy coursED through my veins, faster than it could handle. The sheer enormity of the power must be why Arcosians have reduced forms. Their power, my power now, was far too great for the younger bodies to handle. I was going to scream out in pain when it stopped. No, not exactly stopped, more like numbed. I saw in the corner of my vision a health bar ticking down. Rapidly.
And then another fucking window showed up.
WOULD YOU LIKE TO START THE TUTORIAL
Y/N
I hit yes.
WELCOME TO YOUR NEW GAME.
Let us start by creating a reduced form...
I followed all of the instructions. Creating a new form, navigating my menu, opening my goddamn Hammerspace Inventory. It even went through how to attack, and the damage indicators that appeared for each hit. It explained each stat and what it does. Strength makes you stronger, dexterity makes you faster and more reactive, and constitution increases the health pool and health regeneration. Intelligence makes you smarter and increases your mana pool, wisdom makes you wiser and makes Ki usage have more effect while increasing mana regeneration and Ki just makes Ki attacks more powerful. The tutorial finished off with using Ki and flying, which was frankly epic.
By the time I was done I was ready to take anything thrown at me. And then I realised. I was in the middle of nowhere, Space. Literally.
EDIT 24/01/18: Changed INT, WIS and KI's effects slightly as per reviewer suggestion