I used a trick to essentially make my avatar look like my current appearance. It was a mental trick that really shouldn’t have worked, but you basically mentally project your own image of yourself onto the avatar creation menu, and it changes your character's appearance. Not everyone can do this for some reason. Hell, no one can even explain how it works without diving into a bunch of technical nonsense that sounds smart. But for an educated person like me, it's obvious they have no idea how it works—they just don’t want to admit it.
Putting that aside, I checked the available races. Human? Boring. Dwarf? Not really—I don't like the idea of a beard. Height isn’t necessarily a dealbreaker, but the beard? Yeah, I don’t want that. Beastkin races? Beastkin cat, tiger, dog, wolf—there’s a ton of options. Elf? Hmm, I want to be a magic caster, so let's go with Elf. I select Elf.
"Are you sure?" Yes.
I noticed my character’s appearance change on the floating screen in front of me. Oh, I thought it would just add elf ears, but it looks like someone took a photo of me, put it into Photoshop, added elf ears, and then painstakingly tried to make me the most handsome version of myself possible. There’s even a little notification at the bottom that says "Race Adjustment." Oh, I guess being an elf gives you a "handsome upgrade," though I didn’t think I was ugly—especially considering I’m an albino. My pale white skin, crimson-red eyes, and white hair give me an exotic charm, or so I've been told. I inherited that from my mother. Queen is also an albino, like me. It’s said that during World War III, there was a particularly nasty bioweapon, and the vaccine had a potential side effect of turning people into albinos. Apparently, it became hereditary—though some think it might’ve been a cover-up for genetic experiments. Every time we mess with human DNA, things tend to go wrong. Minor tweaks lead to long-term health problems, while major tweaks create goddamn monsters that need to be put down before they go on a rampage.
I click "start," and once I’m in the game world, I look around. Damn, this is too realistic. It feels like I’ve actually been transported to another world. I can even feel the ground under my feet—well, through the sandals I’m wearing. My outfit is pretty basic: leather pants, a cut-up shirt, and a dagger on my waist. It’s your generic villager look.
I noticed the menu only has the logout button and says "Tutorial Village." Oh right, I remember the devs saying the tutorial village isn’t the full realism of the game. It’s there to ease players into the world and get them accustomed to the realism. You need to reach level 30 to leave the tutorial village and enter the real game world. It’s meant to stop people from freaking out due to the game's unprecedented realism and immersion.
The NPCs here are also different—if you treat them like typical game characters, it might cause problems. So, the devs gave us a tutorial village. If people still complain? Well, they’ll just get banned.
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I grab the card hanging around my neck, and the chain disappears when I do, bringing up a holographic menu. It shows:
Name: Solar Wind
Race: Elf
Age: 16
Sex: Male
Level: 1
Experience: 0/100
That’s very little information. The card has an "F" on it, so I guess I’m an F-rank adventurer, which is what every player starts as. I think there’s some backstory reason for it, but I didn’t really read it. Anyway, let’s head to the guild and get some quests.
Now that the new steam VR pod tech, we can stay in the game for a month straight without worrying. That’s the true advantage of the new VR gear, not the slightly better performance—it’s the fact that we can stay in for extended periods. It just needs two hours of downtime every month and then for auto-cleaning and refilling nutrient cartridges.
At the adventurer’s guild, I put my hand on a crystal ball. It glows, and the NPC says, "Light and Life magic." She does this for everyone in the party. Queen got wind and fire magic, and 13 has lightning magic. She explains there are two types of magic: elemental and non-elemental. Elemental magic is more versatile and powerful, while non-elemental magic, like telekinesis, has restrictions. For example, telekinesis can’t lift objects heavier than 100 kilos or move them faster than 5 km/h. Elemental magic doesn’t have those limitations, but you can only use elements you’ve got
She continued explaining the different magic types, including rare elements like light, darkness, and lightning. I asked if water magic users could use ice magic. Surprisingly, the NPC answered. Yes, water magic users can manipulate or create ice, but ice magic users can create natural ice. It only takes mana to create natural ice, and then it exists independently, without needing mana to maintain its existence unlike magical ice. However, further enhancements, like the spell "Eternal Frozen," would require mana to maintain the enhancement, not the ice itself.
After all this, we took some quests to kill goblins. Luckily, our guild cards automatically recorded our kills, so we could just show the card to complete the quest and get gold. Goblins weren’t much of a threat, and I managed to level up to 2 after killing a few. Our starting gold was only 10 coins, enough to buy a basic magic book. I chose light magic, while Queen went with fire, and 13 with lightning.
The NPCs are strange. One minute they talk like robots, the next they’re eerily realistic, as if they’re real people. It’s a bit unsettling, but I suspect NPCs outside the starting village are even more lifelike. That’s going to be interesting to deal with.
After reading some of the magic books and practicing, we headed into the forest to hunt more goblins. The combat was brutal—stabbing them in the throat, dodging attacks. It all felt far too real, and I realized this level of realism might be difficult for most players to handle. But as we leveled up, our abilities grew, and I kept using purification spells to stay clean after the fights. Queen would burn the goblin bodies to prevent them from coming back as undead.
By the end of the day, we had reached level 10, and we were starting to get a hang of things. The game is no joke, though—the realism and the complexity of the magic system are intense. We’ll need to reach level 30 before we can truly unlock the full potential of our magic abilities.
