Choice of destiny

"Choose the destiny of your new life in our brand new VRmmorpg 'Choice of destiny'!

We promise life-like realism where the senses of sight, touch, smell, hearing and sight are more real than ever with 101% realism!

Do you want to soar in the sky? Grow stronger by the day and rise to the top? Or do you wish for a happy life that you couldn't get on earth?

Well Search no further as the world of Vielver is here to grant all your wishes!

True life has presented y-"

Turning off the TV because of the headache-inducing ad, a young man with black messy hair tied behind his head as a loose bun groggily lifted himself from a cheap couch making his hair fall back down and cover his sight.

The dark circles under his eyes and the trace of drool still on his lower jaw showed how sleep deprived and tired this man was even after waking up.

Trying to stand while still drowsy and subjected to a severe hangover, Damon carefully raised his fingers and made them pinch his own eyes to take out his contact lenses he forgot to take out the night before and were now burning his eyes.

He was used to it. Even though his doctor said it would only worsen his eyesight.

Now seeing even less than before he searched around in his jacket for his thick glasses before putting them on.

Finally being able to look around properly, alas with a never-ending headache, Damon was subjected to a sight he had already seen too many times.

His roommate Mirato was completely wasted on the floor, still holding onto one of the many empty beer and vodka bottles laying around.

Stepping over his sleeping friend, Damon made his way towards the bathroom where he washed his face before putting his glasses back on and looking at himself in the mirror.

Damn.

Even with my badly kept appearance you could say I look good… it's better we say above average… My lime green eyes and slightly tanned skin do improve my looks.

I am of both Western and Eastern descent as my Father, an American Bioscientist, married my Japanese mother. They met when mom was on vacation in America after having completed her training for the Japanese navy and serving for a while.

You know, the usual love at first sight story they keep on repeating at every chance they get…

Anyways, for some reason they decided to move to Germany where my dad kept on with his research while my mom became a police officer.

So here I am, 22 years later, in a pretty good (the best) engineering school in Germany.

I don't want to brag but… I'm a little smarter than average… ok… a lot smarter than average.

Most of my friends take lots of time to learn and prepare different projects we have to do for our studies but I don't really take as much time as they do…

You could say I do everything at the last minute and still manage to score as one of the best…

I'm also pretty good with languages, have had a "few" very "unfortunate accidents" happen to my teachers, you know… like getting electrocuted by a very thin tripwire, having their desk launch towards the ceiling in the middle of their lecture, a glitter bomb inside of someone's favorite pen, a whiteboard that erases what someone just wrote… common accidents…

Maybe they are common in engineering schools ? Definitely not my fault.

Ok alright. It's just so boring, I already learned and made everything we need for this year by "looking through" the "locked" informatic files of our school.

The teachers speak so slowly that I had to make a device that sends small electroshocks when I'm about to fall asleep, and even that backfired when it started getting enjoyable.

I even made a club with some of my friends… half the school… Basically it's a robot fight club where everyone can make battlebots and put them against each other, betting allowed.

I shouldn't even be talking about this since the first rule explicitly says 'You don't talk about robot fight club'.

I regularly play DnD with my friends and particularly enjoy tormenting them as the dungeon master the most, ahhh they never expect my traps and my story twists. Muahahaha.

*Cough* *Cough*

… And most of the time we end it with a drinking party… Like yesterday.

"Ugh, why am I self narrating my life again? What time is it? Shit it's half past ten! Oh wait, today is Sunday…"

Taking the jar of aspirin I open the lid and slide a pill down my throat to calm my splitting headache. Shit why did I think of it, now I can feel it throbbing again.

*Ding**Ding*

Flinching from the loud as hell doorbell, I walk towards the door before unlocking and opening it in one swift movement.

Before me stood a delivery guy with a red baseball cap and sunglasses handing me a paper and a pen.

"Please sign here and here."

Doing as he said I only realized after finishing that I hadn't ordered anything and that I had no idea what I just signed.

"Have a great day."

"Wait wh-"

The delivery guy was already gone by the time I realized…

I guess getting something for free isn't that bad?

Looking around I saw no package of any kind until I looked over at the obvious giant plain black box to the right of my entrance.

It took me a while to realize that this wasn't a wall since from my memories, my apartment continued up.

It would be bad if I left it here wouldn't it? It completely stops people from going up since it's so large… Wait, how am I going to get this inside?

Well no choice… I have to take out what's inside and then dispose of the rest. Oh I could even give it to Kevin, he needed some kind of rectangular box for his project…

Doing as I said I would, I went back inside to search for my crowbar and pried open the wooden box containing… Styrofoam, of course.

Aanndd some kind of… coffin?

I mean it's a big and intricate thing but what does it do? It's so big I could even fit inside…

OH SHIT! It's the VR-Capsule from the True life company!

There's a note here.

'Dear Damon David

We hereby make you the owner of this True life VR-Capsule.

Nah I'm kidding, happy Birthday kiddo don't spend your entire time in there since I don't want you to waste all the money I put in your studies.

(And don't waste this either since it costs a fortune.)

Love you, dad, paps.'

Aww that's so nice of him… even if my birthday was two weeks ago… it's not his fault though, he's always overwhelmed with work to take care of us.

Alright let's try it out.

Wheeling it inside I lay it down in the middle of my bedroom.

I've played a lot of games on both PC and console before but I've never even tried Virtual gaming so I don't know what to expect from a full immersion VR world.

Speaking of gaming, I'll be honest and say that I'm a weird guy. When I was little I always liked to play games because they were fun experiences and had immersive stories, but as time went on I… changed my preferences.

I went from a casual player to a try-harder that searched for 100% completion and overwhelming win rate. Oh but don't be mistaken, I stayed polite even when I lost, because I knew I would wipe the floor with my opponent the next time I encountered him.

Problem was, it was getting boring… Usually you would switch to other games to relieve your boredom, and I did, but no matter the genra, I always dominated at some point.

It really was lonely at the top.

So I switched to the dark side of gaming, searching for legal cheats, exploits and glitches within games in a way to "break" the game.

Oh boy let me tell you it was hella fun!

So yeah, I'm a bastard. If it makes things better I mostly exploit solo games but if you ever met a guy that can throw grenades in weird angles or is almost one with the wall then you've probably met me.

Basically, I'm the glitch. And yeah… that's also my username.

Since there is no instruction manual I try to touch around for any button before hearing.

[Scanning fingerprints…]

[Searching in the True life database…]

[Damon David registered, welcome aboard captain.]

The traditional robotic Sara voice announced before the plastified glass at the front opened up along with a few parts of the metallic hull.

Many wires, tubes and plastic elements could be seen hidden behind a soft cushion-like ground where the user is supposed to lay down.

Everyone knew about True life and their brand new VR innovation, especially me as I really liked everything that has to do with technology and fantasy.

It's just that… it came out two days ago and all one hundred thousand capsules were sold out in less than a minute.

Knowing dad he wouldn't have even known about them so I really wonder how he got his hands on one.

Well there is no use wondering how he got it, I'll just ask him next time I see him.

Looking out of my room into the messy living room I could still see my friend asleep on the floor.

Since he won't wake up until noon at the very least, let's try it out.

Taking a step into the metal coffin, Damon layed down completely before the voice of Sara came back and asked,

[Are you ready to dive?]

"Yes."

[Initiating dive into choice of destiny.]

The coffin's see-through lid closed up above me and mechanical straps locked me in place while some kind of helmet was put over my head.

For a short moment I felt like I was swimming in some kind of liquid before I was assaulted by sounds, smells and feelings of all kinds.

This burst quickly stopped letting me alone, I couldn't hear, feel, smell or see anything.

Just cold and silent void, until.

*Ting**Ding*

[Welcome to 'Choice of destiny', the game servers will start in 354 minutes, have you seen the trailer and information pamphlet ? YES / NO]

'No.'

[Understood, playing the intro for the user…]

The dark surroundings lit up showing a territory seen from the sky. Diverse locations and events could be seen such as a thriving medieval city where human merchants sold diverse wares, knights and soldiers walked around the high stone walls and farmers diligently plowed their fields.

The video changed to reveal a forest crawling with beasts and animals, a monster camp where humanoid goblins grilled human meat above a fire, an avalanche descending the side of a mountain only to be almost completely melted by the breath of a dragon flying overhead.

Various fantasy settings continued being introduced as a calm female voice with a slight slavic accent started speaking.

"Welcome to the World of Viderflem within Choice of Destiny. This fantastical world will be where you have received a chance to live your new life. There are many different races, species, countries, continents and structures which you, the player, will get to be immersed into. You are completely free to play however you wish as this i-"

'Ok skip.'

"You have chosen to skip the introduction video, here is the information pamphlet to guide you in understanding the game."

A book appeared in Damons virtual hands with the title "Rules and laws to follow in Choice of Destiny".

The first thing he checked was how many pages it held and it was a whooping 366.

'I could just play for fun… Nah, it's always the same thing, better just skip the usual stuff and break the game instead of wasting my time on having fun. So let's read everything to try and find a loophole or an exploit…'

[To start your journey you will first need to choose your first perks. These perks are the foundation of the new you ! You will first have the chance to create three perks that need to be balanced to be accepted by the system. More perks can be obtained by playing the game.

Example of what to do and not to do :

Experience boost : Good "balanced" perk

+10% experience

-10% all stats

Destructor : Bad unbalanced perk

+100% strength

-10% wisdom

If the user creates an unbalanced perk, the perk and the perk slot will be destroyed, for ever. Slightly disadvantageous perks are advised.]

'Hmm… Alright I'm sure I can find something game breaking if I read into the bylaws…An MMO mixed with a roguelike sounds like a lot of exploit fun hehehe. Let's get to work ! '

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