In deep space, two men faced each other. They looked extremely similar, their height was the same, their frame was the same, even the details of their faces were identical. If someone else was next to them he wouldn’t be able to differentiate between the two, if not for the fact that one of them was naked. If they brought themselves to not look away even when the man’s nether region was plain to see, they would see another difference, their eyes. Not only was the naked man’s eyes golden, but they also lacked the light of life in them, but they also were like dead fish’s eyes.
These two were Mark and his avatar, and he was now thinking about how he will begin the transformation. This was a delicate matter, one that he did only once when he was seriously thinking about creating a new character in his past life. In the end, he abandoned that thought but the knowledge he acquired was still within him.
First of all, he did a full check up on the avatar.
Seems like there is no blood flow, that’s good.
Mark was relieved at his discovery, since if there was blood flow, some change in one part of the body might cause unwanted complications in other parts. Now, he no longer needed to worry about that.
The first organ he started changing was his heart. He made both of his ventricular chambers bigger, his heart muscles stronger, his heart veins bigger, and his nerves more receptive.
He checked the change percentage with the corner of his eyes. **1% increase, huh. Seeing that the percentage wasn’t that high, Mark assumed that this change was still acceptable within the boundary of the system.
Now that he strengthened his heart, he needed to make sure that this new strength is used well by the other organs. Specifically, he needed to avoid a hypertension scenario.
The lungs came after the heart. He made sure to check the pulmonary arteries and see if their walls were too thick, or had any irregularity. Once he straightened all of that out, he focused on his actual lungs.
First of all, he added an insane amount of alveoli and an equally high amount of bronchi that the alveoli are connected to. Once he worked out all those mechanisms, Mark strengthened the nervous system related to the muscle that controls the contraction of his lungs. This is so as to make reflexes such as coughing, breathing in and breathing in out compatible with his new upgraded lungs.
After this, Mark did a full upgrade to every vein and blood vessel in his body. This is so as to not fall into a hypertension scenario due to the ridiculously high amount of blood that his heart would be pumping.
After two hours of meticulous work, Mark was finally done with the hard part. All of his internal organs are now upgraded and can support each other without anyone failing from overexertion. Now, he only has to change his muscle and bone density a bit, and he will call it a day.
Taking a sneak peek at the change percentage, Mark found that it reached 7%.
Only 1% to go, I still need to leave space for that. Well, that can always wait until the live server come. For now, this is already enough.
Mark turned his head to check on the angel. For the past 2 hours, he had been focusing solely on the avatar before him and forgot about the existence of Gabriel entirely.
“Huh?”
In front of him stood a dark brown table, with white table clothing on top of it. Gabriel was sipping on a cup of tea before putting on top of a plate. The angel seemed to be enjoying its time while Mark was frustrated on how to make his new avatar work.
For some reason, the goofy smile on Gabriel’s face pissed off Mark for some reason, but he didn’t dwell on that for any longer. He turned back his focus to the avatar in front of him.
Seeing as he didn’t have much percentage change left, Mark just changed his muscle fiber at the level of his shoulders and thighs to be more endurance focused. This is because these are the muscles that endure much of the stress during a battle. Having them become more endurance-focused will help with muscle fatigue and give him the edge he needs both in battle and in challenges.
Looking at change percentage he found it to be 8% on the dot.
Good, I guess I’m done for now.
Turning towards the angel, Mark affirmed.
“I’m done, we can continue with the character creation process.”
At his words, Gabriel put down her cup of tea and made it disappear along with the table and the chair she was sitting on.
“Oh already, you just reached 8% though, don’t you want to push it even more? You still have 12% available to work with as you please.” Gabriel asked with apparent surprise in her tone.
At her question, Mark responded “Nah, I think this is good enough for now. I still don’t know what kind of world Ashes of Gods is, so I can’t decide. Plus, I’m not even sure if these changes benefit my character, adding more without fully understanding the consequences might result in a crippled account, and I don’t want that.”
At his answer, Gabriel just smiled and said “Understood. The character creation process is almost done. It shouldn’t have taken this long, but since so many interesting things happened, I won’t hold you on that. Now, you’ll choose your class from these 4 archetypes.”
As she finished talking, his avatar was separated into 4 clones, each wearing a different outfit.
“This is the warrior, in its Swordsman iteration, ” Gabriel said as she was pointing to the clone holding a sword and emanating a green aura flowing wildly.
“This is the mage, in its water Elementalist iteration,” The mage clone was holding a staff and wearing a robe that was fluttering to a non-existing wind. The clone had a blue and calming aura, his eyes were deep as the ocean, showing his unending wisdom.
“This is the assassin, in its Shadow iteration, ” The assassin was wearing a cloak that was merging with the shadows, half of his face was masked and a black aura complementing his attire was emanating from him. He was holding a razor-sharp dagger, with a black and red handle. Its blade was darker than black, and the overall aura screamed the word danger from miles away.
“This is the priest, this particular one is from Agios, believing in the goddess of Life Aida,” The priest was holding a book on his hands, presumably a holy one. He was wearing a white full-length cape with golden ornaments on his shoulders, sleeves and on his chest. He was emanating a holy aura that was complemented by his golden hair and eyes. His whole figure was screaming “I am holier than thou”.
Mark didn’t take long to choose which class to take. All of his doubts and worries, he already came to term with before even entering the Dreamscape. He will take the path of his past life, but this time, he will push further.
“I choose Warrior.”
“Hm, really? I thought Assassin was cool and suited your edgy, cool teenager vibe better.” Gabriel said her tone full of surprise. However, her smile easily betrayed her amusement and mischievousness.
Mark couldn’t be bothered with her antics so he just ignored them.
“Tch,” Seeing that she won’t be able to get a reaction out of him, Gabriel just clicked her tongue and continued on with the process.
“Anyways, we’re basically done. You just need to choose your name, and you can start the tutorial. So, what will it be?”
At her question, Mark didn’t hesitate.
“Shesmu” This is a name that stuck with him even before he started playing Ashes of Gods in his past life. It’s the first ID that he used in his first Vr game, that day 26 years ago.
“Name accepted. Well then, I think this is goodbye, for now, Mark- no, Shesmu. But before that, I want to announce to you something. As the first person to notice that you can change internal organs, bones, and muscles for better performance in-game, we congratulate you. You will be rewarded with 3 luck points and 5 concentration points. These are hidden stats, so it’s very hard to raise them, we hope that you will not misuse this opportunity. Also, these rewards are connected to your account, not your character, so even if you delete and recreate your character the rewards will still be there. Of course, these carry over to the live server as well.
“With this, we wish you good luck in your journey in Ashes of Gods.”
