Xia's sight went dark and for a moment she felt like she was in a void between two worlds, the NexNet prevented her from feeling anything that was happening around her real body and at the same time she wasn't hearing or seeing anything from the world of LotA. Five seconds passed in which Xia wondered if the game had jammed and she was already about to say the voice command to deactivate the NexNet when she realized that her ghostly body returned. In front of her appeared a list of creatures that resembled elves from Labyrinths&Wyverns but with the addition of canine details such as the aforementioned ears, tails, black nails with a solid enough appearance to be considered claws and canines slightly elongated compared to the norm for a human.

[Welcome to the character editor, use your hands to select the race you wish to use (NOTE: in order to avoid situations like power playing and min/maxing and keep the game as balanced as possible to ensure an enjoyable experience for each player, the character statistics cannot be customized beyond a certain extent and are therefore dependent on the choice of Race and Attitude you choose).]

Xia brought her right hand under the chin and used the left hand to scroll through the seven options in front of her. Each option had a short general description that she took the time to read before picking the race that sounded like the more balanced for a new player that doesn't know their play style yet like her.

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Elvreth Pathfinder

- Possible hair colour: they can be single-coloured, two-coloured or tri-coloured. The colors you can choose are black, white, brown, blonde and green.

- Possible eye color: they can be heterochromic. The colors that can be chosen are light blue, brown, amber, green and yellow.

- Possible skin color: from white to tan.

- Ears and tail color: black, white, brown, green or red.

[Favorite Attitude: -]

[Racial Characteristics:

HP: Average

MP: Low

Damage: Average

Damage Resistance: Low

Mobility: Average

Spell Penetration: Low

Spell Resistance: Average]

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[you chose Elvreth Pathfinder, do you confirm your choice? Y/N]

Y.

[Select your character's gender: M/F]

F.

[Do you want to generate a random avatar or do you want to customize it manually?]

You shouldn't have asked.

- - -

Good, after about an hour of customization, Xia felt she had customized the avatar exactly how she wanted it: a jade beauty with diaphanous skin, black hair with green hues, lemon yellow eyes set on a serious face but with sweet features. She had increased her breasts by one size since in real life she was more chinese than european. Long legs and wide hips completed the work... perhaps Xia would have done better to stick to reality, but why move a character identical to you when you can move a person that looks exactly like you want to?

[You're almost there! It's time to choose your character's Attitude.]

A window with four options appeared in front of her, the choice here was quite intuitive as there was only four choices to pick from: [Guardian] was the choice for players who wanted to take on a support role, [Hunter] was for those who wanted to play stealthy and agile characters, [Seeker] was for those who wanted to play a wizard and finally [Warrior] was pretty much self-describing.

This was not a choice Xia could make lightly as it would have somehow influenced her playstyle even if she chosed a balanced race; Seeker seemed complicated to her since she would have to depend a little too much on magic and she was enough of a video game connoisseur to know that wizards are not very direct classes in their mechanics, Warrior had the opposite problem and since she didn't want to completely discard the possibility of obtaining some form of effectiveness with magic she decided to leave it alone, so that left Hunter and Guardian. Reading it, Guardian reminded her a bit of the cleric class from Labyrinths&Wyverns, and if they were like that class, they were certainly an interesting option since they didn't completely discard melee combat in favor of magic or viceversa, Hunter seemed to offer more or less the same potential as the Warrior, although the fact that it increased 'Mobility' rather than 'Damage Resistance' made her think of a Warrior focused more on agility and acrobatics than tankiness to resist in battle.

She was very torn, both Hunter and Guardian seemed perfect for her, she decided to leave the choice to fate: she closed her eyes and began to wave the hand to quickly scroll through the four options. She continued to do so until she reopened the eyes and saw that the screen stopped on one of the two Attitudes that were the cause of her indecision.

It stopped on [Guardian].

And [Guardian] it was.

[Enter a name for your character.]

Xia pursed her lips, what name could she put? Another operation that took her time was the repetition of writing names and deleting them out of dissatisfaction, until she decided to opt for the name of the protagonist of an anime that Natalie and her watched several times when they were little. The anime in question was called 'Xhela the Sword Maiden', and it was a sort of Japanese retelling of a television series that aired in the mid-nineties, when her mother was still a child and told the stories of an onna-bugeisha who went around the Sengoku-era Japan righting wrongs and fighting evil deities together with her best friend Genevieve.

Since Xia was the younger one between the two, it was Xia who happened to play the role of the best friend while Natalie occupied that of the protagonist when they role-played; she quickly wrote 'Xhela', but before she could send it the thought that she was somehow trying to appropriate something that belonged to her tragically deceased cousin stopped the flow of her thoughts.

“Come on Xia, it's just a name, who knows how many other people besides Natalie have used it without having any problems!”

Xia stared at the space where she should have inserted the name with her head emptied of all willpower, she took all of her courage, a deep breath, and wrote the name she had chosen.

[Character 'Genevieve' successfully created.]

[Do you want to login? Y/N]

...Y.

The character menu was replaced by a dazzling white light, so annoying that it forced Xia to squint. When she reopened her eyes, her face was partly spread on the sand of a beach, the noise of the sea waves reached her pointy and fluffy ears placidly and regularly and above her the sky was light blue and without any cloud, a bright day that it felt like trapped in an eternal spring.

“The process of isekaing myself has been completed successfully!” She exclaimed, placing her hands on the ground to help her stand up…

Stand up???

When Xia realized that she was able to stand up on her legs again, she was petrified by the sudden euphoria: the NexNetVR 1 was not a model capable of giving her tactile experiences and therefore she did not feel the sensation of the sand on her hands just as she didn't feel the hardness of the ground under her feet, but she was standing upright on her own. She lowered head and eyes towards her legs: no crutches there.

“I… I walk! I can walk!” She smiled ecstatically.

Xia started running along the shores of the sea laughing and with her arms raised above her shoulders as if she was flying. The wind – even though she couldn't feel it – pushed her hair back during the run, which ended with two somersaults before lying on the sand again. Xia wasn't out of breath, she couldn't have been since her actual body was lying on the bed and not making any kind of movement, but she felt as good as if she had actually run.

Well, now that she had satisfied one of her deepest needs, Xia could focus on the game and getting to the first location. She had an idea of how VRMMO-RPGs worked and so she looked up to see some small icons placed in neat rows across the top of her field of vision: in the top left corner were bars reading 'HP' and 'MP', on the top right there were icons depicting a closed envelope with a small '1' inside a circle - it was quite obvious that this was a notification to be read -, then there was an exclamation point - in turn accompanied by a small '1' inside a circle -, then an icon that depicted a map and another in the shape of a gear which was the options window for changing the game parameters or log out.

“So, order.” She said to herself as she sat down on the sand, what a shame not to be able to feel it between her fingers! “First of all, notification.”

Xia stared insistently at the icon made in the shape of a letter envelope.

...It was just a patch note.

But they gave her 500 Tarants to spend! Even though she didn't have the faintest idea if that was a lot or a little.

Yay?

Xia focused her attention again, this time, on the exclamation mark icon.

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Mission (primary):

- THE FIRST STEPS

Leave the beach to reach the Cabin of the Three Prophetesses.

[Close][Show route]
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As soon as Xia selected 'show route' a trail of golden bubbles began to float starting from half a meter in front of her and disappearing beyond her field of vision. She nodded to herself and began walking following the golden trail but continuing to look at her sides; the area seemed safe, with the sea on one side and the sloping face of a mountain on the other which seemed to want to channel the new players in her current direction while tall trees with lush leaves swayed in the wind creating an atmosphere which, considering the splendid day, made her feel like she was on vacation in some exotic place.

She walked past some small bumps until she came in sight of a hut, the golden trail stopped in front of its wooden door. Xia observed the building as she approached at a brisk pace: it was a rectangular structure, with a single floor and a tiled roof, thick gray smoke came out of a stone chimney.

When Xia arrived in front of the door she tried to hear if there were any noises coming from inside. Why did she do it? No idea, she must have been anxious considering that if it hadn't been for the graphics that were very reminiscent of 'Yelda: Breath of the Savage', the place lost in the woods was looking like the house of a witch. She listened for about ten seconds, then she lowered the door handle and entered the log cabin.

“Mh? A lost visitor?” A hoarse older woman's voice said.