Waiting impatiently near the door is Joseph, a 22-year adult male that's not only a cripple in a wheelchair, unable to feel or move his legs, but also someone suffering from Paget's disease.

 

This bone disease of his causes him frequent pain, whether in the form of broken bones, aches, bone deformation, and a bunch of other very unenjoyable stuff. He has medication that slows the progress, there however isn't a cure to stop it.

 

He has regular operations at the hospital to remove excess bone or to deal with the consequences of his disease, such as heart problems and other nasty stuff.

 

This, Combined with the fact that he's all alone, his parent's death from a car crash left him with a hole in his heart. He sought escape in video games; virtual reality allowed him to escape from his problems and experience new worlds. Worlds where he could have joy, where he could move, and where he could generally have a fun time.

 

He knew he looked a little desperate waiting at the door like that, but he didn't care. Today, he was going to receive an actual gaming pod. He has been waiting for the newest model to go into sale. This groundbreaking piece of technology doesn't just supply you with nutritions, allowing you to dive for multiple days straight. It provides muscle stimulation and everything, the whole package!

 

Although the modern VR helmets made for deep diving allow you to experience pain, pleasure, and other such things, they're not made for continuous use. Besides that, a helmet that receives and sends brain waves to cause feelings and emotions can't be compared to a pod that does not only that but also connects to your nerves and muscle system.

 

Now, you might wonder how a sick, disabled boy like Joseph can pay for that, and the answer would be life insurance. The cash that came with the loss of his parents did little to lessen the boy's grief, but it at least allowed him to search for distraction elsewhere.

 

The healthcare insurance his parents took for him when he was about to be born covered his medicine and hospital costs. Sadly, it didn't cover the cost of anaesthesia in operations in which it wasn't essential. So, he simply took what was covered and endured the rest.

 

The same went for food; he ate healthy but sparsely, and as far as housing went, he didn't splurge. He didn't go for a big house but kept something simplistic but wheelchair friendly.

 

The bell eventually rang, and Joseph opened the door almost instantly, surprising the delivery men. They gave Joseph a pitiful stare, seeing him in the wheelchair, but he didn't take offense in it. People usually were like this, Either pitying him or trying to assist him with the simplest thing. He never asked to be pitied, nor did he want to; he was plenty capable of doing simple stuff himself, even with the limitations placed upon him.

 

Either way, he ignored their looks of pity and guided them in. After pointing out the room where he wanted the pot, the delivery men brought the parts in and started the installation work.

 

Joseph watched them eagerly at the start but eventually grew a bit bored. With nothing better to do, he simply kept on watching as the men put the piece of technology together.

 

The gaming pod was from the same company that's going to launch their newest game today. Civilization Online is said to be the newest and most groundbreaking game; it comes straight from the biggest international gaming company and works with the newest AI.

 

The game is even unavailable in some countries due to its in-depth realism. It's said that the NPCs are just like living people and that the already realistic experiences of pain, pleasure, and other emotions and sensations in the game are fine-tuned, making you able to even breathe in the air or suffocate due to the lack of it.

 

Best of all, there are no microtransactions, unlike in Diablo XXVIII. The only thing Civilization Online will have is the ability to trade in-game currency between players for IRL currency on their trading platform. The company takes a 20% cut over every transaction between a buyer and seller, who, by the way, are both players.

 

But even then, to prevent rich kids from having too much of an advantage, the amount of daily buyable currency is limited to about a quarter of what you can normally grind within a day.

 

It took a while, but once the pod was fully installed, he was quick to check it all out. Luckily, the pod was wheelchair-friendly, and everything looked amazing. Seeing that it would take a while longer for the game to finally launch, Joseph decided to download the game onto the pod.

 

Once that was done, he ate something simple and took a quick shower. He did a quick check on everything, after which he waited for the awaited hour.

 

When the game was close to launching, he got into the pod; as the thing fully closed around him, turning everything pitch dark, he felt a stinging pain in his neck. Two clamps made sure he wouldn't suddenly move; Joseph, however, wasn't worried. He had read it in the manual; the pod was connecting to his nerves and muscle systems.

 

His vision eventually changed and it was as if he was standing within a blue glass like room. I'm front of him where different icons for the settings and other options, just like a computer basically.

 

He clicked the game icon and felt himself being transported to another world; at least, that's how he'd describe the feeling. He, however, once again came into a glass-like room where a counter was counting down.

 

Once the countdown was over, it finally began, and the game was officially launched, and the room around him changed. It's as if he was standing in another dimension. Everything was game-like blue; if that makes sense, a character creation catalog appeared before him. Yet over that character creation catalog, another notification popped up.

 

 

A headache accompanied the message as his head started hurting, and his legs suddenly felt numb, which was weird since he shouldn't be able to feel anything under the waist when deep-diving. The numbness eventually made room for the normal feelings a leg should have. Nothing, however, was normal about this for him. Just when he was about to go thru an emotional rollercoaster, another notification popped up.

 

 

He suddenly felt calm again, as if it was all normal, which was fucking bizarre. Yet his chaotic thinking didn't give way to emotional display, which was weird, to say the least. It's like feeling your thoughts race thru your head after a fight or when a fight is about to start, or some other serious incident. Yet the familiar crazy heartbeat and all the emotions that came with such a thing just weren't present. The quick, chaotic thoughts eventually settled down. He softly kicked his leg forward, feeling the motion, yet it didn't quite settle in. The whole weird calmness about the situation started to creep him out, so he decided to hurry up over to the character creation.

 

Unlike a normal character creation category, you couldn't select a race or anything of the sort. You, yourself, appeared in front of you, which was quite unsettling, to say the least since you didn't appear as a mirror image but as a actual person.

 

Behind himself appeared dozens of similar versions of himself, although in different races; a notification popped up.

 

 

 

 

Joseph clicked the notification away. Joseph wasn't fat due to the healthy diet he followed; he, however, wasn't the prettiest around, considering his lack of self-care. So, he used his 20% to just pretty himself up a little as well as to change his dark blonde hair color into a pure black one and his grey eyes into Heterochromia ones, with one eye being blue and the other being crimson red.

 

The reason he went for this unique eye combination was because it was unique. Most people wouldn't think about it; after all, Just two crimson red eyes are super pretty, while Heterochromia would depend on your tastes.

 

He wanted unique eye colors because the character you change into will always have those eye colors. This was pure speculation, but if the NPCs were truly as smart as the forums claimed them to be, then it might be possible to easily show them who he was even in the event he had to change bodies.

 

The fact that NPC's could give their souls to you, allowing you to possess their bodies and other such things, was quite something. This basically worked like a respawn point; if you die, your body is lost. You can't just respawn. So if you have something built up and have followers who've given you their soul, you can take one of those bodies. This way, you don't spawn somewhere random on the map or leave your people to be leaderless.

 

After all, one of the main features of civilization online is building your own civilization. Of course, all of this is optional; there are plenty of other options in-game, such as just adventuring and doing your typical LITRPG game things.

 

Anyway, after confirming his character choice, he tapped away the warning, "You can't change the appearance of your character without special items," and proceeded. Next was the pain modification setting. The setting wasn't originally there but was added after some lawsuits and international drama; some countries had boycotted the game due to trauma issues during the beta playtest.

 

It currently stood at 0% and had a heavy warning sign under it.

 

 

 

 

" Ah, That's right, I've read about this. The whole pain modification equals XP was there to stimulate players to actually play the game as intended. There's also the whole thing: if you log out, artificial intelligence controls your character for you. This feature was added for people with work and other such stuff. Each player has its own AI that's watching and studying them while they play; there's also the whole brain reading stuff and other forms you consented to when buying the game. Kinda scary, honestly. "

 

Joseph shook his head and put the balk straight to 100% with the x 2 multiplier, which would give him a 200% XP bonus. He couldn't proceed without clicking the test button, which he did. Upon doing so, a knight appeared before him holding a sword, his body suddenly froze, unable to move, and the knight plunged his sword into his chest.

 

He could actually feel the cold, sharp, metallic tip of the sword pierce into his skin as it further moved into him,  penetrating into his flesh and coming right out on the other side. This left even him gasping heavily from the sudden pain and the visual that accompanied it.

 

The knight withdrew his sword and cast healing magic. A green light covered its wound, and he felt the bizarre sensation of his flesh regenerating. The wound closed itself as the stinging pain turned into an annoying itch. The itch eventually disappears together with the knight, as if nothing has ever happened in the first place.

 

Joseph caught his breath for a moment, after which he steeled his resolve and decided to continue. He was used to frequently broken bones and other types of nasty results caused by Paget's disease. So, although the sword definitely wasn't smth he could just brush away, it was something he could deal with. Especially if this meant he could finally feel something in those legs of his, pain or not!

 

Having dealt with the character creation, it was time to switch over to his class selection.