"Hello" said an overly cheerful voice. Max's awareness gradually returned and all he could see was black. He couldn't feel his body and he seemed to be blind.

"Where am i?" He thought to himself. "Am I in a hospital? Did the psychiatrist paralyze me or somthing?"

"Welcome to The Game" the voice once again proclaimed. "I will be you're guide throughout your journey."

"Who is that? What are you talking about? Are you with the that psycho?"

"My name is Sophie. I will be your guide and first subordinate as you travel The Game and entertain the gods."

"What the hell are you talking about?"

"You will understand in a moment"

Suddenly a blue window appeared in the darkness.

"What the hell is that?" Asked Max.

"That" replied Sophie "is your stat screen with you will need in order to have even the tiniest chance of surviving"

"What does it all mean?"

"I'll get to that later but right now select the create option."

Max thought create and the window closed itself before he found himself in front of a large rotating double helix.

"Why is there a giant DNA strand in front of me?" He inquired.

"That is you DNA. You got pretty lucky with you sponsor"

"Lucky how? He's the asshole who stabbed me in the chest and now I'm here wherever this is."

"Lucky because your sponsor is a rank 7 and if he haven't sent you here someone else would have and he would not have been as highly ranked."

"And high rank is good because?..."

"You get to start The Game with a little more of an advantage and trust me you need every little bit you can get your hands on."

"Ok so now what do I do?"

"Since your sponsor is a rank 7 you are able to change you DNA hence the giant spinning double helix. This gives you a couple of advantages and one glaring disadvantage. Modifying your DNA allows greater more significant changes and at a lower cost. It also allows you to provide your offspring, should you have any, with the same advantage. However each level up, teir up and rank up will cost significantly more Exp, Emt and Emt."

"I know what Exp is" Max said "but what are the other two?"

"Emt is emotional energy and Ent is entertainment you provides to the gods. More about that later. Right now let's focus on you improving your weak, soft, fleshy little body. Focus on the giant spinning thing."

Max complied and a list of available improvements as well as their editing cost appeared in front of him.

"Any recommendations?"

"Always go with the presets. They insure any improvements you make are supported. For example if you improve your hearing the presets also improve the brains ability to filter and understand what you are hearing. The body is an incredibly intricate and balanced machine. Destabilize it in the slightest and it all collapses."

"So why even give the option?"

"Its kind of a test to see if people are worth watching" Sophie explained dryly. "But mainly because the gods find it hilarious when a new player shows up, boosts his strength all the way up, bends down to pick up a tree and shatters every bone in his body."

"Ok gonna remember not to do that." Max quickly thought presets and a new window appeared.

"What the heck is with the costs. What does it even mean?!"

"Oh! Right. The gods like screwing with people so all the numbers are hexadecimal. Base 16."

"Seriously! The hell! Why? Just why?" Max slumped, defeated. "So how much does everything cost in numbers I can understand?"

"Never mind that right now" the voice commanded "Take all five of the basic upgrades. You're gonna need them and they are worth every point. The rest you can think of things you would want to improve or add and look for it in the presets list."

Max, having no other ideas and all five options looking pretty attractive obeyed and selected Skeletomuscular upgrades.

Max chose yes and saw the counter on his bottom left fo from 1216 to 1173.

"So a3 equals 43?"he asked Sophie.

"No." The voice replied chuckling. "It's 163 in base ten. Your DNA points are also in hex."

Max grimaced. "Oh. Should have realized that." He swiftly selected the next four upgrades clicked yes and saw his points go - apparently - down to db9.

"Ok. This is just frustrating. What does db9 even mean?"

"Don't worry. You'll get the hang of it. Now that you have the basic upgrades, is there any thing else you want to add or improve?"

"I wanna fly."

"Well, there is flight magic you can learn at about ra.."

"No. I mean wings. Great big bat wings."

"Umm. There are such options." Sophie explained, hesitantly. "But major additions to you body are quite expensive and I'm not sure you have enough points."

"How do I check?"

"Select more and look for it I should be under flight or wings."

As soon as the voice told him what to do he quickly did so and looked down the list that appeared, exited and hopeful. He soon found it under Wings.

"Do I have enough?" Max asked praying to who ever the gods were.

"No." Max slumped.

"But" Mac perked up. "If you desperately want it now you have two options."

Max waited for the voice to continue.

"You can either remove or reduce on of your already selected upgrades. Or you can get the wing but with reduced capabilities."

"If I reduce their capabilities, will they still be usable?"

"Dependes on which capabilities you reduce. If you reduce the skeletomuscular support's muscle strength it will make the wings useless at the start but as you exercise them you will be able to gradually use them more and more."

Max thought for a bit. "Let's go with that. How do it?"

"Just select the wings. I can do the rest"

"Hold on a sec....there we go."

Max immediately chose yes and his DNA counter went down to two.

"How much do I have left?"

Sophie giggled "two."

"Oh..... What can I do with that?"

"Mostly cosmetic stuff. Make yourself look better."

"How much better are we talking about"

"Well, out of ten, with ten being an absolute god, two points will get you to about a seven and a half. About average."

"A seven out of ten is average?" Max exclaimed.

"Almost everyone uses their spare DNA or points on cosmetic changes so yes, seven and a half is average."

"Alright let's do that. Ho..."

"I'll do it. There we go. All done."

"Now what?"

"Now your brand new body gets made and we head down to The Board"

"The Board? We?"

"Oh?" The voice giggled again "I'm coming with. Don't want me along?" Sophie said sounding pouty.

"No! Not at all I was just surprised that you said we are going down." Max said hurriedly.

"Didn't you hear what I said before. I'm gonna be your guide throughout your journey. We're stuck together whether we like it or not. Though you do seem better than what I've heard about other players"

"Ok then. Nice to have you on board Sophie."

"On board. snort that's a good one"

"What?"

"Never mind. Thank you for having me. Night night."

The DNA strand in front of Max vanished and the world started to spin.

"See you in ... well, a bit."

Then everything shut down.