[Mission complete.]

[Processing reward…]

[Reward(s): [Body] Primary Tab, [Powers] Secondary [Shop] Tab, {Voucher-Body}]

A small, relieved smile stretched across James’ face as he read the message. Images of his many years stuck alone in a hospital bed, briefly flashed through his mind as a lone tear somehow manifested at the corner of his translucent visage. 

“Finally,” the solitary man muttered in a soft voice. He glanced around at the grass beneath his feet, the stone driveway off to the right, and the small pool in front of his house. He pictured within his mind how it would feel as he stepped across the ground, how the water would flow across his skin, or how a hot meal would taste as he chewed for the first time in what felt like forever. 

With a deep, shuddering breath, when he could no longer bear the wait, he brought up his system and selected [Body] with a lone shaky finger. 

————————————

[James Kingston]

[Tier: N/A]

———

[Physiques: N/A]

[Abilities: N/A]

[Domains: N/A]

————————————

Momentarily dazed at the lack of information, James laughed awkwardly as he remembered he’d yet to purchase anything from the store. Still, he inspected the screen for any new information that could be gleamed. 

Below his name, between the [Tier] and [Physiques] categories, laid a rotating depiction of his current self. Currently, it looked like nothing more than a cheap hologram that you would find in almost any sci-fi movie, but just a glance at a mirror would prove that it was indeed a 1:1 representation of his present state. 

James was slightly interested in the four categories on screen, but knew by now that his system rarely ever gave out information and so, he closed the screen with a sigh. Coming back to the main menu, this time he selected [Shop] and right away, entered the [Powers] tab.

Just like the [Item] store, this one was relatively blank upon entering its main page, with only a basic search bar in the middle of the screen. At the top right, two icons could be seen; a remaining FP indicator, which was currently at 100%, and a small shopping cart. The rest of the page was blank, save for the top left stating where you were at in the system. 

‘Looks like I’ll need to know what I'm looking for before coming in,’ James thought wryly. ‘No window shopping allowed I guess.’

To test it out, he used some of the knowledge gained from the [Body] tab and first thought the words, ‘Physique: Human,’ and they appeared on the search bar soon after. While the results were somewhat expected, there were some surprising additions.

———————————————————————

[Shop] – [Powers]

————————————

[Physiques]:

Human (Pokémon) 

…

Human - Psychic (Pokémon) 

Human - Aura (Pokémon)

Human (Halo) 

Human - Lunar (Halo)

…

…

Human - Deep Space (Halo)

…

Human - Archeohomina Variant (Halo)

…

Human (Witcher) 

Human/Elf Hybrid (Witcher)

…

Human/Dwarf Hybrid (Witcher)

…

…

Human (Earth) 

———————————————————————

‘Okay, that’s a lot of options,’ James thought in surprise. ‘Guess I’ll need to narrow down my search a bit when I add more titles to the VR in the future.’

Clicking on any one of the options gave a detailed description alongside a price and a preview image, which didn’t work at the moment as it had nothing to build off of. James wasn’t going to commit to anything right now as he wanted to spend a while longer browsing his options, but there was one in particular that had caught his eye. 

Returning to the main page, James first searched through all the Physiques he could think of. He didn’t limit himself to just Humans either as he looked through stuff like Vampires, Sangheili, and even all 1017 species of Pokémon. While he didn’t plan to acquire a form other than the one he was most used to, it was interesting to know that he could potentially become Arceus if he ever decided to wait a couple years and save up the FP for it. 

Unfortunately, besides the obvious downsides becoming a divine deer/horse thing would entail, that route just sounded far too boring for his taste. He’d already possessed a system that had the potential to make him one of the most powerful beings in existence, so why would he limit himself to taking the path of another? 

Sure he’d be buying powers and stuff from all sorts of places, and one could claim that was the same thing, but to James it was entirely different. The infinite combinations to be discovered, the way different powers could complement and work off of each other, or how bloodlines and physiques could possibly amplify abilities entirely foreign to their home reality, all excited him to no end. 

With those thoughts in mind, James started searching through the Abilities currently available to him with newfound anticipation. He’d also tried looking for Domains in an attempt to discover more about them, but nothing had come up and so, he concluded that they weren’t something you could purchase. 

One of the first things he found in his search was that you couldn’t purchase anything from a singular franchise more than once in the [Powers] store. It didn’t matter if it was a Physique and an Ability, or two of the same. After placing your first item in the shopping cart, everything else from the tab was greyed out and unobtainable. 

James could understand the reasoning behind the design, even if he didn’t particularly like it. Without such a thing, what was to prevent him from making something like a Marvel or DC game and just buying stuff from there forever? He wouldn’t ever feel the need to add more to his VR and it would end up defeating his system’s purpose entirely. 

Still, this meant he needed to plan somewhat carefully with these early purchases. It would really suck if, somewhere down the line, he ended up screwing himself because of a rash decision made today. Luckily, he hadn’t created a game with an overly insane amount of options by this point and there was little need to worry.

Keeping that warning at the front of his mind, James started making a list of all his best options for each available franchise and even consulted with multiple of his AI’s over which sounded most useful. While James had a lot of knowledge over most of this stuff, it was always better to get a second opinion from those who utilized them in their everyday life. The Reality Synch feature really showed its value at times like this, as it provided the man with completely accurate simulations on how each product worked. 

After a few hours of discussion, a few more heated than others, James finally came to a decision. Announcing them had earned him a few cheers, but they were nearly drowned out by the far more numerous sighs and grumblings of disappointment throughout the virtual space. Everyone wanted their creator to carry a portion of themselves with him after all.

Alas, when it came down to it, James had neither the ability, nor the FP to satisfy even half of them. Hell, after finalizing his choices, he didn’t even have enough to buy from all three franchises in the first place!

He also still needed to purchase some things from the [Item] store in the near future in order to facilitate some of his more recent plans, which would now undoubtedly need to be pushed back a few weeks and/or months, but that something for future James to worry about. Right now, he had some very important purchases to make.