A voice sounded in Alex's head. He slowly opened his eyes to look at the white nothingness in front of him.
'Where am I? Is this the game?' he thought.
A customization menu appeared in front of him. He looked at the different options possible and got easily overwhelmed. He saw a Randomize button at the top and clicked it without hesitation.
It created a new character with long, silky black hair, a lean body, and blue eyes. "This doesn't look bad," he said to himself.
He didn't want to set Alex as his username, but also couldn't think of one. So he simply chose the Randomize option once more.
'Doesn't sound bad,' he thought as he pressed OK.
Suddenly, everything turned white.
Alex found himself surrounded by trees on all sides. Everything so vivid and real and colorful.
"Is this really a game?" he thought.
He looked down on himself and saw that he was wearing a simple robe and pants similar to what his character looked like.
"So, this is what a VR game looks like, huh." He was amazed at the surrounding. His senses all told him that it was real. That he was in a real place.
"What do I do now?" he wondered and started looking around. There wasn't a map or a health bar that told him it was even a game.
Not long after, he found a small pouch tied to his sash. He tried to pick and see what it was when suddenly, a holographic panel appeared in front of him.
The panel had a bunch of boxes in it, with only 2 boxes being filled up. "What is this?" he wondered as he touched the first box.
[This game mostly works through voice commands. Say 'Settings' or 'Status' to open up settings or your info. Your first job is to make time and HP bar visible for your HUD from the settings. Say 'Settings' ]
A new screen appeared once more that had a bunch of little settings in it. He didn't know what most of them did as they were turned Off, but he quickly found 2 settings related to HP Bar and TIME. He turned both of them ON.
Suddenly on the top left of his vision, a green bar appeared representing his current HP amount. On the top right, a bunch of numbers appeared representing the current time.
It seemed the time in the game matched the real-life time.
[Congratulations on using the settings. You can later change the different settings as you see fit. Now, to check your info say 'Status']
Another blue screen appeared in front of him. This time it had a bunch of information about him.
[Player Name: Yu Ming
Cultivation: Mortal (1 Qi : 100%)
Body: Sun God's Divine Yang Body
Spiritual Roots: 5 Elements Yin-Yang roots
Cultivation Method: None
"Oh, is this my info?" Alex looked at the status with curiosity in his eyes. He didn't understand what most of it meant though.
The tutorial screen popped up again.
[Congratulations on opening your status. Here is an explanation of what each of these means.
Cultivation is your current cultivation realm and level. It shows you how much Qi you have to invest to increase cultivation, and what your chances of breaking through are.
Body: is your potential in cultivation. It determines how far you can cultivate. Special bodies also give other benefits.
Talent is your talent in cultivations. It determines how fast you can cultivate.
Spiritual Roots: Spiritual Roots represent your spiritual affinity towards the element. You can learn and use elements you have an affinity to more freely than the rest.
Cultivation Method: is the technique you use to cultivate. It teaches you how to gather Qi and use the Qi to increase your cultivation.
Qi: is your source of energy. The more Qi you have, the stronger you can become. The speed at which you gather Qi can depend on your location, your cultivation method, and your talent.]
Alex was truly overwhelmed now. He couldn't understand half of what was happening right now. He had decided to play this game because his new friends had told him it was the best out right now. So, why were there this many explanations?
Once he read it all, he clicked on 'next'. A new set of texts popped up from the tutorial panel.
[you can use the following commands.
Cultivation methods: to see all the cultivation methods you have learned.
Pills: to see the list of pills you have.
Techniques: check the different techniques you have.
Inventory: to see your inventory. (shows items from all of your different spatial bags or rings)
Finally, congratulations on completing the tutorial. You can now open the chest in your inventory to obtain a random technique, weapon, pill, and cultivation method.]
He closed the Tutorial by clicking the 'X' on the top. He tried saying all the commands, except log out, to see if they worked. As expected, all the commands worked.
Every single panel those commands brought up was empty, except for the inventory.
"Alright then, let's see what the chest gives me. Hopefully, it's something good." Alex clicked on the chest and a notification popped up.
"Weapons" he decided to check weapons first.
The weapons panel now had a new addition to it. From the icon, it looked like a sword. Alex clicked on it and the option to equip or description popped up. He chose description.
There were no more descriptions than that.
"What's the mortal grade? Is that good or bad? Also, is there no attack bonus or anything? How is this a game if the item has no stats on it?" Nothing of what Alex had learned from the little video games he played on his home computer helped him at all right now.
He then checked the pill.
[Qi providing pill: 10%
"This is not bad. Didn't my status say I need 1 Qi to level up?" Alex was quite happy to find this pill.
"How do I use the pill though? Is there a button to use it?" Alex looked into the options that popped up but didn't realize what to do.
"Since this is a pill, like a medicine. Do I just eat it?" he wondered.
"Whatever, here it goes."
He put the pill into his mouth. As soon as it entered his mouth as if the pill melted, it slid down his throat before he even noticed.
"Oh. I was right". He quickly opened his status page to check the change now. He had indeed gotten 10 Qi now.
Now that he had enough Qi, he had a new [Breakthrough] option in his Cultivation.
"Ah, there it is. So I can become a cultivator now? Is that what it is?" Alex wondered as he pressed the [Breakthrough] button.
"Oh! I need a Cultivation Method eh. Let's check my Cultivation method then." Alex opened his Cultivation method page and saw the book icon in the panel.
The Cultivation method had a separation in the panel that divided the panel into 2 sections. 'Learned' and 'Ready to Learn'. The book was in the 'Ready to Learn section.
He clicked it and two options popped up. 'Learn' and 'Description'. He clicked on the description.
[Starry Sky Qi Absorption Method:
Absorb 20 Qi every minute. Amount doubles during the night]
"Woah. 20 Qi every minute? That's crazy," Alex thought. "Wait? Does that mean the pill I ate wasn't actually good.?" he was starting to regret even eating that pill now.
"Do I learn It now?" he thought. He quickly went back to the same panel and clicked learn.
"Nice. Now I can breakthrough right?" Alex quickly set the new method as his cultivation method. After that, he clicked [Breakthrough]