Ye Tianxie’s home lay in the most opulent villa district in Jinghua City, where any single villa cost more than an ordinary person could ever hope to afford in a lifetime of trying, and every last resident was a magnate among magnates. Here, Ye Tianxie was the odd one out. He never associated with anyone, held no job, and idle neighbors often gossiped about how he could possibly afford a villa like this. Perhaps the only answer was that he’d inherited some relative’s vast estate.
To him it was only a villa, not a home. The place stood empty; there was ever only one person here, and only when he came back.
Back in his room, he lay down on the bed and — with more than a little impatience — raised his left hand, pressed a finger to the center of the wristband, and tried issuing the command Enter Game with nothing but his mind.
And at once, the very scene countless people had refused to believe, had even sneered at, unfolded before him. Ye Tianxie’s vision went blank; his consciousness swam for an instant, and then everything opened up all at once into a world of flowing light, colors shifting and cycling through one another. In this dazzling, many-hued world, a clear and pleasant female voice promptly rang out:
“Ding… Hello, Mr. Ye Tianxie. Welcome to the World of Fate. There are two hours and thirty-nine minutes remaining until the World of Fate opens — please wait patiently. As this is your first time using the game device, would you like to proceed with character creation?”
“Yes,” Ye Tianxie answered. The experience of entering the game for the first time was, at its core, no different from the other virtual games so popular these days. What caught his attention was that this voice — which should have belonged to the system — carried not the faintest trace of machine synthesis. It was exactly like a real person speaking. It seemed that the touted 99% virtuality hadn’t been an exaggeration after all.
“Ding… In the World of Fate, you will have a new life, a new destiny. A person’s life offers but one chance to choose at its outset, and once you choose to begin, there can be no turning back. So please choose the path of destiny you desire with care. Now, please give yourself a nickname that will stay with you your whole life. As your game region is the Huaxia Region, only Huaxia characters may be used, no fewer than one and no more than ten.”
Everything that voice meant to convey was perfectly clear. In the World of Fate there was no chance to start over — put plainly, there was no deleting your character to re-roll. So nickname, attributes, class — once chosen, could never be changed. The game was named Fate, and a person’s fate offered no do-overs.
“Tian Moxie!” Ye Tianxie gave the name without a moment’s thought — the name that belonged to him alone.
“Ding… The nickname you have chosen is already in use by another. Please choose again.” The woman’s voice gave him a completely unexpected reply.
“What?!” Ye Tianxie’s brow furrowed and his face darkened in an instant, a shifting, sinister glint of danger flickering in his eyes. The nation of Huaxia had over a billion people, and with a Fate device in nearly every hand, calling it more than a billion players wouldn’t be an exaggeration. With a base that enormous, duplicate nicknames should have been the most ordinary thing in the world. But for this particular name — “Tian Moxie” — to be a duplicate meant something far, far beyond mere coincidence.
“…Sir, the nickname you have chosen is indeed already in use by another. Please do choose again.” Seeming to sense the drastic shift in Ye Tianxie’s expression and the air around him, the voice from the system had actually turned somewhat nervous. Even amid his fury, Ye Tianxie couldn’t help privately marveling that this system voice’s every flicker of emotion was so flawlessly rendered.
“Xietian.” After a long silence, Ye Tianxie finally called out another name, though threads of ice traced through the depths of his eyes. You dare use that name — are you provoking me? Fine. But the price of provocation may not be one you can afford to pay!
“‘Xietian’ has been registered successfully. Would you like to adjust your appearance?”
The corner of Ye Tianxie’s mouth curled. “Adjust it up 100%!”
“…” The woman’s voice noticeably stalled, then said meekly, “Sir, the maximum range for appearance adjustment is 20%. Would adjusting you up by 20% be acceptable?”
“Fine.”
“Appearance adjusted up successfully. Appearance adjustment exists to protect the player’s privacy to a certain degree in the early game, in accordance with the player’s wishes. After your first class advancement, the appearance-adjustment effect will vanish automatically; if you wish to keep protecting your privacy, you may purchase a free, finely-crafted mask at any city’s general store. Next, please select your pain tolerance rate for the game, on a scale from 5% to 100%. This ratio affects only pain sensation and does not affect any other senses.”
“Five percent, obviously.” Ye Tianxie said it without a shred of hesitation. Only someone with something wrong with their head would pick 100% and then get themselves tortured half to death in a game world full of fighting and killing. And he was a man who wouldn’t swallow the slightest loss — anyone who dared stick him with a needle, he’d find every possible way to hack them back ten times over.
“Pain tolerance rate set successfully. Next, please allocate your initial free attributes. Every player has a total of 25 initial attribute points, which may be freely allocated among the four basic attributes — Strength, Constitution, Agility, and Spirit. Each attribute has a minimum of 4 and a maximum of 10. Free attributes may be raised by earning free attribute points through leveling up in the World of Fate. Please make your selection.”
A white attribute panel floated up before Ye Tianxie, four attributes lined up on it side by side — Strength, Constitution, Agility, Spirit — each with a detailed note behind it. Strength governed physical attack power; Constitution governed HP and defense; Agility governed hit and dodge, and also the attack power of ranged physical classes; Spirit governed magic attack power and MP. Each attribute affected different classes in different ways.
Looking at the attribute panel before him, Ye Tianxie sank into a long spell of thought. Allocating his attributes was bound up tightly with the class he was about to choose — so what sort of class should he pick this time…? A wind-chasing Shadow that snatched lives from a hundred paces off, an impregnable Immovable Wall, or a king of the darkness…
Through his mind, a faint and lovely silhouette drifted lightly past. At last his hand moved: it settled on the Strength attribute, tapping it all the way up to the maximum of 10, then dumped every remaining point into Constitution, up to 7. Ten Strength, seven Constitution, four Agility, four Intelligence — clearly, his class of choice would be a melee one.
“Free attributes allocated successfully. Please allocate your fixed attributes. Every player has a total of ten fixed attribute points, which may be allocated among three fixed attributes — Luck, Comprehension, and Charm. Each has a minimum of 0 and a maximum of 10. Fixed attributes may only be raised through equipment bonuses or other special means. The Luck attribute concerns your fortune within the World of Fate, and can factor into many things, including drop rate, critical hit rate, the success rate of chance events, and more. Comprehension concerns your capacity for insight within the World of Fate — the higher your Comprehension, the stronger your ability to grasp skills, including life skills, and each additional point of Comprehension grants an extra 0.3% experience bonus. Charm concerns your charisma index within the World of Fate — the higher your Charm, the more easily you’ll win the goodwill of the World of Fate’s residents and animals. Please allocate with care.”
(End of Chapter 2)