I sat down in my chair, fitting the VR helmet snugly over my head. Everything else would be handled mentally from here, no need to move a finger. I wasn't even sure if this was really what I wanted to do.
Part of me kept waiting for that last-minute gut check, a reason to back out. But it didn't come.
Only this weird sense that maybe I was doing it for all the wrong reasons and doing it anyway. The moment it clicked into place, the screen shimmered to life, casting soft blue light across my face in the dark room.
[Welcome to Elunaria.]
A swirl of music filled my ears, an overture of strings and wind instruments, grand and sweeping. The kind of music that made your chest tighten, like the story had already started and I'd missed the first chapter.
A voice began to narrate, rich and calm, accompanied by a cinematic visual of floating islands and cascading light:
[In the age of twilight, when the gods withdrew and magic fractured, the realms of Elunaria were left in the hands of mortals. Choose your path, seeker. The world awaits your story.]
I blinked, confused—and then accidentally skipped it. Just a flicker of mental intent, and the narration vanished. I barely caught the last line:
[Let your legend begin.]
A portal pulsed in the center of my vision, colors swirling like a digital nebula. Violet, azure, silver. Everything glowed with a level of polish that made my monitor feel enchanted. Floating text hovered in the air in elegant serif font.
[Create Your Legacy.]
The character creation screen was like something out of a dream. Figures rotated slowly around a stone platform, rendered in near-perfect detail. Humans. Orcs, Dwarves. Beastkin with fur and tails. Sylvans with bark-like skin and glowing eyes. And elves. I wasn't even trying to choose yet—just browsing, I thought—but suddenly, the elf avatar stopped rotating and highlighted. Selected. Had I done that? I tried to back out, but the system had already confirmed the race. Just like that, I was an elf.
A prompt flickered at the top corner of my vision:
[Scan Real-World Appearance for Base Model? Accept / Customize].
Apparently, the system could take your physical features and blend them with your chosen race for realism or let you design someone entirely new.
I hesitated. The idea of seeing a digital version of myself as an elf made something twist in my stomach. If anyone from my friends saw me and figured out who I was...
I selected [Customize].
Just to be safe. I didn't want to be recognized. Not here. Not when I hadn't told anyone I'd joined at all.
I hesitated, then hovered over the elf avatar. She looked too perfect. Tall, slender, with a crown of flowing silver hair that shimmered like starlight. Her skin was pale like moonlit marble, her features impossibly elegant and distant.
The kind of figure you'd expect to see on the cover of a fantasy novel, not inhabited by someone like me.
I hesitated, second-guessed, wondered if I should just quit before embarrassing myself in front of nobody.
So, obviously, I selected her, ust thought about it, and the system responded instantly.
The moment I did, her eyes opened and something shifted. My breath caught as those silver lashes lifted and her gaze met mine. It didn't feel like animation. It felt like contact. Like being seen.
A sudden pull, gentle but undeniable, like gravity turning sideways. I tensed. The world tilted, or maybe I did. It was like stepping into cold water and realizing it had already seeped into your bones. My thoughts blurred. My breath caught.
The elf's image shimmered—and then I was... her.
I gasped, lightheaded. My whole body felt weightless. Not floaty. Light. As if the heaviness of everything of being Mia, had lifted.
[Assigning identity based on racial lexicon and linguistic harmony...]
When the system asked for a name, a glowing list of suggestions faded in, rows of elven-sounding syllables, lyrical and impossible to judge.
I had no idea what an elf name was supposed to sound like. Were they supposed to mean something?
Was there a right choice?
I scrolled mentally, feeling overwhelmed and stupid.
Lirael Anoriel stood out. It sounded melodic. I picked it more out of exhaustion than conviction, just wanting to move forward. The system locked it in. Just like that and when I heard it spoken aloud, like it had always been mine, I nearly flinched.
I didn't know it would echo like that. I didn't know it would sound so real when spoken aloud by someone who wasn't me.
This game didn't mess around.
Next came the class selection. A glowing ring of icons I didn't recognize.
Warrior. Mage. Cleric. Rogue. Ranger. Bard. Archer? I didn't even know what half of them did...
The tooltips popped up too fast and disappeared too quick. I hovered over mage and got a blur of text about mana pools and spell chains. Warrior talked about combos and aggro. Cleric had healing circles, cooldowns, and channeling.
I settled on Archer, mentally confirming it, since everything here ran on thought and intent. It sounded easy. Like I wouldn't have to get too close to anything.
Then came a menu I almost skipped past entirely. A glowing slider marked "Realism Level."
It defaulted to 20%.
There was a little tooltip blinking gently underneath: "Higher realism increases immersion. Customizes physical feedback, environmental response, and neural sensitivity."
I had no clue what any of that meant. I figured it just made the graphics more immersive.
Or maybe the motion more fluid?
I focused on the realism slider and watched it climb as I thought about increasing it. 40%. 60%. 80%.
Then, almost by accident, I let go.
100%.
The system didn't stop me. It didn't ask me to confirm.
A tiny red line of text blinked at the bottom:
[Warning: Full Realism Mode engaged. Log-out disabled until session end. One hour real-time = one month in-game.]
I squinted at it. My chest tightened. Was this really a good idea? I wasn't even sure I understood what it meant. A whole month? No logout? That couldn't be literal. Right? But the words pulsed red, insistent. My breathing quickened. Maybe I should stop, back out... but how?
Was there even a cancel option? My thoughts raced, scrambled, trying to remember if I seen anything like that. Panic tickled the edges of my mind.
And before I could stop myself, before I could even think clearly, my mind latched onto the glowing button:
[Enter World.]