Chapter 8: Keeping up Appearances
Upon exiting the changing room, Gray walked over to the huge door that led to the game world. Reaching out, he pushed the door with his hand.
"It's as heavy as it looks…." Gray said to himself.
Gathering his strength, he gave it a much harder push, but still, nothing happened.
"What gives?"
Gray had already waited two days since the last time he was here. He then looked up and saw the clock above the door; it still had a little over an hour left on the timer.
"Oh yeah, it's not time yet, whoops…." said Gray sheepishly while hoping nobody else was around to notice.
Gray didn't feel quite like logging out yet, so he decided instead to actually read the electronic copy of the user's manual that he received. As a veteran (old) gamer, Gray never read game manuals, similar to how he never reads instruction manuals. Still, he told himself it was just out of boredom. Obviously, Gray has never shopped at Ikea.
The manual was very concise with the instructions and merely explained that one should treat this game as if one was living in the real world. NPCs remember you and your actions, but they can forget over time and even talk about you to other NPCs. You may be a player, but your stats are the same as NPCs. Just like in real life, raising stats is done through gene therapy and training. Players also must return to their incubation chambers in the game to log out.
"That is yet another weird rule… I understand not being able to log out immediately, but I can only log out from my incubation chamber?" Gray knew this was done to prevent people from abusing the game by suddenly logging out in the middle of combat to avoid a loss. Other games used similar forms of this. Being anchored to the incubation chamber seemed annoying. Gray hoped enough players would complain about it, and it would be patched out later.
As for stats, gene therapy lets you adjust your stats after you return to your incubation chamber. Depending upon the number of adjustments, the waiting period would vary. Still, even the highest level only had a waiting period of half a day. This was pretty normal as the wait was there for balance Gray imagined. While waiting, you could not move your character from the incubation chamber. You would not be able to log in to your character during this time, but you could still return to the game lobby and wait if you didn't feel like completely logging out.
Training your stats was slow and arduous, but it was free. The other advantage of training over gene therapy was that taking missions would often train you naturally. Much like in real life, training results couldn't be calculated beforehand. Some people would get better results from the same training. The weakness of training was that if you didn't maintain it, the manual said your stats would slowly degrade.
One of the more interesting features Gray read was that your character's physical appearance would change with training. For example, if you slacked off on physical training, your character would get fat. If you jogged too much, your character would become so toned that they'd look almost sickly thin.
"That really is a lot like real life… so basically, I can't be a couch potato like I am in real life if I want to keep this six-pack." Gray looked down and admired his own six-pack, which he hadn't seen in real life since his early college days. "They might as well just say that it simulates reality too perfectly!"
As Gray continued to read, more players started to log in to the game as the timer got closer to the end. Most players had already created their characters, but he still enjoyed watching how some people REALLY adjusted their appearance. It seemed tedious that only a few people could use the changing rooms simultaneously, but this was one of many lobbies. Only the Diamond-Tier players were able to join now.
Gray tried talking to some of the other players, but everyone seemed to have formed their own cliques, and he never felt like he fit in with any one group. Looking at his clothes, Gray realized that people may have been avoiding him. The game would use whatever clothes you were wearing upon diving into the game for your initial clothes before launch.
"What's the big deal? Many people wear pajamas when they game!" Gray realized he was wearing one of his older pairs, so it was probably one of them with a hole in the butt or crotch that he should've thrown away a long time ago. Still, not important anyway, as this was the only time the game would use your real-life clothes.
Only a few minutes were left until launch, and Gray enjoyed watching how people would adjust their appearance. While he couldn't watch them do it, he could still see the before and after. Surprisingly, the girls did the least amount of modification to their appearances. Most of the players seemed to have the same idea as Gray and would just give their natural appearance a slight touch-up. Of course, he couldn't help but notice that many of the female players chose to enhance certain "assets" that most men would heartily approve of.
As for the men, a few didn't even change their appearance, but some couldn't seem to get enough of it. "I'm glad I'm not that insecure," said Gray to himself after watching one guy walk into the changing room as skinny as a rail and walk out looking like a professional bodybuilder. Another man walked in looking like he nose-dived off the top of the Ugly Tree and hit every branch on the way down, and then walked out looking like a movie star or model.
The only thing that surprised Gray was that nobody seemed much older than 30 or in their teens and younger. Still, people could be much older than they appeared with today's cosmetic surgery. Regardless, it still seemed odd.
A short Asian man walked into one of the changing rooms. Apparently, he was giving himself a thorough make-over as Gray noticed that he was in there a very long time. A cute girl with long blonde hair tied up in twin tails and buns walked out of the same room as the Asian man from before. She had long legs and wore a female sailor outfit with a moon-shaped tattoo on her forehead.
"Huh, he must've come out before, and I just missed him," said Gray while thinking the girl in the sailor outfit looked oddly familiar.
She noticed Gray staring at her and walked up to him.
"Hey cutie! Please be nice to me in game or in the name of the moon I shall punish you!" said the girl with a cute wink.
Gray blushed slightly as he wasn't used to girls taking the initiative to talk to him and smiled bashfully at her. "Of course miss, I'll look for you in game!" Gray said enthusiastically.
The girl smiled back at him, "I hope so too!" Then she scampered off, probably looking for her other cute friends. Girls like to travel in packs.
Still, Gray felt something was off about her… the girl's shoulders were slightly broader than average, her chin was a little more defined, and he wasn't sure, but he may have seen an Adam's apple on her. As she scampered away, he couldn't help but glance at her short blue skirt, and Gray's face suddenly went white as he saw a "pouch" bouncing between her thighs in the panties that she... errr… HE was wearing…
Gray suddenly felt a piece of himself die a little bit as he screamed in his mind, "It's a trap!"
CREATORS' THOUGHTS 
LordSputnik
LordSputnik I hope people realize the 'female' sailor I am referring to is Sailor Moon.
12/24: Edits... edits galore! Got rid of the stupid celebrity misspellings again, fixed some logical flaws and a few missed typos.
5/24/2022: Rewrite, corrected timing logic (that nobody noticed I hope from last chapter.)
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