Chương 2: 1.2 Open the Game?

Okay, this thing was actively mocking me now.

*Please state your name*

I've already tried a lot of things to make it past this stupid prompt. From shouting at it to even trying to slap it out of existence, nothing seemed to be working.

*Please state your name*

"Shut the hell up..."

I shook my head in exasperation as I sat on the relative nothingness of my location. There was just nothing I could do to make it work. Would it even stop? What if I was trapped in this place?

*Please state your name*

The relative novelty of the situation had utterly died in order to make way for anxiety and panic. I was stuck in a place with nothing except this woman asking me for my name. No other sound, no other distractions, just a glaring box filled with a damn prompt that kept repeating on and on and on!

*Please state your name*

"For the love of-"

{BZZT!!}

"Woah!"

A shudder. A flash of static so brief I probably wouldn't even have noticed it if it weren't for nothing else existing in this place. It kind of threw me for a loop as I felt myself swaying from nausea. What just happened?

*Please state your name, Somatic*

Huh?

Looking at the prompt, I raised an eyebrow at attention as I saw the changes. It was still the same black-and-white box from before, but the word 'Somatic' was now attached to the end of the sentence. The voice also added the word on her line.

*Please state your name, Somatic*

Something changed... Wait... Would it work now?

"Moriya."

For a brief second, nothing happened as the prompt disappeared from view. I already knew it worked since something changed, but I didn't know the extent of the changes. Was I finally getting to the game world? Was I still gonna get that novelty life of being inside a game?

*To travel the Seams is a dangerous prospect. For this purpose, Somatics make use of their [Manifests] to grant them safety through their journey.*

[Manifests], huh. I've read about this in the game's description. The game boasted that it can simulate any kind of power a player might want at the cost of stat points and other negative quirks. It was the one mechanic that made me want to try the game in the first place; the ability to make whatever character I wanted was always the first thing I checked for RPGs.

Now that I thought about it, I kinda wish I was a girl now...

*Dear Somatic, while your journey has only begun, your past will inevitably shape the future...*

In an instant, the black void that I was standing on suddenly became a stark white space, the dark ink receding as far as I could see.

*What are you, Moriya?*

In front of me, a podium of sorts emerged from the whiteness of the void. It looked like it was made of marble, and there was an open book just waiting for me to read it on top of the thing.

Huh... Clearly, I should approach it, seeing as it was the only thing I could even do at the moment.

With an apprehensive step, I made my way to the podium. It was still weird not hearing anything whenever I took a step in this place, but I guess this was still the character creation screen and the devs didn't really care about it too much.

"Let's see here..."

Looking at the book, it clearly designed to be some sort of stat allocation system. There were the usual stats of strength, agility, dexterity, vitality, intelligence, and luck. Pretty standard, all things considered. Well, that was assuming that they all worked in the universal way that these stats usually worked.

"Guess I'll do the usual build..."

[STR: 5]

[AGI: 6]

[DEX: 6]

[VIT: 5]

[INT: 8]

[LUK: 5]

All stats had a base of five while I had another extra five points to spend. Allocating my usual slew of stats in that I specced straight into [INT] with a pinch of [DEX] and [AGI], I flipped a page on the book to see another stat page. This time, however, it was a blank page with two stats that I had never seen in an RPG before.

[MANIFEST: N/A]

[MENTAL FORTITUDE: 0]

[MANIFEST POINTS: 0]

The blank space under the [MANIFEST] was probably the allocated space for me to manually describe the power that I wanted. If so, then [MENTAL FORTITUDE] and [MANIFEST POINTS] were probably related to the power system, seeing as they were bundled in here. Currently, they were both sitting at zero points, which probably meant they were a rare stat to dump and get. Still didn't know what they did though.

"No tooltips, huh..."

While understandable, it would've still been helpful to know what they were before I dumped my one whopping point on either of these things. I could guess that [MENTAL FORTITUDE] probably related to the psychic stuff while the [MANIFEST POINTS] related to skill points depending on what type of power I might want. And speaking of which...

"What do I want to have...."

Having carte-blanche on what power I wanted to have was kind of overwhelming, now that I thought about it. What if my conceptual power was too unwieldy in practice as opposed to what I thought of it on paper? Maybe I should stick to something simple instead of going balls to the wall creative here. I didn't have the luxury of saves, right? I gotta have something reliable.

Tapping on the empty space, a haptic interface lit up above the book as I began typing in my power. It wanted me to specify a name, an item, the power, and its limitations. I guess it was for balance purposes that limitations had to be a thing. Also, from what I've read in the description, a [Manifest] was something that granted the Somatic power through items. So it also made sense that it wanted me to specify an item that I'd have with me at all times.

"Hmm..." I tapped on my chin as I tried to think of something cool and reliable. "Super strength's just boring... Speed, maybe? Or something like a packaged Superman deal..."

It would be ridiculously overpowered, but it would secure my safety seeing as this wasn't just a character, it was actually me getting into this world. I didn't know what kind of enemies there might be out there, but seeing as this [Manifest System] was advertised as a double-edged system, I should make something that won't completely bore me, but at the same time something that wouldn't screw me over if push came to shove. The game boasted capabilities far too ridiculous for any indie dev to create, but did it really mean that I could do anything?

Typing in my [Manifest]'s form, I settled for two desert eagle pistols that won't ever run out of bullets so long as I was using them both at the same time. Kind of boring, now that I thought about it, but it'll be reliable for long-ranged combat. I also typed in my mandatory weakness which would be piss poor defense; a logical weakness for something that was clearly built for range.

I nodded at my boring creation, "Okay..." This should work, right?

Tapping on the enter key to confirm my [Manifest], I-

*ERROR! NO THEME DETECTED!*

I froze up.

What the hell? No theme detected?

I tapped on the confirm button again, hoping that it would work if I brute-forced the situation.

*ERROR! NO THEME DETECTED!*

"Oookay..." This was gonna be a problem, wasn't it...

Looking at the blaring error screen floating above the pages, I noticed that there was something new at the bottom of the message. it was written in smaller text, and it looked like it was more of a note than a tooltip of sorts.

"Hmm... [Manifests] must have an overarching theme for the system to accept it?" I read aloud as I pondered on its meaning. "Theming, huh?"

I sighed as I erased my previous idea. I guess it was a system put in by the devs to avoid players making their own busted power systems. While understandable, it kind of invalidated the advertising point of the game itself if we're just limited to sticking to a theme.

The white background around me seemed to bristle at my annoyance; the aura of nothingness getting into my nerves and exuding out of me amplified by at least twofold. I stared at the blank [MANIFEST] in front of me, my brain wracking itself for any sort of ideas that I could use. Maybe something from another game? Something that won't completely fail on me despite having an obvious drawback?

Licking my lips, I typed in another weapon that I was familiar with. Describing a thin, golden rapier, its power would be equivalent to that of a godlike being at the cost of the rapier losing effectiveness whenever I lose. The power to never lose... That was a theme, right?

Tapping confirm on the haptic screen, I waited for the thing to finish loading before-

*ERROR! NO THEME DETECTED!*

Huh? But it had a definitive theme! The theme of absolute victory!

*ERROR! NO THEME DETECTED!*

....

I felt my brows twitch and furrow as my blood pressure rose to uncomfortable levels. I was getting seriously pissed at this things, and I hate it.

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