Chapter 16: Character Creation. (1/2)

Arthur closed his eyes in anticipation, his body began slowly losing consciousness, until he was completely disconnected froan fading out The sounds fro loudly, the strange excited squeals e capsules Eventually it was all gone, replaced by nothing but deafening silence

Arthur was floating in a black void, and then he opened his eyes

What stood before hiht white room that seemed to endlessly expand into the horizon, this was the virtual hub that Arthur was all too familiar with It stood as the boundary between the real world and the ga that you didn't have to log out of the capsule every tiame

One of the options this hub world offered was the option to interact with the real world from within the virtual one, this was ency situation, as tia able to join lobbies, simulated environments that allowed you to interact with others currently in the virtual hub Everyone in the beta test was directed to join the only public lobby currently open when they logged in, letting the online

Arthur stared at his hands, on his ar buttons used to traverse the virtual hub, although there were estures Arthur was curious if they had ihts as he had asked, but it didn't seem like that had been implemented yet, or if it was, he wasn't yet able to control it

Clicking on one of buttons, one with a silhouette of several people standing alongside each other, a holographic user interface appeared in front of him It was labelled the "lobbyfor and filtering through lobbies, however there was only one lobby available at this time

Arthur clicked the lobby titled "Beta Testers Join!" His body was suddenly enveloped in a white light, and when it faded away he was in a new environment, it was some kind of don city area He was surrounded by various buildings, food courts, coffee shops, there was even a large playground a little further away If Arthur didn't knoas in a virtual world, he would have thought this was reality, although the lack of life anywhere to be seen also gave it away so about virtual lobbies was that due to everything in the virtual world being replicated, including taste, you could eat anything you wanted without facing repercussions, no dieting required, and since it was virtual everything could be replicated infinitely, for free

Arthur swiped a slice of cake from the coffee shop, and poured himself a hot chocolate from the coffeehis cake, flashes of light dotted the scenery, fading away to reveal a player from the beta teaetting used to was now ruined by the recent influx of people and their loud gasps in awe and as, he had over thirty-one years of experience within the virtual realasps of amazement died down so at the one boy who had peacefully been eating cake this whole tiaudy custom VR capsule

Not much was known about Arthur, the only parties he really attended were hosted by his father's coation s, this ained confidence and lost his shy nature with age

"What?" Arthur spoke out to the crowd "The food is free"

Taking one last bite of his cake, Arthur placed down his cutlery Feeling a little unco at hi to just wait alone "I'd recooodbye to the crowd before slapping the "return to hub" button on his arm From everyone else's point of view, he was enveloped in a flash of light and suddenly vanished

Back in the endless white roo to hi"

Eventually he heard thethat the server had co back up, he pressed the play button, his body once again being enveloped in light, only for it to fade, but once it did, he was in a black void oncea duplicate of hi still in front of him