Morning rinse, breakfast, and then three straight hours of premium-grade cussing at a screen. All because of the damn forum. More precisely: registration. Step one—pick a nickname. Should be easy, right? Throw nonsense at the wall, call it a day.
Yeah, no. That handle becomes my True Name in the meta-layer. Other Players see it. Higher beings see it. If the village managed to brand me "demon" with a casual slur, imagine what a dumb username will weld onto my soul.
Also: no proper names allowed. So my old-life classic, Sephiroth_007, got laughed out in the first thirty seconds.
Hour one: verbal abuse.Hour two: headbutting the wall + verbal abuse.Hour three: I start howling. Gamer's Mind keeps me from chewing the furniture, but it can't stop the cringe.
Everything I like? Taken. Everything that sounds cool? Taken. Everything that's left? Embarrassing enough to cause psychic damage.
— "Fine! Register me as anything!"
And the System, bless its soulless heart, listened.
[Request Accepted][Processing…]
[Registration Complete]Forum Handle: Unknown Abomination
…There are no words. Only emotions. Loud, nuclear emotions directed at the UI and its entire family tree.
Two hours later I'm calmer, marinating in the forum, auction, and shop. Turns out I'm not alone; lots of people have clown names. The difference? Nobody laughs at the ones who drop epic loot or post epic feats. The System auto-verifies claims, so the flex is real. Conclusion: lay low till I can post something that slaps.
Speaking of slaps. I was poking filters on the auction, fat-fingered the categories—left Divine on and typed "panties" out of pure scientific curiosity—and the search engine delivered "Hel's Thongs (Divine)." I did a double-take, then read the stats and did the kind of triple-take that injures your neck. Seller: Great Pervert. Nobody jokes about his nickname. If you steal Hel's underwear and still breathe, you've earned a standing ovation.
Everyone asked him "how?", and he told them to go ask Hel. Shockingly, nobody volunteered. Theories multiplied like rabbits. Price? With two weeks left, the bid was already north of 1,200,000 KD.
The forum's newbie guides are actually gold. Currency:
KD (Soul Crystals) — drop from sentient beings. The main money.
KS (Essence Crystals) — drop from illusory-barrier mobs and beasties. Used for consumables and small fry.
Gear and weapons are only half the circus. You can buy skills and abilities from other worlds. Wanna live in Potterverse and still wield a Zanpakutō? Save up KD and pay the cross-fandom tax (the more alien to your world, the heavier the surcharge). Inside one fandom? No tax.
I checked the Naruto listings and nearly drowned in drool. Scrolls E→S, forbidden jutsu, dojutsu, artifacts, mutagens for enhanced genomes, samples of said genomes, erotic photo collages, panties—yeah, the whole buffet.
Naturally I peeked at the photo section—again: research. Tsunade, Mei Terumi, Anko? Sure. But Kaguya photo sets? That's… dedication. Even that wasn't as shocking as the Orochimaru portfolio's popularity—neck and neck with Itachi. Then again, Orochimaru's a connoisseur of… extensions. Tongue today, who knows what tomorrow. Talent's talent.
Scrolls/dojutsu aisle: Sharingan from single tomoe all the way to Eternal Mangekyō, Byakugan in stacks, Rinnegan in a lonely one-of-one, plus a bunch I've never heard of. Prices? Brutal. I've got 1 KD to my name, and I won't be rolling in more anytime soon.
Top priority, though? The moon. That cosmic rock keeps triggering my "Because Andromeda said so" Diarrhea Debuff, and I am done renting the bathroom. I'm pretty sure Dragon Ball has "destroy the moon" techniques. If I can buy one? Two birds, one meteor: no more toilet speedruns, and I kick Tobi'sMoon's Eye Plan in the teeth. Genius move. Writing it down.
Also decided to stop hoarding stat points like a dragon. I dumped most of them into Body Structure. Yeah, it's "cosmetic only," doesn't touch the numbers—but not being a short king is useful. Canon Naruto was vertically challenged till much later. I invested ten points in height so that by graduation I'm a half-head taller than Sasuke, not shorter like in the brochure. Tweaked the muscle lines and abs while I was at it.
I remembered a very filthy Byakugan joke a buddy told me once. Consider it redacted for age restrictions and basic decency. You can guess the punchline.
I tossed a couple more points toward "future adult proportions." Keyword: adult. I plan ahead.
Then I learned about Skill Points and my mood faceplanted. Buying an ability doesn't mean you can use it—you need Skill Points to activate. The stronger the ability, the more points it eats. You get 1 Skill Point every even level, plus some from quests. Which quests? The UI refuses to elaborate, and I am fresh out of self-respect to beg.
Illusory barriers: they adapt to where you cast them. Drop one in the middle of the village and you might get a zombie apocalypse overlay with monsters instead of villagers. Time inside is funky: spend as long as you want; only one second passes outside. Some places act as gates to other game locations (read: other worlds). Time-limited—anywhere from an hour to a day—and you get a mandatory quest while you're there. Finding those gates is rough; a veteran wrote he found only three in twelve years. One-use portals, too. Still insanely profitable.
With that, I closed the forum, stretched, and cracked my knuckles.
[System: Micro-Quest — "Get Good (Phase 1)"]Objective: Start grinding Observation and Stealth.Reward: Skill unlock chance, +250 EXP, +1 KSPenalty: You'll stay loud, blind, and punchable.
Heh. That's more like it.
Time to disappear, watch everything, and start turning this world's hate into stats, cash, and leverage.