Path selection

Glitch smiled at the screen.

These three paths were the core of Universal Online.

He still remembered in his last life he spent his first year just trying to understand each of these paths.

In his opinion, the paths were the most important thing out of the three choices as they decided the gameplay. Also, each path had certain advantages over the others.

Every ruler could lead their species as they like, but leading a species was not that simple and full of many complications. That was why game AI provided these paths, which give players full control over a certain aspect of species, while AI would control all the other aspects.

Rulers could still influence other things beyond their path, but the effectiveness of their actions would decrease.

Glitch looked at the first path, 'Path of Study.' As he stared at it, more information appeared on the screen. This path would allow him to develop different methods and skills to wield the sources.

In his last life, he used this path with elves and magic source power. It was exciting to develop different magic spells and other methods of using magic. However, the key to success in this path required extensive research and exploration.

This path was more like breaking the limit again and again. If you were smart and talented, you could do this without a problem, but in case you got stuck, you might waste time doing nothing.

Though on an individual creature level, the path of study led to the fastest growth rate, and it was a much better path for long-living species.

He had decent success in this path, but overall, this was not for him.

He turned to the next window, the path of hierarchy. As the name suggested, this was more about management and a society-building approach.

For this path, he used humans with science sources. In this path, you needed to create a different level of a system in your species that would act as the driving force for your species' development.

He used humans with magic sources for this path. For him, this was the most complex path. Unlike the path of study, which directly focused on developing powerful spells and power, here he needed to do that passively.

There was no point in developing spells here. He remembered at the start he created this warrior post within his species. The requirement to get this post was to become relatively stronger than others.

Just by creating this post, most members of his species started working in different ways, from magic to physical training to increase their power.

He was so shocked to see development on so many fronts. It was unbelievable. In the initial stage of development, this was the fastest path, but on an individual scale, it was very species-dependent.

The path of hierarchy was a very wide path that focused on developing methods that required collective efforts and formation.

This path was best for those who loved to develop complex command lines and war formations, and this path had a minimum chance for creatures in the species to betray the rulers.

The key thing was only creatures with fast reproduction were suitable for this path. As far as he understood, to get success in this path, you needed to have a throughout understanding of your species.

He shook his head and turned to the last path. 

The path of evolution. This path would allow him to evolve his species to create many sub-variants.

Out of three paths, this path required the least prior knowledge, as it depended little on species and source power.

This was the only path he gained success on. In his past life, he reached the kingdom level using the path of evolution.

He still remembered all those experiments he did in his last life. This pah specialized in doing experiments.

Out of three, this path mostly depended on the ruler's actions and had the least passive progression. This also made it the most expensive path out of the three.

This path also had the slowest species progression and, unlike other paths, there was no method to increase the overall strength of a species.

Even on an individual power scale, this path required the most time for any powerful creature to mature and reach its peak.

Still, with so many disadvantages, it was the most popular path out of the three because it provided a limitless field for players to work on.

There was also a sense of an uncertain gamble on this path because rulers had the freedom to do things in any order.

It was all about doing experiments and creating different variants. In those experiments, there was a chance for players to create powerful creatures out of the blue.

He stopped thinking much as he knew this was the path he knew most about.

After he reached the kingdom level, he did as much research as possible to learn most about the path of evolution. Actually, during his research phase, he realized many of his mistakes, but it was already too late by that point to correct them.

In the back of his mind, he knew he might not reach the world level, and that was why he spent more time learning than trying to save his position.

Not thinking more, he clicked on it.

Ding!

[Player Glitch wants to choose the Path of Evolution. (Yes/No)]

He nodded his head, "Yes"

[Player has made the path selection.]

…

[As the first-time ruler. You need to understand the player progression system….]

He skipped the AI instruction, not wanting to waste more time, and moved to the next selection.

All three windows disappeared from the wall-sized screen, and instead, 5 new windows popped in front of him.

All of these windows were rotating at this moment.

[Drawing the 5 species for the selection.]

With that, one after another, the windows stopped moving as they showed him the 5 species he could choose from.

The moment he saw them, his pupils dilated, and his ears perked up. He rubbed his eyes in surprise. "What the hell are these species?"

His eyes popped as he looked back and forth at each of the species. Especially the one that was a ghost.

"Damn! Can players even start with ghosts?"

Then he noticed that this ghost species had traits; wait… as he checked other species, his already opened mouth fell to the ground. Not one, but all 5 of the species had traits.