1 Chapter 1 - Customization Room

Third Person’s POV

Ken looked around him but found himself in an endless world of white. An icon popped in front of him showing the words 'Customization Room' and below it is the word 'Enter' blinking in a faint light, he reached out to the icon thinking that he could press it but felt awkward the next when his hands went through.

"Ken you can only enter the Customization Room by using your mind" he screeched an unmanly sound for being startled by a voice. "EEEK, my gosh! You could've given me a heart attack" he exclaimed profusely.

He looked at the icon and did what the ball of white said, wondering whatever gender the ball is, how else could he address this… thing if he did not know of the ball’s gender, he can’t just keep calling it as ‘it’.

"I heard that! and I'm a boy if you're asking in your mind." Ken jolted at the sudden answer from the ball of white, hastily turning to the ball’s direction. Well, there goes his question.

"As you can see there are options prepared for you, preparing you for a new world you will be embarking, but since you told me about your wish to become 'The Third Party', I… really don't get it,

but when I looked into your eyes and read what was on your mind, I pretty much understand why you wanted that kind of wish, but still I'm going to offer you two choices.

The first one is to jump from story to story, world to world, different universes to other different universes in which you will be having tasks, missions, or objectives to do,

OR to stay put in one timeline, develop a new lifestyle/ character, find a special someone, defend and love that person, have a family, and live happily after, it's your choice." Ken stared in awe but in conflict with the choices.

For if he picks the second choice, he could achieve what he and every person would always dream or hope for, to be loved and live happily ever after, but considering what happened to him in the past... he’d rather not think about or make his mind to pick it.

And then the first choice offer a variety of new things and windows of opportunities, if he’s lucky, he might arrive at the world that he has always wanted and thought of, with that thought in mind, picking the choice that he always wanted would be a much more forgiving choice.

Last time he made unforgiving ones, he’d end up in an unfavorable position, oh how many times he had gone and made such choices, not anymore, this time, he’ll choose what he thinks is best for him.

"I'm still going to pick the first choice" he say confidently, voice oozing with certainty and firmness, but chuckling the next, thoughts taking a different route out of topic.

The ball of white noticing this can’t help but shake his head internally, at least he found this overthinker for a purpose, he unknowingly exuded a warm glow.

"I thought you would pick the second choice seeing as you're one of those random people, it's good to see there are ones like you for a change." said the ball of white nonchalantly, as if talking to a friend,

Ken narrowed his eyes, judging whether this ball of white before him was being serious or not when seconds ago he got himself berated by the two choices the ball offered.

He shook his heads of those thoughts as they are not healthy, he felt glad that he wouldn’t be getting into any trouble with his choice, but more importantly, he gets to have a life transporting from world to world.

Oh how exciting is that. At least that’s what he thinks. The ball of white reading the train of thought of this person before him could not help but feel uneasy, for life isn’t all just happy and rainbows.

But maybe this person jus thinks differently, and oh boy would he be in for a surprise once they pass by Ken’s initial stages, nope wait scratch that, more like the process of going through those stages.

"Can't argue with that, well anyway, what would we be doing now?" I ask looking at the orb of white then back at the window, then back at the ball of white, thoughts taking another turn.

‘huh?... never thought I could still see him, it's like he still has an outline of his shape, well now that I look into it, the lines look like they're halos, but why is it on his body though? I'm confused?’ the boy looking silly in front of the ball of white.

"Again, I heard that, the surrounding of my body is not a halo, these are rays of light enveloping me." said the abruptly catching Ken off guard.

"Oh... ah hehe, sorry about that, I tend to ramble in my mind." Ken replied awkwardly scratching the back off his neck.

"Anyway, let's get back to it, the first things you are going to do is to choose which talent you want, a talent you can carry from world to world, even in here, in other words, 'Permanent Stats', and of course there will be other talents you will be coming across in your journey,

it's either you are innate in it in that world or you will learn it, and once you have accomplished your mission or objectives from a previous world, you will be transported back here, but in a different fashion,

I'll get into that later, anyway, once you're back here, it will be up to you to either keep or discard whichever talent you learn from that world." Ken nodded along with the information given, but in truth the ball of white lost him a few seconds into his dialogue but Ken forced himself to listen again.

Thinking to himself that there were a lot of those things to digest, he felt himself backing out, but remembering that there might be more information in store for him, might as well just accept it and ask questions if he finds himself confused or just straight up distracted which kind of happens often and will happen more in the future.

"What do you mean by 'in a different fashion'?" Ken asks quoting the phrase.

"Oh, I never thought you'd ask so early, let me see, hmmmmmm.... Well the obvious answer to that is that you won't be coming directly back here once your work is done, you will still follow the rules of life and death, meaning, you will have to die first before you could get back here, and who knows, you might discover new objectives along the way." Ken nodded in understanding.

But really understanding?

"Wait What?! Why?!" He exclaim abruptly not believing what the ball just said.

“I'm having a hard time deciphering whether you're being childish or serious." Ken noticing the slight change in tone, he narrowed his eyes again trying to figure out what it implied.

‘ehhh???? is that a 'duh' tone? I'm pretty sure it is.’ He thought.

“What?” the ball said.

"oh, uh.... hehe, never mind that, I'm just being childish." He mumbles incoherently.

"Can we please get back to the task at hand?" Ken chuckles, for he thought that if the ball before him would be a person, then that person would be massaging their forehead, or at least that what he interpreted from that tone.

Ken flew into thought once again idiotically, but he popped himself out of his own enchantment before the ball did.

"Okay." He say nodding politely.

Meet Ken, full name, Ken Rogers, a childish, obnoxious, and an outgoing person, preferably with people he is comfortable with, always abiding with his golden rule of never generalizing everything.

For in his opinion, it is rude to come to terms with ones thoughts of a person simply because of first impression, he prefers to get to know them first before making a judgement, still like everyone else, he trusts his first glance impressions as sometimes intuitions may be proven right of the assumption he has made of a person.

19 years of age, and as obvious as it may sound, had just died a couple of minutes ago, and now here in this white plain, thoughts getting carried away again.

‘So now I am here talking to this orb of light, or is it a sphere or a globe?’ he thought with a serious expression on his face.

"Are you serious? I just heard that, anyway, moving along, you will now be choosing a talent, some of example common choices are, control over the elements, psychic/telekinetic, magic, light, and darkness." Ken exclaimed an ‘oh’ on his mind,

Not finding the aforementioned options absurd but as ‘locals’, the talents showing up on the screen in panels as well.

‘wait what's that thing I see, just on the upper left corner of the screen below the 'return back' button, is that?...’

"Is that a button?" he exclaims pointing at the 'Customization' button.

"Yes, well this is the customization room, so you can also customize any ability that you want, for example combining two abilities, or separating merged abilities of different components, after all those things are possible, and lastly you can create an ability through this program." Ken’s eyes sparkled in excitement.

‘Wow, I never thought I will be able to witness this, a goal that I have always been pursuing ever since I have played an MMORPG Game in my past life, to customize my own abilities, oh my, I am so excited!!!!’

"So I could really create any ability that I want?" he asks, feeling all giddy inside.

"Yes, so long as it is safe and secure to use, but I must warn you beforehand, if you create an ability that tip the balance of the world, I'll be forced to remove or erase that ability out of existence,

never to be created again, unless you use it in a good way of course, by weighing the pros and cons of that ability and considering its factors and the effects it makes." The ball explains.

‘That's a long explanation, and I really don't get all of that, guess I'll just have to wait and see what he means.’

"Okay, I may not really get it, but I guess I'll try." flashing the ball a smile, trying to secure an image of him as someone dependable so as not to doubt his capabilities.

"Alright, so would you like to try this feature?" asked the ball.

‘oh you didn't have to ask.’

"Yes please." he says with a wide grin on his face, the screen opened a new window and showed the icons/buttons, 'Create', 'Customize', and 'Discard', he willed the create button and it showed him a 'Create' Icon.

And as if overwriting what was on the icon, the words where then blanked out and replaced with.

"Create 'Concept'."

-------