A character reset and heart attack

In the game Star Wars Genesis, there are countless warring races of the ancient era. This was a time longer ago than a 'time long long ago'. It was a time before the establishment of the Jedi Order, the Old Republic, and the Sith Order. It was a time of unknowns, great empires were born and fell under the domination of the 5 contenting races: The Gree, Kwa, Blue Chiss, Red Sith, and the Rakata.

The Blue Chiss were a meritocracy that strove to build a powerful confederacy through family values. They believe in order and swiftly promoted intelligence among the people. But they advanced slower than the others, keeping out of the great wars that many others died in.

The Rakata were the most domineering at this time. They were a great warrior race that promoted battle merits above all. They stopped at nothing to rise in the galaxy and even built the first great Empire at this time, due to being the first to master hyperdrive technology. They committed horrible atrocities to advance this way, by stealing the knowledge and technology of the Gree and Kwa on Tython about their studies on the Force. For instance, they would capture force sensitives and use them as 'living batteries' to power their hyperdrives, which made use of the force.

The Gree and Kwa were incredibly intelligent and both had developed incredible technologies before the Rakata had grown into an Empire. The Kwa created the Infinity Gates, which was faster travel than hyperdrives. It allowed them to instantly transfer to any other gate in the galaxy, connecting the old temples of the Jed'aii early on. As they developed, they grew less interested in dominating the galaxy as an Empire, like the Rakata, and withdrew into temples to study the Force. They were the ones that originally gave birth to the Jed'aii order on Tython. But their withdrawal into their temples was also their downfall after the Rakata rose to power. They demanded the Kwa turn over the Infinity Gates to them, so the Kwa destroyed them causing their entire spread-out civilization to become disconnected and would slowly dissolve.

Then came the Red Sith, or Sith Purebloods. This was an incredibly powerful race, which was prone to the dark side. Their use of Force was almost natural, as many of their warriors and culture promoted features of the dark side. The Jed'aii accepted these powerful force sensitives, in the beginning, thinking nothing of their innate dark nature. Hoping that with many new force sensitives, they could continue to unravel the mysteries of the force. This eventually caused a division in the Jed'aii order on how the force should be used, with the Red Sith worshiping the dark side and a part of the Jed'aii order opposing them.

This was the time period in that the VRMMORPG game: Star Wars Genesis took place. A time during the fragmentation of the Jed'aii, the rebellion of the Red Sith, the Rataka Empire expanded across countless worlds and battled the Kwa and Gree remnants. This was truly a good game that was created, which had a rich backstory and roleplaying features. The future was completely uncertain at this time in the universe and everyone was at the forefront of the discovery of the uses of the Force.

And now, the game was entering into a low lull of popularity after 4 years of high-impacting operation and earnings. The world was going through a small recession at this time and not many people had time to play. Most people took up second jobs to support their families. And of course, the Star Wars Genesis team rolled out a few more in-game purchases to help the game continue to run and get through the recession.

Players didn't have much extra to spend on these new in-game purchases, but there are always exceptions. This one exception is a player who is well known for being an avid roleplayer and a 'whale' in the game. In fact, he was well-known for being bad at PVP but always looked flashy with cosmetic effects and items. His name was 'Orontaro', a Jedi Order faction player who happened to be a Red Sith race. His character had all kinds of flashy cosmetic effects attached to it and he had purchased up to his character limit in rare materials like Beskar, Muntium, and others, from the in-game shop.

He is currently sitting in a large and beautifully designed Jed'aii temple on a white marble throne. He had blades made of rare metals leaning along the walls and the entire place looked incredibly rich from the items alone. He had a golden cape that had a constantly 'blowing in the wind majestically' animation attached to it. His red skin was covered with small dashes of white war paint lines.

"Let's see what you got for me this time." Orontaro rubbed his hands together.

He was staring at an in-game shop panel and pressing the refresh button over and over. Finally, the page refreshed with the new in-game items, limited for this week. Orontaro scanned the list quickly, pressing buy without any concern for the amount spent. He went through the list of things until he paused to read one of them when it caught his interest.

[Character Reset and Difficulty +]

[Type: Consumable]

Description: A consumable item when your character has hit max level. This item resets the current character into a randomly generated 'new race' derivative from the original universe. This 'new race' will have a much greater potential than the character before the reset but will be much more difficult to play as with a greater weakness.

"Hmm. I suppose that would be interesting." Orontaro rubbed his bone protrusions on the sides of his face while thinking.

He quickly finished buying all the weekly items that he was allowed too.

[Item Purchased successfully.]

[Item Purchased successfully.]

[Item Purc...]

[Item Purc...]

[Item Purc...]

"Hmm, they limit the character resets to 1 time? Is that a hard limit? Oh, I see, the weaknesses would become so bad you couldn't play." Orontaro said aloud while he read the usage description of the Character Reset Item.

"I think this will be very interesting. Hahaha, not many people would be willing to reset their character, but who am I? I'm the greatest Whale in the game, Plebians!" Orontaro sneered in a haughty voice as he monologued to an empty room.

He took off his items and used the Character Reset card in his inventory without a single thought. After all, he still had all his spoils in his personal Jed'aii temple and inventory storage. His character wasn't that good in the first place, but his items were.

[Character Reset and Difficulty + item card consumed.]

[Calculating adjustment score...]

[Adjustment character score calculated to 144 points.]

[Calculating derivative race from base character race [Red Sith] based on adjustment score 144.]

[New Race Characteristics processing...]

[New Race weakness processing... ]

[New Race derived.]

[Racial characteristics and appearance derived.]

[Next steps needed for derivative finalization.]

Orontaro's eyes lit up in excitement as he saw a 3d view of how his newly rolled character race would look. It had left many of the fields blank for him to customize the name of the race and the background description of it. The new character looked much more human than the previous Red Sith. The bony armor and protrusions had shrunk back slightly, but the shell looked more complete and covered the muscle intersections perfectly.

The derivative function works in a strange fashion. It is calculated using standard deviation where a score of 100 is the average character with that race's strength. So a score of 144 was absolutely decent. It would be the same as saying 144 is a level of IQ that deems someone as gifted. This new race was certainly a 'gifted' race based on the original Red Sith template.

The red skin was darkened into a maroon color, while the eyes completely changed from yellow to dark green. The arms and muscles were well defined and strong, however, it had shrunk about 4 inches in height during the evolution. The racial derivative changed according to the player's actual character, so although the Red Sith were Dark Side inclined, Orontaro was a High-Level Jedi Order Master inclined to the Light Side. This caused more additions to the Red Sith race from the Light Side including a decrease in primal instincts and an increase in emotion control and even a natural bonding trait that had not been seen before.

[Blood Bond Evolution] - Option Unlocked (Derivative score above 130)

Description: A bond that can happen only once during new race creation with another creature's genes. This is optional and may cause unexpected effects when changing its genes to complete itself. Guaranteed to manifest at least 1 positive trait from the bonded species and an increase in midi-clorean count for the new base race by 1000.

[Additional Racial Perk] - Option Unlocked (Derivative score above 142)

Description: After a race has evolved beyond the deviation of 142, it enters into a dramatic improvement compared to the template race to where they couldn't even be considered similar species. Allows for an additional generic character perk that is INHERENT in all members of this race. The race is considered a Higher Race and increases midi-clorean count for the new base race by 1000.

Orontaro read through the two notifications thoughtfully. When he designed his character as a Red Sith who was a Jedi, he really just wanted to try something completely abnormal and unique with his race choices. Since most Red Sith end up being 'Sith' since they worship the dark side, he chose to become a Jedi just because he could. Of course, his character ended up being much weaker since he was less inclined to Light Side practices.

However, now his character was much... more balanced with the new race perhaps? But Orontaro didn't have an intention to really make a 'perfect' character anyway and he definitely wanted to be unique compared to the other players who would use the [Character Reset] item from the shop.

"Other players, might have more deviation than me with their better builds. If I want to keep my pride and follow the trend of 'not following the trends' I need to see my options." He muttered to himself before selecting the [Blood Bond Evolution] option.

[Lemurs]

[Twilek]

[Rodian]

[Rancor]

[Mardrake]

[Sarlacc Pit]

[Hutt]

[Human]

[Chiss]

[Blue Chiss]

[Akata]

...

The options of all the known races and creatures of the past and future appeared as a selectable portion of the menu. Orontaro immediately ignored all the humanoid options because he thought they were too boring and focused on the really bizarre monsters that appeared. Selecting [Rancor] sounded really funny to him as he pictured his new race as just a giant troll with long arms. He didn't really know if it would change his character image much, or just only steal one of the race's positive traits without any physical change.

"Haha, it actually sounds interesting. Perhaps I should go with [Rancor]" Orontaro laughed to himself.

But he decided he would scroll through the list a bit more, just in case he had missed anything good. And it was a good thing too because he caught something even more interesting to choose: [Sarlacc Pit]. His expression was a little strange, would his character become a pit if he chose this? Surely not, right?

"Now I have to choose that one, haha." He giggled to himself and decided on [Sarlacc Pit] just to sate his curiosity.

[The creature 'Sarlacc Pit' was chosen.]

[Loading random Sarlacc Pit positive gene for the new race.]

[Found applicable gene: [Lifeforce Preservation] ]

[Applying gene to the new race.]

[Completed.]

Orontaro opened up the information window to view the new [Lifeforce Preservation] ability of his character.

[Lifeforce Preservation]

Type: Inherent Perk

Description: This race's life force is channeled extremely efficiently. It can go 10 days without water and 30 days without food as long as it doesn't involve strenuous exercise. Its lifespan was slowed to a crawl and can survive naturally, for x200 the normal Red Sith lifespan. (40,000 years)

"Pfft, ha hahahaha," Orontaro started laughing at the Perk he pulled from the Sarlacc pit. It didn't do anything for the game and was basically purely cosmetic. Thankfully, after the integration of this Sarlacc gene, his race's appearance didn't change much. It only. had its skin change from a dark maroon to a dark brown color. It almost looked human if not for the sections of bumps and armor plating everywhere.

"Well, at least it didn't grow a bunch of nightmare teeth." He shuddered at the thought of the Sarlacc Pit's natural rings of teeth. He opened the menu for the second item he needed to choose from the [Additional Perks] menu.

[Parallel Nervous System]

[Compact Liver]

[6 Chamber Heart]

[Secondary Frontal Cortex]

[Sub Penal Gland]

[Adaptive Muscle Fibers]

...

A list of different organ evolutions was displayed for him to browse through. He ended up selecting the [Parallel Nervous System] because it let his new species operate with a much faster reaction time, as well as allow for easier reattachment of broken nerves. Afterward, he entered the final step of the Character Reset Item, the random weakening.

[Entering the final stage of new race creation.]

[Generating racial weakness options, filtering valid options.]

[Done. Racial weakness was chosen. [Nocturnal Eyesight Regression]]

[Enter the name of the new Race.]

Orontaro opened the description of the racial weakness.

[Nocturnal Eyesight Regression]

Type: Inherent Detriment

Description: The eyes cannot adjust well to vision in the dark and lack the common cone cells found in normal creatures. In the darkness, they are completely blind.

"Well, that sucks, but at least it's manageable," Orontaro commented quietly.

He then opened up the menu to type the name of the new race he had made. He pulled up a virtual notepad in his HUD and typed out some ideas for names. He played this game for the roleplaying aspect and really enjoyed making backgrounds and descriptions when he could. Since he was naming a new race, he wanted it to be something good and match the Star Wars universe.

'Could I name my race 'Jedi' since Sith is also a race?' He thought funnily before typing in Jedi and confirming it. Sadly, the form refused his submission and said that the word 'Jedi' was already used.

'Tsk*,' he clicked his tongue and continued to think about another name. He stared at the 3d image of what his new race would look like and tried to think of something that would fit it well.

'They are not pure beings of light or dark. And they are blind half the time in most cases when in the dark. They live for an abnormal amount of time as well. Why not name them after those traits?' Orontaro thought.

In the end, he went with a simple combination of the name [Sarlacc Pit] and [Red Sith], entering the name [Sarith] for the race. It actually wasn't that bad of a name compared to what other options he could have chosen. With the naming completed, he felt his character avatar swirl in a bunch of white particles for a moment before disappearing. He was now a Sarith, the first Sarith, but he noticed something strange. His point of view was much lower than before.

"Wait for a second, HOLD ON. Why is my character a child?!"Orontaro screamed at nobody in particular. Yes, the Sarith race was one of the longest-lived races in the galaxy now, and naturally, its time to reach adulthood was also very long, so he was currently a very small child Sarith, looking like a 2-3-year-old human child. But before he could continue to complain he felt something was wrong. There was a heavy constriction in his chest and he felt like he his heart had stopped beating. Immense pain shot through his body and his avatar collapsed to the ground inside his temple.

"AHH, it hurts!! " Orontaro screamed with gasping breaths as he tried to mentally command a logout. But something seems to be wrong with the game at this time. It was still running the ending calculations of his character reset and not responding. Orontaro felt the world darkening around his vision while his last thoughts at this time were 'This really hurts.'. His game character flickered in place as the system completed the calculations, and automatically login him out, but it was too late. Orontaro on the other side died of a heart attack at the age of 41 while in the game.

...

In a galaxy far far away.

A small Sarith child lay sprawled out on the floor of a grand and expensive-looking Jed'aii temple. He is the first and only Sarith in the entire galaxy. His eyes flickered and opened groggily.

"What happened?" Orontaro sat up from the floor as his thoughts slowly gathered together. He felt the cold marble under his skin, the cool breeze in the air, and the soft smell of flowers from outside.

"Huh?! I'm - Where is the logout menu? Hello Admin? What the hell?" Orontaro jumped up and started bouncing around angrily, waving his fist at the empty air.

It didn't take him long to discover the abnormality of the situation, he could feel things he never could before when in the game. The cool breeze, and the smell of flowers, it was all too real. Even his normally majestic Jed'aii temple was much different than before, the shine of the treasures and the atmosphere was clearly felt.

"This is impossible! This is IMPOSSIBLE!" Orontaro ran through his empty temple corridors until he reached his personal vault. He unlocked it after scanning his biometrics and life signals and opened it to find all his treasures there perfectly safe. Even the items he had in his inventory seemed to have been placed here. He quickly closed the vault and ran in the opposite direction to the temple garden. He ran to one of the tangerine trees he had planted there for cosmetic purposes and plucked one from it, biting into it. The taste and texture were overflowing with vitality and sweetness. It was impossible to fake.

Orontaro couldn't even finish eating the fruit he picked, he just dropped it to the ground in shock. Combined with the evidence presented before him, he could only conclude an absolutely impossible conclusion he didn't dare to affirm at first. But as the great Author Conan Doyle once said: 'Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.' He stared blankly in a daze until finally gathered enough of his courage to mutter a quiet sentence.

"It's real. Everything is real now. My temple is real. My character is real. My... wait I need to confirm if I am really in the star wars universe!" Orontaro ran quickly back into his grand hall room with the throne. The marble throne was an item he crafted which would boost the connection to the force during meditation while shielding others from naturally finding him. But those were just backstory descriptions at the time and in the game, it just added an MP regeneration boost effect. Now, however, it seemed it was different.

Orontaro meditated for only 5 minutes before he felt a connection to what he assumed was the force. He immediately awoke and a giant smile spread on his face. He started jumping around the room with incomparable excitement. He was here! The Force was here! He was in the Star Wars universe with his character account!

But suddenly he froze as he realized he had just reset his character and all his power and levels were back to 0. However, he didn't dwell on this thought as he remembered that his new race had a lifespan of 40,000 years now. Also, he felt that something was different about him. He felt a bit OCD about all his weapons and treasons scattered in the room and maybe a bit smarter than before. He recalled the character backstory he wrote about his Orontaro.

Description: 'Orontaro is an abnormality of abnormalities. With originally a strong pull to the dark side, Orontaro became strong-willed to resist it and disciplined enough to become a Jedi Master of the Light. He was a master of himself through hard work and dedication. He was not bothered by loneliness nor overly interested in power, but he still had his curiosity to explore the unknown. With his will alone, he is able to create force abilities that might not normally be possible.'

'The character backstory traits I wrote about, are they also a part of me now? Will it change who I am?' Orontaro thought. He was not that opposed to the change, because he originally wrote about who his ideal self would look like. Disciplined, Smart, Tactical, and Strong Willed. Perhaps the Ascetic would be an issue, but he would live a long time and maybe it was for the best that he would not be bothered much by loneliness.

Orontaro didn't think much more about this and threw it all to the back of his mind. He accepted the changes in himself relatively easily and immediately went about the area reorganizing his weapons and treasures to placate his newly gained OCD. After rearranging everything, he felt satisfaction when he glanced at it. Something felt good to him that 'everything had its place'.

"OH! I need to see if those items had come with me!" Orontaro shouted before running back down the halls to the vault.

All that could be heard in the empty temple was the sound of a small child's feet running around in excitement for the rest of the day.