Choice

After the oddly charismatic, yet robotic, notification welcomed him, Yama opened his eyes from the glaring brightness that he was subjected to. He started to look everywhere and he came to find himself in a field of emptiness. The white world that he was in looked like it was without boundaries and ever-lasting. The blue sky seemed to be the only entity that was isolated from the white of this world. It was the type of ivory white that made you feel calm inside yet instilled a sense of foreboding creepiness inside you.

Then there was another blinding light that came in front of him. This time, prepared, he closed his eyes and only opened them after he was sure there were no other unexpected surprises. When he allowed his vision to be returned, in front of himself, he saw a beautiful white-haired woman. She had beautiful features that included her blue big eyes in her symmetrically proportional face, her bright white hair tied in a ponytail, her two pointed ears, and a small petite body. Yama tried to move towards her when he noticed a difference in himself. He realized that his body had had no shape or form as if it just existed in a vaporous form. He could feel none of his limbs and when he tried to move, he felt as if he was submerged in a pool of water.

"O brave soul, you are going to be born anew in a new body. I am your guide Quora and I shall give you a new form to roam in the world of Symetium. Out of countless possibilities for your next reincarnation, my soul, you have been chosen to be born this beautiful world. However, because of the different customs and cultures, I think you would be unfamiliar with the world of Symetium, so would you like me to explain it to you ?" asked Quora.

Yama did not need any extra information as he already had all the needed knowledge. He did not have a mouth but he still tried to shout "No" with everything he had like Bacus had told him to. However, instead of hearing nothing, there came a deep growl from his soul-like body.

"I see you are well informed, I shall not bore you with my speech then. I can give you the form of any species in this list. Please choose what you would like to be."

Quora then waved her hand and an ancient scroll suddenly opened from her hand, unraveling itself and floating towards Yama's current state. The scroll opened itself, revealing about a book page worth of surface area. There were many names inscribed within the scroll and it, according to Bacus, held all of the base species players were allowed to choose from. When Yama wanted the scroll to go up or down, all he had to do was focus. The scroll would automatically go towards that direction itself and reveal more options to choose from. There were more than a thousand different species to choose from and this astonished Yama's mind. There were classical species like goblins, imps to mimics and other completely unheard names like viper hybrids, beetleoids, and Half-Blooded Raijū.

When Yama focused on a certain name, there would be information about their basic nature, abilities, and history. Normally, it would take hours on end to look through the entire book to choose the type of species someone wanted. Luckily, Yama knew what to choose as he already had the time and the list of base species gathered from Bacus. The scroll presented the species in alphabetical order so he went to section n until he found the species he was looking for. After he chose the species, he looked at Quora and growled at her.

Quora then looked at the option with one of her eyebrows slightly raised up and asked him "Whatever species you choose will impact your life in Symetium drastically. Are you sure you want to choose this ?"

Yama tried to shout 'Yes" and there came a high pitch screech from his body. The scroll flashed and the ray went back to Quora's forehead. She then put one of her hands forward before a small ball of white light radiated on the middle of her palm. Then she suddenly started chanting while her eyes simultaneously turned white and lighting ran through them. The wind started blowing through the field of whiteness while the blue sky was filled with dark clouds and thunder that seemed to be provoked by an unseen force.

"Si go be no fo u ken, noe fo gre for. Hun na nan jod, Nyonye !" shouted Quora while the white ball in her hand turned light red and vaporized in gas before zooming towards Yama. After the gas went inside and combined with Yama's vaporous-like body and another round of bursting light came through Yama's body that he was not prepared for.

Yama felt something inside him. Something, unknown force, slowly building up a force like a spring. It was making rounds in his vapor-like state, every time the force inside him made another round, it seemed to push his body closer together at a certain point. After each round, the pressure in his body built up a little more and each time his body started to compress, another round quickly followed after. Yama did not feel pain or discomfort but rather comfortable because of the sensation. After the 5th revolution of the force inside him, the pressure inside his body suddenly contracted and exploded. He felt a rush of helplessness wash over his body. He felt as if something from inside his body was expanding further and there was an unknown force mending the shape of the expansion. When the light faded down, Yama finally opened his eyes to realize that two things had changed. The bad weather went back to normal and his body had changed. Yama knew what was going to happen but even then he was still surprised, his soul-like body had changed to Nyonye Ngana Hybrid.

Yama's body was now about 1.5 meters tall and had the average body parameters of a 12-year-old boy. Also, he had a light red ant-type exoskeleton covering his joints, forearms, quads, and back. He had grown 2 front antennas that both curved and looped in front of his forehead as well as a pair of ant type legs. His fingers were also molded to give him claws that were exceptionally sharpened.

"Ohh, you look pretty. What's your name Nyonye Ngana Hybrid?" chucked Quora. She looked at his new body with curious eyes.

Yama tried to speak with his newly formed vocal cords but made some weird hissing and coughing noise. He had trouble speaking at first but he quickly got used to it and with his best attempt, he said "Ya...Ma "

"Ok, Yama. My work here is done and it's my turn to return. I hope you like your new world and have fun " said Quora tapping her soft delicate fingers at Yama's nose.

Yama once again felt a rush of brightness blinding him, forcing him to close his eyes. He then felt a rush of movement pass over his new hybrid body that made him feel really uncomfortable. When the feeling stopped and he opened his eyes, he was in the middle of nowhere as he found himself alone in a jungle ahead of a cave opening. He looked at his pairs of hands and started feeling his newly changed appearance. He could walk fine with the newly shaped ant-like legs but had some difficulty using his pair of hands because of exoskeleton covering his various body parts. The walking felt normal to him while moving his hands simultaneously need his utmost attention and concentration. He tried running, hopping, punching and doing other various exercises to accustom to his new body.

After working at his body, he started to explore his surroundings. He could not believe the amount of realism that he felt when looking at the dense forest. His five senses were bombarded with information in different shapes and sizes. It felt like an early autumn morning as a frosty chill hung in the air. The sweet surrendering scent of the morning dew filled the forest with a scent that seemed to not belong on earth. Autumn leaves from the tall trees lay scattered on the forest floor; each of them turning brittle brown; there was a sound like dried cereal being crunched underfoot, pushing their papery remains deep into the soft soil. The dark shadows of the voluminous trees and the surrounding bushes had become the backbone of the forest, standing as passive protectors of a peaceful place. The autumn sun rose in a hurry as if trying to make up for setting too early the evening before, blooming into the pale sky with a warm mellow glow, sending what was left of the moon packing until its next shift guarding the night. As the morning developed the sound of young birds filled the air: chirping, tweeting and warbling incessantly. Yama looked at himself and collected his toughs from the shock he felt. Everything felt, touched, smelled and tasted so real.

Collecting himself, he thought of his choice of species. Yama chose to start as a Nyonye Ngana Hybrid because he needed a species that fulfilled certain criteria that he had and, fortunately, a Nyonye Ngana Hybrid fulfilled his requirements the most optimally. Yama did not need a species that had high strength, speed or stamina in the beginning as he only wanted a species with a high level of survivability. He would need to do some insanely difficult tasks at the beginning of the game to get his chosen idiosyncratic job and so his number one priority was survival.

Nyonye Ngana was the eldest son of Creator God Bumba in African mythology. After the world was vomited up by his father, Nyonye Ngana wanted to make his mark in the world too. He noticed that all the creatures roaming the planet had evolved from the first nine animals which his father originally threw up. So thinking creating things were easy, Nyonye Ngana gave it a try. As a test of his manufacturing powers, he created a humble ant, intending to move onto greater things. He succeeded in making quite a few. In fact, billions, however, the effort was too much so he died of severe ant fatigue. The ants were grateful to Nyonye Ngana for making them so they scurried into the earth to give him a decent burial and legends say they had been busy doing that ever since. It was rumored that the hardest working ants were granted a blessing from Nyonye Ngana's essence that turned them into giant humanoid ant monsters known as "Hymbros". Nyonye Ngana Hybrids were the result of the Hymbros forcefully mating with any other species and successfully copulating with them to conceive an offspring.T he hybrids, no matter who Hymbros copulated with, all had the same basic features of looking like ant men because Hymbros gene was the most dominant. The hybrid did not share the features of both parents but they did share some random ability of the latter species.

The corresponding species of the other half of a Nyonye Ngana Hybrid was selected at random so Yama needed to figure out his half bloodline to fully comprehend his abilities. That was one of the challenges of choosing a hybrid species. Depending on his other half of bloodline, that would either benefit him greatly or harm him in his growth. The species that you choose meant that when you leveled up, the different attributes such as endurance, intelligence, wisdom, strength, vitality etc were gained depending on the species. So, an Orc would get strength, vitality etc while a Fairy would get wisdom, intelligence etc when they leveled up. So if the other half of him turned out to be a magical species, it would make him well balanced and well rounded in his abilities. However, this was bad news as one needed a niche to progress further, being well-rounded was good but only by being specialized in a certain path would someone progress further. However, Yama chose this risk because out of all the species he ordered his employees to look over, a Nyonye Ngana Hybrid had the best abilities to stay alive. They could change the color of their body by consuming mana, so this contributed to him being hard to notice; which was especially effective at night. They also had a little control of the earth element and control small ants, however, their most important survival skill was the fact that they could use release certain pheromones to use in different situations. Nevertheless, they also had certain disadvantages as well to make up for their unique abilities as each base class had to be almost equally balanced. Firstly, they had the third-lowest combat power at the beginning of the game out of the thousands of species available to play. Secondly, they were solitary creatures as they were abandoned since birth, so they had to rely on themselves and no tribe or others to depend on. Lastly, they were the outcasts of the food chain and were hated by both Hymbros and other creatures of the wild, thus always making them a primal target for getting hunted. Yama needed to be especially careful to not get killed and survive in the wild forests.

" Status Screen"

….

" Status Screen"

…..

"Just as I thought," said Yama

'Underneath' was supposed to be as immersive as possible, so the summoning of the status screens were not available in the beginning and had to be unlocked through special actions. However, he could learn new active skills if he kept repeating certain actions such as getting the running skill if he ran long enough, this would let him run faster and longer as his level kept increasing.

"Time to grind," said Yama smiling.