"Huh."

  One might think that this would be said when someone is stumped or surprised, and while both of these are true it might be a bit of an overwhelming reaction to the current situation.

  The person who let out this exclamation had only just walked back into their home after getting some groceries and found themselves stopped by a screen. This was neither a phone screen, nor the T.V screen in his living room, but instead a floating, almost holographic-like screen hovering about half an arms length away from his face. As of now, it's simply sitting in front of them, with a little loading icon slowly spinning on its surface. Blinking a few times, he slowly puts his grocery bag on the counter next to him, pinching themselves and feeling the expected little shock of pain.

  "Welp, I'm not dreaming then...am I hallucinating?"

  Taking a step forwards, he hesitatingly reaches out to touch the screen. Just before he can though, the screen gives off a little jingle and flashes for a second, causing him to jump back. Once the flash of light fades, the screen can be seen to have text on it, which he reads over quickly.

  “...Ok what the hell is this.” The box goes back to its loading screen, and after a few more moments of nothing happening he decides to keep walking into his house, picking up his groceries and going to the kitchen to put them away. “Whatever that thing is, either I’m going crazy or this is somehow actually happening, but I’m not gonna let my ice cream melt just because of an acute hallucination.”

  After putting away everything he got at the store, he sits down on his couch and tries to turn on his T.V, only to find that it refuses to work. He sighs, putting the remote down and turning to look at the odd magic screen once more, it having followed him through his house as he moved around. It always stayed at that half an arms length away, almost like a little robot or something. After a few more moments, the screen finally resolves whatever ‘processing issues’ it was having, loading more text onto itself.

  Reading over the text as it forms, his face slowly shows more and more disbelief. Eventually he stands up and holds his hands out as if to stop the screen from dumping any more unbelievable information on him. “Whoa whoa, hold up, there are so many questions that need to be asked right now. First off, how do I know that any of this is real? And that I’m not just going crazy?”

  A look outside shows that the screen is right. Maria from down the street is frozen mid-jog, the clouds aren’t moving in the sky, and a sparrow just flying out of a nearby tree is stuck in mid air. Actually, that explains why the T.V isn’t working, the signals just haven’t gotten to it yet. Rubbing at his face, he turns back to the screen and sighs. “All right, assuming that this is actually happening and today isn’t just some kind of fever dream, I’ll play along I guess. Uh, you asked for my name, right? It’s Alex, Alex Whitmor.”

  The screen suddenly expands out, becoming a good deal larger. The top section still has a part for this...Sub-System to write in, but the majority of the new space is dedicated to one large section with a list of names to scroll through.

  Alex begins looking over the options, scrolling down through the menu before stopping as he registers something the screen had said. “Wait, how do you know what I’ve played or watched before? What, did you hack into Google and get all of my information or something?” Although he said it sarcastically, the fact that the screen went blank at the question puts him right back into disbelief. “Wait, did you actually-” The screen cuts him off, typing out a response rapidly, almost like it was trying to explain itself in a panic.

  If this was an anime, that screen would have sweat drops running down its back with how nervous it seems. Alex gives it a half-glare for a few more seconds before going back to looking at the Race options. “I’m not sure, there isn’t exactly any information on these other than names. Actually, you said I could request Race options directly, right? Is there anything along the lines of Dragonborn, or Dragonkin, something like that? If this is really a thing then I may as well go big.”

  Chuckling a little after reading over the choices, to the screen once again. “Alright, I can definitely see where the Kobold and Dovahkiin subraces are coming from, but what’s with all of the Beastman races and subraces? I noticed one or two of them in the other list too.” He idly scratches his chin as he reads the screen’s reply. He really needs to think of a name for it, calling it ‘the screen’ in his head is getting a bit tedious.

  “Oh yeah, you mentioned Abilities a couple times. Any chance I could get an explanation on what exactly those are?” Alex thinks over some potential names for a moment, before snorting at an idea that he just can’t pass up. “You mind if I call you Lucy, by the way? It’s a bit boring just calling you ‘the screen’ in my head.” The screen goes still for a few seconds, almost like it’s surprised, but blinks back into motion before I can get worried over it.

  “Well, good to know then. I’m assuming the little blurb about how Monsters and Creatures will be more immediately hostile is supposed to be a way to counteract the free Ability?” At the little chime and bob the scre-Lucy, actually, the chime and bob that Lucy does in a nod-like manner, Alex leans back in his seat and thinks over his options so far. “Hmm...I mean, even though the mention of Monsters and Creatures is ominous as all hell, it’s not like I’ll be out the door and ready to try and hug the first giant beetle or whatever that I see. And if I do decide to go out looking for Monsters or whatever, then it’ll probably be to hunt them anyways. Doesn’t seem too bad of a consequence compared to getting an Ability that seems like it will just give me access to magic right away.” Lucy floats into my point of view, writing out more text for me to see.

  Alex raises his brow at Lucy’s response, getting a bit excited about his choice now. “That wouldn’t happen to include Dragonoids, now would it?” At its nod, he gives a little grin and leans forward once more, clapping his hands together. “Alright, I’m convinced. Let’s go with, ehh...Dragon Beastman. As for the appearance variation it mentions, why don’t we go a bit more on the exotic side? You know the dragonborn from D&D? Something like that.” Lucy collapses back into one screen for a few seconds, a little loading icon back on their screen, before a ball of light flashes out of their body and grows into a vague form, slightly larger than myself.

  The form slowly forms more and more detail, until it looks like there’s a living, breathing lizard person in Alex’s living room. Covered in tannish scales that look like you could take a handsaw to them and just sheer off the teeth, which fade into a shiny copper coloration where the scales grow the thickest, and with a decidedly lizard-like skull structure, it cuts an intimidating figure. It’s also slightly bulkier than Alex all around, with slit pupils and what seems to be very sharp teeth, it’s definitely not someone you want to meet in a back alley. There’s a thick spiky fringe along and underneath the jaw of his soon-to-be body, it kind of looks like what a bearded dragons chin looks like. Maybe in an attempt to copy his beard? “Wow...I mean, just...wow. Do you think you could make it a few inches taller? I’m not exactly short but I always kind of wanted to be at least a few inches taller than I am. Being 5’11” is just so annoying for no reason.”

  After a few more minutes of little adjustments, Alex is satisfied with the changes and moves on to picking out Abilities. There’s just as many things to choose from there, but he eventually decides on these:

  This might need a little explanation. Basically, when deciding your Abilities, you start with 20 ‘points.’ Each Tier in an ability costs a certain amount of points depending on how high the Tier is, in a 1-2-4-6 pattern. Since he had a free Ability with the [Mana Pool], Alex could upgrade it at a lessened cost to a higher Tier by subtracting the point cost of the current Tier and the one it would be upgraded to and buying it with the difference between them. It’s a bit math-heavy but not too much to deal with.

  As for the Abilities themselves, they have a couple of different benefits and effects that he thought would be quite handy. [Mana Pool], as Lucy already explained, gives you an internal source of mana. Other than being convenient, He’d guess that actually doing magic is different depending on where you’re drawing the mana from. The [Elemental Affinities] are just general Abilities that increase how well you can ‘understand’ an element, though Lucy was a bit vague in what exactly that means. The [Scaled Hide] makes the scaly skin of the new form defend more against physical attack which is always a nice feature, and the [Dragons Breath] is exactly what it sounds like. The [Humanoid Diet] one may seem a bit out of place, but apparently Beastmen often take on the dietary habits of the animals they resemble, at least partly, and this Ability helps circumvent that issue. With it at E-Tier though, I’ll still have cravings for more raw meat than I’m used to though.

  “Oh, uh, alright. Wait, what was that about skills-”

  And with that, Alex is coated in a bright, iridescent light, suffusing his body and beginning to change it into something entirely new.

  and to write. I'm not sure about how posting schedules will work, for now it will probably just have to be whenever I can get a chapter done. But, yeah! Hope you enjoyed the first chapter, and if you have any suggestions or critiques feel free to leave them in the comments. See Ya! (Also, first person to figure out why I called Alex's Sub-System 'Lucy' gets some Rep!)