After some careful thought, Lin Yu ultimately chose Analysis Eye.
Lin Yu would find a way to make up for shortcomings in stats like health and defense after entering the game. Analysis Eye offered a mechanic, and mechanics were certainly harder to come by than stats.
With the talent chosen, the next steps were gender selection, class selection, and finally character customization.
Gender: none, female
?
Seeing that the only gender options were none and female, Lin Yu silently raised a question mark. What was going on? Why were none and female the only choices? Why was there no male option?
To figure out what was going on, Lin Yu began searching for the reason.
"Oh, so that's how it is!"
After reading the Fairy race's introduction, Lin Yu finally understood why the only choices were none and female.
The Alchemist who had originally created the Fairy race had intended to create a race of servants to serve him, so when he created the Fairies, he simply hadn't given them any gender.
Later, for some reason, the Alchemist added gender to the Fairy race he had created. However, he only added female, and from then on, all Fairies could switch between genderless and female.
Lin Yu had chosen a mixed-blood ratio of nine parts Fairy to one part human. Because the proportion of Fairy Race blood was too high, the male option had disappeared altogether.
"What was the reason?! Don't get people curious and then stop and play the riddler! What exactly made him give the Fairies a gender?" Lin Yu grumbled while reading the Fairy race's introduction.
Obviously, the panel wasn't going to answer Lin Yu's question.
"Fine, if I can't pick male, I'll pick none."
After choosing a gender, it was time to select a class.
The classes in Epochal Shift were divided into three main categories: Combat Profession System, Knowledge System, and Faith System.
A quick glance was enough for Lin Yu to discover that almost none of the classes in the Combat Profession System were available.
Battle Mage actually required a constitution growth of 1.2, and Lin Yu didn't meet the requirements for classes like Magic Swordsman and Warlock either.
Since the Combat Profession System classes were off-limits, the only option was to look at the Knowledge System. Surely there were caster classes among them too!
Lin Yu opened the Knowledge System and quickly browsed through all the available classes.
Alchemist, Magitech Engineer, Enchanter, Alchemist, Artisan...
Most of the Knowledge System classes were support classes. Lin Yu gave them a glance and passed them over. Lin Yu wanted to play a mage, not support.
After ruling out the support classes, there weren't many left. During the process of elimination, Lin Yu also saw a few absurd classes, but whenever Lin Yu tried to select one, the panel said there was insufficient permission.
In the end, Lin Yu found three suitable classes.
Soul Mage, Elemental Mage, and Scholar. Each of the three had its own features.
The Soul Mage was described as a mage specializing in research into the soul. Choosing it would grant a trait that enhanced soul damage and a soul Meditation Technique. Paired with the extremely high spirit attribute growth granted by the talent, it would definitely be powerful enough.
The Elemental Mage was a mage specializing in research into the elements. Choosing it would grant a trait that increased damage from all elements and an elemental Meditation Technique.
As for the last class, Scholar, its description said that knowledge was power. Choosing it would grant only the Insight trait, not a Meditation Technique, but in return it provided more starting funds. Lin Yu wanted to pick Scholar entirely because of Insight, which could be used to upgrade Analysis Eye.
If only I hadn't finished picking my traits so quickly. Back then I was still agonizing over which S-rank talent to choose, and in the end I picked the B-rank Analysis Eye.
Now Lin Yu was torn between choosing a mage class to immediately get a damage-boosting trait and a corresponding Meditation Technique, or choosing Scholar to use its trait to upgrade the talent.
I'll take the gamble. There should be other ways to get a Meditation Technique, or there wouldn't be so many classes that start without a cultivation method. Who knows when another chance to upgrade a talent will come along?
After convincing themself, Lin Yu made up their mind and selected the Scholar class without hesitation.
With the class settled, Analysis Eye completed its upgrade as well.
Next came the final step: character customization.
Lin Yu had no idea how to customize a face, but fortunately, there was an option in the bottom right corner to import one's own appearance and generate an appearance for the corresponding race.
After importing it, Lin Yu fell silent at the sight of the short-haired "little loli" with black hair and black eyes on the panel.
Next, Lin Yu tried adjusting the character's appearance to make the character look more masculine.
The attempt failed. Lin Yu discovered that very little could be adjusted; it wasn't even possible to lower the character's looks a little.
The only things Lin Yu could change were height, skin color, hair color, hair length, eye color, and eye shape.
While adjusting the skin color, Lin Yu also found that the range was quite limited. The choices were basically between pale and porcelain white.
Looking at the "little loli" on the panel, with entirely black eyes and skin as pale as a corpse's, Lin Yu covered their face.
Great, I made a little ghost from a horror movie.
After playing around for a while, Lin Yu decided to get serious about the customization. Since there was no way to make the character look like a boy, Lin Yu would make the character look better, rather than risk being frightened by that ghostly face later.
Lin Yu soon finished customizing the character.
The height was 1.2 meters, the tallest Lin Yu could make the character. Lin Yu also replaced the corpse-like pallor with porcelain-white skin. As for the hair and eyes, Lin Yu changed them to white hair and red eyes to match their XP, and set the hair length to reach the waist.
Looking at the white-haired, red-eyed "little loli" in the character portrait, Lin Yu nodded in satisfaction. The system's customization was good; it was perfectly in line with Lin Yu's XP. There was just one problem: for some reason, no matter how Lin Yu adjusted it, there was always something inhuman about the character.
After discovering there really was no way to eliminate that problem entirely, Lin Yu gave up.
After checking everything one last time and making sure nothing had been missed, Lin Yu clicked the finish button at the bottom.
Lin Yu watched the one-minute countdown in front of them.
Feeling the perspective change in an instant, Lin Yu looked down at their body.
Mm, perfect. The first thing Lin Yu saw was their own hands.
Come to think of it, can I get a mirror?
The instant the thought arose, the screen of light in front of Lin Yu twisted and turned into a mirror.
Lin Yu carefully examined the "little loli" in the mirror, dressed in a simple gray shirt and trousers, with fair skin, a height of 1.2 meters, beautiful white hair reaching the waist, eyes as lovely as rubies, and delicate, adorable features like a doll's. (Literally like a doll.)
After a brief moment of thought, Lin Yu reached a conclusion: "I'm so cute!"
As the countdown ended, the surroundings began to change. Lin Yu's vision blurred, and when Lin Yu came to, the hellish scene of demons dancing wildly in front of them left them speechless.
It truly was a wild dance of demons in the literal sense. Orcs, furries, demons—there really were races of every kind.
Lin Yu silently watched everything around them. Just now, a player who was probably a Succubus had quietly spoken for a while with a two-meter-tall player who looked remarkably like an oversized red lizard and had probably chosen Dragonkin.
Then the Dragonkin player tapped the air several times, probably opening the game panel and doing something. Lin Yu watched the two of them turn into an alley together and disappear from sight.
Well, no need to think about it. Lin Yu could more or less guess what had happened.
Hey! This isn't the game world I imagined! Shouldn't everyone rush out into the wilderness as soon as they enter the game, with several people coming to blows over a single wild monster? What's going on now? How did this turn into an 18+ game? Isn't anyone going to do something about it? Oh, I guess there really isn't anyone in charge.
Lin Yu looked away expressionlessly, grumbling furiously inside.