William Carter looked around. It wasn’t just David Clark; clearly, everyone had received this message, as their nervous or panicked expressions made obvious.

But everyone else’s message was definitely delivered by an AI voice. Unlike William Carter, whose message just showed two vague lines of text in the lower left corner and that was it.

David Clark hurriedly shoveled a couple of bites of food into his mouth. “Hurry up and eat, let’s go back to the dorm after we’re done.”

William Carter’s bed was already piled high with his roommates’ stuff, but luckily the desk and chair under the bed were still usable.

The dorm housed six people. Besides David Clark, the other four roommates had just returned as well—it was clear they’d all been to class.

It wasn’t that they all loved studying; it was mainly that Professor Li’s class was not one you dared to skip.

“You guys all got the trial info too, right?”

“Yeah, let’s hurry up and check out what’s going on.”

“You guys go in first, I’ll watch over your bodies here. In case you can’t make it back.”

“Can you say something less ominous, dumbass?”

Everyone climbed onto their own beds and closed their eyes.

William Carter sat on the chair. He noticed that when he didn’t hide the panel info in his field of vision, a special icon would appear in the upper right corner. Selecting it would expand it to the center of his view, turning into a portal named Trial Instance 1.

“What the hell is Trial Instance 1? Could they have picked a more half-assed name?” William Carter muttered to himself.

When he tried to enter, a secondary confirmation box popped up.

Before entering the instance, please ensure you are sitting or lying down. After entering, you will be in a light sleep state in reality. If you encounter danger in reality, you will be forcibly awakened. Completing the trial instance will grant you real-world rewards—the higher the difficulty, the better the rewards.

Enter now?

It was obvious that William Carter’s weird system was the same as everyone else’s portable AI system in terms of content. The only difference was that everyone else’s system was voice-based with no UI, while his only had UI prompts and no voice at all.

This was clearly a pain, because others could just ask their system if they didn’t understand something, but William Carter could only guess by picking apart the words.

According to the system, completing the trial would make you stronger in real life. No wonder everyone was eager to participate.

William Carter chose to enter the trial. As soon as he closed his eyes for two seconds, he found himself in another world.

It was a vast, white space. This time, a larger panel appeared in front of William Carter, and next to it was another version of himself.

The face and height were exactly the same, only the clothes were different. He was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, but the other version was in a pair of dirty, tattered shorts—nothing else, not even shoes.

William Carter tried waving at this beggar version of himself, but there was no response.

“Even without clothes, I’m still this handsome.”

William Carter guessed that this beggar version was probably his character avatar for this trial. He glanced at the panel on the left and was even more convinced.

Name, gender, age, and appearance were all fixed and unchangeable.

The only thing he could choose was identity.

The options included: student, office worker, freelancer, service industry, athlete.

The last option was: useless person.

There was also a line of small text as an explanation.

Your identity will determine your starting attributes. Just choose the identity you’re most interested in—it doesn’t have to match your real-life identity. After all, everyone deserves a second chance.

“So, students probably have stronger learning abilities, office workers have more endurance, freelancers are more creative, service industry folks have better communication skills and get discounts when shopping… Man, I really admire my own imagination.”

There was no attribute description on the panel, not even an attribute panel at all. Everything above was just William Carter’s wild guess.

The only difference in choosing these identities was that the clothes on the avatar in front of him would change. For example, picking office worker would put him in a sharp suit, picking athlete would give him a sprinter’s vest and shorts, with obvious muscles.

“Of course I should pick athlete. Physical fitness is clearly much better, so I’ll have an early advantage.”

William Carter chose athlete, but then he noticed the start trial button had turned gray and was unresponsive.

“What the hell?”

William Carter was a bit dumbfounded. Looking closer, he realized that except for the useless person option, all the other identity options were grayed out.

“So I can only start as a beggar?”

Chapter 5: Developer Difficulty

William Carter was speechless. Why is my system so unique, and in such a frustrating way?

Everyone else’s system has voice support. Mine doesn’t even talk, and now it’s messing with me in the trial too.

At first, William Carter wondered if everyone had to start as a beggar.

But when his consciousness returned to reality, he heard his other roommates excitedly discussing which starting identity to pick. Clearly, everyone else was normal.