Chapter 22

Leander walked down to the IT Department to deliver his daily report. Upon entering the large building that contained several hundred programmers and their sophisticated equipment, he saw an unusual flurry of activity happening in the group project room, with around fifty men and women typing furiously at the computer terminals. Half the programmers were grinning widely.

“What's going on, Kevin?” Leander asked the person he usually reported to, a young man who had the pale skin, glasses, and slightly hunched posture that was associated with too many hours staring at a computer screen without a break.

“Dream Life Enterprises is hacking us again, looking for our advanced AI software,” Kevin answered, never taking his eyes off of his screen or pausing in his typing on the keyboard.

In the competitive world of gaming software, VirtualRealities indisputably dominated the market with their cutting-edge graphics, whimsically detailed worlds, and incredibly realistic NPCs. Their main competitor, Dream Life Enterprises, had spent billions of dollars in research and development over the years, managing to come close in quality in other software aspects, but never seemed to be able to close the gap in NPC quality and realism. Recently, Leander's company had been subjected to a series of hacks appearing to target the AI software in VirtualRealities' databases. Though the attacks were not directly traceable to Dream Life, no one had any doubt as to who was looking for the files.

Leander smiled. The hackers would never find what they were looking for, since those files did not exist in the company servers. “So what is everybody doing?” he asked.

“That half is making sure that the intrusion doesn't affect the running of our games,” Kevin said, briefly gesturing at the half of the room wearing serious expressions. He grinned and continued, “This half is making sure they find the little surprise we left for them.”

“Is it a virus?” Leander asked.

Kevin grinned even more widely. “Better.” He paused dramatically before continuing, “It's copies of Dream Life's own AI software.” (*diabolical*) Not expecting anyone wanting to target Dream Life's inferior NPC files, it had been surprisingly easy to access and copy them.

Leander laughed out loud (*lol*). The game designers and programmers at VirtualRealities constantly surprised and amused him with their antics. “I wonder how long it will take them to figure out what they have.”

“Well, since we modified a bunch of code to look different while functioning identically, it might be a while,” said Kevin.

Leander shook his head in admiration. “You evil man.”

“Well, everybody helped,” said Kevin modestly.

Suddenly, a person yelled, “They found it!” and the room filled with cheers the same way the NASA headquarters did when they landed a Rover on Mars. Objective (apparently) reached, the hackers ceased their intrusion, and within a few minutes, most people left the common room to return to their private offices for a quieter place to work.

Leander followed Kevin to his office. As they walked, Kevin said, “So I saw you fought some chaos-element monsters last night. What did you think?”

Leander paused, trying to find the words to encapsulate the random, chaotic experience. After several tries, he finally said, “You had better keep it a secret that you are the one who came up with the concept.” The words were said so seriously that Kevin stopped walking to look at his co-worker.

“What? Why?”

“If it becomes well-known that you thought up the chaos concept, I am sure that someone will eventually punch you in the face.”

Kevin started to look worried, then changed to a puzzled expression when Leander added, “Probably before or after hugging you.”

***

Arwyn came home from work tired and lacking the willpower to resist playing Fantasia until a normal bedtime hour. Giving in to the game's seductive whisper (“Come,” it beckoned creepily), it was barely 9:00 p.m. when she slid on the game helmet and logged on.

◊◊◊

“Scanning. Player detected. Welcome back to Fantasia, Fey E'lan.”

◊◊◊

After materializing inside the infinity dungeon, Fey immediately set out towards the armour shop and the new kicking gear waiting for her. Settling into a medium-paced jog that she could maintain for a while, she arrived at the Moonwood in half an hour. She was trailed by bounding glooms and a mushroom riding a boar (Amethyst got to ride on Fey's shoulder, of course, because she's the leader of the Feypets and also happens to weigh the least).

Hehehe. Fey thought that if people's fitness quantifiably increased every time they exercised, people would run around more (if you're looking for aspects of Fantasia that would make people exercise more, it would also work if the world was filled with monsters that liked to chase people around).

Walking into Senaia's tree-shop, Fey saw that the shop-keeper was busy with another customer, so she found an out-of-the-way spot to stand in and wait.

Since Fey had not ordered her pets to stay outside, they wandered in through the shop's open archway. Seeing their owner standing around (boringly), the creatures began to explore the shop.

“Do not knock anything over,” Fey hissed at her pets under her breath. It would be just her luck if they had inherited her clumsy and accident-prone tendencies.

At the warning, the pets began to walk with extreme and excessive caution, delicately taking a step (or a hop, depending on the pet's state of legged-ness), pausing to check for damage to the shop, then taking another careful step forward. This was possibly the cutest thing Fey had ever seen (*cute overload*), and she took a short video of the pets' explorations until one pet's behaviour caught her attention.

Inspecting an armour stand, Obsidian the gloom morphed into a miniature replica of a boot. Fey picked up the shadow-boot with interest, examining it from all angles. “Can you do a full-sized boot?” she asked.

With a bit of straining, the gloom was able to expand to the correct dimensions, but the result was flimsy to the touch (*pokepoke*).

“Keep practicing,” Fey told the shadow-pet, returning it to the ground. Obsidian reverted to his rabbit shape and hopped away to find other things to mimic (*hop*pause*hop*).

Business with her other customer completed, Senaia turned her attention to Fey. “Fey! Hello, Amethyst,” she greeted the player and the pet sitting on her shoulder. The rest of the pets had now all found interesting spots to explore and were out of sight. “I have your new armour all ready.” Senaia went behind the counter (where Topaz was sitting cutely) and pulled out a rough wooden crate.

Fey peered in curiously as the container was opened. “Ooh...” She admired the dull gleam of metal, accented with brighter stripes of mirror-bright silvery steel.

“Here, let me help you put it on.” Senaia had Fey change into a pair of close-fitting leggings, then proceeded to set each piece of armour in the correct place. The custom-made armour fit perfectly as each piece was snapped into place.

Fully outfitted, Fey twisted and turned in front of the mirror to inspect the expertly crafted leg armour. This is so badass.

Indeed, “badass” aptly described Fey's bladed leg armour (“kick-ass” works too). Several important modifications to standard plate legs made the armour eminently suitable for kicking attacks.

Four stripes of higher-grade steel ran down the front, sides, and back of the legs so that slashing attacks would be caught by the stronger metal, allowing the player to fight against swords without fear of taking damage. The front stripe of metal running down the shin was a raised, sharp edge that could cut like a sword; three similar raised edges ran down the top of the boot to ensure maximum damage from kicking attacks. A single short-but-pointy spike protruded from the toe of the boot, three from the heel, and the heel itself was made of solid metal to ensure kicks were capable of bone-crushing, internal bleeding-causing force.

Additionally (as if that weren't enough, but the author is apparently very blood-thirsty), instead of a standard rounded metal piece to cover the kneecap and provide the hinge at the knee joint, the armour covering Fey's shins extended to a hand's length above the knee in a curved leaf shape, with a sharpened edge that ensured anyone she chose to knee in the groin would take a lot of damage (and probably have to worry about their procreative abilities). To ensure both flexibility and protection, the areas where plate armour normally left gaps were instead covered by diagonally criss-crossing stripes of metal that could slide over each other to accommodate the player's movements.

To top it all off, Senaia handed Fey a pair of weighted rings, 200 grams (about half a pound) each. “What are these for?” Fey asked, finding the latch mechanism that allowed the rings to open on a hinge.

“You clip these on the middle of your foot to give your kicks more momentum,” Senaia explained. “Having extra weight at the end of your legs takes a great deal of energy, so you should remove them when you are not fighting.”

“I didn't pay you enough,” Fey murmured worshipfully, her mind filled with (violent) fantasies of the kind of damage she could inflict with successively heavier weights on her feet.

“I take it you are satisfied with the product?” Senaia asked somewhat jokingly, as Fey's delight was quite apparent.

“If I were any more satisfied, I'd probably explode.” (*splatter*)

Fey was beginning to feel a strong urge to start kicking things to see the kind of force she could now generate. To save Senaia's shop from sustaining damage, Fey hurriedly clipped the weight rings onto her belt and bid the shop-keeper farewell. “Thanks so much, Senaia! This is awesome!” Fey ran out of the shop.

***

Senaia smiled at Fey's exuberance. Picking up the now-empty crate to put into storage, she nearly tripped over a gloom. “Oh my!” she exclaimed in startlement, not having noticed Fey's extra pets. As more and more pets came out of various nooks and crannies of the shop to exit the tree-building's open archway, Senaia blinked, not quite believing her eyes.

“Did you see that?” she asked Topaz after a boar-riding mushroom trotted out of sight. The (yellow) slime nodded solemnly.

***

Fey headed out of the Moonwood and quickly travelled to the nearby monster territories. She had a perfect target for testing out her kicking armour: the level 5 poison mushrooms she had read about a few days before (see Chapters 4 and 5 if you don't remember). Since she was collecting different poisons for Amethyst to learn, the trip would accomplish two things at once.

Poison mushrooms had murky dark-green caps with brown dots, but were otherwise very similar in appearance to blue mushrooms. Fey had the whole herd (fun fact: a group of mushrooms is properly called a “troop”) to herself because poisonous monsters were generally unpopular targets for training.

Immediately upon spotting the monsters, Fey ordered, “Everyone who isn't immune to poison, stay out of range.” All the Feypets except Amethyst stayed a safe distance away. Fey walked straight to the nearest mushroom and slammed an Axe Kick into its body. She could feel the extra strain in her leg muscles as they propelled the weight of her armour, even without the weighted rings; this extra mass resulted in a much stronger impact than she was normally capable of. The three spikes on her heel easily stabbed through the spongy fungus; with a 16-level disadvantage, the poison mushroom immediately shrivelled up and died.

Fey raised her heel out of the ground, pleased. The short, fat spikes on her boots were designed to not get caught on things and throw her off balance, so the dried poison mushroom slid off easily, falling to the ground.

Sensing danger (if seeing a herd-mate mercilessly and easily slaughtered can properly be termed “sensing danger”), the rest of the poison mushrooms began to squeak in alarm and released clouds of poison spores.

Fey was pleased that the poison mushroom poison could affect her, ensuring that she would not have to subject herself to furyweed poison in order to continue training Immunity (see Chapter 20 if you don't remember). The weaker poison had much milder side effects, in this case slightly blurry vision that mimicked mild myopia, or near-sightedness. Since Arwyn was near-sighted (the consequence of too many consecutive hours of books and video games), her real-life vision impairment was actually worse than she was experiencing now, so she had no trouble continuing to navigate the virtual world.

“Okay, Amethyst, open your mouth and eat the spores.” The slime obediently opened her mouth to collect the airborne poison. Fey ran around slaughtering mushrooms with Stomp and Axe Kick, her movements allowing Amethyst to collect more spores until finally,

Fey was getting bored of the mushrooms. Since they were so small and low to the ground, she was limited in the kicking techniques she could effectively use against them. After Amethyst had improved her ability, Fey headed out of the mushroom territory.

Fey's next order of business was to learn her next warrior skill. When she arrived at the warrior training area, Fey found Irrilathan alone on duty. Do they take turns? she wondered (see Chapter 20 if you don't remember).

Without waiting for her to talk, Irrilathan scanned Fey's warrior progress in an instant. “I see you are ready to learn your next warrior skill.”

“Indeed, sir,” Fey replied respectfully.

Without further conversation, the trainer drew his longsword. The blade was dull and unadorned; one had to look carefully to notice the bluish tint that indicated a mithril alloy in the metal. “Watch carefully,” the instructor (instructed) ordered.

Irrilathan pointed his arm and sword straight in front of him, parallel to the ground at shoulder-height. Fey could see mana gathering at a single point slightly beyond the tip of the sword, in Irrilathan's case a white-gold that matched the colour of his platinum-blond hair.

“Arc Slash!” The trainer swept his arm to the right, and the glowing spot stretched into an arc covering about 30° of a circle (π/6 radians for the math fans). The arc of light expanded as it moved away from Irrilathan, continuing to cover the same 30°, until it gradually faded away an arm's length from where it had started.

“This is the basic form of Arc Slash,” said Irrilathan, sheathing his sword in an easy, practiced movement. “As you master the skill, it will evolve, increasing both the length of the arc and distance it can travel. Now, you try.”

Fey hefted a single punching blade in her right hand to try the skill. Irrilathan noted the rather uncommon weapon, but remained silent as Fey concentrated, imagining the flow of (purple) mana concentrating at a single point at the end of the metal.

“Arc Slash!”

Fey swept her arm to the right, and was pleased when the skill activated in an identical way to Irrilathan's demonstration.

The skill consumed 100 mana out of Fey's current 231 maximum, but since her Intelligence attribute and mana reserves automatically rose with every level (see Chapter 2 if you don't remember), she considered it a reasonable cost.

“Very good.” Having noted the second weapon at Fey's waist, Irrilathan continued, “Now try with your other arm.”

Fey settled the second punching blade into her left hand. Being right-handed, her left arm was naturally weaker and less adept at precise movements. With the simple movements required to activate Arc Slash, Fey thought that the disparity would not matter, but was proven wrong when the left-handed version of the skill covered a paltry 15° arc and fizzled out of existence a short way from the blade.

Aww, so lame (*tear*). (See Chapter 2 if you don't remember.)

“You need to practice,” said Irrilathan. “Warrior skills convert mana into physical force by channelling it through the body. Your physical skills apply a bonus or penalty to the base effect.”

In that case, I should cast it with my legs. Fey would test the theory later, when her (meager) mana reserves had replenished themselves. She bowed respectfully to the warrior trainer. “Thank you for your instruction.” Hesitantly, she asked, “May I see what Arc Slash looks like when fully mastered?” In real life, Arwyn was used to seeing nearly inhuman demonstrations of physical prowess in tae kwon do class, performed by the second- and third-degree black belts, that the rest of the students were supposed to aspire to (and fail miserably to attain). The demonstrations were almost completely restricted to the second- and third-degrees; students of lower belts simply had not had enough practice, and masters at higher belts were usually past the age where they were able to move with the necessary amount of agility (look up “quadruple kick” on the Internet and you'll understand).

Irrilathan smiled at the request. “While there is no such thing as full mastery,” (that's what all the masters claim) “I can show you the progress I have made with the skill.” He drew his sword once more.

Instead of pointing his weapon forward, Irrilathan started with the sword on his right side, tip pointing down. In a single breath, the trainer gathered sufficient mana and began to trace a glowing arc in the air. By using his left toe as a pivot point and turning two circles while steadily raising his arm, Irrilathan was able to create a perfect corkscrew pattern that extended from his toes to above his head, covering 720° (of awesomeness).

The trainer let the glow hang in the air for a few seconds before cancelling the skill. “I would release the attack, but I'm afraid it would cause quite a bit of damage to the trees,” he explained. Seeing as they were standing in the middle of a reasonably large clearing, Fey could imagine the huge range of the attack.

Fey's mind was boggled. She had imagined the skill fully mastered when one was able to create a full circle, but moving the sword vertically as well as horizontally meant there truly was no limit to how far one could master the skill. In addition to the surprise, her inner fangirl was acting up (*squeeee* so cool), so Fey was having trouble thinking and acting normally.

Deciding that it would be best if she left before any erratic behaviour could surface, Fey bowed and thanked the instructor and headed out of the training area.