Knock! Knock!

A series of knocks at the door of the virtual space drew my attention.

“So many guests this week.” Sasha said a bit startled.

“Yeah, I agree. Let's go see who it is.” I said.

Standing up from the sofa where me and Sasha were watching the rerun of deadpool, I leave the house and go to the floating door that was the entrance to the virtual space and upon opening it I was shocked to find an old man with a military cut and dressed in official army clothing with a badge for the Major rank.

“Major Smith, what honor do we have to have you come all the way here?” I asked.

“May I come in?” He asked.

With a nod I let him in, behind him were some lower ranking military specialists, of which Yasmine was part of but there were doctors and other people as well. They came in and I offered them a seat at the sofa but when I looked at Sasha I was about to say for her to go up the Major cut in.

“You don’t need to send her away, it's not such a serious talk.” He said.

“Okay, you all can have a seat if you want.” I said and began to interface with the virtual space’s setting cleaning up and opening the winds letting more light shine in and fixing the place a bit before bringing out the purchased set of cups before I had some natural juice made and put out for who wanted. “So what is this about?” I asked sitting across from the Major.

“Well, after your claim two days ago, we got in contact with LIFE’s board of directors and rewrote the contract, in truth I hadn’t expected that most of them didn’t know of this. When the offer went out we were able to sign a new contract, while forcing Mr. Castel, to accept the offer. Now only 30% of liquid assets will be transferred over to LIFE and they won’t be allowed to obtain the machines or methods of design. All that it requires is for your consent now.” He said.

“Alright, I can work better with this, I assume at least 5 to 10% of the liquid assets are towards my work?” I asked.

“That is what we need to talk about. Although we said we wanted the clockwork, and the weapons, the request actually isn’t as simple. First the weaponry isn’t hard to reproduce, we know you can make the most basic form of several of your own inventions like those mobile ball turrets. What brings problems is that we need clockwork robot with complete coding but also customized.” He said.

“In what manner?”

“We want to connect the virtual reality systems to the robot's.” One of the white robed military specialists said. “Although 80% of war is completely done through virtual reality, the threat of terrorists isn’t small. In fact, their biggest aim are satellites and electrical plants. That said common guards don’t have the firepower to fight back against the ever growing threat. They want to kill many people in one go through blackouts and cutting internet signals.” He said.

“I see, you want to make the robot's ‘avatars’ for the soldiers, storing them in countless places and should something happen, instantly an army appears.” I said.

The Major nodded, “That is correct, the problem we face though is that all the clockwork code is corrupt as well as made to be an AI while we need a robot that will connect to the system to be used.”

“I’ll say this now but it's quite hard even for me.”

“Don’t you have an incalculable wisdom in Etheria? I’m sure the feedback system has had a drastic effect on your brain and processing speed.” The Major said.

“In Etheria I do, I am basically a machine there and I am one of the few who have completely transfered my being into an powerful machine. My computer processor I don’t even know how advanced it is, that thing was formed by the game systems and not by me. That said, I am able to restore clockwork codes and have long since done that but I can’t make them. To remove the ‘AI’ aspect would completely break the entire system. Of course I use receptors to link my own mind to my robot's but each robot still has my codes transmitted to it.” I explained.

“Of course, we are prepared to develop this, we know you have a tried and tested clockwork code in your virtual space and we can develop something from that.” The mechanic specialist said.

I nodded, “I can work with that. The weapons I can easily show a few of you have to make but there is one problem I have to mention for the robot's.” I said.

“What's that?” The Major asked.

“Does today’s technology have the capacity to make the hardware for the brain?” I asked simply.

The room went silent as soon as my question was aired. The Major hadn’t thought of this, although each and every one of them had entered the game and seen the trash pile bodies, it was indeed a fact that some components were very complex. After all, this game was a setting of post post apocalypse where magic and technology had reached a huge peak before dying down. If technology, in specific clockworks, wasn’t high tech then it would be hard for airships of the size they had seen in there to exist.

“This you do not need to worry about.” Yasmine spoke up suddenly, “When this project was originally conceived, it was even before the launch of the game. Ariel herself mentioned that our technology lacked basic components for the brain. The methods to make these were obviously purchased by the government and has been under development for several years already. We have prototype parts that are trail worthy so there is no problem with the lack of components.” She explained

I nod, if this was the plan from the get go obviously they would have taken precautions in all areas, “Alright, so what do I get out of this? I am willing but I also can’t give something for nothing.” I said.

“Of course we already said it, we can clear all charges and whipping your track record clean to the point that you won’t ever have to put on your curriculum that you are an ex-convict, even if you were, us in the military research and development would surely hire you.” the Major said.

“What about my sister's legs?” I asked.

“I have personally gone and verified her condition.” one of the doctors said, “Her muscles are all well developed again, the exterior connections formed through the body allowed her legs to develop once more but her spinal cord is still not completely healed. The method to heal would probably be only treatment with trunk cells or if we develop cybernetic implant to bridge the gap.” He said.

“So LIFE lied when they said they would heal her?” I asked clenching my fists.

“It wasn’t a lie, they have helped her heal greatly, although the spinal cord is broken, they already did a treatment through trunk cells once, injecting it into her spine after having put you in the virtual world. If I say her spine is about 5-10% healed that would be about right, the spine is far too complex and it would take several years of treatment to properly heal her which is what they had in store for her since you would normally have been in here for 7 years.” He explained.

“I see. If the military can take the place of LIFE and do her treatment then I can agree, being stuck in here is far from enjoyable. For the part of weapons and robot's I can agree to these terms as long as I get paid since I will be accepting work. Also I have been wondering but why are there medical specialists here?” I asked.

One of them smiled, “This is the second deal we wanted your help with. Like we mentioned, cybernetics.”

“How can I help? I never once studied to be a doctor, although I was planning to since I was lacking in information of this field for my Automata body. I need real world information or to discover several facts to improve my body.” he said.

“Yes.” The man said perplexed and coughed, “We know that in that world cyborgs exist, this is fact, there is a city with cyborg humans, which, curiously enough, are humans you banished by destroying their city once. Still, their city is locked to the players. They shoot down anyone that comes there and they are hostile to those from the clockwork nation and beyond. We are unable to make contact and the boy who did make contact doesn’t know anything about how they did their cybernetics.” The man explained.

“Shouldn’t you ask Ariel?”

“Not like I would tell them anyway.” A cheerful voice said.

When the voice sounded the space in front of the TV distorted and a beautiful woman with a simple long one piece dress and black hair falling down. The smile on her face was very bright but also like a devilish woman scheming.

“Ariel, this is breaking and entering.” I said casually.

“Oh come on, this beautiful woman came to visit and this is how you treat me?” She complained.

The others were stunned to see her appear from thin air.

“So why can’t you tell them about the cybernetics?” I asked.

“Because what the cyborgs did was weaponize their body. What they want is prosthetics. The technology is too advanced to be made by this world. If you want it, develop basic prosthetic limbs first. You are already on the way with that, so it shouldn’t be hard.” She said and looked at me and Sasha. “If you help this boy complete his Automata body, or the schematics it would help you. You should know, the cores you made aren’t ‘unprogrammed’ into the system.” She said startling everyone.

“What do you mean?” The major frowned.

She giggled, “Well if I were to say this you would probably understand. In Etheria there are 2 divinity forms. Titan and Gods. Titan’s are usually massive and possess immense physical power. Although Delta claims himself, ‘God of the Artificial races’ he is a ‘Synthoid Titan’ he isn’t even ‘Titan of Artificial races’. Gods on the other hand are human sized but they have the same power but magically. That is to say, Automata are Gods of artificial races and Machina are the true Titan’s. Oh look at me rambling, anyway children, if you can figure out the human autonomy it would help a lot, not just you but other people. I need to go, also…” She smiled and winked, “Good job bringing Sakura back.”

Before anyway could say anything her body vanished leaving them stunned. Everyone looked at each other confused by the event.

Finally the Major coughed, “So… how do we proceed?” he asked.

It was very quiet in the room until I sighed, “How does this sound, while you work on getting us out, I will set my city as a spawning place for new players but under the restriction that I permit only specific people with a code. I can hand it over to you and you can send your doctors and mechanics and such to join my city. From inside the game I can learn the medical part I need and once we get out I can provide the mechanical and programming part.” I say.

They were surprised but they also knew about this feature, people who own their own base or city not affiliated to a nation can also form a spawning point and that includes forming restricted spawning points like I just mentioned.

“That is a good idea but is it already? I mean you have never once let others inside your city?” The major asked.

“If I want to advance further why would I not allow specialists to join my crew? Also if you robotics group want to come I can teach you first hand in game and you can start trials in real life directly.” I said. “Of course, that is with the expectation that you also pull your own weight in my city.” I said.

They looked even more startled but some of the women laughed, “Major, I think up to this point we have a good deal with Nathanial, this would be for the best.” Yasmine said.

“Yes, if you are willing we will take you up on that offer.” The major said.

With a nod and a handshake they pulled out a very long contract. Not one to trust others I read through it but I have a very fast reading speed and it took around twenty minutes to read the entire contract in detail and modify the points to match what we talked about. Prosthetics, weapon sells and robot sells I would have a patent ownership in my name with 40% of the stocks. Of course this patent is co worked with the military but I also get a basic military specialist of the robotics corp salary for my work.

Only after checking for loopholes I found that, like the Major had said, I would be enlisted for 2 years but I would focus only on what was agreed upon without needing to do the heavy military training. Finding no problems I finally agreed but I did say that time for the game was needed since the speed of the game was faster.

With everything signed and smoothed out they all left after we decided upon a code they could distribute and I set up.

***

On the continent where the Clockwork awakened, at this time in the forest of the elves, the large tree city had grown greatly. The previously only tree house city had grown greatly and after careful administration, technology began to slowly find its place with the elves.

It wasn’t like they did extensive expansion but in the last several months some players, clockwork, dwarf and elves working together, invented small scale floating vehicles. By small scale it would be like floating boards, small scale ‘sail boats’ even smaller than the Dingy. Also the elves accepted several technology during the several decades where the players were away and using the water purifiers and the rivers, they developed small scale power plants to generate electricity.

This was, of course, using watermills and not dams because it would ruin a lot of the forest but this did not mean that the watermills were ineffective, instead the engineers who pioneered the project put their all into making a rather complex water pill at several points with strong rapids.

At this time, in the now well lit queen’s room, Lyra Toross, the elf queen, was reading the many reports and handing out objectives while dealing with recurring problems which came from invading monsters. With the coming of the elementals, which Techno had revived, came also extensive expansion. We careful control of the elementals so that they did not get corrupted the size of the forest has already quadruped with several dozen springs being brought back and green has spread even further but this also pushed many contaminated and mutant monsters out of their natural habit which is contaminated waters and woods.

Savage beasts who, after so long living in filthy water, now depend on it. Of course there are more ‘preserved’ monsters who were not as heavily affected but if one were to compare them before and after, it was clear that their health was drastically affected but their bodies are strong enough to survive and are slowly adapting to the slowly growing change.

Of course the elf queen didn’t only deal with problems inside her own forest. As an elven nation, she worked and formed a very tight friendship with the clockwork nation and a mutual benefits relationship with the demon nation. The space between them all is too large and so none of them have conflict and instead they help each other.

The elves were small in number, only counting a little over 400 but with the return of players, the number of elves skyrocketed to several thousand. Because they were weak at the start, the central governments of the tree nations formed a trade agreement between them and they work together to benefit from each other’s growth. Sending low leveled awakened with trained native elves to certain places along with demons, clockwork, and all other races the area is developed and cleaned up forming a spot of green and leaving behind elementals who will keep spread it.

Still Lyra had a frown because although the land was cleared out drastically weakening the monsters there was one problem and that was that the elementals couldn’t continuously pump nature based mana into the ground and revitalize the land. There was simply too much space and to few people even with all the awakened. They lacked experience.

The queen sighed as she lifted the paper, “This is rather depressing, we have so many workers but all of them are subpar in experience.” She complained.

Rustle!

She looked up as she felt a small vibration from under her. The entire tree had shaken but it was very subtle that only someone very keen would notice since it would feel like a strong wind had blown and nothing more.

Rustle! Whoo!

This time the tree shook again a bit stronger and she suddenly looked down through the roots beside her throne. Under her she noticed a faint green pulse.

“What?” She said confused.

WHOOSH!

Suddenly from below a massive gust of wind suddenly blew and with it a very intense green light rose from below covering the entire tree.

After that countless pulsing lights came from below and suddenly the entire tree began to shake.

BANG!

From outside the sound of breaking and rumbling was heard and Lyra turned quite stressed as she suddenly leapt up to the window and looked out. What she saw made her pale a bit.

Outside an intense green pulse was spread and the tree she was inside was slowly growing. Not only that but all the trees were growing more and more. Small ones withered but larger ones grow while intense pulses of nature mana spread through the immense forest.

“What is going on!” She shouted when suddenly the brightest shine came and spread the furthest before everything calmed down.

Crack! Crack!

The sound of trees breaking and bending was heard and she turned around before her pale face turned white as a ghost. Her eyes landed behind her throne where she saw an amazing sight. Forming the face of a woman complete with nose, mouth eyes and even a round face, it looked down at her.

“Finally I have finally reached it!” The face said.

“Who!” Lyra said while feeling scared.

“Oh my, did I scare you dear? Forgive me, this is one of my secondary bodies and once I connected to it I caused a bit of trouble.” She laughed awkwardly.

“Um… who may you be?” Lyra asked. Although she has a rich history going back 2000 years, she was a child back then and didn’t know of the immense figures of the world yet.

“How rude of me, I am Sakura, titan of nature and this place is the main body I left behind on this continent. Thank you child for caring for it so well.” She said.

“T-titan!” She said drawing in a cold breath. “This little one is the elf queen Lyra Toross.” She said.

“Oh so you are the child that the young clockwork boy spoke of. Hmm I seem to have some recollection of you, you were princess at the time of the wars I believe.” She said.

“Y-yes I was.” She said stammering.

“Child please relax, I won’t bite, still I have to say this forest is quite refreshing, the cleanness and beauty of nature so well preserved while you still let machines and clockwork building and aid the preservation. I can see Techno had no small part in this.” She said.

“So it was techno huh. That boy is at the center of so much.” Lyra sighed.

“Oh yes, the boy helped me resurrect it is quite nice to be back. With this forest I can finally start rebirthing my children in a healthy home and to regain my power while healing nature once more.” She said happy.

“Your children are the Dryad right?” She asked.

“Indeed, treants and dryad as well as taking in a few mortal children to train them as druids. That way I can always have protectors of nature who can slowly revert the mutations of the contaminated beasts that live on the world now.” She said solemnly.

Lyra’s heart was pounding greatly, the return of druids was a dream for her because any race could be a druid and they were separate from any nation and loyal only to Sakura and the gods of nature who are her own disciples. Protector of nature and the strongest nature beings.

“Your holiness, this is not the only forest, we have spread out in countless places over the continent that and the revived forests in many places.” Lyra said.

“You can just call me Sakura child, I see no need for formalities. As for the other forests, I need them to be a specific size or I would be only a waste of strength. For the present I shall only focus my energy in reviving my children and regaining my strength, I shall tell you what conditions are needed and the size of the forest that is needed for me to safely revive my roots in that area. Now I need to rest and restore my power because it took a lot to connect my roots just now.” She said and the face slowly retracted.

Lyra watched and breathed deeply calming herself and slowly walked over picking up the papers before walking downstairs not have the courage to sit on the throne which was inside the body of a titan.

***

Mission:

Nature’s Mother (Complete)

The Titan of Nature, Sakura, has finally restored more than 5% of her power and connected to the forest of the elves. Thanks to the aid of those who restored her power nature spirits are naturally more friendly towards you.

Previously enmity between Clockwork and Nature spirits has turned from hostile to friendly.

Due to the success of this missions, the races Treant and Druid has become accessible to players.

The Class Druid has been unlocked to all living creatures except inanimate races like clockwork who are unable to do magic, though synthoids can learn the secrets. This class can only be learned directly from Sakura.

The Titan of Nature can be found in two locations, Magic Continent and Technology continent within the Elven forest.

At this time a world suddenly gained a message as the mission was accomplished. Unlike what others believed, a B rank mission had a huge range of effect. B rank missions are capable of causing a ripple through a continent or two while an A rank mission could cause a smaller scale world wide change. If an S rank mission appeared it could change the face of the world.

As for the return of a Titan, she only regained 5% of her power but even so it is enough to be a world changing event.

For the changes Sakura brought, when she was merging her roots with her second body which was the elven palace, the intense waves of nature mana spread countless miles even outside of the forest area.

As for the scene seen in the Magic continent, at this moment intense magical pulse were going on from Sakura. Countless trees began to grow and from then beautiful and huge flowers of different colors, shapes and sizes were appearing. The charred ground had vanished as grass and flowers started to spread, the polluted ground still close enough to the area complete converted to fertile ground.

Trees that were broken and burned or contaminated rotted away and in their place slowly tree sprouts, bushes and flowers began to grow. Once the trees reached a size of 3 meters they stopped growing but they already had fully grown branches filled with leaves. The flowers were large buds and these were all Dryad buds. Each flower radiated a very intense and powerful aura. Not only that but there were several trees that had one large flower similar.

Some Dryad were from large trees and normally never left the surroundings while others were born from flowers and could move around freely.

Other trees had lots of flowers which would bear fruits and on the trunk was a small face showing the treants.

Slowly the trees began to shake and bend, two branches bend down and shift its place forming arms for each of the trees and the leaves fall off leaving the bare branches which shift into the shape of hands. The low hanging face moves upwards until the arm and face were in place corresponding to a similar position to how human arms and face were placed.

Like this, the spirits of nature have once more returned to life with even more vigor than before.