Doc Brownski needed two more attempts until Flora survived the operation, but he was ecstatic about the results and Flora's willingness to be his guinea pig.

Flora was happy as well. Her Physical Vigor rose by two to 13 and defense by one point to 13, and additionally, Magical Perception reached 13 too. She even obtained a new affinity/resistance, Metal. It had four levels at the moment, which didn't help in the MI metal building, but it was enough to offset her 2 OV metal handicap in normal environments.

Now, she inserted Aidan's jack in her nock, and they could speak telepathically.

Flora to Aidan: "It's your task to help me become a strong player, sweetie! And, of course, to make sure I don't miss any appointments or commitments."

Aidan to Flora: "Yes, Milady! You are 5 minutes late for your meeting with RadGlory Flow."

"Oh, buggers. Please, remind me 5 minutes before and not after!"

Flora hastily bid goodbye to Doc Brownski and hurried out of the building. She couldn't beam from there because Aidan explained, the MI building is on a different world and only interfaced with the Metaworld through a portal.

"BLEAMTO Clan Riverstones Headquarters TOBLEAM!"

Flora landed in front of a sandstone archway, which created an opening in a massive 10 m high wall. The carving on the arch read "Clan Riverstones". Beneath it was a logo: a sine curve with a stone under its high point and one over its low point.

'Those rascals stole my label design!'

Flora's label was a sine curve with a stylized lotus flower touching the wave on its high and low point.

Aidan to Flowing Flowers: "May I suggest we activate the zone information?"

Flowing Flowers to Aidan: "Sure. What's that?"

Zone Information

Name: Clan Area

Subzone: Clan Riverstones HQ

Color: Orange

Enemies

Defeat: Death

Cornered: 2h

Drop: 20,00%

Neutral

Defeat: Defeat

Cornered: 2h

Drop: 0%

Friends

Defeat: Defeat

Cornered: 30sec

Drop: 0%

Aidan to Flowing Flowers: "The color of the zone defines how vulnerable you are to the actions of other players. Orange means you receive damage from hostile attacks, but not from the attacks of your friends. Additionally, it shows what happens when we get defeated, Milady. At the moment, we are neutral to Clan Riverstones, and losing all your health would mean we have to spend two hours in the loser's corner. Currently, the debuff 'Freshly operated' is active, which siphons HP. I suggest we display buffs and debuffs as well."

Flora agreed, and Aidan explained a debuff is a prolonged effect weakening the player, and a buff is the opposite; it strengthened the recipient.

In Flora's upper vision appeared a symbol of a body with a timer ticking down from 00:52:03. When she focused on the icon, she got the following message: "Freshly Operated: - 10 health per minute."

Flora Flowers to RadGlory Flow: "I'm at the gate, should I enter?"

RadGlory Flow to Flora Flowers [autoreply]: "In Combat."

Thankfully, Flora found a bell. The gate seemed open, but she preferred to avoid misunderstandings, especially when two hours standing in a corner were the consequence.

"Greetings, dear visitor. I'm Camus, the clan management system of the Riverstones. How can I help you?"

"I'm Flowing Flowers and have an appointment with my son, RadGlory Flow."

"Please enter and wait for your guide."

Flora walked to the gate and stepped into a garden. White lanes framed by colorful tropical flowers cut through green lawns and lead to bamboo huts. A shallow river with scattered stones ran through the park. The sky seemed to be bluer, and the temperature hotter than outside.

Flora observed her health-bar and noticed it dropped slightly every 30 seconds, but a bit later, it recovered to full again.

Flowing Flowers to Aidan: "The Physical Regeneration causes the rise of my health, right? How much stamina and health do I regenerate per second?"

Aidan to Flowing Flowers: "Your operative value is 28. It ticks every 2 seconds for 28/30 = 0.93, that's averaging 28/60 = 0.47 each second. You regenerate both pool stats at 28 per minute while standing,

factor 2 while sitting or reclining,

factor 3 while eating or drinking,

factor 4 while sleeping,

factor 1/2 while in combat or losing health.

The debuff with health loss halves your current regeneration. 0.23 per second are remaining."

"If I would sit and eat, would I recover 28x5 or 28x6?"

"The former, Milady."

"Does magical regen work analogously?"

"Yes, Milady."

"Fascinating!"

Flowing Flowers to Aidan: "Please research ways to recover the pool stats faster."

Aidan presented Flora with some solutions ad hoc, like potions, spells, and meditation. The thought of taking potions amused Flora, which prompted Aidan to introduce her to the world of alchemy. Flora read the list slack-jawed.

Beginner strengthening potion: + 3 OV Physical Power for 1 hour

Beginner mana potion: + 45 mana

Beginner health potion: + 43 health

Beginner energizing potion: regeneration OV * 2 for 10 seconds

"That's doping and can't be legal, right?"

"There are PvP Arenas and special zones where you can't take potions, but generally, they are allowed."

"Hello, Auntie Flo!" said a tall, bony woman with a strong jaw and a buzz cut. Flora remembered her vaguely from Robby's office parties.

"Hello, dear. You are the explosives specialist, right? Please remind me of your name."

"I'm Lana. An assignment on short notice prevented Rob from coming. So he sent me to show you around and initiate you into our clan." Lana smiled, but it looked a bit unnatural. Her movements had the same twitchiness as the bank robber's, Mr. Twitchy.

Nickname: RadLana Sorrow

Level: 135

Class: Administrator

Clan: Riverstones

Rating: A

"I'm sorry to say our clan has strict rules. Everyone, even the people in the friends and family department, must rate at least A. We had incidents with family offending customers. We promised it would never happen again. The customers are our VIP's, and keeping them happy and generous is our main purpose." Lana lectured. "We are a professional clan and ask every member to behave accordingly."

Flora nodded. "Fine by me. It's great you accept friends and family."

Lana sent her some info materials via Camus and Aidan, a contract, and an org-chart - or more correctly, an orc-chart. Flora looked at it with raised eyebrows. The 'G' in the organigram was crossed out and replaced with a 'C' and above the circle with 'CMO - Radbear Stone' a crown was drawn. Flora didn't need three guesses to know who had done it even if Hub hadn't crowned himself. Otherwise, the chart was straight forward, organizing the members into four divisions: the VIPs, the staff, the associates, and friends and family.

"What's a CMO?" Flora asked. "My business bullshit is a bit rusty. By the way, you sent me Hub's version of the orc-chart."

"Officially chief marketing officer, unofficially chief mascot..." Lana stopped talking, and the twitching got even more pronounced. "Oh! That *bleep*ing little *bleep*. What the *bleep* does he think he is doing? When I get to him, I'll *bleep* him so hard in the *bleep* that he doesn't think about *bleep*ing *bleep* the VIP's *bleep*!"

Flowing Flowers to Aidan: "Do I have parental control activated?"

"Yes, Milady."

"The bleeping is getting on my nerves but still better than hearing all the filth. Are there any additional ramifications?"

"Gore is veiled in a red haze."

"We are definitely leaving it active!"

Lana finished her tirade, and Flora congratulated her on advancing to CFO. Lana looked like she wanted to start a second tirade but got a grip on herself.

"I can't do any real work, because I'm a jerky." She sighed.

Flowing Flowers to Aidan: "Define jerky."

Aidan to Flowing Flowers: "Jerky is a derogatory moniker for a person with a low synchronization with the Cetviwos System. Low synchronization causes jerking or twitching movements, slurred speech, and wooden facial expressions."

"I can tell you about some exercises which helped me tuning my movement in VR," suggested Flora to Lana. She remembered she had experienced severe movement impairments at the beginning of working with the CAD-System. Thank goodness, she had no mirror, so she didn't know how jerky she had looked.

"Thanks, but I have already tried everything."

Well adjusted adults would have left the topic and moved on. In the past, Flora would have changed the subject. She never used to force people into their happiness. But somewhere along the way to granny-hood, she lost the patience for self-inflicted suffering and discovered the joy of nagging.

"Now you are fed up, but when the next quacksalver with a silver tongue makes promises, you are ready to try again. I don't have a silver tongue, but I have the know-how." Flora realized she didn't know her rate. "At least I think so... Aidan, what's my synchronization?"

Aidan to Flowing Flowers: "100%, Milady."

"System, send Lana my rate in one of these nifty blue boxes and my starting sync if you have the data."

"Flowing Flowers improved her synchronization from 34.1% to 100.0%."

"*Bleep*ing *Bleep*!" Lana looked either stunned or like she had to visit the bathroom urgently. It was hard to classify her physiognomy. "I'll take it! I'm sorry, Auntie Flo, please teach me. May I record it? The jerky community needs this info."

Flora loved the system. It was so convenient to let the data speak for itself and brag only about the essential things like toasters.

"The key to success is letting the system do all the work," Flora explained. "We are stupid users, what do we know about linking up with VR? Therefore, we first get the attention of the system and tell him what we are going to do: System, we are raising our synchronization."

Flora prodded Lana to repeat the sentence. Then she threw one of her marbles on the lawn. "Then, we announce every step we are performing. System, I'm going to walk to the marble and touch it with my right foot."

After they went over another exercise for fine motor skills and one for telekinesis, Lana checked her rate, and it had gone up by 1.1% to 46.3%!

"Of course, the closer you get to 100%, the more creatively you have to design the drills. Ask me again at 85% for the crazy stuff."

Later on, the women finished the formalities for joining the clan, and Flora entered the clan Riverstones officially.

"Now, I'll give you the grand tour through the guild compound!" Lana promised.

Lana showed Flora the bamboo huts. The biggest ones, like the clan-hall and the clubhouse, would be more appropriately named "Bamboo Palaces". The clubhouse stretched across the river, and its floor covered the water only partly. Near the bar, you had to stand directly on the stones in the river. Lana gave the holes in the floor a wide berth. She nodded and waved to the patrons while crossing the room.

The people in the clubhouse came in all ages, colors, and attires. A guy in a red robe with arcane symbols shared a plate of fries with a punky pilot. Behind the bar, a pretty boy in a blue "Clan Riverstones-Staff" T-shirt served cocktails to a knight in shiny armor and cyberpunk girl in an exoskeleton. Flora took it in quietly, but her heart swelled in pride. This thriving community was her son's achievement!

The next stop was a warehouse. You could exchange clan contributions for items. Superficially, Flora browsed the wares: potions, armor, vehicles. When Flora noticed even the clothes had stats, she couldn't contain her laughter. This world was obsessed with stats!

Lana wanted to skip the armory because only the staff was allowed to access it, but Flora convinced her to sneak a peek. Jetpacks, turrets, robots, and even three of Flora's toaster spaceships filled the building. Of course, Flora jogged to the spacecraft and inspected them. It definitely was her old design!

'How awesome would it be to race through space in a ship I designed by myself?'

Flowing Flowers to Aidan: "Remind me, to bully Robby into letting me have a spin in a toaster, dear!"