Flora slept nine hours straight. When she woke up, she still felt tired. Staring at the canopy, she let her mind wander.

-- Victorious –- (Kaytsak)

*Beeeeeeeeeep!!!*

"He earned it, Aito." Aidan protested.

-- Excited, panting –- (Bliz)

Her mind exploded with the feelings and comments of her companions.

"What is going on?" Flora rubbed her head.

"Kaytsak has finished the 500 laps. Aito arrived one second behind him. The Golem and I are on our last lap. Bliz needs a few more."

Flora logged out and gaped at her companions because of their horrible condition. Aito was charred and lost two of her tentacles. The golem had multiple dents. Although Flora couldn't spot visible marks on the elementals, their HP bars were nearly empty. Only Aidan was in fighting condition, but even his Octopussy missed parts like the vibro knife.

"Did I sleep during a war? Did the Test use the bombs on you?"

All companions turned to Aito, who flattened herself on the floor with her remaining tentacles over her head. When she changed the skin of the Octopussy to display white doves, Flora knew who the culprit was.

"Aidan, explain."

"Aito started with a tiny lead, and when the golem passed her, she tripped him. As Kaytsak reached her, he was prepared and retaliated her interference. From this point, the race escalated. Around lap twenty, we agreed on a cease-fire because your mana got tight due to the healing I had to do. In lap fifty-one, Bliz broke the truce on accident, probably. Her shot missed the target and-"

"Enough! I'm very disappointed−err… −Okay, I'm very proud of you that you all have survived. I don't know what to say. Good, that you respected that leveling my skill in this special environment is more important than your feud. I wish for us to be one team. Therefore we have to know each other well, and we have to be sure that we can rely on each other. I don't know whether your behavior helped or damaged the goal. What do you think?"

-- Approval – (Kaytsak)

-- Excitement – (Bliz)

*Beep!* Aito stood up and displayed crossed swords on her skin.

"I didn't like it, Mylady. It felt wrong to me to spend your mana on healing these rascals."

The golem still felt like a potato-sack, so Flora didn't expect an answer.

"I take all of your opinions into consideration. For now, Kaytsak is the winner. Do you have any wishes for your reward?"

Flora received a vague picture of a sparkly gem but couldn't identify it until Aito sent her a link. "A lightning core? Aidan, buy it. Kaytsak, I will summon you as soon as I have it."

When Flora left the dome, she still felt wary and tired because of the workload of the last few days, but the thought of the next test, Crafting Talent, invigorated her.

Dherya Kumar had worked for CentralTank for over a year as a Gamemaster, or GM. The conditions were pretty good: he received a steady salary and some in-game goodies for his private account. Additionally, he could use his state of the art VR-Pod for his personal gameplay as well.

Before CentralTank employed him, he had worked for another VR-gaming company as GM and was used to irritable customers. However, the number of non-players and DAUs(1) who had joined the Cetviwos was unprecedented.

The Administrator dealt with the true bugs, while the GMs dealt with customers who didn't want to deal with AIs or frankly just wanted attention. In rare cases, the Administrator assigned GMs to customers who didn't do anything illegal or had issues to solve but to shepherd them to use fewer resources.

While the Cetviwos had computing power beyond any other application on earth, it wasn't unlimited. Kumar remembered the spread of the Donkey Virus when 50 GMs cordoned off the infected area.

In contrast to that server-wide event, his current assignment seemed trivial.

Could one player in a closed environment like the Talpica Testing Center really stress the system so much that a GM was necessary to monitor the situation?

Kumar shrugged. It wasn't his job to question the bosses. He could only wait and see … and he waited for a long time. When he relieved the guiding fairy of her duties, the customer had already been for 3 hours in the dome.

What was taking her so long? How many companions did she test? He sat before the portal and waited for her to come out while he resolved the questions of the test.

The test bombarded him with question after question so that he felt he was the examinee instead of the customer!

It wanted to know what was more important: future potential or current might. He was a computer science major and not a philosopher! Sweating, he fought through the issues of the test until an older lady, followed by two octopus-shaped robots, appeared.

Patting the nonexistent dust from his yellow robes, which showed the matrix light data-streams which identified him as Cetviwos staff, he stood up to his full height of 99 cm.

In other games, the GMs developed god complexes and let their powers go to their heads. CentralTank gave their GMs great stats, a high level, and excellent skills, but their avatars had to be under a meter tall. They should look up to the customers, literally and figuratively.

"Hello Ma'am, I'm GM Kumar. The administrator assigned me to you for the rest of the test to help to clear up any issues the testing AI has."

The lady cooed and leaned down to him. "Aren't you cute? Are you a gnome?"

"I'm a GM, Ma'am." Kumar hoped she wouldn't pet his head. He hated that the most.

"Is that a hip slang for gnome? Shouldn't there an 'N' in it to make it more clear−Like GNM."

Kumar started to sweat again. This was a hard-core DAU!

"GM stands for gamemaster, Ma'am." He managed to say in his most professional tone.

"Oh! I met the mini-masters. Are you a grown-up mini-master? Err… That was an honest question. I have no doubts you can be a full-grown man."

Listen, Lady! Nobody would have thought you doubted my age if you hadn't mentioned it! Kumar took a deep breath. "Gamemasters are employees of CentralTank. Our responsibility is to help the players out."

"Fascinating! Thank you for your hard work."

Mollified, Kumar led the woman to the next dome, the Crafting Talent Test, and followed her in.

"I rushed through the first parts of the test. But for the crafting section, I will take my time to do it right!" The lady announced while the dome changed to a workshop. "We'll do it slow and steady."

The customer produced several days worth of data for the first few tests, and she claimed she had been in a hurry? Kumar started sweating again. Tomorrow, he had a date with a pretty classmate. He wanted to go when he was still young!

When the mechanical parts materialized in front of the lady, they started to float. A turret was assembled by an invisible hand. No, not one hand, maybe a dozen hands!

Wide-eyed, Kumar watched the process. Less than 20 seconds later, the turret was ready.

"Slow and steady." The lady repeated, satisfied, and nodded.

Kumar wanted to puke blood. You call that slow and steady? Lady, maybe you should look up the definitions of slow and fast in a dictionary! You seemed to have them confused.

In the next few minutes, Kumar's jaw hit the floor and stayed there. The lady built invisible circuits, engraved 200 runes with one stroke, and carved stones into S-rated artifacts as easy as he brushed his hair. He was a GM and had seen monster hordes falling to fiery tornados as big as houses, dragon roars that flattened villages, and humans sprouting wings and competing with birds, but only now he felt like he witnessed true magic. The others only used special effects, while the magic of the lady flowed as if it were part of nature−as if it were a part of her essence and not a skill in a game.

Kumar awakened from his stupor when a vial exploded on the customer's workbench. The old lady cackled, then put her hand over her mouth and glanced at him.

"I love explosions. You don't mind, dear?"

"Feel free, Ma'am." Kumar took two steps back. Now, he noticed a few messages from the test on how to rate the learning curve. How do you assess a learning curve when someone aced the task in 20 seconds? The test said that she slowed down for the last 5 seconds, and it didn't know if it should lower the score because of it or if the customer's intention to take it "slow and steady" was the reason for it.

Slowly, Kumar got an idea of what made the system allocate unreasonably high resources to this auntie. Her words and actions were too contradictory. Coupled with an unprecedented performance, it posed a problem that couldn't be solved by comparing her to other players. She was a category of her own.

Another explosion accompanied by giggling snapped Kumar out of his thoughts.

GM Kumar to SBAT: "Rate it 100. Anything else wouldn't do the performance justice."

The customer burped fire. "Sorry! I'm working on a potion that toasts bread inside the mouth." Half of her face was burned off, but it regenerated as Kumar watched her resuming the mixing.

"GM Kumar, would you try this concoction? I'm on cooldown for it. I believe it's much more gentle now. I'm nearly sure of it!"

Kumar shook his head rapidly. He valued his well-being!

After the Crafting Test, the customer underwent the Artistic Talent Test. She received a score in the lower 80s, and Kumar braced himself for complaints. Users contested this part of the test the most. Kumar himself would have rated her pictures and sculptures higher. However, the lady just shrugged, smiled, and went on to the next test.

The Casting Talent Test left Kumar with his mouth open again. He had never seen anybody who used magic like this! He felt like laughing and crying simultaneously because the part she had the most problems with was the system assisted auto-mode that most players were using. Additionally, he learned some new cursing phrases involving toasters of all things!

At the Alchemy Test, Kumar had feared for his well-being. At the Driving Test, he feared for his life. He couldn't believe that somebody who had such a high degree of dexterity while crafting could treat a car or a drone like this! If the machines were pets, he would have called PETA because of cruelty to animals!

The customer always started slowly and carefully, and just when he wanted to relax, all hell broke loose! Did she ever stop pressing the laser cannon button? No! The beams hit the floor, the ceiling, Kumar, and her robots… everything in the dome except for the target butts. One time she even managed to shoot her own batticle in the foot. Most time, the phase ended with a crash into the walls, but the last attempt had to be cut short because she ripped the joystick out of the console.

"Shoddy craftsmanship!" The auntie complained while staring at the stick in her hand, but then she paled.

Until now, he had only experienced the customer having fun. Even when she had cursed, he felt she enjoyed the activities, and the cuteness of her expletives had amused him.

Now, Kumar witnessed a different side of the customer. When she jumped off the smoking batticle and ran toward him, he felt like he stood in the way of a train. Thankfully, he wasn't the target, but her robots who had hidden behind him. They jumped onto the lady's back as she was sprinting past him.

"Sorry, GM Kumar. Send me a letter with the results. An emergency has crept up. Thank you for your support, dear." She yelled before leaving the dome.

Kumar stood still for a long time after the customer had left. What a peculiar old woman!

(1) Dumbest assumable User