If I ever wanted to know what a pretzel felt like, I now had the beginning of an idea. Over the last week, while we had moved through centaur-territory in Mundus, I had exited the pod every day, to perform my exercise, knowing that Mrs Wu would expect me to do my homework. When I set out to go to the gym, I had been quite confident, feeling more flexible than ever before and quite fit, ready to take on the world.

Mrs Wu had disabused me of that idea within a few minutes, once I had been warmed up. It would have been better if my mind had been able to brush off my failure to deliver upon her demands by thinking that only professional contortionists or maybe someone born with hyperextending joints was able to do the movements and stretches I was supposed to do. But, given that she, a woman definitely in her sixties, maybe even in her seventies, was demonstrating them to me, moving without any obvious discomfort, it just shattered any excuse I could think of. And so, I dug in and tried harder, pushing myself to the limit of my ability and a little past, only stopping when the pain was pronounced enough to drive the point home that pain was the indicator that I was damaging my body.

Another thing the lesson drove home just how sculpted the elderly Mrs Wu actually was. My mind supplied, and quickly rejected, the term ripped, her muscles clearly defined in a way that one normally associated with serious gymnasts and body-builders, not friendly, gentle Grandmothers. I also noticed that dear Mrs Wu had quite a few scars that made me wonder where she got them. I wasn’t about to ask, so I kept my peace and remained quit.

“Well done, Ms Jacobs. You came further than I expected today. Continue with your exercises for the week and I’ll give you something to read as well. It will add a bit of theoretical foundation for next week when the real training starts.” Mrs Wu told me with a smile as I was lying wiped out on the map. Part of me wanted to call her a robot and question her humanity but there was a slight sheen of sweat on her forehead. That ruled out robot or lizard-person, unless their human disguise was quite advanced.

After taking a few more deep breaths, managing to regulate my breathing into a state that provided enough oxygen while also allowing me to talk, I thanked her before tensing my muscles to hop back onto my feet in a smooth motion. It was a fun trick and quite easy compared to the insane contortions she had me doing minutes before.

“You said there was something you wanted me to read?” I asked, getting a grin in return. She took me to their office and handed me what looked like a binder full of loose paper. A closer look revealed that the pages were filled with Mrs Wu’s neat handwriting, I had seen it a few times around the gym. I was a little perplexed, just at a guess, there were over a hundred pages which told me of a rather significant time investment. Curious, I asked her about it and she only smiled and told me, it was merely the translation of a text in her native tongue. I was supposed to read it and consider what it spoke of, that she’d ask me a few questions about it the next week and my training would progress from there.

It felt a little out-there and strange but I had been interested in what she had to teach, so I made plans to carefully read the text over the next week and try to comprehend it as best as I could.

After taking a shower, it was clearly necessary before I ventured out into public again, I took the bus back to do some shopping and while sitting in the bus, I began to read. The first page mostly talked about breathing exercises, similar to what I had been taught before, but coached in a more mystic language, speaking about becoming one with the Universe. I had to chuckle at that, thinking of Mundus and the experience of delving into the Astral River, wondering if the game-developers had modeled their world after similar mystic texts and ideas, to add some flavour. It certainly felt like it and I decided to try the breathing exercise in Mundus, just to see what would happen.

In the store, I grabbed the few things I had on my list, quickly making my way to the cashier when a rather large guy suddenly stepped into my path. I had been a little lost in thought so his sudden appearance spooked me quite a bit. What spooked me more were my actions, before I had consciously processed what was happening, my body had lowered its center of gravity, placed my legs in a stable footing, allowing me to either advance or dodge at a moments notice and my right arm had moved to the small of my back, where Morgana was wearing her blades, hidden under her cloak.

At that point, my conscious mind caught up to the reflex my body had apparently conditioned, stopping my movement and turning my battle-ready state into a slightly awkward back-step so the guy could easily move past. I carefully avoided taking a closer look at him feeling strange enough about my reaction so that I didn’t want to exacerbate the feeling by confirming that he had seen me acting as if I was about to attack him or be attacked by him.

I paid for my purchases and made my way back to the bus, carefully making sure to pay attention to my surroundings while, at the same time, thinking about the way I had reacted a few minutes prior. While there was a part of me that wanted to ignore the obvious conclusion, that the time spend in Road to Purgatory, or rather the mental processes, the conditioned reflexes and maybe even the muscle memory, were carrying over into the real world. That was the obvious conclusion and it made me a little uncomfortable.

If I looked at it objectively, I was addicted to the game, the mere idea to leave Sigmir behind, even knowing that our time together was limited by virtue of it being a beta, made me feel bad enough to instantly, almost reflexively banish the idea from my head. And just as I banished the idea, a smaller voice added that it was only for the year of Beta, that afterwards, I would get things under control. That I felt the need to play in order to continue the journey I had started with the others.

In order to get rid of the discomfort caused by my thoughts, I distracted myself, reading the text I had been given. The pages after the breathing-exercises spoke about meditation, about different ways to empty your mind and feel the world within and without. Again, the explanations felt rather mystical but at least the mental aspect was something less out there, something I might try, if only to occupy my mind. But before I could try, not that I felt a bus was the right way to experiment with techniques to remove yourself from your surroundings to direct your focus inward, the bus reached the stop near my apartment.

After taking the elevator up, I took a few moments to look out of the window, taking in the view. It wasn’t spectacular but it was mine, just for me. Feeling a little hungry after the strenuous exercise, I tossed some veggies and rice into a pan before adding water and putting it on the heat. It would take a bit of time before turning into a simple risotto-like dish, giving me time to do something else. Like some gentle stretching, to work out the kinks and some of the soreness that Mrs Wu had driven into my muscles.

By the time my food was cooked, I felt a lot better about myself and sat down to eat, pulling up the Road to Purgatory-Forum on my wall-screen. My search today was, once again, on centaurs. While probability almost assured that there were a couple of Travellers in the Centaur-clan, I wanted to get as much of a picture as I could. Another part of me wondered about the ability to play a centaur, the disconnection between the ingame-avatar’s body and the real-world body would be tremendous. I wasn’t sure I would be able to cope with suddenly having two extra limbs and having my lower body turned horse. It seemed so utterly alien to me that my mind just recoiled. But at the same time, the idea to use ‘magic’ to manipulate a half-dozen carefully crafted and sharpened knives made out of magical Ice, that seemed to be just natural to me.

Shaking my head at the fact that my mind found magic easily acceptable and was quite happy to use it while the idea to have extra limbs was causing quite a bit of discomfort, I focused on my food. Part of me wondered what it would be like to play as the opposite sex but as soon as I tried to picture it, I pushed the idea away. No, I was quite happy to have an avatar very close to my physical body, even with magic added to the mix.