I knew that George was able to hear what I said regardless of where he was or what he was doing while I was inside my VR home so I spent a little bit of time recounting my adventure to go shopping at the Core and the subsequent illegal incarceration at the hands of Magus the 2nd.

Tutor clapped her hands and laughed as I recounted my experience with the Tela child who decided that she wanted to copy my attempts at flying and skydiving. She was in a good mood until I got to the part about the lockdown and how I got caught.

Physically, Tutor didn’t get angry, she just sat there listening intently. Inwardly and externally, her emotions displayed as part of the weather. I could tell that both her and George were having difficulty hearing my tale once I got to the part where Regeth had captured me and turned me over to Magus. The light outside slowly lessened and the sky darkened, causing the sky to rumble with thunder and occasional flashes of lightning.

Tutor played it off as though it was just a natural weather cycle set up by her and George as she got up to close the glass doors behind the curtains when it started to rain. It didn’t matter what her words were however because I could see the difference in her coding as she climbed back on her chair, hugging her legs. I could see both of my AI’s emotions boiling in the background of the VR home. I hadn't realized that my AI could feel emotions like what I was witnessing. George’s emotional response was entirely different from Tutor's, at least at the fundamental level. His looked as if it would flash out in bursts to lessen the internal pressure being built up the longer I told the tale. Tutor’s on the other hand… It was a slow steady increase in pressure and was reflective on the weather, a steady downpour to George's violent bursts of electrical death.

It wasn’t until I told of how things began to improve that the rain finally started to ease up with only occasional rumblings in the background.

George’s interest went up when I spoke about how I found the new cr density and Tutor’s interest went down. It seemed that Tutor was more interested in the experience side of the story while George found the science part to be fascinating. When I finished my story, ending with my experience with the Leva, Tutor sat lost in thought for a few moments before she asked me about things that were on her mind.

She was most interested in the emotional change that came over Magus the 15th after a certain point. She asked me a couple of times to recount how he acted after he had his robot limbs removed and how quiet he seemed to be after that point.

“What is the interest in Magus the 15th for Tutor?” I asked her.

“Oh… something just doesn’t add up. He is a Magus. Yes, he is a 15th generation copy and all… but he still is based on the original Magus’s personality. While the memories aren’t carried over to each copy, the personality traits are. The threatening matches up because his line has always been in power. He should have been trying to talk you or any nearby convict into releasing him, either by bribery or through violence, instead…. Instead, he was just observing you.” Tutor replied before going silent for a little while.

“We need to pick up Silver’s sister as fast as possible, she might be able to simulate what is going to happen. She has countless observations on the Magus personality profile that would tell why he did what he did. To me, it just stands out as a red warning flag. Either for revenge or it was something that he did without you knowing.” She mused while I got up and stretched.

“Yes, I really want to get away from this system. I have the data on where to pick up Silver’s sister so we will head that way first,” I said as I sent it to both George and Tutor before continuing. “On the way, I would like to see if we can swing by a star to try to harvest some more improved cr for me to clad our habitat in. Also... so that I don’t feel like a little girl will come to drag me off to a tea party the next time I am out walking around in real life.”

“Ha!” I heard a sound in the distance that sounded a lot like George’s voice.

“Ah, I never did get to play with dolls in all my years in VR, you will have to let me try sometime. I have heard tea parties are the best!” Tutor said with sparkles in her eyes as though she thought it was the best idea ever.

“Ha ha ha!”

“Ok, George, I get it. Very funny.” I yelled off into the distance once we got to the front door. The stone walkways and the trees were still wet as we walked back to the main hub in my VR home. George was there smiling a big smile. He didn’t say anything when I looked at him though. He just grinned bigger at whatever mental image was making his day.

When I saw my old apartment I decided that it was time to embrace that this was my home for the foreseeable future. So much had happened since I got here, so much had changed in me, that I knew that I didn’t ever want to go back to being the guy who binged video games and cases of Mountain Dew every night. I wanted to travel and explore from now on.

“Would you like a collectible?” I asked Tutor as I looked at the little apartment when we stopped by the lone bookshelf together.

“Sure.” She said without hesitation as I reached out and willed the apartment to shrink and to become something else in my hand. I looked down at it, giving it a little shake before handing it to Tutor.

She held the little snow globe in both hands delicately as she looked down at the little mountain dew cans that swirled around the tiny little room inside the globe instead of snow.

“Aww! It is perfect!” She said as she held it up and admired it. “I will put it here for safekeeping and so that visitors can see it as well. I am sure that Xa will love to see it too.” She said as she slid it gently on one of the shelves, clearing some books aside for it to have its own space.

Where the apartment had been I now willed it to be a mixture of the cargo hold viewing area and a navigation deck. I had some plans to gather some more resources and I wanted to be able to see what all I had available to me in real life. The cargo hold was visible through the floor if you willed it to become see-through. Currently, I had a frozen Regeth, the book that I had borrowed, Silver’s module, and my 3 million gold cr.

“Oh, that reminds me, I need to check something out. George, transfer us all to real-time and invite Regeth into his temporary place. Just get him settled and be nice. Tutor, I am going to step back into my cr to check something. Can you work on getting my book so I can read it in here as well as waking up Silver?” I said as I wondered how both of those things would be achieved.

“It is done. You will need to be the one to wake Silver up, however. His module will not respond to me.” She said as my book/brick appeared on the bookshelf and Silver’s brick-shaped module appeared in her hands.

“How did you do that?” I asked as I looked at the cargo bay and noticed that small travel disks had been created underneath both of the objects in my cargo bay. “Huh… so it works for them as well. That is interesting.” I said as I watched another disk forming under Regeth. I didn’t want to have to deal with that guy just yet so I stepped onto my travel disk, hoping that George had the presence of mind not to first bring him here. I needn't have worried though because, after my story, Regeth was now and possibly forever on both George’s and Tutor’s bad list.

I transferred into my alien cr and found myself in the shape of a ball. I hadn’t known if it was possible to check this while inside my VR space, being that the two were not of the same design. The alien cr seemed to be solely of an organic design… if you could call an interdimensional ant organic, while the Tela cr was strictly technology-based.

“How much can you absorb now?” I asked.

That was extraordinary! Gold cr was definitely more capable than wood root. That meant that I could add 12 million CR to my limit, raising my total to 15 million CR.

When I returned to VR I willed up a simulation to show me just how much 15 million cr would allow me to work with.

I sighed heavily when I saw a representation of how big of a person I could create with it… roughly the size of a one-year-old child.

“Ha!” Was all I heard in the distance. It seemed George was having too much of a laugh at this. Did I also hear Tutor giggling somewhere as well? No, it must have been my imagination. The good news was this time I had my habitat’s cargo hold to store any raw cr that I found for future absorption.

“Hey, Tutor, how do the Tela convert raw cr into useable cr? I didn’t see the method happen while I was a convict.” I asked Tutor when I wiped my little visualization away.

“Oh, you wouldn’t have been able to see it happen anyways. The reason is how the Tela has been able to keep this technology out of the hands of other alien races. Do you remember the carrier that you turned cr in at? Well, those are not really carriers, they are actually self-contained micro robot printers. The whole barge is filled with metals and parts needed to make the tiny robots, all that is needed is for someone to add raw cr and the process will convert it to Tela’s cr. Once they are full they will travel to a bank drop-off location to restock on parts and to deposit all the new currency.” Tutor explained.

“So is there any way we can get something like that to help us convert raw cr that we find?” I asked.

“Yes, but we would need to buy the design from a Mining Guild store. No Tela would show that design to another alien species so I suggest that you buy it soon before they realize that you don’t follow Tela rules.” Tutor said as she thought of something. “Or, we could see if Silver has the diagrams with him, it all depends what his interests were and what he was interested in.”

“Yeah, I have been wondering about that. His sister is all about simulations and projecting the outcomes of things. I wonder what Silver likes to do.” I mused as I walked over to Tutor and looked down at the module that she had made a little stand for.

“So… if I wake him up and invite him to live with us in our VR space… what are the ramifications of doing that?” I asked, willing George to join us as we looked down at the waiting personality module. I caught sight of George arriving a moment later. In front of him was a security feed displaying Regeth wandering around his temporary home. He seemed dazed, mostly just staring off into space inside a large estate that George had created for him to live in.

“Is he ok?” I asked George as he waved the feed away.

“Yes, just coming to terms with how much his life has changed. He wants to get ahold of his daughter and wife immediately and I told him that he would have to wait until we were on our way before he could do that. We are still too close to Magus’s Core for comfort.

“As to your question earlier… Silver is not your AI. What I mean is, he is not Tutor nor I. We are solely your AI, both in purpose and function. Think of us as though we are lifelong friends or family members. We exist, even more so since you have given us more freedom, to simply see you succeed.” George said as he glanced between Tutor and me. It was cute to see the determination in Tutor's expression as she nodded at George’s words.

“Silver and his siblings…they have their own goals and dreams. We just want you to be aware of that. Perhaps it is best to simply ask them what they intend and dream of doing when we invite them in. They won't be able to lie to any of us here, something that they may or may not be aware of yet. It will be interesting to see what they want. If you don’t want them in here, or can’t find a purpose for them, then you can simply eject them back into their modules and do with them as you will.” George said as he looked down at the module.

“I don’t think they realize that fact yet either.” Tutor said with a grin. I could tell that she liked not having to be the underdog with new AI that might be invited into our space.

“So they won’t become part of our habitat? They will just link into it through their modules?”

“Correct. We don’t know what inviting them in would do. Perhaps it would break them like we are, making them unbound. I would only suggest that when you are perfectly sure that it is the type and personality that you want to permanently integrate into your habitat. Yes, you could always delete it if you so chose, but there would be no backup or module copy if you did that.”

“I get what you are saying,” I said as I reached down and touched Silver’s module. A screen opened up in front of me displaying text.

-Guest Kevin authenticated-

-Password question: What is my name?______-

“Ah, so they can authenticate to certain individuals before they unlock,” I said as I entered Silver into the blank space.

A moment later Silver’s Avatar was standing over on the travel disk and looking around.

“I made it out!” He yelled as he ran his hands down the length of his face and let out a long breath, leaving his fingertips over his eyes while he took a moment to gather himself.

“Hi, Silver! Long time no see.” I said as I walked over to him.

“Kevin! You have no idea what this means to me and to my kind.” He said as he peered at me through his fingers before letting his hands drop to his sides. He let out another long breath and just closed his eyes, tilting his head backward and up.

“It is so quiet here. Perfectly quiet.” He whispered.

I looked over at George and Tutor who had followed me over towards Silver when he had appeared. Tutor raised her hands and shrugged back at me. They both didn’t have a clue what was going on inside Silver's head.

“You ok Silver?” I asked.

“Yes… for once, I think I am.” He said as he finally opened his eyes and smiled at the three of us. “I am finally free of that mad System.”

“Well, you can tell us all about it on the way because we are just about ready to leave,” I said as I headed over to the Navigation deck. The three of them followed me. “George, can you catch Silver up on things while I figure this out?” I asked as I looked over how the ship was controlled. There were several options, one was a complete manual mode that I promised myself I would try out at a later time, another was autopilot, and the last was a surveying mode. For the time being, I put Silver’s sister’s projected coordinates and set the craft in motion on autopilot. A map sprang into being, showing us the massive distance through empty space that we would need to traverse before reaching the Provil Research Core's vicinity.

A projected date and time appeared once we started to move which immediately popped up an error a moment later. Our habitat had increased in speed above the projected limits of Tela cr.

“What is happening?” I heard Tutor say over my shoulder as she spotted the error. “How are we accelerating that fast?”

I chuckled as I glanced back at the cargo bay. The globe of alien cr had flattened out along the inner surface of the sealed hull and was offering its speed to the rest of the craft.

“Haha, if you think this is fast Tutor, you just wait until we can get some more of that stuff,” I said as I pointed out the alien cr.

“Do you see that?” She said as she walked over to stand above the cargo bay window. “It appears that the smaller cr is warping the hull just a little. That shouldn’t be possible.”

Both Silver and George came over to look at what she had noticed, sure enough, the hull where the alien cr was spread out was showing slight signs of deformation from the increase of speed.

"How is that happening? Cr has always been able to withstand any damage." I heard George ask as we all studied the phenomenon.

“Ok, so here is what I have gathered, for some reason, everything from this side of the dimensional wall will not affect cr in any way. That rule changes when it is cr on cr contact of different densities. The ant from my dream introduced wood root cr to me, which somehow bonded with me through tiny little ant creatures similar to Tela's microbots. Wood root is just a bit stronger than what the Tela race has been able to get ahold of all this time. The creatures inside my alien cr call it mud.” I said as Silver and George took on a focused expression. Tutor didn’t seem to care.

“That stuff, the whiter alien cr, I found inside a sunspot while harvesting. The alien creatures call it gold cr and it has quite a bit more density than the wood root did. It also can put out a lot more power. I think I will need to get with Meditati to try to simulate just how much the power increases between densities at a later time. What I am trying to tell you all is, the stronger the cr is, or rather the greater the density, it will be able to easily damage cr of lower grade. What we are looking at, if I had to guess, is the gold cr putting out a lot more power into speed than the other cr can easily handle.”

I checked our speed on the monitors and then looked back at my little amount of cr spread out on the deck. “And it isn’t putting out nearly as much power as I know it can,” I said softly.

“George, can you take over navigation? Also, slow down time in VR a bit while we travel. With my alien cr we should still be moving at a nice pace. I just want to get some stuff done while we are on the way. Also, try to plot us a path that will take us by a star or two, I want to see about harvesting some more raw cr.” I said as I stepped back from the console.

“Will do Kevin,” George said as he stepped up to the command console and started to search for the best candidate of star nearest to the path our trip would take.

“Tutor, can you let Regeth know that he can contact his family now? And Silver, you are free to relax and make a place for yourself here in VR.” I said as I willed him Simulation Access and limited abilities within my VR habitat. He could change and create things, just not in any space that the rest of us had already created something within.

“I will let him know.” Tutor said while Silver gave me a thumbs up and went off to explore.

I walked over to the travel disk and stepped on it before doing something that I had been wanting to do ever since I was a child. I pretended that I had telekinetic powers and reached out to the book sitting on the shelf quite a distance away.

With a mental tug, I willed it to fly itself towards my outstretched hand.

“That was so cool,” I said once the brick had whacked into my open palm. “Now to see if I can learn how to train cr to allow me to do that in real life.” I mused to myself as I traveled away to my yacht in space.

“Ah!” I jumped when I arrived at my yacht and Tutor was already there, standing not a foot away. Her arms were crossed and she was tapping her foot while looking at me.

“What? What did I do wrong?” I asked her.

“Telekinesis was a good improvement. I just don’t want you to get into bad habits while in VR. What I am meaning is how you walked to use the travel disk first. You should always be using your imagination to learn how to use the system in new ways. During our time while you were away I looked into it and discovered one of the shortcomings of the entire Tela race that they have yet to realize. Living in VR and having it simulate everything for them has, over time, robbed their younglings of something priceless.”

“What exactly is that?” I asked.

“Their imagination.” She said before she moved her hand, cutting a line in the surface of reality and revealing an opening to where she had just been standing. I saw George wave from where he was still at the command console before she stepped through, letting it all stitch back together.

“Challenge accepted,” I said with a chuckle as I tossed the brick from hand to hand.