Author's Corner: As the title shows, the traps true gender has been revealed now the mental games begin, Guhuhuhuh!

Besides that going to start time skipping a few days here and there since now it is mostly money hunting for gear and slowly repairing and equipping the shuttle with the technology it needs to properly function. It would be helpful if you guys can help me think of several technology that would go in a space ship, I already have the following planned:

Shield gen

Gravity gen

Inertia Buffer

Cock pit rebuilding

Laser/Plasma weapons

Energy Shield cargo door

This is all i can think of at the moment for stuff needed in space, Life support is installed already so there is no need to suggest that.

Alex PoV

I was sitting in a small fighter ship flying through that deserted asteroid field.

My hands and feet were inside a control similar to Noah’s robot.

I could feel the ship as if it was my body but the power source was different.

I was flying and in a crazy fashion in the asteroid field and as I come out over it the scene changes to a large stadiums with a circular track like those you see in race tracks but this one was massive.

It was a space ship race but the ship was the same small one and there were several people just like me.

It was the final stretch and suddenly the flames on everyone grew stronger. I felt an inexplainable rage seeing them open a gap between me and them. ME! LOSE!

I focus a large amount of Psi into the thrusters and the fame triples in size and turns a bright blue.

“EAT MY SPACE DUST WEAKLINGS!” I shout.

As soon as I cross the finish line my vision blurs and I find myself in my bed in real life.

I blink a few times and notice that my position was sitting upright with my arms up.

I drop my arms and look around. All I see is my bed and the shelves with glass covers protecting my precious collection of scaled model of every airplane since World war II. The ceiling and half the walls were painted light blue like the sky and the lower half was a light brown like the ground.

Still blinking confused I get up and go to the bathroom and wash my face.

Looking up I see that gender neutral face of mine. The shoulder length hair, thinner than male but thicker than female face, delicate features of a girl but with that sense of boy. My eyes were navy blue.

I sigh as I stand upright and see my small frame and sulk. I have tried to train to see if my adult features would surface more but my body could be considered the epitome of petite. I gain little in terms of mass and it doesn’t appear in the areas that would distinguish my proper sex. If anything it makes it harder to tell since the areas that gained mass was split between the two genders so I didn’t get far with that.

I feel like god was bored and simply made me at the very epicenter that borders the male and female body and it made it impossible to tell. If I put on girls cloths I was a girl, if I put boy clothes on I was a pretty boy. The only way to truly know what I am is looking in my pants and I wasn’t about to show everyone… though I did lose it once and showed.

I really hate my life because of these looks. I can’t even escape from this ingame.

Sighing I go back to my room. Living in a two room apartment didn’t help my social life since I’m not so fond of leaving the house since I will have to face people looking.

I drop into my bed and look at the time. 4:54 am

“Fuck! So early!” I mutter.

It’s only at 6 am that I meet up with Noah. We planned to take the night off and rest and then go mining. We already set up a contract for a small mining ship. I say small but it’s large enough to hold Noah’s robot and a box with parts to repair and has a cargo that can store around 20 tons of ore we mine.

The ship also has a mining module so I drop Noah on the asteroid and then move to a different spot to mine myself.

I’m not really experienced but I could follow Xeno’s instructions until I can do it myself.

My vision fades as I quickly fall back into my dreams.

*BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!*

My eyes snap open as I launch out of bed and crawling over my bed I stop the alarm clocks noise at the side cabinet at the foot of my bed.

I put the alarm there because it forces me to get out of bed so by the time I turn it off I'm at least 70% awake already.

Looking at the alarm that read 5:30 am, I sigh at my crappy gamer lifestyle. Can't do much about it since I'm not good with people.

"Well let's get to it." I said getting up and stretching making a few bones crack as they loosen up.

Going to the kitchen I takes some bacon and begin frying then chop them as they fry so it will be small cuts. Then I add some cuts of pepperoni, though not the type used in pizza, this one is closer to Sausage but made for frying and pressure cooking like with beans for example, instead of grilling.

Living in the USA, finding a good quality one is hard but not impossible if you know where.

After cutting then I add them to the frying pan and let them mix with the bacon. After they become crimson I add three eggs and scramble them making sure to mix the everything well. I add just a pinch of salt since bacon and sausage are already salty and it's mostly to give the eggs a bit more flavor.

Done that I drop it in a plate and get a can of pepsi and go eat. I turn the TV on but there isn't much one and MTV Doesn't have many good singers playing for a while. Cartoons suck recently so all that's left is tuning into the VR news.

Like I expected, nothing new. Most things only focused on The Nebula but because the game is of high difficulty and high skill related even our crew which as two programmers are at best one step ahead.

"Recent survey released by Virtual Works show that the number of official crews has been rising rapidly but even at this moment there is little in terms of players leaving the planet of origin.

Other surveys say that several crews have begun to do terraforming missions in planets that require it and the result was successful in short term. I'm sure that it will take many months for any planet to even show a bit of signs of progress in that area.

On another note, players that began in The Holy Federation and the Dominion have been joining the military forces so they can gain access to technology quickier. Its unknown how this will impact the war with both warring factions gaining millions of new men. On the Liberations side things are relatively calm but it seem several stations have shown promising crews..."

At this point the news changes to another topic of no interest.

I really wish that news on ships appear but because its so expensive it's difficult to imagine that happening anytime soon. At least where I am.

Downing the remaining pepsi after finishing my scrambled eggs I go and take a bath before heading to the room with a single piece of equipment that was my capsule.

Stepping inside and sitting down, I activate the machine and feel my body fall. Next moment I feel the changes in my body and the distinct feeling my the new appendage that was my tail appear from behind.

I look down and see I was wearing my normally baggy beginners suit and my hands had that thin scale covering.

I looked up and see the 2.2 meter tall bug man that was my AI.

If I was the kind to add insult to injury I would say that this hacker AI was a virus being a bug while loving his job.

"Ready to go mine?" He asked.

"Did you prepare a basic manual for me to understand?" I asked.

"You shouldn't have ignored the mining tutorial after the first time. I'll just add the targets to the screen but I can't guide your arm so you're on your own." He and grouchy.

"At least take control of the scoop arm. I'll do mining will you keep ores from getting away." I asked.

"No, it’s your job!" He said reprimanding me.

Though I'm not fond of doing this I don't exactly have a choice.

I look down and blink a bit as I start to fake tears. Finally I move a bit closer and look up him.

"Please help..." I said doing the cheapest puppy dog eyes I could.

I could see he was easily shaken by this.

I takes some steps back before turning his back and crouching.

I could hear him murmur.

"He's a boy, he's a boy, he's a boy, he's a boy..." he kept saying but when he looked over I had already taken the chance to put on a girly pose and let tears gather.

"Grr!! Damn it that girly face!!! Fine, I'll do the damn scooping!" He shouted in rage and sat down fuming.

"Yay!! Now let's log in." I said with a grin.

Even if you know a person is a boy, what your eyes see and what your brain tells you is always different. Thats way even if I show my dick to anyone it's still hard to get used to me.

My vision blurs as I press the login button and soon I find myself waking up in my room on the station.

I get up and fix my hair and take a bath in game before heading to the hangars.

I had to put on that shitty hazmat space suit to make sure my temperature didn't drop.

I open up a chat with Noah since I see he was already on.

Alex: Noah, where are you?Noah: Just finished preparing the ship. Rather advances one I would say, after gathering method it identifies and then refines them once it has enough of one material.Alex: Since that really advanced for newbie miners?Noah: ... perk for dwarf fighters...Alex: ... You're such a cheat character at the moment.Noah: Hey! I suffered too much pain to get this.Alex: Did you get a class for it?Noah: Yep, hold on, I'll forward the class info.

I walk through the corridors on the way to the elevators.

It's here.Dwarf Fighter ClassA class of the Dwarf Fighters. Only those who have trained and possesses a Fighter robot can gain this class.

Conditions to gaining class: Level 10, Complete basic Dwarf fighter training course, Possess Dwarf Fighter Robot, pos

* Psionic reinforcement efficiency improves.

* Piloting Robot becomes easier.

* Robot pilot Skills gain skill growth boost.

* Psi based skills gain Skill growth boost.

* Psi Weapon Mastery Skill gain skill growth boost.

Looking at the class, I felt it was quite unbalanced.

Alex: Isn't the class unbalanced?Noah: Where?Alex: Where?! The class only gives boosts and no restrictions.Noah: Let me ask, if you got so many boosts, would you focus on taking advantage or will you try learning other skills as well?Alex: Of course I would take advantage of them. If my skills grow faster in that area why would I focus elsewhere.Noah: There is your restrictions. People who focus may be specialized but they will soon find their weaknesses are wide open. You closed your eyes to other things you could have learned so you created your own restriction.

…

I never thought of it that way. If someone doesn’t notice this face where the class doesn’t say “You can’t use XXX armor or weapon” then they will simply restrict themselves to what they gained boosts in.

I was a bit weirded out as to why the class didn’t improve mechanics skill since Noah trained in mechanics to be able to build his robot but considering the name it may be an actual “Fighter” class instead of a mixed class between dwarf robot pilots and mechanics.

The door of the elevator opens and I have Xeno activate my magnet boots before I walk out and towards the far end where the exit to the hanger was. Unlike the armed ships which were located on the military hangar, the miner ships were all here.

Alex: Xeno which ship is our designated mining ship?

A hologram appeared on my wrist that showed my current location as a blue dot and the ship as a red one. It was several piers up so I had to take the rotating elevator to that one. These elevators are simply like a slow moving platform that stops at each pier for 20 seconds before moving “up” to the next.

I get on one and after a while I get off on the one that Noah was on. It didn’t take much to find the huge robot next to a small ship that looked more like a dump truck with a lot more plating and rocket boosters. The size was different though, I would compare it to one of those huge two or three story tall dump truck that holds around 80 tons but I know the cargo probably didn’t pass 20 since all the other systems needed to fit inside.

Alex:It’s such a cheat that we get to use something like this.Noah: … Yeah

We both looked around and could clearly see that some other miners were coming in next to tugs. In short a tug is a square ship with two arm appendages which is for mining. It the lowest of all ships known throughout the galaxy and it's probably the only ship that changes with age. Put simply it’s the bottom feeder of everything with no exception, it's the lowest class ship you will ever get inside.

On the other hand, we are entering a true mining ship unlike a tug which is a Tiny ships or one man ships.

Looking back to Noah, I notice that the left arm has the drill installed already and I also notice small pulsing lights from the shoulder blade, ankle and feet.

Alex: What are those glows coming from your robot's back?Noah: Basic Psionic pulse thrusters. This is to move in space even if a little. It’s so that I won’t be stranded in space without moving. This came as part of the robot by the way.

So it’s like that huh. Such a cheat profession to get an over powered robot from the get go.

I jump off the pier and float into the air lock where I lock the door and enter the ship that was already pressurized.

The cargo is separate from the interior and there seems to be a small extra room made specifically for the robot to do repairs and so on.

I remove my helmet and feel the cool air making me shiver as I walk through the corridor. I found a simple small room at the end of the corridor that was like a kitchen living room and a small ladder at the back of the room that lead up to the pilot’s seat.

I go up and begin familiarizing myself with the controls. The seat faced a several screens that showed the outside as if there were windows. If I turn around I saw a separate set of controls that was the mining ships mining controls.

Typing through the controls I found that the camera’s view can change and so I opened one that showed the robot's workshop and the rear view.

In the workshop view I saw Noah pushing a box around, there was only one unlike before where there was 8.

Noah: I finished here! Mind closing the door to the workshop and pressurizing?

“On it, hold on.” I say though the mic on the control panel.

Looking through the controls, with Xeno’s help I found the commands to close the hatch on the side of the ship that was where the workshop was. Next was to seal it completely then pressurize.

It didn’t take much time and Noah jumped out of his robot and made his way inside.

He enters through an airlock that existed between the workshop and the inner corridors and soon appeared in the little room below.

"Hey, this place isn't half bad." I hear him say down below.

"Can we get moving?" I asked yelling into the room downstairs.

"So that's the pilot's seat? Lia upload the area we were designed to mine." Noah says to his AI.

At once the screens blinked and vanished and a new one turns on showing a beautiful woman dressed in a plugsuit like those sexy anime mecha pilots.

Next to her a diagram of Kelha II appeared.

"Good morning all, todays weather forecast is in sector A-3 of Kelha II's asteroid ring. You can expect clear weather with a small chance encountering small space life and a 0.2% chance of finding a strong space life form." She says copying the weather lady.

The planet zooms in and the station became visible and had a blue dot where we were and then an area of the asteroid ring turned red.

"In other news, reporter Xeno Ai has reported that common metals such as Iron, copper, tin, magnesium and so forth can be found in concentration of around 20-40% with a rare possibility of finding asteroids with much higher purity and concentration. Chances of encountering uncommon metals are at 10% in this area. Rare material are non existent in this area." She said and I started giggling after seeing her make fun of Xeno.

"So we have a chance to find Psidium?" I asked.

"2% chance of finding it in large enough quantity of Psidium to sell in this region. Psidium in large quantity can be found in further more dangerous regions of the asteroid field but they follow dangers such as bandits and several space creatures.” Lia says.

“So we can expect at least normal metals. That good, we should get going or else we won’t make the 200 ton quote that normal miners with this ship make.” Noah says from below.

“200 ton… you're joking right?” I asked.

“Dead serious, let’s get moving already.” Noah replied.

I just look down the stairs at his deadpan face and frown before going back to the controls and starting the ship up and piloting it while using the map to reach the mining area.

Lisa PoV

“I’m bored…” I mutter as I watch Roktar tirelessly work on that small brewery machine.

Roktar has been working all day yesterday after he bought a lot of sindew grapes and prepared it all yesterday and today he was adding the yeast to ferment.

It seems this part needed precise control of how much yeast went in depending how long it would age.

I look to the corner of the room and see the several 20 liter wooden barrels made from a wood called “Milow Oak”. It wasn’t cheap or expensive and apparently it should give a distinct flavor to the wine as it ages.

“Sorry if I’m boring you with my work. I didn’t even give ask for help.” He said apologetically.

“It’s fine. So when is the generator going to be done?” I asked.

“Should be today or tomorrow, Noah went mining with the trap but it shouldn’t interfere as long as he gets the quote fast enough and returns.” Roktar says while working.

As he finishes putting what he believes is good he starts stirring.

After a bit of stirring he seems satisfied and takes a 20 liter barrel and fills it up before puts a temporary top to cover it and leaves it in the corner.

“How many are you going to make?” I asked.

“Fill 3 barrels of wine then I need to clean the brewery and start preparing it for the beer process. I think by tomorrow I should have all the barrels filled but the wine needs several days of care.” He replies making me frown.

I sigh as I get up.

“I’ll be going for a walk and to look for something to do, if you need something or something happens just call.” I tell him as I exit.

He smiles wryly and waves me goodbye as I leave.

I head to the nearest elevator and head to the residential ring. I needed to meditate a bit since I was a bit irritated at the moment for some reason.

Jeez, that big oaf ignoring such a dashing woman for some barrels of alcohol! Tch, maybe I’m not as beautiful as I thought, I did leave my looks at default but I did change my hair to light pink and my eyes violet since it felt like it fit my looks that were greatly enhanced by my race’s looks.

Still how could a man ignore a woman even an average looker when they are alone. Hmph, men.

I reach the park and sit down before closing my eyes and try to meditate but the “clear your mind and pull psi inside” doesn’t exactly work since I can’t even get to the “clear your mind” part. I had thought that him being a pro gamer and a real life martial artist he would be more serious but the way he acts is rather childish. It’s charming but it seems it made him a bit dense as well.

I let myself lay back on the ground as I let out a deep sigh of exhaustion.

“Lisa?” I hear a familiar voice and open my eyes to find Sir Alphenor looking down at me.

I sit up quickly and look at his majestic figure in his typical robe like armor made from some strange monster material that made it harder then reinforced steel while underneath he had a space suit to protect himself in space.

“Did something happen for you to be so depressed?” He asked.

I really didn’t expect for him to ask since he is such an important man.

“Its nothing important.” I reply reluctantly.

“Doesn’t seem that way, to you it seems a bit more important.” He replied.

Before I can say more and sits down and puts down a small glass case that had some floating “balls” or “eggs” in them.

“Come on let me hear what has you worried.” He said with a rare smile he makes.

And so I tell him about Roktar’s deal with the dwarf fighters and that elf that invested in the ship and then how he spent so much time with me in a room but I was ignored.

When I said that I saw slight twitch on Sir Alphenor’s mouth. Yeah I would laugh too if I was in his place.

“Well I can’t really blame him for ignoring you. Winemaking is hard since you need precision and extensive knowledge and trial and error experiments to get what you want. If him to get something done while getting distracted would cause the quality to drop by a lot.” He explained.

I nod after hearing him since I already knew about it since I had Redo search up the process of wine and beer making so I can get a bit of understanding. Oh right Redo is my AI and he is a young butler like AI but acts like the new butler instead of the experienced one.

Since I had said my piece and I felt better I looked down at the case finally not containing my curiosity.

“What are those things?” I finally asked.

Seeing what I was looking at Sir Alphenor picked up the case and looked inside.

“These are some space creatures of the weakest kind.” He says as he looks at them.

“But it's just balls of rock, right?” I asked.

“Of course not, the rock acts as a shell, if you think of a crustacean you should understand, the real body is inside.” He explained.

“So why do you have these?” I asked.

“I have a hobby to see the what the effects of forcibly unlocking the psi gates on animal and monsters would have. Also after that I also like to see what happens when I forcibly fill them with more Psi than their body normally carries.” He said.

“Isn’t that animal cruelty?” I asked.

“Possibly, but I never get animals or monsters with intelligence. The only reason I don’t experiment my hobby on the native monsters on the planet is because it would probably cause them to evolve a bit and until the terraforming reaches the forestation and animal integration stage it would only cause trouble so I content myself with space animals. Different planets with rings and asteroid fields normally have their own unique ecosystem and that doesn’t even count when you change region since areas near the station are regularly cleared and kept clean and safe, so I can easily find new specimens to occupy my time.” he said.

“For these what kind of change is expected?” I asked.

“I already did some experiments with these, after I unlocked the 3 psi gates it slowly starts growing by absorbing more psi. It has 4 gates total and the first one is naturally open and through it by instant it “swims” through the psi in space. When I open the other 3 it grows until its shell is broken and it goes to make a new one but that is where these guys show some usefulness. They look for stronger materials like copper or iron. If you lack a scanner you can use these to find asteroids with larger mineral content.” he said

“So it simply gets bigger, won’t that be dangerous if you leave it since it can eventually grow to the size of an asteroid?” I asked.

“Yes, it can but it won’t since it has a lifespan of 2 years. The more dangerous one is if these things undergo a mutation. They become a kind of Psi leech that will feed off anything with psi inside.” He said surprising by that statement.

"So monsters mutate huh..." I mutter.

"Don't think of trying this without proper security measures. Once you release them for your use or lack there off it can eventually cause its own mutations because later generations would slowly form more psi gates." He told me.

I looked at him surprised but even more interested now.

I look at the little rock ball before shrugging. Can't do this anytime soon anyway since our crew is dirty poor at the moment. Need to get money first and get that shuttle into working order, to that point let's get busy then.

"Sir, do you know of any missions requesting for my specialization?" I asked.

"I have not checked the mission board recently but I have heard a number of strange rumors about most foreigners containing some kind of virus that brings them back from death. Maybe you can look into these rumors for me?" He asked.

Mission: Rebirth VirusDifficulty:1Sir Alphenor has heard rumors that originated from the hospital on Kelha station. The rumors state that most dead Foreigners, killed by their many stupid and suicidal acts, have come back to life with only some slight consequences.

He wishes to know the validity of these rumors.

Reward: 200 credits

Objective: Go to the hospital and speak with the doctors who examined this virus.

Failure: Unable to obtain information from doctor.

I was rather surprised to see such a mission. I doubt even he knows it's a mission and thinks more of a request.

"Is it possible for you to check this for me? I can put in a small reward for this errand?" He asked.

"I'll look into it. Hearing such a thing already has me curious as well so you can count on me. Where should I look for you after I find out?" I asked.

"Lilian." He said and a full sized hologram of a beautiful woman with strange hair that looked like leaves and clothing made of vines and leaves. Her hologram was also colored so I saw her skin was also a light green with a hue of pink around her cheeks.

"Please send Lisa the location of my study." He said and the dryad bowed.

"Of course." She said in a soft charming voice and looked my way and with a small wave she looked back.

"It is done." He says and bows before leaving.

Over my left wrist a hologram of the station appeared and on the military ring a blinking red light appears in the high ranked soldier/personal sector of the quarters.

"You may find me in this location after 16:00." He said and I nodded but before he could get up I asked.

"Sir... you AI is a dryad right?" I asked.

"If magic existed you would be correct but that is not so, he race is known as Alraune. They are a real race found in about 46 planets within the Liberation and within all three factions there is 378 planets they consider a home planet. They are the terraformers for the stage of introducing vegetation to the planet. They have affinity to nature and when they manipulate psi it allows them to control the psi in the vegetation around them." He said.

"Control the psi in vegetation!" I said surprised.

"Yes, it is an innate ability for them to easily control vegetation because they are born from vegetation that has absorbed a large amount of psi over a number of years. Normally they are born from several specific plants that Alraune plant which we believe is their own seeds. Other than that you may get lucky by mutating plants into humanoids but it can always backfire and make a monster." He said instantly making sure that I won't go out of my way to do this.

"I won't do that... trust me." I said a bit pale hearing it.

I get up with him and I bow to him

"Thank you for the time you spent on someone like me. I shall be going to see to that request."

"I wish you well and good luck." He says and walks off as I look for the hospital and look into that rumor.