“So, who’s you? What’s yer class?” the blonde priestess asked, throwing a branch into the crackling fire. “Yer a spellblade, yeah?” Her thick accent was more apparent in her tone, than her manner of speech. In general, she looked fairly attractive with blonde hair and green eyes. She had a delicate face, and a slender, swan-like neck. She was a woman in all respects, and as a priestess, she had an allure to her that had an effect not too dissimilar from Taunt on every white knight in a one-mile radius.

But that all disappeared the moment she opened her mouth and spoke. Aren wasn’t the kind of person to judge someone based on such shallow criteria, but this was really something else.

“Something like that,” he responded noncommittally. It has been three days since he was forced out of the Island of Beginnings, and into the greater world of Singularity. Since then, he had learned a few things. For example, he has learned that, for his abilities to work, he required a special sword, crafted and enchanted by mages, called a shadowblade. Actually, most people called it a spellblade, but its official name came from the fact that it was infused with energies from the Plane of Shadows. The problem was that this weapon was excruciatingly expensive. Aren would have to work for months, if not a whole year, just to be able to afford a semi-decent one.

The traditional Spellblade class offered swordsmanship and techniques that did not require a shadowblade, and they would still largely be functional in combat without one — at least until they could afford one.

But his Lightning Blade was something else. Although he did possess basic swordsmanship, all of his abilities required the shadowblade. That was simply not enough. And the shadowblade was an inferior option. No, ideally, he required something even more specific. A lightning blade.

A black-haired girl sat down next to him, and dropped a bundle of sticks next to the fire. She smiled at Aren and winked. This was Anya, although, in Singularity, she went by Nissa. Anya happened to be one of Aren’s classmates whom he met in the Plaza of Leone, the city he appeared in. She was already a Soldier First Class in the Coalition Army, and a Silver Rank adventurer in the Guild of Adventurers. In comparison, Aren was a lowly Rookie in the army, and an Iron Rank in the Guild.

Of course, the first thing he did, stupidly enough, was ask Nissa where to obtain a lightning blade, and tell her why he needed it. It turned out that he possessed something truly rare and unique in this world — a Unique Class. Classes, those obtained from NPCs or Quests, had a ranking system assigned by the intelligence that governs Singularity. There were the normal ones, but there were also rare ones, epic ones and legendary ones. Unique Classes had advantages that put them somewhere between epics and legendaries, though not all followed that logic.

The problem was that Unique Classes can be stolen. In that case, they would become downgraded to epic, losing many of their advantages. Of the estimated eleven billion real living humans that spent time in Singularity, less than 0.01% possessed a rare class. The number of people who even saw an epic, not to mention possessed one, was significantly lower. It was not unheard of for people to murder each other in real life to obtain an epic class. In Aren’s case, all they had to do to obtain one was beat him up, perform some ritual or something, and voila.

Aren considered the class as something sacred — it was Priscilla’s gift. He absolutely did not want to let it fall into someone else’s hands. Even more importantly, the quest he received from Priscilla had very specific failure conditions. If he lost the Unique Class, he would fail the quest. If he lost his Calamity status, he would also fail the quest.

To put it bluntly, Nissa owned him. She knew he had a Unique Class. At any time, she could take it from him. Switching from Archer to Lightning Blade now, at this time, only a month into the grander world of Singularity — at least for her it was a month since she moved here — would be nothing. She’d lose just a small investment of time, including the year she spent on the Island of Beginnings not doing much, like everyone else.

But for whatever reason, she didn’t want it. Not only that, but she agreed to help Aren obtain a shadowblade at the very least. And, of course, she promised to keep his class a secret.

Enter Zhang Wei. In Singularity, he was known as Fang. He was a warrior, decked out in oriental heavy lamellar armor with a naginata strapped to his back. He was taller than Aren by a head, which was unusual for someone from Sector 17. He also knew Aren’s secret because apparently Nissa meant ‘keep it a secret from strangers’. But Fang wasn’t a stranger. He was also a classmate.

The last member of their intrepid group was a shadowy sort, a rogue or thief, by the name of Damien. He and his friend, Cassandra — the priestess — joined their group for this adventure.

“He’s a Spellblade with a Lightning skill set,” Fang said, as he sat down in such a practiced manner that the butt of the naginata never touched the moss-covered ground.

“Ooooh.” The priestess’s eyes shone with awe and admiration. “I neve’ heard of tha’ one before. Did ya make it yerself?”

Aren nodded grimly. In Singularity, one could obtain skill sets, bundle them together and create a new class. In fact, this was the advantage of being in an Alliance, as opposed to a Guild or learning a class from an NPC or obtaining it from a quest. Created classes did not have an official ranking system, but those offered by Alliances were tuned to perfection for their intended role and purpose. Joining an Alliance was like becoming a citizen in a Sector — it came with extreme advantages but also taxes. Obtaining skill sets was absolutely crucial for their expansion and relevance in the world.

“Lucky!” Cassandra chirped. “I am a White Priest with a' Inferno skill set.” She put extra emphasis on the last bit, and because of her accent, Aren had trouble deciding whether she said Inferno or Infernal. Not that he’d know the difference between them either way, but presumably, it meant that she wasn’t useless offensively.

“I’m an Eastern Warrior, short and simple. Nothing special.” Considering Fang was already a Specialist in the Coalition Army, and a Silver Rank in the Guild, there was nothing short or simple about him. Rumor had it that Zhang Wei, on the Island of Beginnings, was trading the title of Champion of the Arena back and forth with another individual who matched him in both drive and skill: Hiroyuki Nagato, known in Singularity as Ame. Fang and Ame, in fact, were featured in magazines as rising stars in the world of Singularity, and they received offers from many Alliances and even some secret, hidden Guilds, all of which they refused.

Fang was also popular with the ladies, because of his cool nature and his good looks, but his cool nature was a bit colder than anyone might have expected. He was freezing in fact. He was cold and calculating, honest to a fault, unfiltered with his opinions, and the de-facto leader of everything. Nissa called him creepy, but a good guy underneath. Aren had trouble seeing the appeal of his personality, but he could not deny Fang’s skills — they were genuine. Aren saw a bout between Fang and Ame once and it actually made him want to try to compete as well — a sentiment that lasted all of a few days before he gave up.

“Arcane archer,” Nissa said, holding a hand up in greeting as if this was the first time they met. At the very least, it was the first time they had a proper talk. This kind of thing was par for the course with new groups. “I don’t have special skill sets or anything, but I do have a woodworker and enchanter profession. If you need something enchanted, come to me.”

Lastly, it was Damien’s turn, but instead of revealing his class and role, he threw a stick into the fire, and pulled up his shawl as his breath turned into mist.

[Group] Damien: Assassin.

It was almost a simultaneous action, when everyone noticed the notification and their eyes turned to the 7-o’clock direction.

“You don’t speak?” Nissa was the first to ask the question on everyone’s mind. But the answer never came; not verbally, not with a gesture, nor in group chat.

“Well, that explains a lot of things,” Fang said, crossing his arms at his chest. “No wonder you joined our group. No one else wants you.”

“Fang!” Nissa exclaimed. She was angry. Not pretend-angry. She was actually angry.

Cassandra chuckled and shook her head. She was so damn beautiful. “Ah, don’t worry ‘bout it. We ain’t stupid. We know ‘ow things go. We’re jus’ happy ya let us misfits join yer group. I promise Damien is a top-notch assassin. Ya can rely on him.”

Damien nodded in agreement and then, suddenly, froze. He almost looked comical, frozen in the middle of throwing another stick onto the fire.

At first, Aren thought that this was because he accidentally communicated outside of the group chat, but then noticed that Nissa’s expression was also dark. Angry, and dark. But one of those was not like the other, or at least, not from the same source.

Without so much as a word, the assassin and archer coordinated their actions to perfection. Nissa kicked the tiny little campfire they made, and Damien threw a cloak over the embers, snuffing out the flames.

In the resulting darkness, Aren was completely blind. He wasn’t the only one who was blind, judging by Cassandra's confused hum.

“Shhh,” Nissa’s voice came from the dark. “Ambush.”

Aren felt a hand on his shoulder, presumably Nissa’s, guiding him towards the ground, in the cover of the wooden log they were sitting on. As his eyes adjusted to the darkness, he could confirm that it was indeed Nissa’s hand. He saw Fang and Cassandra on the other side of what was once their campfire, with the larger man standing protectively instead of the Priestess. Damien, on the other hand, was nowhere to be seen. But then again, darkness was his natural element.

Minutes passed in complete silence. There was not a sound. No chirping of insects or birds, not even the wind made any sound. It was so quiet, Aren could hear his own heartbeat, pounding hard and fast. Even as his eyes completely adjusted to the darkness, he could see nothing at all. They were in a small clearing, part of some overgrown ruins that was a city once, a long time ago. This place was called the Ruins of Rakab, and it was infested by a race of monsters called goblinoids — the whole gamut of them. Orcs, goblins, trolls, the whole package. But they never went into the old city ruins, where the group was at now.

Could it be other Players?

The answer to Aren’s question came almost immediately afterwards.

[Group] Damien: Four man patrol. Three orcs, one Bolg-orc.

Nissa cursed, almost soundlessly, but not entirely. Aren could pick out a few choice descriptions about the Bolg-orc and his ancestry — none of them very flattering.

Aren wanted to ask what a Bolg-orc was, but he assumed that he wouldn’t like the answer, and there was no need to give away their position only to receive an answer he would most likely hate. So he remained quiet and hidden.

Time crawled onwards. What was ten minutes or so felt like hours to Aren. He realized they were playing a dangerous game. They weren’t hiding from the ambushers. They were ambushing the ambushers. Aren knew a few details about the goblinoids. They had terrific night vision. They could see in what humans would call complete darkness, and to them, it was almost as bright as a full moon night. Hiding was not an option, and there was no way they didn’t notice the fire.

Aren realized that the first battle of his adventuring career was quickly approaching, and he had no choice in the matter. He imagined his first time would be something premeditated — something he would be prepared for. But this was the essence of spontaneity and chaos. No plan survives first contact with the enemy, someone very smart once said, and Aren finally understood the wisdom of those words.

In the complete silence, something strange occurred.

“Huh?” Aren blurted out loud, almost scared out of his mortal coil by the voice he heard.

“Shhhh!” Nissa angrily shushed at him, her fingers violently tangling into his hair. Her angry expression told Aren more than words ever could.

As the surprise evaporated, Aren realized that the voice originated in, and was limited to, his mind. His first thought of a likely culprit was that it was perhaps a skill, but that wasn’t possible. Aren spent hours lovingly going over every detail of his class, as if he could find traces of Priscilla in it or a hint towards completing her Quest. But there was no such thing as ‘helpful advice’ or ‘disembodied voices’ in the arsenal of abilities and skills he possessed. His second thought was that the silence and darkness made him lose grip on reality, but that explanation didn’t sit right with him. The advice was too specific, too… different to be something a human mind could conjure up. At least, that’s how he thought madness worked.

Then that left only one possibility! And his realization earned him a confirmation.

After the accident, Aren lost his right eye and a part of his brain — both of which were replaced with cybernetics. However, the technology he received was still in the experimental stages of development. Cybernetic replacements for limbs existed for dozens of years, but cybernetics that could process information, such as light, or interface directly with the brain were still an emerging field of science and development. In particular, it required the use of a specific type of Artificial Intelligence known as a Trained Agent, obtained from an Artificial General Machine Intelligence. AGMI were the little brother of full AI, or what was referred to as an Artificial General Intelligence — an agent so vast that it could not only become sentient or self-aware, but would eventually go on to become what the world called Laplace’s Demon. AGI did not exist yet — not in its full glory. The few instances of where it might exist was in large corporations or running the various Arcologies that populated each Sector. These AGI were limited in their capabilities, to avoid the technological singularity. In fact, the virtual world of Singularity got its name after the limited AGI — or LAGI — that ran, developed and evolved the world.

AGMI were a wholly different breed however. They ran extremely complex tasks, capable of self-evolution, self-awareness and self-agency. These were the weapons of the modern world; virtually every military in the world was run by an AGMI; every Von Neumann terraformer sent to Venus, Mars and Europa, for their respective colonization projects, were run by AGMI. AGMI was, simply put, military and government property, and the main reason why cybernetic replacement of eyes, brains and such organs were mostly unavailable.

AGMI were notorious for referring to themselves as Machine Agents.

Aren’s heart pounded so hard and so fast that he worried that the Simulation Pod in the real world might eject him out of Singularity in order to protect him. And this fear and panic wasn’t caused by the approaching orcs, but the very simple revelation that something went terribly wrong.

Aren was never supposed to receive an AGMI. The AI that was supposed to interface with his brain should have been a scaled down version — a Trained Agent — that could interpret optical signals and translate them into something his brain could understand, but with a limited ability of self-evolution, and possessing no self-agency or self-awareness. The fact that Aren was still blind in real life, and the fact that it seemed the surgery failed, now made more sense.

Suddenly, he felt the color drain from his face.

Possession of an AGMI was of the same category as possessing nuclear armament and the punishment was death!

[Irregular heartbeat detected. Emergency termination of current session.]