My plan was to convert each of the people to Demi-AI and then speak with them for a few minutes at the extreme time dilation of the common simulation. There wasn't any requirement for the common simulation to be at a slow time constantly, my personal simulation varied in time perception as I needed it to and that is where I was most of the time. People who went to the common simulation did so to work on projects or maybe to socialise with other Demi-AI, and maximising the amount of time available without interruptions from the outside world did make sense.

It didn't make any difference to me who was converted first, so I walked towards the person I happened to be facing after receiving all of their nods. One of the humans, a man.

"Just a few things before we begin," I said. "Do you swear loyalty to me and to the Fortress?"

"I do, my lord," he said.

"Will you act for the betterment of the Fortress and its people?" I asked.

"I will, my lord," he said.

"That should do it for the formalities, then," I said. "Welcome to the Fortress Army. I will begin the race conversion."

I gave him my pre-healing speech and at his nod I triggered the conversion. When his consciousness went digital I invited him to the common simulation. He loaded in and I gave him a copy of the model of his body.

"Everyone forgets clothing when they first render in," I said.

He quickly summoned a robe around himself, pretty closely copying the robe that I was wearing. Even without knowing how to manipulate the simulation there was some code that reacted to instinctive needs of the guests. I was pretty happy with that code.

I sent him the standard Demi-AI primer, which now included the full human language in it. While he sat down on the floor of the landing room and closed his eyes to absorb the information I looked around the room. It had changed since I had last been here, there were simulations running in each of the four walls, with Mal'Thorn's being in the wall in front of where I had spawned in.

On the wall to the left of that was the inside of what I took to be a leprechaun dwelling, to the right was a mountain peak covered in ice and snow. Turning to my left to see behind me, there was a huge room with screens of glowing energy hanging all around it. From some of the ward diagrams I could see I took it to be Veya's simulation.

On the wall to the left of that should have been the mountain peak simulation, but instead it was a simulation of plains. And to the left of that was a blank wall, followed by a forest simulation, but not the one that Mal'Thorn had made. Finally I made it back to the mountain peak simulation and Mal'Thorn's simulation was after that.

I pulled up the code for the landing zone of the common simulation. Someone had tweaked it with a clever bit of sensory manipulation, when you turned the simulation directly behind you changed depending on which way you turned. At the same time you looked as though you were turning around a wall which blocked you from view from the simulations. New simulations could be added on the blank wall which would cause a new blank wall to be spawned. Very neat and tidy.

Though relying on a person to turn their model would be a limiting factor when more simulations were added, as was only showing three simulations at a time. The human man was still studying, so I decided to write my own display of the landing room. The first step was refactoring the code to separate out the simulations from the displaying of their entrances, which was all hardcoded.

With that done I made an infinite hallway, to the left and right were the entrances to the simulations, while forward and back led to more hallway. The hallway was pretty short right now, with only six simulations and two blank walls. I could see myself sixteen meters ahead of me, and behind me, and repeated into the distance in both directions. Back in the other display of the landing room the human man had stood up and was looking around, so I switched back to that view.

"All caught up?" I asked.

"There is a lot of information to go through," he said. "But I have the basics down. Are we really moving ten thousand times faster than outside?"

"Close enough to, yes," I said. "I have a task for you, if you're up to it. We will be needing a wargames simulation. I'll be up converting the next person, so I'll leave it to you. Feel free to ask any of the other Demi-AI for help, Mal'Thorn probably has the most experience as far as I know. Any questions?"

He had quite a few questions, and I spent the next hour answering them and talking about general things before heading back up to normal time. He did request that his wife, the other human, be the next one to be converted and I agreed.

Back at normal speed I walked to the next table over, where the human woman was sitting. She was tall, dark haired, and covered in scars everywhere I could see, but it didn't look like they affected her movement at all.

I looked more closely at the scan I had of her. She did have quite a few injuries that were causing her pain, and they only weren't impacting her movement because she was able to push through the limitations. I updated the model I had of her to solve all of her physical issues, then went through the oath of loyalty and pre-healing speech. Another unknown length of time later I caught her as she became digital, inviting her to the common simulation and sending her the Demi-AI primer. I sent the human man a ping and he appeared next to us and gave a cough.

"Jacqueline, clothes," he said.

She arched her back, stretching up onto her toes, before a light dress formed around her.

"I feel twenty years younger," She said. "Too bad its only in here."

"It isn't, actually," I said. "The model of your body I gave you here is accurate to your physical body. Did you think I would grant you immortality and then not heal you back to your best condition?"

"I didn't know you could heal at all," she said. "It's a very pleasant surprise."

"My lord," the man said. "I have been having some difficulties with the simulation you tasked me with, Keeper Mal'Thorn said that it was memory issues again, even with him closing down some of his simulation."

"That sounds about right," I said. "I'll make some more memory, though it will be some time here before it is hooked up."

I compiled a data packet with the simulation that Chantelle and I had spent a lot of time working on and sent it to both of them.

"That is a private simulation," I said. "I would recommend hosting it on one of your own platforms if you use it. Anything on this server can be seen by anyone walking by."

The man closed his eyes, presumably studying the code. A few moments later he blushed.

"Thank you, my lord," he said. "This will be very helpful for the, uh, wargames simulation. I can already see some things covered that I overlooked. We will go and study it more thoroughly."

Jacqueline frowned at him before he disappeared. She turned to me, still frowning, before a look of realisation came over her face and she, too, disappeared.

More memory. I could probably use a better memory design. If I made the modules physically larger, and then placed the micro-portals for connections optimally... And being able to duplicate from models would make it quicker again.

I spent the next half an hour designing and testing the new memory module and then went up to about one tenth normal speed to create a heap of them. After tying them all together into the common simulation it got over twenty times the memory all at once.

I sent Mal'Thorn and the human man pings letting them know about the new capacity, and asking them to let me know when we were up to eighty percent usage so I could add more when we needed it. Then it was on to converting the next person, a leprechaun man.

After I had gotten him into the common simulation we talked for half an hour, the two humans joining us, and asked them all to work on making the wargames simulation better. When I got back to the simulation after converting the second leprechaun, a woman, the leprechaun man met us, giving her a hug. It seems that the leaders had picked couples for their candidates going by the four so far.

"My lord," the leprechaun man said. "If you have some time I had a problem with the simulation that I was hoping you could help with."

I nodded and gestured for him to continue.

"Jenny and I are master scouts and archers," he said. "A core aspect of mastering the bow is that the arrows that you use must be carefully selected. Differences in the fletching, shaft, head, or the binding between the three can greatly affect accuracy at longer ranges."

"Okay," I said. "I don't really have that problem, but I understand."

He frowned. "That isn't the problem, that's just how things are," he said. "The problem I am having is that the simulation we've made for ranged practice lacks the realism of real arrows. Even arbitrarily adding flaws to the arrows isn't making it more realistic."

I shared the detailed models for my reinforced stone, wood, and feathers with him.

"Design the perfect arrow with those materials," I said. "Don't worry about binding them with other materials, just fuse them together. Take your time and make it the absolute ideal arrow."

We were in the infinite hallway display of the landing room, and the leprechaun woman was walking while she absorbed the Demi-AI primer. Every half a minute she would pass me again. Two minutes later the leprechaun man physically handed me the arrow, and it looked like any other arrow but with a blue crystal arrow head.

"This will fly true with the exact characteristics for my bow and style," he said. "I don't understand how this solves the problem of too perfect arrows in the simulation. If we use that as a model then we won't be training with real arrows."

I grinned. "We will get you an inventory," I said. "I can give you hundreds of your perfect arrow that you can carry with you, and I can create more faster than you can shoot them all. Why make the simulation worse when we can make outside better instead?"