Once they had gotten their assignment and designated an B.F.M. device the group headed towards one of the public exits.

Perpetuity was built in a magnificent manner. Surrounding the city are enormous mountains. They serve as walls.

The city is in the center of this peculiar mountain valley. It has its own walls but outside the city you will find enormous mountains, rivaling earth’s largest mountains.

It just so happens that Perpetuity is not only surrounded by tall mountains but also located in a deep valley.

Everything inside this mountain valley, is considered property of Perpetuity. Only when one leaves the valley will they put foot on unclaimed land.

It can take months to walk out of the valley on foot. Outside the mountains is raging river. This river originates on the opposite side to the entrance of the valley.

This river spills into an underground river that runs through Perpetuity, serving as a water source. It continues to the exit of the valley.

This River is called The Endless River. This is a river that rivals any river seen on Earth. It splits into three when it meets the wall of mountains.

These are the mountains that guard Perpetuity. The river runs alongside the mountains, and have carved them into an impassable wall.

The sight is spectacular. The sound of the river terrifying. Its power so awe inspiring that even fishing becomes near impossible.

This problem is true before it hits the mountains, there it is split and its power reduced. Allowing for a vast culture of aquatic life to thrive.

It is when it meets again at the mountain valley’s exist, that it turns near impossible to traverse. Fishing requires the strength of many men, making it infeasible as a source for food.

The third part of the river funnels into an underwater cavern and springs up inside Perpetuity. This source of water has allowed for easy access to running water.

The rulers of Perpetuity generate great wealth from controlling this source. Not only does the river carry water, but precious materials as well.

The other ninety nine percent of the river holds mass of materials, these materials remain out of reach.

When the group of boys walked outside out of the gates they couldn’t help take a second look on their way out. This is a big gate.

“I’ve never seen anything this big before.”

“I have.”

“Hah? When?”

“On the internet.”

“How does that count? Okay, then I’ve seen the universe.”

“Me to!”

“Why are you all excited about this? I’ve seen the birth of all existence.”

Everyone of them are fidgeting with their weapons. They all have an identical stubb of wood. They had all tried activating in this city, but none worked.

In Perpetuity, only licensed B.F.M.’s work. This meant only governmental figures and their enforcers are allowed to use them.

Currently, all governmental figures are virtual humans. So technically, no one was using licensed B.F.M.’s. They were using their own virtual B.F.M.’s that worked in a similar way.

The difference between a virtual human is hard to spot. The guys for example did not notice that a few of the people walking outside the city, playing with their stubs were virtual.

This is all apart of Perpetual Power’s design for immersion, a living environment that adapts to circumstances. It might not be perfect, but it is impressive.

Once outside the city. One of the guys managed to summon their weapon. It elongated into a spear. This was translucent spear.

“Woah!”

“Is it a lightsaber?”

Seeing Kom actually manage to use his B.F.M. the rest of them followed. Soon different weapons began emerging.

Two more spears emerged. Ret, Kom and Jarem all had identical spears. Dart summoned a machete.

Sorp and Pal had short swords. Sorp’s sword looked comical in comparison to his size. No one laughed however, because they were all entranced.

Every last one of them were swinging their weapons about. The swinging caused the sound of wind to emerge.

There weren’t too many people actually leaving Perpetuity. It was a trickle that never seemed to end.

The people that were exiting would encounter people with their B.F.M.’s they then would ask about them or remember what they had read about them.

“On gart!”

“Oh!?”

The group began testing their weapons on each other. Speaking in butcher phrases they had heard in tv shows or movies. They are after all still only considered teenager.

These B.F.M.’s are considered a class of melee weaponry. In technical jargon they were called static. Meaning they never changed their appearance.

The term Static doesn’t only apply to these beginner B.F.M.’s but also B.F.M’s that cannot support Augments that change physical appearance of a B.F.M.

There are also weapons that only allow Augments that decrease their size. Some bow’s apply here. They can only be made smaller and not bigger.

Augments that affect speed are the most likely to make items smaller or lighter. The opposite can be said to power related Augments.

This does not mean that all Augments change the appearance of an B.F.M. only that they can do it.

The beginner B.F.M.’s can not be slotted with Augments. But any future B.F.M. will have at least one Augment slot or the capability of having one added.

What people were assigned to do with their B.F.M. is kill one of the creatures on a list. These creatures are considered pests.

These creatures are not considered dangerous, most will run at the sight of a human. Some however, will defend themself.

The creatures will raid farmland and attack domesticated animals. They carry diseases that affect both the fauna and flora.

Only Dart had idea about these things. He is the only one that could bother reading the actual booklet given out with the assignment.

The other guys, all they knew was they had to go outside the city and kill something. The final goal was summed up as a counter. That was all they cared about.

The road outside Perpetuity was made from a type of stone. Everywhere was a hyper efficient farmland. It was compact and grew up fast.

Some of the plants can mature in a week, reaching up to four to five meters tall. For the beasts, this is enough to hide.

These creatures are not small. They aren’t the size of common city rodents. The largest reaches one and a half meter.

All these beasts pray on either plants or domesticated animals, not humans. If they aren't provoked, they won’t attack.

The farmland isn’t infinite but it does stretch out far. Far enough that a days walk won’t cover the entire thing.

Perpetuity is large enough to take several days to cross, the farmland is even larger. The city is designed to house billions.

While it is hyper efficient in housing people, it still requires a considerable size. This causes a logistic problem. Food.

Water is drawn and distributed from the The Endless River. Solving majority of water related issues. But food is still required.

Food is gathered by the vast farms, spanning multiple times the size of the city. They are plagued by every condition that farms are exposed to, only exacerbated.

Sorp and Kom were leading the group. The group is laughing and chatting. They’ve been walking for more than an hour.

The environment is new. There are a lot of things to see. Even the insects flying about are interesting to them. Other people around are interesting.

But an hour is still an hour. Every last one of them is thinking this place is pretty far away.

On their hand held device is a compass. The hand held device can be blown up to appear in front a person as a projection.

Most people refrain from having anything projected in front of them while they are moving. It can, in rare cases, induce nausea and or headaches.

But Dart has this compass specifically blown up in his upper right peripherals. Just obscure enough that he has to concentrate on it to notice it.

Sorp has issues with this, he is hyper observant and cannot ignore this constant change. This is because the compass constantly changes depending on his orientation.

This compass comes with a small localized area, the area highlights numerous things, things the guys don’t know what are.

These are things like plants that are being grown. Weeds in the fields. Particular insects and other miscellaneous objects.

It is possible to customize the map to filter out generic results. Everything from a particular flower to the whole genre of plants.

A particular flower can only be excluded if it has been discovered before, others wise the only way to remove it from the map is to remove all flowers.

Dart has been making sure they are heading the right way. Which has been a straight road so far. Only thing that’s unknown, is the distance.

The description of the assignment did name the exact location. This included the sector, name of the sub sector it was in and the name of the person in charge there.

A similar assignment was being given out in thousands of places. Each field could hold hundreds of people.

Hundreds of people in a single field can be considered crowded. The expectation is that people move on from one location, to another.

The distance the guys had to walk can still be considered reasonable. Other late comers may have to trek half a day to reach their destination.

The reason for this long walk is the same as many other time consuming tasks that will appear in Perpetuity.

It all stems from the size of the population. The original plan was to create multiple cities. Because logistically, housing billions looked impossible.

And it is impossible. Until you realize that the world is virtual. Food can be literally spawned from a void. Even the passing of time can be manipulated on a grand scale.

The issue was never about food, to be fair. It was the illusion of food. But it was later understood that people didn’t feel it was strange that plants could grow fast.

In fact, people knew so little about plants that it was entirely acceptable to everyone, except a small niche of botanist.

After the this discovery. Perpetual Power created a new research division dedicated to people's suspension of disbelief. They tested the boundaries of acceptability.

It has to be said. Perpetual Power employs the smartest and most dedicated people alive. Added to that is the sandbox of the virtual environment and virtual humans, A.I.

Perhaps not related but interesting nonetheless, is that the B.F.M. development and people with experiences using it. Are more accepting to the virtual world’s inconsistencies.

The more a person interacts with the world, they have an easier time to immerse themselves in it. This included the time dilution in place.

In general, eight times slower passing of time, in a virtual environment, goes unnoticed. Any slower and people can begin to feel it.

The effects can be severe headaches. Physical discomfort. Ruptured veins, causing external and internal bleeding.

But the brain adjusts. And with the B.F.M. exercising the brain this threshold can be raised. Meaning that time can be slowed further, without negative consequences.

Currently the world Perpetuity runs six time slower than the real world. Only in instanced places can this change.

Instanced places are still in use, but are seamlessly integrated. This means people should not notice entering an instance.

The world is considered uninstanced. Meaning the entire living world is flowing continuously. But there are millions of unique instances. Almost non placed in vicinity of Perpetuity.

The boys should be about to reach their destination. Behind and in front them are still people walking. Most cursing this long journey.