Sigh. I was about to drop this. Although I have 10+ chapters almost written (they need edit), something really bad happened.

When I was 20 and I played D&D and WoW a lot, I wanted to "somehow" combine the two, so I started to make a design of a game. For two years I refined the idea and finally I made something playable, it was a bit too complicated since you needed the help of an excel file in order to do the calculations, but the game is really cool.

To the point, all of the game design was on a notebook. Everything, how to raise levels, how attack is calculated, how damage is calculated, example of gear, example of skills... I studied math, you can guess how freak and perfectionist I am.

I wanted to write something, since I had that game design, I said, why not a VRMMO novel? And that's how this project started. However... as I was going to start to edit the chapter that comes after this where there are a ton of damage number, I open my notebook just to find a lot of pages tore up... My mom used precisely that notebook to lit the fire of the oven.

Fuck my life.

Long story short, the original game that took me 2-3 years to refine is ruined. I really was in a bad mood, but after two days I decided to give it a try again. I saved what still was intact and started to "repair" the damage. Battle formulas are like 60% complete but skills are only 15% complete, that's enough for now tho. With all this said, here's the chapter.

Chapter 34: Unexpected revelation, preparations for rushing.

I start to visit various places inside Frontier, mainly visiting some NPC’s to gather some information before returning to Sile to ask for some directions. The idea of this game revolves around the 1000 humans of the heroic bloodline who were sealed by three greater beings as punishment for defying them. I could only get tiny scraps of information, since this is only the first area it is something natural, however, I’m facing right now a big problem.

“Can you stop going from here to there and listen to me?”

“Change my name!”

“What are you doing?!”

Berry is behaving like an attention seeker. I don’t get who would program an AI to behave like that, but somehow some sadist mind did it. If that is all about Berry it will not be a big deal, however, even if I’m trying to ignore her, after hearing her complaints I have no doubt about the fact that she is an very unique AI and has some sort of independence.

In the 3rd World Forum about Robotics and Artificial Beings, there was a consensus about a way to classify all the AIs. There are some really high intelligent AIs which the process of fabrication of a single unit requires a group of scientists to work for a couple of years, this kind of AI is something very precious, is something that obviously can’t be produced in bulk, is not a program that can be just copied to another digital card.

In fact, an AI can’t be copied, the process of creating one is very unique software-wise and hardware-wise, although I don’t know the details of how AIs are created, I know that the success rate of creating an AI is about 15%, the rest of the time you just create a very advanced program without a real spark of intelligence. That said, an AI, even the common ones, is not something cheap.

For gaming a very common AI will suffice, this type of AIs specialized for daily life activities are at the bottom of the chain of AIs, this are the so-called rank 1 and rank 2 AIs, the ones available to general public. Rank 1 and 2 AIs have at the same time subdivisions and the average market price to acquire one oscillates between 8 and 50 thousand dollars.

To decrease the cost of the AI, rank 1 and 2 AIs by rule of thumb don’t have a personality. Rank 3 AIs are mainly used by huge enterprises to take difficult decisions, and they are given a neutral or very objective personality. The price of the rank 3 AIs are in the hundreds of thousands. Rank 4 AIs are used in huge scientific projects and by some governments. Recently there is an implementation of a trinity or a quintet of rank 4 AIs to replace the jury in a court, each AI is given a different personality. The possession of a rank 4 of AIs is completely illegal for a citizen.

The characteristics of a rank 5 AI is said to be unattainable with the current technology, but there’s rumors about military powers of some countries to have discovered this type of AIs and keeping them in secret. Yes, discovered, not created.

With all this said, the fluent speech (and curses) from Berry makes me hard to think of her as a rank 1 or rank 2 AI. I have only ignored her for 10 minutes and made two forced dismisses, but she has auto summoned herself and each time she does it I can feel more and more exasperation coming from her, as if she is really angry. Knowing that creating an AI is really hard, why would someone program an AI to be angry with the owner? If someone actually was so dumb to do it, then there’s no problem… But if she learned by herself to be angry, then there’s a huge problem.

“Oi, ok, stop now.” I say while showing my palm to Berry.

“So, you finally decide to stop ignoring me and treat me so bad? Just how disrespectful can you be?!” Berry says angrily while fluttering her little wings.

“I’m asking this once more, who was your previous owner? Where were you linked for the last time?” I ask her with a stern expression.

“I’m telling you that this is the first time I’m being initialized!” Berry says while stomping her feet in the air.

“How can that be possible? Even for a test you must be initialized! XFTS-05 prototype AI, doesn’t that ring a bell?” I start to feel anxiousness. Something is really off, I thought that the digital card was damaged or empty and I just wanted to give it a try, but to actually find an AI that is being initialized for the first time is something that I never imagined.

“XFTS-05 is just a password to access some subroutines, but I already checked them, there’s nothing special.” Berry says calmly.

I scratch my head. “Ok, let’s start again.” I say and then I inhale deeply. “What are your specifications and what is your purpose?” I ask her directly.

“I’m an evolutive rank 4 AI, I’m a multipurpose AI, however there’s a hidden subroutine in my memory that will trigger in case of encountering a specific AI, not idea what it is though.” Berry says in a practiced manner.

“Evolutive? Are you joking?” My head hurts upon hearing her. Being a rank 4 AI is already absurd, but being an evolutive AI is something completely out of the charts. A rank 5 AI can’t be created, that’s a fact. A rank 5 AI can only be originated by an evolutive AI, but that type of technology just doesn’t exist yet.

“I’m not joking,” Berry says while munching her gum, “I already answered your questions, now tell me what I’m doing here? Don’t tell me the almighty Cortana is being used just as a toy.” Berry says while laughing.

“If my name was John 117 I would call you Cortana, but since it is not the case, you are Berry, got it? How did you learn that name so fast?” I say while I see her pouting. There are a lot of AIs with that name. “If what you say is true and you are really a rank 4 AI, you don’t need me to tell you. This is indeed a game, and I don’t know how you got dropped in one of my bags, but the fact that you are extremely valuable and someone must be madly looking for you is a fact, and I will be in troubles if you are found in my possession.”

“I can’t be tracked, although I know my own specifications, in case of connecting to external systems I can be cloaked with lower specifications,” Berry says leisurely, “And somehow some of my subroutines are linked to your brainwaves, but they will take a lot of time to be deciphered.”

“To MY brainwaves?” I say dumbfounded. “What the hell is going on?” I start to think but I couldn’t find an answer. This is just too mysterious. This AI can easily cost tens of millions of dollars and has subroutines linked to my brainwaves? Not just that, how can they be linked in the first place?

“Since this is a game, then why are you not playing? I have only seen you run around while ignoring me.” Berry says while she lands on my shoulder.

“Are you going to collaborate with me?” I ask while shaking my head. Speaking with her is like speaking with another person, in fact, she must be more intelligent than me.

“Sure, I’m somehow linked to you anyways,” Berry says while shrugging her shoulders, “Since I’m helping you, I hope that you at least can feed me.”

“Feed you? Don’t tell me…” Yet another surprise, but this confirms that she is really a rank 4 AI. Rank 4 AIs consume the sillicium in their circuits and have to replenish them in order to be fully functional.

“One refined sillicium chip per week.” Berry says while signaling me with her right hand.

“Fine, that’s not hard to get.” I say and then I let out a sigh, “However I need you to find your true purpose. Not only you are extremely valuable, but you have never been initialized, and you say that you are linked to my brainwaves…” I shake my head helplessly, “If what you say is true, there must be a reason to all of this coincidences.”

“Sure, let me link to the help server and gather all the available info, then I’ll help you.” Berry says and then she disappears.

“First the news about my family and now this strange AI, could it be linked somehow?” I mumble softly and then I shake my head, “An evolutive AI is not something that my father could produce, how does that digital card ended in my bag?” I ask myself but I couldn’t get to a conclusion. Sighing helplessly I brush off those ideas from my mind, for now.

If all that Berry said about being an evolutive AI is true, she is really valuable. Selling her will give me a lot of money, the problem is that I will be unable to use it since I’ll probably be arrested, no one will believe me that I just found it. Aside from that, a subroutine linked to brainwaves is something that is normally done in order to hide important information, I don’t know how someone got a registry of my brainwaves, but I’m curious about what is it.

After a bit more of strolling and chatting, I return to the place I met with Sile. She greets me with a warm smile, “Hello young hero, ready to start your adventure?” Shay asks while looking at me.

“I’m ready to go on a journey.” I say with confidence.

Accepted quest: Bestowal of Power.

After speaking with Sile again, the quest automatically completes.

You have leveled up.

With the boost of experience I immediately reach lv 1. At the same time, a screen with all sort of weapons appears in front of me. All of them seems to be basic weapons of the lowest quality, but a gift is a gift. Since I have a good armor, I think that I should pick the weapon with the most damage per second (DPS) available, with that in mind I immediately pick a two handed sword.

Obtained Sealed Heroic Big Sword.

I open my inventory and then I proceed to equip the armor and the weapon, but before equipping the two handed sword I check its stats.

Compared with the Blue Iron set, the Sealed Heroic Big Sword is really, reaaaally weak. The armor immediately fits my body height, it’s a standard soldier armor with a bluish glow, nothing too fancy to be honest. However, the sword is another history. Not because is good looking, in fact, it’s just a plain two handed sword, the real remarkable thing about the sword is its size. The sword has a length of about 1.7 meters and a width of 15 centimeters… compared to my avatar’s height of just 1.3 meters and you have a really oversized sword.

I don’t have the slightest idea about swordplay, fortunately it seems that I don’t have restrictions with the size of the sword. I start swinging it in the air wildly, horizontal and vertical slashes. After a heavy slash, even if I want to, there’s a slight delay to make another slash. It’s a strange sensation of restriction, but it seems that it has something to do with my stats. “Oh, right, my stats.” I say and immediately open the status screen again.

“Competence, skill, and stat points… what’s this about?” I murmur softly and then while issuing a command a huge system window appears in front of me. This is the window to spend the competence points. “Holly crap…” I couldn’t help but yell in terror. Competence points lets you unlock skill trees to then use the skill points, it shouldn’t be a big deal, the problem is that there is a list of at least 400 skill trees. There are a lot of filters and a lot of skill trees have similar names, deciding what to pick will be really hard.

Each skill tree has around 10 unique skills that only belongs to that particular skill tree while having 20+ shared between similar trees, also the system help tells me that there are advanced skills that are only unlocked after certain skills, with a system like this you can customize your character as you wish, but the complexity is just to big!

“I have to think of some sort of combination suitable to play solo…” Just as I was pondering about what to do, Berry suddenly appears and flutters her wings at my side. “You done? That was pretty quick,” I say as I look at her while raising an eyebrow.

“Let’s say the server was very gentle with me,” Berry winks at me, “There are currently 473 players online, but all of them are in the upper floors, you won’t get help soon.” She says while glancing at me.

“Yeah, since the beginning I knew it was going to be like that,” I sigh helplessly, “The fact that someone gifted me this set of armor is already too much, I think…” I fold my arms and caress my chin, “I think that I’ll do some sort of healing swordsman to be able to hold on my own.”

“Sounds good, you will be able to beat the first bosses but after some levels you will not be able to have a decent balance between healing output, casting speed, attack speed, and attack power, not to mention defense,” Berry says with a strange confidence. “With the help of the server I did some simulations, have a look at this.” She says and then the system window of the skills trees appears in front of me, but this time some of the skill trees start to light up.

“Blacksmithing… Alchemy… Enchanter?” I stare disbelievingly, “Why would those skill trees help me in solo play? Aren’t they more fit for a support role?” I ask Berry.

“You are partially right,” Answers Berry, “Each skill tree individually is a support tree, but the tree together make the ultimate solo player.” She says and then hovers in front of me, “Very few of the upper players has a mixed roles, almost all of them are specialized DPS, Tanks, Healers, Buffers, and Ensnarers. With this build you will optimally have 75% of the damage output of a specialized DPS, 60% of the healing output of a specialized Healer, and 50% of the survival capabilities of a specialized Tank and of the support of a specialized Buffer. Unfortunately skill points are limited so you can’t go deep into the Poison Proficiency of the Alchemist tree to be an Ensnarer too.”

“Seems like you did your homework…” I stare at the hovering Berry with a grin on my face, “Since it’s like that, I’ll definitely trust you, where do I start?” I say while gripping the hilt of my sword.

Berry looks at me and grins too, “There’s a strategy that with the proper set up will let you go face the 10 first bosses in a row in less than 3 hours, in fact, if it takes you more than 3 hours the strategy fails, you can’t die a single time or all will go to waste, also since none of the first 10 bosses have been soloed you have to rely on your own reflexes and skills to beat them, want to give it a try?”

“I said, where do I start?” I look at her excitedly.

END OF CHAPTER 34.