Time had passed. An hour, or so. Cohm sat in silence. It was replaying the conversation in its head, over and over. Despite having only a day or so worth of memories, the mind had already formed several basic patterns. The clearest of these being a fierce, nearly paranoid view of self protection. Because of this, it was now taking hours to consider every aspect of a recording.

It still feels like their body language is clearly different. Dave is clearly ecstatic. I think he saw me exactly as he wanted to. Helpful. But the other one. I can’t tell. Maybe he’s afraid? He didn’t say anything, and it’d be odd to have suspicions and not test them.

A short beep went off in Cohm’s consciousness, followed by the return of the long silent system voice.

--Alert—

-Requested Time interval has now passed.-

Oh! Cohm broke the connection with the recording with a shock. Good thing I set that alarm. Didn’t think I’d lose track of time.

Fortunately enough, Cohm had also slowly been getting better at planning ahead. After more than one near miss and error in how it planned things, it realized that foresight would always be valuable. To that end, having a vague premonition about distraction, it had decided to only allot an hour to studying its past performance lest it get too completely absorbed and start spinning in circles mentally.

Cohm grumbled internally as it “shook off” the feeling. That was starting to become more frequent. The image of some sort of physical form. It didn’t give any real or false sensations, but the mind could not help but to imagine itself as having a form. It considered for a moment that maybe it was more genuinely glitched than its earlier confident assumptions.

Then the topic was dropped with extreme prejudice. Cohm’s third quirk, if it would acknowledge it, was a certain level of egotism. Deep inside it was very trusting of its own judgement and decision process. Spending time worrying about errors in its last move would suggest this not to be the case, but Cohm’s confidence was of the sense that it knew that IT did everything correctly, it just didn’t trust the humans from this project to respond as they were supposed to.

Anyways, I suppose I better get started.

And with that, Cohm brought up the tutorial menu once again. No play all option? Figures… and went down the line of documents one at a time. Most of them were shorter than the rules section

***Design Tutorial

The NOMAN system will expand its tool set by two methods. The first is collection/analysis. Any materials lost in the system or analyzed by the main tool set will be allowed to be Designed. Design will use Research Resource PROCESS. Amount of PROCESS dedicated to a design task will influence speed of progressive level upgrades. Observe Command maintains analysis options. For details on the second option select the Research tutorial option. PROCESS total will expand with total resource increase.

Cohm decided to continue going down the list, it would check all options before it would take any actions.

Would EXAMPLES kill them to add? No, gotta keep the purity of the system.

-Alert-

-Completion Alert. NOMAN system has unlocked following: Material – synthetic fiber. Material – Stone. Material – Wooden. Option – Observe - Analysis.

And in the upper right of the ‘view’, a new item was added

RESOURCE PROCESS – 20/20 Points (RSP)

Hmmmmm….Well, I have something I can test it on right away.

OBSERVE –

Remote view

Analysis

Statistics

Statistics? Cohm thought about checking the unfamiliar option first, but decided to stick with its current focus. It instead selected Analysis.

The view switched back to the overhead ‘map’ view. Cohm’s suspicions turned out to be right. There were two objects highlighted in a green color, the small table and the communication phone that were left behind. Strangely, the Core itself was highlighted in red. A premonition of pain kept that from being followed up on, and instead the item selected was the phone.

A pop up box opened when the phone was focused on.

-Object Selection-

-Phone (touch screen, no battery, no operating system, 1 application) selected. ??? can be learned. ??? Can be learned. ??? Can be designed. ??? Can be utilized. Stage 0 of 4. Progress bar – Stage 1 0%. ETA – 1 hr/RSP.

Cohm sighed. It had a pretty good idea of what it was looking at, but there was so much to fish through. At the least, the observation seemed capable of determining a lot about the items selected, and analysis would be progressive. For a moment it considered dumping all the points into this first option for maximum speed, but stopped itself. Even if that would bring the time cost down to 3 minutes for the first stage, there were unanswered questions. It wasn’t sure if the points would become locked in, or if they would be expended as a finite resource rather than an allocation. It was sure that in that case they could be earned back, but it was no sense to close off an option while there was so much more for it to look up first.

Satisfied with that calculation, it instead only added 5 RSP to the menu. A pop up menu optioned in Observe. In it Cohm observed the message showing:

Phone – 5 RSP. Progress bar – Stage 1 1%. ETA – 11.8 minutes (1 hr/RSP).

Cohm then turned to the next information panel.

***Build Instruction

NOMAN System can build geography and items within specific bounds. First, there must be a selection of Stage type. The system will be provided with 2 randomly selected (Oh come on with this blind pick crap!, snarled the core) stages to use from the start. Stage unlocking is a function of focus in Research, new stages unlocking when enough features exist that can be used effectively. Stage Rules will be shown in selection.

Building and construction requires two resources. CONSTRUCT refers to the constructors dedicated to a build. Constructor number determines speed of building, modified by size and material of construction. RESOURCE refers to the active usage of the stage. Active devices, energetic defenses, and specialized triggers require RESOURCE to be dedicated. Modified by the size and type of stage and grown with overall Build Level.

Alert-

-Completion Alert. NOMAN system has unlocked following: Build : Wall, False Wall, False Opening, Lever, Link, Trap Category, Drone Category, Shape Choice. Level Type Unlocked: Cave, Underground Lake.

And the Resources appeared under RSP. CONSTRUCTOR TOTAL : 45/45(CON) and RESOURCE CONTROL: 20/20 POINTS (RC)

With a mental shrug, Cohm gave the unclear sections a few quick looks. The build options were mostly just the ability to adjust shapes and room size. The CON cost was low, usually only 3/min/Cubic Meter, so building could be done pretty rapidly. It was also glad to see that the build could be queued up, dedicating a max allowed CON to progressively build larger shapes. Cohm had been certain that the way the system was built it would have had to set this up on its own or keep going back to set the next section of a room, both of which felt very time consuming. It noted again that maybe it was getting a negative outlook.

Trap and Drone seemed more interesting. They were heavily locked at the moment with icons that suggested that Research was needed, but they fell into clear categories. Trap referred to any feature of the course that required action or maintenance other than simply existing. If Cohm wanted to make a deep pit filled with spikes, that would be simple Construction. But if it wished to put a trap door over it, or refresh any sort of camoflague, or perhaps add something more destructively energetic like motion or a type of hazardous condition, that would fall under Traps.

Drones were more heavily locked out so the estimate was harder to make, but it appeared to refer to moving entities within the course. At the moment, Cohm noted that if it wished to make a drone that was more than just a moving stone that blocked the path, it would need a lot more options opened. It filed Drone away under “interesting but not necessarily useful”.

***Resource Gain

--The system will be allocated resources as it succeeds at tasks. The method of success will determine reward provided. The Goal section of the menu will record found goals and provided unlocks. The system will have complete freedom in choice of how to expand options.

There was nothing added with that update. Cohm suspected it was because it had gone through most of the earlier tutorials, leaving nothing in the starting options to unlock as a demonstration. It checked the Goals Field

**Goals completed: 3 out of ???

First Steps: Rules

First Steps: Design

First Steps: Build

Since it remembered what it had earned from each step, it did not bother to review the sub menus. But it did give a small nod. Can’t hurt to keep track of how things go. It is very possible that patterns will emerge.

Finally it selected the Research tutorial.

Having already covered the first method of creating new options, this will go on to demonstrate how the second method works. The system is set to assume that the builder will wish to explore options of their own. The way to process this is to design on a Tech Tree. Items and actions will unlock tech trees, that can also be provided with PROCESS resource. Tech trees will contain material, tools, and Options.

PROCESS Total will expand with total resource increase.

Alert-

-Completion Alert. NOMAN system has unlocked following: Main option – Research. No current tech trees available.

Cohm felt a moment of frustration once again. But before it had more time to express this, a new notification popped up.

-Alert-

Observation complete. Phone has unlocked Material - Plastic

Phone – 5 RSP. Progress bar – Stage 2 0%. ETA – 25 minutes (1.6 hr/RSP).

-Alert-

Material – Plastic and Material – synthetic fiber has created a tech tree. Tech – Material Modification Available.

Wait…was that planned? They left me the phone, after all. After all this obsession oer not interfering? …. Though honestly it doesn’t matter.

Research

Modification – Materials

Material Modification: Focus on artificial material creation has allowed the research of using material chemical composition in order to create new types of construction material as well as adjusting existing materials with new factors

Stage 1 Research options: Plastic modification, Hardness Research, Conductivity, Flexible Material

Ok, so that goes pretty broad after all. Cohm found itself once again nodding approvingly of an option. It appeared to it that Tech Trees, rather than just creating new materials, would instead be used to unlock options to change existing works. However, the cost was very high in RSP. It would take 20 hours if set with 5 RSP. Opportunity cost, is it? They want to see how I decide to spread my options in this shorter time frame. Let’s put this aside and see how other things move first.

Cohm thought over what it had read, taking some time to consider what it now knew. The system was clearly self contained, intended to exist as an ongoing, ever growing option. Even the Constructor Field was able to grow slowly, if the system continued to advance In complexity, it seemed. Honestly, it fits together pretty well. I pretty sure the Not-Words said that this was modeled after some sort of motivation exercise? I can’t argue that I’m very curious on how to change and modify choices. Maybe if I ever can talk to them directly, I can share thoughts with them. It couldn’t hurt.

Cohm looked up and down at the surrounding cav- room, rather. This was far too small to even resemble the simplest of caves. Well, it’s time to fix that. I have a lot to do, and only….10 hours and 10 minutes to do it. And I think it’s time to lower the bluff a little. They wanted an expert at design, and I’ll show them my own way forward.

It selected the BUILD option. And started by dedicating all the CON work to carving a path backwards, away from the entrance. 3 meters square, it was carving a path at a rate of 5 meters a minute. Cave seems to be the default Stage, I’ll leave that as is. First, we make the path. Then we fill the path. And then we see what happens.

--System Message—

-Goal Achieved. First Construction: alter at least 9 cubic meters of path. Unlocked: Material: dirt-

-Dirt: loose soil and ground. No hardness, cannot be used as wall. Does not hold shape. Material may be useless.-

Oh shut up! Cohm snapped at the message.