Being the avid gamer that he was, Carl had a clear grasp of the significance of his discovery.

Immortal Frontier was an approaching supernova, with its official launch date just around the corner. Despite being a mere source of entertainment, it was going to change the social landscape of the whole world, everyone knew it. It was a colossal undertaking, hotly anticipated for years, and many other virtual products were already facing financial repercussions. Some of them were even preparing for an untimely demise.

The thing was, it was going to be an RCE, a real cash economy. Cybercore staff, as well as anyone who worked with them, like beta testers, and most notably – Jin's lab team, were under strict NDA agreements, and they were all prohibited from playing the game in a private capacity. They would only ever be allowed to enjoy Immortal Frontier on public accounts, when role-playing in community events.

The process of development was even compartmentalized in order to minimize the amount of people with comprehensive knowledge of the game, because internal leaks were always a factor – and the money involved was simply too big.

Yet here was Carl, a minor who could not legally enter into contracts, given access to some juicy secrets. It seemed Jin had just committed a major fopaux …

As soon as he realized that, Carl was immediately torn.

“Oh man … do I take a peek? Jin might not be happy about that …”

It went without saying, that intimate familiarization with maps and monsters in the game would be a tremendous asset. The players, especially organized ones, like guilds and other associations, were going to expend a ton of their hard earned wealth for scouting and research. While the various enemies were bound to have strengths and weaknesses, the lay of the land would reveal dangers and opportunities alike. Such information could sell for a fortune.

Carl sighed, calming himself down. He then smiled wistfully.

“System, call Jin.”

The temptation might have been strong, but Carl didn't really care about money any more. He let it motivate him for far too long already. Now, he just wanted to enter a glorious battlefield.

“Hey, what's up? Are you in trouble? Wait, woah! How?! 273 runs?!” Jin shouted in disbelief, stumping Carl a little bit.

“Hehe, yeah. I really want to kill it at least once.”

“With a combat knife?! Didn't you see all the overpowered weapons? I told you to take it easy and relax, you know your health isn't up to par!” Jin chastised.

“Oh come one, Jin, I'm having the time of my life! This is pure, unadulterated fun, and you want me to put brakes on?”

“… Are you … for real?” Jin was speechless.

“Yeah, listen. I see maps here and enemies. Can I try those?”

“Oh, that, err … I guess I should have locked those as well … you're a good man, Carl.”

“Bummer …” Carl was dejected.

“Well, the maps are random and unrelated, so there would probably be no harm in showing you, but an NDA doesn't care, so let's not test our luck. And although the enemies are mostly generic, I think Cybercore will put many of them in Immortal Frontier, so that's a no-no as well. But it should be fine if you play with all the futuristic weapons, as there's no way they'll be implemented into a fantasy setting. They're likely a part of another project, whether ongoing or dropped, though I haven't heard anything about that. Maybe they just put them here because they could. Still, as we agreed, keep everything a secret, okay?”

“Sure, I already said I would. Don't worry, Jin. Just tell me, are there any monsters scarier that the lion? I mean actual nightmares.”

“… You're a lunatic, Carl, you know that?”

The boy merely grinned from ear to ear.

“I would say it's more about the ambience, a hair-raising lead-up to a terrifying encounter. I can see why what you're doing now is pure fun for you. But I'm also convinced we could craft an experience that would spook the living daylights out of you,” Jin smiled with confidence.

“Sounds awesome! Sign me up!” Carl jumped for joy.

“Haha, not so fast. I'm only telling you of what's theoretically feasible. You know how much work that would take?”

Carl deflated right away. So much for pushing his boundaries of fear …

“But don't fret, kiddo. Maybe I'll be able to pull some strings and up your challenge,” Jin consoled.

“I'm going to hold you by this word!” Carl cheered up, making Jin regret giving such a tall promise. “Alright then, is there a way to move my respawn point closer to the lion? Like 10 meters away? I want to fight in on flat land.”

“Yes, that's easy. Player spawn is in map defaults. There, done. Oh … you want to go even faster … ?” Jin hesitated.

“I feel amazing, it doesn't bother me at all, so you can rest easy,” Carl assured. “And I really want to take full advantage of the remaining time, because I might not get another opportunity like that if your supervisor gets angry at you for bringing me here. I'm so close to taking that lion down, I just need to find a weakness, an opportunity, something …”

“Heh, you're quite something, Carl Hart. You should rather be called Charles Lion-Hart!” Jin laughed. “Ehh, that's a poor pun …”

“I like it,” Carl approved with a smile, “thanks. Controls! Restart!”

Instantly, he appeared at the bottom of the hill, 10 meters away from his would-be prey, as he wished. The beast was momentarily startled and jumped back with a fright.

“Woah, this AI …”

Carl didn't rush this time, instead he concealed the armed hand, trying to appear non-threatening and waiting for the lion to approach him instead. This, however, didn't happen, as the feline only kept eyeing him warily.

“Did it see me hiding the knife? No way …”

As he made a few careful steps towards it, the threatening growling and snarling began once again.

“Hmm, maybe I just need to intimidate it a little, so it holds back long enough for me to injure it …”

The last few meters Carl suddenly sprinted, and the lion, as if activating fight-or-flight mechanisms, stamped its forepaws into the ground heavily … but it didn't choose to run away. A fraction of a second later it exploded forward, jumping on Carl with massive momentum. Although he managed to sink the blade all the way to the hilt as a result, he also failed to protect his head. He couldn't even verify if the stab was lethal, before his vision darkened and he was once more standing 10 meters away, alarming his adversary of an unexpected intruder.

“Controls! Pause! Hey, Jin?”

“Still here.”

“What's up with that AI? I've hear they advanced it a lot, but this is just … ridiculous!”

“I know, right?” Jin agreed wholeheartedly. “Cybercore pride themselves on their work. Instead of going for easy profit, like everyone else in the industry, they really push for long term benefits. They're a bunch of passionate fanatics, and it shows in their products. But man, they really do have deep pockets to allow themselves such luxury. Out of their three quantum supercomputers, two are dedicated to machine learning – one for their research projects, and one whole gigantic system just for Immortal Frontier. They say it'll never be used for anything else for as long as the game is live. I've read somewhere, that they had supposedly run something like a quintillion years worth of evolution for the game's lore. Those numbers are surely inflated for the purpose of PR, but such magnitude tells a clear tale. They've invested into full realism and are willing to die on that hill. Which won't happen – I mean, you've seen their product yourself, and you're a professional gamer, so you know better than me.”

“Semi-professional, and I 'was', past tense,” Carl interjected.

“Heh, many pros would be glad with the kind of money you say you've made so far,” Jin jabbed. He was still an undergraduate intern, and although he was paid normal wages, it was much less than what Carl made at his peak, so some envy was inevitable.

“Yea, but that was only because I tapped into Ethereal Empire just as it boomed. With Immortal Frontier coming out, my career is pretty much over, while yours in only beginning to blossom,” the boy appeased.

“Anyway, such quality is nowhere to be found, so it's bound to pay them back with dividends,” Jin continued. “All the hype around it is evidence of how the community hungers for this level of appreciation. It looks like the story has made a full circle – quality lost out to quantity a century ago, and now people are so fed up with cheap crap, that they're willing to pay an arm and a leg for a rich and profound experience. Of course, the jury isn't out for this case yet, we'll still have to wait and see. But if I had any spare funds, I'd put them all into Cybercore stock and sleep easy.”

“That's all well and good, but how can a program imitate every nuance of natural behavior so well? Because this is uncanny! I understand that's the result of decades of hard work, but every other game I've seen was only chasing shadows in retrospect. How exactly did Cybercore do that?” Carl expressed his fascination.

“Well, that's quite straight-forward,” Jin explained. “Everything you see here, the AI has also seen before. It was first fed an inordinate amount or raw data from recordings, with human operators initially marking patterns for it to speed up the process, and then it continued extrapolating on its own. A team of experts from various fields were constantly monitoring its progress, ceaselessly cutting off dead end threads and prioritizing the promising ones. If I were to make a guess, that's probably where the crux of the matter lies. Cybercore likely had an entire department working on it for years. I wouldn't be surprised if their salaries cost ten times as much as the supercomputer. Who can afford that on a market, where a thousand new products appear every day? It's standard practice to only do the bare minimum. You'll lose 90% of potential customers, but you'll also cut the costs a hundredfold. Economy rules, and it takes visionaries to swim against the current, because only they are willing to play such daring gambits.”

“Man, this game is gonna be so awesome …” Carl daydreamed, looking forward with anticipation.

“Yes, well, I won't be allowed to play it, unfortunately. Though I don't really care that much, these thrills are not for me. And it's strictly for mature audience, so you'll have to wait a bit. Sorry,” Jin burst his bubble.

Carl sighed.

“Lets hope your superiors don't get mad. Do you think there's a chance they'll let me return?”

“I'll be frank with you, Carl. Your reaction is something we've been looking for all this time, but have never seen before in this lab. It's a secret our principals have commissioned us to explore, working under the guise of special forces training. It's related to funding, which would otherwise not be approved in the current political and social climate. I don't regret bringing you here in the least, Carl. In fact, it was an excellent decision, one I'm sure they'll agree with. The only question is, whether their scientific curiosity will outweigh their fear of legal ramifications or not.”

“Really?” Carl jumped for joy. “Well, one more secret won't hurt, right?” he winked.

“Haha, I wouldn't mind it, but we'll have to see what they think. Well, maybe … you could impress them even more with another performance? I'll leave that up to you. Like I said, don't push yourself too hard.”

“No worries. Thanks for the heads up, and for everything. I won't let you down!” Carl balled up his fists. “Controls! Resume!”

He still had three hours, and he was determined on the path he needed to take now.

“I will succeed! I will show you what true domination looks like!”

He began jumping on the startled lion in a berserk rage, over and over, provoking some rarely seen defensive responses. After all, the lion wasn't just an apex predator, but a keystone predator – one without natural enemies.

An average fight now lasted barely more than ten seconds, and despite gaining some new openings, it became even harder to inflict severe wounds on a guarded opponent.

By the time eight in the evening approached, Carl was mentally exhausted. He had exceeded 1 000 attempts in total.

Not a single one successful …