Jack sat on his hindlegs and practiced.

Through the use of an immense amount of skills like “Mana Overflow” and “Four Heavenly Beasts QiGong”, his mana capacity could be increased four thousand times.

The world around him twisted and twirled. Rocks turned into dust, and this dust turned into fairy dust. The skies and ocean above were sucked bellow, as if a mystical door had been opened.

Jack was at the extremity of the world. Further as he could be from either the Goblin Empire and the Demon Kingdom, in a region collectively known as the “Thousand Small Kingdoms”.

It was unfortunate for the young rulers of those kingdoms for Jack to be doing that kind of thing near their home turfs - as severe changes in climate and terrain were bound to happen - but it was a need.

[- Uurgh…. Consolidate.]

Jack muttered, while accessing the General Administration Panel. It was the highest credential possible. Or at least the highest anyone had ever accessed in Another World.

Jack wasn’t a programmer and, specially, he wasn’t one of the people who had programmed Another World to be as it was. He didn’t know the intricacies of the business. But he did know that, the higher in the chain of command one was, the higher another would have to climb to undo what they had done. It would require for the deep code meddling to be much more complex, involving hacking into higher permissions with brute force of mind.

His max mana, his max health, his race, his stats, his skills and skill retention, his fairy dust absorption rate and his system permissions. Jack had reinforced everything as much as possible, in order to avoid external influence.

He may be lazy, but not a fool. His thirty years of grinding and his joy of having a family to take care of. His brain had developed the needed endurance, and his personality had changed a tad enough for him to do at least what was important. So, all the status’ and so on from the people around him had been locked in place in the default position. He would have maxed everything out if it was possible, but it wasn’t. Even the General Administrator could, at best, temporally decrease one’s skills and statuses by a certain amount, change their race, add or remove game elements and other small changes. Back at the Squeam Headquarters, on maintenance days, Shabe himself would unlock features such as adding or removing skills and skill trees, massively increasing or decreasing player’s statuses and so on.

That said, one could be sure that Jack had, possibly, the best protection possible - even against neuromancers. However, being late is better than being sorry. Trouble had come from him, and Marcus probably wouldn’t settle until he had what he wanted. Jack felt that he needed to go deeper. Or at least try to.

And to do so, he needed to cheat a little.

The “Consolidate” command changed one’s statuses and skills to a “frozen” state. This way, Jack could remain on his highest mana state - as well as his state with the maximum number of skills and buffs possible. However, that was for everything. His exp points, as well as his skill mastery levels and his Health would not budge, even if he grinded a lot or if his body suffered damage.

That, however, was a danger in itself - since his regeneration skills wouldn’t trigger and his body would keep getting damaged until death.

Infinite mana, but with the dangers of a broken gameplay. This kind of command wasn’t meant to be used to play, in the first place. It was supposed to be used for testing and to write bug reports.

Jack concentrated. His mind-brain connection was as strong as it would get without centuries and centuries of Main Level grinding.

He concentrated and looked beyond the General Administrator panel. It was like looking above while using VR googles. However, it brought a huge pressure upon him.

Deep Code meddling could be done by forcefully inserting one’s conscientiousness into the Deep Code and changing it. However, with an Employee Account, like Jack’s, he could rightfully access the moderation and administration permissions and find a way to change the world without being considered a “bug”. The auto-repair system wouldn’t try to undo what he did, as long as it was something the in-game employee panel he had accessed permitted.

Now, his objective was to go higher.

Administrators, Moderators, NPC Employees. All were of the same “batch” in the company hierarchy - people with access to the limited employee interface besides the user interface.

Mods were in charge of overseeing gameplay and employee NPC’s, as well as player and bug reports. Admins were in charge of receiving the filtered bug and player reports from the Mods and acting accordingly.

If it was a bug, then they had to analyze the player logs and try to reproduce it, usually by spawning a temporary employee account with the needed specifics and then proceeding to assign a Mod to get his own neuroset and try to reproduce the bug.

No one knew exactly why the admins couldn’t just change the skill values on other accounts, instead of having to spawn temporary account. However, they did have a certain power over player accounts - they could change their race, age, equipped items and possessed items or temporally decrease their statuses by a maximum of 30, and their skills by a maximum of 10 each skill.

The changes in race and age were something people would receive the benefit of asking for once their monthly automated psychological evaluation asserted that they could do so. Many people wanted to play with non-human races but couldn’t due to addiction issues.

So, this existed in order for the Admins to be able to deal with the matter.

As for the changes in equipped and possessed items, as well as the decrease in statuses and skills, those were meant to be part of a punishment and reward system. Players who had been reported to the mods and indeed deserved punishment could be punished by losing stats, items or skills. As for those who should receive rewards, those would come in the form of items.

Then came the mods and admin’s permissions to change terrain, spawn NPC’s and monsters and so on. As long as they weren’t special items or too large pieces of terrain, mods and admins were free to do so, being able to change the environment to their will. Indeed, it was a must, since the level and game design were on the hands of the admins, after all.

Still, the most fearsome permission an Admin could have would be, of course, the one to ask for a player to be banned - either temporally or permanently - from the servers.

The request would then be processed by a higher-permission A.I. and the player could then be banned. It was rare, as only blatant cheating would be recognized and lead to banishment, but for those in Another World who wanted to play gods as neuromancers, it was something to look for. Mending and patching the deep code would leave scars which would become part of the game logs, and that could lead to someone simply loosing everything.

No one knew exactly what happened to those banished from the game, as only fewer than few had been so long - and all of those cases had happened at the Demon Kingdom. But it shouldn’t be something good.

However, was there something beyond the General Admin permissions? Obviously, there was. The very existence of higher permissions during maintenance sessions, as well as the player-ban A.I., were proof of such.

Jack began to see something. It seemed like raw code. Something like a DOS prompt. There WAS something beyond the General Administrator Interface!

However, at that moment, something shook.

Jack felt as if he was being observed by a titan. As if the sun had created eyes and decided to pry into the depths of his existence.

Everything seemed to be analyzing him. The rocks, the air, the clouds. It was as if god itself had merged with space and time to judge him.

Jack stopped looking above. The feeling disappeared, but the fear remained. He hadn’t felt any kind of fear in years - his fear resistance skills were maxed out.

Still, this time, it was a fear that came from the mind, and not from the brain. It was a logical, cold and totally mental fear - one that surpassed mere reflex reactions from the brain. As if it was a thought, a thought of fear, and not a bodily reaction.

Jack smiled a bit, as he felt that he had messed with something he shouldn’t have. It was as if he could see the world looking at him - not as intensely as before, and not intentionally, but, still, he could feel how the world itself seemed to have a consciousness.

[- Is this…. Shabe’s Consciousness? No… Samantha!]

Jack looked above again, and that feeling returned.

[- Boss Samantha?]

The feeling intensified. He felt as if he was useless. As if he was nothing. Did that mean he was right?

Jack swallowed his saliva. He had to try.

[- Boss Samantha, can you give me higher permissions?]

A feeling of amusement permeated the air, and a clear notion of being denied infiltrated his body.

It hurt in many levels, as free of malice as it was. The world itself denied him. Due to a thought, his whole being had been denied in consequence. His mental resistance skills were needed. Dearly needed. This time, his brain had been damaged, he was sure of it.

[- Thank you, sorry for the trouble! Dissolve!] - The Dragon King hurriedly said, while deactivating the “Consolidate” command with its counterpart, the “Dissolve” command.

His Mental Resistance and Auto-Healing skills kicked in, and Jack’s brain begun auto-repairing itself. At the same time, he lightly touched his face.

His eyes, mouth, ears, nose. All were bloodied and broken, as if his skin had been thoroughly dried and his flesh expanded many times, ripping itself apart.

Not only that, his internal organs had plenty of tears and bruises, and many of his bones had been reduced to fine powder.

[- Shieet. That was… phew… “Couple Telephone”] - “Couple Telephone”. A special item from the “Premium Marriage Pack”. It created a direct connection between those married.

The most interesting thing was its retro design - an old 60´s beige telephone. Jack dialed the numbers on the telephone wheel and connected to Elicia.

[- Hey, Babe. Remember how we didn’t knew what happened to the big boss?]