Please Note: Statements between % something in italics % are game system messages.

Authors Note: Apologies for delay. It has not been a good month. Hope you still enjoy the chapter. It hasn't been edited yet so will be doing that later.

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"Aaaaaaah!"

A blood curdling scream rang out in a small room of a nondescript apartment at a fairly populous neighborhood. Yet, the scream did not escape the walls. The populace remained blissfully unaware and went on with their puny lives.

"I still can't see anything..." A guy said out loud as he banged his hand on his desk.

He sighed. "One more time..." And he pulled the video to the last scene, just before his death. "Time to go frame by frame..." as he rewound his death just one more time.

This was Swamy and he was watching this game video with hawkish eyes, trying to put together the last moments. Like a crash site investigator, he was looking at the wreckage to determine how the incident happened.

The game video was the black box.

The problem was that he couldn't see anything relevant. 'Still nothing. After the confusion status, I don't even see my Life bar. Is that a clue? But what does it mean?'

This death, like the status message, was utterly confusing. Swamy couldn't be sure whether he was attacked or poisoned or had faced a gravitational anomaly. Heck, if he were targeted by aliens, he couldn't know as everything after the confusion status message was totally confusing, out of whack so as to say.

There was the sky turning upside down and then there was death. 'Still nothing. No signs of any animals, in fact looking at the trees, there is not even wind. Looks like everything after the confusion status message cannot be trusted.' Swamy sighed.

The game video, or rather the recording of the game play was taken in first person perspective. So it recorded what Raka saw. Whatever he saw! If he was confused, it did not record the actual image which should have been in front of him, instead it recorded the same things he saw. Sky and earth upside down!

How could he even look for clues!

Swamy sighed. "This is useless!"

"TV, Off!" He said. He unhooked his laptop from his TV. The bigger screen hadn't helped things at all. And then he went to bed.

For the next 24 hours, he was on vacation so as to say.

The next morning began as usual. He got dressed and got to college. Everyone had kinda got used to the classes by now so there was far more chattering.

"Hey, did you see...."

"Oh...do you know..."

"Oh...that was so ridiculous..."

"................"

Swamy sighed. It was high school all over again except perhaps in a university setting. Something on the lines of those gaudy American shows which presented a glamorous scandalous college life.

"Hey Swamy..." Rajan came up.

"Hey...where's Sneha?" He asked.

Rajan simply shook his head. "We got into a fight last night....now she's avoiding me. I can't understand women dude!"

'Me neither. On that subject, I don't understand you either...' but what came out of his mouth was "Yeah, women sure are a mystery." And Swamy shook his head as well.

""Hey guys"" Both Himali and Manish came up at that time.

"Hey," Swamy greeted.

"Hey..." came Rajan's greeting which sounded a bit down.

"Now don't expect sympathy from me. You know you were at fault here, don't you?" Himali simply replied. As expected Sneha had shared her 'troubles'. "Ah there she is." And she turned around and walked over to greet Sneha, who had just entered. The two girls found some seats away from us guys.

"I feel you, dude. These things happen. The thing is let things settle down on their own. Oh and apologies work too. And don't even wonder whether you are right. You will find out that doesn't really matter...." Manish added his part.

"But did I do something that wrong? It's just that I lost track of what she was talking about for a bit. I mean we had already been on the phone for an hour...wouldn't anyone lose track?!" Rajan complained.

"I feel you dude. As I said, don't mind it too much. These things happen. It's just some girls take it as being funny and others get upset. Can't blame yourself for that...." Manish said.

"Yeah...and then...."

"Hmm....guess it will fine....."

"blah blah blah..."

"blah blah blah..."

Swamy looked at the heavens and sighed. 'Take me...just take me...or rather take them!'

Thankfully by lunchtime, the talk had turned to the game. And a sort of temporary truce had been established. Sneha sat between Swamy and Himali, instead of her usual seat next to Rajan. Not that Swamy cared.

"Hey, I heard another group of players from Khardoum are making their way to the dwarvish lands. They are joining Suzaku's ship. Heard Thadian's part of the group. He's the top player in Khardoum." Rajan said.

"Guess the people from Khardoum got lucky. It is still so far for us. Our guild's been investing money and converting it into gold. Hopefully, we will have enough soon." Himali said.

"Yeah, that's a good idea." Sneha said.

"So what are you aiming for? A ship or going straight to buy a guild office?" Rajan asked.

"Hmm...initially we were trying to save enough for a guild office. But after Raka/Swamy's videos got uploaded, we have changed our mind. Now we want to aim for a ship. Oh don't worry, we didn't tell them we knew Raka in real life." Manish smiled.

"Yeah...what are you up to bro. Tell us how is the island of the dwarves? People who started there have put in some videos but there are so few of them." Rajan said.

"Yeah..I am kinda interested too." Sneha said.

"Yes, yes do tell us. How do the dwarves look like? Oh and what's different?" Himali was interested.

"Yeah, atleast you would have a much more interesting experience than those new starters." Manish said.

Swamy thought for a while and then started explaining things. For the next few minutes, his was the only voice on the table. Even in some of the surrounding tables. Eavesdropping was a source of great many gossip, after all. How could they not have mastered it!

A sudden announcement was made during the afternoon classes.

Prof. D'souza interrupted the regular class and said.

"After much deliberation, we have decided to make some changes to the course structure. Including your normal lectures, we are also starting a guest lecture series. The practice of inviting academic guests to speak has been prevalent in many departments of the university, however, it is a first for the virtual reality department." He spoke as looked around.

Swamy felt excited by it. If it was to be the same as what they did in the other courses, then the guest lecturers would be highly successful individuals from both academics and industry. 'Such as the creators of Long Island...' Swamy hoped.

"We had tried to add this into our curriculum many times in the past but we were unsuccessful. As you know, virtual reality has become mainstream now, yet just ten years previously, the people who worked and researched virtual reality were quite few in number. They were located all around the world and as such asking them to speak to us would become just a one time thing. In India, virtual reality research has only recently gained prominence.

But now, we feel that we can finally begin this guest lecture series and have a guest lecture, at least once every week. The details are still being deliberated but the first lecture has been decided and will be held tomorrow in place of the afternoon classes. This guest lecture is open for students of all years and will be conducted in the auditorium. I hope that all of you will take advantage of this unique opportunity." Prof. D'souza smiled.

"Well, I would like to keep the name of the one coming tomorrow as a surprise but I will tell you what he or she will be talking about. Skills Transference." He added.

Instantly, everyone started talking ten to the dozen.

"Hey hey...did I hear it right? It's skills transference right?" Swamy asked excitedly. Considering he was the quiet one of the group, being this excited was quite a first for him.

"Yeah...that's what he said. This is too exciting! No one can miss this." Rajan said.

"Um..what is skills transference?" Swamy instantly turned around as the voice reached his ears. And he was not the only one. Rajan and Manish on the same row also turned around to look at the guy who sat behind them. Even the guy's two neighbors started staring at him. Maybe all of them were wondering, where had this unique piece of man flesh come from. How could one not have heard of Skills Transference if he played any kind of virtual reality game!

"Dude...how did you end up in the virtual reality program?" The guy's neighbor was shaking his head.

"Come on...is it that odd not knowing?" Being stared at by so many eyes, the guy turned pitiful.

Finally, Swamy took pity on him and started explaining.

"Skills Transference is the general term used to describe the transfer of skills learned from real life to the game and vice versa." Swamy gave a to the point answer.

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24 hours passed in the blink of an eye. Time passes faster when you have something to do. Like going to school, attending class, completing assignments, hanging out with friends, etc. And yet, when you finally reach that last minute, you start looking at the clock counting seconds.

"5...4....3....2...1...Login.."

Raka appeared in the same place as when he died. Just this time, the sky and the earth were normal.

Raka sighed. 'Normal is good.'

He had screwed his head over and over but he had come up with nothing. Ofcourse, he had his suspicions. He had researched on the type of things which could interfere with a person's brain. The kinds of external stimuli which would cause similar effects.

Most prominently among them were smells.

'Maybe I smelled something by accident before...' There are many kinds of scents and fragrances designed to manipulate the senses. The natural kingdom used smell to an extraordinary degree to communicate all kinds of things, from attraction to enmity to even dominance. They even used it to hunt. In the natural world, the stronger you are, the smellier you are.

There could be effects which would be hallucinatory in nature as well.

Raka wetted his sleeve and covered his nose and mouth. But this was only a temporary measure. 'I need to get out of here.'

He stepped forward cautiously, looking all around just in case. Smell was just the top of his list. The next on the list was some kind of magical attack which somehow affects the brain and causes high damage. 'Though if there were such a creature, it definitely couldn't be classified as harmless.'

He still remembered Kilthan's words as he explained that there were no dangerous animals in the forest. 'Now either Kilthan was making a fool out of me or there is another explanation.' Which brought him back to the first item on his list. Smells.

Raka carefully covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve, taking notice of any kind of odd scents and fragrances. Only this was the forest. 'Damn..now that I notice it, there are too many smells! I can't make one out of the other...I am not a dog!' He grimaced.

And then,

%

Confusion! Your mental state has changed to confused. The effect will last 30 seconds.

%

"Shit! Not again!" Raka groaned. But this time the sky and earth did not change places. Just another unbelievable sight took their place.

"What the hell! Is this really a HUMONGOUS NINE TAILED FOX!!!! AAAAAH..!" Raka screamed as the humongous nine tailed fox opened its humongous mouth and took a humongous bite off him.

%

You have died. As penalty, you will not be able to log in for 24 hours.

%

"GODDAMIT!! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!!"

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A blood curdling scream rang out once again in this small nondescript apartment, which looked exactly like the other several thousand of its kind. And once again, it was completely and utterly ignored. Perhaps a murder would happen yet people would not wake up from their slumber.

"Must be some dog or cat wailing....go back to sleep..." would have perhaps summed it up.

And yet the person doing the yelling was not actually murdering someone. Except perhaps a few hair which might have tragically lost their roots. Considering the number still remaining, he was in no danger of going bald anytime soon.

"Damn! Double damn! I hate this confusion thing. Now I don't know whether that huge fox was real or imaginary!" Raka muttered as he looked at his last moments, again. He was feeling a mix of emotions at this moment. Primarily among them were anger and sadness.

This was not the first time he had died. And yet, it was the first time, he had died in such close succession. 'And to make matters worse, I still don't know how I died! Ah...my stats!'

Swamy was extremely depressed. It was not like he had many stat points in the first place. But some stats only had 1 point. 'Dying twice, did they become 0? Or went into negative? Did the stat disappear altogether?' All kinds of increasingly annoying questions wove circles in his head making him feel even more depressed.

Who knows when he finally fell asleep or if.

The next day began as usual with the beep beeping of the alarm.

Swamy yawned loudly. 'I am sooooo sleepy. Should I miss the morning class...someone or the other would take notes..' And he closed his eyes.

Five minutes later, he opened his eyes again. "No no that will never happen...I can't sleep like this..." And he hurriedly got dressed.

And yet, he dozed off much of the morning. In his own world, he did not realize just how many eyes were looking at him strangely. No, it had nothing to do with the game.

"Hey Swamy, wake up please. If you fall asleep and I fall asleep....I will probably fail." Rajan whispered from the next seat. Having such a sleepy neighbor, which sane person could stay conscious. Not to mention, staying awake was already a chore for some.

Lunch passed in a daze. Most students were eagerly waiting for the guest lecture. Some of the social kind even started to discuss who might actually show up. There were not many people who were involved in Skills Transference research.

Every single person who had read about or knew about or played any sort of virtual reality game, had at one time thought about it. If he could learn to do something in the game, why couldn't he do it in real life. Like become Bruce Lee! Ofcourse, that was in the realm of fantasy. But some things could really be considered, like the skill to swim. If you learnt swimming in the game, couldn't you swim in real life?

The moment soon arrived. Prof. D'souza provided the opening.

"Hello people! There seems to be many excited faces today...well in that case let's not waste any time. Please welcome Dr. Srinivas Ramanujan, a leading researcher in the field of Psychoanalysis, Behaviourism and Skills Transference. He is also one of the few Indians who have pioneered research in this field. He is currently part of the Solocine Institute of Virtual Research in Stockholm. Dr. Ramanujan is also a guest lecturer at the University of California, Moscow State University, The University of Tokyo, University of Delhi and now the University of Bangalore. So without further ado, please welcome Dr. Ramanujan..."

As Prof. D'souza finished his words, a middle aged person dressed efficiently in a formal shirt and pants came out from the side of the stage. While everyone clapped, Dr Ramanujan shook hands with Prof. D'souza and got fitted with a microphone. And then he started.

"Much of the research, while developing the virtual reality has been to allow people to take their real life skills and be able to use it in the virtual reality environment. For example, athletic people in real life, often make better fighters in the game, if you only considered physical aspects. They have better balance of movement so performed better than normal people. Even then converting your real life basketball or cricket skills to fighting is not at all easy and you can probably guess why.