It took Tann a while to get familiar with her new appearance. Her hair was now long and golden, with a few blue strands at the ends, her cheeks were less boney, her eyes were slightly larger, her skin was less pale, and she was at least 10 cm taller. Despite all these, Tann seemed to be caring about something else, she hugged around her chest and felt her new…width…

“Nice,” she hugged more tightly around herself, “Cotanian sure knows what I want.”

“Tann, can you hear me?” Cotanian’s voice appeared in Tann’s mind.

“Yes,” Tann replied, “the communication fluency is much better than last time. Well done Cotanian!”

“I spent a lot of time on this,” Cotanian laughed, “let me just talk you through the new login site.”

“Sure,” Tann sat up from a wooden chair. She was in a half-empty room, which contained a mirror, a table and an empty shelve. Of course, there was no window at all, to prevent accidental sightings of the login by ‘subject bots’.

“Okay,” Cotanian could be heard scrolling through a digital list, “on the table, you can find your identity card and other documents. After that, downstairs, you can see a garage, and there should be a bicycle which you can use.”

“Thanks,” Tann turned to the table, and opened one of its drawers, “what about my control panel?”

“Sorry,” Cotanian said embarrassedly, “you can find it in the room next door. I’ll now hand over to Dr Phurder because the graphics team needs me to check on their program.”

“Aha,” Phurder’s sharp voice entered Tann’s mind, “yea, I’ll just gonna sit here and if you have problems, I’ll answer.”

“Sure,” Tann picked up a card that said,” Student ID.”

Name: Ivy Whitman

Gender: F

Age:20

Year:1

You can access all printing devices with this card within Qchong University as well as student lobbies and unspecialised laboratories*.

*: Specialised laboratories will be indicated on your map.

“Who came up with this name?” Tann wondered, “Well, at least her name is not an angle.”

“By the way,” there was something Tann forgot to ask about, “are there any grocery stores around?”

She could hear Phurder opening another bag of chips, “Grocery stores? I see what you mean. There should be a bus station two kilometres away and there should be a store right on the next stop.”

“How often are the buses?” Tann asked eagerly about these important pieces of information, “Which direction is to the station?”

“Should be at coordinates 134887, 328945, 000273,” Phurder shook the plastic above his head to empty the remaining chips, “I mean the bus station. There should be a bus every hour…”

“HOUR!?” Tann cried, “I am changing that!”

“Sure whatever,” Phurder replied casually, “just don’t make it one pus per minute, that will surely stimulate reactions.”

Tann left her room and turned to the entrance to the next room. Unlike the first room, the second room didn't have a door, or rather, its entrance was merely a handle attached to the wall. However, Tann walked straight into the wall, the concrete-like texture of the wall moved aside similar when you push your way through curtains.

The keyboard was there. Just a simple, plastic, green coloured keyboard lay in the centre of the empty room. Tann stepped towards the keyboard and picked it up with ease.

“Testing,” Tann pressed every digit on the keyboard. Suddenly the surrounding walls started to change colour as well as texture. It transformed from the original light yellow to dark blue, switching from the original smooth shiny surface to rough, spiky surface.

“Test complete,” Tann returned the room to its former appearance by a wave over the keyboard.

It didn’t take Tann very long to find the garage in the small house. There, she found the bicycle, nothing unusual about it, yet.

“Out of all the vehicles, they gave me a bike,” annoyedly, Tann took out her keyboard from a leather bag (she found it in the bathroom), “what I can do is to change the gear ratio.”

With a few presses, the size of the gears in the bike changed, the one connecting to the paddle increased more than three times, while the one connected to the wheel decreased to an unimaginable small size.

“Good,” Tann hopped onto the bike and put her foot on the paddles, but instead of zooming out like a rocket, she remained stationary, “damn it, forgot about the driving force to accelerate.”

“Tann,” Phurder spoke over the radio suddenly, “did you just change something?”

“Yea,” Tann replied, “just some random gear ratio thing, there is no way I’m going to bike to the place with brute force.”

“Fine,” Phurder yawned, “just remember to restrict it to your bike only.”

With a single rotation of the paddles, Tann covered a distance of more than a hundred meters. However, she stopped soon after the one paddle: her face was covered in dust.

“Damn physics.”

Qchong University: Qchong University had a history of over 300 unit years. It was one of the most respected research university in the simulation. The university adopted a system where all undergraduates and graduates can attend any course they like. By the end of the year, depends on the subject, the students will need to choose at least one course to submit their work over the year. They need to submit one specified research report and two personalised research reports (no word limit) and one exam in addition to the reports.

The front gate of the university was not at all impressive to Tann. Only two brick pillars surrounded by a few flower pots and a small pool filled with bot_ducks (modelled by Cotanian).

“Whoever designed this university, I think Cine, needs some reflection,” Tann muttered and parked her bike in one of the bike parking zones, “this is just pure laziness.”

It was the open day for new undergraduates, so there was a large crowd at the university entrance. After squeezing through the crowd (a bunch of bots) Tann arrived at the Qchong Square. For the first time, she became slightly impressed by Cine’s work: the square was vast, with organised lanes of statues, water fountains, a large modest, yet elegant clock tower sat high in the middle. It was the famous Night Tower, where former physicists (bots) conducted mechanics tests and astronomy investigations on it. At present, the roof was modified into a huge electronic telescope.

“Slightly better,” Tann drew a rectangle in midair with her finger, which resulted in a ‘screenshot’ of the Qchong Square, “although the buildings in the background can be slightly shorter or further. They kinda ruined the scene.”

Then she noticed a group of students with rainbow coloured armbands gathered around the base of the tower. One of them seemed to notice Tann and approached her.

“Good morning!” the person/bot gave Tann a warming smile, “are you a new undergraduate?”

“Yes,” Tann showed her student card to the student.

“Welcome to Qchong University!” the student-produced a weird solute by putting her hands beside her head, forming two triangular ‘cat ears,’ “ I am a member of the student community, do you want me to show you around the school?”

“That must be Phurder’s work!” Tann thought, ” I feel so bad for this bot as the creator, she is forced to do such a lame…”

“Aha,” the student noticed Tann’s worries, “that is the traditional salute for all student community members because apparently, the founder of the school likes cats…”

“Really…” Tann tried her best to produce a face of surprise, “that is very…interesting…indeed….”

“So, want me to show you around the campus and know about every lecture’s locations?” the student switched back to the old subject.

“I already know,” Tann laughed nervously, she had a map of the school uploaded in her brain, “but thanks for the offer, Rosy.”

“How did you know my name?”

Tann suddenly realised that she was reading off the identity information of the student which displayed on top of the student’s head, “uh…”

“You sure have good eyes,” Rosy saved Tann by lifting her card hanging around neck and she took it out, “here take it if you want, my name is Rosy Python, if you have any troubles, call the number below.”

Tann took the card from Rosy’s hands and looked at it briefly, “Thank you very much.”

“Oh,” something reminded Rosy, “remember to check out the societies fair at the Engineer’s Square.”

“Sure.”

After the conversation with Rosy, Tann approached the main building, it was at this point when Tann realised that Cine basically duplicated the EMU in the simulation. Although there where were many differences such as instead of a full spherical shape, the main building consisted of a hemisphere roof made of glass, but to Tann, this difference was too minor. However, she felt a sense of comfort seeing this design of laziness.

To a bot, the main building might be a bizarre achievement of architecture, but in Tann’s eyes, all the massive cylindrical pillars marked the buttons ‘copy’ and ‘paste’. There was no creativity at all, it was just a rushed piece of work. Finally, she saw the Engineer’s Square where rows of tents were set up by each of the student societies.

Tann stopped by the first stand, the ‘Diet Society’. However, she hurried away quickly after seeing the line, ‘STOP drinking those energy drinks! They contain too much caffeine and sugar!’

There were quite a few sporting activities stands, but none of those interests Tann.

Suddenly, she noticed a small crowd gathered around a stand so she went to check out. In the centre laid a long table covered in dark cloth. On it, was a delicately crafted robotic arm. The arm’s appearance was simple, it seemed like a medieval knight’s glove with reflective surfaces.

“Analyse,” Tann focused her gaze at the hand, and all the statistics of the hand appeared around it, she took a small breath after seeing the results, “the civilisation and technology function is working too well…”

“Can you do a demonstration of this hand?” one of the students asked.

“Not now,” a sharp and annoying voice pierced through the crowd, “the battery broke.”

Tann moved closer and saw a short person standing next to the hand. Holding an electrical screwdriver in his left hand, the person was dressed in a long coat that completely sealed his body from the outside. From beneath the thick coat there came a strange buzzing noise. It took Tann a moment to realise that the person was in fact, wearing an air conditioner. She tried to hold her laughter, but the person seemed to notice her reaction, “You there! What are you laughing at?”

Tann recovered to her usual solemness, and she pointed at the robotic hand, “you are saying that this is out of power?”

“Yep,” the person shook his head, “we kinda used up everything yesterday…”

Tann lifted the robotic hand and pressed its flat bottom. Suddenly, the hand clutched into a fist.

“Are you sure,” Tann said with a wicked smile, “now, show me what it can do.”

“It's not programmed yet…” like a popped balloon, the tone of authority in the person’s voice was lost.

“Well, you have a laptop over there…”

“…I don’t have the programming platform on there!” the little person cried.

“Umm…” Tann pretended to be thinking, “can you not program.”

The little person seemed to be about the faint, but he managed to control his last bit of sanity, “I can’t really show it now, but if you want to come and visit the Builder’s Society this afternoon, I can show you how…”

“Ok,” Tann turned around and walked away.