As he moved towards the fortress it became bigger and bigger. When he was around 500 meters away from it he could see its wall was made from vertically placed brown tree logs embedded into the ground which were around five meters high. On the side he was on there was no entrance, but he could see some people move in the guard towers that were randomly distributed on the walls and were around two meters higher than the wall itself.

He closed in but there was no entrance in sight so he chose to go around it. The guards were eyeing him with long range weapons pointed at him resembling a crossbow. Coming halfway to the other side he could see some tents in front of it and as he got closer he could finally see an entrance.

Suddenly Jinx interrupted him.

“Good news Wei. Your interaction with the bulls is trending and it has reached the top 1,000,000,000 best new videos of this week. Someone even awarded you 50 karma points.”

“Wait a second, what do you mean with my video?” Wei asked.

“All your actions are being recorded and sent to the KENN where they are filtered out and sent to our viewers.” Jinx announced proudly.

“The KENN?”

“Karma entertainment news network.”

“So you mean to say there are people spying on me all the time. Bloody voayeurs.” Wei asked with obvious disgust written all over his face.

“Well, not spying, observing. It’s good for you. You can get rewards if you do something they like. If you can get enough followers you may even charge a subscription.” Jinx answered with enthusiasm.

“Top 1 billion this week. How bloody many participants do you have? Wait a minute you said karma points, what can I do with them?”

“More than you can imagine.” Jinx answered with pride.

“You can buy me a higher rating,” Jinx replied rather sheepishly.

Wei frowned and asked: “Why should I do that?”

“With a higher rating I can do more things for you. It is good for you to have a higher rated AI.” Jinx nervously replied.

“Things like what?”

“I can let you see your stats and special conditions,” Jinx exclaimed.

“You mean like in games?”

“Yes. Like in your world’s video games.” Jinx happily replied.

“Not interested.”

“But, but, it will be good for you if you know what you need to raise.” Jinx replied with exasperation.

“Not interested.”

Jinx thought about it and thought of another benefit. “I can even send you home for 24 hours after a month here with the higher authority.”

Wei frowned and then replied: “You could have started with that.”

“Oh. So can I buy the E rating authority for 50 karma points?”

Jinx asked in nervous excitement.

“Yes. Buy it.”

Wei replied while shaking his head.

“So a month here before I can go home?”

“Yes. 30 Earth days to be exact but you only get to stay for 24 hours,” Jinx replied.

“So what can a D grade authority get me and how much is it?”

“48 hours every 14 Earth days for 500 karma points,” Jinx replied with elation as if he could already see his rating going up in the future.

Wei stood in place for a minute.

“What about C grade?”

“72 hours every Earth week for just 5000 karma points,” Jinx replied as if he were an enthusiastic salesman.

Wei frowned.

“I can see where this is going… The cost is raised by 10 times while the duration is raised less and less after every upgrade.”

Jinx was scared as Wei put it that way and tried to remedy the feeling Wei was experiencing of being used even though Wei was correct.

“Yes but you get many perks along with the vacation time. Karma shop. Quest system. Fast learning.”

Wei frowned before he exclaimed,

“So basically with a higher authority I get to unlock more pay to play opportunities? I hate playing pay to play games!”

“But it’s just karma points. You have nowhere to spend them anyway, so why not spend them to make your life easier?” Jinx tried to explain his logic.

“I guess you are right. We will talk more when I get more karma points…, ” Wei said as he saw people from the tent were giving him weird looks as he was talking to himself.

To outsiders he probably looked as if he lost his mind.

“You don’t need to voice out what you want to say to me. Just think about it and I can hear you.” Jinx suddenly voiced out in his head.

‘You can hear my thoughts? Since when?’ Wei asked.

“Since I have been upgraded.”

Wei thought ‘OK’ without saying it out loud.

‘See it’s not that hard and they won’t look at you like you are crazy.’ Jinx voiced out.

He could see people cooking and sitting outside their tents dressed in shabby clothes, with holes here and there that looked like they were made from linen. Every now and then he could see a person having a bow on his shoulder or a weapon strapped to his waist. They were all adult males that looked caucasian with dirt on their faces.

As he got closer he could see the people nearest were getting increasingly more nervous and wary of his actions so he gave them a universally acknowledged sign of peace. He raised his empty hands at them and stopped walking when he was 50 meters away from them.

After a while they got back to what they were doing before he came close and ignored him.

He walked closer and waved at the first person. It was an old man with grey hair and beard sitting at a cooking pot as he was stirring it. Most importantly he didn’t seem to have a weapon nearby.

The person looked at him funny and said some incomprehensible words.

Jinx quickly replied.

“He is asking ‘where did you come from’?”

‘How do I reply?’

Wei just thought in his head.

“You can give me authorization to use your voice muscles and I will change your words to their language and also your ears if you want to understand what they say,” Jinx replied.

Wei frowned.

‘Hmmm. Can you use my voice and can you fake what I hear if I give you authorization?’

‘Theoretically I could if I had the authorization to do that but that would go against my program so it is impossible in practice,’ Jinx replied.

‘Authorization for voice and hearing granted,’ Wei replied after frowning for a couple of seconds and accepting the fact he had no other practical means of communicating with the natives.

“Hello. I am Wei and I came from the edge of the desert.” Wei replied to the now obviously impatient stranger who he left hanging by not answering for more than a minute.

“Why would you go to the desert?”

“I don’t know?” Wei replied.

“What do you mean by you don’t know? Did you lose your memories or something? Were you in the sun for too long?” The man asked.

“Probably I don’t know. All I know is my name,” Wei replied, shrugging his shoulders.

The man sighed and then looked at the weird clothes on Wei. He was still wearing a white T-Shirt with a black swish logo and blue jeans and a pair of sneakers.

“Are you thirsty? Here, have some water first. My name is Jeun Tibs. You can call me old Tibs.”

Wei gladly accepted an animal skin filled with water and took a sip after thanking the man.

“What kind of shoes are those?”

Old Tibs asked as he pointed to the sneakers.

“I don’t know but they are comfortable,” Wei replied.

Old Tib smiled then laughed.

“Is there anything that you do know?”