Getting the right answers from my virtual assistant was a job and a half. I showered it with questions, trying to work my way through lists of scientific terms and make my questions as straightforward as possible:
“Does sex count?”
“Yes. The time spent in the active position can be used as a variable which would allow you to calculate the average...” the assistant would go on and on until I interrupted it with my next question.
Perception was another complex characteristic which included Eyesight, Hearing, Taste, Smell, Intuition, Rapid Memory, Attention to Detail and Foresight. Even though I hadn’t quite managed to work out their calculation principle, I could see they were all interrelated. As for leveling it, I decided to leave it till later.
Charisma included Attractiveness, Credibility and Charm. No idea how the system was supposed to calculate the latter. Apparently, it had performed a virtual simulation of each and every legally capable human being on Earth in order to see how many other people he or she could attract and influence.
Finally, the calculation of Luck. That’s where I thought I must have been losing it.
“We have analyzed every day of every person’s life from the moment of his or her conception, taking into consideration all key life events which have affected his or her existence,” the assistant said matter-of-factly. “Then we used the ‘good-to-bad life choices’ ratio in order to produce the average Luck reading.”
“How? How did you access the data?”
“It was provided by a particular local segment of the universal information field.”
God bless their information field. And its local segment, whatever that was supposed to mean.
In order to level up Luck, you had to make correct life-changing choices. One thing I couldn’t work out was the effect it was supposed to have on your life.
“This parameter is involved in all processes,” the assistant replied evasively.
“What, all of them?”
“Oh yes. Luck affects all stats. It has a decisive influence on a user’s life.”
The assistant dissolved in a wordy explanation. According to it, even the probability of a lethal blood clot entering my bloodstream was determined by Luck.
Having studied all the characteristics, I moved over to skills. Their number wasn’t limited. Their levels depended on the number of hours spent practicing them. Each consequent skill point required more hours (or reps) than the one before it. Sometimes loads more. If you took gaming, I’d apparently spent over 15,000 hours playing online — but I was still only level 8.
This system was actually quite predictable and not that different from the one used in gaming. In any given game, you could make level 1 in a matter of hours. Then you sometimes had to spend hundreds of hours just to reach level 2. To give you some idea, bringing one’s skill to level 5 required about 10,000 hours of practice.
And anything beyond level 10 was considered Top Expertise which required a minimum of 21,000 hours of training and practice.
Still, those were only the basic numbers which didn’t take into consideration the cumulative effect of other skills. Which was indeed a problem. The time required to make the next level of any given skill depended on the combined value of all the others. You just couldn’t become a munchkin by leveling everything in sight. The explanation of this phenomenon lay in our brain’s capacity. Logical, really: once you've used up some brain space by leveling, say, chess skills, there’ll be less space left to learn cooking.
Having said that... today’s scientists seemed to question this theory. Then again, what did I know? The experts of the future seemed to have studied this problem extensively.
Was there any way I could delete useless skills from my memory? Why would I need all those early Mortal Kombat tricks, like remembering the correct button order for each combo and memorizing all the fatalities as well as each warrior’s special abilities? All those “back, back, forward, press X”? That was a veritable mine of useless information which encroached on my brain space.
Some skills required Spirit points, too. I hadn’t yet worked out what exactly they were. Apparently, they required a higher level of Insight which could only be leveled through constant use. All I managed to work out was that it too directly depended on stat readings.
That made sense. My Agility was admittedly low which meant that I couldn’t succeed in leveling any agility-heavy athletic skill, no matter how hard I practiced. By the same token, practicing a skill could improve its respective characteristics.
The good news was, my improved Insight meant that now I didn’t need to make eye contact with other people in order to see their stats.
When I’d finally finished going through the charts, I heard a melodious jingle followed by a new system message,
Task Status: Master the augmented reality control interface
Task completed!
XP received: 5 pt.
+1% to Satisfaction
That was nice of them. Shame I couldn’t see the XP bar. I might need to ask the assistant about it.
I spent some more time in the Settings. I temporarily disabled the mental command function, changed the assistant’s voice to female and called her Martha.
Martha spoke in a husky old-Hollywood kind of voice,
“Welcome to Augmented Reality System!”
“Hi, Martha.”
“How do you do, Mr. Panfilov?”
“Oh please. Call me Phil.”
“Request accepted.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m your virtual assistant for the Home Edition of Augmented Reality!7.2.”
“Who made this game?”
“First Martian Company, Ltd.”
“Which is where?”
“Please be more specific.”
“What’s the company’s office address?”
“The offices of First Martian Company, Ltd are located in Georgetown, Schiaparelli, Mars.”
Were they really? Did that mean that we’d colonize Mars, after all? When would that have happened? Was its atmosphere OK? What other planets would we've colonized?
It was a good job I’d disabled the mental command option. The answers to all those questions would be no good to me at the moment.
So I posed another question, which admittedly had strings attached,
“Who was the company founder?”
“The company was started by Zoran Savich.”
“Is he a human being? What planet is he from?”
“He is originally from Earth, born in the Eurasian Union in 2058.”
I committed the name to memory. If I lived to see him, it might not be a bad idea to stock up on his company shares.
“And what year is it now, Martha?”
“It is two thousand eighteen by the Gregorian calendar. This is your default chronology option, based on the results of your brain scan.”
“In that case, can you explain to me how on earth could it have happened?”
“Please be more specific.”
“When exactly was the game’s current version released?”
“In twenty-one hundred eighteen by the Gregorian calendar. This is your default chronology option, based on the results of your-”
“Okay, okay. Can you just tell me how on earth did it end up a hundred years earlier?”
“Sending request to server. Please wait,” Martha temporarily zoned out. “Server connection timeout. Impossible to establish connection with the server.”
“Ah, forget it.”
“Please be more specific.”
“I mean you can cancel the server query.”
“Request accepted.”
“Where is the server, anyway?”
“The server is located along the Lagrangian points within the Solar system.”
“You have any idea why you can’t connect to it?”
“Sending request to server. Please wait. Server connection timeout. Impossible to establish connection with the server.�
��
“That’s because there’s no flippin’ server in those wretched Lagrangian points at the moment!” I snapped. “Never mind. But if the server’s not available, can you tell me how come I can still access other people’s data?”
“The data is extracted from the local segment of the universal information field.”
“The local segment? What exactly is it?”
“The local segment of this sector of the Galaxy contains all the information on the human race as well as one other sentient species.”
“Which sentient species?”
“Unauthorized query. Your access level is insufficient. Your license is limited to your personal use only.”
“And this universal information field, what exactly is it?”
“It is the sum total of all knowledge accrued by all sentient species in the Universe.”
“How many sentient species are there in the Universe? We aren’t alone, are we?”
“Apart from you, this location contains a creature belonging to the species of Felis domesticus which is a small, typically furry, carnivorous mammal. Would you like me to mark the creature’s location on your mini map?”
“She’s not a ‘creature’! Her name is Boris!”
“Information surplus to requirements. Your brain scan data contains the creature’s name.”
I did a mental facepalm. “Martha?”
“Yes, Phil?”
“How many sentient species are there in the Universe?”
“Unauthorized query. Your access level is insufficient. Your license is limited to your personal use only.”
“I thought I had a premium account!”
“This is class AAA+ access level. This kind of privileged information is not covered by premium accounts.”
“What kinds of privileges do they cover, then?”
“The only privilege the premium account offers is a triple bonus after having calculated your levels and stats such as characteristics, skills, XP points, Reputation and social level.”
I knew it!
This was a leveling booster!
How cool was that? I’d hit the jackpot! This was every paying player’s wet dream!
I did a quick mental calculation. If I decided to become the next soccer star like, say, Lionel Messi (at thirty-two years old, yeah right), I’d have to practice for twelve hours a day, every day. I’d need 21,000 hours to reach the Top Expert level. Without the booster, it would have taken me about five years. But now it was going to take me just over a year and a half.
Which still wasn’t too good, really. My license expired in a year. Which meant I wasn’t likely to achieve anything spectacular.
It also meant that my initial idea to level up every stat I had wasn’t really viable. I had to come up with a good leveling plan. And I had to think fast because every day mattered now.
“Martha, how do I get the access level I need?”
“Please be more specific.”
“How do I get the access level required in order to find out how many sentient species there are in the universe?”
“You need to purchase Augmented Reality! Professional Edition. Would you like to place an order?”
“Absolutely.”
“Sending request to server. Please wait. Server connection timeout. Impossible to establish connection with the server.”
“I see. Mind telling me how much the professional version costs?”
“Please specify purchase currency.”
“Russian rubles.”
“Unfortunately, we only accept Martian credits, Eurasian yuans or Federate dollars.”
“Okay. Martian credits.”
“Your upgrade will cost 199,900 Martian credits. Would you like to proceed to the checkout?”
“Yes please.”
“Error. Insufficient funds on your account balance.”
“Can I see my account?”
“Your account balance is negative. You have minus 49,000 Martian credits on your account. Allow me to remind you that your financial commitments should be honored. Failure to fulfill financial obligations is a basis for initiating court proceedings which might seize your property and make you compensate damages by doing hard labor.”
“Okay. One last question. 49,000 Martian credits, how much would that be in rubles?”
I expected another server connection timeout message. Still, this time Martha replied promptly,
“Based on the evaluation of the planet’s strategic energy resources in 2018 as compared to those of the Solar system in 2118, the going rate is 22,730 rubles. At the 2018 conversion rate, 49,000 Martian credits equals 1,113,770,000,00 Russian rubles.”
How much?
I stared blindly at the number Martha had just read out to me. Did I really owe one billion rubles? To whom? What for? Was it the price of the game license I was currently using?
Without saying a word, I closed the interface. By then, I was yawning non-stop. I couldn’t keep my eyes open. Between the Apathy and Lack of Sleep debuffs, both my Vigor and Metabolism were already in the red. The system kept showering me with alert messages, warning me against the dangers of lack of sleep.
And this last bit of news had completely put me off any further conversation with her.
Still, masochist that I was, I couldn’t resist the temptation of summoning Martha one last time,
“You mentioned damage compensation. What exactly did you mean?”
“Any incurred damages are compensated by doing hard labor, namely mining uranium on one of Jupiter’s moons. There’s a 83,71% chance of the said moon being Io.”
I smiled sadly. In this case, I had every chance of becoming the first man on Io.
“Martha?”
“Yes, Phil.”
“How much time do I have to pay for my license?”
“Your license has been paid in full. It is valid for one year from activation. The license expires on May 16 2019.”
“You know who paid for it?”
“Sending request to server. Please wait. Server connection timeout. Impossible to establish connection with the server.”
“Oh great,” I muttered before passing out.
I slept through the rest of Friday and the following night.
* * *
I AWOKE with a jolt. Before even opening my eyes, I could see a new system message hovering in my mental view.
Good morning, Phil!
You wanted to wake up at 7.00. It is 6.42 a.m. now, which is the best awakening time based upon your sleep cycle.
That’s right. Hadn’t I set the system alarm for 7 a.m.? I couldn’t find the alarm tone options at the time, wondering how on earth it was supposed to wake me up. And it just had! I simply woke up in the best of moods, feeling refreshed and energized.
Don’t get me wrong: I could still remember every word of my last night’s conversation with Martha. Still, I looked at it all differently now for some reason. Hard labor? Uranium mines? They didn’t even exist yet. Not for another hundred years or so.
Without getting out of bed, I summoned Martha.
“Good morning, Phil.”
“Morning! Remember you told me something about my duty to honor my financial commitments? When exactly is the deadline?”
“The deadline for honoring your payments to First Martian Company, Ltd. is December 31 2118.”
“Thanks, sweetheart,” I said, suppressing a triumphant scream. “Thanks a bunch. You be a good girl. I’ll be back soon and then we can talk some more. This time we’re going to discuss the leveling options of that so-called social status of yours.”
I spent half the day straightening the place up. Now that both the Lack of Sleep and Apathy debuffs had expired, I’d finally seen our apartment in a truly unadulterated light. I didn’t like it. The sight gave me a desperate desire to scrub the place clean.
So I had to walk the talk. I scooped out all the junk from all the drawers and cupboards, shined the fridge inside out, fixed that wretched kitchen
tap, washed the windows, then sorted through my wardrobe, discarding everything I’d never had the heart to part with before.
In all these tasks, I was greatly assisted by the Object Identification skill courtesy of my Insight.
Like a child who’d just learned to read and now scrutinized everything she set her eyes on, I studied the stats of all of our household items. Even though I couldn’t see much with my current level — not even the brand’s name — the program identified all the items correctly, adding a brief description. For instance,
An LCD television set, 32”. A long-distance device allowing for the reception and display of visual and audio signals.
A table fork, stainless steel. Part of a set.
A T-shirt, white, 100% cotton. An item of clothing.
The simpler the item, the shorter the description was. Some displayed their Durability numbers, others didn’t. All items with Durability below 20% went straight in the trash.
Interestingly, some of the items of clothing had stat bonuses. Quite impressive ones sometimes. For instance, my reading glasses gave my Perception a considerable boost. Or maybe it was just me with my admittedly ruined eyesight? My only pair of good shoes offered +1 to Charisma while my old track bottoms did exactly the opposite.
Armed with this knowledge, I unhesitantly discarded my torn sneakers with -1 to Charisma, replacing them with a pair of black Derbies I’d unearthed in the depths of the wardrobe.
Those were actually my wedding shoes. The only time I’d worn them was when I’d married Yanna.
How did I know they were Derbies? Simple. Their tag had told me as much,
Black Derby shoes
Material: leather
All-purpose open-laced footwear, worn with both casual and special-occasion outfits
+1 to Charisma
Restart (Level Up Book #1) LitRPG Series Page 9