“Bravo!" Hannes clapped in applause, having watched the transformation of the desert while eavesdropping on Henry's thoughts. "The coordination to execute the split and recombination without a leak, unbelievable!”
“We can thank Alex’s obsessiveness for that," said Henry, not taking all the glory for himself.
His friend’s wacky Digital Justice Club scheme had never been limited to their school, nor their country. Chapters had been created all across Oceania and South-East Asia to hunt down untapped talent, train them, and install them in key positions for the day the trigger would be pulled. The Bloodmancer platoon, for example, were a close-knit group of Indonesian NEETs living together in a Jakartan internet cafe.
The execution of the plan had hinged on most of the alliance's leadership secretly also being club members. The bulk of the alliance could be kept ignorant because each separate task was engineered to be engaging in its own way. The players growing bored of the land were turned into pirates. The war-addicts were immediately sent to the jungles, while the normal players, who needed the occasional fight, were made to attack their own builders.
Funnily enough, using this technique grew their alliance's total numbers during the separation, despite them being a laughing stock, many players always ready to jump into something new and strange.
“Don’t devalue your own contribution, buddy," said Hannes. "You know, I thought it was a glitch when I learned that the one organising the operation was a thirteen-year-old. It seemed far too young.”
“It was far too young."
In many ways, thought Henry. They were far too young to realise they could have leveraged their victory for real-life gains. They were far too young to grasp the in-game damage of such a rapid political upheaval.
He was far too young to be experiencing the peak of his life.
Hannes contradicted that last point. “The Company is larger than FM was.”
And then, years after Operation Phantom Limbs and Flattening Mountains, came the second round at global conquest, The Company.
“In an absolute sense, maybe," Henry replied.
Hannes gave him a doubtful look. "Hmm."
Henry didn't reply to that, neither in word nor thought.
But, in the heart of the climber, the size of the mountain was more than its altitude. It was the aching feet, the frost-bitten lips, the lungs gasping for oxygen, the constant complaints to quit silenced by the next step upwards - it was the struggle.
Back then, when he’d stood in this spot, he'd stared up at the mountains blocking his way with awe. His blood had raced through his veins, knowing that their plans were fraught with holes and that shoring these up on the fly would test his every mental fibre.
The second time around, though? By then, hadn't he experienced it all already? He'd mastered the techniques, the systems. It was hardly worth mentioning.
For a veteran, the climb might still not be easy, but, relative to the struggles against that first mountain whose peak seems to rise forever into the obscure clouds of the unknown, how could it not be easier? Eventually, the feet develop callouses and the lungs find ways to adapt; in time, a once difficult ascent becomes as effortless as strolling along flat ground. Where is the excitement after that? Where is the fun?
After the mountains are flattened, what do you do?
“Move on to another challenge,” answered Hannes.
Henry nodded. "Just have to move on."
“So that’s why you obsessively hunted down The Cap?”
Henry nodded again. "System, there’s really no way to visit this place in the present?”
He'd sponsored a few expeditionary teams to venture into the maelstrom blocking access to the place, but none of them had succeeded.
No.
“Then, I guess I’ll say my farewells here.” He took in a final view of this absurd city in the desert, the proof of his work, good or bad, and gave it a last small nod.
The next moment, he and the developer had returned to the lagoon by his bookstore in Chayoka, the catastrophes obliterating the city in the background having quelled.
As he admired these new surroundings, the sad, tired quality that’d always persisted in his eyes to some degree began to fade. In its wake was ignited that youthful, defiant energy that belonged in the gaze of any ambitious young man. “HAHAHAHA!"
Yes, The Overdream, this hyperbolic time-chamber without restriction, this would be the perfect staging ground for his next conquest.
While The Redeemer had once used this space to delve into the secrets of the universe and take over the planet, Henry, who'd already done that, twice, had very different plans.
One could see them on full display in his initial reason for making a new character in the third instalment despite having reached the peak, despite knowing how bothersome the game and his friends could be.
The reason for that? Because of that new time-dilation feature which would allow him to squeeze a few extra hours out of the day.
And what had he wanted those extra hours for?
Swiping his hand, Henry summoned a beach chair under a rainbow-coloured umbrella. Beside this was a bamboo stand holding a glass of sweet tea with too much sugar and an over-sized fruit bowl containing a nutritionally-balanced chicken salad with goat cheese, walnuts, and forest-green lettuce.
Even more appetising than these was a new mountain, a mountain of books waiting to be devoured.
Those extra hours...they'd been for reading and working on his new hobby of writing.
“HAHAHAHAHA!” he cackled.
He'd battled with the giants of gaming; now he would battle with the giants of literature.
Equipped with this cheat cap, this highly-advanced time-defying device, he would transform into the ultimate fusion of man, machine, and library, capable of churning out multiple novels every day.
And once literature grew stale? Then, he would move on again, he would conquer music, then martial arts, then painting, then everything - one by one, he would conquer everything.
Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions.
"HAHAHAHA!"
He became silent, all signs of humour vanishing.
The question was where to begin? Reading every book published in a random year, or every book from a random genre?
“HAHAHAHAHA!“
Feeling zero urgency, he jumped into the beach chair, picked up his sweet tea and had the thickest novel in the pile fly into his hand.
Tutorial complete.
Henry opened his eyes to see the giant palm trees of The Redeemer's jungle frozen above. A knife from the loot on which he lay was digging into his spine.
Hannes offered him a hand. “So what do you think? Happy.”
“It’s perfect,” Henry grinned cheesily, accepting the hand and getting to his feet.
The moment Henry was up, however, the grin dropped from his face.
However...couldn’t it be even more perfect?
While cramming 44 months into an hour each day was pretty gosh-darned cool, wouldn’t it be even cooler if only he had more items from The Syncretist’s set to bump that number higher?
If only...
“HAHAHAHAHA!” Henry cackled, louder still.
As he filled the jungle with laughter, pieces of his clothing were stripped away and replaced by others streaming from his Spatial Bracelet.
Three seconds later, he was wearing a pair of shabby woollen Viking pants tied up by a shabby piece of frayed rope. Around his throat was a shabby necklace of seashells smoothened by decades in the ocean.
One might recognise this shabby attire from earlier, the necklace from when he'd butchered King Torc with multiple-channelled spells, the belt when he'd needed to restore his drained Universal Productivity.
These were also part of the set - a set of misleadingly-shabby Legendaries.
Henry bit his finger, drawing a drop of blood, and smeared it into the frayed rope, which tightened to fit his waist.
At the beckoning of The Ring, The Belt of a Thousand Tools awakens.
The creepy sensation flowing from the ring grew an extra branch that spread down his spines, to his hips.
Plundered from the tome of an architect from Aion Laisije, this belt increased one's Universal Productivity pool by allowing each of the identities within The Ring of a Thousand Souls to have their own, from which one could in turn draw.
Next, he tapped three shells of the necklace in quick succession, causing the necklace to constrict around his throat.
At the beckoning of The Ring, The Pendant of a Thousand Minds awakens.
The Pedant had been obtained along with The Ring from The Godking Nimblewit, who fought by controlling multiple flying weapons. Its function was to give The Ring’s identities their own A.I., which players could order around. One use was to automate one’s character while logged off - although, he never did in case the identities meddled with his guilds. Another was letting the user channel multiple spells, turning the owner into a multi-ability army.
Bending over now, he grabbed the left leg of the Viking pants and rolled them up to his knee.
At the beckoning of The Ring, The Leggings of a Thousand Leaps awakens.
These had been obtained by a random exploration team in the south of Basindi. Henry'd purchased them for a song because the team couldn’t figure out their purpose. They gave The Ring’s identities their own Stamina pools.
The pants hadn’t been too useful outside of the extended battles with the wolves. However, he'd paired them with the other items because the set pieces had a synergistic effect, bolstering each other’s abilities. With each additional item, the maximum levels for The Ring identities would increase, their Universal Productivity and Stamina pools would expand, and their A.I. would grow smarter.
Now, with the extra items equipped, he navigated to the menu for The Overdream and found a set of new unlocked options.
The Belt of a Thousand Tools allowed constructed items to be taken out of The Overdream as long as the base materials were in his Spatial Bracelet before entering.
With The Pendant of a Thousand Minds, Sentient beings could be replicated.
Much more crucially than those, however, the time dilation had ramped up from 44 to 88 months, to 148, to, finally, 250.
250 months...this was 21 years - longer than he’d been on this earth.
Henry, feeling possessed by the holy spirit, raised his arms high in praise of the lord and started to dancing and swaying like he was part of a Southern Baptist choir.
With this futuristic device, what in this world could ever trouble him again? A problem that took up his entire day would become, relative to his expanded life, like having to sit through an infomercial break once a week. Saana’s convoluted world politics – a blip. Guildmates harassing him for items or favours – a blip. Poorly-designed questlines - a blip.
Even the stupid noob tournament didn't seem so bad. In fact...
In fact, if he just practiced a few kung-fu moves whenever he was resting his mind in The Overdream after his intense writing sessions, then he could roll up on tourney day and demolish the disgusting, unwashed noobs of Suchi using a degree of experience with Tier-0 skills that no person should reasonably have, because who in their right mind would ever spend years training at level 20? The martial art problems he'd had in the past when they'd unfairly called him a cheater and a cripple - what a joke to overcome.
Alex had bet that he couldn't take top ten in his own noob recruitment tournament? How laughable. Henry, master of time and everything, could aim his ambitions much, much higher than that. He could take top one in his own noob recruitment tournament.
“Hannes!” he yelled cheerfully.
“Yes?” replied the pasty developer, a bit grossed out by the teen’s awful dance skills and his plans to misuse his technological innovations for random hobbies only tangentially related to Saana.
“What about The Ring of a Thousand Bodies?”
There was one last piece he’d already acquired that allowed him to transform his body. Since he could perform the same function with his Transmogrificator, he’d lent the ring to their guild’s spymaster, who had another Legendary item allowing him to ignore item requirements. That guy was currently using it to infiltrate a rival guild.
“Same as its normal function. You can change body shape and stats instantly.”
“No, no, no, no, NO!” Henry switched dances to the robot, which'd become popular again in 2047 before returning to lameness, “Who cares about that garbage? The time dilation, Hannes, what does the time dilation expand to with SIX pieces?”
“...390 months.”
“Whoa, what did you say, I didn’t quite hear that? My ears were blocked.” Henry, reaching towards his ears, mimed pulling out a pair of invisible salt and pepper shakers, from which he shook out every last grain.
“...390 months.”
“My ears are still ringing from the party popper! Say it louder, Hannes! Say it to the stars!”
“...”
"Three-hundred and NINETY months!"
Henry could conquer a genre before breakfast. Sci-fi, Monday. Fine literature, Tuesday. Paranormal Vampire Goo Romance, why wouldn’t he conquer it, too? He would conquer every genre, significant or not. Then, after conquering them all, he would combine them to create his own genres, then conquer those, too.
His dance came to an abrupt stop, Henry's face returning to its usual flatness.
He could celebrate all he wanted in The Overdream. It would take longer than a day to have The Ring of a Thousand Bodies shipped back to him, and, while preparations for his 250-month-long adventure could help, his Mental Library contained enough material to occupy him for now.
Overdreaming is disabled.
He snapped around, giving a warning to the pasty Finn. “If you’ve screwed me again, I swear to god I’m going to make you lose twenty million subscribers.”
“Relax," replied Hannes. "It's temporary until the liability forms have been signed. There have been notable changes since we last spoke. You need to hear them.”
“Go on then. Quick.”
“When we last spoke, you were informed of the limitations in the brain’s capacity to store the staggering quantity of memories produced over such a long span.”
“Indeed. I assume you’ve solved that, though.”
“Partially. For a workaround, we’ve compromised by developing a dual memory system. In-game, your memory capacity will be expanded through the allocation of extra computing resources. In real life, key memories will be retained, while the rest will become indistinct. Like a film watched once as a child.”
“If that’s the case, it’s a bit buggy; during the encounter with The Wolf Empress, I gave the puppies names, which I'd forgotten when logged out.”
“Since there is some subjectivity in the evaluation of a memory’s importance, the differentiation algorithm will require a few weeks of personal adjustment.”
“Fine. Is that it?”
“Ah, no, there is one more bug which you should be aware of. It's safe if the user limits themselves to 232 months or fewer per session. However, a 0.4% chance of spontaneous brain death arises if that number is exceeded. The risk rises exponentially—”
Henry reached out, closing the developer's lips shut. “Stop. Did you just say spontaneous brain death?”