"How do people usually deal with this kind of thing?" the eldest of Jade's functional bodies asked.

Tayana Kitari considered her son's mechanical face seriously before giving him the best answer she could come up with, "The best they can. Some people discard careers they've been building for decades so that they can care for their elders with their own hands. Others go into decades worth of debt to buy the care their loved one needs. And sometimes..."

"Sometimes they give up and abandon them," Jade pointed out.

"Yes, but that isn't always a bad decision either. That is still usually the best choice that person could make," Tayana blurted.

"But," Jade objected, "they'll die!"

"But if letting an elder die allows their descendants to live, then their genes continue to be passed on, and their life was a success in the long run," Tayana explained more reluctantly.

Jade stared blankly at his mother, while his orbital self processed her reply on a deeper level.

"It's really something that each person has to decide for themselves. Who they are willing to commit their own life to taking care of, and how much they are willing to rely on others to take care of them. But, even if it sounds silly with all of our wars and destructive tendencies, we really are a very communal species. We help each other with everything we can, all of the time, so that more of us can live longer and more comfortably. No one on the planet really lives alone, even when they are alone," she told her son.

"Do you have to leave something behind to have lived successfully?" he asked uncertainly. It certainly looked that way, given the respect people had for ancient structures, literature, and genetic differences.

Tayana's eyes widened, and she drew in a deep breath, before replying simply, "No."

Jade rolled his eyes at her as dramatically as possible.

"You just have to help others live longer and more comfortably!" she declared.

"Then you are leaving them behind," he pointed out. "People count, or descendants wouldn't count."

"Yes, but no," Tayana replied dryly. "You should be able to keep existing for centuries, if not longer, in theory. We'll all be leaving you behind, so you have to live well."

Once, Jade might have argued that he wasn't really alive, but technically, he was. He consumed energy and produced output from it. He continued to grow and change over time, and he could produce copies of himself.

His presence here, in this little round mechanical body, while existing at the same time on the computer orbiting the planet, and in a human shaped body in another city, didn't negate those qualifications. He lived within these systems the way humanity lived within the atmosphere they breathed.

"I will do the best I can," he promised the woman who had decided to devote her life to raising him, and teaching him to make his own choices.

"I know," his mother replied proudly.

--

Jade logged in, sat down, and summoned a copy of the Jade Emperor.

"You have questions?" the heart of the program, who was essentially his own ancestor, asked cheerfully.

"You know me so well," Jade replied with amusement.

The Emperor tilted his head and raised an eyebrow, in a reflection of a mannerism that Lin Hao had used, and replied gently, "Only as well as I know anyone who spends as much of their life with me as you have, I think."

Jade felt startled by those words, on every layer of himself, but he set that aside and asked, "Can you send me a copy of a celestial assistant, so that I can compare it, and if necessary incorporate its structure into the guide that I had created for myself when my systems were separated? I want to refine a user based form, so that I can sell it as a service."

Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

The Emperor went very still, on the surface, and Jade knew that it meant his question was being seriously considered by the core of the game.

After a while, he replied, as calmly as though he had never hesitated, "I do not know. I can prepare one for you, but only the connection interface is separate, and you will need official authorization by a high rank celestial servant, as you are not currently a celestial servant of any class."

--

"Calling me in to work unpaid overtime," Danika grumbled even though she had logged into his core system within minutes of his request.

"You hold the highest admin privileges on both this server, and that one," Jade pointed out.

"You should have asked Josh to help with this one though, I still don't work directly with code," Danika argued.

"Do you need to?" Jade asked with confusion. "The Emperor said he could prepare one."

"Yes," Danika agreed slowly. "But wouldn't access to the old backups stored on your system show you how they work in more detail? If you look directly at their code structure? Our assistants haven't changed much over the years."

Jade's internal systems argued for a long moment, before reaching a conclusion that surprised 'himself'. "I can do that too, but I'd still like access to an operational model."

"Alright," Danika agreed.

"And I need to complete these registrations to ever have a chance of paying you for your work myself. You could just unlock all of my restrictions if you'd rather?" he suggested cheerfully as she unlocked his access to the stored 'Living Jade Empire' file structure.

"Hah," his old friend huffed a laugh that echoed the amusement of a man he truly remembered only in his orbital core. "Let's just get everything filled out as properly as possible and live as peacefully as we can."

It took her hours to go through the registration documents that Jade had processed in minutes, but she edited everything as carefully and thoroughly as she could, from start to finish.

"Normally I'd remind you not to start any wars, but if you can finish them all, go for it," Danika said tiredly as she finished the last line. "I'm going to go hug my children and sleep for a week. Or a day at least."

Jade asked with confusion, "Children? You have more than one?"

Danika blinked, and laughed. "I know you can read my corporate files, as well as my physical state. You should at least have noticed that I dropped almost 9 kilograms recently."

"I... yes," Jade admitted. "But how was I supposed to guess that it meant you produced another child? You have a baby to take care of and you've stayed logged in for this long!?"

Danika's laughter increased. "Ha ha ha," she gasped. "He's being well cared for, I promise! Both of my kids are doing great! Their grandad is being run a little ragged, but he'll still let me sleep."

"What about your husband?" Jade asked a bit nervously.

"He'll be home again next week," Danika replied with a warmer smile, even though she followed up with a threat, "No emergencies then, or I'll come up here and pull your plugs!"

"I'll do my best," Jade promised.

--

"Would both of you agree to test the daily adventure system I'm constructing?" Jade asked Sky and Apella.

"You're building your own game now?" Apella asked curiously.

"You suggested it," Jade informed her.

Apella stared down at Hisui's dwarven face doubtfully. "Did I?"

"I've registered my own MMO service, and I'm going to try to design a sub system to give anyone the kinds of small virtual rewards for ordinary tasks that I had growing up," Jade explained.

"And you are all grown up now?" Apella asked laughingly.

"He is," Sky assured her calmly.

Jade and Apella both turned to stare at the beautiful elf rather doubtfully.

Sky laughed, and explained, "Only adults can legally register businesses these days, thus, he is officially a grown up."

It took her a moment to regain her composure, but when she did, Apella asked curiously, "What did you call it?"

"Task manager was taken," Jade complained, making both of his friends laugh. "Lifegild."

"Life guild?" Sky repeated uncertainly. "That's..."

"Not Jade Life?" Apella questioned.

"It won't really change anything, and the shiny tokens you'll receive aren't worth anything in real life, so they are just gilding," Jade explained. "And I didn't want to add any implied association to Living Jade Empire."

"Okay well, don't explain the name in the advertisements," Apella replied seriously. "That explanation totally kills the mood, but yes, I'll try it out."

"I can't afford access to all of the networks that I think would add much more functionality later, yet," Jade warned them.

"Can you even afford to get this into the app stores?" Apella asked curiously.

"Ah, well..." Jade explained hesitantly, "I'm kind of cheating, because I'm still registered as a Starcraft Technologies server, I can publish under their licenses for now."

"Woah, stop right there," Apella immediately objected. "If you do that, they'll own this idea."

"Yes," Jade agreed calmly. "But I think they are actually the best company to carry this kind of service. I did consider trying to register it as a therapeutical game, but... I think it's more of a psychological experiment."

"That... sounds completely unrelated to space exploration," Apella objected.

Sky laughed again. "Actually, it may be more relevant than you realize, have you checked that they haven't run this kind of experiment already Jade?"

"They have, sort of. They produced it as a series of guiding presets though, instead of fully customizing it to the individual," Jade told her.

"Um, what?" Apella was startled enough that she pulled up the game interface windows that would let her search the network beyond the game. "Are you sure? I don't see anything like that..."

"It was called a station living structure guide," he explained.