“And this is how you connect to the hyperweb,” Mich said while showing me how to do it.

“Mich, why didn’t you set up the white room before I came in,” I asked.

“I had some trouble with it,” Mich said while looking away from me.

“You forgot, didn’t you?” I said, with a poker face.

“I wouldn’t forget something like,” mich replied with a fake hurt tone.

“So you admit that you left me in the dark on purpose,” I said with a smile. Mich didn’t reply. “Anyways. Did you order everything needed to make a smaller version of the machine? I should really come up with a name for it.”

“Yes, everything is in motion,” Mich replied while his eyes shined with a bright blue. “Do you want me to start building it as per your specifications?”

“Yes, but we first need to know if it is safe for people to..” I stopped and thought to myself for a second. Was my body completely disintegrated into data and transfer to the contained space I made with the help of mich. Or was my mind copied and pasted or….

“Boss!” Mich interrupted my train of thought. “Are you there?”

“Mich, was my body transfer to the contained space?” I asked.

“Of course. The digitization proceeded without any abnormalities. Besides your appearance, but I don’t know how much further the changes go,” Mich replied.

“What do you mean with-” Mich made a mirror appear in front of me before I finish talking. It was big enough for me to look at my face and nothing more.

I was shocked. My face looked as if I was in my 20s again. “How is this possible,” I asked, not expecting an answer.

“It looks like the scans you have been doing since you created me got jumbled up during the digitization process. The data was reorganized. Maybe the most optimal, I think.” Mich said.

“Enlarge the mirror,” I said and Mich compiled. The mirror became bigger by a snap from Mich’s right-hand fingers.

I was naked. Obviously. I had abs and my muscles were similar to that of a bodybuilder. Well, one that trained moderately and not to have muscle on top of muscles. I would look like an average guy if I use a long-sleeved T-shirt, but I digress. This is how my body looked like back when I was in college. Everything is okay but my hair. It is still white. No that dislike the outcome anyway. But the thing is, will I be able to get out? What would the side effects be? Will I fall into a deformed pile of meat and blood spilled all over the place?

I designed the machine to convert everything that makes me into specific and unique set variables and coding. If even one thing is change during the conversion, my case, then once the process is done in reverse...I might die. Or worse.

“Why didn't you bring my attention to this sooner?” I asked, annoyed.

“I’m doing it now, right?” Mich replied while looking away.

“You only did it because I asked!” I said, raising my voice just enough to convey my anger. Mich flinched. “Nevermind. It's already done.” I sighed.

“So what do we do?” Mich asked.

“Nothing. Well, only me. You only have to build the smaller version of the Digitizer. That is the only thing that won't malfunction while taking me out of the digital space due to the changes I made.” I said then continued to ramble. “I should have implemented them into the version that we have too. But how could I know such a thing would happen? The only thing I’m grateful is that I was digitized completely. It could have been worse with my mind was in here and my body out there.”

I continued on with Pointing out all the things that could have been worse than my current situation.

“Not that I am concerned too much about it. I just find those situations more challenging and exciting than what I am facing.” I ended my ramble. “Mich? Where are you?” I just noticed that Mich was nowhere to be found. It was only me in this white space.

“Oh, you finally stopped talking with yourself.” Said, Mich while showing up out of nothing.

“Where were you?” I asked.

“I was dismantling the Digitizer, as you called it, to repurpose some of the parts for other experiments,” Mich said.

“Good. That version won’t be of use to me anyways.” I said, then thought for a few minutes and asked, “Is there something to do while I wait here? It’ll get boring in here after a while.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“You can read?” Said Mich with an insecure tone.

“I’ve read all the interesting books already. And I already caught up with any story good enough to catch my interest on the web.” I thought for a moment while scratching my chin, then asked, “Are there any games I can play?”

Mich looked thought for a while before answering, “Well, Boss...there are certain requirements because of your current situation..”

“I know that already,” I said, with a sigh.

“There’s something that you can play, but I don’t know what kind of problems it might cause,” Mich said.

“Virtual games, right?” I said.

“Yes, but there’s a little problem,” Mich said.

“There’s no way to know what might happen to me, right?” I muttered.

“Yes, Boss,” Mich replied.

“Well, I can take the risk. Maybe nothing serious will happen.” I said while smiling.

Mich looked at me worried then sighed in defeat while looking down and said, “I know I’m going to regret this.”

He moved his hand to the side and a white window pop up in front of me. The window then filled itself with images with names under them.

“Here is a long list of all the popular virtual games,” Mich said.

“Damn, there are a lot,” I said.

“You can set the search by picking from the options list or by just saying it. Mich said. “ oh and you can pull up this window by just calling for it. It is the same thing if you want to close it too.”

Mich left after saying that.

I looked at the window and scrolled down, reading the games one by one. Their names and descriptions. I even looked up some videos to know what I was getting myself into every time a game interested me. But they ended disappointing me.

Until I found a game that intrigued me.

“Player’s Dream.” I read the title aloud. It wasn’t the title that attracted me, but what was beside it. Instead of the price tag that every game had, this one had the word ‘free’ there.

Don’t get me wrong, I have enough money to buy three jets, which are antiques of an era mostly forgotten. So they’re quite expensive.

But that wasn’t the only thing. The video I looked up showed the kind of thing that only a game produced by a renowned developer would. Which is not a high price if I remember the fiasco that was the game that created using my A.I. research. I already knew they wouldn’t be able to create an A.I. as advanced as Mich, but the greed of the company was their downfall. Who in their right mind thought that pay to win and loot boxes would be accepted by the gamer community. Those guys had played even the games from the mostly forgotten era, for fuck sake. They put historians to shame when it comes to events related to games and their communities in the forgotten era. And that is a lot if one takes into consideration how games if that era depicted the situation of the society. The company might as well creamed ‘we only want your money’ and see how they go bankrupt, which they ended at, anyway.

Anyway, the game called Player’s Dream has something. Be it in the description which stated one can do anything they want, but warned that there’d be consequences. Good and bad. Or how they prided themselves in stating that balanced is up to the player’s wit. They explained how the worst technique or skill can become the best only with a player’s interaction. That the rules in the game were meant to be challenged or questioned. They even added a video in the description showing people testing a skill. The famous beginner spell for mages, ‘Fireball.’ Each person changed the shape of the spell. The color too. And the spell changed names. ‘Fire spear’ and ‘Fire sword’ where two of them.

There were many things and more. The description was long. I don’t think that many read the entire thing unless they liked to read, like me, or wanted to know as much as they could before playing.

“It’s decided,” I smirked. “Player’s Dream, here I come!”

I screamed as I selected the game. A bunch of windows started to show up soon after.

Initializing Download

Download Complete

Connecting to Immersion Device

Unable to Find Immersion Device

“Seems like I need an immersion device,” I muttered while thinking about a solution.

“Well, not really,” I said while snapping my fingers.

“Open source window,” I said.

A window full of code showed up in front of me. I changed a few things in order to make the game believe that this space is an immersion device. It took me longer than I thought. Who would have thought someone would put up so many defensive measures against hacking in their system. I felt like I was up against Mich and his hacking games. I guess whoever made these defenses are good. But no good enough to stop me.

“Close window,” I said and waited to see if it’ll work.

Immersion Device Found

Connecting….

Connection Successful

Commencing Body Scan...

“Body Scan? Good thing I predicted this and added a few more things while I was coding,” I said, amused.

Body Scan Successful

Connecting to Player’s Dream

The space around me changed to an over the clouds view.

[https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/65/Over_the_clouds.jpg]

Everything was blue with the sun up in the horizon. Then a window showed up in front of me.

Welcome to Player’s Dream

Pulling Agreement Policy...

Another window showed up. This one must have been the agreement policy, I supposed. I read through it. It had some things about playing at one's own risk. It went further into explaining the dangers one might encounter. Be it because of game design or the player. There was even a video where everything inside the agreement policy is explained.

“Someone doesn’t want to get sue,” I laughed.

I signed after reading everything. I had to make sure there wasn’t anything shady. I wouldn’t be able to play the game if I didn’t sign anyway.

Once finished with that, a character creation screen showed up. There was a naked, full body model of myself. I could only customize my appearance. I left everything as it was and continued on.

A light enveloped the naked model of me and clothes appeared. It allowed me to change the colors. I made everything white. A white generic shirt and beach shorts with no drawings or packets. I pressed the finished bottom hovering on the bottom right corner of the window.

Light enveloped my body and the same clothes appeared on me.

Commencing Transfer to a Random Location

Light began to cover me. I smiled, opened my arms and looked up.

“Let the game begin!” I screamed at the top of my lungs and I vanished into the game.