> Quote:Now with more spacing. Be it an improvement or not, I will let you readers decide.
A group of people were sitting in an auditorium, you could hear everyone's conversations .
"Hey remember that job we finished yesterday? I actually found a follow up for it at the other end of the town of all places." The person sounded slightly frustrated as the person next to him replied.
"Nothing odd with that, LoI is alive and evolving so it would be weirder if the npc's were sitting next to each other. More importantly you got something to do today or wanna finish it?".
Most people were talking about LoI or Land of Irith, after the discovery a few years back it didn't take long for companies to spill out virtual reality games, but the best and most popular one was polished and released a couple of years later, Land of Irith, so many people played it that it was actually harder to find a person who didn't play than who did, the game had become so big it, was acknowledged as a whole different world where even the developers didn't know all of its secrets. The room kept buzzing with conversations until suddenly the whole room became quiet as someone with a stature of a viking walked up to the front of the auditorium.
The feeling in the room could be explained with one word "Admiration". The man put a stack of papers on the table and turned on the microphone.
"Good morning everyone and welcome to the first year of Virtual Reality studies. I am Professor Lyod Baxton, you probably remember me from few years back when I revealed the discovery that sparked a change in this world of ours and now I work as a teacher in this university of America, dedicated to further the technology we call virtual reality"
Everyone kept quiet making the professor slightly nervous.
"Ah, moving on first things first ill run through what we're doing today in this "entrance ceremony" of ours, which is mostly paper work for today, the real studies start next week while we're still preparing the class rooms for link accessibility."
Link, the portable computer which enabled anyone anywhere with a link plugin to connect to virtual reality network as long as they had the program or game they needed to connect to.
"Sorry to say we couldn't get it done for this week. We got a report that the cables were destroyed in a store mishap, but it shouldn't effect you in any way other than having to wait 5 days."
Loyd said while running a hand through his beard while thinking.
"So today we will give you some paper work to fill up which consists of your personal details, application for school provided link, also we're gonna have to test all of your mental states for reference in the future, don't worry its basically the same one that link does every time you start it up, but this one we will be keeping."
The auditorium was in slight of a shock and everyone were talking which made Loyd confused.
"Did I say something wrong?" he thought and then noticed a young man raising his hand in the front row which propped his curiosity.
"Yes?" he said while gesturing towards the young man.
"Sorry, but could you go a bit further into why we need to get mental state tested and for what reference? I think we're all a bit confused why you need to invade our personal space that much".
"Ah that's right" Loyd thought in his head and it showed on his face.
"Yes sorry that might have been a tad too vague, apologies. We aren't testing to see if you're a sociopath, its more of a starting point snapshot if you will.". Loyd paused to see the reaction and then continued.
"The idea is that we're going to be taking these every 6 months to see how your studies effect your mental states, you will be able to see it for yourself when necessary, but most importantly we get data." the whole room quieted down in understanding.
"Also I forgot to mention that it was actually my idea to do this and I'm not forcing any of you to do it, plus if you were to quit your studies you can ask for the information to be removed." the auditorium sighed in relief and everyone looked to be fine with the procedure.
The professor and his assistants started to hand out all of the papers and opened to doors instructing students who had filled their papers to go to the room next door one by one. Professor Loyd left while the assistants stayed to answer any questions.
After a while the auditorium was trickling new students out to the next door making a line which blocked the passage way, almost everyone had finished their paper work except one. Specifically the young man that was the only one to speak up about the testing, Nicholas. The man was tall and had robust physique, his hair was light brown and if you came to eye contact with him you would first notice his eyes which were different colour, left one brown and right one green, those two eyes were on a face which had both European and Hispanic traces. He was struggling with his Link application form, unlike everyone else.
It was as though he was the only one without a Link he thought, so he kept asking questions regarding the link form until the assistants noticed the line was gone.
"Hey you better get to the next room or the Professor might think we're done, he should be fine with answering any other questions."the assistant said in a hurry, most of the other assistants had actually already left so they were the only two inside the auditorium.
Nicholas knocked on the door and waited for an answer, "Oh? Come in come in".
As Nicholas entered the room he took a glance, but once he saw Professor Loyd sitting at a desk at the opposite side of the room he ignored the room and walked up to the Professor.
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"Lets see those papers then." Loyd prompted Nicholas and took the stack that was handed to him.
"Personal info seems to be in order, but what about this Link application? There's a lot of holes and i don't see this going further than me.".
Nicholas sighed, "Yes sir, I was having problems filling it up since I've never owned a Link before. The last assistant that stayed with me said you wouldn't mind helping me do the rest.".
Loyd looked dumbstruck for a second after hearing this, "Never owned one huh.. well that's unusual indeed and i cant blame you for not knowing what to write here considering you need to use a Link test to get the answers."
Loyd stood up and went to the corner of the room to pick up a weird looking link. The item itself looked like futuristic sunglasses except that the glass part was transparent, the Link visor itself didn't look weird, but there were two of them and they were connected with each other by a thin cord making it an odd pair.
"Now this here is the Instructor version I use. There's no real difference to a normal Link other than it has a few programs installed for teaching purposes and its powerful enough to work independent of the Link network so I can use it in a so called -Offline- mode. Come lets fill your application".
Nicholas put on Link that was handed to him and Loyd started up the system. In a moment both of their consciousnesses were ported to a space which could only be described as emptiness, it had a few specks of light shining around them but other than those lights there was nothing around them.
"Professor is this okay? I can't see anything." Nicholas said with a slight shock.
"Its perfectly fine, this is my personal preference. No distractions and only the essentials" Loyd said while gesturing towards a specific speck of light which then consumed both of them.
After 2 minutes of testing and 10 minutes of writing things down Nicholas was done, but Loyd still had something to say.
"You mind answering a few questions Nicholas?"
"Yes sure" Nicholas was curious on what the Professor had in mind, but the question was a question he had heard many a times.
"Why do you not have a Link? Were you not interested before ?" a small sigh could be heard from the other side of the table.
"I lost my parents a few years back, I've had to study and work at the same time so I've had little time for virtual reality in general. Most of my free time I was working or sleeping."
"You worked and went to school?, it must have been tough living by yourself as a teenager." Loyd looked genuinely sad for Nicholas.
"Its okay, I've come to terms with their passing a long time ago." he said indifferently.
"So, tell me about your parents." Loyd asked curiously. "Well my mother, moved here from Germany 20 years ago in search of a job, that's when she met my Father, a Latin American car repair specialist, they were both in love and after a year got married and had me. They both decided that my future is important so mom got a job as a secretary and dad stayed in car repair business even up an till that buss accident which took both of their lives."
His story started with a smile and ended up in a frown, "I'm sorry I shouldn't have asked something like that, there's no need to bring back bad memories ." Loyd apologized.
"It's fine it's fine." Nicholas waved the apology off.
"So what do you do these days? Do you still plan to work?" Loyd asked curiously again.
"No I actually managed to pay off all of my expenses and I have a lot of money from working and what my parent's left for me so I can now focus on what I want to do with my life."
"And you decided to study virtual reality, what drove you into that conclusion?." Loyd was leaning back in his chair while questioning Nicholas.
"The idea that we can make new worlds or implement our consciousness into a machine which lets us control it through virtual reality fascinates me to be honest, on top of that I read that this university provides students with links and free access to LoI made the decision easy."
"Oh yes, Land of Irith" Loyd stroke his beard, "Were actually going to use LoI as an example in few of our studies since it's so well made and we can learn much out of it." he said while eyeing Nicholas.
"LoI these days is probably the biggest activity in the world you know, it's a surprise to see someone without a Link or a character in it." Loyd shifted slightly in his chair and reached for a drawer.
"Here's all you need to know on how to get your LoI access, we have a special agreement with the company so you don't need to pay anything"
Nicholas smiled, "Yes I was aware of that. Its a nice benefit to have, but I doubt many people use it since they have probably bought it and played for a long time."
"Indeed, but since you need both Link and LoI access you can use the benefits of this institution" Loyd said concluding the topic and handed him a paper with a lot of information, mostly regarding the game.
"This paper includes LoI access and some starter information, but you can hear all of that at the log in screen when/once you get in. When you leave go to the front desk and give the Link application to them, they will look through the values and pick up a Link that suits your needs and then you can be off. Remember though that you need to be here on Monday or you might fall behind on studies."
Nicholas took the papers handed to him, shook the professors hand and was off to the front desk.