Chapter — 13

At Rei's eager nod, he extended his hand once more, but this time, instead of manifesting a virtual weapon of mass destruction, a simple cube of gleaming silver metal appeared without ceremony.

He tossed it casually toward her.

Catching it, she held it up to eye level to study.

It was seemingly made of metal, and crimson pulsating veins of straight angles broke through the exterior. She supposed it was on point for his whole theme, but from simply studying the cube without delving deeper, she had no idea what it was for.

Looking to the only one there who could give her the answers, she asked, "What am I supposed to do with this?"

"It's good that you didn't delve straight in by focusing your mind like you did when studying this realm. As a general rule, you should consider the potential dangers of everything in the mesh. You never know what pieces of code might be shielded by ICE so powerful it will kill you if you look sideways at it."

Rei continued to stare in question, and he went on, "This is a training program I developed for Selvix back in the day. Each of you got a copy when I first took you rustskulls in.

"As a matter of fact, you set the record for the fastest completion out of all four of you, and I expect you to surpass that time here and now. Even with partial amnesia, some things should be familiar to you, and it should, therefore, not be too difficult to solve. I expect you to stay here until you've finished."

"How long do you think it'll take?" Rei honestly had no idea what to expect.

"Days. Perhaps weeks, depending on your ability and how much you remember."

At her stunned expression, he shook his head. "The DC will administer nutrients as needed so your body won't deteriorate or anything. Depending on how long you take, there might be a period of weakness after you've exited, but your muscles shouldn't atrophy in such a short time span.

"The four dive chambers you use can't stimulate your muscles as you reside in the mesh, unlike mine, but we have the exercise room for a reason. Before the coma, you spent over a month in the mesh multiple times without any serious demerits to your physical health."

Understanding that arguing the issue would be pointless, she asked another question, "So what does this program do, specifically? What does it teach?"

WolfMosh stretched before turning to face the sun and closing his eyes in mimicry of Rei's previous actions. "Oh, this and that. It's primarily a guide to navigating the mesh and some interesting programming problems to solve. You could call it a puzzle cube if you will."

"Why's it shaped like a cube, anyway? Shouldn't a puzzle program be, I don't know, a labyrinth or something?"

He snorted. "Not every piece of code needs to be visually represented in the mesh. As a matter of fact, most of it isn't. Only the things we need or want to interact with often are physically represented. It makes it more efficient and just works better overall. There are exceptions, obviously.

"There are tonnes going on in the background that's hidden for various reasons, but mainly because the clutter could otherwise be insane on less orderly parts of the mesh. Not all parts are as beautiful as this place," he gestured expansively while keeping his eyes closed. "Some parts of the mesh are gruesome, in all its comprehensive meaning."

Rei thought she saw a tiny shiver course through his body, but it was so indistinct that she might have imagined it.

He opened his eyes at last and looked at her. "If you grow weary of the cube, then you can spend some time editing this submesh if you'd like. Though I wouldn't spend too much time on it, as if I had to pull you out without you having completed the cube, I'd be severely disappointed." His eyes gained a sharp edge at the last two words, and some hints of his aura of terror started seeping through.

Rei gulped and nodded, trying her utmost to keep her facade of tranquility from cracking. At her acknowledgment, the unnerving feeling vanished.

"Good. If you try to cheat, your punishment will get much worse. Get to it."

And then he was gone, not leaving a trace behind.

***

Contrary to Rei's impression, WolfMosh hadn't truly left her part of the mesh. He stayed for a few minutes longer, invisible and watching as she sat down in the pavilion and began inspecting the cube in earnest. Her characteristic thinking-frown was on full display, and it brought a turbulent mix of emotions to his cold heart.

I've always been a strict teacher, but even so, this is taking it a bit too far. It is necessary, though. She needs to be able to stand on her own when all comes to light.

With Rei none the wiser, WolfMosh disappeared once more, this time for real. Only his ever-watching AI remained present — continually generating logs on Rei's progress.

***

The cube was marvelous and precisely what she needed. Rei happily blazed through complex math problems and code so esoteric that they might as well have been logic puzzles. Each was unique, and during the first ones, she learned different terms used for various mesh magic.

The most common action was Breaching.

Breaching a specific part of the mesh could be effortless — like it was for Rei to see the make-up of her submesh all around her — or near-impossible — as she'd been shown by being utterly incapable of seeing through WolfMosh. It referred to the act of creating an opening in the mesh where one could then splice whatever code lay within.

Splicing was the general term for what a Magi did to the mesh.

It referred to the forceful entwinement between the Magi and the part they focused on. Once entwined, actions such as retrieving or depositing data could be carried out; the purposes were so varied that naming all of them was meaningless.

The complexity of the splice dictated how secure the connection was, while its strength determined the bandwidth available — meaning how much data could be sent back and forth simultaneously. Of course, there was an upper limit to the available bandwidth, as the Magi's hardware ultimately became the bottleneck.

Rei learned that increasing the complexity of the splice made the whole process more difficult and mentally taxing, as each new string of data interwoven gave ever-increasing variables to consider. However, these variables muddying the waters also made it more secure, so there wasn't much to do about it other than increase one's proficiency and computing speed.

On the other hand, increasing the strength of the splice could speed up each action, giving more room to send data. Sadly, that also went the other way, meaning that various countermeasures had a larger target at which to retaliate. A lack of complexity of the splice in such a situation could prove detrimental or even fatal.

***

Rei lost track of the passage of time and the number of instances where she was forcefully expelled from the program with a horrible headache — having taken a beating from a puzzle's defenses. They weren't designed to be lethal but to hurt.

It illustrated the point well enough.

It wasn't all bad, though, as from each beating she took, she learned and adapted.

Her speed at breaching uncooperative pieces of code became faster as she iterated on better ways to worm herself into different types of defenses, and her splicing complexity grew increasingly absurd for her expertise. Rei couldn't know for sure, but she felt she had a knack for multitasking the various threads of processes needed to deliver and assemble data packets at their target.

She also slowly gained a better sense of how much strength she could apply to the splice before risking retaliation her own work-in-progress ICE couldn't handle.

She barely noticed that most of this improved strength of her splicing came from the continuous, yet minor, improvements she subconsciously incorporated into her ICE, modifying and strengthening her defenses against similar attacks in real-time.

The cyberdeck's user interface and various pre-programmed ease of access functions had long been forgotten — her mind tapping directly into its processes and micro-managing each data thread. She wasn't perfect, and memory leaks and errors cropped up occasionally, but her efficiency constantly increased.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

Then, there was a shift from the previous puzzles of breaching and splicing specific pieces of code, and their ICE shifted in a direction she hadn't expected. It completely broke Rei's trance as she stared mutely at the new puzzle's instructions.

Do I need to create a program that will independently breach and splice the target code and its ICE, i.e., a virus of some sort?

It seemed daunting at first, yet with some introspection and her instincts guiding her, she soon realized that each puzzle before this had contained hints of how to do it.

I knew something felt odd about those chunks of code. Some parts just lacked cohesion with the rest, meaning that the ICE was shielding a barely functioning piece of scrap.

The puzzles contained bundles of code of all types. Some of them had algorithms Rei had to pass data through to retrieve the result. Sometimes, she only needed to retrieve a specific list of data. In various cases, destroying the code was required, and in others, retrieving it in its entirety was needed.

Rei had naturally saved all the code she'd retrieved, but thinking back on it, the most disordered code — with chunks seemingly ill-fitting with the rest — was those she'd been tasked with destroying.

That evil son of a bitch!

Rei queried the puzzle program to see if she could bring up past puzzles but only got a query back asking her if she wanted to reset her progress.

"Seriously?!" Rei shouted, aggrieved.

Startled by her own voice, she brought her mind away from the puzzle box and looked around, blinking at the night sky visible beyond the pavilion roof.

I didn't realize there was a day and night cycle. How long have I been at this?

As she pulled up her agent's information, she was stunned. Not because of the time, as it didn't reflect the sky she saw, but of the date.

I've been at this non-stop for three days?

She felt a wave of exhaustion hit her as reality sunk in. Without a straightforward, logical task to focus her mind on, she grew increasingly delirious.

I think... I'll just... take... a short...

She couldn't even finish the thought before she fell asleep.

***

Dreaming about numbers and scripts dancing through her mind and taunting her with their obvious yet seemingly impossible-to-grasp solutions had been weird; Waking up to bird noises and a soft breeze rustling her hair into her nostril until she sneezed had been weirder.

Using her [Strong Will] skill in the noble pursuit of pushing that mildly embarrassing episode out of her memory, she realized that there had been a very glaring lack of something:

System notifications.

She'd apparently spent three days constantly straining her psyche and improving, and she refused to accept that she hadn't made any progress. It also felt ludicrous that there wouldn't be any skills relating to mesh magic, considering odd skills like [Strong Will]. She even remembered some of the [Mind] perks relating to processing speed and efficiency.

Am I missing something? Are perhaps the notifications projected directly into my brain but in a way that doesn't translate to my consciousness inside the mesh? That would be strange but not the most outlandish thing the System has thrown my way.

Putting all that aside for the moment, she looked around in thought, pondering if she should take this momentary break to change some stuff about her environment. She had many ideas already. Some came from vague and disjointed memories from her time as the Goddess of Creation, while others had come to her between puzzles.

Nah. I'll take a break if I get bored, but this is honestly super interesting stuff. I also get the feeling that remodeling this submesh will be a lot smoother after I've solved the puzzle cube. It's the most efficient way to do this...

Who am I kidding? I only want to solve the next puzzle.

Patting herself on the back for at least thinking about it, she stretched out her hand toward the cube that had fallen to the floor. It zipped into her hand, and Rei barely blinked at the casual use of telekinesis she'd displayed. Her familiarity with the mesh's coding had already reached a level where something as simple as that became effortless.

It's only adding some vectors and applying force using the underlying physics system already present in the mesh. No biggie.

Now, how will I go about creating my first virus?

Her much-needed rest had cleared her head a great deal, and unbeknownst to her, the strange dreams had managed to put the scattered thoughts and ideas more in line.

By emulating her construction of the base of her avatar — just to a much lesser extent — she had something to work with. It took time, but slowly, the lines of code came together. It wasn't pretty or efficient, but without anything to lean on other than her instincts and the disparate pieces of code she'd saved, it was still impressive, in her humble opinion.

As the script latched onto the ICE, trying to get past it into the goodies inside, she waited with bated breath. Barely a few seconds in, however, she let out a sigh.

A second iteration is needed. It's not surprising, but it's still a disappointment.

She repeatedly pitted her work-in-progress magnum opus — not really — against its adversary, and she equally as often needed to rework bits and pieces.

The ICE shielding her target wasn't overly advanced — unlike the last puzzle she'd solved — but it still had some minor adaptive properties that took time to outsmart.

Were she allowed to splice the ICE herself, she could have figured out its weaknesses in seconds.

At long last, her script slithered past the ICE, taking some damage along the way but still finishing its task valiantly. She cheered internally at the success before going to the next puzzle in line.

Puzzle after puzzle with similar objectives to those she'd already completed by doing the work herself was completed as she became progressively more competent at writing her own code to do the job for her.

In the last puzzle of this series, she had to beat three different pieces of code and ICE — each with different objectives — that her one single script had to solve on its own.

It took her what she estimated to be as long as the last ten puzzles put together. Not that she was good at keeping track of the passing of time. Her mind had long since been absorbed in a trance-like state where only the problem and the solution mattered.

The next puzzle was so different that it once more broke her trance, her foggy brain struggling to keep up with the data flowing through her thoughts.

With a yawn, she checked her agent for the time, only to have a repeat of emotions as she saw that another four days had passed.

Rei barely had time to settle her emotions before she passed out.

***

A pattern was soon established, with Rei falling into a trance — where she worked tirelessly — only to stumble into a new type of puzzle, check the time, pass out, and repeat it all over again.

Her dreams became increasingly strange as the data she recognized became less prevalent. The new data that slowly replaced it was arcane to her sleeping brain, but imprints of its knowledge were left in its wake, all unbeknownst to her.

She did somewhat notice what she believed to be a decline in the curve of increasing difficulty as the days passed, but the thought that ever more complex problems were seemingly easier for her didn't properly take root.

She was on a roll, and even though she didn't know her previous record in solving the puzzle cube, she was determined to beat it.

It did occur to her that she most likely would, but she wasn't in the mood to slack off when doing something so interesting.

After the script-creating puzzles, she'd graduated to composing full-fledged programs. Scripts were basically programs-lite, from what Rei understood, but they didn't do it for the following puzzles.

What had initially woken her from the latest trance was how the puzzle was presented. No longer was it merely formless data but a simulated virtual space reminiscent of a mini-mesh. Perhaps it was, as she still didn't fully understand how the puzzle cube worked.

This meant that the programs she developed now took a three-dimensional form unless specifically limited not to do so.

Rei found that limiting them that way severely hampered their efficiency for some enigmatic reason — another mystery separating the mesh from the internet of old.

Target programs and their ICE became fortresses with treasure inside or other varied representations of themselves. Her own programs became varying geometric shapes like spheres, cubes, or pyramids that shot lightning and other elements at the fortifications.

She even had a slim cuboid that could go "stealth mode," turning transparent and slipping past the fortifications' defenses while her other programs got its attention.

Rei had to admit that her daemons — as semi-autonomous programs such as these were called — were very unimaginative in appearance, especially seeing the fantasy races arming the battlements to halt her advance.

Werewolves seemed to be the creator's favorite daemons.

Rei wasn't surprised.

In her defense, though, she didn't want to spend unnecessary brainpower highlighting sections of code and manually adding cosmetic data to make the daemon look like an ugly goblin — the current puzzle antagonist daemons.

WolfMosh had really gone to work on those goblin daemons, as each shriek they emitted was as annoying to her ears as it was damaging to her own geometric troops. Especially considering that their screeching in unison created feedback loops that amplified it.

What felt to Rei like hours later, her slim, cuboid stealth daemon came through in a big way, dismantling the fortification from within and securing her win.

Feeling the mental exhaustion, Rei returned her thoughts from the miniature meshspace inside the puzzle cube and looked around.

It was morning. Not that it mattered.

Rei was already used to crashing onto the bench she sat at.

***

Days turned to weeks, and Rei had to take a well-deserved break somewhere in the middle. She'd spent it lying in the grass outside the pavilion while basking in the sun. She may have slipped into a few naps as she did, but no one was watching her.

At least she hoped so, as she'd switched from her hoodie to lying braless in a tanktop on the soft grass. She'd forsworn the article of clothing, but lying on the grass and feeling the warm rays, she'd given in to temptation.

So what if someone was creeping? She was living the life. There were no tick daemons in sight; she might as well have gone to heaven.

The break couldn't last forever, though, and she soon returned to work.

Time continued its steady march, but all good things eventually come to an end — a very anticlimactic end in this case.

That's really it? Just a "Congratulations, you've finished Puzzle Cube v 1.2.1. Reset progress?"

There wasn't even any confetti or something. Honestly, using Comic Sans for the 'victory' message wouldn't have made it much worse, and that's saying something.

No, calm down, Rei. You had fun and learned lots. No need to be pissed that your efforts didn't earn you a single-

"This is bullshit! And what was with the 'YoU cOuLd CalL iT A pUzZlE CUbE, If yOu WilL' spiel before? Veeery funny since that's the fucking name of the thing."

Someone cleared their throat behind her.

Startled out of her wits, she yelped and leapt from the grass she'd been lying on yet again. On pure instinct, her tanktop switched to her previous rendition of a hoodie in the blink of an eye.

Whirling around and seeing who'd so rudely barged in unannounced, her near-blushing cheeks cooled as she began to glare.