"What about your recreational character?" Allen asked after a mind numbing lesson in spatial mathematics that pushed his resources to their limits and left the others far behind, making Allen realise some of the real world technological advancez may have originated from the ancient AIs trading with Players.

Jovial looked at him for a few seconds before answering, "it's just a low level militiaman I picked for the weapons skills and resistance to mind control".

"Militiaman sounds powerful" Allen said after thinking about his own recreational characters, "when I was NPC none of our choices had weapon skills or resistances", then added "all we had were craftsmen and peasants"

"I tried the Peasant resurgence Hack like everyone else I know", sounding frustrated, "when it failed I took the MilitiaMan", then his words hit something solid, an idea bloomed in his mind like a bomb so powerful it was visible to outside observers as all he could do was stare at where Allen's glowing orb floated and point at him while mumbling "you" over and over again.

"What?" Allen couldn't understand the reaction, "resurgence was the height of fasion when I was NPC we all did it so we could play higher level quests", at which Jovial just stabbed his finger futilely in the air unable to create a sentence.

"It was a million years ago" Jovial finally cried, "you died", sounding more and more breathless, "you hacked your rig", his voice breaking up, "they tell you never to mess with the blockers or you end up a living vegetable like Allen Pearlson", he stoppe talking and stared, "you are Allen Pearlson", he added after a pause "you messed with your blockers", the sentences sounded broken and barely audible, "you didn't die", and he finally whispered "you hacked life Kanga" and stopped talking altogether.

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"It was only a millenia ago", Allen tried to lighten the mood, "not a million years", then he changed the subject again, "why not make a Kobold recreational character and live here in the capital?"

"Kanga if I pop a classless Kobold in a noob city they will shank me faster than the system can process it", the simple question seemed to shake Jovial from his shock, "or sell me as a slave to the mines".

"We could protect you and being you back here", Allen thought about it for a while now and didn't understand why there weren't more player operated monsters, "are there no Player dragons?" he finally asked the one most visually obvious, "or unicorns or werewolves?"

"Only top ranking guilds can afford monster races for their members Kanga", Jovial sounded bitter, "and recreationals only get the lower kinds of monsters so nobody picks them".

This brought Allen to another chain of thought, "did you ever evolve your NPC Jovial?"

"No such thing as NPC evolution Kanga" the answer came too quick, "you hacked the system back way whenever but you can't do that anymore"

"Were you ever an inanimate object?" Allen finally asked.

"Nah", he replied, "nobody takes stupid contracts like that unless you get sentence reduction for it" which answerd all of Allen's questions on the subject but seemed to blow a new bomb in Jovial's mind, "is that how you did it?" He finally asked, "took a crystal contract and broke your blockers to live forever?"

The simple explanation let Allen out of the trap and he took it, "that's right", he said, "but if you cant evolve you shouldn't try to hack the blockers" he added quickly to dissuade Jovial from trying.

"That is murky stuff Kanga" Jovial repeated his favorite sentence whenever hacking was mentioned, "do you really think you could bring me here if I spawn as a Kobold?" returning to the original subject.

"We could ask BoneSmith to help us" Allen said after coming up empty for solutions, "she probably has spies all over the world"

"Ok" Jovial sounded excited, "let's do that".