Event occurred inside chapter 32.
xXx
Ronald Hanover was nursing his headache. He loathe medicine as much as the doctor and company prescribing it. He was tempted to give in this time however.
Good thing a cup of self-brewed joe makes it bearable. He sipped the dark liquid slowly, savoring the bitterness with slight tang of acid. It went down smoothly. He sighed in gratification, his throbbing head ignored for the moment. The joy passed, he put down his cup to attack his breakfast.
Spaghetti Bolognaise with a cut loaf of garlic bread from the Italian restaurant he frequented recently a couple blocks away. He ate there often enough for the proprietress to notice him. When they found out he lived alone and appreciate their food, it opened the possibility of catering the breakfast for him. It also set them thinking to have lunch and dinner delivery to increase business. Two weeks in, they have to hire more delivery boys that numbered five, Ronald thought, if the electric bike he saw was any indication.
Downing bite after bite of his meal, occasionally sipping his coffee, Ronald thought about what he found on the Battlemage profession. The description most common he found was ‘Jack in a box’, ‘Mixed bag of fun’ and ‘as much joy and misery in a package’. In conclusion, intriguing.
The majority appeared to admit to skipping the Calibration process and appeared none the worse. But out of them, most also switched to another profession given the first chance. Beside the adjusted status that was closer to a Spellsword there appeared to be nothing special about Battlemage. Then there was the small percentage that claimed that went through the whole process and appeared very smug about it for some reason. Even more intriguing.
Ronald was tempted to skip it. Despite him being locked in the capsule six to eight hours daily for the last seven days, it was not done yet. It was very tempting to just use <
A week of not playing Royal Road. And more to come! But Ronald was a sore loser. When someone told him something cannot be done or should not, that was when he was most tempted to do it. It got him to no end of trouble in his younger days. Even some resulting in short incarceration. But what trouble you can get into for playing Royal Road?
His headache receding, Ronald was determined to spend time inside the Capsule, making progress on the Calibration process. But that was later. Now, he wanted to spend some time enjoying his breakfast, read some articles and watch some Royal Road videos.
‘Mysterious Creature Identified!’ was on top.
The article went on length to explain the phenomenon of a Chim, a small, cute creature native only to Arland region in Western side of the continent that had been spotted moving toward Central. It was last spotted in Ezza, border between West and Central before disappearing again.
The author went further, hashing that Chim (dubbed by everyone due to their speech pattern) was a harmless creature always seen around Master Alchemist NPCs in Arland. They were their little helpers and only twenty or so has been spotted though there were rumored to be total of a hundred. They were divided into a boy and a girl, easily discerned between their haircut, short bob with jacket for a boy and twin tail with petticoat skirt for a girl. Their hands were never seen, always hidden behind the voluminous sleeves of their clothes.
What was known about the unique creatures were little aside from them existing only in Arland and appeared to have relation to Alchemy as a whole. There were no known cases of any successful attempt to communicate properly with the creature by players though they appeared to understand players perfectly. Participants in minor gathering quests, they excelled at it, able to travel even to the most hostile territory and collect requested ingredients. They appeared to have ZERO combat capability and the system gave very hefty penalty in infamy for injuring them (rumored to be somewhere between 50 to 100 infamy per HIT).
The last paragraphs of the article extolled that this was the first time a Chim was seen outside Arland, speculating on the cause, finishing with a clear photograph of ten Chims of both gender that appeared to be talking to each other.
‘No wonder they could not tell how many. They all looked the same!’
Ronald scrutinized the picture carefully. Four male and five female with a female in the middle circled. They were worse than identical whatever-plets! Aside from gender difference they looked exactly the same, like a clone down to the last thread of clothing!
Ronald shook his head in disgust, realising he spent ten minutes checking out the single picture that went nowhere. What a waste of time!
Switching to search button, he wished to check on his favorite presenter, Professor Drek. His search came up on top with him having a Public Lecture that day, in an hour. Only half hour long in real life time, it actually spanned two hours virtual time. Attendance appeared to be free with the channel listed with a link to reach it instantly and limited to ten thousand participants. The title of the lecture was “Royal Road - The Magic behind the scene”.
Dropping his LitePad on the table, Ronald leisurely finished his meal.
xXx
Ronald was a couple minutes late with his attendance. Good thing the good Professor appeared to be waiting for a couple minutes for the number to of attendant to hit the maximum limit. Ronald was among the last few hundreds trickling in too if his registration number was anything to go by.
This was his first time attending a virtual lecture. He knew a lot of virtual businesses were done with the use of Unicorn Capsule. He never realised how much pain it was to actually make an approved virtual body for public use. Apparently there was an International Law passed a couple months after the Capsule was out and used widely for virtual interactions in business.
It was long winded and Ronald skipped most of them, but the highlights were related to physical alterations. You could change your hair, your eye color, add or remove bodily hair as much as you want. But the were strict limit to clothings depending on what sort of Channels you were going into.
Divided mainly into Business, Education and Entertainment Channel (Royal Road as a game has no channel), you were allowed anything within the allowed parameters. For Ronald, attending a lecture, he was not allowed accessories like earrings, studs and piercings on his face. Clothings were rather limited to conservative fashion. And then completely no visible tattoos allowed for your avatar.
Ronald only found out about the very stringent requirement after he spent a good half hour making carbon copy of Winter and not allowed to be used the avatar anywhere outside Entertainment Channel. He spent the last few minutes resetting his avatar to his current look, slapping random ‘approved’ clothing and quickly snuck into the lecture.
The only concession the Law gave to virtual world was how much time they wish to speed up compared to the real world. Most users chose the maximum of four times. Ronald could not think of a good reason to go normal world speed in a virtual world when you could save time.
The number finally hit ten thousand while Ronald was grousing with a mild chime. Virtual hall doors were closed. Ronald looked around him. He appeared to be seated near the upper tiers of the lecture hall shaped like a sliced bowl. Ronald wondered how there could be ten thousand when it appeared to have been only two hundred seated around him. Others looked around them for a bit, giving a nod to the person seated next to them. Mix of genders and race were there, from Asian to African American and everything in between.
*Clap* *Clap*
The sound of Professor Drek’s reverberating clap echoed around the hall, bringing everyone’s eyes to him.
He appeared almost without any difference than when Ronald last saw him in the Royal Road virtual channel. He still wore his spectacle, sported the same thinning hair, if probably even thinner. His Wizard robe and rod replaced by a retractable virtual pointer and common brown jacket and black pants, finished by red checkered butterfly tie. He adjusted his white shirt and tie like a performer.
“Okay, class, thank you for attending my fifth lecture today. For those with the misfortune of attending the first time, you can find earlier lectures in my personal page. No direct method of recording is allowed unfortunately, but this lecture will be posted as per law, earliest next month should you wish to review. With that, let us begin.”
Everyone’s attention was riveted on every word he spoke. Ronald even spotted a good number on the lower tier furiously scribbling and typing what he said. Like a real world lecture.
“Now. What the Unicorn Capsule actually is? Anyone?”
There was a small chime and a two dimensional avatar of an early twenties female appeared to the left of Roland’s view.
“Ah. Miss Robert. Always a pleasure to hear from you.” The class chuckled at the good Professor’s attempt at levity. She appeared to be a regular. “Give it to us.”
“It is just an oversized cellphone.” There were a few snickers and guffaws that the professor ignored. He nodded sagely at the glib answer.
“Not bad, Miss Robert. I have to call it an Interface Machine, but I am a Professor.” He waited for the humor to die down before continuing.
“Miss Robert is right. It is essentially a cellphone. More advanced than your old style cellphone, but still works like one. It receives signal, and send it back. But what makes it really special is that the machine is capable of sending impulses that our brain can pick up. It is also capable of receiving the signals our brain sends out.” Professor Drek let the statement sank in.
“A cell phone converts sound into electric impulses and reconvert it back to sound. But how do you do that to a brain? It is known that all human body emits unique electricity impulses like a fingerprint. We are magnetic, folks. We are. And the machine can read that.”
There was a stunned silence upon hearing the statement. Ronald never really thought much on how he entered the virtual world. It was not hard to wrap his head around the idea that a machine is powerful enough to measure his body’s signal. Heartbeat measurements were technically just electrical too. What Professor Drek tacitly implied however was the machine containing capability to affect their body without any direct intrusion.
“Everyone that entered the machine dreams. But that is oversimplifying it. Open file Two-Three-Five-Dash-A.”
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A screen opened in front of Ronald, playing a video. It was a person inside the Capsule, frontal view. His eyes were closed. On the half cut to the right was a view of the exact same person battling monster. There was a large watermark of ’APPROVED FOR PUBLIC VIEWING’ floating on the background.
“Without going too deeply into the realm of Advanced Neuroscience, the machine creates a concentrated burst of electric impulses that put you to sleep like a lights out when you lie in the Capsule good and ready. The process is gradual, not instant. It just feels that way because your brain is being tricked.”
There were looks of both horror and fascination intermixing on each participant’s face. Professor Drek actually smiled at the mixed reactions, as if that was expected.
“But worry not. It is only a light trance, whence you will be woken up even by the slightest stimulation. It is not possible for proper interface if we fully submerge the brain into deeper state of sleep. For now.” Professor Drek let the statement hang. It was but a mild relief from the terror of some mega company putting everyone to sleep forever. Somehow the Professor was not bothered when everyone’s thought strayed that direction. He went on without losing a beat.
“It is why you can feel your bodily needs. Like hunger. Thirst. Full bladder. Even an itch you have to scratch. Sounds familiar?” Everyone nodded. Ronald was familiar indeed. He had to log out even to scratch his nose. It drove him crazy that he could not take care of the itch inside the game.
“The Capsule is designed to wall off unnecessary distraction, minimising it to as little as possible, else you might find a mosquito a bit too much to ignore. How is that for gaming?”
The conspiratory wink of the Professor set everyone laughing albeit nervously, the thought of them actually for the moment was dreaming with everyone else and the clip of dreamy test subject still fresh in their mind. But nobody seemed to wish to pull of the lecture. For now.
“Pay attention here.” The professor tapped his finger.
Professor Drek’s hand moved to play another file, replacing the one that we just watched. Still the same person but this time from above and the other half, the familiar silver edged projected digital screen inside the capsule. It showed a two dimensional enveloping view across the top half of the coffin, where the eyes normally would be.
The scrolling picture of the background view, interposing the man now walking around the grassland in his Warrior gear, sword on hand. It hit Roland and probably everyone what they just saw. The bare view was of what the man saw, his eyes fluttering open occasionally but appeared to be still in the light trance and the view of him as a Warrior was what the brain saw.
“This clip was taken with a special machine specially calibrated to the subject’s brain. It is capable to actually show what the subject saw when he was in the virtual world.”
It hit everyone in the gut like a nuclear bomb.
“That is right folks. Royal Road exists only in your head!”
There was an utter silence while Professor Drek dismissed the video. The silence was so complete you could hear your own heartbeat and someone down a few rows shift in their seat. Professor Drek had implied it earlier, but seeing it just throws you off. It was like watching your horror comes to life. The glamor taken away and the truth was shown.
“Oh. Of course our normal Capsule does not compare. The machine shown here is exponentially much much more expensive.” That last bit of information was added like it was an afterthought. There was no sound of typing or scratches of pencils as everyone digested the truth of virtual world they utilised daily now.
“Isn’t it wonderful? For something that is only in your head to also exist in everyone’s head at the same time!” Professor Drek flourished his hands. Everyone was jolted to attention in their seat by the suddenness of the gesture.
“This is however not enough. You need more to make the experience complete. Synesthesia.”
As if the word was a trigger, a text file opened in front of Ronald. In front of everyone’s own seat, the same screen and text appeared.
‘Synesthesia: the production of a sense impression relating to one sense or part of the body by stimulation of another sense or part of the body.’
“You read the definition. But what does it mean?” Without losing a beat, Professor Drek continued. “It essentially means that what affect one sense affects the whole sense. Let me give you an example. File. Iceberg.”
The blown up picture of a gigantic iceberg expanded to cover the whole wall of the lecture room behind Professor Drek. Even looking at it make Ronald felt cold.
“”How many instantly thought the place in the picture is cold?” Most hands were raised. Ronald was not the kind to raise his hands, but he got the idea.
“How many actually felt a little cold from looking at it, let your hands stay.” Most hands stayed up.
“You can put them down now. File extension two.” Drek recited from memory.
Ronald was expecting another picture. Everyone did. But what came out instead was cracks of gunshot that made most around him flinch and cower. A good number dove under their seats for cover. The gunshots of automatic weapons went on for a little longer before stopping. Drek appearing unfazed by it.
“Danger. That was what gunshot represented. Common byproduct of knowledge on how gun operates and recognising what gunfire sounds like from movies mainly I hope. You are physically trained to either look for the source or seek shelter, getting away as far from the noise as you can, recognising it as dangerous for your well being. Wise choice. Let us try another one, shall we? Sound file zero-dash-seven.”
All of the attendees were expecting another loud noises and braced themselves for it. There was nothing but silence instead. Ronald was confused. He and all of the attendees looked left and right, expecting something. He felt a slight chill, but that was probably nothing.
Everyone eventually settled down, but a lot appeared uncomfortable in their seat, feeling jumpy. Ronald felt slightly jumpy too. As if there was something crawling around his spine, reaching for the back of his head.
“Anyone felt uncomfortable?” There were nods and chorus of agreements. “Good. How about jumpy?” That stopped everyone dead.
Before everyone thought he was doing some mind reading or anything close to it, Drek clicked his tongue. A large window appeared on the wall behind him, showing blue squiggly lines that moved in regular noticeable pattern. They were spiky all over but repeated again and again. It took Ronald to recall his time in school.
“Soundwave pattern. Infrasonic. Below human hearing range of 20-20,000 Hertz. You cannot hear it and thus don’t take notice. But your body and brain can feel it. Known effect include slight chill on your back and cause mild tremor and jumpiness. A pretty common trick in haunted houses back in the olden days.” The waves eventually evened out and Ronald could almost feel the sensation disappearing.
“Light.” Drek spoke the word.
The whole hall was suddenly filled with strobing light that blinked continuously. It made Ronald felt sick. Every single person in the hall felt the effect too. The nauseous feeling like they were in a boat riding waves.
“Clear.”
The hall was back to their previous light setting. There were a few overturned chairs and some pale and haggard looking people.
“My apologies for the method. But it will be less effective if you have a warning. Strobing light at different frequency and intensity. It is felt less since you are in the virtual realm. But in real world, it is enough to induce feeling of nausea as you were experiencing, and can cause vomiting which your virtual body here isn’t designed for.”
In the face of the self-satisfied smirk, none could hold a grudge against the display method.
“Unfortunately, and maybe fortunately to most of you, I have no more tricks left to pull. So we have to do this the old fashioned way.” Drek took out the retractable pointer and called up a file.
Ronald made sure to take notes of what Professor Drek was lecturing on. Enlightening did not begin to cover it.
When the time was up, Ronald thought the time was well spent. The explanations were easy to understand and digest. It was also delivered with enough wit and humor and stuck with him. He was a teacher that Ronald would love to have when he was still a student and not get. Ronald promised himself to look up on other lectures by the good Professor.
At the end of the lecture, Professor Drek posed all of them a question.
“What is fake and what is real? Please think on that. Have a good day. And thank you.” He did not wait for applauses. None was given as they were puzzling out why the question was asked.
Drawing everything he remembered from the whole lecture since the beginning, Ronald imagined himself looking like the test subject, staying for hours inside what amounted to an enclosed electronic coffin. He found that he actually could not be bothered too much when he realised he could feel the movement of his face, his clothes rubbing against his skin and his hands clenching open and closed, even a slight sensation of sweat clinging to the back of his neck. The participants understood what the Professor was hinting at. It mattered not what it looked like on the outside. Inside, there was no difference. The experience amounted the same.
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Author's Note:
Okay folks. This read a little like Pseudo-science stuff. Maybe, maybe not. Everything written inside has a grain of truth to it, but mostly I pulled it out of thin air. So don't go believing what I wrote is already available. Possible? Yes. Maybe in the future. How far? Your guess is as good as mine. But Royal Road has always been about Virtual Reality world. I wondered why there has never been any detail on the science stuff. So, here is my take on it.
Oh. Standard application of grammar errors apply. Let me know so I can fix it. Comments and critiques are well appreciated. I do read them all!