While Sasha was busy setting up for Sophie’s first netrunning lesson, the girl in question was looking over the notification she received when she chose the Amateur Netrunner class.

Class selected: Amateur Netrunner

Skills Unlocked: Programming (Basic), Cyberwarfare (Basic), Quickhacks (Basic), Breach Protocol

Breach Protocol: Lvl.1

You can learn to breach systems easier.

Programming (Basic): Lvl.1

Grants basic knowledge of Programming.

Cyberwarfare (Basic): Lvl.1

Grants basic knowledge of Cyberwarfare.

Quickhacks (Basic): Lvl.1

Grants basic knowledge of Quickhacks.

As soon as her choice had been confirmed, the immense amount of information had rushed into the young girl’s brain. There was simply so much to learn about the net. Sophie reached up to the back of neck, feeling the recently installed cyberdeck. She had, of course, followed Sasha’s advice, picking up the Stephenson Tech MK.2. Her thoughts were broken when the experienced netrunner spoke.

“Alright! We should be ready to go!” She came over, sitting down next to her new student. “We’ll start with really basic stuff, turning a screen on and off through your deck.” As she said that, Sasha sent over a small data packet. The basic knowledge her class provided let Sophie understand its purpose.

Mentally activating her new cyberdeck, the younger girl processed the data packet. Once she was done, she looked at the wall-mounted holoscreen.

“Now, you need to find an entrance into the screen. While you’re learning the basics, you’ll need to use your optics. The scanner function in them will allow you to find the access point.”

“I think I’ve found it. Now what?”

“That was fast…Anyway, now you have to look at the code the screen runs on. The data packet I sent over should explain how to spot crucial parts of it. Things like the on/off function.”

Sophie wasn’t sure whether it was her new netrunning knowledge from the class or the simple exercise but it didn’t take long at all to familiarise herself with the holoscreen. After about ten minutes, she was able to turn it on and off or change channels. This is actually pretty cool, huh.

“You’re doing fantastic! Try and do it with a radio next.” The inexperienced netrunner did so, finding it to be even easier than before.

For around an hour or so, Sophie practised breaching into basic devices, helped along by Sasha’s advice. None of the apartment’s system’s were able to hamper her progress. However, she did receive a surprise once she took a break.

Skill: Breach Protocol has reached level 2!

System? Care to explain?

Multiple factors contribute to the rapid experience gain. Firstly, basic classes are inherently easy to level up in. Second, you have an experience boost currently active. Third, you are under the tutelage of a higher ranked netrunner.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

So being taught by someone who actually knows what they’re doing means I can level up my classes faster?

Correct. The skill level of the person teaching you also matters. In this case, an intermediate netrunner will provide less results compared to an advanced or master netrunner. Additionally, exchanging experiences with people of similar levels can help in leveling a class faster, as can teaching the subject to someone of a lower rank.

Wow. I probably wasted so much time with some of my classes. What rank would Sasha be?

Sasha Yakovleva would possess skills equivalent to middle ranked Intermediate.

That feels pretty low, I thought she’d be advanced at least.

She possesses high potential but does not have the resources nor drive to continually hone her skills.

Huh. I wonder if I can change that? Lots of things to think about now. While Sophie was scheming about pushing her friend to improve, said girl was completely oblivious, trying to figure out how to continue teaching. The lesson she had thought would take all day had been finished in under two hours, so she was frantically trying to come up with something to avoid embarrassment.

“Alright! Now that you’ve done that, I’m going to breach the same device. We’ll take turns countering each other's hacks. This will give you a safe first experience of netrunner combat.”

“Sure! That sounds fun!” Of course, the next five hours resulted in a complete loss for Sophie. Sasha didn’t take it easy on her at all.

“HA-HA-HA! You cannot possibly hope to defeat me!” The older girl laughed maniacally as she crushed Sophie’s pitiful attempts to take control of the holoscreen.

“Grrrr! I’ll have my revenge, you dastardly Kitten!” The younger girl’s retort was accompanied by an angry fist shaking in the air. The two girls paused for a moment before bursting into laughter.

“Y’know, you’re seriously brilliant. The speed at which you were improving there…I’m afraid it won’t be long before you surpass me.” Sasha’s voice was slightly melancholic as she spoke. The defeated girl caught the tone, inwardly beginning to panic. She didn’t want to make Sasha feel inferior. After all, Sophie was cheating with her system.

“Hah! That’s not true at all! You’ll always be better than me at netrunning. Well, as long as you keep practising.” She poked her friend at the end.

“Yeah, you’re right. Tomorrow I’m gonna go dump the rest of my eddies on netrunner materials. I’ll make sure to stay ahead of you. Although, I’ll definitely be broke for a while. You don’t mind if I stay for a bit longer, do you?”

“Not at all. You’re welcome to stay as long as you like.”

-----------------------

The following day, Sasha did as she planned, purchasing a heap of advanced netrunning materials. Sophie took one look at them and immediately turned away, feeling like her head was smoking. However, the older girl continued to teach her the ways of the net.

“Right, so you’ve got the Ping quickhack. All you’ve got to do is breach a system and upload it. Simple, right?”

“Sounds easy enough.” As expected, uploading Ping into the holoscreen was easy. Lines of green light burst out from it, each leading to a device that was connected to the same local-net. “Yep, that’s pretty easy.”

“Great. How about we move on, try breaching some harder systems?” In agreement, the two left Sophie’s apartment and headed out into night city. “So, you should try and breach into a vending machine. They have better ICE than your holoscreen but it’s not great.”

Her words were true. It took Sophie around ten minutes to get into the vending machine, even with her experience from the previous day. Once she had full control over it, her teacher spoke again.

“Now, try and upload Ping.” Just like with the holoscreen previously, green light burst away out of the vending machine. However, there were far more lines leading to other devices.

“Wow. That’s a lot of green.” Sophie had to cut her connection to the vending machine to give her eyes a break. Next to her however, Sasha was doubled over, cackling.

“Oh, it never gets old watching new netrunners get overwhelmed by a massive Ping.” She said, still wheezing.

“Oh fuck off.”

The pair continued their walk around the city, Sasha guiding and developing her protege. Once they returned home, the girls resumed the miniature netrunner battle they had fought the previous day. As expected, the younger of the two lost every time, much to the glee of her friend.

After a few hours of that, the older girl set Sophie a new task. To create her own version of the Ping quickhack. The small girl was finally able to put her basic programming knowledge to work. She found that it was quite enjoyable, more so the previous exercises, even if she did enjoy having fun with Sasha.

To make her own version of the quickhack, she first had to dig through the one she was already using. The problem was the amount of filler code it contained. A brief estimate suggested that more than 90% of the original hack was complete junk.

Sophie began pulling out the actually important parts of the hack, leaving behind the garbage. Once she had all of the components, she could figure out what they did. This part was easy, considering how simple the program actually was.

Once she had it figured out, she put the hack together. It ran smoothly, but the girl noticed an issue. It would only cause problems if she used it in larger areas, but the burgeoning programmer would prefer not to encounter an issue in the first place.

Simply put, the range of the original hack was low. It wasn’t able to stretch over a large area. Trying to ping something across buildings was absolutely impossible. Thus, Sophie had to boost the range. It wasn’t a difficult modification, so it was done fairly quickly. She packaged it and sent the hack to Sasha for feedback.

“This is pretty good, considering how new you are.” She pointed out a few inconsistencies but the younger girl was quite proud of her first program.

Skill: Programming (Basic) has reached level 2!

Sophie grinned.