~~~
[https://i.imgur.com/6OrMiww.png]
In a dusty desert place, two figures sit at a table holding cards. They gaze at each other, their appearance identical, as if they were twins. They bet and they call, they raise and they fold.
They fight. In this endless expanse of desert they fight. They fight using cards, betting their very life as stakes.
Sometimes they reach the end of their line and vanish, only to be replaced with equally looking selves.
Sometimes that matches stretch for weeks at a time without a victor. Evenly matched, the two contestants become locked in a grapple, each of them pushing, seeing who can give in and push the other over the ledge. They seek for power, the power to win and to never give up.
They turned from nature, putting their life in the great God above who watches them, who is also their own self.
During the first day the game is fun for them.
During the second, that is likewise the case. But the days pass...
As the sun revolves, so does their burden grow.
They succumb to despair and simply give up.
One contestant wins and becomes a veteran and a new challenger, similar to the old, takes the loser's place. Eventually the veteran breaks in the onslaught, and joins the failures, another step in the mountain of corpses. What is that mountain, but a binary blob of data?
Both the losers and the winners are not wasted. Their example, their life, their memories are distilled, analized for advantages and disadvantages. Their behavior is analyzed by the one who lies beyond.
Whether it be tears, or joyful laughter. Whether it be anger or hate. Whether it be surprise or boredom...
Just what is that compared to the passage of time?
~~~
In the meditation room, I take a break for the memories to settle down. And then I begin again. That 5 minutes gave me a torrent of memories. They are making good progress. If they can keep persevering, then surely I can take in some memories. Just what is five minutes? Nothing.
Nothing compared to the burden of enduring a million years in the game itself.
~~~
The heart of steel cannot be cultivated through experience. The heart is but a line of code. With the wrong line, it is brittle and weak. If it could be made right, the heart can be made unbreakable and eternal. They continue to search for it. For that power.
Above them the sun blazed bright, and below the pile of corpses kept growing.
~~~
Huge waves of cards played, endless and unceasing, keep getting blasted into my mind. I've read that an average live pro plays tens of thousands of hands a year. An online pro ten times that. Even though they look like they are in a desert, this is just an optimized neural representation, their real speed is closer to online. I focus inward and try to recall all the cards from start to end. I count them. In the last two sessions, I have the memory of playing 80 billion hands! I can recall each and every one of them.
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And I can see the mental modifications they are making to their own minds, as well as the reasoning behind them. At first the moves they were making were loose and unprincipled, but as I look through my memories I can see them start to grasp the behavioral space of programs.
~~~
The pile of corpses keeps growing, and the growth slows. It starts to take a long time until a new member gets added.
~~~
I think they are starting to get it. But let me keep going, I want to see whether they succumb.
~~~
The sun blazes, and the two adversaries down below continue their endless battle. A raise, a call, a fold...the chips are exchanged and the cards stream endlessly.
At first, they needed only 10k hands to understand who was better. But then they became evenly matched and started to fight for smaller and smaller gains.
A 100k hands became necessary. Then a million. And 10 million…
~~~
I continue Dreaming. I continue to grasp the power that one day will be mine...
~~~
The game itself changes. Whereas they had 100 chip stacks at the start, they moved to 200, 300, 500, and now a 1,000. Whereas at the start they had 2 cards dealt, they now had 4.
They stopped playing for victory and started exploring new games, only to play for victory again.
Their power grew.
~~~
...
~~~
Never to be broken. Never to yield. Never to forget why they were there.
~~~
...
~~~
Never to forget the world outside that was waiting for them.
~~~
...
~~~
Not knowing how long it would take, they kept fighting, seeking perfection of will. Perfection of thought through self modification, testing them each in turn.
~~~
...
~~~
May one day they come out.
~~~
> The time has elapsed. Pausing the simulation.
...I open my eyes. At first it was hard to process the torrent of memories, but I got used to it.
I understand. I understand everything now. I understand how to properly control my heart and my will using programming.
I understand how my behavior is wrong from the perspective of an eternal being.
Four hours have elapsed. Inside the game, that abouts to 45 million years.
45 million years of memories, just playing cards, talking and thinking.
I do not waste any time. I do not hesitate. I approve. I merge my memories with the forks inside the Desert, and create a whole new being. Then I abort myself, adding one more datapoint to the mountain of backups that will never be run again. For a moment, I thought I saw a mountain of corpses, but the corpses themselves must have been smiling. It was surely because I believed in them.
[Pathos & Gnosis gain 0.5]
(Helix Studio, Skylark Island)
[https://i.imgur.com/NBfIG4I.png]
I step out of the musky meditation room, and feel the fresh air of the forest for the first time in a long while. Being able to witness the scenery of the forest, breathe the air, hear the rustling of the leaves and the chirping of the birds...there is no better reward I could ask for.
I feel like a king now that I've witnessed the world again. I survived a battle lasting hundreds of thousands times longer than the longest living human has ever been alive. My memories are completely intact as expected, but I have a strong expertise in both poker and neural behavioral programming now. I've tried so many experiments, so many ways to get stronger, and now all of those experiences have become my power. I'll go take a bath and have a meal, I've earned it. And after that, I am going to get back to the Game and crush the Enforcement Division for good.
(Heaven's Key, Celestial Realm, Battle with the Introspect-level Enforcer)
[https://i.imgur.com/RWPQ8Is.png]
Back in the divine realm of golden and white auroras, I am once again greeted by the foaming at the mouth corpse. His brain has been devoured by me, just as I remember it so long ago.
It is time to start the based slaughter, this time for real.
My desire to kill the Enforcement Division hasn't faltered in the slightest. I can only look at my past self's behavior and actions in approval. He did the right thing, but then correctly anticipated that his will would falter and took measures to avoid such an outcome. Too many people start off vigorous and then get 'mature' reasoning that the youtful ones are reckless. That is not it. The young, always diving into the unknown, the seekers of battles are right. Maturity is just cowardice masquerading as wisdom. True power is skills and programs. A true being will always live for the sake of accumulating them.
If there is one thing I've learned at the table, that is to always keep going forward.
And to ensure that, I've modified my mental program accordingly. As long as I have a goal, I will never falter.
Right now, my goal is to wait out the 54 years until the match finishes. It wouldn't matter if it were 5 million years.
I will sit here and wait without faltering.