The Instructor was stretched out on his chair, his feet out to the bonfire and his hands behind his head. Completely relaxed.

"Why are you helping me?" I asked.

"The Instructor title gives me access to competitive simulations with new Champions." The Instructor said. "They have overpowered powers but little practical experience with simulations and how best to win them and fight against other Champions. So I get a challenging and exciting competition that is still possible to win, which my followers and patrons enjoy. In return I help newbies like you with general information. If I didn't help then I would likely lose my title and stop getting access to these sorts of simulations."

"Okay." I said. "But isn't it unfair if you have been in thirty competitive simulations? You should have a lot more experience and knowledge that you can bring in."

"That is true to a point." The Instructor said. "But the memories of specific skills and knowledge is blurred when entering the simulation. I know about a lot of things generally, but no specifics. As an example, I know a lot about the theory of swordcraft but I'm not a swordsman. There are simulations that allow full access, just not the Instructor ones."

"I got 'Remembers the general memories of relevant concepts of his last life' as my first power." I said.

"After your memories were locked, yes, that is a common way to give you a focused direction to go with picking your powers." The Instructor said. "Though without knowing the likely theme that the primary host prefers that can backfire."

I was happy with my powers, despite them being due to a backfire. The Instructor opened one eye and looked at me.

"Different competitive simulation hosts usually stick to a theme and then tweak the startup settings based upon Champion choices in their setup." The Instructor said. "Our current host avoids sci-fi settings. Though to know that would require research into the past simulations that he has hosted."

Interface had said that he could have locked the setting to sci-fi, so...

"What happens if a sci-fi setting is locked in by a Champion?" I asked.

"The host can opt out and another host steps in." The Instructor said. "Which does mean that host research isn't perfect and can backfire pretty badly in itself. They usually pick a completely new liaison for new Champions, someone who has watched a lot of simulations but not worked as part of one before. It's the first step towards hosting your own simulations."

That did sound exactly like Interface, all enthusiasm and little practical experience.

"On the topic of powers, there are two factors that you should keep in mind for future simulations." The Instructor said. "The first is how they can affect the startup settings of a simulation. I take it you know some of my powers?"

I nodded, the head priest of summer had told me.

"I thought as much, all-hearing gods are a bit of a nuisance." The Instructor said. "An example of choosing a power that would affect the startup is my Divine Apocalypse power, which set the scenario to a fantasy apocalypse. The other factor is dynamic powers that adjust once you're in the simulation. Most liaisons aren't aware to begin with that you can take powers that adjust once you're in the simulation, and can evolve based upon your and other's play. My Divine Empowerment is one of these powers, which gave me a number of useful powers like teleportation. Though there is a cost to choosing a dynamic power, which is that you get a difficulty of 'variable' that doesn't give you any information about the simulation."

"I got a difficulty of 'Angry God, End of the World'." I said.

"Interesting." The Instructor said.

He took some time to consider that, and I stopped to consider it as well. The winter god hadn't seemed angry to me when I had met him.

"Any questions?" The Instructor asked.

"I was getting nudges, feelings that were coming from outside of myself about how things should be done." I said.

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"That wasn't really a question." The Instructor said. "But I understand what you're asking. The host or hosts of the simulation have an input into your simulated consciousness that they are running that they can use to push things in desirable directions. You must be pretty sharp, it usually takes several competitive simulations before people catch the manipulations. It's almost never a negative thing, though whether you go with it or not is your personal choice."

"I, uh, kind of forced the nudges into a System." I said.

"So you did get a System." The Instructor said. "I don't think I've heard of someone breaking the simulation to get a System implementation that way before. Do you have attributes? A status page? Quests? A map?"

"No, none of that." I said. "My Champion goals are tracked, that's about it. The prompt I got said that System functionality will start basic and evolve over time."

"An evolving System implementation." The Instructor said. "That's almost a power all by itself. You don't break things by halves, do you. Though I get boosts when you do, so I'm not complaining. Depending on how you use the System should control how useful it will be to you. If you don't use it or use it only simply then it won't evolve."

When I got the System to form at all it was by forcing an interface to the simulation, perhaps I could evolve it the same way. But now wasn't the time for that.

"You said I broke the simulation?" I asked. "How did I break it, exactly?"

"You've already broken the simulation far more than anyone else I have competed against." The Instructor said. "Rarely does someone make even a small break in simulations, and you've altered several large pieces."

The list of things in the recalculation of my Champion goal, I'd broken the simulation six times counting the System itself.

"As to how you broke it, you would know better than I." The Instructor said. "I've never managed to significantly break a simulation. In theory you have to believe something will work absolutely, and your logic for why it will work has to be agreed with by the host or whoever reviews whatever the break is."

With that explanation I finally figured out what the 'Limited power duplication' was when my goal was recalculated. When my biological body had died I had forced my digital side to have access to my Matter Manipulation power. It was the only way that I could have continued forward and it took a lot of time and effort to do, but I never had any doubt in my logic. Powers were connected to consciousnesses, and so I should have access to the power.

But now I did have access to my Matter Manipulation power from both of my sides at the same time. I even had my digital side running something in the background to continue to excavate the Forest Keeper floor below my fortress. Though now that I was aware of how it worked it would probably be harder to break the simulation, as gaming the system deliberately would be frowned upon.

"Any more questions?" The Instructor asked.

I had already asked Interface about the network, but it would be interesting to get a second take on it. It was where I would live outside of the competitive simulations after all, if I earned enough from my followers and patrons to continue anyway.

"What is the network, and how many people are on it?" I asked.

"That is a big question that needs some background." The Instructor said. "First off, you have to know that the distance between sentient species in the universe is vast. Faster than light travel isn't practical. It is possible, but local relative time has to be observed, so it takes millenia to cross the vast distances between star systems. Faster than light communication, however, is possible with quantum entanglement. As a sentient species discovers tunable quantum entanglement they inevitably stumble upon an open attunement with someone on the network listening and are invited to the network. They are given technology and work is done to harvest the full potential of the energy of their sun, and the matter in their local system is harvested to build processing hardware. Their home planet is of course left to them, and they are provided enough energy to continue as they have done. And they are given access to a simulation, usually with the incentive that the more of the simulation they control the more power they will have access to. The real aim is to give people the chance to be digitised onto the network."

Having apparently been digitised myself, I wasn't sure if it was such a great thing. But perhaps I lacked the context to appreciate it, and it seemed likely that I did agree to it and I would have had the context when I did so.

"It is hard to say how many sentient beings are on the network." The Instructor said. "They are all being simulated at different speeds, using a nearly unlimited number of points of intercommunication. Ten billion sentients per planet, a billion sentient holding planets per galaxy, and new ones connecting constantly. A hundred billion galaxies or more in the universe. And any of those numbers could be smaller than reality by an order of magnitude or more."

The Instructor stood up and stretched, his arms over his head.

"That should about do it?" The Instructor asked.

I nodded and followed him as we left the stone cottage and bonfire.

"I'll be sending an army against the plains biome." The Instructor said. "I have access to the more dangerous winter creatures now that the neutral realm has gotten cold enough. They should be enough to push even you, though the ideal would be if you would form an army as well. My current powers push me towards being both an assassin and a general, and being a general is more straightforward."

"What?" I asked. "Why are you warning me?"

"It makes it more interesting." The Instructor said. "And I freely admit that I am misdirecting you. But with the best sort of misdirection, a full scale attack."

He put his hand on my shoulder and teleported me back to the top of my fortress, then waved and teleported away.