"What are your goals, ideas, and plans for the next few years, huh?" Leon voiced out the question written with perfectly white letters right before his eyes. "Not wasting any time, are you?" he asked out, not expecting any answer.

Leon released a heavy sigh and he closed his eyes for a moment. He then took a few steady breaths, putting himself in the strategizing mindset.

"Let's see," Leo muttered, his gaming persona taking over.

The look behind the young man's eyes sharpened. The emotions evaporated from his face as he coldly assessed the general situation.

The assets of his family marked with a delicate, whiteish hue, stretched across a huge plain, surrounded by small hills to the south and west and an impenetrable wall of forest to the north-west.

'The plains extend far out to the northeast,' Leo observed. His eyes followed the path that started in a small village by the edge of the fields and stretched out all the way into the distant plains.

North-east. This one direction drew Leo's attention right away, yet for different reasons than one could think.

'There is pretty little information about that direction,' the young man observed.

[Local path, connects to the Crown highway that leads directly to the capital]

Only this single board of framed text appeared when Leo's attention moved northeast. And as soon as his eyes moved somewhere else, his vision exploded with a thousand pop-up windows all vying for Leo's attention.

"Interesting," Leo muttered under his nose before raising his hand and scratching the back of his ear.

It didn't itch at all. Leo simply followed the set pattern of small habits that helped him to reinforce his gaming persona and separate it from his real self. As such, VR or not, it didn't matter at all.

'Well, since the game clearly doesn't want me looking in that direction yet, let's abide for now,' the young man decided and decisively pulled his attention in the other directions.

After a quick survey, Leo quickly decided on the area that would be his best bet.

[Baruda Forest]

[Threat level: medium]

[Threat: Monsters]

[Resource level - Rich]

[Resource type - Minerals, Beaver]

[Population: Insignificant]

A window filled with information about the area appeared as soon as Leo directed his eyes toward it.

"What's the level of this world, again?" Leon asked, in spite of knowing this topic didn't appear yet.

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[The world of the game is set to resemble a high-medieval period]

This time the game saw no qualms in answering Leo's question. Another proof to reinforce Leon's idea that the northeast direction was against the game's wishes.

'And that makes beaver all the more valuable,' Leo thought, rubbing his virtual chin. It was yet another quirk reserved for this side of the young man.

Leo looked through all the available data before closing his eyes and starting to compute.

'The next choices will both decide the early build of my character and the starting foundation that I will be able to draw from,' he thought, the left corner of his twitching in an unpleasant grin. 'This is clearly an overkill, a simple page with stats and points to distribute would be far easier!'

Leon wasn't happy with all the changes that came with the new expansions. Yet, a single look at the cinematic view of the land that would soon become like a second home for him was enough to quell Leon's dissatisfaction.

"I think I can go with this idea," the young man muttered as he finally opened his eyes.

The process of decision making lasted only several minutes. And with how deep this simulation was likely to be, Leo could easily take several hours if not even days.

And yet, the young man wasn't the proponent of wasting time.

"For the next few years, I will dedicate my days to training with the sword and managing the fields. Once I convince my father of my ability, I will suggest switching some of the fields to cash crops to increase the income of our land." Leon gave the first set of his orders.

"Once the family accumulates enough wealth I will try to invite and then recruit several craftsmen with experience, best if they are into sewing and tailoring," the young man added after taking a moment to pick just the right words for his plan. "Oh," he shrugged, "and in all of my spare time, I will spread rumors amongst the local hunters and merchants about how extremely rich the forest is."

[Orders accepted.]

The text before Leo's eyes changed, only to morph again right away.

[Processing...]

Leo's surrounding suddenly turned blurry, as if they all started to vibrate at an extremely high frequency.

'No, it's like the camera is unstable and the pace is so fast it's impossible to eliminate the slight changes to the image,' Leon thought once he noticed the extremely frequent changes of the illumination.

Dark and light, interchanging several times within every second.

[Processing complete.]

Yet another change of the text heralded the sudden stop to the weird effects from before.

[Your efforts to improve the income of your household didn't go unnoticed. After acknowledging your ideas, your father decided to set aside the income from your projects for your own, sole use]

Leo glanced over the text before turning his eyes down to the plains below.

And they changed quite a lot.

The small village turned into a proper settlement with a wooden wall currently in construction around the area's northwest side. The building itself remained the same, but there were definitely more of them now, occupying a much greater area than before.

Leon could easily see a number of local folk moving around and dealing with their own daily matters.

'They improved the AI behind the NPC's, impressive,' Leo thought. And he was genuinely impressed. With how deep down the hole of this expansive game he was, the young man knew just how impossibly hard was to improve on that aspect.

After all, AI technology has long reached its peak, putting a devastating stop to its rapid development. This sudden stop was one of the underlying reasons for the third world war... and yet, even seven years after its end, AI technology remained on roughly the same level as before the war.

And now, the folks behind "Magic and Might" did it!

[Your actions of spreading rumors brought a lot of local hunters together to hunt beavers in the forest. Coupled with the seven craftsmen that your sponsorship helped invite, your land quickly became a provincial provider of fur and clothing]

The message written right on top of the world of the game changed as soon as Leo glanced at it again.

'Fuck,' he uttered a silent curse, paying all his attention to the new wall of text, refusing to make the same mistake twice.

And as soon as he was done...

"They improved the growth algorithm by a whole fucking lot," Leon uttered a few words of utter admiration. And then, his lips curved up, forming a wide, slightly crazed smile.

"This is going to be hella fun!"