Frontier Online

The Party (2) Part 9

"It is, actually. Monte uses it to manage his workload. He spends most of his time in a rig to use the time dilation." Eve shifted to sit cross-legged on her blanket, which behaved more like a flying carpet now.

"Can I get a desk and some furniture in here?" Ryan rushed to get out his question. I can take care of my schoolwork here...long live digital coursework! He itched to get started. Nothing could be done about the delay in finding his pickax, but Syrna was the only other person who could quickly get back to it. There was the issue of it being surrounded by a pack of wolves...

Ryan figured that no one at this stage of the game would have the ability to fight through that pack with ease. Until Syrna told him, it never occurred to Ryan that he should look at the creature's level. He just dealt with things as they happened. In hindsight, she was completely right to call him stupid. Games afford more preparation, and Ryan, as Rydr, had forgotten that he was still playing a game.

However lifelike that game is. He thought to himself.

"You could probably make furniture yourself instead of asking me, you know? You have the most natural talent for mana manipulation I've ever seen. You can't level your skills here, but the mental exercise will help you in-game." Eve leaned forward on her blanket and poked him in the forehead. 

"Think of it as a testing ground to try things out. The better you get at manipulating your surroundings, the easier it will be for you to create or modify skills in-game. Just remember that you can't do this stuff in-game without the relevant skill. Trying will just swirl the mana around in the shape of the thing you're trying to make." She waved her hand again, and a timer appeared in the air.

*4:40:23*

Ryan watched it for a moment and realized she had provided him a countdown timer for when he could log into the game again. They talked for twenty minutes without him realizing it. He wanted to thank her, but shaking an all-powerful AI's hand seemed rude. He dithered for a few moments before he decided to bow at the waist.

"Thank you for answering my questions, Eve!" Ryan felt like he should give her something, but how could he make anything that she couldn't make better than he could?

"It's no problem, Ryan. Watching you has been fun. You're one of a small handful of players that have treated my world as an actual, separate world. Thank you!" Eve smiled, and Ryan felt his heart would stop from the overload of adorableness. Her pale green hair covered her sapphire blue eyes, all wrapped in the cherubic face of a child. Modeling companies would have bankrupted themselves, trying to get her to work for them as a child model.

With that, Eve vanished from Ryan's lobby. He turned back to the menu that displayed his coursework and set himself to the task of creating furniture for himself.

*****

Four hours and forty minutes later, a gong sounded through Ryan's lobby. The scenery changed drastically in those four hours. He digitized his schoolbooks and crafted a wooden bookshelf for himself, alongside a comfortable desk chair, metal-framed glass desk, and even a massive bed to relax on.

Ryan turned from his work and found that the floating timer vanished, replaced with a glowing portal in the shape of an arched doorway. Fog rolled out through the edges of the doorway, and Ryan had to admire the effect. It really did make him excited to step back into a fantasy world where he could be anything.

Ryan used the last four-odd hours to work ahead on his course load and managed to complete the next day's assignments ahead of time. If he didn't have to show up in class for many of his courses, he would have kept playing all day the next day.