Planet Ignis | Ch. 28 (Patreon)

When Trother first told me about terminations I broke down crying. I was deeply moved. As a Japanese, I studied the ritual suicide that samurais used to perform, the seppuku. I have also studied the history of the Kamikaze in the World War. But these were different. The suicides in my culture were misguided sacrifices caused by war. These Terminations, as they call it, were all sacrifices born out of love for one’s neighbor, child, or spouse.

“Notes on Ignian Societies,” by Hitori Himura, PhD

“Are you sure, Doctor Hitori?”

“Please, Eli, just call me Hitori. And yes, Eli, I’m sure.”

The three of them sat on the grass by the river. Eli was grateful to Hitori for giving them time to acclimate to this unfamiliar environment. He could now take his eyes off the beauty around them and focus on what he was saying.

“Let me see if I understood this correctly, Hitori,” started Trother, “we’re in the Nexus, but our brain activity has been sped up. So, we have several years here, while only hours will pass out in the real world. Correct?”

“That’s correct, Trother.”

“Is this how you’ve been living before?” asked Eli.

“Yes, and no. I have been living in a virtual world powered by my mind. I had limited oxygen and no food left in the lab. I had to reduce my metabolism to the barest minimum possible. That included the speed at which my brain worked. Due to the Tardus mutagen, however, I unlocked the full potential of my brain. Even though my brain was working much slower, I was thinking with more of it and could think faster. So, between the slow metabolism and the speed gained from using my unconsciousness for conscious thinking, my mind was working at… let’s say ninety percent of the normal speed.”

“Why didn’t you connect to the Nexus, like we’re doing now?” asked Trother.

“A side effect of Tardus is that all sensory input and output is blocked. It’s the only way it works. I would never be able to keep in contact with Archimedes when I was in cryogenic sleep.”

“And how exactly are our minds working so fast?”

Hitori thought for a few seconds to try to explain it to Eli.

“Think of this as a fourth kind of bursting. Faren is forcing our minds to burst, so to speak. We’re causing terrible strain on the brain, even with the help of the Statera mutation. We can’t stay here forever. We would die after a few days passed in the real world.”

Hitori started waving his hand in front of him, operating controls of some kind. He then found the information he wanted, swept his hand to the side, and Trother and Eli could see a report on their condition. Hitori had tweaked the language of the reports so that they could identify with the terms.

Name: Trother

Gender: male

Age: 57

Body longevity: 1 day 3 hours

Mind longevity: 40 years

Name: Eli

Gender: male

Age: 24

Body longevity: 33 years

Mind longevity: 45 years

“As you can see, Trother, you’ve pushed yourself to the breaking point. Your body can only survive for roughly twenty-four hours, based on the scans that Archimedes performed on you when you entered the incubator. Your brain, however, is quite intact. That means you can still live for forty years inside this virtual world, even though only one day will have passed outside, in the Burrows.”

“Eli, you are in good health. I think that if we let twelve years go by here, we can make your mind catch up to your body, so to speak. That will be enough time to train until the Raptor arrives in roughly one day in the real world.”

Eli nodded. On the one hand, it felt good to be suddenly given back all the time he had lost bursting. But as he looked at his teacher, Eli had mixed feelings. Out in the real world, his teacher was about to die. On the other hand, Trother was given forty years of virtual life here. He felt happiness and sadness within him.

“How accurate are these predictions, Hitori?” asked Trother.

“Fairly accurate. Even though we haven’t been able to make humans live longer, we have gotten rather good at figuring out how long they have left,” answered Hitori with a sad smile.

“What about you, Hitori? How long have you got left?” asked Trother sympathetically.

Hitori swiped his hand and let them see his report.

Name: Hitori Himura

Place of Birth: Osaka

Gender: male

Occupation: geneticist, doctor, programmer, mathematician

Rank: doctor cosmonaut [granted access level 1 by Commander Byrd]

Age: 513 years [error];

Lifespan: 1 hour [error];

Time until brain death: 2 years [error].

Hitori had fooled the years by freezing himself in them. As soon as he had broken the dam of time that kept him alive, time ran to catch up to him, and his cells were aging rapidly. Since his brain had worked at ninety percent speed during all those years, he had saved a bit of mind longevity.

“Not long. But long enough to teach you so you’ll teach the boy.”

“Teach me what? What’s the plan?”

*

It had been several days since he had last seen Dr. Hitori or Trother. Dr. Hitori had left him with homework. It came in the form of in-game quests.

[Your Journey Begins] (Common)

Quest description:

Hello Eli,

These books will give you a general idea of Earth’s rich variety of life. Please pay special attention to any reference to genetics and DNA. It will prove helpful later.

Have fun,

Hitori Himura

Quest objectives:

Read “A Study of Earth’s Animals” by Dr. Himura;

Read “A Study of the Plants of Earth” by Dr. Smith;

Read “Symbiosis of Fauna and Flora” by Dr. Caldwell.

Rewards:

500XP, 100 silver.

Nothing surprising here. He had gotten used to this when he was a child. Faren assigned them tasks and homework using the in-game quest system that was part of the programming of the Nexus. Some of the quests Hitori had designed involved him reading. Others were answering quizzes about the book. It didn’t feel like a chore to Eli. Who could have known there was so much life on earth? He was fascinated by all creatures he read about in the books Dr. Hitori gave him.

More than once, he realized that, even though he had never seen these animals, the names of some of them had survived the time in Ignis in the form of idioms and expressions. He also realized, with some embarrassment, that, with time, many of the names of the animals had fallen into misuse. For example, his teacher wasn’t an old fax. Trother was an old fox. Thinking of Trother, Eli wondered how long he had to wait until he saw his teacher again.

The full version of the Nexus was terrific. The game’s programmers had gone to great lengths to make the world as realistic as possible. Unlike the Settlements, Hitori didn’t have any problems with memory space in Archimedes’ data files, so he kept the full version of the game. As quests started to become increasingly complex, Eli started to be given little excursions.

The Flight of the Hummingbirds (Uncommon)

Quest description:

Dear Eli,

I think that you will have fun with this next one. Check your in-game world map and travel to the city of Ellsworth. There you will find a hummingbird aviary I programmed. Observe and study this little bird. Feel free to consult my studies on this fascinating animal.

Have fun,

Hitori Himura

Quest objectives:

Travel to Ellsworth;

Visit the aviary;

Study the Hummingbirds;

Read “Hummingbirds and the Celer Mutation, by Dr. Himura.

Reward:

2000XP, 1 gold.

At first, he didn’t understand why the doctor had given him books containing a general look at fauna and flora. How was it that studying animals and plans would prepare him to stop the Raptor? He finally saw the point when he started doing an in-depth study of Hummingbirds. These were the creatures that had inspired the doctor to create the Celer mutagen. By understanding them, the Doctor hoped that Eli would understand himself better. Trother had always told Eli that understanding something gave you power over it, so Eli didn’t cut himself slack and diligently kept studying.

Eli went on a series of quests that made him study electric eels, geobacters, and other creatures capable of producing strong electrical currents. His favorite quest so far had been the one in the electric eel aquarium.

[I Am an Electric Grill!] (Rare)

Quest description:

Dear Eli,

Back on Earth, biologists developed an exciting program I brought to the Phoenix. It’s a program that allows humans to better empathize with their study animals. It’s easier if you try it than if I try to explain it.

Have fun,

Hitori Himura

Quest objectives:

Travel to Hilsford;

Visit the Aquarium;

Enter the electric eel simulator;

Catch ten fish as an eel.

Reward:

5000XP, 5 gold.

Eli entered the simulator in the aquarium, activated it, and suddenly, he felt as if he had left his body and his mind had been put inside of an eel. At first, everything felt strange and weird, and he just spasmed in the water. After all, this was the first time he was swimming. Being surrounded by the dense cool liquid was a completely new sensation to him. Once he put his thoughts back in order and stopped panicking, Eli tried to start moving slowly. First, he figured out how to move individual muscles. After a few hours, as he got a sense of how to move his body, he started to practice swimming around.

Eli had known that the eels could produce electricity in their cells and that they used it to tase their prey. Eli was surprised when he found out that the mental command he had to give to the eel to tase the prey, was very similar to what he did when he burst. Fascinating! Eli went fishing. Once he realized the similarities between tasing a fish as an eel, and his experience bursting, it wasn’t all that difficult.

After that, followed a series of quests where he studied heterothermic animals, especially iguanas. Finally, today was the last in a series of quests that made Eli an expert in arctic squirrels. The fact that they could hibernate in temperatures below zero and resuscitate their brain back from hibernation in sub-zero temperatures was undoubtedly Hitori’s main inspiration behind the Tardus mutagen.

Congratulations on finishing the quest [Sleep Tight, little Squirrel]

Reward: 10.000XP, 20 gold

[Level up!]

After he finished this quest, he received the most exciting one yet. It was the first time he was hearing any news from his teacher in days!

[The Raptor Comes] (Epic)

Quest objectives:

Dear Eli,

It’s been far too long, son. Please, come and meet me at the Central Square of Greensburg. We have much to discuss.

See you soon,

Trother

Quest objectives:

See Trother at Greensburg

Reward:

1.000 XP, 1 gold.

Eli, excited about meeting up with Trother, hurried at once towards the biggest city in the game. It wasn’t far from where he was.

Trother waited in the square. He sat under the shade of what Eli now knew was an oak and had a chessboard before him. As Eli approached him, he felt surprised at Trother’s excited outburst at seeing him.

“Eli, look at you! It’s so good to see you!” he said happily. He stood at once and hugged him as if he hadn’t seen him in years. “How have you been, boy?”

“I’m OK, master. Are you alright? What’s up with you? It’s been less than a week since we last saw each other?”

“Don’t mind me. Yes, yes, I am fine. Thank you.”

“Where is Hitori?” asked Eli while looking around to find the doctor.

“Come. Sit with me. There is much we need to discuss. But first, let’s play a game. I want to see how you’re doing.”

Ch. 29