The red rays of the afternoon sun stretched down the avenue and through wide lobby windows. Lilijoy stretched and checked her internal clock, briefly surprised to see that she had only been away for a few minutes, before she remembered that Stage Two had greatly accelerated her internal timescale.

She thought back to building the great crystal tree, the period of passionate creation that occurred after the ocean mind gifted her with the Immortal Crystal Oak technique. It had been a glorious and timeless cultivation, and it wasn’t until she completed the first stage that she realized her sense of subjective time was wildly different from the outside world, accelerating as she built. Without the external cues from her body, the rate of time in the flow state was difficult to measure, but she could guess that it had taken a month or so.

It had only been when her other self, her biological self, had begun to stir that she compared her sense of time with her body’s and realized that it had only been a little more than twelve hours. Building the Stage Two structures had consumed her thoughts entirely, and she winced as she thought back to the moment of panic when she realized her body was occupied by a different version of herself. The decision to firewall herself and recede to a minimal level of awareness had stemmed as much from fear and uncertainty as any rational thought, though her perception of those emotions as a Stage Two entity was much calmer than when she was embodied.

Thank goodness that’s over.

Now the she had the best qualities of both stages working for her, she could evaluate her perception of time with greater clarity. When she processed sensory data, her experience of time was significantly slower than pure thought, but still far faster than it had been for Stage One by itself.

To test it, she picked up a plastic wheel that had come off of some refugee’s suitcase and let it drop, watching it drift slowly to the floor over about five seconds. About ten times faster when augmented, she noted. She decided that for most interactions with the physical world and the people in it, she would keep her sense of time unaugmented. It would be bizarre and frustrating to do otherwise.

I bet the speed of normal minds evolved to match the speed of gravity’s effects. I wonder if creatures on a high gravity planet would think much faster?

A green bar appeared in her upper right vision, interrupting her musing. It was about a third full, and by focusing on it, she understood that her blood bugs were still re-oxygenating, and that they could currently provide supplemental oxygen for about six minutes of strenuous activity, or about an additional minute without breathing during heavy exercise.

She directed the blood bugs to keep accumulating oxygen while she exercised, wanting to keep her biological system in good shape and not become overly reliant on the augmentation. Then she was off, running through the apartment building as if it was a huge obstacle course. She sprinted up the stairs, leaping and rolling over the railings when she could. It was difficult at first to get used to her strength being so much lower.

Got to get some muscle bugs. In the meantime I should find a gym.

A quick search of an internet archive map found a parkour area not far from where she was, about a kilometer away. She sprinted the entire distance, moving as fast as her little legs would carry her, and made it in just over three minutes, though she was forced to tap into her blood bugs. Her time was a little disappointing, but without Flash and with her short strides she would never be as fast as a full sized person, although she had grown about an inch and a half or so since her nutrition improved. She was hoping to reach four feet in height over the next six months.

I wonder if there’s a bug for that? she thought. Then she realized she could easily stimulate her growth hormones.

“On it,” she heard Jiannu’s voice. It was nice of her other self to take on the role so thoroughly. “Our pituitary is already active, but we can increase human growth hormone to some extent. We need to think about puberty as well. Our hypothalamus is cranking out gonadotropin-releasing hormone to make up for lost time, so the next few months could be a wild ride.”

“Peachy.” She had been doing her best to avoid thinking about the subject. “Let’s slow it down a bit and even it out if we can without causing problems later.”

“I think it’s already so perturbed by our delayed development that a little nudging won’t hurt. I’ll do more research.”

She turned her attention back to the concrete barriers and equipment all around. The drifting snow and ice created an additional layer of challenge as she flung herself around the course, adding in extra flips and twists as she could while she played with her sense of subjective time. It was fun to feel herself hang in the air, slowly spinning as her feet drifted lazily over her head, but it was also more difficult. There was too much time to think, and she realized that her consciousness was not very good at movement skills. She learned to relax her mind and appreciate the scenery while her motor centers did the heavy lifting.

After a time, she closed her eyes as she ran the course, practicing her echolocation and her memory of the layout. She slipped and fell heavily a few times, but felt that a few bruises and scrapes were a decent price for building her Outside skills. Plus, she had a deep reserve of med bugs now, so she could heal herself reasonably quickly, though not nearly at the rate she could Inside. Just as she landed a double twisting back flip off a concrete pylon, she saw a message arrive from Anda.

Hi Lilijoy- That was a wild ride you sent me on. I have a new friend named Deva who lives in my head. Now there’s a sentence I never imagined writing! It’s been slow going, not least because there’s some kind of quantum field interference here that keeps knocking the system down. I think that’s solved now though.

Beyond the eternity of gratitude I owe you, I also owe you apologies. I never imagined how strange and disorienting this was for you. When I received my first system, it was after years of instruction and preparation. It came with clear documentation, and dozens of people happy to help me when I was confused. This system (for some reason I’m afraid to name it, silly huh?) came with a mildly sarcastic advisor who speaks in platitudes and occasionally quotes ancient Chinese literature. Nonetheless, I have begun to cultivate, and have even successfully registered the new system with Guardian without being evaporated by space lasers.

It seems the hole in my head has been patched up. It’s weird, but I can’t tell if I’m back to normal. Maybe I never knew what normal was. Wait. I was apologizing. I’m sorry for my behavior after the brain injury. That couldn’t have been easy to deal with. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to help you at times you needed it, and I am amazed and thankful for your strength and resiliency. I am very lucky to have you as a friend. Anda

p.s. I’m stuck in this place for at least another week, still trying to convince the Hand that I’m not a security risk. I figure I’ll reboot my Inside life while I’m waiting, so I may pop by the Academy to find you. Never been there myself, as my clan didn’t want its youth to be influenced. If I can’t get in, I’ll try to get a message to you.

Lilijoy read the message and felt her eyes tear up.

“Right?” said Jiannu. “What a relief.”

Obviously, she had already seen it.

“I felt a little weird reading it before you did, but time moves a lot faster in here,” she continued. “It came when you were in the middle of something strenuous and spinny, so I delayed it for a couple seconds.”

“That’s totally fine,” Lilijoy replied. “It was familiar as I read it. I can remember everything you’ve been doing if I want to.” It was an odd sensation. She had no present awareness of Jiannu, but she could deliberately remember what had just happened from her counterpart’s viewpoint. “I bet we could make some crazy feedback loops if we wanted to.”

“How about we rejoin to write a reply instead?”

She descended to her soul space and felt Jiannu immediately merge with her. It just made sense to reply as one self.

Hi Anda! Yay! I’m so excited for you! I like exclamation points! I’m guessing you don’t want to tell me where you are for reasons that make sense to you. The good news is that I probably don’t need help from the Renaissance to find Attaboy. I have a Plan. Well, really, my friend Magpie and I have a plan. We’re going to steal the data from Sinaloa on the Inside. Maybe you can join us, if you’re ready by then. I can’t imagine how Nandi is going to deal with you and the Trial, since you already know too much. Do you think your experience will start from scratch since you have a new system? Oh! You can meet my trainer! I bet she can help you if you need it. Even though you’re way too old for the Academy (sorry!), I get the feeling she doesn’t care much about that kind of thing. I’m pretty sure you can’t enter the Academy building, but I can meet you in town. Find Mr. Sennit if you need to leave me a message- he’s a weaver who has a booth in the market square. Bye!

p.s. Ask if you have any questions about the system. It can get a little crazy!

With the reply out of the way, she split herself again and went back to training and cultivating. She spent a few more hours exploring the city for good places to train and found a gym that still had weight training equipment, which she played around with for a while. Then a sprint in the dark back to the monastery for some food and sleep.

***

The next day, she rose bright and early. Due to the odd hour-difference in the length of the day between Outside and Inside, it was just before sunset when she logged in, which was a little annoying.

At least the week has the same number of days. Doesn’t it?

She searched her internet memory for the basic calendar information she had never bothered to learn. It turned out that the Inside had one six-day week every four weeks or so, to stay roughly in sync with the Outside. The whole system dated back to the 2030s, when the DayNight game was made accessible to the entire globe on distributed satellite server networks. It kept any one time zone from feeling favored.

By making them all grumpy.

The days of the week usually just translated into whatever language was being used, though the Insiders and some Outsiders preferred to number them: first-day, second-day, third-day and so forth. Today was First-day, which more or less aligned with Monday on the Outside. In the early days, Outsiders played the most on weekends, so Monday became the de facto day of rest.

She headed for town, eager to see how Mr. Sennit was doing. As she approached his stand, she saw a long line of students waiting to see him. She skipped past the line to see Mr. Sennit arguing with an older boy.

“Look Tama, I can’t braid it that short. You’re just going to have to visit the character screen and grow it out”

“Can’t you just try?” the boy whined. “I waited for an hour.” He had the pouting expression of entitlement. He also had short hair.

“Next!” Mr. Sennit called past him. A girl with long brown locks pushed past the boy with a sniff and sat in a chair that was placed in front of the little stand. Lilijoy waited for him to start combing out her hair before announcing her presence.

“You look really busy, Mr. Sennit.”

He gave a little nod. “Like crazy, Poki. I keep raising prices and they keep coming.”

He directed his attention to the girl in front of him. “Miss, you have your potion?”

She sighed and rolled her eyes, before producing a small blue vial and handing it to him.

“Much obliged.” He turned back to Lilijoy. “Pretty clever, eh? I kept running out of mana, so now they have to bring me a mid-level mana potion as part of the cost. Keeps me topped up.” He leaned over and whispered in her ear. “Plus, I get a cut from the potion lady.” He gave a little cackle and got back to his work. “Alright, Miss, just one moment… his hands blurred, and the soft light flowed, and the girl’s hair was braided and on her head in two large ovals. Lilijoy inspected his work as he drank the potion.

Blossom Braids

Woven by a master, these braids will raise INV by 20

Effects last 10 days

“Wow, Mr. Sennit,” she exclaimed. “You’ve gotten better at this.”

“Lots of practice, Poki. Haven’t figured how to get the damage protection from magic like I did for your friend though. I’m thinking that was something special about her hair.”

He held up a mirror for the girl, who turned her head to the sides and then gave a little nod. “Fifteen silver please,” he said. She paid, and the next in line, a hulking warrior type, pulled his hair out of the loose bun on the back of his head and took the chair after tossing the potion vial to Mr. Sennit.

Lilijoy could see a good-sized pile of empty vials forming behind the stand.

“So how’s your Hand Weaving coming along, eh? You ready to help? These tired old hands need some rest.”

“Don’t be silly, Mr Sennit. I’m still only at apprentice level.” Lilijoy was actually rather proud that she had raised her level to apprentice already. She wasn’t so sure that Rosemallow would look kindly on her raising the Magi component though, so she was still on Natural for that.

“Heh, you hear that, Ulu tele?” he said to his client. “Apprentice already. I taught her her first knot you know.”

The boy, or man really, grunted. “Cool. Not too girly with the hair, okay?”

“Heh. You got some island in you, Bro?”

“This and that. Filipino mostly.”

“Hear that, Poki? Like your friend.”

For a moment, Lilijoy thought he was talking about Jess. Then it clicked. “Oh, you mean Magpie. I think she’s from some pacific island.”

Mr. Sennit snorted. “That girl? No how, no way. Not by blood anyway.” He finished combing. “Hold on for a second, this takes a little more focus.” Soon the man’s hair was in tight braided rows down his scalp connecting into a series of shorter projecting braids. Lilijoy though it made his head look a bit like an octopus, but he seemed happy.

Warrior’ Braids

Woven by a master, these braids will raise INV by 15 and POW by 5

Effects last ten days

As he received payment, Mr. Sennit addressed the line waiting for his services. “Folks, it’s my dinner time. I’ll be back in thirty.” There was much muttering, but he ignored it and turned back to Lilijoy. “I’m going to need to raise prices again. Now, show me what you learned.”

Lilijoy followed him behind his stand and showed him some of the braiding patterns she had learned. He gave her some pointers and taught her a bit more about working with grass and reeds, showing her knotting techniques appropriate to the materials.

“Never going to run out of grass, eh?” he said. He also helped her understand how to hold and manage multiple threads and passed on some of his tricks for staying oriented during larger projects. “Now, Poki, you figure out how to weave a ball with no gaps, no holes. Except one at the top for water, ok? It’s a good project. You give it your best and bring what you have next time.”

“You mean it needs to hold water?” Lilijoy didn’t see how it would be possible with just grass.

“Yup. Longer the water stays in, the better the weave.”

It was time for Mr. Sennit to return to his work. Just as Lilijoy was walking away, he called out to her.

“Almost forgot something. You and your friends want to make a little silver on the side?”

Silver sounded good to Lilijoy. “Doing what?”

He gestured for her to come back and spoke in a low voice. “Me and some of the other crafters in town got to talking. A bunch of us need more mana in our Mana Wells. My weaves aren’t even half as strong as they could be. We were thinking to hire some students to help us level up a bit, cause ain’t none of us fighting types.”

He looked down at the ground. “We want to keep it quiet though, stay off the clan’s radar. They still got a lot of leverage on us. Figure we can pay off a bunch of debt all at once, maybe move our families on the Outside.” He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Poki, I’m making gold. Made more in the last week than the last two years. You changed my life, my family’s life. Not just me either. I’m spreading it around, slow-like, the credits and the knowledge.”

He looked up at her and his eyes were serious. “Got some changes happening here, but I gotta think that the clans aren’t going to like it. Can’t be the first time someone’s figured this out. I’ve heard of plenty of those that stuck up getting hammered down.” He shook his head. “I’m getting ahead of myself. You ask your friends, see if they’re interested in helping, okay?”

“Sure thing, Mr. Sennit. You don’t really have to fight and kill monsters to get experience though. It’s novelty, challenge, suffering, inspiration and discovery.”

“Yup, we know. We all pooled our knowledge, and asked some of the insiders too. What they say is, more of those things there are, the better the gains. It’s not suffering by itself, it’s suffering that teaches you something new. Discover something new, that’s not bad. Suffer and struggle on your way, discover something from the journey and be inspired to make something new? That’ll check all the boxes. Turns out that exploring and fighting, adventuring they call it, is just about the fastest way, specially if you’re old like me.”

“I’ve never understood why suffering is one of the components.” Lilijoy said.

Mr. Sennit’s expression turned distant and a bit sad.

“Oh, Poki. You’re so young. You’ll learn.” He looked away from her, but she could see his eyes water.

“That’s the most important one.”