Flora's mailbox was blinking again.

>>>

Hello, Flowing Flowers,

A pleasure to do business with you...

A blue message box appeared on her HUD:

Modifications to your workshop completed.

Flora stopped reading and sprang back into the training coffin.

Eagerly she logged into the workshop.

The familiar sight of the workbench and the gothic windows with the electrical household appliances greeted her. But instead of six windows, there were twelve! A new workshop to the left had appeared. A furnace and an anvil stood on the floor, and smithing tools decorated the walls.

Next to it, smaller anvils, magnifying glasses, and smaller smithing tools were arranged.

'The first is obviously a smithy, the second workshop maybe for jewelry or goldsmithing?'

Her workshop was rather big, to begin with, but now she had to strain her eyes to look at the other end. So she jogged from booth to booth and shouted the name of the craft with glee: "Tailoring! I don't now, maybe working with leather? Cooking! Chemistry or maybe Alchemy! Woodworking!"

At last, she bounced off an invisible wall. Now she wasn't running, she saw a blue line on the floor, cutting off 1/4 of the space.

"What's up with the invisible wall, Aidan?"

"That is the new testing facility, Milady. It was on your to-buy list as well."

"Right! The Simulation-Ground!"

Aidan showed her the controls, and Flora started to configure the environment.

A miniature of a room appeared next to Flora.

Depth: 2m

Terrain: Water

She lowered the viewpoint to ground level.

Creatures: Random Fish - Friendly - Level 3

Weather: Sunny

The Simulation-Ground changed at once. Where one second ago was an empty room, now water reached beyond Flora's head, and she saw fish swimming.

Flora stood beyond the invisible wall and stared at her oversized aquarium.

"Awesome!"

The facility was only 25x25m, which was significant for an aquarium but small for some of the other things in Flora's mind like skiing or detonating nuclear bombs.

The ground was for testing products in different climates or under different conditions. A truck should work in the desert and the arctic. Hiking boots should perform in the mud, over spiky stones, and a bit of water shouldn't make the insides wet.

After Flora figured out how to put things into her aquarium, she fetched the Potion Guzzler.

"Good luck!"

A hologram of a scanning device manifested and swept over the hat. Then a copy of the Potion Guzzler appeared as a hologram in front of Flora and inside the aquarium.

Slowly the hat sank to the ground of the lake. Air bubbles escaped from the mouthpiece but didn't leak from the casing.

Next to the hologram, statistics appeared about the condition of the helmet. Water filled the tubes, but the valves prevented it from entering the potion vials.

"Not bad, eh? Not bad at all for not being designed for underwater use."

A red and orange striped fish playfully nudged the helmet, and water streamed into the casing.

"Oh, well. It's still usable as long as the valves hold out. Remind me to add a one-directional valve on the mouthpiece so no water can enter the next time I'm working on the helmet."

"Yes, Milady."

"Now to the more exciting part. Can I clone myself?"

Flora fiddled with the controls, and the device scanned her.

A desperately scrambling Flora turned up. The 200 kg mech-suit won, and the figure slowly sank while accusing the Flora behind the barrier of clone murder with her eyes.

The original Flora took off her mech-suit and rolled her eyes. Before imitating her, the Flora-Clone flashed her a thumbs-up and swam to the surface.

"Can you speak to her, Aidan?"

"No, Milady."

"Hmm, I don't know how I can exploit this yet, but I know I will find a way. At least it should be possible to cast my consciousness into the clone. How can I judge otherwise if a sleeping bag is comfy in a snowstorm? Oh, right, I need a new sleeping bag after blasting my old one."

Meanwhile, Clone-Flora swam in the lake.

Aidan agreed and explained to her how to switch into the clone.

"Let's wait a bit if I learn the swimming ability from the clone's action." Flora studied her character sheet and then lowered the temperature of the lake to 4 degrees Celsius. "I don't have frost resistance either."

Next, Flora opened the marketplace and replenished her stocks: Potions, sleeping bags, coals, gas, spirits, food, especially bread for toasting, water, and cleaning supplies.

Aidan told Flora it needed at most ten minutes to acquire an ability if the user can perform them in real life, so Flora had time for the octopussy design.

However, the octopus reminded her that she still had an idle AI lurking.

"Read the forum, Aitoshuri. Look for ways to acquire the Loot or the Store Skill. Aidan, update her on your progress with this topic."

"Yes, Milady. I'll copy my clearance to read the forum to her with your permission."

"Oh, right, can you give her all your updates, or do I have to load them manually in her console?"

Helpful, as always, Aidan agreed to update Aitoshuri.

Frowning, Flora stared at her drawing. An octopus didn't have any bones, only muscles. If she gave him some bones with a lot of joints to move the tentacles like a real octopus, the robot would be a giant energy sink because every joint needed a motor.

An alternative would be to construct the muscles with an 'intelligent' material that could contract and release different parts of itself. Still, the processing power needed to control such a fabric for even the simplest movements would be immense! No wonder the beasts had additional brains in the tentacles!

Flora decided to go with a robust framework and six big joints per tentacle and three additional joints for the tip of each. Grip strength and excellent control were necessary for crafting.

Scratching her head, Flora calculated. If you add the joints connecting the tentacles to the head, you got a sum of 80. With a budget of 5mana/minute, each motor should run on 0,0625 mana/min. Impossible!

But Flora knew it should be possible to construct a robot with five mana per minute and eight extremities because of Handy, the spider-bot in the Doom Moon scenario. It had eight legs, with three joints, eight hands with at least five joints, and the connection to the main body.

She browsed the user manual for Handy again. Nothing concrete caught her eyes, but she got an idea when she read Handy could only use four arms for crafting.

The tentacles don't have to operate all at once! While working, the four main legs could be inactive. Their joints would have to include a feature where you could lock them in a fixed position without needing the energy to maintain it.

The image in Flora's mind got more detailed. The octopus wouldn't walk on the tips of the tentacles but the thicker part between the third and fourth joints. With a low powered magnate, she could stick the lower parts of the appendages to the upper parts, so they don't have to be activated while not needed.

Theoretically, it only required four tentacles to walk. That gave Flora the idea to implement different modes. While the octopus operated in a less energy-greedy manner, it could store the excess energy in a battery and use it when in high energy mode.

"Milady, 30 minutes have passed since your mirror had started swimming."

Flora walked over to the barrier and watched the other Flora in the water. Comparing her skin tone with the mirror one, Flora discovered her clone was distinctively more blue-tinged.

The hologram gave the status for the mirror:

Deep Chill: 3 x Reduced speed. Time remaining: 10 sec.

Hypothermia: 2 x ~1 dmg per second. Time remaining: 25 sec.

HP: 129/250

SP: 84/480,

MP: 250/250

CP: 460/460

After glancing at her status, Flora grinned.

Toxic-Aura: 3 x ~ 7 hp per minute. Time remaining: 25 sec.

Radioactive-Aura: 3 x ~ 7 hp per minute. Time remaining: 25 sec.

Metal Handicap: 14 OV - Effective: 0 OV.

Workshop Regen III: + 25 stamina per minute. +25 mana per minute.

HP: 16/250

SP: 472/480,

MP: 5/250

CP: 459/460

"The mirror has separate pools! Great! And I totally forgot we now have a regeneration buff in the workshop! Very good!" Flora contemplated. "We now need a bit more effort to lower the stamina and concentration."

"Yes, Milady. I have to use the tasers at the moment. Therefore an additional, more mana conserving method for health reduction would be excellent."

"I might have a solution covering multiple issues. But first, let me test the consciousness-transfer." Flora opened her stats. "I need an ability, which is at a low level, and I should be able to activate the transfer while performing it.

- Acrobatics, Level 8. Quite high for my purpose.

- Meditation, Level 5. I can't activate the transfer while meditating.

- Mana Cultivation, Level 7. The same problems.

- Piloting Planes, Level 6. No plane available.

- Plasma Sword Fight, Level 2. No enemies to fight.

It looks like I have to do acrobatics or try meditation, maybe I misjudged, and I can do other stuff when it's on auto-mode without it stopping."

"Milady, the workshop has training dummies. You can fight them."

Aidan showed her three puppets. They looked like display dummies, so Flora had thought they were part of the tailoring workshop.

With Aidan's help, she configured one dummy to be level one, with no armor and infinite HP, and equipped him with an ax.

After adjusting the skill, she commanded herself to start plasma-sword-fighting.

Then she activated the transfer.

At one moment, she was standing in front of the dummy, and at the next moment, she found herself in the water.

The cold hit her like an icecream-truck. She was shivering rapidly and, at the same time, only capable of making the slowest swimming motions. It felt like she was swimming through icecream instead of water with ice cubes instead of feet.

Deep Chill: 3 x Reduced speed. Time remaining: 10 sec.

Hypothermia: 3 x ~1 dmg per second. Time remaining: 25 sec.

Light Freeze: 1 x: Frozen feet.

HP: 82/250

Flora looked at her feet. Not only did they feel like ice cubes, but they were ice cubes!

'First, I have to increase my health!'

!

When she tried pulling health potions out of her inventory, a blue box appeared.

No inventory access in the Simulation-Grounds. All items have to be scanned.

"Aidan, can you hear me?"

"Yes, Milady!"

"Great, show me the way to the potion guzzler, and please make the water warmer."

Flora pushed for speed, not only because her HP continued to fall, but also to generate heat through movement.

After going through the list of her spells and finding none with an apparent warming or regenerative effect, she decided to try the shield.

!

Finally, she reached the area where the Potion Guzzler had sunken.

Taking in a full lung of air, she braced herself for the cold and dived.

She grabbed the hat and pushed with both feet off the ground.

!

Like a jumping dolphin, she shot out of the water.

By removing the outer casing of the hat, she got rid of most of the lake-water. The rest flowed out the mouthpiece or got drank by her when she sipped the health potion.

Now, the lake warmed up, and her cold-induced debuffs had run out.

"You can lower the temperature again, Aidan. Aitoshiru, please transmit a ringing sound every 60 seconds."

After swimming a few rounds, interspersed with casting refresh and kinetic stride, the system messages arrived.

You gained the ability-specialization: swimming. + 1 Level.

You gained the affinity/resistance: magical body control. + 1 Level.

You gained the affinity/resistance: ice/cold. + 1 Level.

Because Flora enjoyed herself, she continued.

The frost debuffs stacked slowly again, from cold, then light chill to deep chill.

After a while, she realized she didn't actually felt cold, but the system induced shivering provoked a pavlovian reflex of feeling cold.

Flora struggled for control over her body with the system. When it made her shiver, she steadied her movements and breathing, when it slowed her down, she fought to increase the speed.

Now, the hypothermia debuff gnawed on her health with icy teeth. Before her HP ran out, she exited the simulation.

"That was fun! I will do it again, regardless of the outcome. But what are the results, dear?"

"Swimming and Frost Resistance rose from zero to level 6. Plasma-Sword-Fighting from level 2 to 4."

Flora raised her eyebrows and opened the tab to see for herself. Swimming was rated B, frost resistance F, and plasma-sword-fighting C. She knew the severity of the training was essential and attributed the different growth to this factor. Aidan agreed.

"Do we know if the attributes got trained in the simulation-grounds? I would understand if this isn't the case. The body I used was only temporary."

"The data is inconclusive for the attributes, Milady. But your mana-skills rose, too."

"Alright. Let's do the dailies and build some robots!"