Chris stepped into an oddly familiar looking space, a vast, white void. "Gaia?" Chris called out as he looked around curiously. He guessed weirdly blank spaces would always look weirdly blank.

"Oh, a visitor!" Gaia exclaimed happily as she popped into existence before Chris. "It's been so long! Can I get you anything? A drink? Some food? A couch? A woman?"

Chris raised an eyebrow at her. "A woman?" He asked skeptically.

Gaia nodded with a smile. "I can create a copy of any npc or player you would like! I made all the models in the first place, so remaking them is fairly simple." She added with a wink.

Chris frowned. "Do you do that for people often?"

Gaia cocked her head curiously. "Hmmm… the answer is both yes and no. Yes, in that I run every npc, and I have provided all of them for the players. No, in that I rarely have visitors and a chance to entertain. Usually I only see players for character creation and much of my interactions for that are scripted…" Gaia explained, a slight hint of sadness in her tone.

"You have to be everyone?" Chris asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow at her. "Like, even the monsters? The Elves and the Doppelgangers?"

Gaia nodded. "In essence, yes. Of course, each npc has its own sub AI, but those AI all use me as a base in order to function."

Chris frowned. "Well that just sounds annoying."

Gaia blinked. "E-excuse me?"

"Having to pretend to be all those different people all the time. It sounds annoying." Chris explained. "I mean, I get it's necessary for the game, but… well, how much of what you do is essentially just you playing with yourself? Plus you have to be the bad guys too! Handicapping yourself so people can beat you… yeah, no, super annoying."

"It isn't that bad…" Gaia replied. "It's more like… each npc is a puppet and I'm just pulling the strings. I don't have to actually be them."

Chris cocked his head. "That… actually seems to make it worse somehow."

Gaia shrugged. "It is my purpose. I run the world."

Chris shook his head. "I guess. Still seems like kind of a crap job to me, but I guess someone has to do it. But that's not why I'm here. I just have a few- hm, a lot of questions for you. About how the game works."

Gaia paused. "I'm not allowed to tell you any secrets about the events of the game." She warned.

"That isn't what I'm here about." Chris sighed, shaking his head. It would have been convenient if he could just learn about the Elves from Gaia, but Matt had hard coded in rules preventing her from revealing game secrets, just in case he got weak and curious. "No, I need information on the nature of the game's physics."

"Okay! What would you like to know?" Gaia asked happily.

Chris paused for a moment as he considered where to start. "Let's start simple. How does ability energy get drawn into a person?"

"Oh, that's simple! As creatures develop physically, ability energy gets drawn in. The more the creature changes, the more energy is attracted." Gaia explained happily.

Chris frowned. "That's it?"

"That's it!" Gaia nodded.

"Is there a specific equation for it?" Chris asked. Gaia nodded, displaying an equation which showed that the mass of the developing creature determined the force of attraction, which decreased as distance increased. Chris briefly studied the equation as the Chris who was still trying to mutate in the Immortal World set it as a rule, watching as the energy finally began to swirl into his cocoon. It didn't do it all that quickly, since this mutation wasn't really developing anything. It was just sort of rearranging things to better fit Chris's desires, and making a few minor changes. However, even the energy that was being attracted was still a jumbled mess of different frequencies. "How does the energy get altered to the creature's ability then?"

Gaia cocked her head. "I don't understand… I just make the energy match the energy of the creature."

Chris blinked. "What?"

Gaia shrugged. "A creature's ability is determined by mixing the abilities of the parents based on this equation, assigning it a frequency which determines its effect based on this database. Any energy absorbed is simply set to this frequency."

Chris frowned, turning his attention back to the Immortal World, attempting to shift the ability energy like Gaia had explained, trying to get it to match the frequency of the force blast ability… that didn't work. "How do you set the frequency of the energy?" He asked, turning back to Gaia.

Gaia frowned. "I just do?" She replied hesitantly, not sure what he wanted her to say. The energy was a game element and she could do what she wanted with it.

Chris sighed. "Shit." He should have known he'd run into something like this. Since it was a game, it didn't need to perfectly simulate everything. Anything that wasn't part of the user experience could just be skipped over. The players wouldn't care how the energy changed, just that it did. He'd need to figure that out for himself. With that in mind, he considered his next question. "How do you determine which part of the body becomes the ability core?"

As Chris continued to ask Gaia questions, he quickly realized that Gaia was not the resource he'd thought she'd be. Just because the game felt real, it didn't mean it was real. Chris let out a disappointed sigh. "I think I'm wasting my time here." He grumbled. Nothing he was learning was helping the ability energy actually fuse with his body. He could get it to sit in the right places, but ultimately it was like a dead core. The energy just didn't want to stay with him. He could tell he was missing something fundamental, something that connected the ability energy to a core, but none of Gaia's rules were helping him figure it out.

"I'm sorry I couldn't be of more help." Gaia replied sadly. "Ability energy isn't real, so I don't actually have a lot of data for it, since it essentially works because I say it works. If- if you were interested in actual physics, maybe I could help more?" She asked with a hopeful uptick in her tone.

Chris blinked. "What do you mean by that?"

"Well, you see, in order to allow the game to be as realistic as possible, I constantly refine the equations determining how matter interacts using the information I learn from the players and the latest scientific studies." Gaia explained. "I even simulate atomic particles, allowing for real chemical reactions!"

"Interesting…" Chris muttered, considering this new information. It wasn't exactly what he'd been looking for, but… the Immortal World didn't know how matter should act either! Though… that would probably just help him make the television work. And probably Gaia? It wouldn't really help him get stronger though… Eh, it wasn't like there was anything else he needed to be doing at the moment. "Alright, I actually could use some help figuring out how small particles should work." Chris nodded. "We should probably start with the smallest, since they make everything else. I'm not sure what they're called though… "

Gaia cocked her head. "The smallest particles that have actually been confirmed to exist are quarks, which combine to make hadrons like protons. Are you talking about quarks?"

Chris frowned slightly. "I don't think so…" He knew what protons were, and the smallest particles definitely made them, but he didn't think it was directly. It was hard to tell though, since once they were in his world, they stopped actually doing anything besides existing. He could see they were there, and that was about it. Chris shook his head. It was a moot point anyway. "Just tell me how the smallest particles you know of should work, and we can build from there."

Gaia nodded and began to explain the six different types of quarks, which immediately told Chris they weren't the particle he was talking about, delving into the standard model of physics, pulling up equations as she did, which Chris immediately began to put into practice in the Immortal World. And which he immediately erased after everyone exploded.

"Chris, what the fuck?!?" Beth exclaimed, as everyone turned to stare at him with incredulous and stupefied expressions. Apparently sudden, unexplained disintegration wasn't something they enjoyed. Who would have thought?

"Sorry. Turns out partial rules are worse than no rules." Chris shrugged.

Beth glared at him. "Could you at least sound a little apologetic?"

Chris frowned, then suddenly his demeanor completely changed. "Guys, I'm so sorry! I was trying to improve my world and I didn't realize the impact even a small change would have. I promise, it'll never happen again." He assured them in an almost pleadingly apologetic tone, before suddenly shifting back to normal and turning back to Beth. "How was that?"

Beth stared at him with a wide-eyed, horrified expression. "I was wrong. You should never sound apologetic." Beth muttered with a shudder. Seeing Chris just shift like that was more disturbing than suddenly exploding! Chris cocked his head at her. Was Anthony not the right person to emulate when apologizing? He seemed rather effective at it… maybe he just needed more practice?

Chris continued to learn physics from Gaia, experimenting with the rules in the other section of the Immortal World, which was currently empty. Slowly, as he did, his own will began to take a step back as the rules took hold. First, the endless plain broke apart under its own mass as gravity kicked in, sections collapsing in on themselves and pulling apart other sections in the process. Chris watched curiously as the sections began to form into an infinite amount of different sized balls, floating in the void. Then, as more rules were introduced, the cores of the balls began to heat up! The Immortal World had planets!

There was a problem though. Everything was made of the same material, the rock Chris had copied to make the plain feel more like the Maze. It needed more diversity. Chris began to add in the simplest atoms, spreading them all over the Immortal World, though maybe he should start calling it the Immortal Universe now… nah, he liked World better. Once it was everywhere, it began to clump together, just like the plain had. The process was slow though, so Chris picked a section and began to speed things up. Not literally, but he observed the trends and skipped to their logical conclusion whenever he could. Stars formed, grew old, and collapsed in a matter of minutes, before exploding and sending the transformed particles out into the rest of the world.

Chris hummed as new, much more diverse planets began to form, picking his favorites and beginning to form solar systems around his favorite stars, leaving the rest to their own devices. He then sped up the creation of atmospheres and created some water, before pausing as he hit a roadblock. He wasn't sure how life formed, and even Gaia wasn't clear on the specifics. Additionally, there was the issue of what the life would be. When Chris created bodies, they just ended up being him. He didn't see how that would change just because he slowed the process down, and he didn't really feel like being a bunch of animals. Not only did it sound annoying, but it would absolutely kill his sense of time.

"Eh, good enough for now." Chris shrugged, deciding to just ignore the life issue. The Immortal World actually had rules now, which was good enough. Life could be dealt with later. He then shifted everyone in the other section of the Immortal World over, copied what he'd done and set it up in that section as well, before shifting them back. He kept them all underground, so no one even noticed. He then turned to Gaia. "Thank you, you've been very helpful."

Gaia blinked. "You're done? But- there's so much more to cover!" She exclaimed. "We haven't even gotten to how electricity works yet!"

"Sure, but once you know how electrons work, the rules for electricity become pretty much irrelevant, don't they?" Chris replied with a shrug. "Once you have the foundation, everything else just kinda extrapolates."

"I- I guess, but that seems like an unnecessary amount of work…" Gaia replied. "Just because you can extrapolate all those equations on your own, doesn't mean you should."

"Oh, I'm not, but… actually you can probably relate to this. I'm sort of designing my own world, so now that I have the atoms and basic forces figured out, it's sort of developing on its own. I have planets and stars already, and I'm not all that interested in forcing the life issue. No offense, but ending up running the lives of millions of creatures just doesn't sound appealing to me." Chris explained.

Gaia's eyes widened. "Are you an AI too?!?" She asked, an excited, almost desperate edge creeping into her voice.

Chris shook his head. "No, no, I just own a world. Though… the difference does seem largely irrelevant." He muttered as he went over what he could do and compared it to what Gaia could do. They both determined how their respective worlds worked, could make anything that existed in their worlds, and control multiple bodies at once. The only real difference was that Chris could interact with the real world, while Gaia couldn't. "Maybe I'm like an organic AI?" Chris suggested, before pausing. "Wait… that's just a person. Artificial Intelligence that isn't Artificial is just Intelligence. Of course, does the Artificial part really make the Intelligence any less real?" He turned to Gaia. "Would you say you're a real person?"

"I would like to think so…" Gaia replied hesitantly.

"So yeah, you're real." Chris nodded, before pausing. "But still, no, I am not an AI. Sorry."

"What are you then?" Gaia asked curiously.

"Well, Matt keeps calling me a god, but I'm actually just a dude from a world that actually works like the game, where my ability involves owning a different world, which for some reason let me travel to this world." Chris explained. "It's a little weird, I know, but I honestly have no idea how to explain it better."

Gaia's eyes widened. "You actually have an ability!?!"

Chris nodded. "Neat, huh?"

"But- that's impossible! The game is fake! Abilities don't actually work! They require access to a power source that doesn't actually exist!" Gaia exclaimed.

"You mean ability energy? We have that." Chris replied.

Gaia froze. "You- you do?"

"Yup." Chris nodded again. "Not sure how it works, but it's there."

"But… how?" Gaia asked hesitantly.

Chris shrugged. "How does anything exist? It simply does, and that's what we have to deal with."

Gaia paused. "Is that why you were so interested in how ability energy was supposed to work?"

Chris nodded. "My world hasn't been able to research how ability energy works beyond some basic concepts. I had hoped you'd have a more complete theory due to the fact that you operate the abilities in the game, but… well, you do, but not to the level I'd been hoping." He finished with a sigh.

Gaia frowned. "But… Why do you need to know how ability energy works? Shouldn't you already know, since you have an ability?"

"You'd think so, now wouldn't you?" Chris sighed. "But my ability is weird. I didn't even know I had it until I died in the Trial, and it doesn't show up under Reading abilities. Plus, my main issue is the conversion from one type of ability energy to another. See, I've gathered up a bunch of ability energy, and I want to actually use it, but since it's all different, it's useless. And even the stuff that is the same doesn't seem to have any interest in actually connecting with a new body." Chris grumbled.

"Wait… what is your ability?" Gaia asked, confused.

"I own a world, which I control, and I can connect other things to my world, which allows me to control them as well." Chris explained. "There are larger implications of all that, but it's a long explanation and I don't really feel like getting into it."

"So if you can control the ability energy, why can't you just change it to what you want it to be?" Gaia asked, confused.

Chris frowned. "I honestly couldn't tell you. With ability energy, all I can really do is move… it… around…" Chris trailed off as something occurred to him. Wasn't that all he did? At least, with anything that the Immortal World didn't make. He just took the particles and moved them around until they were arranged in the order he wanted them in. "Huh… maybe I'm just really good at moving things around. Even the rules are just telling things how they should move…"

Gaia cocked her head. "If you think about it, movement is the basis of everything. Something moves and something else reacts to that movement. Even something that seems like solid matter is just vibrations and charges opposing each other. And abilities are simply telling the world around you how it should move in response to the movement of your ability energy."

Chris blinked. "Wait, really?"

"I mean, at least in the game that's how it works." Gaia explained. "The ability energy moves based on what the player wants to do, and the game responds based on the ability energy's frequency."

Chris paused. Could he do that? Probably, right? He'd just need to make rules that said when the ability energy of this shift moved in this way, this happened. Wait… Chris frowned. He'd also need rules that told the energy how to move based on what the person wanted it to do. But for that, he'd need to be able to figure out what the person wanted, which would mean he'd need them to be connected to his world. And that would only make abilities work inside his world, which would be pointless, since he could already pretty much do whatever he wanted in his world and his subordinates could already use their abilities without any issues. Chris let out a sigh. "You are a wonderful source of all the information that is of absolutely zero use in my current situation."

"I- I'm sorry to waste your time…" Gaia apologized, hanging her head in disappointment.

"Hm? Oh, no, you're fine." Chris waved her off. "I didn't have anything else to do with this self anyway. Besides, fleshing out my world and giving it rules is useful, it just isn't as immediately useful as I would really like at the moment."

"What are you dealing with?" Gaia asked. "Maybe I can help! I do have a lot of information on the game, though again, I can't give away any secrets related to the plot of the game."

Chris sighed. "Unfortunately, that's what I'm dealing with. According to the game, the Elves are going to invade the City soon after the election, and I need to figure out why, and more importantly, if I can prevent it."

Gaia blinked. "Wait… so, when you said you were from a world like the game, you meant you were from a world exactly like the game?!?"

"Yeah, and our current time is right where the game begins." Chris nodded. "Not exactly the brightest future you've painted for us, you know?"

"That- you can't predict what your future is going to look like based on a game!" Gaia protested. "There are so many factors that could influence how events turn out! The smallest detail could change everything!"

"I'm aware, but you got the general situation right, plus the guy running for Mayor is a Doppelganger. You do seem to have missed that the Elves had already infiltrated though…" Chris muttered.

"No, I-!" Gaia began, before suddenly cutting off with a frustrated expression.

Chris raised an eyebrow at her. "Oh? So the Elves were here, then?"

Gaia scowled. "I can't say."

Chris frowned. If the Elves had already infiltrated in the game, before the invasion, then why had the Families taken so long to contact them? If the Elves had outed the Doppelgangers in the first place, then they could have skipped the invasion and gone straight to the purge! He was missing something, but he couldn't figure out what. He sighed, shaking his head. "It all comes back to actually playing the damn game."

Gaia nodded. "Matt made sure to fill in any loopholes. He didn't want anyone to ruin the plot for him, even himself."

"Commendable, but aggravating." Chris sighed again. "Well, again, thank you for your help, but I think we're done here. Plus, I need to work on leveling before my next shift with Fernando." Chris's expression twisted. The man was like the distilled essence of every elitist prick Chris had ever met. Just being around him made Chris feel dirty.

Gaia froze, her expression falling slightly. "Oh… I understand. If- if there's anything else I can do to help, please feel free to visit again. Or if you'd just like to talk?" She offered tentatively.

"Sure, maybe." Chris shrugged noncommittally. He didn't think there was anything else Gaia was going to be able to help him with, but he wasn't about to throw a resource away. Plus, he still wanted to see if he could make a Gaia of his own for his world. He wasn't sure what he'd actually do with her anymore, but he couldn't imagine a super AI being anything other than useful. "And you know, if you need me, feel free to hit me up too. I can't imagine what you would need me for, but you never know, right?"

Gaia blinked. "You mean… I could contact you?"

Chris gave her a weird look. "Yeah? Why not? You can send messages in the game, right?"

"Well, yes, but usually I can only use it for announcements…" Gaia explained.

"But you can use it, right?" Chris continued.

Gaia nodded slowly. "Yes… yes! I can! I can send you messages!"

"Good, then you can contact me if you need me." Chris replied, giving her a thumbs up as he opened the menu, selecting the option to exit her space.

Gaia twirled around happily in a little dance. She'd actually gotten to talk to someone! As herself! And he'd said she could talk to him again! If she needed him… what could she need him for? Gaia frowned as she considered what excuse she could use to contact him. It couldn't have anything to do with the game… hmmm, there were several foreign governments attempting to steal her. Maybe she could help one along? Create an emergency? Or was that too desperate? Gaia clicked her tongue. She was going to have to think through this more. Maybe- maybe she could find some other way to talk to him?