SL: Chapter 755 – Day 28,325 – The Guidebook

“You notice that there have been minor inconsistences, since we destroyed the sphere?” I asked Clarissa. We had come back together for when I purchased a trillion point Guidebook. At that price, it better give some detailed information.

“Hmm, yes. But it was written off as residual damage. Like you purchasing multiple upgrades for Purgatory at once.”

“I am looking at the store, and there is a slight mental fuzz,” I said. She pulled out her portable store.

“I don’t notice anything,” she said.

“I am. The only difference is my stats. Or the store. Trade?” I asked her and we traded. I got some mental fuzz. Like a very soft.

“You?” I asked. “I am the same.”

“Same here, weird,” she said, and we traded back even though there was no reason to.

“Could be the points saved up,” I said. I had saved up more in the past, but this was a new development and a concerning one.

“There have been some errors in requesting items, trustworthy people have had a harder getting exactly what they want than normal. Minor deviations in produced items as well,” she said.

“I haven’t noticed anything,” I said.

“Because it is minor and again, it could be damage that the sphere caused to whatever runs this place. Like the oil is running low on the engine,” she said.

“And you aren’t concerned?” I asked.

“What can be done? It’s not like we can fix anything. Pushing you to do something is pointless, since there is no interface, we can access.”

“Well, let’s see if this Guidebook gives some instructions. I hope this isn’t a joke of some kind,” I muttered and made the purchase. The buzzing sensation went away and a gray covered book with the gold title Guidebook appeared in the air in front of me.

I put my portable store back on my belt and slowly reached out and took the Guidebook. Opening it up to the first page, I let out a small sigh of relief it was written in English and not some weird System language.

Welcome User To Training Enviroment 2-3A-57C

By purchasing this Guidebook to the wider Reality, we will prepare you for being a productive member of The Collective.

Your membership application is accepted with the purchase of this Guidebook that we have translated into your native language. Proper language instructional courses will be provided once you exit the training environment.

Again, congratulations on reaching basic status within The Collective. Your membership is greatly appreciated and will bring glory to us all across all Reality.

I flipped to the next page, hoping for something actually useful.

Chapter 1 – Integration Into The Collective

You are now a basic member of The Collective. Your bio-energy signature has been recorded into our systems and you will now be granted basic access to all Collective devices and information systems.

In preparation for the imminent arrival of our integration specialist, you can familiarize yourself with the information found in this Guidebook in advance of your integration.

First, take pride in your new status. The Collective is a super organization existing in the layer of Reality called the Firmament, but we have active mission and deployment centers across all layers of Reality. Whatever you want to accomplish, The Collective will be there at your side to aid and assist you.

To have purchased this guidebook, you have earned 1 trillion points, a major accomplishment of our Training Environment. While it has been adjusted to suit your needs, you are now an adaptable combatant and individual.

While The Collective desires peace and understanding with all beings. The Firmament and other layers of Reality are quite dangerous. Don’t worry, The Collective has your back and will support you as its newest member.

The best color is gray, which is neutral. This aesthetic was developed Jar-Tun-Far over 2,569,231,281,812 standard cycles ago and is the pre-eminent fashion of The Collective.

I took a moment to confirm that number was around 2.5 trillion. Either that was a lot of time, or standard cycles were very short.

“Something bad?” Clarissa asked me as she looked at my expressions while I had been reading.

“Possibly yes. Already looking at the introduction and first chapter, things aren’t looking good,” I said with a sigh. I handed her the Guidebook so she could look over the first couple of pages.

She didn’t go beyond where I had stopped and then looked back up at me. “The number is massive. Either a short period of time, or it is an immensely long period of time,” she said and I nodded. She had come to the same conclusion as me. She looked around as well and realized the other problem.

“No integration specialist for this Collective,” she said.

“No. It says imminent arrival. If they can translate to English, they know what imminent means. That is within a day at most, unless their time scale is completely screwed up,” I replied.

“A broken alien training facility? Then why are people coming from Earth?”

“Who said we are coming from Earth?” I asked darkly.

“What do you mean?” Clarissa asked me. She hadn’t come to the realization yet that our last memories of Earth weren’t the last thing that happened to us. I didn’t say anything as she slowly came to the realization.

“We were kidnapped, transported, and stored?” she asked.

“Most likely, unless this integration specialist shows up. But this place has had too many problems, like the sphere with no outside intervention. That means this place is operating on its own. Which means there are no integration specialists. For all we know, this Collective could have been melted by the spheres or something,” I replied.

“That…okay. Things are also breaking down. That makes sense in a way, maybe.” I held out my hand and she handed it back. I kept reading the Guidebook and the first chapter was nothing but standards used by The Collective and how to relate to them.

Chapter 2 – Donut Or Cake? The Eternal Question

The next chapter was nonsense about how Reality might be shaped like a donut or shaped like a cake. Apparently, it was some kind of eternal question. But it didn’t interest me. What I wanted to know was where the command room for this training facility was located.

Chapter 3 – The Tri-Fecta Of Power, Mind, Body, and Soul

It was just discussion on stats, most of which I already knew. The only kind of useful bit of information was that one could purchase more stats once one joined The Collective. That was good to know there was no cap. While power leveled off, it was a truly limitless design.

Chapter 4 – History Of The Collective

It talked about people and things I had no reference for. A group of various beings came together in a place called the Firmament, to build something together in cooperation. A place that would be a beacon of truth and righteousness. The propaganda was heavy in this chapter.

Chapter 5 – Dangers Of Chaos

This chapter didn’t even exist. It was all just a bunch of blurred ink. That was it. Five chapters of barely any use. I knew it would all be disappointing nonsense. I handed the Guidebook to Clarissa and she read the book.

After several minutes she was done as well. It wasn’t very long. “That last chapter being a mess is a very bad sign. You don’t label something a danger and leave smudged words like that on purpose.”

“Yeah. The Collective is probably Collect-done. Whatever they were, they are probably wiped out. We were in storage and this place came online and now we are here. And people are being pulled out of storage. That is why we can stop new arrivals,” I said.

“The people would still be in storage,” Clarissa said.

“And the fact that the exit is teaming with monsters, is further confirmation that the Collect-done is no more. They were wiped out by those things. Clearly they were fighting them, since this training facility is all about fighting,” I said.

“But what about the Almighty System?” Clarissa asked.

“A broken AI maybe? It is limited maybe? Its not like I can tell you how any of this works,” I said with a heavy sigh. This was all alien technology. Movies might handwave stuff, but we were in the holodeck and had no way of finding the exit door.

Well, we did, but the exit door was death with high level monsters. “So, cake or donut?” Clarissa asked me to lighten the mood.

“It might as well say nothing for all that, that chapter matters. Useless garbage just like everything else,” I muttered in disappointment.

“True. Which layer of Reality do you think we are in?”

“Chaos? The Firmament? Who knows? We need proper answers. Like an actual integration specialist, not just nonsense about things that don’t matter to right now,” I replied angrily. I took a deep breath to calm myself down.

While I didn’t have hope it would be useful, I had hope. Closing my eyes I counted to ten in my head slowly and then opened them. “We have to assume no one is coming. No one will help us. We can only help ourselves,” I replied.

“Has anything changed?” Clarissa asked me.

“No. Nothing has changed. But this is just more confirmation, that this place is cursed,” I answered. We were both silent as we thought about the implications of what we had read.

On one hand it was an answer, but it was information we could have guessed for the most part. Sure the stuff about Reality and power was interesting, but ultimately there was nothing that was useful. I wasn’t about to break through layers of Reality and escape this place.

There was the rainbow dimension, but I had no clue what layer of reality it was. The descriptions in the guidebook were lacking. For all I know it could be some kind of magical ocean inside an even larger holodeck like the Systemic Lands.

I was thinking of this place as a holodeck now. It was clearly fake and constructed. Calling it a training facility was a clear sign of its purpose. I didn’t think much of this purpose, but it was a purpose.

“So, Earth?” Clarissa asked me.

“As much hope as I had for this Guidebook. It is a nice idea, but in practice you won’t get anywhere useful.” I knew it wasn’t the answer she wanted, but I would not sugar coat things. “It is time to start checking the corners now,” I said heavily.

“And then the exit,” Clarissa said and I nodded.

“Yes. That is the most likely place for some kind of control room. Even if it leads into hell, I will have to go there and fight. Trying to find a way out,” I said heavily. I wasn’t optimistic about fighting such powerful monsters. Even grinding up the necessary strength was going to take a mind numbing amount of time.

This place probably wouldn’t break in the next 1,000 or even 10,000 days. But what about 100,000 days? What if it started breaking then and it was too late? What if I rushed the exit and died since I didn’t prepare enough?

To grind more or attempt to leave? That was the question. At least I had the corners to still check out.

“Stay for dinner at least,” Clarissa said. It might be the last time we saw each other, so I didn’t object. I know other people might have read something into this invitation, but I knew she just wanted to have a meal with a friend.