FB: Chapter 19 – Anthony’s Family

“Thank you for inviting me to your home,” I greeted Isabella, Anthony’s wife. She gave me a hug which I returned. I then handed over an expensive bottle of wine I had stored in the car in case I had a surprise meeting and needed a gift. I had three others just like it in a case in the trunk.

“How thoughtful. Italian as well. Did Anthony tell you I liked this vintage.”

“I saw a similar bottle when we had a business dinner previously and figured it would make a good gift even if I don’t drink,” I replied.

“How thoughtful. This is our son Mark,” Isabella said and introduced a teenage boy.

“A pleasure,” I said, and we hugged each other as well. After that we all went to the dining room. I knew Anthony had an older daughter who was at college at the moment from the conversations we had about our respective families.

“I know you are on a tight schedule, so I hope you don’t mind we have dinner right away,” Isabella said.

“I appreciate it quite a bit. Thank you. I work sixteen hours a day and twelve of those I spend in a capsule,” I replied.

“That is impressive. But if Anthony is working with you, then clearly you are capable,” Isabella replied. “What about your parents, what business are they in?”

“My father is an accountant for an insurance company and my mother works part time in retail,” I replied. Isabella looked at her husband with a bit of surprise. I was clearly low class to these people.

“She is quite capable. When we agreed to work with each other she had already made several million,” Anthony said.

“And you are eighteen?” she asked me.

“Yes. Right now, I am focused on Exponential and will be for the foreseeable future,” I replied as the first course was brought out by servants and laid out on the dining table.

“Do you not like the soup?” Isabella asked me. She saw my wince when I had some of the soup.

“It is excellent, but the problem is residual capsule sensory overload. I use full sensory immersion and the lingering mental effects of the place I am currently in, have impacted my sense of taste and smell,” I replied.

“Do you need a doctor, we know several good ones who are specialists,” Isabella replied.

“It is nothing major. That is the risk of full immersion and there is nothing that can be done about it. There are some skills and environments that are quite stressful. Unfortunately, or fortunately, they are the best environments to do things without being interfered with by other people in the game,” I explained.

“Now I am curious what you are doing in Exponential,” Anthony said.

“Getting experience and money. It only works for a single person. If there are multiple people, the spawn rate isn’t good enough.”

“I don’t understand,” Mark said, and everyone looked at the teen. “How can a game impact you in real life?” His lack of understanding was reasonable. While there were a lot of warnings for full scale immersion and other things about VR, not many people knew them readily.

“A person’s brain is engaged while they are in the game. Full immersion makes it feel just like real life. But that also means you can feel pain and other sensory issues. There are a lot of safety protocols and waivers one has to go through to use full immersion, but it is very helpful while in combat to have a better sense of your body and environment,” I said.

“And that is impacting how things taste?” Mark asked.

“Yes. Since I am in the Murk Swamp all the time, there is a lingering smell and taste to everything. If you ever go into Exponential, you will understand once you check the place out. It is absolutely vile. Which is one reason no one goes there,” I replied.

“There has to be some hard-core gamers who want to tough it out,” Mark said.

“I haven’t seen any other people there on a long term basis. For most others it is not a good place to grind unless you know exactly what to do. There are a lot of other negative factors in regards to the place as well. So, planning to go into Exponential?” I asked him.

“Maybe. I have just been hearing a lot since dad started a business with you,” Mark said.

“Perhaps I should take a look. It sounds quite interesting,” Isabella said.

“If you have questions, I would be happy to answer them. I just had a seminar with the first group of people we are sending into the game,” I replied. After that I answered several questions about various aspects of Exponential while enjoying several courses until dessert arrived.

“I was thinking about recruiting some people with questionable backgrounds. Since not a lot of people have experience with melee combat,” Anthony finally said. He meant criminals.

“I have no problem with that, but if any end up going to the Penitent Mine or cause trouble with the NPCs, they are out. Those are my only two concerns,” I replied, and he gave me a considering look.

“I thought you would object,” he said, and I shook my head.

“It is a good idea. A lot of people tense up and have fear in melee combat. People who have experienced that kind of thing in real life are better fighters in game. They just have to have some semblance of control to not murder the NPCs in settlements or get caught outside of them. The Eye of Vigilance in game is like a police officer looking right at you. You aren’t going to commit a crime by stabbing someone or pissing all over their shoes while a police officer is looking right at you. If you do, then they clearly have no chance working as part of a guild long term. They will just cause too many problems,” I replied.

“The game is constantly watching you?” Mark asked.

“QAI, or Quantum Artificial Intelligence is. It is highly adaptable and is always monitoring everything at all times. The Eye of Vigilance just means those observations are linked to the in game legal system. Unless a person is incredibly high level with the right skills, it isn’t worth being a criminal or trying to get around that effect. But you can go out of town and do almost anything without a problem,” I explained.

I didn’t care if he got murderers and rapists as part of the guild. The sad fact was, those types of people made the best front line fighters outside of Champions. The crazy people who would just rush in and just liked killing other people.

What I couldn’t have them doing was messing things up with the NPCs in game. That was why anyone who ended up going to the Penitent Mine in my guild was being kicked out. I had already discussed this with Anthony extensively and he agreed. We didn’t need people who couldn’t handle the most basic of instructions, the main one being to not do anything where the Eye of Vigilance is and don’t piss off the NPCs in game.

If they wanted to murder other players and do things with their corpses, good on them. It would be better if my guild had a violent reputation anyways, since we weren’t going to be a crafting or exploration focused guild, but a combat focused guild. There was a reason beyond saving on housing costs that prisoners across the world were sent into Exponential in their respective countries.

I didn’t know how much of a criminal Anthony actually was. While he did have a mafioso type act going on, it could just be an act. Everything he had done so far was legal. He also understood that you weren’t going to make a lot of money by playing it safe.

It was a shame that I didn’t have access to all of this money right away when I had somehow been sent back in time, but I also wouldn’t be complaining that he had decided to invest fully in my guild plan going forward.

There were many major pitfalls we would have to avoid in the future. Having over 10,000 members was considered the benchmark to be considered a large guild. But the real challenge came breaking past the 20,000 member benchmark and then competing with the super guilds. Between 20,000 and 1 million was a large gap with only a couple semi super guilds. Breaking past 1 million members was the minimum requirement to be considered a true super guild.

While the millions that were being invested might seem like a lot, we would have to compete with national and corporation level guilds, where trillions of dollars was invested. I had no doubt I could see a large guild to success easily enough and that Anthony was capable of arranging things so we reached that point. But getting to the level of a super guild would be the real challenge.

And it wouldn’t just be in Exponential, it would be outside the game. The great game between super guilds was very real. Where battles fought in game would have very real implications for nations on Earth.

As we were finishing up desert, Anthony brought up another key topic. “I have other investors who have expressed interest in financing our guild. They are interested in speaking with you,” he explained.

“Already? I thought you were going to wait until the capsule complexes were complete,” I replied, and he nodded.

“There is a lot of interest in Exponential and it already growing. But us older people, have a harder time understanding these new opportunities.”

“If you arrange a time for a meeting, similar to the one we had today, I will be there. But I suggest you hold off until after I make my move. That would be after I enter the Tournament of Champions,” I replied.

“Which you will win?” Anthony asked me.

“I have a high chance of winning. But my combat skills would be ranked A- to A at best. The top people will have combat skills ranging from A+ into the S range. My build and knowledge will hopefully be enough to close the gap,” I replied.

“What is this ranking?” Anthony asked with some curiosity since I hadn’t brought it up before. It only mattered when ranking high level combatants or large amounts of low level combatants. It was something I was used to, since such a ranking had become popularized last time.

“How I would classify how well a person can fight in game. A rank combatants are what I would say are the top of human fighting ability. S rank combatants fight with an almost super human level of ability, not counting skills. This is due to them being neuro divergent and being able to tap into a deeper level of Exponential to move their characters. It is something I will have to worry about,” I replied.

“Maybe we should recruit people like this?” Anthony suggested.

“I will be looking for them in game. Trying to recruit in the real world will be mostly misses. There is a lot that goes into making an S class combatant beyond having some sort of mental disability in the real world,” I explained.