Prologue CH1.2 Reed Smith and the Wasp Girl

Computer keys clacked in a race against time as Ubel ended and finals were coming soon. Nearly two centuries or twenty-four millennia game time of going to college in a game world was at an end. Four-year degrees could be completely leisurely in twelve days of real-world time. Through the game, players could pay Ubel Gold and earn college degrees. Whole cultures of the world have adapted to the extra time over numerous generations. The ability to turn people into surgeons, engineers, and physicists in less than a month had fueled a seemingly never-ending technological boom.

Reed Smith stopped typing and let silence invade the research lab. The gene sequencer activated altering fertilized Entonoid variant wasp eggs. He clenched his hands as he waited for any sign that his latest attempt had taken root.

Love and obsession kept him here when others had preordered Erkunden a game based in a completely different universe by Screamo Studio. It would have a sci-fi setting instead of fantasy and supposedly an entirely different VR system. Governments around the world were pumping money into the project and shooting protestors. The game would soon shut down, but before the end, he would do right by his girls. If he couldn't be here, then he would make damn sure his descendants would have all the perks they needed.

Perks were controlled gene mutations radiated with MN particles. Reed studied the perks within his avatar's DNA and believed he had found a workaround to ensure his children inherited at least his perks. Some of them he planned to implement into himself in the real world.

He was a pillar member of the Entomology guild with degrees in Entomology, bioengineering, MN particle theory, chemistry, and numerous other fields. He understood that while the quantum computer generating the game world of Ubel was based on a fantasy game, nearly everything that existed mimicked the real world. Discoveries made in Ubel often transferred seamlessly into the real world.

"Beloved, the hour grows late. I know you must leave so I want to spend the rest of our time together. Even if you use up your time, I have more degrees than you do. Do you doubt my abilities?" Vespa said.  

Reed tried to burn her image into his mind for all time. He desperately wanted this world to continue so Vespa and their children would live on. When the servers wiped them, Reed believed that somewhere, this world would continue, and his wife and their children would thrive in this dangerous world. He could only give them every advantage he could imagine.

Perks weren't the only genes he added; they would gain stats, skills, and levels faster and break through level caps easier even than adventurers. There were raid bosses that required millions of players to put down and his children may be the world's only hope. Even as he worked a two-bit phony like the king in yellow made moves to spread its influence. Common wasps took a strange shade, and the overreaching raid boss was sure to stretch its hand toward his family.

Starting his children off with 4 of his prestige-ranked perks seemed to be the maximum the eggs could take. The ones they would be born with were random, and he needed more time, hundreds of years at least, to work out any of his mistakes.

The life cycle of an Entonoid was short unless they broke the first level cap early in life. Even then, in a mere 1000 years, they would grow old and frail, dying and potentially letting their knowledge die with them. Raid bosses were brain drains on NPC society; it only took a few attacks for a population to become ignorant. An immortal raid boss like the king in yellow could play the long game, corrupting them, and all he could do was give his children a starting bonus of abilities and good IVs.

"I can't leave this undone. My time is short I can feel it. I don't want to leave any of you." Reed said.

It started as a game and became so much more.

Vespa stood a casual 8 feet tall with a face of Japanese Asian features, the cutest antenna that curled at the tips, and a wide childbearing waist. While she had no breasts, her chest was thin and feminine. It was her thorax that attracted him the most. His avatar body may have impacted him more than he expected. Vespa had a thorax for days and a sexy slit with an egg-laying ovipositor that slurped his dick in ways that made him shudder at the thought. Just below her delicate slit was a stinger, always wet with a little venom.

There was nothing he wanted more than to leave his work and join her in the bedroom. If only he could call an end to his work and give her what she deserved. As a man, he had to protect his family before even his husbandly duties or his own wants and desires.

"You can't do the work of decades in the time you have left. I've seen your genius and matched it. Leave the rest to me and give me another brood to remember you." Vespa said.

As desperate as he was, Vespa's greater charisma was influencing him. She wrapped her arms around his chest and wiggled her thorax around to present a delightfully hungry opening.

"The rest is up to you," Reed said.

An AI continued sequencing DNA while he left to service his sexy wasp wife.