Hub

'yo, yo, yo Jason, you've got to check this out, come on, we're all waiting for you'

With a slow groan, Jason peeked out to see a young blond-haired teenager tugging at his blanket with a wide grin covering his face and a black-haired teenager hurrying over to the window, with one quick flip of his wrist, pulling the curtains away, letting the morning sunshine its rays straight onto Jason.

Boops's voice continued to urge Jason up, as Perseus and Arjuna tried their best to physically wake him up.

Finally, after a few minutes of sluggish excuses, Jason sat up letting out a huge yawn.

"good morning I guess, why are we all up so early?"

Perseus slammed his hands onto Jason's bed, his hands sinking deep into the soft mattress.

"it's done! Everything is set up, and it's going to launch."

"the what?"

Perseus grabbed Jason's leg and pulled him off the bed with a low grunt

"come on, you don't remember? the information hub that Boops has been working on for the past few weeks, it's done!"

Jason's eyes widened and then closed again, sending his consciousness to his headspace.

When Jason opened his eyes again, he was in a completely white space with occasional roses dotted everywhere, his entire body seemed to flicker in and out of existence and when he raised his hands up to his face, he could see a bit of transparency in them.

Jason placed his hands down and looked at the floating orb that was whizzing around joyfully. A small grin erupting on his face.

Boops had grown bigger and smarter when Jason had bought the information subsystem. But he was still the same Boops. Giving off joyful beams of bright yellow. Boops flew around illuminating the bland white room with some color.

Jason walked over to Boops, his hands raised in a triumphant pose.

"you finished!"

Boops turned around his voice trembling with excitement.

'It took me around a month Jason, but I'm finally done, soon we will have a hub of information to learn more about this world, this game and so much more.'

Boops flew quick tight circles around Jason, leaving bright yellow streaks in the air.

'This was the first big project I've ever competed you know, I don't how many times I had to fix the stupid errors I made, or try and learn a new type of language for this. But man, does it feel good to be finished.'

Jason smiled and reached to Boops, rubbing the yellow orb that was Boops's soul.

"yup, it's been a long month for you huh?"

'but it was worth it!'

"Yeah, it really was worth it"

Boops paused and looked at Jason who was staring at a few doors in the white room. Each of the doors represented one of his skills, titles, or more. The roses that were scattered in the white room, represented the single class Jason currently had.

'you know what Jason'

Boops said with a light laugh

'let's go on a quick walk, you remember that riverbank you went to before?'

Jason looked down at Boops. His orb had mellowed down to a mix of yellow and sky blue.

"heh, obviously"

Jason opened his eyes in reality. Perseus and Arjuna sitting on the floor trading stories was the first thing that greeted him. Perseus was explaining the vastness of the forest to Arjuna with exaggerated hand motions while Arjuna listened entranced.

Just as Perseus was about to tell Arjuna about the groups of bandits that were known to roam through the forest robbing and killing. Boops spoke to them all simultaneously in their heads.

'Alright guys, let's head for the riverbank, I need to give a good tutorial for the information hub'

Jason let out a laugh realizing how distracted he had become and walked over to his closet peeking out of the window as he went over.

Over the familiar city landscape, the red and orange morning glow shone over the small city, letting the tall skyscrapers and buildings create a dark shadow in front of the rising sun. Small dark grey clouds hung above the sky, filtering the sunlight through broken haphazard beams of light.

"looks like it's going to rain in a bit"

Perseus said sliding his head through a small opening between Jason's shoulder and the window.

"not like it matters" Jason replied grabbing a windbreaker from his closet then turning back to Perseus with a playful grin

"since when did the rain stop the guild master of the silver wings guild?"

Perseus grinned back, a slightly competitive look in his eye.

But as he opened his mouth. Boops interrupted them.

'come on guys, we don't have too much time, and I really want to have a change in scenery for once'

Perseus quickly calmed the competitive fire that was starting to fire up in his eyes. And followed Jason down towards the entrance of the apartment.

Arjuna was already waiting for them, dressed in a heavy grey raincoat that covered everything except his face. He quietly waited for Jason and Perseus to reach him.

"Sorry for the wait Arjuna"

Jason said opening the door.

A fresh cold gust of morning breeze greeted them, soon all four of them including Boops were on their way walking down grey pavements passing through the quiet neighborhood.

Boops immediately displayed charts and graphs in front of Jason, Arjuna, and Perseus.

'I would now like to formally introduce to you all, the project that I have worked on for the past month and a half. I call it, Project NEST, and in the future, it will serve as our main source of information.'

Boops paused to display in front of the three a logo. It had the words NEST written in smooth gold, bordered by obsidian black. Behind the words was a web of lines that intersected and crossed over at random. But the general shape of the web was made in a circle with the center geometrically becoming a sort of concave nest.

'Currently, NEST is simply a low leveled autonomous A.I that siphons through the world's data, classifying and sorting each one in ranks and usefulness. You may think that it is similar to regular search engines. But NEST has the ability to grow its library constantly. It searches through each and every major center of information, from regular forums to official websites and sometimes even the darkest parts of the internet. All of that information is brought to one place.'

Saying that Boops opened an app and displayed it, it was mostly white but with dark blue borders, all of it, expertly designed. Everything was sleek and sharp. This was of course the NEST site.

'This is the public NEST app, and it will be the face of the NEST project for a bit. Here will be where we communicate with any agents or customers that we have. We have ways to gain income from sharing information, either we have people pay for specific bits, or have a subscription rank with tiers where they receive useful information at a regular rate. Of course, all information is first given to the highest-ranked people in NEST, namely you guys, and the timing of the giving of information is always manipulated to give us the best advantage.'

Boops pulled up another interesting part of the app.

'NEST is an A.I and is able to determine the information that it is lacking. That will most likely occur when information is not granted public access and is something that is kept secret by important people. Which intuitively means that it can also attempt to find the information that it is lacking. I've installed a bounty/investigation program in NEST. It has multiple methods to gain information, but it has the ability to hire and give quests out to people, that includes players. Of course, that will be a bit expensive, but estimated revenue from the hub will easily cover it all entirely.'

Jason scrolled through the app, completely impressed, Boops had really outdone himself this time. But he did have a pressing question,

"Boops, do you have somebody in charge of this?"

Boops quickly answered

'not really, most of it is automatic, and it can run on its own, but I do think that it needs its own headquarters hopefully both in-game and in reality. It can be developed as both a separate organization or as a shadow-type organization.'

Jason nodded and turned to Perseus.

"It was your idea, you think you can do it?"

Perseus quickly nodded his head. Eager to prove himself.

Jason scratched his chin.

"alright Perseus, you will be in charge of the information hub's headquarters in the game. Make sure that there are enough agents, both players, and NPCs. You can choose how you want to develop NEST, but be sure to report to me and Boops regularly okay?"

Perseus nodded his head and continued to walk on, his steps noticeably more light and chipper.

[your subordinate Perseus has been placed as leader of NEST]

[Perseus has gained the title (commander of the silent) and has received an increase of his stats!