Chapter 10: On Task

Hugh shifted in place so he could lean forward and crack the egg against the flagstone patio. The glass instantly shattered, dissolving into a rain of sparkling pixels in his hands. When the sparkles cleared, a tiny cyborg fox sat in front of him. Hugh raised an eyebrow at it. It was the same size as a chicken egg. He'd thought his Engineer would have started out a lot bigger.

"It'll grow as it levels up," Dex quickly reminded him. "Give him a name and set him to some kind of task suited to his size. It doesn't matter what, as long as you have him doing something that'll keep him moving."

Picking the first thing to come to mind, Hugh said, "Let's call him Macro. Macro, would you please collect all the stones within ten feet of this platform, sort them in piles according to size and shape, then report back?"

The tiny fox bobbed its head and ran off, heading for the closest side of the patio. It jumped off easily and immediately started using its cybernetic tails to collect pebbles and stones, tossing them into the same general direction.

Hugh left him to it, turning his attention back to his Book. The Engineer creation screen had been replaced with a character status screen, just like Dex's page had. For a moment, Hugh just watched as the Experience Bar under his Engineer's name slowly filled. It quickly hit level two and a plus sign appeared next to his name.

Hugh ignored it, scrolling down until he found the sub-menu for Macro's Task Bot. The creation screen was almost exactly the same as the Engineer's, except it only received two extra arms instead of six. It took Hugh less than a minute to customize a grey eagle with a pale blue lighting scheme, which would hopefully keep it camouflaged while it was flying.

Dex must have understood his intentions, because he shook his head and commented, "You colored the fox to move in shadows and you're coloring the bird to be camouflaged in the sky. I don't know why you think you're dumb when you're already using professional strategies."

Hugh shrugged as he finalized the Task Bot's appearance. "This is gaming. I'm good at that. I'm pretty dumb with everything else. Anyway, I'm done here. What now?"

"Now we wind it up." Dex turned the wood egg over in his hand and cranked the key in it. It immediately started shuddering and twitching in his grasp. When he could crank it no further, he set it down and let go. The egg cracked open like a lotus and a cybernetic grey eagle popped out. Two whip-like appendages came out of its shoulders to announce their existence, then disappeared into invisible ports. Unlike his Engineer, Macro, this creature grew in front of his eyes until it became the size of a doberman. Hugh assumed that meant it wouldn't grow as it leveled up like his Engineer would.

"Same deal," Dex said. "Give it a name and a task. Whatever experience it accumulates will be added to Macro's experience bar."

"We'll call him Scout since that's what he is. Scout, until I say otherwise, you should help Macro." The eagle leaned forward in the approximation of a head bob and flapped its wings so it could bound over to Macro's side. The fox immediately changed what it was doing. Rather than toss the stones it collected into different piles, he tossed all of them in a single direction and left Scout to sort them out.

Macro's experience bar started filling at double speed. Hugh spent a few minutes leveling the Engineer up until he hit eighteen and his progress bar slowed again. Macro grew with every level Hugh applied. By the time he called it quits, Macro and Scout were nearly the same size.

Hugh returned to the Table of Contents to find five new entries waiting. He groaned.

"How many entries are there?" he whined.

Dex chuckled. "There's a hundred pages in total, but you won't be able to unlock all of them right now. The first section will have all the pages you'll use on a day-to-day basis. The second section covers NPC and World management which won't be useful until you get your hands on this world's Genesis Spear. Section three covers stuff you'll only find in Nexus. The last section is the Appendices where you can store information like the cooking recipes you unlocked."

"Then I'm not even to the halfway point of what I can unlock right now," he said in frustration. "I know the developers wanted to make this as big of a time sink as possible, but isn't this overboard?"

Dex climbed to his feet, taking advantage of their break in reading to get up and stretch. Hugh stood and followed suit, not having realized his own body was starting to cramp from sitting on hard stone for so long.

"Let's take a walk," his Navigator suggested. "We don't have to leave the area, but we can go out on the grass and move around while you let everything sink in. And there's a few things you should know that you won't learn about by reading your Book."

The statement piqued Hugh's curiosity. He silently followed along, allowing Dex to guide him into a slow stroll around the perimeter of the campsite. They went three full revolutions, giving Hugh time to digest everything he'd learned so far, before Dex quietly started talking.

"Gamers like you are rarer than you might think," he said. "While the system is built to allow you to go page by page and unlock everything in sequence, that's not how most people use it. Like you said, most players run out and start adventuring as soon as possible. In those instances, only the pages they immediately need will unlock—things like the backstory, the map, and Navigator creation. Unlocking the inventory wouldn't happen until a player realized they needed one. The Engineer usually wouldn't be created until they need a weapon or some other contraption built. And so on."

"That's understandable," Hugh replied. "That's how most games work—help tips don't appear until a system is used."

"We should talk about your goals," Dex said, seeming to change the subject on a whim. "I need to know if I'm going to assist you to the best of my ability. Short term, middle term, and long term. What do you hope to achieve in Thrive?"

Hugh didn't need to think about his answer. It was the same with every game. "Win."

Dex nodded like he'd expected it. "What do you consider winning? Thrive's potential is nearly unlimited. Do you want to be the strongest character? Financial wealth exceeding all other players? Fame? Try to be specific. Where do you see yourself in a hundred years?"

That was a far harder question to answer.