The 75-minute real-ti lecture panned out as 5 hours of learning inside the 4x speed simulation. Eli already knew most of the information, but he was happy to have his knowledge refreshed and confird by the class, taking ntal notes of anything he hadn’t morized.
When the class ended, the professor left the simulation and forced all the students out, causing a synchronized opening of all sim-boxes within the auditorium.
“I’ll see you all on Wednesday when we’ll pick up where we left off. Try not to forget anything until then. I hate repeating myself,” The professor called out to the class as he left the room.
With him gone, the whispers and chatter picked up again, all revolving around Eli. So students were inquiring about who he was, and their questions were quickly answered along the lines of either ‘Aegis’ or ‘Makaroth’s son.’
“So you’re really him?” The boy from the back of the class spoke up while Eli grabbed his things from beside his sim-box. Eli threw the strap of his bag over his shoulder before turning to face him, seeing all eyes on him as he did.
“Yep.” Eli took a few steps toward the room’s exit.
“Unbelievable exclusive here, guys,” A loud voice called out over the auditorium. Eli stopped to look alongside his peers at the upper row, where a boy with short black hair stood, two live-streaming drones circling him with the caras on. One cara was pointed at his face, while the other had the lens facing Eli.
“Cut that out, man.” Another student groaned, but he was ignored.
“I just found out that this sester, I’ll be sharing a class with Eli Winters, the legendary player behind Aegis in the Shattered World Online.”
He kept going, but Eli ignored it and made for the classroom’s exit. Several students rushed after him into the hallway, bombarding him with questions. The live strear was pushed back and unable to keep up with Eli in front of the crowd.
“You know it’s all your fault, right?” The more competent boy from the class shouted, his voice overtaking the noise from the others. Eli was doing his best to keep it cool, cordially answering a few of their questions, but this shout got to him. He stopped walking through the hall, and other students from other classes were now paying attention.
“What’s my fault?” Eli asked him, causing the others to all fall silent.
“VGN is taking over the ga. They run every island except Kalmoore. They’ve got tons of Airships using the info you unlocked. They even got access to the abyss by planting an Elder Tree seed down there and keeping it alive long enough to build a base around it. They don’t let anyone else go there.” The boy explained.
“I still play. I understand what VGN is doing. My question is, how is that my fault?” Eli retorted. The boy's eyebrows furled, and Eli saw matching sentints from several other listening students. Simultaneously, the black cara drone hovered above their heads, recording Eli.
“You made Makaroth quit. And then you quit.”
Eli raised his eyebrows right back at them. “So?”
“Makaroth was the best VGN strear, he was—”
“You really think Makaroth would’ve stopped them from acting like this?” Eli cut him off.
“But you could’ve stopped them, right?” Another boy chid in. Eli saw that several of the onlookers, like this boy, were not angry but hopeful.
So were fans. This realization gave Eli pause, and he lowered his head with a sigh. When he raised it back up, his expression had softened.
“There seems to be so misunderstanding, both here and on the internet at large. I’m not so hero player coming to save the day. Everything I did was for myself. I got what I wanted from the ga, so now I’m here, studying to beco a doctor. Because that’s what I want,” Eli explained. Several grumbles and sighs spread quickly through the group. Eli was about to turn and continue walking away, but was stopped as Ashley stepped forward.
“That’s not true. When you beat Seraxus, you wanted to do it before the tournant ended to save Stormtop. That wasn’t selfish. Because of you, my dad and I on Stormtop can still play together with the rest of our friends and family.” As she finished her explanation, there were several nods and yeahs of agreent that went along with her.
“Holy shit, I’ve got 3 million viewers,” The strear, owner of the cara drone, shouted from behind the wall of students in front of Eli.
“She’s right. You’re a nice guy. We all watched the footage.”
“You gotta co back!”
“Yeah, we’re all waiting!”
“Kick VGN’s ass again!”
Eli aggressively scratched his hair and glared at them. “Nothing I did was extraordinary. I just played the ga. If you guys hate VGN so much, why are you all waiting for to deal with them? You guys have sim-boxes too, right?” Eli waved his hand at them dismissively. “I’ve got to get to my next class.” He turned and walked down the hall despite several more callouts.
So students brushed off his words and pursued, but others in the hall and thousands of viewers tuning in through the sporadic livestream listened very intently to what he’d said.
Despite Eli’s best efforts, the crowd never really went away as he traveled across campus. It wasn't until he’d entered his next lecture hall that they stopped following him, with a few exceptions.
Like the previous room, this one was also lined with upright sim-boxes. Several other students were already inside waiting, with shocked expressions as they heard the loud chatter of students who had followed Eli to the door. He wasted no ti locating a sim-box near the front without anyone near it and sat inside, plopping his bag beside it. It was the one at the end of the row so that he’d only have one neighbor, and Ashley imdiately filled that sim-box.
“I’m in MDNT 101 too.” She shrugged when their eyes t. Eli gave her an annoyed expression in response. “I’m not going to bug you, I swear. I sat here so none of them would,” she motioned to the other students in the class, staring towards them. Eli skeptically shrugged and leaned back into the chair of the sim-box.
Murmurs and whispers picked up across the room as the information about who he was spread like wildfire to anyone who didn’t already know. Eli tapped next to his eye to cause his eye implant to flash the ti, seeing he had 5 minutes until the lecture started. He tapped his wrist implant next to bring up his contacts. It showed that Derrick, Selena, his mom, and Renault were all logged in to the Shattered World Online simulation and unreachable by phone.
“So, about the ga…” Ashley spoke, causing Eli to wave off his eye-implant interface and give her a look. “I’m not going to ask any questions, I swear. I wanted to say thanks.” Eli’s look went away. “My dad works overseas, and I never really got to see him anymore. Shattered World Online fixed that. We play together every day, and we’re closer than ever because of it. We went from having nothing in common to working together to clear dungeons and build up our underground house in Stormtop’s mountains. We both love the cold and snow, so that’s why we picked Stormtop to start playing in,” She explained. Eli looked down at his lap, listening silently.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“We have a lot of friends there now. NPCs and players. We were distraught with everything happening in Stormtop. We fought to protect the last island stone but died during the battle. Everyone thought it was all over, and I was worried I would lose all the effort that my dad and I had put into the ga. I thought he might even quit, and we… well… by so miracle, so kid with no guild who showed up on a dragon fought his butt off and saved it all. We both instantly beca your biggest fans. I get you don’t want to play anymore, but I wanted to let you know how much your actions ant to us. So, thank you.” Ashley finished. Eli looked over to see a big, earnest smile on her face.
“No problem,” Eli pulled his lips to the side and shrugged. As he did this, he spotted the cara drone still following him, hovering above the rows of sim-boxes. He huffed and turned away, pretending not to have seen it.
“It’s not just , though. I’m sure you have a ton of fan mail telling you similar stories.” She spoke as the door to the room opened, and the professor stepped inside. Her words gave Eli pause for a mont.
“What’s with the circus? No livestreaming in my class,” The professor said as the door shut behind him, motioning to the drone. “You’ve got 5 seconds to shut that thing down before I start throwing textbooks at it.” His threat was enough to have the drone recalled to its owner at the back of the class.
Eli ignored this exchange in favor of using his wrist implant to open his contacts, scrolling to Tommy of the Fanta-See Network, and using his eye implant interface to type a ssage to him.
“Hey, did I ever get any fan mail or anything like that?”
“A ridiculous amount. Hae-won handles responding to most of it on your behalf.” Tommy replied very quickly. “I’ll give you access to the virtual storage where it's all kept…” Tommy added, followed by him sending a link to an office simulation instance. “In case you want to check it out yourself,” he said.
“Thanks,” Eli replied before waving off his interface.
Like the previous class, the professor sat in the sim-box at the front of the classroom, which prompted the class simulation to boot up, allowing Eli and every other student seated in the hall to log in.
Eli shut his sim-box and did exactly that. When the simulation for this room loaded, it was much different than the previous. No cadaver or operating table, but instead a table filled with gadgets and gizmos, and a hovering display with nothing on it. It took a few seconds for the room to fill out before the professor at the head of the class spoke up.
“Welco to MDNT 101. From my experience, this will either be your most exciting course, or your most depressing,” The professor said, getting a few chuckles from across the room.
“dical Nanotechnology has been advancing rapidly due to recent advancents in nanotechnology, working in tandem with AI. Several industry leaders have been working together to achieve remarkable results. You may already be aware of how successful Nanotech has been in veterinary hospitals across the country. What you may not be aware of is that it has already been used to repair, disinfect, and otherwise cure over 400,000 human patients already, in the United States alone,” The professor spoke proudly. Eli used this ti to closely eye the devices on the table in front of him. There were several chanical syringes, but the rest were foreign to him.
“When used correctly, the failure rate is 0.0001%. Furthermore, recent models for the technology have the nanobot recycle rate at 96.9%, aning the tech is nearly infinitely reusable, depending on the patients' ailnt. That’s the exciting part,” The professor paused and looked over the class.
“Now, the depressing part. The nanobots can, once administered, diagnose and solve patients' ailnts entirely on their own. They are, for lack of a better term, a plug-and-play cure for almost everything. This ans you, as hopeful doctors, wouldn’t need any knowledge of dicine to use them. Anyone who knows how to administer the nanobots would be able to work in a hospital and cure patients with a single, safe injection. That is the reality of this profession, and its future, and the technology right now is the worst it’s ever going to be.”
Ashley’s hand shot up from beside Eli, and the professor nodded in her direction.
“If that’s true, why bother teaching us anything else?” Ashley asked.
“Good question. There will be cases where this technology is not accessible. Nanobots also have their own vulnerabilities, such as electrical surges,” The professor replied. Another hand shot up.
“Are these transportable? These nanobot kits?” The student asked.
“Yes, as you can see, the kit is a large, heavy case. It does need to be charged, and during particularly long procedures, it should be plugged into a permanent power source. But it is otherwise transportable and usable anywhere.”
“What if a patient is in an autopod accident and needs surgery?” Another student chid in before the professor addressed his hand. “You’re telling these nanobots can perform surgery in the middle of the road?”
“There was a case where a patient’s leg was crushed inside their autopod during an accident. Firefighters were able to amputate the patient's leg to remove them from the vehicle. Paradics imdiately administered nanobots while rescue workers retrieved the separated, crushed leg. The nanobots could re-attach the leg and repair it by the ti the ambulance arrived at the hospital. The patient was discharged the sa day,” The professor explained, earning several gasps of shock and disbelief from the class. Eli’s hand shot up, getting a nod from the professor.
“If that’s true, and this technology becos widespread, would there even be a need for hospitals? For example, if these nanobot kits beco comrcially available and everyone has one in their hos or autopods as a part of standard first-aid kits?” Eli asked.
“Great question,” The professor snapped his finger and pointed in Eli’s direction. “I’ll answer that with my own question. Are you all excited now or depressed?” The professor addressed the class, garnering a bout of nervous laughter. “Before you ask any more questions, let's learn together how this technology works so that you can co up with a more educated answer. In front of you are all of the components of a state-of-the-art Nanobot kit, including the case it cos in…” He motioned to a silver case on his table at the front of the class, which Eli was able to locate a copy of on the table in front of him. From there, the explanation began.
Another five hours inside the simulation later, the class ended. The professor stepped out of the room while all of the students' sim-boxes opened simultaneously. There was no more chatter amongst the students about Eli or Aegis. It was exactly as the professor said: the students were either excitedly discussing the technology they’d just learned about or staring blankly at their feet. Eli was the latter.
“Pretty incredible, huh?” Ashley comnted, catching Eli’s daze.
“Yeah.”
“Guessing you’re in the depressed category?” She asked.
“You aren’t?”
“It’s a good thing, isn’t it? This tech is incredible, it’ll save thousands of lives and is incredibly cost-effective.”
“No, yeah, I agree, that part is good,” Eli leaned back and looked up at the dull ceiling of the lecture hall. “It’s another problem of humankind that technology will solve…” he mumbled.
“Yeah…” Ashley leaned back as well.
“I’m starting to think he might’ve been right.”
“Who?” Ashley asked curiously, glancing between Eli and the other students as they filed out of the room.
“David. Makaroth, I an. He told that the Shattered World Online was the only place left where anything mattered, because out here all of mankinds problems were solved,” Eli explained.
“Oh. Hm. Kinda true. If you think about it, even a VRMMORPG solves a problem. A few, actually. You don’t get to choose who you are when you are born, but you do get to choose who you are when you’re born in the ga. It’s kinda like an equalizer, right?” Ashley shrugged.
Eli sighed as he stood up, grabbing his bag. Ashley stood up alongside him.
“That’s why it’s so important to so many people.” She followed as he headed out of the class. “Do you want to grab lunch together? We can talk more about the nanotech.”
“Uh,” Eli motioned to the crowds of students and several live-strears crowding outside the lecture hall’s door and waiting for him to exit. “I’m just gonna head back to my room and log in to et up with my girlfriend,” he replied politely.
“Oh. Yeah, right. Of course. Lina?” She asked, flustered.
“Yup. Cya around,” Eli smiled and waved before heading out ahead of her into the crowds, ignoring a bombardnt of pointless questions.
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