Build Sequence Is Key

Training Time

Cecelia's video was cute. She basically showed him where to look on his cube dashboard for the training controls. And that was it.

Smiling to himself, he thought.

'Sometimes I think she has more personality than most people.'

He deleted the video and since she had only instructed him on one tiny little detail it was easy to do as she directed and pull up the training controls from his dashboard.

'Effective, I guess. She leaves out the customer service, but maybe the clarity and brevity is customer service in the long run.'

His training opportunities seem to be lacking. But on the other hand it seemed obvious that the setup up allowed room for a lot more options.

Maybe he would gain more in time.

'Let's see I really need to take the system for a run. Check out everything, but my number one priority are those dragonets. I got to get them some food.'

At the top of the training screen there was only two options.

[Choose your training schema:

Randomize Game

Personal Base (Julia's Amazing Base)]

'Oh! I figured the base I gained was Julia's, but I thought I would have the option to start from there in the next mission. Obviously I was wrong.'

Choosing Julia's base he was automatically shifted to the darkness he was beginning to associate with beginning a level.

When the darkness faded he was standing in the middle of the base he had raided and evidently stolen from Julia.

Actually there were a few differences. The vegetation was different and some of the buildings were grayed out. But besides that everything was in the same position.

The problem was that all the buildings were Zerg buildings. He was standing on the famous Zerg creep. And we'll it was disgusting.

On the other hand, this was absolutely amazing. He pulled up his menu and found that the Zerg drones were gathering resources from the two mineral deposits.

'Oh, I can build Zerg buildings now!'

It would have been better if he could share a base with a race that didn't cover the ground with creep. He wouldn't be able to build orc buildings next to Zerg buildings.

Currently Julia had everything set up for the Zerg. There was very little left over room at least that the creep hadn't covered. For now he dropped a orc great hall. Then he spotted a drone, called it over and had it rebuild/evolve into a hatchery.

It was going to take sometime to finished building it. So in the mean time he looked through the other awards. It looked like he had two new abilities and a title. He started with the title.

[Tutorial Crusher

Award Conditions: Given to any player who achieves a total victory.

Award: Luck +1]

'What is the system trying to say? Does it think that was just luck?'

Jason shook his head and then focused on abilities.

'Come on, give me something good!'

[Farmer

Ability: Farm production increases according to your agricultural knowledge and skill.

Current Increase: .01%]

'What!! What kind of a crappy ability is this? I have to do more work? Learn agriculture? What?'

Jason was floored. In Craft of War game there was no bonus for farming awarded as an ability in the first place, but he had thought that the minimum he would get would have been a 5% increase.

'What is this measly, .01% increase?'

That really wasn't anything at all. He knew this whole system was different, but it didn't have to go and create hardships did it. How was he supposed to learn agriculture anyways?

He was almost too scared to look at his other new ability.

[Trainer

Ability: Unit production increases according to your pedagogy knowledge and skill.

Current Increase: .01%]

'Great, just great, one more thing to do. Now I just need a mining ability and I will have rounded out everything I need to win. Not!'

After a little sarcasm, Jason felt much better. This was going to be a pain!

When the great hall finished he queued up as many peons to be trained as the hall would allow and set their rally point to the minerals. The harchery would be another minute or two, it morphed slower than the hall.

That done he slowly walked around the base. Except for the almost built hatchery, creep colony, spawning pool, and defiler mound all the rest of the buildings were greyed out.

Interacting with them, Jason saw a notice that he didn't have to correct permissions to access the building. However, the same notices assured him that once he did have the correct permissions they would be available.

'I don't get it, but hey? This game is both too realistic and too gamified at the same time.'

He didn't understand why some functions of the game were gamified and some not. It kind of made him cringe to think that to the normal residents of this world he probably seemed more like a character in a book or a movie than a real live person.

Evidently they could look through his history and access information about his private motivations. His feelings were on display to any normal. Also he didn't doubt that they could deny him privileges locking him out just the same way that they gave him privileges to spawn in certain places and enter buildings.

Imagine being locked out of be building, not by a lock, but by an invisible force field.

He thought about Cecelia and realized that to a certain extent he was a fictional character in this game maybe even to a larger degree than she was an AI of the space station.

When all the peons were trained he directed one to build a barracks and another to build a tower.

The tower went right next to the great hall. He didn't know if any rogue players were going to show up. But the least he could do was set of this sort of defense.

An orc mound went up next and wonder do wonders when it finished building the associated building for the Zerg became available, too. He checked this evolution chamber and saw that all its upgrades had already been bought.

'Wow, I really lucked out in gaining Julia's base!'