Classes hadn't even ended when Nick was summoned to the principal's office over the loudspeaker.
Not knowing what it was about, Nick went there immediately. The teacher, an elderly man with thick sideburns, reminded the young man not to forget to get the homework assignment from his classmates later.
There were three people in the principal's office.
The principal himself – a portly man with deep wrinkles on his forehead. The secretary, a woman just over thirty. And a thin, middle-aged man in a stern suit and horn-rimmed glasses, which he adjusted frequently with a characteristic gesture.
Nick hadn't seen this man before and immediately understood he was the reason for the summons.
"Mor, you recently awakened Gamedesigner abilities. In light of this, the government is investing in you and hopes for great achievements in the future. This is a gentleman from the administration," the principal said.
The man opened a thick briefcase lying on the table. Inside, out of five indentations, three were empty, while the other two held strange, white headbands.
The man from the government took one of them out.
"This headband is necessary for mages to enter the psychomatrix. It is also used by all gamedesigners for their work, and now it is yours. The government proudly entrusts this artifact into your hands. Use it with honor," the man stated.
The phrase was memorized. He must have said the same thing to the previous three candidates. He had come here at a random time, the principal summoned the relevant students, and then they were given the headband. No ceremony. Just take it…
"Nicholas Mor. Seventeen years old. City of Edmonton. Year 2127…" the secretary read out.
In the early 2000s, a monstrous catastrophe engulfed the world. Now, there was no one left alive who remembered the time before the apocalypse.
Click!
The secretary entered the data, and soon, the printer spat out an official document.
"Sign here," the principal instructed.
Nick placed his signature and fingerprint in the required fields. The principal affixed his seal, and the man in the suit affixed his. Then, he connected a wire to the headband.
"Put it on your head and infuse your mana. This headband hasn't been activated by anyone yet; it has a memory function, so it will become yours alone. No one else will be able to use it," the man explained.
This was a standard measure to prevent crime. The device was valuable, made from unusual materials, but their cost wouldn't outweigh the harsh hand of the law that would fall upon any criminal who dared to steal the headband. It still belonged to the government, and Nick was receiving it temporarily. Moreover, he would eventually have to pay for it.
"Don't I need to lie down?" Nick asked.
"A shallow immersion into the psychomatrix will suffice," the man replied.
Nick put on the headband.
He had never used mana before, but since the day it appeared in his body, he intuitively sensed this strange energy.
He carefully directed it into the device.
A light flashed in his consciousness. It wasn't blinding and caused no pain…
"Done. You can take it off," the man said.
He handed Nick a business card from a thick stack.
"Here you can get a free consultation and sign up for paid courses. It's recommended to complete them before applying to college for the Gamedesigner specialty. Also, from this moment on, you are obligated to engage in game development. All games are studied by our specialists. You must submit one game within a maximum of three months."
"Ah, I heard you can earn money from them…" Nick ventured.
"The psychomatrix is accessible to everyone. You own the game you create and have the right to dispose of it as you wish. However, as a citizen of Edmonton, you are required to pay taxes and rent for the headband. Gamedesigners are allowed to seek sponsors independently. But all deals are limited to our city; if you wish to conduct business outside its borders, you must coordinate with the administration," the man stated flatly.
"Mor, you're dismissed," the principal said.
The young man thanked the adults and headed for the door.
"Call the next one," the man in the suit instructed.
"Who's next?" the principal asked.
"Anthony Zozinski, class 10-B," the secretary replied.
Nick left with the headband in his hands.
He hid it under his clothes and nervously entered the classroom. Fortunately for him, the break had just started, so no one paid him any attention. The young man slipped the headband into his backpack.
The journey home was nerve-wracking.
Nick was afraid he might get robbed and lose something so important to him. His sweating didn't help hide his anxiety, and the lingering effects of his illness added a dose of malaise…
At home, he was greeted by a locked door. The youth unlocked it and entered the two-room apartment.
On any other day, he would have eaten lunch first, but he couldn't wait to try the headband. Those few seconds in the principal's office were too short. The high schooler went to his room.
It was furnished modestly. A wardrobe for clothes. A desk, chair, computer, and two beds, one of which was empty because his older sister, Sarah, lived separately at college.
The computer was quite ordinary. System unit, monitor, keyboard, mouse… his sister had bought headphones to go with it.
It might seem that technology would be scarce in a post-apocalyptic world, but that wasn't the case. Every city was not only a settlement but also an important industrial base. High technology hadn't been lost during the catastrophe. On the contrary, it had advanced. This included pricing. Production methods were simple. Any technically advanced enterprise, given the necessary resources, could create such uncomplicated technology. Especially since it was in high demand.
People were confined to cities, and a significant portion spent their free time in these stone boxes. Entertainment wasn't particularly abundant, and without it, people would go mad. Computers, televisions, monitors, smartphones – they all served as sources of information. Including entertainment.
Needless to say, pre-catastrophe films, books, and other creations held special significance. Documentaries were practically mandatory viewing. But good old entertainment was also eagerly consumed by the populace.
Many places produced their own films. Of course, much was replaced by computer graphics, but did that really matter?
Broadcasts of raids and monster hunts held particular importance. Not only informative but also inspiring.
And five years ago, a new niche emerged – games.
Primarily, this referred to streams where mages conducted their training. They also shared their impressions of the results, especially if they had been on a dangerous raid where they tested their acquired experience in real combat.
Taking off his street clothes and connecting the headband to the network with a wire, Nick licked his lips and put it on his head.
He saw the light again, only now realizing it didn't flood his eyes but arose directly within his consciousness.
The young man lay down on the bed and closed his eyes. This allowed his consciousness to fully immerse itself in the psychomatrix.
He was in the digital environment for the first time. It felt very strange. He could see, but not like humans see. He could feel, but differently… He was… sort of everywhere…
Then he sensed something vast and turned his attention to it.
Images resembling smartphone icons immediately appeared before him. One of them stood out from the rest.
"To all who have entered the psychomatrix for the first time…" Nick read internally.
Behind this window, another was visible – "To all possessing the Gamedesigner skill. Basic Training."
A desire burned within Nick's consciousness to create games. Specifically, the ones he was familiar with. But he forced himself to start the tutorial instead.
In about an hour, he learned the basics of using the psychomatrix. It turned out to be nothing complicated. Searching for information within it was almost the same as using a computer since they shared a common network. But when it came to creating games, things were much more complex.
Even simply being in the matrix required mana. Creating games consumed it much more intensely. It depended on the workload and how hard the developer pushed themselves. One could work quite economically, or enter such an intense mode that mana would burn away before their very eyes.
Separate sections covered various parts of creation.
The artistic part involved the gamedesigner conceiving an image, creating it in their mind, and transferring it to the matrix. The more complex it was, the more details it had, the harder the transfer.
This also applied to sounds. They needed to be conceived as well.
Another important part was game mechanics and physics. You couldn't just think and say, "let it be like the real world." It didn't work that way. If you needed gravity, you had to make it. All of this was a kind of programming, only instead of digital code, the mage used their own thoughts and will.
Much was said about how it was easier to create what you were familiar with. For example, imagining a chair. Creating a new one in your mind versus transferring the image of a chair from your home into the matrix were completely different things. It was easier for gamedesigners to watch recordings of live monsters and transfer them than to invent them independently. Even better if the mage had seen the beasts live.
All this was connected to the psychic aspect of human consciousness. Emotions played a significant role in creating images and entire games.
Whether fear or joy, they imprinted on the consciousness. If you decided to create something you were indifferent to, achieving results would be harder.
Engagement played a far from minor role.
It wasn't for nothing they said a true creator uses their soul.
All this was certainly interesting, but Nikki wanted to get to work.
He entered game creation mode.
His perception changed again. Everything was so unusual… he felt like he was everywhere, seeing everything, feeling everything… his will permeated this space. He felt like a god…
The remnants of the foreign consciousness in his body urged him to begin.
But what to choose?
His mind responded with the image of a man.
"Right! First, I'll create a game character," Nick thought.
Metaphorically rolling up his sleeves, the young man got to work.
…
A couple of hours later.
"Cough!"
Drenched in sweat, Nick took the headband off.
His mana was almost zero, and he had achieved nothing.
The visual image was almost ready, but making it move, follow the laws of physics, and everything else – he couldn't manage it at all. Limbs bent impossibly. The man didn't run; he slid. Reaching an obstacle, he bumped against it, unable to step over, or literally teleported through it.
Entering the man's body like an avatar, Nick noticed that his arm movements didn't match his own. They seemed to lag behind. His legs felt like they weren't his own at all. He pushed the body, it slid, and the legs twitched randomly. The fingers on his hands were immobile. It turned out he had to work on each one separately; otherwise, they would remain motionless prosthetics.
Nick hadn't expected such a scope of work. One thing led to another, which spawned a third, and so on, like a snowball. There was no end in sight.
It wasn't surprising that most games looked very primitive. Even creating a simple shooting gallery would require superhuman effort.
Putting the headband aside, Nicholas sat down at the computer.
There, he randomly selected streams featuring several of the most popular games.
One recording showed an arena where a player entered after choosing a melee weapon beforehand. Then, a monster was released against them. The player fought it and… that was it. Choose a weapon, choose a monster, and train. The game was very popular. Mages competed against each other, although… there was no co-op in this world.
This was again related to the difficulty of merging consciousness.
Just as it was difficult for gamedesigners to develop one game with multiple people, it was also hard for players to place their consciousness into a shared environment.
Nick switched to another recording, this one of a shooting range. Besides paper targets, monsters could be released there. They didn't attack, just ran around the range, and the player had to hit them.
Compared to the games from the other world, these looked like primitive simulators. But thinking about how they were created, Nick felt the full weight of the process. Whoever created these games had worked seriously hard, investing considerable effort. Not only diligence and knowledge of the process were important, but also a significant emotional component that was hard to explain in words.
After reading some articles, Nick lay down on his bed, trying to digest everything.
Before his parents came home, he decided to play something.
Playing in the matrix required the headband. Nikki hadn't had one before, so there was no possibility of playing. But now… maybe it would help with game creation?
The arena game with monsters was free. Anyone could enter and play.
Nick immersed himself in the matrix and entered…
There, he spent the first ten minutes examining his body. Or rather, the avatar's body from a first-person perspective. Everything looked natural. His fingers moved correctly. He could even feel touch.
And they had to work on that too. There was a sense of pain here as well, but in almost all games where it was present, it was significantly dulled, left at no more than 30% of the real sensation. And pain sensations could be turned on or off at will. Not everyone wanted to play with such meticulous realism.
Nick ran around, jumped. Opened and closed a door a couple of times. Then he approached the weapon rack and picked up a sword.
The hilt felt very natural in his hands. The sword was quite heavy. Nick was surprised how people managed to swing something like this so well.
Then his gaze fell on a spear.
The young man picked it up.
He had heard that learning to wield a spear, and polearms in general, was more difficult than mastering a sword.
Placing the spear back, Nick reached for a bow and quiver of arrows.
Fwoosh!
An inscription lit up in front of his hand – "This weapon type is part of a DLC. Purchase cost $20. Do you wish to purchase?"