Chapter 60 - Go big or go home (1/2)

"System, adjust time to my maximum." Ginro whispered.

"Adjusting time" said the female AI voice.

Ginro figured Gray might not notice him slowing the time to his level since it would appear like Ginro was now moving and talking at a normal speed. Having the system adjust time faster than he could handle would only make those that could handle it appear faster than him.

"73 times versus my 23 times… How is that even possible? Oh wait, Gray and all of the other players have basically been gamers most of their lives so their brains receive stimulation every day. I guess it would make sense then that they'd be faster than me, but it still doesn't feel right." Ginro thought to himself.

Ginro walked over to Gray, who was admiring the terrain, and said "Look familiar?"

"Yeah, it's the map we did earlier today." Gray said while looking around at the terrain and added "Everything here appears much larger than before, but I guess we were in mechs that are several times larger than a person"

"Indeed, now here is the fun part... say 'System, show my attributes'" Ginro stated.

"System, show my attributes" Gray stated plainly.

The white board from earlier with the images appeared again, but this time it had a list of different attributes for Gray with sliders under each one.

"You can use these sliders to adjust how this sandbox world simulates you." Ginro explained

Scale, Gravity, Toggle Flight, Toggle Advanced Flight, Toggle Player Contact, and Movement speed appeared on Gray's list. Gray noticed he could adjust them all within certain degrees except for Toggle Player Contact.

"As you've noticed, Toggle Player Contact is set to disabled and can't be enabled. This is normal, and is meant as a safety precaution." Ginro

"Oh, so you can't hit me and I can't hit you basically right?" Gray mused.

"Pretty much, that and it makes working together so much easier since you don't have to worry about hurting anyone else or stepping on someone when you scale yourself up to the maximum size of 25 times larger." Ginro said.

"How do you fly then?" Gray said excitedly as he immediately toggled flight to 'on' before even completing his question.

After gray toggled flight on, the 'Toggle Advanced Flight' became adjustable as well. In front of Gray a joystick and a floating ball appeared.

"You should be familiar with these as they are the most common camera controls of virtual reality games." Ginro said.

"Ah ok, so I control my movement with the joystick and my alignment with the track ball?" Gray asked.

Ginro nodded his head "Just be careful with the track…"

Ginro never finished that sentence as he watched Gray spin himself in place rapidly. Gray's face started to turn all different shades of green until Gray was able to control himself enough and stop the track ball from spinning.

Gray was now 'standing' upside down in mid-air and Ginro finally added "The track ball is very sensitive compared to what you're used to."

Gray nodded his head while sweat was beading on his forehead, he felt like he was going to throw up but since this was a sandbox world he couldn't even throw up if he wanted to.

"Do you want to try advanced flight mode?" Ginro asked

Gray shook his head vigorously, still standing upside down now with his eyes closed waiting for the feelings of nausea to go away. Finally Gray opened his eyes, spin himself slowly upright, and then played with the joystick a little to get himself used to it.

"Ok, now that you're feeling better, let's get started! First, show me how you guys managed to sneak in from the north side of the base when it was never meant to be entered from that side." Ginro said.

"The plateau where the Solar Farm is on is too high to jump up to since the mechs only have a short hop, but we made stairs from the thick trees. I'm surprised nobody else figured it out honestly." Gray stated.

"Ahhh… ok, so we should make it even taller then, right?" Ginro asked Gray.

"No, make it easier, remove the plateau and make it a walkable ramp." Gray said.

"Why? Then the base becomes vulnerable from the North."

"Because you guys made the base too hard to assault with only 1 viable entrance and no air strikes. As it stands, you can only breach the base from the main gate and the side gate. Normally, if a base like this is going to be assaulted, a much larger force would be assembled and have fire support or air support to aid." Gray stated "Basically, this map favors defense WAY too much."

"Then how did you guys capture it?" Ginro asked.

"Luck, tactics, bravery, leadership, and a little bit of crazy stupid ideas… that and being the first on offense meant the defending team had no idea how we would approach."

"I'll make sure to load your group's replay then to see what you meant by crazy stupid ideas, those are the best kind after all!"

Gray nodded his head in agreement. "Yes, yes they are!"