[Quantum Network: Cyberworld]

Ruri let her consciousness dive into the Quantum Network.

Looking around, she realized the scenery around her was a little different from what she remembered. It was a 'universe' with countless marbles with different sizes scattered everywhere.

From a distance, they look like planets, but it only takes one look to know that they are not.

Rather than planets, they look more like decorative marbles. There was no gravitational force and these marbles did not move at all, they were just fixed in their place on Quantum Network.

♦♦♦

 

There are features that only Premium and Executive Capsule Pod have, namely Connection Bookmark and Flash Connect.

Connection Bookmark allows Capsule Pod users to bookmark addresses they have visited previously, while Flash Connect allows users to quickly connected into addresses they have bookmarked in Connection Bookmark.

Every time Ruri dives to a new address or an address that was not recorded in the Connection Bookmark, she must establish a connection to the destination first, which is represented by a fractal corridor. And since Flash Connect couldn't be used, she had to dive normally in the Quantum Network, whose speed wasn't as fast as when using it.

Fortunately, the speed of the Executive Capsule Pod's "Prioritized SSL Quantum Connection" was very fast.

Using this connection, the difference between normal dive and Flash Connect was not that much, with the former was ~3 minutes while the latter was ~10 seconds. And since it was a "Prioritized" connection, she doesn't have to wait too long in the queue to connect.

Previously, when Ruri did a normal dive, there wasn't any difference in the corridor compared to using Flash Connect except for the connection speed.  There was no scenery or anything like that in the corridor. But now, this corridor had become slightly transparent and she could see the scenery outside the corridor.

♦♦♦

 

Ruri can see various places with different styles within the marbles, some of which she recognizes.

These marbles are VR-Spaces and VR-Worlds that people create and publish on Quantum Network. Their sizes are self-explanatory, proportional to the size of the data space within them. Small marbles are VR-Spaces, while big marbles are VR-Worlds.

'Oh, that one seems to be Grand Fantasy Online, and that one is Metropolix, and that one...'

And the big marbles that Ruri saw were actually VR-Worlds from VRMMO games other than Ascension.

She recognized them clearly because she had played briefly in those games some time ago. Even though they are also VRMMO games, unfortunately their items cannot be brought into the real world with Ruri's special ability, like she can do in Ascension. Not to mention, their immersion was not as good as Ascension.

'So, this is Gaia's breakthrough with their Quantum Network technology.'

Gaia Corporation's research and technological achievements in Virtual Reality are well known everywhere.

It's not that Ruri was ignorant and didn't know there was a 'universe' outside the SSL corridor, but this 'universe' didn't even exist before and was only created on the same day as the previous maintenance.

"Cyberworld..."

Ruri uttered the name of the project that Gaia Corporation advertised at the Techno Fair several years ago.

The company was very ambitious and apparently aimed to recreate the universe through virtual reality, which was the basis of the immersive VR that people are using today.

She did see news about the project's breakthrough on the internet the same day after the maintenance, but at that time, she didn't feel anything and didn't think much of it.

"Sure enough, seeing it on the internet and experiencing it for myself are two different things."

But still, she doesn't know how this development will affect her life.

Currently, the view of the universe simply made the corridor pretty and that was all. Maybe something more will happen in the future, although she doesn't know it now.

Ruri didn't stay too long and continued to dive towards the Real Estate VR-Space.

♠♠♠

 

[Dreamhouse Real Estate VR-Space]

Ruri's avatar appeared in the Transfer Gate, expressionlessly looking towards the indoor hall in front of her.

Currently she was using her student avatar, which caused some curious glances from the people around her. She was already used from those glances and went straight to the female receptionist, who was clearly an AI.

"Welcome to Dreamhouse Real Estate, how may I help you, dear customer?" (Receptionist)

"I planned to buy a house, please give me the catalog." (Ruri)

Fortunately, the AI didn't differentiate between customers based on appearance, and she greeted Ruri politely.

But of course, the level of this AI was similar to that of a household assistant robot, far from the level of Natives at Ascension. There was some rigidity in her behavior, but at the same time she was loyal and had no thoughts other than her work.

"I understand, I will forward the catalog to your holo-screen. By the way, dear customer, you can also use the Transfer Gate there to dive into the virtual copy of the house in the catalog. Do you need an information guide? I can introduce each house's information to you for free." (Receptionist)

"No, thank you. I want to take a look first before deciding." (Ruri)

"Understood, please take your time." (Receptionist)

After Ruri received the catalog data, she sat in the waiting room and checked the house information one by one.

There were many types of properties on the list but Ruri only skimmed through them. She filtered the list to show all the properties in Tokyo, and of course, most of them were apartments or office buildings.

There are no small LDK houses available in Tokyo.

In this metropolitan city, there are no longer any urban villages, which are considered to be destroying the harmony of the city's landscape. These urban villages were evicted several decades ago, with everyone living there at the time was moved into communal apartments, and all the landowners involved have received large(lol) compensation.

So, when it comes to buying a house in Tokyo, all that remains was to buy a house in an elite residential area, where each housing unit was priced very expensively.

But, what about people who want to live here but doesn't have much money?

Most of them choose to rent rooms in apartments, and those who are more frugal will rent rooms in capsule hotels.

People who rent rooms in capsule hotels have very small living spaces with only a single bed, but the rental prices are extremely cheap so they are popular among most people. And when they choose to get married and start a family, then they will move and rent a room in an apartment.

Ruri ignored those lowly things and started looking for a house suitable for human beings to live in.

She looked at information in the catalog about houses in elite residential areas, but none of them matched her preferences. Either the houses lacked some rooms or their design aesthetic didn't match hers.

"Uh, none of them are good... Hmm wait, what is this?"

But then, Ruri saw a button in the bottom left corner of the list that said "Build Your Own House".

In this option, there is a choice of several empty land plots of various sizes. After she chose one, the screen suddenly changed to a 4D editor. Looking at the notification tips of the editor, it didn't take much time for her to understand it.

She only needs to design the house she wants to build, and she can also choose the technology on how to build it, the materials used, and much more. Everything can be purchased in this editor while showing a preview if applied.

There wasn't any need to worry that the final result will be wrong, because the editor will automatically calculate almost everything important, such as tensile strength, room temperature, toxic substances, and much more. If something goes wrong, she will be immediately alerted and told where it went wrong.

With this editor, everyone can become a skilled architect!

Of course, the final price of buying a house like that will definitely be more expensive than buying a finished house. But fortunately, the last thing Ruri lacked was money.

Ruri licked her lips with excitement.

"This is quite interesting… Well, since there's no house I want, then I can design it myself."

And thus, Ruri took about 15 minutes to design a house with 3 floors above ground and 1 basement floor.

However, rather than designing, it would be more accurate to say that what she actually did was dismantle and recombine parts of various existing house templates, then standardize the building technology and materials used. This method was easier and faster than designing the house from scratch.

At the same time, she have to ensure that the total floors of the building above ground did not exceed 3.

Because, if the floor area of the building exceeds this figure, the scale will no longer be considered a normal house, but will be upgraded to an apartment or office building. Constructing such a building required a business permit, which Ruri found troublesome to obtain, and anyway she didn't need one right now.

♠♠♠

 

[Other POV]

While Ruri was busy designing her dream house, three people appeared one after another at the Transfer Gate.

Astrid, Emilia, and Rena, appeared with calibrated avatars that resemble their original appearance. They didn't appear simultaneously because of the difference in connection speed, but that's a trivial matter.

As soon as they gathered, they immediately looked for Hecate.

"Where's Hecate-cchi... Ah, there she is." (Rena)

"Okay, let's go there." (Astrid)

It only took a few seconds for Rena to find out where Ruri was from the hundreds of people in the waiting room.

Other people might take longer to discover the loli's whereabouts, but for Rena, whether it was Hecate or Ruri, she could discover their appearance in an instant, and this was already engraved in her instincts.

So the three of them approached Ruri who was busy designing her house.

It was then that Ruri noticed their existence, and she decided to stop fiddling with the design and finish it immediately.

"HE~CA~TE~CHWAAN!!"

*funyu*

As usual, Rena immediately pounced on Ruri, which the latter didn't bother to resist at all.

While letting Rena molest her body, Ruri greeted them expressionlessly.

"Hello, everyone." (Ruri)

"Nice to meet you, Hecate... or should I call you Ruri-chan? This is the first time we've met in our original appearances." (Astrid)

"Yes, and soon we will also meet each other in real life." (Ruri)

Astrid nodded in agreement.

If everything goes well, as Ruri said, they will meet again in real life. At that time, she would discuss with her and Rena again about solving Ruri's medical information problem.

But right now, she was only here to settle current affairs.

"Have you finished choosing a house?" (Astrid)

"Yes, but unfortunately, there wasn't a house I wanted, so I designed it myself." (Ruri)

"Well, figures..." (Astrid)

Astrid wasn't particularly surprised by Ruri's decision.

When she heard Hecate's excessive request earlier, she knew that Ruri would choose to design the house herself. As for the price, she was sure that this loli had the wealth to pull it off.

"Shall we take a look at your design? You can click the Generate VR Simulation button in the Transfer Gate." (Astrid)

"Okay." (Ruri)

The four of them walked to the Transfer Gate, and let Ruri generate her house design.

And immediately after that, their avatars disappeared in place and then reappeared inside an overly magnificent house. At the same time, detailed information of the design appeared on their holo-screens.

"What do you think about my house design?" (Ruri)

Rena could only be amazed while Emilia could only be speechless.

"Wow, your prospective house is very big, Ruri-chan" (Rena)

"This is... quite amazing." (Emilia)

Without further ado, the four of them toured the house.

The house design that Ruri made was the same as what she said to Astrid earlier, with a few modification.

The first floor is divided into a large hall, living room, recreational room, dining room, kitchen area, toilet and large bathroom. This large bathroom can be said to be similar to an onsen, where there is a bathing area and a pool of warm water.

"Is this an onsen?" (Emilia)

"This is indeed an onsen, bathing here can relieve fatigue and stress, or so I heard. I also want to try the so-called carbonated bath later, so I included this onsen." (Ruri)

Next, the second floor is connected to the hall with a huge staircase in the center part, and the rest divided into east and west parts, where each part has 8 rooms separated evenly by corridors, with 4 on one side and 4 on the other.

Each room can be combined with adjacent rooms into one at any time by removing wall dividers, and even corridor walls can be removed to create one large room, one in the east and one in the west.

"What's the use of those empty rooms?" (Rena)

"Those 16 rooms are multi-purpose rooms, they can be used for anything, for example a equipment room, wardrobe room, and can even be used as a guest bedroom." (Ruri)

Then, the third floor is specifically reserved for a greenhouse combined with an indoor pool, equipped with artificial sunlight, artificial waterfall, and automatic watering system.

The ceiling is made in the shape of a dome made of anti-spy super tempered glass which can be made transparent so she can see the view of the sky at night.

"It must be nice living here, you can swim here every day and the greenhouse is nice. But where is your bedroom, Ruri-chan? From your attitude, I don't think you will use any of the rooms below as your bedroom." (Emilia)

"Over there, don't you see the round area over there? I was planning to put a bed there." (Ruri)

"What? So, this entire room is your bedroom?" (Rena)

As for the basement, there was no complicated operation, only space for a garage, warehouse and workshop.

Finally, her house is equipped with 10 layered super solar panels, 5 bladeless wind turbines, and a rainwater filtration system, all of which are the latest technology, so she no longer has to worry about electricity and water bills.

Of course, she also didn't forget to provide lift space on each floor to make transportation easier, as well as integration with the Smart Home system so that AI can manage the home management.

As for the total price...

"1.778 billion yen..." (Astrid)

Astrid could only smile wryly after seeing the overview information and total price.

This total price includes tax, home insurance, and the location where the house will be built. But, considering that the price of buying a plot of land and a house in it was around 50-60 million yen, this price was really very expensive.

One of the reasons for the expensive price was also because Ruri did not choose one of the vacant plots that had been prepared, but instead insisted on selecting land plots from four adjacent ready-made houses and combine them into one.

This means that she has to pay taxes, insurance, and location fee 4 times. And of course, the houses on these lots have to be demolished and rebuilt, resulting in more additional costs.

In addition, the design of the house itself was quite large, but it only uses around 20-30% of the space from those 4 land plots, and the rest was only used as the lawn.

Talk about wasting land space.

"Are you sure about this? This isn't a small amount, you know?" (Astrid)

"Well, 1.778 billion... That's about 50 kg of gold, no problem." (Ruri)

Astrid expressed her concern, after all, the amount of money involved was not small.

However, because Ruri herself didn't seem to mind the price, Astrid didn't ask further and immediately completed the deal. After all, the customer who can pay is the King... or Queen if the customer is a loli.

"Then fine, leave the rest to me. I will start building the house once I receive the gold, and transfer ownership of the house to you once the construction is complete." (Astrid)

"Okay, I will send the gold to you tonight. It may take 1 or 2 days until the gold reaches you." (Ruri)

As a sign of a successful transaction, Astrid shook Ruri's hand. Both of them smiled with satisfaction.

Meanwhile on the side, Emilia and Rena could only stare at them with complicated expressions. Maybe after this, they will have to redefine the meaning of the word "rich" in their minds.

"As I thought, the world of rich people is different. Isn't that right, Rena?" (Emilia)

"Why are you looking at me like that, Emi-cchi? Even my family doesn't have that much money, you know?" (Rena)

Both of them sighed at the same time.

Surely what they experienced today would be an unforgettable experience for them.