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The first thing I noticed in the morning was that I hadn’t set up anything regarding ore delivery and classification. So my crazy awesome “make-money-in-your-sleep” setup had failed because the software did not contact the hauler after the flagged mandatory delivery. So the next thing for me was setting up 1000 ore to be delivered for my contract and the other 1250 went to be traded. As they say, you live, you learn. I had a tasty food bar (yeah, I started imagining them having flavors, this one was chocolate chip) and let the 200 square sequence run its course. That put my account at a healthy 3417 ICU but I still had 6500 units to go. 

I was tempted to syphon off more money in the beginning but while the money was enticing, I also felt the need to get out of here before I go crazy. I changed the setting I had just put in and let all the ore go towards the contract completion. Considering the automated speed, I could be out of here in a little over three days. I trusted myself enough to figure it out from there. One a side note I also noted my mining skill was up to 12. Skill grinding while sleeping for the win.

Mining finally sorted, I started exploring what the survey module and skill could do for me. The first thing I noticed when I tried accessing the survey module via the cockpit controls was an error message: 

Unable to conduct survey without neural-link connection.

This led to me racking my brain and searching for an answer to this question in the interface. Since none presented itself I investigated the module. And lo and behold I found a switch titled NL sync. Remembering the comment about directly linking with things in the game I pressed the button.

For a second nothing happened and then I screamed. It felt like a knife was slicing through my brain. My vision flickered, I couldn’t hear anything anymore. My whole body twitched and spasmed but I hardly felt it. I did not function anymore or I would have turned off this cursed module. But the thought didn’t even occur to me. 

Some immeasurable time later it stopped. My hearing returned, I could feel my body again and everything else was a bit of a headache and everything seemed a little distant. 

You have initialized your first neural-link sync with a module.

Module: Surveyor 1

Sync Process: 3%

As long as you are in range, you can access the module through your interface.

Until the sync is 100% you might experience limited results. 

 

“Don’t worry, it gets easier.”

 

I wanted to laugh at the comment below the message but I wasn’t feeling in a very humorous mood. Damn that shit hurt. Some sick developer sense of humor to make stuff that painful. I assumed they wanted to discourage people from linking too much like this. But then again a warning would be good. I hope they got the message.

From my previous gaming experience I knew that the things that were hard usually came with decent rewards. Swim across the lava lake to get a treasure chest, jump off a 4 story building to get to a secret weapon, etc. 

“Still no reason to put me through this shit. I hope that it’s worth it or I am going to sue Lirium’s collective asses.” I grumbled to myself. “And then I get told that I signed away my right to live in some shitty ass waiver.” 

I looked at my interface and saw a new button titled: “NL connected modules”. There I found the “Surveyor 1” connection. I activated it and felt like I was looking through a camera that was quickly zooming out.

I saw myself sitting in the cockpit, then I saw the ship - which even from the outside looked like a pile of junk, then I saw the ship hanging between a few giant asteroids and finally a whole section of the belt. That’s when my vision changed too. Suddenly everything was tinted blue. I saw a light blue outline of the asteroids slowly moving in space. Blackness between them and shades of blue from dark to light on the surface. And certain spots were nearly blinding in their brightness, often towards the middle of the space rocks. 

“Yeah baby, x-ray vision!” I wished for a moment I would have had that in high school. 

“Okay.” I cracked my fingers. “Let’s figure this out.”

At first I tried zooming back in to find my ship again but the vision skewed and slanted weirdly and I nearly puked all over myself. Seasick without a sea. Great start. I disabled the interface module and found myself back in the cockpit chair. Battling the feeling of being sick, I breathed for a minute or two and let my guts settle. Then I reconnected and reminded myself to take it slow this time around. 

I figured that the surveyor is a module that has a radius around the ship. So I strictly focused on the center of my vision, trying hard not to get distracted by all the glowing dots and slowly zoomed in. This time I got a lot closer. Until something at the edge of my vision caught my attention and the previous experience repeated. 

I cussed to myself. Controlling tech with your mind wasn’t easy. Mental note: Meditate every day to reach some form of zen state to make that process easier.

Third try is a charm. By then the module sync was up to 10% and I hoped that would make things easier as well. Activate module, focus, slow zoom. Yeah, the increased sync made the reaction noticeably smoother. My vision passed by and even through some asteroids. And then finally I was back on the ship. 

The edges were framed in shimmering blue lines and the rest was basically invisible except for the ore container that held the mined ore. It showed in a subdued blue color. I slowly shifted focus to the asteroid I was mining and noticed that its surface was covered in the same shade of blue. 

Zooming in further to the surface I noticed slight differences in shade but nothing major stood out. A red frame suddenly appeared around the area of focus. 

Endrite Deposit. Density 7.5%. 

It was followed by another status message.

You have surveyed your first Ore deposit.

Survey skill increased.

Current Skill Level: 1 / 100

 

Find deposits of higher density will increase your mining laser yield.

 

I closed the messages. Let’s test my assumption that brighter colors mean better deposits. I shifted focus to another asteroid that featured a lighter blue spot near its center. I slowly shifted forward, circling the deposit until I had a good understanding of the dimensions. Bit by bit I worked my way around it. It was hard to keep my focus for so long. I nearly gave up until my interface finally blinked with a message.

Endrite Deposit. Density 9.8 %.

I closed the message and switched the survey module off.

When I had played for extended periods of time in the past I would feel mentally drained when I logged out. I needed rest and relaxation to recover from that. The way I felt right now was way worse than any 24 hour gaming session in the past. I was so drained that I could not think straight anymore. I decided to close my eyes for a moment. 

The feeling of severe hunger woke me up again. Wow, I must have been out. I slept for nearly four hours after only being awake for about two. Mind-controlling machines really took it out of you. I had breakfast - or whatever meal because I had no clue anymore what time it was back on earth. My rhythm was completely messed up but honestly I didn’t care. 

A quick check on my contract showed me that my auto mining operation had delivered another 1100 units of ore against my contract which left me owing 5400 and my mining skill was up to 13. Neat!

I left everything as running as it was and went back to messing with the survey module. When I opened it in my interface it showed that the sync was 62%. Considering how noticeable the increase to 10% was in my last session I looked forward to testing the new level.

Login, zoomout, change vision. Zoom back to ship. Spin the view angle 360 degree around it. Yeah, so much simpler. And even slight twitches in concentration didn’t affect the result nearly as much as before. It felt like the module understood much better what I wanted it to do. 

Instead of focusing on the bright spots inside of the rocks I scanned the surfaces of the asteroids surrounding us. Was there one that would allow me to be more productive? After some searching I found a promising candidate. I scanned the deposit in detail until I saw the red frame around it.

Endrite Deposit. Density 11%.

Nearly 4% better than what I am mining now. Awesome! 

“Let’s see if we can’t do even better!”

I zoomed and panned and skipped around the asteroid field and surveyed the crap out of it. Over the next 4 hours I found 5 deposits that were better than the one I was mining right now, the highest one with 15%. That was twice as good as what I was messing with now. 

While I was scanning around, I noticed something at the edge of my vision. It looked like a giant hollow in an asteroid but I couldn’t make out details with my blue light / x-ray vision. I focused on it with all I had, willing my brain to understand what it was seeing. To no avail. I saw some sharp edges and some curves illuminated in blue but that was it. I was about to get frustrated with my results when my interface simultaneously warned me of the food debuff and informed me about the facts that I had reached 100% synchronization, Survey level 3 and Basic Mining 14. 

I had not noticed how long I had been busy but then again. It seems that time really flies when you’re having fun. I grabbed food and while I was munching on it I programmed the 15% deposit location into the computer and then activated the autopilot who would get it there without flying into any rocks. 

Three hours later I was stationary again and set my autominer up. The field was only big enough for about 6 squares but I wouldn’t finish them because I was only 4320 ore away from ending my contract. I had broken the halfway mark.

With that thought I went to my bunk and dreamt of myself in a universe full of endless opportunities.

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