4 What Defines as Unique?

"Ha? Were... were am I?"

Cain asked out loudly, still a little bewildered, at first there was nothing but darkness, then moments after logging in. He was suddenly bombarded by waves of multiple but vividly beautiful bright lights with a sequence of multiple colors that flashed in every direction possible.

The sight was abstract at best, you might even call it a kaleidoscope, after all, being slapped with the log-in sequence which could be called an experience that many didn't have the privilege to experience.

Was nothing short but a miracle for someone like Cain, ten years, that how long he went without sight, darkness encompasses his entire world, and to be blessed with the beauty of the spectrum once more was something that would bring tears to anyone's eyes.

That's why; when Cain began to look around him. And he was flabbergasted to see the world around him. It was unlike anything he has ever witnessed or seen before his very eyes in his entire life.

The world was something he had never seen before, it was like he was in another dimension altogether, one with a space-like theme. The place in question was a collective of multiple galaxies, planetary bodies, celestial-looking clock gears, and hands that were floating in every direction.

Large pieces of shattered glass were floating all around him by the million maybe even billions. He wouldn't even be surprised that there was an infinite amount, as it was showing different worlds, with different scenarios, and themes, the sight before Cain truly left him awestruck, some worlds within the shattered glasses that were bigger than even the galaxies around him had medieval-like themes, others futuristic, modern, horror base, mystery-filled, eroge intensified, romantic dramas, shounen types, and of course fantasy motivated.

But this was only the tip of the iceberg, this entire place had way more worlds, and it stretch infinitely, or that's what it looks like to Cain. It was truly a marvelous sight to behold, but based on the eye candy of colors before him, Cain already had an idea where he was, having developed his imagination over the years, it kind of matched, the description the television had made it turn out to be.

At that moment, only two words came to Cains's mind which can describe the place before him.

"Is... this... Is the Paradox Stream?"

The question was simple, it wasn't meant for anyone in particular to be honest, but what came as a surprise to Cain was that he began to hear the voice of a woman, or maybe a man, or maybe both, honestly, he couldn't make it out. So it was safe to say that it was both.

"Ah, yes this is indeed the Paradox stream, although, to most Pandorians or players like yourself, this place is nicknamed the Alpha space... which can be defined as the space between worlds."

"Ha, wait... HAA? Who are you, or more like where are you?"

Cain said a little surprised by the sudden realization that he wasn't alone in this space, however, he was confused as to who this person was. Maybe an AI of sorts.

"Hmmm. An AI ha, well if that's what you want to view me as then I have no problem with that either."

'Wait did this thing just read my mind, hmmmm... yap military base technology is definitely being used in Pandora, or maybe it's one of those mind-reading software that is popular these days, quite an interesting feature to add if you ask me, although it's my first time seeing this kind of software being used in such a way, it's a nice feature indeed, it actually makes you feel like you are talking to a god-like being.'

Cain said a little entertained by the situation.

Upon thinking this, the being in question remained silent, however, Cain began to question the unknown entity.

"Well Mister, or is it Misses honestly I don't know, sigh! Is there something I can call you by?"

Cain asked a little confused about the gender identity of this being. Normally, an Ai would have voices that help you to distinguish males from females, in this case, this Ai had multiple voices of many females, and males stack and layered behind its speech and tone. Making it impossible to correctly guess its gender.

But Cain highly doubts that this thing even possesses a gender to begin with, because, in most games, there is always an administrator that ensures balance and order within their servers. And seeing that Eqrisum prides itself on the realistic feel behind its most popular game, this was most likely Pandora's take on that theme.

Although it would just be easier to ask. So with that said, Cain began to question the AI.

"So Mr/Ms. Ai, about that last question."

The Ai responded as such.

"I go by many names, however, the two names I mostly go by are either Lady Pandora or Lord Pithos. And when it comes to my gender then I'm all genders technically speaking, so if you desire I can be either male or female, seeing that I can become any form you want, so tell me what tickles your fantasies player."

However, the answer Pandora got from Cain was a face of pure uninterest, and lack of care in his tone as he replied.

"Yeah I don't really care, abstractness is good enough as long I can converse, anyways moving on to the main topic "P" you see I want to kn...

However, Cain was stopped mid-sentence when Pandora/Pithos questioned.

"P?"

To which Cain replied.

"Yes "P" is both short and easy to remember, so I will call you "P" Seeing you identify as nonbinary I will keep it as non-binary out of respect, and lack of relative interest, seeing I only have one month to play with, in short, your back story, nicknames, are trivial topics that benefits me in no way, so let's skip the boring and unimportant parts ok... Thank You!"

"P" had no words to describe this man's behavior, however, he/she wasn't going to refute him and abide by his orders. And jump straight to the point.

"Very well. If that's what you desire, then let us get right to the point, now as you previously thought about my identity then yeah, I am the absolute ruler of this space. I am both a God and Goddess to the NPCs of the worlds below. My job is to help you Otherworlders assimilate to the cosmic stream, and assist you in creating a character and lore sheet, based on your compatibility."

"And speaking of compatibility, you have a perfect assimilation rate to the Paradox stream that alone makes you a part of the extremely rare 5% of players who play Pandora Online."

Announce (P)". Which in turn made Cain shocked seeing that he didn't realize that he was this compatible with the game.

Intrigued by this he questions (P) as he wanted to know more.

"Can you tell me the importance of compatibility?"

(P) of course, answered his question, and made it as simple as possible as well, seeing that it didn't want to waste Cain's time.

"Compatibility is very important in Pandora, for instance, people with perfect assimilation rates like yourself are people who escape the illusion of reality back in the real world."

"The illusion of what now?"

"In more simple terms it means you have a unique view of the world that the other 95% of people don't possess, this can stem from your belief, experience, or better yet you have awakened to a third eye."

"Ok I'm lost (P) make it even simple please."

"Sigh! You are hopeless, but maybe that's why you are so special as well, either way, what I'm trying to say is that you possess something that others don't, I don't know what that is as only you would know why you are special from others, but then and again this doesn't have to be some kind of weird supernatural gift, but it can be something like a life-changing experience, event, or trauma, or maybe a self-belief so strong it represents your existence on a conceptual level. If you need an example let's say you are born blind you don't know how the world looks like from day one, so you see the world differently from others, but this different perspective allows you to see things others can't, you may even call this enlightenment, that is the kind of thing I'm referring to when I say something like a third eye that can see past the illusive veils of lies that are the fundamental reality we live in."

(P) said descriptively while making the explanation as simple as possible.

And after saying that, Cain understood what (P) meant, in short, people who are just detached from the world because of a disability or some kind of unique circumstances. But it's because of this disability, quirk, or specialty that makes people unique in a game like this.

It does make sense, Cain, for example, is rather perplexed about his own existence, for instance, the computer monitor at home does show signs of brain activity but not enough to even consider the person alive, hell his own sister doesn't even know he is always conscious and self-aware of his own being.

His brain without doubt took a lot of damage that no amount of repairs would be able to fix, and yet despite his brain being severely damaged, Cain defeat all odds and by some miracle, he somehow kept himself conscious even when the accident occur.

How he did this, he didn't know, it was as if his mind transcend his body and this thing called the body was just a damaged vessel, even when the ambulance came he might as well be pronounced dead as it was badly damaged, and yet when they found cain he was still alive somehow, although barley hanging on.

At the time Minerva was thirteen and our parents weren't even rich, so buying an artificial body to switch Cain's consciousness into and restart his life as an android was a no-go.

The artificial body was extremely expensive, so Cain's sister took the cheapest way out, she didn't want him to die, and being the genius she is, she decide to go the cheap route, and build a homemade Solar reactor tank, preservation liquids, cheap computers, life support systems, and so on and so. It's kind of hard to believe that girl at the age of 13 made an entire underground lab.

Cain knew that his sister was playing God at that moment, but being someone even the global triad want to recruit under their ranks at the time for her intelligence was something insane, to say the least.

And the Global Triad is basically the name of the most renowned scientific organization that has a broad variety of specialists under its wings.

And to even join that place you need to have an IQ score of 250 or above. Now someone like Cain was average at best as his IQ score was 105. Meanwhile, Minerva's IQ score was an insane 450.

At that time many didn't believe this girl could have an IQ score that is par or even surpass a majority of the elders of the Global Triad, so a re-test was needed before the presence of the other elders, in order to conclude, but sadly around the same time, a horrible accident happen.

And one week before her scheduled retest in England at that, so because of this Minerva was forced to cancel her trip. Cain always blames himself that maybe if he wasn't alive, his sister's life wouldn't have been so shitty till now, and be forced to take care of him like she always does.

Cain became aware of Minerva's motive, it's why he said that Minerva was playing Go. He heard her so many times. What her goal was, is rather simple. She wants to make a new body for him, but to do that, a lot of conditions had to be met before the procedure could even be realized.

But the biggest factor holding her back was because of the extensive brain damage to the brain. It's common knowledge that once the brain is damaged, there is no return from that, and yet. And despite the odds, for years Cain always hears Minerva talking about the countdown of her greatest invention.

Something called the "Anti probability Core", Cain being Cain had no idea what his sister is up to, but he takes several guesses about what Minerva so call Anti probability core is based on the name alone, but it's entering the realm of supernatural at that point, then and again knowing that girl nothing might be impossible to her. In a way, she was special like Cain but different.

But that still didn't make Cain worry for her, after all, Just last week, he heard her say something along the lines of five more years, five more before she can complete it.

Thinking what the girl might do was what was troubling him greatly these days apart from the fact that he always wish for death, as his suffering was becoming death from pure boredom and loneliness.

But the ironic thing about this entire situation was that Cain's mind was perfectly intact, although he lacks an answer as to why this is even possible, to begin with thought. However as Cain began to remember his past, and how he ended up the way he is now. He began to hear the chuckles of (P).

"Haha... hahaha...

Cain of course reacts as such.

"Why are you laughing... Oh yeah, that's right, you can read minds, I forgot about that."

"Well it's like you said yourself, your not the sharpest tool in the shed, but I must admit you truly are special Cain. So much so, you didn't even realize the gift you were born with, I look forward to seeing how you will affect my world."

"What you are even talking about?"

However, the answer (P) gave Cain actually left him surprised, to say the least.

"Cain, it's not my place, but I have the hobby of observing mortals and players of my world in order to better understand the minds and physiology of all living beings, and after you share such amazing information with me, I can more or less tell you what made you special to begin with, for instance, it isn't your unfortunate accident that made you apart of the extremely unique 5% of Pandora, no Cain! You were born with a perpetual consciousness, apart from that I don't see any other way you were able to survive such an accident after sustaining so much brain damage."

"Perpetual consciousness?"

"Think of it as a mind that will never turn off, or look at yourself as a person who can never get knocked out even by the most severe of brain damage, tell me, Cain, when you were little this is, of course, before your unfortunate accident, did you have a sleepwalking problem."

"Now that you mention it, Mother said I was an avid sleepwalker... now that I think about it, I remember doing my homework that was going to be graded in my sleep once, but I mistook it for a dream. Yeah and when the teacher send me the emails to check my grades for it the next day, I was shocked that I somehow manage to do my homework while asleep."

"Although I took a lot of medication to suppress these actions, seeing as I grew older I was doing a lot of dangerous things while asleep, although most things I do are just things I normally forgot to do while awake such as mowing the lawn, washing the dishes, you know basic chores."

"So yeah I was an avid sleepwalker when I was younger, but apart from that can you stop reading my mind, your invading my personal and mental space at this point."

Cain announces with annoyance clearly present in his voice, to which (P) replied.

"Interesting, I definitely look forward to how your unique consciousness will affect Pandora?"

"What do you mean by that?"

"Well, you see Cain, by default, you have an advantage that the other 95% of players don't have. That being; your uniqueness will also cross over with you. And said uniqueness gets an essential power boost here as well and becomes a unique ability that your character will have in its arsenal of abilities after you create one of course, but with a compatibility of 100% your level won't be affected by the travel rules of the cosmology barrier of the different worlds."

(P) announces, although this both shocked and confused Cain as he questioned.

"Unique ability, Cosmology barrier?"

"Yes, player Cain, you see the Paradox stream as I said before is the spaces between worlds, or you might see them as mere servers, or pieces of fiction seeing that this is nothing but a realistic VR MMORPG game to you."

"But to define this in simple terms, each fragment you see here that resembles a large piece of broken glass is in actuality a different universe altogether, each having its own unique cosmology, rules, laws, dimension, and mathematical principles, even multiverses within a single fragment might have different mathematical principles within their own separate universe as well, although as a player you are unique because players can naturally defy the rules of these worlds and go against the cosmology, and natural order rather easily."

"Of course, this is only possible due to the player coming from a universe with a higher cosmology than Pandora altogether, also if you add the infinite leveling system that Pandora offers to each of its players to make them have limitless potential for growth within the virtual space of Pandora, you more or less can say that the players from the real world are treated as heroes, villain, gods, angels, demons, entities, or the most used terms within the world of Pandora all together are invaders, but it varies from world to world."

"And the space being the home space aka the Alpha space that you and I are currently present in. Surpasses all essentiality, concepts, platonic concepts, dimensionality, mathematical laws, impossibility, idea, principality, space, time, and boundaries, and by an infinite margin of infinite hierarchy at that."

"For example, this space you and I are currently in is actually located outside all meaning of consistent existence altogether, and because of this, were unlocked in null existence that is the outside, this means the concept of time has no meaning here whatsoever, so you can stay here for a million years, and not even a single second would pass in the real world either, the crazy thing is, time flows differently in each world as well. Fear not though each server will tell you how the rate of time will flow when you log in to them."

However, when Cain heard all of this, he was overwhelmed by the share amount of essential information about the game.

But he was even more surprised when (P) mentioned that within the loading screen, or the main menu time is non-existent. It made him wonder just how advanced is this game to even make it have virtual space that is subtracted from the meaning of time altogether, at this point Cain began to wonder if all the controversy and propaganda about Pandora were really valid after all.

Either way, Cain realizes that Eqrisum made a game that cannot be matched for eons to come, this world even has a complex cosmology system, that alone is pretty insane.

Although he understands that the more realistic a game is, the more sales it can get in the market. Although he has to admit that this was stepping into a whole new world of fictional realism if you asked him.

Although there was something still bothering him, so he wanted (P) to answer him.

"(P) If I may, what do you mean people with 100% compatibility with the cosmic stream can defy the travel rules of the cosmology barrier."

Of course (P) was more than happy to explain.

"So they are worlds that are both easy and harder than others, or the theme behind them doesn't require battle prowess to begin with. Pandora system won't allow you to enter a world that is too weak to handle your presence, or just way too easy for you to beat with skill sets alone, although the same goes for you as a player as well if the world in question is too high level then Pandora system won't transport you to a world were even weakest monster or NPCs can one shot you."

"But that only applies to the 95% of individuals who can't go against the system rules, as that 95% cant defy the Paradox stream due to their low compatibility, and even if they have 99.9% compatibility it still wouldn't make a difference, as the connection has to be perfect. This means you can defy the Paradox Stream influence over the conditions of traveling, which is an inaccessible field to attain a level of fairness and balance for both NPCs and players alike, so if you want you conquer an entire world for yourself, of course, the ones that are weaker than you, then by all means you could."

Cain for one was surprised by the news. And if what (P) said was true then this was basically a cheat, feat, or hack that only 5% of the players within the entirety of Pandora can even achieve, which was a very small amount, and to think he was now part of that 5%, talk about lucky.

Although something else was bothering him, (P) stated each world has a different or similar power system, and also different cosmology altogether, and we as the players can defy it, however, there was one problem with this setup.

And that was the fact that we need a power system that should be shared among the players as well. The leveling system was universal of course, the level cap in this game was basically non-existence due to the players having limitless potential, which is kind of crazy when you think about it.

And just when Cain was thinking about what the level-up system is like, (P) began to answer him.

"Oh the level-up system, is rather basic but complex at the same time. So Exp in this game isn't judged by the monster's initial power, No! It's judged by the initial struggle it takes to kill a monster or complete the quest, to begin with. For example, let's say you fight a level 10 orc and you killed it with ease, and get 30 EXP for that, but you fight a level 2 orc, who is more cunning and set up traps prior before arrival without your knowledge, and you trigger them, so almost injuring you, and despite this, you still manage to kill the orc. But you got 70 Exp for your efforts, it's like that, strength means nothing in the face of wisdom, but it doesn't mean monstrous power cant laugh in the face of the wise."

(P) announce professionally, meanwhile, Cain was actually impressed by this unique setup, this was taking realism to another level, with an Exp system like this, one effort is paid in full.

But he knew this wasn't all there was to it either, and (P) wasn't done explaining either, so (P) started to explain the other features of this power system.

"Now keep in mind every time you level up, you become 2x physically stronger than your previous level, of course, you cant level up things like luck, although it's not impossible, luck can be upgraded when you do quests that offer stat upgrades as a reward. but the former logic also applies to your overall supernatural skill set as well, for instance, let's say you pick up a magic base skill from any magic base world, that skill will start at level one. Now let's say the skill in question is a fireball and a level one fireball is about 1 meter in length, then a level 2 fireball will be 2 meters in length, and a level 3 fireball would be 4 meters in length, well yeah I'm sure you see a pattern here, but that also means the mana price will double depending on the amount of power you wish to use."

"And what I mean by the amount of power, then it is like this, you can control just how strong any attack is, for instance, if you have a level 150 fireball, that doesn't mean you can only shoot level 150 fireballs know if you want you can still shoot level 1 fireballs, as it really depends on how much mana you sacrifice if its magic base that is, although the same logic doesn't apply to inherent, acquired base skills, you would have to train on your own to master the power outputs of your powers."

"So that leaves us to how can you get powers, well it's simple, visit a magic world adapt to their cosmology, seize their skill as your own, and used the leveling system with its limitless potential to boost the power behind your magic skills, although they are a shit ton of ways to get skills, so much so, it's impossible; even for me to name the infinite possibility this game has to offer, but the most skill outside racial skills naturally comes from your job class skill tree that gives you perks of the job class and race you pick."

"Now moving on to rules, so the first rule is that there are no rules in this game like you can do whatever you want, although the no consequences part means that if you r@pe or torture a player or NPC here, then the consequence of such crime won't come back to bite you in the real world."

"Although keep in mind, that each player here is allowed 2 lives, meaning if you die two times here, then it's like dying a true death as you won't be able to log in, no matter what you do."

"And finally, killing other players means you will instantly usurp their net worth or the money they earn in the game, as winner takes all, you can even steal money from NPCs as well, and yes the rumors about the currency being the same as the real world is true, you can become rich just by having fun, that's why Pandora ask for a $1,000,000 every month from their players, it's a small price for fun."

It was at this point Cain was truly loss for words, as he said with a devious smile plastered on his face, as said while rubbing his hands.

"Wait, it was all true, the money part that is?"

"Yes."

It was at that moment, a devious smile became an evil smile, his teeth were in full view in all their glory, and he look menacing to the point even the devil would wonder what demon he work under, or what clan of demons raised him.

Meanwhile (P) could only pray for the safety of all the poor NPCs and players who were soon going to be victims. (P) could see it as clear as day, the shamefulness within Cain's black heart that care only for his satisfaction, as he was thinking about how to run the pockets of every NPC he crosses, the player was like lions right now for him, but he was sure he could run the pockets of normal civilians rather easily, after all, who was going to stop him.

Cain at this moment had a mission, and that was to get a new body, and you better believe he was more than willing to ruin the lives of many other people if it means he was going to live his best life. The world is unfair and unkind, why should he be a goody-too-shoes? As of this moment, everything to him was collateral damage and income with legs.