On the way to the bank branch, I stopped at various stores and scanned luxury goods with my Gate-sense.Receiving an intuitive feeling of each material's significance. And when thinking about a particular universe - feeling how much of that material would be required for the creation of a corresponding Gate, the degree of material suitability, and the aesthetic inclinations toward the final Gate's look.Some expensive items, unsurprisingly, were absolutely beyond my even theoretical price range. However, they told me about the alluring possibility of creating portable Gates.And the cheapest items told about the possibility of creating gates even from plastic forks! Just a few city blocks of them, each with a complex man-made rune inscription...Given the size of my apartment, the most suitable option I found was silk sheets at $150 each. With the total cost for the Gate in the House M.D. universe comes to somewhere between 3-4 grand. But only after a lot of troublesome processing, including dyeing.'I need trinket and second-hand shops, perhaps an industrial store, not boutiques,' soon I decided my next step on these matters, but obviously not for today.⸻⸻x⸻⸻After I found the bank branch, I approached one of the clerks, a bored woman in her 40s, and started asking her about my options.As expected, for a proper credit line, I needed more than just my passport. However, because the bank's board of directors ASAP needed positive client growth stats, after about 15 minutes I walked out of the bank with a credit card that allowed me to go in $1,000 debt.⸻⸻x⸻⸻Back at the electronics store, I bought a cheap 12-Inch laptop, a smartphone — one with a screen that took up no more than 2/3 of the body and about as thick as my thumb — and some peripherals. Together with the cellphone service plan, it cost me nearly 1,5 grand.Not wanting to risk such valuable purchases, I repacked them into cheaper bags without any store branding and immediately headed home.⸻⸻x⸻⸻Once I, somewhat surprisingly, without any problems, reached home, I left the electronics and went to the nearest local grocery store to pick up hygiene items and the cheapest healthy food I could think of.In the store, I immediately ran into such local oddities as Eidolonin, a laundry detergent superhero fighting a group of villains known as the Contaminants; mint chewing gum named Rime; a Kinder Surprise-like candy with an image of Myrddin; and many other brands with completely unfamiliar capes.Out of curiosity, I searched for rainbow toothpaste with the Legend brand, but apparently, that was too much even for Worm universe. Later, I found a picture of Legend only on soda bottles. Meanwhile, Alexandria's mask seemed to be watching shoppers from every aisle of the store, promoting everything from sports and diet food to chocolate, energy drinks, and even eggs. Perhaps because her helmet resembled the shape of an egg.⸻⸻x⸻⸻After returning, I threw chicken legs, carrots, rice, and a bouillon cube — and a little later also noodles — into a pot of water. And salivating from the strong aroma, began unpacking and testing the electronics.Every now and then, I question myself "What should I spend my charges on?" but keep coming back to the same decision I'd made almost immediately after discovering Inspired Inventor.⸻⸻x⸻⸻After quickly devouring the soup, with enormous trepidation, I lay down on the bed. Just in case of the often-mentioned in fiction severe headache or even fainting during the knowledge downloading process.As soon as my head touched the pillow, I eagerly opened the interface and tried to buy "Programming" again. But instead of a purchase, I saw an already familiar red warning. Fortunately, not the "You lack 33% of the required preconditions," but just:"Not enough knowledge:Mathematics I"Trying not to think of anything else, I willed to spend one charge to purchase "Mathematics I."⸻⸻x⸻⸻The effect of the purchase was almost instantaneous and flawless.The mathematics knowledge I had instantly expanded in every direction, making me suddenly realize that I had seriously underestimated the impact of the first level."Wow...At least for mathematics, the first level isn't about "shallow knowledge," but about the strongest foundation possible!University-level mathematics. All of it. All branches in the most perfect and complete form.Just... wow!"I said aloud obvious banalities, jumped out of bed with a loony smile, and started walking around the room, inspecting things around me. Even tossing some small objects into the air, imagining myself as the Number Man or the MC from the Equilibrium movie.Yet, didn't feel any unusual effects.'On one hand, it's a pity that my knowledge of mathematics didn't give me any "algebraic formulas or geometric visions," or any other skills.On the other hand, no, the sheer abundance of knowledge doesn't push my thinking toward this direction.To use knowledge, I still require a want or need to use it. New knowledge doesn't make me fall into the "If the only tool you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail" mindset, nor did it make mathematics my new passion.Knowledge is here, even with two benign properties: I can't forget it, and I don't have remembering mental lags. But that's all.However, just in case, once I've got some free points, I definitely should buy Psychotherapy.'Soon, I lay back down on the bed, just in case, and spent another charge on "Programming I."⸻⸻x⸻⸻"Holy!Fucking!Shit!Synergy! I forgot about fucking synergy!" I gasped in awe.Initially, I expected the same thing to happen as with "Mathematics I", just the appearance of new knowledge, mostly about programming languages.Expected wrong."Mathematics I" gave me something like an enormous, flat platform.But "Programming I"? It sort of lifted from the "Mathematics I" base many new platforms and pillars. Deepening ALL mathematical concepts related to programming.Algorithms, types of mathematical abstractions, data structure paradigms, and so on.Keeping them in touch with everything else related to mathematics. Entire university-level of it!In addition to expanding my mathematical foundation, I also got something like mental maps or link networks, showing how to use "main knowledge" in relation to the most useful programming architectures and their "imperfect sub-types" - the local programming languages of Earth Bet.⸻⸻x⸻⸻In absolute awe, I abruptly got out of bed and rushed to my laptop, where I quickly downloaded the first C++ IDE I found online and——after staring at the interface for a minute, I let out a disappointed sigh.Programming knowledge hadn't given me any insight into program interfaces, popular local libraries, let alone any brilliant ideas for programming projects.Not wanting to ruin my "I Know Kung Fu" moment, and paying respect to the classics, I quickly wrote and run a "Hello, World!" program with a few visual effects like blinking and "wave effect" letters.After that, I started poking around the pre-installed software on the laptop.Mostly, encountering unreadable compiled code — nope, no Matrix vision here, bummer — but occasionally, I found some uncompiled code and actually read it like a book.A very shameful book."Did he really write a thousand lines of code just because he didn't know how to use loops?Why— why did the author use constantly alternating instances?Oh, to solve the memory leak——created by the startup-optimization process——with a faulty timer of a deprecated 5-year-old debugger logger.Yeah, makes sense!Just— how do I unsee this?"⸻⸻x⸻⸻While going through the code for a pre-installed card game, I was suddenly struck by a genius idea.Flappy Bird!Potentially a very profitable game with incredibly simple game mechanics!
I checked smartphone app stores and didn't find any games with similar gameplay!Out of curiosity, I opened stock marketplaces and, almost immediately, found the perfect set of bird-related assets. Just $9.99!"This is it!" I thought, already imagining shown assets cut into layers and animated by a few lines of code.My slightly trembling from anticipation hands immediately bought the assets, quickly linked them to logical abstractions, and after 20 minutes, I had a working game prototype!"Noice."Next, I spent an hour fine‑tuning the game balance and, thereafter, eagerly began adding all sorts of ideas to the game.Only stopping around 3 AM. To go to bed with the full conviction that I was on the verge of something amazing.In my dreams, I was the Flappy Bird.
[Worm — 05.01.2011 — Wednesday]
Waking up around noon, the first thing I did was some morning stretches. Beginning to prepare my body — which already was in rather optimal condition for my age — for a more intense training routine in the coming days.Slightly cursing "my past self" for not choosing in the CYOA any active metaphysical superpowers. Or at least a way to obtain them other than creating things with my own hands and from fucking nothing.Even less than nothing...I had two potential sources of personal empowerment: knowledge from the Inspired Inventor and knowledge from Gates.And neither of them provided me with any "error correction!"At a fully physical level, with things like non-invasive neural interfaces combined with robotics; cyborg tech; Franken Fran tech; DNA editing, and so on, this wasn't a problem.However, for competition with parahumans, I needed "weird energies" bullshit, like super-serums, or Luther Strode's "Hercules Method." For example, because of the enormous weight of any non-cheating solutions.But the more of such "weird energies" bullshit I will have - the more I will need assurances that they will be stable in my universe and during interaction with other types of "weird energies!"Just for fucking reliably safe use!'Why, why didn't I take some Limitless perk, or at least regeneration?' I lamented, feeling the looming headache of choosing between equally ugly options: insufficient compromises, faith, and absurd complexity.During the workout, I had a nagging sense that I'd missed something, but I couldn't grasp what.⸻⸻x⸻⸻After my workout, shower, and breakfast, I continued refining my Flappy Bird analog. Which I decided to call Ducky Dive, in honor of the game's very first available characters.Yes, a character. One of four. Each with their own upgradeable abilities— most effective on their own type of levels— each of which has their own unique types of threats and bonuses— upgradable in game-store!The original Flappy Bird became popular due to the extreme simplicity of a new type of gameplay. But that very simplicity led to marketplaces being flooded with clones.To prevent this, I added a ludicrous number of possibilities to the Ducky Dive.The game began with a single classic level, where players earned points from traveling distance and "eating" rare butterflies, and from a simple shop with just one bird upgrades.But the more player invested in shop upgrades - the more they received upgrade branches: characters, abilities, perks, levels, paints for game sprites, bonuses in the form of random bags, like in the case of beetle that gave a lot of points but temporarily flipped the screen upside down. And so on and so on. By reduction of sprites sizes, slowly rising complexity and difficulty of gameplay towards "Osu!" and "Touhou Project" territory.On the second day of development, I added multi-layered background sprites for a 2.5D effect, graphic settings with shaders, an easy mode for kids, bots, a secret cow level, bonuses for launching the game at specific times of day, and dozens of other ideas.Mainly out of the absurd simplicity of this - often not even thinking about implementation, just adding some banalities.By the evening, I compiled the beta version, uploaded it to my phone, and, in reverence, spent half an hour on the incredibly addictive gameplay.Fully satisfied with the created masterpiece, I opened the marketplace to decide on pricing——and then came a series of loud facepalms and groans.Yes, my game had really turned out to be drastically better than Flappy Bird and many of the TOP-25 games.But this wasn't good, it was BAD!I groaned, put my hands on my head, lowered it onto the table, and began gently banging my forehead against it."I'm an idiot. A complete, single-minded idiot."Flappy Bird became famous to billions of people and earned its creator tens of millions of dollars.My game was significantly better.So... in the first few days of sales, I was almost guaranteed to make millions of dollars and become a hot topic on gaming websites.But for what?For money?All the marketplaces only make payments at the end of the month. After 26 fucking days!For fame?In one of the most crime-ridden cities in the USA? In a world with thinkers and WEDGDG, who would definitely have a lot of questions about the perfectly clean code that, instead of using popular programming libraries, was essentially created them anew?In a world where I just a day ago wanted to avoid excessive butterfly effects until the Simurgh attacks?Like, you know, a popular memetic game with hundreds of millions of fans... yes, something like that."How the hell am I supposed to walk around Brockton Bay and do strange shit as a famous millionaire? Fuck, of course, I didn't read fanfics where the MC did something like this!Because that's idiocy. Because making decisions when you're mentally exhausted, and then just following through with them the next day, is idiocy!" I angrily stated and deflated.⸻⸻x⸻⸻Frustrated, I moved from the computer to the TV, but soon, due to my bad mood, I ended up sitting by the half-open window, cooling my body and mind with winter air and the darkening sunset sky.'In fics, everything is so simple and smooth. Because the MCs are essentially authors. But in reality, everything works according to Sturgeon's Law - "ninety percent of everything is crap."Ninety percent of everything is crap, including personal decisions.In all important matters, such crapness is controlled by — at first glance, absurdly redundant — double-checks, regulations, procedures, and checks-and-balances.But not in my case.In my case, 90% of my decisions and their consequences are, in some sense, doomed to fail or be suboptimal...So...So, at least I need to avoid radical decisions. Make things slow and iterative. Make the safest and most stable choices.Physical security. Gates' worlds for sandboxing. Resource accumulation. Analytical and planning knowledge packs. Strategic, not impulsive, development. With some fun, so not to go crazy.Balance, I need to find balance,' I thought, looking at the sunset sky.⸻⸻x⸻⸻After abundantly cursing myself for the rashness that cost me nearly the entire second day, I returned to my computer and registered accounts on the two largest outsourcing websites.Mercifully, allowed to withdraw earned money at convenience. And with very simple site functionality:
A client posts basic information about the commission and a price for its completion.
A freelancer can offer their services to up to 10 clients per day.
Once the client agrees, the freelancer receives detailed information and begins working on the task.
Upon completion, a client reviews the freelancer's work and, if satisfied, confirms the release of the pre-paid sum.
After registration, I began carefully reviewing the available tasks at the programming section of both sites. For obvious reasons, ignoring such high-paying tasks as related to Lisp and COBOL languages. Even in my first universe, the US government bypassed legislative surveillance restrictions just by analyzing data about Americans abroad. What could be said about Earth Bet's, where the Protectorate and criminals literally hunted thinkers and tinkers by thinkers and tinkers.Among all the available subcategories, C++ one suited me the best. With coding, debugging, code reviews, and so on, tasks priced in a $15-50 range. Which, at first glance, was not a lot, but only before the correction at the 2011 inflation.After registration, I spent some time on cherry-picking newly posted tasks and sending 10+10 proposals.The first reply was a rejection, likely because my account had no statistics. But the second was an acceptance, a debugging task along with the code for some database parser.After reviewing the fairly decent code, in just two minutes, I found a syntax error in the algorithm. After "realistic" 15-minute pause, I sent the corrected code to the client, and a few minutes later received thanks, a notification about +$15 to my account, and the possibility for my relieved exhale.⸻⸻x⸻⸻After solving my main short-term problem, I spent the rest of the day awaiting responses from clients, completing a few rare tasks — of which there were two — and various trivialities:Surfing the web with spontaneous questions about Earth Bet.Creating a couple of simple scripts, like a tracker for Brockton Bay's and Boston's pages of "Cape Watch" site.And looking for information about Brockton's flea market, which I plan to visit in the morning.⸻⸻x⸻⸻Before going to bed, I watched two episodes of "House, M.D. Parahumans Edition."Which was even better than in my first world because of state subsidies for cape-related entertainment, including by support from the Protectorate's capes.Expecting an eventful next day, I went to sleep an hour and a half before midnight, with a firm promise not to repeat the "Ducky Dive fail" in the future.
[Worm — 06.01.2011 — Thursday]
As Heraclitus once said:"Even a soul submerged in sleepis hard at work and helpsmake something of the world."Waking up at 7 AM, I immediately realized what I hadn't been able to recall yesterday morning.Prana — fucking — bindu!One of the most universal and solid foundations for body development through complete nerve and muscle control.I checked it via Inspired Inventor, and it DIDN'T require any additional knowledge!But after the recent Ducky Dive failure, I decided not to rush things and wait.That was the right decision.After a slightly more intense workout than yesterday and a shower, I sat down to eat and began googling Prana-bindu info.From what I gathered, despite enormous potential, right now Prana-bindu just wasn't worth the loss of 33% of my universal possibility to buy my way out of almost any unexpected troubles.It was too much time-consuming. With too big risks that a successful "self-study meditation" would require additional medicine or even diluted melange. At the beginning, it was much less practical than a "007 training course," "S.H.I.E.L.D. agent training course," ninjutsu, and so on.Good, but not for right now.⸻⸻x⸻⸻At 8 AM, I left the house and headed to the northern part of the city, towards Lord Street Market, located near North Ferry, the largest open-air market in the city.There, I found — fairly empty due to the workday — flea market area and started literally scanning the contents of the stalls. First visually, and then by my Gate-sense, with an arm's length radius and visual-concentration activation.
Couldn't help but imagine myself as the MC of a xianxia novel.And rightly so, because my brief search quickly started yielding very optimistic results.⸻⸻x⸻⸻After just an hour of searching for hidden treasures, I descended to the lower part of the market and, near the beach, found the famous Fugly Bob fast food.There I ordered an "XXL Hideous Bob" burger — a monstrosity of three grease-soaked beef patties, two layers of cheese, pickles, and very thin slices of bread — and began to eat.Occasionally glancing through the window at soothing empty beach, and by my right leg feeling a bag of filled with various treasures: a baseball glove made of alligator leather; quartz beads and lenses; an old fur collar; an ashtray made of blue marble with a chipped corner; a lead-glass wine glass; an exquisite redwood door handle; a small bottle of perfume made from rock-crystal; and a uranium glass vase.All of this cost me a hefty $280, but Gate-sense told me it was a negligible price for such items.For instance, I paid $90 for the uranium glass vase, which was a hefty sum. But Gate-sense suggested that for a simplest Gate, I would need just about 15-20 such vases! Which, with the addition of extra materials, lowered the price of my first Gate to the 2-3 grand range!Based on my projections, with minimal risk, my daily earnings on outsourcing websites should be about $400-500.So, theoretically, my first trip through the Gate could happen in just 5-7 days!'Money! Resources! Technologies! Friendship!' I rejoiced at the "past me" foresight, slowly starting to comprehend the enormity of the Gates' glory as an Inspired Inventor's kickstarter.⸻⸻x⸻⸻After finishing the burger and daydreaming about Gates' possibilities, I headed home. Again, subconsciously expecting "Trouble in Brockton Bay," especially considering the fragility of my purchases. But again — despite the fitting tropes — returning home without any issues.Which — though illogical — slightly fueled my paranoia.'Brockton Bay isn't dozens of times cursed Gotham or Cadia, but calmness in this place is still just a pause for shit stocking and fan installation.'At home, I found numerous confirmed orders and, with immense motivation, immediately started working on tasks.Distracting myself only on rare occasions.Foremost, by jotting down ideas about the potential universes for my first Gate. That turned out to be quite the difficult task due to the required overlap of so many prerequisites at once.For example. While this seemed very unlikely, since all my knowledge about my current situation was sourced from fanfiction, there was still a possibility that — from one of the multiversal perspectives — I'm a character in some fanfiction work.But if so, and if I wanted to save related Plot Armor, then how could I pick something like the "Sex and the City" universe for the sake of Miranda Hobbes' money and connections?A universe dedicated to discussing sex! With characters constantly talking about sex!What if, after my introduction to the characters, they suddenly started talking about sex?!NSFW thing!'No-no, just in case, it was better to stay away from such NSFW-depraved things as far as possible. Closer to just Good Old extreme violence, underage killers, feudal norms, and background genocides,' I half-jokingly decided, and cross off several fully NSFW universes from an already quite long list of tempting possibilities.⸻⸻x⸻⸻At one point, researching other universes led me to researching my new home city's tourist attractions for the upcoming, hopefully peaceful, weekend.Despite the heavy weight of the upcoming Apocalypse and the responsibility for trillions of human lives, I didn't want to lean to any extremes, including haste and overworry.The main principle of any rescuers was "Before You Save Someone Else, Save Yourself" not without reason. After all, the most common reason for the need for rescuers was always people's inability to save themselves, especially mentally.Earth‑Bet already had so many problems. The last thing I wanted was — because of any form of overstrain — to add to the already problematic equation a deranged overpowered transmigrator.
Author's Note:
Image source: https://expertvagabond.com/reykjavik-iceland-things-to-do/