The next three days, their routines were as similar to each other as drops of water.
Aska has not changed her tradition of changing outfits and improving the interior of the room every day. Considering that she was in the digital world, this did not require any time and effort from her. All her time, she spent either at the table or at the window, always working in her terminal, and when Kaas asked her, she patiently answered in her beautiful voice: "It takes a long time to explain, you also have something to do."
It was completely useless to argue with her. Aska did the job of an assistant neatly, reminding Kaas of the time, ordering food, and giving daily progress reports. In addition to his education and training, Kaas could only secretly admire her during lunch breaks.
Three days of training resulted in a 12.4 percentage point increase in skills, resulting in 59% of the benchmark. Yes, it was not knowledge of the language, but only imitation, also it was still an amazing result from the point of view of Kaas.
At the moment, he could assess the results of physical training only subjectively. Yes, it was only a few days, but it seemed that he became several times stronger. Although he knew it was just a sensation, Kaas couldn't help the fact that he liked this feeling of his own improvement.
Obviously, if you've never trained before, there will be pretty quick results, Kaas mused as he took a break from his evening workout.
But that still doesn't explain the speed. I wonder what exactly they add to food for such a quick recovery? At this rate, in a couple of months I can get into a shape that would take two years on Earth.
Is it possible that synchronization helps me with this? This morning it was only 5.2%, but by the evening I had already accelerated to 21.7%
Progress has slowed down, but the very fact that the adapter forces me to work harder and the body is actively rebuilding itself to adapt to new conditions, apparently affects the kind of diet that the medical center selects for me, and as a result, the best performance from training.
"Kaas", Aska called him.
"Yes", he replied in surprise, already getting used to her aloofness.
"From tomorrow, the speech lesson plan will be changed." She said, making a gesture calling for attention and continued, "In total there will be 4 days of preparation for going to school and 1 day for practicing other skills and preparing to meet with relatives."
"In order to make your training as effective as possible, I sorted the training phrases by time, starting from the moment when Kaas was just 9 years old and ending with the very last days of his life."
"It will give you a sense of the dynamics of its changes over the past year. In addition, you will need to find out what happened in the last days of the life of the former Kaas, and especially what happened while visiting your grandfather before the accident" Aska summed up.
Kaas looked worried, and the closer the day he would meet his new parents came, the more worried he became, especially when Aska reminded him of it.
"Aska, how sure are you that everything will work out?" he asked.
"This cannot be known in advance, you can only do everything possible. The good thing is that you won't have to talk yourself, I will of course give you all the clues you need. Your task will be simply to read the text and act as required."
"I can only say that if you reach 70%, your chances will be good enough. Parents already know that you are involved in sports, and Adri's reports are quite satisfactory, this change in your life will certainly play a role and some deviations from behavior will feel natural."
"Then, I'll count on you, Aska", Kaas said in a serious voice.
"And I'll on you, everything will depend on your training and performance", she replied.
"But, I have to go. Get some rest today, in the next 4 days, during breaks, you will have to watch a selection of videos from the last days of Kaas's life." She said and left, leaving Kaas alone with a new portion of food.
Seeing the food, Kaas immediately felt a surge of hunger. However, taking a new box and a couple of cans of drinks, he thought about it and did not rush to destroy them.
Experimenting with his breathing exercises in recent days, he realized that they really help with synchronization. It was hard to say if they had any additional 'magical' effect, but even so, simply focusing on such a simple action has already yielded noticeable results.
Previously, he just wanted to do breathing exercises during other activities, trying to combine both things, which turned out badly or not at all. After all, the key feature of the exercise was that he needed to focus his attention on actions and sensations. But today, he decided to try to make breathing exercises the basis for everything else. Thus, while doing other things, he decided to focus on them through his breathing.
Why not start with food? with this thought, he opened the lid of the box in which there was another set of skewers with appetizing-looking pieces that he had not tried yet.
The first thing he did was breathe in the light smell of food and carefully listened to exactly how the aroma penetrates into his nose and causes real fireworks of sensations reaching the very brain. It was the perfect test because it was all about breathing.
The sensation was hypnotizing and after a short 'freeze', he involuntarily took a good bite. And now, like a real gourmet, he gave himself up to new sensations, experiencing them as an unprecedented and enchanting experience.
It's so good that the food is so delicious this time. He thought with a smile.
But even if it is disgusting, what prevents me from experiencing it with the same attention? Perhaps it is like a cheese with a noble mold, which, at first, may seem tasteless and must be tasted in order to understand?
Nothing prevented from combining these moments of focusing on sensations with breathing exercises, and he combined them. They perfectly superimposed on each other, because he did not stop breathing, and the pauses between inhalation and exhalation were the same part of breathing, and the very sense of smell and taste of food was ideally combined with this concept.
I'll have to ask Aska to get a bouquet of flowers. He thought jokingly, though a slightly more naughty scene obviously flashed through his thoughts. I wonder if she will curse me after one or after two moments if I ask to breathe the scent of her hair? Ha ha!
So, step by step, with a new technique, Kaas finished with dinner only half an hour later. And he went to the shower, and not only to wash, but also for new sensations.
Now, sitting under the streams of water, he focused on the sensation of the drops hitting him. Kaas experimented with the shower, making it warm, cool, strong, weak. The way he did it now was really new.
Usually, when I ate, I read books or watched TV shows, and did not notice the food at all. It's the same in the bathroom, I was either lying in the water with a book or hurrying to wash myself faster to return to my favorite activities. The most that I got from the water treatments was just relaxation and rest. mused Kaas.
Starting with the simplest sensations, he listened more and more, while simultaneously focusing on the breath. The water droplets massaged the body, which, after a grueling workout, created the already familiar feeling of rest and general relaxation. Arms, legs, every muscle in the body. Gradually, he plunged into a new feeling. It seemed as if he was plunging into a universe full of stars. And if earlier he felt as if he was breathing and received energy from the banal air, now, he seemed to breathe the universe itself.
***
"Kaas", he heard Aska's indignant voice through his sleep.
"How could you fall asleep in the shower? You have poured water worth almost 90 gold coins!!!"
"BUT? What?" Kaas instantly woke up and literally jumped to his feet.
"What 'what' ? The overspend is almost 3 cubic meters."
"Aska, I trained and fell asleep", Kaas replied excitedly while walking into the drying area.
Aska looked at her terminal in surprise and said:
"Your initial sync is up 1.35%, and after you woke up, it has already grown to almost 8%."
"You see", Kaas replied, quickly putting on his dynamic suit and literally running out of the shower.
Aska thought for a second.
"If you need to sleep under the shower to increase progress, it is definitely worth the cost, but at such a rate, the rest of the money will fly away in 1.5 months." She quickly calculated and objected "Now this is definitely unacceptable".
"Then what to do?" Kaas asked, calming down, realizing that Aska wasn't really angry.
"Set a limit or alarm. Better both. You need to sleep in bed that monitors your condition and it is much better for your health." Aska did something in her terminal and said "Done! Now the water will turn off automatically. And if you are in the shower for more than an hour, it will wake you up."
"And now, I propose to have a quick meal and go through a workout with Adri so that you can devote the rest of the time before classes to watch the video."
I'll probably have to postpone my super food training for another time, Kaas thought, and without making Aska wait, he began to eat.
He tried to repeat yesterday's experiment at a faster pace, but the result was too far from yesterday's. The art of the gourmet did not tolerate haste.
After completing his first breakfast, Kaas immediately set to work. In the morning, he no longer turned on the dynamic suit, but even so, having completed a full series of work with the bag in just half an hour, he was pleasantly surprised that he still felt quite cheerful, which surprised Adri not a small deal.
This leap in endurance came as a surprise to Kaas himself. Although he did not work with all his might, it did not mean anything at all, because before, he had to put all his strength just to get through the training.
Aska gave him no time to reflect on this dilemma.
"Until the next class, there is even more than 1.5 hours, just enough time to look at some of the recordings", she said, not giving Kaas a chance to even catch his breath and turned on the scene with playback.
Apparently, almost all non-event elements have been removed from this entry. It would be almost impossible to understand what exactly was happening on the video if Aska did not play the role of a commentator and did not tell what exactly the former Kaas intended to do, where and why he was going, and such.
An ordinary day in the life of a schoolboy. Kaas thought about a possible title for this recording.
***
* The former Kaas was awakened by his assistant, that looked like a funny robot that was 2 heads shorter than Kaas.
As Aska explained, it was a customized version of the character's design from the hit series. This robot, whose name was Stokk, did not stand still waiting for the command, but was quite active.
* "Enough rest, let's go already eat, today you will surely show this Bizz which of you is better" Stokk said to Kaas, urging him on.
"This is the normal behavior of the assistant", Aska explained, "because Kaas will have to go to breakfast, and for this he needs to wake up."
* "I don't care about Bizz, he's just annoying poser", Kaas replied in a lazy voice.
* "He, of course, is annoying, but is this a reason to give him concessions? He constantly hurts you by showing off his rating, don't you really want to beat him up?"
* "Of course, I do, let's see how my rating will change after the report."
* "He also made his report, so it will not necessarily help you move Bizz down the rankings."
* "My grandfather helped me, he understands this topic best of all, of course, I will be better."
* "You'll see", Stokk answered with a challenge.
* "You'll see", Kaas retorted with the same challenge.
* "You are much better than him in 6 subjects, but he is better than you in 13, it will be interesting to see how one report can change this situation."
* "In any case, the overall rating will be updated at the beginning of the new academic year, whatever I do now, it will not change the situation."
* "Of course it will, you can take additional tests at any time and close the gap. All you need is to learn the right topics."
* "Pff ..." Kaas snorted, "order breakfast delivery, I don't want to go anywhere now."
* "Ha-ha, I knew it! Are you going to skip school again to avoid meeting him?" Stokk asked, but judging by the fact that the food appeared on the shelf, he immediately completed the order.
* "And not at all, I just want to have breakfast at home."
* "I'm sure Bizz will order something special on the wishlist this time around, it would be great if you could redeem it before him."
* "He will most likely aim at what I order for myself", Kaas grinned as he proceeded to breakfast, "and I already figured out what to do, I need to order something expensive and useless, let him buy it back."
* "Also a good idea, but perhaps he expects to get what he wants himself and what you want. And most likely, he has more school money than you." Stokk said in a teasing tone.
* "I have not spent anything for a whole year, I should have enough."
* "But he definitely earned more, so you don't have much time until the end of the year, and it won't hurt to pass a couple of tests."
* "You're right, but I really only wanted to pass the history tests, because I caught it up for the report."
* "That's just, the story will not be enough, I am sure that it will not be difficult for you to close the basics of mathematics and physics, there will be two more tests."
* "I can still do more than one history test, but several at once, on different topics."
* "Are you saying that you have already learned the history of planetary colonization well enough?"
* "Precisely, and not only this, the history of the colonization of the moons too."
* "Pff", Stokk snorted, "the most boring topic".
* "And nothing boring, there are two tests at once and both are trifling."
"Aska, doesn't the assistant know everything that Kaas himself knows?"
The video paused and Aska replied:
"Of course, it does, but its task is not to know everything in the world, but to help Kaas learn, live and make decisions based on the circumstances. Choosing motivation wisely is also very important."
"And it turns out that the task of all assistants is pushing the kids with their foreheads for the sake of competition?" he asked.
"Not at all, motivation can be completely different, at different times, in different circumstances. The assistant is not just some kind of AI, it relies on the experience of raising hundreds of millions of children."
"My predecessor died, apparently this experience is not so good." noticed Kaas.
"The assistant cannot force, he would stop decisively if you were in obvious danger or decided to commit a serious crime. But the situation in your grandfather's private house was not like that."
"Then why did it happen?"
"You will find out in 3 days, but now it is more important that you see the school." Aska replied, continuing to play.
* "Well, well, I'll see how you fill them", Stokk grinned defiantly.
* "Ha, it's easy for you to say, because you don't have to take any tests!"
* "Your rating, by the way, is my rating too! Here we are in the same boat! Your success is also my success."
* "Father says that rating is not the main thing, the correct goal is more important and you need to go towards it!"
* "He is right, and it is possible that the problem is precisely that you have not set any goal yourself yet. Kicking Bizz's haughty grin off would be a good start."
* "Do not worry, I have already thought of everything", Kaas answered and went to the shower.
* The scene changed and he, as if immediately got out of the shower, already was in different clothes.
* "Okay, let's go to school", Kaas said.
* After these words, Stokk disappeared, and a door on the opposite wall opened in front of Kaas, where he entered and sat in a simple chair standing there. The image was static and literally in a couple of local seconds, the door opened and Kaas in the video, got up and went outside.
"This is the 15th floor, and this is where your school is located." Aska prompted.
"Aska, why don't I remember this, after all I somehow got into the house?"
"You just rode while standing, that's all. Look further."
* The transport area looked just like a set of massive walls arranged in several long rows. Inside these walls were the boarding terminals of the transport system, which looked more like the most ordinary elevators. Each wall had 2 entrances, which could only be distinguished by the coloring of the walls and a kind of lighting.
"In front of each such 'door', there is a 2-meter section for embarkation and disembarkation, all the rest of the space in this area is a reservation area. If the 'lift' is busy, then the area is partially hidden by a hologram with the corresponding information. To get into the elevator, you need to select an option in your interface and the nearest free elevator will be reserved. It remains only to go to it and choose any destination path within the city. The elevator can carry up to 5 people at a time." Aska explained, pausing the video.
Kaas chuckled internally, the elevator is about 2 by 2 meters, we would have hung a sign that 20 people can be crammed into it.
* The floor looked like an ordinary city with small 3-storey buildings, spacious alleys and a familiar sky above it.
* Kaas went along one of the paths through the park, and judging by the architecture, towards the outer part of the city. After walking about 100 meters, he had already reached the school, which did not look very impressive, about 100 meters wide, 50 meters deep and 3 stories high.
"Aska, is this school enough for a population of 125,000?" Kaas asked.
"You see only part of the school, although it is believed that there is only one in the district, but in fact it is divided by the age of students into 11 buildings, and they are located from the 10th to the 20th floors of the city, inclusively. Your building is for students ages 9 and 10."
"In addition, almost all buildings in the city do not have a fixed size, if the population is small, the school will be smaller, for convenience, if the need becomes greater, it will be increased. You have already seen how cities are built, changing the size of the school, like any other building, costs nothing."
* The school building had one common entrance, which led into a rather large room, resembling a theater or music hall in architecture. There were no changing rooms and checkpoints, the hall was about 20 meters wide and deep, it seemed to go to the very end of the building, there were tables at the edges like in a cafe, and in the center, there was a beautiful wide staircase leading through a large circular hole in the ceiling, to the platform of the second floor and further, without any turns, to the platform of the third floor.
* The staircase looked wasteful and excessive, but it did not leave too much wasted space. There were relatively few children, but they were everywhere, sitting at tables, eating and chatting. Roughly the same picture was on the second and third floors. The hall was visually divided into sections, but not by walls, but simply by a different color of the floor, into 8 sections of different colors, 2 in width and 4 in the depth of the room. Within the walls of this hall there were arches of passageways further up the floor, where, apparently, there were training rooms. There were 3 such arches on each side.
As Kaas watched his predecessor climb straight up to the second floor, Aska had already ordered lunch, which meant that he was only half an hour away from his own studies.
* Kaas, meanwhile, went up to the second floor, turned left and, passing into the blue section, sat down at a free table. His actions were not clear.
"Aska, what is he doing?" Kaas asked.
"He is in the augmented reality terminal of the school, communicating with the assistant and planning his classes and tests."
"But why can't we see anything?"
"Assistants are not allowed to be visualized in public places, they are displayed only in the augmented reality of those with whom they directly communicate. What it does is also recorded, but there is nothing important there."
Kaas took his food to his table and began to eat as he watched.
* A guy with blond hair of about 10 years old came up to Kaas's table, and without greetings, but in a friendly voice, asked:
* "Kaas, are you going to 'calculations' "?
* "Yes, of course", he answered, distracted by the guy's question.
* "Today Bizz will be there", he said with a doubt in his voice.
* "Let it be, I don't care."
* "Okay, I just reminded you. Should we wait for you at 'Expansion' today?"
* "I'll come, but after lunch. Have you finished the mission yet?"
* "Not yet, there are still 5 days until the return from 'Cefos'. Therefore, I come only for an hour, not more."
* "And why did you fly so far? Okay, I'll be busy with tests right now too. Let's get together on holiday with the whole team, we need to figure out where to put the base."
"Aska, what are they talking about?"
"This is 'Expansion', a school game about space colonization. Almost half of the students play it."
"Will I have to play it too?"
"Do you want to?"
"To be honest, no, I have already played enough computer games in my past life. Even the most addicting ones are just a waste of time."
"Most likely, the games that you had are very different from those that we have. Here many play games, live and even earn money in them. In addition to ratings, there are even useful professions inside the game worlds."
"What's the point? Are there no useful professions in reality?" he wondered, "what's the point of doing the same thing in the game?"
"But not everyone is interested in being in reality, some like other times, countries, conditions. Were you yourself fond of something?" Aska asked.
"Of course, lately, I've read books. Science fiction, adventure."
"But isn't reading such books a waste of time? Isn't it better to immerse yourself in such a world as a whole? There will be the same fantasy and adventure that you look for in the books, but it will be completely your own story."
Kaas thought for a full local minute, sipping his juice slowly. Indeed, Aska was right, in his day there were only dummy games. Some scripts, reflexes and no creativity. And no particular benefit. And instead of making money, it's often just throwing money away on a habit. Kaas's books were much richer. But, on the other hand, would he read books if he had the opportunity to do something more interesting in life?
"Aska, but I'm already in such a world, am I not? This will be my own story." Kaas said decisively, putting the empty can on the table.
And if anything, the games will not run away anywhere, he thought to himself.