Chương 76: The Freedom to Choose in a World of Chains

Jin wished he could be sitting in a bar right now, gently spinning a whisky glass and looking at the Gustav Klimt The Kiss replica painting the bar had on the wall. Not because he liked the painting at this point, but simply because it seemed to be the only art poster most places hung up. He preferred Schiele… Instead, he was sitting back in his rooms at the inn, tiredly looking at his newest pouch of spirit stones.

"Another win, another bag," he said. He'd avoided going out in Koncho for one simple reason. Going out increased the chances of stumbling into another cultivator and having the following exchange.

'You dare look in the direction of this young master of the 57th branch of the cow dung cultivation family?! Your bloodline shall pay!'

'Please leave me alone.'

'You didn't add a young master to your sentence, the tongue you used to utter that insult shall be burned in the eternal fires of Akasha!'

'Kill me, get it over with, I can't deal with this culture anymore.'

"Why so glum?" The rather startling real voice of Hashimi asked as the girl entered his rooms, mostly barren as they were with a simple bed, closet and table with three chairs.

"I want to go home," Jin whined petulantly. Hashimi sat down opposite him.

"Well, the tournament will wrap up in two days now that there are only eight contestants left. Quarter-finals tomorrow, then semi-finals and finals the day after," she said consolingly. She looked at the open pouch of spirit stones on the table and nodded.

"Cultivating?"

"A bit," Jin admitted. He'd finished the spirit stone he'd started on yesterday. After getting back to the sect, he'd need a month to three months to finish the rest, depending on how much further he progressed. It would likely accelerate his cultivation by a year or two if the rate of progress remained the same.

"I had a question, actually, about Skyrim," Hashimi suddenly said, not mentioning the rather unfortunate reception his victory had received earlier in the arena. The common consensus was that Jin was dishonourable for having used an illusion of someone close to his opponent to make her hesitate and then win the match. Elder Flower had handed over the spoils with a bit of a twitching eyebrow at the end, before simply shaking her head and leaving him alone. Maybe she regretted teaching him that technique.

Jin sighed in relief that Hashimi didn't want to discuss the match. This tournament was slowly turning into his worst nightmare.

"Ask away."

"I've finished pre-fabricating the components for the ruin, as you know, and I started working on the other ones as well. Fast process, but, well, aren't there too many ruins considering they mostly seem the same?" she asked.

"I'm working on the ruin with the Eye of Magnus, and it's like any other ruin but with more magical stuff in the end." Jin waved her off.

"Skyrim is fundamentally a scenario that puts the freedom of the experiencer in the forefront. I think that becomes quite clear when they finish the Helgen saga and exit the cave to be hit by the beams of light. That's the moment when they are unchained and can do whatever they want. Sure, Alduin eventually does grow powerful enough to end the world if they don't stop him, but it's not a real world; it doesn't matter."

"And the ruins?" Hashimi asked with a raised eyebrow.

"If someone wants to waste their time completing all the ruins in the scenario, they can do it." He paused.

"As for the fact that they mostly look the same, you have creative freedom to do whatever you want. Back in the sect, we have the packages for things that are appropriately challenging for low-level cultivators. I liked what you did with Bleak Falls Barrow. Making the traps more dangerous, the puzzles more challenging. I haven't gotten to the enemy design yet, but I could imagine putting in a few things that are more complex than the initial schema." Hashimi put one leg over the other and tilted her head.

"This focus on freedom. Initially, we discussed Skyrim as following the philosophy of making your own adventure and becoming a more complete cultivator through the vast array of experiences you can go through. But as we continue working together, I am noticing that there is an underpinning threat of someone failing to string together valuable experiences as they swim in the sea of choices we are providing." This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source.

Jin steepled his fingers and leaned back, mentally riffling through the catalogue of Skyrim data nodes stored in his mind.

"Is this any different from other scenarios?" he asked.

"What do you mean?"

"Let's say you are training in a scenario where you are attacked by a horde of demonic red locusts. Technically, the scenario is supposed to teach you how to defend yourself effectively through practice, but an experiencer still has the choice to not engage in the way it was intended, run away, or simply die repeatedly without learning anything." He shrugged and held up his hands.

"We are doing something different, namely, Alduin is a threat that does not exist if one does not care to engage with it. The stakes are fake. However, is the fact that someone might fail to do so any different from the threat of someone failing to engage properly with any other scenario?" Hashimi gave him a queer look.

"Well, considering the non-immediacy of the problem, there will likely be more fail-starts."

"That brings me to the next question," Jin said patiently.

"How much do we value the autonomy of the experiencer?" The girl opposite him sighed.

"Just tell me what you're trying to say." Jin nodded and gathered his thoughts.

"I think that the way our sect designs scenarios is not inherently flawed," he started.

"They perceive a threat that people are not adequately prepared for and model it. Sometimes other cultivators come with specific demands. There will always be a need for scenarios that depict a single danger. In and out, learn how to deal with it, move on. But just like how some cultivators might struggle against a specific danger, they might lack the skills and experience to engage with the danger of reality." He spread his arms wide.

"The world is large and dangerous. We cannot test our negotiation skills with unknown combatants, our tracking skills on unknown creatures and our problem-solving skills on vital quests with real lives on the line. Reality is complicated, and just like banishing Alduin, it often throws problems at us that are more complex than the simple go there and kill X. The only issue is that reality has consequences for failure."

"You're thinking of creating an entire world," Hashimi breathed with wide eyes.

"You were thinking of Skyrim as a singular quest line with a beginning and an end, a clearly defined line between the two. Everything else in it, a distraction, a way to heighten immersion," Jin explained.

"But even that, an adventure that teaches several skills, physical and mental, is limited to what one can gain when interacting with an entire false reality in which one is just as adrift as in the real world. There are no obligations in reality, not really, I could simply stand up now and walk out of the city, never to return. There would be consequences, of course, but there is nothing fundamentally stopping me from making the decision and trying to follow through on it."

"I'd miss you, bro," Hashimi said jokingly.

"I'd miss you too, bro," Jin replied, before continuing.

"But do you see what I mean? An Illusion Room is a training tool, and do we know more than the cultivators doing the training about what they need? They know best. If Skyrim is unsuited for their needs, they won't bother with it. Once they are inside, they will do what they think they have to to gain proficiency. By giving them ultimate freedom, we give them the ultimate training, because just like reality, you can do anything in Skyrim, just that there are no consequences." He paused.

"Other than eating people and killing children. No need to allow that sort of thing." Hashimi pulled a face.

"But the example children you sent me were really annoying, kept asking me to adopt them," she whined.

"If that bothers you, then perhaps learning how to say no more effectively is the skill you need to train," Jin said calmly.

"I'll admit I'm still struggling to understand what we're doing," Hashimi said with a sigh.

"It's never been done before. Even The Last of Us had a clear narrative." She gave him a reassuring smile.

"But I trust you and I believe that if nothing else, tackling challenges like this is how you grow."

"It won't fail," Jin reassured her, but, well, the reason why it wouldn't fail? Maybe not one she'd expect. Sure, a cultivator could train in Skyrim, try new abilities, try new enemies, see how well they thought and fought on the fly, learn how to prioritise, make long-term plans… But, well, the reason Skyrim had to be free-form is because the fun of the original game was that everyone could design their own adventure without too much pushback from the mechanics.

Skyrim would succeed because it would be the first Illusion Room of its kind. The first Illusion Room that would allow the experiencers absolute freedom, and also one of the first scenarios designed to be fun as hell. In the end, even with how repressed the cultivator society was, cultivators weren't that much different from girls. They just wanted to have fun. And Jin was going to make that possible.

"Oh, by the way," Hashimi suddenly spoke up and pulled a jade slip. She slid it towards him on the table.

"I talked to Da Bendan and learned something interesting."

"Who?" Jin asked.

"The wheat-hair boy, as you call him," Hashimi said with a roll of her eyes.

"I learned that in terms of focus, he's someone with a specialisation, just like how I specialise in architecture and terrain; he focuses on qi interactions." Jin rubbed at his chin and tried to decipher the information.

"You mean the effects field that focuses on depicting the effects of qi manipulation, spells, formations and talismans as realistically as possible?" Spells were a complex topic and often required their own sort of physics engine, different from the engine of the scenario, if one wanted to depict anything complex. Hashimi nodded.

"Exactly, I know that Francis will technically be working on the spells and shouts, but when Da Bendan told me his specialisation, I got curious and asked for a demo. He puffed up and gave me this slip."

"Is it any good?" Jin asked with a raised eyebrow. His co-worker gave him a serious look.

"It's pretty good."

"I'll have to test it out then," Jin eventually said.

"I'm not adverse to outsourcing certain parts of our work, but I'm loath to give away percentages."

"I think you have enough sect contribution points to afford an employee," Hashimi said with a roll of her eyes.

"Anyway, I discussed what I wanted. I have to get back to work now. You mind if I stay here?" she said. Jin waved her off.

"Go ahead." He picked up the jade slip.

"I'll dive right in," he said and did just that. Explosions of fire and lightning consumed his next hour. He stopped reading the jade slip information with a somewhat impressed frown. The way Da Bendan had managed to give lightning a life of its own was exactly what they needed to really bring the destruction skill tree to life. But that was probably an issue for another time, because tomorrow, Jin would have to face Xiao, the traitor.

And as it just so happened, Jin had in his memories the combat routine of the sect leader of the Mad Monks, who had trained him in the staff for several months. That technically meant that he could prepare for this opponent in particular more than he had for any other. And considering what Xiao had done to him, well, that took priority. An outline of a plan already started forming in Jin's mind, and a smirk came to his face.

'Yes,' he thought to himself.

'There are some things I could do with the information I have.'