Project Overworld

Frustrated, Keith let out a desperate sigh.

'I can't make anything without messing something up.'

The days following his return at home, he set out to explore the game's crafting system in depth. In fact, he found out that the system was not helping players as much as one would actually expect. He detected many impurities inside alloys, and the crafts in themselves were not that efficient.

Of course, he tried getting in touch with one of the developpers to find out if it was a bug or not, but to no avail. He used Project Overworld's bug report system and even tried sending an email directly to "Advanced Simulations", the company that owned the game Project Overworld. However, he received no response whatsoever.

Although the whole incident was not that disturbing, one would just need to avoid relying on the system as much as possible, Keith could not seem to reproduce the crafting quality of the system after deactivating the option in the game's menu.

It is not like he did not try, though, as he even watched several videos revolving around metal and alloy casting. He was thinking that he was not competent enough and often forgot about one little detail that led his crafts to be poorly finished.

Feeling discouraged, Keith reactivated the crafting helping system and focused back on his various machineries.

'I still have plenty of things to do, I can't afford take time to train myself for now.'

Having recover from his power shortage from when he was away from the base, Keith had been working hard towards the next step of automation.

First, he would try and optimize every single machine he had already designed so that everything may work perfectly in the grand scheme of his crafting processes. However, he still had to improve his crafting techniques for that purpose and develop new and improved miniature electronic devices. The creation of his current computer had been a huge step in that direction, but it was only the beginning.

He also more than needed to automatize his power generation, whether it be by using renewable energies or using his drills to find coal to supply the generators. He was obviously leaning towards that second option, as it would lead to the best efficiency possible.

Also, as a side quest, Keith was thinking about developing some sort of an artificial intelligence that could operate each machine to the best of its capacity, while monitoring for the power generation and the general well-being of his base.

Those were all the project that he was working on right now and that would be keeping him occupied him for the following weeks, nay months.

Keith also learned a lot during his trip to Midgard. He was inspired by the buildings and the general aesthetic of the city and will certainly try to decorate his base and its surroundings in the future.

After a long day of working inside Project Overworld, Keith safely disconnected from the game. He sat down before his computer and browsed for some job applications for a bit. Summer was coming closer by each day and with it, the usual university vacation.

Keith wanted to make some money so that he could sustain the price of a house for a bit. He has been thinking of buying one for a while because his current apartment was really limitative size-wise. In fact, he wanted to try and craft what he has been making inside Project Overworld in the real life now. It could also prove useful and help him to improve his crafting techniques.

However, for all of that, he needed lots of money. He had been working each summer for several years so that he could pile up wealth for this purpose. Well, not for the purpose of owning a small forge since he has been thinking of that just recently, but he wanted his own place to live and which he could call home without feeling ashamed.

After a while, Keith looked at the computer clock and let out a sigh :

'Three in the morning... I should wash and go to sleep or I may not even be in shape to attend tomorrow courses. God I hate sundays.'

The more he thought about his future, the more uncertain it appeared to him. He had not lost all motivation in his university studies and he wanted that diploma for sure. However, not a lot of jobs that he could apply to with his economics diploma made a whole lot of sense to him. He wanted to be free and enjoy developing things inside Project Overworld.

The only problem is that he could not make real-life money out of that. There were some streamers who earned a living by playing this game all day long, but Keith was not interested in streaming. He was thinking that he did not have the capacities to do so as he was a poor animator. On top of that, he did not want to expose his current base to everyone else's eyes.

That was why he wanted to build things in real life. First, he could compare the crafting process to the game so that he could understand the differences. Then, if it pleases him, he may think of a way to make a living out of arts and crafts by refining metals. He could make rings or something like that. Maybe he could do videos about it and post it on some popular platform.

Anyway, Keith still had a full year and some extra months to think about it. Hell, he may even live off of some random jobs like he did every summer.

For now, however, he was focusing on improving his designs inside Project Overworld. He was revigorated and eager to develop new devices to improve his base automation.

He was certainly ahead of everyone else inside the game, and wanted to keep that lead for sure. There was some personal satisfaction in these thoughts, but he also did not want to be biased by looking at someone else's own creations.

The first always decided on what the future would actually look like.