Project Overworld

A loud and steady pounding was resonating in the empty plain. With each stroke, Keith was feeling his work taking form. Although hammering down some metal all day long looked kind of boring, he was not feeling tired in the slightest. Nay, he was enjoying this part since he was envisioning the project in its globality.

Keith straitened up and looked back at the way of tracks expanding towards the horizon. While breathing out a long sigh, he admired the fruits of his constant labor : 'I've been going for quite the distance, didn't I? I could even catch a glimpse out of the mountain sheltering my mining equipment from there... If that damn fog didn't hinder my vision, that is.'

For several months, Keith had been working on the railway connecting his base to the factory. In the meantime, he has improved his base a lot. While the materials for the tracks were being melted at the automated furnaces, he dug up some new rooms and lots of corridors to freely move between these large spaces.

He hardened the structures as well, making his base an actual bunker. But that was not all, as Keith upgraded most of his machineries while making new ones. The automated process now worked smoothly and the metal parts of the tracks were being produced automatically, for exemple.

This gave his some extra spare time that he used to revamp his computer design. He now had an entire room housing the storage units and the processors of the computer. This room consumed a lot of energy because it had to be cooled down round the clock by large fans. However, this allowed him to store crafting recipies for his machines while doing lots of calculations and data processing to further more monitor his base's well being.

Though, this was not the only use he had for this spare time. For the past few months, he have had to spend more and more time outside the game both to search for a summer job and to study for the last exams of the year. He did lots of applications and was exhausted after having to give job interview here and there.

Keith was living in the city of Atlanta, in the state of Georgia in the United States of America. He have had to travel quite a lot between each job applications, sometimes even three different interview in the same day.

However, he finally got employed at a job in watchmaking. He could have accepted other applications but he wanted something with manual labor or crafts, to experience it in real life. Summer vacations were not there yet, but his schedule was pretty much booked.

As for the exams, he had already passed some but most of them would be taking place in the following weeks. He was currently taking a break from all of this, while putting a use to the stockpile of metal parts that were being produced by his machines.

His time online was really precious to him. He loved seeing that his base was running quite well while he was away and that his efforts were being rewarded. It was quite different for him than visiting a real life factory for exemple, because this work was his. Each and every part of this was of his conception and labor.

'It's like seeing our own children taking off into the world and accomplishing something of their own. Well, I suppose so...'

Before connecting his base to the factory with a railway, Keith designed and constructed a working train. This made the whole process a lot easier because the quantity of tracks he could transport with it was a lot higher than his poor little buggy while still being about two times faster. Moreover, because of the sheer size difference, Keith could equip the train with a furnace using coal to make it run instead of using a petrol engine. For him, coal was a much easier resource to use because its gathering was already automated. In fact, there was no drawback about using his train over his buggy except not being able to leave the tracks.

Keith was estimating he was nearly finished with this part of the project, since he had already placed about eighty percent of the tracks leading to the factory. He still had to think of a way to automatically gather resources inside the train, however, while also supplying it in fuel.

'I have so much to do, between my exams and this railway to finish... Well, let's focus on studying for now, I've been playing for over four hours now.'

With that in mind, Keith disconnected and let the rest of his machines take care of the crafting process.

Ever since the 'Invention showdown' took place in the last fair, people in Midgard started some community projects with innovation as their goal. The inventor of the motor since got offered help and the prototype of a motorized vehicle was being tested within some hangar. People finally understood that this game proposed much more than they initially thought.

However, this change did not only impact the city. The event of the creation of a motor got highly mediatized while forums started discussing about the latest discoveries. The news once again laid articles here and there about the "Largest simulation ever created?" that is Project Overworld.

Obviously, their interest in the game was purely professional because games were still being pushed down by a large portion of the population. That was why they mostly described it as a simulation instead of a game.

Amber was doing paperwork in her office. As the mayor of Midgard, she was also required to care about how it was perceived by the population. The sudden surge in popularity gave her and her team more work than ever. They now had to monitor the forums while making the city more pleasant and well-organized to new players, without forgetting the usual city management.

On her side, Amber had also thought of the next events she should be arranging so that this popularity does not decline as fast as it appeared.

'Although this is quite a lot of work, I kind of like managing this city.' She thought after taking a sip out of the glass standing on her desk. 'Innovation is now the priority of our city, I should think of a slogan about this.' After a small space out in her trail of thought, Amber wondered : 'By the way, is there any independent player who has developed something interesting? Should I make a new invention showdown server-wise? This may prove to be an good idea, in the end.'

Several miles away from Midgard a group of independant players, as we call those who do not live in the city, were actively talking about the latest news.

- "Have you heard of that guy who invented the motor?" A guy asked.

- "Yeah, he's finished working on a vehicle by then." Someone answered.

- "Really?! I can't wait to see it!" The man exclaimed.

However, a few distance from there, Eric was lost in his thought. One of the girl of the group inquired : "What is wrong, Eric?"

To what he replied : "Well, all of this is good but don't yall remember what happened back then when we got eliminated?"

Suddenly, a chilly atmosphere poured over them and the livid faces of the players all turned towards him.

"Of cource a car is a good innovation, especially in such a short time since the game launched. But there are some people way up there." He said as he pointed the sky. "Some people already invented automated turrets, and who knows what they must have developed since then..."