Project Overworld

A few hours later, Keith was finally notified that 'Watchdog 1' had been released into orbit. This surveillance satellite was only the first of many but Keith was glad that everything went smoothly on the first try.

It was really reassuring for the future.

It was late into the night and Keith has been working for a whole afternoon, so he was very tired and decided to call it a day.

As time passed by, Keith was witnessing the end of his last academic year closing in at an alarming rate.

He was forced to spend less and less time inside Project Overworld, either to study his latest lessons or to search for a job in manufacturing.

As for the later, he has been sending a lot of applications during the last few months and received a some positive answers. However, he still needed that diploma to properly sign a contract. It was a real relief seeing that manufacturing companies did not mind his economics studies and recognized his summer job at a watchmaking shop.

The following day, Keith placed a note in his all of fame about the new 'Watchdog 1' satellite and its 'Satellite A-3' launcher. He made it a necessity to honor the memory of his big projects, even though he realized both his factory and his drilling units did not have any name. Even his own base was still nameless after all these months of development.

'I should think of something cool. Players back at spawn found their inspiration in the nordic mythology, maybe I should find something along the line? Wouln't really be original, though. Plus, I really like pragmatic names so I easily remember the utility of a given project.' Keith elaborated in his mind. Since he had been working on his base for so long, he thought that he should give it a special place in his heart.

As for the factory, he decided not to sweat over it and simply named it 'Coal factory'. He also could not help but notice his drilling and gathering units were doing the job of ants, so he named them respectively 'Worker Ants' and 'Gathering Ants'.

He still struggled to find a name for his base, but he did not make it a priority. He had to optimize his rocket design first, while also improving on his satellites and automation.

_______________

- "So, Bluecraze is it? What informations have you obtained about Midgard?" Spirit Fragment started the questionning.

Bluecraze was feeling more and more relaxed in the presence of this player. He did not have a second thought before revealing the patrol schedule of Midgard's security force as well as the most critical points to attack.

In the meantime, Spirit Fragment wrote down everything the young player was describing and drew some lines on an incomplete plan of the city. There seemed to be so much preparations on their part that it temporally left Bluecraze in awe.

His objective was the same as the one this group of player had, and he immediately felt a sense of membership towards them.

Trying to imagine the best attack plan while infiltrating Midgard was a prospect that seemed fun to him and he could not help but be excited by this eventuality.

- "Well, Bluecraze, you are now officially a member of the Rebellion group! Congrats!" Spirit Fragment told him at the end of the interview. "I'll introduce you to the rest of the members, follow me." He said while leading the way.

The 'Rebellion' members all gave him a warm welcoming. The area looked like one of those medieval bars with everyone forming groups and talking together around a table.

A man named 'Crazy Joe' called out to him and introduced him to his close friends. They started playing card games together and Bluecraze did enjoy the afternoon with all of them.

As for Spirit Fragment, he was still actively thinking about all the information given to him by Bluecraze, trying to validate their authenticity thanks to his own informations.

If all of these were true, his plan could be finalized in a few weeks. They only needed a few more weapons and explosives for that purpose. If everything went according to plan, they could hit Midgard with a huge blow that would leave the citizen in shock.

'I can't stand seeing such a well-organized and modern city flourish as well as it did. This is supposed to be a game, not another f.u.c.k.e.d up reality. I will create the most active rebellion group of all human history and make sure to have as much fun as possible.' Spirit Fragment raged at his desk.

Several miles away from there, Amber was working in her office back at Midgard. The matters of Niflheim were left to another member of the municipal team while she was organizing the next big event.

This event was obviously the next Inventopia she was so fond of. She needed a lot more resources than last time since it would take place in the new city.

First she has had to contact various builders so they could reproduce the Colloseum in Niflheim. Then, she gathered some of the best inventors of the last event so that they could start working on a big project of their choice as a surprise for the next Inventopia.

Both of these matters has already been agreed upon and she was now completing the contracts and the various paperwork needed for this kind of event.

Since they first started focusing on the entertainement of their citizen, the popularity of Midgard and that of the whole game rose quite noticeably. This was further improved by the reveal of the Niflheim project and the start of sea navigation.

A lot of islands has already been explored by the players and it was only a matter of time before they discovered another continent.

Amber was really relieved by all of this, and she would be quite glad if it weren't for the fact that annoying players were hindering their plans.

'Now that I think about this, I haven't heard of any attacks in a while now. Have they finally realized their attacks were pointless? Are these walls that has been erected around Midgard and Niflheim finally showing their fruits? I hope it is the case, but I can't afford to lower my attention for now.' She concluded.

_______________

Another set of weeks later, Keith was ready for the launch of 'Satellite A-4'. He was really getting the hang of it and was working a lot faster than before. If it weren't for the fact that his studies took a large portion out of his free time, he would already be assembling a spatial base.

Or so he thought.

For now, he could only do so much. It was already quite a relief that his plans had evolved so much since the beginning of Project Overworld.

'Thinking about it, I've got quite lucky in the past haven't I? The New Dawn guild did protect me from unwanted attention after all. Thanks to this, I freely focused on technological development, just like I'm doing at the moment.' Keith realized.

Though, he could not help but think it was not an enjoyable time working for another group of player while under threats. Amber did change professions to a more acceptable one, but he have not heard of Alan for a while.

'He must have quit the game. Well, he searched for it though. It must have been quite funny seeing his face after my first base exploded on him.'

Focusing back on the more important matters, Keith entered his control room before activating the countdown for the launch of 'Satellite A-4'. Every launch was precisely calculated through one of his main computer's program in order to reach the intended orbit.

This satellite was supposed to have an orbit slightly off-centered compared to that of 'Watchdog 1' so that they could take pictures of entirely different areas.

The goal was to ultimately have about thirty-two 'Watchdogs' satellites orbiting around the planet, constantly checking various locations while transmitting the data to his base's antenna. While half of those would orbit around the two poles of the Earth, the other half would be placed perpendicular to these with the origin being the ecuador.

Thanks to this peculiar formation, he would be able to observe every location on the planet from at least two perpendicular angles, meaning the precision of the information relayed to him would be increased by quite the margin.

Once the countdown reached two digits, the vibrations coming from the launching pad felt stronger. It was quite the sight to behold, witnessing one of his rockets leaving the ground to reach space.

Though, all this smoke rising from the bottom of the rocket's engines always spoiled the fun.

'Five. Four. Three. Two. One.' Keith counted down in his head. With large flames and the whole building shaking up violently, the rocket lifted up from the ground and started its hopeful journey.

Keith then exited the control room and went back to work.

He still had thirty more of these to build, after all.