My slow journey to infinity

"Why, your programming skills are so bad... you can even make mistakes in data structures."

"I'm only fourteen years old!"

Facing Kayaba Akihiko's inquiry, Wang Shui argued his case without blushing.

Otherwise, what else can I say?

Said his actual age is 26? That he was actually just a low-end coder before he was hit by a dump truck? Or is it that his undergraduate degree was in chemistry and chemical engineering, and he was bored to death in the chemical factory so he signed up for a crash course to learn programming. Later, he happened to get into a large factory and was barely able to complete his work under the protection of his seniors?

Why are you talking about this? Who doesn’t have a painful past?

Wang Shui, who currently dares to brazenly claim that he is fourteen years old, is not without any sense of shame. He has already started reading a book - the classic masterpiece "CPP from Getting Started to Burial."

Fortunately, Wang Shui's learning ability is very strong now. Kayaba Akihiko also began to teach Wang Shui more knowledge when he was studying, some knowledge that could not be defined as a subject.

Whether it involves physics, mathematics, or algorithmic ideas, Kayaba will teach them as long as they come to mind. This kind of jumping teaching will of course be very ineffective for ordinary students.

But Wang Shui is different. When Wang Shui encounters knowledge that he doesn't understand at all, he will immediately take notes, and then write down (recite) Kayaba's words. When he has a little free time, he will look up information to complete this part of the knowledge.

Time passed quickly in this intense and fulfilling high-intensity study and work. At this time, the players had already finished the second level and were even preparing to attack the BOSS on the third level.

The number of player deaths increased. The two people in the small laboratory glanced at the casualty number very indifferently, and then ignored it tacitly.

Starting from the fourth floor, which the players have not yet set foot on, a small amount of earthen bomb props appeared in the hands of the NPC. The black powder that appeared inexplicably made the two people working overtime have high blood pressure. After Kayaba took the time to check, it was finally discovered that it was [Autonomous Intelligence] 】 It’s the fault of Wang Shui.

Aqua Regia previously developed black powder and recorded the black powder as a formula through the [Handmade] skill. However, the [Handmade] skill, which has no patent restrictions and no unique skill tags, was given to some craftsman NPCs by the system. They The ability to make black powder was somehow unlocked.

In order to complete this part of history, the system automatically generated a legend. It is said that a craftsman named [Heavenly Book] made this prop and left behind [Handmade] skills and related recipes.

Now a large number of craftsman NPCs have begun to praise this legendary ancient craftsman, and some are even preparing to posthumously and canonize him.

The earthen bombs were created by the NPCs themselves when they were researching black powder. The progress was really fast. Kayaba didn't mean to blame Wang Shui, he just seriously considered the issue of early updates.

So the two put aside the complicated content first, and when the players set foot on the fourth level, they released a new version——

【Destroyed Spark】

All players have received the visual window of the version update, as well as a short CG performance. The expansion pack is full of strange-style steel machinery and special muskets, as well as the inexplicable scene of inserting bullets into the hilt of a sword.

The animation for the expansion pack is very short, but it also took two days of Wang Shui's time. It was not drawn by him, but a real machine demonstration screen that he found several models and created in the test environment.

As for the final scene of inserting bullets into the sword, when Wang Shui added firearms, he didn't want the hot weapons to cover up the flavor of Sword Art Online, so he came up with a sudden design - [Sword Skill Blade Bullet]!

By modifying traditional cold weapons and installing a [Blade Bullet Slot] on the handle, the weapon can be filled with special [Blank Sword Skill Blade Bullets]. When the player continues to use sword skills, additional sword skill energy will be filled into the blade bullets. When the blade bullets glow, it means that the filling is complete.

At this time, the blade bullet is activated like a gun, and the sword skill energy will be refilled into the weapon, bringing "normal attack damage enhancement", "sharpness attribute enhancement", "part destruction attribute enhancement", and "cutting enhancement" to the weapon. ”, “Piercing Enhancement”, “Block Enhancement”, “Additional Explosive Attribute Acquisition”, “One-time Mid-range Explosion” and other different continuous effects.

What's even more flexible is that if the blade bullets are not fired, the player can remove the blade bullets after the battle. The charged blade bullets will have different retention times based on their quality. High-level blade bullets can last for more than a month. attenuation. Players can trade charged blade bullets and directly activate the desired enhancements the next time they are used.

Of course, the charging of blade bullets cannot be casual. In order to prevent players from using dummies to stack blade bullets, Wang Shui added additional charging conditions for blade bullets - they must be charged during combat, and the charging speed is related to the monster's health value drop. , so it’s difficult to stack low-level monsters.

At present, the probability of the appearance of the blade bullet attribute is random. As for how to adjust the appearance probability of the entry in the future, Wang Shui, who has become a dog planner, is ready to adjust according to the players' preferences. Which attributes are easy to use and which attributes are used by most people. Just lower the odds and bring a smile to the players' faces.

Kayaba is very fond of the [Sword Skill Blade Bullet] system. He was originally very disgusted with the appearance of firearms in his world, but recently he has become obsessed with the shell ejection action after the blade bullet is activated. He often goes to the test server alone during breaks to throw swords. And he also created the high-speed charging technique before the players.

This is to directly throw out the used blade bullets after activating the blade bullets, replace them with new blank bullets during the blade strengthening stage, and then actively use sword skills. This can ensure that the next bullet has been charged when the blade strengthening is completed. part.

For this reason, Kayaba did not hesitate to modify the parameters and added a hidden setting. When the blade is strengthened, the charging speed of the blade bullet will be greatly increased. This way, for the blade bullet with poor attributes, there is a way to play quickly. .

Aqua Regia is also thinking of adding a multi-blade bullet slot, a rotating bullet nest type blade bullet slot! Multiple attributes and high-speed bursts! Kayaba agreed, but he wanted to put this equipment modification technology into the mid-to-late stage. At the same time, Kayaba also wanted to design sword skills specifically for blade bombs. Many cool ideas burst into the minds of the two game developers.

The purpose of this design is to combine gunpowder with magic settings that do not exist in the floating city, weaken the presence of firearms, guide ammunition into tools to assist sword skills, enhance the strength of cold weapons, and at the same time enhance the attributes of monsters to balance the difficulty.

While the two developers and dog planners were having fun, most of the players were relatively confused. Only a small number of internal beta players who were still alive seemed to have been hit by a bolt from the blue.

ah? Isn’t the fourth level a dry river valley? Why did it become a water town? What is [Destroyed Spark] again? Is there any mechanical aspect to this game? !

The ones who were most shocked here were Kirito and the information dealer Argo. Unknown to Wang Shui, Kirito was being slapped on the face by Asuna in an attempt to wake him up.

But, what does this have to do with Aqua Regia? The plot has completely changed, and Master Tong can only hope for happiness.

Among the more than 200,000 players, only one person has a particularly different mindset.

Wang Shui, who had been mentally prepared for a long time, was already sitting in the corner of a restaurant on the third floor, wasting his rare vacation by waiting. Fortunately, his boss was addicted to playing blade and did not say how long the vacation would be. Kayaba said that he wanted to improve the blade bomb settings even more.

The familiar ice-blue figure pushed open the wooden door of the restaurant, and the copper bell on the door made a crisp sound, as if it was the sound of her appearance.

The conversation started after dessert was served.

"What does the new expansion pack have to do with you?" Shino asked proactively.

"I think you can probably guess what happened. Now that I'm the villain boss, be respectful when you speak to me. Also, I'm here to treat you today, and I don't have that much money."

Wang Shui's teasing did not make Shino relax, so Wang Shui quickly put away his playful smile.

"Well, I was dragged into doing hard work. When we were making black powder, the administrator discovered it, and it caused some bad changes, so I need to repay it."

"Why don't you take me with you?" Shino pressed forward step by step.

Why? Because you are really an ordinary middle school student!

"To put it mildly, you're too stupid to be of any use. Why don't you just play games carelessly and help me save some resources so that I can play games with peace of mind when I'm done with my hard work."

Wang Shui did not expand on it in detail, but part of the information could be regarded as clearing up Sinon's doubts after seeing the expansion pack. As for Wang Shui's nonsense, he just listened casually.

"As long as it's not life-threatening."

"Safer than you are on the front lines."

The conversation after that became dull, with Sinon mostly talking about what happened on the front line, about the strangeness of the third-level BOSS strategy, about the craftsmen who engaged in enhanced fraud, about how powerful her new partner Mitt was, and about the third-level BOSS. It actually requires the [Flying Sword] skill to conquer. Everyone who has an impression of Wang Shui is sorry for his absence from the BOSS battle.

Wang Shui listened patiently. The recent high-intensity study and work had made his brain a little nervous. Simply sleeping and resting didn't work at all. He just happened to go out to change his way of thinking and relax.

After the meal, they chatted for a long time. After walking out of the restaurant, the two of them stopped walking together. Aqua regia used a crystal to move to the square on the first floor. Sinon just watched quietly as he turned into light particles and dispersed.

A short vacation is fleeting.

Wang Shui, who originally thought that the work was over, found out that this new version of the expansion was just the beginning. They simply released a few clues to guide players to obtain early firearms and blade magazine modifications. For the player group, the guidance was enough. , but for the NPC world, there is basically no change.

"So, do you need me to communicate with those NPC bosses? I have compiled the specific words into text. It is nothing more than sending knives to the radicals, shields to the conservatives, and giving the troubled fallen elves in the middle more capital to cause trouble. , let them trigger a war over archaeological remains, and then find some chosen people and give them powerful blade weapons. A hook of this level cannot even be considered a strategy."

Wang Shui said it easily. In fact, he didn't want to face those NPCs. It wasn't that he was afraid of being killed if he encountered level 70 or 80 NPCs. He was now an administrator. Although he couldn't kill NPCs on a large scale, he still had the immortality characteristic. of.

He simply doesn't want to go. Knowing how to perform doesn't mean he likes performing, especially performing for NPCs, which is too boring.

Fortunately, Kayaba has no similar plans.

"I used the information you wrote to edit dozens of bard-type advanced intelligent NPCs, and then spread them to the middle and lower worlds where most of the NPCs are. I will monitor the rest. You have to be responsible for more important things. Item entry work.”

Okay, okay, I'm back to my job as a coder, the most mechanical and boring things like data sorting and entry, numerical statistics, testing interactive effects and bug checking.

Fortunately, the models in SAO have perfect physics engine calculations, otherwise Wang Shui would have to adjust the polygon structure, adjust the collision function and volume parameters, etc. The development of a large-scale game is not as simple as writing white code on a black screen. Simple.

The flow of time seems to have begun to slow down again. During his free time, Wang Shui's thoughts can't help but drift back to the core of the infinite world and the place where he really exists.

I don’t know when, a trend suddenly appeared in the world that became powerful rapidly. Many "chosen people" can always gain power that others cannot achieve in their lifetimes in a few years, months or even days. Those who clearly contain The ability to possess extremely high-tech levels or profound mystical knowledge has become a [skill] that can be picked up at their fingertips.

To be honest, Wang Shui wanted to do the same, he didn't care about the knowledge behind the cool spells, nor did he want to know that black powder was not the most complex chemical technology for modern ammunition.

He doesn't want to study magic, he doesn't want to make concentrated acid and prepare mercury fulminate as a primer, and he doesn't want to make rimfire ammunition. He just wants to pick up a gun and fire bullets infinitely, and the sky will rain down with fire at a wave of his hand.

But his brain doesn't allow it, and neither does his talent.

For others, the infinite world of fast in and out, quickly becoming stronger, turned into a slow journey due to his escape and choice.

Lines of code, models, groups of data, a large amount of information are formed under the finger of aqua regia, and then immediately tested, and hot patches are efficiently formed.

Kayaba Akihiko, who was sometimes distracted, would always be surprised by the young man's composure and patience when he saw Wang Shui, who was as rigorous as a machine and kept working for a long time. A strange love for talent sprouted in his heart.

This is a feeling that Kayaba Akihiko has never had before. In his opinion, teaching anyone is just a waste of his time, and no one can catch up with him and become his helper.

Now he finally gained experience. In less than a month, he saw a middle school student who only knew simple programming quickly grow into a main developer.

Kayaba Akihiko recalculated the working hours, and the original working hours of more than 300 days were almost compressed to less than 100. The speed of [Autonomous Intelligence] in checking for omissions and filling vacancies could not keep up with Wang Shui's storytelling ability, and Wang Shui even still had time to study and study.

Faced with Kayaba Akihiko's compliments from time to time, Wang Shui was not very happy. He was just completing the system tasks at a very slow speed, and now he had almost touched it.

With his current authority, he can completely extract the more advanced intelligent virtual world in the test environment and package it together with the development tools into a data package to create the [World Seed] needed to complete the plot. A trivial matter like copying the test environment would not surprise Kayaba Akihiko.

Then what?

Complete the mission and leave this world?

His boss [Dream System] will probably give him life-related rewards. For betraying the protagonist's information, those high-level awakeners will probably pay a lot of rewards, and then what?

Then go back to the junkyard-like maintenance shop and continue to survive for half a year. While working hard, you save money to buy a ticket for the next mandatory mission, praying in fear to once again encounter the fantasy world that only you are familiar with? Like a dog... no, like a bug?

Wang Shui doesn't care much about his own dignity, nor is he lazy. He has a simple value that has been molded for a long time - I have to work hard and get the rewards I deserve. He hopes that he can live like a human being through his own labor.

This is an extravagant wish. In a world directly dominated by powerful force, weak people are not worthy of being born as human beings.

So Wang Shui is not ready to go back.

Even if this is just an ordinary world, even if the only things that can be achieved here are the bad [Strong Artificial Intelligence] in the [Dream System] and the inexplicable complete stealth technology, Wang Shui still has to stay.

He wanted to learn, he wanted to learn all the knowledge he could get, and he tried to arm himself as much as possible.

He does not want to die in failure and loneliness, and he does not want to live underground forever.