Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG

2.12 BBQ Planing

Flora chose a Balancing Box with Psychokinesis and Ice while Robby took the one with Faith and Metal next to her. They logged into Flora's workshop.

"Woah! Ma!" Robby exclaimed as he inspected the workstations. "That's the most elaborate workspace I've ever seen! That must have cost millions!"

"Courtesy of CentralTank," Flora answered while checking on the lamps. They were no longer glowing. Aidan informed her the first malfunctioned at 12 years and 23 days, and the rest followed in the next two years. "The real treasure is the simulation grounds."

Flora showed him first how he could import himself and his items into the grounds then guided him to the training dummies.

"You can work out here while your consciousness is in a second body in the simulation. Aidan will answer all your questions while I reconfigure the grounds."

When Flora finished reloading the unholy cliff, Robby was already pummeling the dummy. She joined him and transferred her consciousness into the simulation.

Two Boxing Boxes with Projection and Mind rune-schemes awaited them there.

"Amazing, Ma! No wonder you are so strong."

"I can influence the time dilation in the grounds as well. However, we might have communication problems in Riverstones Island when we are faster than the others."

"Haha, we do it another time and prank Hub!"

"Okay." Flora grinned.

"Finally, your sausages are getting burned!" Lana greeted them when they arrived at the bistro area.

"I won't burn nothing!" Eddie hollered from behind the BBQ-grill.

Robby and Flora piled their plates with food and joined the others. The clan members had moved the picnic tables together to form one big table and sat around it, eating and chatting.

"The training works great, Auntie." Zapple, the blue-haired priest, said. "I had to deactivate my leveling notifications because they kept popping up like crazy. I just wish there were more Boxing Boxes. They looked fun."

"I'll add a few more. Nobody used the training dummies even though you can train Dodging with them."

"I would never use them and log into Riverstones Island when I know Hub is online. He will draw a mustache on my face if I'm not safe in a box." Olivia said, and everybody agreed immediately.

"I'm not that evil." Hub looked hurt. "I would only draw flowers and stars on your face."

"It would be better for you to use the treadmills." Honey said. "Movement speed is one of our weaknesses. Mobility in general."

"Yeah, Hoffi still can't jump," Ponda said. "And don't complain about tattling, oaf! It's for the greater good of the team. Just go to Fortend and get it done."

"I won't spend an afternoon going to classes. I quit school for good." Hoffi crossed his arms.

"Why can nobody teach you?" Flora wondered.

"Nobody has the skill high enough or something." Hoffi scoffed.

"You need the skill on level 50 if you have the teaching ability, level 100, if not," Robby answered. "Jump doesn't scale well with level, so nobody trains it."

"I'll raise Power-Jump and teach you," Flora said. She could imagine that Jump was annoying to level manually. You had to wait 25 seconds for its cooldown and then hop in the air like someone toasted your feet. Not very dignifying, but a solvable problem even without a box.