Alan agreed to the contract, and the window closed. He noted that he also got the additional 10,000 credits. After his credit amount had been multiplied by five at the real end of the Tutorial, Alan was left with 103700 credits, 1 platinum mark, 10 diamond marks and 10 gold marks. Miraculously, he was already halfway to his goal of paying back Icewolf the million credits.

“Alright, thanks," Alan said. "Good luck with the guild.” Alan started to exit the room, then glanced back at Aphrodite, who Thiago was staring daggers at. “By the way, in case you were going to try something like this again, I didn’t notice anything until Eve said something. Even then, I’m still not quite sure how you were affecting me or even if you’ve stopped doing whatever it was you were doing. Players from other races will probably pick up on it right away too, but I’m not sure about most other humans. See ya.”

“Bye,” Aphrodite murmured, looking frighteningly at Thiago, who muttered a goodbye as well. Whatever, it wasn’t Alan’s business.

It isn’t. She’s acting for your benefit as well.

Oh. What was it that you detected, anyway?

Certain emotions and parts of your brain were somehow heightened. I’m not even sure this was the intended result of her ability, nor what ability it was. There are various enchantress or mentalist classes recorded, but as most of their abilities are generally considered illegal, they are seldom revealed.

Huh, interesting. I guess that’s another thing you should teach me about, the common and uncommon classes.

Yes, that is in the 17th lesson of 34,281 currently planned lessons.

Alan groaned inwardly as he headed back to his room. Maybe asking Eve to teach him information that would helpful was a bad idea… no, it was better if he knew this stuff himself, not just Eve. Still, as the number of lessons showed, there simply wasn’t enough time. There were so many things Alan could be researching, or learning about, new abilities that he could be practicing. Alan wanted to check out the Market and Arcade he'd gained access to, and he’d barely explored the Titan. But Eve thought his time was best spent continuing to study the Game and its inhabitants, so he went to do that. Then, he’d get in a few hours of sleep before they landed on Khersath.

By the way, did you notice I was talking fast?

Compared to the speed at which Thiago was speaking, yes, you were speaking abnormally fast.

So, what, should I try to speak slowly consciously, do you think that would work?

I’m uncertain… due to the amount of speaking and importance of speech, I am now prioritizing this as the number one lesson.

Alright, hopefully it won’t take too long.

***

A few hours later, Alan got a reply from Icewolf. He’d tried to talk in a slower way, but after hearing himself speak through Eve’s recorded playbacks, he found he still sounded funny. In the end, Alan had decided that when he was talking Eve would deactivate the time-perception enhancing parts of his augments, but then immediately reactivate them once he was done speaking, or if there was some sort of danger. Alan read Icewolf’s reply... then read it a second time.