“I must say, good job on the assessments, I never imagined a recruit would achieve a combat rank of B, much less five of them. Now, I’m sure you have many questions, but before we get started, please come in and have a seat,” Phantom said, completely ignoring the laser pistols pointed directly at his face.

Alan hastily stowed the laser pistols, then slowly walked out from the elevator into what appeared to be either a mad engineer’s basement or a small car repair facility. They were in an underground room about the size of a large car garage, with the space for about four large vans. Strewn about the floor were mechanical devices of varying sizes that Alan couldn’t make heads or tails of. Before he could get a better look at any Phantom guided him over to a seat beside a bright silver capsule. Phantom then promptly grabbed an odd metal helmet directly connected to the capsule and put it on Alan’s head.

“What—”

“Shh, let me calibrate this, it’ll only take a minute. Sit still and be quiet,” Phantom admonished, rapidly accessing some digital terminal that had appeared before him the instant the helmet was placed on Alan’s head.

Alan silently accepted the order, gazing about the room. The majority of the space was dominated by three things, the capsule, a large server or computer of some sort connected to said capsule, and then finally a third machine up against the wall tied to the computer on the other side of the room, opposite the capsule. At first Alan had thought it was an overly large microwave that could fit an entire person or small car, but that was frankly ridiculous. He silently examined the machine until he noticed a large screen on the side of it with various diagrams and blueprints, realizing what it was. It was what was called an Advanced Foundry, essentially an advanced 3D printer.

In the Game the majority of crafting professions that one might normally consider, like blacksmithing or tailoring, were obsolete. Even their modern day counterparts, gunsmiths and armorers that specialized in advanced technology, weren’t generally needed. Instead, there existed Advanced Foundries, often abbreviated to Foundries. These devices could, given the materials and a blueprint, create practically anything, from weapons to armor to even hypothetically spacecraft. As the largest Foundries could only generally create something the size of a small sedan, larger projects were created piece by piece then assembled by other machines. Still, such technology meant that the creation of all items within the game was met with one simple bottleneck. Designs.

Companies and governments guarded their designs like Coca-Cola guarded its secret formula, like the White House protected nuclear launch codes. There was often no greater secret, no document more precious. For, if someone managed to steal, say, the design for a Haxlardian fighter, they would then be able to quietly construct as many Haxlardian fighters as they wished, given they had the resources and facilities. Of course, the design was not needed to make repairs, and separate machines were constructed to make such repairs often for simple things like armor and weapons. Still, you would have to find the right machine for the right type of equipment. That was another reason why guilds were quite useful. They could build up a supply of a number of repair machines regardless of faction the armor or weapon was tied to, while governments generally shied away from keeping machines capable of repairing their enemies’ technology. Reverse engineering was virtually impossible, and it was a simple rule within the game that Forges could not be tampered with, similar to Administrators.