Alan waited 12 seconds, and then the monitor flashed. It began showing a series of rapidly opening and closing screens, diagrams and messages. Alan caught a glimpse of a man covered in cybernetic implants, a cyborg. It was difficult to get a glimpse of his face, as there were constantly windows in front of him, flickering in and out of existence without his touch.

“So, you’re the newest potential Machine Lord. Let me make one thing clear, you are not special,” the Chief Administrator said without looking up from the various screens. He continued his work, simultaneously conversing with Alan at a rapid pace.

“You were chosen for this class. Not by some god or prophecy, but by a sophisticated algorithm. The Administrators are charged with balancing this game, and in order to do so we grant members of the newest race to join the Game specialized items and classes, to level the playing field. Otherwise, once the time limit was up, they’d be obliterated. Well, you'd be obliterated. We make things more fair, giving the,” he glanced at a screen, “humans a fighting a chance.

“The fact that you are able to become a Machine Lord is a privilege, a path that we have set you on from the start. By analyzing the population, it was determined you are among those that would receive a specialized AI program. The program that you downloaded was several times more effective, capable of learning at a much faster speed than any other such program, capable of understanding, of growth. It is actually the same program used to create new AI Administrators." Alan opened his mouth, trying to get a word in, but the Chief Administrator simply barreled on.

"Additionally, we arranged your more advanced capsule to be sold to your mentor for your use, and then notified the Titan’s AI, to request you board the Titan and eventually merge your AI with it. I see here that the merge is currently taking place, and would like to caution you not to allow such merges so easily in the future without taking the data you add to your AI to an Administrative Center to be scanned. There are multiple viruses and such out there, though it is one of my jobs to annihilate such travesties. I'm also supposed to be monitoring whatever it is the Empire is up to... oh well, priorities, priorities.

"Now, you may be wondering why I am telling you all this. I am telling you this because you should know that once you step off this ship, all the hand holding will be done, and because you are not to utter a word of us helping you to anyone. It was simply a lucky series of coincidences that you should dissuade people from looking into. I suppose it also serves as a reminder of how we may take away these perks as easily as we gave them to you. But we won’t do such a thing, you’re allowed to play the Game as you wish.