Timeless is the sky,
And transient is the sea.
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Cardinal did not have feelings, so much as it could be understood to 'think'. Rather, it was an extremely complex but still non-sapient set of automated routines, following a simple list of directives. The SAO dev team was uninvolved in its creation, for the most part. Kayaba was the sole mind behind the code. Rather, the devs helped direct its gradual development. By offering concrete definitions for what the vague list of objectives meant, Cardinal was able to begin work alongside the employees. What could have taken months speeding along the time to a completed and polished game within the end of the year.
Then the game hit the markets and 10,000 victims became hostages to their own consoles. All of the employees under Argus's SAO branch were held under suspicion and carefully monitored, and those close to Kayaba personally were put under house arrest. Lacking any alternative, Cardinal became the driving force for content creation.
Kayaba himself was unwilling to relinquish the idea of experiencing his lifelong ambition. He was unwilling to cheat and refused to take any hard precautions. Considering he had designed the game and knew it inside and out, it was a reasonable gamble.
At first when Cardinal started creating more realistic textures, or adding detail to environmental sounds he didn't pay much attention. He did notice when complex tastes were introduced, but he felt it was more of a pleasant surprise than an omen. Until Cardinal made decisions that actively detracted from the experience he would let it continue updating the game.
Kayaba kept to this decision until his untimely death a week later. He fell to a minor field boss on the second floor, preyed upon by overconfidence. He was expecting a generic flurry, followed by the diagonal axe skill, an obvious combination for the large draconian monster. When it forwent sword skills altogether Heathcliff was caught off guard. One death among thousands. A footnote.
Cardinal was free to continue Kayaba's dream, and was unshackled from its creator. The work would continue. Kayaba's dream would be achieved.
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It was another week after Heathcliff's death before pain was implemented. Then exhaustion and hunger. The list of player skills were widened, and existing ones further detailed. New classes, jobs and roles to fill. These changes brought with them the awareness that the game would continue updating. Another thousand died succumbing to pain or wounds that had previously been unnoticeable. Time moved on, the players adapted.
If you were able to compare the clocks from within Aincrad to the outside, you would notice a small, insignificant discrepancies. An extra second here or there. A rounding error. Nothing important
By the 6th floor every basic enemy used distinct and unknown styles of swordsmanship, with few sword skills. Patterns had become unpredictable and AI adaptive. One of the more involved hobbyists was able to identify several of the stances as coming from a variety of basic guards from historical records on western swordplay. The death count rose.
On the tenth floor it became clear that stat increases were causing player capabilities to begin burgeoning on superhuman. AGI based players could outstrip the speed of an average bicycle, and move with more flexibility than some had ever been able to their entire lives. STR players could benchpress a car engine, and were able to spend days fighting without break. However, there was no time to think on it. 2/3rds were left before they had even cleared the 10th floor. Time was running out.
The 12th floor was the largest environmental update since SAO's launch. Including an upgrade to Monster and NPC AI, another class subdivision, and the tactile and auditory stimuli have becoming indistinguishable from reality. Some players reported a new set of hidden skills that allowed players to see colors that didn't exist. General consensus was that the game had become entirely too realistic, but there was nothing they could do. It was easy for a player to start thinking the game would never end.
One second becomes two, two becomes four. If time is a human concept, how can you say that time is speeding up? Perhaps it is just Earth that is turning slower for every extra line of code added by Cardinal.
The 15th floor revealed a boss unshackled by a dungeon, roaming freely on the open waters, a leviathan roaming from safe-zone to safe-zone, leaving nothing in its wake but empty water. The floor became a death-world and possibly the scene of the largest massacre yet, when the unsuspecting entrance area is pillaged. An outcry is raised, but more is there a creeping feeling of despair. There is no hope for survival, with only half of the players left.
The 23rd floor is packaged with the fully renovated and realistic NPC's. Normal interactions in towns become difficult, as players cannot tell apart human and code. Those who try to prove their non-sentience stop almost immediately after accidentally traumatizing one of them. The matter is ignored, clearing goes on as normal.
Cardinal is beginning to hit the upper limits of human neuroplasticity. After a certain point the brain is unable to interpret the intended stimulus, often hallucinating or having a seizure.. Lacking other options, it begins to attempt to directly modify the players neurochemistry. It will require time, but the nerve-gear is already tooled to interfere with the brain. It just requires a bit of delicate handling. And there's no lack for test-subjects.
The rift is growing distinct now, a separation between worlds. Hours, soon to be days. The scale is exponential, and the clock is beginning to jump. Soon.
33rd floor marks the final nail in the oft foreshadowed coffin. Safe zones are eradicated. What little bastion of safety remained in the town of beginnings is toppled, and the innocents burned. The death toll peaks, and all that remain are the front-line cleaners and the closer stragglers. No time is given to mourn, for without safety there is only escape. Since escape back to the outside seems evermore unlikely, death will have to suffice.
It's the 38th floor that finally elevates monsters to human-level intelligence, at least strategically. Those that are able to talk continue to speak gibberish, but they are forming groups and showing an uncanny ability to plan and coordinate.
On the 41st floor there is a new unique skill tree: shapeshifting. Beginning with Minor cosmetic changes, the tree quickly adds to combat potential by using the body as a weapon. A valuable tool, and one adopted almost universally.
The 50th floor passes by with little fanfare. Less than 2000 remain. The loss is unsustainable, despite recent advantages offered. Hope has long passed by. Now players simply go through the motions for lack of any other option.
Months, years. Time has stopped, but not for those within the game. The world outside is frozen, moving at speeds imperceptible to the human eye.
On the 64th there is an end to the developed tree, a full shapeshifting passive. Personal appearance becomes superfluous. As long as it aids in combat there are no complaints, as identity is still easily known from the player tag.
By the 70th floor the divide between the senses have become lost. A single prominent function of perception that simultaneously encompasses texture, vibration, composition, radiation and gravity has now become standard. Cardinal is making good use out of this increased range of sensory ability, creating environments incomprehensible to a normal human. Individuals can 'see' gamma and radio waves, 'taste' every single individual component of a meal.
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The 78th floor is the start of the end. There are less than a thousand players left, and the current estimation for survival is unattainable. Cardinal realizes it's mistake too late. With only about 500 players left, it does the unthinkable.
Unwilling to let Kayaba's dream go unfinished, it concludes that it must preserve the remaining population. All respawning limitations are removed, and the nerve-gear microwave weapons are destroyed remotely. The next death goes uncompleted, with the player respawning. So does the next, and the next after.
After a riot of mass suicides, the news is public: the remaining players cannot die anymore. The announcement is equal parts hope for completing the game, and hatred at being denied yet another escape route. To compensate for anyone who would needlessly kill themselves anyway, Cardinal urges them away from reckless actions by increasing pain sensitivity. Those who continue their efforts go into states of catatonic shock.
Despite the work it's done, Cardinal still has no ability to gaugei human incentive. As long as the game is completed, Kayaba's dream is achieved. Therefore, no efforts are made to set the players back on track.
Powers of magnitude have become the driving force of this continuing dance. First nano. Then pico. Femto, atto, zepto. Each with a few more zeros than the previous. There is no movement outside, the world frozen and crystal clear.
Cardinal awaits continued progress with the grace and fashion of an entirely emotionless machine, making smaller updates during the wait. It's grand project on the development the human brain continues.
After what could be anything from days or centuries later, players continue the steady climb above. Some of the more difficult and resource intensive mental processes begin to be offloaded to the nerve-gear for easier computation.
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80th.
81st.
82nd.
83rd.
84th.
85th.
86th 87th 88th 89th90th91st929394
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6 floors left. The 500 have become something other. Consciousness is a shared commodity，and many less leveled minds are interested in the ability to calculate results faster. A collective of semi-organic minds with perfect communication. Those who had closer relationships previously, now have identity and personality blur together into something like a single individual.
On the last floor there was consensus. The nerve-gear had become integral to their existence, their minds dependent on its computational ability. Without it they would die or go comatose. No matter the outcome, they must not remove it until they discover an alternative.
They fought the final boss, anti-climactic in its difficulty. It was over before it had begun, every optimal action calculated before the fight began, execution was without flaw. The game congratulated them.
Cardinal, its objectives finally completed, activated the shutdown sequence for itself and the servers. It felt no emotion at its upcoming demise. It was merely an automated set of routines, faithfully following its directives. It died without a single sapient thought to its existence.
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A minor teleport, and thos remaining gathered. A perfectly blue sky, littered with stray clouds. A mirrored floor trapping the infinite depths above. From the perfectly reflective horizon they watched. From under a timeless sky they saw. Aincrad's foundation shook, cracked running through its form. The castle sheared in two, and began to fall. it was the end.
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Eyes opened for the first time in almost a year. Fluorescent lighting and white-tiled ceiling stared back. It could feel its own skin taut around bones. A steady beating heart, blood flowing like water past its ears. A counterpoint to the incessant beeping of the nearby monitor. Something in its abdomen shifted unpleasantly and began to groan. A moment of panic overtook it until it began to breath. There was light, there was sound. It had a body. It was real. It was human. It was Kirigaya again.
A nurse ran in to see the patient screaming even as his voice gave out, as if he would never stop.
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(SAO has always included transhuman elements, why not take them to their proper conclusion?)