When Danika reappeared, the delicate redheaded woman was waiting in the meeting room. In her ornate celestial robes Danika suddenly thought that she'd make an excellent ill.u.s.tration of a kitsune. If she had the ears and tail sometimes depicted she'd have been perfect.

Ariana looked at her and laughed. "I can almost see your mind spinning, but don't worry, a few hours with Devon will do that to anyone."

Danika was not going to admit to her foxy thoughts. She shrugged and said, "It was all super interesting but I think my questions multiplied tenfold."

Ariana grinned at her and said, "Well, then let's start with something simple that every new apprentice tries to sneak into their tools as soon as they figure out how?"

"Okay," Danika agreed a little warily.

"You do have a normal 'Living Jade Emperor' player account right?" Ariana asked.

"Of course," Danika agreed.

Ariana stuck out her tongue and Danika gazed at the mischievous woman in surprise. Ariana brought up her menus and instructed, "Bring up your menu and look for the dragon tab."

Danika brought up her menus and realized that it was the first time she'd done so since joining the sixth. They made the construction menu she'd been given in her interview look like the simplest of structures. There were tabs running down every window and windows stacked all the way across her vision. "Woah!" Danika gasped.

Ariana grinned at her but waited patiently until Danika located the dragon tab, which was located near where her game menus stored her alarm settings. She tapped it and a small dragon flew up to her a moment later.

"This is your personal a.s.sistant," Ariana said, pointing at the dragon. "You don't have to set any reminders of anything by hand, the a.s.sistants are really good at understanding everything. So, if you tell it to use encrypted mode, I won't be able to understand what you say to each other. And then you can ask it to forward your game account's messages to you when you're working."

Danika looked at the dragon who waited patently. "Use encrypted mode?" she requested uncertainly.

"Encryption activated," the dragon replied politely.

"How can I tell if it's working?" Danika asked, glancing at Ariana.

"Do you want to have a language echo turned on?" the dragon enquired.

"It's working," Ariana a.s.sured her. "But if you look at me it won't encrypt your words, you need to look at your dragon."

Danika looked at the dragon and said, "Yes turn on the echo please."

"Activated," the dragon replied with a hum beneath it's reply.

"Please forward my game account's messages to me while I'm working," Danika requested.

The dragon asked her to verify three pieces of security information and then reported, "ZipZing has two messages waiting, would you like to access ZipZing's messages?"

Danika looked at Ariana and asked, with no hum beneath her words, "It seems to be set up, is it ok to waste time on my messages?"

Ariana grinned at her and said, "Well, don't waste too much time on them while you're working, but for now go ahead."

While Danika read and replied to the messages, one from Shrubbery and one from Ais.h.i.+n, Ariana continued, "And once you become addicted to having good servants like the rest of us, you can give your a.s.sistant your phone information and install the dragon application Lin Hao made so that it can invade the rest of your life."

Danika blinked at that and looked up at the woman who grinned and winked merrily.

Next Ariana showed her how to navigate the heavenly islands, explaining, "You see how some of them have green labels? Those are the only ones that actually exist inside the Empire, all of the others are actually isolated pocket s.p.a.ces that can't affect the game directly."

Danika gasped and asked, "So only the palace and gardens are real?"

Ariana laughed and replied, "I suppose that's one way of looking at it."

Because the islands weren't really there, you couldn't just fly from one to the next, and she taught Danika how to target instance s.p.a.ces through her menus. She also showed her what happened when you tried to move to a restricted s.p.a.ce that you didn't have permission to enter.

They were bounced into the sky between the islands, and Danika's heart jumped in fright until she realized that they weren't falling.

Ariana stomped her little foot against the air and said, "This is one of the Jade Emperor's prisons." She used a spell to draw lines outlining the cube of sky that held them and let it fade again. "But since our access level as part of the sixth is higher than the infraction that got us bounced here, we can just target our next destination and move on."

Ariana vanished, and Danika was forced to call her a.s.sistant and have it help her locate her teacher.

Ariana was in a pavilion that they hadn't visited before, lounging on a padded chaise with a half eaten peach. She sat up and complained, "Wow, you learn too quickly. Last time we added people to the team I got an hour off before they found me."

Danika asked nervously, "Would you like to take a break?"

Ariana laughed and replied cheerfully, "I'll get one soon. Next I'll show you how to open your own test s.p.a.ce, and how to a.s.sign a job to yourself."

"I won't be a.s.signed jobs by someone else?" Danika asked with confusion.

Ariana just waved her hand and said mysteriously, "You'll see."

Danika's first s.p.a.ce was an empty white cube a bit bigger than her room at home. Ariana explained, "When you're promoted above apprentice you'll be able to make yourself an office island, but we all craft things in these secure s.p.a.ces first, because this is as isolated from the system as you can get. No input apart from your a.s.sistant dragon, and no output, even if you blow up a sun in here."

Ariana then instructed her on how to have her a.s.sistant help her choose an appropriate a.s.signment, and warned her, "Once you accept it, you agree to take responsibility for finis.h.i.+ng it in a timely fas.h.i.+on. But don't worry too much, that's partly what our daily meeting is for, if you need help, just ask at the meeting. We all do our best to help each other out."

Danika found out that she'd have to reach master rank before she could send something into the Empire without having any check on her work except the system. Ariana acted like she expected Danika to feel insulted by that, but Danika felt relieved.

For her first official a.s.signment Danika selected one that requested, "Review racial attributes a.s.signed to electric elemental player character and create activities that they can complete when un-summoned."

Danika thought it sounded like it was going to be an easy human verification on a system designed race, and she was curious about it, but Ariana was shocked. "I can't believe that was on the list of options offered to you!?"

When she saw Danika's uncertain expression, she collected herself and said, "Well, don't worry, just do your best, and I'll return in a couple hours to check on how it's going." She vanished a moment later.

Danika took a deep breath and settled into the task of learning how to use her menus and her a.s.sistant dragon in order to begin the evaluation.