End of an Era (Project Chrysalis Book 2) by John Gold (popular books to read .TXT) 📕

a debuff for every serious mistake she makes. Two hours go by before his gives us a break.

Femida hobbles around the sandy beach, and I’m not looking any better.

“Your father really loves you.”

“I know.” Father walks back into the house. “And I really, really love all of them.”

“I’m talking about how he points out every mistake you make instead of letting you go. He isn’t an instructor, though he teaches really well. I’ll bet he can see our mistakes because he spent a lot of time working on his own technique. He teaches me differently, understanding where I’m stronger.”

“You’re a girl! He just feels bad for you. And where could you be stronger?”

Femida points at her head.

“Analysis is what I’m best at. Your father realizes that, so he’s teaching me tactics. He’s focusing on the battle itself for you. About me being a girl… Do you remember how things were between the genders at the end of the Internet Era, back before we got virtual reality?”

Femida loves looking at key moments in human history. She uses questions like that to test me, though I pretend I don’t understand what she’s trying to do.

“Fem, how could I know about ancient history like that? Why don’t you ask me about women’s fashion in the European Middle Ages?”

“Oh, you know very well, Sagie,” she replies with a sly look. “At the end of the Internet Era, birth rates fell along with the number of families. The problem had to do with the culture and human psychology, the difference between men and women. By nature, men aren’t very ambitious, and they can enjoy the little things. Women, on the other hand, want more and love flattery.” Fem smiles and glances down. “We always want more than we have, and our heightened emotionality pushes us onward to new heights. Before the digital age, it was the woman in the family who spurred men on, one way or another, but the Internet Era forced people to compare themselves with the best, the most beautiful, and the most successful. That created a huge problem. Women pushed themselves harder, selecting life partners who were just as attractive or very rich. A gap opened up between attractive and unattractive people. With each passing year, men became less ambitious and less confident, taking less and less care of themselves. They compared themselves with the beauty standards in vogue rather than with those in their own circle, and that spawned the inferiority complex. There were more bachelors and more beautiful, lonely women on the wrong side of thirty. Those women couldn’t understand where all the good guys had gone, and the men didn’t consider themselves worthy of those women. Men forgot how to meet people and build relationships. Build relationships; not have them. Those are different things.”

“…”

Blushing, Fem continues.

“I mean, men said they wanted sex. They were always lonely, though, never having a good woman by their side.”

Oh, now I get why she blushed. Fem is almost sixteen.

“Then, came the dawn of virtual reality. There, it doesn’t matter what you actually look like,” she says, again embarrassed. “Everyone can have all the sex they want. Simple, unattractive people were able to boost their self-esteem in virtual reality, after which they could feel better and get back to work. Real beauty lost much of its value, so long as you weren’t actually ugly. Virtual reality became the solution humanity had been seeking for the previous thirty years. Look, Sagie, the age we’re living in is the way it is because of virtual reality. Humanity has been able to preserve the core of what it is thanks to having that burning need met.”

“I don’t see the problem.”

Fem sighs deeply.

“You don’t have the experience you need to understand it, which is why you don’t get how important all that was. If you were an adult, you’d know.”

Rage and memories of Rachel flooded my consciousness. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt like this.

Fem apparently realizes that I’ve gone to a bad place and doesn’t try to get involved.

An hour later, father returns and we get back to work. It’s only when evening falls and we both have a good dozen debuffs that we can’t do anything about, that he ends the lesson. At night, he heads in to go to sleep leaving Fem and me to train on the beach. Fem works on her battle skills with her sword sans armor; I get down to business on Space Magic using telekinesis and an enormous chunk of a ship the waves have washed up onto the shore. Femida was hit really hard by what father said about how dependent she is on her armor. She works all night long, honing her technique.

Night in the floating cities is very different. We drift along the River of Life, the ocean giving off a pleasant light-blue glow. In our backwater, it even has green tints thanks to the plants in the shallows. The huge moon is silver in the sky, with just a few clouds easing their way along above us. It’s the picture of harmony and peace.

For two weeks in a row, father beats us to a pulp, teaching us the basics of fighting before moving on to techniques.

“You need to understand that there are only three ways a battle can play out: you attack first, you counterattack, or you dodge and wait for the right moment to land a critical blow. We can ignore the stupid options like just standing behind cover. Attack when you’re defending; defend when you’re attacking. You already know feints for parrying, dodging, and blocking. With time, you’ll build up good habits. Don’t let your enemies use them when you’re not expecting it, on the other hand. I can’t teach you how to kill, since I don’t have that knowledge myself. You’ll have to perfect the art