"What if, instead of making money using your copy, someone just put your copy in their own personal VR sex dungeon? Or, what if they could alter your copy so that your copy was loyal and or obedient to them?"
She bit her lower lip before looking at him and saying, "I guess it depends on who. If it was the right person, I wouldn't mind at all." She paused a moment, then continued, "Or, wait, I guess I'd mind a little, because if it's the right person, I'd rather be in their personal sex dungeon for real."
Jack swallowed. This was twice in one day that he was seeing a side of Madison he had never seen before. He had, probably because of the way she dressed and her avoidance of any physical contact, just assumed she was asexual, or at the very least, was not interested in him.
Not sure if her answer was to his first question, or both questions, he asked, "What about my second question, about the loyalty and obedience alteration?"
"Hmm, honestly, I don't see a difference. Altered or not, the copy is a copy, and not the original me. So what difference does it make if the copy was altered to be obedient to its owner? As long as I get my slice of the profit pie, I wouldn't care."
"Okay, but if the copy is obedient to...its owner, then your copy would answer any question asked. Any question, no matter how personal. Would you really be ok with that?"
"Oh shit! I hadn't thought about it from that angle. That...changes things. If I had no way to keep my secrets, well, secret, then I would only be okay with it if it was the right person holding my copy. What about you?"
"I don't like the idea of anyone having a copy of me, not for any reason."
"No one?" she asked, then with a strange tone, "Not even me?"
His instincts told him that her question was a trap, so he countered, "Would you be okay with me having a copy of you?"
"Yes. If it was you, I would not mind. Not at all."
"Seriously?" He was genuinely surprised by her response, and not sure if she was messing with him or if she was serious.
"Yes, seriously," there was a finality to her tone that made him believe she was not messing with him.
He wasn't sure how to respond but realized part of his indecision was because of his fear of real world consequence of saying, or asking the wrong thing. But, in a simulation, it wouldn't matter. If she was telling the truth that she was okay with him having a copy of her, then she might also be okay with forming a soul bond with him. If she was, and they did, then he would have someone he could safely confide in.
He didn't want to enter his soul space while sitting next to her. His max time ratio was only 10 to 1. He wanted to activate the soul space assistant and see if it could answer his questions. And he knew he would need more than ten seconds.
So, he got up and said, "I'll be back in a few minutes. I need to use the bathroom."
Then, without waiting for her to say anything, he turned and walked down the hall to the bathroom. Once inside, he closed, then locked the door, then sat on the closed toilet seat lid. Based on his earlier experiment, he knew his body would remain still once he entered his soul space.
When he entered his soul space, he noticed that one wall of his white room now had a grid of cubbyholes and five of them were filled with small snow globe sized spheres. Inside each of them he could see a miniaturized view of what was covered by the snapshot. The first three showed an overhead view of his neighborhood. The fourth showed a view of the surrounding city. And the fifth showed view of Earth as viewed from space. He ignored the urge to go examine them and checked his status.
Energy Points (EP): 75,603,000/1,000,000,000 :-: (2990/sec [3000/sec])
Genesis Points (GP): 11,104,488,614
Soul Space Cost: 10/sec
His time ratio was still set to 10:1, so his soul space cost was 10/sec. He looked at his interface, but there was no new section for his soul space assistant. Remembering that the Soul Space assistant feature didn't appear in his store catalog until after he unlocked the Sapient Template feature, he thought his assistant might be a template in his catalog.
-Instantiation Cost: 1,000,000 GP
-Operation Cost: 1000 EP/sec
Unlike the other items in his catalog, the Assistant's instantiation and operations costs were not cheap. The instantiation cost was not an issue because he still had billions of GP. But the EP cost was an issue because it would consume a third of his EP generation.
He'd planned to raise his EP/sec rate anyway, so he checked how much it would cost to raise it up to 10,000/sec. When he found it would only cost 45 million GP, he checked to see how much it would cost to raise it all the way to 100,000 EP/sec. But when he checked, his interface told him he would have to raise it to 10,000 first, before it would let him raise it any further. So, he raised it to 10,000.
[Achievement: Total Energy Points consumed exceeded 10,000,000]
[Reward: 10,000,000 Genesis Points]
[Energy Point Rate Increased: 3,000/sec -> 10,000/sec]
As soon as his EP/sec rate hit 10,000, the EP/sec increase item disappeared from his store catalog, and a new item appeared along with a message.
[Soul Strength Limit reached. Further EP generation rate increases not allowed.]
Unlock Soul Enhancement Technique
Cost: 1,000,000,000,000 GP
Description: Practice this technique to strengthen your soul.
The description was plain, and the price was out of reach. He'd already gained as much GP as he was going to get from the sapiens-in-snapshot reward, at least until the Earth's population climbed above 10 billion. And even then, it would not be nearly enough. Earning the GP via the time-in-soul-space achievement was impractical since it would take about 30 thousand years. But if he consumed every EP he generated, he could earn the needed GP in about three years.
Wondering if there was also an EP capacity limit imposed by his soul strength, he tried to raise his EP capacity as well and found that the limit was 1 trillion EP. It would cost almost a billion GP. But, if he could not raise his EP rate, then he might as well raise his capacity to the limit so he could have more saved up when he needed it.
As for the Soul Enhancement Technique, he would know what it did in a little over three years.