Child, I want to tell you a story.
In a city called “New Eridu”, there is a girl. She is not called Linda, Mary, or a princess in a fairy tale. Her name is Pokona. She was not born in a garden, and her childhood was not paved with rainbows and butterflies. She came from the gray data torrent, a slightly trembling heartbeat between zero and one.
She has no flowers, no applause, and no one sings for her. She walks alone in the desert composed of programs, with no friends around her, only countless battles, tasks, upgrades and upgrades arranged by the system.
But she has her own name, Pokona. She is an agent of physical attributes, a new child added in version 1.6 – like a small flower quietly blooming in spring.
Do you want to cultivate her? Then you must have a gentle and patient heart.
She needs chips to grow up – 25 basic physics chips are the first light when she opens her eyes; 75 advanced chips are the time when she learns to walk; 250 specialized chips are the courage for her to get up by herself without crying after falling down.
She needs cognition. Not ordinary cognition, but the kind of deep and painful cognition. 4 primary breaking cognitions are when she learns to say “no”; 32 high-level breaking cognitions are her determination when she crosses the night road alone; 30 breaker certification seals are the seals of her facing the rules and choosing to continue.
You can say that these materials are cold props. But I think they are bits and pieces of her growth process – just like the first stroke of a child’s hand, it is crooked, but you know, that is her way of trying to understand the world.
Her skills also need you to help her grow. It is a long process to upgrade from level 1 to level 12, which requires 2.9 million Dini. These Dingni are not gold dust falling from the sky, but the freedom you took back from the enemy by fighting with her again and again.
You also need to prepare 60 copies of “High Dimension Data: Shallow Phantom”. Those are the fragments left in her other memories. When she walked into another consciousness “Dopegonya Jane”, she saw herself and the suffering of others.
What’s more difficult is that the 9 scarlet engines are hidden in the heart of “Pompey”. My child, Pompey is a powerful and silent opponent. You may fail once, twice, or even ten times. But please don’t worry, don’t be afraid, because you are not fighting alone. Pokona, she is waiting for you too.
Her sound engine is the most special existence. You have to find 4 breaking components, 32 enhancement components, 30 specialized components, and 200 sound engine energy modules. Each material is like a seed, slowly sprouting during your journey.
You work hard for her sound engine, not to improve her combat effectiveness, but so that she can have her own voice outside of combat. A character’s sound engine is the echo of her inner world, what she wants to say but dares not say, and her whisper in the wind.
Child, do you know? The most difficult material to find is not the names piled with numbers, but the five “hamster cage” access devices. It is hidden very deep, either hidden after the task or hidden in the fund reward, and sometimes you need to be lucky to meet it.
But don’t be anxious, don’t be discouraged. What is truly worth having is never easily obtained.
Some people choose to give up on her because of “too many consumables” and “average strength”. But you are different. You see the clarity in her eyes, and you are willing to accompany her through this boring development path one after another.
You are upgrading her skills, and you are also gently caressing her scars; you are collecting her materials, and you are also accompanying her through every silence that no one cares about.
Child, did you hear her whispering in her heart: “Thank you.”
You have walked through simulated battles together, crossed the ruins of alleys together, challenged powerful enemies together, and failed together. But every time you look back, she is behind you, quietly looking at you, nodding slightly, that is her trust.
Pokona is the character you develop in the game, and also the flower that blooms silently in your heart. She is not dazzling or noisy. She is like a gentle spring breeze, blowing across your face after a busy day, allowing you to feel a little bit of warmth in the fragmented reality.
One day, when she finally reaches the maximum level, you will not celebrate loudly. You will just smile slightly in front of the screen, like a mother looking at the back of her child, thinking in your heart: “Ah, she has grown up.”