The forest felt heavier by the minute with rain pounding the canopy and thunder growling somewhere far away. I stood there under the shade from the storm, staring at the sky acting nonchalantly, replaying my own words because Hailie hadn’t answered yet, she was quite stunned. "Ahem... If you were the one coding Darkmoon Adventure VR," I repeated, slow and deliberate, "Where would you create thunderstrikes to optimize the game? As in, what algorithm should be considered?" Hailie tilted her head, droplets falling from her hair. "Algorithm..." she echoed, thinking hard. She rubbed her chin in that overly cute way of hers, like she was a grey haired professor in a little white haired gal body. "Oh... well, if it were me... Um... I’d probably make them completely random? Procedurally generated at random intervals across the map, because weather’s supposed to feel natural and unpredictable, right? Sometimes people got unfortunate and be striked, too." I didn’t say anything, just crossed my arms and raised an eyebrow, waiting for her to continue. "...But you did, um, said optimized,’" she continued, brows knitting together. "So... that’d mean not wasting system power on something unimportant. Maybe I’d make it so thunder only happens where there are players? Like... if nobody’s ventured past the Cross in the three other continents yet, then there’s no need to render weather effects on the three other continents. So I’d limit thunderstrikes to the Western continent to conserve resources." I gasped as the word burst out of me before I even realized it. My whole body jolted with excitement, practically jumping up and down like a Make-A-Wish nine-year-old meeting their favorite superhero. Then I did something quite ridiculous. I reached out, grabbed Hailie by the shoulders, leaned in, and kissed her right on the forehead before patting her hair like a proud, unhinged parent. "That’s exactly the kind of answer I wanted, you brilliant little rascal! Muwfehehehe." "Hee..." Hailie Sonder just blinked in surprise, then giggled, cheeks flushed from the sudden affection. "Um... what was that for?" "Because why not!" I chuckled while exhaling deep through my nose, still holding her shoulders, trying to reel myself back in. "You deserve it, pal." No way I just called her pal and rascal... Oh god I’m washed. I stepped back, trying to save myself from the cringe as I began to motion vaguely at the storm. "Your method’s valid... very much what most developers would’ve done for their first few games, and actually, still better than modern triple-A developers. But Darkmoon Adventure’s dev team... they went further, they optimized it more than that." "Oh my... even further optimization?" Hailie tilted her head again, curious. "Do you know how?" "I sure do, buckaroo." My hands got on my hips and my chin were in the air, "Instead of generating thunderstorms randomly across the entire of this Western continent—including all the regions of Danielle, Klakku, or even the Cross—they coded the weather system to generate around players themselves, technically player-bound and not geographical-bound." "Wait, that’s so smart!" Hailie gasped, "It’s like that one saying, oh, um... When a branch falls in the forest, with no one around to see it, did it really fell? I get it now!" "Exactly~" I said, grinning as I continued to pat her on the head with my metal gauntlets, "There are tons of dead zones on the map, places nobody visits with low player density. Rendering weather there would be a waste of bandwidth and processing power slash memory. So instead, the system constantly checks where players are; which they would already do normally for many other purposes like clipping, anti-cheat, showing on map, whathaveyou... Then generates thunder events within those regions only." "You’re so cool when you talk about this stuff, Cory! It’s like a completely different person. I’m amazed!" Hailie’s eyes lit up, her mouth forming a small "O" as the idea clicked in her head. "So... that means the thunderstrikes we’ve been hearing and seeing..." "They aren’t random," I finished for her, feeling my pulse quicken. "It’s localized, which also means..." "Heaven’s direction!" I pointed a finger upward, my heart starting to race in sync with the storm. "Thunder will only strike within about five hundred meters around any given player, that’s a kilometer of search radius, max. Which is manageable if we talk about other methods, and since no one else should be in the forest but us..." The source of thɪs content is 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝•𝖿𝗂𝗋𝖾•𝘯𝘦𝘵 "It means someone’s nearby," Hailie whispered, catching on fast. "Exactly." I gave her another kiss on the forward, which honestly, at this point, is just to make myself feel good rather than praises, I like doing this, "I’ve been waiting for one to hit deep inside this forest for the past ten minutes. I allowed him to run because that would make it easier to distinguish whether it was his or my thunderstrike." Then, as if the universe was waiting for my cue, the sky cracked open with a blinding flash. I whipped my head toward the sound, the bolt had struck maybe two kilometers away, northeast, past the ridgeline of soaked trees and kind of into the rainforest area I talked about. "Checkmate," I muttered. I took off sprinting. Branches whipped my arms, mud splashed up my legs, the scythe clanged loosely against my back as I pushed through the wet undergrowth, the weight was awkward because the heavy and unbalanced tip was on top, but I couldn’t hang it any other way unless I’m a mage who can hide her weapon. Every few seconds, the forest lit up again, another strike, closer this time. I was practically tracing the lightning like breadcrumbs. "Cory!" Behind me, Hailie’s voice struggled to keep up, panting frantically, "Hah... It’s okay, it’s okay... I can do it, I can... I’m fine... Keep going!" The air itself buzzed with electricity, and the adrenaline drowned out everything else. My boots sank deep into the mud, as I practically kicked it behind me in order to move, splashing even more mud and dirt onto nearby bushes and trees. Another thunderbolt crashed, maybe five hundred meters ahead now, I rejoiced and giggled whenever I saw he sky rumbled like a drumroll. I weaved between trees, ducked under a thick root, then jumped a shallow ditch. The storm had turned the forest floor into a mess of puddles and fog, the air humid enough to choke on as if to deter me from keep on moving. The flashes were closer, sharper, like the world was trying to point me somewhere. Then, through the sheets of rain, I saw it. A figure was barely visible in the downpour. It was a humanoid figure; a man, hunched over gasping for air, clutching his side as he leaned against a tree trunk, I saw steam rose from his cloak where the rain hit him. I slowed my steps, eyes narrowing, breath heavy. And when the next flash of lightning striked, it illuminated him fully. "Now... Where were we?" I spoke, walking forward with both arms opened. If he truly was a magic user like Olga suggested when she mentioned him using red mana; he will never outrun a physical user like me in the long term. Time to give our friend a little pep talk.