As his consciousness returns to him, he wakes up as the world around him had changed. He wasn’t inside his apartment anymore. He takes a look at his surroundings and found himself in a well-lit room. Hanging from the ceiling was some crystal that adjusts their brightness according to the slider on the wall. The walls were a shade of white, there was sunlight shining through the window into the room.
The room was 200 square feet large, the floor was covered in Inkwell (kind of dark blue close to black) coloured nylon carpet. The carpet was a soft sensation to his feet, a sky blue coloured sofa sat in an inconspicuous corner followed in front by a glass coffee table. There was a vending machine that had all kinds of snacks and beverages that he could get on Earth. However, they cost quite an amount of System Credits which he had none of yet.
“What a nice room! It’s better than my apartment!” Ting thought as he looked at the table with an interface.
******
Learning Dimension’s Courses:
– Computer Repair (Advanced) [LOCKED]
– Java (Advanced) [LOCKED]
– Python (Advanced) [LOCKED]
– …
******
“What… why is the Computer Repair course locked?… Oh right, I haven’t accepted the mission yet.” As he forgot to accept the mission. He started to open up his system to missions and accepted the “Learn how to fix computers” mission.
[Mission Accepted] the system sounded, as it echoed inside his head.
[“Computer Repair” course has been unlocked. You are now able to take the Computer Repair Course.]
“I guess I’m being forced to take the Computer Repair course before I could take some other courses.” Ting speculated. Ting touched the table’s interface which was just like it was part of the table. The interface felt cold to the touch, as Ting pressed and selected Computer Repair. A description of the course was shown to him.
******
Course: Computer Repair
Time: 2 days (Learning Dimension Time)
Description:
Every computer will eventually break down, and we need people to be able to repair these worn down computers. If you take this course you will be provided with desktop computers and laptops with issues with every one of them.
Enrollment Fee: FREE
[The @Learn to fix computers” mission has made this course free for the first mission you accepted]
[ Enroll ] [ Cancel ]
******
“Oh, I got a bad feeling. Do I need to pay for the other courses? How much will they cost!”Ting shouted out. He gave in as there was no such thing as a free lunch in this world. “Let’s get started then. This course will take 16 hours on Earth, so it should be Sunday by the time I finish my course.”
Ting pressed on the Enroll button on the interface, a confirmation box showed up as he pressed yes.
“Thank you for enrolling into the course. “A woman’s voice sounded out in the room. The voice sounded like it came from a woman in her late 20s Ting was startled, as he felt like he just received an electric shock and jumped. Ting Wo looked around the room and found that a woman slowly faded in and was sitting on the sofa. She had pale smooth white skin, just like girl’s who are young.
“Who are you?!” Ting questioned as he stared at her long black hair reaching her shoulders.
“My name is Hua Zhao. You can call me Ms. Zhao and my job is to guide you through this course.” She explained. “I was created by the system to teach you.” She added.
“Nice to meet you, Ms. Zhao. When are we going to start the course?” Ting asked.
“We will begin right now.” Hua Zhao spoke in a steady manner as she showed Ting a wide smile that was comparable to enjoying the view of the beach. Well for Ting, it was probably enjoying the scene of girls in their bikinis. Hua Zhao got up gracefully from the sofa and walked toward one corner of the room which was particularly empty.
“Ting, come over here and I’ll show you what you need to do.” Ms. Zhao spoke without looking at him looking at the empty space.
“But there isn’t anything over there.” Ting question but still walked over.
“I’ll show you” Hua Zhao lifted her hand and pointed at the empty space as a table made of exquisite wood slowly appeared out of thin air as if it was just an illusion. The surface had probably been laminated since it was shiny and it looked smooth. Next to appear was a desktop with a monitor connected.
“Okay, I had just summoned the table that you are going to work on for the next 2 days here.” Hua Zhao said with an enthusiastic expression on her face.
“Wow that’s sure amazing,” Ting said stunned. “I’m sure what they taught us that you can’t create something out of nothing is not true then.” He murmured quietly.
“I want you to disassemble the desktop tower and rebuild it again.”Hua Zhao instructed. “You don’t have to worry I will guide you step by step.” Hua Zhao pointed toward the desktop tower and a few moments later. Ting saw that he could see some sort of hologram hand pointing to the slider that you need to push to take off the cover of the desktop.
Ting followed the holographic hands which only he could see. He held the slider and applied some force to unlock the cover. The cover made a click sound and it came out.
“This is pretty cool.” Ting thought in his head as he took the cover off and peeked inside. Inside was what the parts you would normally see inside a desktop computer. Ting saw the power supply, the motherboard, the CPU fan/cooler, the 12 GB 2.3MHz RAM sticks, and lots of wiring connecting from the power supply to the motherboard.
The components didn’t have any brand on them as the motherboard was still green just like the modern computers he had seen before. The other parts were the same.
“Once you know each and everything of how the computer works you would be able to solve the issues that the computer has at first glance.” Hua Zhao happily explained. Ting continued to follow the directions shown to him. He took out the parts one at a time accordingly. He took out the wires connecting to the power supply unit and took the first part out.
“You’re doing great so far. Just be a little bit more graceful handling the wires, don’t pull on the wires but the plastic pins. You could accidentally destroy the wire and hence make the power supply useless as it won’t give power to the motherboard anymore unless you replace the wire.” Hua Zhao educated.
“Okay, I’ll do my best!” Ting replied quickly.
About 7 minutes later, he had finished taking out all the parts inside the desktop case. Ting heard the system congratulate him for taking out all the parts correctly.
[You have successfully taken apart the desktop computer.]
[Congratulations for taking apart the desktop. Now imparting knowledge of all the parts you had taken out.]
[Successful, you have now learned the components that make the computer]
“What is this?” Ting questioned toward Hua Zhao.
“It’s a small reward for being able to take apart the desktop. However now you need to rebuild the desktop without my help.” Hua Zhao replied as she took a stride toward the comfy and soft looking sofa.
“Will I get a reward for rebuilding it successfully?” Ting looked at Ms. Zhao and questioned with a discerning gaze.
“Well done, there is a reward for you when you finish.” Hua Zhao replied while she sat down on the sofa. “Now get to work, there’s a long journey ahead for you. Don’t slack!”
“Yes, ma’am!” Ting excitedly said while thinking about what the award may be.
However, there was a faint grin on Hua Zhao’s face. But Ting didn’t notice it as he was fully concentrating on the task at hand.
–
15 minutes had passed as this time Ting didn’t have the guidance of Ms. Zhao.
“Done!” Ting exclaimed happily as he wiped the beads of sweat off his forehead.
“Let me take a look.” Hua Zhao replied as she covered her mouth and yawned. She got up and walked over toward the corner to where the desktop was put back together. She took a look inside the desktop tower and took a short glance at all the wiring that had been put back to where they belong.
“Not bad, you passed the first part.” Hua Zhao told him.
“What about my reward?!” Ting asked without hesitation.
“Reward?” Hua Zhao suddenly grinned and suddenly the background around them changed and now Ting noticed that they were in a shop in the city.
“Your reward is a simulation to help temper your computer repair skills. Your task is to fix 25 desktops and 25 laptops.” She gave a wide smile and told him.
“This is my reward? Are you kidding me…” Ting felt betrayed then he suddenly remembered he hadn’t learned how to put together a laptop yet. “But, I haven’t learnt how to take apart a laptop yet.”
“You don’t need to know since you already learned all of the components inside a desktop. A laptop will be easier for you to handle.” She replied as she went and took a seat to the side.
The sound of the busy street outside, made it’s way inside as the door along with a ringing of a bell indicating that someone has entered the shop. An elderly man was pulling a trolley with a desktop tower strapped on.
