In this digital wasteland, her name is like a broken poem, called Pokona.
She does not belong to the bright team, nor to the dark camp. She is a phantom floating on the edge of the system, a physical agent that will land in version 1.6. She brings not glory, not noise, but a kind of restrained, cold, like a wisp of wind on the street in deep winter.
When we talk about her growth, we cannot bypass those materials: basic physical chips, advanced chips, and specialized chips. These cold names are like the cutting tools left to her by the world. Each piece of material is not a gift from the system, but a chip for her to cross the enemy camp again and again. She faces the cold algorithm of the system in silence, and builds her own identity with repetition and wear.
The 25 basic chips are her birth certificate, the 75 advanced chips are her growth memory, and the 250 specialized chips are her will tempered in the ruins. We say she is a physical agent, but she is more like an existence that refuses to die in the system loopholes.
Her breakthrough path is divided into five parts. At first, there are 4 primary breaking cognitions, which are her awakening and her struggle after seeing the cruel nature of this world for the first time; then there are 32 high-level breaking cognitions, she no longer escapes, but stares at the cross section deep in the system; then 30 Breaker certification badges, which are her declaration of war to tear open the boundaries and confront the rules.
These numbers, stacked on her back layer by layer, are like the dust of code, and like the oppression of reality. Behind her, the long sound of VR combat simulation sounded, which was the thunder of the algorithm, the prayer of the system, and the baptism she could not avoid.
The growth of Pokona’s skills is like a long poem that has been deleted and revised many times. From level one to level twelve, every leap is a process of finding light in the gap of the program.
She is not the chosen one. It costs 2,905,000 dini to upgrade her skills, which is a long journey of accumulation. The way to obtain these dini is all repeated: simulation, challenge, collection, and simulation again. Every drop of Dini is the precipitation of her time and her invisible wound.
She also needs 60 copies of “High Dimension Data: Shallow Phantom”, which is the spoils after she entered the consciousness field of “Doppegonya Jane”. Those data are not just materials, they are memories, the truth she glimpsed in the depths of the system. Scarlet Engine-Scarlet Engine, a total of nine pieces are needed, which is the fire she took from “Hegemony Corrosion Body Pompeii”, which is a fight against corrosion and emptiness.
And deep in Pokona’s body, there is a silent engine, which is her exclusive sound engine. For it, she has to collect 4 pieces of breaking components, 32 pieces of enhancement components, 30 pieces of specialized components, and 200 pieces of sound engine energy modules. This is not for the sake of being strong, but to find her own voice at the end of the program.
Her sound engine is not in the music, it trembles in the current and shouts in silence. Pokona doesn’t speak, she speaks with sound engine. Every attack, every dodge, is a period she carved on the edge of the world.
The hamster cage access device is the key to her skills reaching the limit. The path to obtain it is not fixed, just like a random pass issued by fate. It may be hidden behind a special task, or it may appear on a certain floor of the new fund. On a quiet night, she may quietly embark on a journey to it, like a poet looking for an unfinished poem.
And we – as manipulators, do we really understand her? Or are we just used to using her, like using a card, a skill, a string of special effects? Her growth, her scars, her countless failures and restarts in simulated battles, are just a light choice in front of our screen.
Her silence is a protest against the system and a question to the players. She has no gorgeous voice lines, nor does she have a dazzling background setting. Her story is hidden in the cold data of the material, in the short pause when the skill is upgraded, and in the silence that we don’t want to face.
And this silence is not blank. It is a rejection, an expression, and a way of existence. Like a piece of paper burning in the dark, like the footsteps of Pokona echoing repeatedly in the dark land.
She is not the character we use most often in the game, but she may be the one we are most like in reality: moving forward in a world dominated by algorithms, constantly upgrading, constantly breaking through, and finding her own position.
Between virtuality and reality, between numbers and emotions, she uses materials as bones, silence as voice, and struggle as light to complete her confession.
She is Pokona, a name that still gazes at the world in the fracture.