Research City.

Damn, I cant believe this is open to everyone, Peter Chekhov said as he laid his eyes on the city in front of him.

Its a dream come true for every researcher in the world. Who wouldve thought that Emperor Aron would allow such a city to exist without demanding payment from anyone! He couldve charged money and everyone would still throw money at him for access, said an olive-skinned young man walking next to him.

The olive-skinned young man was named Mario, and Peter had befriended him during his time touring the simulation backpacking in the Alps.

It isnt really free, though. Any and all research done here is owned by the imperial family, Peter said. There was always a price for everything.

True, but they give you a hundred-year royalty agreement if its an advancement that you come up with and they havent. Plus, they provide you with the best environment and basically unlimited funding for your research. Mario shrugged. There may be a price, but some prices were worth paying. Besides, your starting point here is at least fifty years ahead of the world, so its not that high a price to pay. Plus, even though your research may be owned by the imperial family, your name will still be attached to it. So its fair for everyoneyou get money and fame and the empire benefits from your work, he said with stars in his eyes.

Marios family had all been scientists all the way back to the Italian Renaissance, and he had grown up in the lab with his father. He had personally experienced the difficulty and heartache in searching for research funding and investors who wanted not only ownership, but also their names on all results. The stress of the constant office politicking and grant hunting had driven his father into a coma after having a stroke one day, and that had drained the familys entire life savings.

At least, that was the case until a few days ago, when he got a notification that his father had been moved to the cube in Rome for medical treatment. He had woken up after just two hours in that miracle device. That, combined with the wonders he had seen in the simulation and everything else Mario had received as a benefit of his imperial citizenship had turned him into an absolute diehard fan of the new emperor. But what drove him over the top from a diehard fan to a braindead fan had to be Research City. Just being able to focus purely on research and benefit from it financially was, to him, Arons most benevolent gesture.

Marios experience wasnt unique by far. Everyone who had registered for citizenship and gotten their IDs approved had their sick relatives listed for priority access to the medical pods.

That was just one of the many means that Aron had been using to whitewash his stained reputation over the past week, the first of the Terran Empire. His benevolent actions had brought more and more people around to accepting the new imperial government, and hundreds of millions more were ordering their VR equipment and applying for citizenship every day. Each of them had found their unsolvable problems to be distinctly solvable when imperial technology was applied to them, leading quite a few people thinking of Aron as a new messiah.

Wont companies just force researchers into using Research City for researching, but then register the patents in the real world and take all the credit and royalties? Peter asked. He knew that think tanks and major corporations with research and development departments were rather underhanded and brutal with their employees. Intellectual theft wasnt just common, but rather the expected outcome when scientists and researchers worked for them. After all, anything goes as long as the CEOs can provide a positive profit and loss statement to the shareholders every quarter.

Didnt you read the contract you signed when you applied for a lab here? Mario asked in bewilderment as everything was covered in the contract researchers in Research City signed to lease labs there.

I havent applied for one yet. Ive been too busy touring the city, Peter replied, embarrassed.

Ah, thats why youre confused. Mario pulled up the contract and highlighted the relevant clause. Theres different levels to the labs in Research City. Funding is unlimited, so everything is done based on computing resources, like how major universities and research institutes allocate supercomputer time for the people that work for them, except here its a meritocracy. When you sign up for a lab, you fill out a form that, combined with their own evaluation, determines what level of lab you receive. The highest is EX, then SSS, SS, S, A, B, C, D, E, and finally, F.

Each level gives more benefits, like how close to the city center you are and how big your lab is. The bigger labs can fit more equipment in them and are closer to the hub where everything happens, like presentations, summits, and mingling and relaxing.

Ive heard rumors that say that at the EX rank you can even have your experiment run at increased time dilation or not even have to use the lab at all and just get the data direct from the simulation. But nobody knows, since the highest ranking scientists so far are Stephen Hawking, and a few hundred others who are only rank A. Then theres a few thousand others at rank B, but if Dr. Hawking, of all people, can only rank at the A level then it just goes to show how hard it is to make rank. I wonder if well see an EX-rank person in my lifetime, Mario sighed.

Is it possible to get a higher rank after your initial evaluation? Peter asked.

Sure. Every research proposal you submit and all of your results will be evaluated and awarded points based on its value and the level of your participation. To increase your rank, you just have to accumulate points. The more outstanding your results are, the faster youll rank up, and the more unique your area of research is, the more points youll be awarded as well. Thats likely to avoid people just riffing off other researchers instead of actually pushing the boundaries of science. Mario showed Peter the relevant sections of his contract as he summarized it.

As you can see here, every bit of research you do becomes a public entry in the Akashic Records in the Imperial Archive. That way everyone can read it... its like a scientific journal that you automatically get published in. And anything discovered here will be automatically recorded, issued a patent, and awarded points only for the original researcher, or team, that made the discovery. That way theres no exploitation by opportunistic bastards in think tanks or major multinational conglomerates, no academic fraud, no infighting about who discovered what first, and no point theft, he continued, reciting it from his contract as the two men read it together.

Damn, the emperor didnt leave any loopholes to exploit at all, Peter said, quite impressed by Arons vision.

It was at precisely that moment that a note was made on his profile in the Akashic Record under his political affiliation. [Favorable view of the government; no further active monitoring required.]

Its another business to the emperor, after all, as he also gets a cut of the earnings our discoveries generate, Mario added. He tilted his head back, looking at the upper levels of the tallest and widest building in the exact center of Research City. That was where all the highest-level researchers would have their labs, and he swore to himself that he would one day have a lab there.