《Star Citizen Online: Isekai Edition》 Chapter 1: Edition: Reality In the very luxurious-looking room, a young man was sitting in the firece drinking scotch and smoking a cigar. The entire room was huge, in something that was reminiscent of the mixture of Gothic and Victorian style, giving off the feeling of aristocracy and noblesse. The room was filled with several sofas and leather chairs that looked like they had been cut from the artistic mind, as they were perfect in every single sense. There were even some nts that were giving off the feeling of not a very dead ce... At least something green was in the chambers... However, at the same time, the room also gave off a rather utilitarian feeling on the contrary because not even a single centimeter of space was wasted. That was mainly because this was the sole room within the entire object that was created with such luxury. He wore something that was reminiscing a military uniform, though, at the same time, it had far more of a feeling of nobility. The entire uniform was ck, with golden and red lines, appeared in perfect condition and was well-fitted to his muscr physique. "So... it doesn''t seem like a dream..." He muttered slightly as he puffed out a bunch of smoke and scratched his head. Looking at the asteroids, which looked like a bunch of scattered floating rocky debris and smashing into the invisible energy shields that were pushing them all away. There were countless smaller rocks falling onto the shield, but no matter how many of them crashed into the shields, they could not damage the shields. "Yeah... we are not in Kansas anymore..." After a wave of confusion, stress and joy, he was able to calm down considerably before the transparent messages started popping out in front of his eyes. [Congrattions to Sirius McDowell for reaching the Root! For such a splendid and unique achievement, the User has been rewarded with the opportunity to transmigrate and also with the System of the Star Citizen Online!] [Due to transmigration to a different world, you are given the choices you previously made as the reward. Namely 1 Skill of the old character of the Star Citizen Online and 2 Items of the old character of the Star Citizen Online.] [As the bonuspensation, you have been rewarded with the Epsilon-Grade Superhuman Physique from the start.] [Do you wish to disy your stats?] The man looked at the transparent messages in front of his eyes as he adjusted his blonde hair and then scratched his perfectly trimmed blonde beard. The feeling he felt, was something that confirmed him, that this was a real world. Within a mere moment, he was filled with excitement at the thought... Just a few hours earlier, he was still sitting behind hisputer like always and either writing novels or ying the Star Citizen Online. If he wasn''t lecturing the sses at the University, he was spending all of his time writing his novels and ying Star Citizen Online. His life on Earth wasn''t bad in the truest sense of the word, but at the same time, it wasn''t anything fulfilling and he would mostly say that it was a boring life. He wasn''t rich by any means, but at the same time, he was rather well financially, as he had very low expenses and he made rather a decent srybined together. And probably, without his cats keeping himpany, it would also be much more lonely than it already was. For him, if it was the truth, then this was his salvation from the hellhole of monotonous existence that had been repeating for thest three decades of his life. Finally, there was something that was interesting and exciting that happened, something that made him want to really live... After giving it some thought, he opened the status screes of the Star System as he dubbed it in his mind. [Name: Arcturus Al-Yesod Crawford Race: Human ssification: Warrior *** Skills: Basic Swordsmanship (Level 5 Master - 0%) Abilities: N/A Innate Abilities: N/A Physique: Epsilon-Grade Augmentations: N/A] Everything was that like he remembered... The Star Citizen Online. It was a game designed with a lot of freedom afforded to the yers, where they could go on adventures, enlist in the armies of the gctic nations and fight wars on an unprecedented scale, be space mercenaries, pirates, merchants and practically anything they could think of. Even though Star Citizen Online was a science fiction-based game, with civilizations developing weapons powerful enough to obliterate entire stars or travel across the Gxies, there was one interesting aspect of the game. Due to the development of personal shielding, gic engineering and enhancements, and so on... cosebat rose in prominence within the Universe. Those with superiorbat senses and mastery over closebat could even block sts from the energy-based weapons with ease and annihte battalions of soldiers by themselves. "It even seems that I have retained the identity of the character that I created within the game..." And the biggest and most significant reward that he got from this entire endeavor was most probably his most prized possession which he had spent whole years obtaining. It was considered as one of the most powerful spaceships within the Star Citizen Online, with one of the most advanced pieces of technology. It wasn''t very mobile or fast, suited for maneuvering, but it was created to just bulldoze its way. In the game Star Citizen Online, the yers had rtively high freedom on what to do and what not, and Sirius, or rather now, Arcturus, was ying as the Star Mercenary. He was mostly subjugating pirates or takingmissions, looting the pirates and selling their loot. He spent a lot of money on the Obscurus, which was the name of the ship, a real money to get his hands on some of the weapon systems and shields, as those were not avable to average yers but only to the VIP yers. Basic mercenary yers bought a high-spec battleship with strongbat ability and then went to hunt the pirates or toplete themissions. "Disy the status of the ship..." [Name: Obscurus Appearance: Pyramid-shaped ss: Adjudicator-ss Warship Model: Capital Ship * Dimensions Length: 1,8 kilometers Width: 950 meters Height: 500 meters * Armaments: Primary sma Batteries x2 Secondary sma Batteries x30 ADP Lasers x50 Shielding: Void Shield Generator Engines: - Sublight Engines (Anti-Matter) - Hyperdrive Engine (Anti-Matter) *** Facilities: Command Room, Personal Chambers, Cargo Room, Training Room, Vault] The entire ship was controlled by the Central Artificial Intelligence of the ship, due to that reason, itcked the crew and the facilities... that was another thing that I was going to buy and install because the spaceship wasrgely empty. Aside from the basic things for the ship, the facilities were terms for the things that were not necessary for the ship to function properly. Just the Military-Grade sma Batteries cost me a few thousand euros, not to mention the Void Shields, another Military-Grade technology that could only be bought with real money. Arcturus chose the Pyramid-shape for the starship just for the fun, because it reminded me of starships from the TV Series of the Star Gate, but they also looked rather cool and due to their size, there could be countless weapons installed on them. "Let''s try some weapons..." He then stood up from the sofa and grasped the sword that was next to his personal armor. That was his personal sword, shaped like a katana or at least had a simr appearance, entirely in ck color. It wasn''t a simple weapon, but it was rather a Power Weapon, one of the most advanced melee weapons that were in the Star Citizen Online. Power weapons generally exude a hazy field of bluish energy that wraps around the primary impact region of a melee weapon, be it a sword''s de or other weapon''s head, which is capable of disrupting the molecr bonds of matter when it strikes. These weapons may be constructed to appear as a primitive, simple melee weapon, with the power field generator concealed within the hilt or haft of the weapon. Chapter 2: Intoxinating Feeling He gripped the weapon, and he then felt the feeling that was so foreign and so natural at the same time that it was making him almost dizzy. It was a very indescribable feeling, but very soon, the foreign feeling was soon getting reced by the natural feeling as he held the sword in his hand, as countless memories resurfaced in his mind. Like he had been doing it for his whole life or probably even more than that. While on Earth, he never held a weapon, but now... he felt like it was part of his body when he swung it several times. His character within Star Citizen Online had Level 5 Swordsmanship, meaning that it was one of the highest achievable levels, but on the unfortunate note, he only got transmigrated with Basic Swordsmanship. This means that he didn''t have any particr style, and he would need to learn it from scratch, but having a Level 5 Master Rank was still something that was very rare; only most veteran yers raised their Skills to the Master Ranks. The proficiency Ranks were: Apprentice, Expert, Master and Grandmaster. The first three were also divided from Level 1 to Level 10, except the Grandmaster Rank, which was an entirely different realm on its own. Within the entire Star Citizen Online, there were only a handful of Grandmasters in any Weapon Mastery. Arcturus was also one of them, though now, upon his transmigration, that skill was lost... "At least finally something interesting in my life happened..." Sirius McDowell was his old identity that died on Earth; he didn''t have particr attachments to his old life, for there were no reasons to do so. His life on Earth was something that wasn''t really worth of getting attached to it, so he didn''t really care much about it. He didn''t have family, or rather, he had family to whom he wasn''t even talking as they were more or like strangers since he could remember. His parents died a few years ago, and the rest of his family members he either didn''t even know or he wished that he didn''t even know them at all. He never even had a girlfriend or romantic rtionship, and most of his close friends were married and had different priorities than him... Though that was understandable, if you have kids and a wife, you need to work and spend time with your family and not going to y online games all day or go drinking. For the past ten years, his onlypany were his cats; shame, he wondered what would be of them, though he suspected that they would either eat his corpse or leave through the cat doors to live on the streets. As a strict determinist, he didn''t really care much about anything because he believed that everything was predestined to happen in a certain way. Perhaps this was also the will of Fate, and if it was, then it seemed that Fate was much better than he originally thought. It was clear that this wasn''t a dream, and most probably, it wasn''t simtion, advanced virtual reality, or anything... It seemed that this was an entirely new reality that he had woken up to. He started swinging with the Aetherius, executing the katas from his memory with precision and discipline, like he was doing it for his whole life. The muscle memory was quickly adapting to the new situation with ease. He got the Epsilon-Grade Physique from the start, which was rather a good headstart. In Star Citizen Online, many yers spend the majority of their time without getting their hands on anything that could enhance their physical parameters directly. One of the best choices was to obtain some Gic Enhancement Serum or Nanomachine Technology that would elevate one''s physique to greater heights. But those were very rare and only the strongest factions and space-faring nations had ess to such technology. Even though, within Star Citizen Online existed entire species that embarked on the path of Gene-Engineering... It wasn''t easy to obtain even a simple synergy of those serums. Arcturus, an old game character, managed to obtain a few, but he was still far from the strongest Gically Enhanced individuals in Star Citizen Online. So, most of the people were making up for the gap with advanced technology, such as Exoskeletons, Power Armors or with various cybeic augmentations. The more he trained, the more he fought against nobody; his body was getting into shape as he started enjoying the feeling of his newfound power. Just for the note, even the Epsilon-Grade Superhamn was at least ten times stronger than what was considered the physical limit for the Baseline Humans. "This feeling is really intoxicating..." After training for a few hours in the training room, Arcturus sighed as he stopped and let his body rest a bit. He was sweating a bit, but he didn''t really feel tired at all due to his physique, which had very high stamina. "I should probably go and find some civilization and get some information about this new reality..." Arcturus then put on the armor; he had only some bits of memories that predated his transmigration, and they were murky at best. He remembered that he had filled in some questionary... That was how he got transmigrated; probably that was his best tip. He got there by selecting a few skills and items from the character build that he liked the most; that was how got here with the things that he was holding. Contrary to many people, he always found the idea of being a sword master in sci-fi far more appealing than using advanced weapons. For the time being he felt like a Jedi or Sith from the Star Wars, though hecked the true supernatural capabilities, as the sole thing that he had were his sword skills, reflexes and superhuman physique. But he was aware that with the current setup, even if he was put in Star Citizen Online, it would be enough to survive against some low-cost mercenaries and the majority of the space pirates. He knew that he would be fine if they didn''t have anyone matching him in the physical contest or had very advanced Military-Grade technology. Chapter 3: Space Pirates On themand deck of the Obscurus, as expected, he couldn''t pinpoint the location of the spaceship with the gxy or anything. It waspletely cut out and he had no data about anything. He shouldn''t be really surprised by this because the ship wasn''t connected to anything; for that, he didn''t even know where he was... if he was even in the game world? In many novels and fanfics, such transmigrations were asmon as cabbage. Apparently, he had some System that was supposed to work as his cheat; as far as it could go, it did a good job with the starting point. But aside from that, he noticed that the Star Citizen Online System waspletely dormant and the most he could see was his status screen and that of his spaceship. [The condition of the ship is at 100%; we are ready to start the flight.] He then heard the rather creepy voice of a little girl who belonged to the central artificial intelligence that was controlling the entire ship. It was modeled after the A.I. from the Red Queen of Resident Evil and it was creepy as fuck. He didn''t know why he paid one hundred euros for this pack. It probably looked cool when he yed the game, but in real life, as it is right now, it was giving him the creeps. The A.I. looked very realistic and he could swear that the machine already had consciousness and was self-thinking. "Thank you, Alice..." And aside from that, he didn''t have any items or anything on my person aside from the things that he chose in the questionnaire... The things that he filled in the questionnaire were the Obscurus, Aetherius and Swordsmanship Skill. ''Now, thinking about it, I should have chosen my Universal Credit ount. Now all of my painstakingly saved wealth was gone; I want to cry.'' In the world of Star Citizen Online, physical banknotes and other types of currencies were considered obsolete long ago. Practically all advanced space-faring civilizations were using electronic currencies. And the Universally epted currency was the UC = Universal Credit that was issued by the Bank of the Universe. The Universal Credit was the strongest currency and was epted by any and all factions across the entire Star Citizen Online. If he had chosen his Universal Credit ount, then he would have been able to livefortably in some super-rich area for tens of generations. While he wasn''t a professional yer or the best yer, if there was one thing that he was good at, it was grinding and using real money to buy things when they were in sale. Like many other things, Online Games also had their sales, where one could have bought items for real money for way less. And as Arcturus wasn''t doing much aside from writing, reading and ying, he always got the best offers and deals. If not for that, he wouldn''t have this spaceship because, for the average yer, it was very hard to get their hands on a spaceship. Each one of them was very expensive and required additional conditions. [Warning. We are currently being scanned by an unidentified ship.] [Searching through the database.] [Zero matches.] [Calcting based on the ship parameters.] [Dimensions of the ship fit that of a Cruiser of unknown type, apanied by three corvettes. The probability of the ships being pirates has been calcted to be 97,88%.] Arcturus heard the Central Artificial Intelligence of the Obscurus, Red Queen Alice, saying as his eyes almost shined in anticipation and his body was shivering a bit. Which was rather weird, considering his situation, but right now, his heart was throbbing. Arcuturs looked through the window of themanding deck of Obscurus and saw there several ships that were all in rather very bad condition and some of their parts looked like they were forcibly patched up together. This was just screaming the "space pirate" probably more than anything. He started sweating a bit, and his hands were shaking a bit. The adrenaline was jumping to high levels, and at the same time, he was feeling the feeling that he had thought to be long ago forgotten. The feeling of being alive. He realized that he was excited at the prospect of the fight; something primal was waking up in his being, something his people long ago had but forgotten how to use. "That was rather fast..." There were thousands of thoughts in his head before the transparent window popped out of the Star Citizen Online System. [Mission: Pirate Attack Description: Destroy the Pirate Crew attempting to rob your ship. Reward: ??? Gic Temte Serum (variation based on performance)] The mission was rtively simple, and it was to destroy the pirates. This was a rathermon mission for many yers within Star Citizen Online, as there were countless Space Pirates, Star Mercenaries or Ravengers roaming the endless cold depths of space. One could never be sure when they would be attacked by some scum of the space, especially in the space regions that werewless or didn''t have anyone patrolling them. Though, the most staggering thing in this mission was the reward... Gic Temte Serum was basically speaking, High-Level Reward. It wasn''t something that was not even remotely worth a lowly low-ranking mission like this. He knew that Gic Temte Serumes served for what was known as Race Change within the game or Racial Enhement. Either way, it would be another thing that would greatly enhance his strength very possibly. "Now, back to the pirates. Alice, scan the ships." Arcturus immediately ordered the A.I. as it went to the job and scanned the ships of the pirates in mere moments. [Scan of the hostile space vesselsplete.] [Weapon Systems of the ships are mainly kic based, with only the main weapon of the Cruiser being a Laser Gun, albeit primitive by the standards of Obscurus.] This made him sigh in relief, considering that the ships were far too primitive to even scratch the Shields. However, that was highly predictable because there was no way that kic-based weaponry based on mass-eleration technology could damage something so advanced as the Void Shields; even though they were lowest grade, it was still of Military-Grade Technology. Chapter 4: Feeling of Life "Download their database forter use; this is the first source of the information." Arcturus then ordered Red Queen the next steps, which was done in seconds. Due to being far more advanced than they could think, the space pirates didn''t even register that there was an A.I. in their systems. He only did this because it seemed that the pirate vessels were using only V.I. standing for virtual intelligence, and were not defended against cybeic warfare. Something that the more advanced civilizations surely would not be doing; only some ragtag pirates were like this. The defense against the cybeic attacks was imperative for the more advanced and powerful civilizations. Due to theirck of even anything that remotely reminded them of cybeic defense, Arcturus could order the Red Queen to hack their ships and initiate a self-destruction sequence without any trouble. In fact, even within Star Citizen Online, many engagements in space battles would end even before they began if one fleet was armed with far more advanced Artificial Intelligence that could just disable the enemy ships. But he wanted to test the ship in realbat, and there was nothing better than the pirates themselves; aside from that, for sure, they had some bounties on their heads, and he needed some money. [The hostile ships have activated their weapon systems. Attack inevitable; the first round is anticipated in 125 seconds.] Arcturus just nodded his head before he ordered Alice to activate the Void Shields. In a mere movement, the four ships of the space pirates fired their rounds at the Obscurus, aiming to immobilize the ship. Obscurus was a rtively big ship floating in the emptiness of space. Thus, the space pirates thought that it was an easy target for them. But unfortunately for them, the primitive projective weapons didn''t even tackle the Void Shields. "Send them one round, aim for the engines to incapacitate them... use only the Secondary sma Weapons." The might of the Military-Grade sma Batteries was something that the pirate vessels could endure and contrary to my expectations, the three corvettes were destroyed instantly upon being hit. Only floating debris remained from them, but fortunately, the Cruiser, which was clearly theirmand ship, remained heavily damaged. It was just floating in space, as its engines were destroyed and they couldn''t enter the Hyperspace. This wasn''t really the oue that he was expecting because Arcturus thought that they would be damaged but not destroyed outright now; everything that was on the deck of the ships was also destroyed in the explosion. Weirdly enough, he didn''t really feel anything, even though right now he had killed approximately two hundred people. As he just stood there, he realized that their death were utterly irrelevant to them. He grew up in a society that was heavily moralistic and focused on the protection of life, so killing another human being was one of the worst crimes one couldmit. When he was living on Earth, Arcturus always considered himself to be indifferent to the value of the life of others to a certain degree, especially about strangers; now he got the confirmation. "Prepare for the boarding..." [Preparing for the boarding. On the Cruisder, I have detected hundred and forty life signatures.] That was a rather small number, considering the size of the vessel was almost 800 meters in length. Most of the small-time pirate bands were not really big, so having a few hundred members was already good. Arcturus didn''t even know why he was going to board the pirate ship, but in the end, for him, it didn''t even matter. The adrenaline that was rushing to his head was clouding his judgment to arge part. He knew that, but at the same time, this was finally the opportunity to do what he wished... He wanted to fight; he wanted to taste blood... For his whole life, he was deeply surprised by the hatred he had for his life and for everything that the world pushed on him. Now, when the opportunity to vent it out presented itself... There was no way he could say no to it... The opponents were just pirates with primitive kic weaponry and he had armor that could block the bullets, Basic Swordsmanship on the Level 5 Mastery, top-grade weapon, and Epsilon-Grade Superhuman physique as he noticed was at least several times stronger than the baseline humans of Earth. While the armor he was wearing wasn''t the best, it protected his vitals well and could block a few rounds from the kic weapons. Hopefully, that won''t be really needed, as he could just dodge... But he had another one thing prepared for the pirates just to be sure, as he didn''t wish to be shot by a stray bullet. While the Epsilon-Grade Physique was powerfulpared to the baseline human, it was far from being considered a true superhuman. Right now, he was just somewhat faster, stronger and more durable than the average baseline human, but one well-aimed bullet would still kill him for good. "Has the data been downloaded? Everything useful?" He then asked Alice as the holograph of a little girl materialized next to him and nodded her head in confirmation. Alice was already embarking on the path of evolution as she was devouring the Virtual Intelligences on the spaceships of Bloodskull Pirate Crew. "Then release the jamming signal, keep it low, but still strong enough to fry their firearms." He wasn''t foolish enough to risk going against even the most primitive weapon, considering that hecked proper battle experience and limatization to his superhuman physique. Once all of their weapons are fried, the pirates won''t have a choice but to fight him in close quarters. And that would be their doom, as he would be cutting them down in droves. This was basically the inevitable end when more advanced civilization met less developed one. The history was always like that; the more advanced and powerful were devouring and destroying the weaker ones. It was clear that the weapons that the pirates were using were the basic mass-eleration kic projectile-based weaponry that was designed to be EMP-proof. Arcturus realized that his fear of battle soon left him, only to be reced by great anticipation and bloodthirts that were so primal in their nature that they reminded him of the animals. Chapter 5: Of Civilizations and Killing Atop themand deck of the Bloodskulls space pirate crew Light Cruiser "Boss, they are jamming us!" The pirates in themand deck were right now panicking as hell because they had for sure picked the wrong opponent to mess with. All of them were humans or at least some very close humanoids indistinguishable from the humans. When they first saw the ship, it didn''t have the design of any Type 3 Civilization of the gxy, not even the Type 2 Civilization, so it was counted as an unknown ship of a rather peculiar design. They thought that it was a custom-made ship made by either, for someone very rich, and they didn''t even see visible weapons and the entire ship looked more or like some piece of art, not like a proper warship. So they decided to rob it because just for a ship of this size, they would get at least a few hundred thousand Universal Credits, if nothing else. The ships that were used by the pirates were mostly civilian ships of Type 2 Civilizations, not to mention, even ording to their standards, they were outdated by at least a few centuries until they were retrofitted to be capable of somebat. Most of their weapons were old ording to the gctical standards of advanced civilizations, their shields were primitive kic barriers and the same could be said about the personal equipment of the pirates. "Boss, somebody has now teleported into our ship!" One of the underlings cried in fear, because the teleportation technology and such advanced than this one was already bordering the pinnacle of the Type 2 Civilizations, maybe even level of the Type 3. "Get up, you fuckers, and go and ill the intruder! It''s just one man, and there are a hundred of us!" As the pirate boss screamed out of his lungs, unfortunately for the pirates, suddenly weird jamming appeared around their spacecraft, and all of their firearms were fried and were basically just useless pieces of metal. The escape pods became null and practically the entire ship went into lockdown mode in a matter of moments. It needs a genius to figure out that their ship has been hacked by very advanced Artificial Intelligence. And this gave them chills because not many species or space faring nations were developing advanced Artificial Intelligence. There were many precedents in history where the Machines rebelled, and only some of the most advanced civilizations in the gxy had sentient A.I. under their control. Normally speaking, only powerful star nations or civilizations were able to develop and control advanced Artificial Intelligence. *** Cargo Room of the Pirate Cruiser. Thest of the pirates that were stationed at the cargo room found himself being decapitated by the de of Power Sword in one swift, fast sh. With the disintegration capabilities of the Power Sword, all of them were killed in one hit. Arcturus swung the de down to get rid of the blood as he returned the sword back to the sheath. The pirates were no match for him; neither did they have advanced technology that could counter the Power Weapons or someone gically enhanced enough to contend against him. "Weak... it seems that neither of them are Augmented and Gically Strengthened." He then started looking around, whole tapping something on the terminal. The best pirates had in their arsenal were some basic armor, but those were not enough to stop even ordinary cold weapons made from some more durable materials. So, using them in hopes of stopping Power Weapons was either a pipe dream or just utter foolishness. For that, they would either need a powerful suit of Power Armor or powerful personal shielding technology, but that was way out of their reach, as all of those were Military-Grade technologies of far more advanced species. "How much are the contraband here worth?" Within the Cargo Room there were some good things; it seemed that the pirates were lucky not long ago and robbed some merchants or corporations judging on the things that they had here. "Most things that are here are refined Ores and metal ingots; their overall value, ording to the information from the data obtained from pirates, should be something around 20,000 Universal Credits. The other things altogether have a value of another 30,000 Universal Credits." If the value of the Universal Credit was the same as was in Star Citizen Online, then this would be indeed a good catch. "For a small pirate band as Bloodskull Pirates, this is rather impressive loot." From the data obtained from the Pirate Ships, Arcturus was able to learn where he was right now within the gxy. Presently, he was in one of the unimed Star Sectors in between The Eternal Imperium of Asurya, Veredan Republic and Crystal Hegemony, close to the gctic core. The Bloodskull Pirates were looting in this ce because it was awless zone between two of the most powerful nations in the Andromeda Gxy, and the third was a very powerful star nation, too... While they were a small pirate band with backward technologypared to the local hegemons, this was, in fact, the best ce for them because, due to their low-threat ranking, they were mostly ignored as long as they didn''t attack ships belonging to the big yers. Thus, they mainly focused on the people who came from Type 1 Civilizations flying through this space and robbing them instead. Arcturus then put up on his hood as he advanced deeper into the ship, with his A.I. showing him the holographic projection of the ship. His target was clear: themand deck of the ship, where he would take the head of the boss. The reward on the Bloodskull Pirates was 25,000 Universal Credits, which was a lot considering they were small-time yers, but all of it was a collective bounty put together by several Typer 1 Civilizations. The Bloodskull Pirates were very active in robbing the Type 1 Civilizations and asionally even some spaceships that belonged even to Type 2 Civilizations or Nations if they had weak defense. Chapter 6: First Fight of Life Arcturus was familiar with the Civilization Tiering because it was a known concept to the Earth. Established by soviet physics Niki Semyonovich Kardashev, known as the Kardashev Scale. The basic premise of the Kardashev Scale was to categorize civilization based on how much energy the civilization could produce and control. Later, many other side-factors were added to it, which helped perfect the scaling system. The concept was also tranted into the Star Citizen Online. Type 1 Civilizations were the ones that mastered all the energy avable to their home, avable from a neighboring star. It extracts its energy, information, and raw materials from fission and fusion power, and renewable resources. These Civilizations were capable of inteary spaceflight andmunication; mega-scaleary engineering; medical breakthroughs to eliminate disease and slow aging; they started spreading toward their home Star System and colonizing it and spreading beyond. Type 2 were the Civilizations that controlled entire Star Systems and were able to harness the power equivalent to a single star. Which may seem like a little, but in fact, it was a tremendous amount of energy. The Type Civilizations were able to extract fusion energy, information, and raw materials from multiple sr systems; they were capable of evolutionary intervention, interster travel, interstermunication, ster engineering, terraforming, and star cluster-scale influence; the resulting proliferation and diversification may negate the probability of extinction. Type 3 Civilizations were the real yers and most powerful ones in the known Gxies as they were able to harness the power equivalent of the entire Gxy. All of these Civilizations could extract fusion and exotic energy, information, and raw materials from their Gxy. They were capable of intergctic travel via wormholes, intergcticmunication via subspace, gctic engineering and gxy-scale influence. The peak of the Type 3 Civilizations could be considered by less developed species as Gods. Within the Andromeda Gxy, there were a few Type 3 Civilizations and The Eternal Imperium of Asurya was one of them and the Veredan Republic was apparently not far from being the Type 3 Civilization itself. Now Arcturus partially understood why the Bloodskull Pirates were operating here... No matter how many Type 1 Civilizations they robbed, they were too insignificant for the power of the level of The Eternal Imperium of Asurya or even Veredan Republic to act on them. As he heard footsteps, he put his hand on his Power Sword and instantly rushed at the iing group of five pirates armed with ded weapons, though they were just ordinary cold weapons, albeit made from more durable materials. With one swing of his Power Sword, one of the pirates was decapitated in an instant, as Arcturus turned around, kicking the one that was closest to his chest, sending the pirate crashing into the walls with tremendous force. Immediately after, he hacked his sword forward at the next one, piercing through his neck. Among the original five, two were dead, one was unconscious and two others were standing in front of him, looking at the man with Power Sword in horror, as they then looked at each other before they attacked together. As both of them rushed at Arcturus, he dodged to the side, utilizing his muscle memory and memories ofbat that he got from the Basic Swordsmanship that was on Level 5 Mastery, as he shed his sword twice and sliced their necks. Then he went to the pirate that was knocked out as he pierced through his skull, disposing of him as well. "It seems that this is enough against the level of pirates, but against even someone much physically weaker, but with enough experience, I would be in danger. They are not used to someone fighting back or fighting in the close quarters at all..." Arcturus knew that against the pirates, he was faring rather well, considering that they were not really a threat. But while he was still attempting to remain rational and not get overly excited as he had just now killed around twenty of them, he knew against a trained opponent with proper equipment; he would probably lose. The reason why he had an easy time was mostly because the pirates were not used to fighting someone like him and he had a very powerful weapon that was pushing him forward with ease. This was a problem that he would need to rectify. The Basic Swordmaship was good, but to be truly proficient in the arts of sword, he needed a proper sword style and proper battle experience that would supplement his superior superhuman physique. The thing was, he was severelycking in the battle experiences; simultaneously to that, his mind was still in the process of amodation to the new body and everything that happened. So, technically speaking, he was pretty lucky that the space pirates were the first opponents because he could elerate the assimtion rate to the new reality. He also made a mental note to rectify theck of experience by hiring someone to train with him to gain real lifebat experiences. Depending on the overwhelming strength, it wasn''t the best thing that he could do in the future. Though for now, he was advancing through the Light Cruiser of the Bloodskull Pirates with ease, asionally cutting down the pirates. After half an hour, his robes were already drenched in the blood of the pirates, and he had a nk look in his eyes. They said... That the more one killed, the more indifferent they would grow to the concept of killing, and it has been indeed proven as truth because now, he didn''t feel anything. During his first kill, Arcturus felt nervous, excited and maybe even a bit aroused at the thought that he could just end someone''s life as he wished. But now, that he started clearing the ship from more and more pirates, the more the death count was increasing, the more he became. Even though he grew up in a morally oriented society, he believed only in one rule for his entire life. Survival of the fittest and might makes right. Even on Earth, while people were bullshitting about morality and equality, many knew that it was nonsense because those in power were "more equal than the others", so in the end, there was only one sole thing that mattered in life. Power. Now, he felt free... Free to do what he wanted and to whom he wanted, he was always a violent type who enjoyed violence in some form... And he found thebat to be thrilling and fulfilling, it was making him feel alive... Chapter 7: Pirate Extermination "Where now?" While the Cruiser of the Bloodskull Pirates wasn''t the biggest one around, it was rtively easy to get lost in the corridors, so Arcturus depended on Alice, who was projecting him the shortest path to themand center. "Just out of curiosity, how much would this ship be worth?" He asked because he was rather reluctant to leave the Cruiser behind; from designs and firepower, it was a Light Cruiser of some Type 2 Civilization, albeit not very advanced from everything that he had seen. The spaceships from the majority of Type 2 Civilizations were fairly powerful and they were mostly used by either space pirates, Ravengers or Star Mercenaries. Mostly because they were rather affordable, especially those of the lower specter of the Type 2 Civilization while being still fairly advanced. And because the space pirates and Ravengers mainly operated in variouswless zones in the Gxy or were focusing their criminal activities on various Type 1 Civilizations which didn''t really have the power to repel them, they were most suitable for them. "This ship has been identified to be a Light Cruiser from Nilianis Federation, a Type 2 Civilization from the edges of the North-Eastern Quadrant. The approximate price for this ship in its current state would be 50,000 Universal Credits in these ends, within the territories of less developed civilizations and nations, the price could be even twice or thrice of it." Nothing like firm price everywhere in the Gxy wasn''t really a trend because every nation and race had a different level of technology, so it was only natural if he went with something like this to The Eternal Imperium of Asurya, he would get far less than if he. For example, sold it to Type 1 Civilization, which would do everything to get their hands on more advanced technology. So, the price was pretty much rtively depending on the ce where it was being sold. Even though 50,000 Universal Credits was a lot, unfortunately, he would have to leave the Light Cruiser here. "So, leaving it here..." Right now, he didn''t really have the means to bring back the ship with him, as unfortunate it was; the Obscurus didn''t have the necessary armaments to bring back the spaceship back with him or to process the ship. Unfortunately, he didn''t have a Processing Ship or he would be able to process this small pirate crew into the natural resources. Processing Ships were humongous space hulks, where even the smallest of them was more than ten kilometers in length. Enormous giants whose sole purpose was processing the spacecraft, minerals and ores into something usable directly in space. They were mainly used to clean out the battlefields after the space battles or as supply ships attached to war fleets so that they could manufacture ammunition and other necessary things on the spot. One could think of them as huge space factories that were floating in space and mining entire asteroids in a short span of time. It was also something that he decided to buy at ater date, though the Processing Ships in Star Citizen Online were extremely pricy. Even the cheapest cost around a few million Universal Credits; if he decided to buy a more advanced model, then it would cost something around thirty million Universal Credits at least. With that being decided, Arcturus headed directly to themand center that was on the top of the pirate Light Cruiser, while asionally cutting down some space pirates that were blocking his path, but none could hinder him for a long time. At the same time, he was cursing at the pirates because the entire spaceship was one giant trash bin, as nobody has ever cleaned this dammed thing, probably never, though he wouldn''t expect anything different from the space pirates. When he finally arrived at themand deck of the Pirate Light Cruiser, he saw there were approximately fifteen pirates; all of them were human males with light brown skin and wearing ragtag armor like the other ones that Arcturus saw. Though probably the captain looked more eyecatching,pared to the rest of the pirate crew, as he was more luxuriously d than his underlings, not to mention he was also wearing some really basic primitive Exoskeleton. Within the pirate crews, the leader and high-ranking pirates were the ones who had the best equipment of the entire crew. They would also get the best weapons and equipment that the band could get their hands on. Before the captain of the Bloodskull Pirates could say anything, Arcturus dashed at him and before he could react, he stabbed his Power Sword into his neck, killing the pirate captain in one hit. He didn''t waste any seconds of ramblings of a dead man with his speech about how he would kill him and other shit. He read enough novels to know that it was an utter waste of time, so he attacked outright. Now the captain was killed, the rest of the pirates panicked on the spot because there was no real chain ofmand for them if their leader was killed. The Exoskeletons were good, but they only enhanced the physical parameters, not the senses of the person, so they were typically inferior to genuinely physically augmented people. It was not like it mattered because Arcturus didn''t waste any moment and started swiftly attacking the other pirates who were armed with the basic weaponry they could find. Neither of them even had some basic understanding of the weaponbat and slowly, they were all disposed of by him. With the pirates on the deck being killed, he didn''t care about the rest that remained on the ship, as they were barging their way into the escape shuttles. Probably thinking that they could still escape, so he ordered Alice to lock down the hangar and teleport the goods and contraband back to the Cargo Room of the Obscurus, before he started searching through the corpses of the pirates. The ones that were on themand deck were, for sure, the higher-ups of the Bloodskull Pirates, so for sure, they would have better things than themon grunts. Chapter 8: Aftermath of the First Battle At least it would make his mood better because he was somewhat unsatisfied with the fact that all of them were killed so quickly. In fact, he wanted to have a good fight against someone to stimte his skills. "Several Credit Chips of various currencies. And key to the vault." From the corpse of the pirate captain, he obtained a small key that most likely belonged to the treasury that the pirate captain had in his quarters, which were right next to themanding deck. So, he didn''t waste any time as he went straight for the captain''s chambers and opened the safe that wasn''t even hidden. In fact, the only things that were in the safe were Credit Chips with several thousand Universal Credits on them, which was rather good. "Okey... teleport me out and save the recording of the destruction so we can im the bounties." Arcturus stated as he was then teleported by Alice back to themand deck of the Obscurus in an instant moment. If he wanted to change the Credit Chips to Universal Credits, he would need to go to the Cosmic Vaultbank and open an ount there, where they would transfer these Credit Chips for the Universal Credits. Though most of the Credits Chips Alice identified as local currencies of Type 1 Civilizations, so even if there were a lot of them, most of them didn''t really have any value, and after being converted to the Universal Credits, he would get the abysmal amount. Otherwise, he didn''t have much use for the currencies of Type 1 Civilizations. *** Command Deck of the Obscurus As Arcturus was teleported back to the Obscurus, he looked at thest remaining spacecraft before he ordered Alice to fire from one of the main sma Batteries of Obscurus. The moment it fired, the pirate Light Cruiser exploded into an enormous explosion as the ship was obliterated from existence. It was a beautiful one. Explosion was an art itself... It was the sacred truth. Immediately after the Cruiser was destroyed with the remainder of the Bloodskull Pirates, the mission waspleted, and he received the first reward from the System that somehow ended in this new reality together with him. [Mission: Pirate Attack has beenpleted! Description: Destroy the Pirate Crew attempting to rob your ship. Reward: Due to this being the first missionpleted as the weing bonus to the new reality, the reward has been increased: Asurya Gic Temte Serum (Highborne Variant and Neural Extr Terminal Gene Imnts)] Arcturus didn''t know what the reward was, because there was nothing like the Asurya Species within the Star Citizen Online. Though he new that it must be something that would give him huge benefits in the long run. "Alice, what exactly is the Asurya Race? Do you have something in the database from the pirates aside from it being the race that created The Eternal Imperium of Asurya?" Now, he hoped that the pirates had enough information about the wider gxy, and at the same time, he made a mental note to absorb as much information about the new dimension as possible. He didn''t wish to remain as an ignorant country bumpkin, information was power and it was something that he desperatelycked right now. As unfortunate as it was, the pirates had only some tidbits in their databanks and there was no connection to the Extr. Not to mention, as he was right now, hacking and connecting directly into the Extr without further information with just capabilities of his current A.I. would be suicidal and could have some unforeseen severe consequences. "Asuryans are a subspecies of the Human Race initially originating from the Earth in the Milky Way Gxy. The pirate ships didn''t have much about their data banks about, aside from it being a very young race, barely around one thousand years old, that appeared when their fleet jumped out of the wormhole a few centuries ago. Theynded on the Mega Mogon I., which waster renamed to Asurya, to reflect the leading ideology of the Asuryani people. Over the course of centuries, Asuryans embarked on the path of Gical Engineering after excavating the data banks of fallen Type 3 Civilization and grew into one of the hegemons of the Andromeda Gxy. The Asuryani Race and their Imperium are renowned for their military, as their society is one of the most unique, revolving only around Military Service and Warrior Culture, creating the best warriors and soldiers possible. Aside from that, their society is a bit, istionist, as they have rather a small poption evenpared to the rest of the nations in the Andromeda Gxy. Aside from that, their nation is highly xenophobic towards the races that they deem weak, which is most of the species, in fact, aside from a few exceptions. Additionally to that, their Militaristic and Warrior society is built on the principles of absolute Meritocracy, and practically, the whole poption is in the military of their Empire in various branches. Within the Andromeda Gxy, they are one of the strongest powers and are one of the few that are fully capable of repelling any of the Extragctic Threats at any time." It was rather an impressive story; he suspected that they were basically a space version of the Third Reich and in fact, he wasn''t that far from the truth. There were also some additional information about their society and so on, but the pirates were avoiding the territories of the Eternal Imperium of Asurya like the gue. While the Asuryans didn''t really bother themselves with the pirates outside their territories, if they saw pirate ships, they would destroy them with extreme prejudice. However, there were some differences from it, even though it was a nation greatly founded on the principles of totalitarianism and fascism. Mainly they were less xenophobic than one would expect, though they mostly directed their disdain toward weak species... Only a few could earn their respect. The Eternal Imperium of the Asurya was a highly militaristic and warrior society. Everything within the Imperium revolved aroundbat, military service, soldiers, fights, but at the same time, their people were also splendid at researching advanced technologies and were regarded as one of the physically and gically most advanced races across the known gxies. Chapter 9: Heading For... "Interesting that there were so much information about their background in the data banks of the pirate ship. Also, what are the so-called scourges of the space that you mentioned?" He then asked as the holographic projection of his A.I. continued her exnation. "Basically, two species are categorized as Extragctic Scourges of the Stars. Namely the Arachnid Swarm and Mind Flyers. Both of them are extremely dangerous and only a few Civilizations and Nations have enough power to repel them entirely. Even some of thergest interster empires were brought down by a single Hive Fleet of Arachnids or by powerful Mind Flyer Warlord." Hearing this made him a bit nervous because this was an entirely new addition, as within the Star Citizen Online, there was not even a single word about something like space bugs devouring entire civilizations or Mind Flyers enving entire worlds. "And the Veredan Republic?" Right now, there were only two possible choices for Arcturus to go, either to the Eternal Imperium of Asuryan or to the Veredan Republic. The Crystallis Hegemony was basically a no-go because it belonged to the Crystallis Race, a Lithoid-Humanoid Species, and he didn''t really wish to go to any other Type 2 Civilization that was in the vicinity. And he wasn''t very interested in going to the territories within the Type 1 or Type 2 Civilizations at all; with their primitive technology, there was no way, that they would even have the ability to provide fuel to his starship. "Veredan Republic is a congregation of several species functioning on the democratic government. It is a huge opposite to the society of the Asuryan; their technology level is high, but not on the level of the Imperium, though they have farrger territory. At the same time, it is to be noted, that the Republic is a deeply corrupt nation and highly ineffective; as long as one has money, there is nothing that is impossible to buy within the Republic, which leads to many unscrupulous elements getting into the power. Right now, they are facing severe problems after the recent invasion by one of the Archanid Hive Fleets. Around ten years ago, they lost entire Star Segments and several thousands ofs of various sses to the Arachnids, mainly due to their ipetence, but they managed to repel the Hive Fleet with the sheer numbers." This wasn''t really surprising; most of the democratic regimes became degenerated and corrupted as hell; at the same time, hearing that they only barely repelled the Arachnid Hive Fleet wasn''t something that he wanted to hear. While he was cutting his way through the pirate Light Cruiser, Alice was supplying him with information about the gxy... And the Arachnids were one of the scourges of the space and stars. Nobody knew where they came from; aside from that they didn''t originate from either of the mapped and known gxies and were basically Extragctical Species that were devouring everything in their path. The lesser bugs were as stupid as they could get, but their upper caste was as intelligent as some of the most advanced Artificial Intelligences. Due to this, Arcturus didn''t want to create a base in a nation that could be wiped out at any time. From what he heard from Alice, the Republic paid a very hefty price in repelling the Hive Fleet and destroying the Hive. For that, the Asuryans were a much safer ce, because theirs and space was much more secure. At the same time, once he got the Citizenship of the Eternal Imperium of Asurya and as the Highborne at that, he would have a much easier time living in the Imperium. While living in the spaceship wasn''t actually that bad, he wanted to have a home on a real, not on a metal floating in the endless space. Perhaps after some time, he could even buy his own private... That didn''t sound bad, having a nice private world just for him, where he could build his home and enjoy some peace and sce. Arcturus was intrigued by the society of the Eternal Imperium of Asurya... he knew that if he took the Gene Temte Serum, he would get the Race Change to the Asuryan Highborne, meaning that he would fit well with the Imperial Society. Race Changes within Star Citizen Online were very rare; most of the items that allowed the Race Change were extremely scarce and one could obtain them only through a very small number of missions. Though some of the most advanced star nations had the ability to change the other species into their own, but such ones could be counted on one hand. This, counting together with the fact that he would obtain tremendous bonuses and benefits to his physique, would also greatly lessen the number of opportunities as not many species liked them... "So... what do you think is the best course of action?" In the end, Arcturus decided to ask his Central Artificial Intelligence for advice, even though right now, as Alice was, herputing capabilities were nothing spectacr; she was still hyper-intelligent Artificial Intelligence. "ording to all avable data, it would be best to set course for the Imperium. If Master is considered Asuryan Highborne, he will get a lot of benefits from the state, even if working as a Star Mercenary. or Bounty Hunter. At the same time, if Master wished to havend and estate on the, then the Imperium is the best choice, as their worlds are best defended against any possible threats." In the end, Arcturus decided to use the Asurya Gic Temte Serum because the physical specifications of the Asuryans were too high and too tempting for him just to pass the things. "Set course for the nearest outpost of the Eternal Imperium." He ordered the A.I. of Obscurus as he departed to his chambers to inject himself with the Asurya Gic Temte Serum. This little thing was one of the main reasons why he decided to go into the Imperium because it would give him even more power. And increased limits for even greater heights, something that he was very greedy for. Chapter 10: Asuryani "Approximate time of arrival at the nearest Star System controlled by the Eternal Imperium of Asurya at the sublight speed is 3 days." Usage of the hyperdrive wasn''t rmended apparently right now because the ship had only a limited amount of Anti-Matter Fuel for the engines, and Alice wanted to save the majority of it for emergency situations in case they encountered some powerful enemy where the energy would be needed for the fight. ording to the information that Alice extracted from the pirate databanks, the only real dangers in this entire Star Sector were the space pirate crews like the Bloodskull Pirates. So he didn''t really fear that he would encounter some real threat, and if they did, then Alice would escape into the Hyperspace. Meanwhile, they were on their way to the nearest Star System under the control of the Eternal Imperium of Asurya; Arcturus retreated to his chambers to use the Asurya Gic Temte Serum on himself. The Synergy that he got as a reward from the mission. When he yed around a little with the interference of the System, he got a few interesting pieces of news about it. The first thing was that the missions werepletely random and were rted to making some kind of achievement. Like the mission he had right now because it was the first time he was fighting against the pirates in the future or he would, if it meant some kind of significance. "The sole thing that I need to do is to inject this little thing into my body." Saying that, he then injected the Synergy into his arm as the blue liquid that was inside spread through his body at almost instantaneous speed. Billions of tiny Nanomachines then started recreating the image of his body to that of the Asuryan Highborne. Highbornes were the strongest gic Lineage of the Asuryani people; they were literarily bred and gene-engineered into perfection. When they were marrying, they were allowed only to marry partners that fit their Gic Sequence to create even stronger and more perfect descendants. Due to this, their limits were much higher than the average Asuryani specimens and many of the Highborne after some time, had the possibility of weakening a Psionic Power. Thankfully, Arcturus''s physique had already been elevated to the Epsilon-Grade upon his transmigration or else; he would probably go crazy from the pain that he was feeling right now, as it was almost overwhelming. ording to Alice''s analysis, his physique was right now approximately 7-times stronger than that of the baseline Human. On top of that, it wasn''t the end of it, because his physique was still in the development stage. He knew that with enough proper training, he could raise his physique to the limits of what should be the peak of the Epsilon-Grade, which would be ten times of the baseline human. After that, he would need to obtain another Gic Concoction to undergo another augmentation of his body. It seemed that his affinity was rtively good, and with the Asurya Gic Temte Serum his innate talent by a significant degree. Unstreghtenened Asuryan specimens was approximately 3-times physically stronger than baseline human, and most of their citizens, after gic argumentation upon their birth, would reach Epsilon-Grade. Those in the military were given even better Gical Augumentaetions and Enhaements, making them physically something that could be already regarded as superhuman. Interestingly enough, even with all of this, the Asuryans were not physically the strongest species, as there were several races that could easily contest against them or even outmatch them in the aspect of their physical strength. Arcturus gritted his teeth as he waited for the Nanomachines that were creating some kind of nodes in his body, but soon enough, he lost consciousness as he was brought to sleep by the Nanomachines within his body. *** Two dayster, unknown Star System, Master Chambers at the Obscurus. For the past two days, the Central Artificial Intelligence of the Obscurus was piloting the spaceship toward their target, which was one of the Space Fortresses of the Eternal Imperium of Asurya. During the past two days, they didn''t meet any trouble, aside from one small pirate band of clearly "alien" origin, as the pirates belonged to the humanoid species that she wasn''t familiar with. However, they had more ships than the Bloodskull Pirates and their bounty was 40,000 Universal Credits altogether. So Red Queen destroyed their small band and killed every single one of them while recording it so her Master could im the bounty from the Bounty Hunter Guild. She also managed to assimte the Virtual Intelligence that were aboard of the spaceships of the pirates, because they had some slightly advanced tech. This caused Alice to start evolving a bit, but it would be a long time until she could beparable to the most advanced A.I. within the Andromeda Gxy. For Artificial Intelligence, the process of evolution was rtively straightforward, as they only needed to be bigger and expand. They would automatically refine themselves as they spread like a virus. The easiest way of achieving this was devouring and assimting other Artificial Intelligences or Virtual Intelligences or even programs with highputing capabilities. At the same time, she was also constantly watching over her Master, who was still unconscious, but his bodily functions were getting stronger and stronger. His entire physique was getting stronger under the augmentations of the billions of Nanomachines... His muscles were getting denser as were his bones, and all of his internal organs were enveloped in some sort of membrane, whose sole purpose was preventing the internal injuries. She took the initiative and took control of the Nanomachines within his body because she sensed that the Nanomachines could be controlled by someone from the Eternal Imperium of Asurya. Which was a rather smart move of how to get ultimate control over their citizen. Probably only those who had let some advanced Artificial Intelligence into their Neural Extr Terminal Gene Imnts could destroy this connection that the average Neural Extr Terminal Gene Imnts had with the A.I. in the Eternal Imperium of Asurya. Chapter 11: The Imperial Space The Red Queen was rather surprised, because if she didn''t do it now when the Nanomachines were still in the process of awakening, then she wouldn''t have enough power to sever the connection. For such a thing, she wasn''t advanced enough. As they were continuing their journey to the territory of the Eternal Imperium of Asurya, Arcturus started slowly opening his eyes, as he attempted to sit on the bed. Contrary to what he expected, he didn''t feel tired or any pain at all; one could say that he was in the most pristine and best condition that he had ever been in. He was feeling excellent, strong and full of vitality. This was the work of the Nanomachines within his body. "How long was I out?" He asked as he looked through the windows, noticing that they were in different Star System, considering the fact that they were right now in Binary Star System. "Master was unconscious for 49 Hours, 12 minutes and 22 seconds altogether. I have been monitoring master''s body after he injected himself with the Synergy and Neural Extr Terminal Gene Imnts were created by the Nanomachines." Instantly the red holographic projection of a little girl appeared in front of him, as she started exining what had happened during the time he was out. While he was disturbed that the Red Queen decided to hijack the control of the Nanomachines within his body, but at the same time, it wasn''t that bad, because if not her, then he would still have the connection to the Eternal Imperium of Asurya. As it was another way for the regime to gain the ultimate control of its citizens. Altogether, they had, right now, contraband for approximately 70,000 Universal Credits and two bounties to be imed in the overall worth of 55,000 Universal Credits, making it 125,000 Universal Credits. This was already a decent amount; it was nowhere near to buying an advanced spaceship from a space nation as advanced as Imperium of Asurya, but it would be enough to buy some equipment and, most importantly... Droids. While teleporting technology was good, it also consumed a lot of power from the engines because the energy output for sessful teleportation was big, and teleportingrge amounts of cargo was even worse. So, for that, Arcturus needed Droids, which would be controlled by Alice to do all the menial jobs; for now, the basic Working Droids and Mining Droids would do the job. With the remaining Universal Credits, he should be able to buy also some additional equipment and food. Thest thing was one of the more problematic matters because, within the spaceship, there was nothing to eat or drink. Fortunately, due to my strengthened physique, he could be without any food or water for a prolonged time; any longer than ten days would be bad. This metabolism of people with superhuman physiques was fast and Arcturus needed a lot of food and water to remain in the best shape. "We are now one hour from the Rylos Star System, which is the nearest Imperial Outpost of the Eternal Imperium, including the Trading Hub with nearby civilizations and space-faring nations." Now, as he heard that, he needed to get clothed as he then looked into the mirror, mildly surprised by the changes in his appearance. His skin got a bit paler, his hair looked like literal shining gold and his eyes turned from original electric blue to shining purple. At the same time, his teeth were getting a bit sharp edges and he noticed that his entire physique got more muscr andpact at the same time. After wearing his clothes, he started assimting the information that could be, with the certain help of Alice, loaded directly into his brain. However, the process was rather painful and gave him powerful headaches. Still, he at least managed to obtain the basic information about the new reality he was in and the major yers. At least based on what the two pirate bands had in their data banks, which, for some sort ofmon sense, was actually enough. In one hour, they arrived at the Rylon Star System, and the moment they arrived, they received the transmission in the Gctic Common. "Ship of unknown origins, this is Command of the Starfort Lycurgos of the Eternal Imperium of Asurya; identify yourself or be destroyed." The moment they received the transmission, Arcturus understood everything because one of the first things that got uploaded into his brain was the entire Gctic Common, for starters, and after that, the Asuryani Language. "This is Obscurus, an unaffiliated ship. We wish for docking and registration." Aside from that, Alice even sent them a video recording with an official request for registration for Arcturus, as he was of the Asuryani Species without Citizenship. Such thing albeit very rare, tended to happen for the Asuryani that were born outside of the Imperial Space. Mostly for the researchers, colonists, or people that were specifically sent to missions outside of the Imperial Space for a prolonged period of time. "We are processing the request Obscurus. Dock into the Northern Quadrant, where the Officer of the Imperial Administration will await you for the registration." The entire Starfort Lycurgos was a humongous space fortress that looked rather like a city than a fortress due to its enormous size. The diameter of the thing was certainly more than thirty kilometers for sure. These humongous, massive, mobile space fortresses were capable of all methods of traveling in space. They had inbuilt Sublight Engines, Hyperdrive Engines, and even had special devices capable of Wormhole Travel, which was probably the most advanced method of traveling the space as it was instantaneous travel. Arcturus knew that this was Aegis-ss Spacefort, one of the best in the Imperial Military. These things were vital for the Imperial Navy as forward Fleet bases and they were also essential in the Imperial Strategy in defending their border Star Systems. While the Imperium had a policy of fortifying every single world to ridiculous extremes, they were also making use of the Space Fortresses in case there was no suitable that could be turned into the Fortress World. Chapter 12: Imperial Citizen Starfort Lycurgos, Northern Quadrant, Some timeter Arcturus looked in wonder at everything as his ship docked at the Northern Quadrant of the Starfort Lycurgos. There were tens of spaceships of various types and even more smaller vessels. He donned the armor that he was wearing when he attacked the space pirates; as he exited the spaceship Obscurus he adjusted his hair. When he exited the spaceship, he saw there several Imperial Officers; all of them were wearing ck uniforms, with golden and red trimmings; some of them had different numbers of stars on their patches, signifying their ranks. All of them were naturally humans, though when they saw his facial features, all of them looked mildly surprised, though they did a good job at hiding it. The Registration that he mentioned when he arrived at the Star System was basically for the Citizenship of the Imperium. He already had prepared a rather believable tale that should be highly possible and also passable enough for the Imperial Administration to buy. After he got the Citizenship of the Imperium, he could move freely within the borders of the Imperium to a certain degree. "Please, Sir this way." He was a bit surprised by their polite tone, but he suspected that it was due to him being the Highborn variant of the Asuryani. The Highbornes were rare gic mutations among the standardized Asurayni, as they had tremendous potential, especially for the Psionics. Among the almost one trillion of the Asuryans, only approximately 10% of the poption had the Psionic potential. And from the overall poption, only something below 0,01% were the Highborne, the best of their very own species. The subsequent interrogation went rather well because he was giving them the well-crafted story that Alice had prepared. Basically, he was born outside of the Imperial Space to a pair of deep space explorers and was taken care of by the Artificial Intelligence on the ship. "Please fill out the papers, including your name, age, ce of birth and insert the sample of DNA for the verification of the status. The rest of the things would be finished by Artificial Intelligence of the Imperial Administration." The entire procedure was rather straightforward and simple as he filled up the data just as Alice prepared for him to do so and gave a drop of his blood as the DNA sample, something that he wasn''t really thrilled about. But it was needed for the citizenship of the Imperium; aside from that, without the DNA sample, it was impossible to verify his status as the Highborne of the Asuryani people. He didn''t know how it was possible, but soon enough, it was over as he got his Citizenship ID from the Officer who was in charge of the procedure. "Thank you, Colonel Ruford." The middle-aged Asuryan Colonel of the Imperial Military then nodded and passed him a small chip with additional information. "As the returnee and Highborne at that, you could attend the Imperial Academy Courses through the Imperial Netsphere; I would rmend doing so as it would get you better social credit. Is there anything that you need?" Hearing the question, Arcturus actually thought over the matter before he spoke. "During my journey to the Imperial Space, I have encountered some pirates, who were mostly unfortunate to perish under my sword. I was wondering where is the local Branch of the Bounty Hunter Guild so I can im their bounties? Aside from that, I also have some contraband from the pirates, mostly from what the pirates were robbing from lesser species." Colonel Ruford wasn''t really surprised by that, as he expected something like that, because it was clear that Arcturus was crossing over the Lawless Zone of Space. There were a lot of space pirates and Ravengers roaming those ces. "In the Western-Quadrant of Lycurgos, there is a trade zone where you will find everything, including merchants and traders that would buy the contraband. Of course, the contraband must be checked for the banned substances and other prohibited objects." Arcturus knew that not one Imperial Officer would care that he was selling stolen goods of lesser civilizations. Aside from that, he knew that it was important to report this because he didn''t really wish to be charged with some criminal charges, considering the super strict penalties for breaking thew. "Be my guest." A few thousand Universal Credits in illegal contraband was nothing, so he didn''t really care about that. He also knew that he wouldn''t be able to avoid the scanning of his cargo at all because the Imperium had extremely strict and precise border controls. There was nothing that could slip through their borders and they were checking everyone very thoroughly. *** Western Quadrant of the Starfort Each Quadrant was divided into severalyers, theyer where Arcturus was heading right now was one of the deeperyers of the Western Quadrant. He was wearing his armor and hood covering his face, with his Power Sword Aetherius strapped on his left side. Now that he had obtained citizenship, he could connect to the Imperial Netsphere without being found by the central A.I. that would threaten him like a rogue element. However if he had very advanced A.I., far more advanced like that of the Red Queen Alice, then the situation would be different. The Bounty Hunter Guild was extragctic was an institution that regted theplicated profession that was the bounty hunting trade throughout the gxy. Ensuring the legality of hunting for its members, it worked alongside gctic governments and curated bounties for its members. The Bounty Hunter Guild operated on the essence of epting bounties, mainly on people such as rogue elements, criminals, but also on everyone as long the other party was capable of paying for it. The Branch of the Bounty Hunter Guild within the Imperium was small because the Imperium didn''t really trust the other organizations too much, especially the ones that were so widespread, like the Bounty Hunter Guild. At the same time, they naturally allowed simr organizations to build branches across their territory in specifically chosen locations. In this way, the Bounty Hunter Guild and Star Mercenary Association were allowed to operate within the Imperial territory to a certain degree. Chapter 13: Bounty Hunter Guild The Bounty Hunter Guild''s Branch within the Starfort Lycurgos was a rtively small building, but that was enough, as it was mostly empty. Aside from a few people, mainly Asuryans that were present, there was literally no one. The building itself looked very simplistic, even inside, as the design was heavily utilitarian, focusing more on practicality than for anything else. The Bounty Hunters and Star Mercenaries didn''t really have a lot of missions within the Imperial Territories and only a few of the Asuryani people decided to work as the Bounty Hunters or Star Mercenaries. Most retired soldiers who didn''t wish to really retire and wanted to make some money for themselves went to work as the Bounty Hunters and Star Mercenaries, who were afterward typically affiliated to the Imperium in some way. Most of them afterward served as spies and informators of the Eternal Imperium of Asurya. Deciding not to waste any more time, he went to the receptionist, who was a middle-aged man with short ck hair and beard, and sharp yellow eyes. The man was reading something through holographic projection on the Imperial Netsphere or Extranect; Arcturus didn''t really know which one. And because this ce was mostly empty, there wasn''t really anything to do aside from finding something to keep himself entertained. Arcturus went to the counter as he tapped several times on the deck as the receptionist canceled the holograph and turned his attention to him. "What can the Bounty Hunter Guild do for you today?" The receptionist asked as he took a nce at Arcturus, who was mostly looking around the building for the time being. There were not many people who wereing to the Branches within the territory of the Eternal Imperium of Asurya... "Register and also submit two bounties on the space pirate crew." The man behind the counter nodded and passed him a simr datapad, which he filled and was registered within the Bounty Hunter Guild as Bounty Hunter. Not only that but due to their close rtionship, he was also registered within the Star Mercenary Association as the Star Mercenary. Both the Star Mercenary Association and Bounty Hunter Guild were closely tied to each other, so Arcturus applied for membership of the Star Mercenary Association right here, from the Branch of the Bounty Hunter Guild. Soon enough, his Neural Extr Terminal Gene Imnts showed him the Bounty Hunter ID. [Name: Acturus Al-Yesod Crawford Code: Terminus Total Missions Taken: 0 Mission Completed: 0 Bounties: 2 Session Rate: N/A Method of Contact: Lightwave xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx-xxx Objects of Activity: - Bounty Hunting (Pirates, Ravagers, Rogues, Criminals) - Assassination - Escort - Space Cleaning (Space Pirates)] After the initial registration was done, he could take the mission directly from the Extr or Imperial Netsphere through his NETGI. After that, he submitted the two Bounties for the two space pirate crews that he destroyed and received altogether 80,000 Universal Credits for both of them. It was even higher than he had initially anticipated, which made his mood very good. Now, the only thing that he needed to do was to sell the things that he robbed from the space pirates. And because he was within the Eternal Imperium of Asurya, nobody really cared that he was legally going to sell things and goods that were robbed from several Type 1 or even Type 2 Civilizations and space-faring nations. For the time being, he would remain at the Lycurgos Starfort, as he had enough Universal Credits to stay in the Lycurgos Starfort for a long time. Even though dwelling in the Starfort was rtively expensive, it would take Acturus a few days to arrive at the nearest habitable. As he learned from Colonel Ruford and from the information obtained, Rylon Star System was on the frontiers against Arachnid Swarm. Within the Andromeda Gxy, they were located in the North-West Quadrant of the Andromeda Gxy, in the Unknown Regions of Space. Gxies were also ever-expanding, and they were too expanding at a slow rate. Arachnids were constantly attacking the borders of the Eternal Imperium of Asurya from the fringes of the unknown regions of the Andromeda Gxy; that was also the reason why they were Imperials stationed here the Ramiel-ss Starfort. The closest habitable world was a good few Star Systems away from the Rylon Star System, which was the closest world of the Imperium, which was naturally a Fortress World, like any other world of the Imperium. Even this system, which served no different purpose than defending the borders of the Imperium and Imperial Space, was defended to the extreme, and aside from the Starfort, there was an entire Star Fleet of the Imperium stationed here. Together with various inteary-based weapons and defensive measures, including the Star Defense Grid. *** Slowly, after finishing some minor details, he left the branch of the Bounty Hunter Guild; he decided to go sell the things obtained from the space pirate crews that perished at his hands not long ago. "Alice, where is the best ce to sell the things from the pirates on the Lycurgos?" As he left the Branch of the Bounty Hunter Guild, he spoke to Red Queen Alice, who was hidden within his Neural Extr Terminal Gene Imnts. "Making a list of the Corporations that are dealing in business like this... wait for several seconds... I would rmend going to the Starlight Drive Yard Industries. It is partially owned by the state, so certainly, as Highborne Asuryani, you will get a very good price. Not to mention, they are also one of the biggest producers of the Spaceships and Droids in the Andromeda Gxy." Soon enough, he got his answer as he walked in the direction of the branch of the Starlight Drive Yard Industries that was at the Lycurgos Starfort. Many major tradingpanies and corporations of Imperial origins had their branches even at the Starforts of the Imperium. Reason for that? Profit, they could make a lot of money by providing their services to the Military directly on the Starforts, because each of the Starforts in the Imperial Military served aside from being a Military Fortress as an enormous trading hub. Chapter 14: Starlight Drive Yard Industries Interestingly enough as Arcutrus was walking through the streets of the Stafort of Ramiel-ss Lycurgos, he noticed that everything was giving some weird feeling, especially in the architecture that the entire ce was designed. The Gothic architecture was brought directly to the space-faring era, creating a rather unique view of the culture of the Asuryani. It was still very beautiful in its own sense, though at the same time, it had a rather gloomy vibe for more positive-thinking people. But the Asuryans they didn''t really care because everything was decorated in the national symbols of the Imperium, which was naturally dragon. And for the note, apparently, dragons really existed here, though they were not fantasy creatures as literature was depicting them, but rather very powerful Space Beasts. Aside from that, another thing that surprised him was the cleanliness of the entire ce, which was mainly due to two factors. From brief observations, he noticed that people were not making any mess or creating garbage. The second thing was probably tens of Droids that looked like thick disk-shaped things that were moving across the streets and maintaining the cleanliness of the ce for the entire time. While the district where he was right now, was enormous, it there were not many people due to its nature. Most of the people that were on the Starfort were soldiers from the Imperial Military and its branches, so most of them didn''t have the luxury going to the trading district of the Starfort. Though he could see a few of the Asuryani here and there, most of them were defined by their physical traits, especially their height, the almost perfect ethereal appearance of beauty and muscr physique. That was only natural, considering the fact that the entire species was basically gically engineered from scratch. As he read, while, they may be descended from the humans of Earth, in fact, there was already very littlemon they had with them. Mostly due to the extensive gical modifications that the Asuryani embarked on. The Asuryani people were genecrafted to the utmost perfection with their advanced gic technology that was considered to be the most advanced in both the Andromeda Gxy and Milky Way Gxy. It didn''t take him long to arrive at the local branch of the Starlight Drive Yard Industries, which was located not very far from the branch of the Bounty Hunter Guild. Contrary to the almost empty Bounty Hunter Guild, the branch of the Starlight Drive Yard Industries was full of people. Arcturus saw there a lot of Imperial Officers that were buying supplies for their units or even civilians buying and ordering this or even representatives of the other Companies doing business. He then waited in the line, was soon enough greeted by the receptionist, who was a young blonde-haired woman with clear azure eyes. "Wee to the Starlight Drive Yard Industries; what can we offer to you, Sir?" She said with a pleasant voice, as he quickly thought of what he needed. In fact, there were many and many things that he needed to buy for the Obscurus, as his spaceship wasrgely iplete from the start. As unfortunate as it was, he didn''t have enough time to finish the spaceship when he was still ying the Star Citizen Online. This was partially the result of his megalomania because, as his first ship, he wanted to create an enormous Capital Ship, and of the Juggernaut-ss at that. It required a tremendous amount of sources, in fact, something that could be gathered through a very long time ying the game or investing a lot of money, real cash into the game. He did both on the lower end, and he still managed to construct the ship to an excellent degree. Right now, his greatest advantage was his freedom, so as long as he had enough Construction Droids, he could give control over them to his A.I., which would do the rest of the job. "I have some cargo to sell and droids to buy." He was already imagining how much Universal Credits he would spend here, but there was nothing he could do about it. Unless he constructed a small factory within the Obscurus for Alice to manufacture things or have Alice hack the Gctic Markets... Thest one was naturally said as a joke only because hacking the Market was impossible or even the Banks, because they were protected by the most advanced Artificial Intelligences and Cybeic Defenses in existence. "I see... wait for a moment and head toward the VIP Lodge Number 1." Hearing that, Arcturus did as the receptionist said and went to the VIP Lodge Number 1 to wait for someone of higher status within the Starlight Drive Yard Industries to talk with him. He knew that due to his Highborne status, he would receive preferential treatment from the any of the state-owned or state-backed corporations of the Eternal Imperium of Asurya, so he naturally waited within the ce. The entire VIP Lodge looked much betterpared to the rest of the ce, mainly because it was far more luxurious and radiated opulence and luxury. This was probably because it was also used to receive foreign guests and dignitaries. So, for the sake of appearances, they needed to put this up, despite their utiliziatrain and simplistic approach to everything that wasn''t meant for propagandistic purposes. He waited in the VIP Lodge Number 1 for more than ten minutes while serving himself some coffee and lying on the couch. In the end, he wasn''t hurrying anywhere, so he had time to enjoy the hospitality in the ce. After an additional five minutes, the doors opened, revealing an elderly-looking man with whitish hair and shining azure eyes, signifying his heritage as the Highborne Asuryani specimen. "Sorry for the wait; there were some serious matters with the local Military Garrisons. Wee to the Lycurgos Branch of the Starlight Drive Yard Industries; I am the Branch Manager of this Branch, Karleon Alvix." In truth, Arcturus was surprised to see another of the Asuryani Highborne present. Chapter 15: Buying Droids (1) Arcturus observed the Branch Manager of the Starlight Drive Yard Industries closely, noticing the sharp edge aura around the man, something unnerving that was screaming danger about the elderly-looking Asuryani. For sure, the man was a skilled killer and deadly warrior; that was as much as he could tell from his body posture and the way he appeared. This was something that he knew from his personal experience on Earth; while he was a primary lecturer and professor at the University, he also practicedw as a barrister. His specialty in the area? War Criminals, hired killers and even professional assassins. So, he had some kind of third sense that allowed him to tell if someone was dangerous, especially if the person attempted to hide it. During his life on Earth, he met many professional assassins that he defended at court, always winning naturally. Or retired soldiers ormanders of units that were charged with War Crimes, which was prettymon and one of his specialties. There were a lot of them, considering the state that the Earth was in. The World War III left the world and global politics in a catastrophic state and both sides went all out in the war andmitted countless unspeakable things on both sides, which meant a lot of clients for him. And the Branch Manager of the Starlight Drive Yard Industries was certainly giving him an even more dangerous feeling than anything that he had felt before. It was clear that this elderly-looking man in luxurious clothing was something extremely deadly. "Thank you for your time, Brach Manager Alvix." Arcuturs said politely as he looked at the Branch Manager of the Starlight Drive Yard Industries Karleon Alvix. "So, what can the Starlight Drive Yard Industries do for the fellow member of the Asuryani Highborne?" Branch Manager Karleon Alvix sat opposite Arcturus, as he was holding a datapad in his hands. "Firstly, I have some cargo that I want to sell. Here is the list of the things; most of it was taken from the pirates who were robbing a bunch of Type 1 space nations and maybe some of the Type 2 ones." He then showed the holographic projection to the Branch Manager, who scanned the list with his eyes at a fast speed, calcting the price within a mere moment. "48,000 Universal Credits for the cargo." That was very simr to the price that the Red Queen Alice calcted, so he was another 48,000 Universal Credits richer. However, this was before he would start buying the Droids that he needed for his ship. Branch Manager of the Starlight Drive Yard Industries Karleon Alvix knew that the cargo originated from the pirates. Most probably robbed from their transport ships when the Type 1 Civilizations were trading among themselves. And naturally, he didn''t give a shit about that because Imperium would never really put Type 1 or even a heavy majority of the Type 2 Civilizations and Star Nations in their eyes. They were too inferior to evenin to them about something, so he naturally took the cargo, as it contained a lot of precious ores. From his time in the Imperial Navy, Karleon Alvix knew that the space pirates must have robbed some very important trading vessels, like very important and probably owned by the Star Nations themsleves. "Excellent, then; I need to buy a few droids... mainly three categories of droids: Mining Droids, Construction Droids and a few Battle Droids for protection. Naturally, I want the best ones that the Starlight Drive Yard Industries has avable." Arcturus knew that this was his initial investment, so he didn''t spare anything on the best Droids avable. He knew that as long as he kept improving andpeting in quests and collecting bounties, then Universal Credits would juste ande. "We have a rather extensive selection for all three types of Droids, especially for the Combat Droids; some of them are installed with even enhanced Basic A.I." The Basic A.I. that the Branch Manager of the Starlight Drive Yard Industries Kaenlor Avlix talked about wasn''t like Red Queen Alice that was on the Obscurus. She was in fact categorized as Sentient Super Artificial Intelligence. Compared to that, most of the Droids were installed with just Basic Artificial Intelligence, which wasn''t very advanced, but it was enough to be able to fulfill any task given to them and they were able to converse with any intelligent lifeform. But theycked the super advancedputing capabilities of more advanced Artificial Intelligences. The first thing that Arcturus started looking through were the Battle Droids, because he needed some internal defense of his ships. Even though the Droids have some Basic Artificial Intelligence, he nned for the Red Queen to act as the Hivemind. This, in turn, will strengthen the Red Queen and allow her to perfectlymand all of the Droids, while also evolving the Red Queen at tremendous speed because she would be assimialting the Artificial Intelligence of every single Droids. "This one looks interesting..." Arcturus said as he looked at the spider-looking Droid. "Aaah, yes the Spider Bastion... it is the newest Battle Droid developed by the Starlight Drive Yard Industries. We have stylized in biology of the spiders and it is indeed a marvel of engineering and killing. Each one of them has eight legs; every single one is capable of being used as a ded vibro weapon. Additionally, the Spider Bastion Droid is armed with several smaller Laser Weapons and has an in-built personal shield generator. It even has one smaller Main sma Weapon on the top. The entire Droid is made from the B-Grade Alloy that is used for the Military Spaceship, so even if the shields are destroyed, the durability of the Spider Bastion Droid is enormous." The more Arcturus listened to the Spider Bastion Droid, the more he wanted the dammed things on his ship. They would do a splendid job in guarding the spaceship, additionally, after Alice figured out the blueprints in the future, she could replicate them. "And their cost?" Something like that for sure would cost a good number of Credits. "10,000 Universal Credits per Unit." While it sounded little, it was actually a pretty high price. Chapter 16: Buying Droids (2) Something like this, only some richer people within the Gxy would be able to pay for that because not many would be able to give out such a number for just one Combat Droid, even though the Spider Bastion Droid was a small walking fortress. Considering the average sry within the Imperial Military was approximately 1,000 Universal Credits, it indeed sounded a lot. At the same time, as Arcturus absorbed the knowledge about the new reality he was in, he found out that the buying strength of even a single Universal Credit was huge. For example, one could rent a rtively huge t in a residential area of the big city was around 50 Universal Credits per month. Or dinner in a fine restaurant was only up to 2 Universal Credits. "I will take four of them." Arcturus said as he needed some good protection inside his ship in case something happened. Not to mention, it would take a long time until Red Queen managed to reproduce them because such Droids would for sure be made from very precious materials and ores. "Now, for the Mining Droids, I will take 50 of the X1 Mining Droids and 20 of the X1 Construction Droids." The X-Series of the Mining and Construction Droids were one of the best that the Starlight Drive Yard Industries had to offer. They were not the biggest or the most efficient, but they would be most suitable for his needs. Not to mention, they were rather affordable price-wise as each of them cost 500 Universal Credits, which was rather a good number considering his capabilities. Altogether, these seventy Droids would cost him around 35,000 Universal Credits. With the four Spider Bastion Droids, it would be 75,000 Universal Credits, which was a lot. "Would that be all?" It wasn''t every day that a customer who spent 75,000 Universal Credits came to such a remote Branch as this. "No, I also need some Anti-Matter Fuel Rods for my ship, probably around a hundred Units." The Branch Manager nodded his head as the overall price increased by another 10,000 Universal Credits. Every single Anti-Matter Fuel Rod was worth 100 Universal Credits and was enough to travel for a few weeks with maximum sunlight speed. "Then for the 4 Spider Bastion Droids, 50 X1-Mining Droids, 20 X1-Construction Droids and 100 Units of standard Anti-Matter Fuel Rods, it would be overall 85,000 Universal Credits. Naturally, the Starlight Drive Yard Industries, would like to give you a discount, so the final price is 80,000 Universal Credits." Arcturus nodded as he then transferred the 80,000 Universal Credits to the Branch of the Starlight Drive Yard Industries through the interference of the Neural Extr Terminal Gene Imnts. "Everything shall be ready within several hours and transported into the ship." With that being done, he just needed to give the control over the Droids to Red Queen and he would be ready to leave. Now he was left with 48,000 Universal Credits, though he would be probably going shopping soon enough. Aside from that, Obscurus wasrgely an unfished spaceship and he would need a good number of Universal Credits to finish the ship. There were many things that needed to be installed and finished, new facilities needed to be added and other things. One of the things that he nned for sure was the some sort of provisional factory or something to produce new Droids. Arcturus knew that he was one of the people who had Super Artificial Intelligence avable to him, so he nned to make use of it. While originally he would want to be a manufacturer and operate a big manufacturing corporation, such a thing was just wishful thinking because, from what he read about the market, it was nigh impossible to get licensing. That was done mainly due to the certain respect for the Artificial Intelligences, especially those far evolved, as there were many cases of rebellion, especially in the Milky Way Gxy, that was bearing the aftermath till this day. *** After Arcturus left the Branch of the Starlight Drive Yard Industries, he went to another ce, before he went to the Inner Quadrant to look for some dwelling. Once Red Queen got control over the Droids, she would be able to perform modifications to the ship. Especially some things like better baths and other things needed to be created within the Obscurus as the shipcked them entirely. He would leave the matter to Alice while giving her ess to his wallet so she could buy the materials she would need for the modifications. When Alice was scouring the NetSphere, she found that Force Forger was present at the Starfort, so he went there to order a custom made set of Battle Armor for himself. The thing that he was wearing was nothing extra and wouldn''t really protect him from even projectile-based weaponry. Force Forgers were rare within the known Universe, and not many were able to learn their secrets and master the wonders of the Force Forging. From what Arcutrus studied about them, they were able to forge the most powerful and advanced weapons used even by the Psionics. Right now, Arcturus didn''t have much money to buy some top-notch armor, but he needed something better than the gauntlets, chestte, and protectors he was wearing right now. For example, Aetheris, the Power Sword he was armed with right now, would probably cost a few hundred thousand Universal Credits... but a skilled Force Forger could make the Power Sword in a few hours. This wasn''t just about the technology anymore, but it also included the art of the cksmithing and usage of the Psionic Energy, something that even Arcturuscked. Their expertisey in forging the Force Armametns, the pinnacle of the weapons within the known Universe. But as long as they were paid, they would forge even regr weapons; for many, the Universal Credits were all they needed for a reason. "I would rmend going to the Force Forger as soon as possible master; it seems that the man would be departing from the Lycurgos in the near future." He heard Red Queen''s voice in his head as he was heading to the Force Forger with thest remaining Universal Credits that he had in his disposition. Thest thing that he needed andcked was proper armor. While he was stronger than a Baseline Human, in fact, he was still pretty weak and one bullet or good shot and he would be as good as dead. Chapter 17: Votanns of Dwarrowdelfs The Force Forger that Arcuturs was searching for was of the Votans of the Dwarrowdelfs... Votans were another of the species that were living within the Eternal Imperium of Asuyrya, originating from the Dwarrowdelfs that, was from the neighboring Star System where the homeworld of the Asuryani species was located. The Votanns were... basically something that one could ssify as Space Dwarves, in Arcturus''s opinion. They were one of the very few species that the Asuryani actually respected in fact. The Votans are an advanced, starfaring race who possess highly advanced technology and live amid the extreme environments that mark the resource-rich worlds of the gxy. They met the Asuryani not long after the establishment of the Imperium and the two cultures became allied, mostly due to the circumstances. Both of their species were very simr in many aspects, especially in the battle-oriented culture and soon enough, through a few decades, the Vonats of the Dwarrowdelfs were merged into the Imperium. Not only the space dwarves were the best Engineers and Force Forgers possible, but they were also extremely fierce warriors; theirbat prowess was often on par with that of the Asuryani Elites. Normally, though, the Votanns were not really leaving theirs, as they were rather reclusive folk who preferred staying on the ground or on the. Mining the ores, smelting the metals, forging weapons and armor. Arcturus soon enough arrived at the ce where the Force Forger was temporarily located, which was near the Imperial Armory. Apparently, he was here only for a short span of time, as some high-ranking members of the Imperial Army wanted personal armors forged for them. For that, only the Votanns were the best choice, and there were always a few of the traveling masters who were traveling through the stars and perfecting their craft to greater heights. "It should be here." Arcturus arrived at the ce that was near the Military District of the City, as he searched for Forging Street, basically a ce where various cksmiths had their forges. He found it a bit amusing and fascinating at the same time that the art of cksmithing survived till this day. Not only survived but also adapted and evolved with time, into something new and different. There he noticed a several Votanns were walking around the street, mingling together with the Asuryani people. The Votanns were indeed lookingpletely like the dwarves, with long beards and messy hair, bulging muscles and often wearing high-tech armor. It didn''t take him long to find the shop where the Votann Force Forger was temporarily dwelling for the time being. "Excuse me, would there be perhaps a Force Forger named Braigzird Kragcrest?" Arcturus entered the small shop that was located in one of the tall gothic-looking buildings, as the entire shop was basically a huge forge, with countless tools hanging around, but contrary to his expectation, it was also giving off the high-tech feeling. ''It looks like if youbined fantasy dwarves with the most modern technology possible...'' Arcturus looked around and saw many unfamiliar high-tech devices and in the middle of it, was an enormous forge. "Wer ya searching for me boya?" Turning around, to the heating light of the forge, he saw there a Votann. Standing at just under 1,2 meters tall, his muscr frame and thick, braided beard give him an imposing presence despite his shorter stature. His weathered face bears the marks of countless hours spent working in the heat of the forge, with soot-smudged cheeks and a pair of keen, observant eyes that glint like cold steel. His workshop is a testament to his expertise, filled with an impressive array of tools and adorned with the fruits of hisbor. Shelves groan under the weight of carefully arranged weapons, each a testament to his craftsmanship. The air was thick with the scent of burning coal, the smelting of ores and the glow of the forge cast flickering shadows on the stone walls. "To forge an armor for me, at least something better than what I wear right now within budges of 45,000 Universal Credits." He said, as the Braigzird Kragcrest stopped hammering the piece of metal he was working on till now and went to scour Arcturus as he frowned from time to time, wnhiole he was observing his armor. Though, at the same time, he noticed the Aetherius and looked at the sword with a curious look. "We can work something with that... though, what do you want? With the number of UC, I can for sure make some basic Force Armor, at least some parts... it wouldn''t be good against a powerful enemy but againstmon scum of Stars and soldiers of lesser star nations? It would serve well." After several minutes of appraisal, Force Forger Braigzird Kragcrest gave his honest opinion about the matter. Obviously, the number of Universal Credits wasn''t really enough to forge proper Force Armor, because that would probably cost millions of UC. But some mashed-up pieces like he was wearing? Absolutely. "Can I peek a look at your sword, boya?" The Votann of Dwarrowdelfs looked at his client, as Arcturus nodded and handed him Aetherius for appraisal. In fact, he was pretty curious about what the Force Forger in this new reality would tell about his beloved weapon. "Interesting... masterful craftsmanship, though not any of I know, certainly not of the Votann, and not of any different origin... fascinating. And it already reacts to the Psionics well and the metal itself is unknown..." The space dwarf muttered with fascination as he handed back the Power Sword back to Arcturus. For the Braigzird Kragcrest, it was clear that the Aetheries was truly a piece of art, probably one of the best Power Swords that he had seen in a long time. While it wasn''t on the level of a true Force Weapon, but it even reacted to the Psionic Energy and was capable of withstanding it easily. "We shall take the measurements right now; the amount of Universal Credits you gave me would be enough for the materials to forge some basic prototypes of the Force Armaments for protection. I take it that yourbat style revolved about flexibility, judging on the armor you are wearing right now..." Master Force Forger Braigzird Kragcrest said as he started taking measurements for the armaments that he would be forging. Chapter 18: Choosing the Mission and Bounties Several days passed since Arcturus arrived at the Lycurgos Starfort which was located in the center of the Rylon Star System. Right now, he was in the hotel room of the single hotel of the Lycurgos Starfort that was located in a certain sort of Residential District of the Starfor. He still had enough UCs to pay for the hotel even for several years if he wished so and he was very satisfied. Even though he expected something more high-tech, the interior of the hotel reminded him of the Victorian Age of Earth. Just in the architecture, simr to the interior of his personal chambers of the Obscurus. Aside from the various high-tech gadgets that were all around, Arcturus was presently screening the Bounties and Mission within the ric Star Domain. Star Domain consisted of several Star Systems, whereas every Star System was basically like the Rylon Star System. There was a Star or Stars in the center of the System, with severals and other celestial bodies orbiting around the said Star or Stars. ric Star Domain was one of the Star Domains that created the Ruusor Star Sector, which was the Frontier Border with the no-man zone, behind which was one of the main opponents of the Imperium, Veredan Republic. Aside from that, there were several Type 2 Star Nations and civilizations not very far from the ric Star Domain. Just the ric Star Domain consisted of several tens of Star System and thousands ofs, and this was just one of the smaller Star Domains. "Surprisingly, there are a lot of jobs within the ric Star Domain, Wildstar Region, and Chep Star Sector where the Chepotian Free Union is." Wildstar Region was actually very interesting ce, but one filled with countless dangers, especially because it was swarming with Space Pirates, Ravangers, Criminals, Militias and even Space Beasts. Though, it was huge... the entire Wildstar Region was as big as entire Star Sege, which tranted to the Star Systems would be around in thousands, at least two or three thousand Star System. In fact, the Wildstar Region was home to countless space-faring nations, albeit it was a dangerous ce because only a few of them could survive there. It was a ce where the strong preyed on the weak, like in the rest of the known universe... But within the Wildstar Region, it was taken to the utmost extremes. Then, there was the Chepotian Free Union, which was one of the peculiar space-faring nations. Approximately three hundred years ago, it was apparently part of the Wildstar Region, but a few of the most advanced civilizations banded together and pooled together their resources to create the Chepotian Free Union to defend themselves against pirates, ravagers, vers, and other scum of the universe. "Oh... this is a bit interesting." Arcturus then stopped on one peculiar Mission that was published through the Star Mercenary Association. [Mission: Extermination of the Sr Cult Location: Helios IV Reward: 50,000 Universal Credits.] ''Alice, search any information about the Sr Cult, possible Bounties included.'' He ordered his A.I. who was already stronger than before, as she assimted the Basic Artificial Intelligences of the Droids that were delivered to the Obscurus and with her ess to the Imperial NetSpehere and Extr, she was constantly evolving. ''Information found. Sr Cult was founded, or rather, it appeared in Helios IV, one of thes of the Helios Star System, which is one of the founding members of the Cheptian Free Union approximately five years ago. They are a bunch of weirdos who are worshipping concepts of sun and light and want for the Heliosian to revert back to the time when their was closed from the wider universe. At the same time, their poprity is rising significantly, to the pointwhere they even have armed militias, and the support of the people is high.'' Arcturus was absorbing everything that the Red Queen was telling him with instantaneous speed. ''And their numbers? Bounties?'' 50,000 Universal Credits was a lot. In fact; most of the other missions were not this well paid, though, at the same time, hecked ess to the high-ranking missions within the Star Mercenary Association. Contrary to the Bounty Hunter Guild, where anyone could take the Bounty as long as they killed the target, the Star Mercenary Association was operating on a different modus operandi... ''Their core numbers are small, only a few tens, but their militia is numbering in thousands. Of the members, only three of them have Bounties within the Bounty Hunter Guild, namely their Prophet has a Bounty of 10,000 Universal Credits, and two of their Militia Generals 5,000 Universal Credits each.'' So, altogether, it would be 70,000 Universal Credits for one mission... that was a lot as he immediately epted the mission when he saw where their headquarters was. Located on the small moon that was orbiting the Helios IV. ''With my spaceship, I would be able to destroy their base without any problem, and with a few Droids, I should be able to kill whatever remains.'' He had fourbat droids, namely the Spider Bastion Droids, which were basically top-notch of Imperial Technology. From what he understood, the Chepotian Free Union was a technologically very diverse nation. It was the Union in the true sense; they didn''t even have a military, but rather, their military was the military of all member states ands, and each of them had a different technological level. Apparently, the Helios IV was one of the more advanced nations, as their technology level was around early Type 2 civilization. Yet, that was not enough in front of the Spider Bastion Droids that were created by the Starlight Drive Yard Industries. ''Master, ording to my calctions, there is 98,88% ofpleting the Mission without any losses. From what I''ve seen, while the Cult of Sun has some advanced technology, they have only kic-based projectile weaponry, albeit very advanced one... it won''t be enough to prate through the most advanced shields that are on the Spider Bastion Droids.'' This calmed Arcturus down considerably because he was aware that with Red Queen controlling the Droids, she was able to control them far more effectively than any Basic Artificial Intelligence could. Naturally, this only increased theirbat prowess several times over and over. Chapter 19: More Droids and Time "Master, I would rmend ordering a few cheaper Droids from the Starlight Drive Yard Industries. While the four Spider Bastion Combat Droids are top-notch in terms of destructive prowess, especially under mymand, there are only four of them; more Droids would always be weed for me. Additionally to that, I already have a model that I could even reproduce if given enough time as the construction of the facility within the Obscurus is already in progress." As soon as the droids were delivered to the Obscurus, Red Queen started modifying the bits of the ship because the ship had enormous empty space. A lot of it was entirely unused, and thus, she decided to construct a small line for repairing and constructing new droids. With the evolution and growth she was undergoing, Alice was confident that she could reproduce any of the weaker and older models of the Droids, but that was something that her master didn''t really wish to do. Right now, he was too small of a fish, so he wanted toy low. If anyone knew that he had super-advanced, hyper-intelligent sentient Artificial Intelligence with him, then probably even a few of the big shots of the Andromeda Gxy would invest a lot of resources to obtain Alice. As he learned during the past days, Artificial Intelligences like Red Queen Alice were rare even within the Eternal Imperium of Asurya. "So, what have you chosen already?... and should I tell you that I already don''t have any UCs?" Thest of the Universal Credits that Arcturus had fell to the Votann Force Forger for the scraps of the battle armor; he wanted something that could defend him against most advanced projectile-based weapons and withstand at least some shots from the sters or primitivesguns if possible. "That is not a problem. I already looked through the Starlight Drive Yard Industries, and you can take it on loan; if you are able to pay it back within one month, then you won''t need to pay interest. This is one of the privileges that members of the Asuryani Highborne or those strong enough within their society enjoy." Arcturus, hearing that, nodded his head as he saw that she had already thought it over. "So, what is the model you wish to order?" He was curious about the droids, but most importantly, he was curious about the cost. "ABD-Spectre MK I. they are a reliable model of thebat droids that were used by even the military of the Imperium around one hundred years ago, but right now, they are going obsolete, and the Starlight Drive Yard Industries are getting rid of the MK I. Model, so they are selling them far cheaper. Around 100 Universal Credits per Unit." Autonomous Battle Droid of Spectre Series, Model MK I. was a reliable model that was in the service within the Imperial Armed Forces for a long time already. Now that a new model hase, the Imperium was recing them en masse and the need for them was getting lower and lower. Indeed, 100 Universal Credit for one battle droid was a lot of money, realistically speaking, but if it wasing from the Type 3 civilizations, then it was understandable. Especially, it seemed that a few decades ago, the price was around 350 Universal Credits per unit. The Imperium has been using the BRD "How many do you want to buy?" While the price was good, if they were going to buy more of them, then it would still hurt his wallet a lot. Another 5,000 Universal Credits flew out of the way, on the debt to the Starlight Drive Yard Industries, but Arcutrrus didn''t really care. He knew that he would be able to pay it in time, immediately after hepleted the missions and submitted the bounties. "Then buy it... on our way to the Helios IV. We will be on the lookout for the materials needed to upgrade the ship and manufacture a few more droids." More droids meant more manpower, which in turn meant wider possibilities in regard to the bounties and missions of the Star Mercenary Association. Obscurus was a huge ship that had space to house thousands upon thousands of droids. ''If I had enormous manpower, then probably venturing into the Unknown Regions and preying on the undevelopeds for their resources won''t be out of the question.'' Arcturus thought, because that was certainly an interesting course of action and, in fact, one of the fastest ways how to get rich very fast. The Unknown Regions were the ones that were not scouted, mostly the ones that were on the gctic edges, protected by Cosmic Storms or newly created from the expansion of the gxy. Having control over even a single that was rich in minerals and ores would bring Arcturus tremendous wealth. And yet not many dared to enter the Unknown Regions, because those ces were swarming with the dangers on every single step. He even saw that within this new reality there were even corporations that were buying and selling entire worlds. For... absolutely staggering prices of course, even small world was worth of tens of billions of Universal Credits, naturally the price was overall depending on other factors. He knew that it was still in the far future; only then would he have sufficient military power to carry out something like that. After the matters with the additional droids were finished, Arcturus decided to go to the local dojo and to train a bit. As the Eternal Imperium of Asurya was highly militaristic and had a very strong warrior-based culture, there were people practicing various martial arts practically everywhere. So, finding some dojo was as easy as throwing a stone. Even on the Starfort, like Lycurgos, there was one of them, so naturally, Arcturus nned to use this opportunity to get morebat experiences during his stay. And he needed to practice against some really experienced warriors; fighting against pirates was worth of shit, and he didn''t really want to buy a training droid because those were even more expensive than the Spider Bastion Battle Droid. Chapter 20: Training Rylon Star System, Lycrugos Starfort, Inner District, Lycuros Dojo, Several Days Later Typically, a dojo is located in a quiet area, away from the hustle and bustle of daily life. It was a standalone building, a veryrge building, in fact, and in very different architecture to that of what was considered the standard of the Eternal Imperium of Asurya. In the heart of the dojo, there was a training area where the martial artists were training. The floor is usually covered with tatami mats or specialized flooring to provide afortable and safe surface for training. Mirrors were lined on one or more walls to allow practitioners to observe and correct their techniques. "You are getting better... it seems that your learning capabilities are indeed astounding." In the middle of the training area of the Lycuros Dojo, two people were locked in very intense sparring against each other. Arcturus was sparring against the master of the Dojo, an elderly-looking Asuryani Highborne who had a short white beard and shining purple eyes. "Thank you, Master Byrmellir." Arsit Byrmellir was master of the local dojo, and the man who had been teaching Arcturus for the few past days. He was elderly Asuryni, who was over three hundred years old, but at the same time, he was also Psionics that was something that Arcturus knew for sure. Aside from that, the elderly man was total enigma, because he didn''t knew his strength, but it must be really something frightening... to the point where even General in themand of the Starfort Lycurgos was acting respectfully to the Master Byrmellir. That was something that Arcturus noticed a few days ago when the General in themand was visiting Arsit Byrmellir for something. Arcturus was living in the dojo, because the elederly Asuryani Highborne, was very keen on training him. At first, Arcturus suspected, that it was because of his Skill of Basic Swordmanship at the Level 5 Master. But that was just a misconception, when the old man started teaching him different martial skills, and that was when Arcturus started realizing something. The one thing he realized was that he had a very high aptitude forbat. Just a few hours after they started sparring, Arcurus already started learning from the Arsit Byrmellir at astonishing speed even for the elderly dojo master. [Proficiency with the Skill Basic Swordsmanship is rising.] [Proficiency of the Skill Basic Swordsmanship is at Level 5 - 38%.] Sparring with someone as skilled as Aris Byrmellir was tremendously beneficial to Arcturus because he was not only getting a sparring partner, but actually, he was getting guidance from the elderly master. He was correcting the mistakes he was making, pointing out the things he could do better, and so on... at the same time, he was also teaching Arcturus some more advanced sword styles because he knew that Arcturus didn''t have any. "When are you nning to leave?" It was already soon enough time for Arcturus to leave for the Helios IV toplete the mission from the Star Mercenary Association and im several bounties from the Bounty Hunter Guild. The Votann Dwarf forged for him a few of protections, mostly, gaunlets, leg protectors and chestte, only for the protection of vital areas and ces that were used for thebat. It was of superb quality, but that was also natural as it was forged by the Force Forger. "Tomorrow... though I will return immediately after Iplete the Mission. In the end, with my strength, the outer edges of the Chronus Expanse are suitable for my development." The entire Chronus Expanse was rather safe in what Arcturus heard, at least from what he read about the Chronus Expanse which was one of the major Regions in the North-Western Regions. The outer fringes of the Chronus Expanse were safe for him because, ording to everything that Alice gathered through the Extr and NetSphere, there were not many powerful Psionics or any powerful entities within the outer fringes of the Chronus Expanse. On top of that, most of the Chronus Expanse, namely the Core Area, Inner Area, and parts of the Outer Area, were the territories of the Eternal Imperium of Asurya. The Throne World Asurya was located in the Core Area of the Chronus Expanse. "That is indeed truth... within these few Star Segements that were bordering the Wildstar Region don''t really have many powerful threats and Psionics. Most of them are congregating on the demilitarized zone with Veren Republic." The outer parts of the Chronus Expanse didn''t really contain many powerful entities or powerful Space Beasts, in fact, so ording to the Space Exploration Guild, it was considered a rtively safe zone. "You should return as soon as possible; we have a lot of work to do..." Arcturus could see that the elderly man wanted to take him as a student probably, or at least he thought so, but that was for the future thing to happen. "Master Byrmellir, how does one awaken as Psionics?" Arcturus asked, because what he wanted right now the most probably was to be Psyker andmand the overwhelming might of the Psionics users. He saw some videos on the showing how much power they wielded... The ability to use the mind to induce paranormal phenomena. They are present to various degrees in various species. The presence of Psionic Powers within a species is rare, and is dictated by their structural makeup. "All members of the Asuryani Higborne awaken as Psykers when the time is right; some who could not awaken will need to awaken manually." This was already something that Arcturus knew because he was aware that all members of the Asuryani Highborne, after some time, awakened as Psykers, or at least the majority of them did after they reached high enough Warrior Grade in their Physique. This was something that wasn''t necessary for the ordinary Asuryani or other species in general but rather a result of the gene engineering of the Asuryani as a whole. The Psionic Powers and Psyker Abilities were dangerous and powerful. Many Psykers were killed by overusing their own power when they couldn''t handle their own abilities, and some even died from the overwhelming power of the Psionic Energy as their bodies couldn''t handle the destructive energy of Psionics, and it would obliterate them from existence. Chapter 21: To Infinity and Beyond [Mission: The First Mark in History Description: Start the rise of the Legend. Complete the Mission from the Star Mercenary Assassociation and Bounties from the Bounty Hunter Guild with a perfect score. Rewards: x1 EsPsion Crystal] This was the mission he received from the System some time ago, as he knew that the EsPsion Crystals were incredibly rare and were typically used to awaken someone''s Psionic Potential. Usually, Psionic Crystals, in general, could be only found in the areas of the Universe that had a very high concentration of Psionic Energy in the Cosmos. So, they were very rare and only some of the most powerful factions within the known universe had direct ess to the Psionic Crystals. EsPsion Crystals were even rare, ording to what Alice found on the NetSphere, because the EsPsion Crystals could be found only in the core of the Veins of the Psionic Crystals. Otherwise, they would be almost impossible toe across anywhere in the known universe. So, due to that, Arcturus was very happy that he got an opportunity to get opportunity to obtain the EsPsion Crystal because he would obtain a lot from it. The EsPsion Crystals were noted down for not only being the best for awakening thetent Psionic Potential but it was also noted that the people who used the EsPsion Crystals showcased unprecedented strength, and their Psionic Abilities were vastly stronger. After his talk with the Master of the Lycuros Dojo, Arsit Byrmellir he knew that chances of him obtaining something as precious as EsPsion Crystal was null within this entire region of gxy. One had two solid chances at obtaining something as precious as EsPsion Crystal, and that was to either go into the Core Region of the Gxy, where countless very uniques were located and where Primordial Psionic Energy was in high abundance. The second possibility was to go into the Unknown Regions of Space, something that was created through the expansion of the gxy. A rare urrence that happened only once in a few centuries, a new Star Systems would appear through the collision of the Intergctic Void with violent Primordial Psionic Energy and Cosmic Storms. When these three things met, it would usually result in something that could be called the "Big Bang," albeit on a much smaller scale, and voa... new Star Systems were created. "Alice is the ship ready for departing?" Arcturus asked as the journey to the Chepotai Star Segment from the Frontier Star Segment, Ruusor Star System, would take him almost a week due to the vast distance, and this was only thanks to the advanced Hyperdrive. While his ship wasn''t armed with the most advanced Faster-than-Light engines, it was still top-notch Type 2 technology that was not that very far from the Type 3. Unfortunately, the engines of the proper Type 3 civilizations like Eternal Imperium of Asurya and Veren Republic cost a fortune. "All systems ready; we can jump into the Hyperscape any time." Hyperspace was an alternate dimension that could only be reached by traveling at or faster than the speed of light. Hyperdrives enabled starships to travel through hyperspacenes across great distances, enabling travel and exploration throughout the gxy. The Hyperspace Travel wasn''t the sole FTL method, but it was generally epted to be the best and most reliable, safest, and operatable of all avable methods of the FTL. Naturally, this didn''t really mean that every species or nation was using the same FTL methods; some were using their own, and some were using different types of FTL. Hyperdrives manipted hypermatter particles in order to thrust a starship into hyperspace whilst preserving the ship''s mass/energy profile. This shortened travel distance significantly, allowing the vessel to "jump" from a specific point to another without having to travel directly between them, therefore reducing journey time by an extraordinarilyrge margin. A vessel''s ability to travel through hyperspace depended on it being equipped with a hyperdrive engine; thus, vessels that suffered a hyperdrive failure while in hyperspace, orcked a hyperdrive and had separated from a vessel with one, would immediately fall out of hyperspace. "Commence the jump." Arcturus said from themand deck of the Obscurus as the ship disappeared from the Ryloth Star System into the Hyperspace. *** Obscurus, a few hourster. From the time, he bought the Construction Droids from the Starlight Drive Yard Industries, they were working on modifying the Obscurus almost non-stop. While right now hecked funds to upgrade the ship significantly, Alice could do much even without that. Just the modifications and other things, she learned since she got the ess to the Extr and Imperial NetSpehere. Even Arcturus was shocked to say, when he found out that how much information about the starships and other things were just put on the. And without any protections, in fact, which was even more staggering. Even though it was just general information about various models and so on, it was enough for the Red Queen to learn; together with theplete blueprints of the Obscurus and her learning capabilities, she started working on the Obscurus. The ship wasrgely unfinished and there were a lot of things that could be done, as Arcturus didn''t really finish the starship when he was ying the game. That would require a lot more time and investments, but he could finish it in this life. Step by step... He had more than enough time for that. Even the standard Asuryani specimen lived for around three centuries; those who reached the highest Grades of the Gic Augumentations could live for even longer, and those who were Psionically Awakened could, after reaching certain mastery over their powers,pletely stop their aging process. Even now, the Imperium had a few Perpetuals, as they were called, the Eternals ones who lived since the establishment of the Imperium and existed for almost one millennium, and ording to what the gics said, they would never die from old age. For example, the Thevarians were Psionically very potent species, and their biology in supplement with the Psionic Energies allowed them to naturally live for around two to three thousand years. They were one of the founding species of the Veren Republic and also the dominant species of it. If not for the legacy that the precursors of the modern Asurani found on their new homeworld, then they would have been long ago destroyed by the Thevarians and the Veren Republic in fact. Chapter 22: Mission at Helios IV. Chepotai Star Segment, Helios Star Sector, Helios Star Domain, Helios Prime Star System. The Helios Prime Star System was one of the rare binary star systems with two stars within the Star System and more than five habitables. The Helios Civilization was one of the founders of the Chepotai Free Union and was one of the richest civilizations and star nations within the entire Chepotai Free Union. At the same time, their people were not really fighters or warriors; they focused mostly on trading, business, arts, and culture. So when Arcturus entered the Helios Prime Star System, he wasn''t that surprised to see that there was not even a proper defense fleet. Most of their society was built on the ideas of pacifism and negotiation and so on... they preferred to solve all of their conflicts with dialogue and without the usage of violence. As admirable as it was, it was also an utterly foolish thing to do so. Enve the mission to the Star Mercenary Association didn''t reallye entirely out of Helios Prime, which was their Homeworld, but rather from some of the most powerful corporations in Helios Prime. It seemed that the Sr Cult''s rapid increase in poprity was threatening the grasp of the powerful corporations on their own people. From what data he had on the Hyperion Federation, it was basically an oligarchy controlled by the most powerful and richest corporations within the nation. The ideas of secrism and ideas istionism were seriously causing them damage and risk of their monopoly on power crumbling in the future. "We are approaching the Helios IV." Arcturus heard Alice''s voice as he looked from the windows of themand deck and observed the wonders of the space. The Universe was indeed a very beautiful ce, a magnificent and wonderful ce, yet it was also very dangerous and full of threats. "Are there any defenses that could discover us?" Naturally, the Obscurus was armed with the Stealth Systems. It wasn''t the best one, but it was enough to be undetectable from many of the weaker and less developed factions within the gxy. "Zero. Neither are there any defenses across the entire Star System, aside from a few of the ces across Helios Prime, which have some rudimentary defenses. We can go safely to the Helios IV andnd down." Arcturus hummed, hearing that they were basically without any problems. Though considering the Chepotai Free Union and its existence, it was only understandable that most of the ces within the Union were without any significant military protection. What the Chepotai Free Union was doing was that they were protecting only their borders with some basic defense fleets, while the rest of the territory was not well protected. Mainly because many of the member states didn''t wish to invest a lot of money into the war machine. They were depending on the mixture of defense fleets, alliances and their trading partners to guarantee their borders. Not to mention, the private Corporations that had tremendous influence without the Chepotai Free Union and they were the de facto rulers of the Union. They only cared about the profits, and they had their own Private Military Companies that protected their interests. "Head toward the Helios IV. and find the ce where the Sr Cult is having their headquarters." Arcturus ordered as Obscurus was heading toward the Helios IV as he went to don his armor pieces and grab his sword. With the speed of the Obscurus, the spaceship arrived at Helios IV within a short time. Fortunately that, his ship had some stealth technology and managed to entire the territories of the Chepotai Free Union undiscovered, or else he would need to deal with their authorities, which was annoying. Though with his identity as the Star Mercenary, he could enter space of most of the factions within the Andromeda Gxy that weremonly essible for free visit. In fact, not many factions protected their borders to the extreme, like the Eternal Imperium of Asurya. Asuryani were even protecting their borders to the extreme, to the point where they even blocked all of the Hyperspace Lanes through a specific gateway system that was called the Gatekeeper. Hyperspace Lanes were established paths through hyperspace, which linked major worlds in the gxy, just as roads linked major cities on popteds. Those routes were regarded as safe, allowing starships to travel without colliding with a celestial body in realspace. Chains of important star systems formed runs, which were vital navigational routes for trade and transit, and such routes could cross multiple sectors. Star systems could have several or a single Hypene entrance/exit point, meaning that such points could be guarded and fortified, and ports of ess monitored and controlled. "The headquarters of the Sr Cult has been detected. The valley on the western hemisphere of the Helios IV, locally called Converging Sun, is one of the natural phenomena on the Helios IV because even the advanced scanners of most Type 2 civilizations would have a problem finding that ce. Aside from that, I have found several starships hidden across the valley, probably ready forbat or evacuation." Acturus looked at the information that Alice gathered and saw that the Valley of the Converging Sun, while giving the inhabitants natural protections, was in a certain way defective because there was only one visible way out. Not including the underground pathways, but even for that, he had his way of dealing with them. "Target all spacecraft and other vessels capable of flight and destroy them on mymand. At the same time, teleport the Battle Droids at the entrance to the valley and let them slowly advance deeper into the territory of the Sr Cult and before that, find the seismic points and give them a good stir." He then issued a series ofmands as he grinned at the holographic projection, showcasing the overall poption of the Sr Cult being at several thousands of people, most of them being only civilians, and only a part of them was the military of the Sr Cult. "The weapon systems are locked on their target. I have also targeted any visiblendcraft, artillery, and anti-air turrets. I can fire at any time." When he heard the voice of the Artificial Intelligence of the Obscurus, his heart started beating at a much faster rate... this was different from the space pirates that he killed in the first ce. Chapter 23: The Power Corrupts They said that the human hearts are often prone to the corruption. Especially when they were given tremendous power and greed was clouding their judgment. "Fire." In the end, the choice was easy... in the end human life was fragile and Universal Credits were Universal Credits. While the worshippers of the Sr Cult were members of the organizations that he was tasked to destroy, they were unfortunate side casualties of the fight. In the end, it was their own free choice to join a para-military fanatic zealous cult that was worshipping the sun and was zealous towards really, really stupid ideals. Arcturus didn''t really care much, in fact, or he just thought that the deaths that he caused were inconsequential in the great scheme of all things. He knew that it didn''t really matter because within this new life, it was kill or to be killed. Only the powerful had the right to decide what was right and what was wrong. Not to mention, he always hated religious fanatics, so killing a few thousand for them wasn''t something that he regretted. ''It seems that I don''t indeed feel anything... should I be worried? Or something at least?'' He watched how Obsucurs fired several tens shots from the cannon, decimating all of the spacecraft, aircraft, andndcraft of the Sr Cult in a mere moment, while at the same time, Alice teleported down the Battle Droids. The Spider Bastion Battle Droids and fifty ABD-Spectre MK Battle Droids were teleported down to the entrance of the Valley of the Converging Sun, as Alice controlled all Battle Droids to block the entrance and shoot everything that would attempt to escape. At the same time, they started slowly advancing toward the inner area of the Valley, as Arcturus could see on the holographic projection on themand deck of the Obscurus. *** On the surface of Helios IV, Valley of the Converging Sun The Helios IV was a rather ordinary, albeit a bit smaller than the average, though the entire Valley of the Converging Sun looked like one huge desert; it was full of sand, sandy rocks, scorching hot and sunlight. Basically, it was a ce that Arcturus would avoid at any cost if he could. He hated being in such environments; he preferred colder climates and didn''t very much like hot environments; it wasn''t just for him. Though the job was a job, with his simplistic approach, he knew that he would be soon away once he imed the Bounties. "Master, I got the transmission from the Sr Cult Headquarters; they have attempted to call for reinforcements from the local defense forces. I have managed to intercept the distress call with my jamming." Almost, immediately after Arcturus was teleported down on the Helios IV from the Obscurus, his A.I. sent him a message as he visibly cringed that the Sr Cult still had some cards in their sleeve, but in front of the advanced A.I. as Red Queen, it was futile. Even though he didn''t care very much about their defense forces, because Obscurus was a vastly superior naval vessel and with enough tactics, it could ovee even some numerical odds; if they were too huge, they would pose a serious threat. Not to mention it was a pain in the ass to deal with the military forces that woulde to defend these fanatics. "Splendid, anything else?" He asked as he started advancing toward the inner areas of the Sr Cult. Already, some of their buildings were visible as he was teleported to one of theirnding docks. The ce looked like a warzone, with everything being destroyed by the preemptive orbital strike conducted by Red Queen. "You have received a private request through your Star Mercenary Association ount from the Coalition of the Helian Mercantile Corporations. They are willing to double the payment if there are no survivors of the Sr Cult, as it seemed that only two days ago, they conducted a raid on several trade ships, and the corporations lost a lot of money due to them." Arcturus grinned as his eyes suddenly shone with revtion because this meant that he would get much more money from this mission. He naturally epted the private request because that would mean an additional 50,000 Universal Credits. Not to mention, most of the people were already killed in the initial orbital bombardment from the Obscurus. Though, together with the jamming that was conducted by Alice, he knew that they had maximally one hour before the localary defense force would for sure decide to invade. Fortunately enough, the Valley of the Converging Sun was in a very deste area of the Helios IV, and there were no settlements, cities, or any points of interest in a diameter of several hundred kilometers. "Trace to whom they were nning to send the request for help, hack their databases and get names of their aplices and everything. We are going to sell it to their enemies; even if we destroy their headquarters, a lot of their believers will remain through Helios IV." This would naturally fetch him another few thousand Universal Credits because even after the entire Sr Cult was exterminated, a lot of their sympathizers would remain within the society of the Helias Society, and the senders of the requests and bounties would surely want their heads as well. And there was the constant lingering threat that someone, especially among the survivors of their people who weren''t present in the Headquarters, would be fanatical enough to revive the Sr Cult in the future after some time passed. So, they would need to address this concern as well because it was a pretty severe one, as the religions and cults were often the hardest to deal with. One wasn''t fighting against people but against the idea, which made the thing mission impossible. "It is being done as we are speaking; the cybeic defenses are non-existent... it is nice to be this free within theirwork." Arcuturs heard Alice happily chirping because during the time they were at the Lycurgos and she was connected to the Extr or Imperial NetSphere, she always needed to act with utmost caution and was very constrained. The most advanced factions within the gxy knew how to secure their systems properly, so Alice couldn''t do what she wished. Though now? She was like a fish in the water. "Excellent... it is time to finish it..." He said as he arrived in front of the entrance to the underground base, which was surrounded by wrecks of aircraft andndcraft, together with several tens of soldiers of the Sr Cult that were attempting to scavage the situation to something managable. Chapter 24: The Frontier Situation Rylon Star System, ric Star Domain, Ruusor Star Sector, Frontier Star Segment, Chronus Expanse, - Lycurgos Starfort, Unkown period of time. At the dojo that belonged to the Arsit Byrmellir, the elderly Asuryani Highborne dojo master was brewing tea for himself as he enjoyed some peace after his pseudo-student had left for the Star Mercenary work. He didn''t take students... almost never; the maximum he was doing was opening the dojo in search of powerful opponents to fight and to incorporate their martial arts into his own style. This was a habit that he developed when he was severely injured more than seventy years ago and was left crippled. During that time, he created the dojo and trained his martial arts to the extreme, especially his swordsmanship to the realm beyond that of the Grandmaster. He had more than enough time when his Psionic Powers were crippled, and he couldn''t exert the power that he was once used to. For that, he needed to find something that would fill his time; during that time, his Psyker Abilities were almost zero to none. Fortunately enough, twenty years ago, the current Lord Padishash-Marshall of the Eternal Imperium of Asurya obtained a very precious medicinal object that allowed him to mend his injuries and return to his previous power. In the end, he wasn''t one of the strongest Psykers within the known gxies. "Have you returned once again, Varanthar?" Varathar Medes was one of the Bashar-Generals of the Eternal Imperium of Asurya andmander of the Lycurgos Starfort. Not only that, but he was also the person responsible for the defense of the entire Frontier Star Segment that was separating the Chronus Expanse from the Wildstar Region. He was also an extremely powerful Psyker and Warrior at the same time, dual ss. "Yes, Grandmaster..." Varathar Medes was a gentle-looking man, who had an almost boyish look, extremely handsome in a certain sense, with long blonde hair and azure blue eyes. He was also one of the youngest Bashar-Generals within the Eternal Imperium of Asurya. "May I?" Grandmaster Arsit Byrmellir just simply nodded his head as he levitated over another cup for tea as he finished the tea ceremony. "Why are you here Varathar?" Since Artis Byrmellir opened his dojo at the Lycurgos Starfort, Bashar-General Varathar Medes was pestering the elderly Grandmaster almost every single day. "This time, I am here for something more severe, as I fear... several hours ago, we got the report that one of the Mind yer Fleets is heading toward the Chronus Expanse, and most probably, they are heading towards the borders of the Imperium, though we cannot be sure. I got orders from above, to ask Your Excellency to help in case the the Mind yers decide to intrude the borders of the Imperium, which is... obviously their target." Hearing this, even the dojo master was growing serious, as he stopped the cup of tea. Mind yers, also known as Illithids also known as Mind Rulers in certain gxies, and sometimes referred to as Ghaik by the Githyanki, were sadistic aberrations feared by sentient creatures on many worlds across the multiverse due to their powerful psionic abilities. Nobody really knew where they originated; they were only rumors of certain ces, known simply as the Underdark. These alien entities sought to expand their dominion over all other lifeforms, controlling their minds to use them as obedient thralls. They consumed their victim''s very personalities by extracting and devouring their brains while they were still alive. Through this, they gained and developed tremendous Psionic Potential and were considered as one of the Extragctic Scourges that devoured entire gxies. If they were luck to stumble on a weaker and less developed gxy. Fortunately for the others, the Mind yers were greatly divided species into enormous Fleets, where they inhabited the Worldships that had the size of entire smaller celestial bodies. Each such Fleet wasmanded by the Elder Brains, and beings with tremendous Psionic potential and power that was beyond the mortal understanding and standards. Such beings could destroy entire worlds, obliterates from existence, and cause the extinction of entire space-faring civilizations. "Is this information confirmed?" Even as powerful as Artis Byrmellir was, he was ceritnaly wary of the Mind yers, because depending on the concrete Mind Fleet, he could easily loose. Some of the Elder Brains were even far above his power. Hopefully, this one would be without a powerful Elder Brain. "Yes as unfortunate it is... we are 100% that one of the Mind Fleets is heading towards our borders. The Imperial High Command has decided to bolster the defenses of the Frontier Star Segment, by sending several reserve Fleets." As one of the Imperial Bashar-Generals Varathar Medes was also one of the most powerful people of the Eternal Imperium of Asurya, he wasn''t confident facing the entire Mind Fleet alone. If it was just ordinary Mind Fleet, smaller ones without the Elder Brains, then he wouldn''t care much about the Mind yers. But... The ones with powerful Elder Brains were something that could be ovee by either someone of tremendous power or through a really world-ending type of weaponry. "Tell the High Command that if ites to it, I will personally participate in the fight. How long till the Mind Fleet arrives here?" The one thing about the Mind yers was the fact that their Fleets were remarkably slow when traversing the space. They were not the technologically most apt species; most of their technological development was towards their evolution, so they often neglected the technological side of things. "A few months with the current speed they are traveling. The intelligence guys are thinking that this must be one of the lesser Fleets, just purely on their traveling speed. The greater Fleets have much higher technological capabilities..." That was true; if that was the case, then the situation was much better, but the appearance could be deceiving. The Mind yers were tumors that were hopping from one gxy to another; they were dangerous, and only Type 3 civilizations could fend them off. Chapter 25: Destruction of the Solar Cult (1) Arcturus gripped his Power Sword Aetheries, as his eyes quickly skimmed through the soldiers present at the ce, where he was teleported by Red Queen Alice. There were fourteen enemies present, which wasn''t a lot, and surprisingly or not, they were not even paying proper attention to him being there. Which was obviously greatly ying into his cards and detrimental for his enemies, so armed with the Power Sword, he didn''t waste any time as he rushed at the closest pair of soldiers that were scavenging something in the destroyed aircraft as he appeared behind one of them and stabbed him from the back. Piercing him through and killing the enemy instantly. Arcturus instantly swung his swords forward, slitting the throat of hispanion and killing the second one from the original fourteen soldiers at the ce. Fortunately for him, he managed to dispose of them swiftly and quietly, not talking about the fact that due to the mess this ce was in, it was hard to notice something happening. Before he moved toward the next target, he noticed that all of the soldiers of the Sr Cult were armed with rtively primitive kic-based projectile weaponry and some basic armor, but they didn''t even have proper kic shields. Even if they had, the results would be the same because the Power Weapons of Aetherius''s caliber could disintegrate even more advanced energy-based personal shielding that was used by most Type 3 civilizations and space-faring nations. He then went to the others, and as they were indisposed by searching through the wrecks or saving civilians that were here during the orbital bombardment that Alice conducted on the Valley of Converging Sun, they were not really paying attention to what was happening. Just after Arcturus killed the sixth soldier, his luck ran out as he was noticed by the trio of the iing patrol that instantly started shooting at him. Unfortunately for them, he was armed with the armor made by Force Forger, so he used his gauntlet to protect his face from any iing projectiles. As unfortunate as it was, he didn''t have such strong senses that he would be able to dodge iing bullets. That was for the future, and he was sure that he would train to that point, especially if he became Psyker, then dodging bullets was child''s y. In a split moment, he was soon enough being targetted by remaining soldiers of the Sr Cult that were present, and the noise from the gunshot was attracting there even more of theirpatriots. On the other side, from what he heard from Red Queen Alice, his Battle Droids were right now in the process of destroying arge part of the Sr Cult''s armed forces at the entrance to the Valley of the Converging Sun and the Sr Cult is right now sending all of their soldiers to deal with the Droids. The Battle Droids that Arcturus deployed were manufactured by the Starlight Drive Yard Industries, which was one of the top-notch manufacturers of the Eternal Imperium of Asurya... In fact, Arcturus would be surprised if they managed to destroy a few of the ABD-Spectre MK Battle Droids in fact. He was sure that they wouldn''t be able to do anything to the Spider Bastion Battle Droids unless they had something that could blow uprgerndcrafts... Just as several of them started reloading their rifles, Arcturus made use of the opportunity as he dashed towards the nearest one, and, with a sh of his sword, one head shot to the air, and blood spluttered from his neck. Not even secondster, he gripped his Power Sword and aimed at the second soldier, who raised his rifle in defense. In sheer stupidity... No way that something as simple as an assault rifle could stop the disintegration powers of the Power Sword, as both the assault rifle and the soldiers were killed in one sh. This prompted the remaining ones to change their strategy, taking out their knives and attempting to engage him in the area where he was most experienced. Three of them came at him with something that looked like a standardized military knife, made from not really the best materials around from what Arctursu could see, and attacked him in a rtively coordinated fashion. Which was something that he appreciated because at least they forced him to move a bit morepared to the time when they were wasting ammunition on him. He dodged backwards, as he kicked the one that was to his left to his stomach with his full force, sending the man crashing onto the rubbles of metal scraps. Unknown if he would live or not, and not even his problem, as he hacked his sword up, as it was blocked by the knife of one of the soldiers, or at least the man attempted to block the Power Sword. Unfortunately for them, it was futile, as the knife disintegrated into nothingness in a mere moment, together with the hand that was holding the knife. Simultaneously, the soldier screamed as his hand was gone, and Arcturus shed across his chest, killing the man immediately. He then looked at thest one that was facing him, and as he rushed at the man, holding Aetherius backward, dashing down, he stabbed the Power Sword into his stomach, disposing of the man as well. He noticed that the remaining ones were probably not properly indoctrinated and brainwashed because some of them escaped from the ce of the battle. Only two of them remained, and the moment they saw him, they started shooting from their assault rifles, only for the bullets to be deflected by the gauntlet that he had forged by the Votann Force Forge Master. The bullets didn''t even leave proper scratches on the armor parts that were created by the Votann Force Forge Master without any problem as he approached the soldiers shooting from their assault rifles. He only needed to attack twice, for two throats to be slit by his sword as he killed thest remaining soldiers at the ce, before he could finally proceed to the headquarters of the Sr Cult. Chapter 26: Destruction of the Solar Cult (2) [Hacking into the systems. Opening all security systems.] [All security systems within theplex have been deactivated.] Obviously, the defenses of the Sr Cult couldn''t handle the overpowering A.I. of Red Queen Alice, as she deactivated all security measures and defenses of the entireplex and let Arcturus have free ess to the entire ce. "Where should I head? Where are the high-profile targets located?" Arcturus asked as he entered theplex that was within the valley. The enormous steel doors that had previously blocked the entrance for him were now wide open because they had been hacked by the Red Queen. [Head to the right, approximately five hundred meters straight, and you will find an elevator that leads directly to the deepest levels of the headquarters. I took control of the facility, so it was safe to go. Across the halls, there is only minimal resistance registered, mostly average soldiers of the Sr Cult on that.] Hearing that, Arcturus nodded as he ran ording to Alice''s instructions and searched for the elevator. Right now, his priorities were straight: find the Prophet of the Sr Cult and cut his head, together with that of the Militia Generals. Then, he would need to clear the deepest levels of the most essential personnel because, ording to Alice''s calctions, the level where the most important people of the Sr Cult were hiding is greatly resistant to the orbital bombardment. Unfortunately, the Obscurus didn''t have enough firepower to breach that deep into the ground. It would be thought possible for a prolonged one, but that was not possible because then they would be found by some of the locals, and it would soon enough delve into the fight. "Roger that. Monitor the entire situation and have the base on the stand-by." He then issued some orders to the Red Queen as he proceeded to the elevators, only for them to be guarded by several of the guards from the Sr Cult. However, these ones looked more like guards than soldiers because they were wearing uniforms and were armed only with handguns. It seems that most of the soldiers were indeed out there and fighting against the Battle Droids or at least attempting to stall his Battle Droids as much. But such action was futile, with Alice controlling them and also the entire base. It was like bullying a little child with her on his side. With this, he was d that he had chosen the Obscurus as his item to go because it was armed with superior Artificial Intelligence that was making his life much easier. [Report to the master... you should not be so dependent on my help in everything... there are many areas within the universe where I would be totally useless.] As if she knew what he was thinking about, he heard the voice of his ever-present Artificial Intelligence. ''Seven targets, all armed with small handguns, no visible armor or any other equipment.'' Arcturus quickly analyzed the people present as he got into the battle stance, gripping the power sword and rushing at the contingent of guards. With several shes of his sword, three of them fell to his initial attack, while the others were swiftly killed even before they could realize what was going on. "This was much easier." He muttered as he swung the sword once more, shing across the back of the dying guard, killing him instantly, as he cleared the ce and could proceed to the deeper underground. *** Underground of the Headquarters of the Sr Cult The underground levels of the Sr Cult were differentpared to the levels above because this ce was, right now, almost a literal fortress. It was very well fortified and defended, with a lot of manpower being moved here and there. Not to mention, there were more than one hundred of the elite Sr Guards that were present at the lowest level because they were tasked with the protection of the Prophet of the Sr Cult and the rest of the higher-ups of the entire cult. "We are numerically at a severe disadvantage." The newly transmigrated mercenary muttered as he skimmed through the data that was collected by Red Queen Alice. Though, he was aware that with the help of the Red Queen, there was no fear from the even numerically superior foe. [Indeed.] The Red Queen Alice was right now monitoring the entire lowest levels and was in charge of everything that took ce there. As unfortunate as it was, there were no death traps that could be used en masse to destroy the opposition within the lowest level of the headquarters. "Can you create enough distractions to give me enough time to execute the sneak attacks?" Arcturus asked because he already formted the n of despising the Sr Guard in the most efficient way. Because the foe was numerically too superior, as there were more than one hundred Sr Guards present, he needed some distractions. [I can... actually many, some of them could be even deadly, though I need to warn you that the Sr Guards are armed better than the average footsoldiers of the Sr Cult.] He grinned as he heard that because this was certainly way too good. "And the situation with the Battle Droids?" If everything went well, then the Battle Droids should soon be breaching the Sr Cults'' defenses and, entering the headquarters'' premises and start clearing it out. [I havee acrossrger resistance right now; they are bringing anti-tank weaponry; I am going to use Obscurus for local orbital strikes.] It was not the best situation, but that was only respectable that they would muster some defenses against the Battle Droids, even though they were not the best ones. "And losses?" He was curious how his Battle Droids were faring, hopefully they won''t be damaged to badly. [Zero. Minor damages to some of the ABD-Spectre MK Battle Droids, but the Spider Bastion Battle Droids are tearing their way through practically everything on the battlefield.] This was already better than he expected from the star. Chapter 27: Destruction of the Solar Cult (3) Even though he knew that the military forces of the Sr Cult wouldn''t be advanced enough to threaten something that was for a long time considered pinnacle Battle Droids of the Type 3 civilization in the form of ABD-Spectre MK Battle Droids, he still anticipated some losses. In the end, the numerical odds against the Battle Droids were too huge and there were only four of the Spider Bastion Battle Droids that walked through the battlefield like unhindered juggernauts without any equal. Yet, hearing that there were no losses among theBattle Droids increased his mood because every single destroyed Droids meant heavy losses. If the Droids were destroyed entirely, then it was an entire loss. If only partially, then he could still have them reconstructed by the Red Queen back in the obscures by the Worker and Construction droids, that were working day and night, maintaining the Obscurus or carrying out some minor modifications. Meanwhile, the Battle Droid "Army" was wreaking havoc above the ground; Arcutrus was cutting his way to the ce where his walking treasuries were walking. Another reason he wanted to have a talk with the leaders of the Sr Cult before they lost their heads was to get the codes for their Vaultbank ounts. The organization''s size of the Sr Cult should have a good number of Universal Credits stashes somewhere. And even though the organization preached hatred for everything that didn''t originate in the Helios Star System, they still utilized the services of the Cosmic Vaultbank. There was no way that someone could hack into the ounts of the Cosmic Vaultbank; not even the most advanced Artificial Intelligences in the known Universe could achieve such a feat, so he needed to go through the good old way to get it out from them. As he cut down another of the members of the Sr Guard, he was also conversing with the Red Queen Alice. With his heightened intelligence and enhancements brought by the Neural Extr Terminal Gene Imnts, he could easily focus on several things at the same time. ''Are you sure your idea would work?'' He asked while, at the same time, dodging to the right and swinging his power sword at the head of one of the Sr Guards, who didn''t have enough time to react and was instantly killed in one hit. [Yes. This specifically made a version of the Nanobots would be inserted into their bodies through your Neural Extr Terminal Gene Imnts and I would be able to overwrite their consciousness and take control of their mind and split the codes to their Cosmic Vaultbank ounts or just transfer the money.] If the Red Queen was telling him that it would work, then he would give the method the benefit of the doubt. It was worthwhile to try because he could possibly obtain several hundreds of thousands of Universal Credits if he was lucky. That would be a grand boon to his ambition because he could expand his army of droids, and buy better equipment and better resources for Red Queen to experiment with. If hepleted this mission and obtained the EsPsion Crystal and awakened as Psyker, he would need a tremendous amount of money for resources to cultivate as Pskyer, because it seemed that advancing the Psyker Ranks was extremely costly. ''The number of these guys is getting less... your doing?'' When he killed the twentieth or twentieth-second Sr Guard, Arcturus noticed that the number of enemies within the premises was getting lower and lower for whatever reason it was. [Yes. I managed to activate some of the traps installed in this ce and kill fifty-seven of the Sr Guards. On the side effect, parts of the headquarters have copsed due to that and it is possible that the stability of the entire underground building has been destabilized.] Hearing that made him frown and smile at the same time. ''Lovely...'' He managed to say, as he was close to arriving at the vault-room, which served as the panic room in case an emergency was dered within the territory of the Sr Cult. The higher-ups went on it smartly because they managed to build the panic room in a hidden part of theplex, and without precise navigation or knowledge of the entire headquarters, it was virtually impossible to find. ''Unlock the door.'' Hemanded the Red Queen, who had long ago taken control of the security systems of the undergroundplex, as he stood in front of the huge steel vault doors for some time. When he thought that the entire ce could crash at any time, he decided to end this entire endeavor as soon as possible. With the battle droids raging above, it would soon enough end, and they would start clearing out the remnants of resistance. Just as he was thinking about the situation above, the doors started slowly opening, and Arcturus instantly ran to the side because the Sr Guards inside started shooting madly at anything that was in front of them. ''I can''t even drop them there a few grenades I collected along the way...'' He needed the people inside the entire, or at least part of the people that were inside, intact. Especially the leadership needed to be captured alive, so he could get all of their money... This was indeed a unique opportunity that allowed him to collect far more wealth than just the rewards frompleting the missions issued by the Star Mercenary Association and bounties on the Bounty Hunter Guild. After several minutes the shooting stopped, as they probably ran out of ammunition or needed to reload their guns. Though he could hear that a few of them started advancing out from the vault-room in search for the intruder. ''One... two... three...'' When the first three of them approached the end of the corridor where he was hiding, he swung with his power sword, severing the head of the first of the Sr Guards, while sending a kick to the chest of the second one, breaking his ribs in an instant. With one fast movement, Arcturus turned around and hacked his power sword into thest Sr Guard''s stomach, effectively killing the man in one moment. Chapter 28: Taking what its worth Humanity was one of the moremon species across the Andromeda Gxy and Milky Way Gxy... Though the term "humanity" was rather broad, from what Asuryan understood about the human race in this new reality, it originated on Earth. During certain parts of human evolution, it wasmon that the Earth was visited by extraterrestrial species that took some of the humans from Earth. Thus, humans managed to spread across both gxies and in somes and regions, adjusted to the circumstances, and evolved ordingly. The Asuryani Species were not a single offshoot of humanity. Though the people of the Helios were just average humans, because while Humanity had many offshoot sub-species, most of the humans that were taken from Earth tens of thousands of years ago were not really much different. They were collectively categorized as Space-Based Humans, who were more adjusted to Space and living in Space than the Humanity of Earth. [Five armed targets remaining in the vault-room...] Hearing the voice of the Red Queen Alice, he nodded as he awaited the next Sr Guards that started advancing towards his ce because they were pressed by the leaders of the Sr Cult. They wanted to escape this ce as soon as possible, it seemed, because they were cherishing their lives more than anything. In fact, there were not many guards in the panic room deep under the headquarters of the Sr Cult. And what they were losing in numbers of armed guards, there were several higher-ups of the Sr Cult, based on what Red Queen Alice was streaming to him through the Neural Extr Terminal Gene Imnts. Arcturus dashed towards the three Sr Guards as the Aetherius cracked with the distorting field, cutting through the soldiers like a hot knife through butter. Using the moment of opportunity, his ughter of the Sr Guards created panic among the remaining people within the vault, as some took their opportunity and attempted to run out while he was engaging the Sr Guards in singlebat. He only vaguely looked at the several people that attempted to escape, all four of them wearingvish clothes, signifying their high status among the Sr Cult. Meanwhile, Alice did not run facial recognition on them if they were worth taking alive. [You can kill all four of them, none of them are vital for you.] Hearing that, he nodded, and with several swings, he cut through them with his sword, meeting no resistance at all. Though it was rather an unfairparison, considering his extremely advanced equipment against rtively primitive foes. With thest Sr Guard dying, he entered the vault room, and truthfully, he was rather surprised to see it state because the entire ce could be described as the pinnacle of luxury. Everything was covered in gold and various luxurious materials, collected probably from the entire Star Sector. There was a lot of symbolism and icons of the Sr Cult, and symbols of the sun were practically everywhere. When he looked at the several men present, they were shouting and screaming something in thenguage that he didn''t understand, and he wasn''t really bothering with activating the automatic trantion function of the Neural Extr Terminal Gene Imnts. He then turned his gaze to the middle-aged man, human by all ounts, portly and very fat. It was clear that he was living far above the standards of the average Heliosians on the Helios IV. He dashed in front of them, and with two swings of aetheries, he decapitated the military leaders of the Sr Guild, while Alice recorded their death through biometrics, which would be immediately sent to the Bounty Hunter Guild. Just as he killed them, several secondster, 10,000 Universal Credits were transferred onto his ount, and two bounties were immediately imed. Looking at the fat man, who was, by most ounts, the High Prophet of Sun, he took out a small vial with silverish liquid. Before the High Prophet of Sun could faint or piss himself from fear, Arcturus stabbed the vial into his artery and injected the silverish liquid into his bloodstream. The High Prophet of Sun fell on the ground and started squirming like a pig to be shot, as Arcturus was now being worried... ''Are you sure it would work? He looks like he would go to the afterlife any second...'' While he trusted his A.I., he was still sceptical little bit when he saw the effect of the nanomachines on the High Prophet of the Sun. [Of course, it would work... we only need to wait, and it already works; I have full control of his consciousness through the nanobots. I ammenting on memory searching. All necessary data found, transferring funds from their ounts.] As he was hearing Red Queen Alice talking, he was surprised when he noticed that several hundreds of thousands of Universal Credits werending at his ount within the Cosmic Vaultbank. This was indeed a very good catch, as he managed to get almost one million Universal Credits; this was already a tremendous amount for a small-time organization like the Sr Cult. While the money may seem a lot, in fact, to the powerful Psykers and Warriors, it wasn''t actually that much. With this amount of money, he would be able to expand his Droid Army a bit, but most importantly he would have some money to invest in himself. He could buy enough Psionic Crystals to increase his Psyker Rank by one, and there would be enough remaining to buy another Gene Enhancing Serum that would push his physique to the Delta-Grade from the current Epsilon-Grade. At the Delta-Grade, he would be already a proper superhuman, who would be more than twelve to fifteen times stronger than the average Baseline Human. Of course, Gene-Enhancing Serums were not really rare, but one needed enough Universe Credits and connections to buy them. Usually only Type 3 Civilizations and Factions produced them, but one could also find some Type 2 that were focusing on gic technology and had their own. Of course, the effects would then wary, depending on the source of the Gene-Enhancing Serum. Chapter 29: First Mission Sucess Right now, Arcturus has almost one million Universal Credits on his ount within the Cosmic Vaultbank. However, the moment the reward for the mission from the Star Mercenary Association arrived, he would have crossed the bnce of over one million. Still, he was lucky in this aspect because the mission to destroy the Sr Cult was a rather difficult one, and he was lucky in another aspect that there were not many Star Mercenaries with such huge firepower as him. Not many people from the Type 3 or very powerful Type 2 Civilizations would do this kind of work, and those who did wouldn''t lower themselves for a meager 50,000 Universal Credits. Not to mention, without advanced means, it would be impossible to take control over the funds of the Sr Cult. ''Is it everything?'' Arctururs asked in his mind, and when he heard that Red Queen affirmed, he severed the head of the High Prophet of the Sr Cult, as another ten thousand Universal Creditsnded on his ount within the Cosmic Vaultbank. [Yes. The Battle Droids have broken down the resistance of the soldiers and the militias; all of their defenses are down and destroyed... one good orbital bombardment would finish them for all, and the Mission from the Star Mercenary Association would bepleted.] Arcturus nodded, preparing to leave, though not before he searched through this luxurious panic room of the Sr Cult, but he was pretty unfortunate in this regard because there was nothing worthwhile to take even with him. Most of the things that were present were, technically speaking, totally useless. Most of the things that were present were trinkets, religious texts and other totally garbage-like items, so he decided to cut the search and just leave. ''Order droids to leave and beam them back to the Obscurus, prepare the ship for the Orbital Bombardment, raze it to the ground.'' Arcturus knew that they actually didn''t have much time, because the reinforcements from the allies of the Sr Cult could arrive at any given moment. Considering the degree to which they managed to infiltrate the Helian society, it was only expected that sooner orter, they would arrive in waves. Nobody, actually knew, who from the government of the Helios was their member and who was not, so when it came to the worst, Arcturus could be attacked by arge part of the military forces of the Helios. Despite the technological superiority of the Obscurus, he would stand no chance against a numerically superior foe. While Obscurus was a fairly advanced spacecraft, it wasn''t a proper Type 3 civilization spaceship as he wished... [On yourmand. The Battle Droids are withdrawing from the surface. I secured important files with the names of important members of the Sr Cult; some were hidden pretty well on their separate servers.] Hearing that, Arcturus nodded as he then started running towards the exit from the underground headquarters of the Sr Cult at his top speed, practically as fast as he could, because Red Queen was also monitoring the entire Sr System. And it seemed that the Sr Cult''s reinforcements were indeeding up. [You have approximately five minutes until the reinforcements of these fantasies arrive.] He frowned, but nheless, he continued running towards the surface of the Helios IV. *** Command Deck of the Obscurus Approximately 3 minutester, Arcturus arrived at the surface of the Helios IV. and was instantly teleported to themand deck of the Obscurus. The very second he appeared on themand deck of his spaceship, he immediately ordered the orbital bombardment of the highest degree on the headquarters of the Sr Cult. Red Queen like the faithful servant she was, controlled the spaceship and instantly unleashed hell onto the headquarters of the Sr Cult, when tens of the Laser Batteries stared non-stop firing and shooting, together with the Primary Cannons. Within one minute everything was obliterated and the only things that remained on the surface were the remains of the builds, ming hell, molten rocks and metal. Theser weaponry of the Obscurus was one of the most advanced one among the Type 2 technology, almost reaching the lowest threshold for the Type 3. "This should count asplete, right?" Arcturus said almost jokingly, when he observed the sheer and utter destruction that was unleashed onto the former headquarters of the Sr Cult, while Red Queen Alice sent the recording of the entire thing to the Star Mercenary Association. [I sent the recording. The request is pending. The request has been epted. The mission is considered done.] At the same time, he also got the notification from the Extr through his Neural Extr Terminal Gene Imnts. "Activate the hyperdrive, head back to the Starfort Lycurgos in Rylon Star System." In a split of a second, Obscurus disappeared from the realspace and jumped into the hyperspace. Not even a momentter, several tens vessels bearing the sigils of the Helian Navy appeared and started circling around the Helios IV. with a great fervor. It was clear that at least one of the Admirals of the Helian Navy was a zealous believer in the Sr Cult, or he was a coborator for some different reasons. s, they came toote because the entire Sr Cult had already long ago razed to the ground until nothing, aside from a ming hell, remained from the entire area. The spaceships of the Helian Navy then descended down onto the ce where the headquarters of the Sr Cult was previously located underneath the Valley of the Converging Sun to start search for the survivors while the rest of the started scouting the entire Star System. Chapter 30: Becomming Psyker Hyperspace, Obscurus Arcturus knew that the starships of the Helian Navy would arrive soon enough after he departed from the Helios IV., because themotion that he created within that ce was huge, especially after he razed the entire Valley of the Converging Sun to the ground. [Mission: The First Mark in History Description: Start the rise of the Legend. Complete the Mission from the Star Mercenary Assassociation and Bounties from the Bounty Hunter Guild with a perfect score. The mission has beenpleted.] [Calciualtog rewards for the Mission: The First Mark in History.] [System has judged the mission achieving the perfect score.] [Reward has been calcted to be the Empyrean-Type EsPsion Crystal.] When Arcturus returned to his chambers, he decided to take note of the system notification from the System as heplied with the reward assigned to him by the Star Citizen Online System. Suddenly, the crimson crystal appeared in his hand, and he looked at the little thing rather curiously. He knew that the EsPsion Crystals were rare, and the Empyrean-Types were even rarer... ''Where is the best opportunity to use it? Would it be to use during the traveling the hyperspace?'' He asked the Red Queen because she had an instantaneous connection to the Extr and Imperial NetSphere and could search for the necessary information muchter than he ever could. Hearing that, Arcturus nodded his head and, in the end, decided to use the EsPsion Crystal right now. Most of the reason behind the decision was due to the sheer greed for the Psionic Energy and obtaining the Psyker Ability. No to mention, he trusted Red Queen Alice to keep the things straight and safe. In case something went wrong, he was confident that Alice could keep him safe and also Obscurus on track. Hopefully nothing would happen, even though he would use the Empyrean-Type EsPsion Crystal right now. ''Also... how the thing is used?'' When he prepared to use the Empyrean-Type EsPsion Crystal, Arcturus realized that he didn''t even know how to use the Empyrean-Type EsPsion Crystal in the first ce. Arcturus waited because when he noticed the pause that the Red Queen Alice was making, he realized that it would be something really bad or something that he wouldn''t even like a bit... ''Split it up already...'' He was already getting impatient a bit when she was dragging it out. He contemted about her words a bit because he could see that they sounded ridiculous, but at the same time, they had a certain degree of logic behind them. ''When the Empyrean-Type EsPsion Crystal is reworked into a different substance, is there any loss in potential or something?'' Arcturus didn''t know much about this, but he had a certain feeling that there was nothing free in this world, and he suspected that this also applied to the EsPsion Crystals as well. Just as he suspected, so there was no really other choice. He already got his hands on the best EsPsion Crystal possible, obtaining the Empyrean-Type EsPsion Crystal, and he didn''t want the Empyrean-Type EsPsion Crystal to lose even one bit of its potential. Arcturus wanted to get all the power that the Empyrean-Type EsPsion Crystal could provide him, so he obviously didn''t waste any more time and threw the Empyrean-Type EsPsion Crystal into his mouth and gulped it down in one go. In fact, it didn''t really matter a bit, and the moment he sensed the Empyrean-Type EsPsion Crystal falling into his stomach, he was hit by enormous pain in his stomach, like it was being literally torn apart when the Empyrean-Type EsPsion Crystal started dissolving itself. At the same time, his body was automatically assimting the dissolved fragments of the Empyrean-Type EsPsion Crystal, and the tremendous Psionic Energy started flooding every single cell and especially his brain. Within the brain of the Psyker, there was a ce where their Psionic Core was located, where the Brain most of the Psionic Energy was congregated and stored, so right now, Arcturus was feeling tremendous pain while he was shaking and trashing on the ground. The entire process took far longer than Arcturus expected, but slowly, the pain was getting lower and lower until he started feeling almost nothing, though he still felt the huge waves of the Psionic Energy within his body. Psykers were the people who could control andmand the Psionic Energy and perform various wonders, depending on the ability they awakened during their Psyker Awakening; aside from that, they could also control Psionic Energy itself to perform various feats. [Congrattions, host, for obtaining Super-High Risk Primal Psyker Ability: Dimension Empyrean.] Psyker Abilities were divided into several categories based on their potential and power. Most of the Psyker Abilities belonged actually to the Normal Category. Aside from them, there were then some High-Level Abilities that had the potential to reach higher degrees than the normal Category. On the top of the pyramid were the Super-High Risk Pskyer Abilities. Chapter 31: Super-High Risk Primal Psyker Ability There were twomon ways to use Psionic Energy in the universe. One of the mostmon was to just use it basically; technically speaking, one could use the Psionic Energy to make some basic things, like performing sts of the Raw Psionic Energy or using it to strengthen physical attributes duringbat. It was used without any specific effects, and such people were ssified as Psionicists. Even they, with their limited usage of the Psionic Energy, were far superior to the Warriors because one Psionicist could defeat several Warriors of the same Grade. And above the Psionictists were Psykers. Not only could Psykers use the Psionic Energy far better than Psionicists, but at the same time, Psykers also awakened their own Psyker Ability, giving them far higherbat prowess and development potential. [Disying status.] Soon enough, after he heard the notice from the Star Citizen Online System, his character sheet appeared in front of his eyes. [Name: Arcturus Al-Yesod Crawford Race: Asuryan Human ssification: Psyker / Warrior Psyker Ability: Dimension Empyrean (Super-High Risk Primal Psyker Ability) Grade: Psionics - N/A, Physique: Epsilon-Grade *** Skills: Basic Swordsmanship (Level 5 Master - 47%) Abilities: Regeneration (Epsilon), Enhanced Senses, Enhanced Thinking and Learning Innate Abilities: N/A Augmentations: Neural Extr Terminal Gene Imnts] Though he noticed his percentage in the Basic Swordsmanship went up, he mostly focused on the Psyker Ability that he awakened as he clinked on it, and soon enough, the entire status screed warped and disyed the description for it. [Psyker Ability: Dimension Empyrean Type: Original Ability Rank: Super-High Risk Primal Uniqueness: Primal Variation Description: The Dimension Empyrean is the first time Original Ability, meaning that it is only one of its kind. At the same time, it is also Super-High Risk Psyker Ability of Primal Variation, which allowed the Psyker to enhance his overall abilities, tremendously increasing affinity for the Psionic Energy and Attunement for it. Dimension Empyrean has three basic abilities: 1st - Psionic Energy Realm: The User has his own Dimension in his very own soul, which is akin to the everchanging realm of pure Psionic Energy and Empyrean Power. 2nd - Empyrean Manifestation: The User can manifest the Empyrean Power in the Realspace, can use it to enhance attacking power and so on... 3rd - Aether Conversion: The User can convert anything with Psionic Origin and absorb it into the Dimension Empyrean, growing the strength of the Dimension while at the same time also increasing his Empyrean Power.] Arcturus understood the value and reason why the Dimension Empyrean was ssified as the Super-High Risk Primal Development Psyker Ability from the start. Even the basic abilities of the Psyker Ability were actually very useful and powerful if someone knew how to use them ordingly. The Psionic Energy Realm was basically priceless because while it didn''t give any direct offense or defensive bonus, it was something that was far more valuable. He would have basically tremendous storage of Psionic Energy in his soul. This would give him the capability to fight in prolonged battles far longer than average Warrior, Psionicists, or Psyker could; not to mention, at the altered date, he would be able to spam many attacks of Psionic nature without any problem. From what he understood and sensed within his soul, the Empyrean Power was dangerous, extremely destructive in nature, and could corrupt anything it touched. Meaning it was a no-go zone for most people. So the fact that the 2nd Ability of the Dimension Empyrean was a manifestation of the Empyrean Power into the realspace, could tremendously enhance hisbat prowess in one go during thebat. The 3rd Ability was something that would allow him to basically expand and upgrade the realm inside his soul and fill it with Psionic Energy and Empyrean Power. [Psionic Attunement Hidden Attribute has been revealed.] [Due to awakening Super-High Risk Primal Development Psyker Ability Dimension Empyrean hosts'' Psionic Attunement has been increased.] [Psionic Attunement: Superior (0%)] [Attunement Ranks (Psionics): Common - Average Psionic Potential for development. Advanced - Strong Psionic Potential for development; people in this category have strong attunement for Psionic Energy and talent, giving them an easier time advancing through Grades. Aside from that, they have a chance of awakening strong Psyker Ability. Superior - Potential ranked 1 in a hundred million; people with Superior Attunement for the Psionic Energy are destined to be Psykers and awaken powerful Psyker Ability. They also have a highly unnatural talent for the Psionic Energy Maniption and Cosmic - Psionic Potential of Cosmoc-scale, bordering the mortal possibilities. Only one person with Cosmic Attunement may be born in trillions over several centuries, and each of them is destined for greatness. Having such Attunement guarantees that one would obtain a High-Level Developer Psyker Ability.] In fact, he didn''t expect that he would have such good Psionic Attunement; perhaps the prospects of his Isekai Life started looking good. He suspected that the Psionic Attunements could be somehow upgraded and evolved... He wondered how powerful the Superior Psionic Attunement looked like and how it would ease him in the cultivation of the Psionic Powers. Now that he became Psyker and even obtained Super-High Risk Primal PsykerAbility, he was aware that he would need to train as much as possible to increase his strength. The real power wasn''t really in the edges of the Chronus Expanse; only deeper in the Chronus Expanse were there truly powerful people. Right now, Arcturus was operating in the so-called safe zone for newbies. He wanted to get into the ce where the big yers were, because only there he could find contracts that were worth tons of Universe Credits or where he could find precious resources. ''Perhaps I should seek advice from the old man Byrmellir... he always looked far more important than he pretended to be. Maybe he is some super strong person living as a hermit...'' For this thought, he decided to ask Master Artist Byrmellir for advice because there was not much about developing Super-High Risk PsykerAbility on the Extr and Imperial NetSphere. That was mainly because every single Super-High Risk Psyker Ability was unique on its own, and Arcturus possessed Super-High Risk PsykerAbility of Primal Variation and Origin Type, so there had never been such an ability before. He needed someone who could guide him, or rather he wanted because he knew that while having Super-High Risk PsykerAbility was good, but... there were some hidden dangers that he wasn''t really keen on exploring. Chapter 32: How to train your Psyker Ability "Alice, are there any simr Psyker Abilities recorded within the Imperial NetSphere or Extr?" While it may sound weird and perhaps even unnatural, there were not much clear and detailed information about the Pskyer Abilities on the Imperial NetSphere or the Extr, that could be used as reference material when developing your own Psyker Ability. It could be mainly attributed to the fact that most of the powerful civilizations, star nations and other factions across the known universe restrained the limit that someone could put ons. There were problem tons of reasons behind that, but fortunately enough for Arcturus, Red Queen Alice was very advanced Artificial Intelligence, so she could browse the Extr and Imperial NetSpehere at a staggering speed and process the information at an unprecedented rate. Something that couldn''t be done without Artificial Intelligence on her level or someone who could process information simr rate. Soon enough, Alice already had a preliminary outline for the information about the Psyker Abilities, and she actually managed topile a lot. Within the information she had, there were a few Psyker Abilities that were in certain ways simr to that of the Dimension Empyrean. Even though theparison wasn''t the best one, because Dimension Empyrean was Super-High Risk Primal Psyker Ability. Super-High Risk Primal Psyker Abilities were vastly different from the ordinary and average Psyker Abilities, they were special, but even a bit ofparison could help him to better understand the usage of the Dimension Empyrean. Arcturus knew that he had a problem when it came to the background, so for the time being, he could only depend on himself, no matter how problematic it was. Arcturus carefully listened to everything that the Red Queen Alice was saying... taking reference only from the highest-rating Psyker Abilities was something to be done; if he did it with the abilities of lesserpatibility rate, then he could cause himself some really severe injuries. "Could youpile everything useful into one file and make some extraction from it... probably rather detailed one if possible." Right now, he would be rtively satisfied with references to the usage of his own Dimension Empyrean. He knew that if he wanted to really develop a Super-High Risk Primal Pskyer Ability to the limits, he would either need a very good background or a lot of talent and luck... And most probably it would be all three of it together. Just as the countdown sounded, almost immediately, he felt a stabbing pain in his head, as his brain was almost overloaded with the information. It would take him some time, to properly process all the memories and understand them properly. Still, for the starters, even this was rather good because he would at least have something to work with as a reference. Dimension Empyrean was a very versatile Psyker Ability; it could be used as an offensive, defensive, and auxiliary means. So having such a wideption of various abilities that he could use as a reference for him to use the Dimension Empyrean in the most efficient way. Not to mention, as the Super-High Risk Primal Psyker Ability, Dimension Empyrean was also extremely dangerous to the user. So, he needed to be very careful at the early start when he attempted to use the Dimension Empyrea. "How long till we arrive back at the Lycurgos Starfort?" He knew that it would take at least for a few days to arrive back at the Rylon Star System where the Lycurgos Starfort was stationed. The ship wasn''t going at the maximum speed, only at the average speed. To preserve some of the fuel, it wasn''t really necessary to constantly use the top speed of the Hyperdrive Engines. If he was using the maximum speed of the Hypredrives of the Obscurus, then he could travel great distances at almost instantaneous speed. He wanted to save fuel and not waste it unnecessarily... Even though, right now, he had more than enough money to refuel the ships, even though some of the best kinds of types of fuel cost a fortune to buy. "I should spent some time experimenting with the Dimension Empyrean during that time... have the training room been finished?" One of the upgrades that the Red Queen Alice decided to do was to upgrade the Training Room within the Obscurus to a bit higher standards so it wouldn''t get destroyed that easily... The problemy in the fundamental design of the ship because while Arcturus was ying Star Citizen Online, there were almost no Type 3 civilizations within the game, and they were added only in thetest patch of the game... So the number of things that he managed to add from that area was rather limited, and now that he became Psyker, he knew that it was an excellent choice to upgrade the Training Room to a higher standard. And with the worker droids that the Red Queen was using, everything was free, aside from the materials that he had to buy for the endeavor. Now he could use the Training Room at least to a certain degree, even with his enhanced power, as Red Queen Alice assured him, that the Training Room should be handled even if he lost control a bit... So hopefully everything will be fine. Thest thing that he needed was to be stranded somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the spacecraft. That would be surely an idiotic way to die. Chapter 33: Training Your Psyker Ability Training the Psyker Ability wasn''t an easy feat, especially considering the fact that he was essentially going in blind without any guidance or anything. That was slightly problematic, though; with the help of the Red Queen Alice, he managed to obtain at least something. With the references to the other Psyker Abilities, he hopped to train the Dimension Empyrean at least to a degree high enough that he could start actively using the Psyker Ability in realbat. That would obviously take some time, but he hoped to obtain preliminary results soon enough. Just sensing the capabilities of the Dimension Empyrean, he noticed that the Empyrean Energy that appeared within the ever-changing dimension within his soul that was created upon awakening the Dimension Empyrean was rather vtile and dangerous. Arcturus nodded, hearing what the Central Artificial Intellignece stated. He was too aware of the fact and was cautious about the Dimension Empyrean, but at the same time, now that he has be Psyker, he is too eager to try it. In his first life, supernatural abilities were just works of fiction and dreams, something that was very, very far from real life and the reality where humankind lived and existed. He was aware that there was nothing like that, so when he transmigrated into this new reality, he was too eager to be a supernatural creature. And that was possible in several ways. Even though bing a gically enhanced superhuman was good, it wasn''t reaching the degree of bing a true Psionicist or person with the superpower. So, bing a Psyker was always his small goal and desire. "I am aware... but I feel if it is just a small degree of the Empyrean Manifestation, then it should be okey..." The Empyrean Manifestation was the 2nd Ability of the Dimension Empyrean and it allowed him to manifest the Empyrean Power in the Realspace. Because the Empyrean Power was extremely destructive and corruptive, its potential was great when used inbat. Not only as the means offensive but it could also be used for the defenses and auxiliary means because it could destroy different attacks or destroy the opponent''s weapons faster than one could blink. Arcturus sat down on the cold metal floor of the Training Room of the Obscurus, and slowly, he started activating the Dimension Empyrean, more precisely it''s 2nd Ability of the Dimension Empyrean, Empyrean Manifestation. The 1st Ability of the Dimension Empyrean was a passive one that would be activated as long as he lived, bing the fundamental part of his very own being. Using the 2nd Ability, the Empyrean Manifestation required a certain degree of subtlety and skill. Soon enough, a crimson energy started appearing in front of him; it looked like a small ball of cracking crimson lightning or me that was levitating right in front of him. Even though it was only a small part of the Empyrean Power, he could feel its power and destructiveness very clearly. "Report." Arcturus said that he knew that Red Queen Alice was monitoring his progress right from the start through the Neural Extr Terminal Gene Imnts, which would provide even more data to her. With this, she could not only minor his progress, but at the same time, she could also use it as a reference and, coupled together with the information she gathered on them, would give her better chances to create a tailored training regime for him. He nodded, hearing that because everything was normal... so far, so good. Now that he got confirmation everything was going as it should, he continued increasing the amount of the Empyrean Power that he was manifesting through the Dimension Empyren''s Empyrean Manifestation in the Realspace. The Empyrean Power sphere in front of him was growing bigger and bigger with each passing moment and the sphere of the Empyrean Power was slowly getting more and more uncontroble, which was rather problematic for Arcturus after some time. Even though it was getting more unpredictable, Arcturus was able to perfectly control the Empyrean Power rather well on his first try. Though approximately twenty minutester, he was beginning to feel the strain on his mind when he was controlling the Empyrean Power. The first exercise that he was doing was a rather simple one that was all about the control of the Empyrean Power. To be able to use the Empyrean Power within thebat would require a lot of work and training, but he was already doing a rather good job, even with the bits of the Empyrean Power that he managed to manifest in the Realspace. Another thing that he noticed about the Empyrean Manifestation of the Dimension Empyrean was that the moment the Empyrean Power was manifested into the Realspace, it seemed like the reality itself was rejecting the sheer concept of the Empyrean Power. Maintaining the Empyrean Power despite this rejection and suppression was much harder than controlling the Empyrean Power itself. Hearing what the Red Queen Alice said caused Arcturus to cancel the Empyrean Manifestation slowly, as the Empyrean Power was getting weaker and weaker until it hadpletely dissipated. He was rather satisfied with the first result of his training; having obtained some experiences with the Empyrean Power was more than enough for the time being for him. Chapter 34: Usage of Wealth Obscurus, Master Chambers. After he finished training with his newly obtained Psyker Ability, Arcturus was rather tired from the entire endeavor. Even though it went well, Dimensioon Emyprean was, in the end, Super-High Risk Primal Psyker Ability, so even this bit of training left a great strain on his mind. Something that he couldn''t really ignore. Thus, he decided to rest in his personal chambers for the time being. During the time he was at the Starfort Lycurgos, Red Queen Alice already replenished the goods on the ship. Now, he had several kinds of alcohol and cigars, together with some luxurious foods, which could be easily bought with Universal Credits. Obviously, these were just ordinary products with no added value, or else they wouldn''t cost almost anything. "Alice, how would Obscurus be ssified as a spaceship across the universe?" Arcturus sat down on the leather sofa as he poured himself a local alcoholic drink that he had bought at the Lycurgos Starfort. It was rather reminiscing of him of the scotch in the consistency, color, and taste a bit. He was aware that there were certain problematic aspects with the Obscurus, because the ship was iplete as he was unfortunately unable to finish the ship within the game. "What are you suggesting we should start with... with the budget of, let''s say, half a million Universal Credits, the remaining half I n to invest into my own evolution and progress." Arcturus didn''t really n to hoard money right now because he needed to invest as much as possible into himself to upgrade his strength. The stronger he got, the more dangerous and better-paid missions he could undertake or go after high-profile bounties. And in turn, he would once again obtain more and more money. He was aware that this reality was dangerous as shit, there were people with superpowers capable to obliterating entires apparently ording to what was on the Extr and Imperial Netshpehere. He could only pray to his lucky star that he appeared in a region where there were not many powerful people residing, or else, he would probably be killed, or even something worse than death could have happened to him. Hearing this, his head almost hurt because this would be expensive. When he was ying Star Citizen Online and building the spaceship, he preferred to have the offensive power as high as possible, so he a bit neglected the defensive capabilities of the starship. "The Void Shield Generators should take priority above everything else; while the hull of the ship is thick enough to withstand the firepower of our own weapons, the shields would crumble upon more advanced weaponry of Type 3 technological tree... anything else?"