《The Molten Throne》 Quest 0: Zedaris Whiteflame Zedaris Whiteflame, First Prince of Pyrrhus, heir to its planetary Empire, sat atop the Molten Throne and brooded. He didn¡¯t do it often, mind you ¨C both the sitting on the throne and the brooding ¨C but today, he felt justified in his sulking, because come tomorrow, he might never get to sit on the glowing mound of metal again. Scratch that, he most likely wouldn''t even get to see it. Along with the rest of his planet. Or his people. His ash grey fingers dug into the armrests of the throne; the heat of the incandescent white flames burning at their tips reddening the metal and making it drip like wax. The blindingly bright flames covering his head and shoulders blazed hotter in response to his agitation, turning the molten metal in their proximity white. They cast deep shadows upon his face, featureless save for a pair of crystalline compound eyes. Today was supposed to be the day of his Coronation. It was supposed to be the day when all of his efforts would bear fruit. When he would take his rightful place as the next Emperor of Pyrrhus. He even had his reign title picked out. Something unique. Something domineering! Instead, it would be the day of his exile. Come tomorrow, he would be stripped of all his titles and skills ¨C a lifetime of effort, ashes on the wind ¨C and thrust through a portal to one of the System¡¯s newest conquests: an Edgeworld. He would be sent there as a Keeper of one of its Forbidden Zones, tasked to defend it against attacks from the other Keepers and the natives¡¯ attempts to reclaim it; and afterwards, when the Initial Protections were withdrawn, against visitors from the other System dominated worlds. If he succeeded, he would be granted the title of World Keeper. A title of immense power that was conferred upon those already immensely powerful. A title that would put him in the top one percent of the entire System. But over the millions of years that the System had existed, across the tens of thousands of galaxies it was spread across, within the millions of worlds that fell under its jurisdiction, only nine individuals had managed to gain that title. Zed had few illusions about being the tenth. Oh, he would try. After all, he was only one step away from becoming a planetary hierarch. One didn¡¯t get to his position without an ample helping of grit and determination heaped on their character. But even though he would try his best, he would likely fail anyway. The statistics had spoken. ¡®Just one more day¡­¡¯ Unclenching his fists, he sank back into the throne. The molten metal moulding itself to the contours of his back, flowing over his shoulders and chest, encasing him in warm liquid comfort. He let his mind connect with the synaptic interface that was wired into the throne. And through it, he tapped into the local sub-routine of the System. A three-dimensional holo-map of Pyrrhus expanded in his mind; a rocky planet so close to their red dwarf sun that its surface was in a constant state of flux from day to night. Sometimes hard, sometimes soft. There were no landforms on Pyrrhus, the constant hardening and softening having long since smoothed them out. The planet wasn¡¯t a perfect sphere either, the gravitational pull of the sun along with its rotation had caused its equator to bulge out while flattening its poles. Vast rivers of molten rock originated from the perpetual ocean of lava at the equator, reaching branching tendrils out towards the poles. A thick layer of smoke covered the planet and reflected the crimson light of the sun during the day and the ruddy glow of the lava bubbling beneath at night. Most of the rivers never made it all the way to the poles, draining instead into the large lava lakes scattered across the plains in between. And it was around these lakes that Pyrrhean civilization had first risen. As it always did when looking at a map, Zed¡¯s attention shifted to the Hearth, the largest of the lakes. It had been the capital of the largest pre-System Empire on the planet and even after the large-scale restructuring post apocalypse, it had remained central to Pyrrhean society. It was where Zed had been born. A set of mental commands had the map zooming in upon the Hearth, giving him a real-time feed of the lake as well as the thousands of people milling around its banks, there to view the stepping down of the previous Emperor and to watch the Coronation of the next. Qena Copperflame stood tall and proud on the ceremonial platform with her bluish-green flames framing her face and cascading down her back. Her body was the colour of the night after the seasonal storms had blown the perpetual canopy of smoke away, revealing the darkness beyond. And veins of copper ran across the surface of her body, lending her flames their characteristic colour. At her side, and one step behind her, stood Uzrohal Scarletflame, the former Emperor. Rich red flames burnt on his head and shoulders and at the tips of his fingers. His complexion was the reddish-black of cooling rock shot through with silvery veins of lithium. Neither of them wore any clothes. To cover oneself with anything but one¡¯s flames was frowned upon in Pyrrhean society. Though, trends had been changing recently, with many young Pyrrhean warriors donning flamesteel bandoliers to better carry their weapons along. But that wouldn''t be a problem for the two royals with the dimensional storage they had access to. Several image drones floated around the platform; the tiny metallic spheres generating an omnidirectional recording of the scene which they relayed to the holoprojectors arrayed around the lake. With a deep rumble of the stone drums that marked the beginning of the Coronation ceremony, the crowd quieted as a hundred-metre-tall projection of their rulers ¨C both old and new ¨C was cast at the very centre of the body of molten rock. Stepping forward, Qena spoke, her crystal eyes sweeping across the audience. And her projection in the centre of the lake spoke with her, amplifying her words so they reached every ear, transmitting them so they reached every System-integrated world. Her voice was the crackle and hiss of a blazing fire, it was the roaring of a firestorm, it was the quiet pop of a bubble bursting in the lava. Her flames flickered and danced in time with her speech, adding context and emotions to the words, bringing them to life. Zed had to admit, that when it came to Pyretongue, the language of his people, no one spoke it better than Qena. She had bested him in oration and matched his performance in all other disciplines. The only reason she had been the runner-up in the contest for the throne, and he the winner, was because of his exceptional prowess in battle. The silvery veins of magnesium winding across the surface of his body, nearly blending into his ash grey complexion, made his fire the most destructive kind a Pyrrhean could possess. His fire had always been a source of pride for him. But now, he couldn''t help but wish he had been born with flames a different colour. In her speech, Qena spoke of him. She spoke of a cunning diplomat who could sway the minds of all he met to his favour. She spoke of an intrepid warrior who knew no rival. She spoke of a man who would gladly sacrifice his chance to sit upon the highest throne Pyrrhus had to offer, just so he could venture into the unknown and struggle against the rest of the universe for more resources for their people. She made him out to be the selfless hero he wasn¡¯t. ¡°I am but the guardian of the throne,¡± she concluded. ¡°It is his to take when he returns.¡± Seated atop the very throne he was supposed to have no attachment to, Zed scoffed. ¡®When, she says. When, not if. Either she is just that optimistic about my chances. Or, she¡¯s just laughing at me inside.¡¯ Of the two possibilities, Zed strongly suspected it was the latter.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. Uzrohal¡¯s speech was shorter, less elaborate. More of an explanation, really. ¡°Every hundred circuits of our planet around our sun, we select a new Emperor to replace the old. A century ago, that was me. But now, I am at the end of my life and my embers burn cold. It is time for me to step aside as well. ¡°Just as it happened during my time, a thousand youths at the cusp of adulthood were selected to compete for the throne in a contest that lasted a year. And two weeks ago, we finally found our winner. Today was supposed to be his Coronation. ¡°Yet fate likes to play strange tricks upon its children. Just this morning, the System announced that our world would contribute a Keeper to guard a Forbidden Zone upon its newest conquest ¨C a planet known as Earth.¡± Although Uzrohal had the suspicion of being deliberately obtuse, his fate argument still held some merit. There were over a million worlds that fell under the aegis of the System, but a new world with sentient life was only discovered once every hundred years. The number of Forbidden Zones varied from world to world, but there were never more than a hundred. For the System to choose Pyrrhus among all the others, and at just the right time to disrupt his Coronation¡­maybe it was fate. Or just plain bad luck. ¡®Just one more day¡­¡¯ ¡°Just one more day,¡± Uzrohal continued, ¡°and he would have been Emperor, allowed to designate someone to take his place as the Keeper candidate. Just a fortnight earlier and I wouldn''t have stepped down from my post and would still be able to assign a replacement myself. But in the absence of an Emperor, the System has automatically nominated the holder of the First Prince title as the Keeper from our world.¡± This mess was all a throwback to the Emergency Protocols set in place right after the System¡¯s apocalyptic advent upon their world. The Pyrrheans had managed to defend their world against the Keepers and the invaders from other System-integrated worlds and had been slowly piecing together the shattered remnants of their society and forging a new, stronger one. The leaders of their race at that time had gathered together and cooked up the system of Emperors and Princes that had prevailed till date. They had also set up some strictures in the System itself that would help preserve a final hope for the planet should everything fall apart a few hundred years down the line. Now, a set of coincidences had exposed a loophole in these protocols. ¡°For all his abilities and accomplishments, Zedaris Whiteflame is but a child. The burden should have been shouldered by one of our veteran warriors, it shouldn''t have been his.¡± Although Keepers had all of their titles and skills reset before they were inducted into office, having a greater skill level prior to the whitewash would be a great boost while building themselves back up. Zed knew he would be at a great disadvantage, facing off against the best and the most experienced warriors of the other selected worlds. Hell, even the natives, with their ridiculously boosted rate of experience gain and easy access to rare and powerful titles would have a leg up on him. There was a reason being selected as a Keeper was such a lucrative opportunity for both the individual and their homeworld. While the Keeper would have the opportunity to earn powerful titles that were exclusive to them, culminating in the legendary World Keeper designation, their homeworld would be rewarded with planetary titles depending on whether they managed to reach specific milestones. And each of those could bring drastic improvements to the entire world. ¡°We can only hope that the miracle that will take him away from us will return him to us safe and sound. All we can do is pray.¡± The former Emperor sounded deeply unhappy at the situation. Zed supposed he would be too if a twist of fate reduced Pyrrhus¡¯ chances of profiting from a once in a millennium opportunity. The thought that the old man might genuinely be concerned about him flashed past, but Zed dismissed it as unlikely. Between a planet and a youth, he knew which one was lighter and which one heavier. Having said his piece, Uzrohal stepped forward, crossing Qena and walking down the stairs of the platform. The rhythm of the stone drums changed to match the frequency of his steps. His steps didn¡¯t slow as he reached the edge of the lake and he walked right into it, his feet sinking further into the molten rock with each step forward. The drumbeats spiralled upwards in a heady crescendo. Waist, shoulders, neck, the lava swallowed more of his form with each passing moment, until at last, with the sudden cessation of the drums, his head sank below the surface. In the silence, a ripple of scarlet fire expanded outwards centred on the point of his disappearance. Followed by another, then another. Until almost a quarter of the lake was blazing with bright red flames. The drums resumed. Slow, heavy, mournful. More figures stepped out from the crowded audience. They had hunched backs and dimmed flames. Their steps were slow and ponderous. They were the elderly. The drums beat a steady rhythm as they followed their Emperor into the lake. Flowers of colourful flame bloomed across the lake, and from his top-down vantage Zed could see the breathtakingly beautiful pattern they formed on the surface. The elderly were painting a mural of fire upon the lake using the last of their lives as ink. Despite agelessness being well within the System¡¯s ability to grant, in the interest of maintaining balance it refused to grant it. Of all the races in the universe, perhaps it was the Pyrrheans who had accepted death the easiest. After all, fire was the most transient of elements. And with the ever-fluctuating nature of their landscape, they were used to impermanence. Instead of mourning death, they had chosen to celebrate the conclusion of a life well spent. Each year, thousands of the aged would set out on a pilgrimage to the lake nearest to them. There they would be received by dedicated priests known as pyre artists. And on the very last day of the year, they would all ritually submerge themselves in the lake alongside their fellow pilgrims ¨C each of their positions calculated precisely by the artists based upon the colour and intensity of their flames to yield the most spectacular of results. And in death lurked life. As Zed watched, the rhythm of the drumbeats changed, from mournfully slow to joyfully frantic. And as though in response, the regions of flame fragmented into tiny clumps that tried to condense towards their centres. Most of them failed, dissipating in showers of colourful sparks, but a few succeeded. Qena waved her hand, and connected to the local System sub-routine as he was, Zed could feel her using a skill. If he so wished, he could block her access, causing her skill to fail. That was the power of the throne. A power that was his till the end of this night. He let the skill succeed and the successful clumps of flame flew up from the lake towards her like a swarm of colourful fireflies. Priests laden with heavy stone jars approached and setting down the jars, opened their lids. Qena spread her fingers and the swarm scattered, each spark flying into a jar of its own. The priests shut the lids. Despite the impediment of the thick stone of the jars, by leveraging the capabilities of the System, Zed could see the scene within. Each jar contained a puppet made out of a compacted mix of ground glass and ash. As the sparks touched the puppets, the fire around them dimmed, revealing a nucleus of crystal and metal. They seemed to gain a life of their own, branching out thin tendrils of metal to slowly permeate the body of the puppet. As time went on, some of these puppets would successfully develop into Pyrrhean infants, while the sparks would become their cores ¨C the source of their life and fire. The rest would remain clumps of powdered glass and ash. Mentally performing the Pyrrhean equivalent of a sigh, Zed withdrew his focus from the video feed and cut his connection to the Throne. His mind returned to his own body, and as he sat up, the red-hot metal of the Molten Throne sloughed off him. Getting to his feet, he paced the broad empty space in front of the throne, his bare feet leaving burning footprints on the hard stone of the floor. Watching the Ceremony of Pyrrhic Reincarnation from his unique vantage point had touched him. Especially the part where the sparks struggled to set root within the puppets. How many sparks had there been? And how many had succeeded? He was sure the ratio was scarily low. Yet none of them had given up, had they? If a spark, with a level of sentience inferior to even an infant, could struggle so hard to survive, what was stopping him from doing the same? Sure, the odds were against him, but they had been right from the moment he had been born. He was the First Prince, a man a single step away from becoming the sovereign of an entire planet. If anyone could surmount the odds, it would be him. Coming to an abrupt halt in his pacing, his flames flaring hotter with his determination, he set firm resolve. Hadn¡¯t Qena said that she was only holding his throne for him till he came back? Hadn¡¯t Uzrohal asked the people to pray for a miracle so he could return safe and sound? Then he would just have to live up to both their expectations. He would just have to become a World Keeper. His flames hissing and crackling, their brilliant white tongues flickering in the air, he spoke a word in Pyretongue. A word that was among the first taught to children. The very first one he had learnt. ¡°Status.¡± Quest 1: Adapt and Survive Intergalactic teleportation was as disorienting an experience as always. One moment Zed was pacing in front of the Molten throne with several holo-screens open in front of him, charting out plans for his upcoming campaign. The next, the world opened up like a flower, the outsides mixing with the insides as he was yanked into the fourth dimension and nothing made sense anymore. Then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped and he found himself in a dark cave with only his status screen open in front of him. That too with all his achievements reset to zero. Time had run out during his absorbed musings and the System had transported him to this new world he was supposed to conquer. And the grave sense of weakness pressing down on him wasn¡¯t helping him get over the disorientation either! He had grown used to having hundreds of small processes running in the background, augmenting his senses, helping him structure his thoughts and regulating his flames. Now, without the required levels in the requisite skills, all of those processes had shut down, leaving his mind floundering to pick up the slack. The fact that he had been in the middle of high intensity calculations when he had been so rudely interrupted was just the icing on the cake. It took several minutes for Zed to finally get everything under control and take notice of his surroundings. The cave he was in was clearly volcanic in origin with the walls, ceiling and floor made up of a dark igneous rock shot through with veins of obsidian. There was only one exit through which a reddish-orange glow entered the cave, providing the only source of illumination. Walking up to the entrance, he peered out to get a read of his surroundings. He found himself on a steep ledge, looking out upon a much larger, roughly egg-shaped chamber illuminated by a pool of magma bubbling beneath. Leaning out a bit and looking upward, he could see a darker circle in the shadowed ceiling where the vent led up to the surface. He was in a magma chamber! If not for his certainty that he wasn¡¯t on Pyrrhus anymore, he would have felt right at home. the System had chosen a good place to introduce him to this world.
Welcome to Origin World #2367: Earth!
The string of welcoming text scrolled across Zed¡¯s vision, confirming his location and informing him that this was only the 2367th world with sentient life that the System had discovered in the millions of years since its inception. At present, there were millions of planets inhabited by System-integrated species, but the Origin Worlds would always have a special place in history for being where they all began. The System¡¯s apocalyptic advent, the Keepers, the conflict; it was all a test. A test to see if the natives of this world were worthy of joining the System as leaders, or as servants. Withdrawing into the cave, Zed turned back to his status screen. The blinking numbers in brackets beside his Authority and Field stats immediately caught his attention.
Status: Zedaris Whiteflame
Authority: 0 [6] Field: 0 [12]
Data: o Appraise o Override o Calculate Kinetic: o Force o Acoustic o Thermal Electromagnetic: o Magnetic o Electric o Photonic
System: o Quest o Assistance o Macro Material: o Molecular o Atomic o Nuclear Dimensional: o Gravitational o Spatial o Temporal
Ah, initiation points! How nostalgic! He still remembered opening his status screen for the very first time and seeing these numbers blinking at him. He had been so excited! His unruly flames blazing a blinding white as his young mind took him on a fanciful trip down the lane of infinite possibilities. Then his mentor had shattered all his childish fantasies by hovering sternly over his shoulder and forcing him to allocate exactly one point to each of the eighteen base skills, unlocking them all. The initiation points were meant for children to unlock all the skills; for them to play around and get a feel for which ones they liked best. So that once they gained a title or two and earned a few free points to spend, they would know which skills to specialize in. Zed¡¯s situation was different. He already knew which path was the most suitable for him and could allocate his points accordingly. But first¡­
You have allocated one free Authority point to the Quest skill. The Quest system has been unlocked! Quest (Lv. 1): Receive System generated missions and fulfil them to earn rewards.
He wasn¡¯t just here for fun, he had to take over the role of the Keeper of a Forbidden Zone. For that, he needed to learn what that role entailed¡­and what better way of doing that than through a direct channel to his employer: The System.
New Quest! Adapt and Survive! Objective: Adapt your physiology or skillset to survive on the current planet. Reward: Title ¨C Universal Citizen
Sure enough. He received a quest as soon as he unlocked the skill. Although it didn¡¯t mention anything about his duties as a Keeper, he was pretty sure completing it was a pre-requisite for the position. It was a good thing he hadn¡¯t allocated all his points in the standard manner. If he had, there would be no way to gather the skills needed to complete this quest. ¡®So,¡¯ pondered Zed. ¡®What do I need?¡¯ Information. He needed information. He couldn''t adapt unless he knew what exactly it was that he was adapting to.
You have allocated one free Authority point to the Appraise skill. Appraise has been unlocked! Appraise (Lv. 1): Query the System for information on an object.
He spent the next few minutes Appraising everything in sight. At level 1, the skill wasn¡¯t very useful. The information it gave was just too limited. Useful for a child maybe, but next to nothing for him. Especially since he was in within a volcano. As someone whose entire planet was essentially one gigantic volcano, Zed was somewhat of an expert on them. It wasn¡¯t totally useless though. He managed to get two useful bits of information out of it.
Time: 04:46 A.M. 24/12/2325 A.D. Location: Mauna Loa, Hawaii
Unlocking the Appraise skill had activated the local clock and GPS. Now he at least knew the name of the place where he was. Although that name had yet to gain meaning in his mind. Zed shook his head. Stuck in the magma chamber of a volcano as he currently was, he had no way of gathering the information he needed. And the only way out was by climbing up the vent. That meant¡­
You have allocated one free Field point to the Force skill. The Force Field has been unlocked! Force (Lv. 1): Sense the force vectors in a region of volume (level cubed) m3.
Immediately a familiar awareness washed over him. The way his weight pressed down on the rocky ground beneath, the way the ground pushed back, the way the atmosphere pressed down upon him from all sides¡­it all came into sharper focus. Taking a combat stance, he punched the air, once, twice, taking note of the way the force was transmitted from his core, through his shoulder and his arm to his fists. Ah, he had missed this! Without this sense, he had felt so impaired¡­so clumsy. But this wouldn''t be enough. He didn¡¯t just need to sense the vectors, he needed to manipulate them.
You have allocated one free Field point to the Force skill. Force has levelled up! Force (Lv. 2): Alter the magnitude and direction of vectors by 5%. Cost: 20. Duration: 30 min. Error¡­ Field pool has not been unlocked. Force (Lv. 2) is currently unusable.
From the second level onwards, skills started coming with costs. Skills from the Data and System disciplines drew from the Authority resource pool while the rest of them drew upon the Field resource pool.
You have allocated one free Field point to the resource pool. Field pool unlocked! Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.Field: 100/100
Each point allocated to the pools increased them by 100. The pools refreshed periodically. Approximately, once every day in local time.
Field: 80/100
Activating the skill, Zed leapt up and down and threw a few punches, testing the response and familiarizing himself with a much lower level of power than he was used to. Walking up to the entrance of the cave, he leaned out and scanned the rocky walls around it for hand and footholds. Lightening himself and redirecting as much of his weight as he could towards the wall, he wedged his hand into a crack and eased himself outside until he was hanging from the sheer rockface with the magma bubbling directly beneath. Hand over hand, foot over foot, he climbed up the wall like an overgrown gecko. Sometimes, he would find that there was no hand or foothold in easy reach. Then he would make one, drawing air into his internal furnace and igniting the magnesium at its core, sending white fire searing through channels in his body and out of his fingertips or the tips of his toes, melting the rock in their vicinity and sending glowing droplets dripping down to join the pool of magma below. As he neared the top of the magma chamber, the walls curved inwards, making holding on that much more of a challenge. After the third time a section of rock crumbled under his weight and nearly sent him hurtling down to his death, it became clear that level 2 of Force just wasn¡¯t cutting it anymore and he reluctantly decided to add a point to the skill.
Force has levelled up! Force (Lv. 3): Alter the magnitude and direction of vectors by 10%. Cost: 40. Duration: 2 hr. Field: 40/100
The enhancement in the skill made for much easier going and he made it the rest of the way to the lower edge of the vent without any further trouble. After that it was just a matter of climbing straight up. A task made much simpler by the regular occurrence of natural rest stops in the form of ledges of solidified lava. Halfway up the shaft, Zed¡¯s flames suddenly flared out of control. Fire jetted explosively out of his head and shoulders, and from his fingertips, shattering the rock around him and sending him tumbling down. Throwing his hand out, he latched onto a crack in the wall. His body swung down and slammed into the rock, arresting his fall just a few metres above the lower edge of the vent. He hung there for a long moment, catching his breath. Climbing up to the closest ledge, he sat down and concentrated upon regulating his furnace and getting his flames back under control. It took a while without his usual skillset, but his racial instincts finally kicked in and he managed to get the fire burning steadily. He had a pretty good idea of what the problem might be, but to be sure, he needed the second level of Appraise.
Appraise has levelled up! Appraise (Lv. 2): In-depth analysis is now possible. Error¡­ Authority pool has not been unlocked. This skill requires a Field to be assigned to it. You have allocated one free Authority point to the resource pool. Authority pool unlocked! Authority: 100/100
With this, he only had two free authority points left. Moving onto the Field skills, he unlocked the Atomic Field.
Atomic (Lv. 1): Sense atomic bond strengths in a region of volume (level cubed) m3.
Immediately, he gained an awareness of the matter within an arm¡¯s length of him...an extra sense that told him how chemically reactive everything was. A high level in the Atomic Field was a must for anyone who wanted to major in an alchemical profession, be it pharmacology or material science.
The Atomic Field has been assigned to Appraise. Appraise (Lv. 2): Obtain the in-depth Chemical Analysis of a target. Range: Equal to the range of the Atomic Field. Cost: 20 per m3 analysed [20 (base)].
Zed cast Appraise on five different rock samples and on the air. Multiple screens popped up, packed with condensed text outlining the detailed chemical analysis of the rocks and the air. Normally he would have to cast Appraise six times for all of them, but his ability to shape his Field let him ¡®cheat¡¯. He had changed the shape of his Field to surround each of the rocks and a small volume of air, then cast the skill. This way, he could get the same result by only paying the base cost.
Authority: 80/100
On Pyrrhus, Bavash was the largest system of underground caves. The Pyrrheans who lived there had to deal with pockets of enclosed air completely different in composition from the air on the surface of the planet. They had come up with an algorithm to calculate the quality of air in a cave based on the chemistry of the rocks within it. By inverting the Bavashi algorithm and applying it to the data he had collected, Zed was hoping to obtain the composition of the planet¡¯s atmosphere without having to go up and expose himself to it. After botching the calculations several times, Zed gave up in frustration and allocated a point to the Calculate skill.
Calculate has been unlocked! Calculate (Lv. 1): Offload mathematical operations to the System.
This skill had spoiled him rotten. Zed didn¡¯t even remember the last time he had multiplied two numbers on his own, let alone performed the complicated number crunching required by the algorithm. Still, Calculate was a skill he knew would be absolutely indispensable down the line, so it wasn¡¯t like he regretted taking it. A few seconds later, he had his results. An atmosphere with roughly 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen, and 1% carbon dioxide and other trace gases. A disturbingly toxic mix for a Pyrrhean. This was the reason his flames had gone out of control. His furnace was adapted for the atmosphere of Pyrrhus which was nearly 95% carbon dioxide, with nitrogen and traces of other gases like sulphur dioxide making up the rest. It hadn¡¯t been a problem within the magma chamber as the air there was quite similar to the Pyrrhean atmosphere. But up here, nearing the mouth of the vent, the oxygen concentration had risen to critical levels. Any higher and his furnace was liable to explode! There were two ways he could go about solving this problem. In fact, it was right there in the Quest description. He could adapt his physiology, or he could tailor his skillset to match. The first option would force him to specialize further in the Atomic Field while the second option required a heavy investment in the Thermal Field. Both would require an expansion of his Field pool to keep the skill active around the clock. The first option was safer. Rather than doing what basically amounted to suppressing an explosion with a Thermal Field, he would be fundamentally altering the furnace reactions themselves. A much more reasonable task. It meant that he would be able to make do with a lower level of the skill, reducing the burden on his points and resource pool. It would also extend the amount of time he could use his flames before exhausting all his reserves of magnesium...and reduce the amount of time it took to regenerate said reserves as well. But as an inborn wielder of fire, the Thermal Field was extremely important for him. Putting points into it would be of immediate use. If he chose the Thermal Field, his offensive capabilities would shoot through the roof. His lasting power would be low, sure, but would it matter if all it took was one move to incinerate his enemies? Also, it wasn''t like he wouldn''t be able to take higher levels of the Atomic Field once he got more points. After struggling for a bit, he made his choice.
The Thermal Field has been unlocked! Thermal (Lv. 1): Sense the temperature in a region of volume (level cubed) m3.
An awareness of the temperature of everything within an arm¡¯s length of him flowed into Zed¡¯s mind. As a Pyrrhean, he was already quite sensitive to temperature, but with the System augmenting his senses, even the most minute of gradients wouldn''t escape his notice if he focused. Even just this was enough to significantly increase his control over his flames.
Thermal has levelled up! Thermal (Lv. 2): Alter the temperature by 5%. Cost: 20. Duration: 30 min. Thermal has levelled up! Thermal (Lv. 3): Alter the temperature by 10%. Cost: 40. Duration: 2 hrs. Thermal has levelled up! Thermal (Lv. 4): Alter the temperature by 15%. Cost: 80. Duration: 8 hrs.
Zed added the final three free Field points to the resource pool.
Field: 340/400
He sighed. All out of points already. Well, there was one Authority point remaining, but that was all. Zed sometimes felt as though it was a fundamental problem of the universe. No amount of points ever seemed to be enough.
Field: 260/400
¡®I really hope the reward is worth it.¡¯ he thought as he activated the Thermal Field and suppressed the temperature of his core.
Quest complete! Adapt and survive! Reward: Title ¨C Universal Citizen: Authority +1, Field +2, Assistance level +1, Universal Translator, Furnace temperature regulator (custom). Assistance has been unlocked! Assistance (Lv. 1): Instantiates an AI assistant with a basic guided-learning protocol. AI grade ¨C G. Auxiliary upgrades found. Installing¡­ Universal Translator installed. Custom patch: Furnace temperature regulator installed.
Three points from one title! And one free skill upgrade, so basically four points from a single title. This was extremely rare. A title generally only gave a single point, if that. Mostly, they gave auxiliary upgrades like the Universal Translator Zed had just received. Even the auxiliary upgrades he had received were extremely valuable. Not to mention the custom patch that would let the assistant AI take over the duty of regulating his core temperature, freeing up his mind for other tasks; the Universal Translator was the latest version produced by the System. Which meant that every single language and dialect in the System-integrated universe, past and present, was now available to him. The best thing was that this wasn¡¯t even a Keeper Quest, just a pre-requisite one. Then how lucrative would the rewards for those be? Zedaris Whiteflame, candidate Keeper, couldn''t wait to find out.
Status: Zedaris Whiteflame
Authority: 80/100 [2] Field: 260/400 [2]
Data: o Appraise (2) o Override o Calculate (1) Kinetic: o Force (3) o Acoustic o Thermal (4) Electromagnetic: o Magnetic o Electric o Photonic
System: o Quest (1) o Assistance (1) o Macro Material: o Molecular o Atomic (1) o Nuclear Dimensional: o Gravitational o Spatial o Temporal
Quest 2: Seek and Destroy (P1) Standing at the edge of the caldera, Zed watched the sun rise above the horizon, chasing away the star-studded darkness of the night. A forest covered the slope of the volcano, appearing black in the scarlet light of dawn, and beyond it, the sea was a shimmering line in the distance. He had watched scenes like this before on holo-vids. Who hadn¡¯t? But this was his first time seeing it in person. He had been too busy training for his post to have ever gone off-world. Zed stood there, letting the cool morning breeze play on his body as he watched the sky change colours. Reds, pinks, oranges, blues! And not a cloud in sight. It was beautiful. In contrast, the sky of Pyrrhus was always covered by a dark pall of smoke. Only when the seasonal storms ripped a gap in the clouds would the Pyrrheans get a rare glimpse of the sky beyond. Even then, the extremely dense atmosphere meant that the sun wasn¡¯t distinguishable in the daytime sky, and the stars weren¡¯t visible at night. Their sky was monotone. Orange in the day, black at night. It was this contrast that finally drove the point home. He wasn¡¯t on Pyrrhus anymore. Back within the magma chamber, it had still been possible to pretend otherwise, but out here, watching an alien sun rise over an alien sky, the gravity of his situation finally pressed down on him. His flames dimmed as a terrible loneliness spread through his being, paralyzing him in place. He had left everything behind. He was thousands of lightyears away from home. And the only way back was by pitting himself against an entire race of people as well as the strongest experts of several other worlds. All of a sudden, the world seemed too big, the horizon too far away, and the inverted dome of the sky just too high above his head. The morning breeze chilled him to the core.
New Quest! Seek and Destroy! Objective: Defeat hostile drone squadron: 0/5. Reward: Title ¨C Legion of One.
Instincts developed over years of military training allowed Zed to dive to the side without a second thought, saving him from the bullet that pinged off the ground, throwing up a clump of dirt. Turning the dive into a roll, he moved behind the cover of a large boulder. ¡®Ashes of the Ancestors! How did someone find me so fast?¡± Picking up a loose rock approximately the size of his head, he wrapped it with both his Thermal and Force Fields and set it on fire. There, now it looked like him. Just a lot less handsome. Holding the burning piece of rock out from behind cover, he flinched when a bullet immediately smashed through it, shattering it into pieces. Shaking fragments of melting rock off his hand, he crawled forward and pried the bullet out of the ground before quickly retreating and pressing his back against the boulder. ¡®A sniper,¡¯ he concluded from the shape of the bullet. ¡®I have to take it out before the rest of its squad arrives if I want to stand a chance.¡¯ By wrapping the decoy rock in his Force Field, he had managed to sense the vector of the bullet as it passed through it. Factoring in the wind velocity and the weight of the bullet, he quickly Calculated the approximate location of the sniper. His highest-level Field was the Thermal Field at level 4. At the base condition it was shaped like a cube with 4m sides centred on him. Not even close to what he would need to get the drone in range. Pushing all extraneous thought out of his mind, Zed focused on reshaping his Field; thinning and elongating it keeping the volume constant. The most experienced of professionals could shape their Fields into a thin thread, making even a level 1 Field extend beyond a few kilometres. He wasn¡¯t that good, but he wasn¡¯t too shabby either. Thinning the field down to a cylindrical beam two kilometres long and a couple of fingers thick, he swept it around the general region he had obtained from his calculations.This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. ¡®There!¡¯ he exclaimed as he sensed a blip of heat much higher than its surroundings. The drone¡¯s engine. Tossing another flaming rock out of cover, he stood up as soon as the drone shot it down and returned fire. His valves opened wide, sucking in the air from the surroundings. The air mixed with the magnesium in his furnace, bursting into white hot flames that surged down channels in his body and out of the fingertips of his right hand. A thin stream of white fire raced down the line of the Thermal field and slammed into the drone nearly a kilometre away. Magnesium burns at 2500K, nearly half the temperature of the surface of the sun, and amplified by the Thermal field as it was, the drone didn¡¯t stand a chance. It exploded in a shower of molten metal, sending glowing shrapnel shooting everywhere. True to combat protocol, Zed immediately dashed away from his spot in a zigzag manner after the successful shot. Just in time to avoid the hail of bullets that impacted his previous location. ''These drones aren''t ordinary,'' he thought as he ran. While the sniper had him pinned down, another drone had circled around to flank him. Either their controller was quite the military strategist, or their AI was advanced enough to formulate such tactics. Accelerating using his forcefield, he managed to keep himself ahead of the stream of bullets that threw up clumps of dirt as they impacted the ground right behind his heels. Diving behind the nearest boulder he could find, he huddled up as the hail of bullets pinged off the rock. Racing through his options in his mind, Zed swiftly locked onto a course of action. Swinging his arm in an arc, he flung a wave of dazzling fire upwards just as the drone came close enough to see him over the edge of the boulder. With the fire obscuring the drone¡¯s sight and preventing it from locking onto his thermal signature, he leaped onto the boulder and pushed off explosively, boosting his jump with both his forcefield and a blast of fire from his feet.
You have allocated one free Authority point to the Override skill. Override has been unlocked! Override (Lv. 1): Leverage the System to hack into a device. Note: Has a 100% success rate on all pre-quantum technologies. Fails otherwise. Range: 5m.
Shaping a conical deflection ward in front of his head with his forcefield, he burst out of the sheet of flames. Catching sight of him, the drone opened fire, but the small target presented by his head-on approach combined with the ward subtly altering the vectors of the bullets let him approach unscathed. Reducing his weight and boosting his forward motion yet again, he stretched out his hand at the peak of his jump and brushed the drone with the very edge of the 5m limit of his Override skill. The drone suddenly seized up, then began jinking and juking erratically in the air as Zed fell back to the ground. Tiny lights on the drone¡¯s chassis alternated rapidly between red and blue, finally settling on blue just as Zed landed in a crouch, raising an expanding circle of dust around him.
Override successful! Drone K2 added to device menu. Model: Seek and destroy quadcopter. Fittings: Bottom-mounted machine gun. Camouflage skin. Unranked AI.
Getting to his feet, Zed scanned the details of his new acquisition. It was a standard quadcopter with four powerful rotors providing the lift. There was a six-barrel machinegun attached to a flexible harness under the drone¡¯s chassis. The harness allowed it to aim at any direction in a hemisphere below its level. The gun was quite accurate within 30m and somewhat accurate between 30 and 50m. Beyond that its chances of hitting a target were pretty horrible. The drone also came with an optical camouflage skin that let it blend into the sky when it was active. When it wasn¡¯t, the drone was a sleek metallic black. The entire thing was powered by a low-capacity fusion battery with enough fuel for a week¡¯s worth of flight and combat. But, most importantly, it was equipped with an AI pilot. The System¡¯s classification of ''Unranked'' meant that it was pretty barebones as AI went. Accessing its communication logs, Zed quickly located the positions of the rest of the drones. A sniper at six-o-clock, a gunner approaching from three-o-clock using the lip of the caldera to hide from sight, and the squad leader circling around and approaching from his nine. And the best thing was that none of them were aware that one of their comrades had defected to the enemy camp. Zed¡¯s flames blazed brighter in excitement, the rush of confidence from successfully applying his training washing out his fear from earlier. ¡®Two down, three to go.¡¯ Quest 2: Seek and Destroy (P2) Zedaris ran, dodging the intermittent rounds of bullets fired by his captured drone K2 as it chased after him. At the same time, he kept an eye on its communication logs and tracked the positions of the rest of the members of its squad. He was careful to always keep a physical barrier between himself and the sniper, preventing it from getting a clear shot. As he had hoped, this cat and mouse act had fooled the drones'' AI. The leader of the squad transmitted an order to K2, instructing it to direct him closer to the edge of the caldera while it and the other gunner moved in to pincer him from the sides. ¡®Perfect¡­¡¯ Zed followed along with them until they were nearly in place, then sprung the trap early. Pretending to trip on a loose rock, he tumbled out of the cover of a large boulder and right into the line of sight of the sniper. Sensing an opportunity, the squad leader and the gunner surged forward out of cover while the sniper took the shot. Slamming his hand onto the ground, Zed neatly halted his momentum and flipped upright, making the bullet miss him and bury itself ineffectually into the ground. Whirling around, he pointed towards the sniper and shot off a streak of white fire that slammed into it and blasted it apart. At the same time, K2 swung its muzzle around and opened fire on the unsuspecting gunnery drone. The hapless machine didn¡¯t stand a chance. The hail of bullets ripped through two of its propellers and it spiralled down and crashed onto the ground in a trail of smoke. The drone leader, though, surprised Zed. He had expected it to capitalize on the ¡®opening¡¯ he had left when he turned his back to it to take out the sniper. He had even readied a deflection ward and was prepared to leap aside when it opened fire. Instead, the drone just turned around and escaped at full speed. Taken aback, Zed stared for a moment, then quickly recovered and gave chase. ¡®Oh no you don¡¯t you cowardly lump of metal,¡¯ he cursed internally. ¡®If I don¡¯t get you, I can''t complete my quest.¡¯ That and letting it escape would mean that it could carry information about him back to its master. When he had hijacked K2, he had gained a complete understanding of its structure. These drones were autonomous patrol units. They were programmed to reconnoitre a fixed region and eliminate any unauthorized lifeforms they found within it. They stored all the data they gathered from their cameras in an onboard storage chip. Once their week-long mission was over, they would return back to their home base for repair and recharging. There they would hand over the data for analysis and the chips would be formatted, readying them for another run. This meant that the drone squad had discovered him by luck. Not deliberately. No local powers were aware of him yet and Zed wanted to keep it that way. Taking a running start, Zed jumped explosively off the edge of the caldera with the help of his skills, shattering the rock beneath his feet and sending a cloud of dirt and rubble careening down the slope of the volcano. He arced through the air, stretching his hand out towards the fleeing drone to get as close as possible. Unfortunately, the drone was faster than him in the air and stayed out of reach of his Override skill. Gravity exerted its pull on him and Zed began falling back to the ground. It was a good thing he had backup. The soft hum of rotors filled the air as K2 caught up to him. Having ditched its gun, it was currently lighter and faster than the other drone. Manoeuvring midair, Zed landed feet first onto its chassis.
You have allocated one free Field point to the Force skill. Force has levelled up! Force (Lv. 4): Alter the magnitude and direction of vectors by 15%. Cost: 80. Duration: 8 hrs. Field: 180/400
Using it as a springboard, he jumped again, boosting himself with the improved version of the Force skill. His figure blurred as he shot towards the fleeing drone like a bullet.Stolen novel; please report. Sensing his approach, the drone¡¯s gun swivelled backwards to face him. It wasn¡¯t a machinegun or a sniper rifle, it was a single barrel gun with a rather large bore. It fired, sending a large, metallic slug hurtling towards him. Zed quickly threw up a deflection ward in its path. Halfway to him, the slug fell apart, releasing a metallic net that expanded in the air. Caught totally off guard, it was all he could do to keep one arm free as the net wrapped around him, trussing him up tightly. The deflection ward had been designed to redirect projectiles. It was useless against an expansive object like the net. The drone discarded its gun, activated its optical camouflage, and fled in a burst of speed. Zed plummeted out of the air like a stone. Catching up to him in time, K2 managed to manoeuvre its chassis below him and break his fall. Even with Zed doing his best to reduce his weight, the drone struggled to stabilize its flight with such an unbalanced load hanging off it. It staggered drunkenly down through the air and deposited him onto the slope of the volcano beneath. Using his free arm to roll himself onto his back, Zed accessed K2¡¯s logs and obtained the coordinates of the fleeing drone. Pointing at an apparently empty spot in the sky, his flames flared a blinding white as he sent a bolt of fire streaking across the intervening distance. It slammed into the drone, blasting it apart in an explosion of burning metal. Exhausted, he let his arm flop back onto the ground. His flames grew dim as he burnt through the last of his reserves of magnesium. ¡®Well, that was exciting,¡¯ he thought drily, ¡®and dumb.¡¯ So many things could have gone wrong. Especially at the end there. If the drone had managed to snare both his arms with the net, he wouldn''t have been able to free himself without burning through his entire stock of magnesium. Subsequently, he wouldn''t have enough for the firebolt he had used to shoot it down. If its AI had been intelligent enough to shut down its comm link to K2, he wouldn''t have been able to locate it. And if it had been even a little bit faster, it would have escaped as it had been nearing the very edge of his range by the time he managed to get his bearings, shape his Thermal Field, and lock onto it. It was a miracle it hadn¡¯t gotten away. Zed had committed the cardinal sin of any soldier; he had underestimated his enemy. Looking at the unranked grading of K2¡¯s AI, he had assumed that the squad wouldn''t be that hard to outwit. And that had come back to bite him in the rear. The drone leader had been significantly more intelligent and adaptable than the rest. Which, when he thought about it, was logical. The leader had to coordinate all the other drones; it being more capable was just common sense. His second mistake had been giving in to his greed. He had taken stupid risks to try and capture the drone leader rather than just shoot it out of the sky. It had resulted in it nearly fleeing and exposing him to the natives. If that had happened, it wouldn''t have taken long for his location to become known to an enemy Keeper, or several. Against those war veterans, a new recruit like him wouldn''t stand a chance. His greed had nearly cost him his life.
Quest complete! Seek and Destroy! Reward: Title ¨C Legion of One: Field +2, Macro level +1. Macro has been unlocked! Macro (Lv. 1): Records a set of actions and repeats them automatically on command. Two additional slots per level.
At least he had completed the quest. The reward was as substantial as always. Two free points and a skill upgrade. It was slightly worse than the reward for the previous quest, but he supposed it was because this was just something generated from a random encounter while the previous one was a prerequisite quest for a Keeper. Lying there on the ground, still trussed up like a chicken, Zed vented some hot air. Mistakes had been made¡­a lot of mistakes. But there was no point in dwelling on them. He would learn from them, improve, and strive to never make them again. But first, he had to get free of this accursed net.
Status: Zedaris Whiteflame
Authority: 80/100 [1] Field: 180/400 [3]
Data: o Appraise (2) o Override (1) o Calculate (1) Kinetic: o Force (4) o Acoustic o Thermal (4) Electromagnetic: o Magnetic o Electric o Photonic
System: o Quest (1) o Assistance (1) o Macro (1) Material: o Molecular o Atomic (1) o Nuclear Dimensional: o Gravitational o Spatial o Temporal
Quest 3: Evade and Infiltrate (P1) Zed worked fast. He had to if he wanted to disentangle himself from the net and get away before someone turned up to investigate the impromptu fireworks show he had just put up. The bright morning sunlight had hidden the flares for the most part and the fact that they were so close to a volcanic vent made the trails of smoke much less conspicuous. But why take a chance? Besides, although the drones hadn¡¯t been transmitting a live feed, they had constantly been uploading status reports and position data through a satellite uplink. Zed was making K2 transmit false data to confuse the supervisors, and it seemed to be working for now, but he knew that they would catch on very soon.
New Quest! Evade and Infiltrate! Objective: Avoid detection by the hostile search party, find out about the organization behind them, and infiltrate it. Reward: Title ¨C Dagger in the Dark.
¡®Well, looks like soon has arrived,¡¯ he thought wryly. The System generated quests based on the user¡¯s actions and current circumstances, so reading between the lines of the quest often provided a lot of valuable information. This one, for example, told him that a search party had already been set out for him. Time was of the essence.
Authority: 60/100
A quick Appraisal told him that the wires making up the net had an alloy layer surrounding a carbon nanofiber backbone. Even with the Force skill enhancing his strength, there was no way he would be able to just tear his way out. If his magnesium reserves were full, he could have easily melted through the net, but they weren¡¯t so that wasn¡¯t an option. Thankfully, the net was designed with quick incapacitation in mind. Not permanent confinement. It was structured like a spiderweb with weighted magnetic spheres at the ends. Whenever it snared a target, the weights would swing around it and stick to the net, locking it in place. As he had one hand free, he could just manually extricate himself. It took plenty of writhing about on the ground and contortions that would put the best gymnasts to shame, but he finally managed to detach the last of the magnets from the net and pull it off him. Standing up, he patted the dust off himself. Bundling the net up into a compact sphere, he tucked it under his arm and began running back up the slope to the caldera. He couldn''t leave without his spoils of war, now could he? Cresting the lip of the crater, he found K2 already there, hovering above the downed gunnery drone. Picking up K2''s discarded machinegun from the ground, he walked up to the drone and reattached it. Then moving within range, he cast Override on the fallen drone. It shuddered and its lights oscillated rapidly between red and blue, before finally settling on the latter.
Override successful! Drone K4 added to device menu.
K4 was a twin of K2 with all the same features and attachments. The only defect was that it lacked two of its four propellers as a result of the violent takedown it had been subjected to, rendering it incapable of flight. Still, it was far from useless. In fact, Zed had already thought up a use for it on his way back up the slope of the mountain. The drones all had a modular design, making repair as simple as just swapping out a damaged part. It made what he had in mind much easier. Taking command over K4¡¯s AI, he ordered it to eject all its propellers. With four soft pneumatic hisses, two ruined and two whole propellers along with their motors were ejected from their sockets. They dropped onto the ground, leaving only the chassis and the gun attachment behind. Unfurling the net, Zed fed it through one of the hollows left by the propellers and pulled it out again through the rest of the holes, forming a cross of netting with the magnetic spheres bunched up at the ends of the cross. Standing up, he wore the drone like a backpack, crossing the straps of netting across his chest and fixing them in place using the magnets. Right now, he was all out of fuel for his flames. And without them, he was vulnerable. It would take some time ¨C around a day according to his estimates ¨C for his furnace to digest the oxide produced by the combustion reaction and regenerate the magnesium. In the meantime, he needed a weapon to replace his fire and give him some measure of self-defence ability. The two drones fit the bill perfectly. K2 for medium range and K4 ¨C now acting as a back-mounted gun turret ¨C for short range combat.Stolen novel; please report. He swayed his body from side to side and jumped up and down to test the wobble of the arrangement. Adjusting the straps until the drone remained tightly attached to his back, he moved on to punches and kicks to familiarize himself with his new centre of gravity. Even without its propellers, the drone weighted around fifty kilograms, throwing his body balance out of whack. In the end, he had to resort to using his Force skill to reduce its weight and increase the weight of his lower body to balance things out. Finally happy with how everything was working, he shot a look at the intact pair of propellers. ¡®No. No more greed,¡¯ he admonished himself. ¡®I¡¯ve learnt my lesson. Besides, I¡¯m overloaded as it is. Any more and it will start affecting my mobility.¡¯ Between spare parts to fix a drone after it got damaged in a fight and not getting into that fight in the first place, he much preferred the latter. Turning around decisively, he vaulted over the edge of the caldera and sprinted down the slope of the volcano. K2 activated its stealth and followed close behind. With the Force skill allowing him to perform supernatural feats of acrobatics, he leapt from rock to rock like a mountain goat and slid down gravelly slopes like a skier on snow. It took him less than five minutes to make it halfway down the mountain, to the treeline of the verdant forest spreading out below. Entering the forest was like entering an entirely new world. Tall trees caged him in from all sides and the vines and the lush undergrowth worked to limit his vision to within a couple of feet. Spears of sunlight penetrated through the canopy above and dappled the vegetation with patches of green-tinted light. Crickets chirped, birds sang and the hoots and calls of various animals filled the air. Zed¡¯s burning feet hissed and steamed as they sank into the moist ground, leaving charred footprints in the layer of decomposing leaves below ¨C a clear track for even the most unskilled of pursuers to follow. Reining in his flames until the only external manifestation of them was a thin layer of white fire on his head, Zed lightened himself and did his best to place his feet on rocks or dry ground. The deeper he got into the forest, the denser the vegetation became. For a while he was worried that K2 wouldn''t be able to follow him, but his worries turned out to be unnecessary. The drone was amazingly manoeuvrable. Each of its propellers could tilt to any side, and taking a page out of nature¡¯s book, it could even use its gun as a counterweight to balance itself midair like a bird would its tail. This was both a relief and a concern. A relief because he wouldn''t have to abandon the drone or carry it all the way, reducing his pace even further. And a concern, because if K2 could do it, the drones that had been sent after him could too. He picked up speed. All the way, he kept both his Thermal and Force Fields active around him, alert for any signs of pursuit. The Force field would alert him to any sudden movements while the Thermal field would inform him of any spots with temperatures suspiciously higher than their surroundings. Both were at level 4, giving him a range of 4m in every direction. Suddenly, something moved at the edge of his perception and he whirled around to face it. His Thermal Field was detecting nothing, but his Force Field was telling him that something in that direction was fleeing rapidly away from him. ¡®A thermally camouflaged surveillance device?'' Cursing his misfortune, Zed abandoned stealth and crashed through the undergrowth towards it, sending K2 ahead on an intercept route. After just a few moments, he got a message from the drone informing him that the target had been successfully apprehended. He couldn''t help but rejoice that he had taken the risk to capture the drone instead of just destroying it. The decision was already paying off in spades. It was a fine line he was walking. If he didn¡¯t take risks, he wouldn''t be able to progress faster than the other, more experienced Keepers and would find himself hopelessly outmatched in the endgame. But if he was too much of a daredevil, he would just die early and spare the Keepers the effort of offing him. Deciding which risk was worth it and which wasn¡¯t was the real challenge. Bursting out into a clearing, Zed found K2 squaring off against a creature coiled around the branch of a tree. The creature had a cylindrical body without any appendages, a diamond-shaped head with vertical-pupiled eyes, and a hinged lower jaw from which a jet-black forked tongue intermittently flickered out to taste the air. The surface of its body was textured with brown scales that let it blend into the bark of the tree. It stared nervously at them, its eyes flickering from the drone to him and back again. A quick level 1 Appraisal gave him the name of the creature. ¡®A snake? So that¡¯s what it is...a brown tree snake.¡¯ Zed pulled the description of the creature from K2¡¯s reference library and his Universal Translator helped him make sense of it. According to the library entry, snakes were one of the sentient species on this planet. Its threat level was marked as ¡®null¡¯ and its surveillance priority was similarly ¡®zero¡¯. Whatever organization was behind the drones didn¡¯t much care about what the reptiles were up to. Zed supposed a sapient species with the ability to make something as sophisticated as the drones would be justified in ignoring a barely sentient creature like the snake. But that was before the Advent of the System. Now¡­ Rearing up until the front third of its body was vertical, the snake hissed, and the Universal Translator immediately translated its words within Zed¡¯s mind: ¡°What does the Steel-bird-with-four-wings and the Burning-man want with Hess?¡± it asked obsequiously. ¡°Hess assures you; he does not taste good.¡± Quest 3: Evade and Infiltrate (P2) Zed was pleasantly surprised. He hadn¡¯t expected to meet one of the natives of this world so soon. At least, not one that wasn¡¯t aligned with the drones. He had been going through K2 and K4¡¯s data libraries as he made his way through the forest. The first thing he had accessed was the priority list of their targets. After all, the list could give him a pretty good idea about the important local factions and the hierarchy within them. Anyone on the hit list of the drones was a potential ally; and allies were what he needed the most. No one conquered the world solo. No one. Zed had been making his way down the list in descending order of priority. He had yet to reach the article on native wildlife when he encountered Hess. If he had known, starting out, that there were sentient lifeforms in the forest, he would have sought them out from the very beginning instead of bumbling around like a headless chicken. After all, the locals were bound to have much greater knowledge of the terrain. Finding a hidey hole appropriate for him would be a cinch for them. Fortunately, he met the snake before he wasted too much time. ¡®Although,¡¯ he mused. ¡®I¡¯m pretty sure the little guy thinks our encounter is anything but fortunate.¡¯ ¡°Relax,¡± he told the nervous snake. ¡°I have no intention of harming you.¡± The Universal Translator went to work, conveying both the meaning and emotion behind his words. Once again, Zed found himself appreciative of the official, System-created version of the program. Most third-party translation apps weren¡¯t capable of dealing with the subtler parts of speech such as tonal variance and inflection. Their users would hear others as emotionless robots, and they would sound like ones too! Without the program conveying the sincerity in his tone, Zed was sure Hess would have been spooked into fleeing. ¡°In fact,¡± he continued, ¡°if you do something for me, I¡¯ll make it worth your while.¡± Hess seemed torn between trying to flee and accepting his offer. At Zed¡¯s mental command, with a soft whine of motors, K2 adjusted its gun to point directly at the serpent¡¯s head. The good cop, bad cop routine finally tipped the scales in Zed¡¯s favour and Hess¡¯ posture slumped in defeat. ¡°Hess agrees,¡± he said dejectedly. ¡°He will help the Burning-man. He just hopes that he will be set free after he does.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry,¡± Zed assured him. ¡°If that¡¯s what you want when the time comes, that¡¯s what I¡¯ll do. For now, guide me to the closest cave or tunnel that¡¯s large enough to fit me.¡± Hess grew pensive for a moment, his tongue flickering out intermittently as he scoured his memories for a suitable spot. His eyes widened as it came to him. ¡°Ah, yes!¡± he hissed. ¡°I know the perfect place. Follow me!¡± Zed kept a close watch with his field skills as Hess slithered down the trunk of the tree, took his bearings on the ground, then shot off in a certain direction with him and K2 trailing close behind. He mainly used the Force field to track Hess since the Thermal field was pretty helpless when it came to cold-blooded animals like snakes whose body temperature was the same as their surroundings. With how well Hess was blending into the layer of fallen leaves on the ground, Zed would have easily lost sight of him without the skill. All the while, he was aware that Hess was watching him closely, testing his response, hoping for a moment of inattention so he could run away. After a while, the trees started becoming larger and packed closer together. The forest grew darker as the denser canopy let in less light. The undergrowth was sparser here, making it easier for Zed to move through it. Suddenly, Zed¡¯s Fields warned him of danger. Slamming his feet onto the ground, he skidded to an abrupt halt. ¡°Stop!¡± he barked out, pointing a burning fingertip at Hess. The snake froze in place, muscles tense, ready to make an explosive dash for freedom. ¡°I wouldn''t do that if I were you,¡± Zed warned softly. "I''m not feeling particularly merciful right now. It wasn''t a very nice thing you just tried to do." The snake slowly turned around. ¡°Hess does not understand what the Burning-man is saying,¡± said the snake in a most aggrieved tone of voice. ¡°Has Hess done something wrong?¡± Zed sneered. ¡°Oh, I¡¯m pretty sure Hess does know what the Burning-man is saying. Hess is very clever after all. He is clever enough to lead people into a trap.¡± His tone grew hard. ¡°Did you think I wouldn''t realize that there¡¯s a large pitfall directly in our path covered by just a thin layer of branches and dead leaves?¡± Hess stiffened. ¡°It wasn¡¯t a bad plan,¡± Zed continued. ¡°You¡¯re too light to trigger the trap, but I¡¯m much heavier. If I stepped on it, especially running as fast as I was, I would have broken the branches and fallen through. Then you¡¯d be free to escape, wouldn''t you?¡± He shook his head. ¡°Too bad, I didn¡¯t fall for it.¡± Hess¡¯ slit-pupiled eyes flickered between Zed and K2, who had taken position on his right, bracketing him in. ¡°Hiss¡­ well¡­ hiss¡­¡± he tried to defend himself, his speech devolving into a nonsensical string of hisses from the stress. Reverting to his primal instincts, he reared up to his full height and bared his fangs threateningly, trying to scare Zed back. Now this was making Zed feel bad! ¡®Sheesh¡­¡¯ he huffed internally. ¡®It¡¯s like I¡¯m bullying a child.¡¯ Whenever the System took over a new world, it granted System access to every single living creature above a certain threshold of sentience. Which meant that non-sentient lifeforms like bacteria, worms, or plants ¨C that were alive but had no centralized form of consciousness ¨C weren¡¯t granted access to the System. While sentient creatures like snakes, were. But, unless the creature was sapient ¨C capable of independent logical thought ¨C the System took it upon itself to distribute the initiation points as it saw fit. It invested 5 of the 6 free Authority points into the Assistance skill, raising the grade of the AI assistant all the way from G to F. The F grade AI then complemented the user¡¯s thought processes, elevating them to sapience. The last free Authority point went to Appraise; the skill along with a free language adaptation patch helped the newly elevated users learn about the world around them and to frame their thoughts in the form of words.This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. After the System integration phase was over and the world was opened to the wider universe, these new System users would spread all over the galaxy and beyond, becoming part of the growing universal community. But, unless long years of natural evolution finally granted them sapience, their descendants would always be born without intelligence and the System would keep assigning their initiation points for them. Seen from this perspective, Zed was in fact bullying a child. A child with the memories of an adult brown tree snake and the intelligence of a fully grown human, sure, but a child nonetheless. And given that the Keeper candidates were brought into the world very soon after the System¡¯s Advent, Hess couldn''t be more than a couple of days old, at the most. The snake was smart enough to make a plan to get rid of Zed¡¯s oppression, but he wasn¡¯t experienced enough to know what to do after the plan failed. That was why he had fallen back to his tried and tested instincts to deal with the dangerous situation. Instincts that were preparing him for fight or flight. ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± said Zed soothingly. ¡°Calm down. I asked you to bring me to a cave or a tunnel that was my size. And you did. Not in the way I would have expected you to, but you still fulfilled your end of the deal.¡± As he talked, he slowly made his way towards the hissing snake, keeping his posture as slack and non-threatening as he could manage. As he drew closer, the hissing grew louder and more insistent. ¡°I¡¯ll keep my word,¡± he soothed. ¡°I won¡¯t harm you. You''re free to go.¡± With his last word, Zed stepped into range. Hess struck! He flickered out from his coiled posture like a streak of brown lightning, his mouth wide, his fangs bared and dripping with venom. Zed dropped the weight reduction he had been maintaining on K4 to balance his body. The sudden increase of the weight on his back jerked him backwards, and Hess¡¯ jaws snapped shut in front of him, missing him by less than an inch. Zed''s hand shot out and grabbed the snake by the throat. Hess thrashed around ineffectually in his grasp, coiling his body around Zed¡¯s arm and trying to twist around and sink his fangs into the hand grabbing him. A sudden sizzling sound drew Zed¡¯s attention and his eyes widened in consternation as he saw a drop of transparent yellow venom drip from one of Hess¡¯ fangs onto his arm¡­and rapidly corrode a deep pit in it. ¡®Ashes!¡¯ he cursed. ¡®The blasted thing must have invested heavily in the Molecular Field. Its venom has a disintegration enhancement on it.¡¯ Tightening his hold on the neck of the thrashing snake, he used his other hand to catch its head and pinch its mouth shut. After a few minutes of ineffectual struggles, Hess finally calmed down and the intelligence slowly returned to his eyes. Realizing his situation after a moment of confusion, he looked pleadingly up at Zed. Zed stared impassively back. ¡°Calmed down yet?¡± he asked flatly after the silence had stretched long enough to make Hess extremely nervous again. ¡°Blink once for yes, twice for no.¡± Hess blinked once. ¡°Are you going to attack me again if I let you go?¡± Hess blinked twice, emphatically! ¡°Good. Then I¡¯m going to let go of your mouth so you can talk.¡± Once released, Hess opened and closed his jaws a few times to ensure everything was still working fine ¨C even dislocating it and opening extra wide once for good measure. ¡°Hiss¡­ The Burning-man is very fast,¡± he flattered. ¡°Hess has hunted much prey, but none of them have managed to dodge his strike before. The Burning-man is also very strong. No matter how hard he tried, Hess could not break free of his grasp. But most of all, the Burning-man keeps his word.¡± Zed gave the snake an amused stare. ¡°Stow it, Hess. Flattery will get you nowhere. Not right after you tried to kill me. Relax, though. I am a man of my word. I¡¯ll let you go as soon as you answer two of my questions. Alright?¡± Hess blinked, once. Zed stared for a moment before bursting into chuckles. ¡°You can say yes or no now, you goof,¡± he said, his flames flickering merrily on top of his head as he laughed. He felt the tension draining out of his body. ¡®I needed that,¡¯ he realized. He had only been on this planet for a scant few hours, but during that time, he¡¯d just gone from one stressful situation to the next. The pressure had been building. It felt good to let it out. After reining in his mirth, he continued in a much better mood. ¡°So first, how did you know this hole was here¡­and how did you come up with this idea to trap me?¡± Having a high intelligence or being naturally cunning was one thing, leading someone into a trap was another. There was no way a two-day-old initiate to sapience could figure out the craft of trap setting all on his own. It just wasn¡¯t possible. Let alone, a trap had to be set beforehand. It was amply clear that the pitfall wasn¡¯t the snake¡¯s handiwork. ¡°Hess saw a short-furred-man capture a bristle-boar using this pit once.¡± ¡°Short-furred-man? Bristle-boar?¡± asked Zed. ¡°The short-fur looks a lot like the Burning-man,¡± replied Hess. ¡°Except that hair covers his head instead of fire. Sometimes the hair is dark, and sometimes it is light.¡± He paused. ¡°Unlike the short-fur, the boar walks on four legs instead of two. It has hair too. But its hair covers its entire body and is rough enough to leave scratches on the bark of trees. The scratched bark is perfect when Hess has to shed his skin.¡± Matching the descriptions with the data in the drone¡¯s libraries, Zed found the entry on the bristle-boar. Another threat level ¡®zero¡¯ and priority level ¡®null¡¯¡­just like the snakes. The short-furs, on the other hand, were a lot more interesting. They were a bi-pedal race called humans. And what was more, they were sapient! Their priority level reflected that: ¡®Alpha¡¯, the highest possible rank. But, the assessment of their threat level was oddly ¡®low¡¯. ¡®Hmm¡­ Does that mean that there¡¯s yet another sapient race on this planet? One that has thoroughly beaten the humans into submission and de-fanged them, making them so harmless? Is that race the one who runs the organization behind the drones? Seems promising. Needs more study.¡± Zed was impressed. Carbon-based lifeforms were always famed for their diversity. But two sapient species within such a small area, with apparently thousands of sentient species remaining on the list? This was on the extreme end of the spectrum! Silicon-based life was much more unitary. In fact, there were only six distinct species that could be found on the entirety of Pyrrhus. The Pyrrheans were the only sapient species among them. Hess continued with his recounting. ¡°The short-fur enraged the boar and ran with it chasing behind. He leapt over the pit while the boar charged blindly and dropped into it when the ground caved beneath its feet. Hess was basking high up on a nearby tree then; he was woken by the commotion, but after seeing that it had nothing to do with him, he went back to sleep. A few days later, Hess noticed that the pit had disappeared. Of course, he wasn¡¯t really Hess back then, just another snake. He did not understand what the sudden disappearance of the pit meant. But when the Burning-man asked Hess to show him a burrow or a cave he could enter, Hess remembered about it again. He was smarter now. He connected the clues and realized what the short-fur had done.¡± ¡°Then decided to try it out on me,¡± teased Zed. Hess shrank his neck. ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it,¡± Zed comforted him. ¡°I¡¯m not mad about it anymore. In fact, I¡¯m quite impressed you managed to figure all that out by yourself in the heat of the moment. That brings me to my final question for you. Will you join me as my subordinate?¡± Zed locked eyes with the snake. ¡°If you choose to do so, you will have to follow all my orders, to the letter, unquestioningly. In return, you will never lack for anything. Food, safety, mates, you want them, you¡¯ll have them. I give you my word.¡± Bending down, Zed placed Hess onto the ground and released his neck. Straightening up, he walked backwards, away from the snake. When he was two metres away, he stopped and summoned K2 back to his side. All the while, he never broke eye-contact. ¡°As you said yourself:¡± Zed spread out his empty palms, showing Hess that he was free to go. ¡°The Burning-man keeps his word.¡±