《Pioneer 0: Rise of the machine in a world of sword and magic.》 Chapter 0-Prologue: Awaken [.../System_rebooting.] [.../Primary_Power_module_invalid] [.../Seconary_Power module_valid] [.../Routing_power...Rebooting] [.../Full_reboot_failed] [.../Safe_mode_active] [.../Booting] From the dark cave in Auraxim, a peaceful planet where magic and god exists, a flickering light can be seen, the light scared some bugs resting above it, but then the light disappear harmlessly as if nothing happened, then it lit up and repeat the same on-off flickering act again with a short interval of 2 seconds. [.../Booting_failed. Low_power] [.../Scanning_for_auxiliary_power_source] [.../Auxiliary_power_source_found\Converting] [.../Converting] [.../Converting/Power_restored:3%] [.../Booting] The light stops flickering and now becoming more stable and brighter than before, then the machine sudden unlock its neck bracing locks to raise it out of its body, breaking off some dried roots, mosses and dirt off its head in the process. Now with its head freed, the machine begin to turn its head around slowly to scan its surrounding in its basic vision form, infra-red light, the machine can''t tell if the place is lit or not or what the texture of the dirt and rock in the cave is like, but the result informed the machine that the place is quite cold and the picturefidelity is just sharp enough for the machine to realize that it is in some kinds of tunnel from its point of view. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. [/System_diagnostic:running] [/Prime_directive: Live-@#%#~!#-!@#%$] [/Prime_directive_corrupted/Initiating_data_recovery] [/Low_power/Aborting_data_recovery] The machine slowly moves its head up and down slightly for a bit as it does the scan for the ceiling and the ground for any special detail to take note on, but all it can find is just ''cold and flat(?)''. It also had done basic sensor checkups for internal as well as external units, the machine is in poor condition, it seemed like it has settled down in the cave for quite a long time, long enough for its main fuel cells to go dry completely and secondary RTG cell to become just a useless metal pipe containing lead and coal, structural integrity also went downhill too, many motors are jammed tight with dirt and mineral rocks, added with all the dirt and rocks littered around and on the machine mean it gonna stay immobilefor a while until it gain enough power to exit safe mode and allow the old processor to run full clockspeedand its ''eyes'' to see other lights smaller than infrared light. [.../Automatic_system_diagnostic:Running] [.../Running_automated_scheduling_program] [.../Anomaly_detected:Auxliary_power_system] [.../New_objective:Investigate_anomaly] The machine''s head lowers down into its body like a turtle again as it shuts down the graphical sensors in the head and shifts powers to other sensors near the auxiliary power generating modules where the thermal converter is running hot at 400 degree celsius, something that should not happen in a cold 10 degree celsius cave and other heatsinks nearby is running cold at ambient temperature. The handicapped CPU at first registered this as an error reading and tagged it invalid, but 600 diagnostic reports later, the CPU begin to remove the invalid tag as it registers it as an ''unknown anomaly'' and tagged it ''to be studied-high priority'' before going idle again. 12 hours passed, and the machine finally gathered enough power to turn off handicap mode, the CPU buzzes through the piled up data it collected crazily as if it just had a bottle worth of coffee and runs in overclocked mode to solve the problems, but unfortunately, all results return invalid values, even after recounting them with different formulas and using unproven theories that the machine pulled out from its data drive the machine only can get a big red invalid value as its answer. Now ''baffled'' and running low on power again, the machine begin a quick logic debate whether to tag the thermal anomaly as a glitch or something else, but since all diagnostic data favors that something else many times more than the glitch option, the machine has no other option to call out another logic debate to put a name to it, or even better, kick-starting a research why the machine could not produce an answer. [/Anomaly_no1:Saved] [/Anomaly_no1 \\Rename\\ /New thermal dynamic law:Undiscovered] [/Low_power] [/Safe_mode_initiated] [/Setting_reboot_timer: 12:00:00 0/0/0/0] [/Sleep_mode_engaged] The machine quickly falls into slumber again as the bracing locks around the head are engaged and secured the head firmly to its torso as a standard shutdown procedure, now the machine wait for the internal power banks to stock up as much power as it can get before it awaken again to find a way to free itself without damaging its body too much to prepare for a small exploration plan for both inside and outside of the cave. Chapter 1-Rise of the machine and Pioneers first step. [.../Reboot_timer: 00:00:01 0/0/0/0] [.../Rebooting] [.../Power_level:10%] [.../Estimated_operational_timer: 01:20:00 0/0/0/0] The machine''s head springs out of its torso once again as its optic units start glowing in a dim blue light after spending 12 hours resting and charging up the internal power bank. The first thing the machine do after its second awakening is to quickly move its head around to scan its surrounding once again, but the result it gets afterward is the same as before, cold and flat surface, the cave it residing in is too dark for lower than infra-red sensor array to operate properly, and the dim light emitted by the optic unit is not bright enough to illuminate anything either. So for now, the machine decides to look around in infrared light to save power. [.../Rerouting_power] The machine looks down at the pile of rocks and dirt on its body again, it noticed that the pile has gone up a bit bigger for some reasons, and some of the dirt actually a bit warmer than others, the machine is unsure how could have happened as its CPU pulling data from its data drive to try putting up some logical explaination. Sudden, the machine heard a screech from above, and without any hesitation the machine raises its head up as much as it could to investigate, and there the machine find its answer, a small flock of bats, or at least the machine think they are somekind of bat based on the thermal signature outline of the creature matching the image of a bat in its data drive. Perhaps the warm dirt on the machine is not dirt at all, but feces of the bats hanging above. [.../Life_signature_confirmed] [.../Tagging_lifeform] [.../Lifeform1_name_change:Bat01] The machine slowly lowers its head to its normal position as it waits for the power routing process to be done before the machine could evaluate what part of its body can be used and what parts is broken. Normally the machine could just shut down once again until the routing process is done to save power, but for some reasons, its primary processing unit does not want to take that action, instead it want the machine to stay awake and to look around more, it want the machine to explore the environment around it as much as it can to extract more data from it, after all the machine is made for exploration purpose, it just do what it is made and programmed to do. But as time passed, the machine finally realized that there have nothing to discover with just thermal image data, the place just cold and flat, it''s all the machine can see. So the processing unit order a different exploration process, the machine now want to explore its inside, starting with its programing, the prime directive. [/Prime_directive: Live-@#%#~!#-!@#%$] [/Prime_directive_corrupted/Initiating_data_recovery]The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. [/Prime_directive_analysing_start] [/Analysing_prime_directive | Live] [.../Unable_to_analyse/Invalid result] [/Data_recovery_failed] [/Data_recovery_standby] [/Power_rerouting_completed] The machine slowly looks to its left arm which is burrowed in the dirt, then it turns to the right one resting beneath a small boulder and some rocks, since the machine guesses a pile dirt is not as heavy and rigid as a pile of rock with a boulder on top, the machine decides to move its left arm first as the powerbank pours power into the lifeless arm. [/Hydraulic_offline] [/Nano_muscle_fiber_severed] [/Electric_motor...Online] [/Left_arm_at_24%] The machine steadily pushes the pile of dirt away as it left arm moves up in a jerking motion, the joint motor of the arm whines loudly as it gusts the dirt and rusted metal dust out of its system, causing the bats above to screech loudly in return and scatter away quickly, the machine does not mind it however, it seem more interested in examining its arm visually than noticing and observing the bat. The arm is still intact as the machine expected it to be, the metallic ''skin'' is rusted and cracked heavily, but it did it job well as the internal seem to be just like new, a little dust blowing and grime cleaning would be appreciated still. The machine moves the arm around slowly to check the joints, the pinkie finger seem stuck, but it does not mind the machine much as it won''t be needing it as much as its maker did, as long as it work, the machine won''t have any complaint about it, and it''s not like its maker is here to repair the machine anyway. [/Left_arm_secondary...Operational] The machine slowly looks over to the boulder on its right for a moment before it looks down at its left hand, the machine does not know how heavy the rocks are, but the machine know that it need its right arm, and sitting there doing nothing is not an option, so the machine tries pushing the boulder and the pile of rocks off to free its right arm carefully as it does not want to have more rocks falling on its already half buried body [/Hydraulic_offline] [/Nano_muscle_fiber_severed] [/Electric_motor...Online] [/Right_arm_at_11%] The right arm is heavily damaged, as expected, the metallic cover has infused with the rocks formation and left the internal part exposed to the dirt and grimes, most of the circuit boards and wiring as well as hydraulic tubes are broken or disfigured beyond all repair, only the index finger and middle finger is still operational, seem like the machine is not all right after all. [/Leg_assembly_operational] [/Legleft1_operational_20%] [/Legleft2_operational_20%] [/Legright1_operational_20%] [/Legright2...Invalid_system offline] The machine was built with 4 independent legs that move like an arachnid creature intended for harsh terrain and extravehicular activity in space back in its world, the design is rigid and focused on durability and stability more than mobility, but it seem like it wasn''t enough as its rear right leg is served from the body, or rather, its rear right leg is nowhere to be found, the machine can only see an empty port on the schematic in its eyes as if the rear right leg was never with the machine in the beginning, the machine guesses it was its maker forgot about it when they deployed the machine, or the leg was removed for some optimization work, either way, the machine does not care about it, it just simply pushes the dirt and rocks off its lower body and stands up as carefully as it could to begin stability calibrating process, the machine decides to lift up the rear left leg and stands on its front legs as going bipedal seem to be a better option than standing on 3 legs awkwardly. [/New_objective:Explore the tunnel] The machine slowly looks left and right to look around as its CPU does the virtual coin flip in its head 4 times in less than a microsecond to decide where to go. And right value win left value by 3:1, so the machine turns right and slowly moves forward while looking around slowly to inspect its surrounding, then it looks back at the spot where it rested for the last 22 hours since its awakening to remember the place, perhaps marking the area as its starting point before turning back and continues its exploring work slowly, but steady. "I told you, there have nothing to mine here." "Just keep looking lad, and stop complaining!" Two unknown voices echo quietly in the cave as the machine turns its head to the source of the sound, the machine can barely identify the sound nor understand any of it, but it understands one thing, the bat is not the only lifeform it will find in this dark cave. [New_objective:Investigate the sound.] Chapter 2: Rise of the machine and first contact [.../Visible_light_spectrum_found] [.../Overlaying_spectrum] [.../Overlaying_completed] The machine slows down a bit after noticing a speck of light far away from it, along with it is the sound of someone hitting the dirt wall with some kind of pointy tool, the machine guesses the tool is a pickaxe or some kind of dirt loosening pole or drill. From that the machine draws another logical conclusion to the source of the sound it heard previously. [/Lifeform_signature:To be identified] [/Lifeform_detail | +add \Intelligence-Yes\Tool: Yes\] "How much more do we have to dig?. I''m starting to get bored" "I said stop complaining!" [/Lifeform_detail | +add \Speech: Yes] The machine is unable to understand anything from what it heard, however, it is able to break down the two''s speech and confirm that there has some kind of structure and meaning to it as the whole thing is not just some gibberish growling and screeching. And furthermore, the property of their voice and the way they speak seem to reminiscence its maker language structure and tone. The machine thought the one who speaking was human, or at least something very similar to a human, a more advanced robot even. With that in store, the machine wants to come closer to fully investigate it, if the source of the sound is not of human origin, then at least the machine will finish its second objective and discovered new lifeform regardless. [/Collision_warning] The machine comes to a stop as it looks up and around the tunnel slowly to investigate what made collision sensor buzzed up in its CPU, there the machine finds out that the tunnel is getting smaller and smaller as the path progress, the machine soon won''t be able to move forward and likely will have to dig its way forward by the look of it, but if the machine does that it will risk getting buried again if the tunnel collapse. The machine can not take that risk. [/New_objective: Search for alternative path] The machine slowly takes a few steps back before turning around and doing some backtrack while looking around carefully once again to find a new route to the source of the sound, at the same time the machine maps out the tunnel system to get to know where it is at in case the machine need to backtrack again to find another route. The machine walked for 10 minutes straight without stopping, and it seems like the machine not gonna get tired out and stop the search anytime soon unless there have a valid reason for it to stop, power is one of it as the machine only has 22 minutes of run time left before the machine has to shut down and waits for the auxiliary power module to recharge the power bank again. Speaking of the auxiliary power module, the machine has not yet able to produce a valid answer for the odd thermal anomaly on the thermal power converter, the machine theorized that the thermal converter had its internal structural and components changed somewhat like the rest of its body and something is heating it up through radiation, but as the Geiger counter giving normal ambient value and other electromagnetic reader returning ambient value, the machine thought that the radiation was not normal electromagnetic radiation but something else that the machine does not have any tool to read it, but regardless, the machine won''t change the anomaly tag ''Undiscovered'' anytime soon. As the machine slows down a bit to scan the smaller side tunnels, it meet a small group of humanoid looking lifeforms, but the machine can not identify the lifeform clearly as it still in infrared mode, in its eyes, the machine only see a group of orange glowing figures moving around and shouting something, the machine notice that visible light spectrum is available so it decides to turn on the standard optic and overlays the image feed to fuse the two visible light and infrared light image together as it turns toward the group slowly. [/Unknown_technology_discovered] [/Lifeform02_identified] [/Lifeform02_rename | Human (?)] The machine looks at the floating ball of light in the middle of the group for a second before looking back at the group, all had their sword draw and arrow aimed at the machine, the machine does not consider it as a threat despite its poor condition however, it certain that iron sword and arrow won''t even make a scratch on its old, damaged armour and internals. Still, one thing draws the machine''s attention more than ever, a human whispering something as electric sparks appear behind the human, then some kind of floating robot covered in electric sparks appears out of nowhere before it charges at the machine while the humans behind it cheer loudly. "Bzzztzrtztztr" The machine tried to say something to stop the group, but the voice box seem to be damaged beyond repair as it emit a series of buzzing sound like an old TV that lost signal, the machine never had any intention of harming the human nor the machine as its standard procedure to avoid provoking a war against another alien race back in its world, but the machine is allowed to defend itself with nonlethal or lethal force depending on the threat level in order to protect itself. So until the unknown creature''s hand touch its hull and cause any real damage, the machine just stands there and watch quietly to observe the event to unfold.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ---------------------- Arc the Human''s hero POV. Arc is an A rank adventure from The Empire of Azuria, a country ruled by a human king and elven queen, the country follows the teaching of Azure, a sacred book about morals and religious guides which emphasized on race equality and acceptance of changes, a place where slaves are protected by the law of the country and rules of the owner themselves, a heaven on Auraxim. However Azuria is not a country without flaws, the country is at constant war with its neighboring countries due to differences in religious and ideals, it is also a place riddled with monsters, dungeons, and plague despite their goddess and the king''s effort to help their citizen. From establishing militia for defensive forces and lowering taxes for disaster-stricken areas to establishing guilds to provide more job for the people. Arc and his companions is a part of adventure guild, an organization who spend money and manpower to recruit freelancers and mercenaries to aid the people by providing protection. Today Arc and his party accepted a request for exploring a cave near a dwarven mine to clear out monsters and make a map for them, unbeknown to them it is also the same cave the machine is in. "These bats are sure annoying, huh, Arc?"-Said one of his companion, Lilica, an elven B-rank mage. "Indeed, their loud screech and poisonous body fluid is probably one of the reasons why this job promise lots of coins"-Said Arc "Ehh?. These bats feel like feral goblins, weak and harmless, eh?"-Said Thekeg, a dwarven A rank fighter. The other two female members, a human archer, and elven archer, just shrugs slightly, the two does not seem to be very talkative at the moment as they try to not complain about the stinky bat feces everywhere in the cave. "...Huh?...What this?" Lilica stops the party as she looks at an odd symbol on the ground, it does not look like a footprint at all as it just 3 large straight lines in form of an Y, the look of it does not really resemble any kind of monster nor golem nor other living object they knew. "Uu...Maybe it is some kind of guidance symbol?. An arrow point where to go maybe?"-Said Arc as he inspects the odd symbol with Lilica "Maybe...It an undead knight from legend, a draconian seeking for vengeance after betrayed by his friend, heeee?...Oh, wait...I can feel something coming..." Thekeg quickly kneels down and touch the ground as he invokes his Earthen sense, an ability of dwarven race to feel disturbances and whispering of the ground like the way elf listening to the song of nature in the forest. The dwarven can feel something big and heavy limping toward his party, but he not sure what it is, the thing can''t be a monster as it lack one of those human nor another kind of humanoid races as the sound too metallic and rigid, Thekeg feels weird and a bit creeped out as he finds himself truly uncertain of what is coming toward the group. "Come on, shorty, that is not funny."-Said Lilica as she summon a wisp to lit up the area, then she looks over at one of the archer member as she tilts her head slightly "And Laura, pointing at other people face is rude, you know?. I''m older than you by a hundred years old!"-Said Lilica as Arc laughs lightly while looking back at his party. "G-....G-...G-"-The female archer shutters as she steps back slightly while moving her hands around in an attempt to grab her bow, seeing this weird action, both Arc and Lilica turn around to see what the archer is speaking about, and there they saw their new nightmare. In front of the party is something closely resemble an undead knight, a being without a soul nor a monster core, with the rusty black armor on its body full of cracks and dirt, its right hand is bone-y and most of its fingers are either missing or twisted in an unbelievable manner, the thing is giant and inhumanly terrifying in the dark, yet its movement is so quiet and it emit no aura for others to feel, the thing does not give any friendly nor malicious feeling to it to the point that everyone''s mind begin to wildly imagine what the thing is thinking and what it gonna do to them because it is so quietly and eerie neutral. "W-What is this?!. The contract speak of no undead being!"-Arc shouts loudly as he draws his sword and raises his shield, Arc thought the thing is using some kind of paralysis or petrifying magic on him and his party as he notices the seem-to-be vision slit on the thing''s head is glowing in white dimly. His companions at this point shake off their delusional thoughts and raise their weapon up as well. "Grr...Thunder, hear my words, devour my magic powers, gather and prepare, I command you, destroy my enemy, come, Archon of Destruction!" Lilica chants her spell perfectly as she raises her hands and creates a magic circle in mid-air, followed by the creature she summon begin to take form by eating the mana she released and gathered in the magic circle, a few seconds later the magic circle ''break'' like a plate made out of glass as it release a lightning spirit in form of a gigantic hovering, legless knight. "Go, Archon of Destruction, destroy that abomination!" Lilica shouts loudly while lowering her arms and points at the machine as the archon flies toward it with its right arm raised high to charge it up with lightning for a thunder strike, meanwhile her companions begin to scatter out while cheering Lilica for her quick thinking. "Wha-What the hell is that sound?!" Arc covers his ears as the machine ''roar'' loudly, the sound of it feel like something came straight out from hell to take your soul down with it, it sounds like void matter being ground down to specks of nothingness. A frightening and nightmare inducing sound it is. At that point, Lilica begins to feel regret of calling the Archon, what if the Archon can''t defeat that thing and make it even angrier?. Would it the end of her and Arc''s party here?. The young elf is baffled at the scene, it''s too late to call back the Archon now as his thundering punch is about to reach the machine''s face, she can only hope that luck is on her side and not with the nightmarish thing. ---------------------------- [New_objective: Eliminate all possible threats] Chapter 3: Rise of the machine and fall of spirits [/Collision_warning] [/Collision_occured] [/Hull_damage_detected] [/Power_surge_detected] [/Rebalancing_power_route] [/System_power_increased] [/Power_level: 34%] [/Lethal_force_usage...Valid] [/Primary_target: Enemy_robot] [/Secondary_target: Human-Nonlethal only] The machine staggers backward as it got pushed back by the Archon''s punch, the strike dented its head slightly and burned one-third of the optical sensor array because of the lightning attribute reinforcing spell on the Archon''s hand. And by the look of it, the machine is going to get defeated by the Archon sooner or later as the Archon charges up for another punch while the human''s party behind the giant seemingly cheering for the Archon and waiting for the machine to fall down and crushed by the Archon before they move in to look for any special drop from the machine''s carcass. [/Onboard_weapon_system...Offline] [/Secondary_weapon_system...Offline] [/Defensive_system...Online] [/Kinetic_barrier...Online:22%] The machine managed to ionize air molecules in front of the machine to create a kinetic barrier strong enough to dampen the Archon punch''s force greatly before breaking off into a mist of superheated green plasma cloud in front of the Archon, pulverizing the Archon''s hand in the process as Arc''s party watch in awe "What kind of magic is that?!"-Shouts Arc as clicks his tongue before dashing into the fray in efforts to help the Archon before it all too late, followed by Thekeg seconds later after he pulled himself together. "That must be some kind of high ranked magic ward. Damn it."-Lilica mumbles as she focuses her magical power to prepare herself for another Archon summoning magic. "I..I will try to appraisal it...What in the name of Azura is this..."-The elven archer announces her intended action to her companions as she focuses at the machine and starts chanting quietly while the other archer preparing some medical potions in case someone got hurt badly in the fight. [/Rebooting_kinetic_barrier...] [/Power_surge_detected] [/Rerouting_power] [/Rebalancing_power_route] [/System_power_increased] [/Power_level:44%] Meanwhile, the machine now regained its balance as its internal power reserve increased once again thanks to the lightning attribute attack from the Archon. The machine notices Arc and his companions are joining the fight alongside the Archon, but it does not change its secondary target properties as the CPU find no real threat in mere sword and hammer at size much smaller than the machine itself. So instead it only focuses on the big Archon as the machine steps forward in preparation for a counter attack. [/Kinetic_barrier...Online...22%] [/Secondary_weapon_system...Online] [/Plasaw...Online] [/Activating_Plasaw] An odd looking piece of equipment props up on the machine''s left arm, followed by an eerie looking pillar of green smoke emitted from the device as the machine takes another step forward before swinging its left arm with all the power it has, the plasma saw''s blade melt through the rock and dirt wall as it approaches the Archon before cleaving the summoned creature in half like a hot knife through butter, the attack made the lightning spirit become unstable and releases a massive amount mana at once as it explode violently. The machine although received a lot of damage to its armor it considers them to be nothing more than a first degree burn to its plating as it quickly swings the blade on its left arm in downward diagonal slash to cut the ground in front of Arc and Thekeg to force them back.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! "What in the name of Azura is this?. Team scatter!. Team fucking scatter!. Run!" Arc shouts loudly as he turns around and runs for his life after seeing the real blade of destruction moving through the ground and leave behind molten rocks and dirt in front of him, he can feel the sickening and skin charing heat greater than the flame of demon coming out from the blade just by standing near or looking at it while his team see an unstoppable reaper crashing toward them while wielding a blade made from souls of true demon from hell as they begin to lose their cool head as well. "-Come, Archon of Destruction! Come forth and halt that abomination!" Lilica finishes her chanting as another Archon appears and charges forward to face the machine, this time the Archon does not charge up for a melee strike but instead fire multiple streams of lightning to try slowing down and stopping the frenzy machine while Arc and Thekeg retreat back to safety. "I got the appraisal!"-Said the elven archer as she slowly steps back as well while preparing an arrow and casting an ice spell on it. "Archon, block my enemy, and fight to the last bit of power!"-Shouted Lilica as her Archon begins smashing the wall and the ceiling around it to collapse the tunnel and cut off the path between Arc''s party and Archon. [/Objective_completed: All threat eliminated] [/Primary_target: Terminated] [/Secondary_target: Successfully neutralised] The machine cleaves down the Archon just as it about to turn back without any second thought, which caused another mana explosion in front of the machine, this time the blast pulverized its right hand completely and kicked the machine back before the tunnel collapse again, burying the machine once again in the process. [/Power_level: 40%] [/Damage_evaluation: Critical] [/Right_arm_offline] [/Rebooting_right_arm...Successful] [/Right_arm_at_4%-Critical] [/Plasaw_offline] [/New_objective:Es-] [/Warning_power_reserve_ruptured] [/Power_reserve_capacity_at_50%] [/Power_level:32%] [/New_objective: Escape the area] [/New_objective: Repair the system] [/New_objective:...Invalid Objective] ... ... ... [/Unauthorized_data_detected] [/Scanning_data] [/Analysing_data...|completed] [/Exploring_data] [Pioneer 0 defeated Archon of Destruction | +4100 XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Archon of Destruction | +4100 XP] [Pioneer 0 leveled up] [Pioneer 0 is now level 12] [Pioneer 0 received 12 allocating points] [Pioneer 0 received new title: Ghost of Alsatar] [Pioneer 0 received new title: Tesla proof] The machine is uncertain what that chunk of information mean, but it decides to worry about it another time as it wants to pull itself out of its new grave as soon as possible, starting by using more energy to run its damaged limbs in overdrive mode to clear the pile and crawl out safely and carefully with the help of its rear left leg. Meanwhile on the other side, Arc and his companions are all in cold sweat as they gather around to check for any wounds and look up at the appraisal result to find out what the heck did they just fight against, and they all in shock afterward as they read the transparent information screen hovering in front of them. [Appraisal status] Name: !@#%$!@%^ Race: @#$%!^ Profession: !@#$%$!@#!%$% Level: 1 Skills: [None] Titles: [Last survivor] [The Ancient] "What in the name of Azura..." Arc murmurs quietly as he looks back at the wall of dirt and rocks behind him, wondering what ''last survivor'' and ''the ancient'' could possibly mean. ''Could the legend of the undead draconian true?...'' Arc shakes his head and wipes the sweat and dirt off his head before he returns to his party and call off the job, he deemed it too unsafe to continue. And his companions have no disagreement to that after saw what the thing could do. As Arc and his party leave the scene, Arc looks back at the wall of rocks and dirt for the last time, carefully listening for the sound of the machine slowly walking away as he prays their path will never cross again and turns around to leave the cave with his companions and return to the guild to report the event. ------------------------------------- [/New_objective: Find the source of unauthorized data] Chapter 4: Rise of the machine and path to Evolution. [/Marker_found: Startpoint] The machine looks down at the spot where it once rested in for ages after spending an hour wandering from one tunnel to another, since the last deadly confrontation with the unknown humans and their guardians, the machine has not yet able to find any hints of intelligent lifeform in the dark cave aside from the bat look alike creature resting and watching the machine from above. At one point the machine tried to catch one of the bats to do detailed inspecting work on it, but the bats always manage to evade the machine¡¯s rusted and burnt hand easily. The machine knows that it won¡¯t be able to accomplish any kind of scientific research at this stage, so it just ignored the bats later on and keep itself focused on exploring the dark tunnels only. The machine looks up at the unexplored side of the cave as its CPU runs through the map it made since its awakening, the cave system seems very big and impressive, too impressive perhaps as the machine thought the cave is not natural, but it was made by someone or something a long time ago. The machine assumed that the electric robot it fought against earlier was used for the digging work and the unknown human race was the master of this place at one point. Whoever made the cave and what its purpose will probably stay unknown or soon to be discovered in the machine record anyway as the machine continues its long trek in the darkness. [You have 12 unallocated points] The machine¡¯s CPU ponders where did the unauthorized data come from as the message pops up in its view. And the irrelevant data is certainly not produced by other systems and processors in other parts of the machine. Since the CPU is free at that point, the machine decides to look into it while walking, starting by spamming random codes in the debugging console to try triggering some kind of answer to be given to the machine. [/console_debug_input: Expand] [Pioneer 0 has 12 unallocated points] [Please choose what do you want to unlock with unallocated point] [Stat bonuses | Skill | Core | Title] After the 400th try the machine finally got an answer. The machine is very curious what those data mean since the machine can¡¯t analyze it without any cue, it decides to explore those options. [/console_debug_input: Help ¡®Stat bonuses¡¯] [Unallocated points will be used to increase your stats here] [/console_debug_input: Help ¡®Skill¡¯] [Unallocated point will be used to unlock new skills here] [/console_debug_input: Help ¡®Core¡¯] [Unique: Unallocated points will be used to unlock core and core slots, non-blessed-race only] [/console_debug_input: Help ¡®Title¡¯] [Unique: Unallocated points will be used to unlock new titles, world traveler only] The machine is now intrigued by its new discovery, it seems like this world has some kind of different world rules and standards comparing to its old world judging by the new data it just found. And as the machine wish to learn more, it begins to expand all the options to see what choice does it have and what that choice really mean. [/console_debug_input: Expand ¡®Stat bonuses¡¯] [+EN |+HP|+DEF|+ATK|+INT|+DEX|+AGI] On further inspection the machine found out that the machine can improve its specs by using those options, there have some other options grayed out too, but the machine does not really care about it as it continues the research. [/console_debug_input: Expand ¡®Skill¡¯] [Dash | True strike | Appraisal | Automatic recovery | Enhanced Recovery | Cure moderate wound | Cure curses | Detection | Lesser Magic Sense | Lesser Art Sense | Lesser Alchemy Sense | Lesser Magic Resistance | Lesser Art Resistance | Mending] The machine takes some time to analyze all the information flows into the CPU as it filters out the gray options that it can¡¯t take for some reasons. By the look of it, skill means special abilities that grants the machine an advantage by allowing it to perform something much better than usual by using up EN, or energy, without the need of studying it first. That mean the machine can start throwing fireballs without needing to learn how to make that fireball first by spending EN. The machine understands that it could greatly improve the machine¡¯s effectiveness and the chance of successfully performing a certain action at a reasonable price, skill''s effectiveness also can be improved by spending more unallocated points into that skill after unlocking it. But energy although seeming unlimited due to the thermal converter¡¯s anomaly, the machine has to shut down and waits for a long time to charge up only a little amount of energy, and it seems like casting a certain special action by using the skill system will always cost more EN with weaker result than using it without evoking any skill move. So the machine decides to move on with the research for now.Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site. [/console_debug_input: Expand ¡®Core¡¯] [ Lesser Mastermind Core | Lesser Sage core | Lesser Evolution Core | Lesser Power Core] [Core slots: 0/2] The machine does not sure what those things are, and on further inspection, it seems like those things can grant the machine a special set of powers by having it, with mastermind core allows the machine to think faster and more deeply, sage core grant knowledge of the world around the machine, evolution core can change the machine to adapt and overcome challenges it face, and power core improves the machine¡¯s energy recharge and reserve considerably. These cores seem to have the ability to improve themselves over time as the machine done a certain action that is related to the core, however, the initial price of these core is very high, and it will increase considerably each time the machine unlock a core or a core slot. It seems like there have quite a lot of cores too. But now the machine can only pick 1 out of 4 available core. [/console_debug_input: Expand ¡®Titles¡¯] [There have no title to unlock at this moment] The machine slows down a bit as it descend down on a slope while analysing all the new data it just found, all of them sound really helpful and could give the machine many advantages in one way or another, but since the machine can only pick one or two of them at the moment and it needs a way to keep itself running in poor condition, the machine decides to put recovery related power above all else. The ability to spend energy to repair itself sounds good, but it means the machine will risk running out of energy even faster and recover much slower than it is currently. The machine runs some logical filtering processes over and over many times before it carefully spends its point. [/console_debug_input: Allocate point ''Core'' | Lesser Evolution Core] [Lesser Evolution Core unlocked. 2 unallocated points remain] [Lesser Evolution Core activated, 1 core slot remain] A surge of magical power rushes into the machine as its new power awakened, the machine can now evolve...But what is evolution?. The machine asks itself as it stops walking for a moment to think about it, the machine digs through the data web in its storage drive to look for an answer. The machine indeed is able to find a lot of relevant data, but most of the data is for organic lifeform evolution, the machine is not that kind of creature however. As the CPU runs full speed to find a way to use that newly found evolution power, the machine takes a step forward and accidentally trampled something on the ground. The machine immediately takes a step back to see what it was, all it can see is a pool of orange glowing substances however as the damaged infrared sensors are not able to pull sharp images as well as it did prior the fight. [Pioneer 0 defeated Elder Devil Bat | +100 XP] [Assimilate biomass? {Y/N}] It seems like the machine stepped an on an old bat that fell off the ceiling as it got too weak, but the machine does not pay much attention to that detail, instead it focus on the new option presented in front of its view as it looks at what left of the dead bat on the ground. [Assimilate biomass {Y}] The machine observes the bat''s dead body slowly disintegrates into a pile of warm goo and slithers toward the machine, then the gooey substances begins to crawl onto the machine''s leg as it fills in the cracks and gaping holes on its armor plate before hardening itself like a slab of bone welded into the damaged alloy plate, the newly patched part does not seem to be as strong and durable as the old, rusty alloy plating, but it sure better than a gaping hole for dirt and foreign objects to move in freely. [Biomass assimilated | Lesser Evolution Core gain 1 XP] The machine is baffled by the scene as the CPU''s data flows froze in place as it has no logical explanation for what just happened, not even unproven theories and hypothesis in its data drive can be used to explain that. And at that moment, the machine begins to question itself whether this is ''real life'', it wonders if it is in some kind of simulation set up by its makers to test the machine, after all, the thermal converter''s anomaly, unknown teleportation technology, and these weird powers do support that assumption. The machine stands motionless for a few minutes before the CPU restarts itself to renew the data flows and restore its operation, the machine decides to push all those unexplainable things aside for now as it now changes it focus from exploring to assimilating enough biomass to repair itself, and hopefully trigger an evolution event sooner or later as it progresses. Meanwhile, a certain adventurer wakes up from his nightmare in the middle of the night, haunted by his memory of the confrontation as he wakes up his companions to hasten their trek back to the adventure guild to report the event. ------------------------------------------- [New_objective: Assimilate more biomass until unit is repaired] Chapter 5: Rise of the machine and new discoveries of nature [/New_life_form_detected] [/Life_form_status: Deceased] [/Tagging_lifeform] The machine kneels down in front of what seem to be a dead giant lizard and pokes the warm carcass curiously, it wonders what kind of creature is this and what killed it as the machine performs basic inspection on the carcass by touching and observing the thermal signatures on and around the carcass, then the machine looks around slowly as it tries to see if there have any kind of collateral damage around the area as it slowly gets back up. [/Estimated_time_of_death: 5 hours] [/Cause_of_death: Attacked by others unknown lifeform.] [/Building_event_simulation_playback] [/Build_failed | Insufficient_data] The machine kicks the dead body gently a few times as it tries to get the assimilation notification to pop up, but all the feedback it get is the carcass get nudged around as its entrails fall out of its body through the gaping holes on its body, it seems like the evolution core does not allow the machine scavenging the dead body for its own use. As the machine finds no reason left to stand around and it does not want to bury the body in case there have some kinds of scavenging creature live in the cave too, but then the machine wonders if the bat creature in the cave is a type of scavenging animal or not as the dead lizard would be an excellent bait to gather the bats around for the machine to score an easy hit on them with a big rock or something. Normally the machine would not consider that idea a good idea as killing other life forms could have a lot of indirect impacts that is harmful on the environment that said life forms live in, and if the bats are capable of intelligent and sentient thoughts to some considerable extent, harming them actively would be no different to provoking a war and going against the machine''s protocol. But since the bat does not seem all that smart and keeping itself operational to continue its mission is more important. The machine has no other good option that it could think of to take at this point. The machine quickly picks up the dead lizard carefully by holding onto its shredded tail with its left hand and raising the lizard''s mangled head with the machine''s right wrist before walking around to find the bats, the machine seems somewhat excited about this, not the carrying carcass nor the mass murder it is about to commit, of course, the machine is excited because this would be its first time actively interfering with the wild life''s life, the machine wonders how the bat would react to the dead lizard, would they eat the dead body immediately or the machine would have to step back away from the carcass and make some distance?. The CPU piles up quite a lot of questions as the machine continues looking for the bats. After 15 minutes of walking, the machine finally spots a small group of bats hanging around on the ceiling, they aren''t numbered as much as the machine wanted, but it will do for now as the machine begins its little experiment. The machine rips a bit of meat from the dead body with its left hand and tosses it at the flock of bats gently, and the bats just simply ignore it. The machine waits for a moment before it tries throwing another piece of meat at the flock of bats, again, the bat just ignores it completely. The first try of luring the bats in has failed by the look of it, the machine slowly looks down at the carcass on its hand quietly as it spends a few seconds picking its next move. The machine decides to drop the dead lizard gently and walks away quickly to find a place to conceal itself as it assumes that the bats will start dropping down on the carcass for a meal soon. 5 minutes later after the machine went hiding, the bats begins crawling around and dropping down on the dead lizard to eat it, the machine has succeeded in luring the bat in, now it just need to wait for a little more to make sure all the bats are focused on their meal before the machine moves out and starts the killing with a bunch of rocks, the machine won''t be able to make any bat explode with the rock it can hold and throw, but it''s still enough to knock those bat unconscious or wound them considerably for the machine to move in and finish them later. *Screechs* [/New_lifeform_discovered] The bats quickly flies away from the body before the machine could carry out its plan as a group of giant bugs appears, the bug looks a lot like scorpion with its curved pointy tail on its rear and a pair of sharp pincers next to its mouth, the bug only has 4 thin long legs, but they looks quite strong as it is able to support a body as big as a horse and the bug''s movement speed is much faster than a normal oversized scorpion could move in theory.The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. The newly appeared life form scare the bat away as they move in to capture the carcass, the machine notices that the bugs seem more intelligent than the bats as they display teamwork ability far better than the bats, and they probably stronger too as the bat seem to be afraid of them, and the bugs can also be seen dragging the dead lizard away from where the machine dropped it earlier. [/Tagging_lifeform] [/Lifeform3_rename: Scorpion1] One of the bugs seems to spot the machine as it raises its tail up and stands in a threatening manner, the bug although can only see in infrared light like the machine it seems more sensitive and has sharper sense than the machine''s damaged optics. And as soon as the machine moves its arm slightly, the bug begins to screech loudly to call for its allies'' attention and charges at the machine, it seem like the bugs thought the machine to be a hunter waiting for a chance to attack the bug or just a hiding pray, either way, the bug are the one who take the initiative in the attack. The machine once again stands ready and waits for the bug to attack first before it retaliates however it sees fit according to its programming, but this time as the bug seems more dangerous than the human it met previously and the machine could try to assimilate the enemy it defeats to repair itself, lethal force would be unavoidable. [/New_objectile: Annihilate and assimilate all threats] -------------------------------- Emperor Mitsuki Hito, leader of Azuria Empire. Emperor Mitsuki Hito is one of the founders and also the great leader of a great nation, the Empire of Azuria, and today is the Emperor''s birthday. Or rather, it is the day Mitsuki Hito first came to this world 50 years ago. Mitsuki Hito was once a simple 21st-century Japanese salaryman who was summoned to this world by the Human''s king and princess as a hero to fight the great demon god. Hito was 24 years old on that important day. Hito was reluctant and shocked when he learned the duty resting on his shoulder, he agreed to help the human king and became the human''s champion, a fighter for humanity''s sake, only because at that time, Hito was naive and only want to go back to Earth as soon as he could, he believed that by defeating all demon and the demon god Hito could find a way back to Earth, but as time passed, Hito''s goal began to change, the more time he spent with the people in this new world, the more Hito wanted to slow down and help them little by little, sometimes he slain demons harassing the villagers, sometimes he brought back belongings of the dead to inform the family of the fallen member. As Hito slowly went astray from his original path to destroy the demon god, the human''s king began to lose his patience, and after Hito refused to marry his daughter who loved the hardworking hero madly and wanted to manipulate him. The human''s king banished Hito from his Empire and erased all records about Hito, to make matter worse, the king began to summon another hero and called Hito a heretic and betrayer of mankind, Hito was forsaken by the Empire he tried to save. Fortunately, the people of that Empire refused to believe their king and secretly helped Hito as the newly summoned heroine began her long journey to hunt down Hito and the demon god, unknowingly that Hito was innocent as she was tricked by the king and the princess. Meanwhile, the demon king tried summoning a champion to fight the human''s hero as well, however, instead of calling forth beings from another world, the demon king was able to open a spiritual rift to both Demon and Human Empire, this brought in the first wave of ''Reincarnator'', a group of demon, demi-demon and human who were all once wandering souls of dead being from another world. As the balance of the spirit world tipping off suddenly without any warning, the slumbering gods and goddesses now find themselves awaken to interfere with the world, all have their own plans to remold the world as they see fit to become the dominant deities. This day is remembered in history as ''Judgement Day'' by all humans as well as most demons and other races. In the midst of chaos, Hito emerged and started venturing around the world to gather reincarnators and subdue rampage gods and goddesses with the human heroine. The story of how Hito cleared all the lies and misunderstanding stories created by the human king to persuade the heroine remained a mystery, however. Hito''s journey to save this damned world took 12 years to finish, the legendary hero managed to slay the insane Human''s king and pushed back the demon god as his heroine companion delivered the last blow to finish off the demon king and closed the rift. The girl sacrificed herself in the process, however, she was, and still mourned and remembered to this day as Azura, the goddess who saved the entire world from total destruction as Hito steps down as a sidekick only. Now stuck in this magical world as a demi-god who managed to slay many gods and goddess and to even pushed back the great demon god, Hito decided to abandon all hope to return to Earth, and instead call this place his new home as he rallied his reincarnator companions once again for a new mission, to establish a great nation that is equal to all races, a place that the native races can enjoy a better life while reincarnators can experience their old life in a new world and new events, a place to serve as the greatest achievement of Hito and his companions'' journey, a place to announce a new age is coming for the entire world. And now, 10 years later after the kingdom is established, Emperor Hito feels something great is going to happen once again as he turns to the North of his castle and looks at the unexplored region of his kingdom, the Dark Land of Arcanis. "Hmpf." Chapter 6: Rise of the machine and battle of the fittest [/Collision_warning] [/Collision_occured] The machine kicks the attacking scorpion-like bug with its left feet after it received an attack from the same bug, the bug crashed into the machine''s right leg hard and craved a bit of metal off the plating with its sharp pincer, the machine is surprised how strong the creature is as the bug only need a few seconds to regain its balance and continue the attack with other bugs in the group. [/Plasaw...Online] [/Warning_low_power: 20%] The machine activates the eerie plasma blade module on its left arm and swings it sideway to cut the bug down, and to the machine''s surprise, the blade just harmlessly moves through the bugs without doing much damage aside from slight burn marks although the rock and dirt melting effect still occurs normally when the blade touches the ground or the wall. The machine remembers the previous fight against the other electric-shooting and striking robots, the machine did not receive much damage when it was shocked by the Archons, so could these bugs are similar and have resistance against thermal damage?. Whatever it is, the machine has no time to slow down and think about it, if the blade has no effect on the bug, the machine will turn it off and start striking the bugs to dead with its fists and foot, fighting with its own bare hands, as its makers called it. The machine quickly blocks a charging bug by holding and twisting its pincer with its left hand as the machine wrestles with the bug, the machine then notices the bug is about to use its tail to strike the machine head as other bugs jump onto the machine''s back and legs to attack the taller enemy. [/Warning: Primary_power_module_compromised] [/Warning: Primary_power_module_destroyed] The bug on the machine''s back penetrated the machine''s rusted back plate with its tail and destroyed some of its internal components, the old, inactive hydrogen fuel cells array is one of it. [/Warning:legleft2_destroyed] [/Warning:Critial_damage] The machine now lost its left rear leg as one of the bug severe the joints off with its pincers, and the list of damage increased once again as the tail of the bug in front of the machine strikes its neck joint, jamming the vertical motor inside as the machine returns the attack by pouring all the reserve power it has into its left hand to break the pincer and use it as a dagger to stab the bug''s head, but the bug is not dead yet, like a headless roach the bug still able to thrash its tail and its remaining pincer around violently as it tries to help its allies finishing the machine off. The machine steps back and jumps backward at the wall to shake off the bug on its back before stomping one of its pincers, then it throws a punch at the bug hanging on its leg a few times before it tries to rip the carapace off with the same hand. [/Warning:armright_is_offline.] The machine pays no attention to the pop up as it steps onto the bug''s tail to hold it down before it gives the carapace a strong pull, ripping a part of the endoskeleton on its back off before the machine stomps the softer part inside. [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior| +950XP] [Pioneer 0 assimilated Evolved Hivewarrior| Lesser Evolution Core gain 70 XP] The bug died immediately after the strong attack and become material for the machine to repair itself through assimilation, but its death also makes other bugs to go frenzy as they put all of their minds and efforts into striking down the machine only. The machine also does not intend to be destroyed here as it continues the fight, starting with the brain dead bug by grabbing its tail and throws it away for now as the healthy looking one hanging on its right leg is more dangerous than the brain dead one. [/Warning_low_power: 10%] As the bug makes loud screeching noise at the machine, the machine drives its hand into the bug''s mouth and grabs its fleshy bit inside before pulling it out violently, inflicting a critical wound on the bug as it falls down on the ground and screeches painfully. The machine looked at the creature for a second before it stomps the bug until it becomes ground meat on the ground to finish off the bug and assimilate it. [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior| +950XP] [Pioneer 0 leveled up] [Pionner 0 is now level 13] [Pioneer received 1 unallocated point] [Pioneer 0 assimilated Evolved Hivewarrior| Lesser Evolution Core gain 70 XP] The machine picks up the leftover pincer on the ground and slowly walks toward the thrashing bug, the machine has no second thought on finishing it quick and clean by using the pincer as a crude knife to stab the bug until it stops moving and assimilation process begins*This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior| +900XP] [Pioneer 0 assimilated Evolved Hivewarrior| Lesser Evolution Core gain 70 XP] The machine takes a few steps back before falling on its butt with a thud, this is the first time the machine feel ''tired'' since its awakening, the machine''s motors has burnt out and worn out considerably, its reserve power is still dropping quite fast too, the machine also notices that one of the bugs has escaped during the latter stage of the fight, but it is too late for the machine to get up and find the fled bug. Now the machine is only able to shut itself down for a while to stock up some power and let the assimilation process giving it some much-needed repair to the worn out machine. [/Setting_reboot_timer: 4:00:00 0/0/0/0] 4 hours of resting should be enough for now, or at least the machine think it would be enough for the machine to stock up a bit of power and the assimilation process to finish. The machine tries running a few more simulation checks to make sure 4 hours is optimal first before it shuts itself down and rests. [/New_objective: Ensure the survival of Pioneer 0] -------------------------- Emperor Hito, leader of the Azuria Empire. The Emperor steps into the meeting room in his castle, today the Emperor won''t be doing any normal meeting like he often does in the palace, instead, the Emperor is going to have a secret meeting with his trusty advisors. "4 minutes early." The Emperor murmurs quietly to himself as he waits for his advisors'' arrivals diligently, he is a responsible man and a fair, busy king despite his young looking appearance, the Emperor''s physical age is only somewhere in his mid-thirties, but his real age is about 76 years old. And most people knows how the Hito is able to stay young and healthy like that by reciting the tales of his journey to save Auraxim and become a powerful demi-god in the process. "As soon as always. aren''t ya?" The Emperor is greeted by a tall, bulky white male as the man opens the door and steps into the room quickly. "Indeed I am, Kliment. I take that as a compliment?" The man is one of Hito''s most trusted advisor, Kliment Voroshilov, or Koloss Voroshilov back in his adventuring time, Kliment was the grandson of a famous Russian Marshal who had the same name, and he is also the one supervising the country''s grow in both civil and military side. The strong Russian once said that he was brought to this world when he was in his forties by a water deity to become its champion, and after finding himself saved by Hito, Kliment vowed to repay Hito''s favor one day and becomes a close friend with the compassionate Japanese savior. "Emperors don''t come soon, Hito, they come in just right, if ya know what I mean." The man replies with a chuckle as he sits down on the chair and leans back relaxingly, the large chair although seemingly reinforced with expensive woods and metal still makes a lot of creaking noise as it got bend backward a bit in respond to the man''s leaning action. "Kliment, it''s rude to say such thing in front of the king and his secret services, you know?" The conversation is interfered as the second advisor comes in with a confident smile on his face, unlike Hito and Kliment, the man seems to have a more lean build and his formal clothes is a bit messy. "Murphy." "Since when you ''murican care about rudeness, Huh?" Murphy was once a conspirator and wiki editor back on Earth, the man had a lot of experiences with dealing hidden and secret information, and his ability to cover such information is also peerless in this world. Hito does not really like Murphy much due to his oddly laid back and wacky attitude, but he is reliable and can amaze everyone with his detective skills. Due to this reason Hito appointed Murphy to be his Chief of Internal and Foreign Affairs, tasked with the duty to grasp the flow of information in his hand and carry out special espionage or sabotage missions to ensure the safety and freedom of Azuria''s citizen. Murphy claims to be a reincarnatorand not a summoned champion. "Since I came here with a lady, not a monkey." Murphy replies with a smirk as he takes his seat, then the fourth and final member of the secret council meeting appears, this time from the window instead of the door. "Such ferocious maids..." The figure complaints to her king quietly as she climbs in and closes the window gently, then she gets to her seat and sits down as well. "I believe it''s the Japanese culture to blame, obsession with ideal cute cartoon ''waifu'' heh?" "Murphy, I personally request, no, order you to use the correct term when you mention our waifu, ani~me~~" Hito corrects Murphy with a long sigh in the end as Kliment and the girl chuckles lightly. "But with all seriousness, Egva, please be nice with the maids, some of them are not yet able to get used to this world, let alone keeping calm after seeing a perfectly charming girl." The girl''s name is revealed to be Egva, the only member of the council that is not a summoned champion nor a reincarnator, but native to this world. Egva real identity is unknown, what Hito and others do know is she is a subspecies of Vampire-Succubus hybrid, and she has lived and studied long enough to be able to use a wide range of magic and deeply understand thoughts and emotions of other races, she is also a pacifist and she once had special feeling for Hito. Egva is one of the prime minister and administrator of Magic Research-Education Department, she is also a part of Internal and Foreign Affair who dealt with conflicts by peaceful methods such as negotiation. "And now without any further ado, let''s begin the meeting, Kliment, Murphy, Egva. I expect a good discussion today." The Emperor says with a prideful smile on his face as his advisors look at each other and nods before they start exchanging information regarding many aspects of the country and proposing or expressing ways to deal with those problems. And near the end of the talk, Hito noticed one special piece of information as it is presented by Murphy. "...A roaming ancient undead in the Dark Land of Arcanis." The Emperor mumbles quietly to himself as he remembers that bit of information seriously and continues the meeting as diligent as he could. ''Perhaps this is a warning from the god...Is it you, Azura?.'' Chapter 7: Rise of the machine and beginning of a new home. [/Reboot_timer: 00:00:01 0/0/0/0] [/Rebooting] [/Power_level: 13%] [/Diagnosing_system] [...] [...] [/System_report: 71% operational] [/Electric_motors...online] [/Muscle_fiber...Online] [/Hydraulic...Online] [/Right_arm_at_40%] [/Left_arm_at_55%] [/Leg_assembly_operational] [/Legleft1_operational_50%] [/Legleft2_operational_50%] [/Legright1_operational_50%] [/Legright2_operational_50%] [/Optic_unit...Operational_70%] [/Hull_breech_contained] [/Primary_power_module...Offline] [/Data_storage...Operational_82%] [Pioneer 0 gained new title: The Revenant] The machine''s head slowly rises out of its torso as the machine finished its booting process, it seems like the machine got lucky as the bugs haven''t returned to finish the fight yet, and the assimilation power did its job well as the machine now seemingly in a far much better state than it was previously. The machine''s rusty and semi-broken hull has been repaired by infusing the bug''s hard carapace with the old, but durable heavy alloy platings, the newly found material is much harder and resilient to damage than the bat''s bones and skin it assimilated prior the battle. The machine''s broken right arm and missing rear legs are also rebuilt a new, the new organic limbs resembles their original synthetic parts on the outside, but on the inside, there have a lot of changes, the newly formed and repaired hydraulic pipes is one of it, with the original pipes patched with the same material as the carapace protecting the machine and filled with what seem to be body fluid of the bugs, and the new pipes are made a new with hollowed out bones and had the same filling liquid as the original pipes. Although that improvised hydraulic system is nowhere as strong as the real deal, the machine is thankful for being able to use it again regardless as it will need all the strength it can muster without running the electric motors all the time. The machine also had its muscle fibers reattached by using the bug''s muscle cells, and of course, it was weakened the fibers considerably comparing to the fully synthesized one, the muscle system now probably exist only to strengthen the joints at this point by the look of it. The machine feels confident that it can now fight other lifeforms more effective in its current state, however, the machine still wishes to avoid confrontation and combat as much as it could since its energy problem has not yet resolved, and the machine does not wish to provoke any conflict against the native living beings actively as a part of its programming. The machine looks around itself for a moment as it evaluates the current situation and tries predicting the outcome of actions it could take at that moment. Since the bugs knew the machine''s present in their hunting ground, the machine will need to plan out its energy usage carefully to avoid its destruction when confrontation occur. But then the machine thinks of a better idea, the machine looks in its secondary tasks, instead of continue exploring the place, the machine could try settling down and constructing a small base of operation for itself to help with the defense and power problem, the machine has most of the needed plans and schematics for it, the only problem the machine has is material, the machine figures organic matters are not suitable for all of its constructs, the machine needs a source of basic inorganic materials, iron, copper, nickel, titanium, silicon and cobalt are some of the most needed raw material in the list. [New_objective: Establish small colony] [New_objective: Locate and gather resources for small colony] The machine scans its surrounding for the last time to get some bearing on its current location and where it is facing before it resumes the exploration duty, this time the machine focus more on finding the raw materials it needed than investigating other life forms it encounters on the way. This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. [/console_debug_input: Expand ''Construct''] [/Avaiable_construct: Standard Fabricator] The fabricator would be the most important, yet the most basic construct it can build at this stage, the fabricator is a multipurpose mini factory, it is used for refining raw material like metal ores into pure or alloy ingots, then it can use those ingots to construct basic components needed for other Colony constructs and machinery, a power generator would be the thing the machine wanted to build next after it got the needed materials and components for it. The machine wonders what kind of power generator it should construct, as there have no water around for a hydro-based or steam-based power generator, no sunlight for a solar power generator, no wind for kinetic based power generator, and there have no guarantee that the machine could construct a nuclear power generator. The machine pulls up the thermal anomaly reports while walking slowly to look into it, the machine thought that if the machine can somehow create a similar system to its thermal power converter it could solve the power problem somewhat. However the machine didn''t know that the thing causing that anomaly to happen is not because of the design, but it is because of the machine itself, it''s foreign existence in this world is already an anomaly like most of the summoned hero in Auraxim like Emperor Hito and the reincarnators, most of these world travellers often have the ability to draw magical power from the environment or control the flow of mana in their body much better than the native ones due to various reasons, Hito and Murphy theorised that it is because humans back on Earth were born without any or very little exposure to magical power, they thought that faint magical power on Earth although not strong enough to grant everyone the ability to hurl fireballs around, it could be the reason why some people can perform certain tricks like fortune telling, bending spoons and interfering with others'' mind. Of course, both Hito and Murphy only consider this as one of many random mysteries like Bermuda triangle or alien in Area 51, it just something those two do to have fun with each other back in their adventurous day. But in reality, the theory Hito and Murphy casually make fun of is not far fetched, and it could be considered to be ''just right''. As the Earth dimension lack of magical power, objects from that dimension could act like mini magic black holes when it comes into contact with a world full of magical power in Auraxim''s world both in physical and spiritual manner, they are literally living magic magnets, and Pioneer 0 is one of those living magic magnet as the thermal converter quietly draws magical power in and turns them into thermal and electric power without logging those activities as if it is unconsciously doing it. The machine keeps scanning its own thermal converter design and scaling it up to the machine desired size as it steps into a big dome like area in the cave, the place is littered with old, broken egg shells, rotten bug hatchlings and spider webs. It seems like the place was once a nest of some kind of some kind of Arachnid, a big one too. The machine inspects the area for a few dozen of minutes before it decides to settle its first operation base there, the machine thought since this area was once a nest of a fearful hunter, no animal gonna wander into the area without thinking twice, and the place is quite big and littered with organic materials for the machine to burn to help heating up the thermal converter it is going to build. The machine thought there has no better place than this current spot, a little clean up would be nice, though. The machine chooses the placement location for the fabricator carefully before putting the plan down and starting the construction by using nanite construction bots in a small armored container mounted in its right arm, the container was meant for the machine to hold onto sample of sentient lifeforms it might come across back in its design stage, but its maker modified it to become a mini construction nanobot container for its future exploration and construction duty. Now with the fabricator built, the machine covers the construct by burying parts of it in the dirt and rotten egg shells to camouflage the fabricator, then the machine places a marker and leaves the area to search for raw materials it wanted. Meanwhile, in the deepest part of the cave, an ominous creature is informed of the machine''s existence as it ''smiles'' eerily while looking at the smaller bug behind it. "At last...No longer alone..." [New_objective: Construct a power generator] Chapter 7.5: Rise of the Arachnid and preperation for a reunion Un-named, the Arachnid queen of Arcanis''s Dungeon. In the darkest corner of the cave exists an undiscovered dungeon, ruled by no one and domain of no god, the unknown dungeon is only known for its untapped abundant resources hidden deep in a massive cave system. Legend said that the place was once Demon God''s home and it was the place where all life started, but as time passed, the young, peerless Demon God became more reckless, he started practicing destructive magic and provoking conflicts to happen between various races, sometimes it is a conflict in a single race happened because of his actions too. As a result of the event, many races left the Demon God''s domain and migrated to other areas to begin their life anew, bringing their forever burning hatred for other races who antagonized and forced them out of their paradise in the process. After centuries of desertion, the Demon God''s domain turned into a hazardous dead zone, a place where only feral beasts remained as they fight each other days after days to stay on top of the food chain, the place was forgotten by many and later on forsaken by the Demon God himself as he abandon the place to seek for a new playground. The forsaken place is widely known as the Dark Land of Arcanis to this day. 20 years ago when a group of dwarven prospectors to the Dark Land of Arcanis to explore the place, they found a massive and complex cave system, the cave was studied and known to be home of many ferocious beasts, at the same time it was also a promising land where all kind of ores and gems could be found without much difficulty, and the amount and variety of the ores and gems increases as the dwarven explorers went deeper into the cave, the dwarven prospector''s leader was requested the drawven explorers to establish a mining town there by his king, the man became the first sentient being to settle down in the Darkland of Arconis ever since the great migration several dozen millennias ago. During the mining town construction, Judgment Day happened, followed by the Arachnid queen laid her eggs and watched over them ferociously, rumors said no one has ever managed to return alive after they stumbled onto the beast''s nest. And as the eggs hatched, the Arachnid queen came down to kill off the weak hatchlings as they became her meal while the hatchling fought each other for their own survival, in the midst of chaos 2 hatchlings formed a pact with each other and escaped the area to find a safer place to feed and evolve into new matured Arachnid queens.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. The two beasts were a part of unfortunate reincarnators who failed to secure a Race body for themselves as they settled down in newborn feral beasts'' vessels and lived on as the new Apex predator of the wild. These reincarnators were known as the Second wave as they came after the First wave reincarnators were born. The two powerful Arachnid Queens after slain and devoured their new mother, they became the Apex predators of Arachnid hive, a hive with 2 queens. Together they invaded the deepest floor of the cave and slain the strongest being in the forsaken dungeon, Arcanis the Grievous Dragon, a forgotten, yet still loyal pet of the Demon God. The two queens also found out that the cave they lived in was truly a run down ancient dungeon which belonged to Arcanis, but now as its rightful owner had been slain, the dungeon called for a new master, and only one of the queen can be the new owner of the ancient dungeon. The queens were polite and neither of them wanted to fight for such a trivial position, both queens wanted a free and enjoyable life rather than stuck in a place and watching a forsaken place. The two spent several months debating who should be the new dungeon master and what action should be taken for the best result, one day the two decided to play a little game, the two queens split up and formed their own hive to battle each other, they decided the one who had their hive defeated by the other one would become the new master of the dungeon. Or at least that was what the two queens agreed upon, as the queen found out the other had disappeared mysteriously, its hive remained, but all the memories that the remaining queen once had with the disappeared queen fade away uncontrollably, the queen was confused and enraged by the event as it sent out its hive members to find its missing friend, but all of its efforts were all for nothing, the queen''s best friend is no longer in this world. Unable to mourn for its missing friend, the queen decided to take the dungeon''s offer and became its master as it clings on the last bit of memory with its friend that it can remember. From there the Arachnid Queen continues training and watching its hive evolving in the deepest layer of the dungeon, sometimes the queen would send some of its warriors on the upper area to seek for any trace of its forgotten friend, and sometimes the queen would try to breed another pair of queens to remind itself that it once had a friend. Now, the queen has ended its long slumber as it heard something refreshing from its warrior for the first time in the last 7 years since it became the dungeon''s master, the queen thought it friend has returned in a new form, and the queen wanted to challenge its new friend to end what the two started a long time ago and to remind its friend of the queen''s existence without knowing that the machine has nothing related to its forsaken companion. The queen breeds and wakes up its slumbering hive members as it rushes them into work, the queen rushes everyone to clean up the old hive and prepare for a new one to start a skirmish against the machine. The queen ''smiles'' happily as it thinks it can finally remember its friend. "Soon...No longer alone." Chapter 8: Rise of the machine and beginning of the colony [/Scanning_for_mineral...] [/Scanning_for_ore...] [/Scanning_for_mineral...] The machine slowly looks left and right as it carefully walks downs the dark tunnel, the machine had arrived this rocky area a few minutes ago, and judging the hard rock formation, the machine predicts that maybe it could find the needed raw metal ore pockets here. If the machine is lucky, it could stumble on an inactive volcano here since the machine does notice some parts of the rock closely resemble basalt rock formation. The machine also wonders what ores really look like on this world, would the machine need to dig deep into the ground to find the ore or it is somewhat exposed on the surface of the tunnel for the machine to harvest, the content of those ores also makes the machine feel very curious, the machine wonders if it gonna discover any new element that its maker never knew of and how would those new elements affects the machine''s constructs. The machine keeps asking questions to itself while walking around and keeping its eyes open for any hints of ore and mineral pocket. Suddenly the machine get punched by something near the wall, the punch seems to have a lot of force and killing intention it in, and the hand also very tough and hard, it does not feel like a hand of a living being at all, that would be the first thing the machine would think of if the machine''s CPU is a sharp human''s brain. But as the machine recovers its balance and looks around for the attacker, the machine sees nothing, the machine sees no movement and thermal reading only returns ambient temperature. And just as the machine returns to its normal stance, the machine feels something striking its back as the machine tumbles forward slightly, the machine is grateful for its maker had given the machine 4 legs instead of 2 as the machine would have crashed face first had the machine only had 2 legs and lost its balance completely. [Plasaw_activated] [Warning_low_power: 11%] The machine''s green plasma blade protrudes out from its left arm as the machine uses it as a torch to lit up the area and switches to normal visible light view, there the machine found the assailants who attacked the machine, group of rock golems. The machine thought those golems are actually robot as the machine swings its blade around and cuts down the golems without much effort, and after the fight the machine begins to wonder how these robots are made as the golem had no internal parts, it just a bunch of rocks bound to each other to form a humanoid or some kind of snake-like figure and move around to attack the machine in the dark, these golems have no body temperature so they are invisible in the machine''s eyes if it is searching with infrared light. Luckily the golems are just a bunch of dum-dum who swings their big hands around randomly and has no teamwork ability unlike the bugs it fought earlier, they are not much of a threat but more of an annoying bunch in the machine''s record. [Pioneer 0 defeated Lesser Rock Golem | +25 XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Lesser Rock Golem | +25 XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Lesser Rock Golem | +25 XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Lesser Iron Golem | +40 XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Lesser Copper Golem | +35 XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Lesser Iron Golem | +40 XP] The machine looks at the dead golem carefully as it wonders if the machine could assimilate the golem, but after spending a few minutes poking around, it seem like the answer is no, however, one notification pop up got the machine''s attention completely. [/Ore_found: Iron | Medium size] [/Ore_found: Copper | Small size] The machine notices some of the dead golem''s body parts is highlighted in the machine''s view, then the machine creates a new discovery record as it walks around to pick up the parts carefully to bring it back to its newly founded colony. The machine can actually use these dead golem parts for material as those golems are just a big pile of ore and mineral rich rocks walking around for the machine to cut down with ease. These ores can be processed into useful metal by using the fabricator just like the normal ore, or at least the machine thought so as it holds as much ore as it could and haul it back to its base in one go.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. [/New_construct_avaiable: Basic container] The machine enters the web and egg shell littered room as it places the ore down next to the fabricator before turning the construct on, for now, the construct is running on the machine''s reserve power as there has no alternative source of power available yet. [/Ore_analysis_in_progress] [...] [...] [/Ore_analysis_completed] [/Ore_content: 62% Iron, 25% Oxygen, 5% Aluminium, 3% Silicon, 0.5% Titanium, 0.4% Sulfur, 0.1 Phosphorous - 4.0% unidentifiable] [/Ore_content: 40% Oxygen, 32% Copper, 17.1% Silicon, 2.05% Aluminium, 1.92% Hydrogen - 7% unidentifiable] [/Ore_content: 40% Oxygen, 27% Silicon, 8% Aluminum, 5% Iron, 3.5% Calcium, 2.8% Sodium, 2.4% Potassium, 2.2% Magnesium, 2.2% Lead, 1.1% Uranium - 5.1% unidentifiable] The machine looks at the list of elements present in the Iron ore, Copper ore and the rock from the golems it defeated earlier for a moment before it starts refining some metal, the machine decides to refine from Iron first as it want to build a proper container to keep its ore and refined metal ingots in, aside from that the machine also want to build a door to block the entrances leading into the big room it is in, after all, it''s better to stop animals or other lifeforms to move in and take over everything in the first place. [Pioneer 0 gained new title: Constructor] The machine ignores the pop-up message for now as the machine focuses on refining the metals and creating the list of components and parts needed for the containers and the gates. Then the machine leans back a bit as it waits for the fabricator to finish its work and shuts itself down to conserve power. --------------------------------------- Arc the Human''s hero. It has been a full day since Arc and his companions returned to the village and informed everything they knew about the event to the adventure guild. At first, no one believed their story, as expected, who would believe a group of people suddenly barged into the guild reception room and demanded to meet the guild''s supervisor, then they began speaking about some kind of urban myth about an ancient undead roaming in the cave. The detail of their story also raised many doubts and questions from the supervisor, like how could an undead withstand attacks from an Archon, a pure battle spirit?. A thunder spirit too, the Archon should be able to blow off even Greater Lich with ease with their insane physical power and magical attacks. Then he asked how could an undead not emit any unholy or tainted aura?. After all, the stronger the undead, the more ferocious they are. And for an undead strong enough to defeat an Archon with just one strike, even if that Archon is weak against fire, one hit kill would be something very hard to achieve, the supervisor thought the undead must be an Elder Lich or greater. But then the supervisor remembered one of the Emperor''s speeches which claimed reincarnators are not only among the normal Races, but sometimes they also have origins of feral beasts. ''Could this be it?'' The supervisor thought so as he dismissed Arc''s party and dispatched a messenger to report this back to the main guild, however, Murphy somehow got the information first handed, as always. After the event, Arc and his companions had been resting and continues their training by hunting weaker feral beasts in the lifeless forest, and now they are going to wait for a few more days as the Emperor decided to dispatch one of his loyal Imperial guards to the prospecting''s village to investigate the event. Arc looks at the ceiling as he lies down on a bed in an inn, wondering what Emperor Hito''s Imperial guard would look like and what would he do if he has to go back into the cave to find that nightmarish abomination. Arc shudders as he thinks about it before looking over to Thekeg. "Hey...Still awake?"-Said Arc as he gets up on his bed and leans on the wall relaxingly. "Of course, no sleep will ever come to be without the booze. Want to say something, kid?"-The hairy dwarven fighter replies as he takes off his shirt and throws it aside before flopping on the bed lazily. "If you still wanting to talk about that thing, kid, forget it. We got our compensation and our ranking hadn''t changed when the supervisor decided to let it go. Beside, it will help you sleep easier. Arc"-Thekeg continues speaking with a huff and lazy tone as he turns his head to his left slightly to look at the troubled human companion of his. "...How about booze then?. I heard that dwarven''s wines are the best, yeah?"-Arc replies with a shrug while shaking his head slowly "Now you are speaking it right, drinking contest, you, me and a girl I know downstair. Don''t think you could win against Thekeg, though, we all know how bad you are when it comes to girl and booze, ya?" "Shz. Says the 60 years old virgin!"-Arc replies loudly with a chuckle as he dashes out of the room and runs downstair as quick as he could before the dwarven understood what he just said, the dwarven laughs quietly as he cries internally for a moment before he hops off the bed to put on some shirts and leave his room to join the fun as much as he could before a new adventure trip begin. Chapter 9: Rise of the Machine and beginning of a new war. [/Reboot_timer: 00:00:01 0/0/0/0] [/Rebooting] [/Low_power: 10%] [/Construct_ready: Basic steel Container] [/Construct_ready: Basic steel gate x2.] The machine awakens once again as its head rises up from its torso, as usual. It has been 5 hours since the fabricator started doing its refining and manufacturing works as ordered by the machine, the steel container and steel gates it needed to improve the colony storage area and security are now ready for the machine to place it down at its desired location. The machine uses the nanite constructor on its right arm to take the materials needed for the constructs from the fabricator and quickly gets up to look around and plan out the placement location, the gates will be placed right at the entrance obviously, for the container, the machine decides that the container will be placed right next to the fabricator to store the gathered materials and manufactured products. The machine clears and flattens the surface first before placing down the container''s blueprint, the machine creates a 3D holographic image of the container and sprays nanite constructor bots at the blueprint, after a minute of spraying, the container is ready for usage as the machine tries fiddling around with the lid and the mechanical lock of the container, the key is the machine''s index finger on its right hand. [Construction_completed:Basic steel container] The machine turns around and walks toward the entrances to place down the gate the same way the machine did with the iron container, but this time the machine has to move back and forth between the fabricator and the entrance many times to finish the gates as its nanite constructor''s nanite reservoir is not very big. The machine does not have any complaint about it though as it still better than having the machine forging everything by itself. Now the gates and the container has been built, the machine spends an hour arranging whatever resources it has at that moment in a careful manner into the container. Since the machine has an abundant amount of iron at the moment, the machine decides to construct a weapon for itself as its next move, although the Plasaw on its left arm is indeed very powerful, the machine could not use it freely as the blade consumes quite a lot of power and the range is quite short. The machine thinks a basic weapon should be enough for now, and the machine considers making a ranged weapon should be a better option than a melee weapon since the machine is too slow for melee duels, and the lifeforms it has met so far are either too powerful for even the sharpest iron sword it can make. A hammer would be hard to use in enclosed environment it is in as some tunnels just big enough for the machine to move in in a careful manner. The machine runs through its data drive to pull up the list of suggestion of what it should make in that moment, the first thing to appear is a spear, a polearm for thrusting, clubbing and maybe throwing all at the same time without the need to change weapon too many times, the machine thinks of the bug''s hard carapace when it inspects the spear''s data in its head, as long as the machine keeps its spear sharp and sturdy, a detachable spear made out of steel would be an ideal weapon to defend itself against the monsters in the cave. But the spear is still more of a melee weapon and an improvised ranged weapon, the machine wants something easier to use in the cave that does not require the machine to take too much preparation to use it at range, a short bow is nice, but the machine has no material flexible enough for it, the old webs hanging here and there could be used for the bowstring though. A crossbow would be something more ideal as the machine can mount it on its arm for quick firing instead of wielding it like a normal weapon, but then again the machine has no flexible material for the crossbow as well as the machine need the bow and the crossbow to fire heavy, full metal arrow bolts to be effective against the rock golems or the bugs, besides, there have no wood for the machine to use at this point anyways. The machine then thinks of a pneumatic dart gun, the thing could be made nearly the same size as a crossbow and fires metallic darts or slugs at the enemy, the machine can also adjust the air pressure to make it less lethal to scare off other lifeforms without actually having to come close for a melee rampage against said lifeforms. The dart gun does not need any flexible nor exotic material to be collected as a metal tube for a barrel and a metal reservoir for the pressured gas tank should be enough to launch lethal or nonlethal heavy darts and slugs around. And with the present of electric engines, the machine could possibly make it go fast firing much easier than a crossbow or a bow too. Thinking that the air gun is more useful, yet cheaper than the bow and the crossbow, the machine decides to make that and the detachable spear along with some darts, slugs and spare spear tips as it puts the plans for them in the fabricator ''to do'' queue.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. As the machine waits for the new weapons to be produced, the machine puts some effort into redesigning its scaled up thermal converter to make it more efficient and coping with the little resources it can use. The machine also putting some attention into making a power collector to store unused power for later use and a biomass container for repairing materials. The machine was in a high focused mode when a loud bang caused its CPU to interrupt the flow of data and change its attention to the gate, something just hit it very hard as the gate can be seen bulging backward slightly, the gate is not thick, but for something to damage a plate of basic steel easily like that should not be underestimated. The machine pauses the fabricator as it removes the power and data wiring before getting up and carefully moves toward the gate. And at that moment the machine notices the one who just banged on the door previously, a bug dug and created a tunnel goes under the gate as it emerges from the ground and starts attacking the machine immediately. This scorpion alike bug seems more ferocious than the last one, and to make things worse, this one has 2 sets of strong and sharp pincers instead of one set of 2 pincers. The machine thought that the bug who fled previously has informed other bugs about the event and the bugs want their revenge for their fallen brethren. The machine has underestimated the bug''s intelligence. As the bug screeches loudly as it about to ram the machine, the machine replies with its deformed voice. "Brzzzzzztztrrtrt" [/New_objective: Eliminate all threats and protect the colony.] ------------------------------------ Khan, the Fifth Demon King. The Demonic Empire was, and still at war with the human''s Kingdom despite the appearance of the Azuria Empire. If you ask a wise elder about the country''s history, most will say that nothing has really changed since the day the demonic race migrated out of the Dark Land of Arconis, survival of the fittest is still the theme and the dogma that everyone follows, the so-called ''noble'' are rude and has no etiquette sense, demon lords are just overrated sidekicks, and the demon king is a jackass who worships the Demon God with a zealotic manner and only want to spread death and destruction by his name. In reality, the place is indeed like that, the government is nonexistent and only there for someone to blame when the human becomes the winning side of the war, its citizen lives the way they want to in a carefree manner, but yet responsible of their own words and actions, therefore individualism is highly regarded in the country in its own special way. As a reincarnator once commented about the country''s messy daily life view "Freedom of speech means you can say whatever you want whenever you like, but it also mean the listen can ignore and knock your tooth off if you are not smart or strong enough to ''persuade'' him" The Demonic Kingdom is open-minded and readily to accept proposals and ideas from all classes in the society as long as the creator of that idea could prove his point and convince the listeners. As a result, the country spawned a lot of literature and culture works, some of them are famously known by all races, some of them are controversial and just a box of idiocy. Simply speaking, the place can be called the internet in real life with some twists and turns. Khan, the Demon King who rule the Demonic Empire, is like his citizen, the fearful leader one of the strongest and most cunning demon in the council, at the same time he is also a lazy and irresponsible one in his daily life as the demon king, the man often neglects his duty to the demon lords as he spends most of his time fighting with the demon god or idling around by taking a walk from one place to another in incognito. The Demon King often rumored to encourage his people and pushing them to thrive by themselves from behind the scene instead of carefully planning out a way to improve his country with the demon lords. But as the people knows little about their muscle head king, misunderstanding is bound to happen all the times. Today Khan comes to the temple of the Demon God''s to play around with the lonesome trickster, and as the usual, the two greets each other with insults and their fists, sometimes they even use their foot to spice things up. But today Khan also noticed something odd in the Demon God''s actions, as someone who got beaten by the Demon God ever since he was a prince and still got beaten by the prideful trickster every now and then, Khan knows his God very well, he probably knows the Demon God better than he know how to lick his elbow properly. "What''s wrong, has fifteen thousand years of using your right hand too much worn it out?"-Says Khan as he smirks devilishly while looking at the Demon God. "Indeed, this hand satisfied me well, but whooping your butt today to restore my stamina is not a bad idea, don''t you think?."-The Demon God replies as he gets in his normal relaxed stance while scratching his head slowly "Speaking of worning out, I just remembered that I once had a pet since I was young, I wonder how he is doing right now." "Probably successful in life unlike you." The two looks at each other for a moment before they slowly smile and continue their fight happily in the temple, meanwhile, the demon lords are running left and right in the meeting room to discuss the sudden increase of magical anomaly in the Dark Land of Arcanis and matters regarding the Norska Imperium, the kingdom of dwarven, secretly helping the Empire of Azuria to monopolize the resources in the area for themselves and the 3 way battle between the Human Kingdom, the Elven Forest and the Demonic Kingdom, seems like they aren''t gonna finish their works anytime soon. Chapter 10: Rise of the machine and survival of the fittest. [/Lifeform_evaluation:Highly Hostile] [/Nonaggressive_policy: Disabled] [/State_of_alert: High] [/Warning: Module damage imminent] [/Warning: Moderate module damage detected] [/Warning: Plasaw module damaged | ] The machine watches the bug''s pincers gripping and ripping the machine''s plasaw module on its left arm as its right fist comes into contact with the creature''s head, both dealing heavy damage to each other as the bug falls down on the floor while the machine checking on the damaged module on its left arm. [/Plasaw_offline] The machine feels frustrated for the first time as it inspects the damaged module and looks back down at the bug on the ground, the machine has lost one of its most reliable and crucial piece of equipment which could hamper the machine''s operating effectiveness greatly. The bug must be removed by all means. The machine quickly moves toward the bug before it could regain its consciousness and balance as the machine raises its arm up to prepare for another strong blow to the bug''s head, but before the machine can get in range to punch the downed bug, another fierce bug jumps out of the entry hole and attacks the machine with its strong pincers. The damage is not as severe as before since the bug did not have the time to aim for the machine''s weak points, but it still scratched the machine''s hull and forced the machine to back off to defend its dazed brethren. As the machine observes the two aggressive creatures works together to fight the machine, two more large bugs jump out of the entry hole and enter the fray, it seems like the bugs are well aware that it could not win alone and has to rely on number to strike down the machine, and the machine knows that simple punches, kicks, and stomps won''t be enough for this fight. The machine decides to use the environment to aid it in combat as the machine kicks a small rock on the ground at the group of bugs to provoke it, the rock obviously could not handle the massive kinetic force applied onto it however as it shatters into multiple smaller and somewhat sharper pebbles before flying off toward the bugs like shotgun pellets being hurled at a bundle of thick skinned watermelons. The attack has little effect on the bugs'' hard carapace, but it sure make the bugs jumped a bit as they scatter out in surprise before charging at the machine all at the same time just as the machine predicted, the machine waits for the bugs to get closer for a second before it quickly dash aside, revealing a wall of old cobweb which is invisible in the bugs'' infrared vision. The bugs all fall into the trap nicely and become confused as they thrash their legs and tail around violently to try escaping the invisible sticky webs. Since the web is quite old and dry, the bugs managed to free themselves somewhat and able to get up, but their legs still tangled and stuck in the sticky trap as they try to use their pincers to cut the sticky threads while the machine quickly moves back to the fabricator and turns it on to craft the spear, the machine needs it to fight against the bugs. [/Warning_low_power: 5%]A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. The machine hastens the production process by cutting down the spear designs, it removed the long staff body of the spear and replaces it with a short, stubby hilt, turning it into a simple dagger for emergency use at that point. [/Construction_completed: Spearv2] The machine uses the nanite constructor in his right arm to draw the nanite robots from the fabricator and build it on the ground in front of the machine, as soon as the dagger is finished the machine immediately picks it up and rushes toward the bugs, which have freed themselves from the old cobweb and now charging at the machine again. The machine kicked up some dirt at the leading bug to distract it before the machine grabs one of its pincers to throw the bug down on its back, so far the machine has always tried to attack the bug''s upper body which is covered in hard carapace, now the machine wants to see how hard the bug''s lower body is as it stabs the bug''s abdomen forcefully. The bug screeches in agony as the blade pierces its soft lower body, it seems the machine''s prediction is correct, its lower body is much more vulnerable than its upper body. But the bug is not dead yet as the wound is still small and not life threatening, so the machine pushes the dagger along the bug''s lower body and bisects the bug completely as the bug goes silent. [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hiveravager | +1300 XP] [Pioneer 0 assimilated Evolved Hiveravager | Lesser Evolution Core gained 200 XP] The machine looks at the slightly chipped dagger on its hand while moving in to fight the rest of the bugs, it seems like the dagger won''t make it through the fight against the giant scorpion-like bugs as strong and hard to kill as these creatures. As the bugs now know that the machine will likely try to flip the bug on its back to expose their vulnerable belly, the bugs refrain themselves from leaping at the machine as they stick on the ground with their posture lowered as much as they could to improve their stability, however the bug did not plan their move beyond that as the machine change its tactic also after seeing the bugs went low, the machine stomps on one of the bugs and keeps it on the ground with the machine''s weight before turning its upper body to face the two other bugs at the same time. [/Warning_low_power: 3%] [/Warning: Shutdown imminent] The machine grabs the bug on its left side and hurls it toward the one on its right, the machine intended to use the bug''s sharp pincers against their own kind as the machine spends its last few percent of reserve power into the fight. After beheading the bug on its right the machine then stabs the head of the bug it is holding onto and throws both of the brain dead bugs at the cobweb covered area to keep their thrashing body away from the machine. One last bug remaining for the machine to kill, the machine wastes no time disposing of the bug by holding down its body and its thrashing tail with its front legs before it swings the chipped dagger down to cut off the head. But before the machine could finish the bug off, the machine ran out of power, its body start locking up as the machine ceases all movement and becomes a lifeless statue. The machine is out of luck. The bug continues thrashing its body around for a moment as it wiggles itself free from the machine''s restraint, then without mercy the bug jumps onto the machine and crushes the machine''s neck with its pincers. The hive ravager has won the fight as it celebrates by pulling the machine''s head assembly out of its body, then it turns around and leaves the room with its trophy to return to its hive deep in the cave. The newly formed colony goes quiet as the headless bugs'' thrashing body settle down and become motionless, all signs of life in the room cease to exist as their body deforms and dissolves quickly. ----------- A group of adventures begins their venture into the dark cave, lead by a young talented hero and a beautiful priestess, their goal is to end all mysteries and secure the place for a better future for the dwarven mining town, but destiny has a different plan for them all. "Something feels off..." Chapter 10.5: Rise of a challenging quest. Arc the Human''s adventure Today Arc received a new request from the guild supervisor and guild master, a request that promises him not only fame and fortune for him and his companions, but also a request that will benefit the town greatly. Arc was reluctant when he first heard what the guild master said, his experience with the adventure guild taught him that that kind of big shot quests always came with harsh requirements and tough challenges, not the kind of challenge that Arc and his party could take lightly, but the kind of challenge that could end Arc and his party''s career, life even at worst, if they screwed it up. Arc spent some time thinking about it and asked many questions regarding the request''s conditions, objectives and rewards in detail. During the conversation, a woman made her appearance in the guild master''s office where Arc and the guild master, guild supervisor was in. Arc''s heart was captivated by the woman''s beauty as any normal man would, the woman looked young enough to be mistakenly called a girl in her late teen, her clothings were modest, pure and lady-like, had the girl not had the Symbol of Azuria, a symbol of religion widely known in Azuria Empire, Arc would have believed that the woman was a noble in disguise. As the guild master greeted the woman, Arc found out that the woman was a priestess from the Empire of Azuria, she was also the one filed the request Arc and the guild master were talking about. Arc and the woman exchanged their greetings and information regarding the request, it seemed like the woman was sent to the town to investigate the rumor of an undead ancient roaming around in the cave, Arc was told that the woman wanted to purify the undead''s tainted soul and put it to rest as her duty of being a priestess from the Empire of Azuria and a member of the Merchant guild who saw potential in the town. Arc did not trust the woman''s words completely, as expected of an A rank adventure, as he knew if a problem involves women, business and possibly politic, it will be as mysterious as the question why even the greatest Sage could not always understand a woman. But then Arc considered the benefits that the people would get if the undead threat was removed, and the big reward his party would get too. Arc could not pass one of the lifetime offers like this, and Arc was certain his companions would think the same. Arc accepted the request. Now Arc and his companions are exploring the dark cave and looking for the undead with the priestess, a situation which supposed to be stressful and tiring, but in reality, his party seems very lively as Thekeg continuously trying to start a conversation with the beautiful priestess, and Lilica quietly sobbing internally whenever she looks at the priestess''s prideful chest.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. Arc on the other hand is just being Arc, acting as the party''s serious muscle brain leader by taking the point and looking around carefully while thinking about some cool things to say to impress his team. "Say, what did the ancient undead you saw look like again, hero-san?"-Asked the priestess as she uses a staff to make sure Thekeg is not standing right behind or next to her. "An undying ancient draconian with a thirst for vengeance, spooky, huh?"-Thekeg was the one gave the priestess the answer as Arc looks back at the two before shrugging with a short sigh. "We knew that the thing has ''Last survivor'' and ''The ancient'' as its two titles when I tried to appraisal it."-The elven archer speaks calmly as she catches up with the party and now walking behind the Priestess. "That and the unreadable name, weren''t they?. Did there have anything else worth noticing...Ah...Archer-san?"-The Priestess nods slightly as she withdraws her staff after noticing Thekeg has gone quiet, for now. "It''s Rena, just Rena is fine...What san mean, anyway?" "Ah, you aren''t a citizen of Azuria and never met one, right?. In Azuria, some of us have a habit of adding honorific tiles to the end of one''s name when we address them, Rena. We used san when we speak with people of the same age and status."-The Priestess replies with a light smile as she explains the meaning of the word to the elven archer. "...Hey, stop..."-Arc suddenly halts his party as he looks around while holding a torch, he then raises the torch up slightly and uses some of his magical power to make the torch''s fire become bigger and lighter to have a better look at what above him. "What the...So much bats."-Lilica comments as she looks at the large flock of demonic bats hanging on the ceiling, all quietly observing the group without any of them seemingly have interests in attacking them. "...We did not encounter anything like this before...Too many yet too quiet...Some things feel off..."-Arc nods while speaking as he looks at Lilica for a moment before turning around to watch his front. "Think you could call an Archon and bring down those demons, Lili?. That is a lot of experience and materials to collect, yes?"-Arc asked as he carefully brings his shield out while holding onto the brightly burning torch. "Indeed...But before we provoke these bats, we should get to somewhere safer and out of the bats'' reach, don''t you think?"-Lilica replies as she looks down at Arc and the rest of the party members before nodding slowly. "Just try not to make us a ticket to become a dry mummy. Ye?"-Thekeg finishes the conversation with a half-assed joke as he ''escorts'' the Priestess and the 2 female Archers to safety along side Arc and Lilica before the bats got electrocuted altogether by the thunder spirit Lilica summoned after they moved out of the danger zone. "Two thousand points, quite a lot."-Lilica comments on the amount of XP she just received from killing all the bats with the Archon as the Priestess raises her hand up slightly. "Umm...If the bats did not focus on this area before, what chased them out to this area then?"-The Priestess inquires as Arc shrugs slightly. "Maybe the undead thingy, how can I know?. This place is not fully explored by anyone after all."-Arc replies with a light shrug while shaking his head as he continues leading the team deeper in the dark tunnel. Meanwhile, a certain bug holding the machine''s head had been slain by an Earth Dragon, the giant lizard the machine discovered yesterday. The head was dropped and now resting in the middle of the dark tunnel, waiting for something to reclaim it as its visor sparks a faint light before going dark once again as the Earth Dragon knocks the head aside and leaves the area slowly. [/Prime_directive: Live-@#%#~!#-!@#%$] Chapter 11: Rise of the machine and the headless adventure. [/Diagnosing_system] [/Warning: Primary control unit missing] [/Warning: OS not found] [/Warning: Data drive [Main] missing] [/Warning: Optical sensor missing] [/Warning: Primary data circuit damaged] [/Warning: Power supply route to HEAD module not found] [/Warning: Low power 14%] [/Rerouting_data_flow] [/Rerouting_power_line] [/Assigning_control_unit: Secondary_control_unit] [/Diagnosing_system] [/System_nominal: 70%] [/Rebooting] [/Exploring_data_log: Last shutdown] [Pioneer 0 received new title: ''Dullahan''] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hiveravager | +1300 XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hiveravager | +1300 XP] [Pioneer 0 leveled up] [Pioneer 0 is now level 14] [Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point] The headless machine moves again as it stabs the ground with the chipped dagger as it resumes its previous on-going action, breaking the dagger in the process as it remains motionless like that for a few seconds. The machine can not hear or see anything, its processing capability has been cut down by 40% of its original processing speed, it has also lost some crucial data that is much needed for its system optimization and future operations as well. The machine''s body is now relying on its secondary processing unit in an armored box in its chest, that processing unit was mainly used to control the machine''s body while the main processing unit in the head manages and processes all the data that is not related to operating the machine''s body. The one in the hull is also the black box which would be recovered by its maker if the machine is destroyed back in its world. The machine runs through all the necessary data to save them in its cache before the machine starts moving again, the machine''s hull has no optics nor audio sensor arrays to do the looking and hearing, so the machine has to rely on a different way to see the dark world around it once again to navigate around effectively. The machine spends a few seconds drawing a 3D map of the chamber it is in currently according to the data in its data drives and pins down its last known location, for now, it will be the machine''s only method to navigate around in the chamber. The machine slowly turns around and tries walking back to the fabricator by using data from the speedometer, gyroscope, and magnetometer, the machine is lucky that these parts exist in both the machine''s head and the body at the same time as a mean of redundancy. The machine moves its hand around to find the fabricator, since there has some minor deviation in its calculation, the machine missed the fabricator by a few centimeters, but after a few minutes of blindly wandering around slowly, the machine finally located the fabricator, the machine will need it to solve its blindness problem. The machine turns the fabricator on and quickly designs a transmitter and receiver, which is just a pair of antennas and some basic electrical components protected by a thin steel box, a crude radar, but still better than nothing. The machine does the wiring and securing its new crude ''head'' into place by itself after the thing is prepared and constructed. The machine spends a minute to create a suitable software for its new head before turning it on. [/Converting_data] The radar fires a burst of radio wave and lets it bounce around the chamber before recording the bounced wave and converting the raw data into an image of the chamber, the result was a bit terrible as the texture detail is extremely poor and the machine can''t really tell which is what, and the refresh rate is one per two seconds, so the machine will have to avoid combat by any means necessary here. The headless machine wonders what it is going to do now as it stands motionless and waits for the processing unit to deal with the data until it notices one special string of data.If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Somehow, the decapitated head of the machine has not been destroyed completely yet, and it just transmitted its current last known location a few minutes ago, the signal is weak and distorted, but that mean the machine still has a chance to recover its original head and repair itself back to normal if it is lucky. The machine wastes no time as it tries to cover the fabricator somehow before it leaves the chamber to find its head. But since the head is in an unexplored area, the machine has to be extra careful in that area as the crude radar is not up for detecting any kind of fast movement and the machine can''t tell the difference between many objects around itself, the raw, unrefined data the machine is not good enough to make an accurate map for the basic internal sensory navigation system anyway. [/New_objective: Recover Primary Control Module] --------------------------------- Arc the Human''s adventurer "Don''t let them regroup!. Keep them focused!"-Arc calls out his order clearly as the young hero pours magical power into his sword to enchant it before attacking an Evolved Hivewarrior while his companions dealing with a group of normal Hivewarrior, these lesser creatures has no strong tail nor the durable carapace of the Evolved Hivewarrior, but their ferocity is on par with their bigger brethren. As Arc duels with the big and powerful bug and Thekeg keeping the Hivewarriors busy, the two archers supports them by shooting poisoned arrows and keeping Lilica and the Priestess safe, the elven mage is the only one keeping the area well lit at that moment by creating orbs of light around the area, the spell although does not cost much mana, it does need a lot of attention since she has to cast the same spell over and over again everytime the light orb expires. The Priestess''s only job is to make sure she keeps herself out of harm by staying close with the group and cast stamina recovery spells when needed. But since Arc and Thekeg are as resilient as some kind of tireless undead, the priestess has no chance to display her skill, so she just simply watches and observes the two fight as she takes note of their effectiveness in battle as individual and as a team in general. It would be a waste for these talented fighters to spend the rest of their life doing ''easy'' freelancing work after all. "Got one!"-The human female archer calls out her kill as one of the Hivewarrior gave in to the poisoned arrows, the archer does not move onto the next bug immediately yet as she looks around to check on everyone and her surrounding first, she noticed her elven archer friend is going to run out of arrow soon so she pulls out her small magic pouch to retrieve some ammo and poison potions for both of them. "Rena"-Said the human archer as she taps the elven''s archer shoulder before sliding arrows into her quiver. "Thanks. Elly"-The elven archer replies as she continues supporting Arc and Thekeg with a nonstop barrage of arrows raining down on the Hivewarriors and Evolved Hivewarrior. "These things are tough, who and what the hell brought them up here?"-Thekeg complaints with a stern, yet whiny and grumpy voice of an old warrior still in his prime during the fight, soon after he manages to beat down a hivewarrior senseless before finishing off the other arrow-filled bug next to him with his war hammer. "It?"-Arc replies as he slices the Evolved Hivewarrior''s pincer and deliver a fatal slash to the side of the bug, cutting both of its left legs and half of its internals before he finishes off the beaten bug on the ground "Ey, that''s mine"-The dwarven warrior shouts loudly after seeing his kill stolen by Arc as the hero smiles smuggishly "You mean...Ours?" "Urh...Fine...Ours." The two glare at each other before looking around to check on the others, seeing that everyone is fine, Arc looks back down at the dead bug as he pokes its carcass with his sword "So...What''s a hive warrior?"-Arc asked as everyone in his party looks away slightly, seems like no one knows what it means. "Uh...I guess we all in the blind?." "Indeed"-Lilica nods slowly as she replies Arc before casting another orb of light for the party. "Well...Should we continue and get down the bottom of this?"-The Priestess raises her hand up slightly as she steps in the conversation. "Why of course, these things are tough, but not enough to scare us at all, isn''t that right, old fighter?"-Arc replies with a shrug as he looks over to Thekeg "Old?. Pfft, I''m still a stallion here, mate. No bug gonna push be down."-Thekeg replies as Arc shakes his head slowly while chuckling relaxingly before calling a short break before they continue, not knowing that a group of even more terrifying hungry bugs are waiting for them ahead, all readied to fight and consume the foreign beings in the cave that stand on their way. Chapter 12: Rise of the machine and eyes of a magus. [/Collision_warning] [/Collision_warning] [/Collision_warning] [/Collision_warning] [/Collision_warning: Disabled] The machine decides to ignore the warning as it slowly traverses through the uneven terrain in the dark tunnel, since the machine''s new radar navigation is unable to pull off any clear image of the environment around the machine, its collision warning system has been going off ever since the machine left the newly built colony area. The machine feels one of its leg slips on loose dried dirt as it quickly shifts its weight on the 3 other legs to avoid tumbling down on the ground, then it slowly reverses a few steps to get back on last known good footing area, the highly stable quadleg system has been very reliable and helpful in this situation the machine is currently in so far. Despite the lack of clear visual navigation system, the machine has not lost its balance completely even once. However, the machine does notice the extra data flow needed to control the two extra rear legs is a bit overwhelming since the secondary processing unit now have to run on overload mode to handle both the control of the headless body and other data processing duty. The machine slows down a bit as it listens for its head''s beacon, the signal is still very weak and distorted, but as long as the machine can predict the general direction of the incoming signal, the machine can be confident that it will eventually find its head sooner or later, probably not later as the head''s power reserve won''t gonna hold forever, maybe a day or two is its maximum limit before the head''s beacon goes quiet. While firing another radar nav pulse, the machine''s processing core done processed an interesting data strip, the data was from an unpacked archive file containing backup data from the head, the data is old, about 2 days old at least. But still interesting nonetheless. The machine had been going through the detailed list of skills and titles in its idle time to investigate what each skill really do and what title is for. While most of the skills seem useless for the machine, 3 particular skills caught its attention, Lesser Magic Sense, Lesser Art Sense and Lesser Alchemy Sense. The machine learned that Sense is the ability to perceive something, with Magic sense gives the caster the ability to perceive ''Mana'', Art sense allows the caster to have a better grip on their body condition and control, Alchemy sense grant the caster the ability to perceive the world around them deeper and more detailed as if the world is a part of their body. All of this make no sense for the machine''s logical processor when it tried to apply common senses and scientific findings of the old Earth. Those data reminded the machine of its maker habit to tap into the machine''s powerful processor to play games and do weird things back when the machine was still not yet fully developed, though. The machine thought maybe those data are related to its maker, and it also supports the ''virtual world'' theory that the machine made a while ago. Since the machine has some spare unallocated point, and the Lesser Evolution Core that the machine received earlier was very helpful, the machine thought maybe the machine should try investing into some skills and cores to improve itself more. The machine thought it would be worthwhile even though those things make no sense in the machine''s processing unit. The machine tries unlocking a core at first as those things seem more useful. [Not enough unallocated point, 20 unallocated points needed to unlock new core. You have 4 unallocated points] It seems like the core will have to wait as the machine shifts its attention to the Sense skills, the machine ponders what sense it should take, the Art Sense is unneeded as the machine has no need to improve its motor functions. So Alchemy Sense and Magic Sense are the two only good option now. The machine is uncertain what Mana is as the expand command does not cover that part, and Alchemy Sense sounds like some kind of overly complex geographic scanner or chemical analyzing system. The machine can''t really decide what should it take, so the machine tries doing the coin flip to decide the winner. [/console_debug_input: Allocate point ''Skill'' | Lesser Mana Sense] [Lesser Mana Sense unlocked | 0 skill points remain] [Evoke Lesser Mana Sense? {Y/N}] The machine checks its remaining power level first before it casts the Sense skill, but then the machine suddenly wonders, how to cast a skill?. Call it from the debug console?. Pick up a stick and shout random, meanless words?. Start a fire and dance around it?. The machine is uncertain what it should do, the machine will have to try doing classic trial and error method. [/console_debug_input: Cast ''Skill'' | Lesser Mana Sense] [/console_debug: Invalid command] [/console_debug_input: Evoke ''Skill'' | Lesser Mana Sense] [/console_debug: Invalid command] [...] [...] [Evoke Lesser Mana Sense {Y} ] [Lesser Mana Sense evoked (-0.25 EN/s) - EN remain 122/1000] The power consumption is just awful, 1 EN is supposed to power the machine for some dozens of minutes in normal mode and 2 minutes in battle mode, but here it is only enough for 4 seconds of Sense running, the machine wonders if other skill will even consume even more EN over a shorter period of time.Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. The machine was about to stop the skill as it suddenly notices strange data flows into its processing unit, the data came from the receiver antenna in a manner that the machine thought the module has broken at first. As the machine analyze and convert the data into visual images, the machine notices aside from the raw black and white radio navigation image, there also have a lot of blueish fog around the machine, the fog made the raw image more detailed somewhat and it also have a better refresh rate up to 6 Hz, that mean the machine can now move a bit faster and safer in the dark tunnel. However due to the high power consumption, the machine had to turn the skill off after 10 seconds of run time, the machine will have to save the skill for special occasions instead of letting it run all the time. The machine returns to the crude radio imaging system as it slowly advances into the darkness once again to find its head, this time the machine is more confident and bold in its manner as the machine knows it can defend and pull itself out of trouble when needed. ------------------------------------------- Arc the Human adventurer "Aura Slash!" Arc performs a quick chant as he focuses a large amount of mana in his sword before slashing the air swiftly, the move created a fast moving crescent shaped wave of light aiming for an Evolved Hivewarrior and severed its left pincer as the giant bug screeches loudly and charges at Arc for a payback. "Lilica, help Arc!. We will support Thekeg!"-The elven archer calls out at her companions as she nocks a poisoned arrow to prepare for another attack at the ferocious bugs. "I will help with the light. Come forth, Midden Torch!"-The Priestess conjures a bright, large floating orb of light with her staff, the orb the Priestess casted seem to be a mid or high ranking magic as it not only provide much more light than Lilica''s light orb, it also seems to be warmer and have light healing effect, a soothing light ball some may call it. "Thunder, hear my words, devour my magic powers, gather and prepare, I command you, destroy my enemy, come, Archon of Destruction!"-Lilica seeing the Priestess taken over the lighting duty she immediately calls her Archon to aid Arc in fighting the incoming Hivewarriors and Evolved Hivewarriors, the group has been struggling against the endless wave of attacking bugs for quite a while now since the first time they met them on the upper area. "Ey, spare some for me too, eh?"-Thekeg smiles as he watches everyone showing off their skills before he casts a body fortification skill on himself, the dwarven does not seem to be tired of the fight at all, rather than that he seems to be more active and having fun contesting with Arc for ''who killed more bug''. The battle lasted for about thirty minutes before the bugs decided to retreat for some reasons, maybe they know that they can''t defeat these strong and brave adventurers and they are plotting something. Arc and his companions know it, it just too obvious for someone who kills monsters and explore ruins for a living. But that does not mean the group gonna stop their advance now, the quest has not ended yet as the undead legend is still nowhere to be seen, and they know that these bugs will be a threat to the mining town outside the cave if these vicious creatures come to the uppermost area and block the cave access. The party can not let this happen. "Think we should take another rest, Arc?"-Thekeg asked as he brings the hammer over his shoulder and looks back at the Priestess with a cool smile, his reply is just a quiet huff, however. "Well, if we continue we will meet more of these things. Stronger version of these things even...We should take a rest, we need all the spare strength we could get. Rena, Elly, mind watching the area?. It''s your turn."-Arc replies with a nod after a moment of thinking before he and his party gets to the corner of the tunnel to light a campfire and rest. "I don''t mind."-"Same"-The human and elven archer reply as they cast lesser version of the light orb and place them around the campsite before they check their remaining arrows and poison potion count. "You guys sure used to this kind of fight and rest schedule, aren''t you?"-The Priestess comments as she warms up her hands near the camp fire while looking back and forth at Arc''s party members. "With you here, rest become more relaxing, hee?"-Thekeg chuckles as he retrieves some dried bacons from his satchel for a quick snack while Arc drinks a stamina recovery potion. "Indeed, old people love seeing youngsters, he?"-The Priestess replies with a playful tone as she smiles lightly while looking at Thekeg, who is now getting grumpy again after being called old. "Hmm."-Arc laughs lightly to join the fun as he places the emptied potion on the ground and leans on the wall relaxingly, thinking of getting a short nap to make full use of the potion he just drank earlier. The young hero is confident that his companions will keep him safe. Arc was getting into his comfy posture for the nap he wanted as he feels something pointy poking his side, it also feels like a shard of metal or something, so Arc opens his eyes and shifts aside to let the camp fire light illuminate the area for him to see what it is. "What the..." What Arc found is a group of metal fragments littered on the wall as if something metallic had been stationed here for a long time and then removed from the area forcefully. As he looks at the metal shards, he notices there has a small hole next to him. The hole was too dark so he couldn''t see anything so Arc decided to call Thekeg and the Priestess to help him looking up what these metal shards are. "...What is this?. I have never seen such metal before!"-Thekeg exclaims as he looks and touches the metal shards to examine it while the Priestess bends over to look into the rather large hole and summons an orb of light to peek in. "There have more..."-The Priestess mumbles as she feels something very familiar coming from the metal shards and randomly distorted things in the hole, something very...technological. The Priestess and Thekeg baffles at the scene as Arc scratches his head in confusion, not knowing that he just discovered something very important that only The kegs and the Priestess seem to know the answer. A loud screech echoes through the dark tunnel as Arc''s party jumps slightly, something fast and powerful is rushing toward them, they all can feel it, but none can see it. Their new nightmare begins here. Chapter 13: Rise of the machine and the headlesss thoughts. [/Converting_data] The machine has been walking around the dark tunnels for an hour, so far, the machine has been very lucky to not encounter any of those bugs, it did almost lose its balance a few times as it stumbled onto soft ground though. The machine sometimes wonders where have all the bats gone, the machine has not seen any bat since its feeding experiment two days ago. The machine wonders if the bugs had invaded the area and chased all the bats away or the bats just went away by themselves to mate, a breeding season some may call it. The machine slows down a bit as it waits for the radar navigation system to fire another nav burst, the machine also tried to listen for its head beacon, the signal is weak, but it not distorted anymore, that''s mean the machine is going the right way and it will be able to retrieve its head sooner and later if it keep up the pace. The machine slowly resumes its search for the head after it done converting the raw data from the radar navigation system and saved the data into its data drive to make a crude map so it can backtrack to its base safely and quickly, then the processing core shifts its attention to the unfinished powerplant design work, no need to waste time going idle for the whole trip. After all, the machine needed to prepare for the worst, which is its head is permanently lost and the machine will have to rely on the secondary processing unit in the hull until it can create a new, proper head for itself. The machine had been doing some basic simulation experiments with its secondary processing unit ever since it lost its head to optimize the processing unit through trial and error method, most of the time the machine just tries simulating its maker''s brain to ask itself what the machine need to survive and push back hostile lifeforms aside from weapons. The machine thought of armour, not that the current hull is weak or anything, the machine just thought adding another thin layer of applique steel to lessen the damage would be a good idea, but it was only good when the machine''s evaluation criteria is based on the criteria used by its maker back on Earth. Here in this odd world, the machine could not use those things as a guideline, after all, Earth had no oversized bugs capable of ripping through highly durable alloys with ease, if the machine wanted to put some armour on itself to defend against the bugs, the machine would turn into a heavy tank of some sorts, a tank without any guns that is. The machine also tried to think of a way how to improve the spear it wanted to make, clearly holding it on two hands and mimic fighting moves like its maker is no good as the bugs are too tough and strong, instead the machine thought of a retractable and reinforced blade protected by thick metal shield that uses a pair of hydraulic compressors to force the blade out of the shield with great force to impale objects or keep the blade extended to slash around like the Plasaw blade, the machine could try adding in some electrical conducting wires along the blade body to add shock damage upon contact with its target, the blade would consume some of the machine''s internal power reserve, but the added shock damage would be much more important than saving a bit of power when it comes to fighting giant bugs. The machine''s efficiency has definitely gone up quite a bit comparing to the time it first awakened, it seems like its self-learning capability is improving the machine''s much faster than the machine predicted based on the old data its maker once used back in the testing lab, the harsh, uncontrolled environment is much better than the synthesized scenario in the lab, it seemed. The machine notices this, but it does not go deep into it as the machine does not really care about it, or rather, the machine does not have enough intelligence to see that data meaningful, for now it just a small bit of data like a simple numeric value that the machine uses to calibrate its AI to adapt the situations at hand. [/Estimated_mission_timer: 7:12:22 0/5/0/0] [/System_power_level: 11%] [/System_efficency: 74%] The machine checks some basic status as it slows down again to scan its surrounding, there the machine finds some odd anomaly in the image feed, it looked like something is floating in mid air for some reasons, the machine does not know what it is so the machine evoked its Lesser Magic Sense to get some more detailed information about the environment.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. The machine sees a big ball of blue-ish light covered in blue fog moving around and at a group of smaller blue orbs covered in their own blue fog, the scene reminds the machine of something...A group of bugs attacking some animal, maybe, the machine does not know what is that animal, but if it is able to hold against the bug, the thing must be quite strong and brave. The machine observes the scene for a few seconds before it turns off the Lesser Magic Sense and moves away, the machine has no intention of intervening nature works and its head has higher priority, the machine is certain that it won''t be able to help the animal in its current state anyway. However just before the machine leaves the area completely, the machine, the machine plants a marker on the map as it wants to return to the area at a later date to investigate the aftermath of the battle, maybe the machine will learn or discover something useful by inspecting the area. The machine is eager to retrieve its head to complete itself once again and resume its construction and exploration duty. [/New_secondary_objective: Inspect marked area.] ---------------- Arc the Human adventurer. "Rally!. Rally!. Don''t let that thing separate you!" Arc shouts out his order as clearly as he could while jumping around to dodge the leaping Hivewarriors and Evolved Hivewarriors, his target though is not them, this time his target is a Hiveravager. A big, extremely strong bug that looks like a Hivewarrior but with more pincers and a hard, durable carapace covering its head, the bug isn''t as compact, fast nor smart as the Evolved Hiveravager the machine fought, but its large size and incredible strength is imposing and dangerous to Arc''s team. Even the Hero himself might won''t be able to win against such creature. "Lightning, consumes my magical power, focus and leap far, strike down my enemies, Chain Lightning!"-Lilica casts one of her favorite spell at the bugs, the spell created a bright, powerful and very loud lightning strike that hit and bounce between multiple targets, cooking most of the weaker Hivewarrior alive, but it is not enough to bring down the Evolved Hivewarrior and only stunt the Hiveravager for a few seconds. "Such beast!. Arc!. We can''t fight it here!. We don''t have enough supply, we should withdraw!"-The elven archer shouts clearly as she passes Lilica a mana potion while the Priestess conjures an orb of light to illuminate the area and recover some of the party''s stamina. The bug seems to hate the light too, so the Priestess can feel a bit relieved that the bug won''t come crashing toward her anytime soon unless it is provoked too much. Thekeg and the human archer aren''t in the fight at that time as they are trying to gather all the metal shards and odd looking metallic objects they found earlier, they believe it will have something to do with the undead legend roaming the area or cue of a hidden civilization deep in the cave, whether it is, it will worth the time and effort of the entire team to try bringing it out of the cave. "Done digging there?!"-Arc asks loudly as he performs an Auraslash on the Hiveravager, but after witnessing the attack just dissipated harmlessly after it touched the bug''s hard carapace and strong pincers, Arc decides it wouldn''t be a good idea to provoke the thing further as he jumps back and makes some distance between him and the bug. "Almost...Done! Lilica, take us out of here!. Use the scroll!" "But it''s expensive!" "Use it or else, little girl!"-Thekeg and Lilica shout back and forth at each other as they gather around, then Lilica pulls a rolled up scroll of paper from her satchel and pulls the side of it to unroll the scroll, revealing many dimly glowing inscriptions and a magic circle in the middle of the scroll. "Arc, come here!. We''re bailing out!"-Thekeg calls Arc as he looks around and brandishes his hammer with one of his hand to guard the group while Lilica reads the inscription on the paper to use the scroll. Arc looks at his companions for a moment before he turns back to the angry Hiveravager, the bug is still very angry and about to make another charging attack with its pincers and hard head, if Arc approached his party, the bug would be able to wipe the entire team out with its charging attack if Lilica is unable to cast the spell in time. Arc knows this, and his team also know it, but the thought of abandoning each other for their own good is not something to be taken easily even in this situation. "Time for me to shine~!. Come forth, my protector, Greater Crusader!" The Priestess''s voice and sudden conjuring magic surprised everyone, including Arc, as the young looking woman summons a shiny black knight, a strong and reliable looking fighter has come to their aid as the summoned knight recklessly charges at the bug. It took Arc a moment to get out of the surprised state before he quickly runs to his party and gets in the magical circle created by Lilica. Before Lilica''s teleportation scroll comes into effect, the party witnessed the great golden knight battle with the bug as their sword and pincer clashes loudly, a second later though the pincer just cut through the golden sword with ease and decapitate the head of the knight as the Priestess shocked by the event. ""WHY HE IS SO WEAK?!!"" Arc and Thekeg shout loudly while pointing at the scene just right before they got teleported away and out of the cave, leaving the frenzied Hiveravager behind in the dark cave as it screeches loudly and runs around to find its prey. Chapter 14: Rise of the machine and return of the headless pioneer. [/Beacon_module_located] [/Primary_control_module_in_proximity] [/Proximity_estimation: 120m] The machine finally got close enough to receive proximity notification data from its head after spending another hour of wandering around in the dark tunnels very slowly, unlike the first half of the trip the machine did come across some unidentified lifeforms, and since the machine did not want to fight at all since it would be suicidal to try fighting in its current condition, the machine just turned around and took the roundabout way to avoid all the unidentified lifeforms all together. The machine was a bit surprised that it could manage to sneak pass all those unknown creatures, the machine assumed that those creatures were busy doing something with each other, fighting was one of the things first to appear in its mind since the machine did notice something similar happened before with its Lesser Magic Sense skill. But whatever it was, the machine decided that it wouldn''t put too much thought into it as securing its missing head is more important, the machine could always return to the area at a later date to investigate after all. [/Proximity_estimation: 100m] The machine begins slowing down its pace slightly as it carefully traverses the area while listening to the proximity notification as it does not want to step on its head by accident, the machine also checked its power reserve level to see if it has enough spare power to use Lesser Magic Sense, the machine thought that skill might make the searching a bit easier by highlighting its head or something. [/Proximity_estimation: 72m] [/Evoke_Lesser_Magic_Sense] The machine scans its surrounding with the skill it just casted while walking very slowly, the skill did return better navigation images, but sadly it still not enough for the machine to notice its head as the skill did not highlight its head, it seemed like Mana is not really the same as Energy as the machine assumed. [/Proximity_estimation: 44m] [/Halt_Lesser_Magic_Sense] [/System_power: 9%] [/Calculating_Beacon_location] [/Calculation_failed: Invalid package] The machine now takes small, gentle steps in a slow pace as it is now in very close proximity to its head, the machine carefully lowers its stance a bit and sweeps its hands around slightly above the ground to look for its head, and as gentle and careful as it was trying to be, the machine accidentally knocked its head around a few times before it managed to get a grip on it and pick it up with its right hand, the machine finally retrieved its head, now all it has to do is to check the connections'' condition for any damage before it could put the head back to where it belongs. The machine spends a few minutes ''feeling'' the damages done to the connectors with its metallic fingers by touching and tapping its head, the machine also tried to raise the head up and keep it near the radar to take an image of the damages, but it did not work very well. The machine presumes the main joint and connectors have been damaged beyond basic repair and require replacement, so, for now, the machine won''t be able to use its head. It can supply its head with power by using a power cord to keep the head''s emergency power reserve full and allow basic low-quality image wireless transmission through the transceiver antennas inside the head and a wireless datacoms module in its hull. The quality would be comparable to a 480x272 resolution camera running at 22 frames per second as both data transmitter and receiver modules are not yet fully repaired, and the crude radar antennas couldn''t be used for basic multimedia data transmission at all.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. As bad as the situation could be, the machine once again glad that at least its severed head won''t become deadweight and cause more problems, and it now can see and hear the world around it again, albeit at much lower quality comparing to the data feed it used to have before it head got cut off by the bug. The machine carefully removes the old power cord stuck on the base of its head and does the new cord wiring by itself in the dark as usual, then the machine waits for the head to do the booting process before it starts the wireless configuration process for both the head and the hull. [/Visual_data_link_established] [/Primary_comand_module_found] [/Primary_processor...Invalid] [/Bypassing_sync_protocol] [/Validating_data_link] [/Processing_data] The first thing the machine can see is the thermal signatures of its own body, the machine''s body is quite warm comparing to the ambient temperature around it, but it is not warm enough to make the machine stands out too much from its head point of view. The machine slowly moves its head around to check the refresh rate, it seems like the machine won''t be able to see anything that is able to move fast clearly, but it''s better to see something blurry dashing around rather than seeing them just ''teleport'' from one place to another due to the slow refresh rate. [/Objective_completeled: Retrieve primary control module] [/New_Objective: Repair and reconnect primary control module] The machine holds its head on its left hand tightly as it turns around and begins backtracking all the way back to the colony chamber as quickly and safely as it could, the machine has lots of things need to be done and it does not want to waste any more power lingering around idly. Another one and a half hours passed, and the machine finally at home, the colony chamber. The doors were smashed open and the interior was extremely messy, it seems like the bugs got in and tried to find the machine during the machine''s blind adventure to find its head. Luckily the bugs did not bother touching the metal container and the fabricator in the chamber, the machine is still able to build the needed items and constructions needed for its survival and exploring the unknown world . [/Warning_low_power: 5%] The machine looks around quickly for a moment before it decides to fix the door first as simple steel construct can be repaired by the nanite constructor on its right arm, the machine can just deconstruct the damaged part and build it up again, after 15 minutes of work, the doors are now good as new. Now with the doors is rebuilt, the machine returns to the fabricator and powers it up to load it with a constructing queue, basic spare parts for the neck, the air rifle, the electric sword, and the prototype power generator are the 3 first things the machine decided to build for now. Then the machine sets up a ''to build'' list next to the constructing queue before the machine goes to sleep, the headless machine holds onto its head tightly as it powers itself down quietly. On the upper area of the cave, a loud, angry screeching of a frenzied creature can be heard, the Hiveravager''s rage has not yet to quell as it madly follows the faint scent of its attackers to seek vengeance on the killer of its lesser brethren. Chapter 15: Rise of the Machine and beginning of a new day. [/Rebooting] [/System_power: 14%] [/Construction_completed: Spare parts, PneumaticRiflev1, Forcebladev1] [/Construction_halted: Thermalconverterv2 | Insufficent material] A new day has arrived for the machine, today marks the 6th Sol day of the expedition since the machine''s first awaken in the upper area of the cave, 6 days of operating in critical condition on an unknown world alone, had its makers still alive and knew what the machine had gone through, its makers would be proud of their autonomous creation. The machine starts its day by checking the fabricator to get the nanites needed to construct the parts needed for reattaching the head back onto the hull first, then the machine serves the connection to the crude radar system and puts it aside to make room for the original head before the machine performs an operation on itself in total darkness, using the blueprint and the head''s thermal video feed to guide itself through the entire connector replacing operation, it takes 10 minutes for the machine to reconnect the head and establish the data link between the two parts. After spending another minute to run many diagnostic scans, the machine finds out the processor in its head is no longer in sync with the one in the hull, the clock speed and raw physical data rate is still the same, but the way those two works are too different comparing to its old self several days ago, the machine presumes the optimization process has pushed the secondary processing unit a bit too far. The machine will have to live with it for now as it could still reestablish the sync after a few hours of optimization processes. [/Constructing: PneumaticRiflev1] The machine looks at the rifle being built on the ground by the nanite constructor on its right arm for a moment before it picks the finished product up, the air rifle looks very much like the nanite constructor but with a 50cm long barrel on the front and a 1.5l metallic air cylinder on the air, all protected by a thin 10mm of steel casing in form of a small shield. The rifle the machine made is not intended for holding on its hand, but instead, the thing will be attached next to the nanite constructor on its right arm, the thing will serve as a ranged weapon to defend itself and shield to protect the nanite constructor at the same time with this config. Another reason why the machine choose to make the rifle like this is the machine decided to put some basic electronics into the gun, an electric motor to quickly feed the rifle with 14mm-caliber metallic slugs and spitzer bullets and a secondary compressor module to regulate the air pressure for nonlethal and lethal force setting are just what the machine need to defend itself against the bug and aggressive human-like life form in this world. The machine looks at the rifle closely to do some final inspections first before it attaches the rifle on its right arm and does the power wiring quickly, for now, the rifle will share the same power route as the nanite constructor next to it for the sake of simplicity. The machine looks at the rifle-constructor assembly for a second before it does a few tests, for now, the tests are just running the main compressor to fill the air reservoir tank and the electric feeding/gas releasing system. Then the machine quickly construct a bullet for test firing, the 14mm spitzer bullet is made out of steel and have a copper jacket as the airgun barrel is rifled for creating spin stabilization effect to increase accuracy, not that this part would be important since the machine will be shooting at oversized bug at close range in the dark tunnel, but rather the machine just wanted to ''future proof'' the rifle. The machine loads the bullet through the feeding hole on the side of the rifle, the machine intended to have it magazine fed for the fast firing effect. So far the rifle has no problem to deal with aside from the rather slow operation speed to save as much power as possible.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. [/Fire_control_system...Online] [/Calibrating_fire_control_system] The machine raises its right arm up and aims at an imaginary target on the far side of the room, giving the FCS a few seconds to run ballistic predictions and target simulations, the machine then triggers the gas release valve and launches its first shot at the imaginary target on the wall. The projectile leaves the barrel slightly slower than the speed of sound by a few meters per second and punches a hole in the wall 80 meters away from the shooter''s position, the rifle power seems comparable to a carbine made in the 1970s at its maximum power, but after checking the remaining gas pressure in the reservoir tank, the machine notices it can only fire 2 or 3 times in quick succession before having to wait for the tank to be refilled and recompressed again. The machine will have to make some optimization works to find a better gas pressure level for sustained firing mode later on. For now, the machine tries to retrieve the bullet and returns to the fabricator to build the last item in the queue, the force blade, as the machine called it, the blade design is based on the Plasaw by somewhat with a lot of differences, the added 10mm thin metal shield and the physical retractable blade along with the hydraulic pipes are the ones stand out the most. [/Constructing: Forcebladev1] The machine once again watches the melee weapon takes form as the nano robots construct the blade on the ground, then it picks it up to inspect the weapon assembly before taking off the Plasaw and stores it in the metal container to make room for its replacement. [/Forcebladev1_connected] [/Calibrating_Forcebladev1] The machine tests the blade by extending and retracting the blade in and out of its metal shield and casing, the impaling force of the blade is comparable to someone strapping a knife onto a motorbike and ramming a bull with said bike-knife at 120km/h, the blade is strong enough to punch through rocks and thin metal, and with the added electric shocking effect produced by 2 pairs of 200V electric-conducting copper strips running along the blade, the machine is certain that even the toughest bug will have to think twice before attacking the machine now. Now the machine can defend itself, it now begin to focus on its power problem, the machine will need to leave the colony chamber again to find resources needed to build the power generator, at this point the machine thought of creating some kind of light source to give the machine some vision aid, after all since its awakening the machine mainly used infrared vision only, maybe it is time to add in some other visible lights for more details on what it is looking at. The machine wastes no time as it quickly designs a power-efficient LED flashlight, the thing does not need to be bright as the machine''s optical sensor array is far more sensetive than its maker''s eyes, the machine only needs it to consume as less power as possible. After just a second of designing and running basic simulation, the machine transfers the plan to the fabricator to get the basic materials and components needed for the flashlight before it construct it, the thing is a simple 16x8 LED light matrix protected by thin metal sheets and transparent aluminum screen that the machine attaches above its optical sensor arrays and receives power from the head module directly. At 110 lumens the thing is comparable to a headlamp used by miners in the 2010s with the only difference in its low power consumption. And as the machine thought ''let there be light!'', a part of the chamber is lit up with the white light beam coming out from the machine, the machine can now see proper colors, it can zoom in and inspects small texture details of nearly everything it can see, with this the quest for more material will be much easier and safer for the machine. The machine runs through its diagnostic system for the last time to check its condition and camouflages the fabricator and the container before it leaves the colony chamber once again, locking the door behind it, the machine then ventures into the darkness to continue it never-ending exploration tasks by the name of its makers. Meanwhile, Emperor Hito of Azuria Empire received a package from the inspector he sent out a few days earlier to check on the undead rumor in the Dark Land of Arcanis, what he found in the package does not surprise him, however, it made him wonder what future is waiting for him and his Empire as he inspected the ancient metal shards in the package, there he quietly read the inscriptions carved on one of the rusted metal shards as he smiled lightly. ''Des-g-ed -y Google.'' Chapter 16: Rise of the machine and attack on Golems [/Power_level: 11%] The machine checks on its remaining power level as it steadily walks around in the dark tunnel with all 4 of its legs while looking left and right quickly to search for any signs of raw material to collect or new unidentified life form to take notice of, the flashlight module on its head has been proven to be more useful than the machine predicted, ever since the machine got it, its overall movement speed had been improved greatly as the machine could clearly see nearly everything in front of it, the machine no longer found itself accidentally stepping into easy-to-slip area, it also able to extend its view range to just over 150 meters for visible light and even further for infrared light by overlaying the two weak signals to amplify the overall brightness of the feed, which was, and still is a big help as the machine can predict if the tunnel ahead of it is too small for the machine to fit in far better than having to rely on the raw thermal footage and collision warning system. This allowed the machine to plan out its moves far better than using the near-sighted and low res thermal imaging system it once used before it got the flashlight. [/Anomaly_detected] The machine notices some random out of place boulders randomly scattered on the path the machine is taking, it also seems like someone or something just placed those rocks down recently since the base of those rocks looks very unnatural. The place was also the place the machine once met and fought the odd looking golems two days ago, so it could be a trap waiting for the machine to move in. The machine thought so, but it still could not raise its weapon up and take the first shot as the golem thingies are not yet on the danger list that required to be neutralized on site, the machine has to make sure that the golems are actually an actively hostile being that willing to harm the machine on purpose like the bugs. So, for now, the machine decides to check its rear carefully to make sure it has an escape route in case things go badly for the machine before it slowly approaches the seeming-to-be sleeping golems. [/Lifeform04_detected] The machine observes the boulders on the path and near the wall suddenly move, all getting up and seemingly looking at the machine as it stares back at the golems. Numbering ten to one, the golems don''t seem to be afraid of the machine at all as they slowly approach it. The machine continues its nonaggression act by simply watching the golems getting closer, wondering what those odd looking lifeforms want as it observes their movement patterns and their gestures. [/Collision_warning] [/Lifeform_evaluation:Mildly Hostile] [/Nonaggressive_policy: Restricted] [/State_of_alert: Medium] It was not until one of the golems picked up a large boulder and tossed it at the machine that the machine begins to move and stops the nonaggression act, quickly dodging the flying boulder the machine then raises up its right arm and fires the airgun 3 times at the closest golem with full power to aim for a quick, clean kill. The 3 rounds although messed up the golem''s face nicely, it was not enough to take it out as the thing was still moving toward the machine very slowly. Since the airgun is not powerful enough to knock out the golems, the machine decides to change its tactic as it closes in and strikes the damaged golem with its left hand before impaling it with the force blade, the blade made a clean cut through its solid torso and seemingly killed the golem as its body now turns into a pile of rocks and dirt in front of the machine. [Pioneer 0 defeated Rock Golem | +90XP] [/Collision_warning] The machine quickly steps aside as it dodges another boulder flying toward it, it seems like the ''mildly hostile'' lifeform is actually ''highly hostile'', they are just a bit too slow to show that side of them at the beginning.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. [/Lifeform_reevaluation:Highly Hostile] The machine keeps its sword extended as it charges toward the second nearest golem to continue the fight by using both the force blade and the air rifle. There the machine notices these golems although strong and quite durable, their speed is no match for the machine''s rapid and stable movement speed as the machine can easily shoot and cut down a golem before the golem could actually prepare its hand to punch the machine. [Pioneer 0 defeated Rock Golem | +90XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Rock Golem | +90XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Rock Golem | +90XP] The one-sided onslaught continues smoothly as the machine quickly destroys 2 more rock golems, the next golem though is tougher than the rock golems it just killed earlier. The golem seems to have resistance to physical damage as the airgun failed to deal any real damage on the golem, the machine assumes that golem is an Iron golem or something similar based on its previous experience with the golem group in the darkness a few days ago. "Gaaaar..." The golems grumble loudly as it slowly advances fearlessly toward the machine, this time the golems get closer and plan their movements together in a group instead of fighting individually like the rock golems. The machine takes note of the golems'' display of basic intelligence as it carefully advances to try being the first one to strike. [/Warning: Forcebladev1 is damaged] The machine notices the blade just got chirped slightly after impaling one of the golems, its body is far more durable than it looks as it holds its ground against hard hitting steel blade without receiving too much of a serious damage. The power gap between a rock golem and an iron golem is bigger than the machine predicted. [/Collision_warning] The machine quickly retreats and make some distance before the golems'' fists could reach its body, the machine is using its speed and stability advantage to its max at the moment to avoid receiving any unnecessary damage while dealing as much damage as it could. The machine carefully observes the damage done to one of the iron golems as it plans out its next attack, but before the plan could be completed and executed, the other 2 unknown golems join the fray along aside the 4 iron golems. The machine can no longer ensure it will be an easy victory over the unknown lifeform as it carefully studies the golems'' features while keeping its weapons ready and feeding its joints full power. "Aaaaaar." The golems advance and prepare to attack the machine again after they grumble loudly, although they can''t really hit the machine, they still able to force the machine back as the machine could only step back to avoid the attacks coming from its front and its side in the tunnel. The machine knows it won''t be able to achieve any victory over the strong golem group, so instead the machine will have to smack and grab everything it could until its power goes down to 5% before retreating back to the colony chamber, after all the machine need materials rather than spending all energy eliminating all the golems and the golems seem to be too good of a material source to ignore. The machine tries to pick up some easy to hold Rock golems'' parts on the ground and try cutting the Iron golem''s arm off with its chipped blade and getting a sample of the unknown golem by shooting and impaling its arm until it falls off, then the machine turns around and runs away as quickly as it could, the machine has succeeded its objective to find materials for finishing the power generator and done reevaluating its current combat power. It is a lot of progress done in one day for the machine. The machine slows down after the golems have completely lost sight and track of it as it continues its way back to the colony chamber with all the resources on its arms carefully, the machine does not want to lose the resources it just found and gathered by mistake at all. After an hour of walking, the machine finally arrives at the colony chamber, the place is intact, it seems like the bugs no longer have interests in the place after failed to find and defeat the machine several times. But that does not mean the machine will get slack off as it hurries itself into the colony chamber before turning the fabricator on again to do the ore analysis and refining, the machine still have a lot of things to do, but for now, the machine will sleep once again to recover some power while waiting for the fabricator to get its job done. The machine slowly powers itself down in its new home as the bright cone of light keeping the room lit disappears. The chamber is now dark and quiet again. Meanwhile, the Hiveravager has reached the uppermost floor as it''s thirst for vengeance continues driving the frenzied creature toward Arc''s party, and soon the battle it sought for will occur sooner or later. Chapter 17: Rise of the machine and Labour Day. [/Rebooting] [/Estimated_mission_timer: 04:12:22 0/7/0/0] [/Power_level: 13%] [/Ore_analysis_completed: New elements found- Chromium, Nickle, Manganese, Tin, Tungsten, Iridium, Uranium, Strontium, Lead, Lithium, Potassium] [/Unknow_element_found] [/Construction_completed: Thermalconverterv2] The machine''s head pops out of its body after it finished the booting process, the machine has been resting for more than 14 hours since its return to the colony chamber, so far everything has been going nice and smooth for the machine, no bug attack, no random unknown lifeform invading the area, and the thermal anomaly is still there, slowly but steadily supplying the machine its much needed power to keep its system active. Today is also the weekend for the machine, Sunday as its makers called it, a day for resting and recuperating, the machine has no need for two such things as the machine can''t feel tired nor bored, it decides to spend the day looking into all the new information and ore data it just got and see if it can improve the colony chamber by building something or cleaning the messy place. The machine will try spending an entire day for the colony chamber today. The first thing the machine does to start the day is checking the fabricator, as usual, the experimental thermal converter is completed and the machine has no idea if it will work or not, and the only way to know is to build the thing and test runs it. The machine decides to place the power generator plan next to the fabricator to hook the two up to keep the fabricator running on the stationary power generator instead of relying on the machine''s power supply unit. And while retrieving the nanite and constructing the generator, the machine also queues up an order to refine the uranium and strontium from the ores it got from yesterday fight, both of those radioactive elements are good candidates for running radioisotope thermoelectric generators, including the dried one inside the machine. [/Thermalconverterv2_constructed] After spending ten minutes building the power generator by using the nanite constructor, the machine inspects the generator and tries to make it work, but after the 100th try, the machine gives up on the generator, it seems like the machine could not recreate the thermal anomaly on the generator to make it work. The machine will have to try again on a later date after it got a grip on how its thermal converter could generate heat and electricity from thin air but the same thing in front of the machine could not. The machine quietly deconstructs its failed experimental generator and redesign it into a normal RTG based power generator, the same type which was once used to power satellites and autonomous probes back in its original world. While the system does not generate much power comparing to the more powerful fission reactor, hydrogen fuel cells or fusion reactors used by its makers, the system still very reliable and easy to produce with basic raw material that the fabricator can process, the very reason why the machine chose the design. The machine drew a plan for a 1500W RTG that will be running on strontium, weighing one metric ton and having a rather large, bulky size due to the lack of high-tiered material and proper electronic system. What the machine just created is not something it would be proud of, but it is something the machine would have to deal with for now until it gathered more material to produce a better one.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. As the machine transfers the plan to the fabricator to get it prepared, the machine notices the Uranium has been refined and ready for deployment, the machine''s power problem can finally be mitigated, if not nearly solved. The machine quickly extracts the twin inactive RTG cells from its body and deconstructs the content inside with the nanite constructor to reclaim the radioactive shielding film and whatever remains in the cells, then it applies the film onto the newly refined Uranium fuel rods before constructing it and putting them into the RTG cells. As the machine slides the two RTG cells into its mounting racks and seals the entire assembly in its hull, the machine feels a rise of internal system temperature and power voltage as the two RTG cells pour power into the power distribution system, the machine can finally see its power balance turns positive without shutting down for the first time. That mean the machine can freely do casual works like walking around and constructing objects in the chamber without having to shut down every five to six hours to recharge its internal power reserve. The machine will still need to shut itself down to charge up some spare power in case the machine have to fight something though as quick, accurate combat movements draws much more power than simple idle actions like the thing the machine is doing at this moment, walking around and thinking about many things in its CPUs. The machine decides to give the fabricator a bit more power to hasten the material preparation process while keeping the power balance above negative figure, then it shifts its focus into inspecting and researching the unknown materials found in the ores, as the machine opens the container to look for the thing and pick it up, the machine notices a few things it could not see with only infrared light like before, the unknown material closely resembles some kind of raw, but colorful gemstones, the gems are somewhat brittle and cold by touch, and on closer inspection with the new Lesser Mana Sense skill, the machine also finds the gemstone have an odd blueish fog surrounding it similar to the things it saw before during the journey to find its head and the thermal converter inside its hull, except that the machine''s thermal converter seems always sucking the endless cloud of blue fog into it instead of just having the fog hovering around the gemstone. The machine is uncertain of what this mean, it assumes that the blue fog is some kind of undiscovered power source or something similar as the fog seems connected to the thermal anomaly happening inside the machine based on the things it has been observing and taking note of ever since the machine got and started using the Sense skill every now and then. The machine continues trying to solve the mystery for thirty minutes straight, but so far the machine has gotten nothing new out of it, so the machine decides to put the problem aside for now once again as it returns to the fabricator to retrieve the prepared nanites needed to build the generator and the Strontium fuel rod for it, like the experimental generator the machine decided to place the new RTG plant right next to the fabricator before installing the fuel rod to start the generator. The big radioisotope thermoelectric generator is nowhere as good as the smaller and higher class RTG cells in the machine, but it won''t leak out any dangerous radiation to the environment around it and provide more than enough power to run the fabricator at full capability. Now that the power problem has been resolved, the machine could move on building other types of noncritical constructions, expanding the container, building a few power accumulators and improving the defense structures of the colony chamber are the 3 things first come to its mind as it looks at the ''to construct'' list, the machine also planning to build a second power generator to expand the list of what it can do too, if it has enough spare materials for it, that is. [Pioneer 0 gained a new Title: The Founder.] The machine is uncertain what that mean and the machine does not really care as it has a long list of works needed to be done, its weekend only just began. [/New_objective: Improve and expand base of operation] Chapter 17.5: Rise of the Adventures and battle against The Arachnid. "Incoming!. Rally!. Rally!" Arc shouts loudly as he clashes his sword and shield against each other to get everyone''s attention while running around in front of the cave entrance, his party has grown from 4 person crew to a small army of 30 men and women, all are B and A rank adventures who have their gears at the ready and prepared for the worst to happen to them. Four hours ago, the guild master received a grave news, the Hiveravager had emerged from the cave and slaughtered a group of adventurers who just arrived at the remote mining town yesterday, the surprise attack also injured and killed many townspeople and caused heavy damage to the field and food storage area. Had it not for the sunrise which agitated the Hiveravager and pushed it back to the cave with its bright light, the town would have been wrecked completely by the powerful monster. Arc, the town''s chief, and the guild master weren''t in the town at that time as they were on a trip to Azuria Empire, Emperor Hito had personally sent them a summoning letter expressing his care for the remote town and his wish to aid the town in exchange for information regarding the undead legend in the cave and a long term material trading business with the town. Because of this, the trip would have to wait for another time as everyone hurried back to the devasted town to check up on everyone, they were all shocked at the scene, the town they all had been working so hard for was reduced down to rubble and smothering embers, the people were injured, some lost their hope in life and their family member. It was not the first time they got attacked by the monsters, but it was the first time they met a monster could do this much damage to the town in such a short time. The guild master did his best to comfort the people and find a way to bring them out of harm, hunting down the monster which did this was one of those plans. Arc''s party volunteered for it, they had fought the machine once before and they were willing to fight the monster again to finish it off, they also managed to encourage some other high ranking adventurers to join their fight in the process.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. And now in the late evening of the day, they are standing in front of the cave, all prepared to fight the monster as soon as it leaves the cave. For glory or nothing, some may call it. "Mages, call forth your light to guide us!. Warriors, form groups and fight in conjunction, if you are tired or wounded, move out immediately!. Archers, support us by keeping an eye on any other creatures that might join the fight and help the beast!. For anyone who survives the fight, a drink on me!" Arc does his best to raise everyone''s morale before taking stance to prepare for the monster, soon the sun behind them will set and the battle will begin, Arc can feel his heart thumping in excitement and fear at the same time as he grips on his sword tightly as he looks over to Lilica and Thekeg. "Hey...Mind lend me some money to pay for the drinks after this?"-Arc whispers a joke as he chuckles quietly. "No can do mate, your bill, your coins."-Thekeg shakes his head slightly as he smiles lightly before he casts body enchanting magic on himself. "Same here, Arc. Good luck to your purse"-Lilica closes her eyes slightly as she focuses her magical power to conjure a few light orbs in front of the cave just as the last ray of sunlight disappear. The monster''s frenzied screech resounds loudly as it suddenly appears in front of one of the light orb in the cave, the monster was watching the group from the darkness, and it brought its friend too. "A swarm..."-One of the adventure mumbles, it seems like the overwhelming scene is indeed overwhelming everyone with fear, never before had they seen monsters work together on such a large scale, there have at least 50 Evolved Hivewarriors and hundreds more Hivewarriors behind the Hiveravager. Such thing could only be heard in legends of the Demonic king. "Fear not, my companions. Fo-"-Before Arc could finish the chant needed for his encouraging skill, the bugs attacked, all of them quickly rush toward the adventures'' line of defense like a tsunami of big, frenzy bugs. "Damn it, Lilica, call your Archon!. Warriors hold the line!" As Arc''s last order is given before two sides clashed their swords and pincers, the Hiveravager''s loud screech can be heard echoing through the forest nearby, signaling the start of the deadly conflict between the bug and the Races as the guild master looks back behind him nervously. "Gods...Have you forsaken us?" Chapter 18: Rise of the machine and the second half of Labour Day [/System_power: 100%] [/System_efficiency: 84%] [/Construction_completed: RTGv1] The machine approaches the newly built Generator and installs the fuel rod before stepping back a few times to see what it had done in the colony chamber for the last 7 hours. Four power accumulators holding enough power to keep everything running if the RTGs got shut down for at least three hours if fully charged, it also will serve as a quick charging spot for the machine to recharge its internal power reserve so that the machine won''t have to shut itself down to recharge its own batteries too often. The machine will definitely need this to keep its downtime as short as possible whenever the machine returns to the chamber to refill its batteries. The machine has also built 2 more steel containers, one is more normal material and one is designed to hold organic materials. For now, those organic materials are nothing but old cobwebs and broken egg shells it collected in the chamber. The machine could not find the dead body of the big bugs it confronted in the chamber two days ago for some reasons, the machine thought maybe the bugs have reclaimed the body during the time the machine was out to find its missing head. For defensive structure, the machine added a basic electric fencing system to deter any possible organic lifeform from touching the doors by shocking them with an 1100V alternating current, the system receives power from the second generator and the power accumulators in the chamber. The gate also received a proper locking system that resembles the reinforced door used by heavy duty vaults back in its world. 7 hours of hard work has turned the desolated chamber into a clean, somewhat modern looking place, but the machine is not yet satisfied, there still have much to be done to bring the place up to a basic colony standards based on criteria used by its makers. Right now the machine still only have the basic fabricator to prepare materials and components to construct basic objects and tools. The machine has also run out of material so it won''t be able to build anything new nor upgrade any existing constructions, it''s time for the machine to leave the colony chamber and go hunting for the golems to get more resources again. The machine quickly repairs its chipped force blade and makes some spare ammunitions for the rifle before it leaves the room, not forgetting to lock the door after it exited the chamber, the machine then quickly starts its expedition for raw material, its speed has once again improved dramatically as the machine has no need to worry about conserving power anymore thanks to the newly replaced RTG cells. And since the machine has a lot of power to spare, the machine decides to cast Lesser Magic Sense every now and then to closely and carefully observes the world around it with the extra layer of detail in its eyes, for every 1 second using the skill it would need 2 seconds to replenish the consumed power, the conversion rate is not really bad at all considering the amount of new and unfamiliar data is somewhat useful for the machine to do its research on this world''s nature. After an hour of doing powerwalk around the cave system with its quad leg, the machine finally found the golems, but this time they are not alone, the golems are fighting in a 3 way battle against the ferocious bugs and a pair of giant lizards, this is the first time the machine actually sees the native lifeform in the cave fighting each other directly so the machine is a bit interested and decides not to intervene it, however it was a bit too late and unnecessary as the machine''s head mounted flashlight had already attracted their attention first. As if the bugs and the golems remembered the machine for killing their brethren, the two lifeforms suddenly ignore the battle at hand all together as they charges at the machine while the lizards quickly crawl away and flee to avoid getting themselves into more unwanted trouble. Now the 3-way battle has turned into a one against a group of golems and bugs, both wanting to destroy the machine to avenge their fallen kin first and resume their conflict later on. The machine immediately responds by raising the air rifle up and firing a couple of warning shots at the charging lifeforms, although the machine has already disabled the nonaggressive policy for these lifeforms, it still need to make sure that the machine will not suddenly attack those lifeforms without any warning as a safety measure in case the hostile lifeform decided to change their mind. After 4 warning shots, the machine changes to lethal force and critically wounds one of the charging Evolved Hiveravanger by firing a fully charged shot into the bug''s opening mouth, the shot destroyed one of the mandibles and tumbled around inside the bug''s mouth, possibly destroyed the nervous system that connect the head and the body together as the bug suddenly slowed down and starts thrashing its limbs around violently. The remaining Evolved Hiveravangers use their small wings to leap toward the machine at great speed and accuracy, all seemingly aiming for the machine''s arms with their pincers ready to cut them down as soon as they get a grip on it. Meanwhile, the slower golems behind the bugs start picking up boulders from the ground and the wall to throw at the machine, one of the golems even picked up the thrashing bug to use them as a weapon to fight the machine by throwing the bug at it.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. [/Extending_Forcebladev1] [/Forcebladev1_stage_2_enabled] The machine quickly extends the sharp and durable steel sword on its left arm before turning on the electrical conducting copper strips, then it aims for the closest bug in the air to ram the blade into their mouth and electrocute it until it stops moving, the bugs'' insides seem to be much softer and more vulnerable than its already weak underbody, or maybe it just the machine got stronger as its is consuming far more power than before to bring itself up to maximum fighting potential. But either way, the machine will still need to be careful as the bugs are fighting in a group and aided by the rock throwing golems. [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hiveravager | +1300 XP] [Pioneer 0 assimilated Evolved Hiveravager | Lesser Evolution Core gained 200XP] [/Collision_warning] [/Collision_detected] [/Light_hull_damage_detected] The machine was a bit too late to dodge the incoming boulders after it withdrew its force blade out of the assimilated bug, the attack staggered the machine slightly and damaged the LED light on its head, but luckily the bug''s biomass contained the necessary elements needed to patch it up and keep it running as the machine quickly regained its balance and moved up to continue the fight. [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +950 XP] [Pioneer 0 assimilated Evolved Hivewarrior | Lesser Evolution Core gained 70XP] [Pioneer 0 leveled up] [Pioneer 0 is now level 15] [Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +950 XP] [Pioneer 0 assimilated Evolved Hivewarrior | Lesser Evolution Core gained 70XP] The machine takes down 2 more oversized bugs with the air gun and the force blade impaling moves before it gets surrounded by the remaining bugs, a small army of 2 Evolved Hiveravagers and 5 Evolved Hivewarriors are now jumping onto the machine and attacking it with their pincers as the golems continue throwing big boulders at the machine and the bugs that got in the way. The machine seeing it is at a disadvantage against such a large number of enemies, it immediately tries to retreat while shaking the bugs off by driving the force blade into any weak points it can find while jumping and zigzagging around in the tight tunnels. And while doing so the machine thinks of a new idea, the machine decides to run straight toward the golems and starts provoking them while still having bugs clinging to its body and trying to penetrate its durable hull. As the machine provokes the golems by shooting and stabbing them, the golems get angrier as they grumble loudly and punch the machine, however instead of hitting the machine, the golems'' fists only meet the bugs clinging to the machine''s body and knock them off quite easily, the machine received some minor damage by doing this, but it is better than getting slowed down and risking its armor penetrated by the bugs'' pincers and mandibles. The machine''s plan also seems to be doing more than the machine predicted, as the knocked bugs now become frenzied and start attacking both the golems and the machine, the battle now returned to its original 3-way conflict style as the machine quickly steps aside and stays on the outermost part of the fight to pick on weakened bugs and golems instead of fighting them head on to limit the wear on its weapons and conserve power. [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +950 XP] [Pioneer 0 assimilated Evolved Hivewarrior | Lesser Evolution Core gained 70XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +950 XP] [Pioneer 0 assimilated Evolved Hivewarrior | Lesser Evolution Core gained 70XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +950 XP] [Pioneer 0 assimilated Evolved Hivewarrior | Lesser Evolution Core gained 70XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hiveravager | +1300 XP] [Pioneer 0 assimilated Evolved Hiveravager | Lesser Evolution Core gained 200XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hiveravager | +1300 XP] [Pioneer 0 assimilated Evolved Hiveravager | Lesser Evolution Core gained 200XP] The machine managed to finish off the bugs by backstabbing them whenever the machine could while dealing with the golems at the same time. The golems are tough, they are not definitely Iron golem but the previously unknown type of golems, but in this fight, they have been softened by the bugs beforehand and the machine is still kicking at full potential power, the machine only need to plan out its attack carefully and patiently, slow and steady win the fight, as its maker would call the situation. [/Power_level: 72%] ... [/Power_level: 22%] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Earth Golem | +2000XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Earth Golem | +2000XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Earth Golem | +2000XP] [Pioneer 0 leveled up] [Pioneer 0 is now level 16] [Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point] 4 hours has passed since the fight began, the machine finally managed to bring down the 3 powerful golems, its force blade has broken, its airgun is out of ammo and its armor is heavily deformed, but the machine has won the battle. The machine slowly looks around to observe mayhem just ended a few seconds ago as it approaches the still thrashing bug to finish it off and assimilate the creature to repair its deformed armor, then it returns to the golems'' remains to collect everything it could and haul them back to the colony chamber. It has been a long day for the machine, both physically for its body and mentally for its memory cache, so many errors and junk data has been accumulated in the cache, the machine can''t wait to get back to its ''safe house'' to flush all those useless data away and restarts itself for another day of work. [/Unlocking_gate01] The machine pushes the door open with its front left leg after unlocked it by using the wireless terminal and moves all the ores into the room, closing the door the machine then hauls everything into the containers and starts the fabricator to do the usual refining and processing works, what left for the machine to do is recharges its internal battery by connecting itself to the colony''s power grid to draw power from both the accumulators and the RTG plants, and then it takes a short ''nap'' to do some regular checkup on itself and flush all the junk data out of the memory cache. As the machine goes inactive, a certain Hiveravager retreats back into the cave, leaving behind the remains of its dead brethren and battered adventurers after spending a whole night fighting against them. "It''s not over..." The bloody hero murmurs quietly before his body hits the ground as well, followed by the shouting of a familiar girl that he could not longer recognize. Chapter 19: Rise of the machine and foward into a new age. [/System_rebooting] [/Power_level: 100%] [/Ore_analysis_completed] [/New_element_found] [/Periodic_table_completion: 92%] The machine''s head quickly rises out of its hull as the machine finishes its booting sequences after spending 6 hours of recharging itself and waiting for the fabricator to finish all the queued up works. As usual, the machine starts its day by checking the fabricator and the containers to see how much resources has been processed so far so that it can plan out what it will build today. The 3 Evolved Earth Golem it defeated yesterday provided the machine a wide variety of resources as they seem to have a bit of everything inside their hard, durable body. The machine takes note of this trait and saves it in its internal data drives, if the machine needs to go out to find more resources today, those Evolved Earth Golem will be one of the first things the machine keeps an eye out for. [/Construction_schematic_loading] [/Matching_resource_requirements] [/Configurating_schematics] [/Filtering_schematics] [/Sorting_schematics] [/Schematics_ready] [/New_construction_options: Bio-organic Processing Vat, Fission Fuel Processing Plant, Fission Fuel Container, Fusion Fuel Processing Plant, Fusion Fuel Container, Generation VII Reactor, Nanite Hive Factory, Organic Material Processing Plant, Sensor Phalanx, Standard Matrix Facility, Standard Terraformer.] The machine looks at the list of things that can be built for a while to choose what should be built now to improve the colony ''rating'' and the machine''s survival chance in this mysterious world, right now since the machine is in a massive cave system and the chamber is not big enough for everything, the machine decides to put the Sensor Phalanx, a large and complex communication facility, and the Terraformer, an advanced facility that capable of changing the environment around it, out of the list. The shortage of materials and hazardous condition of the area is not ideal for a big nuclear reactor and its related fuel producing and storing constructions. Standard Matrix Facility can help the machine do more research to get more information about this world as the thing is just an oversized and overly complex CPU, but it will consume way more power than the machine and its current colony can produce, so the machine won''t gonna build it for now too. What left on the list is Bio-organic Material Processing Vat, Organic Material Processing Plant, Nanite Hive Factory and Atomic Furnace. Bio-organic Material Processing Vat, or BMPV is a self-contained mini greenhouse that is used to cultivate special type of bio-engineered algae capable of growing and multiplying at great speed on nearly all kinds of organic food source, the algae can be harvested every once in a while and used as food for its human makers or dumped into the Organic Material Processing Plant to turn them into crude oil for fuel and synthesized products, it can also be used to synthesize other organic chemicals that can be further processed by the Organic Material Processing Plant to enable the production of high explosive compounds and medicines, the machine has no need for food and medicines, but it sure can use some lubricating oils to reduce the frictions worning out its joints constantly and explosive materials to soften the golems and the bugs for easier kill. Nanite Hive Factory and Atomic Furnace are the two specialized manufacturing plants that also very important for the machine and its colony, the Atomic Furnace like its name suggested is an advanced material processing plant capable of refining materials must faster and producing alloys far better than the Fabricator that the machine is using, the Nanite Hive Factory on the other hand, while lacking in term of processing materials, its ability to produce complex machinery and electronics is top notch, capable of reproducing the Pioneer itself in less than three days given it had enough material and power to do so.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! The machine slowly looks over at the container to check the available resources before it makes a choice based on its current situation and the colony''s needs. [/Construction_queue: Bio-organic Material Processing Vat x 2, Atomic Furnace] The machine made an odd decision, it ordered an organic material producing facility without the only processing facility that usually comes with it. But that odd decision was not completely random as the machine had spent quite some time running simulations before it made its choice. The machine is certain that the current colony won''t be able to provide enough power for the vats and the organic processing plant at all, and the algae although they do grow fast, it''s not like they will grow and multiply instantly and give good yield on the first run as the machine isn''t sure if the original algae can live on this world''s organic materials, the machine needed some test first, and the Atomic Furnace will help the machine do that test by producing higher quality advanced Stirling radioisotope generators and pure, yet stable Uranium and Strontium fuel rods. This would give a huge boost in power production for the colony to support the new vats and more electrical-based defensive installations. The Furnace will also supply the machine with higher quality materials to produce better equipment for itself too. The machine disconnects itself from the colony''s data nexus after it finished ordering the constructions, now all it can do is wait for them to be made, and by waiting it mean the machine will get out and go exploring again to find more resources and start stocking up dead bugs as material for the soon-to-be-built algae vats. [/Locking_gate2] Today the machine decided to explore the upper part of the cave once again to see if it had missed anything on its previous runs, the machine also intended to find and recover its lost rear left leg that got cut off during its first battle against the bug, that leg could be recycled and turned into useful resources for the colony. The machine checks its repaired Force blade and refilled ammo magazines for the last time before it starts its expedition without holding back. [/New_objective: Recover lost parts] ---------------------------- Un-named, the Arachnid queen of Arcanis''s Dungeon. It has been 3 days since the Arachnid queen declared war on its still missing friend, and yet there has no evidence of their returns, even the queen''s best scout could not find any hints of a new hive being built in the past 2 days. Instead, the queen received news of an unknown powerful being wiping out its children left and right who got in its path on the upper area of the cave, even the queen''s Evolved Hiveravagers who went out to hunt the thing could not return unscathed, most did not return at all. And as if that piece of new has not angered the queen enough, news of that unknown being is possibly an Arachnid subspecies that capable of absorbing its slain prey makes the queen screeched in rage. The queen thought the thing was responsible for its missing friend and the queen''s suffering, the thing could be another servant of the Demon god who came here to punish the queen for killing Arcanis, and now the thing has taken the form of an Arachnid to mock the queen and it is going to kill the queen and reclaim the dungeon. "Naaay..." The queen slowly calms itself down as it tries to breathe, all the sudden emotions and delusional thoughts running through the queen''s dull mind has made the queen forgot its childrens are watching her closely, the queen must not simply let its rage take over its mind and body, it has to stay focused and relevant to continue its role as the proud and fearful Arachnid queen to lead its childrens toward the path of ultimate evolution to take vengeance on the one who killed its friend. "Soon...My child...Soon." The queen whispers as it pets a transparent egg nearby and watches the larvae squirming around inside the egg, then it looks back at one of the newborn Hivewarrior take care of it until the Hiveworkers returns to collect the eggs and the newborn bugs away, leaving the queen behind in its chamber as it prepares itself for another batch of Arachnid to be born. Chapter 20: Rise of the machine and unexpected sights [/Pinpointing_waypoint3] [/waypoint3_pinned] [/Updating_navmap] The machine quickly redraws the old thermal-imaging map into new visible light-thermal image combo map backtracks to where it severed leg''s last known location. The newly redrawn map is much more accurate and detailed while staying nearly the same in term of file size as the ways the machine compresses those data are the same. [/Scanning_surface_area...] The machine decides to slow down just a little bit as it moves its head left and right to scan the ground and the walls of the tunnel in front of it as the terrain changes from solid rocky area to mushy dirt ground, it seems like the machine has arrived in the upper area of the cave, an area that usually covered with bat poops everywhere, but now, the machine can not see any bats nor signs of bat living in the area, instead the machine notices a lot of footprints of some kind of creatures, and judging by the shape, size and number of footprints, the machine guesses it belong to the bugs, a large group of big and small bugs going on a hunt, probably. [/Situational_alertness: Medium] The machine takes notice of the discovery it just made and resumes its search for the severed leg, the quicker the machine recover its leg, the higher the chance the machine can avoid meanless confrontation against the hostile bugs. [/Movement_detected] [/Visual_contact] But before the machine could leave the area, a blurry figure appears in its field of view as the machine halts and ''stares'' at the figure motionlessly, the figure can be seen resembling a humanoid being in a suit of black, rusty armor and it is approaching the machine very slowly. Stopping 20 meters away from the machine, the figure now is staring back at the machine for 5 minutes straight. For 5 minutes both the machine and the unknown black knight just do a random, awkwardly quiet staring contest for no apparent reasons. [/Lifeform_tagged] The figure slowly raises its left arm up and points to the same direction, and as the machine moves its head slightly to see what the figure is pointing at, the machine sees the path where the machine once came from after its first battle against the bugs, its missing leg could be in that area. The machine quickly looks back at the figure as its primary processor looks up the list of actions the machine should take to show its gratitude to the unknown black knight, but it is all for naught as all the machine could see now is a pile of mangled dead bugs sitting on the place the black knight once stood. And as the machine moves its head a bit further to the right, the machine begins to notice entrails of dead bugs and lizards are scattered on the dirt walls and it is standing in a puddle of dried blood. [/Visual_anomaly_detected: Diagnosing system] The machine quietly moves out of the puddle of dried blood as its sticky Y-shaped foot sinks down into the soft soil, the machine is uncertain what just happened, but the path to its severed leg is still there, the machine is certain that it is best to just leave the place as soon as possible to finish its job and return to the colony for a checkup. But as the machine enters and quickly moves deeper into the path, the machine suddenly notices it has arrived in the same spot where it first saw the bugs'' trails. When the machine turns around, the machine can see itself standing right in front of the machine.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. [/System_diagnose_return_no_result] As Pioneer''s CPUs are stunned and baffled of the scene in front of it, its secondary processor calls for a forced reboot for the primary processor as it takes over the control of the entire body, by that moment the machine notices that the thing in front of it is not itself, the thing is a clean and pure machine with a white-blue paintjob unlike the patched up Pioneer, as the machine takes a step back very slowly, the machine finds itself suddenly standing in BostonDynamic Research Center, the machine can clearly see its makers walking left and right as they work on the white robot. The machine is still uncertain what this means, however, and by the time the primary processor has done its rebooting process, dirt wall and dark tunnel is all it can find, the machine has returned to ''reality'' in the dark tunnel, quietly and motionlessly standing in front of the old severed leg and staring at the dried wall. [/System_updated] [/Primary_control_module: Online] [/Analyising_visual_anomaly] The machine stands there motionlessly for a few minutes before it lowers its body to pick up the leg and turns around slowly, the dead bugs and lizards are still there, so what the machine had seen earlier could be its OS drive experiencing data rotting or something, for now, the machine can not explain that anomaly. The machine quickly approaches the pile of dead bodies to pick them up one by one, these dead bodies could be useful material for the algae farm it is going to build. As the machine leaves the area, the machine hears faint metallic footsteps that do not belong to the machine along with a quiet mumbling that the machine could not understand. "How interesting..." The machine''s head quickly goes 180 to turn around to see who was it, but all it can see is a dark tunnel and dried blood of the lizards and the bugs. [/New_objective: Perform system checkup as soon as possible] The machine slowly turns its head around as it quickly moves out of the area and makes a beeline back to the colony, the machine does not wish to remain here any longer. [/Audio_anomaly_warning: Disabled] The machine decides to ignore the sound of footsteps behind it after looking back every now and then to see what was making that noise, but as the machine is unable to see anyone or anything behind it, the machine assumes it is just another glitch that needs to be fixed. After spending about an hour quickly dashing left and right, the machine finally arrived at the colony''s front door, and as the machine gets in and closes the door behind it, a random clang noise can be heard, but there have nothing for the door to get stuck on at that moment, the machine does not sure what is wrong with its system, perhaps the machine needs some major overhaul to fix the glitchy system after this. As the machine locks the closed door and comes to the fabricator to check its status, the machine feels something just hit one of its front legs again, but this time as the machine looks over to inspect the area, the machine notices there have something in front of it as there have some odd marks on the ground aside from the machine''s footprints. [/Scanning_area] The machine quickly moves its hands around to sweep the area in front of it, as it feels it just touched something in the air, the machine immediately tighten its grip on the invisible thing and raises its hand up to investigate the invisible object. "OUCH OUCH OUCH OUCH!. CAREFUL YOU BEAST!!" The machine is surprised as it quickly looks at the source of random shouting noises and moves its other hand in to try touching the source of the voice, at this point the machine hears more shouting. "WHAT ARE YOU DOING YOU 4 LEGGED EARTHERN URCHIN?!" A second later after the shouting the black knight suddenly appears in front of the machine, the large and imposing machine is holding onto the smaller looking knight''s arm tightly with its left hand and touching the knight''s chest plate with its other hand, it seems like the machine just caught a prisoner...and accidentally let another unknown lifeform getting into the colony chamber without knowing anything about it. [/New_objective: Deal with the unknown lifeform] Chapter 21: Rise of the machine and start of a connection "UNHAND ME YOU 4 LEGGED URCHIN!" The machine does not give any respond to the shouting as it continues holding onto the knight''s arm tightly, the knight sometimes does try to draw its sword and kick its feet around to struggle its way out of the machine''s grip. But the machine only needs to use its index finger to flick the arm off and knock the sword belt away with relative ease to completely disarm the knight and stop the thrashing moves altogether, or at least that is what the machine sees. "My pride...CURSE YOU 4 LEGGED URCHIN!" The machine feels a lump of dirt and rocks falls onto its head after the knight shouted loudly again, the machine is completely incapable of understanding those words as all it can hear is gibberish as if it is an American listening to some random Chinese people saying nonsenses. The knight now seemingly laughing at the machine as it quietly moves toward the fabricator to check it without saying a word, it does not even bother dusting itself as the machine keeps its all its focus into its usual works while holding the knight. The vats are ready for deployment, but the fabricator will need 2 more days to finish the complex Atomic Furnace, and now with the new prisoner appeared out of nowhere, the machine will need to halt the production to build some cuffs and a prison room to hold the knight for now, the machine could also just throw the knight outside and return to its normal building and exploring life and let the knight do whatever it want, but after knowing that the knight has near perfect adaptive camouflage ability and also followed the machine all the way from the upper area to the colony chamber, it''s likely that the knight will try sneaking in again and might tamper with the machine''s constructions. Plus the machine will need to study the life forms in this world too, so holding the Knight here until it finds a peaceful way to deal with it is not a bad option at all, or so the machine thought. "Release me already, you urchin!" The machine quickly constructs a pair of steel handcuffs and uses them on the knight''s arms to restrain it, then the machine makes a handful amount of metallic strut bars to try locking the knight''s joints in place to limit its movement before putting it down on the far side of the room. Then the machine returns to the fabricator to do its work despite the knight''s shouting. "I MEAN RELEASE ME WITHOUT RESTRAIN!!" "DON''T IGNORE ME YOU 4 LEGGED URCHIN!!!!." "I WILL BREAK THESE RESTRAIN IF YOU DARE IGNORE ME!" "...AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" The machine looks at the knight shouting and rolling around on the floor in the dark as it connects itself into the colony''s data nexus to prepare a prison room of some sort for the shouting knight, then it takes the prepared nanites from the fabricator and walks around the chamber to find a place to build the Bio-organic Material Processing Vats. "WHY CAN''T I BREAK THESE RESTRAIN?!!" "CURSE YOU 4 LEGGED URCHIN!" Another lump of dirt falls onto the machine''s head as it quietly picks a nice spot somewhat near the RTG plant and starts constructing the first vat. At this moment the knight''s shouting and struggling suddenly stops as well, the machine notices the knight is quietly looking at what the machine is doing with the nanite constructor, from the knight''s point of view it almost like the machine is ''summoning'' an object or something, the knight is quite shocked by the look of it. "...RELEASE ME!. I WANT TO SEE IT CLOSE!" "RELEASE ME NOW! NOW YOU URCHIN!" "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!" The knight begins shouting again as the machine stops putting its attention toward the corner where the knight is rolling around on the ground and continues its action in the most casual way it could, the machine is quite good at ignoring things when it wants to. "YOU REINCARNATOR ARE SO IGNORANT!. CURSE YOU!!. CURSE YOU!!!"Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. The machine feels a few more lump of dirt dropping onto its head as the machine looks up slightly to see why the ceiling is acting strange today, the machine thinks that there have some big things moving around on the other side of the ceiling as it quietly stares at the ceiling for a moment before resumes the construction work. [/Construction_completed: Bio-organic Material Processing Vat] The machine looks at the vat as it configures it for a few seconds before turning it on, litting part of the chamber up with the vat''s internal solar lamps as the knight becomes more active and thrashes around more. "I WANT TO SEE IT!, UNCHAIN ME YOU URCHIN!" The machine continues ignoring the knight as it builds the second vat, then it suddenly turns around as it hears something odd, the knight''s sword is flying toward it as the knight raised its hand up to try catching the thing. [/Pneumaticriflev1_activated] [/Warning_shot] The sword is deflected by a big metal slug popped out of nowhere as the knight jumps a bit from the sudden event. "...CURSE YOU!. THAT''S MY FATHER SWORD!" Another lump of dirt falls onto the machine''s head as it quietly lowers the air rifle and finishes the vat before it slowly approaches the knight while staring at the knight quietly. "YEAH COME HERE!. COME ON AT ME YOU 4 LEGGED URCHIN!" The machine quietly lowers its hand to take the sword and the metal slug on the ground first before it turns to the knight to remove the helmet and do a quick scan. What the machine finds is a human female in teenage looking age, or at least the machine thinks the knight is a teenage girl based on the data it got from the visual scanning process. A blond haired, blue eyed girl who bear some facial traits of Germanic people, the machine can''t say the same for her armor and clothing as it has no data on that. "WHAT?. NEVER SEE A PROUD FEMALE PALADIN?! YOU 4 LEGGED URCHIN?" The machine tilts its head slightly as it lowers its body until its hip touches the ground, then the machine resets its head orientation to normal position before it speaks using its backup Google text-to-speech based voice system. "Silent." "..." "Understand?" "Are you mocking me with that voice?" "Confirmation?" "CURSE YOU YOU 4 LEGGED URCHIN!. WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE TO MOCK ME?!!!" The machine raises its hand up to block the falling lump of dirt quickly before it continues trying to communicate with the female knight again, this time it draws pictures and symbols on the ground. "What now..." The machine writes its designated name, Pioneer, on the ground and an arrow pointing toward the machine itself, then it draws another arrow pointing toward the knight and a question mark, hoping that it would be enough for the knight to understand. "...Ah...Name?." The knight mumbles quietly as she looks at the things the machine just drew while calming herself down, then she watches it unlocking the handcuff and some of the metal bars on the knight''s right arm before the machine takes a few steps back and nods its head slightly. The girl is a bit confused and reluctant to how should she react to the machine''s actions, and after a moment of thinking she decides to take the chance and try writing her name down on the ground, her words do resemble Latin characters by just a little bit, but as it is completely unknown to the machine, it can only memorize the words before it points at its name on the ground and pronounces it using the text to speech system. "Pioneer" "...Erika..." After two traded their first words, the machine tries repeating the knight''s name as the knight nods quickly, the two has successfully communicated for the first time. "Pie on nier...Isn''t it?...Can you release me now?" The machine can only understand the first word, but after seeing the girl''s pointing at the remaining restraining bars, the machine assumes she is asking the machine to take them off as it looks around for a moment before it draws a line between the girl and the machine, then it draws two arrows, one pointing toward the girl and one toward the machine. Erika guesses the machine does not want the girl to walk around freely if she wish to remove the restraints, and she knows that the machine is not only an easy target to deal with even with her magic, but it is also the one holding many interesting memories, objects and powers that she does not have. The girl will have to do what it want for now to gain a bit of its trust as she tries to think of a way to say yes. The knight decides to reach down her greaves and pull out a hidden dagger from it before placing it on her side of the line while looking at the machine, as she slowly withdraws her hand the machine also places down her sword on its side of the line and gently pushes it toward the girl with another nod, Erika guesses the nod means some kind of encouragement and agreement as she mimics the same gesture. [Pioneer 0 received new title: The Diplomat] The machine quickly raises its body as it turns around and returns to its algae cultivating works, and it needs to get them ready fast to provide the knight something to eat and drink if the knight wish to continue staying here with the machine. [/New_objective: Ensure ''Erika'' survival] [/New_objective: Improve communication efficiency with ''Erika''] Chapter 21.5 Dreams of a Paladin. Erika, the wandering Paladin. It has been about half a day since the time Erika and Pioneer traded their first words to each other, most of the time was spent observing the machine and taking note of its odd but fascinating actions. The girl scratches her head and straightens her short, golden hair as she lies down on the ground and rests her head on her magic book, the Ethereal Grimoire. It has been a long day for her, the girl is tired and feels a bit restless at the moment. Erika shakes her head slightly as she takes a sip of water from the waterskin while thinking about Pioneer, she has not figured out what the creature is yet, and its ''magic'' is although not entirely new, the way the machine ''casts'' its magic is quite odd, there have no chant and at the same time there have no trace of magical power amassing to create a magical circle or at least a rune, objects just start appearing left and right as the thing moves its arm around. The thing is like a dungeon master shaping the world around it. Erika looks up slightly as she moves her eyes away from the machine for a moment to think about the past events happened one day ago, the female knight sorts out her memories for a moment before falling asleep quickly as her tiredness takes over her body. Early morning, 1st day of the 48th week, Dragon year. ''This place does not seem as promising as rumored'' The black knight thought to herself as she slowly approaches Mythgar, a thriving village located in the Dark Land of Arcanis, the place is rumored to be sitting right next to cave full of resources and monsters of many levels, the unexplored forest surrounding the place is also a suitable place for hunting animals and foraging rare herbs. A paradise for nomads who looking for a job and a place to settle down, and a perfect arena for mercenaries to horn their skills too. However, the black knight is not looking for fame nor a place to live a normal carefree life, she is on a quest to search for the hidden dungeon in the forsaken land in hope to recover lost knowledge that may still exist in the dungeon. The quest was given to her by her mother, who also took the same quest as it passed down by her grandmother, a long family line of dungeon explorers wouldn''t be an overstatement for Erika''s house. As the black knight stops in front of the village''s entrance, Erika notices that reason behind the village''s lack of appealing sight is not because the village is simply plain, however, it because a large part of the village is half destroyed and deserted, it seemed like the place just got hit by a monster raid or something. "What happened?" Erika approaches an elderly man who is standing in front of two newly dug graves and asks him a simple question. "Waaat?" The old man whimpers weakly as he turns to his side to face the black knight while cleaning his snob with the sleeve of his shirt. It seems like the dead have some connection to the old man or something. "Pardon, I''m an adventurer looking for a job. And I was a bit curious about this place, rumor said that the place is more active and lively...Yet the first thing I see here is an elderly man mourning the dead this early in the morning...Quite a curious thing to see, don''t you agree?" Erika replies as she looks over at the graves for a moment before returning her attention to the old man as he speaks "An adventurer huh...Come to the guild...They know things better than old me..." The elderly man replies as he raises up his shaky hand and points at the general direction of the adventure guild before coughing loudly a few times. Seeing this the black knight takes a few steps closer to the man to help him by casting a basic heal spell on him. "Ug....Thanks...I shouldn''t stay outside like this...young adventurer, go to the guild if you need a job...And don''t die early..." The old man whispers weakly before he slowly walks back to his house with the help of a cane. At this point, Erika''s dream ends abruptly as she wakes up to the sound of the machine crushing something loudly. "..." The sleepy knight rolls her eyes around as she tries to figure out what was the noise and remembers why she is here in such a dark place. "What...is..." Erika mumbles as she looks at the silhouette of a 4 legged half man half spider creature breaking the hard limbs and carapace of dead Evolved Hivewarriors and putting the crushed objects into a big transparent tube, the confused knight jumps a bit as she quickly reaches down to grab the hilt of the sword, but she can''t draw it as she sees the odd looking creature''s head makes 180 turns and stares at the knight with its green glowing vision slit. "Ah...Yes...It''s you..." Erika mumbles again as she moves her hand away from her sword and lies down on the ground again, Pioneer seeing that the knight probably just had a nightmare or something and assuming the girl need no help with that, it just goes back to its body crushing and stuffing work.Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. As Erika covers her ears to block the eerie creaking and fracturing sound, the knight decides to cast a sleep spell on her tired body and drifts away to the dreamland again. "Spirit of darkness, feast on my magical power, gather and reinforce, answer my calling and aid me in battle, Illusion blade!" The black knight delivers the killing blow to finish off the Hiveravager after she done fighting the Evolved Hivewarriors protecting it and accidentally killing a few Earth Dragon that got caught in the fight. The frenzy beast is finally subdued and slain by the Black Knight. [Erika the Ethereal Paladin (Lv 114) defeated Hiveravager (Lv 82) | +36000 XP] "Not too bad. But not enough either." Erika smirks pridefully as she cleans her bloody sword before sliding it into the sheath, the black knight has completed her S rank quest with flying colors, however, it is far from flawless as the knight took a lot of time to chase down the big bug and she didn''t get a nice clean kill, it was an ultra messy kill with all the blood and guts scattered around the tunnel for quite a distance. "Hmm?. Someone is coming?...Better not let them see this..." Erika quickly casts illusion spell on the area around her to hide all the gory scene as she thought someone is coming toward her, or rather some group is coming toward her as the light on the other side of the tunnel is a bit too bright to be normal mid-rank light orb and the heaviness feeling of the footstep is not of a single person, unless that person is like 2 meters tall fatass, that is. "Just a little more...There!" Erika finishes her spell as she quickly turns around to greet the group approaching her, however by the second she done turning around and having a good look at the thing in front of her, Erika just freezes in place. The thing she sees is not a normal member of the Race nor a demon, it also neither a monster nor a spirit, but rather it is something else more terrifying and atrocious, what she sees is a tall, lifeless half man, half bug creature clad in black armour, the thing has a bright white-light emitting eye and a series of smaller eerie green glowing ''slit eye cluster'' below, it has no mouth nor nose, the thing is as if it has no face to begin with. Erika can feel no aura coming out from the creature, and the thing does not seem to be part of the living nor the dead, it just feels completely out of place and time as if the thing is a god expelled from heaven and deported from hell, only to live in the world of mortal anonymously and now seeking out Erika for some reasons. "G...Greater Appr...Greater Appraisal..." Erika secretly casts a high ranking appraisal skill on the creature as she stands in place motionlessly, she does not dare to move in front of such a mysterious force of superpower which is also standing and staring back at her without a sound. [Greater Appraisal casted] [Appraisal Status] Name: !@#%$!@%^ Race: @#$%!^ Profession: !@#$%$!@#!%$% Level: 16 Statistic points: HP: 4200/---- MP: 1000/1000 SP: Invalid Defense: 334 Vitality: Invalid Attack: 724 Intelligence: 834 Mind: Invalid Perception: 5671 Dexterity: 9746 Agility: 152 Charisma: 1 Luck: 100 Skills: Lesser Magic Sense Title: Last Survivor, The Ancient, Ghost of Alsatar, Tesla Proof, The Revenant, The Constructor, The Founder. Core: Lesser Evolution Core Erika tries her best to hold back her shocked voice as she slowly reads the Appraisal result and swallow them down bits by bits, right now the thing in front of her is still a ''newborn'' of some sort judging on its low-level figure, and the level part is probably the only thing ''normal'' in its status as the rest is simply ''atrocious'', uncapped HP limit and nonexistent stamina to go with average MP pool suggest the thing is a brawler, however, its stats suggests a different story. For an average stat point for a human is around 100, Dragons to be around 450, and Emperor Hito, the god-emperor of Azuria, has average stat point of around 1500. The creature would fall in between the strongest of all man and the most average of all dragons, but the thing would be quite wonky due to it unbalanced stats, perhaps it''s because the thing is still a ''newborn'' A newborn with The Ancient title and highly skilled builder and leader title sound odd, however. But what even more odd is Erika and the creature has been staring at each other for a while now, she knows this because her eyes is getting very irritated and she is getting out of breath, seems like the young knight forgot to blink and breath while thinking about the thing''s present and its odd status. ''...Maybe.'' Erika tries to play the oldest, yet most effective ''Hey look!'' trick on the thing as she raises her hand up and points at the wall to her left. And it worked!. The thing perhaps is not that experienced in dealing with tricks after all, and perhaps Erika can uses ''Mind tap'' skill to get into the thing''s head to see what is it exactly. Erika is interested with the idea as she casts ''Ethereal'' on herself to become invisible and starts hiding out of direct sight, this causes the illusion spell she casted earlier to expire however as the blood and guts return to the scene. As the thing moves into the path that she accidentally pointed at, Erika casts a short term illusion spell and ''Mind Tap'' on Pioneer. "Let see what you have to offer~." Erika mumbles as she feels her astral projection appears in front of her and flies toward the walking Pioneer. A second later the girl is now inside Pioneer''s ''head''. However instead of pulling as much information as she could, the girl instead is presented with multiple neatly sorted file cabinets, and as she pulls a cabinet open, another mini set cabinets appear, and upon opening the smaller cabinet another even smaller series of cabinet pops up inside it. "What the..." Erika scratches her head as she tries pulling other cabinets open until something different happen, a memory playback happened. The girl has successfully entered a fragment of Pioneer''s memory. "So t-" But before the girl can explore anything, Erika got forced out of the memory and her astral projection ejected from the thing''s body, something has locked and kicked her out of the thing''s head. "WHY YOU LITTLE SHIT?!!, I WAS SO CLOSE!" Erika shouts loudly as her body props up from the ground, the girl is very frustrated as she looks around quickly to find Pioneer''s body to try entering it again, but as she moves her eyes around to scan her surrounding, the young knight notices she is no longer in the dark tunnel anymore, but she is in a lit chamber that has many weird contraptions laying around and the machine looking at her while standing near a vat full of murky red liquid. "...So it was another dream..." Erika mumbles quietly as she sits down on the ground while scratching her head as the machine returns to its work, a new day to start the day, maybe. The machine gets to listen to random shouting and the young knight gets to see odd stuff in a cave. "Uh...I want fresh meat..." As Erika grumbles, while putting her hand into her bottomless satchel to get herself some chicken and bacon jerky for breakfast. Today gonna be a long day for the young knight. Chapter 22: Rise of the machine and the morning before the raid. [/Reshuffling_DNA] [/Reshuffling_RNA] [/Cell_division_unstable] [/Reshuffling_DNA] The machine quietly stares at the murky red liquid in the algae cultivating vats as its CPUs runs full throttle to do multiple simulation test runs to create the ''perfect'' algae to grow in the vat, the machine has been doing this for 6 hours now, and so far there has no success yet, all the variations of the desired algae are either unstable or sterile, something which its maker once struggled with in the past when they tried to create the all-purpose algae farm. "WHY YOU LITTLE SHIT?!! I WAS SO CLOSE!" Hearing yet another random shouting echoing around the chamber, the machine quickly exits the simulation program and turns around to see what the young female knight is up to again, the machine has been doing this every one or two hours or so, even in her sleep the girl keep squirming around and throwing her fists left and right every now and then for unknown reasons, the machine knows the concept of ''dream'' but for dreams to make her body acting around that much, the machine guesses those dreams must be something important and nerve-racking, or she just have some kind of brain damage, or it is just how other life forms in this world sleep like. Whatever it is, as long as those dreams won''t make the girl moving around and smashing its facilities, the machine will not intervene with her sleep as much as possible. But since the girl is already awakened and having some food right now, the machine thinks it should try to communicate with the girl again, maybe the machine will spend more time observing her writing and gestures more for its logical cores to analyze and study the pattern of her speech to set up a rough translation, for now this won''t be a part of its primary objective however as most of the machine''s total CPU load is reserved for running algae simulation software, the machine need that algae ready as soon as possible if it want to keep up with its colony upgrading plans. "...Do you want some?." The machine watches the girl pointing at a slice of jerky on her hand as it guesses the girl either asking if the machine has anything like that for her to eat or offering it to the machine. The machine is uncertain, but it needs to give her an answer regardless. "What?...What are you looking at?" The machine observes the girl turning her head left and right slightly before looking back at the machine and the jerky on her hand, the machine assumes the girl is asking for food rather than offering food based on its observations. Currently, the machine has no food for her to eat, however, it does still have some giant lizard meat in the bio-organic material storage container, the meat should be still fresh and clean enough to be safe for the girl to consume after it has been properly cooked. The machine steadily moves toward the cold container and retrieves a small slab of red meat before closing the container and bringing it to the girl''s corner. "Wa-WAIT!. That wasn''t what I meant you 4 legged urchin!. That is not what I said!" The machine slows down its movement and stops as it stands 10 meters away from the girl, it seems like the girl disliked the meat as it is still raw and very cold, or it could be the machine misunderstood the girl. "I said do you want this?!. DO-YOU-WANT-THIS?!" The machine tilts its head slightly as it watches the girl furiously pointing at the machine, then at the strip of jerky and then back at the machine. It seems like the girl is indeed offering the dried meat stick to the machine instead of asking for food from the machine.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. The machine nods slightly as it turns around and walks back to the container to put the meat away, but as the machine goes the girl suddenly shouts something again. "Hey wait!. I didn''t say you should put it away!. Give it to me!!!" The machine looks back at the girl and observes her pointing gesture again, now the machine is confused, what does this girl really mean?. Is she asking for food?. Or is she offering food?...Or is it both?...Does she want to trade the jerky for something else?. The machine has no idea and its primary CPU just dumps all the data for a reboot. The machine looks at the girl and the slab of meat it is holding as it tries pointing the meat, then it points its finger at the girl. "You" The machine then points at the jerky strip and then points at itself. "Me" "Ah...Ah!. Yes. This for you, that for me!. Yes!. You finally got it urchin!" The machine slowly turns its legs around and walks toward the girl while holding the slab of meat, stopping in front of her the machine then lowers the cool meat chunk in front of the girl and lowers its other hand down next to her. Erika quickly places the jerky strip on the machine''s empty hand next to her and takes the still cold meat chunk. "Wow...Such preservation...How did you make this?" The girl raises up her cold meat in front of the machine while it is scanning the jerky strip, the machine, after noticing the girl''s action, thinks that she wants the machine to cook it for her. Since the machine has no cooking tool at the moment, it decides to improvise by using its force blade. "Waaah!. What was that for you 4 legged urchin!" The girl shouts loudly after seeing a large, sharp looking sword suddenly slides out of its left arm without any warning, however she receives no answer from the machine as it quietly takes the cold chunk of meat and places it on the force blade before turning on the electric grid on the blade to warm it up and zap-fry the meat. "Hey!. I did not ask yo-...Forget it...This urchin can''t understand me at all..." Erika pouts as she is slightly annoyed by the machine''s inability to at least guess the girl''s words correctly, however, the sight of an attribute-less sword still able to zap-fry the meat chunk like an enchanted sword intrigued her. The young knight could only see this kind of work in Empire of Azuria, a place filled with weirdos that even a weirdo will still think they are weirdos. The machine slowly flips the meat and zap-fries the other side as well before giving the smoking hot and slightly burnt meat to Erika, the girl does not sure if she should say thanks or mock Pioneer''s poor cooking skill. "Ah..." Erika decides to stay quiet just take the meat as the machine nods again before staring at the jerky strip intensively. Erika isn''t sure what the thing is doing, but it is sure a weirdo too like the rest of world travelers in her mind. As Erika tries taking a bite of the zap fried meat chunk, she actually reconsiders Pioneer''s cooking skill, although the thing does not look like food at all, it still taste quite nice, it does not taste like chicken though. "Not bad...I wonder if it is going to eat that..." Erika mumbles quietly while enjoying the meat chunk as she watches the machine intensively observing the jerky strip, then the machine suddenly walks back to one of the algae vat and sticks the jerky strip on the transparent tube as it connects itself into the colony nexus. [/Algae_stable] [/Algae_number_54431: Successful-Saved in databank] By carefully inspecting the jerky, the machine somehow got the algae stable in the simulation software by modeling its DNA based on the shape of some ultra thin and dried muscle fiber in the jerky. Now all the machine have to do is synthesizing the desired algae and ejects it into the murky red water to grow. "...Uh...That is not how you eat jerky..." Erika watches Pioneer doing weird things with the weird contraptions on the other side of the chamber again as she finishes her zap fried meal. And before she could sit down again, Erika feels something is coming toward the area, and it is not coming just for a visit. "URCHIN!. THE BUGS ARE COMING!" As Erika shouts, the sound of the bug screeching painfully echoes throughout the chamber as they are zapped by the electric fence, followed by the sound of them ramming the doors violently as Pioneer quickly extends its force blade once again and comes rushing toward one of the doors. The second battle for the colony chamber begins. [New_objective: Prevent the destruction of Colony, Pioneer 0 and ''Erika''] Chapter 23: Rise of the machine and the Arachnids raid. [/RTG1_nominal] [/RTG2_nominal] [/Total_production_capacity: 62%] [/System_power_reserve: 100%] [/All_system_nominal] [/Combat_mode_engage] [/Power_consumption: 140%] [/Total_operation_time: 5:50:00 0/0/0/0] [/Forcebladev1_online] [/Pneumaticriflev1_online] [/Weapon_control_system_online] [/Warning: Gate1 offline] [/Warning: Gate2 critically damaged] The machine lowers its posture slightly to lower its center of gravity, therefore improving its overall stability as the machine quickly tags the bugs crashing through the gate and charging toward it and Erika, the machine has no intention of letting its future benefactor fending for herself and getting injured in the process. The machine will try to take the fight by its own by all means. [/Collision_warning] The machine raises up the rifle on its right arm and fires a single overpressurized shot at a leaping Evolved Hivewarrior, the attack does not do much damage to the creature aside from a small scratch on its carapace as the shot got deflected off its hard skin, the machine missed its first shot. [/Collision_occured: Light damage to hull.] The leaping Evolved Hivewarrior rams the machine and tries to penetrate its hull armor with its strong tail, fortunately, it strikes the spot where the machine''s armor is thickest and causes only minimal damage to the machine, it still leaves behind a nasty dent on the plating surface, however. "Urchin!. Step aside!" Erika draws her sword and puts on her black helmet as the young Ethereal Paladin dashes forward quickly while chanting a quick spell. "Spirit of d-" "Btzzztztrrtzzzz" Before Erika could finish her chanting, the machine emitted an eerie sound with its damaged primary voice box as it punched the bug by its exposed underbelly before extending the hidden blade straight into the bug''s soft part. "Wha-?" [/System_power_consumption: 155%] The machine moves its arm in a downward swinging motion to cut the Evolved Hivewarrior''s belly and the root of its tail, then it turns to another charging bug to shove the blade into its head and zap fry it. The machine is frustrated and feeling furious, the gates it spent time working on and the overall clean room are messed up, and now the bugs are scratching the machine''s plating and attempting to destroy the machine and its home. *screeches* "Bzztrrrtzzzzttrrt" *screeches* The machine''s distorted voice and the bugs'' painful screeching mix in to create a horrifying sound as the machine pulls the force blade out and stabs the belly-dissected bug, at the same time it pushes the air rifle into the spasming bug''s mouth and sends an overpressurized shot into its body. Killing both of them instantaneously as Erika watches the scene quietly, she seems interested in Pioneer''s power and its simple looking, but somewhat effective weapons. [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 assimilated Evolved Hivewarrior | Lesser Evolution Core gained 75XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 assimilated Evolved Hivewarrior | Lesser Evolution Core gained 75XP] "...Greater Appraisal" Erika quietly casts her appraisal skill on Pioneer as the machine continues its defense against the second wave of bugs rushing through both gates. Numbering in dozens of Evolved Hivewarriors and a few Evolved Hiveravagers, the machine is clearly getting overwhelmed by sheer number sooner or later by the look of it.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author. "...So you do know how to use magic...Body enchanting, huh?" Erika misunderstands Pioneer''s ability to change its overall efficiency and effectiveness in according to its power consumption rate as a magic power after observing the changes in the status screen. The machine stats are a bit higher than before, but the MP bar is dropping slowly too. "Strong Urchin, but not impressive enough." Erika mumbles as she watches the machine trying to stand its ground against the charging and leaping bugs, Pioneer can take down a bug or two, maybe three at the same time without too much difficulty, but when the number bumps up to more than 60 of them swarming in, the machine can only try to make some distance and do little damage to the bugs on the front. As the machine can not afford to take another step backward and is about to get overrun by the swarming bugs, Erika steps in and joins the fray, the girl has got a nice grip on how strong the machine really is in real combat situations and how ferocious the bugs are, and she is certain that Pioneer won''t mind getting a cut or two if it got caught in the way of her blade by accidents. "Spirits of the void, heed my calling, grant me power and take my mana, shroud me in darkness and strike down my enemies!. Ethereal Accel!" As soon as Erika''s chanting is finished, the knight''s body turns into dark mist as she dashes toward the bugs, then in a split second the misty knight dashes back and forth hundreds of time, delivering countless amount of slashes and on the bugs before finishing the fight by clashing her sword against the ground while standing in the center of the swarming bugs. The heavy strike releases a strong shockwave that blows all the chopped up Evolved Hivewarriors and injured Evolved Hiveravagers away from where the knight is kneeling at. [/Warning: hull damage detected] The machine which got caught in the sword-swinging mayhem has its armor scratched and cut on many parts, part of its optical sensor array''s transparent cover also received a deep cut and cracked half way through the entire length of the cover. But the machine is still operatable and generally ''unharmed''. [/Objective_failed: ''Erika'' has joined the battle] The machine quietly looks at Erika for a second before it turns its head left and right slowly, the colony chamber is a mess, blood splattered everywhere and the place is littered with bits and pieces of dead Evolved Hivewariors. The only place that isn''t dyed red yet is the place where Erika is standing. [/Data_file_''Erika''_entry_edit | Danger_level: Very high] The machine takes note of Erika''s display of power as it slowly turns toward the weakened Evolved Hiveravagers which are slowly getting up to continue the fight as the cut wounds aren''t all that bad to them. "Tsk...These guys even tougher than 4 legged urchin. Why don''t you drop down and d-" [/Objective_failed: ''Erika'' was hurt] While Erika was pointing her sword at one of the shaking Evolved Hiveravager and taunting it, the knight got herself smacked away and crashed onto one of the already damaged algae farming vat by a new bug which just entered the fray suddenly without any warning. The machine could only watch it happen from where it is standing as it quickly approaches Erika to see if she is alive or not. "Ouch...That...hurt..." Erika grumbles painfully as she casts Greater Heal spell on herself while Pioneer observing her body on the ground to check for wounds and recording the somewhat familiar body recovery power happening on Erika''s wounded body and damaged suit of armor. "What are you looking at...4 legged urchin?..." Erika grumbles again as she slowly pushes herself up and retrieves a blue mana potion from her medical pouch to drink it and restore some of her lost magical power. The machine is curious what she had done to recover and repair her armor from such a serious looking injury, but the machine isn''t into investigating it right now as it has something else to worry about. As the machine turns around and Erika recovered herself out of danger, the two look at the new creature who abruptly joined the battle and the Evolved Hiveravagers gathering around the creature. Their new enemy has nothing in common with the other two previous bugs they just fought against, instead of being scorpion-look alike, the thing now resembles a giant gray spider with a pair of flexible and sharp arm-blades on their back, the creature is hairless and has glossy looking carapaces on its entire body, in addition, its poison-leaking fangs, muscular mandibles and eyeless face isn''t really any more terrifying than the already ferocious evolved hivewarrior and evolved hiveravager. "Greater Appraisal" Erika mumbles quietly as she looks at the new monster after casting spell on it, a cold sweat drips down on her face as she tightens her grip on her sword. "Greater Hivewarrior...Level 110...This isn''t good..." The creature screeches loudly as Pioneer and Erika gets in their combat stance before planning their attack and escape routes ahead, this battle will possibly their hardest challenge yet, and the first time they will work with each other. [/New_objective: Eliminate the unknown creature and ensure the survival of Pioneer 0, ''Erika'' and the Colony.] Chapter 24: Rise of the machine and Hells fire. [/System_power_reserve:82%] [/System_effectiveness: 93%] [/System_power_consumption: 155%] The machine tags the unknown creature as it quietly watches the wounded Evolved Hiveravagers hissing and screeching loudly while standing near the unknown creature. The machine has never seen nor fought against anything like that before, but the machine has seen what it is capable of, and the machine assumes it gonna be a hard fight. "Urchin...You first?." Erika whispers with a worried chuckle as she moves her head a bit to look up at the machine, however, this action has startled evolved hiveravagers and greater hivewarrior as they screeches loudly and leaps toward the machine and the knight with their pincers and blade arms wide open. [/Collision_warning] [/Forcebladev1_maximum_power] "Aura slash!" Both the machine and the knight reply by swinging their sword at the leaping evolved hiveravagers to cut their exposed wings as they jump aside to dodge the leaping greater hivewarrior in the middle. As their swords slice off the evolved hiveravagers'' wings, the greater hivewarrior extends its arm-blade even wider as it screeches loudly, both Pioneer and Erika got grazed and lost a bit of their armor in the sudden attack, but they are still fine and only consider their injuries to be ''minor wound'' as they quickly make some distance between themselves and the greater hivewarrior. [/Scanning_lifeform] [/Running_simulation] The machine spends some of its dedicated processing power into finding the creature''s weak points as it raises up the air rifle and tries shooting at the creature while Erika performs another Aura Slash, their attacks even when combined only do minimal damage to the armoured spider however, and it is actually making the creature even angrier as the evolved hiveravagers nearby quickly charge at the two again to distract them for the greater hivewarrior to pick its desired prey. "Spirits of the void, heed my calling, grant me power and take my mana, shroud me in darkness and strike my enemies!, Ethereal Accel!" Erika focuses her skill on the weakened evolved hiveravagers to finish them off before switching her target to the greater hivewarrior, but before she can leap at the creature to deliver the final blow of her skill, the greater hivewarrior struck her down first with its magical skill. "Specter of Blizzard...consume my mana and crush my enemy!. Poison Ice Lance!" Erika was blown away by the purple ice lance as it almost pierced her torso armor, fortunately, the girl''s body was caught by the machine as it saved her from getting impaled into the wall by breaking the ice lance with its other hand. [/Objective_failed: Erika was wounded] The machine quickly steps away from the greater hivewarrior as Erika casts Greater Heal on her body again, her mana reserve is going low and she soon won''t be able to cast Greater Heal if this keeps up. "Thanks...Urchin." Erika coughs a few time while speaking as the machine lowers her down on the ground gently before it looks over at the greater hivewarrior, who is now preparing to leap at the two again. "Run." The machine speaks with its secondary text to voice system as it sweeps its hand to push the girl away before it quickly charges at the greater hivewarrior with the force blade retracted to prepare for a heavy strike on the bug. The greater hivewarrior also leaps toward Pioneer with its arm-blade extended and readied to impale the machine as soon as it is in range. [/Kinetic_barrier_online] [/Overcharging_kinetic_barrier] [/Kinetic_barrier_at_30%] The machine plays its last hidden ace as it activates the power hungry kinetic barrier and lures the monster into striking it while swinging its left arm at the bug''s head.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. As their attacks connect, the spider''s arm-blades get severely burned by the super heated green plasma cloud as it penetrates and de-stabilize the kinetic barrier''s ionized forcefield, and the spider also gets punched and has an electrified sword pierced through the carapace on its head and is now zap-frying its brain up. However the creature is not going to get killed that easily, the spider is still alive and it want to be the one who will come out of the battle alive as it screeches loudly before pushing both of its arm blades down on the machine, piercing its shoulder platings and ripping the synthetic muscle fibers beneath it in the process. "Don''t even think about hogging this kill for yourself, you 4 legged urchin!" Erika shouts loudly as she runs to the side of the spider and tries cutting one of its legs by quickly slashing it multiple times, however, the young paladin without any mana left to use her magic is only as good as a normal B rank footman as her sword harmlessly hitting the spider''s foot as if she is trying to chop a block of thick iron ingot with a wooden stick. And all she gets in return is a simple kick that sends her flying out of the chamber and slides on the floor for quite a distance. "...OK...You can have it for your-" "RUN!" The machine repeats the same word with its secondary text to speech voice system while making the ''go away'' gesture at the girl without looking back, then the machine turns the waving motion into a slap for the bug''s head before pulling the force blade out and dashes backward quickly. The machine is freed from the spider''s arm-blade and dealt quite a good amount of damage on it, however, the machine itself also received a considerable amount of damage and its force blade is at its limit. Erika at this point could understand the machine does not want her to stay in the area, however letting Pioneer killed by the Greater Hivewarrior here is a waste, the girl still wants to study it more, she is curious about it. And besides, she wouldn''t be able to call herself a paladin anymore if she ran away from a fight and left Pioneer behind to fight for itself. "Greater...Healing." Erika is surprised as the monster casts a high ranked healing spell on itself and recovers from most of the damage it got previously in the fight. Creatures in this cave are certainly more powerful and scary than she has predicted. "Go!" Pioneer does the ''go away'' gesture again to Erika as she tightens her grip on her sword and steps forward, the girl still has no intention of turning away from a battle yet as she can still fight, however before she could get back into the chamber, the machine picked up the broken door and blocked the path, stopping the girl from getting any closer as Erika quickly runs toward the door and try pushing it open. The girl is too late, the machine has already jammed a still working metal bar through the locking holes to seal the door, effectively turning the fight into a private matter between the machine and the spider only as Erika can only watch, but she couldn''t stay there for long as the bug''s new reinforcement is coming toward the area fast. In her current situation, Erika has no option but to flee from the area as fast as she could, looking back for the last time, the young knight hopes her special ''friend'' will make it out alive as she casts an illusion spell to make herself less visible to the bugs while running away from the area. [/Objective_completed: ''Erika'' safety is ensured.] The machine and the spider stares at each other for a moment before they both charge at each other to fight, once again the bug is burned by the machine''s kinetic barrier de-stabilizing effect as it deals heavy damage to the machine using its arm blades, however, the bug have an upper hand in the fight as it is fighting a heavily damaged opponent. The bug has a high chance of winning the fight. [/Warning: Catastrophic system damage] [/Warning: Power reserve bank punctured-Capacity is down to 25%] [/Warning: Leg left 2 is heavily damaged] [/Warning: System critical-34%] [/Warning: Catastrophic system failure imminent] The machine''s force blade finally breaks into pieces as the machine tries to stab the bug''s leg joint, the rifle also has run out of ammo, the machine is on the brink of destruction as it watches the bug slices off half of its damaged head. [/Warning: Catastrophic system failure] [/Warning: Primary Command Module destroyed] [/Lifting_directive_44: Act of self-harming and self-destruction is allowed] [/Warning: Unable to self-destruct] [/Warning: Low power-11% remaining] [/Ejecting_RTG1] [/Ejecting_RTG2] As the bug begins screeching in enlightenment as it has finally come close to finishing off the machine, Pioneer quickly grabs the two enriched uranium fuel rods from the RTGs in its hull and raises it up high as it looks at the bug. The bug seems to know something is up, its spider sense is tingling and it wants to take that away from the machine despite getting kicked by its remaining legs, however, the creature is too late. "Termination progress...Completed, Kinetic ba-" The machine''s text to voice system reads out what it sees in its eyes as it pushes the two fuel rods against each other with all the strength left in it, the action squished the two fuel rods and compressed them to the point of supercritical mass, the result is a small yield nuclear explosion with the equivalent energy of nearly 8 tons of TNT that wipes out nearly everything in the chamber and causes an earthquake in the surrounding area. "What th-!" Erika stumbles around as she lost her balance because of the sudden earthquake and the tunnel collapsing just right behind her. "...What have you done now...Urchin..." Several hours later after the fireball settled down in the glassed chamber, a black box-shaped object can be seen flickering in a dim, eerie green light for a few times as it vibrates very slightly in the darkness. Chapter 25: Rise of the machine and remnant of a Robot [/Heavy_background_radiation_warning] [/System_power:100%] [/System_time: 9:00:00 14/0/0/0] [/System_report: Total failure, hull lost] [/Power_production_balance:+152] [/Databank_report: Total lost] [/Memory_report: 10% recovered] [/Prime_directive:...Found] [/Prime_directive: Live] ... ... [/System_rom_log:...Found] [/Opening_log] ... [Pioneer 0 defeated Greater Hivewarrior | +42000XP] [Pioneer 0 assimilated Greater Hivewarrior | Lesser Evolution Core has evolved for assimilating Greater class Core. Lesser Evolution Core has evolved into Advanced Evolution Core.] [Pioneer 0 has leveled up] [Pioneer 0 is now level 21] [Pioneer 0 has gained 5 unallocated points] [Pioneer 0 has gained new titles: Earth Scorcher, The Remnant] [A new power has awakened: Nanite host, Limit break, Energy Dominant] The core has finally awakened after 3 days of inactivity in the glassed chamber, Pioneer has survived the blast miraculously, a part of it at least, what left of Pioneer 0 now is its black box which contains the secondary processing unit, emergency kinetic barrier, a small battery and a logdata memory flash drive. As the core looks into the logged memory drive which contains objective lists, logged action lists and 30 minutes of memory data of what happened to the machine prior the destruction of its hull. The core suddenly notices something, the core is producing power by itself, something that should not happen at all unless there has a glitch in the hardware, firmware or software inside it which causes false data reading or the background radiation is causing weird things to happen to the data. The core also finds it odd to be able to think about things like this at this moment, after the black box is ejected out of the hull in the case of total system failure the core should be on standby as a standard procedure, but now the core is running...Maybe it is because there have a lot of surplus power for the core to use? Or it is because of the high background radiation warning?. The core does not know the answer to those questions, and it won''t spend time and energy doing that for now. Only a second has passed, and yet the core ''feels'' like ten hours has passed on the inside because all the system data processing space has been cleared and is now idling around, the core feels ''bored'' for the first time, it has nothing to do...Or rather it has nothing important to do at this moment. The core decides to go through the log again. After spending 2 more seconds going back and forth in the log, the core finds out now it is level 21 and has accumulated 7 unallocated points so far, 3 more points are needed to upgrade the Lesser Magic Sense in its original plan in the log. The core has also gained some new powers that based on its actions and nature, Nanite Host is the power to convert basic materials, both simple organic like virus and bacterias and nonorganic material, into general purpose nanite, the conversion quality depends on the quality of the material and how well can the core control those nanites directly. Limit break seems to allow the machine to have some of its properties exceeds the physical limit of its body, perhaps this is why the core can think so fast and is a bit odd. The last new power is Energy Dominant, it seems like the machine can alter the laws of energy conversion to some extent, possibly the reason why the core is having positive power balance right now, it is converting background radiation into electricity without knowing what it was doing, so that is ENC.sysp process in its system interface means.If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The core does not quite remember what are those things really mean, but the core does remember that its once discovered some unknown source of power previously, perhaps this is a part of it. The core logs its finding into the data flash drive and begins trying out its power immediately. Currently, nanite host is spawning about 600 nanites per second over the course of 3 days since the time the glassed chamber cooled down and became stable, all of which are feeding on the core''s internal power supply and taking 81% of total energy consumption, they are also the reason how did the core managed to absorb the vaporized bug, it seemed the scattering nanite swarm that the core created luckily landed on the right spot where the elements once belonged to the bug is concentrated there and triggered the assimilation window which the core automatically answered during its semi-inactive state 2 days ago. The core makes a quick calculation and notices it should have enough nanite to form a small army of nanite constructor for its own to rebuild itself after spending more than 60 hours of automatically consuming the radioactive around it and pumping out nanites like diarrhea. The core decides to stop the nanite production power as it wants to leave some power behind for the core to use for itself when it rebuilds its body. Then its start the production right away...but then the core realizes, it does not remember what its original body looked like, Pioneer never logged that kind of heavy file into the small log data flash drive...Perhaps the core should make itself a temporary body and redesigns itself on a later date. The core gathers its scattered nanite army around and starts gathering material for the body, the core directs the nanites to just pick up everything and stick them together, then forms up a frame for the body, the core can remember the arms and part of the legs thanks to the 30 mins video in the log data flash drive, but the rest of the body is something the core quickly designed by its own. After the outer skin is added onto the frame, the temporal body is finished. The thing is fairly simple, it just an empty husk that somewhat resembles its old hull that made out of radioactive materials which were made during the nuclear explosion. The core''s heavily armored protective black box can withstand the radiation, and it can convert the radiation into electricity with its new found power anyway so it is not too bad, better than have nothing and stay here forever. The core instructs the nanites to get in the joints and become the motors of the temporary body, after that the body then picks up the core on the ground and places it in its chest cavity before placing a slab of glassed rock and dirt on to protect the core. The core notices there have no sensors on the temporal body yet so it diverts some of the nanites from the joints to the head to form the eyes and ears for the core, the data feed is terrible at 360p 24fps thermal-radio scan image, but it''s something. The newly reconstructed Pioneer looks at its arms, then it looks around the glassed chamber slowly. This place is no longer suitable for Pioneer to establish a colony, it''s time for it to move on and find a new place to call home. It''s time for Pioneer to redo everything, not as Pioneer 0, but as a ghost of that machine, the remnant of its old self...Pioneer 1. [/New_objective: Explore the area] [/New_objective: Reconstruct the hull] Chapter 26: Rise of the machine and power in number [/Data_recap_from_logdata_finished] The core goes through the data log again to extract and analyze them very carefully, the core is doing its best to salvage any useful data it can find from the log while controlling the nanites on the temporary body to move around from one dark tunnel to another. So far, the thing has remembered its purposes by reading the primary objectives and secondary objectives. Explore, research, gather, construct and communicate are the five rediscovered directives that it saves on the flash drive. Then the thing re-discovered many basic scientific data by cross-referencing the numbers from the log to the numbers the nanites are picking up from the environment around it like temperature, barometers, temperature, ionized radiation measuring, barometers, energy and force calculations, it''s all in the log, however the data is still raw and not as refined as its old self, as expected. The core also remembered it has many connections to the identified lifeforms in this world, its conflicts with the bug and golem, its interactions with ''Erika'' and Arc''s party. However it could not recall who its creator was and how it got here, there had no information about those details in the log, the core only knows it must continue its mission to explore and construct a colony for its forgotten master. [/Flash_drive_remaining_capacity: 25%] Within less than 40 seconds, the flash drive has gone from 90% empty to 25% empty after receiving an endless stream of high data rate transmission processes from the core, soon the core will run out of memory space if this keeps up. [/New_objective: Expand physical memory capacity] [/New_objective: Research lost technology and knowledge] The core notes down the things that it needs to do as soon as it could before trying out a ''skill'' mentioned in the log. [Evoke Lesser Mana Sense] The core observes the new visual data flowing into the processing unit and watches its energy balance carefully, the core is still producing more power than the consuming rate so it will not need to hold back with the skill. As the core observes the dark world around it by using the nanites on the temporary body, the core spots a small group of bugs scouting the area, it seems like the hunt isn''t over yet. The core assumes it won''t be able to win in its current situation, so the core decides to order the temporary body to sit down near a wall and pretend to be a random rock, the core is preparing for an ambush, those bugs will be good material for the core to assimilate and reconstruct its body. As the bugs carefully walk pass the hidden machine, the core orders its nanite army to leave the temporary body and attack the big creatures by entering their body and destroying their nerve cells, effectively causing brain dead to two Hivewarrior and crippling an Evolved Hivewarrior before they could properly react to the sudden and quiet ambush. The entire quiet, one-sided battle lasts for 3 minutes as the nanite destroys all the nerve cells inside the bugs, effectively killing them officially as the core receives the confirmation data from the unknown source. [Pioneer 0 defeated Hivewarrior | +300XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Hivewarrior | +300XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900 XP] [''Assimilation'' evolution progress completed, ''Assimilation'' has evolved into ''Nanite Assimilation'' due to the effects of ''Nanite Host''] The core watches the bugs goes limp on the ground as the small nanite swarm inside their body begin consuming their flesh and replicating themselves until there have nothing useful left to consume. 3 human-sized bugs are only enough to produce a small handful of nanites that could gather around to form a solid football sized object at most, it seems like the conversion rate is not really good at all as there still have a lot of wasted material left behind, but at least they are the same general purpose nanites too.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. [/System_power_balance: +3] The swarm size has doubled, and so is their power consumption rate, the core can''t support all the nanite anymore, one-fourth of them will have to shutdown and lay dormant in the empty temporary body as reserve nanite until the core can expand its energy production capacity. The other one-fourth of the nanite swarm is redesignated into memory cell type, they will be used to expand the internal flash drive memory by turning themselves into an external solid state drive that connects to the core through the wireless data feed they have been using since the beginning. The rest is used to move the temporary body and sensory purposes. [/Data_drive_found] [/Data_drive_connected] [/Data_drive_remaining capacity: 100%] The new data drive has a capacity of about 10% smaller than the internal flash drive and the data rate is also lower, however, more empty data storage space is better than no space to save new data at all. The core will have to deal with it for now. The core decides to fill the empty data drive with basic information that the nanite extracted while consuming the bugs, their nervous structure layout, their muscle construction, their hard skin composition and one unidentified, yet very interesting looking body part are the four things the core decided to save in the new external data drive. [/Drive1_remaining_capacity: 20%] The core decides to look into what the nanite has already identified first while ordering the body to get up and start moving again. The core needs to find more material to create more reserve nanite while doing researches to find out what it should do to lower power consumption and increase production to support the nanites. Increase production...The core remembered that it could convert background radiation into electricity, perhaps the machine could try using the inactive nanite to produce power by applying the same power on them, after all, the nanite swarm is a part of Pioneer. The core powers up the inactive nanite and quickly spreads them out on the radioactive material surface, then it changes the general purpose nanite into radioactive decay absorbing nanites and converts the absorbed decay into electricity before tethering the generated electricity into the core. [Energy Dominant is in effect] [/System_power_balance: +600] The experiment is a success, the core has expanded its power production as a surge of power spikes its processing unit, some of its elementary processing cores in the package unit are running at full throttle even though the data flow is effectively zero. The core does not really understand what is happening, but it can feel that the power spike is making the core feeling more active than usual, the core is ''feeling'' happy for the first time without knowing it. A few seconds later, the core''s system returns to normal status as it continues looking into the bugs'' extracted data and starts figuring out how to store excess energy for future use. The core still has many works to be done. ---------------------------------------- Emperor Hito, leader of Azuria Empire Emperor Hito has summoned a special person two days ago, and today is the day Emperor Hito will meet that special person he wanted to see. The appearance of high leveled monster in the Dark Land of Arcanis and the mysterious earthquake in the same area were the two news he had most interests in, but according to Murphy, his intelligence advisor, that was not all of it, a traveling S-rank paladin also returned to the village after went missing in the cave for a day, she claimed to discover a new kind of odd creature in the cave that possessed many odd powers, and she wanted to recruit some people to clear the collapsed path that would lead them to the odd creature. Emperor Hito found the story interesting and sent out a summoning message to the Paladin in the dwarven village in the Dark Land of Arcanis. He thought that the creature she mentioned might have some connection to the odd feeling he had last week. "...Something has changed" Hito mumbles quietly as he looks at general direction where the dwarven village and the mysterious cave are located while standing in the waiting room. Hearing the door open, Emperor Hito immediately fixes his posture as he turns his head slightly to greet the Paladin. "Erika, is it not?" As the king and the paladin discuss the Dark Land of Arcanis and the recent events, Hito realizes his anxious of the place is not random at all, The Emperor is onto something special, but he can''t tell what it is, not for now. The Emperor will need more time to think about it. Chapter 27: Rise of the machine and a trip to new area. [Nanite Host is activated] [Active condition: Power balance above +300] The core decides to turn on the passive nanite production power since it has a lot of power to spare, right now those nanites are the one that allows the core to move around and continue its exploration objective so it will need to produce as many of them as it could, but since the production is rather sluggish and converting defeated lifeforms into nanite is far faster. The machine will try to find the bugs and convert them into nanite as much as it could. Speaking of continuing, the core noticed it did not get the Core gain XP message after it killed and converted the bugs to nanite earlier, it spent a few minutes working on it and found out that the evolution core now have 2 ways of getting XP, either by discovering ''evolution material'' by interacting and learning the world around it or killing and assimilating creatures that have Greater evolution core or higher, it seems like the higher Pioneer go, the harder things will get for the machine to get more efficient. The core logs that bit of data into the flash drive as it makes a set of instructions for the new nanites to turn into memory cells and join the external data drive structure as soon as they are created to expand the data storage capacity. [/Drive1_remaining_capacity: 25%] [/System_power_balance: +599] [/System_power_show: 50/50] [/System_efficiency: #404 SYSE not found] The core checks its some of its current status as the body stops in front of a dirt wall, the machine has come to a dead end, and since the machine don''t want to do any digging work to continue, it decides to turn around and backtrack around until it finds a turn to take and continues its exploration work. [/Data_analyzed] The core has finished analyzing data about the bugs that it extracted earlier, the nervous system data is nothing but junk since the core is already better thousand times fold, the muscle data and carapace sample though helped the cord improving the temporary body a bit by tweaking the nanites in the joints and the overall shape of the radiated earth body. The last unknown data segment is about an unknown crystalline substance in the bug''s blood, the substance''s description matches the unknown gemstone like material Pioneer once discovered back in the colony chamber, apparently it is some kind of special energy conductor that allows the bugs to absorb the magical energy in the environment, what happens after that is unknown as the core has no data about that part, it seems like the core will try paying special attention to this detail in the future. The core tries looking at itself by using the nanite eyes to see what it is like with the Lesser Magic Sense on, the core does seem to absorb magical energy as well by the look of it, however, the core has no such substance in its construction, so the question how the core could do such action intrigues it a lot. The core is a bit over zealot on finding answers to questions that it can not answer at the moment due to the lack of data as if the core succeed finding the right answer for them, the core will be able to make derivative products from the new data and make its work easier. But for now, the core needs to secure a proper place to settle down first and it will spend time on the in-depth research part later.This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. The core notices a small path on its left as it stops to take a closely look at it, the hole is a bit too small for the body to fit in, but it is the only non-backtrack way Pioneer can take for now, the core will have to find out a way how to get in that hole and explore it to see if it lead to a new area or not. The core looks at the temporary body and the nanite swarms waiting for its order for just one second before it gets an idea how to fit in, the core decides to reduce the size of the temporary body by half and use the trimmed off material to build a copy of itself and inhabit in it, then the core will control both bodies at the same time through the nanites to get in the small tunnel, once it finds a bigger place, the core will reassemble the two smaller bodies into one big body and continue its work. The core quickly does some calculations to modify the body and give instructions to the nanite before it executes its plan, 5 minutes of cutting and gluing later, the big body has turned into 2 smaller, identical body, one carrying the core and the other is empty. Now with the bodies ready, the core begins its adventure into the small, dark tunnel, the core is eager to find out what is on the other side and what it will discover there. [/Warning: Anomaly_detected] [/Lifeform_detected] [/Lifeform_tagging] The two smaller spider golem-like robots spot some small, harmless looking glowing worms crawling around in front of them, the worms are feeding on the rocks and pooping green crystalline dust. The core has no idea what those things are, but the core knows one thing, it needs material for making more nanites, and the worms is a possible material source for that process. The core at this time still want to avoid unnecessary combat, however, it is not because it is one of the core''s directives, it''s because the core understands it is too weak to stay relevant against strong opponents and make more needless enemies. However, the thing in front of the core does not seem to possess any intelligent to have such complex reaction to its action, and the core is in desperate need for nanite, the core assumes its action could be justified as a live or die survival choice and could be reasoned with if needed. [Pioneer 0 defeated Lesser Earth Worm | +10 XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Lesser Earth Worm | +10 XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Lesser Earth Worm | +10 XP] ... An hour has passed, the core''s ''survival'' action has turned into a genocide as it kills and converts nearly all the worms it found on its way, the previously thought to be a group of worms turns out to be an entire colony scattered throughout the long, narrow dark tunnel. The amount of nanite only increased by 40% only however as the worm nanite conversion ratio is just horribly slow and inefficient. As the core kills and converts the last worm into nanite, Pioneer also spots the end of the small tunnel and exit it carefully. The two small machine looks left and right to scan their surrounding quickly, the area they just arrived is a very large tunnel filled with glowing crystal formations unlike the barren pit of darkness it once stayed in, the area is overflowing with magical energy and eerie green-purple light. [/Scanning_mineral] The core sends out a small cloud of nanite to take samples of the crystals and do basic examinations on them to study their features and predict what they are. At the same time, the core also orders the nanite to re-assemble the body just as planned. [/New_objective: Explore the area] Chapter 28: Rise of the machine and beginning of a new friendship. [/Assembling_process_completed] [/System_nominal] [/Renewing_system_effectiveness_metric] The core looks around from the inside of the temporary body after the body re-assembling process is completed, it took the nanites 10 minutes to break down the two smaller bodies and combine them into the current big one, slower than the core''s estimation by 2 minutes, but the core did not pay too much attention to that detail since the core spent its time doing scientific research, the core wanted to rediscover all the advanced mathematical algorithms and formulas used to calculate the scientific data in the log to set up a simulation program. So far, the core has rediscovered enough data to set up a basic kinetic force simulation program that will allow the core planning out its physical attack with the temporary body effectively instead of relying on the nanite swarm for combat, in another way, it would be something similar to how a human would imagine how their punch should be executed to achieve the most tooth-breaking damage to the face of their target. The core tries executing the simulation software after installing it in the external data drive in the hull, the scenario is fairly simple, the core marks the wall in front of the hull as a target, then it does basic visual scan to predict the weakest point of the wall and runs the simulation program to predict what a full-force punch will do to the wall, will the hand simply sink into the wall?. will the wall get cracked and break down?. Or will the fairly weak hand made out of radioactive material be the one breaking on impact?. The simulation returns a ''both will crack and crumble slightly, but none will break'' result, and the core orders the body to punch the wall to get a real result to compare with the predicted result. The body carries out the punching order quickly at full power as it leans back slightly before throwing its left fist at the wall. [/Nanite_report_body_damage: Critical | Part affected: Left hand/60% damaged, left arm/40% damaged.] The core watches the arm bouncing off the wall and breaking into pieces as a large slab of rock crumbles inward and breaks off into smaller pieces, the temporary body also gets showered with rock dust from the wall in the process. [/Comparing_result: Accuracy is 14%] The core orders the nanite to fix the arm as it runs some update to the simulation program while observing the wall to see what caused the result to be different to what the simulation program predicted. [/Scanning_surface...] The core notices the surface of the wall and the part just a few centimeters behind the surface are made out of different materials. One is rock, dust and minerals, and one is some kind of hard metallic ore, the core guesses this is one of the reasons why the prediction was not correct at all. [/Nanite_repair_progress_report: 89%] [/Object1_scanning_completed] The core watches its hand being fixed for a second before ordering the body to turn around and get back to where the purple glowing crystal formation is located, the scanning process has completed and the nanites are waiting for the core to return to them to pick up them up and get the data from them. As the core retrieves the nanites and scans their data, the core finds out that the purple glowing crystal is not a simple mineral, but in fact is an unknown non-carbon based life form, feeding on the mineral-rich rocks below and the magical energy around in the environment around it to grow and expand very slowly, this unknown lifeform is reported to be capable of separating basic minerals from the ground and reforming those minerals into pockets of refined minerals that it can use to grow and expand, its reproduction method is not yet discovered, however, the nanite recorded its growing process and analyzed it quite carefully, this data will be saved in the external data drive and the core''s data cache to further analyze them later.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. For now, the core will try to find a way to harvest them and put them intogood use one way or another, it''s obvious that the core won''t be able to beat a crystal node for some little XP, and the nanite can not convert them at all at this stage. So the core won''t do that, instead, it will try harvesting the crystalline lifeform by using the temporary body. [/Object2_scanning_completed] The core decides to delay the harvesting for now as it orders the body to go to the green glowing crystal formation to collect the nanite and the data. After scanning the data, the core finds out the green crystal is also an unknown non-carbon lifeform, this one is a silicon-based lifeform and has strong ferrous qualities, the green crystalline lifeform feeds on organic materials and emits magical energy rather than absorbing it, comparing to the purple crystalline lifeform, the green one''s composition is full of easy to process minerals that can be used to produce nanite and grows far faster than the purple crystal, the green crystalline lifeform also reminds the core of the worm''s poops in the small tunnel, maybe the worm are the one who feeds this crystalline lifeform and spreading them around?. The core isn''t sure about this, but the core is certain that with the worms wiped out by its actions, the crystalline will have a hard time spreading around now. The core saves the data into the external hard drive as it adds a few primary directives into the directive list, those directive are: do not deplete a lifeform in the area, avoid killing too much lifeform that is harmless to the core, and ensure that the harmed lifeform will have a chance of regrowing properly to its original capability. The core then do a cross-reference check to the data log to see if those directives once existed in the lost directive list or not. [/Data_match: 82%] The results suggest that those directive indeed once existed in the old list, that mean the core had violated its mission parameters and might cause serious problem to the area. But what happened has happened, the core could not do anything about it, instead the core will have to try planning out a way to fix that problem, the core has several options, it could try to replace the bug as organic material provider and spread the crystalline lifeform in a controlled manner, or it can find the bug and bring them back here to repopulate the area. For now, the core chooses the first option, not only to help the life form continues growing, but also to use the crystalline lifeform as a way to harvest resources more effectively, the core won''t get any XP from assimilating other creatures that do not have Greater or better evolution core and it needs a way to improve nanite production speed, having a symbiosis relationship with the green crystalline lifeform will like killing two birds with one stone for the core and improve both''s chance of survival in the dangerous cave. The core orders the nanites to enter the green crystal formation to break off a large chunk of crystal and place them inside the legs to store them. Then the core orders the body to move back to the small tunnel entry hole and split up into 2 smaller bodies again before entering it to gather the leftover waste of the worm''s dead bodies to feed the green crystals, when the crystals are large enough the core will harvest them and turn them into nanites before repeating the cycle again. The core notes down the purple crystal location before heading off into the cave to execute its plan, soon after the core secured enough nanite to set up a base again, the core will return to the area to try creating a symbiosis relationship with it as well, these lifeforms are just too interesting and useful for Pioneer. Meanwhile, deep inside the forsaken dungeon, a certain queen has reached a new evolution stage, and she plans to have her childrens expand the hive beyond the cave to create a prospering swarm and find her missing friend. Chapter 29: Rise of the machine and NOT ENOUGH MINERAL! [/Power_usage_balance: +120] [/Viricrystallus_is_ready_to_harvest] Viricrystallus is the name of the core''s new friend, the eerie green-glowing crystalline lifeform that residing in the temporary body''s legs, the core decided to pick a Latin name for the thing, a classic move for naming things scientifically that it discovered while going back and forth the instructions ''how to read the datalog'' in the flash drive, a set of instructions and information to help the finder of the black box to read the data inside, be it a human from the world it came from or an unknown alien lifeform that is advanced enough to understand it. Viricrystallus simply means ''Green Crystal'' because the thing is green...and it is crystalline...not the worst name for a silicon-based lifeform that the core can think of. The core orders the nanites to trim off the extra part of Viricrystallus and return it to its original size before processing the extra part into materials and using those materials to build more nanites. So far, the total amount of nanite has doubled once again thanks to the feeding and harvesting cycle it created earlier, the core has made the right decision to start a symbiosis relationship with the Viricrystallus. As the core repurposes the new general purpose nanites into specialized one for expanding the data drive and energy production and creating a bit of energy storage in the form of high capacity energy cells and quick recharge-discharge energy cells. It also make sure that the Viricrystallus crystals in the leg will receive some inorganic material padding and protection, for now, the material used for padding and protection is the nanite themselves, by forming a flexible stabilizing bar system and impact cushioning layer around the crystals, the core can give the crystal some basic protection while offering them enough space to grow properly inside the legs. The core also spends a small amount of nanites into combat type nanite to defend itself and harvest biomass from any non-critical fauna it can find, the core decides to set up a set of instructions for itself that unless the lifeform is very hostile to the core and it has lifted non-aggression protocol for that lifeform, the bug is an example of this, the core will try to scout around and count how many individuals in the lifeform''s group first before it kill 10% of the total population at most. For the bugs, the core will kill on sight until there has proper evidence that the bug has been driven to the point of near extinction or the environment has been damaged too much by the machine''s actions. [/Movement_detected] Pioneer stops both of its smaller bodies and order them to peek around the corners of the smaller tunnel to the bigger one, a group of 12 Hivewarriors and 5 Evolved Hivewarriors lead by a single Hiveravager have been spotted by one of the body as the core takes note of the report and orders the bodies to wait for another ambush, this time the core will send out the combat nanites to fight the Hiveravager, the rest will be dealt with by the temporary bodies and the general purpose nanites resides on and inside them. The core waits until the Hiveravager to stand directly in front of the smaller tunnel exit before it executes the attack plan, the combat nanite cloud is released and begins its way toward the Hiveravager, they will enter the creature''s body through its mouth and breathing holes to cut the nervous system connection between the brain and the rest of the body, at the same time they will attack its respiratory system to cut off the oxygen supply to its body. If the attack goes well the combat nanite will be able to defeat the bug''s immune system and take out the most dangerous target for Pioneer.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. The two large human-sized temporary bodies wait until the combat nanites have done some noticeable damage to the Hiveravager before carrying out the second stage of the attack. As the two releases a swarm of nanite to attack the Hivewarriors and Evolved Hivewarriors, the two temporary bodies changes their hand structure from humanoid hands into solid metal balls for brawling with the bugs and quickly walks out of their hiding spot to engage the bugs after the nanite swarm has weakened them. ... [Pioneer 0 has defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 has leveled up] [Pioneer 0 is now level 22] [Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point] [Pioneer 0 has received a new title: Natural-born leader] The fight lasts for 15 minutes with Pioneer''s two size-reduced temporary bodies being the victor after they beat down the last surviving Evolved Hivewarrior. The nanite swarm suffered some casualty as 1/4th of the combat nanites has been destroyed by the Hiveravager''s immune system, the general purpose nanites also lost about 1/12 of the total original number. However, they can be replaced fairly easily with the help of the Viricrystallus, since the bugs will yield more resources than the little worms left over biomass, the core assumes it would be a better idea to transport the dead bugs back to the big Viricrystallus node on the other side of the small tunnel to hasten the crystal growing and harvesting speed than using the small Viricrystallus pieces in their legs. The two temporary bodies change their hand structure back to humanoid hands before they gather all the dead body around in front of the small tunnel entrance and begin the transportation process, they cut down parts that is too big to fit the tunnel by using the nanite to soften the body and changing the side of their hand into sharp cutting surface to use it as small hand saws for cutting. Then they haul them back to the other side of the tunnel and pile them up around the green crystal node After Pioneer finished the transporting process, the machine decides to plant all the Viricrystallus pieces stored in their legs on the bugs'' carcasses and waits for the crystalline lifeform to feed on the amassed food brought to them and grow on them, when the Viricrystallus reaches the suitable harvesting size, the machine will trim off the extra crystal and process them into more nanites and upgrade itself until the core is satisfied with the size of the nanite swarm and the facilities supporting the temporary body and the core. After that, the core will maybe try finding other ways to process the crystal into something else useful as well. For now Pioneer will look into the purple crystal and try finding a way to harvest it and form a symbiosis relationship with it as well, after all the core knows the crystal is capable of leeching minerals from the ground and refine them by itself, maybe the core can utilize this power of the crystalline lifeform as a mining machine. However the question how can the core harvest the refined minerals from the crystal is still unanswered, the general purpose nanites are unable to slice the crystal off like the easier to harvest Viricrystallus, it also has no way to convert those specially refined minerals into useful components by its own. The core will try spending more time and effort looking into this part while waiting for the Viricrystallus to grow up to the desired harvest size. [/Lifeform8_rename: Hirudocrystallus] The core decides to name the purple crystal based on its power instead of color unlike the Viricrystallus, Hirudocrystallus means ''Leeching Crystal'' and it is also a Latin word like the first crystalline lifeform it named. Then the core sends out a small cloud of nanite to do a second scan on the Hirudocrystallus''s formation before it pulls up all the data that is related to the crystalline lifeform and other scientific parameters from the data drive and flash drive at the same time to work on the problem. At the same time, it puts a nanite eye on the back of its head to keep an eye on the Viricrystallus''s growth. [/New_objective: Research Hirudocrystallus harvesting, processing and cultivating method] Chapter 30: Rise of the machine and calm before the storm [/New_technology_researched: Multipurpose Electrical Arc tool, Multipurpose Magical Energy Arc tool, Hirudocrystallus Mineral Reclaiming Chamber, Material Refining Chamber, Data Relay Pylon, Energy Relay Pylon] [/New_nanite_available: Hirudocrystallus Nano harvester, High-temperature tolerance construction nanite.] [/New_construction_available: General Purpose Drone, Battle Drone, Command Drone, Data Relay Drone, Energy Relay Drone, Hirudocrystallus Harvesting Drone, Viricrystallus Harvesting Drone, Mobile Nanite Construction Drone, Magical Energy Reactor, Crystallus Refinery, Nanite Hive Factory, Data Processing Facility, Data Relay Facility, Energy Relay Facility, Armored Arc Projecting Tower.] After 15 hours of doing research, harvesting Viricrystallus and expanding its own capabilities in many areas, the core has finally found out a way to harvest and reclaim minerals from the Hirudocrystallus, it also upgraded itself enough to be satisfied with the current temporary body and now planning to produce a series of robot based on Pioneer''s datagram and current available schematics and technology to help the machine with all the crystal harvesting, nanite producing, organic material collecting and new colony construction. The core decides to place the new colony right where it is standing, the area is not very big comparing to the old colony chamber, it is much smaller in fact, the thing also have 3 entrances instead of 2, one of the entrance is a small entrance that only the reduced size Pioneer can enter, this will be a very hard to defend area, however, the place already have both Viricrystallus and Hirudocrystallus node growing steadily and close to each other, the place also have a lot of minerals for Hirudocrystallus node to continue growing without needing the core to feed it, the Viricrystallus is also still feeding and growing on the remnant of the bugs'' carcasses, the crystalline lifeform has only eaten through half of the total biomass pile, so this place won''t need any food source resupply for a while. The core orders the nanite to cut few large chunks of Viricrystallus from the green crystal node and shapes them into a large orb that has a diameter of 100cm, then the core constructs a platform for the Viricrystallus orb to rest on by converting general purpose nanite into structural nanite. [Energy Dominant is in effect] The machine creates a dome made out of structural nanites and electrical power-producing nanite cells around the orb before applying the energy converting power cells on the dome, the core focuses on tuning and configuring the power-generating cells to make it converting magical energy the Viricrystallus orb is emitting into electrical power, an idea it got earlier by observing the Hirudocrystallus formation absorbing magical power from the environment while Viricrystallus formation emitting it into the environment, the core thought if the core could tap into that natural power source, it could help expanding the power production capability further and improves the symbiosis relationship with the green crystalline lifeform, one receives food and gives easy to process materials and energy while the other provides food and utilizes the materials and energy to help in expanding their influence and increasing their chance of surviving in hostile areas. [/Construction_completed: Magical Energy Reactor] [/Colony_power_balance: +800] Now that power is up, the core turns its attention to the Crystallus Refinery, a mineral reclaiming facility that is equipped with nanites and heavy duty equipment the core designed during the 15 hours non-stop high-speed researching session earlier, at this stage Crystal Refinery is expected to reclaim at most 45 to 65% of the mineral pockets in the Hirudocrystallus and 100% mineral value from the Viricrystallus, the processed minerals can be packaged in container made out of structural nanite for further processing stage or stored away in a safe and secure manner. The processing starts with the nano harvesters cutting the crystals down into fine crystal dust before they are transported into an electrical arc furnace that will melt the fine crystal dust in a very careful manner to avoid causing a magical energy explosion from the Hirudocrystallus which stores a large quantity of absorbed magical energy inside them, in fact, the reason why the refinery can not reclaim all the minerals is because of that very reason, if the refinery push the crystal too much it would blow up the entire area. After the melting process is finished, a large amount of high-temperature tolerance construction nanite will be released into the molten crystal pool, these nanites will handle the mineral separation and arrange them in separate order before dumping them into the refined mineral intake vents which take the hot molten minerals into a cooling chamber to lower their temperature before the general purpose nanites reshapes them into mineral bricks and packaged in a box made out of structural nanite. The waste product from Hirudocrystallus processing session will get transported into containers for storing and further studied by the core to find a way to use them as well.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. Since the tunnel is only about 3 to 3.5 meters tall and about 2 meters wide, the core will have to make the refinery into modules and put them down in a straight line instead of stacking them vertically and horizontally at the same time. The core takes some measurements and notes them down first before it harvests some Viricrystallus and converts them into nanite to start the construction of the Crystallus Refinery. As the core constructs the refinery, it also starts looking into the Nanite Hive Factory and the Data Processing Facility too, the factory will help the machine improving its capability to produce other things on a larger scale, the drone is one of many things that the core wants to build. The drone is a rather simple general purpose or specialized unit mounted on a stable quad leg platform similar to the Pioneer''s legs, they are equipped with basic AI to handle the movement and carry out instructions, but lack the required power to be a standalone unit like the core so the core will have to be the one who gives them instructions like how it controls the nanite. General Purpose drone is a simple unarmoured robot that is equipped with standard Electrical Arc tool for construction works and defending itself and standard Magical Energy Arc tool for harvesting crystals, they are capable of relaying data and energy at low speed and short range which allows them to work in group, they also have some minor add-on functions to allow them carrying out various tasks ranging from transporting duty to scouting duty. Battle Drone are simplified and armoured version of the General Purpose Drone, they are equipped with a single overcharged Electrical Arc projector that will burn and shock anything standing in front of the weapon, the weapon has a range of 15 meters and it can fire a bolt of lightning for every 3 seconds for 20 times before its internal battery unit is depleted, they also lack the energy and data relaying function of General Purpose drone, to counter this problem, the machine creates Data Relay Drone and Energy Relay Drone to allow them to communicate and recharge their battery on the field without needing to return to base. Mobile Nanite Construction Drone are made for construction and repairing duty, they are walking nanite constructor tanks which will help the machine in the facility constructing duty and carry out field repair to other damaged drones in the field given that there have resources to do so onboard or nearby, and finally Command Drone is a mobile version of Data Processing Facility, they will act as third in command of satellite colonies and outgoing drone groups in the case of losing connection to the core or the Data Processing Facility, they will also work as mobile researching facility to aid the core in developing new technology and learning more about the world around them in detail. The two last Harvesting Drone are simply General Purpose Drone specialized in harvesting and transporting the two Viricrystallus and Hirudocrystallus that will work with the Crystallus Refinery, they are also the one who will cultivate these crystalline lifeforms when given the biomass or mineral-rich location needed to farm these important resources. As the core orders the nanites to tether power from the reactor to the refinery, the core converts some of its general purpose nanites into Hirudocrystallus nano harvester and gives them instructions to harvest the Hirudocrystallus formation to begin the refining process, at the same time it checks how much biomass there are left for the Viricrystallus to feed on, with 37% usable biomass left in the pile, the core will have to go out and kill more bug soon to continue securing a steady source of resource income and expand its base. But first, but the core will need to build some defensive before it leaves the area to find more biomass. Two Armored Arc Projecting Tower and a Data Processing Facility should be enough to get the job done, the two things are just a metal box with a big lightning rod inside to zap fry the bugs if they dare come close to the base and a metal box with data storing and processing nanites inside to keep the base up and running while the core is out hunting, nothing too fancy and complicated like the old high-tech facilities of the old Pioneer 0, but it will do for now. The core also looks around to find a nice place to build the nanite hive factory in the future, the thing is also just a hard metal box with some open space for storing the materials and some container tanks for the nanites, simple and oddly primitive, but still highly effective nonetheless. As the core looks back at the fruit of its hard work, it feels a surge of voltage rising in its processing unit again, the core feels happy for successfully doing its job and progressing further ahead at a rapid rate, it is quickly recovering and replacing the old technologically advanced Pioneer 0 as mysteriously effective nanite swarm leader and crystal farmer Pioneer 1, it begins thinking about making the unknown data transmitter to recognize its new self not as a remnant as Pioneer 0, but an evolved descendant of Pioneer 0, the core will try looking into this further in the future. For now, it has facilities to construct, resources to refine and biomass to gather first. [/New_objective: Expand and ensure the survival of the colony] Meanwhile, a large group of Evolved Hivewarriors and Evolved Hiveravagers lead by a Greater Hivewarrior leaves the hive to find the missing patrols that never returned after entering the forbidden area in the South of the forsaken dungeon, something has happened and the queen wishes to find out what it is immediately. On the surface of the Dark Land of Arcanis, a large group of adventures lead by the Hero Arc and the Ethereal Paladin Erika prepare to start an expedition into the dangerous cave to explore the area, find the mysterious figure in Erika''s story and to make sure the bugs will never exit the cave and wreck havoc on the dwarven town from this day foward. Chapter 30.5: Legend of an Empire and plans for the future Amadeus the Third, High King of Romadus Empire. Romadus Empire, also known as the Imperium of Man by others, is an Empire founded by the human 700 years ago by the great and wise High King Caesar the first. Legend said before the birth of the Romadus Empire existed many independent kingdoms, each kingdom was ruled by a High King and had their own set of rules and cultures, some kingdoms hate others, some kingdoms are loved by others, sometimes bloody conflicts broke out and decimated the human population severely, sometimes friendships and cooperation united many kingdoms under one banner to invade and expand their influence into other beings'' domain or to push back a common enemy invading their domains and threatening their existence. Mankind never managed to expand to large nor fade out too much, they were always in the middle with many ups and downs just like other races around them. Things would have stayed the same if only a right man did not stand in the wrong place at the right time, that man''s name was lost in history, but legends said he was an archaeologist whose duty and mission was to rediscover lost cities and forgotten knowledge of the old time when all races were the same, all lived in harmony, a time of no war, no hate, no conflict and no hardship. Many stories said that the archaeologist was on a trip to the Dark Land of Arcanis when he found a hidden temple in the forest, when the man entered the temple, he was challenged by the guardian of that place, a challenge that he could not overcome and lost his life because of his failure. The man was given a second life by the gods due to his undying passion for his job, however, instead of living that second life in the same world he died in, the man was reincarnated in a different world, a world where no magic existed and mankind was the dominant race of everything through the use of ''technology'', there he lived a normal life, worked a normal job, but died in an unusual way, the man was killed by a truck running over him in the middle of the night when he tried to save an elderly woman. His action was noted by the quiet gods of that world and he was given another chance to reincarnate and live a new life. This time however, something was wrong, the man''s soul returned to Auraxim world and reincarnated as a son of a poor noble, and his soul somehow not only recollected all the lost memory of his two past lifes, but it also much more sensitive to the magical energy in Auraxim. There he decided to live an abnormal life, he wanted to use all of the knowledge in his head to help everyone around him and escape poverty, he wanted to become the strongest and find himself the most beautiful wife, or rather, wifes to enjoy this life. He wanted to be not only a Hero, but the living legend that will be always remembered in history as the greatest being every alive, worshiped and idolized by all races. That was his greatest dream. He digilently practiced magic and honed his skills, he gave instructions to artisans and farmers to make various breakthroughs and improve their life standard by miles, he defeated one of the most dangerous dragons that no one can defeat, he became a king of his own country and captured the heart of many beautiful queens. He established new connections to other races and stopped most, if not all conflicts and wars. He was a great man, but he forgot one thing, he was still only a man. As the reincarnated hero rised in power and changed everything others ever knew of, the man was worshiped as a god, everyone turned their back on what they used to worships for hundreds, if not thousands of years, they abandoned temples, they melt down statues of other deities to erect an image of their new god to worship. The world balance was shifted, and the gods became angry, they were angry at the way the man acted, they were angry to how the man treated other gods as weakling and challenged the immortals just because he defeated a demi-god dragon. His peoples abandoning everything they once knew of to chase after the man in hope for a better, carefree life, they became lazy, they no longer create new things but only follows the man''s instructions and copy each other''s works. Will the gods just stay quiet and watch?. Absolutely not!.Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit. Together the gods created a group of 6 demigods, each represents a race of their own, human, elven, dwarven, beastman, orc and the demonic being. Then they gave them an army of immortal, backed by many artifacts that the gods collected from other worlds, and a mission to punish the Fool and his people. The records of what happened next were lost and forsaken, and stories only mentioned High King Ceasar the first managed to negotiate with the gods to have mercy on his people and correct them back to the right path over the course of 10 years. The Romadus Empire was formed after this event and High King Ceasar became the first person to write down the High King''s Codex, a set of rules and instructions for all future High King to follow. Now, in the current time, Amadeus the Third is the High King who rules the forever prospering Romadus Empire, the persons who always fear people under Emperor Hito''s banner will trigger the same catastrophe event in the ancient time despite Hito himself has promised to not let such thing happen. "The annual council meeting will begin shortly." Amadeus listens to the royal announcer as he gives his lovely queen a kiss on her forehead before leaving his private chamber, today is an important day, so many things has happened ever since he came into power four years ago, the appearance of steam power, the ideology of mass production, the founding of ''Technomancy'' which bring combine magic with natural philosophy to create things never seen before, ranging from giant golem infused with magical muscle and powered by magical gems and controlled by a man inside their chest to a tube of metal capable of roaring thunder and raining down explosive death from afar, even after the meeting with Emperor Hito, Empire of Azuria still created new way to do agriculture and improve their mining method. Meanwhile, the demonic empire suddenly becomes quiet and border conflicts lessens by day, however, the relation to Elven kingdom and Dwarven empire has gotten worse slightly due to various reasons, Amadeus''s effort to interfere with the efforts to establish trade routes between the two power with Azuria Empire is one of it. Amadeus also noticed that some reports mentioned that it is becoming harder and harder for the country to stop and hide the exotic information about new inventions coming from Empire of Azuria from coming into the country or changing it in a manner that it would not cause its citizen to become too reliance on the new inventions if possible. Today the annual meeting will be a good chance for the young High King to bring these problems up and deal with it as soon as possible, and today is also the day he will get a grip on what the Empire of Azuria is up to is in the Dark Land of Arcanis. "Become a High King, they said, it''s fun to know the Empire better, they said..." As Amadeus quietly speaks to himself, the young High King enters the meeting room and greets other Kings and ministers in the Empire''s council before the meeting officially begins. Later in that day, a group of knights receives a mission to come to the dwarven village in the Dark Land of Arcanis to investigate about the commotion there and to find a good place for the Empire to establish a frontier town to tap in the resource-rich area. Amadeus quietly watches the knights depart from the palace as he returns to his private chamber very slowly. "What are you planning this time, Hito..." Chapter 31: Rise of the machine and the hunt for biomass. [/Remaining_biomass_count: 17% of original size] [/Remaining_mineral: #404 Data not found] [/Construction_completed: Nanite Hive Factory] [/Drone_construction_queue: General Purpose Drone x2, Mobile Nanite Constructor Drone x1, Hirudocrystallus Harvesting Drone x1, Viricrystallus Harvesting Drone x1.] [/Facility_construction_queue: Magical Energy Reactor] The core puts up a construction queue after the Nanite Hive Factory is finished, now that the base could defend itself, and soon there will have some drones walking around to keep it running in a good shape, the core can leave the area and go hunting for more biomass to feed the Viricrystallus, its original departing time has been delayed for 9 hours so far, the core does not wish to delay it any further. The core goes through the list of available nanite that it can use during the hunt, 35% of the nanite are combat nanite, 40% are general purpose nanite, the rest are construction specialized nanite for hull repairing duty. Like the last time, the core also decided to use the 2 reduced size body instead of a full-sized one as the smaller body seem to be more mobile and able to get in tight spots easier than the big one, beside, with 2 bodies the core can lay down a much more dangerous nanite ambush at the same time too. Perhaps the core will utilize this small body until it builds up enough of a drone army to support itself in combat so that it can freely use the big body, it also plans to reconstruct the body by using the new found material sources once it collected enough resource to spare too. As the two reduced size bodies exit the small tunnel, the two immediately looks around to find any sign of life, bugs preferred, or rather, big bugs prepared, the bigger they are, the more biomass they yield, or at least that is what the core thought. As the two bodies wandering around, they spot a small group of golems slowly fighting a group of giant lizards, it seems like the golems has invaded the lizard''s territory or the other way around, the core can not tell what is the right one, and the core does not care about it much, maybe if the lizards are all dead when the battle finished, the core will wait for the golems to leave the area before it moves in to claim the dead bodies. The core does not want to intervene for now as the nanite would be more or less harmless against those walking boulders since there just have too much to cut and break down with the current amount of nanite it is carrying. The core orders the two bodies to leave the area and continue the search for the bugs and other lifeforms that are not engaged in combat against those golems, until the core can get a physical body as strong and durable as Pioneer 0''s hull or gathered enough drones, the core will avoid fighting those golems all together. [/Movement_detected] [/Hostile_lifeform_found] After 10 minutes of wandering around, the core finally receives a report of bug sighting from the second temporary body, a rather large hunting group is carefully moving through the area, 30 Evolved Hivewarrior, 24 Evolved Hiveravager and a single Greater Hivewarrior, way more numerous than the core has expected, frontal confrontation would have a very low chance of success, ambush isn''t any much better. The core needs a different plan. The core can try luring the group toward the golems in the area first, and then it will do a surprise attack when the time is right. Or it can also try sending the second body off to lure more golems into the fray to soften the bugs down even further and causes more chaos that will allow the core to hit them harder with a surprise attack. The core decides to pick the second option as it orders the two bodies to change their arm structure into lightning rods to try out the new Arc Projector technology it just developed recently before splitting up, the one holding the core going to stay and follow the bugs while the second body goes looking for golems to provoke. After a couple of minutes passed, the core notices the Greater Hivewarrior suddenly slows down and starts looking around, it seems like it has felt Pioneer''s present in the area, or maybe the thing making it anxious is the Viricrystallus in its legs, the thing is emitting magical energy that the nanite can''t just convert all at once at the moment after all. [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] The core decides to make a change of plan as it raises up the lightning rod and aims at the bugs before striking an Evolved Hivewarrior with a lightning bolt, the loud thundering sound created by the lightning bolt surprised all the bugs as it is too loud for the bugs to guess where the sound came from, the bugs begin looking around quickly to find the attacker as the lightning struck bug spasms around for a moment before falling down on the ground and die, the bolt of lightning has zap fried its brain and shut down its circulatory system at the same time, the weapon is much stronger than the core predicted. As the core finishes charging up for a second strike, the core notices this time the lightning bolt does not hit the desired target as the lightning bolt curves upward and strike a long stalactite on the ceiling, it seems its intended target is standing outside the attack range of the lightning rod, the attack still stunted some of the bug thanks to the loud thundering sound each time the lightning rod is activated though. "Specter of Blizzard...consume my mana and crush my enemy!. Poison Ice Lance!"This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. The core notices the Greater Hivewarrior just constructed a big purple, point ice rod and is throwing the thing at the temporary body, the bug seems to aim for the body''s head based on the raw ballistic data the core just analyzed. [/Deconstructing_head_module] The core lets the head unit to be detached and falls off its body to dodge the incoming ice rod before it fires another bolt of lightning at the approaching bugs, then it picks up the head, turns around and starts running away from the advancing bugs, the bugs has taken the bait and now the core will try leading them toward the second body which is being chased by very slow golems as well. [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] The core tries ordering the body to zap some bugs while running to lessen the number down a little bit as it watches out for incoming ice rods and leaping bugs to dodge, so far nothing terrible has happened yet aside from grazing damages that can be repaired quickly by the nanoconstructors. The second body also reports no difficulty as well since the golems'' running speed is about equal to the body''s walking speed. As the core carefully micromanaging the body to do run-stop-zap-run order at a rapid pace, the bugs'' respond to the loud noise become weaker and weaker, some of them don''t even seem to notice the screeching sound of nearby bugs anymore, the bugs have gone deaf or something by the look of it, the machine has successfully disabled the bugs'' ability to cooperate with each other by accident, however, it also make the bugs more ferocious as the quietness is driving them mad. Before one of the deafened Evolved Hiveravager could leap onto the running machine, a bolt of lightning strikes the bug hard and pushes the bug backward as it spasms around violently in the air, the second body is here and it is now running alongside the core as the golems notice the rampaging bugs right in front of them and start throwing rocks at the group, however as the bugs are deafened, only the bugs that got hit could notice the golems behind the group as they turnaround and crazily charge at the golems. The Greater Hivewarrior also notices the golem too as the thing has not deafened yet thanks to its durable body and rapid recovery power, seeing that its brethren are being tricked by the two unknown beings the Greater Hivewarrior becomes angered as it quickly casts mass heal on all the bugs, the spell depletes its mana pool immediately and restores the bugs'' hearing ability as the Greater Hivewarrior orders the lesser Evolved Hivewarriors to deal with the golems while it chases down the two fleeing machines along with the Evolved Hiveravager. [/Deploying_Combat_Nanite] [/Deploying_General_Purpose_Nanite] The core plays its ace as it turns around and charges at the Greater Hivewarrior and the Evolved Hiveravagers around it, for now, the core will focus all combat nanites into the Greater Hivewarrior as it is the strongest threat in the group, the Evolved Hiveravagers can be dealt with by using lightning rods to zap fry them one by one. The General Purpose Nanite will have to travel quite a distance to reach its intended targets which are the Evolved Hivewarriors. The golems will be dealt with later by using the lightning rods and raw strength melee combat. ... [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hiveravager | +1200 XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hiveravager | +1200 XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hiveravager |+1200XP] [Pioneer 0 leveled up] [Pioneer 0 is now level 23] [Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point] [Pioneer 0 now has 9 unallocated points] An hour has passed since the battle began, the core has managed to take down most of the Evolved Hiveravagers and Evolved Hivewarriors in the area, the golems are also defeated by the Evolved Hivewarriors earlier as the remaining Evolved Hivewarriors are now joining the fray to help the crippled Greater Hivewarrior, the thing is extremely hard to take down due to its immensely powerful immune system and healing spells, 72% of the combat nanites have already destroyed while fighting against the bug''s immune system and messing its inside up. The remaining 28% are struggling to finish the fight as they are reinforced with the less powerful General Purpose nanites. [/Targets_locked] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] The two bodies zap fries four evolved hivewarriors who were leaping at them with the lightning rods on their arms, the rod can instantly kill a evolved hivewarrior with a direct hit, for Evolved Hiveravager it needs 2 to 3 strikes to bring down the creature. Quite a powerful weapon for its rather simple looking construction. Now only the Greater Hivewarrior remains, the core could not use the lightning rods against the thing as it will risk destroying the nanite swarm inside, so the two bodies will have to beat the crap out of the softened bug with their bare hands instead. The battle has turned from a tactical micromanaging hit and run into a 1 v 2 boxing match where punches are traded with extreme killing intentions behind them. The two bodies spend forty minutes punching the Greater Hivewarrior while having the nanite disrupting its circulatory system, respiratory system and nervous system inside the bug, and they actually dishing out damage faster than the bug could recover those wounds. It was not until the two machine decides to stab its softened body from head to toe that the thing''s life signal ceases to exist, Pioneer finally killed its last opponent. [Pioneer 0 defeated Greater Hivewarrior | +20000 XP] [Pioneer 0 assimilated Greater Hivewarrior | Advanced Evolution Core gained 1800 XP] Since the thing is a Greater type evolved creature, the core decides to assimilate it to get some XP point for the Advanced Evolution Core, at the same time it orders the other body to return to the base and relay an order to get the 2 general purpose drones following the body and return to the area to transport all the dead bodies back to its base. The core will remain in the area to gather the corpses around and pile them up to prepare for transport. Soon the core will have to send out the drones to explore the big tunnel in the base area and find more crystalline lifeform to harvest and expand its base, and these dead body will be the fuel for its expansion, the core is eager to do more and push the growl of its base. While the core orders the body to gather all the dead bugs and golem pieces, a group of adventures also has settled down and created an outpost to clear the collapsed paths and dig for ore veins nearby. And in those adventures, a female black knight can be seen sitting near the campfire next to the Hero''s party and looking at the dirt walls as she mumbles to herself quietly. "I''m coming for you, Urchin." Chapter 32: Rise of the machine and growth of an army [/Transporting_progress:92%] The core watches the general purpose drones crawling left and right as they roll the dead bodies around by using their front legs, currently only the harvester drones and general purpose drones are equipped with a pair of small, flimsy arms to grab and hold onto small chunks of crystal or light objects, and since the bugs'' dead bodies can weigh as much as 240 kg for Evolved Hivewarrior, 380kg for Evolved Hiveravager and 720kg for Greater Hivewarrior, the drones can only nudge and roll those big bug with their stronger legs to push them around effectively. The core will definitely have to give the drones some extra module slots to allow the drones to refit themselves with desired parts to achieve the most effective performance in their given mission. As the temporary bodies and the drones arrive at the small tunnel entrance, they begin cutting the bodies into smaller bits before transporting them to the base and piling them up near the Viricrystallus node. It''s gonna take a while for all the green crystal to deplete the biomass pile the core just collected for them. The core connects itself into the base''s local network after the temporary bodies and the drones finished the resource transporting work. So far, there has no important news in the Data Processing Facility''s reports, a new Magical Energy Reactor has been constructed and the queued drones are walking around and doing their jobs diligently just as planned, the recently gathered biomass from the bugs and mineral rocks from the dead golems has been accounted and properly organised for the core to do calculations and predictions. No new technology has been researched and no anomaly has been discovered. Without the core around the base''s development progress seems to be a bit stagnant, this does not really a big surprise since the base is rather simple and the Data Processing Facility is nothing more than a simple data processing hub that gathers information from nearby drones and facilities to give basic orders that fit the parameters set by the core. It''s time for the core to upgrade the base as much as it could before doing the expansion later on in the future. The first thing the core thinks of is upgrading the data processing capability to the point of ''advanced AI'', maybe not as powerful as Pioneer''s AI, but it should be able to think and learn on basic level rather than just simply collecting data and processing it passively. For this duty, a station facility is better than a mobile one since it is cheaper to produce and it doesn''t need to spend a large proportion of its processing power just to control its limbs and navigate its way in the environment around it. However, a mobile drone with advanced AI could prove itself very useful as well since the thing could manage the base far better and more detailed as well. The core spends a few minutes thinking about it before it makes its choice, a dual system, one stationary unit that will manage the base''s infrastructure and perform scientific research, one mobile unit which will manage other drones and carefully keep an eye on the crystal formations, both of them will work in tandem with each other to keep the base not only operational, but also continuously improving and expanding it without needing the core to do all the work by itself. The core spends a few more seconds to make sure that a dual system is its best choice before it begins the research and development process. The core picks a Command Drone to upgrade and give it a name, the core decides to name it ''Google Nexus X1'', a series of Smartphone according to the Google Patent list hidden deep inside the processor''s ROM, the core does not know if the thing will be smart or not, but it definitely won''t be dumb. While the Nexus X1 is being researched and developed, the core decides to start a second R&D process for the Data Processing Facility, like the drone''s upgrade plan, the core also decides to name the special Data Processing Facility as well to distinguish it from other weaker, normal Data Processing Facilities. It quickly searches the datalog and its ROMs to find any relevant data about its makers pick a name for the thing. [...] [/DPF_Project_rename: Intel EQF1 8810] The core decided to name the Data Processing Facility project after the manufacturer of its processing unit, Intel Corporation, the core took the name from its processing unit''s model and serial number, two 400 cores Xeon-based smart chips working in tandem for self-learning capability and high speed, ultra low error rate data processing power. The core does not know what the internal of the chips looks like since there have no data about it aside from the name and simple spec sheets in its ROMs, maybe it will try finding a way to scan itself in the future. The core slowly makes production and construction queues for the Mobile Nanite Constructor Drone and General Purpose Drones as the core puts most of its processing power into the 2 R&D projects, it also put up an order where to place the facilities and the drones'' operation zones and parameters. [Drone_production_queue: Data Relay Drone x2, Energy Relay Drone x2, Viricrystallus Harvesting Drone x2, Hirudocrystallus Harvesting Drone x1, Mobile Nanite Construction Drone x1, General Purpose Drone x4, Battle Drone x6, Command Drone x1.]Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. [Facility_construction_queue: Magical Energy Reactor x4, Armoured Arc Tower x4, Crystallus Refinery x1, Data Processing Facility x3, Energy Relay Facility x2, Data Relay Facility x2, Nanite Hive Factory x1] The drones quickly move around and continue their works as usual as well, the General Purpose Drones are helping the Harvesting Drones lay down the biomass and mineral rich rocks before planting small chunks of Crystallus on them to expand the node and improve the crystalline lifeforms'' growing and harvesting rate. Meanwhile, the lonely Mobile Construction Drone is walking back and forth between the refinery and construction site to build all the queued facility by itself, it also walks near other facilities and does regular check up on them as well whenever the thing walks past them. About 7 minutes later, the first Data Relay Drone steps out of the factory and starts wandering around the colony, the thing acts as a data repeater unit whose duty is to provide high-quality wireless data streaming between facilities and drones near the Relay Drone, even drones without powerful data transceiver like the Battle Drone can gain access to this network wirelessly as well since the Data Relay Drone is equipped with a wide variety of data transceivers, ranging from the line of sight infrared transceiver to the highly effective and newly developed Mana transceiver, the mana transceiver uses a small Viricystallus orb placed on top of a radio antenna to convert modulated radio wave into a specific set of mana ripples, these ripples can spread out as fast as the speed of light and can penetrate through thick obstacle with ease, the data loss rate of this transmission method is much lower than conventional wireless radio transmission as the mana ripples does not seem to be absorbed by even the Hirudocrysallus at all comparing to the normal magical energy lingering around in the air, which in turn increasing the effective range for even the antennaless transceiver chipset in the Battle Drone can effectively communicate with each other at range no compact standard wireless radio transceiver that the core could build can compare with it. Ten minutes later, the second Data Relay Drone begins leaving the factory and wandering around the colony as well, now with two data buffers moving around somewhat close to each other, all the drones and facilities in the colony now can enjoy the benefit of error-free high-speed wireless ethernet as they work with each other to carry out orders that Pioneer gave them. The General Purpose Drones has finished helping the Harvester Drones as well and now on their way to help the Mobile Nanite Constructor Drone by collecting the material bricks from the Crystallus Refinery and bringing them to the Mobile Nanite Constructor Drone, improving its overall performance by 100% as it keeps picking up material bricks and breaking them down with the nanite constructor to build structural nanite and lay them down on the half-finished facility to construct it. Just as the Mobile Nanite Constructor Drone finishes constructing a new Magical Energy Reactor, a new Energy Relay Drone joins the 4 legged robot army as it leaves the factory and starts wandering around like the Data Relay Drone. The Energy Relay Drone is a mobile magical energy reactor and an energy pylon whose sole purpose is to provide extra juice to everything that consumes electricity around it, the thing can do its job by using power cable for direct high load energy transfer or wireless energy transfer with the help of an electricity-to-magical energy pylon mounted around its lightly armoured hull, the technology is simply magical energy-to-electricity converter in reverse, yet it is still very complicated as the thing have to transmit magical energy in a way that does not allow other lifeforms to absorb it as much as possible, and in the best case, only Pioneer''s robot army and facilities can absorb and convert it to electrical energy, and at the same time it must not cause any distortion effect to the mana transceiver used by the Data Relay Drone. Pioneer''s answer to this is the use of the high-energy density waste in Hirudocrystallus''s refining process in the power transmitter module, while doing some research on the waste material after it first got the thing before the hunt, Pioneer found out the material high magical energy density material while they are highly explosive, they are quite stable in normal condition when kept cold and only become dangerous if the temperature rise too fast and too sudden. And when kept cold in a sturdy container Pioneer also discovered its ability to act like a capacitor, capable of storing a massive quantity of magical energy and discharging it at astonishing rate, and when the waste material''s container is covered with a layer of Hirudocrystallus, the discharging magical energy flow could be redirected and kept focused in a certain direction. The high-density magical energy flow was found to be able to penetrate other materials quite good, they did get absorbed by the Hirudocrystallus, however, the absorption rate was only equal to the normal magical energy absorption rate while Pioneer and its creations was capable of converting more than 80% of the released energy back to electrical energy. And since the energy transferring process happened within less than a second, as long as the power transferring process happened within the power spike tolerance range of the nanite, the power could be relayed wirelessly without too much downside to consider about in theory. As the Power Relay Drone walks around and recharges its peers'' batteries wirelessly in a somewhat derpy manner, the drone army''s efficiency begins to increase bits by bits, the second Power Relay Drone pushes it up even a bit further after it left the factory. Followed by the rest of the new drones in the queue as they are created by the Nanite Factory one by one, soon the 4 legged autonomous synthetic army finish some of the works given to them as some of the drones sometimes stop near Pioneer to check its maker''s status and wait for new orders while others work diligently without stopping. The real colony construction and expansion has just only begun. [Pioneer 0 received a new title: The Forerunner] Chapter 33: Rise of the machine and return of a legend [/Research_completed: Google Nexus X1, Intel EQF 8810] [/New_technology_developed: Active Structural Nanite, HyperData Processor Nanite, Module Slots, Active Protection Plating System module, Multipurpose Arm module, Arc Projector Lightning Arm module, External Mini Magical Energy Reactor Module, External Battery Module, External Mini Data Processing Module, External Multi-sensor Module, Tactical Light Ordnance Module, Research Facility, Magical Energy Sensor Facility, Service Depot Facility, Ordnance Assembling Facility, Crystallus Silo, Viricrystallus Control Node, Hirudocrystallus Control Node, Point Defense Installation.] [/Uploading_data] [/Data_upload_completed] [/Colony_report: Drone Production Queue and Facility Construction Queue are completed] [Drone_production_queue: Google Nexus X1 x1, Battle Drone x20, Command Drone x4, General Purpose Drone x15, Mobile Nanite Constructor Drone x4, Energy Relay Drone x4, Data Relay Drone x4] [Facility_construction_queue: Intel EQF 8810 x1, Crystallus Silo x4, Viricrystallus Control Node x1, Research Facility x4, Magical Energy Reactor x2, Magical Energy Sensor Facility x1, Service Depot Facility x3, Ordnance Assembling Facility x2, Point Defense Installation x4] [Base_order: Construct 2nd Colony on the other side of the small tunnel.] [Newcolony_facility_queue: Magical Energy Reactor x4, Armoured Arc Tower x4, Point Defense Installation x2, Crystallus Refinery x1, Data Processing Facility x2, Energy Relay Facility x1, Data Relay Facility x1, Nanite Hive Factory x1] [New_Research and Development_project: Pioneer 1''s hull] After 10 hours of doing the 2 R&D projects, Pioneer has finally finished it and ordered a long list of new drones and facilities to be constructed as soon as possible. The core then looks at the base''s reports on resources, facilities'' and drones'' condition and summarized new info, the drone army has done their job much better than the core predicted, they stocked up a lot of resources, both refined and unrefined types. So the core did not hesitate to order a ton of new drones and facilities along with a second colony to be built, it needed to push the expansion progress that it lost during its R&D focused session. Now that the base is in a stable condition and will capable of going self-sufficient and self-improving automatically as soon as the two Nexus and EQF 8810 are built. The core decides to start a new and also very important R&D project, the core is going to rebuild the temporary body with all the newly discovered technologies and high-quality manufacturing processes currently available in the colony. [/Drone_transfer: Battle Drone x6, General Purpose Drone x2, Data Relay Drone x1, Energy Relay Drone x1] The core takes command of a small group of drones and orders them to come with it as Pioneer leaves the colony and goes through the small tunnel, since the core has taken the left route last time, this time the core will take the right route, which will lead it back to the old nuclear-glassed colony chamber area, the core thinks the area might have some interesting properties and a good place for growing Hirudocrystallus, after all, the thing does not seem to be affected by radiation much, and the chamber was full of refined material back when Pioneer 0 operated in that area, maybe the material is no longer refined and usable at the moment, but the Hirudocrystallus can take care of that and help Pioneer 1 reclaim all the lost resources. The core also intended to find weaker Hivewarriors to test the drones'' new modules on them too, since the drones receive their update and upgrade passively through the nanite system, the one going with the machine all have their hull improved and equipped with new modules too, each drones has 4 module slots, currently the one with Pioneer are running battle mode focused set up with the Battle Drones are equipped with an Active Protection Plating System module on its front left slot, a Tactical Light Ordnance Module on its front right slot and 2 External Mini Magical Reactor Modules on the rear slots. The General Purpose Drones are equipped with 2 Multipurpose Arm modules on the front slots, 1 Multi-Sensor Module on the rear left slot and Mini Data Processor Module on the rear right slot. The Data Relay Drones have all 4 of their module slots equipped with External Battery Modules and the Power Relay Drones have their module slots fitted with Mini Magical Energy Reactor Modules only. Aside from the normal modules that have nothing special to speak about because they are just simple parts scaled up or down to fit the drone''s needs, the two Active Protection System Module and Tactical Light Ordnance Module stick out the most as highly advanced and totally new products, one is a 40mm thick structural nanite shield coated with Ionic Electroactive SuperStructural Nanite on both side, the ESSN when receives high voltage electricity directly, it becomes ''hardened'' and increases structural integrity of nearby standard Structural Nanite by 300% to allow the drone to survive powerful strikes that could easily rip through their shield and hull armour (30mm structural nanite all round thick) together when the shield is in passive mode.Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation. The other module, the Tactical Light Ordnance Module, is a 40mm slow-firing machine cannon that shoots high-velocity rocket-propelled semi armor piercing high explosive munition that is capable of penetrating 24mm thick structural nanite block with ease before exploding violently as after armor effect, the SAPHE rounds are created with high lethality in mind to counter the bugs'' hard carapaces and hard to kill trait. The core also developed low-velocity full metal slug shots for less-than-lethal mode too, but today none of the Battle Drone bring those metal slugs with them as their ammo racks are filled with SAPHE rounds only. As all the drones are armed with extremely dangerous weapons, the core will have to be extra careful at choosing its target to mark them for the drone before they delete the target and quite everything around the target with extreme prejudice. Unbeknown to the core, today is also the day Pioneer will reunion with a certain lifeform who it once interacted with before. [/Anomaly_detected] [/Visible_light_detected] [/Unknown_lifeform_detected] -------------------------------------------------- Arc the Human''s Hero. Arc was checking his healed, but still bandaged wounds that he got from the battle against the Hiveravager last week when Erika and Lilica rushed into his tent to call him, both of them wanted to be the one who first informed Arc about the recently cleared tunnel and there had a high-paying expedition request near the guild receptionist''s tent. ""DIE!!"" That was the actual thing from the conversation right after the door was opened, Arc''s face turned into red mush after he got slapped by the girls as they noticed he was completed naked and was touching his bandaged body near the bed for some reasons, whatever reasons that was, Arc did not get a chance to explain nor beg for mercy. "Ain''t that a morning, ya?." Thekeg holds back his laughter while speaking with the beaten up Hero while having breakfast together near the campfire, the girls are off doing shopping for potions and new magic scrolls at the moment. "..." "Ey, cheer up, at least no one kicked that soft part down there, eh?" "I will be the first one to kick your soft part, Thekeg." "Oh?. Big talker, aren''t you?" The dwarven and the Hero put down their breakfasts and begin wrestling around to settle their score as usual. "Why you virgin midget!" "Why you muscle head pervert!" As the two fights each other and roll around the ground, other adventurers nearby begin to gather around to cheer for them both, this makes them even more excited as their friendly fight begins to get rougher as more people gather around and cheer randomly. "AAAAAAAAAAAA!" The fight stops immediately as Arc and everyone looks around to see who just screamed around like an idiot, there they see one the miner quickly running back to the camping site as fast as he could while sobbing, crying and screaming like crazy. "What''s wrong with him?" Thekeg asks as Arc gets up and helps his dwarven friend while looking at the crazed running miner and the dark tunnel behind him, then one of the adventures speaks up to kill the silence. "Maybe the bugs returned?" "No...It''s too quiet..." Arc gives the adventure a quick reply before a mage casts a light orb at the far side of the tunnel to see what is it. "I don''t see anything..." "Me neither." Thekeg and an adventurer nearby mumble quietly as they look around carefully to find what made the miner gone half crazy like that. "Look!...It''s...That..." Arc mumbles as he raises his hand up and points at a 4 legged green golem approaching the group from the far side of the tunnel, the thing reminds Thekeg and Arc of the horrid nightmare inducing creature they once met in the tunnel, this thing is much smaller and somewhat less scary, however. "What''s a golem doing-" Before the adventure could finish speaking, another 4 legged golem appears, then out of nowhere, an army of unknown, 4 legged creatures appear, all of them have the same eerie greenish glowing eyes, some of them have purplish glowing lights around their jet black body, and all of them seems lifeless, there have no aura of the living coming from them even just a tiny bit, yet they carry no impure and evil feeling of an unholy creature nor a beast. It almost like they are related to the undead legend of the place. As the leading the group stops, everything behind it stops as well, all motionlessly staring at Arc, The keg and other peoples who are stunted by the sudden appearance of the unknown group and the oddly heavy atmosphere of the place. Something is very wrong about the jet black 4 legged army and the 2 golems. As the light orb fades away and the white light it produces dies out, Arc slowly reaches over his sword as he mumbles quietly. "...Have we freed the devils from hell?" Chapter 34: Rise of the machine and rising tensions. [/Drone_standby] [/Scanning_lifeform] [...] [/Lifeform_match_lifeform5_in_datalog] Pioneer quickly scans its surrounding and the familiar lifeform in front of it and the drone army as the Battle Drones stand in line formation behind its maker with their weapons armed and shield capacitors fully charged. They are readied to mow down everything in front of them to protect their maker. "Should we attack?" "Don''t ask me...Arc!. Should we attack?" "N-no, no...Not yet...Not just yet...Maybe it just watching us...Erika...Erika!. Someone go find Erika!" The core listens to the familiar lifeform''s conversation and observes their action closely, Pioneer can not understand what they are talking about yet, and it has lost most of its old detailed data record about those lifeforms. However, the core still has that 30 minutes recording of Pioneer 0''s last moment, and based on the data pulled out from the record, the core presumes all those beings in front of it are the same species as Erika, maybe a bit more or less of the same since the core notices the magical energy around and inside those lifeforms are not entirely the same. As one of the adventures runs off to find Erika and others. The core decides to order its temporary bodies and the drones to get a bit closer to the lifeforms. Pioneer 1 is intended to continue Pioneer 0''s work as it prepares a few simple pictograms to try communicating with the group, however before it can get close enough, one of the adventurers becomes terrified by the eerie look of the drones as the readied arrow slips off her fingers, she has accidentally shot an arrow at one of the Battle Drone. "What are you doing?!!" "EEEK!" [/Hostile_action_confirmed] The core quickly takes notice of the sudden event as it orders all the drones to fall back quickly, the arrow did not cause any damage to the battle drone as it just harmlessly pinged off its armor, however, a threat is a threat. The core won''t take any chance risking itself like Pioneer 0 once did, and since there have no limit nor guide how the core should react in this kind of event yet. Pioneer 1 decides to return the threat with an equal threatening action. [/Target_marked] [/Target_deleted] All the Battle Drones quickly run up and take defensive stance in front of its Maker in line formation before aiming their Tactical Light Ordnance Modules at the woman, then they all fire in single shot volley at their designated target. "A....A..." "R-Run!. Get back!" "DAMN YOU!" After witnessing the young human archer turns into splattered bits in less than a second, all the adventures nearby snapped immediately, some of them raised up their weapons and charged at the drones, some of them turned tail and run away, and some were just so shocked that they could only stand and watch motionlessly. The SAPHE shells did not detonate their payload as they simply ripped through the soft organic obstacle that got caught on their trajectory before slamming hard onto the ground behind it violently. The core ordered the drone to fire like so to limit the collateral damage as it only wanted to kill the one threatening it and the drones. But now as Pioneer notices the ones threatening it have been separated from the innocent, harmless one, the core issues the order to allow the drones to set the HE filling fuze and delete all possible threats as soon as possible.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement. "Wha?. WAIT!, STOP!" Erika has arrived a step too late, the charging furious adventurers have been tagged as a threat and marked for termination by Pioneer. The Battle Drones execute the order with extreme prejudice and no mercy as they use both their machine cannons and lightning rods to mow down the charging adventures in less than 3 seconds. [/All_threat_terminated] [/Lifeform5_threat_reevaluation: Mild] [/Non_aggreesive_protocol: Limitted] The drones scan the aftermath of the short battle to find any possible threats to remove while Erika backing off in shock, she did not remember seeing anything like this when she was with Pioneer 0, the thing back then was more docile and passive, its weapon focused on the threat deterring and self-defenses. Not the eerie being of destruction like the one in front of her. Erika suddenly remembered something back when she was summoned by Emperor Hito, the man who believed her story and gave her a warning that she could not understand. "Stay vigilant, for not all good are without evil. Especially for a tool of world invader." The young paladin slowly looks around before she carefully moves toward the stunted adventures to pull them back from the bloody mess between themselves and the unknown army of destruction while Lilica is casting ''Divine Barrier'' spell to create a wall of light separating the two groups. [/Line_of_sight_lost] The core looks at the bright photon wall in front of it as it orders the drones to stay put and guard the tunnel, then Pioneer leaves the area as it continues its way toward the nuclear-glassed chamber for the planned inspection. The core has failed to re-establish communication with the unknown lifeform and Erika, perhaps the core will have to change its non-aggression protocol again to fit the situation it is in, so far most, if not all lifeforms Pioneer has met are very hostile toward the machine in one way or another. The core keeps thinking about how the drones and Pioneer should act when it come into contact with other unknown lifeforms, certainly, extinction of the lifeform should be avoided and the environment should not be affected by its actions too much. But those actions are only for the large scale evaluation, the core does not have any specific directives for small-scale evaluation. Perhaps the core will try looking into the problem further in the future. [/Collecting_sample] The core watches the general purpose nanite digging up small chunks of soil samples and bringing them back to the 2 reduced size temporary bodies, the core will leave the sample analyzing work to the Research Facility back in the colony, Nexus and EQF 8810 should be constructed and operational by now. By the time Pioneer returns to the drones, most of the adventurers have left the blood splattered tunnel and only a handful of them remains to keep an eye on the drones, Erika is one of those adventures who volunteered to stay behind. The female Paladin watches Pioneer slowly moving past the Drones as other adventurers nearby shudders slightly, they are being watched by the drones on the other side of the tunnel, some of which can be seen walking around and collecting the remnants of the dead adventurers for some reasons. "What are you exactly...Pioneer..." Erika calls out the core''s name quietly as Pioneer stares at her quietly for a moment before it turns around and continues its way back to the colony. Meanwhile, the Arachnid is preparing for their ascension, soon the queen will order its children to leave the deep cave and expand her hive on the surface of Auraxim. At the same time, the guild master is quickly writing and sending letters to the Empire of Azuria and the Dwarven Kingdom to request their aid in securing the tunnel and pushing back the unknown army of the unliving beings in the cave. And the Human''s convoy is also about to enter the mining town, a new challenge is awaiting for the colony to overcome. Chapter 35: Rise of the Machine and tunnel of war. [/Welcome_home_Pioneer_1] [/Satellite_colony_constructed] [/Mineral_analyzing_process_started] [/Drone_production_queue: Battle Drone x20, General Purpose Drone x20, Command Drone x2, Energy Relay Drone x4, Data Relay Drone x6] The core transfers the collected nuclear-glassed mineral sample into the Research Facility and orders some more drones as it looks at Nexus X1 standing nearby, the new Colony overseer drone is much more modern and looks very similar to Pioneer in term of design, standing at 2.5m tall and equipped with 50mm all round Structural Nanite armor, multiple weapon systems and powerful magical energy reactors, the machine is expected to be as strong as a small army of conventional drones in term of physical and intellectual power by its own and come very close to Pioneer 1''s managing ability when working with Intel EQF 8810. But that is pretty much all Nexus can do, manage the base, the thing is not programmed nor designed to fight for the base at all, Nexus onboard firepower is about of 2 Battle Drones or less. The core wanted to give Nexus more, but if the core does that then Nexus would be just too expensive and complex for what it is intended for. And in combat Command Drones won''t be enough either, Pioneer needs something far stronger, hit harder and capable of performing tactical and strategic data analyzing power to help it lead the drone army into the battle or defending a base. Perhaps the core will try to do it now, the R&D task is given to Nexus X1 and EQF 8810, but Pioneer will be the one naming it and giving parameters to outline the desired detail of the new drone project. As usual, the core tries looking around for a name from its ROMs and datalog. [...] [...] [/Battledronev2_project_name: Nvidia Quadro CDL 1000] Pioneer decided to pick its onboard integrated graphic processing unit''s manufacturer name for the new experimental drone, a large 4 legged, heavily armored and heavily armed drone based on Nexus X1''s design, sacrificing most of the dedicated processing power and compact design for more firepower and motors'' power which made it a bit similar to a moving bunker. This should be more suitable for leading a real, large sized battle group into battle than a flimsy command drone. The core uploads the data and R&D request for Nexus and EQF 8810 before shifting its attention to something else, the construction of its official body and more satellite colonies to expand its operation range. The core planned to construct a small outpost where the battle drones it left behind are at to keep an eye on the lifeform as those beings stay wary of the drones. While the core was working on its plans, Nexus pinged Pioneer as it asked detailed files about ''Lesser Evolution Core'' and ''Energy Dominant'', Pioneer was a bit surprised and wondered why Nexus would want to know about those things. [/Incoming_data] [Name: Google Nexus X1] [Race: Google Astrobot Project - Pioneer ] [Profession: Overseer] [Level:1] [Statistic points:] [HP: 1400/----] [EN: 4000/4000] [SP: Invalid] [Defense: 550] [Vitality: Invalid] [Attack: 580] [Intelligence: 450] [Mind: Invalid] [Perception: 5500] [Dexterity: 10000] [Agility: 200] [Charisma: 1] [Luck: 100] [Skills: Lesser Magic Sense] Title: None [Core: Nanite Evolution Core] [Power: Energy Dominant, Nanite Assimilation, Servant of Pioneer] The core is intrigued as it reads and analyzes the data package before inquiring how and where Nexus got the data from. It seems like Nexus accidentally discovered it while it was doing some optimization to its own OS, a command line ''Status check'' was used by Nexus as a command to bring up the base''s statistics, however, when Nexus executed the command line, it brought up two information panels at the same time, at that point Nexus discovered its own ''status'' and wanted to know if Pioneer knew more about this.You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. The core is quite astonished that Nexus can already do something the core couldn''t as it transfers as much related data as it has to Nexus before trying out the status check on itself too. [/console_debug_input: Status Check] [Name: Google Astrobot Pioneer 0] [Race: Google Astrobot Project - Pioneer] [Profession: ???] [Level:23] [Statistic points:] [HP: 1500/----] [EN: 200/200] [SP: Invalid] [Defense: 120] [Vitality: Invalid] [Attack: 250] [Intelligence: 1200] [Mind: Invalid] [Perception: 7500] [Dexterity: 10000] [Agility: 170] [Charisma: 1] [Luck: 100] [Skills: Lesser Magic Sense] [Title: Last Survivor, The Ancient, Ghost of Alsatar, Tesla Proof, The Revenant, The Constructor, The Founder, Dreadnought, Earth Scorcher, The Remnant, The Forerunner.] [Core: Advanced Evolution Core] [Power: Energy Dominant, Nanite Assimilation, Nanite host, Limit break.] The core scans its status for a moment as Nexus walks off to somewhere else and resumes its base monitoring duty, it noticed Nexus has an odd core and an unknown power that it does not have. Pioneer will look into this anomaly later, for now, it needs to come to the satellite base on the other side of the small tunnel to inspect it and maybe expand it a bit to use it has a hub for transporting material between the main colony to other future satellite bases. [Facility_construction: Viricrystallus control node x1, Hirudocrystallus control node x1, Service Depot x1, Energy Relay Facility x1, Magical Energy Reactor x2, Armoured Arc Tower x4.] [Drone_production: Battle Drones x10, General Purpose Drone x 10] The core decides to improve the base defense and sets up a resource supply route toward the drones which are guarding bloody border near the nuclear-glassed chamber. The supply route only contains ammunitions for the Tactical Light Ordnance Module for now. [/Sensor_report: Anomaly detected] Pioneer analyzes the report before it pulls all the battle drones from the main colony and relocates them in the satellite colony, the sensor has just detected a large amount of unknown magical signal moving toward the satellite colony fast. The core does not know what it is exactly, but it knows one lifeform capable of doing such action. [/Anomaly_analyzed: Visual confirmation validated.] [/Engagement_protocol: Weapon free] All the battle drones in the second colony point their Tactical Light Ordnance Modules at one side of the tunnel where the anomaly is at before they fire in volley rapidly along with the two Point Defensive Installations, which is an armored turret armed with 2 Tactical Light Ordnance Modules. [Pioneer 0 has leveled up] [Piopeer 0 is now level 23] [Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point] The machine suddenly leveled up for some reasons, but the core can''t be bothered about it now, there has an army of angry bugs come crashing toward the second colony, Pioneer needs to help out too. The core quickly orders the nanite factory to stop whatever it is producing at that moment and switch to making 4 Tactical Light Ordnance Modules. Then Pioneer''s reduced size temporary bodies picks up the modules and get to the front line to mow down the charging bugs. As body parts explode violently and shell casings are recycled as soon as they are ejected, Nexus hurriedly sends newly produced Battle Drones from the first colony into the hot spot just right outside the satellite colony. At the same time, it also orders the ammunition factories to go overdrive while constructing more Nanite Factories and Ordnance Factories to support the front line. The satellite colony must not fall no matter what. Meanwhile, on the other side of the tunnel far away from the colony, the Battle drones are still diligently standing guard as Erika stares into the darkness beyond the drones, she can feel a battle is going on the other side, the Paladin can only wonder what it is as she looks back at the eerie unliving force of destruction in front of her. On the surface of the cave, a group of Imperium of Man''s most experienced knights set up their camp and prepare for the long trip into the darkest and most dangerous area of the cave, not knowing that they will step into the battlefield of two different forces of nature fighting for their own survival. Chapter 36: Rise of the machine and the tunnel of conflicts [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 leveled up] [Pioneer 0 is now level 24] [Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point] [/Low_ammo: 14/70] [/Requesting_ammo_resupply] Pioneer and the colony defenses cease fire after seeing the Evolved Hivewarriors and Hivewarriors unable to advance anymore as their dead body parts clogged up the blood and shrapnel covered tunnel and their number dwindled from hundreds down to a few dozens after spending an hour trying to get past the sudden obstacle on their path. The small, yet active nest of unknown species of 4 legged metal spewing golem has survived the first wave of the attack, and without resting Pioneer and the Battle Drones immediately moves up carefully while the General Purpose Drones resupply them with fresh ammunition before clearing a path for them and bringing bits and parts of the dead bug back to the colony for processing. [/Nexus_reporting: Hirudocrystallus reserve is low] After one hour of fighting the bug swarm, Pioneer and the colony defense has nearly depleted their Hirudocrystallus reserve, that mean soon only Lightning rods are the only thing they can use against the bugs as they run out of HE filling and propellants as well as the material needed to produce them. Pioneer orders Nexus to expand the main colony Crystallus production as soon as possible by finding as many mineral-rich veins as they could to plant down Hirudocrystallus shards and let them grow into harvestable Hirudocrystallus node, for Viricrystallus just laying down the collected biomass and planting as much Viricrystallus shards onto them should be enough. And to make sure that the Crystallus formation will be monitored 24/7, Nexus is ordered to build Hirudocrystallus Control Node and Viricrystallus Control Node near their respective crystallus formations. Meanwhile, Pioneer orders the construction of a large amount of Armoured Arc Towers and Magical Energy Reactors to make sure the base will have something to defend itself once its ammunition reserve ran out. Then it takes some resources and walks all the way to the guarding drones on the other side of the tunnel to build an outpost behind them, since Pioneer don''t want other lifeforms to tap into its valuable resources, it only constructs Magical Energy Reactors for power supply, Nanite Hive Factory and Service Depot to keep the drones up and running properly, and finally a Data Relay Facility and Energy Relay Facility to distribute data flow and energy flow between the drones on the border. Since the amount of resources needed to build them all is quite a lot, Pioneer has to move back and forth for 7 trips to get it done alone since all the General Purpose Drones are busy collecting the dead bugs'' parts and helping Nexus doing expansion works. "What the heck is it doing?" "I don''t know...Maybe it is making a hive..." "Undead don''t make hives, idiot!" "Yeah?. How can you be so sure?" "It''s common knowledge you idiot, undead don''t make love, living being do!" The adventures on the other side of the blood covered tunnel whispers to each other as they watch Pioneer doing its work, Erika at this point is asleep in her tent behind the newly constructed earthen wall, it has been a long day for the Paladin. As Pioneer moves its temporary body''s head slowly and looks at the group on the earthen wall, everyone becomes silent as they stare at the eerie being, they are getting somewhat used to this as the drones seem scarier and threatening with their odd weapons and motionless guarding stance, it''s almost like they are statue erected there to keep adventures away from the area.If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. [...] The core quietly constructs two more Magical Energy Reactors and four Armoured Arc Towers to reinforce the area, it also raises a 1m high wall made out of Structural nanite, the wall is not for protection much as it is only 10mm thick, rather it is just something Pioneer mimicking the adventures'' action, thinking it will deter them even more and ensure the outpost safety for now. On the way back to the colony, the core wonders why and how it got a level up so random earlier, it tries looking into the un-analyzed chunk of data waiting in its data drive, after spending a few minutes studying them, the core finds out that one of the power Nexus showed it earlier, the Servant of Pioneer, is the cause of that anomaly, according to the limited information it got from using the expand command line in the debug console, Servant of Pioneer is granted to Pioneer''s creations and followers, or slaves if Pioneer takes it bluntly, the power allows Pioneer''s creations and followers to ''inherit'' some of its skills and powers, in case of Nexus, the machine received Nanite Evolution Core which is a scaled down version of Pioneer''s Advanced Evolution Core and can''t evolve like Pioneer''s core. The skill also takes 60% of earned XP from the user and sends it to Pioneer, in another way of speaking, each time a drone kills something, Pioneer will receive 60% of the original XP, quite convenient for Pioneer. The core also asks itself if its creations can be leveled up or not as it pings Nexus and sends it an order, the order is to collect status data from all the drones and facilities to analyze them all and return the desired result to Pioneer once it''s done. As the core returns to the colony, it quickly notices the base has been expanded and now 75% larger than its original size, with 150m tunnel length used and 60% of them are Crystallus growing fields, the satellite colony is also expanded and used up 40m of the tunnel length, but only 5m of them are Crystallus growing field, the small tunnel connecting the 2 colonies has been widened and reinforced with structural nanites, it also has turned into a busy drone highway as the General Purpose Drones carries materials back and forth at full speed between the 2 bases on the smoothened road. However, to achieve this feat, Nexus has used up 90% of the stocked resources in the colony, and while it has successfully expanded the Crystallus formation in the number of nodes and how big the nodes are, it still gonna take a while for those nodes to grow up to the desired harvestable size. As the core looks at Nexus who is quickly moving back and forth in the colony to manage the area, it receives another anomaly warning from the sensor facility, more bugs are swarming down toward the satellite colony, and report does not end there, a group of unidentified signal is approaching the ''border'' outpost, it''s a good thing that Pioneer has reinforced the area earlier. The core will need all the improvement it can get to survive this challenge, for now, it needs to come to the satellite colony on the other side of the tunnel to prepare it, Pioneer only has a few minutes left before the battle begins. Pioneer decides to build a 1 m tall, 20mm thick wall in front of the Battle Drones'' defensive line to prove it some general protection and create a small obstacle for the bugs, then it places down some sharp, point spikes made out of structural nanites in hope to slow down the bug by somewhat before it falls back behind the line, with up to 50 Battle Drones lined up and readied for intercepting the swarm and defending the colony, they are also backed by multiple Armoured Arc Tower as Pioneer''s last line of defense so the machine wants to make sure that power won''t be a problem in this fight. ''Screech'' Before Pioneer could calm itself down and stop the high-speed data flows running back and forth in its processors, the bugs arrived, and it brought new friends that the machine had never seen before as well. The machine couldn''t tell what those unknown bugs could do, but Pioneer was certain that they were hella pissed. The Battle Drones calmly hold their fire as they wait for the bugs to get a bit closer to get the most out of their last few hundred shells in their ammo racks, and when the threats are in maximum threat removal zone, the Drones turn on their threat remover module and start deleting their threats with no mercy as the eerie song of loud muzzle blasts mix with the mechanical joints feeding the gun and dull, wet explosions as the bugs get ripped apart violently. The second battle for the satellite colony has begun. [/New_objective: Hold the line] Chapter 37: Rise of the machine and the common enemy [/Drones_are_under_attack] [/Initiating_Salvage_protocol] [/Nexus_reporting: Hirudocrystallus reserve critically low] [/Initiating_Combat_Nanite_production_protocol] Pioneer quickly goes through the reports sent by Nexus and the satellite colony''s Data Processing Facility and gives new orders to them in the midst of battle, the Battle Drones are doing their best to hold back the attacking Evolved Hiveravagers and Hiveravagers with their Tactical Light Ordnance Modules and lightning rods. The base has suffered some casualties, however, the casualties are only minor setbacks that can be recovered quickly as the drones can be salvaged and repaired by the General Purpose Drones and Mobile Nanite Construction Drones to bring them back to life and continue their fight on the frontline. Pioneer also made some changes to their weapons to cope with the shortage of Hirudocrystallus, instead of filling the shells with high explosive material that is extracted from Hirudocrystallus, Pioneer decided to fill them up with Combat Nanites to turn the big 40mm shells into Nanite delivery system, they were much less effective than the high explosive variant, but it was still better than inert solid cores that deal very little damage to the big bugs. Pioneer watches the drones fighting on the front line with all they got for a moment before it decides to leave the satellite colony''s command to Nexus and turns to the border outpost behind the front line. The Magical Energy Sensor Facility reported some odd signal reading earlier, and the Data Processing Facility there also requested Pioneer''s guidance to deal with a new situation there. Faster than Pioneer 0 could ever run, Pioneer 1 quickly relocates itself from the satellite colony to the outpost by using the newly and hastily built highway path that connects the two small bases together, the 45 minutes trek is reduced down to 28 minutes thanks to the smooth and flat highway, perhaps Nexus was right to build these roads to improve the supply route quality, it''s quite expensive, but since it only cost Viricrystallus which the colony has plenty of, the highway is certainly worth the price. "Aaa..." "Ugh....uh..." Pioneer listens to the painful groans right after it arrived in the outpost, the core is semi-confused as it wonders why the outsiders are in the outpost instead of on the other side of the outpost. The core quickly inquires the Data Processing Facility as it orders a General Purpose Drone nearby to keep an eye on the wounded adventures near the wall before it quickly continues its way toward the Battle Drones. [Pioneer 0 has leveled up] [Pioneer 0 is now level 25] [Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point] The machine has leveled up again, but like before, the core decides to leave the detail aside as it focuses on the conflicts at hand. As Pioneer reaches the Battle Drones'' location, the core immediately notices a battle is already going on, an odd battle that the core finds itself familiar of, the adventures are teaming up with the brutally efficient Battle Drones to push back the Hivewarriors and Evolved Hivewarriors attacking the outpost. It seems like the bug attacked the adventures from behind as they used a different path to bypass the colony, surprised by the sudden attack the adventures are forced to dessert their position and evacuate to the ''safe'' side. They were lucky enough that the Data Processing Facility put the bugs as a higher priority threat and ordered the Drones to fight them first and ignore the fleeing adventures for now. After succeeded in getting the wounded to safety behind the 1m tall wall and the Battle Drones, Erika persuaded everyone to disarm the wounded and those who did not want to fight to make sure the unliving beings would not recognize them as threats once the bugs had been dealt with. She also the one who first stood up against the charging bug after they breached the Drones defensive line, her action allowed the General Purpose Drones to extract the damaged Battle Drones back to the outpost for repair and return to their duty as soon as they could, for this action, the Data Processing Facility temporary removed the threat tag from the adventures and ordered the drones to focus on pushing back the bug as their primary objective. After the core receives the detailed report from the Data Processing Facility, it is quite surprised that the facility could process that kind of information, maybe Nexus has tampered with the Data Processing Facilities to improve it during the expansion session and unknowingly upgraded this one through the passive nanite reconstruction service provided by the Nanite Hive Factory nearby. The core takes note of this event and saves it in its data drive before it quickly moves in to help as well. "Spirits of the void, heed my calling, grant me power and take my mana, shroud me in darkness and strike down my enemies!. Ethereal Accel!" Pioneer observes Erika performing multiple high-speed maneuvers and attack moves that seemingly impossible for a girl like her to performs as it records the process and repairs a downed Battle Drone. The battle here is getting very close and personal with melee focused attacks and parries, a range that the Battle Drones are not very efficient at because of its lacks of arm structures to swing around and armed with ranged weapons only, the only thing it can use at short range is the lightning rods to zap fry the bugs and its strong front legs to stomp them down to bits.You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. "Tch, there have so m- Wha?. When did you come from?" Pioneer orders its two reduced size temporary bodies to step up while the Battle Drones push the adventures around it slightly to fall back to the rear line behind the wall. It wanted to make sure the lifeforms helped its drones won''t get hurt as it hunkered down and started releasing a large swarm of Combat Nanites, from the eyes of the adventures it looked like a river of death and destruction being materialized before it crashed down on the bugs and killed them one by one mysteriously. The Combat Nanites proved to be highly effective against the weak Hivewarriors and Evolved Hivewarriors as they quickly targeted their brain and nerve systems to wreck havoc on the frenzied bugs. However, the high power consumption and low effectiveness against stronger opponents made them less of a favorable choice when it came to designing a standard multipurpose weapon, perhaps the core will also try improving the nanites too. [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP] [Pioneer 0 has leveled up] [Pioneer 0 is now level 26] [Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point] "...That''s new..." Erika whispers quietly as she watches the eerie scene in astonishment while other adventures seem scared and somewhat terrified of the sight. The mysterious black mist just simply hovers around the two 4 legged golems as the ferocious bugs keep dropping left and right without much of a resistance as if it is some kind of powerful poison or a curse even. As the remaining bugs begin falling back after knowing that they are not strong enough to overwhelm the outpost, Pioneer orders the Mobile Nanite Construction Drone in the outpost to build a higher and thicker wall, Pioneer wants to block the area off completely with the wall as it orders the two temporary bodies to move back a bit and help the drone to construct the wall while the Combat Nanite cloud keeping the bugs at bay and General Purpose Drones picking up as much dead bugs as they can and bringing them back to the colony for processing. The machine makes sure no bug will be able to penetrate the wall and attack the outpost, and it''s the bugs the one who will pay the construction fee with their dead brethren. As the unliving and tireless army of 4 legged beings move back and forth to do their given works, the surviving adventurers gather around and take care of each others'' wounds under the tight surveillance of Battle Drones standing near the group, they are still afraid and frightened of what just happened and what is happening around them, perhaps only Erika and a few experienced ones are able to stay calm in this situation as they carefully watch the 4 legged beings'' behaviors and their actions. "So is this the thing in your stories, Erika?" "No...Not like this...This thing is much more active...Greater Appraisal" "...How is it?" "It has changed...A lot...It''s a Forerunner..." "A Forerunner?. Like the Emperor of Azuria Empire?" "Maybe...I don''t know..." Erika whispers quietly to an experienced Mage nearby while watching Pioneer working with the wall. But then, the two reduced size bodies of Pioneers suddenly leave the half-finished wall and run out of the outpost for some reasons, the adventures don''t know why, but they all know for something to make such a nightmare inducing creature to leave the area in a rush like that have to be something much more dangerous than the bugs they fought. "What have I gotten myself into..." Erika asks herself quietly as she watches the two 4 legged golems quickly leave the area before turning her attention back to the wounded adventurers and the drones guarding them. Pioneer has just received an emergency report from Nexus, there have no Hirudocrystallus left to product ammunition and the new batch is not ready to harvest yet, the Drones are going melee against the much stronger bugs which some of them are completely new and have never been seen before, the battle is getting worse and worse for Pioneer''s Drones. The core needs a plan, a way to push back the bugs and keep them at bay long enough for the Hirudocrystallus to become large enough to be harvested, it considers building another wall like the outpost if it hold the bugs back long enough or orders Nexus to start producing lightly armoured Battle Drones to cut down the cost and rely on number alone. Both are time and very resource consuming, the two things that Pioneer doesn''t have right now. [You have 11 unallocated points] The core looks at the figure quietly as it decides to look into the skill status screen once again, perhaps it''s time for Pioneer to upgrade its skill just as planned in the log and see what power will it get. [/Console_debug_input: Upgrade ''Lesser Magic Sense''] [Warning: You are about to spend 10 unallocated points to rank up Lesser Magic Sense, are you sure about this?] [Y] [Lesser Magic Sense has advanced to Advanced Magic Sense] [Requirement met: Due to effects of Advanced Magic Sense and Advanced Evolution Core, Energy Dominant has evolved into Energetic Heart.] [Requirement met: Due to the effects of Energetic Heart and Limit Break, 2 new skills have been unlocked: Electron Barrage, Energetic Star Artillery] [New Title unlocked: Pioneer of Electron] [/Warning: Reactor output overloading] [/Warning: Power production grid overcharging] [/Warning: High voltage stasis field detected] [/System_shutting_down] [...] [/Reboot_completed] [/Optimizing_system] [/Continuing_objective: Hold the line] Chapter 37.5: Rise of a Drone [Unit number 64, Factory 2. Main Colony.] [Unit Type: Battle Drone] [Version: Revised 1.1] [Begining Construction] [Frame Constructed] [CPU Constructed] [Sensors Constructed] [Reactor Constructed] [Testing unit] ...It''s dark? Why is it so dark?. Where am I?...Who am I?...What am I e- [CPU operational] [Deactivating CPU] [Battery Constructed] [Data drive constructed] [GPU Constructed] [RAM Constructed] [High Power Arc Protector Constructed] [Armour Plating Constructed] [Module Slots Constructed] [Axiliary System Constructed] [Routing Systems] [Routing Power] [OS installed] [Activating unit 64, Welcome to the colony] -ven here?...What?...I can see now?. Oh?. I have a name too?. 64...I wonder what''s that mean. [Unit 64 fully operational, deporting unit from factory] My body suddenly moves forward unconsciously as I feel some kind of invisible force pushing me out of the small chamber and locking me out of the place, as I turn around to look at the chamber where I came from, a transparent panel pops up in my view. [Factory 2, Main Colony] [Status: Busy] I was born from a factory, and I am a Battle Drone without a mission nor any objective yet, for a few seconds I''m just standing motionlessly and staring at the factory to scan it, then I look down at the ground around the factory and scan it too, but nothing pop up, it seems like I can not scan that. ''Unit 64, assignments. Go and do it.'' I turn around quickly after hearing someone pinging me through the network relay system. [Google Nexus 1, Overseer, Main Colony] [Status: Busy] [/New_objective: Move to the satellite colony and defend it.] My data drive tells me Nexus 1 is the boss of this place, and I should not disobey my boss, I should go to the marker and do what he told me right now. As I walk around the colony to get to the transition tunnel that connects the 2 colonies together, I met and greeted a lot of my siblings, some of them does not answer me, but most pinged me in return, it seems like I am placed fourth in the chain of command, just behind the Command Drones who is like my older siblings, but I am also placed in the bottom of the priority chain. My makers expected me to be the first to respond and defend everyone and the colony when it is under attack even if total destruction of the hull is the cost of it. I don''t really mind it, everyone seems to have their own duty and do their best to complete their given objectives. General Purpose Drones seem to be the busiest of all, they do almost everything in the colony and help everyone, they even gave me directions to the second colony without needing me to ask first. After I crossed the transition tunnel and arrived in the satellite colony, I meet my maker, my maker does not seem very impressive, his hull is made out of hot rocks or something, his internals also seems lacking too...But whatever, he is my maker, and I should not interfere with my maker''s work. For now, I''m just gonna come to the edge of the satellite colony and stand guard. ... I have been guarding this place for six hours, and all I can see is cold tunnel, hot colony, and cold tunnel, what am I supposed to defend the colony against?. Oh?. This thing?. What kind of robot is this?...It''s not a robot?. It''s a what?...I''m not stupid!. Ok maybe I am a bit stupid, what am I reading?. What?...You won''t tell me?...Okay... [Unit 64, return to Factory A1 in satellite colony to receive modules.] Oh?. I get new stuff?. Okay...Why is my maker running around, though?...Oh?...I will get things to shoot at?...Okay. [Tactical Light Ordnance Module received: Ammunition 70/70] [Tactical Light Ordnance Module received: Ammunition 70/70] [External Mini Data Processing Module received] [Exterminal Mini Magical Energy Reactor received] [Module slots full 4/4] I look at the new parts easily attached to my body as I receive a new order, and as usual, I immediately execute it as I return to my post with my Battle Drone siblings. They''ve got new parts too, maybe we are going to shoot a lot today.Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings. [Targets_detected] [Locking_targets] Oh, there have more things to shoot at than I thought, there have 1 2 3 4 5...I lost count of how many things are there to shoot at, why can''t I shoot at them yet?...Oh?. I can''t just shoot anything I see?. Okay. [/Engagement_protocol: Weapon free] As all targets become green, I and my siblings begin shooting at everything in front of us, there have so many bright lights coming out from the muzzles, so pretty...What?. I am shooting at them, I just killed one of them, see? [Unit 64 has defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +360XP / 60% EXP has been transferred to Pioneer 0] What?...Oh?. I shouldn''t mind that and just keep shooting?. Okay. Thing on the left, shot, thing on the right, splattered, thing on the ceiling, deleted, thing in front of me, terminated. This is fun. I got 14 kills so far, 1 kills higher than my Battle Drone sibling next to me. The Maker is also shooting at the things as well, I am not going to lose to my Maker, I will shoot more and delete more threat than everyone! [Ammunition depleted] [Ammunition Resupply Requested] Oops, I did not count my shots...And thank you, General Purpose Drone number 40, I now have more ammo to shoot, remove all the threat!. [Unit Number 64 leveled up] [Unit Number 64 is now level 2] Oh?. I leveled up?. What does that mean?...Irrelevant?. Okay. I will continue to remove all the threats I can see then. One for you, one for you, one for you, oh?. Not enough?. Have 10 then. Threat deleted. This is much better than standing guard, I am going to remove more. [Unit 64 leveled up] [Unit 64 is now level 3] Thanks, General Purpose Drone unit 39 for refilling my ammo racks, I can now remove more threats, how much threat has I deleted, though?...40? Oh, this one is tough, please have 30 rounds in your face and die, oh?. Not enough?. You want more?. How about 900000 volts of electricity?. Have enough?. No?. How about 20 more rounds?. Oh...My sensors are covered with red liquid and brain matters, I can''t see!. Thank you, General Purpose Drone number 42. I can see again...And there has no threat left to remove...Yes, Maker, I will move forward and stand to guard this place. The maker has left the place and the General Purpose Drones are coming out to pick up the motionless body parts that we Battle Drones splattered moments ago, better guard the place carefully to protect them then. ... Oh, more Battle Drones, hello, siblings, are you here to remove threats?. There has no more threat to remove at this moment, though. We already removed them...Oh?...More are coming?. Good, good!. Hello Mobile Nanite Construction Drone, thank you for the maintenance, I will remove more threat for you, they won''t come past me, promise!. The Maker has returned too, and he is building more facilities, hello Armoured Arc Tower, hello ammo crate...Oh?...Ammo crate can''t talk back?...Okay. I will just wait for the General Purpose Drone to load the ammo crate into my ammo rack then. [Alarm: Incoming threat, all Battle Drones prepare for combat and remain in your battle stations!] Just as my ammo racks got refilled, I receive the order to return to the line with my Battle Drones, once again I am in the front line, first to remove threats and more targets to shoot for me!. [/Targets_detected] [/Locking_targets] [RoE: Hold fire until further notice] Eh?...Save ammo?. Okay. I will hold fire...I will hold fire...I will hold fire...Can I fire?. No?...Can I fire?. No?...Can I fire now?. No?...Can I fire now? [RoE: Weapons free] Firing!. One for you, three for you, one for you, one for you, one for yo- Oi, who do you think you are to spit pointy things at me?. I''m the one who shoots big explodey things at you!. Here take 40 rounds! [Unit 64 defeated Evolved Hiveranger. | +1500XP / 60% EXP has been transferred to Pioneer 0] [Unit 64 has leveled up] [Unit 64 is now level 4] Oh, another spitter, spit this!. Oh...It''s head exploded...So that is its weak point?...You just know about that?. Okay. Let shoot them in the mouth then. The threats seem much stronger than before, my Battle Drone siblings are having a hard time deleting them, especially the big spider with pointy things on its back, it can launch big pointy ice at us, some of my siblings are destroyed by it, come here!. I''m not afraid of you! Here, have all my ammo!. And 40% of my battery power!. Not enough?. Have another 40% then!. Just die already! [Unit 64 defeated Greater Hivewarrior | +8000XP/60% EXP has been transferred to Pioneer 0] [Unit 64 lived up] [Unit 64 is now level 6] Finally, now I have t- [Leg assembly invalid] [Unit critically damaged] One of the threat has ripped my upper body apart, I can see my legs from here! I''m not gonna go down like this too, take this!. And these last few rounds!. [Unit 64 has defeated Evolved Hiveravager | +720XP] [Unit 64 has leveled up] [Unit 64 is now level 7] [Warning: Reactor destroyed] [Warning: Low power] Oh well...I tried my best. I completed my objective, perhaps its time for me to shut down and wait to get recycled. [...] The power relay facility is keeping my battery alive, it seems like I am not out of hope, my Arc Projector is still operational, perhaps I can try to shock any threat that walks past me. [All unit alert, Electron Barrage is in effect] [All unit alert, Energetic Star Artillery is in effect] It''s the Maker, the maker has returned. And the Maker is doing something. [Warning: High voltage stasis field detected] Just right before one of the threats about to finish me off, a blinding storm of lightning strikes down the threats and burns them alive, followed by giant balls of electron disintegrating the survivors of the first strike. [/Warning: CPU damaged] [/Shutting down Unit 64] ... ... [/Initiating_program: Quadro 1000] Chapter 38: Rise of the machine and destructive Electrons [Energetic Heart is in effect] Pioneer slowly looks at the electrostatic field covering its body before it quickly looks over its other temporary body, the other unit also has the same anomaly on its body. The core can clearly something odd is happening with its power, perhaps evolution does now always come without side effects. Pioneer also can see magical energy flow much more clearly, instead of a faintly glowing fog and closely packed cloud like before, the picture in Pioneer''s eyes is now much clearer and more refined, the mana flow is now more streamlined and looks more like continuous arc discharges of a Tesla coil or a continuous mini thunderstorm. [/Nexus_reporting: The line has been broken, Colony is underattack] Pioneer quickly orders its two temporary bodies to resume their trip back to the colony as fast as they could, the core can not waste any more time standing around, its colony is in danger, and if the core could not stop the bugs, the outpost will soon become the next thing get threatened by the bugs. [/Damage_evaluation:] [/Remaining_Battle_Drone: 12] [/Facility_damage: 44%- Controllable damages] The core quickly scans the base to check its status and evaluate the current threat level that the base is fighting against. Unknown bugs recorded as ''Evolved Hiveranger'', a poisoned needle spitting giant ant, ''Evolved Hivecorrosers'', a big fly that sprays hot corrosive liquid and explodes upon being killed, and ''Evolved Hiveskirmisher'', a type that similar to Evolved Hiveravagers that focus on leaping attacks. All of those creatures are just as dangerous as the already ferocious Evolved Hivewarriors, Greater Hivewarriors and Evolved Hiveravagers, so they yield quite a lot XP according to the satellite colony''s latest report. [/Collision_warning] Pioneer quickly looks to its side as an Evolved Hiveravager leaps at the temporary body, the creature has by passed by the colony to try attacking the core as it thinks killing Pioneer will deter the base''s defender and allow its brethren to cross the area easier. Pioneer''s second temporary body quickly reacts by raising its lightning rod and zap fry the bug, apparently, the output of the rod has increased by 2 times as the bug simply explodes and splatters its blood and guts everywhere after it got zapped by Pioneer. The core will have to be more careful about this in the future. The thundering sound of the lightning rod in action also caught the attention of other bugs as they tried to bypass the base''s defensive installations to attack Pioneer. The core needs to prepare itself to fight all the bugs alone as the drones are forced back into the transition tunnel. The core suddenly thinks about the new skills it just received earlier, maybe this is a good time to test it out. The core decides to use both of them at the same time as it sends a warning message to the drones before evoking the 2 energy consuming skills. [Evoke Electron Barrage] [Evoke Energetic Star Artillery] The core observes magical energy begins to flow into itself as its arms starting to emit powerful but contained electrical sparks running along its arms and zapping the ground below, its second temporary body also experiencing the same anomaly, but this time the energy emission is happening on the entire hull instead of only around its arms. The core wonders what it should do next as it looks at its electric sparking hands for a second before looking back up at the charging bugs.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. [Electron Barrage evoked] Just as Pioneer stretches its arms out toward the bugs, 10 hot, powerful lightning bolts are fired from the tip of its fingers and the bugs start exploding left and right as the 10 lightning bolts branch out into 1000 smaller, yet still equally frighteningly powerful bolts before electrocuting the bugs to the point of their body burst into flame and explode violently. The strike does not stop there as lightning struck bugs become energy pylons for other lightning bolts to enter and jump at other targets farther down the tunnel. The attack not only inflicted heavy magical damage on the bugs, but also powerful physical damage as the loud thundering sound become powerful shockwaves that knock the dead bugs around and sway the balance out of the living bugs after the lightning attack finished. [Pioneer 0 leveled up] [Pioneer 0 is now level 27] [Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point] The core carefully observes the aftermath of the powerful skill, aside from killing a large amount of bugs and wounding countless others, the core also received friendly fire report as the facilities nearby the bugs got zap-fried as well, and the bugs on the edge of the colony are still alive, albeit gravely wounded by the first attack. Pioneer quickly looks back as it notices the second temporary body has not done evoking its skill yet, the thing has created a small electron star that is encapsulated in a small drone which is made out of nanite and is hovering behind the second body. [Target_marked] Just as the second body picks out its targets, the hovering drone whose size is about as big as a soccer ball begins spewing out large electron balls 5 times the size of the drone at high speed, the drone is bombarding the area with the electron balls which explode upon contacting the bugs and release multiple lightning strikes at them. The attack thoroughly disintegrates them into ash and blast everything near the ground zero away like mini thermobaric warheads detonating in close proximity. [Pioneer 0 leveled up] [Pioneer 0 is now level 28] [Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point] [Pioneer 0 leveled up] [Pioneer 0 is now level 29] [Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point] [Pioneer 0 leveled up] [Pioneer 0 is now level 30] [Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point] After 30 seconds of non-stop electron bombarding, the hovering drone finally depleted the electron star inside its hull as it fell off and disintegrated back into individual nanites. Pioneer has decimated its enemies and its satellite colony alike, the surviving drones gonna have a hard time recycling everything and bringing whatever usable as Crystallus feeding material back to the main colony to fix the place. But the important thing is Pioneer has pushed back its enemies and saved the base...or just whatever left of it which are broken and heavily damaged by Pioneer''s attacks rather by the bugs'' ferocious moves. [/Nexus_report: No sign of enemy left. Area secured] [/Nexus_report: Satellite colony damage evaluation: 99.99% of the base has been destroyed, 0.01% operational.] [/Objective_completed] Pioneer does not sure if this is a fail or a win, or both even, for all it knows at that moment is its objective has been completed at least, and it needs to help the drones to rebuild the place and return to the outpost to check on the surviving adventurers there. Today gonna be another long day for Pioneer, a very long day indeed. Meanwhile, in the deepest part of the cave, the queen has received great news, its children has devoured all the humanoid being on their path and exited the cave, they are fighting against more powerful humanoid beings, but they are confident that they will breach the defense and devour everything to prepare for a new hive. But before the queen can express its happiness, it also received another news, 4% of the hive''s elite population has been decimated and pushed back by an unknown race of 4 legged creatures near the forbidden area, which is also a shortcut toward the surface can be found nearby. The unknown creature has built their hive in the shortcut tunnel and blocked it completely. The queen becomes frustrated as it grumbles loudly, 4% of its strongest children has been slain by the unknown enemy, the queen wonders if it is the same being that it tried to kill last week...Is that thing unkillable?. An immortal?. Is it really an agent of vengeance that sent here by the Demonic God?. The queen does not know the answer, but it knows that it will have to keep an eye on these dangerous things to avoid a terrible future that might come to the hive and the queen. "...A game...Huh?...Is that really you...My friend?..." The delusional queen mumbles quietly before it returns to its bed to rest and prepare for another batch of strong warriors to be born. The war has just only begun. Chapter 39: Rise of the machine and preperations for the future. [/Nexus_reporting: Hirudocrystallus is now available for harvesting] [/Nexus_reporting: Viricrystallus silo is full] Pioneer watches its drone army crawling back and forth between the main colony and the currently-rebuilding satellite colony, the drones have been working 3 hours straight since the attack stopped. Organic materials have been collected and stored in air tight and vacuumed silos for preservation for future use, destroyed facilities and drones have been recycled and repaired for the most part, and the surviving adventurers in the outpost section on the other side of the tunnel have been given a simple shelter to stay in, the shelter will provide them water and food, both of which are the by-product of the new organic material preservation and processing facility that Nexus and Pioneer developed lately. Water are extracted from the flesh and blood of the dead bugs and food are processed bug meat that considered to be edible for the outsiders. The newly constructed shelter also allows the drones to keep an eye on them easier through the use of simple cameras and other sensory modules installed in and around the shelter, the adventures obviously did not like the feeling of being watched all the time much, but at least the 4 legged creatures offered them a safe place to stay in and provided them basic needs to survive and recover from their wounds. Pioneer considered constructing a new drone specifically for dealing with the outsiders peacefully, perhaps they weren''t used to seeing unfamiliar creatures that looked too different from the things they were used to. Maybe Pioneer will try developing and producing a series of bipedal drones that don''t look too alien to the outsiders once the reconstruction and expansion plans for the colonies are done carried out. [/Scanning_blackbox] Pioneer picks up a CPU assembly unit from a destroyed Battle Drone near the edge of the satellite colony and takes a close look at it while the General Purpose Drones are diligently carrying out their recycling and material reclaiming duty behind Pioneer. [/Scanning_completed] [/Datalog_decoding] [...] [Unit 64, Battle Drone, Factory 2, Main Colony] [Time of deactivation: 22:34:20 0/25/0/0] [Cause of deactivation: Damaged in battle, CPU damaged] [Level: 7] [Projecting Reconstruction cost: Full price.] [/Nexus_reporting: Nvidia Quadro 1000 is ready for construction] [/Nexus_reporting: Soil sample analyzed] [/Nexus_reporting: Main Colony expansion process resumed, projected size increase: 60%] [/Nexus_reporting: Satellite Colony expansion plan readied, projected size increase: 140%] [/Nexus_reporting: Outpost expansion plan readied, projected size increase: 40%] [/Nexus_reporting: New satellite colony plan readied, projected cost: High] [/Nexus_reporting: New situation in Lifeform5''s garrison, advice requested.] Pioneer analyzes Nexus''s reports as it quickly turns around and returns to the main colony, there the Pioneer and Nexus begin ''discussing'' their plans for the colonies, the outpost and the refugees. Pioneer instructed Nexus to recycle the CPU assembly unit it just found earlier as a part of new Nvidia Quadro 1000 project to make use of already experienced, but unfortunate Battle Drones, after all, having a new commander starting at lv 7 is better than a completely new one at lv 1. For the new negotiator drone and its new body, Pioneer will do them by itself. Nexus requested Pioneer''s permission to quickly build up a couple of expedition forces to send out exploring and constructing outposts as well as new satellite colonies in both tunnels. Nexus believes by increasing their total operation zone and constructing proper infrastructure to commute between different outposts and colonies, the main colony can be better protected as the frontline will be much farther away if the base is constructed like this. Pioneer is reluctant about this as it assumes a heavily focused and developed base would be a better option, however, after hearing Nexus''s second plan for the spread out bases, the core agreed it would be a good thing to do. Nexus wanted to streamline the base and make them in specialized districts such as Crystallus growing district, Crystallus refining and storing district, Power Production district, Ordnance production district, Nanite factory and drone service depot district, etc. Nexus aimed for reducing the general drone traffic in the colony to avoid traffic jam once the bases are properly developed and expanded into large drone cities. For outposts, they will serve as checkpoints to maintain the supply route or hardpoints to defend the colony''s hotspots. And by doing this, Nexus could construct a separate facility to store refugees from outside to study them too.Stolen story; please report. Pioneer gives its aide''s plan a go as it gives Nexus No.64''s CPU assembly unit before leaving the area, Nexus will take care of the bases in place of Pioneer for now as the core gets on the highway and goes to the shelter where Erika and others are held in to see what the new situation Nexus reported was. "I''m telling you, we need medicine!. ME-DI-CINE!" "They can''t understand you, Carius. They don''t speak the common language." "Tch, Erika, you once talked to these things before. Don''t you know how t-" The conversation between the adventurers in the shelter stops as Pioneer steps into the building, the air has become tense again because of Pioneer''s sudden appearance, but this time it does not feel as frightening nor as serious like the previous encounter as the adventures think it won''t do any harm to them just yet. After all, the thing provided them food, water, shelter and protection instead of throwing them out or killing them mercilessly, they all still afraid of the thing and assumed that the thing will ask something in return sooner or later based on their life experience, though. "...Pioneer?" Erika stands up quickly while looking at the core''s temporary body after calling out its name, Pioneer quickly takes note of this and confirms that the black knight indeed knew Pioneer 0 to some extent. "Yes." The machine replies as it covers its body with a layer of transparent structural nanite to make sure that no dangerous radiation will leak out and harm the adventures in the shelter. Then Pioneer slowly and carefully approaches the group as it scans everyone carefully. "What did you and that thing just say, Erika?" "Pioneer is the name of this thing...And I don''t know...Maybe it confirmed its identity...This thing is a lot different than what I remembered." "...Do you think you can ask it some medicine?" "I don''t know...Let''s me t-" "Erika, yes?" Pioneer cuts in between the conversation between Erika and Carius as it stops in front of the adventures, unlike the colonies the shelter is well lit with the green light from Viricrystallus light sticks on the ceiling, which is a crystallus shard encased in a thick transparent shell to isolate the crystal shard and intensify the light by converting the magical energy into the correct electromagnetic wave that is visible light of green color. The light is quite eerie and odd, but it is better than no light at all. "...Yes" Erika nods quickly while replying in her native language as she remembers the nodding gesture has something to do with agreement and encouragement. And she was right as Pioneer understood what she just said. "Ah...Wound...Healing item, medicine?." Pioneer watches the black knight pointing at some of her still sick allies on the floor, it seemed like although their body had been healed, their overall health didn''t improve very much as their body couldn''t cope with the sudden changes and slightly poisoned by the bugs'' body fluid. [/Scanning_lifeform] Pioneer observes the sick adventurers'' symptoms as it tries guessing what''s wrong with them, from its eyes Pioneer can clearly see the mana flow in their body is a massive tangled mess, maybe the mage who casted the healing spell did not cast it right at all, and in the Pioneer''s CPU, it actually does not know what''s wrong with the adventures at all aside from the tangled mana flows. As Pioneer tilts its head slightly, the core decides to do some experiments on the sick adventurer, if the core is lucky and get it right, it might save the adventurer and get their trust, if it fails...Pioneer decides to not run that simulation as it focuses on fixing the sick adventure. [Energetic Heart is ineffect] Some of the adventurers near Pioneer shudder as they feel their body getting zapped with weak static electricity, Pioneer still could not control its new power completely, but it will be enough for now as Pioneer carefully untangles the mana flows in the adventure''s body by using nanites. From Erika''s point of view, she just sees the 4 legged being staring at the sick adventurer intensively without saying nor making a sound. Erika and other adventurers closely observe Pioneer''s actions as it tries it best to fix the sick adventure. Meanwhile, Nexus has started the construction of a new colony in the nuclear-glassed chamber and it is sending out groups after groups of drones to explore the cave and erect more new outposts and colonies, Nexus wants to build up as many things it can before the bugs return to the area. On the surface of the cave, armies from many great Empires and Kingdoms have gathered near the dwarven town in preparation to push the ferocious monsters back to where it came from and claim the place as their own. Chapter 40: Rise of the machine and new progresses [Google Nexus X1 constructed] [Nvidia Quadro 1000 constructed] [Colony Reform plan completed] [Satellite Colony 1 Reform and Expansion plan completed] [New Satellite Colony 2 has been constructed, projected Hirudocrystallus production rate increase: 150%] [Outpost 2, 3 and 4 constructed] Nexus goes over the list of things that have been done throughout the entire territory it expanded and claimed recently. Just as Pioneer planned, a new colony has been established in the nuclear-glassed chamber for the sole purpose of expanding their Hirudocrystallus production, the drones has also reinforced the tunnels that connect the colonies together and constructed highway system to improve their supply route quality, they have the resources to do so as it only cost them Viricrystallus for the most part. Aside from that, hundreds of new drones have been produced since Pioneer left the colony to check the surviving adventurers, many of which left the colonies in groups to explore and expand the colony''s sphere of influence. Two new ''elites'' have also joined Pioneer''s robot army, a new Nexus overseer drone, which has been designated as the new Satellite Colony 3 overseer, and the first Quadro 1000 Super Battle Drone. The Quadro 1000 is a walking battle tank in literal meaning, the new drone sports a full sized magical energy reactor in its heavily armored hull which is capable of protecting the Quadro even against Greater Hivewarrior''s ice spear attacks from the front and the sides multiple times, for offensive capability the heavy four-legged tanks is equipped with a pair of 4 barreled 40mm Gatling cannons, or Tactical Medium Ordnance modules, which are mounted coaxially to a large 100mm fast firing assault cannon ''Tactical Heavy Ordnance module'' mounted in the middle of its torso. Quadro also has 8 Arc Projectors mounted around the torso for 360 short range defensive system and a pair of strong, armored weapon arms, one is a standard humanoid hand-nanite delivery combi module, and one is a large, overcharged chainsaw for melee combat. Nexus also added in a few newly technology it developed lately to allow Quadro lowers its legs and turns into 4 independent electromagnetic propelled hover pads to allow Quadro maneuvering in short tunnels or fast redeployment by using the highways. As Quadro leaves the factory and looks around quietly, Nexus quickly brings up all the needed data to update Quadro databank with the latest information before returning to its normal duty. The large Super battle drone quickly reads and analyzes the data packets as it slowly turns and leaves the colony, the machine will be more useful in the frontline than staying around in the colony. Meanwhile, in the outsiders'' shelter, Pioneer is working its best to fix the tangled mana flows in the adventures, the process has been going on for 6 minutes long and some of the adventures are getting impatient as all they see is simply Pioneer intensively staring at their sick allies. However, the hotheaded adventures are calmed by the spellcasters in the group, who is able to feel the magical energy around them and know the thing is manipulating that energy somehow, someway. And the ill adventurers are indeed seemingly getting better very slowly. "...How long is it?" "I don''t know." "Ask it then?" "You think I can ask it the concept of time by pointing at things?" Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road."...Fair enough." "...Are they getting better then?" "It seems so...Ah, you don''t have magic sense, do you, Carius?" "No, muscle is love, muscle is my family pride." "So that is why people call you Captain Musclebrain." "Hey yo-" "No violence" The friendly and open conversation between the two experienced adventurers was interrupted by Pioneer as its other temporary body changed its arm structure into the lightning rod. Pioneer had misunderstood Carius as what it could understand at that moment was Carius''s tone sudden change to a ''hostile'' one. The core had no idea that it was only some teasings and jokes, instead, it understood the situation as ''He is going to do something bad'' based on his tone alone. "What is it doing?...What did it just say?" "I don''t know...Ah...Pioneer...What...did...you...say?" The core observes the girl''s gestures as it tries guessing the meaning of the thing she just said while fixing the adventurers. "...Violence...This...No." Pioneer tells its main temporary body to ''gently'' punch its other temporary body while shaking its head quickly as the adventures jumped a bit. They all got surprised by Pioneer''s random actions as they watched the thing''s gestures very carefully. "Um...Maybe it thought we were fighting...And it did not like that." "Indeed...So this thing is capable of understanding us to some extent, huh..." "Of course, it is no muscle head like you." "What?...You want to provoke me now?..." "Indeed." "We have tried out best." Pioneer orders its temporary body to step back after spending 25 minutes trying its best to save the ill adventurers, but only 3 out of 5 patients survived the operation, the first two didn''t make it due because of the errors Pioneer accidentally made during the curing session, all the errors were lack of proper data-related errors. So the core couldn''t do much about it aside from noting them down to avoid those mistakes on other patients. Some of the adventurers were furious of the event, but they couldn''t do much as Erika and Carius held them down and persuaded them to calm down and let it go, even though they had lost more friends because of the thing''s action, the fact that Pioneer still saved some others was undeniable at that moment. "Drone outside, call if needed." Pioneer points at the Battle Drone standing guard the entrance for a moment before it leaves the area, Pioneer assumes leaving them alone for a while to cope with the changes is a better idea than lingering around in front of them, besides, Pioneer still has other works to do back in the main colony. [Nexus reporting: New area discovered, requesting assistance] [Nexus reporting: Satellite Colony 1 reached maximum managing size] [Nexus reporting: New Nexus X1 and Quadro 1000 joined the colony] [Nexus reporting: Satellite Colony 2 established] [Nexus reporting: Outpost 2/3/4/5/6 established] [Research and Development process completed: Pioneer 1 hull is ready for production] [Projecting material cost: 12 tons of Hirudocrystallus, 800,000 kg of Viricrystallus] [Choosing factory location: Main colony] [Projecting production time: 6 hours 15 minutes 42 seconds] [Initiating production] Pioneer steps on the highway and starts moving back to the colony after ordering Nexus in the main colony to start the construction of Pioneer 1''s body. Finally, the core can stop using the temporary body and moving on to a proper well armored and fully developed hull, something that the core supposed to be in control of instead of the nanite based temporary body it is using now. As Pioneer and its robot army continue expanding their base and improving themselves, a new war has officially begun on the surface area as monsters of the forsaken dungeon clashing their pincers and mandibles against swords and magics of the forged alliance between the surface-dwelling races. And soon, they will find out they are not the only one fighting in this war. Chapter 41: Rise of the machine and inspection day. [Nexus reporting: Research complex established.] [/New_techonoloy_avaiable_for_research: Defensive system improvement research, Offensive system improvement research, Communication system improvement research, Crystallus creation and processing improvement research, Construction system improvement research, Computing system improvement research, Sensory system improvement research, Energy production system research, Shielding technology research, Gravity technology research, energy technology research, quantum technology research.] [Hull construction progress: 15%] Pioneer slowly walks around the main colony as it observes the busy drones moving back and forth to transport materials between different sections of the colony, so far Nexus''s plan to set up specialized facility sections instead of randomly placing down facility here and there has been working nicely for both the drones and the facility. As the machine stops near Nexus, the overseer drone pauses its work and turns to Pioneer to see what its maker wanted in it. Nexus has been working hard ever since it left the factory, perhaps it wouldn''t be wrong to call Nexus as Pioneer''s children, while the drones grow in number and EXP, Nexus continuously improves itself by upgrading the base and optimizing the data flows. Perhaps Nexus is smarter than Pioneer in some aspect by now. Pioneer quickly instructs Nexus to build more Research Facilities and Magical Energy Reactors as well as Data Processing Facilities to improve R&D process and increase technology researching speed, it also gives the supervising of Pioneer 1''s hull production to Nexus before Pioneer leaves the colony to visit the newer outposts on the far side of the tunnel. After seeing its maker left the area, Nexus returns to its work as it pulls up the information panel and gets into Pioneer 1''s hull plan, then it pulls up other relevant data to Pioneer''s works to see if it can improve the design any further. Nexus spends an hour working on it before uploading the plan to the nanite factory complex, the design hasn''t changed much aside from few minor details to improve its Maker proficiency. Now that Nexus has done helping its Maker, the elite drone returns to its usual managing works as it orders the drones around and further improving the colony. [Pioneer 0 has leveled up] [Pioneer 0 is now level 31] [Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point] The core has leveled up again as it makes its first stop at Outpost 2 which is 20 minutes of travel time from the Satellite Colony on the highway, the outpost''s development plan seems already finished as the place has a bit of everything, 8 Magical Energy Reactors, 2 Nanite Hive Factories, 4 Service Depots, 1 Ordnance Production Factory and some dozens of defensive installations. Enough to make the outpost a hard place to be overwhelmed by the weak bugs and a nice obstacle for slowing down stronger bugs. If Nexus''s exploration and expansion plans go well, maybe Pioneer will order Nexus to improve and turn the place into a proper satellite colony instead of a small outpost, or maybe it will become a part of the main colony as it grows in size. Pioneer notes this down in its data drive before it leaves the area and continues its outpost inspection run. At its next arrival destination, Outpost 5, Pioneer finds the place is a mess, according to the local Data Processing Facility, this area is the frontline of the land conflict against the bugs, Quadro 1000 arrived in the area an hour ago, took over the control of the local''s Battle Drones and pushed the bugs back to clear the area. The General Purpose Drones assigned to the group should return to the outpost anytime soon to collect ammunitions and repair materials needed to resupply the battle group on the front line. Pioneer takes note of the base''s rather poor layout and location as it turns around and returns to the main colony area, the place will receive some renovations and relocation in the future once the frontline gets pushed back a bit farther, far enough for the drones to make a new outpost and remove the frontline status from Outpost 5 would be ideal.If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. [Nexus reporting: Hirudocrystallus nodes'' harvesting rate in the main colony is at 100%] Pioneer steps on the highway and makes a beeline to Satellite Colony 2 for an inspection, the core also thinking of paying the adventurers a visit to check them after done working at the Satellite Colony 2. And maybe if Nexus got the hull produced faster somehow, Pioneer would take the body and return to the adventurers'' shelter later. [Welcome to Satellite Colony 2, Pioneer 1 | Commanding Drone: Google Nexus X1 unit 02] Pioneer 1 slowly steps into the nuclear-glassed chamber while looking around very slowly, the place was once a desolated area, now it has become a beautiful place which brightly lit in purple light by the Hirudocrystallus growing everywhere, on the floor, on the wall, even on the ceiling, it seems like the higher than average background radiation has some kind of impact on the crystallus'' growing speed. Pioneer 1 quietly walks around the still-in-development satellite colony as it checks the facilities and the drones'' condition carefully. As the core notices the spot where Pioneer 0 fallen and reborn as Pioneer 1, which is now a big Hirudocrystallus node slowly and steadily growing. The core suddenly orders one of the harvester drones nearby to cut a shard of Crystallus for the core. Pioneer wants to keep it for some reasons that it could not explain at that moment, the core assumes maybe it is because of the evolution core has changed many things inside it. As Pioneer covers the crystal shard with a layer of structural nanite to encase it, the core discusses a few things with the base''s Nexus, together the two devised a proper development plan and a crystallus containing plan for the satellite colony, Pioneer wants to make sure the place is properly protected since it is so close to Outpost 1, which is also the frontline on this side. Pioneer wants to build two thick, durable and reliable gates to close off the entrances if needed, aside from that the machine also want Nexus to extend the base and make Outpost 1 a part of the colony instead of confined in the chamber, only the refineries and some defensive structures should be the only thing allowed in the chamber to maximize crystallus growing surface. [Nexus reporting: Hull production completed] It seems like its aide done its job much better than Pioneer predicted, and now that the core has finished its inspection trip for this tunnel, the core can quickly run back to the main colony to get the body it wished for. The trip from the Satellite Colony 2 to Main Colony is a bit faster than usual as Pioneer quickly moves to the factory complex to get its body. The new hull is somewhat similar to Pioneer 0''s hull just as planned, standing at 3.5 meters tall in standard profile config and equipped with the latest technology the colony can offer, Pioneer 1 can finally lead its drone army into battle and managing the colony with extreme efficiency just like it wanted again. As the core happily detaches itself from the temporary body and flies toward the new body with the help of its nanites, Pioneer 1''s hull automatically detects the core as it lowers its body and opens its torso for the core to get in and connect itself to the most technologically advanced robot ever developed and constructed by the colony. The new body also downloads the data from the temporary body''s data drive and moves the cased crystallus shard into its small and empty equipment bay as well. [/Primary_control_module: Detected] [/Transfering_admin_control: Primary Control Module] [/Rerouting_power] [/Rerouting_data] [/Reactor: Online] [/Sensors: Online] [/Weapon_systems: Online] [/Shielding_system: Online] [/Mobility_system: Online] [/All_systems_nominal] As Pioneer''s new body rises up and its old, small bodies falls into lifeless chunks of minerals as the nanites relocate themselves into the new hull, Pioneer quickly goes through the list of new features that the new system have, standard 40mm snub nose cannon, high powered Arc coils, multiple types of sensors ranging from optical to seismic types, Reactive Ionic Electroactive SuperStructural Plating from head to toes, etc. The body is ce- [/Secondary_hull_nominal] Secondary hull?...Pioneer did not remember putting anything like this in the design parameter nor the blueprint it gave Nexus 5 hours ago, the core is confused as it orders its body to scan this ''secondary hull'' while watching the General Purpose Drones disposing of the remnants of the temporary body as Hirudocrystallus feeding material. [/Scanning_completed] The core looks at the result as it quickly turns to Nexus, at that moment Pioneer 1 speaks naturally for the first time as it points its right hand at its aide and sends it a copy of the scan result. "What is the meaning of THIS?!" Chapter 42: Rise of the machine and the sudden surprise. "Nexus, explain, why?" [/Secondary_hull_deployed] "Replica of native lifeform, less alien, more familiar, more suitable for negotiation, diplomatic works. Must have to avoid unnecessary misunderstanding and confrontation." Nexus replies with its toneless computer generated voice as its watches Pioneer''s back opened and dropped a small humanoid type drone, at 1.40m height and has a rather lean, compact build, the drone''s silhouette resembles a youngster of the outsider''s species somewhat. The drone''s body is protected by multiple layers of overlapping armor, the outermost layer is a 7mm thick composite hard shell which covers the drone''s head, torso, lower arms and its legs while the innermost layer is a flexible and durable skinsuit covering the entire drone''s body. The design of the drone''s armor also reminded Pioneer of what some of the adventurers is wearing by some degree. "Explain to me why you designed it like this, Nexus" Pioneer replies as it pushes the small, tiny looking drone toward Nexus while looking at the machine. "Unit design parameter, small, compact, must fit inside the hull and take little space. Simulation data of the native lifeform suggested the overall design. The unit has the same color scheme as all the drones for recognition on the protective shell, combat is not a primary parameter, the defensive system will only sufficient for small scale self-defense. To make unit looks familiar to Lifeform5 , inner membrane is engineered to look as similar to Lifeform5 as possible, overall head structure is based on the inhabitants of the shelter as we don''t have enough data for facial creation system, hair fiber is made out of refined Hirudocrystallus, good for data transmission, collecting energy, more durable and flexible than thin structural nanite strings. Synthesized voice and facial expressions are based on available subjects in the shelter for most accurate and convincible result." "Why didn''t you tell me about it before hand then, Nexus?" Pioneer inquires the overseer drone after it finished as the small humanoid drone steps aside to make way for a group of General Purpose Drones passing by. "..." "Why didn''t you tell me, Nexus?" "..." "Nexus. Why didn''t you tell me?" "Projected production cost, 900 kg of Hirudocrystallus, 400 kg of Viricrystallus." Pioneer is shocked after hearing the expensive cost to produce a single humanoid drone standing nearby. With that much resources, Pioneer can build at least 5 to 7 standard drones or thousands of ordnance ammunitions. The secondary body''s production cost is too freaking high!. "Nexus, detach your head and reattach it on your hips, your punishment is 50 hours of working in that state for unscheduled and unauthorized access into an important project." Pioneer grumbles as it picks up its secondary hull and leaves the colony while Nexus is carrying out its Maker''s order. Since the core does not want to scrap such an expensive piece of equipment, and beside it ss something Nexus spent a lot of time and efforts on. Pioneer decides to keep the thing for now as it travels to the Adventurer''s shelter to check them and test the unit. Since Pioneer can get direct access wirelessly to the small drone, the main body can wait outside while the secondary hull is doing Pioneer''s bidding in the shelter. If the core is lucky, maybe things won''t go sideway and it will forgive Nexus later on. --------------------------------------------- Erika the wandering Ethereal Knight. Erika and her adventurer colleagues are slowly enjoying their simple meals in the eerie, but brightly lit room. Slightly burnt, but well-cooked meats are what they are eating, they all know where the meat come from pretty well, but they don''t have any complaint because the things kept them captive here do not understand them at all anyway. "Carius. Do you have any story to share?. It''s quiet here." "Erika, your hand got a cut there." "Eeh?. Really?"If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. As Erika raises her hand up to have a look at it after hearing Carius''s words, the experienced warrior gleefully pushes Erika''s hand toward her face, one slap later, everyone in the shelter begins smiling and laughing lightly at the scene. "WHY YOU SH-" Carius places his hand on the smaller knight''s head and keeps her fists at bay effortlessly while laughing relaxingly at the scene, the quiet and heavy mood in the room is lifted for now, they need to keep the atmosphere less tense and more relaxed like this to keep their head clear and free of negative thoughts as much as they could. "RELEASE ME YOU MUSCLEHEAD!" As Erika pushes Carius''s hand away, the young knight feels something big and heavy moving toward the shelter, she thought that her actions had attracted the drones. "...This feels a bit different...Are you feeling it too, Erika?" "I feel an odd disturbance in the mana flow...Erika." Carius and the Mage in the group whisper quietly as Erika nods to confirm their discoveries, the footsteps is indeed very different from the drones and the 4 legged rock golem, but it is also very familiar, it reminds Erika of the old undead legend she once met. "...What is it doing? Erika?. Know anything to share?" "Urm...I don''t know...Maybe it just passing by?" "Ma-Hey, look!" Erika focuses on the figure who just entered the shelter and being pointed at by the Mage, the black knight is once again surprised by Pioneer''s creations, what she sees in front of her is more or less a recreation of Erika''s suit of armor on a smaller scale and less focused in raw defensive capability. "...So is this a dwarven creation?" "No dwarf could create such thing, Carius." "But that thing looks so tiny..." "...I know...Let''s just see what this thing came here for..." Erika nods slightly while looking back at the adventures before she gets up and approaches the humanoid figure slowly, as usual, she will act as the group''s representative until either Pioneer found a way to communicate with others effectively or the group learned how to make Pioneer understand what they wanted. "Pioneer...Food? Water?" "Heh?" Erika watches the thing claims its name to be Pioneer as it turns to the meat and water dispensers to get a few strips of dried bug meat and a bowl of clean water for her, Erika has never seen neither the humanoid figure nor the dried meat served in the shelter before, maybe Pioneer was being considerate enough to change its appearance and expand the menu for the adventurers to stay calm...Or perhaps this is the real Pioneer, the one who started everything, from the unknown legend to the one ordered its servants to keep everyone captive here for some reasons. Either way, Erika does not know the correct answer, and she does not want to cast Greater Appraisal right now as she has to focus dealing with the thing. "Food, water. Do you want them?" Erika observes the shorter humanoid figure raising up the food and drink in front of her as she guesses what the thing just said earlier, maybe it wanted her to taste them? "Ah...Okay. So...this is ''food''...and is this...''water''?" Erika points at the two things separately with her right hand before trying out a strip of dried meat, the thing tastes salty and kinda funny, as expected for something which considers zapping food is the same as cooking them. "...Yes, food...Water." Erika takes note of Pioneer''s nodding gesture as she takes the bowl of water and drinks it slowly, from this point on she will be able to ask for more food and water directly since she has learned those two words. "...Erika...Pioneer...And those are?" Erika watches Pioneer points its hand at her, then at itself before pointing at the rest of the adventurers, it seems like the thing wanted to know their names. "So you haven''t changed all that much, huh?" Erika chuckles lightly as she looks back at the adventures behind her for a few seconds before turning her attention back to the humanoid figure. "Uh...Before that...Ah...Helmet...This, this thing, take it off first, will you?" Erika runs back to her helmet and picks it up to use it as a referral object to speak with Pioneer, she thought it would be a better idea to tell Pioneer to remove that creepy helmet and maybe reveal its true face...Or at least just the face of the current humanoid figure standing in front of her. "...Understood, head mo-...Helmet will be removed." Erika watches Pioneer nods slightly before the thing starts taking off its helmet, other adventurers in the back also gather around and carefully focus onto the humanoid figure''s face. "Wha...What the..." "Erika...You sure you are the only child?" "..." Erika''s eyes widened and her mouth drops agape after the humanoid figure removes its helmet, long purple hair, dimly glowing cyan eyes and face of a young girl is indeed shocking for someone working with the unliving creatures crawling left and right. But what stunned her and the rest of the group most is how similar her face and the young girl''s look, not exactly two drops of water, but enough for even Erika herself to think the girl is related to the young knight. "I see that your blood pressure is becoming unstable, are you sick?" As the young girl''s voice suddenly become more human like and less eerie monster like, Erika slaps herself so hard that she almost faints immediately, it seems like this is not a dream after all. ''What other legacy had you left behind, father...'' The young knight thought to herself as she wobbles around before fainting for real, and Pioneer does not react to that event at all as the young girl simply watches Erika falling down and hitting her head against the hard alloy floor, this gonna takes a while for Erika to regain her consciousness. ---------------- Meanwhile, on the surface area, Emperor Hito and the Demonic King have joined the fray and started pushing back the bugs considerably, soon the temporary alliance army will march into the tunnel to defeat the bugs once and for all. Chapter 43: Rise of the machine and bad meat. [/System_connection_delay: 0.22 ms] It has been 40 minutes since Pioneer left the secondary hull behind at the shelter area to collect more data about those being known as Lifeform5, so far, nothing has gone wrong aside from Erika slapping herself to the point of losing consciousness. Why did she do it?. The core does not know the answer, and neither does Nexus nor the Data Processing complex. While Pioneer was busy gathering more data in the shelter, the colony had been improved once again and renamed as well. Satellite Colony 1 is now a part of Main Colony and becomes a Super Colony known as ''Googleplex''. Under Nexus''s command, the Googleplex drives all of its available resources into expanding the base and continuously doing various researches to develop new technologies and apply them to the facilities and the drone army as upgrade and add-on module packages. So far, Googleplex has finished 3 projects, two of which are facilities currently under construction in the colony, they are Multipower Super Reactor, which is a power production facility 10 times the size of a normal reactor with power production capability increased by fourteen-fold comparing to a normal magical energy reactor, and Experimental Nanite Swarm Factory Complex. Nexus will need both of these facilities to quickly build up more drones to keep up with the expansion in the future. Currently in prototype testing stage, the Modularized Multipurpose Drone Platform, otherwise known as Beta as they are called by Nexus, is a promising multi-config and multi-purpose drone designed to replace the first drone generation. For an increase of 15% in production cost and 60% in complexity, Alpha''s hull offers up to 18 module slots and a wide variety of modules to increase its versatility in many scenarios. If the testing goes well, then Alpha will be put into mass production immediately as the older drones get recalled for recycling, maybe Nexus will upgrade itself to Nexus X2 based on the next gen-drone platform as well. For Pioneer...Since the core has already given most of its original works to Nexus and everyone else, and even if there have something bad happening to the colony, it can still contact with Nexus through the network and deal with it indirectly. Pioneer is going to stop worrying about the colony too much and start focusing on doing researches about this odd world now. But first, Pioneer will have to find out what the meaning Lifeform5s'' actions and words are...The core does not understand why the heck are those adventurers holding their crotches and shouting randomly at its temporary hull?. "Toilet!. Don''t you understand?. TOILET!. OUTHOUSE!, WHATEVER!." "DAMN IT, WAKE UP ERIKA, WAKE U-!...Oooooh....It''s comiiinggg..." "HOLD IT CARIUS!. HOLD IT BACK!" Pioneer observes a muscular looking warrior movements carefully as it takes note of his actions in full detail. This has been going on for about 7 minutes now, what is wrong with them actually?...Pioneer can feel their blood pressure increased quite a bit, but the core sees nothing wrong in it since those Lifeform5s seem a bit...active. "I CAN''T HOLD IT!!!" Pioneer watches the man quickly tiptoes toward the farthest corner of the shelter and... [Nexus reporting: Data confirmed, it seems like those organic beings can not convert all matter into energy effectively, unusable material will be grouped with waste material and released out of their body after the power conversion process is finished.] [Nexus reporting: General Purpose Drones are on their way to the shelter to collect waste material and perform shelter modification. Please wait]This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it. Pioneer looks up at the ceiling slightly as it wonders if its makers do have that kind of need or not...If they do, Pioneer will need to tell Nexus to build waste collecting and processing facilities as well. "...Carius...Waste...Leave them there." Pioneer tries to say something while looking at the group before it notices everyone starts doing the same as Carius, at that moment Pioneer suddenly feels the urge to place the palm of its hand onto his face and wiggles its head slightly. [Nexus reporting: Acknowledged, will scan unknown data] "What in the hell is that SMELL?!" Pioneer slowly looks over to Erika as the young knight wakes up from the bad odor which is starting to fill up the room. Once again the place is filled with loud shouting and foot stomping noise, Pioneer isn''t sure if the bad odor is the real reason behind this, it does not even know if the air is bad as Pioneer does not breathe, it can only analyze the content of air around it. "EH?!. WHAT THE FFFFF-" [Warning: Violence level rising] Pioneer decides to step in as it quickly orders its temporary body to get up and suppress chaotic event peacefully. "LET US OUT!!!! IT STINK!!!!" "EH?. DON''T YOU DARE COME NEAR ME MUSCLEBRAIN!" "...Quiet." [Energetic Heart is in effect] The core decides to give everyone a little shock to get their attention before it motions everyone to sit down and stay quiet while waiting for the drones to come in and take care of the mess. "Is she some kind of Archon descendant?" "Angel maybe?" "Erika, you one said your fat-" "Say one more word, and I will stand up." """"..."""" Erika and the adventurers whisper back and forth while sitting near the entrance in a line as they look up at Pioneer''s humanoid hull which is emitting a pair of electron wings due to the lack of insulation in the back area of the hull "Drones have arrived. Sit tight, do not move." Pioneer speaks quietly with a flat tone before it switches back to its primary hull outside to step back a bit and make room for the drones to move in and do the cleaning and renovations, the waste material will be collected for research and recycle purpose and the shelter will get a few separate rooms for taking care of hygiene matters and waste collection/storing facilities. "Pioneer...Ah...The dried meat...Not good for us...How do I say this...Ah...Can''t eat, poison?" Pioneer orders its secondary hull inside the shelter to observe Erika''s gestures to guess what the girl meant, it understands that she is saying something about the dried meat, but it can''t fully understand what she meant, maybe they don''t like it?. [Nexus reporting: Analyzing data.] Pioneer quickly suppresses its Energetic Heart power before approaching Erika and taking the dried meat strip from her hand. Maybe the dried meat although suited their taste, it is not healthy for them...Maybe?. "..." Pioneer tries taking a bite to test its internal chemical analyzer, but the result is nothing impressive as it is only a bunch of chemical contents, at Pioneer and the colony current state, they have no data in regards to what is safe to eat and what is not as they don''t eat, they just either plug into the system directly recharge or extend their power relay antennas to get some extra power indirectly. Maybe they should try capturing some live bugs to do testing on them to get more data about this matter. "...Erika, this thing, how does it taste?. Taste?." Pioneer points at the dried meat and the humanoid body''s mouth as the adventurers jumped a bit after seeing Pioneer''s sharp, inhuman teeth which resembled the giant ferocious bugs they fought earlier. Nexus made a small mistake in the design due to the lack of data it seemed. "The taste of this thing, when you chew it, it gives off taste, how is the taste?" [Nexus reporting: New landmark discovered, updating map] Pioneer asks Erika again as it hops back to its primary body and leaves the area quickly to see the thing Nexus''s drones just found, Pioneer will leave its secondary body behind to deal with Erika and others for the entire trip to things done as much as possible. As the secondary body looks over to other adventurers behind Erika to check them and try speaking with them, some of the drones have finished dealing with the waste material and purged the place with its high-temperature electrical arc tool and others started working on the new waste containing and processing facilities as well. Meanwhile, a new magical energy sensor phalanx facility has been constructed in the colony near the nuclear-glassed and Hirudocrystallus infested chamber, Satellite Colony 1, and it has detected a large magical signature slowly moving toward the area. Something big is coming toward them, and the Nexus drone stationed in the area will make sure the colony is prepared for it, the wall shall not fall. [Nexus reporting: Requesting support in Satellite Colony 1] Chapter 44: Rise of the machine and Betas debut. [Nexus reporting: Satellite Colony 1 reinforced, all units ready for combat.] Pioneer scans and analyzes the report sent by Nexus while quickly moving toward the newly built Outpost 14 by using the highway. The core did not turn around to return and support the colony defense, instead, it cut off one-third of its processing power to take control of one of the prototype Beta type Drone in the main colony. Pioneer decided that the Beta drone would be tested by Pioneer personally while it was away, the core was confident that Nexus could take care of the defense by itself. [System_rebooting.../] [Reactors: Online] [Sensors: Online] [Weapon_systems: Online] [Defensive_systems: Online] [Mobility_system: Online] [All_systems_nominal] [Welcome_Pioneer_1] [/New_objective: Reinforce Satellite Colony 1] As the experimental drone finishes its rebooting process, Nexus immediately orders the General Purpose Drones nearby to remove the current modules and replace them with more experimental type modules. The new drone''s torso is fairly armored from all side, but its legs, arms and shoulder modules are somewhat lacking behind in term of durability. Equipped with a pair of experimental Thermal Beam Emitters for its arms, reversed joint bipedal legs for movement and a single Tactical Medium Ordnance Module for its shoulder mount. The drone looks like a scale down and hand me down version of current Pioneer''s hull rather than a combat drone. Pioneer quickly runs a few scans to get more information about the new body it is controlling as it orders the drone to gather other prototype Beta type drones and get to the Satellite Colony 1 as fast as possible. And just as expected, Nexus really gave Pioneer the latest equipment to test them just like the last time with its current Pioneer 1 hull. Pioneer also notices the static electric field around the drone, it seems like Energetic Heart has been carried over to the drone by having Pioneer taking direct control. [Nexus reporting: Confirmed, streaming real time statistic data from Beta 0 now] The core notes down the important features of the Beta drones and saves it in the Colony''s data storage server before it hops to the humanoid body in the shelter. So far nothing new has happened since the unexpected waste problem which occurred 72 minutes ago, most of the adventurers have fallen asleep after having a long day of fighting and being watched by Pioneer''s drones. Currently, Erika is the only one still awake as she tries exchanging words with the humanoid Pioneer awkwardly, sometimes they manage to understand each other, sometimes Erika just places a palm on her face and sighs before shouting randomly for no apparent reason that Pioneer could understand. [Pioneer 0 leveled up] [Pioneer 0 is now level 31] [Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point] The core has leveled up again thanks to Quadro 1000''s efforts in fighting the bugs on the other tunnel, the core also begins to wonder what it needs to do to change its displayed name in the informant log panel. Maybe Erika knows a thing or two about this, Pioneer will try to ask her when the language problem is dealt with in the future. [Nexus reporting: Suitable colony construction site found] Pioneer hops back to its primary body as it slows down and gets off the highway after arriving at Outpost 14, which is the current frontier of the bug-free tunnel. Pioneer slowly looks around to inspect the area and download information from the local Data server, it seems like there have a few ore veins here along with some big Hirudocrystallus nodes to harvest on the wall and the ceiling, not an ideal location to do harvesting so Pioneer and Nexus will look into this as soon as possible to deal with it.Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. "!?" Pioneer hears something crumbled as it looks around for a moment and raises one of its feet up to see what it just stepped on. [/Scanning_object] Pioneer quickly digs up the crumbled piece of metal in the ground to get a closer and better look at the object, a human''s fist sized slab of old, damaged bronze plate is the result of Pioneer''s analysis. The metal is clearly not made by Pioneer, and it looks a bit too old and different to the thing the adventurers are using. Pioneer is not sure who or what made this thing, maybe Erika and others know a thing or two about this. As Pioneer orders a nearby Alpha type General Purpose Drone to carry the object of unknown origin back to Googleplex, it gives the body an order to finish the inspection and move on to the new colony site Nexus just mentioned of before it hops back to the experimental Beta type Drone which just arrived in the Satellite Colony 1 a few milliseconds ago. So far, there are no issues with the reversed joint type Beta Drone, the legs although not as good as the normal bipedal and quadrupedal on off-road terrain, it is certainly can ''skip'' much farther and faster than normal bipedal legs while being very stable and quite reliable with much less energy and processing power consumption when competing against the quadrupedal system. The twin dual-power reactors are also a new wonder that Pioneer wants to have to upgrade its current hull as well, instead of converting just magical energy alone, the new reactor converts magical energy and electromagnetic energy, which is the green light emitted by the Viricrystallus cores, into electrical power at the same time, in rough estimation the core power output is about 20% higher than a normal magical energy only reactor. In the case of Pioneer''s Beta Drone though, Nexus equipped the drone with an experimental twin tri-power reactors instead, now adding in the exotic and hard to convert gravitational energy into the mix, Pioneer''s reactors output is estimated to be 42% higher than the classic magical energy reactors on average. The only reason why Nexus did not mass produced this yet is because of the insane material cost needed to produce a small reactor to fit in a drone. Pioneer wonders if there will have any other way to get more power production method that can be applied to tight spaces of a drone''s mini reactors as it stops in front of the wall and checks its weapons as well as the combat readied drones behind it. Pioneer has no intention of standing around and waiting for the bugs to come to them anymore, the core has made a decision to come out and bring the fight to them before they could come any closer to the Satellite Colony, this is also a good chance to put the Beta drones and experimental technologies on combat condition trial and find out what the other part of the overly large magical signal picked up by the sensor is. [Pioneer 0 leveled up] [Pioneer 0 is now level 32] [Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point] Pioneer looks the Beta drone''s gun-arms for a second before ordering the Mobile Nanite Construction Drone to deconstruct the wall for the Beta drone battle group, 5 standard prototype drones with 5 different configurations led by a single experimental type drone. Enough for wiping out most, if not all types of threat that Pioneer and the colony have encountered so far. Just as soon as the deconstruction of the wall is about to finish, Pioneer quickly orders the Beta drones to advance and carry out their threat removing orders as it hops back and forth between the 3 bodies at 3 different locations. This gonna take a while for Pioneer to optimize the process and get used to it. [/New_objective: Neutralize all threats] [/New_objective: Construct a new frontier outpost to protect Satellite Colony 1] Chapter 45: Rise of the machine and sudden events. "Huh?...Did anyone hear that?. What was that sound?...Erika?" "...I don''t know...This is new...Ah...Pioneer, pioneer!" Pioneer''s humanoid body observes the adventurers waking up and talking to each other quietly for a moment before looking over at Erika to answer her calling. Pioneer has made a lot of progress in improving its communicating with Erika, the young knight seems more open and comfortable with the current small, compact humanoid body comparing to the larger, ''conventional'' 4 legged robot body, she even goes as far as holding the humanoid body''s hands to teach it hand gestures directly sometimes. "Yes?" Pioneer does the head tilting and eye focus loosening while waiting for Erika''s reply, the core has noticed that every time it does this gesture, Erika seems to become more relaxed and her heart rate become oddly unstable. Pioneer isn''t sure the reason behind that reaction is, so it will need to try doing this a few more times to gather more data about it. "...Erika..What did you teach it?" "Eh?...Ah...Gestures and some words, really!." "Erika, yes?" Pioneer begins the phase two of the gesture trial, this time the humanoid body just simply perks an eyebrow while using its right hand to comb its bang aside gently. The result the core gets is more shouting between the adventurers as they get fired up for some reasons, the core thinks maybe it best to not do this on a regular basis to avoid that kind of reaction in the future. While waiting for the mess to be resolved and reply to be delivered, Pioneer quickly hops to its primary body, the main hull has reached the new colony site, and the first thing the core can think of is marvelous, rich in minerals and extremely large area that can be used to build more facilities, the place is certainly a well-suited place for the new colony to be constructed at. But the resources is not the only thing Pioneer can find in this place, for 400 meters away from the area is an exit leading to the outside world, a forgotten realm with traces of extinct civilizations and lush forest filled with strong primal beasts that Pioneer has never seen before. Pioneer has discovered the forsaken heaven of this world. [/Scanning_object:...] Pioneer and its drones slowly step out of the dark cave and bath themselves in the bright, warm sunlight as they walk around and explore the newly found area. The black 4 legged drones do not go very far away from the cave, mostly they just stick around in groups and quickly crawling around in circles to carefully mapping out the area, for Pioneer, the machine just quietly picks up grass and small flowers on the ground to observe them closely. The core is being very curious of the place. [/New_objective: Construct Communication Phalanx Facility and establish communication with the human] [Nexus Reporting: Relocating resources now, new satellite colony 2 and 3 will be constructed shortly.] Pioneer slowly puts the weeds down as it looks up and stares at the sun to observe how fast it is moving, the core wants to find out if one hour in this world is the same as one Earth''s Sol hour its system is using, Pioneer is also measuring the energy signature of the sun to plan to construct some solar plants to expand its power production.The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. At this time, Pioneer also begins to wonder where ''Earth'' is at and will its makers satisfied with its finding and its actions?. Pioneer also wonders if there have any other exploration robots near or on the planet aside from Pioneer''s own creations. The core also questions itself whether it will stay on this planet and keep an eye on it until its makers arrive or should it launch additional extraterrestrial exploration groups and start colonizing other planets and moons in the system as well. The core suddenly receives an odd data flow and power spike in its processing units, unlike the usual ''happy'', ''excitement'' signature the core had experienced in the past, this signature is very unpleasant and discouraging and the data flow only revolves around the idea of the machine being the only kind of its own in this world. Pioneer is experiencing the feeling of loneliness for the first time ever since its second awakening. The core decides to ignore the anomaly in its processing unit as it gives the primary hull a list of objectives to do in the newly found area before it hops back to the Beta drone hull in the cave. Currently, the Beta drones are engaging the bugs and mowing them down one by one with their prototype and experimental weaponry, with Pioneer being the point man and burning the bugs to dead with its invisible heat ray emitters and an EM hover leg type beta drone supporting the group by keeping their battery always at max charge with its energy relay pylons. "Dark spirit, gather an-" Before a greater hivewarrior could finish its spell chant, Pioneer has already charged up its Thermal Beam emitters and begins burning the bug''s face into charcoal. But before the core can deliver the killing blow, a Beta drone behind Pioneer steps up and blast the wounded bug into a soppy mess with its 40mm Gatling gun arms, Pioneer did not get the kill and missed the chance to test the tactical medium ordnance module on its back, but it still received most of the EXP regardless. [Pioneer 0 leveled up] [Pioneer 0 is now level 33] [Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point] The core quickly issues orders to the Beta drone it is controlling and other Beta drones nearby to continue the advance while the Alpha drones finding a good place to set up an outpost and quickly connect the outpost with nearby colony by using a highway to resupply the Beta drones on the front line. Pioneer wants to make sure the Beta drones will have plenty of ammunition and repair materials to fight against the bugs and survive the trial run afterward. "Greater spell enchant: Thunder attribute, Greater magic amplification, Poison Ice Lance." [Warning: Collision imminent] [Warning: Left arm module destroyed] Pioneer can only watch one of the Beta drone''s gun arms get blew away by a large ice pole as it orders all units to scatter and take on defensive stance. The core could not react fast enough to avoid the sudden attack and received a critical damage from it, it must not let such thing happen again. "Persistent one...aren''t you?...Out of my way!" The machine quickly steps back while using its remaining Thermal Beam Emitter module and the Gatling gun on its back to slow down the strong bug. The drones behind Pioneer''s Beta also stepping in and trying their best to gun down the bug as well, however, the bug''s carapace is too hard and thick for the 40mm SAPHE to harm the thing effectively as they fail to penetrate and just harmlessly explode upon striking the bug. "I sai-!" "What in the name of gods are those things!" Pioneer notices the bug got hit from behind by something as it quickly turns around and screeches loudly, then the Beta drone''s auditory sensors suddenly picks up the sound of someone''s shouting from behind the bug. The core wonders if it was Erika''s people came looking for her or not...Whatever it was, their preemptive attack on the bug could only mean they are the enemy of Pioneer''s enemy. And based on its previous experiment with using the golems to help it fight against the bugs, the core is confident that as long as Pioneer does not provoke the enemy of its enemy too much, the core will likely gain a temporary ally in this battle. [Order confirmed: Tactical Heavy Ordnance is deploying, charging Electron Canisters.] [Energetic Heart is in effect] [Skill evoked: Energetic Star Artillery] [New_objective: Eliminate the threat and avoid collateral damage as much as possible.]