Appearing in space facing Ariel, Techno didn’t immediately log in like always.
“How do I set up a password for my city?” He asked.
“Simple.” She said and a system window appeared for Techno.
Intent to Open private city and make it public noticed. Would you like to make Skywhale City open to players?
“No, keep it private but add a password to allow specific players.” Techno said.
Insert password
_____
Thinking of something, he ended up using, SkyGear, as the password. “Send the password to the Major so that he can decide who comes.” Techno said.
Ariel nodded and waved as Techno and Nova shot down to the planet into their bodies core motherboards once more and spreading out their conscious, taking control of their robot's.
Techno called up a meeting with the main crew to gather at his workshop and after a while they all appeared.
“Hey Techno, did you see the mission to revive Sakura was complete?!” Bulk said as he came in.
“Yeah, the effect was expected.” Techno replied. “I got something to say.” He said.
“We are all ears.” Victor said.
As the last few enter, them being the two Will-o-Wisps, Techno finally started to explain everything that had happened between him, the military and L.I.F.E. Finally he told them about the contract with the military which shocked the others.
“Wow, I never expected you of all people would opening do something like this.” Bulk said.
The face on both of Techno’s robot's frowned, “What is that supposed to mean?” He asked.
“Isn’t it obvious. First off, it’s already shocking that you would openly speak from the get go with the Major and the military when it took us from your own crew several months before you spoke openly. Second is you actually accepting the terms that they came up with like those. If it was me I would have charged more.” Bulk said.
“He is more sensible than you because of that.” Victor said.
“Huh?! How is it sensible! He is only getting a military specialist's salary. He could definitely get more!” Bulk shouted at Victor.
“No he couldn’t.” Surge said. “From what I understood about your awakened military, Specialist is only one rank above the Private unit in your world. Also specialist aren’t all soldiers and can be researchers and mechanics and such as well as special forces of the military. It depends on the function. To us clockwork, the mechanic is a valuable job but if you were to imagine in the past how important it was it would normally be high ranking but instead, because of the number of mechanics the actual overall price was low. Of course in today's time, the mechanic is a very high ranking class, almost to the point of being considered a noble among clockworks, as time passes, the job will spread. If this military from your world of awakened wanted our technology but could not obtain it from the us then they simply need to wait until another appears who can do the same as us.” Surge said.
Bulk sat down understanding what was said. He, in particular, knew the route that was taken to reach this point, it wasn’t a completely impossible road, all the feats the crew did, anyone with some mechanical ingenuity and creativity could also do just like them. Even more so now a days that the world of Etheria was healing and resources were plentiful now. To mimic their feats is easy but to gain fame from it at the same level of tech as them wouldn’t be hard up to the point before the cores were developed. As for after that, if someone somehow create the cores, it would mean anyone could get it but the problem was to find crystallized mana and think of using elemental cores and crystallized mana together to develop something. It isn’t something a common person would even think of.
“Alright, with that out of the way, I opened the city to the military, soon medical and mechanic specialists will probably appear to begin learning.” Techno said.
“Medical?” Everyone exclaimed.
Techno nodded, “I personally need to learn about the human autonomy and need extensive knowledge towards the human nerves and how it is laid out in the human body and they need to learn how to make clockworks. Victor, I will leave the mechanics to you while I start to learn about the medical knowledge. Oh…” Techno exclaimed and went silent for a moment, “... one of you, go above and take some builders and start to build some corrals and sheds for all the clockwork and robotic animals born from the cores. When I have enough knowledge, I want to install it into them and see the result of adding better knowledge that improves their efficiency.” Techno said
With a nod the report ended but then began a new one.
“Techno, there are several dozen awakened and native constructs who wish to join the city. Should we allow them to join?” Annabeth asked with a somewhat reluctant expression.
Techno thought a while, “Sure, the construct are a race I have yet to figure out so having more around will allow me to develop them better.” He said but looked at the expression. “What is it?”
Annabeth had a cramped expression and Greer, who was on the other side of Techno with Nova’s little rabbit robot sitting on her lap, leaned over. “Jeopardy is among the people wanting to follow.” She whispered.
“What!” Techno said and frowned. “What for?” He asked.
Annabeth scratched her head, “She said she wants to learn more from Marina, she said that the dances of the Undine really helped her and she wants to learn more. Her crew also wants to come along because they care about her.” Annabeth whispered.
Techno snorted, “Let them come, I already said that I won’t fucking care about her even if she kneels I wouldn’t even turn. Since she wants to do something what the I fucking care!” He shouted and got up and stomped away. The steam was churring from his pipes clearly showing he was highly affected by the girl wanting to enter his city after all that happened.
Seeing Techno suddenly shout and stomp away fuming, the others looked at bit startled and looked at each other but Annabeth and Greer just said to not worry about it and said that anything else said wouldn’t enter his mind at the moment so they should wait to give the other reports in an hour or so after Techno works off the steam.
They all return to their duties to allow Techno some time.
“Greer! Where you goin!?” Nova asked when she saw the tiger woman walking out.
“I was going to scout the nearly developed forest. Sakura caused a very large forest and hundreds upon hundreds of previously extinct flowers and plants to sprout. She has even told us to take some Dryad trees and plant them up here so that we can have them as helpers in raising plants here. The flowers all seem to have very unique effects but are stingy which is why we need the Dryads.” Greer said.
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“Boo! Boring! Can we play a bit!?” Nova said.
The Tigress smiled wryly and patted the little robot girls head, “I’ll play in a little while, I need to scout and gather a few herbs or else your brother will be all huffy and puffy like now because I didn’t do my job.” She said.
Nova pouted but understood. She was already 12 years old so she obviously understood much more. She watched the woman go and pouted before jumping on Strato and flying out of Brock heading any random direction.
***
“Hey boss, we checked out the site. The crew and everything is more then we can take.” An advanced level Construct said. Unlike the common doll like construct, this one had an advanced face that could show every movement and expression of a human. On his chest was a strange ‘bright’ glowing black gemstone that pulsed like a heart. Inside his chest was four elemental core holders. Two held black cores and the others held light ones.
These were elementals of light and dark elements which Techno had never discovered. Unlike what Techno did, reviving the races of elementals, this group had enslaved making them unusable unless someone does the proper method of introducing them.
“What are the chances?” a large construct asked. He had a strong body unlike the common construct. Within his chest were only three core holders, there was one brown and two white elemental cores but the energy seemed to flow slowly and inefficiently on the two white cores for a very specific reason, each holder was brown in color. In other words, the wrong core was placed there.
“Not high if we attack the main base boss. The knights are all high level, their weaponry was hidden but it goes without saying that the place is high level. Their boss is said to be almost level 200.” the scout said.
“The main base? So there is a chance otherwise?” The boss asked.
“Of course, the small ships that fit inside that big ass whale are good targets and each holds enough tech from those rust buckets that we can upgrade before taking them.” The scout said.
The boss nodded and took out a very detailed map of the scrapyard. Similar to the clockwork scrapyard, there are four gates and the one that Techno was near was the south gate. Each gate had also formed a city but unlike the clockwork nation, the constructs had four private crew bases. The east gate, which is this place, was the home to a construct crew that had advanced greatly and developed the lost tech of the constructs as they scavenged.
In the construct nation, when the players appeared, some people who were very similar to Techno and took the initiative to discover and research. Over time bottlenecks towards some research and soon all of them and it is then that several small crews gathered and joined their research connecting the dots and developing past the blockade. Now the constructs in the three gates controlled by players were highly developed and only the final south gate was left abandoned as the ‘beginner’ town.
Also another reason the south gate never developed was for one reason. “Send a raid crew to the south gate and raid whatever ‘Clockwork’ gave them. Especially if it is elemental cores. If you can get info on how to get more then do so.” The boss said.
As seen, the south gate is a ‘training ground’ for raids. Any new tech found there or development is stolen by the other three cities causing their development to stagnate and the future construct players to suffer and give up the race because the other three gates aren’t spawn zones due to the leaders prohibiting it.
“What about the clockwork. The whale is faster than you would expect boss.” The scout said.
“If the whale comes then get out of there. If a ship comes, heh…” He grinned.
The men around them chuckled and the scout grinned, “Alright boss.” The scout said.
The gemstone in his chest began to glow. Black light came from his hands before the body vanished.
***
While the crew in Etheria were busy getting ready to receive the militares, Ariel appeared before the Major who was busy working.
“Greetings Major.” she said with a smile.
“Ariel.” he said surprised before frowning. “Can’t you at least knock instead of phase into my office?” he said.
“That would just make things take long and I'm a very busy woman you know.” she said.
The Major rolled his eyes, “We all know you use less than 0.01% of your capacity to for this avatar to speak with us, even running Etheria doesn't use more than half your capacity.” the major said.
“My, how knowledgeable, next you're going to speak out my three sizes and tell me what my fetishes are?” she giggled.
“Alright alright, enough of that, what brings you here?” he asked.
“Nathaniel has returned to the game and opened his town to those with a password so they can spawn with his city as a starting point. Please make sure to tell your men that there are penalties that will be incurred should the password leak. I, for one, take this specific subject quite seriously.” she said shifting to a more serious tone.
“Of course, just need to finish this and look for the people who I will give this task to.” he said.
“The password is very simple, it's SkyGear, I’ll say it again, if any none military personnel appear with this password there will be trouble.” she said forming a small sheet of paper with the password and a small pack with a light intro to the city and its details.
“Don't have to tell me twice.” he replied as he took the paper but by the time he caught it, she was already gone causing him to shake his head and get back to work.
After his work was complete, he called in a few officers and began to assemble the people needed to learn the technology and to teach Techno as well as preparing the information into books that would be delivered into Techno’s Virtual space so that he could access it.
***
Two game days later, 9 hours and 30 minutes, at the center of the first floor, inside Brock. Dozens of glowing lights began to gather in the center of the plaza drawing the attention of the residents. They had seen this phenomenon several times before moving to this city. When they saw it they were shocked to see that new awakened were appearing but this time it was very limited. Only fifteen pockets of light formed before a blast of light came through brock and entered each ball.
After a moment they dimmed revealing 10 humans and 5 dwarfs, who quickly looked around before falling over as they started to move due to the huge size difference.
“Hey, you guys alright?” one of the humans asked.
“Damn this body is smaller than I expected.” one of the dwarfs said.
At this time, as they began to explore, Techno’s four armed robot walked out and towards them.
“Welcome, is it just you all?” Techno asked.
“At the present moment yes, these five sprawling on the ground are in charge of learning the clockwork technology while we are in charge of your medical education. We are all trained soldiers as well so when one isn’t teaching, we will be either researching or training.” the oldest human said. He was very old and had the air of a hardened doctor. “We have transferred into your virtual space, a data pack with around a semesters of a medical universities medical course which we will be training you with. More will be added after they are properly made but on short notice like this we had only so much time.” He said.
“It’s a start.” Techno said, “Which is the first teacher?” He asked.
“I will take first shift.” The old doctor said.
Nodding, a small light in Techno’s eyes shined before he turned. “In about a minute a dwarf and a clockwork knight will arrive. The dwarf is called Victor and is my chief engineer while the clockwork is called Surge, he is my commanding officer who commands the military. If you wish to go with either to train in firearms or smithing you can do so. If not, there should be plenty of odd jobs and things to do that you can do. Also do not go to that large structure near the massive crystal in the back, it's a power plant that runs all the energy of the city.” Techno warned them.
“This is quite impressive.” The old man said.
“Shall we.” He said and started walking with the old doctor beside Techno going all the way to the town hall where he lived.
Victor and Surged arrived soon after taking with them the other military personnel.
Sitting with several computer screens in front of him, Techno connected to them all as he accessed the app that connected to his bookshelves. Pointing to a few beginner level books, they began their lesson.
***
While all of these events were going on, far off in the distance, without anyone having taken much notice, Nova, in both her bodies, sat upon her Strato. Being stuffed up inside brock, at her age where she is starting to become a young woman, she had finally shown the desire for freedom and without telling Techno, she flew off to explore. She still had a limited range but that range is still quite far thanks to the transmitters and receivers being amplified by some very rustic antenna.
As of now, she was around 30 kilometers away and was just flying further and further towards a far off mountain range she had spotted and thought was interesting.
As she headed that way, she suddenly saw a small text box appear.
“Sasha, where are you?” Greer messaged.
“Out playing!” She replied.
Greer sent an angry face emoticon, “Your brother will get angry if he finds out you are in danger.” Greer said.
Sending a smiling emoticon that she had learn how to do from her brother she laughed, “Hehehehe, if bro doesn’t find out, where is the problem?” she replied as she spurred on Strato entering the mountain range as she cuts the connection for the message and giggles at the feeling of adventure.