As I entered the main room in the center of the dungeon, an elf adventurer broke off from his group and walked up to me. He was showing a concerned expression when he started speaking."Are you okay, what happened to the rest of your group?", looking down the hallway behind me. 

- I raised an eyebrow. “Nothing, it was just me. Why did you see somebody else follow me down?” 

- With a shocked tone, he said “No wait, you've been fighting in the dungeon all by yourself?" 

-”Yes, Is that not normal?” 

-”No! You need at least a five-person team, how have you been killing the spider golems by yourself?" 

-”By stabbing them repeatedly.” 

- " What, you've been stabbing them with that sword. It should have broken on the first hit." The elf pulled out an iron pickaxe. The pickaxe had a broad blade on one side of the head, and a long pick on the other. “You're supposed to use one of these. Swords, daggers, and arrows do not affect the spider golems. You need either a pickaxe, club or hammer. How have you been killing them with a sword?" 

- I tried to change the subject before he realized what my sword was. "Hey, I'm only Level 8, so I'm still new at this. I'm just here for the experience, so I don't really need any of the scrap back there if you guys want to go get it.“ 

- The elf was now looking excited when he said, “Oh, really. That's…wait Level 8!" His face went from excited to confused in a second. "What do you mean Level 8? You look old enough to have hit the level cap. You know, Level 20 is the level most people hit when they turn fifteen?" 

- “Level cap, what does that mean? Sorry, I'm new to these parts and I haven't had much experience with the leveling system, can you explain?" That was so stupid. These guys are distracted. Hopefully, they'll just give me the information and leave. 

- “Oh, you must be from one of those peaceful villages. I heard about those. I guess I don't really mind explaining this. The leveling system is for basic training only. Once you've mastered the basics, you're supposed to discover your own way of using your abilities. For instance, I'm a warrior. Now does that mean I'm going to know everything about fighting ever? No! It means that I am going to learn the basics. For instance, how to use Mana to enhance my shield, weapon, and armor. I need to learn the best way to enhance them. The skills teach me only how to use magic. I have to learn how to use it in combat. Unfortunately, I don't have much time left to explain things. If you want to learn more about this, go to one of the Mage Colleges or the Training Arena. Right now, I have to get back to exploring the dungeon. Hey, if you are really going to leave all that stuff behind, I don't mind taking my group down there. “Is there anything we should know before I leave?" 

- “Um, I cleared the first room but the second one had a bunch of construction drones." 

- “Thanks for the warning, my name is Riker. Seriously, make sure you stop by the Mage College or somewhere. Learn about your abilities, before you go running off into the dungeon, again. Or... come to see me, I'm normally at the arena on the weekends, training. I could always use a teammate or sparring partner, who could clear a floor by themselves." He turned away and ran back to his group to head down the same hallway, I had just left. 

I wondered if what he said, applied to me. I'm sure it did not apply to my dungeon core, but I wondered if it applied to my golems. How many different HUD systems are there? I was still thinking about what he said, as I left. I really did need to find a better way to learn about this world. 

When I returned, Carol was still asleep. Checking my systems, I was almost out of ammunition. I decided to bring the infiltrator back to the base. While the infiltrator was walking back, I decided to make some much-needed improvements. Attaching power cores to the hatches, enabled them to open and close at will. I also made three dozen turret bots. The turret bots looked like three-legged soda cans with two submachine gun mounted on their sides. They have too much recoil, so their aim is crap, but they should be good for anything small. The heavy-duty magnet at their base, allows them to turn on and attach themselves to bulkheads. This will negate most of the recoil, though if they come up against another one of those wolves, they will be completely useless. 

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

That task used the last of my mana, so I had to wait an additional five minutes for my mana pool to fill up enough to continue. I watched as the turret bots scurried through the hallways, spreading throughout the base. I wondered how the rail cannon was doing? I took control of one of the Spider drones that was working on the rail cannon. Looking around, I checked on the progress of the cannon. It was going well, but I was still worried somebody was going to notice my activities. I had a dedicated Scout drone patrolling the area, it hadn't seen any patrols going this way, yet. There are groups of adventurers exploring the forest, none of them had been seen going towards the lake. The cannon only needed a few more modules to be put into place before it would be ready. After that I needed to cover it with camouflage, to make sure nobody would see it from the shoreline. All in all, it should be ready by the end of the day. 

After my mana pool refilled, I switched to work on the combat drone. I needed to make new shields and additional ammunition for him, as well as the new machine gun and sword. I placed additional ammunition for his grenade launchers in a backpack, I created for him. He could now carry up to ten drums of ammo for the machine-gun and twenty grenade rounds. That should help with the ammunition problem at least. I then began working on an anti-tank rifle. The reason I needed one was the wolves I fought were immune to the standard armor piercing rounds. My next step was to build something to take out tanks. The anti-tank rifle I was making was a miniaturized rail cannon that could hold up to ten rounds. It was meant to go through fifteen centimeters of solid steel. You might think that's alot, but it's nothing in comparison with today's tech, they now have energy shields that protect us, as well as any armor plating. 

The anti-tank rifle was 4 feet long, its barrel is split into two halves with a clear channel going down the middle. It took seven seconds to fully charge it before firing, it was designed to be a sniper rifle used against mechs or heavily armored tanks. 

As soon as I thought about a mech, I really wanted to build one. The frustrating part is I had no way to get it out of the ship if I did build one. At the very least, I should make a dropship so that I could get large pieces of equipment (like a mech) outside. I was not thinking of building an army of giant robots to take over the world but then I thought, okay, that would be fun. I began to work on a dropship when my infiltrator finally showed up at the lakeside entrance. 

I let out a sigh, thinking "so close to giant robots" while opening the door. 

I had built a diagnostic computer for AI cores. The infiltrator walked through the base and put the AI module inside of the diagnostic computer. The computer then turned on and began scanning. I thought I really should have Carol look at this, since I didn’t really have any information on how to diagnose AI cores. She wasn’t available but I could use the help with building the base. After it finished scanning, I pulled up the results. 

All hardware: Ready. 

AI core corruption: 0% 

Total time activated: 7 months, 4 days, 3 hours. 

Total time awake since the last shutdown: 3 months, 28 days. 

AI designation: Commander AI Sarah 

AI personality: CB03. 

All systems: Test Successful. Score 100 out of a possible 100. 

Even the machine says she's okay. Apparently, she had only been active for four months, so she's been telling me the truth. I decided to make her a new body. However, it was going to look the same as her old one. I pulled up the design for Commander AI frames. They were way more advanced than infiltrators, and they have the full facial movement, right off the bat. The only difference is that they don't have any flesh below their neckline. I should have based my original infiltrator off this design, then added the skin to it. After I got done making the new frame, I put her module into it and flipped the power on.