It didn’t even take a day and the club was gathered in shock in their club room as the tech club members were moving cables and wires and connecting stuff to a large black cubic block in the center of the room.
The club monitor was watching as the students were setting up the five computers while this cube was the central system.
“I know I asked something to hold a few living digital life forms but isn’t this going a little overboard?” Mr Atlas asked.
“Not really, I barely used 15,000 alone to get the parts for each computer. Maybe because of ignorance but terabyte memory isn’t that hard to find. Each computer has 10 Petabytes and the central unit has 400 petabytes of memory space. It barely cost 50,000 to get all the parts to build that because we had a lot of excess hardware to work with. Honestly, the hardest part which cost half of the money used was the old quantum motherboard unit at the center. It's almost 100 years old and very obsolete compared to modern quantum units but it works more than perfectly for a school club. It should be enough for the AI to easily adapt.” He said.
“This is still a quantum computer motherboard.” Mr Atlas said.
“Mr Atlas, I don’t think you know Prof Code’s power right? His ability is technological precognition. He is capable of sensing the direction might evolve even if he doesn’t know the complete details. As long as he is in direct contact or sees certain programs. Him seeing the AI and apps yesterday was for him to use his power and he instantly mobilized to make this. He even called some graduate students who were technopath so that we can quickly build a viable computing unit.” One of the students said with a smile.
“Less useless chatter.” Prof Codes said.
The teacher and students smiled and watched as the students finished building the five computers and finished connecting everything and then organized the room by levitating the main computer to the back wall and wrapping all the wires so they don’t come loose or cover the ground.
“Alright, it is pretty much done, we have created a data bank for physical chips to connect the digital spawns you make.” Prof codes said as he called them and showed them how to open.
Shockingly, a large segment of the box opened and revealed a number of chip connection lines almost reaching the hundreds.
“Do you expect us to breed a farm?” Mr Atlas asked.
“Who knows, since you said that other people can raise the creatures, it isn’t such a far-fetched idea. After all, of the countless powers in the world, a good 30% are limited to just feeling and moving basic biological energies. Among the Life force user communities, you might even be able to form a game or two out of these creatures and maybe even sport.” He said. “May I see your phone?” He asked Tristan.
He handed it over and Prof codes took out a wire and connected. “AI, the Unit is ready to transfer.” He said.
“Negative, unit is bound to the digital spawn chip. Transfer can be done purely through the transfer of the chip to a new host computer. Applications have already been installed into this container meaning it will remain bound to the system and accessible should the AI change host systems.” it said.
He nodded and disconnected before opening the back and taking out the chip.
He put it over the first slot in the main computer but it naturally wasn’t the same kind of chip, instead it would require a micro disk. That said, he saw the miraculous power of this power as it was covered in a glow and changed from a chip to a disk and perfectly entered the disk drive.
He closed the computer unit and then opened a different opening with a monitor and began to work the system and nodded.
All the computers beeped and began automatic installation processes before the Digital farm app was complete.
“Perfect, these five computers can now be used to rear those creatures.” He said returning Tristan’s phone and he opened the apps. “The app still works.” He said and pointed to the phone and tried to summon Glop.
Everyone was surprised when the screen shined and the creature popped out.
“Good, it seems your ability still functions. What is important is that you are connected to the source of the creature’s data, you don’t directly need their data chip meaning it is much safer here. When you graduate, you should think of a good secure place to hide the eventual supercomputer you will possess.” he said.
“Thank you sir, I will keep that in mind.” Tristan said.
“Alright, with this done, let us all head to class, coming here early is a burden on everyone and we still have a long day!” He said.
The two clubs dispersed quickly to their classes while the computers were left to run. Before leaving, Tristan looked and smiled as he saw the large node over the computer unit and left.
During PE, like usual, Kevin opened the gamer space. Because of his unique power he was obligated to enter heroics because it was obvious that he would eventually become a hero. This was actually proven even more true as he opened the space using far less world power compared to before. It took Mr Atlas only 3 minutes to fill it compared to 5 from before.
After that he also was level 3 compared to level 1 before and he had 20 more stat points. It was actually quite amazing how much potential he had. Everyone else was between level 4 or 5 at the start and had 25 points but he had been untrained and level 3 but had 30 points and just got 20 more from two more.
After he finished distributing them in a controlled manner, his status actually reached the lower levels of vigilante for the civilian classes. His all around form got a bit stronger as well.
As explained, training in the gamer space has a lot of benefits and the efficiency gets better as well. That is why the school uses it almost daily for PE. This wasn’t exclusive for heroics, even civilian classes got it but PE for their classes was not daily.
With heavy weights on the arms and backs while holding his body from extending, Robin and many of his classmates ran and sweated like pigs as they were running over 10 kms already all to expand their stamina. Honestly, it would be tens of times more intense if they were in the most prestigious heroics academies. A public school can’t really compare to those great academies.
Still that didn’t mean there weren’t big results.
Going by the Gamer space runes, he wasn’t level 5 anymore, he was already level 8 and this naturally unlocked 15 points of extra stats but he also had a lot of training as well. He hadn’t tapped into these points yet though. He was training his body the old fashion way because it was going to become harder to train later on. The idea was to gather near the limit, in other words, 5 levels of potential, through physical training and then use that potential and release the burden of his body.
Still, his body had grown a great deal because the first half of class, after a month, had trained from pure training to training abilities.
What did that mean, easy. Training abilities means to expand the capacity of the students abilities. It is similar to what Robin had always done with his stretching over the years to allow his body to gain stretch length. Of course, it was more intense now but it worked.
When he finally collapsed near the end of class alongside the others he called up the status screen because he had heard a ringing during training.
You have leveled up
Status
Name:
Robin Harrison
Class:
Trainee Hero
Stat Points
20
Level:
9
HP:
591
Stamina:
269
Strength
79
Dexterity
60
Agility
46
Intelligence
69
Constitution
46
Wisdom
14
He smiled as he gained another level and after some thought and looking at the time, he decided that he would use the 20 points since his body had a limit of 24 points. It might not be a good thing to let the limit be reached.
Laid down there he raised evened everything to multiples of 5. This meant 1 point for strength, intelligence and wisdom and 4 points of agility and constitution then split the remaining points in half with 5 going to constitution and the rest going to strength.
The result was this…
Status
Name:
Robin Harrison
Class:
Trainee Hero
Stat Points
0
Level:
9
HP:
689
Stamina:
304
Strength
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84
Dexterity
60
Agility
50
Intelligence
70
Constitution
55
Wisdom
15
He accepted the change and fainted for a moment as the gamer space activated on his body. Funny enough, because his body was exhausted, the effect happened faster and as his body healed and when he woke up with only a mild headache as his brain expanded a bit more again he felt much better. The big rise in constitution was felt over his entire body. His body felt warm.
The next level he would need to focus more on dexterity. One hidden fact he had discovered about the constitution when raised inside the gamer space is that it directly strengthened his hardening. Not that the effect and leak worked faster but that the strength of his hardened body would improve much like how his sister did when being beaten.
Getting his ass kicked was among the methods to train his ability to improve his hardened state.
As for the confusing HP and Stamina indicators, those are pretty strange but also quite good indicators. When beaten up by other students for training or by a teacher, most of the time he would usually drop a little bit under 100 points which would usually be restored by the time he got home. Stamina dropped at a rate of 1 point every 50 meters he ran.
This same stamina is the energy Kevin used to power the gamer space if he used it alone.
The rapid expansion was naturally also connected to constitution which was the overall construction of his body instead of just his skeletal structure.
As class came to an end and the gamer field broke down the teachers called the students, “Good job everyone, this is a reminder that starting next week once most of the prototype costumes are complete, you will have your first field training trip. All your files and such have been sent to most of the brave and strong men who are analyzing and will send invitations for a one week internship for you to pick from. Be aware that you will be in active duty as a vigilante but remember that you are still a student as well.” One of the PE teachers exclaimed.
Everyone suddenly gained energy as they thought of seeing real pros and learning from them.
Robin was a little less enthusiastic but he also wanted to be a hero all on his own as well, it would be a lie if he didn’t or he would have never worked so hard.
There were a lot of elastic heroes and he hoped one of the springers would feel interested in him.
Springers are a type of elastic hero who use the spring style. Either their power is based on the spring or they are elastic heroes who adopt the style. He wanted to see how these people used the style without causing heavy damage to their surroundings, something hard to do when you start fighting.
Everyone finished up and went to take a shower before heading to class.
When they arrived at the club, Tristan and Oliver were already on one of the computers each and they each had different creatures on the screen but they were doing very different things.
Tristan had a headset and was talking to Glop but in front of Oliver he was a bit pale while in the computer, his own image was there while carefully playing with the newborn spawn that they had just produced this morning for him.
Just like taming a kitten, it hadn’t taken much to slowly get it used to him. Surprisingly the form was different despite undergoing the same process but they still looked similar.
Glop had looked like a prematurely hatched egg and this one was only a little bit better and was instead a bubble.
Naturally Tristan had tried spawning it but it had failed as expected.
“Hey, they look pretty good. Have there been any new changes in the apps?” Robin asked as he finished looking.
“A lot actually, the data copying for these computers is thousands of times better and the AI is already growing halfway to the basic requirement. Alongside it, the farms have been growing and even Oliver’s spawn already has points to upgrade the farms.” He said.
“How are points calculated?” Robin asked.
“Who knows, I believe it is just data rendering. That said, it seems we have to program specific models for what we want to do. Like if i wanted to change this bare farm into a pasture or gym, i would need at least a basic 3d model that the AI can build from and then it will alter the terrain. It just finished explaining that doing this is required to produce unique creatures such as water adapted breeds, flying breeds and so on.” He explained.
“That is interesting, how do you plan to train him then?” Robin asked.
“Well the form is purely up to me so despite how much I hate it, I’ve actually been researching Digimon, I don’t want such common breeds, instead I’m going to try and get something less known but just as powerful.” He said.
He said and opened an internet browser and what appeared was a completely metallic dragon with a scarf. “Hackmon… the mini dragon digimon… it evolves into one of the thirteenth royal knight.” Robin muttered and began to go through the stages and raised his brows. “This is going to be really interesting and all, just be careful because all digital life forces are subject to infection of Virus. If they are even remotely similar to digimon, even your emotions can affect them so be very wary of what you do.” Robin said.
“I’m fine, what is really cool is how Oliver’s power interfaced with the farms.” Tristan said.
“How so?” He asked curiously.
“My farm actually created a house and expanded to support my digital form. I think my power was made to interface with this from the get go and act like some kind of rancher. I can actually see the four other islands floating in the void but they are pretty far because they are on different computers but inside, they are all connected.” Oliver said.
“That is so interesting.” Robin said and took out his notebooks and wrote down the new facts about the twin’s powers.
Twins have always been unique when it comes to abilities. Sometimes they had the same ability but these more unique abilities were rarely the same.
The next person to enter was the chi user who they recruited, Yuri Wong.
She noticed they were already there, “Ah, good evening.” She said.
“Hello Yuri, you’re here early.” Robin said.
“Ah, well I wanted to see if someone could help.” she said.
The three smiled weakly, naturally what she wanted help with was her own ability. As professor Codes had mentioned, of the Life force users with powers which functioned on life force, at least 30% were purely the ability to feel and move the energy with no additional power. Naturally Chi was no different.
In fact the ability is basically known as Chi Control, Life Force control and so on.
People with this ‘basic’ power have an, honestly, low development potential but they have a greater freedom to explore the countless possibilities that other powers have and mimic the inborn abilities.
If someone had just pure psychic energy, they could slowly train to learn many psychic abilities like telekinesis or telepathy if they figured out the way it worked.
For Chi, however, it was much harder because it was energy loosely gathered in the body compared to others. The only known thing is that the gathering point was in the lower abdomen but being able to gather it completely was incredibly difficult. As for growing and using it the old fashion way was tedious. The old fashioned way is naturally hard martial arts that take years to do and using old qigong martial arts that buddist monks train.
“Right, we never talked about your powers much since we were caught in the intense training regime.” Robin said and sat down before going to another section of his notebook and she sat down.
The twins went back to their caretaking while Robin began to ask about Yuri’s previous attempts.
“So I can move my energy pretty freely in my body but it is really thin. I normally train while flowing my chi but it doesn’t do much though it has gotten a little bit thicker over the years.” She explained.
“Right, so do you know about chi sub energies?” He asked.
She instantly looked confused and shook her head, “Chi is often called internal power. It is different from stamina and life force which generally fixate itself into a person’s blood which pumps through the body. Chi takes the body's meridian system which is said to balance the body's energy flow and manage a lot of the body's systems.” He said.
“So sub energies…?” Yuri muttered.
“Sub energies are created when someone takes their chi, or internal power, and learns how to change the form. You’ve probably heard about things like Qi and Chakra. Sometimes people use chi in its raw form but purify it through quantity and compression. Famous people like the Jade Emperor, one of the heroes in the Asian Union, use this to the extreme.” he explained.
“Yeah but he has many abilities.” She said frowning.
“I get that but it isn’t like that can’t be learned. The Jade Emperor’s most famous skill is his Chi manifestation, he has never used technology but he has learned from it, he manifests his Chi in a solid form of real objects but many times more powerful from armor to weapons.” He said.
She grew depressed because he was also considered the greatest martial artist but she was far from being a good fighter.
“You shouldn’t really feel down, now, what are some of the things you’ve dreamed of doing? We can start there?” he said.
“Um… well i think the first thing is learning how to make my power grow stronger.” She said.
“That’s a start.” He said, “You’ve had PE in the Gamer Space, can you tell me all your traits and skills?” he said.
“All I have is Chi control, passive, the ability to control my internal power.” she said.
Robin wrote down and frowned, “Do you not have Chi generation?” He asked.
“What is that?” she asked.
“Do you know how in my case, elastic heroes generally have the power called Elastic control, usually this is the ability to control our limbs once expanded at will. These are like a system of abilities which work to make a single one work.” He said.
She shook her head and made him frown, “Have you ever emptied your chi before?” He asked.
“Yeah, I once gathered everything as a child when I got mad at a bully once and punched him and everything gathered in my fist and I almost fainted.” She said.
“Did you ever feel where the qi was coming from as you regained your energy?”
She frowned and shook her head.
Robin stood up and with a smile he raised his hand, “Punch here with your chi, to find something out you need to do tests.” He said.
She understood what he meant and wanted, he wanted to find out the source that her body produced this power from.
That said she focused hard and tried to channel chi and punches but it was far from gathering everything and it was barely stronger than a normal punch.
She did several punches before huffing but she had barely used much.
“Hmm, it seems that it is hard to compress energy as well.” he said. “Are you feeling the Chi move through your muscles or through your meridians?” he asked.
“I don’t know.” she said.
Robin thought for a while and then went to one of the computers and began to search about Chi, he had some reference to work with since he had researched about mana before. She stood behind him, “Let’s see… how channelling this works.” He muttered and found dozens of methods but the key to them all was feeling the energy system that helps channel this power.
“Hmm…” He muttered and went to grab the power scanner and had her put her hand under it and naturally Chi appeared but he connected the machine to the computer and it actually brought out a camera view.
The flow of energy was thin so he changed the lens view and surprisingly a number of tiny dots appeared.
“Great, it is barely visible!” He said. “This might be a pretty big mental task but let’s try it, what I think is happening is that your energy is flowing freely in your body instead of through your chi system. You said the power center never opened up when you tried to force it so instead let’s try to force one of these tiny acupoints open.” He said.
Acupoints are all the nodes that control energy in the body, certain martial arts aim for them to paralyze so it is vital to look into them after fighting such enemies because it could even block some and cause huge health problems.
She swallowed hard and sat down while looking at the screen.
When she sat down the door opened and Robin quickly put his hand to his lips so the others wouldn’t distract Yuri.
Slowly the energy in her hand got a bit denser and showed up but the dots didn’t vanish. She focused on the center of her palm and tried to push energy and she felt something different and the pressure continued until there was finally something strange that happened as she felt some kind of opening and upon feeling that the chi actually found it and began to enter.
Surprisingly it began to fill her hand but also spread a pull throughout her body and chi began to gather and spread from that little point.
Her body began to feel a bit cold and her hand trembled as the power was pressed tight in those tiny channels but she was feeling each one. Every acupoint began to feel hot in her arm and hand as the chi ran down her arm and she pulled it and held her arm but her chi didn’t stop as it eventually ran to the torso and down to the lower body and finally fall into the dantian, or power center of her body.
It began to react as it filled up and the chi began to spin within before releasing towards all corners of her body and forming an outward flow and then a return flow. The pain from her arm due to the wrong flow began to fix up as the wrong flow was pushed back to the arm and then flowed back properly along with the rest.
Her entire body grew much hotter due to this but when her arm finally calmed down she began to feel better.
She was helped to the seat while her arm twitched in pain but she touched her belly area, “I can feel it now. My Chi is filling my body now.” She said.
Robin smiled and had her put her hand under the scanner and he turned it on.
“Stable flow… and it seems the scanner is picking up a very subtle increase of chi. It seems now your power will grow to the natural capacity that you should have.” Robin said, “Congratulations because it seems you took the first step.” He said.
She smiled when she heard that and felt she could still control her power but it was now all compressed in the tiny vessels running through her body.
“Let’s wait a few days while your body adapts. This isn’t a small change that will happen after all, it is just like when Lilian awakened her life force, her body changed daily so we will leave this for now until we are sure your body has stabilized. Next time you have PE in Keven’s Gamer Space, make sure to note down any changes in your status compared to before.” Robin said.
“Okay.” She said.
The others brought her some water and were happy Robin could help another person.
“That’s right, what will happen to club activities when the heroics course group goes out during their internship?” Oliver asked.
“You can still come to the club if you want, besides that not much we can do.” Mr Atlas said.
“That is going to be a boring week.” The civilian course group complained.
The group laughed and decided to prepare things that the group could do and one of them actually was to prepare things that they can sell because there are some activities involving fund raising that civilian course members can regularly take.
Over the next week the number of digital creatures increased and the five life force users started to feel the improvement in their life force while they fed and raised the little creatures and slowly gathered data to upgrade them.