As Thor started to focus on everything else he needed to do the nanites he was controlling on the moon detected three bodies touching down on the surface of the moon. Sun Mingze and two of his bodyguards. As Thor reviewed the nanites in the area a second after Adam disappeared they had appeared 10 feet above the surface. They had been in Adam’s Soul space when he went through which meant…yep, double checking on Sun Mingze in China showed that he and the two bodyguards were there. Thor also noted that contact with the Soul Space was now cut off.
The good news was that the original Sun Mingze and his bodyguards were alive and on the moon. Adam’s Chaotic Nanites hadn’t faded yet even though Adam was no longer in range. Thor considered what to do for a moment then realized doing the right thing was probably the best course of action. Also, it would help everyone else as they prepared for what was coming.
Thor created robotic arms to pick each of the three up as he enclosed them in a very simple dome. After he pressurized the dome he used the robotic arms to place the three men on the ground in one of Sun Mingze’s many vacant holdings in Hong Kong. The stasis that was being imposed by Adam’s Chaotic Nanites began to fade as soon as the dome began to pressurize. Thor would have to let Adam know that even though the Chaos had been outside his eight-foot range the Chaos had still held the shape of nanites to prevent someone’s death. Almost like it knew Adam’s wishes at that moment.
Before Desirae started getting Cindy, Robert, and Amanda ready for their first delve into the dungeon she talked with Thor for a few moments then went off to one of the side rooms and made a statement that went worldwide through the nanites to every phone or monitor. On the Monitor Desirae’s face appeared a woman with jet-black hair, green eyes, and sensuous lips. The voice that came from her was anything but sensual though.
In common, but translated into every language as subtitles Desirae Spoke to the people of the world, “People of Earth, I am Desirae. The language I am speaking is called Common in my home world of Primore, the same world the demon originated from that was destroyed over Cairo recently. I am contacting you today to inform all of you that Magic is back. If Magic is back Monsters will soon follow. Your Governments will be putting out public statements as necessary. I am contacting everyone tonight to let you know that my friends and I will try to help but we cannot be everywhere. In the very near future, I will be putting out an announcement for those that wish to learn how to fight monsters and get stronger. Until then stay vigilant and take care..”
After Desirae’s public statement, the team started their first Dungeon crawl as Clarence continued to inspect the facility Thor was modifying under the New Mexico estate. News programs responded to the obvious hacking by putting out a worldwide manhunt for Desirae. Thor knew she’d find that hilarious when they came back out of the Dungeon.
Thor was monitoring Earth for monster manifestations when the sensors on the moon reported a change at the location of the portal. The radiation emanating around the portal was diminishing as it shrank to a point and vanished. Simultaneously around the world, numerous monsters materialized. Many died in the first few moments as no one believed what they were seeing. New programs that were not directly interrupted by a manifestation continued to belittle Desirae’s claims. That is until the number of deaths being reported reached the thousands, then the tens of thousands.
Thor interceded where he could. Any flying monsters he could catch with a portal ended with the creature being deposited into high orbit where they died of asphyxiation and exposure before burning up on re-entry. Thor’s major problem was that he didn’t have the kind of setup Johnathan had created on his original Earth. Currently, he had 10 portal chambers and the power to utilize them but it would take time to get more built. He didn’t have Adam’s magic to pull on to fill the gaps and monsters were able to kill some.
For the next 12 Hours, Thor helped the governments as he could. finally, there seemed to be a lull in the manifestations as they slowed to one to two per hour. Thor with his network of nanites across the globe would create a speaker wherever a monster appeared warning that a monster was in the area. At first, they were ignored but eventually, word got out that devices were mysteriously popping into existence. Civilians would try to get away, as police and the military responded if they were in the area.
For the low-level monsters, guns were adequate. The United States with one of the largest quantities of guns owned by civilians in the world faired very well against the low-level manifestations. Against larger monsters, the military would be called in and either used precision air strikes or ground vehicles like Armored Personnel Carriers (APCs) with mounted weapons or tanks. While all nukes had been disarmed the military still had access to all their other armaments. One good bit of news. None of the Nanite dead zones had any monsters come through them so the Labyrinth had kept her word and was preventing higher-level monsters from using the dungeons to invade Earth. When Desirae exited the dungeon with Cindy, Robert, Abi, and Amanda they’d made their way to the Terminal they could talk to Thor from flushed and excited about their experiences.
“Thor status check?” Desirae asked.
“The portal Adam passed through closed. When it closed monster manifestations started worldwide. I’ve been doing what I can to help but we’ve still lost a lot of people. On the bright side, everyone believes what you told them now.
“I bet, where do you need us?” Desirae asked.
“Nowhere currently. From what I’ve seen most of the monsters appearing are levels 1 to 10. With a little portal help and speakers screaming ‘There be Monsters here!’ as they appear, I’ve been able to keep the death toll down,” Thor said.
“Okay everyone, We’re going to head back to base in New Mexico and get a meal, a shower, and some rest. Tomorrow we start working on our projects. Any question?” After no one answered Desirae looked at a monitor “Thor?”
Thor opened a portal, watched as they all stepped through, and then closed it. Thor continued to monitor the World. It was still July 16th for a few more hours. Thor wondered how long it would be before Adam returned. Nothing could be done about it so Thor focused on the things Adam wanted done and kept expanding the base. A few monsters spawned nearby but the automated defenses saw to them in short order. If the miniguns and atom lasers couldn’t handle the monsters, Thor opened portals large enough to suck them into deep space. Thor kept track of the lost atmosphere and replaced it by converting materials from other planets back into the lost Atmosphere. While he was at it, he repaired the Ozone too. Nanites were not working on anything that manifested because they were expressions of pure magic. Physics still worked though. Air and Fire elementals were extremely susceptible to vacuum. Water elementals froze and Earth Elementals. Well, they didn’t die but they weren’t able to do anything else while floating in the middle of space so they became non-issues.
Unlike what had normally occurred on all the planets that weren’t used to monsters and magic reappearing, the warning given by Desirae and the food and water supplied by Thor kept the world from breaking down and falling apart. Thor was not providing anything fancy. Just Meal Ready to Eat (MRE) and water. If people wanted anything fancier they’d need to grow and cook it themselves. This kept the farmer’s farming and the industries running. Entertainment industries on the other hand started to fail.
Over the next year, everything shifted as Portal’s Inc was created and almost overnight Abi and Amanda became the wealthiest people on Earth. The patents were filed and the technology was demonstrated. The first portal was opened to Mars. Two weeks later they opened a portal to Calisto and discovered Rhodium pebbles on the surface. Of course, Thor was making them, that wasn’t the point. At over $2,300 U.S. dollars per troy ounce. Adding that into the market was going to generate significant income quickly. Thor set up a mining site that generated approximately 1 ton of material in the first month, which generated 70 million dollars.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
The other reason the mining base was established on Calisto was that Thor started creating another base with even more portal machinery as well as the linkages he’d need to siphon the energy off of the solar arrays he was going to place near Mercury to generate the energy he needed to power all of the generators. He’d have fusion reactors as well, though they would be placed out past the orbit of Pluto to prevent tampering. Without access to Adam, he couldn’t draw on the material in his soul space so Thor opened portals to the asteroid belt and started converting the asteroids floating around there. Adam also converted the trash he collected from the oceans and landfills.
Abi and Amanda re-invested some of the money from their mining enterprise to rent a small area in the VIP section of every major airport and had Thor maintain Portals there that cost twice as much as a normal Airline ticket to another major airport but got you there without the wait. That business was booming and generated a ton of income. Thor also rented emergency portals to governments around the world through the United Nations to allow rapid response teams to move around the globe quickly in an emergency. That service was provided for free for other benefits, like lowered annual taxes and such.
Some of the income that was generated provided money to Cindy and Robert Bennard to open free clinics in cities around the world. Amazingly the clinics seemed to appear overnight and were mostly automated. Individuals seeking help would enter, step into a booth, and be scanned. They’d receive a verbal medical report of the conditions they had then step out the other side healed and be on their way. This was working because most of the people were not magically active yet. That fact allowed the nanites to enter and repair them.
The few people that the nanites couldn’t enter were given a ticket to go see Cindy Bennard as she had become a healer of sorts and could use magic to heal others. Cindy had become a Cleric of Serena when she’d discovered a Cleric’s Staff in a dungeon drop. When Desirae had debriefed Thor she’d told him that Cindy had picked up the shaft and vanished. Moments later she’d reappeared with tears in her eyes and said she was now a Cleric of Serena. Thor remembered Adam’s encounters with the Shadow of Serena. His mother being beholden to the true Goddess of Knowledge might stir a ruckus but was probably not a bad thing Besides, Cindy and Robert were leveling so fast due to the rings they were wearing that Thor doubted it would matter.
One thing that surprised everyone was when Cindy and Robert reached level 5001. Since Adam had said the maximum level was 5000 they hadn’t expected anything to happen after they’d made it to level 5,000. After that discovery, they’d put a ring on Clarence and started sharing the other ring for 24 hours. Clarence had caught up quickly. Cindy had then been given back the ring as the only cleric and the other five had shared Robert’s ring. Cindy was level 5,995 and the rest of them were level 5,671.
Abi had become something of a Ranger class though she used bows and firearms respectively. Robert had become the Tank and seemed to have fun doing it ever since he’d found an insanely awesome set of Adamantium Plate Mail in the Dungeon. Amanda was trying to become a mage but didn’t have access to a lot of magical spells. She found some in the Dungeon. When Adam returned she’d have to ask him to teach her. Desirae was the Shadow Assassin and Cindy the Cleric. At least when they went into the Dungeon.
Desirae had also made sure that everyone had sufficient skill with melee weapons that they carried at all times. That plus their insanely high levels as compared to everyone else saved their lives more than once. After the third attempt by the Chinese to infiltrate the estate in New Mexico Desirae had had enough. On Christmas Eve 2040, she’d portaled into Li Muchen’s home and left a very clear brutal message for everyone to see. Shortly thereafter a picture had been sent to the other six Chinese leaders with the words, “No Chance!” below the photo of the clinically eviscerated body that had once been Li Muchen.
Thor and Adam both knew that Desirae had been Lawful Evil and was struggling to remain neutral and she followed a code. Thor knew that she’d allowed the Chinese to disrespect her three times before retaliating and realized that had been uncommonly merciful of her. There had been an uproar and the Chinese had even launched one of their precision stealth bombers to invade United States airspace and use their version of a bunker buster to destroy the underground base. The bomber had flown north over the arctic pole and dropped its payload from 60,000 feet. Thor had of course known it was coming and opened a portal just before the bomb hit and utilized the munition to take out a hydra that had appeared in the Amazon Jungle as a portal opened above it. The Hydra might have been magical but physics was still a bitch. Unfortunately, the bunker buster didn’t kill the Hydra outright, though the secondary explosion did finish the job.
Desirae asked Thor to make another Portal and Qian Haoran was decapitated in front of his generals by someone they couldn’t see. A new message went out to the surviving five Chinese, “That’s two, There will not be a third message to any of you, though a message will be sent to all the other world leaders you control that you have died.”
Something interesting happened then. Tang Muyang and Sun Mingze, both the original and the copy were assassinated by their personal guards. Thor watched as Pan Ruoxi, Zeng Yihan, and Shen Xinyi took control of all the holdings then met a day later and placed a call to Johnathan Bennards last known phone number.
Mimicking Johnathan’s voice Thor answered, “Yes?”
“We are…” Pan Puoxi started to say before Thor cut her off.
“You are Pan Ruoxi and both Zeng Yihan and Sheng Xinyi are beside you. Yes, I know what you have done. Concentrate on keeping your people safe and helping your neighbors during these monster manifestations and you will not hear from me again. Also, for the record, if something did happen to someone that you had nothing to do with, I was not involved. The individual your colleagues upset before their untimely demised allowed two transgressions before retaliating. There will be no further warnings from that party. Good day,” Thor said as he hung up and permanently disconnected that line.
After Desirae’s display of power, The Chinese stopped their overt attempts at taking out Adam and his interests. When Portals Inc came online, Abi and Amanda were contacted by a representative from the three Chinese that controlled the world economy. They’d simply told the representative that “Adam says hello” and all threats had ceased from that point on. They had tried to thwart the contract process and force investigations but the fake paperwork and fake evidence kept disappearing.
The Dungeon Safari idea didn’t work. It just straight up didn’t work so Thor devised a devious plan. Thor created and left clues to a cache of ancient weapons that could be utilized against monsters and humans. Anyone smart enough to put all the pieces together could earn a passkey to a secret underground base where other like-minded individuals would be also trying to earn the right to the treasures. Within days the first Adventures accessed The Dungeon known as Al. Some people played it smart, A lot did not and Al grew stronger. There were warnings everywhere. Anyone that died most likely had it coming. Al didn’t pull out the devious stuff until level 11 was reached.
Individuals with strong magical aptitudes were offered exclusive training. Those that accepted were trained up and became part of the rapidly expanding quick response teams. Al grew stronger, the party grew stronger and even the normal humans on earth grew stronger. The monster manifestations stabilized and society as a whole synergized around the new reality that involved monsters.
One other type of special individual was taken care of. Prisoners on a life sentence were offered the chance to commute their life sentences by entering Al. They would never be allowed to leave though if they survived all the way to the entrance of the Labyrinth. A lot of prisoners jumped at the chance and like that, the number of lifetime prisoners was reduced by 90%. Some chose not to go. That is until Desirae sweetened the pot by resetting that last 10% to their teen bodies. 100% of the prisoners were never seen again.
Two years became Three, then six, then ten and there was still no sign of Adam, Adaline, or Pandora. Earth was now ruled by the United Nations which both Abi and Amanda had a seat in. Everyone, including Clarence, were the wealthiest people on the planet and living the good life. Former borders, while still recognized were now only lines on old maps. Strife among the local governments had disappeared, especially when Abi and Amanda had made it clear that they would cut off all free food and water, inform the populace why, and let them fix the problem. There had been a government in Ethiopia that had refused to cooperate. Thor had absorbed all the weapons and uniforms of their military and played a video stating the people had 24 hours to fix the situation. It came as no surprise that the government capitulated once the old leaders had been forcibly ejected from their positions. The mobs had straight up killed them. As soon as the leaders that wouldn’t work with the United Nations were dead, the food and water returned. Only one such example had ever had to be made in that 10 years.
Thor expanded his nanites into every solar system and stellar body within 10 light-years...again While Adam had not wanted him to spread too far out 10 light-years seemed like a fair compromise as there was nothing there. This also let Thor set up the energy nets around multiple stars so he could power everything without worry.
Thor also set up a lifeboat for humanity, should one ever be needed. This time it wasn’t a copy of Earth. It was a ship that could travel at velocities faster than the speed of light that was about the size of the planet Saturn. It utilized some of the information Adam had learned from the Vrax. Should he ever need to, Thor could evacuate every creature on planet Earth more than 700 times.