As Adam let the three officers know what he’d been up to, he began creating more nanites with his skill Mold Chaos.
“There are actual hunters running around killing and tagging humans,” Captain Clarkson asked.
“See for yourself,” Adam said as he had the nanites in the room pull images from his mind through Technomancy.
The three watched the footage of Adam’s decimation of the eight hunter groups and the images of the bodies strewn here and there all over the city. While they watched Adam continued to create more nanites and set them under the control of the A.I. With the Nanite Stabilizer in place any nonorganic material within 25 miles of the room could be converted into more nanites and utilized. That was one of the reasons he wanted one so badly. The SYSTEM hampered any use of nanites for creation except within a stabilized zone. Eventually, Adam would be able to transfer material into the area and have the nanites here create goods he could sell.
Now he was going to try to save as many people as possible while killing as many hunters as possible. He’d already earned 20,413 Event Points. While he didn’t know what they would get him, he knew he wanted more. Adam also looked over his Status Screen and noted that he’d gained 7 more levels and reached level 8. Adam put all 140 free attributes in his Chaos Attribute. With the automatic 10 points per level, he increased his Chaos attribute by 210 which allowed him to go from creating 2, 860 pounds with Mold Chaos to 8,976 pounds every 10 seconds. He’d increased his Chaos Attribute from 130 to 340 in a moment. With the 20% boost his base of 340 increased his Chaos Attribute to 408. He could spend all 408 of his chaos to create the nanites, then use Chaos Conversion to convert 4080 mana into Chaos and his mana regeneration rate of 18,510 would immediately refill the mana he’d just spent. Also, it was nothing for him to utilize both actions in a single turn so he could do this six times a minute.
Adam was brought out of his self-reflection when General Duvall asked, “Adam are you carrying a camera when you run around like that? In fact, is that you running around?”
Adam smiled, “No to the first question, yes to the second.”
“How do you keep the images so clear? I could swear that the footage I’m seeing is way better than anything the drones we have could give back,” The General asked as he tried to get more information from Adam.
Adam looked thoughtful as he said, “Part of it is my natural abilities. Another part is an insanely high Perception attribute. If you focus on that Attribute you’ll be able to see more details and catch things trying to sneak up on you.”
“How high are we talking?” Lieutenant Baker asked.
“Well over 1,000”
“Well over 1,000!” Captain Clarkson exclaimed, “I have a 12 in that attribute.”
Adan didn’t know what to say to that, so he ignored the outburst and turned to the General, “After I stopped the hunters in Albuquerque I headed toward Phoenix and ran into the guest I need to go question momentarily.”
“Where did you put her?” The General asked.
“She’s in a holding cell in a different part of the city,” Adam said.
“How long until she wakes up?” Lieutenant Baker asked, and shouldn’t you have a female with you when you go talk to her?”
Adam shook his head as he said, “I just reviewed some of the skills and spells I picked up. Specifically, the skill I used on her. It seems that if I use my mental blast to knock people unconscious and they're close to normal, they’ll be out of commission for up to 18 days. She’s a high elf so she’s probably got some mental fortitude, so maybe 17 days.”
“Then how are you going to interrogate her?” General Duvall asked.
“Oh, I picked up another new skill, Telepathy. I’m going to invade her mind and then just watch her memories, should be fun,” Adam said.
“You can do that?” Captain Clarkson asked.
“Yeah, but that’s not the important thing. I picked up a SYSTEM Shop node so the people that earn credits can go into the SYSTEM shop and purchase stuff, or you can give them one of these,” Adam said as a bar of Adamantium appeared in his hand.
“Looks kind of like silver, What is it?” Lieutenant Baker asked.
“This is a bar of Adamantium, yes, like the metal Wolverine supposedly had injected into him.” Usually, it goes for a high price because it's hard to find and even harder to create. I have no idea how much it's worth in this SYSTEM.”
“Then how do you know it’s valuable? Better yet how did you create it?” General Duvall asked.
Adam handed the bar to Captain Clarkson, “Take this down to the SYSTEM shop and see how much you can get for it.”
Captain Clarkson looked to General Duvall, who nodded, accepted the bar, and commented, “It’s heavy,” as he headed down to the SYSTEM Shop node.
“Yeah, that’s about 50 pounds,” Adam agreed as he made two more bars, one for each officer, “Here’s one for each of you. As for your question General, I know it’s expensive because Adamantium is the strongest magical metal that exists, pretty much anywhere. There might be something with specifically stronger properties, but Adamantium is just the best all around. As for how I made it, well our home is now a nanite farm of sorts that can make anything we want.”
“What do you mean nanite Farm? Are they inside me?” Lieutenant Baker asked as she tried to brush herself off.
“Relax Lieutenant,” Adam said with his command voice which surprised the General and the Lieutenant,” In this SYSTEM, nanites can’t invade living structures. Without the stabilizer, the only thing nanites can do is modify themselves to take on new forms or destroy nonorganic material. With the stabilizer, the only functionality I have is that the nanites can break down inorganic matter and convert it into other inorganic matter. I still can’t affect or create anything living, I tried.”
“What kind of advantage does this give us?” General Duvall asked.
“Now the base can continue to be expanded while I rush around the globe and take out the hunters. I can also set up drop-off points for food and supplies that are created here. Unfortunately, I can’t do anything about healing people with the nanites, but they can provide the supplies to the doctors that might need them and as people take healing classes they’ll be able to help out too.”
“How long?” The General asked.
“It’s a 50-mile diameter area which does include Alamogordo which is also all a Safe Zone now,” Adam said as he looked thoughtful for a moment. Give it three days and the nanites should have spread into Alamogordo and started repairing the place and tied it to the fusion reactors I have below us.”
“We have Fusion Reactors?” Captain Clarkson said as he rushed back into the room Breathless.”
“Not important, how much did you get for the bar?” Adam asked.
“The exchange rate was 200,000 credits for 1 pound with a 10% fee. I got 9 million credits for the trade.
Adam caught the eyes of all three officers, “Do NOT flood the market all at once. Feel free to trade in these two bars and then spend those credits on what you think you need for the base. As you need more credits make more Adamantium.”
Lieutenant Baker interrupted Adam, “Why be careful about flooding the market?”
“Because it will bring attention to us before any of you can protect yourselves or I am ready to deal with any problems that might pop up.”
“A more important question is what can we buy from the SYSTEM Shop?” General Duvall asked.
Adam smiled, “Anything, anything at all. You just have to have the credits for it. In this context, you could buy information about your loved ones on the world or for everyone in the world. Get the coordinates and then have the A.I. open a portal to retrieve them. You know what, that’s a great idea. Time to stop talking, you have people to save by bringing them here. The housing will expand exponentially in all directions. If you have any questions ask Ray
“Who’s Ray?” Captain Clarkson asked.
“Ray is the Racoon City Resident Artificial Intelligence or R C R A I or R A I otherwise known as Ray.”
“You just made that up didn’t you?” Lieutenant Baker asked.
“He did, the feminine voice of Ray said from the air around them.”
Okay everyone, The base is expanding, try to save as many people’s loved ones as you can. Ray, we will need more portals so please take care of that. I’ll check in in a bit. I have a female elf to go tortu… I mean interrogate,” Adam said. As the portal he summoned opened, and he stepped through the face all three officers gave him was priceless.
As the portal closed Ray said, “A bit childish, wasn’t it Adam?”
“Yes it was, but existence is boring if you don’t make people a little uncomfortable once in a while. Besides their imagination of what I’m doing to the sleeping elf is going to be a lot more exciting than the actual interrogation.
“How so?” Ray asked.
“You’ll see,” Adam said as he summoned a chair, Activated Telepathy to establish contact with the elvish woman, and then began using Memory Recall on her repeatedly. Adam even activated Mental Refuge so he could take advantage of the time dilation effect to speed things up. After five minutes both his Telepathy skill and Mental Refuge Skills had increased to Common level 2 which had tripled his time dilation. After 10 minutes they were both level 3. By the time an hour had passed his time dilation was up to 9 times normal. When he stopped after 109 minutes, just shy of two hours both skills were Scare level 1, and his time dilation was 11 times normal when doing anything mentally through telepathy. He was definitely going to have to level the hell out of that skill.
Memory Recall hadn’t leveled at all but it had started at Rare level 1 so that wasn’t surprising. Adam correlated the data points he’d recorded for the two skills he’d just used continuously for almost two hours and estimated that if he continuously used Memory Recall he would be able to increase the skill to Rare level 2 after 20 hours. It wasn’t going to be getting the 20 hours that was hard, he’d eventually do that. It was the continuous use that would be the issue.
Adam refocused his thoughts on what he’d learned from the Ishla Tai Nar. A high elf from the world of Xen in a galaxy so far away that it didn’t matter. She was the great-granddaughter of some powerhouse for the Xeli Corporation and she was a mage. A mage with the skills to get free She was also cheating. She had a ship in orbit that had been teleported into orbit the moment she’d arrived. Once Adam knew that it was time to get to work.
Adam created an airlock and then had it open into a high orbit above the point where her memories said the ship would be. He’d been wanting to test his Adaption perk and also whether Chaos Step would work in space, and this seemed like the perfect time to find out.
Adam stepped through the airlock and out into space. In a moment he saw the ship and walked toward it. Adam remembered the phrase “The Enemies Gate is Down” from a science fiction classic as he oriented himself and walked to the ship. He activated Technomancy, took over the ship, and entered through the Air Lock. With Sense of Chaos, he immediately knew every component of the ship and with Technomancy he knew the programming that ran it. Also, the design wasn’t unlike other designs he’d seen before. Adam paid specific attention to the engines and drives and compared them to technologies he’d seen before. In the space of 30 seconds, Adam went from a basic knowledge of physics to a full understanding of how physics was mitigated and modified by the SYSTEM. Adam knew that if he needed to, he could create a duplicate of this ship and it would fly.
With Technomancy, he was also able to scrub the computer core and pick up Ishla’s Empire identity and the primary genetic password that was tied to it, as well as an additional quantum code that acted as a designator to determine which Universe that genetic material of the key came from. All of it was used as a unique password that gave someone access to all of her accounts and any of her holdings on the various planets she owned.
Ishla was kind of important and probably considered this a holiday which begged the question, someone like that must have a way to recover their body if she went missing or even a way to come back from death. A clone perhaps?
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No sooner had that thought crossed his mind than a ship 10 times as large as the ship he was on warped into existence next to him in orbit. For comparison, Isha’s private ship was a luxury yacht with a bedroom entertainment area and even a fully stocked kitchen as well as an upper observation bubble. The ship was at least 1,000 feet long. The ship that he was looking at through the front screen had to be just shy of 2 miles long.
Adam’s Sense of Chaos felt the scan go over the ship and then felt the ship get teleported into a docking bay. Immediately he knew exactly where he was as the pulse that his Sense of Chaos sent out fed him information concerning his surroundings.
A moment later a female being materialized out of the shadows behind him with a blade at his neck, “Move and Die Human.”
Adam had detected her before she appeared but wanted to see where this was going. If she’d attacked he’d have reacted but capturing him? He could work with that, so he remained unmoving and waiting.
“Good, you can follow directions,” the female in black armor that reminded Adam of the armor types he’d seen on that cartoon Voltron growing up said as the airlock opened and she ushered him onto the landing deck where 4 guards had weapons trained on him and a fifth person in a uniform, not unlike that of a military officer, stood. The uniform was olive green and form-fitted and if he was being honest, except for the color, made the female elf look very good.
“What do we have here?”, the Officer he was ushered up to said in Elvish.”
“He was the only one on board, Commander,” The Assassin said.
Adam smiled, These elves had just brought him another ship, how kind of them. With Technomancy he reached to take over the ship. A look of surprise came over the Commander's face and sneered at Adam, “Did you think that…
Adam moved.
Faster than the eye could see, his Chaos Blade appeared in his hand, decapitated the four guards with guns on him, split the assassin behind him two from her groin to the top of her head, and returned to his starting point. The Commander’s sentence was interrupted when the assassin behind Adam fell to the deck in two pieces.
While she was distracted by her assassin falling apart In front of her as if by magic, Adam asserted control of the ship with Technomancy and shut down the threats that had started to target him and then locked all the other personnel down in whatever compartment they were in while locking out the controls to all systems on the ship.
While he was doing that the Commander drew her firearm, pointed it at Adam’s head, and pulled the trigger. An energy blast exited the barrel and hit Adam in the temple. He checked his Combat log and noted that the gun only did 210 points of damage, 630 because it was considered a critical hit, and it still didn’t get through his Damage resistance.
Adam sighed as he reached up and crushed the barrel of the energy pistol and then directed his gaze at the Commander.
“What are you?” the Commander asked.
“You know what, that’s a good question, and I may even answer it, but right now, I’ve got work to do,” Adam said as he systematically visited every person on the ship, stripped them of all weapons and items while leaving them with their clothes on and opened portals for them to step through. Those that didn’t were thrown through the portal into the holding cells Ray was creating for them. A few did not get back up, though the nanites in the cells let him know they were still breathing.
While he was clearing the ship of the 45 personnel on board he was also flying the ship to the far side of the moon where he was taking it in for a landing in one of the bigger craters on the dark side. Once the ship was in the crater he waited the full five minutes to make sure there were no unknown alien bases in the area with Sense of Chaos and then activated the cloaking field the ship had. Once the ship was secure Adam stepped through a portal into his new office in the subbasement of Racoon City, which was hidden away from everyone else.
“Ray,”
“Yes, Adam.”
“Interrogate the prisoners. Also, the Commander probably has some form of Technomancy…belay that,” Adam said as he opened a portal to where the Commander was walking up a set of stairs. She looked surprised when the portal opened which was all the time she had when she was hit with a Psionic Blast which knocked her unconscious. Adam stepped through the portal, picked up the Commander as he had Ray create a room with no exits, and opened a portal into a chamber 20 miles under the mountain that he’d detected with Technomancy. Adam left the portal open while he created enough Nanites to create a small room with facilities that were not connected to the base. He made sure the room had a water supply, bathroom, climate control a very small reactor, and lights. He also left her some ration bars to hold the elf over. Adam placed the Commander on the bed in the windowless and doorless room and stepped out of the portal and back into his office. He’d probably have to hook her up for intravenous feeding if she didn’t wake up in a day or so. He already knew he’d have to do that to Ishla.
“As I was saying Ray,” question the prisoners, see what you can get out of them. Keep them fed and feel free to offer them reading materials. Do not let them know what’s going on throughout the world and do not let them talk to each other.
“As you command, Adam”
Adam had been sidetracked long enough. He left instructions for General Duvall to work with Ray to make sure the unconscious prisoners didn’t die and then it was time for him to work on saving the rest of humanity. He had some sample collectors to confiscate and some hunters to hunt. Depending on how many there were worldwide, this next part might take a little bit. Of course, he had a few thoughts on how to help with that.
***
What the actual Fuck? Dizzle Horn Breaker thought as he hovered over his extremely potent drink. He’d been in this god-forsaken city for the last 14 days, ever since the 84th day of this event when the worldwide emergency broadcast had gone out that over 75% of the hunters were dead. He’d even visited a shop the same day to see if it was normal hunter attrition or something else. That’s when he saw the leader board which listed someone called “The Hunter Killer” as having 221,404,413 Event Points.
Additionally, the humans they were supposed to be hunting had been disappearing since the first day. He’d verified that bit of knowledge with the hunters who were hanging out with him in this town called El Paso or something. El Paso was one of the Green Pillar Towns which was also a Safe Zone which it seemed kept The Hunter Killer from coming after them. He and a few of his friends were having a party on one of the rooftops drinking up whatever Alcohol they could find while they partied until the Tier 1 version of the quest was done. A half-orc by birth, Dizzle’s constitution was quite high but fey wine mixed with some dwarven lager, yeah that created a kick that could get a god shit-faced.
As Dizzle was contemplating what he was going to tell his clan because he had done quite respectable while he’d been hunting a SYSTEM Notification appeared.
EVENT ALTERATION!
Green Pillars and all associated Safe Zones are now being converted to Yellow Pillars without safe zones. All Merchant access has been removed except at designated SYSTEM Shop nodes in cities with populations of 1 million or places where the natives have purchased SYSTEM Shop Nodes.
The event will end in 23:59:30
Maybe it was the alcohol, maybe he just didn’t give a shit, but Dizzle didn’t even flinch when the white pearlescent blade removed his head from his body. It happened so quickly that he even saw 14 other heads in front of him get removed. It was surreal. He blinked his eyes trying to catch a glimpse of what had done this but other than a blur of white light, he saw nothing. A moment later 15 portals opened, and the bodies, and heads, were dragged into the processing area of Racoon City. Dizzle’s mind was still alive as he watched all of the hunter's bodies get stripped of their gear and then get thrown through a hole he soon followed as the human that was holding him muttered, “I hope you rot in hell you ugly piece of shit mother…, “ as he was tossed after the bodies and fell for a moment as he tumbled toward an ocean-filled world far below. For a moment he felt intense cold and then intense heat.
***
Adam ended his Telepathic link with the Half-Orc as he continued to move between the hunter-refugees that the SYSTEM had been so kind to lift the safe zone protection from. He guessed the SYSTEM didn’t like it when individuals who had agreed to go to an event hid in a safe zone. Granted, Adam had evacuated over 70% of the surviving population to Raccoon City which was now more like a mini habitation capsule than anything else. Even so, there is a lot of space in a 25-mile radius sphere and the city didn’t feel crowded as far as Ray could tell.
The first 84 days had been a relentless blur as he pushed his willpower and endurance to the limit. He had Ray create Satellites and drop them into orbit so he could get full coverage of the planet while he had Ray also create sensors that were placed by a group of people that did so through portals that were created for that purpose.
While Ray and the people in Racoon City worked on getting the city up and running while they also set up the global surveillance network, Adam traveled to all the big cities in North America and then South America, taking out as many hunters as possible. Once the network was up Adam altered his approach. To prevent tracing or prediction algorithms from getting a bead on him, Ray opened a portal to various locations at random intervals. There was no need to clear out a city before moving on to the next city because that would have let them know exactly where he was and how long he'd be there if he was waiting until the last hunter was dead.
Instead, he would kill some hunters in one city, head to another part of the skill some more hunters there, then a third part of the world take out a couple more of them there and continue without stopping. Ray was analyzing the surveillance footage and helping him determine targets while he was moving so he never needed to stop. Because the biggest thing he had to remember was to never stop moving.
Adam would let Ray know where a body fell and then a portal would open. General Duvall had set up a group of people that were only too happy to help discard the scumbags that had come to Earth to kill and pillage them. Now they were getting to turn the tables on them.
In an area with a lot of hunters, Ray would open a portal under the corpse. Once stripped of all valuables the corpses were dropped through another portal into low orbit where they burnt up on re-entry or not, well except for the Commander. She had proved incredibly resourceful and had been about to gate out of her holding cell when Adam had ejected her into the Sun.
Ray had contacted him when she’d started drawing diagrams on the floor which Adam recognized. While the gate or portal she was creating hadn’t been linked to hell or wherever the demons had come from it looked like the commander might have been able to make a portal back to her Empire. Allowing that at the bottom of his base could not be allowed. When Adam realized what she was trying to do she became a liability and nuisance. Now she was atomized and part of the solar wind. If the Commander had some way to return to life, Adam was confident she’d have no idea where she’d been from the moment he’d knocked her out on her ship until she died.
The other reason Adam was running around like a hamster on crack cocaine that was trying to kill all the hunters was because he’d received a quest when all of the Green Pillars had been converted to Yellow.
New Quest: Hunt the Hunters
Kill all the hunters that came here to kill humanity.
Reward: Variable, based on performance.
Hunters Left 144,599
Time Left 23:59:35
Luckily, he’d mapped out all the remaining hunters when they’d turtled up in the safe areas. His count matched the SYSTEM count, which included Ishla, which was unfortunate for her. He’d save the best for last. Of course, it wouldn’t be a fight, He’d kept her unconscious and intravenously fed for the last 99 days as a precaution.
Adam focused his attention on what he was doing and began taking out hunters at an insane pace. For the last 99 days, he’d kept a steady pace before, only killing one per combat turn, or 10 seconds, which allowed his regeneration rates to keep up easily. He hadn’t pushed himself. In a moment he realized that if he killed one hunter per combat turn he would only be able to get 8,640 before he ran out of time so now it was time to bring his “A” game.
He had long ago figured out that he could make up to 90 attacks in a single combat turn and still have just about 6,000 stamina left of his Stamina Regeneration pool after he replaced all the used stamina. If he kept himself down to 90 attacks or less he could continue attacking indefinitely without tiring himself. He wasn’t back to the insanity he could pull before, but that was still pretty quick. Shoot, he’d even looked at the numbers and calculated that if his stamina was higher he could make over 31,000 attacks. Unfortunately, the stamina cost per action doubled after every 10 extra attacks. By the time he was making 90 attacks, each attack cost 2,560 stamina or 25,600 stamina for all 10. For now, 90 attacks was more than enough and left him a nice buffer with his stamina so he could do other things if necessary.
Another lucky thing, he’d been telepathically linked to Dizzle the Half-Orc for only a few minutes when the quest had come down. Remaining connected after he’d decapitated him had been novel, but enlightening. It looked like General Duvall had the people in the asset recovery section of the city ready to go on a moment's notice. He’d already killed the 15 hunters in that bar and was on his way to his next location when Dizzle was picked up and discarded. Adam stopped letting his mind wander and went to work as he utterly annihilated every hunter that had come to Earth including Ishla, whom he’d saved for last and killed by piercing her through the heart.
As a notification appeared in his vision, Adam’s Sense of Chaos skill let him know that the Commander had screamed once and then fallen over with blood running out of her ears, eyes, and mouth. Well, that problem was solved, now he just needed to figure out what to do with the other 44 members of the crew that he hadn’t killed yet. First, though he was going to look at his new Notifications.
Congratulations!!
Quest!: Hunt the Hunters Complete!
Foreign Hunters Killed 100%
Surviving World Populations 71.3% (5,811,056,862)
Cumulative Success: 171.3%
New Titles Gained:
Savior of Humanity! – You have protected over 50% of your fellow man. Strength, Constitution, and Charisma efficiency increased by 20%
Meticulous Hunter – Perception, Endurance, Willpower, and Constitution increased by 20% Efficiency.
A second notification appeared soon after.
SYSTEM MESSAGE
Pillars that were converted from Green to Yellow are once again Green.
Previously purchased Safe Zones have been reinstituted.
Event Points can be spent at Event Nodes in any Merchant area.
As all hunters were killed a 24 hour rest period has been granted.
Stage 2 will begin in 24 hours.
Adam closed the notifications and pulled up his Status Screen for the first time in 99 days. Maybe he should have checked his status more often. His level for his class “Agent of Chaos” had reached 100 and he had another 524,320,882 XP held in abeyance. Not sure if the free attributes would disappear, Adam put all 1,840 Free attributes into his Chaos Attribute and wondered if he should open his class tab to see if he had any Tier 3 Classes or if he should wait until after the 2nd Stage of this Event.