“Are you done looking at your systems?” Rae asked after I spent a few minutes clicking around on both my personal and empire system.
“That I am but... how does this research thing work again?”
“Whenever you complete a quest you’ll get a research point, and whenever you level up your empire, you’ll get 10! And using these tech points you can gain technologies in the shape of information packets, skills, and new Homunculi!
And, while you need to level up to gain access to new technologies, you don’t have to research everything in level 1 to start researching ones in level 2! You just need to level up, so don’t shy away from conserving research points if you think you can learn the researches yourself!
Who knows, a useful research might show up in a new level, so you might want to save some points for when that research shows itself!” Rae finished her explanation, and I clicked on the plus sign next to the research tab to see all the researches in Level 1.
Level 1 Researches
Homunculi Brute T1 – A basic Homunculi that specializes in tasks that require strength. Costs 150 kg of organic matter to produce and is around 120 kg. Consumes 3000 calories a day. - Costs 2 Research Points
Basic Food Storage – A basic information packet about how to store food items safely. - Costs 2 Research Points
Hunting – A basic information packet about how to hunt. - Costs 1 Research Point
Butchering – A basic information packet about how to butcher creatures. - Costs 1 Research Point
Trap Making – A basic information packet about how to make traps. - Costs 1 Research Point
Gathering – A basic information packet about how to gather plants, fruits, and mushrooms. - Costs 1 Research Point
Stone Tool Creation – A basic information packet about how to craft stone tools. - Costs 1 Research Point
Basic Dwelling Construction – A basic information packet about how to construct basic dwellings. - Costs 1 Research Point
Looking at the researches, I only found 4 of the 8 researches actually viable, and they were the Homunculi Brute, Basic Food Storage, Butchering, and Trap Making.
I was confident in being able to make stone tools, and with stone tools hunting became mostly trivial. Making houses may prove difficult... but hopefully by the time I’d need to make something complex, I’d have a few homunculi to help me experiment. And if worst comes to show, I can just buy it for 1 Research Point.
After I looked at the tech tree for a bit more, I told Rae that she could start explaining the tiers and the great game.
“Great! Now, we can move on to talking about tiers!” She started excitedly and continued.
“There are a total of 6 tiers. Tiers 1 and 2 are basically the same, but beings in tier 2 can manipulate it, while beings in tier 1 can only sense it... sometimes.
Tiers 3, 4, 5 and 6 are basically just power ups from there. Tier 3’s can easily destroy villages, and small towns. Tier 4’s can destroy cities and countries. Tier 5’s can destroy continents and planets. And Tier 6’s can destroy entire star systems and change the surface of planets to their will with a mere swipe of their hand!
But don’t worry, there are not a lot of beings in Tier 6 and 5, so you won’t have to worry about them... unless you go out of your way to create them that is.” She said and... I don’t know if this is just her way of explaining tiers, but she just painted a very dark picture of the galaxy.
I mean... yeah, a tier 6 can destroy a star, but why would it? At that point, wouldn’t a being that strong seek something else? Like meaning of life? Or true peace?
And why does she talk about the rest of the ranks like that too? Does every tier 3 being just wake up one day and decide to slaughter a village?
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
I know she used ‘can’ instead of ‘do’ or something, but I find the language she used a bit loaded.
After a bit more of contemplation about the tiers, I asked her to talk about The Great Game. I knew that it was something made by her parents to entertain her, and her siblings, but that was about the only things I knew.
“The Great Game that is going on right now is not the only great game, and neither is it the first nor the last. And they are, as their name implies, games. Though you could call the mere action of creating universes games for us gods and goddesses, so it is not really as bad as it sounds.
But that’s not important right now, you just need to know that there are around 200 gods and goddesses in The Great Game we are participating in, counting me too of course!” She finished. But what caught my attention from all the things she said was not the fact that there were more great games, and how the gods saw ruling universes as games, it was the fact that there were somehow less than 200 sapient species in this galaxy... somehow... even though it should be 19 billion years old.
“Oh, that?” She said after I asked her about what I was thinking.
“You see, this number of sapient species is actually quite normal, humans in your universe just came to be quicker than normal. While your people were building skyscrapers and launching space rockets, the other species were busy trying to get out of the primordial pools in which they evolved. So yeah, it’s you being weird thing, not the rest of reality being weird thing.”
Well, that... made kind of sense? I mean, I’ve always thought humans must’ve been one of the first races to develop sapience, but I had at least thought there’d be at least a few thousand other races around the galaxy that were around the same level of development as us, not zero.
But I could accept that.
After a bit of silence, I started talking.
“So... what now?”
“Huh?”
“Aren’t I supposed to start the great game and my empire? I can’t exactly do that here now, can I?”
“Yeah yeah, don’t worry about that. I’ve already chosen a planet for you to go to.”
“...So, what are we waiting for then?”
“Well... I am having a hard time deciding where to put you down on that planet. Should I put you in a rainforest or a grassland—”
“Grasslands. Please. I can’t even begin to imagine how fast I’d die in a fantasy amazon as a tall ass Smurf. Hell, Gargamel won’t even have to move a finger to kill me if you decide to put me in the rainforest, there is literally no way I am surviving for more than 3 minutes.” I said, kinda dumbfounded that she even considered putting me, a person with no survival skills, in a literal rainforest.
That may have been ‘fun’ for her, seeing as this is only a game to her, but for me? I’d have to burn the lungs of the world to make space for agriculture or spend a few years as a nomad to find a good place to settle into... if I don’t die in the first 3 minutes of my existence that is.
“Well then.” She said, and with a snap of her fingers, we moved from an endless white void into a green meadow with a river flowing through it.
To my back I could see a forest made of weird looking trees, which still seemed familiar thanks to their green leaves. And to my side were some hills, which might be good for mining. I don’t know anything about mining, so not sure, but CIV5 has teached me that you can build mines on hills for extra production, so I’ll just believe it.
And turning my head up, I blocked the brilliant star with my hand, and I could see a blue sky with a few white clouds scattered here and there with a... wait a goddamn second.
Moving my hand a bit to the side I could see... a fucking gas giant?
“Rae... are—are we on a moon of a fucking gas giant?” I asked.
“Yeah, is there a problem?”
“Well... not really, but isn’t there normally a lot of, and I mean it, a lot of asteroids and other space rocks orbiting gas giants and such? Won’t it be a problem if my capital city gets hit by one and I just go to kingdom come?”
“Ah, don’t worry about that, there is a lot of moons orbiting this gas giant that range from the size of earth to mars, so, the chances of a stray asteroid hitting one of your cities, or even this moon, is low to say the least.”
“Huh... on the note of other moons, is this the only habitable moon orbiting this gas giant? And how many moons are around it?”
“Well, there is basically only 50 moons that are good for your future expansion. 20 of which are habitable, 10 of which are partially habitable and the other 20 are uninhabitable with no sign of life on their surface. But in the future, you can just terraform them, which should pave the way for a new age of colonization for your empire... after you manage to get off of this rock and colonize the other 19 habitable moons that is.” That... was a lot of planets to rule over...
“And, let me get this straight, even though this single gas giant has 30 moons with life on them... there is less than 200 sapient species that developed naturally in this galaxy?”
“Yes. Like what I said, humans of your universe were just unnaturally lucky to have evolved that fast. And do note that this star system also was unnaturally lucky to develop 30 different moons with life on them, it is not unnatural for at least 1 or 2 planets or moons in a star system to have some form of life on them, but 30 is unprecedented... but there are also more than a few thousand stars in this galaxy alone that have more habitable planets in them than this star system so... yeah, its not that overpowered of a start either.”
“...Is that so?” I muttered after Rae finished talking and just... looked around me for a few moments.
“Well, no better time to start working than now!” I then said out loud an turned towards the forest behind me and started walking towards it with fast steps, after all if I was going to conquer this galaxy, I needed quite a few more helping hands.
But before conquering the galaxy, this star system, and this planet... I was first going to conquer this forest.
...Also, I still had my phone and such, but I wasn’t going to say that in front of Rae in fear of her taking it away... I mean, it might die in a few days, but in a few years, I might be able to play Minecraft again, so I was totally going to hide it!