The last few days of the trials flew by as James redoubled his efforts to ensure the Kaiakos was ready for an attack and free of any hidden beacons and tracking devices, either on board or integrated into its software. With the help of the AI Core, which he temporarily plugged into the ship's bridge, all functions of the ship were drastically improved. James emphasized that deploying the AI Core, even temporarily, was essential for the Kaiakos, as it significantly enhanced combat capabilities, particularly targeting and jumpdrive calculations.
The only other notable event was Sol sending Caleb to smooth things over. They offered a care package to be retrieved on Earth as an apology, along with the promise of shelter and free transport for members of the Ryser Clan from any of their fortresses and outposts. Nessyra accepted the peace offering but made sure to remind Caleb that they still weren't happy about Sol's followers' actions against them. Caleb reassured her that Sol's followers had standing orders to be on their best behavior and to treat any members of the Ryser Clan as respected guests or face severe punishment, which mollified her somewhat.
Other than that, they shuffled equipment so the Artemis could play its part in the ambush and set up the railguns. Riseth spent most of her time creating more space mines, as she had only a limited reserve. They also made plans to deploy stealth drones to monitor if anyone was following their jump route. They had kept the information about the potential threat quite close to heart, and only the direct family members and those who were on a need-to-know basis were informed. Alistair's mother and sister insisted they should just destroy the beacon and avoid the fight altogether, but Alistair and the rest stood firm in their belief that they needed to show strength. Outvoted, they accepted the decision, and they proceeded to wait for the Trial to end. Despite their expectations, the Study Dungeon gave a warning of its closure roughly an hour before the Trials ended, giving everyone a last chance to retrieve their belongings.
They all gathered at Nessyra's place. Alistair and Riseth leaned against the balcony, overlooking the trader's market that would soon vanish forever. Alistair glanced at his mother, who was eagerly talking to Nessyra when Riseth gently tugged on his arm.
"I'll get to you as fast as I can," Riseth said, her magenta eyes fixed on his.
Sensing her nervousness and the sad undertone in her voice, Alistair smiled reassuringly. "It's going to be fine. We won't be separated for long."
He hugged her and kissed the top of her head, feeling her relax slightly in their embrace.
"Try not to get involved too much. Please," Riseth whispered with some urgency.
"I can't promise that, but I'll do my best to avoid any trouble besides you," Alistair replied with a smirk.
She chuckled as their moment was interrupted by a one-minute countdown. Nessyra called out a few last reminders as everyone exchanged their goodbyes and stored their summons to ensure their safety. Alistair and Riseth shared a final kiss before holding hands and waiting for the countdown to reach zero. As soon as it did, Alistair felt a pull and was thrown into darkness for a fraction of a second before he appeared in his soulscape.
He was suddenly assaulted by a window containing more information than he could handle. The sensation was akin to being caught off guard by a flashbang. Alistair quickly shunted the information away, forcing it to categorize and only display what he needed to know. What greeted him were still two absolutely massive notification windows. The first listed every single one of his achievements, followed by the assignment of contribution points to them. The second was even larger, listing an endless assortment of rewards he could spend these points on. He fused the two by limiting the first to a summary of his contribution points and converting the second into an empty search bar where he could search for specific treasures and categorize them into related groups.
With the system window situation handled, Alistair glanced around, half expecting Sebastian to be sitting in the armchair like last time. Instead, he found three doors that hadn't been there before. Before he could investigate, one of them opened, and Riseth stepped through with Fluffy slung over her shoulders, looking just as surprised as he felt.
"Well, that's anticlimactic," Alistair commented as Riseth grinned at him.
Before she could reach him, the door next to her opened, and Nessyra, James, and Dexter stepped out.
"What's going on here?" Alistair asked as Riseth hugged him.
"Did the system not inform you?" Nessyra asked, tilting her head. "Our bloodline allows us to coordinate our point expenditure as the clan leadership."
"No, my system overwhelmed me with too much information initially, so I filtered it down to just what I needed to know and categorized it better," Alistair explained.
"Same here," murmured Riseth and James.
"It's a good thing I somehow got an official title as Chief Engineer. We should probably create some official clan leadership positions after this," James said with an awkward smile.
"Nice room, by the way," James added, sitting down on one of the couches.
Alistair and the others joined James, with Riseth taking the opportunity to lean against him. Nessyra spoke up again.
"Oh, and make sure to tell King to wait before spending his points until you can help him. It would be a shame if King wasted his points by accident."
Alistair excused himself to sort out the information and let King know to hold off on spending any points. He felt woefully under-informed compared to Nessyra, whose system was clearly better structured than his own. After focusing on his intent, he found the information she was talking about. They were in a time dilation, giving them up to a day to figure out how to spend their points.
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Being the leader of a successful clan had given him a frankly ridiculous number of points from all kinds of sources, only outshined by his placement within the Ascendant's Tournament. He also noted that some titles and achievements overlapped, allowing him to double-dip certain sources of contribution points. He had roughly eight and a half million points to spend, though a quick browse of the rewards revealed that while it was an incredible amount, some rewards required more than double or triple that amount of points for a single reward.
"Some of these rewards are outrageously expensive. Who can even afford these?" Alistair questioned.
"I suspect we aren't meant to be able to acquire them, but the system offers them anyway to make us aware of their existence," Nessyra said calmly as she had a look, which told Alistair she was processing a stream of information.
"We should spend some time figuring out what's available and then discuss what we should get," James suggested.
"Good idea," Riseth replied, stretching. Alistair directed his Soulscape to expand, and the couch grew large enough for her to stretch her legs properly. A planning table appeared in the corner. Nessyra looked around, nodded approvingly, and entered her work mode, which looked like she was rifling through a pad.
Alistair's first instinct was to sort out all the items he couldn't afford, planning to review those that could potentially be valuable to him later. Out of curiosity, he checked the prices for spacecraft, concerned about their enemies' potential to bolster their forces and the rapid growth of their other competitors. When he saw that the prices for even the smallest of crafts would deplete almost all his funds and could only carry one or two people, he was relieved. Spacecraft were exponentially more expensive than other rewards, which calmed him down. He shared his findings with the others.
"Oh, good, I didn't even think of that. I let the system recommend items to me, and it's a bunch of upgrade modules for the AI Core. What do you guys get when you ask for recommendations?" James asked.
Riseth was the first to respond, "There's an option to let me spawn with Alistair on Earth. From that list, my guess is that the system only considers individual wishes and items in their storage."
"I can confirm that the system is recommending a specialized AI core for the Kaiakos in my storage," Nessyra added.
When Alistair checked, he found that the first recommendation was a Body Cultivation manual containing detailed instructions on how to imitate the magic structure of a dragon's heart and its exact anatomy. A quick browse revealed he could actually get a low-tier dragon heart for 5 million points. A regular one was sadly out of his price range at 10 million points, with the high-tier variant being 20 million. The manual was much more useful either way, as according to the description, the heart in question was of a famous high-tier dragon called Zudonvas. Sadly, it did not state the dragon's species, which he could have abused by asking Dexter about it. Alistair felt hesitant as the manual was priced at 4 million contribution points, which was almost half his point total. The rest were things like Weapon spirits, more body cultivation and array manuals, and treasures with a focus on kinetic and related concepts. As well as some clan-related recommendations, such as skill books for persuasion and organization skills. There were also a handful of rewards that would strengthen the bloodline, granting different benefits to its members, though most of them were prohibitively expensive, at least the useful ones.
They continued their back-and-forth of discoveries and recommendations from the system. Nessyra, for the most part, received recommendations for administrative tools and things that could be turned into long-term business ventures, such as growable materials and treasures like an adamantine root.
More interestingly, besides AI Core modules, James received a wide assortment of crafting manuals as suggested rewards, including one specifically written for initiates to learn about magitech to expand their horizon. Riseth suggested that whoever wrote it would gain benefits for each sold copy of the manual, as the System was known to occasionally do that. This arrangement was extremely beneficial for both the author and the initiate, significantly speeding up their progression without detracting too much from their records. They found that both James and Nessyra weren't far behind in points as they both had received a significant amount of contribution points for their efforts. Nessyra received the lion's share of the credit for the Clan's success, whereas James had received about 3 million points for the construction and associated work of the Kaiakos alone. The creation and discovery of Stealthrim and Adamend also netted him quite a significant amount of contribution points, and he lamented that he had not spent more time experimenting with creating new alloys for them to use. However, he pointed out that, according to the description, both alloys already existed under different names, but the system credited him for discovering them without prior knowledge of them.
Riseth's recommended rewards were quite similar to Alistair's: body cultivation manuals, treasures, and a handful of elixirs and tools with intriguing effects. One notable item was a one-time use elixir that could grant sentience to anything it was applied to. Although the price of five million contribution points seemed outrageous at first, Alistair realized its immense value when considering they could use it on something as significant as a world tree. Weapon spirits were much cheaper and categorized by personality, with helpful spirits being significantly more expensive than slothful or prideful ones. This reminded Alistair that he needed to assist King with his selection.
Alistair queried the system for rewards that would help King or summons in general, and the top of the list was a pill of enlightenment for half a million points.
Item: Tier: Name: Qualities: Description: [Legendary] Pill of Enlightenment
[Single Use]
[Enligthenment]
A pill designed to accelerate the mental development of any beast. While it does not alter the inherent personality of the beast that consumes it, it significantly enhances its intelligence and cognitive abilities. The level of emotional intelligence achieved depends on the beast's upbringing and inherent disposition.
Warning: Do not let a beast consume more than one pill, as it would have adverse effects and permanently damage their minds. This also applies to already enlightened beasts, as even consuming a single pill can cause severe harm.
Alistair shared his find with the others, and as soon as he did, Fluffy, without instruction, spent nearly all her points to acquire the pill. The pill appeared in front of her. It looked small and unassuming, but it radiated a faint, ethereal glow, and it carried a subtle fragrance of herbs and something Alistair could not place. Before anyone could say anything, the snake that had been resting on Riseth's lap snapped at the pill and swallowed it.