From his concealed vantage point, Alistair observed several of the [Nugan Troopers] conjuring metal barricades, which clamped down into the soil and rock to anchor themselves. Based on the magic, the robots summoned the barricade from magical storage rather than using a skill or magic.
"Can robots even get skills? Is possessing a soul a prerequisite?" Alistair pondered silently as he strained to catch a glimpse of the attackers. He recalled from his readings that the cybernaut factions could not simply manufacture new members with souls by procreating; individuals had to undergo the transformation willingly. When he spotted them, he felt confused, as the robots looked incredibly similar both in design and equipment. They had a dark blue matte coloration rather than black, and their decal was red instead of yellow.
Alistair was slightly bothered by the clashing aesthetics as he would have swapped the decal colors between the two. When he finally managed to get a [Identify], it returned as an [Itania Trooper]. Alistair's best guess was that the system had copied an infighting planet using automata as their primary force. So far, he had encountered two factions, but there was no guarantee there weren't more out there. He would need to find documents or, more likely, a computer to gather more information. He could continue exploring if the hovercraft had a built-in storage functionality like the Artemis; if not, it would fill up most of his storage and force him to return to his personal space to store it in their storage room.
Suddenly, the crashed hovercraft sprang back to life as one of its slugthrowers pivoted towards the attacking force. Massive casings, each as large as his forearm, ejected with a resounding thud after every shot. Alistair cursed under his breath. He had planned to wait for the automata to weaken each other and snatch up the one [Nugan Recon] who was carrying the communication equipment and claim the hovercraft, but with the crashed craft now drawing attention to itself, it was at risk of getting destroyed.
Alistair stored his new camouflage tarp before teleporting behind the [Nugan Recon - lvl 37], whacking it with the hammer side of his poleaxe into its torso, immediately destroying it due to the power disparity. Alistair was much more powerful than the robots. Compared to beasts and enlightened individuals, they had pathetic stats and relied on weaponry and numbers, though Alistair suspected there might be more elite variants. After storing the recon unit and its equipment, he dashed forward, taking down a trooper using his Razor Blast. Surprisingly, they had little defense against the blast, and Alistair summoned a second one as he scoured the local battlefield of Automata. He had to dodge plasma rounds, but luckily, the stranded craft could not angle its slugthrower at him as he was too close to it. Due to close proximity and the pressure from the Itania units, the Nugan units were screwed. To ensure it would stay that way, he started to shoot down the handful of drones in the air with his [Kinetic Blast].
The Itania units did not fire any more missiles at the craft and instead tried to capitalize on the chaos Alistair was causing. Alistair left some of the Nugan heavy troopers who were still focused on the approaching Itania units. As he turned his attention towards them, there were roughly 8 of them left, most of whom were troopers, but in the back, Alistair could see a [Itania Missile Boat]; it was another hovercraft much smaller than the first, roughly the size of a jeep, on top of it was a trooper on a control console and on its flanks were two missile packs, strangely enough the missile packs had pipelines and tubings which connected to the main craft. Alistair summoned King and told him to use barriers to shield the crashed craft if necessary and kill the Heavy troopers if they caused trouble before teleporting on top of the missile boat.
He lashed out with his poleaxe, crashing into the trooper; both the poleaxe and the trooper shattered. Alistair knew this day would come sooner rather than later. He felt a bit sad seeing his trusty weapon destroyed. He stored its remains and the trooper. He tried to store the whole missile boat, but it resisted. The troopers had not realized he had teleported into their backline yet and were shooting at the enemy troopers and King, who shielded himself from their attacks. King fired a sonic beam, causing devastation in the ranks of the approaching Itania units. It was a recently acquired technique that operated by concentrating a beam of sound similar to a laser, which focused light. It exhibited remarkable flashiness as it distorted the air along its path, resulting in both internal injuries and fractures upon impact with targets. Additionally, the powerful sound waves it emitted caused high-impact damage.
Alistair was checking the console when the slugthrower suddenly took potshots at him. The missile boat had its own shielding, though, after one hit, it shattered. Alistair pulled up his barrier while frantically checking for a storage function through the menu. The console had a keyboard and a link the trooper had been using. Sadly, however, the keyboard's layout was all over the place and Alistair noticed that most buttons had duplicates, and he had no idea what to type or how to control the interface. He did find a control stick, which he used to get out of the firing line of the slugthrower, occasionally pelting his barrier; his mana was getting low as he pulled behind a concrete structure. The sound of fighting stopped, and only the distant explosions could be heard over the wind. When he took a quick peak, he found King lazying behind the crashed craft where its intact slug thrower could not reach him.
Alistair knew he was on a timer and hurried back to the console. Everything automatically translated for him by his [Myriad language comprehension], so he atleast knew what he was looking at. Alistair presumed the phonetics of the species who built the automata were quite different from Earth. Luckily, they did have a search function in the top left corner of the interface, and typing in help revealed that the craft lacked storage functionality. To store it, he would need to shut it down, which wasn't that hard as they had multiple power buttons, one of which was under the damn keyboard. He pushed the button, and the craft slowly settled before going inert. He stored it before teleporting back to the crashed transport craft.
Annoyingly, the transport did not have a cockpit or other obvious access point for individuals. After looking the craft over for a few minutes, he found the maintenance hatch, which was slightly buried, so he used earth manipulation magic to reach it. Once inside, he found it a tight fit; whatever race made this was smaller than humans. His arm was just long enough to pull the shut-down lever on the side, and as soon as he did, a hatch opened within the maintenance shaft, revealing a button. He was quite sure it should be storage or maintenance-related. Alistair pushed it; he could hear a ticking and freaked out as he teleported away, storing King back in his plane as he took cover in a distant ditch. The explosion never came; instead, the craft seemingly compacted itself before vanishing in a flash of light. When Alistair teleported back, he found a black storage cube with the code N3A4Z32 on it. He smiled. This was a great haul. He knew some other factions had found similar trial worlds as he encountered more and more advanced gear in the arena. He could not even be sure he was the only initiate on this trial world; in fact, he highly doubted it.
Alistair spent some time collecting the remains of the automata, though most were damaged beyond repair, particularly those that faced King and the slugthrower. He was interrupted when he heard a roaring sound from above; when he looked up, he was filled with dread, and his instincts told him to run. Multiple sets of large missiles were streaking toward him and the nearby urban landscape from both sides of the horizon. He presumed both sides thought they had suddenly lost the locations to an unknown factor and tried to blow up the problem. Sadly, Alistair was the said problem. He teleported and flew as fast as he could towards the gate room; the arc of the missiles indicated it was not one of the targets and had a good amount of distance and terrain in between it and the impact zones.
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Alistair quaffed a [Mana Potion] for safety as he dashed into the bunker, descending the stairs before firmly shutting the metal door behind him. He was aware of the potential danger of being buried alive. He could not afford to lose the console and the gate; determined to safeguard his only exit, he erected a protective barrier around them as a shield against the incoming onslaught. The room trembled with each thunderous impact from above, causing the earth to shake violently and fill the air with swirling clouds of dust. Alistair, although within the safety of the bunker beneath the ruined structure, huddled near the console, his key at the ready, heart racing with adrenaline-fueled urgency. As the missiles relentlessly pounded the surface, he noticed cracks spiderwebbing across the magically reinforced concrete walls, a testament to the destructive power unleashed above.
"Alistair, what's going on? Do you need help?" Riseth's voice echoed concern over the link, her worry palpable through their resonance.
Alistair hesitated for a moment before responding, his senses still on high alert even as the barrage of missiles ceased and the ground stilled beneath him. Suddenly a chime rang out and a small golden chest appeared at his feet, he checked his notifications in confusion.
Notifications: [Level 43 reached. Stat points allocated, free stat points available.] Battlefield Trial [Ruins of ?] has been completed!
He had completely forgotten about the trials; he had not encountered one since the Khid camp, which felt like ages ago.
"I think I am fine," Alistair said, still wary before explaining what he had been doing.
"So you attacked two warring automata factions, stole their gear and vehicles, cut off their communications, and they nuked you in retaliation?" Riseth summarized incredulously.
"And got a chest for it," Alistair added with a nervous smirk on his face.
Alistair could hear her frustrated groan over the link. He inspected the chest curiously. He had not found many chests, and the last trial chest he received had been tailored for him. His Kinetic Combat Gloves had been a game-changer. He could use a new poleaxe, but Alistair hoped this chest would contain something more impactful like the first trial chest.
"I leave you to explore alone for one day. One day! And that's what you do? Getting nuked? How am I the Trouble in this relationship?" Riseth's mocking exasperation reverberated through the link.
"Because I like getting into Trouble," Alistair responded without skipping a beat. "Prove it." She challenged.
Alistair let out a relieved laugh. Adrenalin finally flowed out of his system; he was still a little shakey because if any of those missiles had hit his bunkers, he would have been in deep shit. He told Riseth he would be over to make good on the challenge before turning his attention back to the chest in front of him.
He knelt down and lifted the lid; within it, he saw a white nebulous swirling orb of incredibly intense and concentrated magic, though he could not feel any concept radiating from it, just sheer energy. Furthermore, it did not seem to have a physical body, but when he went to pick it up, he managed to grasp it, even though he was holding seemingly nothing as the nebulous energies swirled around his fingers. As soon as he picked it up, the chest vanished, and as information streamed into his brain detailing its exact use to prevent him from ruining the item, a window popped up.
Item: Tier: Name: Qualities: Description: [Unique] Unattuned Affinity Orb
[Soulbound]
[Single Use]
[Permanent Boost]
[???]
An unattuned orb of affinity created by the system during the trial. An item that can improve one's innate affinity for a concept and those related to it by a smaller degree. Requires the owner to imbue the orb with the concept of the affinity they wish to enhance and must be consumed before the trial ends.
Alistair let out a whistle. His magical theory research showed that one's initial concept affinities were determined at birth. Most of them could be improved, some easier than others. Most of them only change through traumatic or intense events during the formative years; some of the research in that field was too dark for Alistair to stomach. Other than that, one the most common ways to improve or worsen an affinity was by changing race, and very rare opportunities are provided by the system during the trial or other system-hosted events that could reward it. He was unsure just how much this orb could improve his affinity, though he suspected it would have to be atleast one step so he could get his below-average earth affinity to be average instead, though that felt wasteful. Perhaps the orb was more effective on weaker affinities than already strong ones. He would need to research the topic or ask Mitania if she was willing to share her insight.
He considered the strange orb in his hand and stored it for now. His immediate inclinations were either kinetics, luck, or space affinity; space was such a powerful and versatile ability in his book, and upgrading it and its affiliated concepts from an already strong affinity was worthwhile. He wasn't sure just how strong his kinetic and luck affinity was exactly. Kinetics was supposedly his strongest, so he was unsure if using the orb to improve it would just be wasting it or putting him at the peak of what was possible with the affinity. Luck was a very esoteric affinity, which was impossible to improve through practice and was strongly tied to karma. Alistair suspected his luck affinity must be pretty good, considering his time during the trial. He knew some factions even had their status reflect luck like a stat.
Affiliates like magic even touched on proficiency; like luck, magic could affect the user outside of direct spell and skill usage. The revelation that magic affinity affected one's ability to cast spells explained why some struggled with casting magic more than others. It wasn't exactly an issue of talent but affinity; luckily, magic affinity could be trained and was one of the easier ones to improve with rituals and material investments. He would seek advice from Riseth, Nessyra, and the rest of his family and acquire the needed measuring orbs to check his affinity beforehand. Even if only to see the difference before and after the use of the item. Alistair turned toward the gate; he had a lot of items to unload and things to organize.