Chapter 76 – Potentiality

Up to this point, Adam had realized his strategy of being like some kind of hidden master, hiding away in what was essentially a cave (Binyon) while trying to gain power slowly, had not worked.

There were just too many unknown variables in the world. Even in this small part of the multiverse he had explored, he had continually been surprised and beset by unknown entities and situations.

What he needed was a faction of his own. People he could rely on to have his back and gather resources and information for him. He needed to use the existing structures of the world, not try and subvert them. Well, not completely, at any rate.

To this end, Adam had initiated the training of the children so they could play their part if they wished. He would also crush, bribe or coerce using his AI counterpart’s faction members to infiltrate a local faction rather than starting from scratch.

Bai Bo-Xue had already given him a list of the local factions and their affiliations for him to peruse.

Two factions particularly interested him. The first was the beast sect. A faction specializing in barehanded fighting, which would suit him well personally. Also, they had the added benefit of depending on beasts to support them in combat. Adam felt this would help the children to fight on a par with the other sects until they reached maturity.

The other faction was the Xu family; their fighting style used Rulers (large blunt swords) and daggers combined with some elemental fire damage.

None of these things actually were advantageous to Adam, but there was something to be said for the fact that they were purely a local faction and, therefore, would not be investigated as heavily if anything weird should happen. In short, Adam could subjugate them without fear of everything coming crashing down on his head.

Those he faced now were from neither of these factions; they were a sub-branch of the more prominent and influential Golden Needle Sect. Using elemental lightning-based attacks combined with a penetrating needle technique to incapacitate further or poison their quarry.

So Adam had no compunction to spare any of them. Instead, he had decided to use them for combat live testing of his newly acquired dark energies.

Echo was also keen to see how their new understanding and application of the unknown entities’ seal abilities could help hold Adam’s body together while using the dark energies. The energies, even now while Adam was just standing, were ravaging his body at an incredible rate.

And while Echo could keep regenerating Adam’s body with their current almost infinite supply of SP, this was only a temporary solution.

***

Adam wanted the guy who had shocked him before, quite literally, to attack, but he would need to get closer. He wanted to see if this energy could neutralize the lightning. Lightning was the one elemental attack that worked so fast that even the GTAs had trouble with the regeneration. Besides, that was way too costly in terms of SP requirements to be used as a standard defensive capability.

He flew down to the ground before the guy, who stood there assessing him coldly. He could no doubt see that Adam was trying to bait him and sensibly did not want to attack an unknown foe.

This did not stop his partners from sending long-range attacks at him, however. From his surroundings, he detected numerous incoming objects, at last, a chance to test out this energy before he embarrassingly burned himself out.

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

They seemed to be tiny projectiles. He could not see them with his normal senses, but his energy sense picked them up loud and clear.

Adam was happy to see they had just winked out of existence as they came into contact with the field of energy that surrounded him now. Well, at least that worked, thought Adam.

The guy was still not teleporting to him or attacking, so he would shadow-jump to the guy and see if that prompted a reaction. Reaching him, the man finally reacted – by teleporting away.

At this point, Adam kind of lost it as he could no longer keep up using the dark energy. His body was now smoldering, sending off plumes of dark smoke, and disintegrating at such a rate, that even his gigantic pool of SP was depleting rapidly.

The flashy grey lightning dissipated from Adam’s body as he reverted to his old tact of firing storms of shadow projectiles at his opponents. He formed a halo of about twenty super-charged bolts above his head and shadow-jumped to the nearest faction member. Annoyingly he also teleported away.

Adam now remembered how they had easily kept pace with him when they had chased him before.

So instead, with a few thoughts to Libby, his trusty counterpart, he switched tact. This time he stayed exactly where he was, but five bolts materialized at the positions of the faction members, sending them into disarray.

Adam then shadow-jumper back to the cavern and then took Thawain, who was now vulnerable, back beyond the barrier of the tower and relative safety.

***

Adam sat, allowing his SP pool to be refilled, while he sat thinking about what to do next. He thought about his current skill set. His shadow energy attacks seemed to be weak, was this due to a bad match-up against these particular opponents, or was it just generally weak? Hence, why it was used by stealth-based attackers and not heavy-hitting single-damage or AOE types? He didn’t know.

He could survive attacks of this level due to his insta-regen, but it was too SP intensive. Lastly, his body had been altered to make it tougher, incorporating tissue and even organs from Ore beasts. This also improved his ability to circulate Chi and control mana. But this only seemed to amplify his conductivity with respect to lightning, currently a real downside. The Ore beast’s internal anatomy, including their brain tissue, was resilient to attack, whereas his was not.

***

Luckily for Adam, Libby, Echo, and the others were all working on the same problems. Echo was investigating ways of mitigating the damage caused by the unknown energy, and Libby, with help from Trey, was looking into how to restructure Adam’s body design.

But all these things would take an extended amount of time to formulate and test. Hence Libby’s plan, which Echo immediately agreed to, and Adam, after reflecting for a second, also reluctantly acknowledged as the only solution right now. One or all of the faction members could decide to flee or report back at any time, so time was of the essence.

They would kidnap the faction members and use them as guinea pigs for experimentation.

So as soon as the necessary AI constructs were created, one to pilot each faction member, and Adam, along with his supply of God-tier GTAs, was again completely topped up, they headed back out.

And not a second too soon, as one of the faction members had split from the rest of the group and was indeed heading in the direction of the village.

Shadow-jumping to each of the three faction members still nearby, they teleported AI constructs into each one and severed their connections to the Elios system. The faction members were then all sent into a PD for questioning later while Adam pursued the fleeing member.

The faction member would have easily got away if he had not been distracted on reaching the outskirts of Binyon by two of his former comrades. He was not distracted because they looked like his comrades, with their peeling, ashen skin, and disheveled clothing and hair. It would have been hard for him to recognize them.

It was, in fact, this awful visage that made him stop and question what he was seeing. Mi Quo clapped his hands together, having found his first opportunity to test out his creations.

The two zombies moved with surprising speed but were just batted out of the way by the faction member. Mi Quo smiled as they both exploded in a fetid green haze of foul energy.

He had lost both his minions, but at least he had seen that they were effective, and now hopefully, he had gained one replacement.

The man lay dazed on the charred earth as Mi Quo approached, pouring as much necrotic energy as he could into the area where the man stood.

Something vital must have been hit in the blast as the man stopped struggling, and a green sheen colored his vacant eyes. Excellent, thought Mi Quo.