Erica woke up from what she now understood as a gift from Jake.
Notification
Title: Minister of Finance
As the Minister of Finance, you are able to access all the financial systems of the Heart Haven Empire and any of its subsidiaries.
Notification
New System Interface
Jake Everval has cut ties with the system-imposed universal constants and has created a system that follows more closely the heavens' path. Cultivate the heavens' path to progress to the peak.
Erica brought up her stats for the first time since she allocated all her points from the tutorial. At that time, she was very disappointed as, upon exiting the tutorial, her levels were all messed up. One minute it would show her tutorial levels; then it would show what she assumed was the system trying to figure her out.
Name: Erica Blake
Race: Nordicless
Core: ???
Grade: F
Information on F Grade:
Upgrades: 600 above previous. Anyone below this grade in the open universe will not survive unless protected by life-sustaining means such as planetary shields and the like. No F graders have ever entered space and survived for more than two years without adequate protection. Note: levels are gained through cultivation; levels must be solidified by practical use.
Solidified Level: 356. Levels required till next grade evaluation: 1000 total.
Cultivation Level: 0 of 0%
Class: Axe Maiden (Common) 2000 levels required till next major threshold.
Solidified Class Level: 99
Cultivated Level: 0 of 0%
Profession: Minister (Common) 2000 levels required till next major threshold.
Solidified Profession Level: 45
Cultivated Level: 0 of 0%
Information: At common rarity, your profession will have less impact on the environment around you.
Stat Points Available: 10,000,000
Conversion Multiplier: ×10
Mana: 5,000,000
Arcane: 900
Stamina: 20,000,000
Health: 12,000,000
Base Multiplier: ×10
Strength: 1,000,000
Agility: 1,000,000
Intelligence: 10
Wisdom: 500,000
Perception: 100,000
Integrity: 1,200,000
Complete dungeons to advance multipliers beyond the starting ×10 multiplier.
A basic collection method has been granted to you by Jake Everval.
Well, at least it's stable now. I guess it wouldn't be too bad starting over. But I do wonder, what is a core and how do I get one?
She opened her eyes a moment later to the sight of two men holding her arms down. The last thing she remembered was teleporting out of the Banking Guild, and then pain shot through her mind. Then she woke up here, within her territory on the moon orbiting the planet she once called home. She went to say something when a fist hit her in the head. “Don't speak; this territory belongs to us. Now sign this system contract, and I will make this as easy as I can for you.”
“Jake will come for you all.”
“That overblown man, he's a dead man; with a bounty that big, there is no way he will last long. I'm sure one of those gods will descend on him just to see what will happen when they go beyond god grade, and if not one of them, then a random person will get him. From what I saw of him, he wasn't that strong. Plus, look what we did to his territory, and he still hasn't shown up; he's nothing but a coward from a no-name sector.”
Looking up at the traitors in the room, she smiled and activated her token, teleporting away once again, appearing on Aaliyah's home world. The moment she arrived, she was surrounded by her fellow Nordic people. “Lady Blake, what happened to the young lord?”
“We have had an uprising; most of the humans and others similar in mindset to them tried to take control of the central tower to attempt a seizure of the territory but were stopped in their tracks by the system Alric put in place before he disappeared.”
“You haven't heard from him either. We lost our foothold in our home system. Did any of the traitors survive?”
“No, my lady, all dead it seems. Harry is actually very adept at killing as well as coming up with new ideas. It seems he took it personally when his fellow humans turned on his friend. He mercilessly killed every person involved, from our highest-ranking general to the lowest researcher.”
“So Estella was leading them. What about his brother?”
“Mike is currently locked up; he went up against his brother, but we had no choice but to temporarily lock him up. He doesn't know what happened yet, but I think he knows that his brother died.”
“You haven't told him yet.”
“No, my lady, we were waiting for reinforcements before we took any further action.”
“How many people do we have left?”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Out of two thousand, we have one hundred and fifty remaining.”
“Is that including any prisoners?”
“We only have Mike locked up; everyone else is dead, my lady.” Erica ruled her head at the scale of this disaster.
“Where is Harry now?”
“Working on the design the young lord sent him.”
“I didn't ask what he was doing.”
“He's in his study, my lady.”
“Keep everyone on high alert; we don't know what has happened yet, so we can't let our guards down. This system might be invaded,” Erica said before heading over to Harry's study. Opening the door, she saw the young man hunched over a stack of blueprints, his hands not moving.
“Are you doing okay, Harry? Do you need anything?”
“No, Lady Blake. I killed so many people. Why did they do it? Some of them I knew from when I was a child. Their faces—I can see their faces every time I close my eyes,” Harry wept.
“You protected your friend and my people. I can only thank you for that,” Erica said before she walked over to a pot of coffee. “Would you like me to pour you a cup?” Erica said as she poured one for herself and one for him before continuing, “I failed you all; I lost the moon base.”
“I'm sorry to hear that that was your home system if I recall.”
“Yes, it was, but more than that I failed him. He put his trust in me.”
“Losing that territory won't hurt Jake. On the other hand, losing you, a person he trusts, will forever hold him back. I will never do that to the man that accepted me for who I am. So what will you do?”
“You're right. I will get stronger so I never lose again.”
“Well, that's a good start, I guess. So, would you like to know if this will work? With the last notes Alric told me just before all this shit started, we might just be able to have a prototype up and running sooner than you think. That man is one hell of a designer. We just need to take one of the completed cannon ships and make some modifications to it, then we will have a test bed.”
“How long will that take?”
“With the work we have left, I would say maybe two a week, but I would put only ten people on that, so a month and two weeks on the outside.”
“So who do you want on the job? I'm guessing yourself.”
“No, put Mai and her team on it. I have to get to work on the defence of this system. We need this place rock solid for the inevitable invasion.”
“What are you going to do about that?”
“I read the report on the first battle over on what was that planet called?”
“Do you mean Earth?”
“Yes, Earth. Wait, who named the planet dirt? Never mind, back on track. They used the runabouts like drones and slaved them to a main computer, so my thinking is to do the same but have a bunch of picket ships out in the space between solar systems, then have weapons platforms stationed out in the Oort Cloud—that's if the tests go well with the new weapons system. After that, it will be up to what's left of us to defend personally.”
Erica finished her coffee and stood up. “Just tell me if you need anything; hopefully, things are going better for Jake than for us.”
Jake was currently in meditation at the bottom of a deep cave system. He entered seclusion three days ago, as the energies down this deep were suited for cultivating life energy. Once he began cultivation, his stats started to change. He now had percentages for each energy he would need to cultivate. Once Jake's life cultivation reached 100%, void energy finally began to increase, but at a speed Jake found disgusting. His life energy filled up in one day; then in the remaining two days, he only had 5% of void energy enter his body. Looking over his stats, Jake felt as if he was missing something important.
Name: Jake Everval
Race: Demon of the Past. Unique
Core: Haven Braker, first grade, restricted, fully unlocked at D grade
Grade: F
Information on F grade:
Upgrades 600 above previous; anyone below this grade in the open universe will not survive unless protected by life-sustaining means such as planetary shields and the like. No F graders have ever entered space and survived for more than two years without adequate protection. Note levels are gained through cultivation; levels must be solidified by practical use.
Solidified Level 78. Levels required till next grade evaluation: 1000 total.
Cultivation Level 0.
Life 100%.
Void 5%.
Mana 90%.
Arcane 10%.
Class: Trooper Shadow Mage (common); 2000 levels required till next major threshold.
Solidified Class Level 1099.
Cultivated Level 0 of 0%.
Profession: Arcane Smith (common); 2000 levels required till next major threshold.
Solidified Profession Level 538.
Cultivated Level 0 of 0%.
Information: At common rarity, your profession will have less impact on the environment around you.
Stats points available: 109,459.
Conversion multiplier ×10.
Mana 1,000.000.
Arcane 1,000.000.
Stamina 2,000.010.
Health1,526.500.
Base multiplier ×10.
Strength 100,101.
Agility 100,000.
Intelligence 100,000.
Wisdom 100.000.
Perception 100.000.
Integrity 152.650.
Complete dungeons to advance multipliers beyond the starting ×10 multiplier.
A basic collection method has been granted to you by the heavens.
Jake did notice that the life energy was greater the closer he got to the core, but this isn't the same as what the Hive Queen said. This was one of the places void energy was in abundance, but 5% in two days is not what Jake would call abundant. So he got up and headed over to Emma. “I have an idea; I'm going to take a ship out and see if cultivating in different regions will change what energy gets cultivated first. Would you like to come with me or are you going to stay here?”
“I'll stay. I've got some work to do. Are you going to take your ship or one of the others?”
“I was thinking a cargo ship. Why do you need it?”
“No, just wanted to know what ships I would have at my disposal.”
“Well, I will be taking a cargo ship, Jo, and two flight crew with me.”
An hour later, Jake was standing on the bridge of the Repairo One, a ship captured from the invaders. “Where to, sir?” the bear man said. “Take us closer to the sun; let's try Venus. Give me a parking orbit there.” Jake then looked over at Jo. “Keep guard; I'm going to be in cultivation for a while while we travel.”
“Sir, would you like us to enter FTL to get there faster?” the only other member of the crew asked, his long sloth claws still taking a prominent position in his humanoid form.
“Not yet; I need to run some testing later with that, but for now, we're not in a hurry, so we will take the slow path.”
“Yes, sir. Xi, set up a round view—” were the last words Jake heard as he left the bridge.
Two days into the five-day journey, Jake brought up his cultivation stats.
Solidified Level 78. Levels required till next grade evaluation 1000 total.
Cultivation Level 0
Life 100%
Void 20%
Mana 100%
Arcane 23%
So it seems void energy cultivation speed out in space is much better, but still Arcane is lagging behind. I wonder, is it possible that this region of space is the problem?
Once the ship was one day away from its destination, Jake looked at his cultivation stats.
Solidified Level 78. Levels required till next grade evaluation 1000 total.
Cultivation Level 0
Life 100%
Void 21%
Mana 100%
Arcane 47%
This isn't good; the closer we get to the sun, the less efficient cultivating void energy is. As for Arcane, it has been staying relatively the same. I think we should head to Mars next to see what's going on.
Jake left his seclusion and headed up to the bridge. Jake opened the door to find Jo was the only one sitting at the consoles.
“Where are the others?” Jake asked.
“They're on break, sir; they should be down in their quarters. Would you like me to call them for you?”
“No, it's okay. I was going to get them to turn us around, but I kind of want to see Venus up close. Don't you?”
“Yeah, I remember those stories from before the system.”
“Do you mean the stories of aliens that live in the clouds?”
“Yeah, imagine if that was true.”
“Well, if you think about it, the moon had life on it, so I don't see why there wouldn't be.”
As the Repaero One entered visual range of the planet, the ship's wide-band radio crackled to life.
“Unknown vessels, this is the Venusian warship Valis; state your intentions.”