Jake and Erica were standing outside of the Corvette, looking up at the bridge.
“I don’t know if I can,” Erica said.
“It’s okay. If you can’t summon it back, we will just have to find a different way.”
“Maybe we should just use it as is until we finish the tutorial.”
“That won’t work. You read the description; it needs 16 people to operate if it hasn’t been soulbound to you. Just give it a try.”
To complete the soul-binding process for a ship of this size, it requires a person able to summon it. That is the way it tests the capabilities of the one trying to bind it. If the person cannot summon it, they also wouldn’t have the ability to operate its systems solo.
With a flash, the Corvette was gone. Once it was gone, Jake looked around the hangar area and noticed some boxes in the corner that were only revealed now that the Corvette was gone. Jake walked up to them, pulling his dagger out. He popped the lid off the closest box and found thousands of rounds, likely for the point defence systems on the Corvette. As he opened the rest of the boxes, he found one million rounds of ammo, one thousand rockets for the Corvette, twenty-five repeating rifles, twenty-five handguns, and over one hundred thousand rounds of small arms ammunition. In the last two boxes, there were twenty-seven exosuits made for space and ground battles, equipped with life support, a thruster pack, helmets that could communicate through all radio frequencies, and a HUD with many functions. There were also sixteen space suits with mana accumulators in them. In the last box were the complete blueprints for the Erica-class Corvette and blueprints for the weapons pods already installed. Out of everything there, Jake took the blueprints and one of the exosuits, putting it on. He looked at himself in reflection.
“I look like a strange knockoff of Master Chef and an Asgard from Stargate Atlantis,” Jake muttered. Just as he put on the exosuit, a notification popped up.
Would you like to soul bind this battle exosuit? Yes/No.
New item (Battle exosuit rare): This suit will protect the user from minor explosions and small arms fire. It provides a safe environment for the user in inhospitable environments. It can broadcast and receive on all frequencies. Can be summoned and unsummoned at will. Limited self-repair. Soulbound.
New items: Blueprints of Erica-class Corvette and other miscellaneous blueprinted items.
As Erica was summoning back the Corvette, Jake sat down and allocated his stat points. He thought that what he needed most right now was mana, stamina, health, and arcane. He didn’t really need perception right now, so he decided to only put a little into it for now. This was his idea on how he was going to spend his points: 60,000 for integrity, 9480 for perception, 30,000 for the rest with nothing in strength, as he needed to be more nimble, not strong, and finally, 10,000 extra for intelligence to give that much-needed boost in Arcane energy.
Universal constant interface
Name: Jake Everval
Race: Human
Grade: TG Level: 100 Max cap for this grade: 666 unused
Class: Trooper Shadow Mage Class level: 1000 Max cap for this grade: 2872 unused
Profession: Arcane Smith Profession level: 13
stats points available: 0
Mana: 323,360
Arcane: 423,500
Stamina: 323,200
Health: 633,360
Strength: 1116
Agility: 31,225
Intelligence: 42,350
Wisdom: 32,336
Perception: 10,637
Integrity: 63,336
All unused level and grades will be converted to points at a 1:1 ratio at the end of the tutorial.
“That is much better. I don’t know why I keep forgetting to do that. You know, thinking about it, I am curious about the calculation of levels after the tutorial. It can’t be the same, right? If it is, that would be incredibly broken. I think I remember a help function, so maybe I should have a look.”
“Tutorial help function.”
“Can you explain the process of gaining levels outside of the tutorial?”
“Yes, your class levels are determined by the difficulty of the fight and the number of enemies you defeat. As for profession levels, they are calculated by the rarity of the item you create. For example, unranked would get you one point, where common would be five, and uncommon is ten, then it is rare at 25. This is as far as the help system will confirm. Do you need help with anything else?”
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After looking at his new stats for a while, Jake got up and stood beside Erica. She was perspiring profusely. Maybe it was pure determination or just plain old luck, but there in front of them was the newly summoned Corvette, looking just the same as it did before, with only one minor change. On the roof of the bridge and both sides of the hull, there was a new emblem. It was the same as the one Erica had; it was a heart being crossed by two chains and a lock in the middle.
“Well, that could be a problem,” Erica said.
“What’s the problem?”
“The emblem is your mark.”
“What do you mean by my mark?”
“This is your demon mark. It was imprinted on me when I made the contract with you.”
“So you’re saying that is me?” Jake pointed at the ship. “I don’t see the issue.”
“The issue is that all the demons before you had similar marks, and they were all hunted down.”
“What were they hunted for?”
Well, individuals seeking power hunted some, while others were targeted out of simple hatred, and many were pursued for a myriad of reasons.
“Now for the million-dollar question, how do you know all this? As far as I’m aware, demons didn’t appear until integration happened, so where did you get all this information?”
“Throughout my people’s history, people would come from outside of our universe; those people were demons like yourself. They would live with us and help us advance our space-faring knowledge, and in return, some of my people would sign contracts with them. My people would take down notes, and over time they cobbled together this information.”
“Well, what’s done is done. We will just have to fight harder in the future. On that note, if we end up being separated after the tutorial, go find Aaliyah La flame. She is in charge of the Wandering Imperium. Take this item with you; you may not be able to use it as it’s soulbound to me, but you should be able to use it as proof that you know me.”
Item: A token that grants unrestricted travel for the owner of this token in the Territory of the Wandering Imperium. Soulbound to Jake Everval.
“Okay, with that out of the way, let’s get this stuff loaded and figure out how to get out of here.”
Jake and Erica loaded the boxes onto the Corvette. Then Erica went up to the bridge to see if she could start the engines, but she couldn’t, not because there was any issue with the engines, but because she had depleted her mana. So she instead ran a scan of the area to see what enemies were out there.
“Oh yeah, we’ve got bugs, and lots of them.”
She went down to the cargo area to talk to Jake. Jake was sorting out the ammunition and weapons, putting them into the loading rack and weapons lockers. He had already put the exosuits away; the cargo area was as clean as it was when they first saw it.
“Jake, I am out of mana. I can’t start the engines, and outside of this hanger, we have bugs, so many that they have covered the mountainside. It looks like a giant swarm of bugs.”
“Did you figure out how to open the hangar roof by chance?” Jake was hopeful they could just open it from within the Corvette.
“Yes, I have, but the controls are back in the hallway we ran through to get here. Supposedly, there was a door that we ran past; it leads into a control room that overlooks this hanger.” Jake and Erica left the ship, looking around the hangar’s walls.
“There it is.” Jake pointed up at a set of windows; they were almost at the roof’s height, but what was more worrying was that there was movement up there.
“Well, it looks like I’m going to have to go on a solo hunt.”
“No, let me do it.” Erica tried to interject, but instantly Jake shut that thought down; she was the only one who could fly the Corvette for now.
“So, how do the controls work up there in the control room?”
“It seems that I should be able to open the roof from here. It’s just the controls up in the control room seem to be in an deactivated state, so all you need to do is turn them on again. Then get back here so we can leave. If you can, try to sneak; don’t get into unnecessary fights.”
Jake found himself surprised by her concern for him; it seemed there was more to that contract than she told him. The two of them went into the Corvette again to rest before the big event.
While waiting for Erica to regain her mana, Jake had an idea and took the initiative to go out and summon what remained of his shuttle. The sight of the shuttle brought back memories of what happened back then. As he looked at his poor shuttle, he observed that it no longer had a door; everything aft of the cockpit was blown to bits. Without the shield, the rest of the shuttle would have blown Jake apart with the rest of the shuttle. What was even worse was the fact Jake didn’t have any materials left in his storage ring to even begin fixing it. He probably had only enough to make around a thousand rounds of ammo. Jake still had plenty of powder, but he was lacking in metal. He could probably use scrap metal. Without the time to try it out, Jake didn’t dare try.
Jake went to the front of the shuttle and removed the two weapons pods, leaving only the one he created there, as it wouldn’t be of any use for what he wanted to do. Going over to the front of the Corvette, he said, “Erica really should pick out a name for that ship. I can’t keep going around thinking of it as the Corvette the whole time.”
Using the scaffolding that was in the hangar, Jake attached the two pods and returned to rest as he thought of how he was going to get to the roof console.
Looking through his skills list, he noticed one that he had completely forgotten about.
Skill (Shadow strike. Common): To strike from the shadows is your business. Gives 5% to damage if the target is unaware of your attack.
“If I can find a way to upgrade this skill, maybe it will allow me to sneak through the darkness. It won’t be a perfect stealth technique; but it just might let me be overlooked, at least while I’m in the shadows or something.”
After Jake had a good rest, he tried something else he had forgotten he could do. He sat down with his cauldron, pulling out the herbs he needed to make a mana potion, and tried making one. After quite a few failures, he finally made one. What disappointed Jake was not only did he use more resources than he would get back from the potion, but he also didn’t receive any levels in his profession. Jake had enough of that alchemy bullshit. So he decided to use the time he had left to work on his skill upgrade. For hours, Jake was jumping into shadows while Erica watched him, giving feedback on each different technique he tried. Finally, one technique seemed to work. Jake let out a constant trickle of arcane energy. Using his high agility stats, he dashed forward. His body vanished from Erica’s view for a second until she began looking directly at the shadow Jake was using to hide. As she did, the shimmer that covered Jake dispersed from her view, revealing Jake standing there.
“How was that one? Did it work? It felt like it did.”
“Kind of. You vanished for a bit until I focused on the spot you were hiding. That is.”
“I will give it a second go. It takes a bit of energy to keep it active, but if it works, that is better than nothing.”
Jake tried it again, and to his delight, he got it: the notification he had wanted.
Skill upgraded (Shadow strike. Common): To strike from the shadows is your business. Gives 5% to damage if the target is unaware of your attack < (Path of Shadows rare): You hide in the shadows and strike fast. Cost of use: arcane energy and stamina. Create a barrier around yourself to hinder vision and dash from shadow to shadow. Gives 5% to damage if the target is unaware of your attack.
“Fuck yeah.”