Jake was standing at the door to exit the hangar, his heart pounding as Erica gave him a sneaky peck on the cheek. “For good luck,” she said before walking back to her ship, The Retribution. Yes, she had chosen a name for it, and its description displayed it. She had actually chosen the name when she first started binding it to herself; Jake just hadn’t checked or asked if she had. This led to an awkward situation when Jake asked if the ship had a name and started rambling off names, each one worse than the last. He even tried to call it the Rusty Bucket II, thinking that in time, he could have his own scrap iron flotilla.
“Well, it’s time to go. Brothers, keep me safe.”
Jake cracked open the door and dashed to the nearest shadow.
“Leaving the door open isn’t a problem right now, Jake. Erica has her ship to protect her.”
Jake moved from shadow to shadow as he weaved his way through the bug-infested base.
“This is going too good. It’s got to go pear-shaped soon.”
Jake reached the door that led to the control room. As he opened the door, hanging from the roof were some kind of flying insects. They looked to be sleeping, but to Jake’s eyes, they just looked like head-cleaving devices waiting for a stupid sap to walk in. And that stupid sap, of course, was Jake. He had to crouch as he climbed the stairs, squeezing past the insects, trying desperately not to touch them.
Jake reached the door to the control room without waking any of the insects. But as he pushed the door a little more open so he could get through, a groaning sound reverberated down the stairway. All the insects shuddered and twisted their heads in unison to look directly at Jake. He quickly slammed the door shut. The insects were now slamming on the door, trying to get in.
“That’s not going to last long. I better get this all working again,” Jake muttered, turning to look at the controls. Jake muttered, “Oh, shit,” as he turned to look at the controls. He carefully sneaked over to the controls. There were three small levers and one big one.
“I couldn’t possibly get this wrong,” he said as he pulled the big lever down and locked it in place. Looking around at the controls, which were still all dark, he dashed over to the other three switches. Starting from the left, he flicked them one by one. As he got to the last one, all of the consoles lit up like a Christmas tree, and the room shook as outside the windows overlooking the hangar, bugs fell from the sky.
“Holy fuck, the roof is opening up.”
The roof started splitting in two, and down below, The Retribution’s point-defence weapons started ripping through the bugs as they fell on top of it.
“Retribution, come in, Everval Actual is pinned down in the control room, requesting emergency extraction point at my position.”
The Retribution started lifting off as Jake blew the glass out and stepped on the edge. As the Retribution rose to his location, it spun around so its rear bay was facing towards him. Jake jumped as it got closer. Once he landed in the rear bay, he sent out a message.
“Go, I’m onboard.”
The Retribution exited the hangar as Jake ran to the bridge and went directly to the weapons station.
“Firing a barrage of missiles.”
The nose of the ship glowed white for a second before the missiles launched into the facility. After that, Erica forced the ship’s power up and blasted out of the mountain as she set a course for space.
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The three days before the Retribution launched into space, Matt was doing the usual alchemy while Jess was working on their fighters, which she had been doing ever since they got them.
“I can’t do it. How the fuck did he create weapons pods for that shuttle?” Jess thought before she yelled at the top of her lungs.
“Matt, get over here. I’ve got a job for you.”
Matt walked over with a grumpy expression on his face. “What do you want now? Have you called me over just to tell me you still can’t do your profession and still need more time? Because I don’t see any weapons yet. You haven’t even made a replacement weapon for yourself.”
“Would you like me to break that jaw of yours again? Just shut up and listen. I can’t make weapons for these fighters yet. So I have an idea. If we go back to the hangar, we should be able to find some parts for them. Also, the bugs should have calmed down by now.”
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Matt was pissed that after he had come up with the plan to take the fighters, Jess had been acting as if she were the boss. If it wasn’t for his alchemy, she would have died countless times already, and that was after they took the fighters. If you count the times before that, Jess’s life should belong to him, but yet she is the one acting like the boss.
It took them two days to get back to the foot of the mountain as they decided to walk instead of fly, as flying might alert the bugs. But once Jess and Matt arrived, they wished they had never left their hideout. Looking up at the mountain, Matt’s face was aghast as he watched the bugs swarm over every inch of it.
“What’s your plan now?” Matt snapped at Jess.
“What do you mean, my plan? I’m not in charge of you, so why is it my plan?”
Matt looked at the hangar entrance. “Well, well, look at that.” Matt pointed at what looked like four crates. Two of them said “weapons pods,” and the others said “shield emitters and rifles.” But what was hilarious, at least for Matt, was the rifle on the ground. Jess’s F88 rifle was on the ground, and it was damaged. Someone had bent the barrel and crushed the stock.
“I found your rifle. It’s next to the boxes we need,” Matt said with a smile.
“You found--” Jess went quiet as she looked at her rifle. It was in such a state she was uncertain that she would be able to fix it. She was thinking maybe she would be able to salvage the scope, but then noticing it was gone. “They took my scope. They destroyed my rifle and took my fucking scope. What kind of bullshit is this?” She stopped halfway through her rant as the top of the mountain started to shake and split down the middle. The bugs that were on the top of the mountain started rushing towards the gap that was getting bigger.
“What the fuck is going on?” Matt exclaimed.
“How the fuck do I know? Although, with that many bugs flooding into that hole, we should be able to--”
A spaceship arose out of the hole in the mountaintop. Its nose began to glow so brightly that Jess lost her eyesight for a second. With an almighty bang, the spaceship fired into the hole it exited from, blowing the entire mountain complex apart, with chunks of the mountain flying for kilometres. After that, the spaceship fired its main engines, blasting a great crater into the ground. The aftershock lifted Jess and Matt off the ground and flung them back, smashing through the forest.
After an undetermined amount of time, Jess woke up. Looking in front of her, the mountain had completely vanished. Where it once stood, there was a hole, a hole as deep as the mountain was tall.
“I think we fucked up,” she said before she started coughing up blood with chunks of tissue.
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Jake was standing there, looking at his notifications with disbelief.
All members of the ship’s crew received a share of the available points, with 80% of all points going to the one the ship is soulbound to.
Ding! Class level increased by +1,000,000 points
Ding! Grade level increased +1,285,650 points
“Well, that settles that question. The system seems to round down when calculating points.”
Erica looked over at Jake in disbelief. “That’s too much. I think we may have messed up this tutorial’s primary function. There’s no way it was meant to give out that many free points to just two people.”
Jake brought up his interface.
Universal constant interface
Name: Jake Everval
Race: Human
Grade: TG Level: 100 Max cap for this grade: 3523 unused
Class: Trooper Shadow Mage Class level: 1000 Max cap for this grade: 2872 unused
Profession: Arcane Smith Profession level: 13
stats points available: 2,285,650
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 levels and grades will be converted to free points at a 1:1 ratio at the end of the tutorial.
“Yeah, you might be right, but I’m not going to complain.” Jake was thinking about how he was going to distribute his free points when Erica said, “We’re coming up on the wreckage of the Jaxxen. How are we going to do this without your shuttle?”
“Well, about that, I may just have a plan brewing.”
“Well, are you going to keep me in suspense or what?”
“It’s going to involve a leap of faith for me. I’m going to have to board what’s left of the Jaxxen and find some kind of explosive that will do the job. Do you know where I could find some?”
“In the armoury, there is a planet buster in there. Why do you ask?”
“Well, you will be the distraction while I blow the ships. Just remember to stay out of the orbital plane; the debris will be tracking.”
Erica let out a sigh. “Are you really going to do that? How are you going to escape the explosion?”
Jake shrugged. “It will all work out.”
Erica moved the Retribution into close proximity with the Jaxxen. Jake and Erica walked to the landing bay.
“The planet buster should be at the aft of the ship. If that section is still intact, that is. Remember, don’t overuse your thrusters; they run on hydrogen, and we don’t have a way to refill them. If you run out in space, you will orbit this planet forever. Good luck, ma--”
“It’s okay, Erica; you can say it if that’s what makes you comfortable. I will just have to get used to it.”
“If I’m allowed, can I say it, please?”
“Yes, like I just said.”
“Master…”
With that, Jake jumped into the void of space, floating across the five hundred meters to the ship’s hull. As he got closer, he clipped onto the hull with a carabiner so that he didn’t float away. He pushed his perception out as he looked for an entry point near the rear of the ship. Jake unclipped from the hull and started climbing over it. As he reached what he thought was the top of the ship, he noticed a bit of a problem with his plan. The complete rear section of the ship was gone, scattered into the void. Jake looked over at where the Retribution was last. He sent a quick radio message to Erica.
“Rear section of the Jaxxen gone; going to search the Pristine Roses’ remains for a way to finish the job.” Knowing that the radio signal would take time to reach Erica, Jake took a deep breath and, with a push, left the hull of the Jaxxen, floating out into the void. He activated his thrusters and started speeding through space.