“A month remains until the next Nexus event. The wall that Aerith had planned out is nearly completed, Winter and the other Weaponsmiths are making enough handguns for everyone and while ammo isn’t a concern right now, with five hundred people actively using them we will run out very quickly.”
“So we’ll have issues with ammunition for the Nexus event?”
“Not quite. As long as we handle the groups well, we should be okay with ammo. Half of the newly advanced Lvl 1s are also magicians of varying elements with a quarter of those that have taken up a melee or ranged weapon that doesn’t require traditional ammunition. But having a handgun at the very least will be helpful for them."
Sheep shakes his head while tapping a few slips of paper. “Honestly we’re realistically in for a hard time. Coverage for the entirety of the wall is difficult considering how big it is. So far, the best plan I have is to have eight groups on each section of the wall with twenty per group. That’s one hundred and eighty right there. As for our Lvl 3s, one will be posted to each wall and will be responsible for each group.”
“What about the remainder? We’d still have nearly three hundred people.” With a frown, Aerith looked at Sheep who shrugged.
“I don’t know. They won’t be Lvl 1 before the Nexus Event so most likely they will be sitting there.” The room fell silent as we fell into thought. I looked around before speaking up.
“In that case, have those who haven’t reached Lvl 1 be our on the ground support and backup. They can still shoot, so we’ll have them in eight teams, going around resupplying the groups and providing backup in case one area is heavily under attack. They’ll also be responsible for making ammunition where possible, like bullets and molotov cocktails. Filling a glass bottle with gasoline and a rag isn’t difficult and won’t require a Job.”
“That’s a lot of people as just supply and backup. But it makes sense, rather than keeping them in the base we can put them to use. Alright, I’ll arrange the teams.” Sheep types quickly on his laptop. “Other than that, we’ve noticed a massive increase in swarms, thankfully none of them come towards us, but it’s only a matter of time. We’d need to make sure we’re ready to fight at a moment's notice.”
The room goes quiet. The problem right now is an increase in seeing swarms, in the last day there had been twelve sightings. Before the World Shift we’d have maybe one a week. We’ve had everyone in the base on alert, and even though it’s only been a day since the World Shift we could tell that being on high alert all of the time would tire everyone out.
Tapping the table with a sigh, I spoke while turning to Sheep. “We need to have others reach Lvl 2 and 3 as soon as possible. We need the firepower for the Nexus Event and afterwards as well. Lvl 3 is a massive increase from Lvl 2, so make sure our group gets there.”
“I have a schedule. With Melody and Ghost advancing, we will have Aerith and Dawn advance next then me and Lemon. For Lvl 2, it's free for all. Mid, what’s the amount needed for Lvl 4?”
I explain the requirements to Lvl 4, while also telling them it will take a lot of time to do so. I also went over the final Survival Basics quest, we had done more of the Survival Basics Final quest thanks to the swarm the night of the World Shift, getting 12/15 of types of Husks killed.
Turning to the others, I told them about Lvl 3 and how much of a difference it is compared to Lvl 2, with both health, mana and overall strength.
“Lvl 1 and 2 seem to be the introduction, stronger than our world and also leading us towards our own unique paths. For example, I’m not fast compared to Winter, and comparing our strengths she is certainly ahead of me, but my vision and reflexes are far above hers. Lvl 3 is a massive boost in not only health and mana, but strength overall. Winter and I both haven’t found anything more than a car or bus, but we’re both able to easily lift them above our heads. I think Lvl 3 is when things start to actually get serious and by the looks of things the more you do while at Lvl 3 determines your Lvl 4 strength.”
“So you can choose to do the bonus objectives but since you don’t know what they are it means either you’re left behind while trying to do them, pressured to Lvl 4 when the world gets more dangerous or you somehow do them and become stronger? Is it a way to measure one's ‘worthiness’?” Jupiter mutters while looking at the table, deep in thought.
“There is also that message about items or more that could be beneficial. What does that mean, exactly?” Aerith joins the discussion. We talked a bit more about the possibilities before I changed the topic back to our meeting.
“With the base getting closer to completion, we need to establish rules that need to be followed. As of now, we’re stable with food thanks to the constant intake of that shitty canned food, water is no problem but our issue is the amount of people. The water from the well is doing us well because of the limited use of showers, but if we double in size then we’ll become very strained. We also need to ensure everyone is contributing to the base in some form, we can’t have people getting complacent.”
Dragging a few pieces of paper over to himself, Sheep stood. “I have a few ideas for this. About the problem of contribution, I believe a simple point based system will work. Everyone will receive a base amount of ten points per month, which will give them enough for a basic package of food and water. This will be given regardless of contribution as to ensure people won’t starve.
“As for those that work, they will be given points based on the work they do. For example, if Mid makes five machines in a week she’ll receive fifty points, ten for each. Each Job will be evaluated before we make this public to ensure that Miners don’t get all of the points while Mana Refiners get very little. The points can then be used on weapons, machinery, higher forms of food and more, like having a house built for a certain amount of points.”
“I like the idea, but wouldn’t giving everyone enough to just live cause them to become complacent and do nothing?” Aerith raises her hand, as if on reflex before realising and quickly withdrawing it. “And what if some Jobs become redundant? They would not be able to earn points.”
Sheep nodded to Aerith’s questions while also writing them down. “Good points, I hadn’t considered redundancy. In regards to complacency due to receiving food and water, what ten points gives will be the bare minimum, enough to just survive on. It won’t only be Jobs either, objectives like dealing with swarms, these so-called Dimensions and exploration will also provide points and unique rewards, so the incentive to contribute will be higher.”
“So it’s basically just money but more universal?” I spoke while standing and crossing my arms. “I like the idea but it does need more fleshing out. We need a reliable way to track and record all points as well. I can likely whip something up on a laptop but we need to prevent others from pretending to be someone else. Right now we can likely do it based on knowing who is who, but if we were to grow it’ll become more difficult.”
“What about a unique identifying number associated with a picture? We still have our phones from our world, can you make it so we can upload pictures to the server, Midnight?” Jupiter also stands as Aerith tilts her head looking at us.
“Why are you guys standing?”
“Mm, I could, I just need to make the laptops compatible with the phones. In fact, I think it might be best to format a phone and make a new operating system for it.” Ideas come to mind as I grab a piece of paper and start writing them down. “I can make a program that allows us to store a person's information, like their Lvl, Job and Class while also tracking their points and storing it all on the server. In the future, we could also have laptops commissioned to those who want to open stores so they too can track these things.”
“Oh, good idea! I think we should have those shops be under our control though. Maybe a way for others to gain points for selling items they discover while exploring?” Sheep walks over to my side with Jupiter joining us, the three of us talking excitedly about what we could do with this point system. Aerith eventually wanders over and shares some ideas as well. Once we exhausted our brainstorming session, we then sat back down and brought up the next discussion.
I stand once more while looking at everyone. “I think the next rule we need to make is no weaponry while in the base. Only officers and above should be armed while everyone else needs to have them stored away. I’m thinking of having a building near the entrance to the base where everyone has their own unique locker to store their weapons.”
“I agree, but wouldn’t that slow down response times to a threat? If we encounter intelligent enemies, they could take out that building and it’ll be game over.” Aerith once again nearly raises her hand while speaking before withdrawing it. “Plus magic is also a thing, so if the aim of no weapons is to decrease the chance of people killing each other, it’ll only make it so they can’t defend against a magician in the base.”
Aerith’s words made a lot of sense and we all agreed with what she said. Writing down her objections to brainstorm about later, we decided that for now we would allow those under officers to only have a handgun, while those above officer will be permitted to have any weapons they wanted. We also discussed the rankings we had and decided to leave it for now but knew if we were to grow we would need more leadership under the managers.
“Oh, Aerith. I’m going to start building my workshop this week. Can you organise these materials for me?” Handing her a list of materials, she looks it over before frowning heavily.
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“I can do about seventy percent of these. Some we don’t have or need to come from the Miners or Woodcutters.” She quickly marks the paper before handing it to Jupiter, who looks at it before looking at me in shock.
“You need this much? It’ll hold back the completion of the wall.”
Shrugging, I look at Jupiter with my arms crossed. “I don’t need it now, after the Nexus event is fine. I won’t have the time before the Nexus event to build it anyway. Also, I want to look at creating a training area for the sole purpose of physical training…” Explaining my plan to the Vice-Leaders, they nodded and brought up other ideas related to it.
After the discovery of our Mana Worlds, we knew we had to discover everything we could when it came to strengthening ourselves. With a few ideas in mind, we got a rough draft of what to build.
Aerith then stood next, holding a piece of paper. “I want to also look at building a moat outside of the wall, to give us another form of defence. Midnight, can you make anything or do you have anything that can help us make one?”
Thinking over my inventory and nodding, I turn to Aerith. “I can make something, but only an auger. It’ll help break up hard ground for you. Don’t do it too deep either, if you hit the spring that feeds the well we will be in massive tro-”
‘RUBY IT’S RAINING! OH MY LORD FRESH RAIN!’
Freezing up at Winter’s voice in my mind, I blink a few times before looking at the door to the office.
“Mid? You good?” Hearing Sheep’s voice, I remember I had been halfway through talking before looking at the three. I hadn’t told them about the ability to telepathically talk with Winter, we didn’t want anyone knowing, at least not yet.
“Ah, sorry, I thought I heard something.” Focusing my hearing, I could actually hear the rain slightly above us. “Anyway, don’t dig too deeply, Aerith.” She nods as I then call an end to the meeting. With the idea of the point and profile system in mind, we leave the office room and see the outside through a window, the sight of rain coming down hard right in front of us.
Walking over to the window, I felt a bit stunned at the sight of the rain. Jupiter, Sheep and Aerith all slowly approached and could only stand there, speechless.
“It’s raining? After nearly a year in this damned world it’s actually raining? Did the world shift cause it to finally rain?” Sheep mutters in disbelief as he turns towards a certain location. I knew where he was looking, it’s where we set up half a dozen rain tanks that were all connected to their own filtration system, ready to store in separate tanks as backup water.
“It’s pouring out there…let’s just hope it’s not some deadly acid rain or something.” As I say this, I saw people some distance away happily under the rain, not caring about being soaked. Smiling at this sight, I turned to Aerith. “Is the grid set up for rain water?”
“It’ll work if we switch it manually.”
“Okay, we might use it for the sewage system.” Our sewage system ran well away from the base and we used our water to push it along with the toilets. “That’s if the rain is constant. Might be an idea to build more rain tanks.”
“I’ll get on some plans to switch it over.” Aerith nods along with me while still staring outside. “If we can use rainwater for the sewage system it’ll allow us to build more showers.”
With that, we parted ways as we headed back to our own houses. I took my time to walk through the rain as spirits started to float over to me, bobbing happily under the rain, causing me to smile happily. I didn’t understand what the spirits were exactly but for some reason they always seemed to be happy whenever I was around, usually coming over and sitting on my shoulders or head. They did the same with Rebecca, though she couldn’t see them. Strangely they never entered buildings, perhaps they preferred being under the sky.
The spirits fly off as I enter my house, completely drenched. Stripping my clothing off, I wipe myself down with a towel before stopping at a mirror, seeing my naked body reflected back. Running a hand over an ear, I still couldn’t believe this transformation. Becoming an elf so suddenly had been a shock and what made me anxious is that in the dreams I’ve had about myself I was never an elf. Perhaps it’s because there are millions of potential futures that I’m seeing and those futures are where I never became an elf.
Getting dressed into a simple sleeveless shirt and skirt, I head down into the basement and enter my workshop. Pulling a few parts out, I sat down and started making the laptop for the refiners.
After building it, I connect it up and start imaging it. Opening my usual laptop, I started up a word processor that was programmed by me and started to brainstorm ideas for the identification profile. A whirlwind of ideas came to me and before I knew it I had started writing the pseudocode for it.
‘Rubes, whatcha doing?’
‘Programming.’
‘Ah! Get out of the basement and come play under the rain!’
Smiling at her words, I stretched but continued to sit there. I planned to go join her, but I had a decision to make before that happened. Opening the Job Talents, I once again looked at the talents I had here. Combat, Base or Utility. Selecting Combat, I clicked yes as a sack appeared in front of me, identical to the one I received from reaching Lvl 3. Grabbing that sack, I placed it down and looked at the two before opening the Combat sack.
Five blueprints fell out, except out of the five two of them were golden in colour. Raising an eyebrow to this, I picked up a blueprint and went through them all.
Advanced Sensor-Based Turret
Advanced Sonic Rifle
Electrical Baton
“Mm? A rifle? Shouldn’t that go to Winter?” A bit dumbfounded from receiving a rifle, I brought the knowledge up before realising why it’s a blueprint for me. Unlike gunpowder based weapons, this is far more like a machine. It uses sound waves to overload someone’s senses and is rather bulky. Excited about the turrets, I had to wonder if we truly did have enough ammo to support them. Diana had become a Chemist and had slowly been making her way through her Job and can now reliably make the materials needed, but the process took time.
Picking up the first golden blueprint, I used it and couldn’t help but grin widely.
Expert: Mechanical Armour - Gloves (Customisable)
Unlike the other blueprints I had learnt till this point, a torrent of information flooded my mind, triple the normal amount as I slowly went through everything. I could customise these gloves to a high degree, and unlike the mechanical gloves from our early days these were strong, very powerful and involved a lot of work. I could embed a barrel in it, like a shotgun or pistol barrel and depending on the metals or materials used it could last a very long time. My mind quickly flicks to the exoskeleton of the butterfly as I smile slightly at the thought of using it for these gloves. Using the next blueprint, I punched the air in happiness.
Expert: Mechanical Armour - Arms (Customisable)
Feeling very happy with these two, I closed my eyes while thinking through all of the materials needed. I baulked at the sheer cost of both of these, each requiring extremely complex work and parts. Making a single pair of each would take days of manual work as well as several different machines. Opening my eyes, I started to look forward to building the workshop.
Opening the next sack, I found only three blueprints within, one golden.
Washing Machine
Advanced Networking Cameras
Expert: Tunnel Digger
As the knowledge flooded my mind, I felt excited about the tunnel digger. It’s a massive drill that would massively assist the Miners. They were using a mix of hand and power tools, but this would expand their efforts even faster. The only problem for all of these blueprints is electricity and fuels, meaning we needed to find ways to generate more. I had finished reading two volumes of machinery books and I had slowly started to figure out how to build machines myself without the System’s knowledge, but I am far from planning and designing something like a nuclear reactor.
‘Ruuuuubes, come and play!’
Standing, I checked the progress of the laptop’s imaging and satisfied with the progress, I left the basement. Seeing the rain outside coming down even harder, I winced a bit at the thought of heading out there but since Winter wanted to play I headed out, prepared to get soaked to the bone so I could enjoy time with Winter.