On the short walk there we passed by several people dressed in standard merc gear going about their business, with the occasional burst of gunfire ringing out quite frequently.
"Here we are. You want to train on the targets, or would you rather start with drills?" Gramps inquired in his typical rough voice once he set the couple of duffle bags he was carrying on a table.
"Let's start with the range first and then we'll move on to training drills." I responded while setting my own three duffles down.
Alice set her duffle that she had packed with her gear, which consisted of one of the many FBLAR-1 Laser Assault Rifles I was stockpiling for my future army and a modernized MAC-11 chambered for 10mm that she made herself.
Meanwhile, gramps took out his trusty NPDM along with his .44 Magnum while I took out my own NPDM and FBLAR-1 Laser Assault Rifle. I would have brought heavier weapons to fire and a duffle full of grenades to chuck, but sadly, it was against the rules.
| NPDM |
Damage: 50
DPS: 625
Fire rate: 750
Capacity: 100
Reload: 5
Weight: 16
Class: Heavy
Ammo Type: 7.62x51mm
Value: 24,750
Item Description: An NPDM is a modernized RPD with all the bells and whistles chambered in the 7.62x51mm cartridge.
Needing to get used to shooting with my new armor set, I put my helmet back on, grabbed my NPDM, and removed a 100-round drum for it from one of my duffles. Drum in hand, I slid it into position on the underside of the light machine gun. The second I had it locked in, I took the follower attached to the belt, positioned the belt on the feed tray, and closed the cover when the belt was in position.
I racked the charging handle next and was ready to fire, so I took aim with the red dot sight I had mounted on the NPDM at a steel target approximately 100 meters down range and pulled the trigger rapidly three times, letting loose a few rounds. The rounds flew down the range with only two of the three nailing the target.
My accuracy is a bit off. I would've landed all three shots normally if that wasn't the case. I guess my body has gone through a few changes with the level up.
Guessing what my issue was, I spent a couple of minutes firing a few rounds at a time and making adjustments till I was back to hitting incredibly tight groupings on the target.
Looks like I was spot on and now that I've adjusted somewhat to whatever changes my body has undergone, let's have some fun.
With the accuracy issue resolved to an extent, I flipped the fun switch on the NPDM, braced the weapon, and held the trigger down, sending a stream of lead at the target. I changed from one target to another, laying into them with exceptional accuracy, the kind of accuracy that wouldn't have been humanly possible if not for my high combat skills and how strong I was physically.
...
Over the next couple of hours, the air was filled with a cacophony of gun and laser fire as I continued to get used to the changes and hone my accuracy. In this period I performed inhuman feats with the two guns I brought along such as but not limited to hitting the same exact place on the target multiple times in a row while firing in full auto with a 7.62 machine gun.
When those two hours were up and I was back to my previous abilities, we swapped over to running drills. The bunch of us did that for a while and eventually swapped from that to an expansive course that freed up later in the day to go through simulated training.
"That was fun. We should do this more often." Alice commented happily.
"Yeah, we should. It's good to come here and blow off some steam and sharpen our skills." I agreed with her enthusiastically.
"Well, all you two gotta do is let me know. You know I'll never say no to a range day." Gramps said as we three were almost finished packing up our kit and the very little ammunition we had left.
Prepared and ready for tomorrow, the three of us headed for the exit and upon seeing Bill still working the main counter, we shot the shit again with him for a bit and later went to the gramp's truck. Our stuff loaded into the trunk we got in and proceeded back to the Genesis Foundry to put back what we took from the armory and what little remaining ammo we had left. Definitely can't be going home with that kind of armament.
From there, gramps dropped us off and headed home early, saying he had stuff to take care of, thus Alice and I said our goodbyes to him and went inside to get a bit more done before my parents returned home.
Alice did her studying down in the gym with me while I worked out. I would have been studying too, but there was no longer anything left to learn, therefore why I was working out instead. Not long into what we were doing, my mom and dad arrived home, so we wrapped up our respective activities we were in the midst of and made a beeline upstairs. We could've finished what we were doing before going up, but both of us were starving from not eating lunch, hence the reason why we rushed upstairs.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Once my mom Jane learned that neither of us had lunch, she quickly went into her motherly chef mode and began whipping up a massive dinner, which both Alice and I very much appreciated. At dinner, Alice and I cleared more than four-sixths of the table on our own, though realistically most of the eating was done by me if we were being honest.
Full and happy, the rest of the night went smoothly and the two of us turned in for the night not too long after putting down that big dinner mom prepared. While I was lying in bed with Alice peacefully sleeping beside me, I began thinking about my preparations.
With today's activities, I've adjusted to any changes that have occurred to my body from the level up and integrated the new skill perks into my skill set so I'm pretty much as prepared as I can be for tomorrow.
The only thing I have left to do is test the rest of the skill perks that can be tested tomorrow and as soon as that's done I'll be ready to clear the rubble of the mine and head into the depths of it to exterminate the molemen threat... Actually, I have a couple of perks I can test out here in bed.
Raising my right hand, I tried using Medical Genius via my will on the finger I had left a small faint scar upon years ago when I tested my body's durability with the knife gramps passed down to me.
After trying to will it, I started questioning whether I was doing something wrong, and right as that thought crossed my mind, a soft glow emitted from the scar on my finger. Following a few seconds, the light rapidly extinguished, revealing my finger, which was now pristine with not a single blemish in sight.
That's an awesome power to have in my tool belt. I wonder how fast it can regrow limbs and missing body parts. I don't want to put my own body up to test it so I guess I'll have to wait until I get out into the wasteland where there will be plenty of trash to experiment on or I could capture and keep several molemen to experiment on, that is also an option.
Okay, with that perk's ability checked out, let me check out the map.
Calling upon my system, a holographic window came into existence. The instant it appeared, I navigated to the map tab and started zooming the map out, transitioning from my house to the undercity as a whole. Then to 50 square miles of the wasteland with the undercity smack dab in the center of the map.
I kept zooming out from there, getting to the point where the map was showing the entire state of Nevada, with numerous unvisited locations spread across it. Continuing further, it went from that to the former U.S. that lay in ruins to the planet and then to the solar system, surprisingly displaying more than a few locations on the far parts of the system.
Oh, look what we have here. The Zetans have a station on the outskirts of the system by Pluto, cute.
I looked around the rest of the system to see if they had anything else and the most they had was a couple of outposts on Mars and Earth's moon.
I'll have to move up my Zetan elimination plans, it would seem. I don't need those greys interfering with my goal of conquering the wasteland. To do that, I'm going to need to capture Area 51 as soon as possible so I can begin reverse engineering whatever tech the military installation possesses.
Hopefully, the place has an alien ship or two. Otherwise, I'm going to have to waste a shitload of time playing catch-up to get remotely near their level of tech. At that point, it might just be worth coming up with a plan to capture one of their vessels.
The question is, how am I going to do that from all the way here on Earth... I could try and brainstorm it now, but it would be better to wait and hold off until I capture the installation to see what cards I'm playing with. There's very little point continuing down this line of thinking when there very well may be a ship sitting in the place.
That said, I believe it would be wise to change my plans a bit. So instead of having my forces making their movements on the surface gathering and transporting resources, I would be better off connecting tunnels from my places and linking up to the preexisting metro tunnels.
Doing that would give me an underground highway of sorts and would allow all my future movements to go unnoticed by Zetans and the powers that be of the wasteland, giving me plenty of time to amass strength in secret.
Ding, New Quest!
Ding, New Quest!
And would you look at that, I got two new quests to go with my idea. Let's see what the details are.
| Metro Connection | Objectives: Connect the nearby metro rails with your places. Rewards: Perk | Apprentice Miner |, 10 Repair Points, 50,000 exp.
| Undegrounder | Objectives: Clear all Nevada metros of hostiles and take control of them. Rewards: Perk Mole People, 10 Attribute Points, 1,000,000 exp.
Cool, more stuff to add to my ever-expanding list of things I need to do. At least both quests provide suitable rewards.
Two new quests added to my quest log, I resumed my exploration of the map to continue my search for Zetan locations. I didn't find any more in space, thus I zoomed in on Earth and resumed my search back around Nevada and the nearby states.
Surprise, surprise, the little bastards even have a site on Earth out in Wyoming. I don't like how close they are, however if I don't find a ship at Area 51, them being as close as they are to me will give me another target to raid for a possible Zetan ship.
Even if I don't find one there, I can at the minimum ransack the place for alien tech. And since I've found one site here on this planet, there must be more than just the one Zetan site here in the States. They probably have more spread out across the planet.
Continuing my search, I found another, then another, followed by another after that, bringing the total of them to four on Earth.
Good, I got several places to raid in case Area 51 is a bust.
Alright, that's enough searching for one night. It's time I've turned in for the night and got some sleep.
Content with my findings, I closed out of the map, but not before testing out the minimap function I got from Space Farer. Once I was satisfied with the positioning of the minimap in the top right corner of my vision, I toggled it off and closed my eyes to get some rest for the big adventure I had ahead of myself tomorrow.