Chapter 358
Driving for an hour from his house to Oshawa, Ollie stopped his car right in front of the blockade of the warehouse. All kinds of signs littered the fence from biohazard, high voltage, corrosive, and everything that a government agency can throw at it. Cameras were placed at every 10 meter distance of the fence. Barbed wires lined the whole way through the top of the fence. Buildings around the warehouse that looked like office buildings were used as lookouts by his employees just to keep civilians out.
Over the past couple of months, there was at least 4 attempted break ins. Two tried to cut through the chain linked fence. One tried to climb over the barbed wire infested top. The last tried to pretend he was a government employee which almost worked.
Within the neighbourhood around the industrial park, this specific warehouse caused a lot of theories to go up in YouTube and Reddit. It was Sarah's mistake from trying to delete and silence the public as it caused even more conspiracy theorists to shout louder.
Pulling out his phone, he messaged Dr. Gray.
[Ollie: I'm outside. Open up.]
In a couple of more seconds, the fence's gate shuddered and opened slowly. Pressing on the pedal, the car moved up until the entry way of the warehouse.
Ollie exited the vehicle and entered the Oshawa warehouse. From the 1st floor, it looked like a normal warehouse. Container units scattered throughout and stacked on top of on another. Closed crates that held warning signs of 'do not open'. Pallettes of plastic wrapped tubes and sheet metal. A specific container still had a large dent that was an imprint of a human crashing into it.
That was Brother David's mark.
Sarah wanted to replace it, but Ollie found it funny. The United Knight had underestimated Gale and ended up suffering because of it.
He walked over to the small shed by the side, and opened the door. Another door greeted him. Pressing the lock button on that door, he waited until he heard a 'ding'. Ollie then opened the door, entered the elevator, and tapped P5.
The elevator moved down. In 5 seconds, the elevator dinged again, and the door slid to the right, revealing what was beneath the whole Oshawa this whole time.
Beyond him was a vast under ground chamber. The floor was smooth concrete, lined with distinct colours of red, green, and blue. Following the red line would lead to the Rift Aperture System, green would lead to what Erin called 'Origin Layer Fabricator', and red would lead to the Origin Encoder.
Ollie did make a comment on Erin about this.
'How did we get to this kind of technology level without having battleships?'
To which, Erin responded, 'Be grateful I allowed Earth to skip a large amount of technological dependencies because of the Weber Conglomerate'.
'Lame. What if we wanted to go to Mars and colonize it. And other neighbouring star systems,' Ollie replied.
Erin's last response was 'your civilization may do so at your own time.'
Even now, Ollie rolled his eyes at that answer. The cool space battles between the Path, Jiuling, and United Knights could probably wait till later.
He walked along the green line as construction workers and researchers greeted him.
"Good morning, Mr. Glory," a researcher said.
"Morning Johnny," Ollie said.
"Mr. Glory, my name is David…"
"Whatever you say, Johnny," he laughed. "Just kidding, I know. But you look more like a David."
"How…?"
"Don't worry about it."
Ollie kept walked through the green line for a minute or two until he finally saw the enclosed dome which housed the Origin Layer Fabricator. Entering the he saw Erin at her desk by the side on a computer she 'modified' to interface with and added a bunch of modules that he knew nothiing of.
At the centre of the facility laid a circular platform, lined with a translucent grid. Beneath the grid was a dizzying amount of "Origin Syntax" that looked like a spell circle, but Erin corrected him that it was the governing language of the universe. The circular platform had 6 robotic arms, but its hands looked more like sattelite dishes. In the middle of it was a control module interface that greeted him. Quite literally.
"Good morning, Mr. Glory. How are you today?" RAE asked.
"Doing good, doing good. Erin nagging you all day, RAE?"
"Quite the opposite. She has been stuck on her personal computer for 52 minutes. A record time she has not bothered me."
"Welp, that's good. How you liking this place compared to the tomb?"
"It is different and primitive, but I like it. Thank you for asking, Mr. Glory."
Well that's true. The tomb barely had anyone to talk to. This place had tons of people that would walk by, pull up a table in front of RAE, and just talk during their lunch periods. If it was the old Ollie, he would've told them to get back to work and don't bother the machine.
"Cool. Nice to hear. Any fabrication plans today?"
"We must fabricate the location coordinate cartridge today for the Rift Aperture System," Erin said over at her desk.
"Huh? What's a cartridge for?"
Erin slowly turned her head around to look at him. "It is a pleasure you asked, short one. Due to differences in distance and spatial obstacles at arrival location, cartridges are the most efficient method on directly sending input to the logic module of the current design of the Rift Aperture System. In addition, cartridges allow us to create a library of coordinates, externalized from the actual Rift Aperture System. Should we need to destroy the system, we still hold the coordinates. Shall I give you a lecture on offloading the methods of spatial compression emulation without the resource of Void?"
"Uhhh, forget I asked that," Ollie said.
"As you say in your culture, we shall 'table' this lecture for another time in the future. Knowledge needs not be rushed."
"Sure." Ollie walked over to his own desk just beside her. He never did like this office. It was too spacious and the whole facility was just open air behind him. Arriving at his desk, he saw a plastic bag on his table. "What's this?"
"You may open at your own leisure. Your family has delivered it for your well being," Erin said.
Opening the bag, Ollie took out the items one by one. Chicken noodle soup in a glass container. Vietnamese rice rolls in plastic takeout. A single kinder bueno bar. Two twinkies. A bottle of water. Lastly, a McDonalds cheese and bacon flat bread. He could practically see which idiot put which in here.
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"You must try the flatbread. The nomenclature presents the bread to be flat, yet the contents prevents it from being flat. It is a paradox in the form of sustenance. Fascinating."
"Sure." Ollie chuckled. Opening the water bottle first, he took a big chug. He hasn't had lunch yet, and he was just getting hungry. "Thanks, Erin."
"Your unnecessary gratitude is noted," Erin said.
Time to plan this. He'd eat the flatbread first as appetizer, move on to the rice spring rolls and the chicken noodle soup, take a gulp of the water, then finish the Kinder Bueno and twinkies as dessert. The plan was settled and Ollie dug in to the flatbread first.
"What's our first go to coordinates anyway?" Ollie asked while munching.
"I've located three possible locations we may visit. However, a single location houses 5800 Origin Shards for use. The possibility of Mohrusy presence in that location is high. Though that may be, the other two locations houses less than 100 Origin Shards each. The reward overrides the risk profile."
"What if we meet something we can't kill or fight?"
"I have already stated I shall be joining the expedition."
"What if its something you can't kill?"
"A corrupted entity at the 7th step and higher is extremely rare let alone at 8th step. What we must be careful of is a being called 'Mel'."
"Huh? Who's that?"
"The Neutral Grounds Database contained documents of a being called 'Mel' that orchestrated the Silver Lion's pursuit of power and activities within China and Japan."
"So?"
"The name is ominous."
"Woah, didn't think you'd be one for superstition. Hold on let me check." Ollie turned on his own pc. After it booted up, he looked for the documentation on an entity called 'Mel'.
However, the moment the search results returned, he couldn't access the page. He should have the highest clearance at clearance 0. Was there something higher than that?
"How'd you get access to these documents?" Ollie asked.
"I took the liberty of forceful access."
"What! You can't just do that! What if they traced you?!" Ollie asked, panicked. The commits on the document held a name called "Nathaniel Ann Morris". That was Esther's personnel!
"Calm your mind, shorter one. The Ann Family's prowess in technological matters is leagues below the Weber conglomerate."
"You know?"
"Esther's masquerade of absolute self preservation serves no greater purpose. Do not worry, child. She can do no harm to me."
"Fine…" Ollie sighed. "Then why worry about Mel?"
"Should she be the 'Mel' I am acquainted with and is currently on this planet, 'Earth', being in her presence requires absolute caution. She is a Cev Dainv that had peered too deep within the void and became rogue at the 8th stage of the Dainv Hierarchy."
"How strong is that?"
"Esther and I are on the 6th stage of the Dainv Hierarchy. She may decimate our very existence should she will it so in a blink of an eye."
"Oh," Ollie said. But thinking about it and the only thing this Mel thing has done was the Silver Lion thing, then she isn't really much of a threat. "What's her powers or abilities like?"
"In our culture, she is the Devouring Dainv. Her Voidal Origin is unique and manifests itself as crimson roots with mouths. Any object her abilities touch will be subject to a judgement call of her already broken mind."
"Ok, cool got it. Watch out for the crazy one."
"Your guess on her title is correct. In Dainv society, she is called 'the Crazy One'."
Ollie shook his head… wait a minute. Crimson roots? His hands shot onto his keyboard and tapped Red Death Incident on the database search. He clicked it open and filtered for the pictures 30 minutes post explosion. Multiple pictures showed decaying crimson roots with holes that contained teeth. After about an hour, most of the roots would be gone.
"Is this… her?"
Erin leaned forward to looked at his screen. "That is her ability."
"But why would she cause that incident?"
"Do not ask me of the Crazy One's rationale. Even Weber Researchers do not understand her psychology."
"Alright, whatever." Ollie finished up the rest of the food, finishing the Kinder Bueno and twinkies. After chugging the water bottle down, he stood up. "I'm going to the Origin Encoder."
"Your location is noted."
Ollie exited the facility, and then followed the red line towards the Origin Encoder. Over the past couple of months, there were big advancements. Sarah and Dr. Gray had completely mapped out the homo sapien biology to finally apply the encoding on humans.
The first human test subject was set for today. And the person they would work on was Oliver Glory, himself. Since he still needed to take dust every weeks or so, this was a good chance to get rid of it.
After arriving at the Origin Encoder facility, he saw Sarah and Dr. Gray already on the control modules. In front of him were 6 different pods that looked more like for putting people in suspended animation. But, each one was equipped with a satellite looking dish engraved and lined with a dizzying amount of Origin Syntax. Erin wrote the encoding sequence on the plates and connected the encoders onto the control modules.
When activated, the encoder sequence would analyze the biological body within the container. Once analyzed, it would carve out what Erin called 'pathways' within the biological structure for the Origin to move through. The implementation of the pathways would converge at the user's left hand, allowing it to disperse the Origin pressure within the body. Consequently, the backhand would form a smooth crystalline structure.
That was all just theory and intended activation procedure. Luckily, Erin did modify their syntax to account for errors.
"Ollie, you're just in time. Strip down and get in," Sarah said as she saw him by the doorway.
"You sure about this, Ollie?" Dr. Gray asked. "There's still a bunch of criminals on full time sedatives."
"I'm sure. I'm not going to a rift without getting rid of my dust withdrawals," Ollie said as he stripped down his suit to just his boxers.
The pod hissed open, and Ollie entered it. As his skin touched the Yinidium metal, he flinched as it was completely cold to the touch.
"Ollie, stay still please," Sarah said.
"It's cold!" Ollie stood, careful not to touch the metal.
"Ready?"
"I'm good to go."
Sarah pressed a button. "200 prana set. Dr. Gray?"
Dr. Gray tapped on his computer. "Encoder set for 162 cm. 58kg. Genetic information set and applied. All set on my end."
"Pull the safety lever," Sarah said.
A researcher by the other side of the facility pulled the 3rd lever out of 6. "Safety is off. All is go."
"3… 2… 1…" Sarah pressed the execute button on her panel. "Execute is live. Oliver, good luck."
At first, nothing happeend to Ollie's body. Then, for the next couple of minutes, he felt the tingling in his body. Prana filled the container with specific functions engraved into the energy.
Once it entered his skin and into his body, that's when he wanted to scream. It felt like his veins were forcefully being moved, except not his veins. Millions of tiny lines bore through his flesh that made his body feel like it was in flames.
Ollie gritted his teeth. He had to stay awake to stop prevent his body from moving too much. Theory was, if he moved, the pathways might get bent. It wasn't a life threatening sentence, but it would significantly lower his spell casting efficiency.
For the full 30 minutes, he felt his body burn, and no one can do anything about it. Sweat poured down his temples. His boxers soaked in sweat. After the initial 30 minutes, the heat turned down into a mild sensation. Either that, or his whole body had gone numb. Probably the former.
"Encoding is a success. Turning off the encoder now." Sarah pressed the dispell button. "Engage safety."
The researcher at the other side of the facility pushed the red lever up once more. Once she did, the warmth in Ollie's body dissipated completely. As the pod hissed open, he took a step forward, dropping onto the floor. When he looked to his left hand that held him up, the smooth crystalline structure took the shape of a rhombus.
"How do you feel, Ollie?"
"I feel like shit. Next patients need to be on some kind of pain killers."
"Understood," Sarah said.
"WOOOH!" Dr. Gray shouted. "We fucking did it Ollie boy! We fucking did it!"
Ollie looked up at Dr. Gray with a smile. "Everyone, we fucking did it."
The whole researcher team clapped a round of applause. He didn't even realize the amount of people that had gathered in the facility. Some hugged each other while others teared up at the success.
"Congratulations everyone. Free 1 week vacation for everyone!" Sarah shouted.
"1 week? Are you kidding me?" Ollie asked.
"What else are we gonna do while you're gone?" Dr. Gray asked.
"Good point," Ollie stood up, floated over his suit's blazer to himself. Putting it over himself, he said, "1 week vacation for everyone."