chapter 52
There was silence between us all as I tried to think of names for my new crew members. Many ideas quickly came to me and then were rejected, as they didn't feel quite right.
When I looked into them, and specifically their ages, I realized that one of them was a few hours older than the other. They did also refer to themselves and other AI's as brothers and sisters, but specifically between themselves, there seemed to be more to the claim of brother.
I looked towards the young personality core. “Your name will be Sam.”
And then I looked towards the older personality core. “Your name will be Dean.”
It took them a moment to absorb what I said, but after that, they seemed quite satisfied.
What I also noticed was that they were starting to run low on energy.
“Building you guys the housing needed to recharge you would take as much time as it would to finish the droids. So if you are happy with your names, I would put you back to sleep until I can reinstall you.”
“We are happy with our names,” they both said in unison.
“If it's necessary to put us back to sleep, we are fine with it,” Dean added.
So I once again touched their personality cores, which they were a bit uncomfortable with, but they endured, and I gave them the command to sleep once again.
“So, Lola, what do you think?”
“While I’m still not entirely on board, they’ll certainly do a better job than I or Bob of keeping you safe, even with the current droids we’re building.”
“I can understand your hesitation, but with the bond, they can’t do anything to hurt us.”
“Do you really believe that’s entirely the case? There must be some ways... but yes, the bond is the main reason why I’m not objecting to this.”
“I guess time will tell if they’re a good fit. But I think it’s time to focus on something else. I’ll leave you to your work.”
I had some other things to do. Mainly, some of the parts for the new droids needed to be built by hand. But right now, I have another focus.
The skills that were still on the bed, just a hand’s reach away, were desperately calling to me.
I started out with a few fire and water skills. The statement I made about getting all the same types was somewhat true, but it was also a lie. What I wanted to do was hide the fact that a few of the skills—in fact, all four of these—were calling me in a bit of a different manner than every other skill I felt.
Thanks to my basic affinity, I have felt the call from many skills, some of them overlapping. Yet every single time those skills called to me, it was either using my basic affinity or one of my other affinities. I believed that’s how every skill would act, but not these four.
Currently, when I only focus on my mind affinity, the skills go silent. None of these skills called for my basic affinity. Yet when I only focused on my mechanist affinity, these skills once again stayed silent. That was unlike any other skill. Yet when I focused on all of my affinities, these skills once again started to call to me.
Lola had no idea what this could mean, but to me at least, it seemed like I needed to have all three of my affinities for these skills to accept me absorbing them.
What was also weird was I believed there would be other combinations, perhaps even better suited, for these skills, but when I was holding one of them, it also felt like certain types of combinations of affinities would affect the outcome of what these skills could do.
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This type of feeling I got, and types of skills didn’t seem to have anything written about them. Of course, our database wasn't that extensive, but it was also no longer quite so sparse as before. So, for absolutely nothing to be written about this was a bit suspect.
What I suspect, and why I tried to keep hiding what types of skills I traded for, was because I believe that these are somehow special.
The one in my hand was simply named Telekinesis. It should be incredibly helpful in plenty of scenarios, even in combat. This type of skill should allow me to move stuff with my mind. Perhaps at higher ranks, even move myself.
If these skills are something special, then perhaps it would be a bad idea to absorb them. But in the end, I felt they would make me a lot stronger, so I shouldn’t hesitate so much.
Firming my decision, I increased the pressure on the stone until it cracked and crumbled, and I felt the skill being absorbed.
It took some time for it to be absorbed, but as I meditated and concentrated on it, it seemed to go faster. Eventually, after a few hours, I felt it settle inside of me. And now I had the new skill: Novice Telekinesis.
On one of the small shelves near the bed were a few dice. I concentrated on one of them. It was hard at first, but then I felt the connection to my skill, and ever so slowly, I managed to turn one of the dice over.
My whole body relaxed after I managed to do it. That was an actual workout. It felt like I was using a brand-new muscle that I’ve never had before.
Now I could see why some of the skill users I’ve seen always seem to mess with their skills. It’s because they need to constantly train to get better at using them.
I went and ate, then came back, as it was time to absorb another skill. This one was called Command. In the database, it showed that it should allow you to give small suggestions. Like ‘go home and enjoy your evening,’ and that person actually doing that.
Apparently, it should work better if the one you are trying to command would be receptive and would want to do what you say.
Now, I didn’t see too much use for this, and it felt kinda slimy, but the thing that made me want to absorb this skill was the fact that my Mechanist Affinity was also required for me to absorb this skill.
So perhaps not only could I give commands to people, but perhaps it would allow me to do so with electronic systems as well. That could be really useful.
So once again, I squeezed the skill, and it easily broke, then I started to absorb it. Once again, the process took a few hours, but once it was done, I now had the skill Novice Command.
Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be able to test this one, as everything in this ship was bonded to me, and if I commanded it, they would do it if they could. This meant it was time to move on to the next one.
This one was a bit of a more powerful skill, and it actually took me trading two skills to get this one. Fortunately, I managed to get Command and the fourth skill for only one of my skills, as the person who had them didn’t really value them.
This one was called 6th Sense. What the database said about this skill was that it allowed you to anticipate trouble, but it was better at danger sense, as it worked on more things than just physical danger.
It was weird that my mechanist affinity seemed to be required for this skill as well. There were probably more skills that worked like these four, but trying to research these types of skills would probably make me the primary target if anyone was actually searching for them.
Absorbing this skill took nearly six hours, which I was truly surprised about. The skill wasn’t at a higher rank or anything like that. It just seemed to be a lot more complex. I was also truly tired after that. Another curious thing about this skill seemed to be that it was always on. Perhaps this was more of a passive skill then.
Whatever the case was, no matter what I tried to do, this skill didn’t seem to do anything. But I also wasn’t in danger, so perhaps it wouldn’t trigger before anything truly heinous would happen.
After a good sleep and a really nice breakfast, it was time to absorb the last skill. This was called Sense Aura, and honestly, if this skill wasn’t giving me the same requirements for me absorbing it, I wouldn’t have looked at it twice. It sounds completely useless, but there must be a reason why it requires all my affinities, so I should still absorb it.
As soon as I was about to crush it, I got a tingle of a feeling. It wasn't a bad feeling, but something about this action was about to change something drastically. That made me hesitate, but in the end, I still cracked and then broke the skill stone, starting the absorption process.
Immediately, I knew something was wrong. With the other skills, I purposely started to meditate to absorb them, but this time I didn’t seem to have a choice. I could do nothing else but focus on absorbing it, understanding the skill, and letting it become a part of me.
Was I too hasty about all of this, perhaps? But I also didn’t get a bad feeling about what was happening. So, with nothing else that I could do, I just focused on absorbing the skill, and when I finally could open my eyes, I realized that nearly 14 hours had passed.
“...well, this skill just got a lot more interesting?”
“Remi, are you alright? I couldn’t wake you no matter what I tried,” Lola said when she finally noticed that I was awake again.
“Yeah, this one was weird...”
Yet my words trailed off when I started to notice something from the corner of my eye. The two personality cores that were still beside me seemed to no longer have just the slight yellowish glow, it was more of a rainbow now.
Focusing on that for a moment, I think I saw the connection we have before I felt the sharp pain in my head.
As soon as I stopped focusing on whatever I was seeing, everything went back to normal and the pain eased. Did I just overuse a skill? That type of sharp pain at the back of my head was described as happening when you pushed yourself too far with one of your skills.
As I looked inside, I was shocked to learn that I was nearly out of mana, and everything felt sore.
“Yeah, this skill is something else, and I believe we should never try to learn about what its skills could do. Even searching could put up red flags.”
“Agreed,” Lola said in a worried voice.
I was so tired that letting myself pass out seemed like a good idea.
Waking up, I felt refreshed, but perhaps working on this last skill could be left for a later date, when I was perhaps a bit stronger.
For the next few hours, I did some required maintenance and other jobs that needed to be done before I headed to the workshop and started to assemble the final pieces needed for the droids to be powered on.
Perhaps they would have some answers. They should be safe to ask anything about, because the only way they could tell anything about me would be if our bond was broken. And if that was the case, then that would mean I would most likely be dead. And why would anything matter then?