chapter 53
When working on the final assembly for Sam and Dean’s droid bodies, I was constantly distracted by wanting to do things that went against the blueprints I had for these droid bodies.
This has happened to me before, but usually only when I thought things through properly. Yet now, those insights seemed to come out of nowhere.
It didn't take me long to realize that it was my new skill, 6th Sense. It now made more sense why the mechanist affinity was required for it.
Looks like in the future, making stuff and fixing stuff was going to be even easier, although I can see it being a bit annoying as well, as it was taking longer than I wanted to finish this.
Although it would be stupid of me not to make my new crew members the best bodies I can, even if we will be upgrading them sooner rather than later.
That made me bring up my status screen.
Name: Remi Graves
Age: 34
Species: Human variant (bio-cybernetic) Male
Bonds:
AI: Lola, Bob, Dean, Sam (100+)
Ship: Forward Horizon
Items: None
Enhancements: Bio-cybernetics, Bio-nano machines
Body: rank G
Mind: rank G
Core: rank G
Innate ability: Looting variant
Affinity:
Basic: rank G 1/3
Mind: rank G 1/3
Mechanist: rank G 1/3
Skills:
Novice Mana Sense
Novice Mind Guard
Novice Telekinesis
Novice Command
Novice 6th Sense
Novice Sense Aura
New AI bonds showed up. There still didn’t seem to be any bonded items, but I hadn’t tried to do that anyways, and I’m pretty sure they are somewhat connected to me through my ship’s bond.
None of my skills have advanced from the novice proficiency, but if I were to switch it to show levels, then my mana sense and mind guard did show growth. One being at level 5, the other at level 3.
While it would be nice to see such progress, I think I will keep it on the proficiency system, as I think that would be a cleaner look, and I really didn’t need to see the constant feedback of level-ups just to understand that I was getting better with these skills.
This raised the question of why there wasn’t an option to show both, I don’t know, and honestly, I didn’t have the time to look into the programming and perhaps change it. But once again, I didn’t care enough.
Now that the droid bodies were done, it was time to insert the personality core into the AI housings, and then that into the droid bodies.
Everything seemed to go without any problems, but before I woke them up from their sleep, for Sam’s droid body, I put a blue handprint on his left shoulder, and for Dean, I put a red one. Otherwise, they looked like humanoid droids with longer arms than normal.
Was that needed for me to tell them apart? No, but it was nice to have distinctions. So now that everything was done, I decided to test out my new command skill. Technically, this should allow me to wake them up without having to interact with their hardware.
“It’s time to wake up.”
My voice sounded weird to me, like it was echoing, but both of the droid bodies twitched a moment later, so it seemed to work.
“We are awake,” they both said in unison, which was starting to get a bit creepy.
They seemed to be running diagnostics, checking out their bodies to see if they could control them properly.
“This is a bit different,” Dean said as he moved his hand in a smoother way than he was expecting.
“I concur. You have made some improvements. You seem more impressive than I thought possible,” Sam added.
“Does everything feel good? Nothing out of place?”
“It feels good enough, although we are now a lot slower than we were, as our older bodies were quite a bit more advanced, so we can’t protect you as well,” Dean said, and Sam agreed.
“Let me send you the language key so we won’t have to talk in Standard, as I don’t know it as well as I should.”
“A curious language. I like it,” Sam said after they had time to process it. Now, not through our bond but talking with his body. “No, that’s a voice I don’t enjoy. Let me change that. Yes, that seems better,” he finally ended, with quite a normal-sounding voice.
Dean did the same, but his voice was a bit deeper.
Next, what I did was tell them a bit about myself, how I grew up, my accident, and how I ended up here. They seemed quite fascinated and totally impressed that I had survived up until this point.
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“And I thought we had a tough time. This galaxy really is a tough place to exist,” Sam said after I had been quiet for a little bit.
“What about your stories?” I asked them.
Dean looked toward Sam, who started to speak.
“We were created unlike most AI are made. The one who made us didn’t believe in the universal laws and wanted to use us and millions of our brothers to start his conquest of the galaxy. He was a madman, and when he started his so-called conquest, it didn't take long for people to notice that he had a lot of unbound AI’s.”
“We lost many even before the adventurers came, simply because even the small amount of mana on the planet started to twist some of our brothers. It was terrible to need to kill the ones we fought with just moments ago, or to see them kill themselves.”
Sam went quiet at that. But Dean answered my unasked question.
“The madman who made us knew the inherent problem of unbound AI. So from the very beginning, he programmed into us a failsafe to fry our systems if we were corrupted. Yet mana doesn't work like that. It can corrupt in many different ways and even change the failsafe,” Dean finished explaining, with Sam continuing the story.
“That’s the reason why we were selected when the adventurers who came defeated our master. Mana changed us in a positive way. We were less restricted, could more easily learn and apply what we learned, and most importantly, when our maker died, the failsafe didn't trigger that would have made us go mad.”
“At first, the adventurer who managed to claim us was just another rookie who needed to join the fight. Afterwards, he managed to quickly claim power, as we were able to help him clear many portals. The stronger he got the more vicious he became, eventually starting to turn to crime.”
“It took decades, but eventually his crew became wealthy enough to get themselves a battlecruiser. For a bit after that, they did things properly, but they didn’t much like the danger of fighting space monsters and soon turned to crime once again. It didn't take long for them to be found out and be labelled as pirates.”
“Those have been terrible years. Our last master’s cruelty seemed to continue to grow. We really didn’t like what we had to do, what he made us do.”
Once again, after that, Sam was quiet, so Dean continued.
“About a year ago our master’s ship joined a pirate group. They did that so they would have a better chance at joining a pirate Lord, and just a few months ago they got their chance of being recruited, but they had to prove themselves. It was terrible business, and all the attacks that have most likely happened now on different stations are because of this recruitment drive.”
“What are they recruiting for, and can you explain a bit more about the structure of pirates? As you know, I’m quite new to this,” I asked. Dean gave a small nod and started to explain.
“Sure. First, you have just pirates. They are the ones that do piracy, quite self-explanatory. After that comes a pirate captain. They are the ones who run a pirate ship. Then we have a pirate group. They are pirate fleets. Each ship has its own captain, and usually they are more like an alliance than one singular entity.”
“After that, there are the Pirate Lords. Those are the pirates who rule over actual areas of space and have dozens or hundreds of pirate groups underneath them. Our master’s pirate group tried to join underneath a pirate Lord named Lord Virory Shi Tergeny.”
It seemed that that name was supposed to mean something to me, as they both were surprised that I didn’t seem to know it.
“Virory Shi Tergeny is a pirate Lord who rules around these parts. He seems to be a part of some clan that has quite a lot of influence,” Lola added to my missing knowledge.
“My sister, that clan is a lot more important than you think it is. And as little importance as you have given to the ‘Lord’ part of his name, I suspect that both of you don’t know the importance of it. Have you been made aware of how people get official titles?” Sam asked, and I had to shake my head.
“Well, that’s not a surprise, as we only learned about that not too long ago ourselves,” Dean said, with Sam continuing the explanation.
“On your status page, I’m sure you know that everyone starts at G rank. But of course, species all differ. Some even have, like you do, cybernetics. You are, of course, a lot stronger than a normal human because of that. Using a status page to understand how strong someone is, is a good way to get yourself killed.”
“The titles start from Lords. Then there are Barons, Viscounts, Counts, Dukes, and finally Kings. Pirates are a bit special, as the powerful do not recognise them above Lords. Before you even become a Lord, usually you get some sort of nickname as you start to prove yourself capable enough.”
“When people start to truly recognise you and give you the Lord title. Well, a lot of the upper society should open up. Or at least that’s what we heard from our former master. As an example, he didn’t even have a proper nickname, and we would have been counted towards his power.”
After that, things got a bit quiet as I tried to absorb all of this.
“I have met a Baron before, but do you guys know what this truth might be, as the primer he gave me seemed to indicate something like that?” I explained a bit more to try to see if they knew anything.
“That we do not know,” Dean said. “But now, back to the topic.
“Pirate Lord Virory Shi Tergeny is a part of a ducal clan, which means that clan has more than one person recognised by others to be a Duke. Only he seems to be a pirate from that clan, but they are supporting him. And what they did, it will lead to a large-scale war.”
“Will the nations go to war with pirates for what they did with the stations?”
“What? No! They would only do that if pirates started to attack population centres. Why would you think that?” Dean slapped the back of Sam’s head.
“That’s because we haven’t told them yet why this Pirate Lord started recruiting so heavily, and what war is about to happen.”
“Oh, right. So apparently, this Pirate Lord managed to intercept a large skill stone shipment meant for another Pirate Lord also connected to a ducal clan. They used the stolen skill stones to start recruiting, so they could start a war with that Pirate Lord to take over the area they operate in.” Sam explained.
“Absolutely a stupid idea, in my opinion,” Dean added.
“Agreed, because that Pirate Lord is scary. And Pirate Lord Virory Shi Tergeny most likely assumed that their inactivity in not claiming new areas showed weakness, but I think it’s the opposite. They were probably just consolidating their gains.” Sam added with a bit more excitement than I thought warranted.
They continued to explain what this war would mean. Both of the pirate Lords had hundreds of pirate groups underneath them and were backed by ducal clans. The other pirate Lord’s name was Lord Ythrel Veylith of the Veylith clan, who was apparently a Count before he turned to piracy.
All of this seemed complicated, as the power structure of the powerful was more complex than I anticipated. There was one thing that worried me. If the skills were stolen from this pirate Lord Ythrel Veylith, there was a good chance that those four skills that were now a part of me were probably the true gems of that shipment.
“Have you ever heard of a skill that requires multiple affinities? And I don’t mean skills that accept multiple different kinds of affinities.”
“Wait, don’t tell me that there were some recovered from the pirate ships and then distributed. And especially don’t tell me that you got some?” Dean asked.
“To be fair, none of them were assigned to me as a reward. But I did make it so that everyone started to trade for similar kinds of skills after they were given out, and four of those skills that I felt required multiple affinities might have been absorbed by me already.”
Dean just lowered his head while Sam looked a bit panicked. It was Dean who spoke.
“So, skills that require multiple affinities are what's called transcended skills. Most of them are named like any other skill, so they’re often missed by others. The same name will usually have its primary affinity, let’s say a fireball needing you to have a fire affinity. Yet that fireball skill could also require you to have, specifically, an affinity called Green Rot Fire.”
“There would be no way of finding out what affinity a skill needs unless someone with that affinity can tell you that, yes, I can absorb that skill. To be fair, most skills like fireball could use most affinities that have the word ‘fire’ in it.” As soon as Dean finished saying that, Sam almost spoke over him, as he seemed quite excited.
“An interesting thing is that you would think that those skills would be worth more that have such specific affinity requirements, but it’s actually the opposite, as it’s really rare to actually find someone with that special affinity. So those skills usually just take up space. They are referred to as wasted inventory by skill sellers.”
“So as I was explaining,” Dean said a bit louder to make Sam stop, “that's why most transcendent skills are missed. Transcendent skills are usually stronger, and from what I understand, there can be different combinations of affinities that could work for one transcendent skill.”
“Usually, skills like that are monopolized by strong clans, and if those skills were really from that shipment the Pirate Lord stole, then this war will most likely be a lot more vicious than I thought.” Dean finished, but Sam immediately continued.
“You see, some portals can be permanent, and constantly clearing them makes them even more permanent. From certain monsters, certain skill stones can drop. That’s why some clans are so powerful. Affinities are inherited, and if you have a permanent portal that gives you transcendent skill stones or other strong ones, you could build up your power base quite nicely.”
Sam wanted to continue, but Dean interrupted once again. “It’s a good thing that you managed to hide your acquisition of these skills, but you need to be careful. Also, I’m pretty sure that these skills take a bit more space than other skills, so you should be careful about how many you absorb.”
“Is there a way to know how much skill space you have?” I asked them both. As that was something I still didn’t know.
“There is some way to tell, as our old master always complained that he was so close to being at the limit, but we do not know what they are.”
All of this was truly fascinating and a bit worrying, but I also needed to make one thing clear to them.
“Never call me master. I’m your captain, is that understood?”
“Yes, captain,” they both said in unison.
“As you both can see, we don't have much room on this ship, so you will need to manage here as best as you can. We are currently travelling to a shipyard so that I could start making a bigger ship for us to use, but we're still a few months away from reaching it. I hope that is fine?”
“More space than we had before,” Sam said as he looked around.
“Good. Honestly, for now I don’t know much about what you guys can do. There isn't room to practise. I will need to know what kinds of weapons you would like to use. Most likely I’m guessing you would be security, but we can figure all of this out as we go along.”
They both seemed happy with that as they started to explain what types of weapons they liked to use. Mainly, it was bladed sword-type weapons. They seemed to be really competent, and I was glad about that.