chapter 86
The current simulation showed us surrounded by flyers. These weren’t your regular ones that just try to swarm and claw their way through the shields. These ones were smart and had the capability of lobbing plasma balls that did some real damage.
When we got the AI to a point where we could start running simulations compared to where we were now, the difference was like night and day. Everyone was working together like they were a perfectly synched orchestra, with every member being a genius.
No matter what the red dots tried to do, all of their attack runs were broken up before they could start to do any real damage. Every shot fired from our weapons was just way too accurate, and the hits that did get through, there was never an opening in a shield for them to penetrate. On most of the hits, the shields were layered so close together that they managed to share heat loads whenever they were hit.
Of course, all of this is simulated. We had to stop the real explosives a while ago because the cost of running these simulations was starting to get high. Every gun still fired real bullets. We have been at this for almost 8 months, and over 400 simulations done outside of FTL. All of this costing us nearly 40 million if we went by galactic prices.
We still periodically jumped into FTL when we needed to process the data we had collected, but even then, we ran full VR simulations for the entire ship, where everyone was in the VR.
Even with all of this stopping about, we were getting quite close to our destination. It seemed that it was time to start the next chapter of this journey of ours.
“Excellent job. We did better than expected during these simulations, and you have all shown true mastery over your given tasks. We will still have an after-action report as usual, but I believe it’s going to be quite a short one, as there didn’t seem to be any mistakes made. With this, I also announce that we are done with these types of simulations for now. The next stop we make will be at our destination.”
I clicked off the intercom that broadcasted that declaration to the entire ship. The funny thing was that I could have said all of this through my bond as absolutely everyone was connected to me, but sometimes saying things out loud just felt better.
I watched and listened to the after-action report in complete silence as I didn’t have to do anything. It was so nice that everyone had become so competent.
It was hard work, but I managed to keep up with everyone else’s progress, so even now I still maintained the best tactical decision-making, at least on the larger scale. The small decisions everyone else made were beyond my understanding, but they helped us survive way more times than not.
“To conclude, yes, we should be proud of where we are right now, but please don’t forget that these were just simulations. The real thing will be different, more messy,” Lola added as a last reminder to everyone, now that she was finally finished with her job of being the villain in all these simulations.
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I stood up and walked beside her. “Can we get a round of appreciation for what Lola did? Without her these simulations wouldn’t have felt so real.”
The few crew members we had all applauded. The rest of the appreciation came from the ship itself, as its hundreds of AIs that composed it thanked her in their own ways.
She didn't say anything, just smiled. I think she was a bit overwhelmed.
“Now that that's over, we will do last checks, get all the parts replaced that are a bit worn from all the use, and then we are off.”
I could feel the activity that burst all around the ship. The maintenance of a combat spaceship was truly monstrous, but I had so much help.
The best part was that we now had enough nano machines to fill out the tasks that they were great at. Identifying wear on components and things that might break was one of those things that they were truly magnificent at.
This meant that it was time to go back to the workshop, as we probably had some repairs that needed to be done.
Three days later.
We had just entered FTL about a few hours ago. I had nothing better to do, so I was on the 4th floor in a small room. The walls were covered with cubes that had holes in them made from quite expensive materials. These were the same types of cubes used in the rebirth chair to store enough mana for its use.
While fighting monsters was the best way to get stronger, there was a more passive way. When we weren’t in FTL, I could gather mana from our surroundings, especially because we were now in a red zone that had higher mana density than normal. In the side dimension that didn’t work, so we needed this type of room.
Doing this was incredibly slow, but it helped my understanding of mana, which was more than useful, it was necessary. While technology seems to remain the king when it comes to delivering large-scale destruction, magic is most definitely the king for any other type of fighting.
The two skills that I have used the most are 6th Sense and Telekinesis. I felt quite close to their next proficiency rank, while others were lagging behind. One of my skills was still basically at the start point.
Sense Aura was still quite puzzling. Even if I was now stronger, the skill still felt out of reach. Whenever I tried to figure it out, my 6th Sense flared in a way I knew that proceeding would be a bad idea, so I stopped. I’m still curious as to where that skill was going to lead me.
My three new skills were coming along nicely. Pretty sure they were nearly at their next rank, as I had been getting my ass beaten during training for quite a while, especially to get these skills up.
It has not been the most pleasant activity, but I have gotten a lot better at close combat, which seems to be quite important, especially when you got fast enough that dodging bullets becomes reality.
We need to be quite careful when we start to interact more with other adventurers. As you never knew how strong they could be. The good thing is that that should make interactions overall easier, because whenever you met someone new you need to treat them as if they could crush you all in an instant. Basically, it was a cold war before you knew each other’s capabilities.
Continuing to sit in this small room absorbing mana made me realise that what I was doing was cultivating. So were the ancient humans really more knowledgeable about how the universe really worked? Were there lost civilizations that actually knew magic? Was that the reason why there was this weird connection between humans, elves and dwarves?
Lola did find something to support that theory. While all the solar systems spin around the core of the galaxy and the FTL current moves along them, with new pathways being made and old ones disappearing as the gravity of our dimension affects their paths. There is one huge exception.
That is the main current that comes in from another galaxy, moves through ours and heads towards the Andromeda Galaxy. That current hasn't changed position in recorded history. All of this meant that humans would have been around and had the technology for fire when we were still in a location in the main current that might have had just barely enough mana density.
So there was a chance that humans could have gone through mana rebirth the old-fashioned way, slowly, over decades, gathering enough mana to trigger a rebirth.
Perhaps when I’m rich enough, and if there are actually skills that could see into the past, we could go back to Earth and witness what might've actually happened so far back in history.
Now I haven’t heard of such skills, but we are dealing with magic after all, and who knows what it's capable of.