chapter 99
We stepped into the portal. Immediately, the connection to the rest of the scout drones already inside popped up, allowing me to see video of their current whereabouts.
Behind me, Dean’s squad entered, all of them managed to get through. We moved out a bit, but already we could see most of the area in this portal as it was quite open.
Sam’s squad was next, all of them also getting through. That was excellent news. Lola stepped in after them, with both of the squads of combat drones also getting through.
“Now that I didn’t expect.”
“It is indeed good news, Captain,” Sam commented.
Our alerts all went off simultaneously. We had incoming. It seems that our presence alerted some of the flyers.
The grass was to our chest height. I ordered one of the communication drones to go outside and order two squads of harvest drones to come in.
We opened fire on the approaching flyers. F-ranked portals really were tougher, as each flyer was able to take multiple shots before their dives were interrupted. Fortunately, it took only a few more shots to be hitting the right spots to finish some of them off.
Immediately, I felt my innate ability trigger. These monsters weren’t anything special. I only kept their talons and, of course, their core, soul, and mana from turning into currency. Those three I would be keeping always. If they had skills, then there was a chance to get a skill stone.
Monsters having skills were rare in the G-rank portals. In here, in an F-ranked portal, at least half of the monsters should have a skill, some even multiples. In E-ranked dungeons, every monster will have a skill, with it being even more common for monsters to have multiple ones.
The monsters got even more dangerous in higher ranks. This was clearly displayed here as to why more skills were dangerous. After the first diving attempt by them, the only ones to survive were those who had some type of helpful skill.
Some of them were better at dodging, probably some air manipulation. A few had some sort of air shield. It was still overwhelmed by our volume of fire.
Even while they were trying to find another approach, we were still firing. They were flying fast, but we finished off the 1st group that tried to attack us in just under 10 seconds.
We got more alerts of movement towards our position.
“This portal is close to bursting, the monsters aren't bound to certain areas,” I announced to everyone.
Usually, monsters kind of stayed where they were. There were, of course, exceptions, as some roamed more than others. There wasn’t a direct law that governed these monsters, but there were some patterns.
All of those patterns should be thrown out when a portal was close to bursting, meaning that it had accumulated so much mana that soon everything inside here could leave.
This was a bit of good news, as this meant that this portal was going to be a lot more profitable. It was also going to be more dangerous.
“Harvest drones, clear us an area. Everyone else, set up barriers and prepare for rush.”
The harvest drones immediately started to cut the grass all around us, with the rest of us pulling out expandable barriers that we set up to take cover behind.
The scout drones continued to feed us intel. More and more flyers were moving towards us, but not just them. The movement in the grass showed monsters converging on our location, and there were a lot of them.
“Switch to G-grade piercing ammunition. No saving credits here, this is too dangerous of a situation.”
I took my own advice and switched out the current cheaper ammo to the more expensive ones. They should be able to take down these monsters a lot easier, but they were still a grade behind, as getting higher rank materials wasn’t about having credits, it was about buying it before others did.
The harvest drones managed to clear the grass out about 30 feet in front of us before we needed to pull them back, as otherwise they would get destroyed.
Combat drones targeted the flyers, causing an aerial battle to happen. Sam’s squad focused on the flyers, while the rest of us were lined up ready to open up on any approaching land monster.
This tale has been pilfered from NovelFire. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
What burst out of the grass first were snake-like creatures that had multiple fin-like legs that they used to propel themselves. We opened fire, killing them quickly, although I did see a few bullets bounce off their scales.
This was the smaller of the two land-based monsters. The next monster that burst out looked like a giant rodent, but it also had scales. While it was wider than the fin snake, it was still quite narrow, but it did have plenty of muscle, especially in its back legs. As soon as it got out of the grass, it rocketed towards us at tremendous speeds.
We were quick to react. Every death took away some of my focus, but right now I just kept the basic three; the rest I turned into currency as I always did. The scale rat was even more resistant to our bullets, but the volume of fire was immense, so eventually we broke apart the scales, which allowed us to finally pierce the soft flesh and bone underneath.
What also helped us a lot was that each bullet still possessed quite a lot of blunt force, so most of the time we managed to daze any who tried to rush us.
To no one’s surprise, FH managed to confirm that the only things worth keeping on these monsters were the scales themselves.
Now, instead of piles of coins and cores, scales littered the ground as more and more monsters rushed us. We had brought in a lot of ammo, but we were constantly getting more supplies from the outside as the commotion brought in more and more monsters.
Our gunfire continued to cut down the grass. This gave us an even greater advantage as we could engage from a longer distance.
It was quite amazing seeing drones flying in formation, chasing down or trying to escape from flying monsters. There was a bit too much to observe, especially because every once in a while my ability triggered when we finally killed something.
After about four minutes, the only monsters alive who had chosen to attack us were the ones that had some really good skills.
For example, one of the scale rats had such strong scales, most likely because of a skill that our best bullets couldn’t pierce it. They still managed to knock it out because of the blunt force, but only for about 15 to 20 seconds, after which it started to move again, which meant we needed to shoot it again.
The flyers were finally taken care of, and only a few snakes were left that were really hard to properly hit when they were further away. We abandoned our fortifications and got close, which allowed us to finally hit them properly, killing them.
Now, the only monster left alive was the tough scale rat. Dean’s squad approached with one of them holding a large spike, another one pulled out a large sledgehammer. It took them five hits to get through the scale, and another one to pierce the spike deep enough to kill it.
For the first time, I was able to witness how a core turned into a skill stone. Like every time, when you leave the mana and soul behind with some part of the monster, the power will gravitate towards that, making it real and reinforcing it when there’s more power left over.
It made the scales real but also the core, yet most of what was left continued to pour into the core in one specific location. When almost all of the soul was gone, the core compressed, with pieces of it flaking off, turning into dust, with a smaller stone remaining.
It was greenish in colour and not a uniform shape. It was smooth and glossy like every other skill stone. Unfortunately, this one wasn't calling to me.
I wondered what it was, but when a skill didn’t call, there were only two ways of finding out what it was: one was getting a person who did hear the call to tell you what it was or use specific mana tech devices that could also identify what type of skill stone it was.
Most likely we were going to have to invest in one of those.
“Is that all of them?” I asked, immediately getting an answer as the scouts were still reporting movement further in.
“A rough estimate indicated that about 70% of the monsters were taken out.”
“We move as one. Let’s clear this place.”
The rest of the monsters didn't rush us; they stayed quite close to their spawning locations.
Thanks to our aerial units it was easy to see where the boss of this portal was. It was easy to see it because the grass around it was burnt away. It was one of the scale rats, but it was bigger, and it radiated heat.
Unfortunately for it, its scales were less durable, so it was actually easier to kill than the one we got the skill stone from. Unfortunately, the boss didn’t drop a skill stone. So, from all of the monsters here, we only got one skill stone.
Was this lucky or unlucky? I did not know. It will take more portals to find that out. If this luck holds, it will mean my innate ability most likely boosted my chances a thousand-fold.
There were still a few monsters alive, but we weren’t going to kill them just yet, as the harvesters were currently doing their own job. About 10% of the grass could be brought out, and while 99% of it would be gone after processing, that 1% was worth quite a lot, so it was worth the time spent.
Fortunately, we didn't have to guess what we could bring out. Other people have already figured out how to tell what could be brought out and what couldn’t.
You could sense the mana density, but only I could do this, as everyone else here was a machine. Others have had similar problems, so they figured out that the stuff that could be brought out had a different frequency from the stuff that couldn't be brought out, as absolutely everything vibrated in some type of frequency.
It was easy enough with the sensors all the harvest drones had to figure out what didn't fit with the rest. There were also some other herbs about, but since there were so few here, all of them could be brought out, similar to when in a cave-type portal, you came across an ore vein. There were exceptions to this, like there were for most other things to do with portals.
And in the end, you could always do the trial method. Anything you tried to bring out of the portal would disappear unless you could keep it, so that was a bulletproof way of finding out if you had something worthwhile.
It took us less than half an hour to clear this portal of almost all of its monsters. It will approximately take another 45 minutes to an hour to harvest everything else.
Dean’s and Sam’s squad stayed inside, keeping an eye on the few remaining monsters while I and Lola left.
“FH, anything to report?”
“Nothing critical. I am keeping track of anything and everything we find so we could start tracking how much wealth we can bring out from a portal on average.”
“Good. Although it will most likely fluctuate quite a bit depending on what we find.”
We watched as bundles of grass were being brought out of the portal and stacked in the cargo bay. Some of it was already being taken to the third floor where it was going to be processed into usable materials.
Time went by fast as I focused on fixing the protocols for portal claiming. I really wanted to shave that 20 minutes down to about 10. We were also going to need to make some changes to how we were harvesting things, but those changes we were already implementing, which was already speeding things up.
Thanks to those changes, we finished in 40 minutes. This turned out to be a good test because even while being out here, my ability still triggered when the final monsters were killed inside the portal. That was something unexpected, but something incredibly useful. It also showed that some skills could still work even through the portal. That was some good knowledge to have.
The portal collapsed about 15 minutes after the final monster was killed. The stronger the portal, the longer that time should be. If you were inside when it collapsed, there was a good chance that you were just ejected, but there was a chance no one would ever find you again, so normally you wouldn’t want to take that risk.
It took 15 minutes to remove the expandable pillars and the flooring. Finally, the shield drone lifted off, landing inside the left wing hangar through the drone port.
From landing to takeoff, it took close to three hours to completely clear this portal, with an approximate profit of 6 million credits plus the unidentified skill stone. From all of that, only 700,000 was currency we could easily use without raising any suspicions. That wasn’t bad for three hours of work.
“Let’s hit two more portals today, and then we'll go back to base.”
“Yes, Captain.”