chapter 102
POV: Remi
“Bob sent another message. The trouble has been cleared up.” Dean informed us all.
I had been meditating to solidify my current improvements into the mind aspect to increase its rank. For me, that was from the three aspects the body, the mind, and the soul the most important one was the mind aspect, as both my mind affinity and mechanist affinity almost exclusively were improved by it.
The interruption set me back a little bit. All of us gathered in the command bridge as someone infiltrating our base was quite serious.
All of us seemed to relax as Bob confirmed that he had already dealt with everything. Of course, we wanted more information, but we had all come to learn that no communication was ever truly secure. Everyone kept long-distance messages vague and so did we.
We were about halfway back to base so just in case I did not go back to meditating. While I was basically 100% sure everything was alright and that Bob actually handled everything, we still needed to be careful while returning so we wouldn't walk into an ambush.
We were able to push our speed quite a lot, but as we got closer to the city we needed to slow down so no one would think us a threat. FH was handling the necessary communications and getting proper clearances for us to re-enter the city’s dome.
The re-entry was as bumpy as ever, as going from no atmosphere into a proper one in just a few metres caused quite a lot of shock. It was also another reason why we needed to slow down quite a lot, as re-entering at too high of a speed would actually cause damage.
Now we needed to go quite slowly because of the speed limits, but the base was quite close now. There was no sign of any fighting from the outside. Now I was also close enough to be in contact with Bob through our bond.
“So what exactly happened?” I asked him, getting some images back. “You have cleaned up quite well.” And I truly meant it, as there was no trace of anything indicating 40 people tried to infiltrate our base.
“We might have another problem. With the local gang gone I’m afraid that others might try to take their territory which will bring even more trouble.” While Bob sounded reasonable, I could tell he was a bit excited about that.
“We’ll discuss that during the meeting.”
The hangar door now opened up and now we were certain there wasn’t an ambush waiting for us.
We landed and from the cameras we could already see Bob rushing in to start checking the cargo on board.
“Meeting in 12 hours, use this time to make all your reports and go over everything that happened. Afterwards, we can come up with an action plan of what we're going to be doing.”
Everyone dispersed, some heading off the ship, some staying on like me. There was no better place outside the ship for me to meditate, so the meditation room was my current destination.
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As I started ascending to the 4th floor from down below I heard yelling. Apparently, Bob wasn’t satisfied with how his subordinate AIs dealt with packing up all that we got from the portals.
That brought a smile to my face but once again I was going to have to talk to Bob about volume control.
It took me almost five hours to solidify all my gains from three F-ranked portals. That was a lot of progress but I will need to complete at least a dozen more to get my mind aspect to E rank. With similar number needed for both the body and the soul aspects as well.
To advance I didn’t just need raw power, I also needed understanding of those aspects. Fortunately that wasn't difficult at such lower ranks as my understanding eclipsed the current rankings. Perhaps that wouldn’t have been true with the soul aspect but my innate ability has helped me understand it quite well.
All of my affinities were still at G rank. For them it was less about gathering power and more about understanding those affinities. This was a bit harder, so I think I will need to carve out a decent chunk of my time to truly start understanding how to properly comprehend and advance them.
Right now I didn’t have time for this. What I will need to do is make some more AIs, as I now had more room to add more bonds thanks to the increase of my mind aspect.
There was still plenty of time until the meeting, so it was time to start going over everything and finish my own reports.
***
We were all gathered on the 4th floor in the small hydroponics area around a table. Usually we did it on the third floor, but the factory was in full swing there, so it was kind of loud. Bob was focused on what was on the table.
“Why aren't you already using one of these skills? It should be quite good for you,” he eventually said.
“I think it’s too early to go in that direction.” That was my neutral answer, as I didn’t want to reveal the real reason.
“I believe if you had scales instead of skin, you could use the other skill as well,” Sam said, causing us all to look at him and then back to the other skill on the table.
“That's worth testing out, so we won't be selling this one as well,” was my answer to everyone, as it was a good idea.
“What are we going to do about the different gangsters here? They're sure to start fighting all around us and will want protection credits to leave us alone?” Dean asked.
“Are you sure they’re going to demand credits from us?” Lola questioned.
“I think that’s a moot point,” I interrupted them both. “I am going to need to add some more bonded AIs, so why not make some to take over the gangs' territory?”
“Wait, are we sure that the entirety of the gang is gone?” FH interjected.
“I went over the footage and identified all the major leaders that were known to the authorities,” Bob said, and pulled up the list, sending us all the confirmed IDs of the gang members.
Quickly going over the list, it seemed that everyone was dead. Those who weren’t would probably already have escaped with everything valuable taken with them.
“Are we sure we want to get involved there with the politics of this area? It could bring more attention towards us.” Sam asked a bit concerned.
We continued to discuss whether we should do this or not.
“So in conclusion, we are going to basically set up our own defensive gang against the others so there wouldn’t be any push from the other local gangs. This is so that we would have more breathing room. Even if fights would follow, it would be further away from here and would just bring us more experience,” FH finished, and we all agreed.
“One thing,” Sam interrupted. “We are talking about regular experience, not something that would advance you, Captain. But when there’s killing involved, it should also boost your rank as well, should it not?”
“If I’m close enough, then yes, but most of the time we will be clearing portals. I did not receive anything when these 40 were killed, as we were simply too far away. I also didn’t feel anything being done to Bob, so I’m pretty sure I need to be close enough to have a proper bond connection for it to work.”
“That means we’re going to need to find some skill that would help you extend your bond range. Of course, right now we need to keep to one portal, but if your range is good enough in the future, we might be able to start clearing multiple portals at the same time,” Sam explained, and I most definitely agreed.
If we could find a good enough skill like that, perhaps even two or three of them for each of my affinities, it would mean that my effective range for my looting ability would increase tremendously, and so would my active control of my bonded AIs.
I am a bit disappointed that I couldn’t feel Bob being subverted, but at least my Hardened Connections skill did its job not allowing the bond to be stolen. In all honesty, I would like to capture one of these cult members, as they seem to have a better understanding of what you can do and not do with bonds.
“Now let’s move on. Let’s talk about what we did right and what we didn’t during the portal delves, and I believe, Bob, you have ideas on what we should do with our factory?”
And so the discussion picked up once again. These meetings were important, but as I have learned, too many meetings can drag productivity down, so we needed to be more efficient about this. A smile was on my face, as all of this was incredibly fun.