chapter 121
POV: Bob
It was strange to walk around like this. I liked the feedback that my new body was giving me. Each step now felt like I was doing something meaningful.
“Sam, I’m going to have to start working on dismantling the factory. Are you good to continue making the neural net alone?”
“All good,” he answered back, showing a thumbs up as he moved towards that part of the factory that was dedicated to making the neural net.
The commands I gave now felt snappier as I ordered everyone around to stop most of the production lines. It would take a bit of time for everything to run clear.
When I made it to my office, I started to disconnect everything. I had spent a lot of time in this room organising and controlling the factory, but more specifically making us a lot of credit with our protection services and trade that was flowing through our claimed area.
There would be a power vacuum, but that would no longer be our problem. Still, I sent messages to my best contacts that our protection services would end soon.
“FH, can you handle the bureaucracy of us pulling out of this place?”
“Of course, Bob, I’m on it.”
“Thanks. That will help a lot with my workload.”
The way everything felt as I moved and worked was so chaotically amazing. Kinda wished that I could turn up my senses even more, but I had already maxed them out. Now, even the subtle shifts of air were something so noticeable. This truly was so nice.
As everything in my office was finally packed up, I was left with two crates of stuff that were going straight onto the ship, while the rest would be broken down, and only the expensive materials would be brought on board.
We can’t just tear everything up, and some of the factory needs to be expanded so we could handle all the dismantling we need to do. We can repurpose some of the other machines for that task.
In my mind, the current factory plan was shifting, with new orders being listed for my subordinates. As I walked out onto the factory floor, the quiet hit me. Usually, it was incredibly noisy here, but now most of the factory lines were quiet.
I let the drones do their work as I headed deeper into our base to the protected areas down below. There were guards here, most of whom were going to be dismantled, with their cores being put into storage for when we need them. We simply didn’t have the room to bring all our troops with us.
The one exception would be the four heavy guards. They were always meant to be brought along as they were our heavy hitters, although technically now our new bodies would be able to match them, especially when we start to get skills.
Speaking of that, I finally opened up the vault doors, revealing our most valuable possessions. There was nearly a billion worth of skill stones here. They were constantly being sold and purchased; that’s why they were here and not on the ship. But we were no longer going to be doing trading like I had been doing, so all of these needed to be moved up to the ship.
It was strange to now feel how some of these skills were calling to me. Previously, I had only read about what this might be like, and those descriptions never mentioned how amazing it felt for power like that to be wanting you.
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My eyes went to one particular skill that was basically worth half of our current valuation for all our skills. It was one of the first ones we got. We thought it was nothing special. Oh boy, we were wrong.
Holding it in my hand, I had the urge to crush the stone, but I would wait and ask the captain.
The skill itself is named Impervious Scales. Now, normally I should not be able to absorb this skill, but I specifically asked Lola to make my under armour stronger than all the others and for it to be overlapping scales.
Now I wasn’t 100% sure it would work, as I still have a layer of skin on top that wasn't as smooth as the others, simply because some of the ridges of the scaled armour underneath were showing.
My bulwark affinity seems to want this skill, and the skill approves enough of my current make-up for me to be able to use this truly top-tier skill.
Placing the skill with all the others into a large sack, I started to head back upstairs, leaving the vault empty. It was then that I got a message from the captain.
“By the way, everyone can use any of the skills we have gotten, no matter how expensive.”
My hand twitched, and it was hard to keep it from finding that skill stone again. The captain did mention that he did not want to use this one on the ship itself because it would not be the best protection to change the ships armour into scales.
Also, no one else seemed to be wanting defence of this magnitude, and I guess they wouldn’t even be able to absorb the skill because none of them had the right affinity.
So my hands found the skill, and I crushed it. The feeling of it entering me was amazing, and I focused on understanding this skill. It took me about an hour, as it was quite complex, but I will be able to shave that down for the rest of the skills.
Activating it briefly, I felt myself becoming impervious. Of course, that wasn't entirely true, but since the skill was called Impervious Scales, I could understand why it was giving me such a feeling. A brief thought entered my mind, and on instinct I also activated my innate ability.
Oh, it did strengthen it further. Then a shiver went through me as I realised Lola would want to test this. I have seen what she does to the captain, and she cares for him the most out of all of us. I really should have waited longer to absorb this skill. I really hope she will be too busy with everything else.
What followed was a lot of work getting the factory dismantled. More and more of our outside guard forces returned, only to be stripped apart, with their cores stored and everything else turned into either scrap or materials that we will take with us.
FH was also having a bit of a problem getting us legally cleared off all our responsibilities. It seems that most people think we will try to escape our responsibility of helping deal with that A-rank space portal.
What should help is finding a good contract to supply one of the outposts down on the planet. Finding a contract wouldn’t be hard as there were so many up right now. The problem is a lot of those contracts needed us to take stuff off the planet, including people, and that was not to our liking.
We needed a contractor that would allow us to stay on the planet for a bit without having to worry about loading up and heading back up. The captain doesn’t want what happened to us to happen to her here, as he thinks it would bring too much attention to us, and I agreed.
All of that didn’t matter right now as it was finally time for Lola to get her own body. Hers still looked quite small, and I guess by human standards she would be quite cute. If I’m not mistaken, she was going for the stealth assassin type of body. It will fit quite well with her personality.
She opened her eyes like the rest of us, confused about the new sensors she was feeling.
“Lower your input, that helped me,” Sam said, and Dean seemed to agree. I didn’t agree with that as I just maxed mine out to get used to all of it quicker. Probably the best decision I made.
I had seen what was about to happen two times and experienced it myself, but it was still amazing to see it happen. The captain explained it even better because he could actually see what happens.
Apparently, our flame stabilisers, which I think represent our soul strength, and then the mana rebirth happens naturally, probably because of our connection to the captain.
Our connection to the captain is now deeper as well, as I’m pretty sure that the souls we currently have all stem from him. I am guessing that even if all our bonds were to be broken, we would still feel connected to the captain because his soul was the seed of ours.
When Lola woke up, the captain led and we followed behind Lola. She placed her hand on the reading crystal, and we all waited for FH to reveal her status.
Name: Lola
Age: -
Species: Bio-cybernetic humanoid
Bonds: To Remi Graves
Items: None
Body: rank G
Mind: rank G
Core: rank G
Innate ability: Understanding Touch
Affinity:
Healing: rank G 2/4 0/18
Precision: rank G 2/4 0/12
Skills: None
I think she was happy with what she got, and that precision affinity should help her in combat as well. After she processed everything, she did smile. That was good. I looked towards Dean, as he was the only one of us who got three affinities. I wonder why that was.
“I waited for a long time to announce this, but I have seen FH’s flame grow stronger as I continue to add more of the neural net. I am basically done with upgrading everything, and that would not be enough to trigger a full stabilisation of the flame.”
I could feel sadness coming from FH, but the captain continued.
“We will just need to double up in some places and make a few larger clusters of neural net, and I think that would be enough to trigger it. Before we go, we need to have enough neural net in storage, which I believe we are close to,” he said while looking towards Sam, who nodded.
“Excellent. I want everything we’re bringing with us on the ship in four days, ready for takeoff,” he looked towards me.
“I can make that happen.” It was going to be really tight, but it should be possible. How does he always know the time so exactly?
“I believe, Bob, you have also secured some healing skills for Lola?”
“Of course,” I said, a bit offended.
“Then that is everything critical taken care of. Let’s get ourselves off this rock, shall we?”
“Yes, captain.”