chapter 165
What I was currently doing was madness. The ship was flying around the solar system filled with space monsters that were hunting us, yet I was in my workshop, tinkering away, letting my FH do all the work.
For a week there I stayed in the command centre monitoring everything. In all honesty, there were only a few things that I was better at than FH and her AIs, and right now, we didn’t even need our best. The part of me that chases efficiency was so damn pleased right now.
The table in front of me was currently empty, as I had to put everything away. That was one of the troublesome things about tinkering while we were actively moving about and fighting. No one wanted stuff flying around, so I had a timer constantly in my vision that showed when the next set of adjustment burdens were going to happen and when we got near a fight.
This didn’t mean that we were taking our opponents lightly. There was always a chance that one of those space monsters would have some dangerous skill, but even that could be somewhat known beforehand.
With mana sense, you could tell a lot about any individual. It would be hard to figure out the exact skill they had, but if you had a skill, it was easy enough to tell you apart from another that didn’t. This was how we learned that basically all the space monsters that could be dangerous were a part of the large groups.
It seemed that they had some sort of herd mentality that prioritised stronger individuals, not necessarily just for strength but for other things as well. It was also obvious that those groups were now looking at us warily, as there were always individuals from those groups who were continuously monitoring us.
It was kinda eerie to see a video where 12 or more members of one group were constantly tracking our movement and looking at us. It gave the same effect as you walking by a group of people who never took their eyes off you, even while you walked past them, just letting their heads follow you.
If it was an intimidation tactic, it kind of worked. We were already simulating the battles that would happen near those locations, especially because we would want to get close enough so that my innate ability could trigger so we would get the chance of those skills that they might have.
While a large portion of space monster skills would not work with humanoids, those skills might work for FH. It was hard to find her skills that worked that would improve the overall ship and not just the mental parts of her.
Speaking of skills, on my right hand, there was a flame flickering, and in my left sparks were flying between my fingers. It was slow going to understand how these two skills worked and their underlying principles, but I felt like I was close to a breakthrough.
The flames continued to dance, and the lightning continued to jump as I pushed my understanding. Then it happened, the fire skill broke through first, going from novice to apprentice.
The change was almost immediate, as the flames were brighter and hotter. The skill inside of me grew bigger and more complex. It was a fascinating process that now allowed me to exert more control and power over this skill’s effects.
It took me about ten minutes to absorb this skill rank-up, and then I turned my attention to my spark skill. As soon as I started to use both hands and tried to stretch that spark longer and longer, making it jump faster and faster, it also broke through.
Now this skill was actually strong enough to be used as a taser, but just for regular humans, and I would have to touch them in the correct locations for it to have that effect, but it was progress.
Now I turned my focus onto my Crimson Empowerment skill. This one was still at novice, but even compared to my two new apprentice skills, it was orders of magnitude more complex. But now, when I focused, a crimson flame appeared between my fingers, moving like lightning.
It was truly a strange combination. I could make it move like the spark skill, jumping from one finger to another, but each spot it touched, it left behind fire that I could also control to an extent.
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When I started to practice the training skills, the first thing I needed to learn was to make these two not hurt me. At the start, Lola had to heal me quite often. While this control helped me with crimson element, it wasn’t perfect, as I could feel and even see some damage being left behind.
As soon as I stopped focusing on just the damaging aspects of the skill and let the skill sink into my hand, it no longer did anything to damage it, but I could feel that if I were to punch something, it would do quite a lot of electrical and fire damage while also making my punch stronger.
When I switched my focus from my right hand to my left, which was fully bio-cybernetic, the empowerment was even stronger. There was a reason why this skill went under my mechanist affinity. That did make me wonder if this skill was under some other affinity, would it still empower technology more?
In the end, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that I could still boost even my biological parts with this skill, and there was a lot to learn about how it improved everything else.
So that was exactly what I did for nearly three weeks while at the same time tinkering with my next project. Slowly, I started to understand what this skill actually did, and the more I looked, the more I understood how lucky I was to find this one.
While it affected almost everything differently, its baseline was about a 15% general improvement, which was already massive, but it also gave anything empowered by it a lot of resistance against electrical and fire damage. That meant that I could keep firing weapons even past the point where heat damage should have destroyed them.
Its biggest boost, however, came in the extra effect of its crimson damage. It gave a reddish hue to whatever it was powering, with certain parts glowing brightly with the electrical and burning fire mix of different reds. Whenever you delivered an attack with something that was empowered by this skill, the electrical and burning fire damage would affect whatever was hit.
That combination was usually quite devastating, especially because it didn’t follow the proper physics of electricity or fire. The electrical part still jumped to follow the path of least resistance, but for it, that resistance wasn't the same as it was for regular electricity, as it seemed to be a mix of that and magic based.
The fire was the same and was also ridiculously hard to put out. It still needed something to burn, so if it was in vacuum, it did extinguish, but not instantly, which was kinda insane.
But now that I had this understanding, I could finally properly make myself the plasma light sword that could utilise this skill properly.
This magic-tech weapon wasn’t just something that you could mass-produce; it needed to be made specifically for each individual and what skills they would use with it, if those skills could affect the weapon directly.
That was why if you picked up someone else’s plasma light weapon, using it would be incredibly difficult, even if you managed to turn it on. It would be like trying to wield a sword with a shifting centre of gravity and weight.
There was no need for this type of weapon to clear out the solar system, but something was urging me to finish this as soon as possible. I had learned to rely upon my 6th sense skill and what it wanted me to do.
“Captain?” FH contacted me when I felt something through our bond.
“What happened?” I asked, while at the same time trying to puzzle out this feeling. It was familiar for some reason, but for some reason I hadn’t taken note of it before.
“I managed to upgrade my inventory skill. It doubled the space I had before.”
“Excellent news. I do not want you to split this space up as you did before; keep it at 24 by 24 by 4 metres. I want to make that space into my workshop, as that space isn’t affected by acceleration, so we could have long-term projects there that are sensitive.”
“And then you wouldn’t have to take breaks?” FH said, her voice monotoned.
“Why did your inventory skill improve so fast? I expected that one to take really long because it could accept basically anything.”
“I believe it’s because we are growing plants inside most of the rooms.” Her tone somehow conveyed that she was allowing the change of topic.
“That’s excellent news. Hopefully, the workshop will do the same. It is truly so convenient to be able to get extra space on a spaceship.”
“Agreed. Also, have you thought about the turret setup changes we discussed after properly reviewing the space battle between us and the three pirate ships?”
“Yes. I believe changing the two other large turrets we have into hard light would be the best choice, while making four additional singular-barrel railgun turrets built for accuracy at long ranges.”
“Should I start the design process of adding those turrets to the current ship design?”
“Yes, but it’s not a high priority. We don’t have the crystals we would need for this upgrade. It would still be nice to have the changes ready for when we do.”
“Acknowledged.”
Constant upgrades that was the key to survival. Speaking of upgrades, from my own inventory, I started to pull out nano machines that quickly covered my entire body, morphing into armour that now resembled something from Earth’s Middle Ages.
This was also a process of constant refinement. Thanks to Sam and Dean, and our sparring, I had been able to change the shape of this armour of mine. At first, it was similar to what the special forces used back on Earth, and while that was good for ranged combat, the ancient peoples of Earth knew how to defend themselves in war.
The reason why this type of armour fell out of use was because firearms got too powerful. But even in the last few decades on Earth, that calculus started to change as better and better materials were designed. The table was flipped when it came to portal materials.
At first, I dismissed this type of design because I believed this type of armour would limit someone’s capability of movement too much, but that certainly wasn’t true. And while it is limited somewhat, every armour type has its pluses and minuses.
It might also be a good idea to make multiple versions for different situations. That was the advantage of armour fully made out of nano machines. And thanks to my hardened connection skill, its greatest weakness, of being too easily penetrated, was gone. And the best part: because it was technological, Crimson Empowerment worked on it to its fullest capability.
The nano machines were black in colour, which made the entire armour look black, but the Crimson Empowerment gave it red lines all over, making the entire thing look quite menacing. It also helped me make a decision on what colour my plasma light weapon should be. It was obviously going to be a mix of black and crimson red.