Ning stood in the hall of the ship, watching the entire solar system fly past him.
Nulwurn was far behind now as they had been flying at impossible speeds for a few minutes now.
Saphandra sat on his shoulders and looked at her arms. "I feel… weird," she said. "It's like I'm drowning or something."
"It's probably because we are out of the system with Spiritual energy in it," Ning said. He confirmed with the system and he was indeed correct.
"So, can I not use my powers again?" Saphandra thought and tried to pull on something.
"Stop!" Ning said. "You can use them, but if you do, you will end up like Aimee was when she was little blue."
"I'll be without consciousness?" she asked. "Well, I don't want that."
"Don't worry," Ning said. "If you ever do end up that way, I have a way to restore you. Although, from what I can guess, it will take a long time."
Ning walked away from the hall and arrived at the bridge of the ship.
"Captain, what's our status?" Ning asked.
The captain of the ship was a man named Gerrbax. He was human, for the most part, but part of his physique included a furry little tail that constantly moved around.
Aside from the captain, Ning had learned that there were about 10 more crew members and he had dominated all of them to do his bidding.
The crew members were mostly human, but some of them were a bit different physiologically, whether it be missing organs or some extra organs.
For now, they were unaffected by his will, doing whatever they thought was right.
"FRS Icefall is approaching the Heliopause of this system, master. Once we are out, we can activate the Space Drive," the captain said.
Ning nodded. "Don't jump until I've told you to," he said and left the bridge.
Saphandra flew a little behind him, looking at everything.
Ning walked through the narrow hallway of the ship and looked at the various rooms here.
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Unlike the ship he had, which was a survey vessel, FRS Icefall was a Research vessel. It was made in the ice planet Frymston, and was tasked with researching any given planet to understand it better.
They were mainly tasked with finding planets that could be mined for their resources. Any life-less planets were unhesitatingly stripped of any resources, while planets with life were thought of with more care.
Ning saw many research equipment on the ship which he walked away from.
Finally, he arrived at end of the ship and opened the door to the space drive. There was a man inside, but Ning had already dominated him, so he was ignored.
Ning looked at the machine that was working in the center but ignored it to look at the capsules to the left.
He picked out one of the capsules and looked at it. Inside the capsule was a silver rock that acted as if it was without weight.
That was true as Space stones were without mass and thus were without weight.
Ning looked at the size of the one here. The space stone was large enough to barely fit in his closed fist.
"This is way larger than the small speck of dust I saw before," Ning said. "How much space does this space stone contain?"
41000 cubic kilometers
"Oh… only?" Ning asked. Granted he didn't have a good perception of how big a cubic kilometer was, it still felt weird to learn that such a big space stone was only so big.
"Didn't a speck of dust end up being like 500 Million something previously? Am I understanding something wrong?" Ning asked.
A single cubic centimeter of space stone, in a universe like this where space isn't constrained, has about 234 cubic kilometers of space in it.
The same Space Stone can be turned into a Space Drive to teleport a ship up to 234 Billion Kilometers in distance.
"Oh, so this one can help me travel up to…" Ning tried to do some mental arithmetics, but there were too many zeros to keep track of.
"41… Trillion Kilometers?" Ning asked.
Yes
Which in lightyear is?"
4.32 Lightyears
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"Huh?" Ning thought as he looked at the stone inside the cylinder. "That's not bad at all."
"What's not bad?" Saphandra asked curiously. She heard him talking to himself and knew he was speaking with his system, but she was curious too.
"Oh, uhh…" Ning had to explain everything he knew about space stones to her from what he could remember.
"So this little silver stone holds this much space?" Saphandra asked.
Ning went through the rest of the capsules and found that half of them had more stones, some which were larger, some which were smaller.
The rest were empty.
All in all, in the nearly 30 different capsules, there were about 100 to 150 lightyears worth of Space stones.
That… was not very much.
"Master, we are arriving at the Heliopause," the captain spoke over the speakers.
"Let's go," Ning said and walked back into the bridge.
He arrived just in time to see the boundary of the solar system where the heliosphere was kept in equilibrium by the interstellar wind.
He felt slight turbulence as he crossed the boundary, but it was barely anything to the crew members who were used to it.
"Should I initiate the Space Drive, master," the captain asked.
Ning looked out. "Where are we going exactly?" he asked.
"Since we were here on a detour to pick you up, we will have to return to the Federation Service Station located in this cluster of the quadrant, so we can drop you off and go back to work," the captain said.
Ning thought for a moment. "No need," he said. "Just go do your job as you want and don't even think that I'm here."
He wanted to see how the research vessel worked exactly.
"Even then, we still have to restock, master," the captain said.
Ning nodded. "I see, do what you must then. Start the Space Drive."
Chapter 802: Space Jump"Engaging Space drive. Everyone, get onto your seats," the captain ordered. "Lieutenant Ziri, calculate the distance."
"Yes, captain," a girl with pink skin spoke up. She started doing a few things on her screen to the left, and suddenly everyone could hear a voice.
"Calculating Distance."
"You can teleport exactly 2.43 Lightyears in any direction."
"Please select the direction."
The AI of the ship spoke up once the girl had started the calculation.
"Lieutenant Froxby, be ready to load up more Space drives," the captain spoke over the channels.
"Aye, captain," a voice came through the system.
"Ensign Grond, chose a location," the captain asked.
"Yes, captain," the young man with pointy ears that sat at the front of the ship spoke.
Ning looked around, quite fascinated at the fact that there were so many things one had to do before teleporting on this ship. If it was just him, he would have teleported without thinking much.
"Hey, I can't tell what they're saying," Saphandra said from the side.
"You can't? Oh right, we're speaking a different language," Ning said. "Hmm… system you got anything language skills for her?"
"Alright, buy it."
"Location set, captain," the ensign said.
"Good, Jump!"
"Ooh, I understood that word. Did you do something?" Saphandra asked.
"Yes," Ning said.
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He watched from the window at the front as several strands of silver light started grabbing onto the ship, and when they were fully covered, he felt a slight bit of turbulence.
They had traveled through space itself and arrived at a different location somewhere over 2 light years away.
Ning realized that if he were to turn around and look back at the planet Nulwurn, and somehow see it all again, he would be looking at one from over 2 years ago.
"Lieutenant Froxby?" the captain asked.
3 seconds later, an answer came back.
"Space Drive has been swapped, captain. We're ready to jump again," the man in the Space Drive room spoke.
"Lieutenant Ziri," the captain spoke.
"Doing it, captain," the woman said as she quickly pressed a few more buttons and the ship spoke up again.
This time, the space drive had about 4.3 light-years worth of distance to go.
'That's the one I looked at, isn't it?' Ning thought.
After all the calculations and plotting were done, the ensign activated the Space Drive again, and the ship jumped once more, arriving at another part of the sky.
Then, they did it two more times.
In total, they traveled around 15 light years of distance before stopping any more jumping.
"Plot a course to the closest Federation Service Station," the captain said.
"Closest service station is at Q4-S3-C26-G5, captain. Plotting course," the ensign spoke.
"Set autopilot, and calculate the time of arrival," the captain said.
The lieutenant did the calculations and came up with an answer. "Estimated time remaining is 122 years, captain," the lieutenant said.
"Good, let's sleep for a few years," the captain said.
Ning was a little confused at the captain's attitude at the length of time that was given to them. Surely they could just teleport again, right?
"Captain, why are we not using the space drive to arrive at the location already?" Ning asked.
"We can't activate the drive more than 20 lightyears of distance at a time, master. Any more and it will overload. As such, we need to give it some time to cool off," the captain said.
"Oh," Ning said. 'Should I refresh it? Maybe I should let them sleep for a while.'
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"And what were those numbers you guys keep talking about? That Q4-S3 something," Ning asked.
"Oh, that's the id for any star or planet," the captain said. "Q stands for Quadrant, S for Sector, C for Cluster, G for Group."
"In the case of the planet you were in just now, it was located in Quadrant 4, Sector 3, Cluster 23, Group 3. It was the 3rd planet in the 17th sun of the group, so the overall planet was identified as Q4-S3-C23-G3-17C."
"Similarly, the Federation station we are going to is located in the same sector as this one, but in a different cluster. It is about 122 light years away from here," the captain explained.
"Oh," Ning said. "Go on then, go to sleep."
"Won't you be sleeping too, master?" the captain asked.
"Don't mind about me, I will go to sleep when I want to," Ning said.
"Yes," the captain said and left.
Saphandra made a curious face. "What's that about quadrants and such?" she asked.
"I'm not really sure. System, can you give me the information?" he asked.
A wave of information floated into Ning's mind and he slowly learned it. "Ah, so that's it," he thought.
"What is it?" Saphandra asked.
"So, there are 4 quadrants in total, each quadrant has about 15 sectors, each covering an equal area of the quadrant on the galaxy which has an average radius of 5000 light years."
"They count from the back for some reason, so we are very far from the center of the galaxy, but are somewhere in the middle of the sector," Ning said.
"Oh," Saphandra said. "So… what's our destination?"
"The service station? That's—"
"No, not the station, OUR destination. You have someplace in mind, right?" she asked.
"Actually… I hadn't given it much thought as of yet. I was going to think about it once we were on the spaceship. In my mind, in the worst-case scenario, I was going to use the spaceship I have to make my way out of this galaxy," Ning said.
"But, you are right, I need to have some sort of destination," Ning said. "System, what do I need to do?"
"My journey? What do you mean?" Ning asked.
Chapter 803: Short-Cut"Um, didn't we already plan to skip the Milky way galaxy?" Ning asked. Since the galaxy was being influenced by a heavy time warp, he had decided to skip that galaxy and go to the next one where Kumia was.
"Oh, what does that change exactly?" Ning asked curiously.
Saphandra tried to listen to whatever conversation he was having with the system, but all she could do was hear his side of the conversation. But unfortunately, his words rarely gave insight onto what the system itself was saying.
"Uhh… does it? No, it does. Right, I just saw with the Space Drive," Ning said. The Space Drive was using Space stones to manipulate the ship into teleporting through space.
"How does that help me exactly?" Ning asked.
"Wait, what the hell? 4 Million lightyears? Is that how far the Milky way is from here? What about Kumia?" Ning asked.
Ning was devastated. Was that how far everything was normally? He hadn't realized. He had expected the galaxies to be closer to each other for some reason, however, listening to the number made him feel hopeless.
"Do we have any chance to make it back to Kumia in any good amount of time?" Ning asked.
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"But that will take a lot of Space stones, won't it?" Ning asked. "I will need about a million or two of the same-sized space stones as we saw earlier, right?"
"Oh, so I could've gone over 300 lightyears if it was just me doing it?" Ning asked.
"Hmm, say I change bodies to the size of one of those spiritual pearls, how much distance do you think I could cover with a cubic centimeter of space stone?" Ning asked.
For the ship, the answer was about 234 Billion Kilometers.
"Holy… I should have done that in the first place," Ning spoke out loud. "Wait, there's still time."
However, before he impulsively took action, he stopped. There was more to the system's words that he had to listen to.
Besides, what was he going to do after teleporting randomly without any destination?
"The way you just mentioned is quite good. If I had the stone from earlier, I could've teleported quite far away," Ning said.
2164 Light-years
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"Holy shit that is far," Ning said to himself. "Still, the distance is 4 million lightyears, which means I will need one that is at least… how many times larger?"
2000 times larger. You will need a space stone with a volume of 323.47 cubic meters.
"Cubic meters…" Ning visualized the size of the space stone he would be needing and nearly lost his mind.
"And that is just to reach the Milky Way Galaxy. To cross it and then reach to Kumia, I will need one that is about half that size again, right?" he asked.
Ning nodded. "So, what's the next method?" he asked.
Ning's eyes shined. "I'm intrigued, to say the least. Go on."
Ning's eyes went wide. "You can tear the walls of the universe using a space stone?" he asked.
"Hmm," Ning thought for a moment. "What about time? You said I had to take a ride in that universe, right? So I should spend some time there? And considering it will be passing through here, then the time here must be starting to flow slower soon too."
Given how slow Earth's time was because of the galaxies being close to it, now Ning was starting to worry that this galaxy would also have its time slowed down, making it further impossible for him to get back to Kumia fast enough.
A universe that died in its infancy? What does that mean exactly?" Ning asked.
System can't tell you everything, but in essence, there were complications when the universe was formed, and thus not much matter and space was created.
As such there is only a single solar system in the entire universe.
"Oh, such a place exists too huh?" Ning was quite surprised. "So, that means that time will flow faster in this location since it is just a single sun, right?"
Yes. Between this galaxy and that universe, the time difference is approximately 1:194
"So two days here is a year over there? That's… not too slow as I thought," Ning said. "What about the Milky way galaxy and that universe?"
About 1:698400
Ning's face went blank for a few seconds. "Uhh… did you accidentally add a few zeros in there? That doesn't seem right," he said.
The time difference between Milky Way Galaxy and the Yomire Galaxy is approximately 1:3600
"That's… so much," Ning thought with absolute shock on his face.
For context, the time difference between Milky Way and Andromeda, where Kumia lies, is now 1:400
And the time difference between Yomire and Andromeda is 1:9 because of how small the Yomire galaxy is.
"Ah… okay, that makes way more sense now that I have the context," Ning said and thought of the numbers again. "So how many years passed in that other Universe while a single day passes on earth?"
1,915 years approximately
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and for Kumia, it will be 1:1746, so every 4 years and 285 days you spend there, a single day will pass in Kumia.
"I see," Ning said.
"How many years will it pass in Kumia while I make my way to earth?" Ning asked.
You will have to stay in that universe for somewhere between 500 thousand years and 700 thousand years.
That period is when the universe will pass through the Milky way galaxy, and that amount of time will mean that approximately 400 years will have passed in Kumia at the maximum.
"That's… so much. How much time has passed already?" Ning asked.
You remained in Hyrix Galaxy for over 20 thousand years. While most of that time was spent in space, it was still a lot of time. As such, nearly 600 years have already passed in Kumia.
"600… huh?" Ning felt a little sad when he heard that. He had tried so hard to get there as soon as he could, but still, such a long time had passed.
"Well… they are cultivators, so they should be fine," Ning thought to himself. "With Spirit Transformation realm, they get up to 10 thousand years of life span when I include their body cultivation. I just hope they don't forget me so easily by the time I get there."
Ning wasn't as depressed by the information as he thought he would be. "Right, even if you add 400 years to that, it's barely a thousand years. They can spend that away cultivating," he said. "Also, wait… how much time will have passed on earth by the time I get there? A single year?"
Yes. Maybe less depending on when you exit the Universe.
"Hah, I would have never imagined I would have to go on such an adventure, to be honest," Ning said. "A universe that died at its infancy huh?"
When he said that, a thought came to Ning. A memory of a time when the system had used a similar word to say the same thing.
"Wait, didn't you say that such a universe had a lot of space stones before? Can I get space stones from there?" Ning asked.
There are most likely space stones there, but the system suggests you to not count on them. Since space stones move in the direction with the most gravitational force near it, it is very much likely that the sun had swallowed up all the space stones.
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"Ah, well… that's a shame. Still, I have some hope," Ning said. "So, what exactly do I do to enter this universe? You said it was passing by right, so there much not be much of a window for me to jump in."
All information regarding the timeline of the universe has been provided to the host
A stream of information entered Ning's mind and he learned something.
"Open!" he said and his star chart skill opened up to show a vast space with billions of stars. He was just looking at the Yomire galaxy and along the top of the galaxy, his mind made a simple trajectory of where the universe would travel through.
Ning's eyes narrowed when he learned of the time he had. As of today, the universe was already passing from the edge of Quadrant 2 into Quadrant 1 which was opposite to Quadrant 4. And every day Ning didn't get there, it got further and further away.
Based on the time, Ning had about a thousand years before it escaped the galaxy.
If you want to reach there without using too many Space stones, you have less time
"What do you mean?" Ning asked.
The star chart zoomed until Ning saw nothing but darkness. That wasn't true entirely though, as there was a ring around the darkness made of very bright light.
Ning was looking at an accretion disk of a black hole. "Why am I looking at a Black hole exactly?" he asked.
A small location right outside the black hole suddenly brightened as the system focused on it.
There's a natural wormhole formed here that is regularly used by the people of this world to travel. If you enter this place, you will come out here.
The vision zoomed back and moved nearly 3 thousand Lightyears away to a location in the 1st Quadrant… that just happened to be right next to the pathway of the universe.
The location was a place where the universe would be the closest in 330 years.
"I see," Ning said. "While I don't exactly need to do that since Space stones seem so abundant even in just this ship, I do think it might be a good idea to go there."
"After all, I need to look into the black hole, don't I?"
Chapter 805: Magnetic Skill
"Come on! I thought I was supposed to listen to what you were hearing. Why did I listen to nothing? What was that about a black hole? What are you talking about?" Saphandra shouted in frustration.
Sitting there, listening to what was basically nonsense on her end was quite annoying to say the least.
"System, can she not hear our conversation?" Ning asked.
These conversations are happening in your mind, so she can't hear you. Do you want her to?
"Yes," Ning said.
Understood.
"Alright, you should be able to listen to our conversation from now on, but for now all you need to understand is that I found our next destination," Ning said to the spirit on his shoulders.
"What's the destination?" she asked.
Ning made the star chart visible to her and showed the wormhole that was next to the black hole. "This is our destination for now. We need to get here within the next thousand years," he said.
However, just then Ning realized something. "Wait, won't the time slow down around the black hole? I don't have a thousand years in total, do I?" he asked.
Around the black hole, time moves at 10 times slower speed, and up to 100 times slower at the distance where the wormhole lies.
"Ooh, that's the system? I can't tell if that's a male voice or a female one," Saphandra said.
"That sounds like a male voice to me," Ning said.
"Sounds kind of feminine to me," Saphandra said. "So, anyway. We have to go there. That seems far away."
"Haha, come with me, I'll explain how close it actually is."
Ning proceeded to tell her everything he learned from the system just now, as he walked the hallways of the ship.
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"Woah! Another universe? Sounds fun," Saphandra said.
Ning arrived at the Cryo-room where all of the crew mates, including the captain, had gone into cryo-sleep.
"Well, they're asleep. Guess we have nothing to do but wait around for over a hundred years now," Ning said.
"A-are you seriously going to wait for a hundred years? Are you not going to sleep?" she asked.
"No, I have something I need to do that I haven't been able to do for over 3 different planets now," Ning said.
"Oh, what's that?" Saphandra asked.
"I need to absorb the radiation and grow stronger," he said. Ning returned to the bridge and sat next to the window, but the window simply wasn't large enough to let all the light in.
He needed to find another way.
"System, I need to sit outside the ship. You got anything for me?" he asked. The speed at which the ship was moving in made it impossible for him to just teleport out and sit down.
You can use very powerful magnetic shoes.
"Hmm, how about that, but in the form of a skill? So I can turn any part of my body magnetic," Ning said.
You can buy that for 1.3 Billion energy. Usage of the skill will require constant usage of energy as well
"Buy!" Ning said, and he was given the skill at once.
"Wait… that's it? You don't have to do anything else?" Saphandra asked. All Ning did was ask for something and the system gave it to him.
"Yeah, that's usually how it goes now," Ning said. "But there used to be a time when I had to wait around for all energy to be gathered up, actually. It all changed once I killed Genesis and absorbed him and the system. If only I got one more of those, I wouldn't even have to go through the trouble of such endeavors."
"I bet you would still, though," Saphandra said with a chuckle.
"No, not until I get back to Kumia," Ning said. "After that… I wonder what I would do after that. Well, I'll think of that at that time."
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"Anyway, you should get into the Spirit space. I will be spending the next many years on top of the ship, basking in the starlight," Ning said.
"Wait, I have to spend an entire century alone?" Saphandra asked.
"Uhh… System, is the Spirit space not time-stopped like the storage space?" Ning asked.
It can be, but it will cost you 100 times its original cost for that. The system wants the host to note that the time won't be stopped if the spirit is being healed.
"Yeah, do it," Ning said. "In fact, turn all four of them into a time-stopped version of that."
Understood.
Once all 4 of his Spirit space was turned into a timeless one, Saphandra hesitatingly jumped into one of the open spots.
Once she was gone, Ning looked all around him and the silence. "When are they set to wake up?" he asked.
Unless the ship AI wakes them up for something critical, they should be asleep for the next 30 years.
"Huh, I thought they would sleep for longer," Ning said. "Although, I guess it makes sense that they would want to use their Space drive as soon as it is active again."
Now that everything was seen, Ning teleported out of the ship to the top and immediately used the magnetic skill to grab himself to the surface.
There was a slight distortion to the ship's course because of what he did, but the AI immediately fixed the course and the ship was back on track.
His breathing skill kicked in and Ning started looking around in the empty space with nothing but darkness all around him.
However, when he used his vision that required no light to see, everything was bright all of a sudden as if a million different fireflies had decided to light themselves suddenly.
Ning looked to the far reaches of the galaxy where nebulae covered a significant part of the sky. Then to another side where a star was much brighter than others.
He could see a million stars from where he was, and all those probably had thousands of planets in them that held life.
There were so many places he could go, but, he had his mind set. He would always choose Kumia over any of these planets.
Chapter 806: Exceeding the Jump LimitWith the Radiation Absorption skill up to 17%, even when there was barely any light from the stars, Ning's body still improve quite a bit.
With this, the next 30 years he was going to spend on top of the ship was more akin to spending about 250 years in the stars. It wasn't much, but it was something.
Also, because he was moving so fast, in the next 30 years, he would go nearly 15 lightyears away from where he had started.
Which was a lot higher distance than the mere 4 lightyears he had spent nearly 20,000 years flying through space last time.
So, he would also be hit by more radiation in general because of the distance. As such, Ning was at least going to have his body improve by quite a significant amount.
Ning was still being bombarded by the interstellar wind, but this time around, he didn't need to worry about trying to speed himself up every time he was slowed down over the course of the many years.
Since he was attached to the ship, he could simply focus on other things such as looking at the beautiful stars or planning out his next set of moves.
However, it didn't take long for Ning to be out of topics to think about. As such, over the course of the many days he remained up there, he slowly fell into the same lull he had learned to do so many years ago and fell asleep.
Ning woke up some years later, unknown exactly how long had passed. He looked at the vast sky above him and realized that the patch of sky he had looked at before had changed.
He couldn't help but be a bit confused. "System? How many years have passed?" he asked.
78 years and 9 months.
"Woah! Really?" Ning was surprised. He hadn't expected to fall asleep for so long, but it made sense in a way. After all, he had learned to fall asleep for centuries when he was flying on his own.
78 years was nothing by comparison.
"How many light years have we traveled?" he asked.
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"So… we're about 80 lightyears done with the 122 lightyears journey?" Ning asked.
"Hmm… that's farther than I expected to go while I was out here, but not bad. "We only have… what? Less than 42 lightyears to travel? That should be fine."
"When did the crew last go into Cryo-sleep?" Ning asked.
"Wake them up," Ning said.
Ning teleported back into the cryo room and brought out Saphandra.
"Did you forget to say something?" she asked when she came out and looked curiously at her surrounding.
"It's been nearly 80 years since we last spoke," Ning told her.
"What? No way," Saphandra said. "You called me out the moment I went in there."
"Yes," Ning said. "That's what the space is supposed to feel like. Given how safe the ship appears to be, I might start doing that again as well. Although, I have way too much energy and it feels quite scary to just pour myself into any random object."
Just then, one by one, the crew members started opening their eyes. The girl with the pink skin, Lieutenant Ziri as she was called, woke up first and walked out.
She was a little disoriented, but that was just everyone that walked out of the cryo-chamber. So, she went around the room, helping others land on their feet and take a few breaths.
Then, they went around helping each other.
Before Ning knew it, all the 11 crew members of the ship were all awake.
The captain checked the logs to see if anything had happened during the time, and to his surprise, found out that he had been woken up nearly a decade earlier than they had planned.
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"Lieutenant Ziri, there seems to be a problem with the ship's AI, can you take Lieutenant Hargill and go check?" the captain asked.
"Aye, captain," the lieutenants replied.
"Wait, there's no problem," Ning said. "I woke you guys up."
"Why, master?" the captain gave a confused look.
"We're jumping again," Ning said. "This time, we are going to go all the way to the service station."
"I… don't think the Space Drive had cooled yet, master," the captain said.
"Hmm… since you have such a freezing system, why don't you cool the space drive with that?" Ning asked.
"The metal that makes the machine loses quite a bit of durability if we heat it and cool it rapidly. We do use the cooling system to just keep it from becoming super hot in the first place," the captain said.
"Well, I'm here so you can forget about said problems," Ning said. "Go to your stations, we will be jumping non-stop."
"Yes, master," the captain took the crew, except for Froxby, who went back to the room with the Space Drive along with Ning.
A cylinder with a space stone was already in the machine, ready to jump in case of emergency. However, Ning could feel the slight heat coming from the machine still.
"System, fix it," Ning said.
With a single command, the system not only immediately cooled the whole thing but also reverted the metal back to its original form so that they were still very durable.
Lieutenant Froxby let the captain know of the changes, so when everyone was ready, the captain jumped once more.
Ning felt the turbulence and understood they had teleported. Froxby moved again to replace the cylinders and they jumped once more.
Within 4 jumps, Ning felt the heat in the room and was even a bit surprised that Froxby could handle it.
However, he simply cooled the machine down and fixed it again before teleporting a few times more.
By the time the 2 different sessions of teleportation were over, FRS Icefall had arrived at the Federation Service Station of Sector 3.
Chapter 807: Rattrap BarnaclesThe Federation Service Station hovered around a red giant that was over a billion kilometers wide.
It was a massive piece of metal structure that looked like 3 cylindrical rods, rounded around a bigger rod at the center.
There were metal antennas and whatnot coming out of the service station, and hundreds of ships flew in and out constantly.
Ning stared from the window while the captain made some communications with the person in charge of handling research vehicles.
"Is that… a sun?" Saphandra asked. She had never seen a red giant before.
"Your first time huh?" Ning asked. "It's the second time for me. That star will die in a relatively short time and burst open."
"Really? Won't these people die?" she asked.
"Oh, when I say relatively, I mean relative to how long it's been alive. The star bust have formed many billion years ago, and by comparison, it will die in a few million years."
"Oh, so they have plenty of time," Saphandra said. "Still, it is so red."
"I wonder why they chose this place," Ning thought. From what he could tell, everything in this science-enhanced world needed a single thing to survive.
Water.
Water was not only important because it was what kept the humans alive, but also because they needed water for Oxygen, which was necessary to keep living, and Hydrogen, which was what fueled everything around here.
Since they were capable of Nuclear Fusion, the federation gained their energy by fusing Hydrogen to create Helium and release a bunch of energy.
Now, while Hydrogen was plenty available in the galaxy as it was the building block of the universe, Oxygen on the other hand was not as readily available, and the easiest way to get that was to simply split water into Hydrogen and Oxygen.
Ning opened his Star Chart for a second and saw a planet that was currently on the other side of the sun but would come around in at least 50 more years.
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"Oh, that makes sense," Ning said when he saw that the planet was made up of water for the most part with a huge surface of it simply frozen.
"There's plenty amount of water here, so I can see why they live here," Ning said.
"I would still hate all this redness," Saphandra said.
Suddenly, the window through which Ning was looking outside turned into a screen and a face appeared on it.
It was a blue-haired man with multiple folds of skin on his forehead. Other than that, he looked normal.
"Captain, please verify yourself," the man said.
"Authority O319SG33. Captain Gerrbax of FRS Icefall, requesting to land," the captain spoke to the system.
"Authority verified. Welcome back, captain. Please head to the 76th hanger on the 2nd Rim," the blue-haired man said.
The FRS Icefall flew to the 2nd rim of the station and flew in through a door that was opened just for them.
"System, looks like there might be verifications and stuff, make sure to fake something for me and give me the information you fake," Ning said.
A new identity flowed into Ning and he couldn't help but immediately regret giving the system full authority on what to make of his identity.
According to the system, Ning was born on one of the Federation planets called Gyronix which lies on Quadrant 3, sector 5.
Apparently, he was a really rich person on that planet, fated to marry the most beautiful girl, but on a dare, he bet away his money, house, and the seal of marriage that forced the girl to marry him.
Once he was poor, Ning was forced to join the federation to make ends meet and were somehow able to become an ensign to enter one of the ships to go on a survey.
While on the survey, they hit a bunch of asteroids due to a malfunction on the ship's Light Emission system that was used to check on things that the ship was headed towards.
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Once crashed, the ship fell to Nulwurn, and Ning had only managed to survive because he was in one of the cryo-chambers.
Also, his name was now Rattrap Barnacles.
"Why the hell would you give me such a bad name like Rattrap Barnacles? Are you making fun of me?" Ning asked.
"Wait, that's what you're called? Hahaha!" Saphandra started laughing on her own.
"What? How does naming me a rat trap save energy?" Ning asked.
"What? A person named Rattrap exists?" Ning asked.
"Oh," Ning's emotion softened when he realized he was disrespecting a dead man. "My bad then. I guess I'll use his name then. Still, his story is quite sad. To think he lost so much on a single drinking game."
The ship slowly landed inside the enormous hanger with nobody inside and the shutter for that hanger started shutting down.
Then the ship's own hanger opened up, and one by one, the crew mates started getting off.
Ning followed them and got off as well.
A dwarf-like man with a thick beard came running up to them with a glowing piece of item in his hand.
He quickly pointed it towards the 12 of them and scanned every one of them.
"Hmm, all are fine. Welcome back," the dwarf said and turned around. "Follow me."
The group started walking, and Ning followed them. The hanger was truly large, so it took quite some time before they reached the other side of the hanger which then opened up to reveal a giant circular tube.
The small rim that looked like a cylinder was actually a massive piece of living space that was multiple kilometers wide and could house millions of people inside of it.
Ning was truly surprised by just how big the place was.
Chapter 808: Exploration StartNing looked around the massive station, fully made out of metal. He had to wonder just how many planets they likely had to mine to get this much metal.
'Well there are so many planets out there anyway,' Ning thought. As he looked, his eyes slowly looked upwards, and through one of the many glass ceilings that were laid out, he saw something that surprised him quite a bit.
"Wait, we're walking sideways on the cylinder?" he asked. When he had just looked up, he saw the vertical rod that joined the 3 circular metal tubes.
"Oh, of course. Is this your first time in a service station, young boy?" the dwarf asked.
"I'm afraid it is," Ning said and continued looking when he realized something. "Wait, there's no artificial gravity here, is it? The station must be spinning then, to give us an illusion of gravity."
"Yes," the dwarf said. "Well, you know how expensive artificial gravity devices can get. They can barely afford it for the ships. Imagine having to add it to the entire station. That would be a lot of waste when we can just spin in."
Ning nodded. They were then taken to an office where the captain had to go through some formal reporting on what they had done.
Ning being the only 'survivor' of the ZSS Unity III had to give his side of the explanation.
Fortunately, he knew what he had to say, and so they were dismissed after the report.
Ning walked out of the room and made his way away from the people to do his own thing.
As he walked, he looked at the clothing of the people that walked past him, all of whom seemed to be a member of the federation, basing it on the badge they were wearing.
"You should change your clothes," Saphandra said.
"I should," Ning said. "I should look for a clothing store or something."
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"Can't you just create some?" she asked.
"I like buying clothes. Helps me understand the culture around here when I go around, buying things."
"Also, I haven't eaten in a while. I should do that too," Ning said.
As he walked along the pathway, he found a lifting platform, that was taking people up through the ceiling to the main station at the center.
"Right, where is everything exactly? System, can you give me a simple map?" he asked.
Ning looked at the map of the station and realized a few things. The whole station had 3 rings, each of which was attached to the main station at the center.
The rings were each massive, with an inner radius of about a kilometer. They were all connected with multiple metal arms to the center that was each about 15 kilometers long, making it a long journey to get to the center.
What surprised Ning most about this place was that there were people living at this station.
Not just staying for a while, but actually living here. They had made their home here, families that lived for generations.
The two rings on top and bottom were separated as residential areas. This was where the people lived.
The middle ring was reserved for the federation business, which was where he currently was. There were many hangers along the side of the ring where the many ships were kept at.
The main station at the center was reserved for something else as well. This was where the food was grown and was also the location where all the main machinery was.
This was where the energy for the entire station was generated.
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"Well, for now, let's get on that platform. It should take us to the central hub which we can use to travel to either of the residential rings," Ning said.
While the platforms were down, he got onto it. There were places there where he was supposed to strap himself, so Ning did as told.
Once he was strapped in, the platform moved up.
At first, it was quite slow like a normal lift, but as seconds passed, it picked up speed and ended up going so fast that in just 2 minutes, Ning had crossed the 15 kilometers long distance.
"Whew! What the hell was that? So fast," he said to himself.
The platform had flipped somewhere along the way and now, Ning should have been somewhere where the centrifugal force wasn't keeping him.
However, since there was artificial gravity in this place, Ning was forced to walk.
"Oh hey, they have a moving walkway here. Well, the hub is some 30 kilometers long, so this will be good," he said and got on one of them that went in some direction.
There were markings telling him where he was going, and he knew which ring he was moving towards, but since they were both the same, he just kept going.
There were people around him that looked at him curiously for his clothes. It wasn't until a little longer than Ning realized that they weren't simply staring because his clothes came from a different culture.
But because he was wearing a cloth that was clearly torn at places and completely bleached after having spent so much time out in interstellar space.
Ning saw the sun start to come up from one of the sides and the redness entered his vision.
Fortunately, not even a minute later, some panels appeared on their own to close off that section of the walkway.
Still, they needed the sun to give light to the plants that were growing in the hub.
A few minutes later, Ning finally arrived at the end of the hub where he got into another platform to go towards the residential section.
The platform once again moved slowly before ramping up in speed, and in another 2 minutes, Ning arrived on the ring where he got off.
He looked around at the people there and instantly knew what he had to first do. "Right, where is the commercial section? I need to find some clothes for myself."
Chapter 809: Some clothes and foodNing went into a shop that sold clothing accessories. There were a few people that were also shopping there, but surprisingly, there were no shopkeepers.
Actually, when Ning did look around, there were no clothes either. Instead, everyone was simply standing in front of a mirror, looking at themselves, and the clothes were being overlaid on their image to show what they looked like.
Ning approached one of the empty mirrors and stood in front of it. Suddenly, a blue light was fired off from behind the mirror.
Ning's perception suddenly sped up to see if he was in some sort of danger. However, when he realized it was just scanning him, his perception returned to normal speed and he continued on.
"Welcome, Rattrap Barnacles," the program inside the mirror spoke. Ning panicked a little, thinking people had heard his horrible name, but sighed in relief when he realized he was the only one who could hear it.
"What would you like to look for?" the program asked as various different categories appeared.
Shirts, pants, jackets, shoes, shorts, and various other categories were shown, and Ning looked at the T-shirt section first.
Numerous T-shirts of numerous designs were shown on the mirror and one by one they started appearing on Ning himself.
His torn clothes changed to new, fantastic-looking ones as Ning checked himself out in the mirror.
The white shirt with a cool triangular design at the center was quite amazing to look at. However, it was way too white for him.
"Next," he said and the shirt shifted.
This time he was in a red t-shirt that was quite plain by design but looked not bad.
"No, too much red," Saphandra said from the side. "You look good in blue. Get that one."
Ning pointed to the T-shirt he was about to pick and it changed itself. "Woah, this technology is quite amazing," he said.
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"Is it?" Saphandra asked. "I thought the ship that flew through the galaxy would be something you call amazing, not this."
"Well, I mean… yeah," he said. There was no retort to that.
The shirts filtered through and he ended up on a blue shirt that was of a lighter shade with a design in the center, the reference of which he could not understand.
He then moved on to some pants and bought one of them too. After buying a pair of shoes, Ning stopped.
"Wait, how do I pay?" Ning looked around the place. "Is that electronic too?"
"Are you only going to buy 1 of each? What if they tear up?" Saphandra asked.
"Well, I'll just ask the system to fix it or make me a new one," Ning said. "Did you forget that I came here only to see how it all worked in this place?"
"Ah right," she said. "Well, you should pay so we can leave. Speaking of which, how do you pay?"
Ning was about to ask the system when the program itself spoke on its own. "Would you like to buy these items?" it asked.
"Yes," Ning said.
"Voice signature, verified. 920 Credits have been used from your account. Your items have been successfully bought and are being brought out. Thank you for using our store."
"Oh, poor old Rattrap had some money with him it seems. Credits huh? I wonder how many credits I have in total," Ning said.
1288.
"Huh?" Ning was surprised when he heard that. "Are you saying I just bought something that was half of the young man's savings?"
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"Ah, I see," Ning said. "Well, I guess we're done here. Let's go find a restaurant so we can eat something."
Ning walked out of the store and went out to find a place where he could eat food.
There were a few restaurants around the residential areas, but not as many as he would've thought there would be.
He walked in his new blue t-shirt, pant, and shoes, and entered a relatively low-level restaurant.
He entered the restaurant and was once again surprised to see how human-less this whole place was. With the different machines and programs doing everything, human labor was just no longer required.
"Does that mean they're now free of hunger and poverty since no one needs to work?" Ning wondered. That would certainly be a great utopia to live in.
A small machine flew next to Ning and showed a hologram with a menu. It was an interactive menu that showed not just what was being served, but also what it was going to taste like.
"Ah, this… this definitely, and…"
"Ooh, get that potato one. That looks good," Saphandra said.
"No, that's too expensive. Why the hell are potatoes expensive?" Ning wondered and went back to looking for something that would bring the entire cost to below 1000 Credits if possible.
One by one, the food started being served to him and he ate it all. To his delight, it was all very, very tasty.
The three dishes he ordered were all perfect in every aspect as if a machine had made it instead of a person, which was most likely the case.
Ning finished the 3 dishes and called the robot back to pay, but it seemed he had somehow paid for the food the moment he had ordered them.
"Oh, so I can just leave huh? I should have known that earlier," Ning thought and left the area.
Now that he had new clothes and eaten something, he wanted to go rest. He had slept for 78 years, but that was a little weird, and he wanted proper rest, on a soft bed and all.
So, he looked up on the map that the system had provided and found himself a hotel.
"I see a lot of fun things to do, but let's go sleep now."
Chapter 810: Entertainment"How many rooms would you like?" a robot spoke to Ning.
"A single one," Ning replied.
"Please choose the size and facilities," the robot said as the screen showed a list of rooms with different facilities.
Ning chose one that had quite a bit of facility, but when he did, he realized that he didn't have enough credits.
"This must be a luxurious hotel if a single room for a night costs 500 credits," Ning said. "I'm short 300 credits. System, add 5000 credits to the account."
"Great," Ning said and pressed buy.
"Not enough credits," the robot spoke and the screen flashed red. Ning's eyes narrowed a little in confusion.
"Huh? I just put 5000. System, did you fail?" Ning asked.
"Then why does it say I failed? Did it not update?" Ning checked the screen to see how many credits he had and to his surprise, he only had about 300 credits. "Wait, I… what's going on?"
"Woah, I thought your system can do anything. Did it actually fail?" Saphandra asked.
"No, way," Ning said. "System?"
"What the… fuck!" Ning cried out loud. "Alright, then… how much in debt is he?"
"Yeah, I'm not paying his debt," Ning said. "System, add my own information to the federation and give me a hundred thousand credits."
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Ning looked at the robot in front of him and said, "Rescan."
The robot did as asked, and Ning's updated information was shown with a full 100,000 credits available to use.
He quickly paid for it and then went to his room which lay a few floors below. Because of how the rings were set up, with the centrifugal force spinning outwards, they were able to turn the circular rings into a multilayered location for the residential areas as not much space was required for them when compared to something like the hangers where the spaceships were kept.
Ning went to his room had unlimited food and water, a very comforting bed, a massive TV to watch various things in, and a very advanced bathroom.
The room was also on the lowest floor, which meant that the panels at the bottom could be opened up to reveal a thick glass from where the outside space could be viewed.
Ning turned on the TV and let Saphandra watch it while he went to take a bath.
Saphandra sat there, watching the TV, looking at some sports that a group of people played.
Ning came out after a long shower and went to sleep while he let Saphandra watch the TV however much as she liked.
Saphandra, who had never watched anything for entertainment, watched the TV all night long.
Ning woke up the next morning and after eating his free breakfast, left to explore the rest of the residential area. He spent a week in the area, going to various places, enjoying the customs, and understanding how the society functioned in a place that was so advanced that no one had to do anything.
Turned out, that people simply didn't work and spent their time simply entertaining themselves.
The entertainment, as it turned out was something that surprised Ning quite a lot.
The people in this station all spent most of their time exploring new worlds, new quests, and new adventures, all in a virtual world created by the federation.
They spent their days playing games in a virtual world.
"Urghh! I want to play that game!" Ning said. "It sounds so fun. But do I have the time?"
"You need a Space Stone, right? If you get that, you have nothing to worry about," Saphandra said.
"Yeah, but where is it?" Ning asked. "System, can you tell me where they keep the Space Stones?"
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The system pointed towards the hub and Ning understood where he had to go. He teleported without any warning and Saphandra teleported with him even though he hadn't touched her.
That was simply how it was for her.
Ning arrived in an empty location, completely invisible to not just the naked eyes, but also anything that could scan him.
He didn't want to trip any alarms, so the system worked so that nothing could sense him.
"Where now?" Ning asked.
200 meters in that direction.
Ning turned and saw a massive wall, beyond which he couldn't find a way to go. "Is there no door?" Ning asked.
Since he couldn't see any visible doors, he teleported once again. When he arrived on the other side, Ning instantly saw many humans working there.
However, since they couldn't see him, he was fine. Ning then looked around and was shocked at what he was looking at.
There were hundreds of thousands of cylinders with Space stones in them that were being kept all around.
Ning walked around, looking at them, and realized that they were being sorted by volume. So, it was quite easy for him to find one with the biggest volume.
The biggest one he saw was quite disappointingly not very big. In terms of volume, the solid volume of the stone was around 300 cubic centimeters, which would let him alone travel around 3600 Lightyears away.
"Well, I can just use two I guess," Ning said. He placed his hands on the cylinder and stored it in his storage space.
Only… nothing happened.
"Huh? Why isn't it working?" Ning asked.
"What? Tsk! So I can only use it then, huh?" Ning asked. He thought for a moment about what he could do in this scenario. "Well, it's not going anywhere, so I guess I can come back later and do it then."
Chapter 811: Mining StationNing returned to his room and lay in his bed as he thought of what to do next.
There were over 250 years before he needed to arrive next to the black hole. That was plenty of time considering just how many space stones there were for him to simply take with him.
"Should I play the game? It sounds like a long game to be honest," Ning thought.
"Why do you want to go with the research vessel anyway?" Saphandra asked.
"Just to see how they work and stuff," Ning said.
"When are they leaving?" Saphandra asked.
"Uhh… System?" Ning asked.
"Oh, let's just go in that then. We should be able to get back rather quickly since it is so close," Ning said.
Without any more thought, Ning teleported onto the ship that was leaving and quickly dominated the minds of all 15 people that were there.
The ship was called GRS Ultra II. It was a research ship whose captain was a woman named Greina, who surprisingly had a face full of hair.
Not just her face, but her arm and neck also showed quite a bit of hair. It was like she was a monkey that didn't fully evolve. However, she didn't have a tail at all.
The other crewmates were similarly unique with some having horns, some having multiple eyes, some having weird skin color, and some even having armor-like protrusions on their skin.
"Where are we going, captain?" Ning asked as the ship slowly got out of the hanger.
"We're going to JMS Yilka, master," Greina said.
"MS?" Ning gave a confused look. "Is that… a mining ship?"
"Yes, master," she said. "We've received a message the that ship is facing some sort of problems with their readings. We need to go check what is happening."
"They can't solve it themselves?" Ning asked.
"They can for normal problems, but not this one, which is why the research team is going specifically," the captain said.
"I see," Ning said.
"Everyone get ready. We will jump 20 years and sleep the rest of the way through," the captain said.
"Actually, no," Ning said. "We'll jump the entire 40 light-years distance. I can fix the heating problem."
Ning said so and walked to the room at the back where the Space Drive was kept.
As soon as he reached there, the captain spoke through the system. "We're ready, captain," she said.
"Good, Jump!" Ning ordered.
The ship was instantly covered in silver light from the front to the back, and in the next second, Ning felt the slight turbulence that came with teleporting.
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The man in the room quickly changed the cylinders in the Space Drive and once again they teleported away.
Ning stayed there waiting until they teleported close to 20 lightyears. Then, he asked the system to revert the machine back to how it was.
Then again, they teleported over 40 lightyears away to arrive at a location where the mining ship was.
Ning left the room and arrived at the bridge where he looked outside the spaceship. The ship moved quickly through space, moving towards the mining ship that was about 20 minutes away at its current speed.
The ship was inside a glowing nebula of blue and yellow and it slowly made its way toward a star in the distance that was slowly getting brighter and brighter by the minute.
As they proceeded, Ning noticed something black flying in front of the star that blocked it for a couple of seconds.
As they got closer, Ning realized that he was looking at the planet from the side and could barely see a sliver of what was being lit up by the star.
"Oh, that's the mining ship?" Saphandra asked when she saw a ship floating in space above the planet. It was but a speck when compared to the entire planet.
Still, when they got close, Ning couldn't help but be shocked at just how massive the ship was. That only made him more surprised at how large the planet itself was.
"Captain, I'm getting some illogical readings," one of the lieutenants spoke suddenly.
"What's going on?" the captain asked.
Just then, the screen on the ship lit up as someone was trying to communicate with them.
"Pull up the communication," the captain said.
"BZZZ… Cap… BZZZZ… This… BZZZ… pull… BZZZZ… send… BZZZ… side… BZZZZ…"
The man on the screen spoke something, but the connection wasn't clear at all.
"Clear up the message," the captain ordered.
"I can't, captain. The message is being affected before it even gets to us," the lieutenant said.
Ning looked around and saw that things were getting serious. "System clear up the message."
Suddenly, the man on the screen reappeared once again. Only, this time he was clear, and nothing was broken or missing.
"This is the captain of JMS Yilka. This planet in front of us has an incredibly strong magnetic pull, so you will need to put on your anti-magnetic shields and send the ship going sideways before falling into orbit. You will not be able to park otherwise."
"Oh! Lieutenant, pull up the anti-magnetic shields," the captain ordered. The lieutenant did as ordered and a bright green shield appeared all around them as the shield even covered what was outside.
However, the screen still showed the outer regions through a camera.
Ning watched the ship slowly descend sideways on the planet and slowly started circling it multiple times before they found an orbit to move on.
Once that happened, they slowly switched the orbit until it lined up with the mining ship and after an hour, they finally reached the mining vessel.
The mining ship was over 500 times larger than the research vessel, so it completely swallowed up the research ship.
The group disembarked and the captain of the met up with the captain of the mining vessel.
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"You arrived quite quickly, captain," the other captain said.
"Of course, it looked like an emergency," the captain said. She and the others followed the mining team to see what was wrong while Ning slowly followed them from behind as he looked around at the many ships that were in the hanger.
"What seems to be the problem, captain?" Greina asked.
"I'm not sure myself, captain," the mining vessel's captain said. "A few weeks ago, we suddenly started seeing weird numbers on our depth perception equipment."
"We think that it was caused by the magnetic fluctuations of the planet down below, but we cannot be sure as our Anti-magnetic shields were active the entire time," the captain said.
"Hmm, do you not have spare equipment?" Greina asked.
"We do," the captain said. "But without any idea on why we suddenly lost the equipment, we cannot swap it out. We are currently stable in orbit, but if we were to try and switch it up without our depth readings, we might end up in a catastrophic disaster. Especially in a planet like this with a very strong magnetic field," the captain said.
Greina looked out onto the planet. "I hear this planet is about 88% metal huh? No wonder it has so much magnetic activity."
She turned around to the captain. "Worry not, captain. We will figure out why your equipment was damaged very soon."
"Our engineers will try and see if they can fix your faulty equipment. In the meanwhile, we will go down to the planet and get some readings to see if it is the cause," the captain said.
"Thank you, captain," the captain said.
Ning watched from behind, looking at how the federation worked with each other, and he had to admit they were quite professional.
'So they mine metal from this planet, huh? I wonder how that works,' Ning thought. Did they mine from up here? Or did they send ships to get the people to work down there?
3 of the people split from the group and went on to check the equipment, while the rest returned to the ship.
Ning returned back to the ship which escaped the mining vessel and went down to the planet the long way round.
The anti-magnetic shields that protected them by creating a magnetic force of their own made it hard for them to penetrate into the planet, but gravity did the job anyways and pulled them in.
The ship landed on a rocky, metallic surface and the captain gave the order. "Everyone that was born on a planet with a gravity acceleration of fewer than 14 meters per squared second will remain on the ship," she said. "Everyone else, wear your spacesuits. This will be a tough mission."
The magnetic field alone was so strong, but the gravity on top of that on a planet with mostly metal would also be incredible.
Not to mention, the winds would also be dangerous, and being this far from the sun, the planet was bound to be cold.
The crew mates wore some very tough space suits, but Ning didn't need to worry about that.
When the door opened, one by one, they all walked out of the ship and then out of the anti-magnetic field.
Ning didn't wear any suits and walked on his own.
He walked out of the anti-magnetic field and suddenly, felt the intense gravity of the planet. However, he couldn't give mind to it at all as he heard something that he hadn't expected to hear at all.
The system suddenly spoke.
Chapter 812: Taking Some ReadingsNing's eyes slowly brightened as a smile appeared on his face. "I unlocked another energy? Magnetic Energy at that? What was the requirement I just fulfilled?" Ning asked.
"Okay," Ning said.
"Ooh, congrats. Looks like something good just happened," Saphandra said.
"Yes, Kinda," Ning said through the harsh ionic winds that threatened to tear the skin off his face. But his body was just too strong for it to do that.
"If the magnetic pull here is that strong, then I should have already absorbed quite a lot right?" Ning asked.
"Yes, double my energy cap then," he said.
"What's happening?" Saphandra asked with a confused look on her face. She wanted to know what was going on, but Ning was too busy with his own task.
"Double it again," he said.
"Yes, this just keeps getting better," Ning said. He started laughing as he waited for the system to absorb more of the magnetic energy from the planet now that he had more space for it.
Once he realized he had enough energy, Ning spoke once again.
"Double it!" he said.
"Magnetic energy doesn't sound like it will affect me much unless I'm in a body that is very easily attracted to magnets, so I should be fine with delaying it for now," Ning said.
"Hey! Tell me what just happened?" Saphandra asked.
"Oh, right," he finally got around to explaining to her what he had done. "Oh, so you can now absorb energy about 8 times faster? That's great."
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"Well… it usually is, but maybe not now," he said. "It takes a considerable amount of energy for me to absorb 80 Billion of it."
"I do have one new avenue of collecting energy, but the place I'm going to be at, there's no magnetic energy there for me to absorb. If I do start waiting there, there isn't much energy I can collect," Ning said.
"Is it absolutely necessary that you collect energy?" Saphandra asked.
"Well… it's always better to have more energy, but I don't know in this scenario," Ning said. "I would say yes if I had to open portals, but now I have Space stone. So…"
"System, is there an energy requirement for the next Energy unlock?" Ning asked.
Ning's face frowned for a second. "Don't I have that already?" he thought. "Status!"
[Status
Name: Ning Ruogong
Energy: 55.6 Quintillion
Separated Energy-
Heat Energy: 31.34 Trillion
Sound Energy: 511 Billion
Kinetic Energy: 660 Billion
Electrical Energy: 920 Billion
Magnetic Energy: 66 Billion
Qi Energy: 0
Aether Energy: 0
Mana Energy: 0
Magicules Energy: 0
Willpower Energy: 0
Spiritual Energy: 0
Lifeforce Energy: 0
Aura Energy: 0
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Essence Energy: 0
Chakra Energy: 0
Skill: …]
"See? I do have a lot of energy still. Let's just buy the next energy too," Ning said.
"There's more? Can I know?" Ning asked.
"Thought so," Ning snickered a bit. "I still have to spend it in the end, right?"
Ning thought for a moment and wondered if there would ever be any situation where 1 Quintillion energy would be too much for him by any chance.
"Wait, am I not going to spend hundreds of thousands of years in that other universe? I should be able to afford that much energy when the time comes," he thought. "If I do ever end up fulfilling all the requirements, then I shall unlock it."
Ning stopped thinking about the system for now and looked around him. The planet he stood on was uneven, with harsh winds that glittered in the sunlight.
The winds eroded the ground, and the eroded winds eroded more ground in different locations.
The surface was multicolored as the different metals made it seem like they were different colors.
Ning looked carefully and saw that there were markings on the ground from when ships perhaps landed on the surface here.
He then looked at the massive hole where the captain and the rest of the crew mates were and walked up to them.
The hole they were on was one of the many holes on the ground that had been excavated by the mining team. It was massive and just went to show how much of the surface had been mined.
He walked up to the group and saw the different numbers and graphs that were visible on their equipment.
Ning waited for a while for them to gather up their readings and watched them work. Once they were done, the group returned back to their ship and flew back.
Flying back was somehow easy for them as they simply made it so that the polarities of their anti-magnetic shield and the planet's magnetic polarity matched, and it simply tossed them away when they started the engine.
Using the force, they navigated the orbit once more before safely arriving at the mining station a while later.
The ship landed inside the mining vessel, and the group left the ship to go see the mining ship's captain.
The 3 engineers that had left the ship had also finished their work and met up with the captain.
"Captain, we will need whatever geological data the ship has gathered since it's come here," Greina said.
"Of course, Captain," the captain said.
Chapter 813: ResearchGreina and the rest started comparing the data they had gathered and analyzed what was going on.
"Did you find what was wrong with the equipment?" she asked one of her engineers.
"It seemed to have been hit by an electromagnetic pulse," one engineer said.
"What? How could it have been hit by an electromagnetic pulse when it was inside the Anti-magnetic shield?" the captain asked. That clearly didn't make sense.
She started looking at the different readings and the engineers helped her.
Ning watched from behind, looking at the research team at work.
"I can't understand half of what they're talking about," Saphandra said as she sat next to his ears.
"Well, I barely understand it as well, so I can't blame you," Ning said and watched.
"Captain, look," one of the researchers pointed at something. "At the same day the Depth Perception reader was taken out, the planet had reversed its polarity. Could that have been the trigger behind the electromagnetic pulse?"
The captain quickly checked the information and was excited for a bit that she found the answer. However, she couldn't help but shake her head.
"The polarity reverse was too slow to have caused this. The Anti-magnetic field would have reversed polarity along with it and the equipment would have never been damaged," the captain said.
The group was back in a slump and they started going through the hundreds of different data that none of their programs could, unfortunately, help them with.
They searched for more information, but Ning had already found the answer thanks to the system. He wondered if he should help, but decided to wait since there was no hurry.
After a few minutes, one of the engineers noticed something. "Captain, look, the ship was orbiting around the north pole of the planet when its polarity shifted to the south," the engineer said.
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"Huh? Yeah, but that's still too slow. As I said, it would not have affected the ship," the captain said.
"Yes, but what if there was a solar wind that struck the planet right at that time? If its polarity didn't match the Anti-magnetic shields, we could've been hit by a burst of Electromagnetic pulse generated in that instance."
The captain's face got thoughtful as she considered the possibility. Suddenly, her eyes brightened and she started looking through the various data.
"Here it is! Reports of solar activity had been seen, but they dismissed it since solar winds cannot possibly harm a ship," she said. "However, due to unfortunate timing, while being on top of a magnetic pole, they were hit by the charged particles, and the equipment was damaged."
"Yes, that makes sense," the other engineer nodded.
"Look into other possibilities, but we might have found the cause," she said and started searching for any evidence that would disprove this theory.
However, Ning knew that there would be none as the captain and her crewmates had hit the nail on the head.
He waited for them to figure out that there was nothing else that could've gone wrong, and returned to the ship while they went to inform the captain of the problem.
Since this was an isolated event, and the chances of it happening were astronomically small, they easily replaced the equipment and let the captain know there was nothing to fear.
As long as the engineers on the ship kept track of solar activity during the polarity shifting period, they would be fine.
After finishing all of that, the ship flew off from the mining station and the group flew back towards the Service Station.
Ning went back to the room with the Space Drive and helped them carry on with multiple jumps again.
Once they were close to the station, Ning had no choice but to wait half an hour before they arrived back.
He walked up to the bridge and waited.
"Captain, do you have any family members?" he asked.
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"No, master," she said. "Most of us federation members that go on a voyage are chosen from those that won't be missed greatly, so usually we are ones that don't have a family."
"What about those that do have a family?" Ning asked.
"Those end up remaining in a single place to work so that they can visit their families," the captain said.
"I see, you do have to be away for years, huh? What about friends? Do you not have those either?" Ning asked.
"I do," the captain said. "But most of my friends are back home at the center of the galaxy where time runs quite slowly. So, even if I spend many years here, most of which is spent sleeping in a cryo-chamber, they will still remain the same age as me by the time I return. Which we are allowed to after about 20 years of service as per the time back home."
"Oh, not bad. How many years do you have left?" Ning asked.
"About 10 more years," the captain said. "Or if we're talking outer space, about 900 more years."
"I see," Ning said.
"They spend quite a lot huh?" Saphandra said.
"They spend it asleep most of the time, so they don't feel the time moving," Ning said.
The ship arrived back at the station, and Ning teleported back into the room that he had bought for himself.
To his surprise, a whole day had already passed. "We only spent half a day near that planet though. Was the time difference that bad?" Ning wondered.
Ning quickly forgot about it and started preparing to go play the games that everyone seemed to love so much.
"Let's go buy whatever it is that is needed," he said and walked out of the room to go to a store.
He apparently had to buy a human-sized capsule to play the game and it came with a cryo-freezing ability where everything but your mind was inactive.
"I wonder how that works," Ning thought. He looked at the price of the capsule at around 3000 Credits and was quite surprised at how expensive it was.
Still, he was drowning in credits, so he thought not much of it and bought it.
Chapter 814: Soaring Star OnlineThe capsule was delivered to Ning's hotel room through a robot and was easily set up once the power cord was attached to the socket.
The capsule, which was made up of entirely metal and glass on the outside had a padded inside that looked very comfortable to sleep in.
Ning was about to step inside when Saphandra spoke.
"Wait, don't go in just yet. What about me?" she asked.
"I was just going to check," Ning said. "Right, system what should we do for her? I don't suppose a capsule like this could be used for spirits, right?"
"Great, do it," Ning said.
A different Spirit space appeared that did not have time-stop capabilities, but Saphandra could join the game through there.
Saphandra quickly entered the space and came back out half a second later. "Should I choose Soaring Star Online, or do you plan on playing any other game?" she asked.
"Soaring Star Online? Is that the game's name?" Ning asked.
"Yes, it has around 500,000 players playing right now," she said.
"What's the second one?" Ning asked.
"Uh, something called Heaven's Conquest, but it only had about 2000 people playing," Saphandra answered.
"Oh yeah, we're definitely playing the one with more players then," Ning said. He got into the capsule and at the same time, Saphandra got into her spirit space.
Slowly, Ning felt the air cool down as his body froze. However, his consciousness was already separating from him as he was pulled into a different world.
A world that was completely dark.
Then, a female voice spoke.
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Light burst out from in front of Ning as the world expanded wide open and some things appeared in front of him.
"This feels so real," Ning said. "Is this real?"
Somehow, even in a game, his system was speaking.
"I see," he said. "Right, don't bother me too much unless there are emergencies. And you won't have to help me or tell me informations. I want to enjoy the game just as I can."
Ning looked around and saw a small platform up front. He slowly walked up and something popped up.
"Oh, is this character design?" he thought.
[Please make the character you want to play as.]
"Hmm… let's see. I like red hair. Short hair obviously. Tall body… but not so tall. Let's see, blue eyes. What else?" Ning continued to edit his body as best as he could.
He ended up looking like himself to a certain extent, but with red hair, blue eyes, and more well defined muscle.
Once he was done, a blue panel hovered in front of him, not unlike the pseudo-system that Genesis had implemented, and it showed 3 different wings on it.
[Please choose one of the Wings below. It will determine which faction you play from.]
"Factions?" Ning wondered what that was.
The left most one were wings that belonged to a bird, and he could see the feathers even through the silhouette. "Birds are a faction? Why?" Ning wondered. What sort of game was this?
The middle wing was one that belonged to a butterfly. Ning definitely didn't want this one. It just… didn't look good. Besides, what if he ended up as a bug person for some reason?
The last one look surprisingly familiar to Ning. "Wait, aren't those the same wings Derel had?" he thought. Dragon wings. "Dragons are a faction too huh?" he thought.
There was no more thinking he needed to do here. Since Dragons were obviously the best out there, he clicked on that silhouette and pressed 'Accept'.
However, even as he did, some words had appeared below the Dragon wings silhouette that immediately caused Ning to frown.
"Fuck! I shouldn't have been so hasty."
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Light enveloped him slowly as he started disappearing from this world, but the frown in his face slowly changed to a smile.
"Whatever, I would have still chosen that anyway." Then, he disappeared and appeared somewhere else.
Saphandra stood in front of her own character, a small girl with a beautiful face, long blue hair, and purple eyes. She pressed accept, and the character disappeared.
She looked at her own body and realized that she had changed. She pulled hair and saw that it was blue too.
'It's already changed huh?' she thought.
Then, the panel appeared for her as well to choose the wings from.
Saphandra looked at the different wings and nodded to herself. "I see, so that's how they get the wings huh?" she thought.
Every night for the last week after Ning went to sleep, she would sit around watching TV. During that time, she had come to learn about the game and that was how she was able to tell Ning as well.
"The feathered wings are for the Angels faction, the butterfly wings are for the neutral faction, and the bat wings are for the Demon faction," she said to herself.
"Hmm, if I want to have fun, then I definitely can't join the neutral faction. But, between Angels and Demons… god, I hate demons."
Without hesitation, Saphandra chose the Angels faction and disappeared from the world of white to a normal world that looked no different from Nulwurn.
'Hmm, not much modernness here, huh?' she thought and looked around.
People all around her either had no wings, or had the Angelic wings. She didn't see anyone with Neutral wings or Demonic wings at all.
As she looked around, her attention was pulled back by a panel that appeared in front of her.
[Quest: Complete the Tutorial (Part 1)
Tutorial: Locate the training hall and ask to be trained.
Quest Reward: Complete the Tutorial (Part 2)]
"Training hall? Where's that?" she thought. She started walking as she now needed to find this location.
Chapter 815: Training HallNing looked around at where he had arrived at. A red moon hung in the sky, covering the world in its crimson light.
Ning looked at his own body and he too had some redness in his color. "Oh, I'm wearing clothes already huh?" he thought.
Even the black trousers and shirt he wore were also clad in crimson light.
Not only that, Ning could see some orange glow from all around the city he was in.
The people around him were all with red skin and horns. Some had horns, some didn't. Some had wings, some didn't.
It was all dragon wings, or so Ning would have thought had he not read the piece of information before he had arrived here.
He had demonic wings.
The bat wings were pit black in color with very little definition to them. Ning tried moving them, and they moved at his mental command. Ning was surprised that he could feel them on his back. Even though he had never had a wing before, he somehow could move it like it were an arm.
'Can I fly?' he thought and flapped very fast, but nothing happened. Not even the wind moved around him, and he understood that the wings were there only for visual purposes.
"Well, I guess I'm a demon now," he thought. "What next then?" Since it was a game, he didn't worry all about what faction he had arrived as. Given that they were made to choose, each faction would obviously have its own advantage and disadvantage.
Just then, a floating blue screen appeared in front of him.
[Quest: Complete the Tutorial (Part 1)
Tutorial: Locate the training hall and ask to be trained.
Quest Reward: Complete the Tutorial (Part 2)]
"I see, training hall. I will have to see where that is," he thought. "First of all, let's see how my character is."
"Status!"
[Please complete the Tutorial before checking your status.]
"Tsk!"
He looked around and found a demon without wings. "Hey, brother. Do you know where the training hall is?" he asked.
"You talking to me little maggot? Do you think you're so big that you can just talk to me? Huh?" the demon suddenly got aggressive.
Ning was a little taken aback, but he didn't fear.
"I mean, if you don't know then say you don't know," Ning said.
"Who says I don't know? Why would I not know the training hall that lies in that direction?" the demon asked.
"Oh, thanks," Ning said and turned around to leave.
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"You bastard! Come back here!" the demon shouted, but did nothing to follow Ning.
Ning walked on through the busy street that was filled with demons. The buildings were made of some sort of glassy rock, most likely obsidian.
That seemed especially true when he noticed that he was in what humans would call Hell. The grounds were made up of black dirt with occasional lines of flowing lava.
The demons walked around with rugged swords that seemed halfheartedly made, and in the distance, Ning could see volcanic mounds that spewed lava continuously.
"Thank god I don't feel much heat," Ning thought. Otherwise, playing in this place would be miserable.
Ning arrived at a location that made a lot of noise. He looked at the words on top of the building that automatically translated to 'Training Hall' for him.
Ning walked inside and looked at everyone that was striking on puppets or getting hit by something.
He looked at an elderly demon in a long gown that was sitting to the side.
"Hello, I wish to train," Ning said.
"Huh? Do you want to train? Then go hit that wooden posts for a while. Come to me after you've earned a few points in Strength," the old demon said.
"Okay," Ning said.
[Ding!]
[Quest: Complete the Tutorial (Part 1) has been completed.]
[Ding! You have a new quest]
[Quest: Complete the Tutorial (Part 2)
Tutorial: Hit the wooden post to get at least 2 points of STR.
Quest Rewards:
1. Unlocks the quest "Complete the Tutorial (Part 3)
2. Unlocks Player Profile
]
"Hmm," Ning thought after reading the notification.
"What the hell are you still doing there? Go right now," the old demon shouted.
"Yes, I'm going," Ning said and grabbed a wooden sword before going to an empty wooden post, away from many others.
Then he struck the post as hard as he could.
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"Oh," Ning was a little surprised when the notification appeared. However, it seemed to disappear from his vision when he didn't focus on it, so it wasn't as intrusive.
"13 damage? I wonder how that is counted," he thought. He pulled the sword back and hit as hard as he could.
"Hmm, it increased. Does hitting harder mean I deal more damage?" Ning thought. He pulled back the sword again and hit as hard as he could.
"No, that doesn't seem to be the case. It feels random," he thought. "What if I don't put any force into my attack?"
Ning lazily hit the post this time. However, no notification popped up at all. He tried again and it didn't count.
He slowly increased the intensity and at some point, he finally gained the notification again.
"Oh it was 15 this time," Ning thought and continued hitting the post as per the tutorial.
However, for some reason, he didn't get any STR increment at all.
Ning was worried that he was doing something wrong, but he sighed in relief when he got his first notification.
"Great," Ning thought and continued hitting. Several minutes later, he got the same notifications and his STR increased by 1 again.
[Ding!]
[Quest: Complete the Tutorial (Part 2) has been completed.]
[Ding! You have a new quest]
[Quest: Complete the Tutorial (Part 3)
Tutorial: Get hit by the wooden pole to increase your DEF and VIT stat.
Quest Rewards:
1. Unlocks the quest "Complete the Tutorial (Part 4)]
[Ding!]
[You can now check your Player Profile]
Chapter 816: Completing Tutorials"Ooh, player profile," Ning thought. He was about to speak for it when he noticed something hovering at the leftmost corner of his eyes.
He glanced, and it came into focus.
[Player518456#:
HP: 220
MP: 110]
"I don't have a name yet?" he wondered and clicked on the profile. A Status page appeared in front of him in a massive panel.
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[Player518456# (Can Change Once):
Level: 1 (0/100)
Class: (Reach Level 10)
Race: Demon
Title: (None Equipped)
STR: 12
INT: 10
VIT: 10
DEF: 10
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AGI: 10
HP: 200
MP: 100
]
"Hmm, STR… that's Strength right?" Ning thought. He quickly understood what the rest much be.
"What do they do exactly? Can I know?" he wondered and tapped around. When he tapped on STR, it gave a small popup.
[STR: Your Strength value determines how much damage your normal attacks deal. Your damage will always be in the range of 1.3x to 1.5x your STR stat prior to getting reduced by the enemy.]
"Oh, explain more," Ning tapped everything.
In essence, it was simple.
Chapter 817: Corrupted GrasshopperNing appeared outside the city through the gates that saw an influx of demons both with and without wings.
Ning looked around, trying to see if he could see names or anything, but to his disappointment, he could see nothing.
He did have a general idea of what was going on though. From what he could understand, the demons that had wings were most likely players just like him.
The ones that weren't players were most likely characters from the game that were there for the world to feel lived in.
Ning continued walking through the rough terrain where the only signs of plant life he could see were rotting wood and dried-up trees.
"Does anyone want to party with me?"
"I'm looking for a party."
"We have 3 in the party. Come join."
The players with simple bat wings hung around right outside the city wall, trying to look for party members.
"Party? Are the beasts really that hard to kill?" he wondered. "I'm sure I can handle on on my own."
Ning followed a few players to the outskirts of the city where he could see many others fighting with monsters in the dark.
Ning tried to squint his eyes to see, but thankfully, the monster he had to kill glowed with a white outline, making it easy to know where it was and where to hit it exactly.
He walked to a relatively empty location and searched for one of the monsters. Not even a minute later, he found one.
A small grasshopper, with bright red eyes and a body that seemed to drip black ink, stood in front of Ning. It was about the size of an average bird, so not very big.
"It's not so bad," Ning thought. "I don't see why anyone would need a party to fight with these things." Then he pointed his wand forward and thought of activating the fireball.
A small, egg-sized fire burst in front of the wand and immediately flew toward the unsuspecting black grasshopper.
"Woah, not bad," Ning thought. "I can finish this easily." He tried activating the skill again, but nothing happened.
"Ah right, cooldo—"
Suddenly, the grasshopper came flying in his direction and nearly smashed into him. Ning barely managed to dodge it in time by jumping sideways, but now he was on the ground and the grasshopper had already turned around.
The agility that the grasshopper had shown was not something Ning could dodge easily. Just doing it once had forced him on the ground, the next time would hurt.
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As he thought that, the grasshopper jumped back towards him and struck him in the chest as he was getting up.
"Crap!" Ning thought and stood up. He tried activating the skill again, but it was still on cooldown.
"I see. So that's why you need a party. Screw this!" he thought and jumped at the grasshopper to punch it. The grasshopper also jumped at the same time and hit Ning as well.
"That's… a little low. Is the grasshopper's defense high?" Ning thought. He tried punching the grasshopper again, but he found himself physically incapable of sending out another punch.
"What's going on?" he wondered. He got up quickly and moved back away from the grasshopper.
His panel opened quickly at the side and he saw that he now had 267 HP remaining of what was originally 300 thanks to his 15 VIT stat.
'How much does the beast have?' Ning thought.
The grasshopper jumped again, but Ning was ready this time. He once again tried to punch and it worked.
His fist and the grasshopper slammed with each other and they both took damage once again.
Ning caught himself from falling and pointed his full hand towards the grasshopper that had landed not far away.
Another fireball fired out, striking the grasshopper and dealing another 18 damage.
Ning got used to it, so he got into the fight once more.
Some while later, after taking half a dozen more hits and sending back nearly 10 different punches and fireballs, Ning finally won with 94 HP, and 122 MP remaining.
"Hmm… is that it?" Ning thought. He opened his Player Profile and checked again.
[ IMMORTAL_ENERGY:
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Level: 1 (22/100)
Class: (Reach Level 10)
Race: Demon
Title: (None Equipped)
STR : 15
INT : 15 2
VIT : 15
DEF : 15
AGI : 15
HP : 94 / 300
MP : 126 / 170
]
"Dammit, I still need to kill 4 more but just killing one has put me in such a state. I should definitely go back and party up," Ning thought and left.
He returned back to the gate and met up with the many people that wanted to party up, but every time he told them that he didn't have much HP, for now, they refused to take him in.
Thankfully, the third party he tried to join taught him what to do.
"If you have money, you can buy food to quickly regenerate your Health and Mana," A man with golden hair and a handsome look said. Next to him was 1 more man and 2 other girls.
"I… don't have coins. How do I get that?" he asked.
"Well, you have to sell whatever you have, but if you don't have anything to sell, you can just die and get respawned 10 minutes later with full health and Mana. You should take advantage of it when you are out in the field. It's faster than returning back," the man said.
"How long does it take to regenerate with food?" Ning asked.
"Uh… about a minute at most," the man said.
"Thank you," he said and turned to leave but stopped. "I will return in 2 minutes. Can I please join your party?"
The man smiled. "Of course. Let me send you a party request."
Chapter 818: PartyThe owner of the party, the man with the blonde hair, was someone named TRIPLE SHOT. The other man in the party was called BIG GUNS.
The little girl with the red hair was called CRIMSON WAVE, and the bigger girl with blonde hair was NIGHT SKY.
Ning had found this out after he had accepted their party request. The panel with their names showed their HP and MP numbers, and while he couldn't see levels, he could guess they were also Level 1, just like him.
Once he partied up, he quickly returned back to the city and found a random tavern where he could sell the grasshopper's legs and eyes to get some bread for himself.
Ning ate 1 of the 2 bread he got and watched his HP and MP regenerate to full. Once it was full, he turned around and went back to the party.
"Let's go hunt," TRIPLE SHOT said.
Ning nodded and walked together with the group before going out to the fields once more.
The next monster he saw was a Corrupted Grasshopper as well. "Are there only grasshoppers in this place?" Ning asked.
"No, there are worms and rabbits, which are easier to deal with than grasshoppers," BIG GUNS said.
"Easier? They don't jump around as much?" Ning asked. That was the only thing he could think was troublesome when dealing with them.
"Yes," TRIPLE SHOT answered. "Worms are the easiest, then rabbits, and then grasshoppers. Let's talk about that later though, let's kill it for now."
TRIPLE SHOT held out a sword, and BIG GUNS took out a dagger. The CRIMSON WAVE girl took out a wand, and the NIGHT SKY girl took out her dagger as well.
"Start with your magic attacks," TRIPLE SHOT said and both Ning and the red-haired girl pointed their wands at the grasshopper.
At the same time, they fired.
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Two fireballs flew off, hitting the grasshopper at the same time, dealing 18 damage each.
At the same time, the two people with the dagger moved and cut the grasshopper, dealing 14 and 15 damage respectively. Finally, TRIPLE SHOT moved and swung his sword, dealing 17 damage at once.
All of a sudden, the grasshopper lost over 80 HP in a single round of fights.
"2 more rounds and we should be done," TRIPLE SHOT said.
The grasshopper targeted the one that dealt it the most damage. As there were no taunt skills for anyone to use yet, the normal taunt system worked where it went by most damage dealt.
The one that dealt it the most damage was CRIMSON WAVE and Ning. So, it chose Ning.
"Dodge!" TRIPE SHOT said the moment he realized the grasshopper was going for Ning.
Ning saw that too and jumped to the side before the grasshopper could even attack. The grasshopper missed by a long shot and flew off way behind Ning, where the 3 with the weapons attacked it once more.
The aggro changed to TRIPLE SHOT now that he had dealt the most damage. At the same time, CRIMSON WAVE, who was the only one that could possibly attack in this situation, jumped forward and hit the grasshopper as best she could.
Unfortunately for her, the grasshopper was faster. It moved immediately, but TRIPLE SHOT dodged it easily.
At such an early level, dodging was quite easy as long as you knew something was going to attack you.
Ning was already up by the time and punched the grasshopper, while the two dagger users cut the grasshopper as well.
The one that dealt the most damage was NIGHT SKY, so the grasshopper turned towards her and jumped. NIGHT SKY expected it and was about to dodge when a sword appeared out of nowhere in the path of the grasshopper and hit it on the head.
The grasshopper disappeared into bits of lights and everyone got notifications.
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Ning waited, but that was it. No more notifications came. To say he wasn't disappointed would be to lie.
"Did you crit?" CRIMSON WAVE asked.
"Yeah, I got lucky," TRIPLE SHOT said as he chuckled a bit. "It was a high roll too. I did 34 Damage there, you know?"
"Oooh! I got an observer stone. Not bad," BIG GUNS said with a big smile.
"What's an observer stone?" Ning asked.
"It lets you check the stats of the beast in front of you," TRIPLE SHOT said.
"Oh... How do you know all of this? You even knew how much HP that beast had or how to regenerate HP. Have you played this game before?" Ning asked.
"Haha, yes. A little," TRIPLE SHOT said. "I started playing this game a little over a month ago when it arrived here at the station and ended up with a character with very low-grade stats. I tried going with it for a while, but I simply couldn't bear with it, so I decided to change it."
"Bad stats?" Ning asked with a confused expression. "You didn't start with 10 to all stats?"
"No, that's not the stats I'm talking about. I'm talking about the hidden stats like Charisma, Leadership, and such. I had a really bad Leadership, but I ended up with a Beast Taming class and I simply couldn't keep going. I had to change."
"Ah, I see," Ning said. "There are more stats hidden, huh? I had no idea. How many Leadership stat did you have at the time?"
"Oh, those stats aren't defined by numbers, but rather letters," TRIPE SHOT said. "It starts from D at the lowest and goes to A and then to S and SSS at the highest. I had C in Leadership."
"How do I check mine?" Ning asked.
"There are certain monsters that you can kill and they'll drop Stones of Wisdom that randomly tell you one of your hidden stats. You can also just buy them if you want, but they might end up costing a bit at the early levels," TRIPLE SHOT said. "You will find them as you go along."
Chapter 819: Stat DistributionNing nodded as he took all the information he was gaining to heart.
"We should be moving," NIGHT SKY spoke from the side. They had been staying in one position, talking for a little too long.
"Yes," TRIPLE SHOT nodded and they went on to fight the rest of the monsters.
For the next half an hour, they dealt with many monsters, most of which were just the Grasshoppers. They only saw 3 Corrupted Rabbits and a single Corrupted Worm.
In between these times, Ning had come to learn quite a lot about the game that he would have otherwise not learned had to be played alone.
The city he was in was called the beginner's city. Only starting players were allowed here, and once you got your class, you were teleported away from here.
The most important thing he had learned was perhaps the fact that he could speak with demons and talk to them to get quests.
It would have taken Ning forever to realize that was a possibility had he not been with them.
Another thing he learned was how he could get a class as well. Getting a class was quite simple. All he had to do was go to the massive tavern at the center of the city.
There were various other little things about the game that he was very happy to learn about and considered it his good luck that he met with these people.
After dealing with the beasts, Ning finally leveled up.
"I leveled up," Ning said.
"Oh, you have killed a beast before?" TRIPLE SHOT asked.
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"Yes, I killed a grasshopper before I met you guys," Ning said as he looked at his status. "So, I just distribute it to what I want, right?"
"Yes, as I said before, the stat distribution you have by the time you are getting your class will highly influence just what class you will get," TRIPLE SHOT explained.
"Hmm… I think I will put 2 to STR, 5 to INT, 2 to AGI, and 1 to VIT," Ning said. "I really want to play this magic class, but also have some damage when I hit and can dodge," Ning said.
"If that's the kind of class you want to play, then go for it," he said.
Ning happily put in the stat he just said and spent all the spare stats. Then, they continued on with hunting.
Now that he had leveled up and distributed his stats, Ning started doing 21 damage with his fireball skill, instead of just 18, and each of his physical hits did between 16 and 18 damage.
Also, with his higher AGI stat, he could feel himself becoming just the tiniest bit faster when he did stuff.
They continued playing the game for nearly 5 hours before they decided to stop.
Everyone, including Ning, was at Level 5 now, and some way through to reaching level 6. By now, it only hurt them if they stayed together as even when they killed a lot of the monsters, they barely leveled up.
"We should split up," TRIPLE SHOT said and thus the party disbanded, with everyone going their own way.
Ning decided to go on his own way too and fought a bit more grasshoppers before realizing that the EXP he was getting was a little too low for him now.
Killing the grasshoppers did get easier, but not as easy as it was when 5 people attacked it at the same time.
He still had to deal with being on cooldown all the time, his attack speed forcing him to not hit as fast, and also the fact that he now needed 600 Exp to even reach the next level.
Given that a normal grasshopper gave between 20 and 22 Exp, and those seemed to be the only ones he could find, he would need to kill about 30 of them, while constantly taking damage without healing.
Thankfully, he had come to learn about a better way to earn some Exp, and that was to get some quests.
Ning returned back to the city and walked through the dark road, looking at either side of the road to see if he could find a quest somewhere.
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He found players going in and out of random shops with happy expressions on their faces, so Ning decided to try one as well.
He entered a shop and saw that it was a tailoring shop with many different leather and clothes hanging around.
"Sir, do you need some assistance?" he asked.
"Hmm, you want to help me?" the demon in the room looked at Ning with a curious expression. "You can't help me, go away."
"I promise I can help you," Ning said, not budging from his location.
"You think you can, but you don't. Come back when you are stronger," the demon said.
"Sir, I am strong, and I can do it. Just give me a chance and watch me finish it quickly," Ning said.
The demon's expression finally changed from something other than bothered. "Hmm… If you want to help me, then bring me 10 pieces of rabbit skin and 10 pieces of grasshopper legs," he said.
[DING!]
[You have obtained the quest 'Gather Ingredients for the Demon Tailor']
[Gather Materials for the Demon Tailor
Collect Rabbit skin x 10 (9/10)
Collect Grasshopper Leg x 10 (86/10)
Reward: 10 bronze coins and 150 Exp]
"Obviously," Ning said and hit accept. "Just wait, I will bring your materials very soon."
Ning then turned around and left the tailor. He went back out of the city. This time, he already had the required Grasshopper legs and almost all the Rabbit skin he needed too.
He just needed one more, he went out to hunt them as long as it took. However, despite needing just 1 more Rabbit skin, Ning simply couldn't complete his quest at all.
Because no matter where he went, he just kept finding the Grasshoppers.
Chapter 820: Class QuestNing had to fight through 30 Grasshoppers before he found his first rabbit.
Even then, when he did kill it, he only got 2 Rabbit Ears, and 3 Rabbit meat.
He fought through another 3 dozen Grasshoppers before he found another Rabbit, defeating which gave him a single Rabbit's Foot, and an observer stone.
Finally, he fought many Grasshoppers again and managed to find another rabbit that gave him the Rabbit Skin he needed.
When he was done, Ning checked his profile again.
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[ IMMORTAL ENERGY:
Level: 8 (271 /800)
Class: (Reach Level 10)
Race: Demon
Title: (None Equipped)
STR : 30
INT : 552
VIT : 24
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DEF : 30
AGI : 16
HP : 338/480
MP : 280/570
]
"Hmm, I should quickly return and come back with a new quest," Ning thought and returned to the city.
Once he gave back the items, the quest was completed, and Ning went to a different shop and asked around if anyone needed any help.
:}
