QUEST COMPLETED: SPEAKING WITH THE ENEMY.

REWARD: 8,000 XP + 3 ATTRIBUTE POINTS.

TECHNOLOGY UNLOCKED: SHIELDING.

NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: SHIELDING SYSTEMS, LEVEL 1.

BLUEPRINT UNLOCKED: PERSONAL SHIELD GENERATOR.

FOR COMPLETING THE QUEST BEFORE LEVEL 20, YOU GET A BONUS REWARD OF +1 INTELLIGENCE.

BONUS OBJECTIVE ACHIEVED: SHARE YOUR KNOWLEDGE WITH KEY ALLIES TO GAIN A BETTER COLLECTIVE UNDERSTANDING OF THE ALIEN FOE.

HIERARCHY LORE INCREASES TO LEVEL 12. YOU ARE NOW AMONGST THE MOST WELL-INFORMED PEOPLE ON EARTH ON THE TOPIC OF THE ALIENS. WELL DONE.

NEW QUEST ALERT: THE LIRAEAN ENIGMA.

YOU HAVE LEARNT ABOUT THE ENIGMATIC RACE KNOWN AS THE LIRAEANS, WHOSE TESTSHIP VISITED EARTH IN 2060 AND GRANTED POWERS TO THE HUMAN RACE.

UNDERSTAND THE LIRAEANS’ OBJECTIVE IN ACHIEVING THIS.

REWARD: 40,000 XP + 1 NEW TECHNOLOGY UNLOCKED.

: That’s the latest update.

: This is… wow. This is amazing. They should give you a medal for this for sure.

: I’d rather they gave me access to more tech.

: Yeah, and if it weren’t for the situation with Agni, I’d be tempted to join you in England.

: Don’t worry, I’ll bring you over next time.

: Preferably when there aren’t aliens shooting at us. Maybe we can actually do some sightseeing in Liverpool. Or London.

: Assuming the nine million deaths can be avoided.

: Yeah, that. Any luck on the teleportation jammer?

: Working on it. I need a lot more MP to create one. Although the three attribute points may help.

: I’d suggest you diversify a bit, but you definitely need to boost your MP. Although you also need Dexterity. And Perception. And if you’re going to be interrogating the alien you should boost your Charisma stat, maybe make the conversations longer.

: So basically I need more of everything.

: Damn straight.

: I’m not sure I can afford that. This quest took months to complete, and I only got it because of taking the aliens prisoner. I even got a bonus for completing it before Level 20.

: So, that’s good.

: It also means my power thinks this quest is well beyond what I should be capable of right now. I mean, at Level 1, I could just about take on a Sarnak, and they’re supposed to be Level 12. At Level 11, I’m essentially smashing my way through Level 20 aliens on a regular basis.

: Don’t get ahead of yourself. Level 20 is a Raptor Captain and you still have trouble with those. It’s the Level 10 Raptor Guards and the Level 12 Sarnak that you’ve mostly dealt with.

: You’re right. The only time I took on something Level 30 was that Stealth Rover, and that would have rolled right over me alone.

: So you can’t flip a tank yet. Big deal.

: My point is, am I just lucky?

: Maybe you are. So?

: So, I won’t be lucky forever. The Raptor captain is their equivalent of a normal soldier. Their powered troops haven’t even shown up yet. And if we have to fight an Archon…

: Good point.

: I need to get better faster. A lot faster.

: Don’t go doing something stupid.

: Getting past Agni is going to be tough enough, thank you.

: So you need to get that teleport jammer working. Hop to it.

: Aye, aye, ma’am.

Major Blythe led me into a warehouse. “These are the samples we’ve set aside for you.”

I glanced around. Each item was placed in a separate area, with a small table with notes to its side. “These are the ones for destructive testing?”

Blythe nodded. “General Windsor signed off on it personally. You can do what you want with them, as long as you don’t blow up the base. Or take them offsite.”

I nodded. “Thank you.”

“You’ve got four hours before we have to meet the prisoner again.”

I nodded and started looking through the captured equipment.

I’d decided to distribute my bonus attribute points equally amongst Wisdom, Perception and Dexterity. This had the positive side effect of pushing my AP up to 324 - enough for six Javelin Strikes in quick succession. With a Fullersteel Pilum, that mean I could do up to 1,920 damage before needing to recharge. Or close with the enemy, hit them with the Lightning Hammer for 570 damage six times, and then jump back - doing an incredible 3,420 damage in the process.

Still not enough to take out a Carnotaur.

Fortunately, the blueprint - Personal Shield Generator - would offer me some degree of protection.

PERSONAL SHIELD GENERATOR

ARMOR COMPONENT - USES 1 COMPONENT SLOT

SHIELDS: 100/100

THIS DEVICE CAN BE FITTED TO ANY POWERED ARMOR. PROVIDES COMPLETE PROTECTION AGAINST ENERGY, FOCUSED GRAVITY AND KINETIC WEAPONS. DOES NOT PROTECT AGAINST PSIONIC ATTACK.

1 UNIT OF SHIELDING PROTECTS AGAINST 1 DAMAGE. ONCE THE SHIELD IS DEPLETED, DAMAGE HITS THE ARMOR. ONCE THE ARMOR POINTS ARE DEPLETED, DAMAGE HITS THE SQUISHY HUMAN BEING INSIDE, WHICH IS YOU.

REGEN: 1/MINUTE

WEIGHT: 4 KG

BLUEPRINT:

2 KG FULLERSTEEL + 1 GRAVITIC CONTROL ARRAY + 1 HEAVY POWER PACK + 4 SMARTPHONES + 500 MP.

Now I just needed to figure out how to make a gravitic control array. As well as a teleport jammer.

I walked over to the first device. It looked like a flexible tube, attached to circuit connectors at both ends.

DAMAGED PLASMA CONDUIT

USED TO TRANSFER HIGH ENERGY PLASMA FROM ONE LOCATION TO ANOTHER. A VITAL PART OF ANY LARGE SCALE POWER SYSTEM.

Reverse Engineering unlocked the blueprint for making my own Plasma Conduits. They needed copper wire, glass, and lead. Not bad for a first try.

Over the next few minutes, I gradually Reverse Engineered a Plasma Power Transformer, a Magnetic Containment Chamber, a Maglev Launcher.

The last item, however, gave me pause.

From the outside, it looked like an ordinary black box with trailing wires, something that might have been thrown in the trash. Observe told a much more interesting story:

SHUTTLECRAFT GRAVITIC SENSOR SUITE

USED TO DETECT ANOMALIES IN THE GRAVITATIONAL FIELD, THE GRAVITIC SENSOR SUITE REPRESENTS A SPECIALIZED IMPLEMENTATION OF XERANAI GRAVITY CONTROL ENGINEERING.

THIS MULTI-FUNCTIONAL SYSTEM ALLOWS A SHUTTLECRAFT TO DETECT INCOMING TELEPORTS, HIGH VELOCITY RAILGUN SHELLS, SHIELD LEVELS OF ENEMIES, AND MASKED FOES THROUGH DISTORTIONS IN THE GRAVITATIONAL FIELDS IN NEARSPACE.

WEIGHT: 40 KG.

REQUIRES SKILL: GRAVITIC SYSTEMS LEVEL 10 TO REVERSE ENGINEER.

The device looked useful. Except that I had exactly zero levels in the Gravitic Systems skill, which was a bummer.

Was there any other way to figure it out?

TEST OF INTELLIGENCE: PASSED.

GRAVITIC SYSTEMS AND GRAVITY CONTROL BOTH MANIPULATE GRAVITATIONAL FORCES.

YOU MAY BE ABLE TO USE GRAVITY CONTROL SKILLS TO BYPASS THIS REQUIREMENT BY MAKING IT THE ACTIVE TARGET OF AT LEAST 1 SKILL DURING THE REVERSE ENGINEERING PROCESS.

I knew exactly two skills in the Gravity Control tree. One was Powerjump, which only worked on me.

The other was Levitation, which I’d never used before.

I checked the description of Levitation:

LEVITATION

YOU CAN MAKE THINGS FLOAT. A NICE PARTY TRICK. FOR CHILDREN.

LEVEL 1: LIFT 1 KG IN EARTH GRAVITY FOR 1 SECOND AT A COST OF 1 MP. FOR EACH ADDITIONAL KILO, THE COST INCREASES BY 1 MP/SECOND.

I could levitate this for three-and-a-half seconds and then use Reverse Engineering on it.

So I did exactly that.

FOR FIGURING OUT A WAY TO REVERSE ENGINEER A DEVICE SIGNIFICANTLY MORE ADVANCED THAN YOUR SKILL LEVEL, +1 INTELLIGENCE.

SKILL UNLOCKED: GRAVITIC SYSTEMS.

THE USE OF ARTIFICIAL DEVICES TO CONTROL GRAVITY.

+2 BONUS LEVELS DUE TO YOUR EXISTING SKILLS IN GRAVITY CONTROL.

BLUEPRINT UNLOCKED: GRAVITIC CONTROL ARRAY

REQUIRES GRAVITIC SYSTEMS LEVEL 1.

1 GRAVITIC CONTROL ARRAY (GCA) = 4 SMALL POWER PACKS + ELECTRONIC CIRCUIT BOARD + 0.1 KG THORIUM + 200 MP.

BLUEPRINT UNLOCKED: GRAVITIC SENSOR.

DIFFERENT TYPES CAN BE FINE-TUNED TO DETECT INCOMING TELEPORTATION, ACTIVELY MASKED ENTITIES NEARBY, OR INCOMING HIGH-VELOCITY WEAPONRY.

CAN BE PAIRED WITH AUTOMATED DEFENSE SYSTEMS TO FIRE INTERCEPTION LASERS OR INTERPOSE SHIELD LAYERS.

REQUIRES GRAVITIC SYSTEMS LEVEL 2.

1 GRAVITIC SENSOR = 1 GRAVITIC CONTROL ARRAY + 1 FOCUSING CRYSTAL + 2 SMALL POWER PACKS + 1 SMARTPHONE + 400 MP.

BLUEPRINT UNLOCKED: MASS DRIVER RIFLE

THE USE OF ELECTROMAGNETIC AND FOCUSED GRAVITY FIELDS TO LAUNCH PROJECTILES HAS BEEN STUDIED DEEPLY BY MULTIPLE SPECIES.

THIS TECHNOLOGY LENDS ITSELF TO THE CREATION OF A SPECIALIZED RIFLE THAT ALLOWS FOR HEAVY PROJECTILES TO BE LAUNCHED AT A FRACTION OF THE NORMAL ENERGY COSTS.

PROPELS EACH PROJECTILE TO INCREDIBLE VELOCITIES. BEWARE OF RECOIL.

MAGAZINE CAPACITY: 6 SHOTS.

+1,000 DAMAGE/HIT.

USERS WITH GRAVITY CONTROL SKILLS CAN BOOST DAMAGE BY ADDING MP TO EACH SHOT.

REQUIRES: GRAVITIC SYSTEMS LEVELS 3.

1 MASS DRIVER RIFLE: 4 KG FULLERSTEEL + 12 GRAVITY CONTROL ARRAYS + 3 MEDIUM POWER PACKS + 1000 MP.

A thousand damage per hit?

With that kind of power, I could one-shot anything I’d faced so far short of a Grizzeloid Warrior, and that was before considering the impact of powering the shot with MP - which offered the tantalizing option of doing even more damage.

I had to get this rifle.

Except, it needed a thousand MP to forge - which I didn’t have.

Was there a way to reduce that? Like, how I’d been able to use the Power Pack Integrator to reduce the cost of Heavy Power Packs?

TEST OF WISDOM: PASSED.

THE USE OF MP IN ASSEMBLING OR CRAFTING A DEVICE IS A SUBSTITUTE FOR MANUFACTURING PROCESSES THAT MAY NOT EXIST OR BE AVAILABLE TO YOU.

IF YOU CAN SUBSTITUTE SOME PART OF FORGING A DEVICE WITH STANDARD PRODUCTION EQUIPMENT OR PARTIALLY ASSEMBLED COMPONENTS, THE COST WILL REDUCE.

IF YOU HAVE SKILLS THAT SYNERGIZE WITH THE CLASS OF DEVICE BEING CONSTRUCTED, THE COST WILL REDUCE FURTHER.

FOR GRAVITIC SYSTEMS, A RELEVANT SKILL IN THE GRAVITY CONTROL TREE IMPACTS THE COST OF PRODUCTION. FOR EACH LEVEL BEYOND LEVEL 1 IN THE RELEVANT SKILL, THE MENTAL ENERGY POINT COST IS REDUCED BY 10%.

INCREASE YOUR SKILL LEVEL IN LEVITATION TO REDUCE THE COST OF PRODUCING A MASS DRIVER RIFLE.

So…

To create a Mass Driver Rifle, I’d have to advance Levitation to Level 5. Or Level 4, if I was using Hypercaffeine…

I needed to practice Levitation.

….. I also still hadn’t figured out the teleportation jammer.

So much work, so little time...