Author’s Corner: Sorry for no chapter earlier, just have not been feeling good at all today. Managed to get this one typed out just before I headed to bed.

Later that day, we evacuated the central part of the ship for a few minutes so that the upgrade could take place. I’ll admit, there was a bit of a panic as the entire ship briefly lost power. However, once the new generator was installed, that was quickly fixed.

Afterwards, we left the system to go towards our next destination, which was a little over a week away from this one. During that time… well, let’s just say that Yin and Sharon made sure I wasn’t bored. It was a very comfortable travel, and that’s all you need to know about it, alright?

Anyways, the next planet, as well as the one after it were inhabited only by small, feral life forms. To my surprise, there wasn’t even anything Sharon particularly wanted from these worlds, though Celeste had us stop at one to gather a few rare herbs that would grow on planets like that. Once those planets were out of the way, we went off to the robot world!

You’re probably wondering about the results of the divine quests, right? Sharon was able to finish her’s without a problem, just by putting a few animals on each of the worlds we visited. For her favor, she asked for two types of magic, Divination and Barrier magic. To my surprise, she was granted both magics at Novice rank, together with a few basic spells for them. As such, we spread those schools of magic around the ship, and even Celeste and I made sure to copy it off of her. Having the ability to erect barriers would surely not be a bad thing.

As for Yang… well, she wasn’t able to make a full set of gear out of the turtle rex. Since her quest required her to make it all out of a single creature, that meant she had to wait until the next time. Though, it wasn’t really her fault, because we did not expect the bones of the rex to be as weak as they were. Even with reshaping the shell, she was only able to complete half a suit of armor, and a shield.

I have naturally stayed in contact with Talia during this time, and even spoke with my parents a few times. Talia was… upset about the loss of the elves when I first told her after the abstract attack, but she was thankful that there were not more casualties, considering the enemies we faced. As for my parents… when they found out I had not one, but two girlfriends… I think if my mom wasn’t a robot she might have fainted.

Now, we have not stopped upgrading the ship in this time, obviously. Instead, these last few months have been spent on upgrading the various battle systems, such as the shields and weapons. It was important to be able to hold our own against other ships or space monsters. Unfortunately, each upgrade could only work on up to two guns at a time, so that actually took most of our journey.

Nonetheless, we eventually made it to the robot world. By now, our ship was actually something capable of engaging in combat with a few monsters in space. Theoretically, at least. We haven’t had the need to put that to the test as of yet. However, that would naturally come in time, once more space monsters began spawning, or people began taking up space piracy.

When we arrived at the robot world… we were quite surprised in what we found. There was an entire fleet of spaceships around the planet. As soon as we dropped out of subspace, we received a message on a communication channel. Thanks to Celeste’s foreknowledge, we were able to translate it. You might think that it would be easy to communicate with robots, just use binary right?

If only. Who says that their binary is the same as ours? Who says that these robots even have the same concept of binary code? No, their language is entirely different, composed of dots, dashes, slashes, and triangles. For the verbal language, Celeste tried playing it for me to help me learn it, but to me it just sounded like static.

After a few moments, the translated message played in a computerized voice. “Halt, traveler. Your craft is not registered. What is your purpose in Crynak space?”

I raised an eyebrow towards Celeste at the strange name, but she only shrugged. “Run a scan for monsters. Let’s try to determine the situation at least.” I then cleared my throat. “Greetings. I am Captain John Hulett of the Ariadne. I am on a diplomatic aid mission, due to the events that have recently begun to happen.”

I waited for Celeste to translate all of that and send it over. “No monster readings sir. Their planet appears completely unoccupied by monsters. Judging by the large amount of orbital structures, they likely eliminate any as soon as they appear.”

“Well… that’s going to make this difficult. If they are handling the monsters just fine on their own, how do we convince them that we can help?” I frowned slightly, furrowing my brows as I heard that. Celeste’s mission is to kickstart the Deus Ex race. That means, at the very least we need to convert one robot here to Deus Ex, and teach it the means to convert others.

Soon, another message came through from the robots. “We have detected your scan. You refer to the unusual beings that spontaneously appear as of half a solar cycle ago.” Celeste told me that their year was just a bit longer than ours, so it would have been just half a year for them since the appearance of the monsters. “As your scans should indicate, we have no need for assistance dealing with these beings. The only thing we wish of from you is your interstellar technology. You may transmit the schematics before your timely departure.”

I looked back at my Vice-Captain. “Celeste, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say we aren’t wanted here….”

She chuckled dryly at that. “Sir, it would be unwise to engage in combat. Their weapons tech is superior to ours, and they have the benefit of numbers. Our odds of surviving are… less than your usual odds in a fight.”

That bad, huh? “I wasn’t going to fight them. Alright, next message. Our subspace technology requires parts that your species is incapable of making without utilizing the energies that have started to spawn those ‘beings’ you mentioned. We have the capability to allow you to harness that energy, however it must be done over a short period of time, and only I myself am capable of it.”

There was another long pause before the next message came through. “Another like you came rotations ago. This being also claimed we would be incapable of creating such devices and left after scanning our world. Yet you also suggest that you have are capable of giving us this ability.”

I was going to try to explain how the system worked, but Celeste stopped me with a shake of her head. “Right now, they are only regular robots. They have no concept of the system. The only thing that has changed from their perspective is the appearance of the monsters. If we try to tell them now, we have no proof to back it up, beyond what could be explained as a unique ability that might be possessed by any of our race. We can send the information over after we convert one to Deus Ex, since that would handle the proof.”

I sighed lightly, nodding my head. “I do. However, in order to do so I require twenty of the strange beings, alive. As long as I have that, and a single willing participant from your people, I will be able to perform the procedure.”

Another pause, and then a message came in. “Very well. The consortium accepts your offer of aid. By our calculations, it will take sixty-seven minutes for the required number of beings to appear again on our world. In the meantime, it is asked that you remain where you are.”

With that, the communications link was broken. “I liked the treatment from the elves better…” I shook my head, remembering how they had accepted us right away, and thanked us for our help. Here, they would rather tell us to leave the information behind and be on our way. If it weren’t for Celeste’s quest, I might have just done that, despite the fact that they couldn’t perform the enchantments needed for the subspace technology.

However, Celeste’s quest requires the successful creation of the Deus Ex race. I could set aside what little crumbling pride I had left if it was to help her complete a quest that would award a large favor from a deity. I really wanted to see what an intelligent item would be like.

In the end, we waited for over an hour. Every few minutes, our scans would detect an energy surge from one of the orbital artillery. At the end of the waiting period, we received another message. “The specimens have been acquired. Preparing a transport shuttle with a disconnected unit.”

From that, I could tell that they didn’t really trust us. It sounded like the robot race was a sort of hive mind, but in order to do this safely, they specifically disconnected one of the units from the hive and sent it over. Though, I couldn’t really blame them for that. It is a bit of a strange request.

Looking out, I could see the small shuttle approaching from one of the larger ships. However, I didn’t see any such shuttle carrying the monsters to that ship. Did they master teleport tech without the use of magic? That had been something that humanity was never able to accomplish.

“Shuttle is requesting permission to board. Twenty life signs detected, all monsters.” Our scanning officer spoke up.

“Allow it. I’ll go down and meet him with the Vice-Captain.” I said, standing up. When I walked out of the bridge, Celeste followed along behind me. Naturally, I needed my translator along or else this would go nowhere!

We quickly made our way to the airlock where the shuttle had docked. After Celeste pressed a few buttons to unlock it, the airlock opened, and in came the robot. It was an almost perfectly humanoid android. Its skin was entirely made of metal, with a blank face and shining blue lights for eyes. The only non-human thing about its body type was that it walked on three legs. Its mouth area lit up as it spouted out static. Thankfully, Celeste translated it in my head. “Greetings. This one is designated X5-B3-E2-01-D9-C2. This unit has been selected to undergo the procedure.”

“I’m going to call you X5 for short… and alright, where are the monsters?” I hoped they were at least a little powerful. After all, I’d be needing more buffer in order to give X5 my Soul Arts.

“You refer to the requested beings. They are located inside the shuttle, and have been reduced in order to allow for easier storage.” X5 turned around, and walked back into the shuttle after giving us a moment to follow. “Their size would have made it difficult to transport under normal conditions. If necessary, it is possible to revert them.”

This was sounding stranger and stranger. When we got into the shuttle, there were twenty small glass jars on the wall. Each one had what seemed to be a tiny figurine of a monster sleeping. Though, I knew they weren’t figurines because I could see their chests expanding and deflating slightly as they breathed. So they are good with shrink tech too… I like these bots. Using my Aura Sight, I had Celeste assess the levels of the twenty monsters. Out of all of them, two were in the single digits, while the highest was a roughly level sixty monster.

“Alright… is it alright for me to break those jars?” I asked, pointing to the monsters. After Celeste and X5 spoke in static for a moment, she gave me a nod.

Activating my Aura Sight and switching to Spatial Comprehension, I cancelled my limiter program to slow everything down. When I go into this mode, the accuracy for any attack is at my absolute greatest. Channeling my mana, I began making one magnetic donut around me after another, going until I hit my limit. Another bright side of using this power is that that limit increases drastically. Without Spatial Comprehension on, I can make at most fifty magnetic donuts, but with it I can get just over two hundred. And each one I fill with a bit of plasma, letting it rotate around briefly before I shoot it all at the twenty jars.

For the two single digit leveled monsters, I only devoted a single blast. For most of the rest, I did ten shots each. But for the highest level monster, the level sixty, I focused a full thirty shots on it. Even if it was sleeping, and was no bigger than the palm of my hand, I wanted to make sure it was dead. There is no kill like overkill.

Celeste, please stop him from shooting me in the head while I do this. I quickly sent that message to Celeste mentally while reaching out with my Mana Sense to snatch up the various souls from the monsters. While I did get a level up from that, I was about to give it right back up anyways.

After what felt like five hours, but was really only a half dozen seconds, I had stripped away the souls of the monsters and purified them. This was all a part of my training that I had been pushing myself to go through for the past few months. I had everything I need with my perception abilities, but my magic speed was incapable of keeping up. So, I trained my magic speed until it was at least ‘almost’ able to keep up with my de-limited processing speed.

Taking the purified soul, I began the long and arduous process of turning myself around. You know what, screw that. I briefly re-engaged my limited long enough for me to take a single step to the side and turn around before turning it back on. X5 was now pointing a gun at me, with Celeste in the process of raising her plasma spear to defend.

Time to make a Deus Ex!