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Chapter 309: End of Practice

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“Even though your words are not nice, I could see your honest gratified thoughts so as a response, I say… you’re welcome, sir.”

“Honestly, you couldn’t have come at the more perfect time… I wonder if dad really knew when I needed you so he sent you to me.”

Cortana, on his vision, looked up to the grey skies of Terroa and then said, “According to you, The Warden that is my master is up there, protecting us from the real enemy… and boss, you might not be aware of it because you have many things that you have to worry about and think over, but I have analyzed all the available data regarding this world and made a small reference to the similarities of the available technological information in the real world. The result… there is a 98% similarity in both worlds’ technologies and foundations.”

“Foundations? And it’s 98% you say…”

“Yes boss.”

“What foundation and what about that other 2%?”

“Foundations, sir, meaning, the history of the game’s Human Race, or what the Terrans called the Naturals. The two worlds’ mankind had 98% similarities on both foundations and how their own technologies developed. It’s like seeing another copy of Earth but only something that was inside a game world.”

Siva got intrigued, “And at do you mean by their technologies only the same by 98%?”

“Well, that’s because this world’s humans are more advanced in terms of everything, sir. From their way of life to their demeanor, and up to their technologies…. Ah! Sir… I think I’ve set off some memory trigger on your neural activity when I mentioned something about it.”

When Cortana made a surprised exclamation, that was when Siva felt a strand of memory jolt him on his feet and momentarily forgot about this small little test on the battle capabilities of the Black Master Armament.

He held his face with his left hand and so it made Cortana state the facts of what just happened at that small instance of a moment.

Cortana did indeed just triggered a small memory strand on his mind. Normally, she shouldn’t even feel ‘surprised’ by it since she could scan his mind all the time, but she was surprised on the fact that not until she mentioned a trigger word that she’d been able to scan an unknown strand of memory that seemed to have come up out of nowhere in Siva’s mind.

If one thing, given her primary function and ability, it really frightened her to some extent.

To think that there was something inside Rex/Siva that she wasn’t able to scan despite physically and even literally being welded into his brain like this.

Such was a blasphemy to her existence!

“Save mom and dad…”

“Genetics? Should I add this to our missions list?”

“Yes. Set it to third, no, place it on the secondary critical primary list… and invent some level or just whatever kind of priority tag to it so I don’t forget them… I fear that I might be able to… someday…”

“Done.”

“Phew… every time there is an unknown strand of memory that comes up in my head, it always makes me somewhat dizzy to the point of having a grand headache.”

“And yet, boss, there seems to be nothing wrong on your neural integrity. Although your mental bars would spike, it wasn’t to the point that it will be passing through the critical level.”

Siva eyed the lady on his vision. She pointed on a graph with a finger; the graph of the things that were saved on the side-table cabinet was showed to him; pointing at some noticeable points on that weekly test results.

“This and this are the most significant traces of a spike on your mental health, sir. Do you remember anything significant that happened to you on these dates that has a big impact on your emotions?”

Siva looked at the dates on the picture and made a mental calculation of the things that happened in the past month. By then, Cortana already knew the answer.

Again, she found this odd.

“Referencing on the data in the Net, it seems that there are always significant events in Terroa each time there are spikes on your mental activities. My analysis shows that these events are always able to change or start something in Terroa.”

Siva was curious. If his actions do indeed make a few changes in the game, then it only establishes more on the fact that everything Gabriel said were all true; that his very existence was a threat to this world’s peace.

He refused to believe that he wouldn’t remember anything of everything Gabriel said had happened in the Terran Universe countless ages ago.

Siva now realized that he only needs to hear or notice certain triggers to activate these fragments of [memories] to remember them.

Siva really wanted to know of the past.

He hated that he had these unknown [memories], but there was a ‘voice’ dictating him that he had to trust the [memories] or else, the Devil Generals will get to him, he wouldn’t get strong, and he will find it hundreds of times harder to save Baron and as well as protect the Genesis Chamber.

In general, looking at everything around him now as a large picture, he noticed that everything was really a chaotic mess… and that matters in both the real world and the game world all connects to him one way or another.

“Can you make a trace as to when and what had occurred during these spikes? I want to know when it all happened, what the keys to all these events are, and when it all did start.”

“Done.” Cortana spoke blandly. “From all available sources on the Net and the relevant data available on the side-table cabinet, sir, I think all of these unknown events started on the very first day you logged in to Terroa.”

“….”

“Yes sir. I think you are really correct to assume that your presence is somewhat affecting this world in a profound and permanent manner.”

“Permanent… manner…”

Siva clicked his tongue and his right hand grasped the edge of the Black Master Armament a little bit harder. Subconsciously…

Cortana can read his mind so there was no more need for him to overly think matters through. He only needed Cortana’s reply to juggle his neural activities and, just like what Cortana said, needed his mental input to provide him a better output as part of her primary function as his useful adjutant.

Siva thought of Mefisto and the fragments of the [memories] that pertained to him and the War of the Gods, countless millions of years ago.

He knew that these [memories] have a lot to do with the things that happened in Lausanne that he was not able to remember. He had a feeling that these [memories] could lead him to both the things he wanted and needed to know. He just gotta have to trust them.

“I know of a name, Pegasus, and deep in my mind and my [memories] is an impression that all of the bad things that happened to me is because of him and no one else.”

Of course, Siva was not permitted to be aware of what is happening outside the game world as of this moment: about [Rex] and Matthew’s talk.

Cortana wasn’t aware as well.

And so in turn, Siva is not aware that all of this mess in his life is orchestrated by Pegasus alone.

“Sir, I’m really concerned about this. I am very confident in being able to scan your thoughts and read your feelings but these [memories] are not accessible to me. Even though they should be nothing but neural activities that functions in the medium called the brain, there was something like an encoding that was uniquely barring my scan abilities to reading further into it. I can detect its existence and can detect its presence as a whole, but I can’t peek at its contents. If this [memories] doesn’t naturally come to you then I wouldn’t be able to read it in advance and give you any proper advice. I would have to apologize to my inability regarding this matter, sir.”

Cortana was actually showing a very apologetic look on her face and although she claimed that she wasn’t an AI and that all of her actions, choice of words, and her ‘feedback’ on his thoughts are all based on her Core Programing and purpose as his aide, this expression still touched a certain string of emotion on Siva and he felt her agony.

He felt that Cortana was really ‘sorry’ and very frustrated that she can’t be of help in this matter.

At least she’s learning to be considerate of Siva’s ‘emotions’ (or spiking neural activities) and made it so to always reply in a very ‘normal’-like manner.

He didn’t blame her one bit. Instead, he thought deeply of the matters that she said.

Siva frowned at it, “It should be my moth —Terra that owned that code you’re talking about. I think it was called… Terra Protocol.”

Cortana lifted her head with a look of having read his thoughts and understood something on them.

“My references show no match to this keyword.”

“I didn’t hope you could reference it. I am very positive that it was one of the things that have a big role on my lost and new [memories], and that if my thoughts about this matter are correct, then it may be that as high of an entity you are, your [priority] is still a lot lower than Terra’s; just like how it was lower than The Warden; or perhaps, just like how it was lower to Janus… or to that so called [Siva] that Gabriel was talking about…”

“…”

When Cortana fell silent, Siva thought that maybe she was thinking.

But it was unlikely since perhaps it was because they’re still in the middle of a fight that she had chosen to just not give him more matters to be distracted to during this test.

“Hm?”

On the other hand, isn’t this a simply arrogance on his part?

He was still in the middle of the Beta Test for his Black Master Armament but he was having a very leisurely talk with Cortana about analyses that involved more in-depth organizing and thinking.

Isn’t he being arrogant just now?

“Let’s quickly wrap this up, then.” He murmured.

In the middle of the 150m large arena, Siva made a mental command and saw three female escorts of Eleanor got knocked off the arena by his [Destroyer] in three swings of its blades.

As it was the revitalized pair of red and ice-blue heavy swords, one hit was enough to knock them off down. Thankfully, there were restrictions in the entire arena so no one will die or get a [G.O.]

BANG!!!

On another side of the arena, Cramer was having a blast as he contended with the 2m tall [Smasher] in a fast, no, hyper-paced fright-inducing, heavy-punching exchanges of blows.

His golden Godhammer and his gold-silver armor made lightning streaks as they fought and aside from him, the only person to be able to catch to Cramer was Loni and her spell-infused arrows.

But sadly, even though her magic-cast arrows hit the [Smasher], it could only cause the Master Puppet to pause slightly on its step but not cause any sort of actual damage to it.

Pair it down with the [Smasher] using the modified Grand Ender who now resembled a large silver-gold themed warhammer that has retained all of its Cannon capabilities, it was a wonder why Siva named it [Smasher] rather than [Destroyer].

Every hammer swing Cramer dodged rocked the entire arena and this caused the other players the bane as they would be jolted off their feet and get slightly distracted, affecting their formation and their positions in their battle formation.

One obvious flaw they have is that while the four Master Puppets are outnumbered and seemingly on the same strength as anyone of them, they have superb team work and this is becoming a big hindrance to [The Company] members.

In fact, there was no one around who were able to attack him since the [Volume Hunter] was using its two guns to deal damage to those players who have been distracted by the [Skull Mage]’s torrent of suppressing firepower.

In the end, after one hour, when the time comes that Siva had to boost the “generator function” of the [Black Master Armament], Samara, Niobe, Pitou, Heller, Coralline, three of the four female escorts, Loni and all the members of the TOS Guild aside from Cramer, have all been knocked off the ring or is immobilized from mental fatigue, aside from having been forced to logout.

With a loud BANG, the large pillar of bluish black metal beside Rex who had a small ball for a heart and is pulsing occasional electric currents to the grid surface design of the object, changed its form again.

“Let’s end our practice here.” Siva said and all of them heaved a sigh of relief as the pillar started to hover around Siva like an orbiting planet where he is the sun, while simultaneously changing its form.

Clak!....Clak!

Clak!

Clak!Clak!Clak!Clak!Clak!Clak!~~

The pulsing light of the grid squares and smaller and bigger rectangles indicated the solitary parts of the Invention were moving to form something.

There are perhaps a few hundreds of them parts that created particular shapes and even an entire assembly to form a single part of a bigger object, if not actually having two or more thousands of said parts moving in unison around the core like a planet’s forming into a real planet.

“The 2690 parts of the Omni Form was the most unique and sophisticated equipment in existence right now…” Siva murmured. With his raised left hand, his palm faced up as if he was lifting a handful of sand from thin air; his right hand then produced the player panel then swiped off an item, the Godhammer appearing on his right hand.

“If not for Gabriel’s item and Cortana coming into my camp… it would have taken me a very long time before this goal of mine got its chance to be materialized.”

On his left wrist is a thumb thin and hair-thick blue bracelet that had the same deep blue color as the Black Master Armament.

Because of his curse, the thumb-thick bracelet wouldn’t even be seen underneath his white sleeve if not for the fact that when he made a thought command and the item blinking a short and momentary flash of dark light; no one would have noticed that he was wearing this bracelet.

«Orbiter Bracelet»

Type: Accessory

Rarity: S

Weight Units: 82 we

Inventory Slots: 18 slots

Durability: 100/100%

Materials: Black Ironwood Alloy; NanoFocus; (assrted) Extracted Monster Essences, bones, scales, and mind matter; Black Dragon Eye, Black Dragon Scale, bones, and Essences

Manufacturer: Siva

Weapon Description:

Despite the precious materials used to create this equipment, the main ingredient is still the Black Ironwood Alloy, which is a primary warship main frame construction material. Extravagant to the extreme but the expensive alloy plus the monster materials had all provided boost on the chosen [resonance] capability of the Black Ironwood Alloy and while this item can be considered a weapon because of its weight and hardness, it principally will function as a supporting component of an even better equipment made up of the same Black Ironwood Alloy to complement its resonance capability.

Mechanical Function:

*None

Special Function:

*Orbiter Control

«Orbiter Control»

A [resonance] ability; a basic function that is only possible if the Black Ironwood Alloy is made to be operated on the same frequency as another item or equipment that serves as an external part of an even bigger mainframe made up of the very same material.

Usually only used for the sake of coordination and smoother operations to all mounted weaponries on a warship, the resonance ability of the material was reinvented and remade to be incorporated on a supporting role for a weaponized usage of the Black Ironwood Alloy.

Effects:

Absolute Control—

—enables user to fully control any Black Ironwood Equipment that functions on the same frequency of operation as the Orbiter Bracelet.

Communications Link—

—grants unlimited coverage of control over items and equipments of the same operations channel operating in a 5km-wide circle around the Orbiter Bracelet; can also be used as a private channel for communications, in lieu of places that doesn’t have a communicator signal.

Battle-AI Chip Compatible

—because of NanoFocus, the equipment is given compatibility with the Humans’ very own Battle-AI Chip Technology. If the owner has a Battle-AI with them, they can use the following features:

————Guardian Mode: the higher the grade of the Battle-AI, the better the anti-hacking and anti-jamming ability

————Cracking Jammer: Battle-AIs can jam and interfere in the opponent’s Battle-AI and any other devices and gadgets’ operations and even control or spy on any enemy item and equipment that use the [Communications Link] or the Communicator Signals; the higher the grade of the Battle-AI, the better their interference and hacking ability

————Ghost Protocol: the Battle-AI can use any drone-compatible technology to act as eyes and ears for the AI’s owner; the higher the grade of the Battle-AI, the more drones it can control and the better its control ability

————Active Areal Scan: Battle-AI with higher grades can process more detail on active scans in the area that is covered by their [Communications Link]; higher grade scanning equipments will get more information from the scans as well

.

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He can’t use Magic…

So he exploits the limits of technology!!!

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