《Doomsday Pillars》013.More Artifact
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Bali’s truly the best holiday destination. The beaches, the food, the resort hotel, everything was just perfect.
At the swimming area of the 5-star hotel, Alex just finished playing with both his daughters and wife. It wasn’t easy trying to achieve both ‘The Saviour of the World’ title and ‘The World’s Greatest Dad’ title. But he cherished these moments because the end of days was near. Once it came, he would have less time for his family.
His wife, Devita, noticed something looking at his shirt-less husband and asked, "When did you start working out? Since when did you have six-packed abs?"
Ever since his body was enhanced to a peak stage Mortal Realm, his body had changed and became muscular.
"It’s been like that for quite some time. Why? Don't you like it? Do you want to touch and feel it for a while?" Alex gave a cheeky smile showed off his abs.
It had been more than a week since he reincarnated, but he was starting to adapt with his current lifestyle and could start teasing his wife.
After swimming, Alex washed up, went inside the hotel’s office room, and began to spend time researching with the computer. He familiarized himself with the current news and connected it with the events from his past life. He wanted to make use of the internet while it was still working. He studied the local information about Bali, Indonesia’s government and military situation, world organizations, etc.
It had been a while since the last time he had held a keyboard a mouse. His eyes caught the bronze ring on his finger and suddenly thought of something.
There were at least 1,000 artifacts spread out around the world. Although he knew how hard it was to access the temples when it's not activated, throughout history, there should be a few relics that had accidentally been found. Alex then started searching on auction websites and museums.
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He found a famous sword in China that was over a thousand-year-old that didn’t have rust and was still sharp. Alex recognized it as one of the low-level artifacts and thought about how it could be useful to him. But considering the travel time, and the fact it’s a country’s national treasure, it's probably not a good idea, it’s a low-level artifact anyway. He kept surfing the web hoping to get lucky.
"Come on… Hoping to find another medium grade artifact."
Searching… Click...
"It won't be too much to ask for just one high-grade weapon right?"
Searching… Click click...
"Ok, just another ring will do"
Still searching… Click click click...
"Even just an empty one. Please..."
“…”
Alex didn't find anything he recognized. Maybe it’s bad karma for greediness and ungratefulness...
He finally gave up searching and started reading more news instead. He then found one article about how the Indonesian police force recently captured two terrorist cells in Central Java.
"Only two bases? Looks like Rico is still suspicious with the intel I gave him."
This wasn’t a piece of good news for Alex. The terrorist eradication was too slow. Once the Doomsday arrived, these terrorists would start recruiting survivors with religion as cover and would make the situation around Indonesia worse.
"Maybe I should just give the general a hand?"
Alex continued on with his research until a knock came around at noon. Nina visited him to give the progress report he had asked.
Currently, the two bases developments were progressing fast. Around 2,000 workers were working on the main base with the heavy equipment and some construction materials already delivered. Rina, his HR manager, already started profiling the next batch of 2,000 workers. The villa had finished its parameter fences as well as the tents already set up. It has become a command centre.
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Eka was managing both the mechanics and electricians to modify all electric equipment like solar panels, water filters, etc. in order to resist the upcoming electromagnetic pulse surge. They needed to do some modification and were doing some testing.
The next thing Nina reported was about the purchase of unique vehicles and boats. The vehicles and boats Alex had asked for were the ones built before 2002. Those vehicles built before that year only had minimum or none electrical equipment. With enough modification, these vehicles would be useful for transporting survivors. For the boats, Alex had requested to purchase those only with steel hulls because the fiber ones wouldn’t be durable enough to sustain even a single attack from a mutated beast.
Nina had already bought 50 land vehicles; 30 transport trucks and 20 jeeps. She had also bought four small steel-hulled speed boats as well as two large steel-hulled transport ships which were 90-meter in length, 20-meter wide with a cargo capacity of 3000-meter cubic tons.
The transport ships and boats would be docked at Bay City’s port in a few days. And as for the vehicles, they would be parked evenly between the two bases.
Alex then also asked Nina to recruit more mechanic and steelworkers to modify the boats and vehicles.
After the reports, Nina gave Alex the total spending cost: Land purchases $15 million, the construction and worker salary $5 million, food supplies $5 million, other supplies $10 million, vehicles and boats $7 million. Overall, it was a whopping $42 million. With the $5 million he received from selling his other assets, Alex was left with only $13 million. Alex then told Nina to buy more food worth $5 million, another $3 million to buy 50 more vehicles and another $2 million for emergency spending. Now, Alex only had only $3 million left in the bank.
"I just spent $50 million in one week." Alex sighed.
There were still many things he needed and the ships were not yet enough. Alex also needed a way to get weapons and lots of ammo. It seemed like he needed to be more creative.
Lastly, Nina gave Alex a note from Randy the Bay City’s Mayor. Randy had finished investigating half of the names from the list Alex initially gave. In the note, there were more than 20 names listed as well as their last known address and last places seen. With this information, Alex planned to start inviting them to the base. Some could be offered a job, but most would need a more personal touch.
There was one name, in particular, that Alex was very interested in approaching right now. The person’s name was Jerry. Alex knew Jerry from his past life and how Jerry was a future Evolver.
Alex knew him pretty well and how trustworthy he was. The place where Jerry was last seen was the place he had always stayed at. A simple hotel in one of the small beaches in Bali, it looked the normal tourist hidden getaway spot, but its other face was as a smuggler’s den. This could be an opportunity to solve some of Alex’s other problems.
In the future, Alex planned the whole island of Bali to be his base, but of course, there would be some organizations he needed to work with and some that he needed to eradicate.
For now, he’ll the terrorist cells to General Rico. As this smuggler’s den, he’ll take care of it himself. Finally, some time for action to test his new strength.
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