"Two boats in the ocean where are no winds and no storms, will bound to meet each other"
-Jules Verne
The rides to the Ritmic jungle stopped at the bent hills military base. On the bus Dean is always teasing Shawn and Grey keep intervening him, until Jean get annoyed and send her bear to do the intervening. Fang is bored, because the ride is 4 hours nonstop through over polluted and dusty logistic roads. Since the Ritmic jungle is located in a suburban rural area, it was a giant big park, in my honest opinion. The fauna there is in diversity, because of the research of the military operations, the surrounded of the forest are walled, a staggering 4 meters high wall is erected circling the reservations. Poachers will be shoot on sites, most of the poachers never set foots on this forest. Only when the reservation is overwhelmed, a hunting missions is evoked through various nets on the military and industrial sides. Educations institution gains priorities, we will be greeted and meeting other school in this fields trip.
We entered the big gates with many military soldiers marching training. Slaves majority of the army is the heavy hitter kind such as grizzly bear for attacker or elephant units for defender. Cadets differs in numbers with all kinds of slave animals, but eventually their second slave will be one of those animals. Since both animal is exclusive for the army ranks. Jean expression is brightening, since we entered the gate. "Hey what is it making you bright all of a sudden?" I asked her. "My dad is stationed here Cass!" She said it smiling and looking for something outside the bus. "Not only that, my family is mostly military, so i have a handful of cousins on this base!" She is excited.
We stop in a big asphalt parking field for buses, Jean jumps from the bus an came running to a very muscled looking man in an officer uniform. "Daddy!" She shouted. The man pick her up like she was nothing but a doll, she is a 85 pounds girl! She kissed him and her bear come to the man, and the man played with the 200 pounds bear like a puppy. These military man in my mind geezzz, crazy! A familiar face stood in the next group unloading from a bus. It was Johnny, as in Clancy. There he is Johnny Clancy my elementary rivals. Together with Susie Whites and also Greg Wells. I wave my hands to Greg, he tap Susie then pointed at me. She smiles then waves me back, looking at me Johnny just avert his eyes to the front. Not even a nod, i guess rivals will be always rivals.
Ms.Rose was also there, the pretty teacher was given a form to signed. Looking familiar at the officer, i am trying to remember him. "Ah!" He is none other than Johnny's dad, Mr.Clancy Senior. Reading the form content she seems to hate readings those long written rules. After reading it she signed it, within seconds the forms written rules was injected directly into our neural link. "Now everyone, i have spared you to reads those primitive agreements, please be aware of the rules and if you have any questions, please do it before your departure." She seems very annoyed. "It seems our Valorem network is rather nonfunctional, you will be able to use the local communications, all out bound neural communication to the central super computer is jammed in these walls, even i can't be reached at will when you enter the wild life reservation, they will give me only 2 hours a day to accepts your reports."
We unload our things then packed it in our back pack. The rest of the things will be stored in a housing facility where Ms.Rose will be staying to monitored us for the rest of the two weeks. She told us to get ready, the military guide will be picking us at 15.00 hours, immediately we should enter the jungle and settle in the campsite before dark. It will be 2 hours hikes without resting, "please don't over packed yourself students!" Ms.Rose reminding us. We feeds our animals, we eat till full, we rest by the time the guide pick us up, we were ready.
The gate is also 4 meters tall, "this is the outer forest of the jungle, this trees is dense but still be able to breach by vehicles, pass the campsite the trees will be heavy and dense, now please follow us, and please do try to keep up!" The guide is now walking to the tree lines. We follow closely, this forest is denser than our simulations jungle. And i realize one difference occurs in this real forest, the freaking mosquitos! They are everywhere, we walked through a small patch of trails. Sometimes only the guide knew where it was, then in 2 hours we reach an open fields with a sets of wooden houses, the guide bid us farewell. The military scientist greets us and showed us the locations for us to build a camp. 15 encircling tent was erected, a camp fire was made in the middle of the campsite. An assistant of the scientist give us dinner, and relayed a message that tomorrow we will be given a missions to hunt wild life for research purposes, some was collecting, some was exterminating and some was for our industrialist private request. We received the rules, that no students will be allowed to take more than one slave animals, or equal to 4 vials of extracted high grade zero nites, 6 if they are mid grade and 8 if they are low grade. And a list of forbidden to cull animals, but taking a portion of cull is allowed to 40% as given a picture proven, that similar as the avian rules of preservation.
In the morning, the assistant come back with a breakfast and a briefing box. After we finish our breakfast and packing our campsite, we will be break into 3 teams, each team will cover a mile apart. The assistant played the missions briefing as a hologram start to played the missions objectives.
Culling targets:
Tiger Quota 5 (males only).
Wolves Quota 30 (in Exceptions for Females with pups).
Grizzly Bears 10 (males only).
Extermination:
Hare quota 10 per person.
Capybara quota 5 per person.
Poison Toad quota 25 per person.
Python snakes quota 5 per person.
Foraging:
Blue stalks dandelions.
Hundred years purple gingers.
Three colors sages.
Red violet marigold.
Tiger stalk holy basil.
Nine leaves Brahmi.
Restrictions:
1. Cheetahs
2. Pandas
3. Rhinos
4. Whooping Crane
Per person is given a permit to take one slave animals, or equal to 4 vials of extracted high grade zero nites, 6 if they are mid grade and 8 if they are low grade. Please mind the list of forbidden to cull animals, but taking a portion of cull is allowed to 40% as given a picture proven.
The hunt is on, we sweep to the southern region of the jungle, the military school get to sweep into the west region of the jungle.
We fan out to a mile apart then begin to move unison. Spotted for the first time by our team is a couple of hare, we immediately secure our food supplies. The Betta team killed a couple hare also, a tiger was spotted by the gamma team, they quickly take their 2 vials of High grade zero nites quota. The military teams has spotted 2 tigers and take their quota.
The next day our team spotted a pack of wolves more than 12 of them, joined with the Betta team we culls 10 of them. Moving south to the Blue streak lagoon we spotted a couple of grizzly community, camping for the night we gather in a camp round o'clock night watch 15 people is very convenient to arrange. The hare meat is satisfactory as many were found in this jungle.
In the morning, a big male grizzly suddenly came to attacked the camp. Grizzly bear is territorial animals, we begin the culling from that area, and found 4 grizzly to culls. Grizzly bear is a low zero nites grade with 2 vials to culls from each, that happens because this Grizzly is cloned. After the increase of territorial grizzly the culls of the clone ones should happens, as the newborn grizzly is better to inherited the resources here, we rested a night there. In the morning, we sweep around the lagoon only to exterminate an overpopulated capybara, this rodents populated the lagoon pretty fast. The corpses of this animals is a delicacy for our slave animals.
Later on the next day we slay a couple of big pythons, over the next hills on the other sides of the lagoon we found a target medicinal herbs.
In the next day my team spotted two males tigers fighting over a females with 2 cubs, we culls the males, because if the males mate with the mother, the cubs will be killed by the male. The military has fulfill the wolves quota as we finish the tigers. That night we camp in the other side of the lagoon.
Morning came we got around the lagoon to find a target herbs high in the cliff of a mountain it takes half a day to harvest the herbs.
We take a day of to fish and refreshed, before going back to the research camp. The military camp also taking camp on the river to the up stream near the delta area, they culls 8 grizzly on that area and fulfill the bear quota. I fish a couple of salmon from the lagoon, taking the day off. I build a smoking huts in the outer area of the camp, i hang a couple of salmons and lit a fire in the pits i dug out, inside the huts. Not for long i became drowsy, the smoked salmon was almost complete that afternoon, when Fang alerted me about a creature sneaking behind the hut. It was a leopard, i light a torch to fend it off. The leopard is a snow leopard, i don't think it was native to this area. It's probably came down from the mountains, as it rejected to being fended. It try to attacked me, i attack back willing to culls it, as no restriction was tagged for this animals. It keeps attacking until Fangs manage to injured it, Fang is bigger than a normal wolves. Even a normal tiger is smaller than him. Overpowered the snow leopard try to escape, i chase it to a narrow crack on the cliff. It was a natural caves, this was a sets of tunnels leading to the mountains. Tracking the leopard takes an hour, the injured leopard died before i can't culled it. On the caves i found a three color sages and forage it before continuing to track, but i guess i'm too late. I will harvest the skin of the leopard when i realize the injured leopard was expecting and given birth a kitten before she died. I quickly bonded with it, as without a better nanites the baby will died unattended. After that i take the corpses of the snow leopard and buried it, i feel guilt over this. Taking the kitten back down the mountain, because of this kitten my quota of taken is full. I can't get any vials out of this trip. "Huh!" I sigh, harvesting my smoked salmon. That night i walked around the camp purchasing box of milk, and end up trading all my smoked salmon for it. The kitten name is Smoke, as my effort gone as 'smoke'.
In the morning we walked back to the camp, i carried Smoke in my arms in a blanket to keep it warm. Taking care of slave nites is not as hard as everyone thinks, neural link can detect small impulses link cold, hungry, thirsty, etc. So this demanding little kitten is driving me nuts, it keeps shouting cold, cold, cold all the time. Only when its warmed it can sleeps and only for 2 hours. The routines continues for 4 days, in the research facility all slave claimed should registered as nanoweap also registered by the city, so does the military. So i used ugly temporary name like Smoke to registered it, since i don't like the registration information held by the military.
The next day i was on the bus, going home empty handed and holding an unsalable leopard kitten in a mobile incubator. She is healthy, "because the strain is strong" well yeah tell me about that! My strain is strong "duh!" I know that. That night i keep the kitten in the school bestiary unit to be nursed for 2 months.
After passing this field trip missions, the schedule is to train the advance training for the final test. The training will be taken 3 weeks of my time. That night i do a simulator with my team, i planned to do team simulator 3 times a week, and single simulator 4 times a week. Day training is now included drones training and source coding which includes deep focus meditating in structuring a core engine. Basically the first that should be developed is the small core before the main 4 cores in the super cores can be activated. It's like building your own operating system before an app can be used to make a greater functions of the nanites. The meditation is pain painstakingly 4 hours a day, to speed up i do an extra 2 hours at night. I try to slow down the process rather to speed up like my classmates. I don't cuts corner! That is how my father told me, a compiler is someone that works for everything and earns the respect of a hard working titled master. As this ethics supported with high attuned among the class in Valorem. A words like "please do not regards me as such!" Or "i haven't has the right of such title!" It proves a certain point that efforts will be rewarded. I meditate with a burden less mind, because our mind is free to advance and boundless. Currently the small core is inter winded with the four cores, but the focus of the coding are to bypass the timed needed to runs the cores and minimized the energy needed to activated. The size of nanites will be quite big than the others, to control the small cores the coding should balance the capacity of the nanites on this case the nanites will compensate with size. It was easier to control with just one big nanites and a low energy was allocated for that. The hard part is the weaving of linked function surrounding the nanites like a blanket, because setbacks occurred when the link connected to a conflicting port.
Fang has not making my training so easy too, he keep asking "where is my sister?" After bonding with Smoke, a side effect has happen. Fang has bonded too as his empathy will developed. Thank God with his aged an understanding could be managed. I should taught him the understanding of time more, so he would not asked everyday "why is 2 months taking so long?" Now when the question appears i answered with how many days, since using months while asking when, with a same answers confused Fang. With days countdown the answer always changes.
"Cass how long?" Fang asked me. "40 more days, please be patient.."
It's one week before my final test.