Gems and politics

.....

"...Well...shit..." I said, not liking the look of this.

"Don't worry, you'll have a year before you absolutely have to do the first objective." Nex reassured.

"Good, good, I just hope I can get through this without any problems." I said, rubbing my face.

"That's impossible and you know it." Nex said with a snicker.

"Fair, but let's see exactly what we're sitting in." I said pulling up the map. As I pull up the map I see the entirety of California on the map. A flag with a two headed bear and one with a bull were outlined with areas of the country cut up for them both. Most of the country was taken by the bull and were closing in on the two headed bear.

They were pretty far out, but I can see the minut changes in its borders with my enhanced eyes. They're moving, and quickly at that.

"I don't like the looks of this..." I said, looking to the middle of both of the borders to see the quest marker in a large valley. "...Meg, won't be my problem until a year from now!" I say, bringing the map in closer to my position and opening my list of runes.

"No, no, no, no, uh, AH! There it is, Kenaz with the aspect of revelation!" I say, drawing the rune over the map and charging it. As it finishes casting I see several points on the map labeled 'secrets'.

"Impressive!" Nex says, making a clapping gif pop up on the side of the screen.

"I know I am!" I say, puffing my chest out. "Anyways, let me try one more rune to see if I can bring a few more details." I continue, using the previous rune I added another on tip of it, Perth with the aspect of uncertain meaning. Linking then with Othilla's aspect of group order just to be certain of its success, I empower them and let them do there thing.

"Oh yeah!" I shout, thrusting like a certain orange jumpsuit wearing villain. "Nex! Mark the locations that have gems at them!" I shout, watching as two marks pop up. "Damn! I expected only one to be here, but two!?"

"You wanna go see them now?" Nex asked.

"Of course, let's go for, that one!" I say, pointing to the one on the edge of the map. It's color is a glowing green where as the other is a sickly green...honestly, it creeps me out just looking at it. Activating Lurk so I can pass by the group that's still outside, and start the trip.

[Time skip - 3 days later]

"Haaaaa! Haaaaa! Haaaaa! I, hate, this!" I yell, not liking the heat. It's not like it bothers me, but it's not comfortable when you have to trech throuch the dessert. As I was about to complain about the heat again I heard a ding and the map popped up.

"You're close to the location now, figure you might want to know." Nex chimed in, sounding fed up with my whining.

"Oh fuck." I said, activating Third Eye and Increased Processing too see what's coming my way.

"WHAAAAAAAGH!"

*FWOOOOSH*

I heard a very familiar scream and the sound of a rocket launcher fire and it came from my left, as I look over to stop it I find that I can't do it.

"OH SHIT!!!" I scream, holding my hand out and drawing Eihwaz, the defensive rune. Drawing it and seeing the barrier form I decide to make a few more. Using all my fingers and drawing the simple runes I make four more to add to the first one. Drawing the Othilla rune too link all five together, it glows and all five mirge into an almost solid wall of transparent blue.

*BABABABABOOM!!!!! CRACK!!!*

As all the runes form and merge in milliseconds, the rockets impact and the barrier holds until the last one, the last one makes the barrier crack. That's it though. Grinning, I drop the barrier and bolt forward.

"Shave!" I shout, watching the Super Mutant come into view, and to say this guy is ugly would be an understatement. His wired dentist thing is pulling so hard on his lips that his mouth is being wrenched open. He's wearing some weird mix of tire and leather armor and has a red bandana on. I can see two more of his buddies grab a chainsaw and a sledgehammer on steroids.

"Shave, Finger Pistol barrage, Tempest Kick!" I shout, closing in on the rocket launcher guy and filling him with holes. As I finish killing him I turn to his buddies and kicked out. As the slash reaches them I see a line open their stomachs and spill their contents to the floor. Surprisingly, they didn't die, but they just got more pissed and continued to charge.

"OK then! Let's see how far you can go!" I screamed, moving into the Battle Mage stance and charging forward. The two of them swung at the same time. I activated a barrier in my left hand to stop the sledgehammer and using telekinesis to push the one with the chainsaw away for now. When both of the attacks are intercepted I kick out at the one left in front of me and draw a rune for fire to keep him busy.

*Shing! Fwoo-BOOM!"

Watching the fireball connect I turn to the one with the chainsaw and rush forward use a modified Arcane bolt. I charge the shot and hold it in my hand until I reach him. As I do I thrust out, impacting the bolt onto it's face and turn it to a green mist. Once it's head was gone I turn to see that the last one was still trying to put out the magical fire. Chuckling, I raise my hand and start to grip, crushing its body with telekinesis until its body made a series of sickening cracks and one final crunch.

*THUD!*

"Huff, huff, huff, haha, hahaha, HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! THAT! WAS! AWESOME!!!" I shout, jumping in excitement for knowing I finally found a decent opponent. Cheering and shouting in joy for a few minutes I finally calm down and look around. "Now, hehe, lets see where that gem is!" I said, grabbing the weapons and items they dropped with telekinesis and shoving them into my inventory before starting to look.

*SPLURGE! SPLASH!*

"What the-!?"

*SPLURGE! ×20 SPLASH! ×20*

"GOD DAMN IT!!!" I shout as I watch several globs of acid flying towards me. "Fucking Centaurs!" I growl, pulling the chainsaw from my inventory and floating it up with telekinesis. Revving the chainsaw, I pull my shotgun and leap into the gorge, seeing all the Centars and multiple commanding Super Mutants aiming acid shots and guns my way.

"RRRRAAAAAAAAGH!!!-"

*BWOOM! SPLURGE!*

"Shut the fuck up!"

[Time skip - 15 minutes later]

"Is this really it?" I question, looking at the big ass bomb in the crater it made.

"It is, I know it's weird but that's where it's being held." Nex supplied.

"Is it safe to go digging around in it?" I continue, not knowing if it's even safe to be next to the thing.

"Yes, it's not armed, it's not even an actual bomb. You can even shoot the thing, see the bullet marks on the side?" Nex says, and I look at the side of the bomb and see the said bullet holes.

"Alrighty then!" I say, taking a step and instantly stopping.

.....

Radiation Resistance 1/100

- Shows your resistance to the harsh rays of science!

- 1% every level in Radiation Resistance.

.....

"Fuck! Please tell me it's easy to find!?" I shout as I take several steps back from the bomb.

"It is, it's just under the control panel that's on the side facing out. Don't worry, none of the damage is permanent." Nex says, reassuring me.

"...ok, let's get this over with." I say, striding forward, climbing onto the bomb, and ripping the panel off the face. What I see is a small glowing green gem connected to a power siphon with all the cables and wires I could see inside it. I reach in, grab the case holding it, and rip it out. As I rip it out I jump away and pull the gem out, Observe.

.....

.....

Reading the description I grin and slot the gem into the bracelet slot.

.....

<6th Gem Slot: Magic aspect - Radiation>

.....

"So, how do I get mist spells?" I mutter to myself as I pull the book of magic out. "No, no, no, no, no, maybe, no, no, kinda, maybe, no...meh, I'll find a good spell later! Right now, let's just rest and get back!" I said, walking to the small fire pit the Super Mutants were using and grabbing some food from my inventory, because fuck eating the giant cockroach they had on the fire right now.

"Yeah, that looks disgusting, and I don't eat." Nex said sounding disgusted.

"...Hey, change of topic! What exactly is different from me and normal humans?" I asked, hoping Nex could tell me something about it.

"Oh, right, we never actually did talk about that in depth." Nex says, sounding like she just remembered. "The difference, aside from being a higher lifeform, is that your blood looks like liquid gold and can be used as a magic catalyst. Next is the fact that your eyes are the same colors but, the irises are different." Nex continues, making a mirror pop up in front of me and I see that both eyes are like stars, both of them are moving too.

Though, the blue one is moving outwards and has a calming vibe as I look into it. The hazel one is moving inwards and makes me feel...uncomfortable. Like I'm back in that dream, looking into the eye of Azathoth again. I don't like how it makes me feel uncomfortable, like a part of me isn't ment for me anymore. I started to get pissed before the mirror popped out of existence and the feelings started to fade.

"Finally, you can incorporate energies into your body without needing a base for it." Nex finished, making another question pop into my mind.

"What do you mean my 'base'?" I asked, picking through my food.

"A base, something that both that both fighters and mages need to harness the energies inside their bodies. Like how cultivators need to grow through stages of power. Mages on the other hand, their base is more like pools of energy that are connected to a funnel by rivers. Those aren't the best explanations of what they are, but you get the picture." Nex explained.

"So the first is like a power level system and the other is just a race to see who has the most or the biggest pool?" I ask, trying to wrap my head around what she ment.

"Yeah, pretty much." Nex said, sounding like she was shrugging her shoulders.

"Whatever, just means I have one less thing to worry about then." I said, finishing my meal and tossing the wrapper into the fire before continuing. "Now, time to get moving back to base."

[Time skip- 1 and a half days later]

"Wha-"

*BABABABABOOSH!!!*

I tried to use Third Eye to see what was coming, but what came next would make it moot, because 5 Rad-Scorpions came bursting out of the ground around me. I saw their slim chitin bodies and thought, 'Isn't that stuff really good for blocking stuff?' Testing my theory, I pull a normal gun out of my inventory and fire on the closest one.

*BANG! TING!*

"Damn!" I said, amazed at the fact that it's basically organic metal. Using Multiprocessing I pull all the Rad-Scorpions up with telekinesis, and I try to think of a way to kill them all without actually hurting their bodies. "Maybe the book has a few more secrets in it that I don't know about?" I say, pulling the book out again.

"...maybe a necromancy spell?" I mutter. "Meh, meh, no, no, no...AH, Vampiric Drain, seems good enough!" I mutter before shouting, flipping through the the pages about it's history until I get too it's usage. "Blah blah blah blah, ah, use your energy by pushing it into the target and pull the targets life force out forcefully...ooooook!"

"Let's~ do~ this~!" I say in a sing song voice, flipping the scorpion over to its belly and placing my hand on it. "Push energy in...grab life force...and~...PULL!!!" I say, yelling at the last part as I rip it's life force out, making it fall limp instantly. Seeing that I killed it without damaging it's body, I do the same with the others.

As I do I pull the drops and corpses into my inventory and keep moving back home.

"I gotta ask, what are you going to do with all the corpses you keep grabbing?" Nex asked.

"Ah, that, I'm going to make them into undead warriors for me so I don't have to do most of the fighting from now on, plus I want to see if I can do all of this in one go or not." I explained.

"But why the Rad-Scorpions?" Nex asked again.

"That's because of the chitin they had, I was thinking of using alchemy to splice it into the Super Mutant corpses to make them even better. I just need to find a few more specimen to splice into the new species I'm going to make." I clarify, pretending it's a normal thing to do.

"...Since when did you get into magic so much?" Nex asked, sounding confused about why I wanted to have anything to do with magic when I'm from the 21st century.

"That's easy, because it's new, unknown, and I can tell I'm good at it...sorta at least." I mean, come on! It's MAGIC!!!

[Time skip - 1 and a half later]

After making my way back to the base I came across a, strange sight. A group of men standing in front of my house just outside the 'mines field' and waiting. Deciding not to care about them, I just walk around then and make some rocks fall to their side before walking into the shack.

"Not dealing with that right now." I say, dropping into a chair and opening the book of magic. I start flipping through to fine a certain magic that would make my life easier.

"What magic are you going to try next?" Nex asked, making her voice sound like she's looking over my shoulder.

"I'm looking for a space expansion spell of some kind." I said lazily and Nex hummed in understanding. "Just hope they don't force them way in." I said, using Third Eye to keep an eye on the people outside.

[Time skip - half a day later]

"...god damn..." I mutter, standing from my desk and walking to the door. "I'm just getting this done and out of the way with." I say, pulling the door open.

"Look look, he's coming out!" Someone said.

"I can see that, now shut up!" Another stated. Getting annoyed even more I decide to be the first to introduce themselves.

"You fellas wanna tell me why you're standing outside my house?" I said, adopting the southern accent again and putting my shotgun on my shoulder.

"We- uh, we wanted to talk to you about making a deal with you." The leader said, sounding a bit worried as he stared at my shotgun.

"What kinda deal?" I asked, my annoyance seeping into my tone.

"It was about making a contract for reserving access to the weapons that you have for research and reproduction." The leader explained.

*BEEP!*

〔Annoyance | 1%〕

'Damn! They really are getting on my nerves!' I thought.

.....

Mob's Power Supression (Mythic)

- The suppression system that Mob uses to keep his power in check and stay in control.

- When the percentage reaches 100% the power goes out of control and the user's mind is clouded by the emotion that caused the break.

- When out of control the user's power is increased by ×100

.....

"Why would I ever agree to that?" I asked, dropping the shotgun down to my hand.

"Because it's either us or an attack from the NCR." He said, regaining his confidence a little.

"Ha!"

*BWOOM!- BOOM!*

"GET LOST!!!" I shout, slaming the door shut on the men that were quaking in fear.

"They're gonna be back you know?" Nex said, sounding done with their shit.

"Yeah, I know they will. Just gotta make a show of force before leaving for The Divide, that should be able to make them back off for a while with that." I said, already starting to grab things and put them in my inventory. "Just hope they take the message and scram."

"You know they won't unless they're given a blunt response." Nex said in a matter a fact tone.

"I know, just something I wanted to hope." I said, wariness entering my tone.