Chapter 17 - Upgrades
Day 10
Evening
McGibbons/Moon Residence
Noah checked the stairs again, listening carefully for any signs of someone opening the basement door, or even getting near it. When he was confident enough that it was safe, Noah went to the northwest corner of the basement and slipped two fingers into a well-hidden nook. Hooking his index and middle fingers towards himself, they pressed against biometric readers that checked fingerprints, heartbeat, and temperature before dissolving a section of the wall roughly one foot in either direction from the corner.
Slipping through the newly created hole, a sensor confirmed when he cleared the entryway and sealed the corner of the wall. Once the wall was fully sealed, automatic lights came on, revealing a tunnel that sloped and curved away from the house. Noah would have preferred a straight path, but society did love putting infrastructure underground.
He had considered going through them anyway, but there was talk of engineers in town getting plumbing up and running soon. Damaging the pipes involved with that system would draw attention to his tunnel, and that was the last thing he wanted.
Hunching over a little, he set to following the tunnel. As much as he hated having to hunch, a day earlier he had to crawl. The small bots he set to digging out and reinforcing the tunnel were moving fast. He would activate double the bots tonight, and they would be done in a day or two. Then he could add them to the task of digging out the rest of his secret lair.
Several minutes later Noah emerged on the other side of the tunnel into a room roughly sixty meters cubed. Assessing the status of the large open space, he made a rather un-teenager-like smile and nodded, pleased at the progress. "SkyNOT, update."
A female voice, not quite human-sounding yet, responded, "Hello Noah, the tunnel is approximately 3.648% ahead of schedule, however the lair is 0.9818% behind schedule. As per your orders, I cannot bring mobile technology online without your permission."
Noah approached the assembly machines, one of the first things he started setting up once the lair had room. "Understood, Sky, with my mother in the household I can't get away quite as easily. That's not on you. How many new drones are ready?"
"33, with a 34th coming out of the assembler eighteen seconds after the end of this sentence."
"Activate them with previously discussed assignments, and have the extras built during my delay assigned to the lair." Walking over and sitting in the chair at his computer terminal, Noah brought up the list of active and planned projects to review them.
Project Ochyorma: 12% Complete
-Currently 0.9818% behind schedule
Project Selene: 0% Complete
-Scans Underway: 43% Complete
-Resources Not Yet Available
Project Akropolis: 0% Complete
-Scans Not Yet Started
-Resources Not Yet Available
Project Panoplia: 0% Complete
-Designs Not Yet Started
-Resources Not Yet Available
Project Empeiria: 0% Complete
-Designs Not Yet Started
-Simulations Still Underway
Project SkyNOT: 20% Complete
-Compute Nodes Online: 2/10
Noah knew he was working as fast as inhumanly possible, at least to the extent he was currently capable, but he needed to move quicker. If he was a combat-class he could gather experience quicker, but then he couldn't afford to spend half of all attribute points on Intelligence. Once his lair was fully up and running, he could speed up XP gain, but that required time, and time could equal lives lost.
Noah had to shift his focus before he spiraled, "Sky, how are scans of System equipment coming? What levels will we be able to replicate when the lair is ready?"
A readout appeared on Noah's displays, "Currently I have 100% confidence in the ability to create Silver and Gold tier items. 83% confidence in Platinum. Exalted items are less than 9% confidence. Additionally, there may be evidence of additional tiers above Exalted, however we have not been able to confirm these details as of yet." The screen shifted to additional information referencing Simulated Data, "We still do not have effective simulation data on how to inject items with modifiers yet, either.
"Understood. When will compute node three be available to come online?"
Again the display changed to show relevant information, "Projects are still accurate for compute node three. It will be online in 37.302 hours."
"Thank you, Sky." Rubbing his eyes, making him feel far older than his 15 years of age, Noah said, "Let's go through everything and see if I can't refine the efficiency a little."
Downtown Middletown
Gumiho Dojang
With the important details covered, Erin headed for the door of the Dojang, unlocked and exited, then backed up onto the street so she could observe with a bit of distance. Selecting the Dimensional Space, Tier 1 upgrade. The Dojang shimmered, flickered, wobbled, then stabilized. Nothing looked different, but she received a message.
Congratulations! Gumiho Dojang's Guild HQ has been upgraded to: Dimensional Space, Tier 1.
Peering in one of the front windows, Erin still didn't see a difference. The Temporal Upgrade, Tier 1 didn't state a need to stay outside, but before she went in to check things out, she decided to purchase that upgrade as well. There wasn't even a blink or a shimmer this time.
Congratulations! Gumiho Dojang's Guild HQ has been upgraded with: Temporal Upgrade, Tier 1
With that upgrade applied, Erin opened the door, and stepped inside. The threshold of the Dojang rippled as she walked through, like water when you drop a pebble into it. Once inside, the change was very evident. She had spent countless hours in this space, and could probably have navigated it blindfolded. Now it was like the walls and everything close to them had…pushed out might be the right way to describe it. The middle of the building, or space, or whatever the right word for it was, that's where the new space expanded…into existence.
Opening her Guild Menu, she now found an option to define the time setting. It had two options right now, 1x, and 2x. She wanted to test that, but before she got distracted, she wanted to grab some other upgrades. She had 263,273 GP remaining. If the System was to be believed, even she couldn't handle tier 2 of the Temporal Upgrade yet, so that was off the table. Besides, it was 200,000 GP. The cost doubled for Tier 2.
"Okay Erin, think strategically. Quest Station, Member Tracker. Those will cost 25,000. Add a Research Station, maybe Tier 2? I can upgrade the dummies after that." Following her loose plan, Erin purchased the Quest Station. Her view changed once she confirmed the purchase and once the disorientation cleared, realized she was looking at an overhead view of inside the Dojang. Choosing to place the Quest Station near the door for easy access, she confirmed the placement and looked to see it appear out of nowhere. "Cool."
The Member Tracker was less a station and more a function of her menu, so there was no change when she purchased it. Bit anticlimactic, she thought.
Purchasing the Research Station, Tier 1, Erin was a little more prepared for the view change this time. She placed it beside the Quest Station, then purchased the tier 2 and 3 upgrades. That brought her to 168,273 GP. She really wanted to get the Practice Dummies to tier 4, but that wasn't happening either. Tier 3 would hopefully be enough.
Choosing the Tier 1 upgrade, Erin saw the practice dummies flash for a second, then return to normal. She didn't see any visible changes on them. Digging through the menu, she didn't see anywhere to get details on the dummies. Focusing on them instead, she tried requesting information about them directly with some sort of System word. Info. Health. Quality. Menu. Status. As soon as the last word finished in her mind, information appeared beside the practice dummy.
Practice Dummy, Tier 1
Status: Stationary
Health: Not Applicable
Resource: Not Applicable
Skills: Not Applicable
Abilities: Not Applicable
Quality: Gold
"I have more questions than that answered." Erin scrunched her nose, then purchased the Tier 2 upgrade and requested the Status page again.
Practice Dummy, Tier 2
Status: Stationary
Health: Not Applicable
Resource: Not Applicable
Skills: Not Applicable
Abilities: Not Applicable
Quality: Platinum
"Didn't answer my questions. Starting to wonder who the real dummy is here." Focusing once more on the upgrade menu, Erin bought the Tier 3 upgrade, leaving her with a pittance of where she started, at just 28,273 GP.
This time though, the dummy definitely changed. All six of the practice dummies did. They wobbled, they twisted, they grew arms, they grew legs, they grew eyes, and Erin stepped back, her own eyes wide and mouth agape. This was getting weird.
When the dummies finished changing, they stood around six feet tall, on proper legs she noted, just staring forward. They were humanoid, but definitely not human. The eyes were…mechanical, almost like a clockwork robot. Keeping the same style of semi-chiseled face, they had changed from the imitation skin colour of the old practice dummies to a bronzed brown tone, slightly metallic, but smooth everywhere except the face, where the horizontally slotted mouth and those weird eyes existed.
Calling up the Status menu, Erin started to make sense of the previous info.
Practice Automaton, Tier 3
Status: Stationary, Awaiting Orders
Health: 1000 HP, Adjust?
Resource: 1000, Adjust?/Modify?
Skills: None/Imitate/Create Preset
Abilities: None/Imitate/Create Preset
Quality: Exalted
Configure
Tier 3 dummies turned into automatons, it seemed. That was Erin's first though. As she dug through the menu, her curiosity grew. They could take orders, their health was adjustable, their resource pool was adjustable, it could apparently imitate skills and abilities, with th default option of None being highlighted for both, and had an additional configuration menu. This was a lot more than she was expecting.
"You and I are going to go a round or two." Erin was excited, but intended the statement to be rhetorical. The automaton responded anyway.
"Yes, Sabomnim." Then it bowed, straightened up, and walked over to the practice mat, taking an attention stance.
Erin smirked, walked over to the mat and bowed, then stepped onto it and bowed to her opponent. The automaton bowed in return, then stepped back into a stance. The human-like emulation was so, well, human that she almost didn't react to its first attack.
The automaton came at her with a roundhouse, but she blocked it too easily. The default settings would not be a challenge. "Can you adapt?"
"Yes, Sabomnim."
"Adapt to my style. Try to equal me, and let me know when you think you're at that point."
"Yes, Sabomnim."
Without warning, Erin launched at the automaton, taking her off the ground. Flying into a spinning side kick aimed at the head, Erin expected the block and was not disappointed. The second she felt her right foot start to touch the blocking arm, she used it as a deflection point to bring her left foot around for a sidekick on the flank. The automaton didn't expect this and responded too slowly, only shifting to block after her foot had passed through its inner guard.
Landing on her feet and stepping back, Erin watched for the counterattack. The Automaton took a half-step, shifted to her left, then a quick half-step before feigning a front snap kick and then leaning into it to bring a left hook at her blindspot. Erin noticed the feint at the last second and shifted her weight, leaning forward to attack with an open palm strike using her left hand. This put her just inside where the left fist would land but brought her straight into a right-handed open palm strike from the automaton. Before her strike landed, she ran face first into the open palm strike and bounced off.
She wasn't just smirking anymore. This brought a very big smile to her face. Sure, she was holding back, but the automaton learned very quickly.
"Can we accidentally destroy the training area?" Erin didn't know if the automaton could give her that info, but she preferred to not stop combat just to dig through the menu if she didn't have to.
"Yes, Sabomnim. A minimum Tier 1 upgrade would suffice to prevent this."
Wait, there was an upgrade for this? Erin popped open the Guild Upgrade Menu, and sure enough there was a new upgrade option. She selected Upgrade Sparring Area, Tier 1 for 20,000 GP. That really was the last upgrade she could do until they earned more GP. As soon as she confirmed the upgrade, a shimmering box erected on the outer edges of the training mat, and above their heads, just below the ceiling.
Nodding her approval, Erin entered another stance and prepared to fight.
The automaton came at her again, faster than before, with a flurry of kicks and punches. Initially, the aggressive attack caught her by surprise, putting her into a reactive state where she was only blocking and dodging. Not content to be on the defensive though, Erin started to turn her blocks into attacks, and her dodges into openings. This allowed her to start pushing the automaton back, turning the tables and putting it on the defensive. Her moves blurring past it as the training tool fell into its own routine of blocking and dodging.
Just as Erin was about to land a strike, the automaton caught her wrist and said, "I have adapted to your style, Sabomnim."
The look of surprise was replaced with a wolfish grin as Erin responded, "Can you increase difficulty by 5%?"
"Yes, Sabomnim."
Those two words started what could only be described as the truest workout Erin had in a long time. The automaton's attacks started coming faster, stronger, and more intuitive. Unlike before, she was now seeing a small uptick in her XP bar at the bottom of her screen. It wasn't significant, but successful hits netted her just under 2 points of XP, and a fatal hit got her nearly 3 XP.
She suspected that included her Intelligence bonus, so it wasn't a reliable example of what students might achieve, but she could encourage them to put points into that attribute.
By the time sunlight started shining through the front windows, Erin had dialed the difficulty up to +20%, having gone up in 5% increments. Despite a successful 165 hits, 49 kills at +5% difficulty, by the time she hit +20% her success rate dropped to just 17 hits, 0 kills. That netted her 1220 XP, which seemed like a lot, but that wasn't from a quest or defeating some random enemies. That was over ten hours straight of sparring, and she had focused so much on the sparring that she forgot to activate the time dilation.
She was about to send a Guild message to start training the following day, then get in another 24 hours of training for herself, when she heard a muffled, but rather distinct, metal-on-metal sound coming from outside. The muffling was close to that of sound in water, though not quite that muted. Running to the front of the Dojang, she rushed through the door only to be greeted by a passing tank.