Chapter 9 - Preparation

It had been two days since Alex arrived at the highest outer layer, but he had yet to proceed to the inner area because he noticed how pathetically poor he was. Cost of living will be far greater than it is where he resided currently. Besides, the money left with him will barely sustain him.

So he spent the next three days familiarizing himself with the A.I training interface in his room. From each highest layer of an area, it was one of the benefits enjoyed though they'll be large difference in treatment.

It's just a pity that he could not use the battle simulator. Only the inner area to the core has a privilege to this. He had tried tweaking and deceiving the A.I. that he belonged to the inner area, but it yielded no results. If only he could get his hands on that simulator, he knew his task of controlling his strength and becoming stronger would not be difficult. 

He decided to continue with what he had, as he resumed training for another two weeks. He went out of the building and headed towards the mission pavilion. The pavilion was extremely large as it floated a little above the ground. He was greeted by a mechanical voice as he entered the building. He noticed the building had many floors, while some were blocked by opaque glass. He got to know that each area corresponded to the number of floors he could access.

For example, he could only access the first five floors, then the next ones correspond to the next area.

He moved over towards the attendant sitting with a book open before her as she rested her arms below her chin. She raised her head slightly, then smiled at Alex when she saw him.

"How many I help you today, sir?"

Alex glanced at the lady before him and when he noticed the way she stared at him, he knew he would probably get many of them more.

"I need a mission to advance to the inner layer." He replied with a smile. The lady stared at Alex. She had never seen him come here, but it wasn't her concern. Getting rid of unnecessary thoughts she told him to stretch out his left arm which a red light scanned.

"The missions been uploaded to your device sir."

"Thanks." He replied with his signature smile then left the building.

He boarded an hover car back to his building. Getting back to his room, he then sat on the bed as he looked at nothing in front of him.

"Show me my information!"

A translucent blue screen appeared before him with blurry edges. Each time he saw this, it always made him amazed. He remembered he was lucky to arrive on time to participate in the registration. Everyone was given a panel which was called System. It showed the basic information of the owner. To get the better ones, higher authority and gold will be needed.

Alex sighed as he observed what he saw.

STATUS

NAME - ALEX MERCER

AGE - 22

RACE - HUMAN

STATS/ MISSIONS/ BALANCE/ INVENTORY/UPGRADE

Upgrade your authority to access more features

He clicked on the missions option. A variety of missions appeared before him as he skipped through most of them to reach to the ones that allowed him to relocate to the inner area.

Finally, he saw a mission that required him to kill ten low level beasts, two mid level and one high level. He checked the reward for it and was surprised because he saw that the person would be immediately promoted to the C layer in the inner area. He knew that with such rewards, it showed the risk level of the mission. A menu popped up in front of him and he chose YES to carry out the mission.

This mission will probably take him a while to complete and he needed to prepare whatever he could. He intended to use this mission as a means to train. He knew that it was only in a life and death situation could he really upgrade himself. 

He spent almost a week analyzing the details of the mission and to stock food.

A few days later, he came out of the building, he wore faded black jeans and a white top with a brown jacket. He headed straight to the teleportation station as he paid the amount needed to take him to the station before exiting the city. The amount made him almost vomit blood. He had earlier bought a new motorcycle that could move in the air. The motorcycle was equipped to be able to withstand ten minutes of constant beast attacks and also perform long range attacks. One may wonder how he was able to procure them, well he did work on his acting skills and got lucky when he visited the fighting ring.

Coming out of the other side of the portal, he was relieved as he did not feel any sense of danger during transport. He headed to another teleportation station, which was used for moving in and out of the city. He asked the system to drop him a few kilometers away from the beast, territory which he then heard a mechanical voice agreeing with him.

Minutes later, he found himself in the midst of destroyed vegetation. He raised his head and looked in the direction of the beast's territory and, unknown to him, a strange glint flashed quickly in his eyes. He decided to wait three more days before he began his journey. The mission had a deadline of three months because of how difficult they termed it. But Alex did not plan to use that long. He had other things to do besides killing beasts. 

Back in the central city.

After the core area was the Secluded Palace, the building can be seen to be floating in the air without any support with lights from patrol ships moving around it. 

Inside the building, was the courtroom, which could be seen to be in use currently. A meeting of the highest order was about to take place, with only those in the highest position of power attending. A man could be seen sitting on a throne at the far end of the room, with tables and chairs arranged at his two sides. The man rested his cheek on his arm as he listened to all that the people said. 

"There has been a new update your majesty!" A man in a blue robe on the right side of the man sitting on the throne spoke. The interesting fact about the situation in the room was that they were all dressed in ancient-fashioned clothing.

"A survivor arrived not too long ago and was registered as a citizen of the highest layer in the outer area." He continued, a projection of Alex was displayed in the air. It showed his data and all of his history.

"The strange thing about it was that from his interactions with others, though brief, he seemed to have lived a long time outside the city."

Many heads were raised when they understood what this meant. That meant he survived that long without by himself without much harm.

"Honestly, we do know he is not the only one who arrived here recently, as we all know there have been an increase in survivors showing up." A lady in a white robe said. She sat at the far end of the table.

"Besides, that's not the pressing matter, right?" She continued as she gazed at the man sitting in the center.

The man on the throne finally raised his head, which made light shine on his face. He had a thin scar on his cheek and he possessed a very beautiful set of golden pupils. His eyes made anyone who saw him want to worship him. He glanced at the ma who spoke earlier, "if this is the reason you called for this meeting, I would be very disappointed."

The man who spoke earlier quickly apologized, then cleared his throat, "we have finally made good progress on the research on the invaders." Said the man as his words attracted immediate attention from everyone. He understood what the man on the throne did, and not everyone was stupid to want to antagonize the king. It may look like they had authority closer to the king, but they are the only ones who know how far from the truth this is.

The screen changed to show a high level beast, tied down to the table as it gave a loud screech. Its eyes were bloodshot as it stared at the humans who captured it. Tubes could be seen attached to its body as they extracted its blood to a large container. The container then proceeded to scan the properties of the beast.

"As we can all see clearly, this is the fifteenth high level captured beast, fortunately it is not dead due to the experiments and will not be the last. The plan for 'PROJECT IMMORTALITY' will be able to start after we are done with it and a few others." The man on the throne rose as he phased out of the room. Only his last words echoed, "Do as you deem fit, there's no room for failure."