Chapter 7: Ch.0007 – Advanced Fusion Assembler

Jimmy did not fall sick from consuming the water, which was a smell blessing. In fact, quite the opposite. His sores and aches had been worn away by a wash of newfound energy and enthusiasm. He quickly washed himself with the pleasantly warm water to maintain some basic semblance of hygiene and then sent off his troops into the forest in search of food. It was the next necessity that he needed to ensure a steady supply of, and one as likely to leave him dead as sickness by water if he was incautious enough. 

Not everything that looked edible in the wild was truly edible after all. It was that thought that stayed his hand as he stared at the bundle of fruits and dead critters that his units had returned with. 

They looked harmless enough, the fruit plump and orange with an oblong shape and appetizing smell. They faintly reminded him of the crops that Miss Watkins had maintained in planter boxes on the roof. Were these the same crops, he wondered, but twisted and wrought large by The System’s touch, the same as had happened to the AC units. 

Did it matter? 

His stomach rumbled. The fruits seemed inviting enough. He would be forced to eat something eventually. 

There was little point in staving off the inevitable. He steeled himself and readied his meal. 

Food and water, however, was not the totality of his gains for the morning. 

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You have earned a level 

5 >> 6 

+1 WIT + 1 CON 

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His hunting party seemed to still be hard at work, and though he found it odd to level despite having done little work himself, Jimmy was in no situation to turn up his nose at such easy gains. 

He unpeeled the fruit with little effort and then eventually set about the grim task of skinning and cleaning the meat which was not a skill that he had any level of experience with. 

But practice made perfect, and nothing bred skill than adversity, and so Jimmy made do as best he could with what little he knew from an osmosis of knowledge across the years. 

His efforts led to a visually unappealing but surprisingly filling meal of meat roasted over a fire with bitter, tangy fruit as a side, but hunger was a flavor all its own, and if nothing else, he was grateful for the fact that neither food had left him an incapacitated, diarrheal mess by the end. 

The rest of the day would be dedicated to further expanding his settlement, he decided, and he started with a wall placed a few paces behind his watcher sentries. 

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Cover Wall (I) 

5 SC per meter – 5 essence per feet - 1 minute 

The simplest of defenses to keep your cities secure. 

--- Upgrades --- 

- Reinforced Structure (I) - 160 RP - 2 days. 

Improves the structure’s scale and defensibility. 

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He hadn’t the essence to spare for a wall that ran the length and width of his base, and so a single section had to do. It was still a large cost, and not one that he thought necessary. The wall was neither large nor particularly stout. It looked like brass, but dull and beaten, and was only as tall as his lower chest. 

In that, he supposed that it was true to its name. It was less a wall and more of something to provide cover. 

Something as large as the matriarch could easily jump over it, and the things he’d felt rumbling beneath the ground could dig beneath it. Even the lesser metaleonids had the leaping prowess to scramble over it, he thought. 

Still, it was an advantage, and he saw no reason to deny his settlement what security it could bring to bear, scant as it may be. 

Jimmy queued up the construction until a length of ground was home to the rising slabs of metal and then turned to his next task. 

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Advanced Fusion Assembler (I) 

325 SC – 325 Essence - 6 hours 

3 unit slots. 

The Advanced Fusion Assembler (I) trains the heavy fist of your armies, plowing through what the regular infantry cannot. 

--- Units --- 

Spider Tank (I) - Dragon Battery (I) - Cheetah Assault Drone (I) 

--- Upgrades --- 

- Conscription (I) - 210 RP - 2 days. 

Improves the rate of unit production 

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Spider Tank (I) 

180 SC – 180 Essence – 25 minutes – 5 pop 

Basic armored unit. Possessed of middling speed, but tremendous maneuverability and a pair of heavy-hitting cannons that allow them to tear through enemy foes with minimal effort. 

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Dragon Battery (I) – 7 pop 

200 SC – 200 Essence – 35 minutes 

Basic artillery unit. Slow and cumbersome, but possessed of great range and immense fire power. 

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Cheetah Assault Drone (I) – 3 pop 

95 SC – 95 Essence – 15 minutes 

Basic heavy offensive unit. Extremely quick, but lightly armored as a result. Can output massive amounts of damage via its armament of machine-guns and flamethrowers, but is vulnerable to counterattack if it is slowed or trapped in any way. 

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With the advanced fusion assembler, he would be able to produce the units that could give even the matriarch a reason to reconsider an assault against him. It was no cheap thing, certainly, but it would be beyond worthwhile. 

With the structure in the making, he directed some of his workers towards it to speed along the process and then turned to the assault assembler. His spending spree had severely cut away into his essence balance but he still had enough left over to fund the creation of a new troop of military units. 

With five wolverines and two eagles queued up, Jimmy thought it time for a moment of rest whilst everything he had set into motion settled. After his extractors had saved up some essence once again, he planned to dip his toes into his first religious structure. His entire archetype hinged on the concept after all, and he saw no reason to avoid it any longer. 

That idea was lost to the winds the moment that he spotted movement from the forest. 

He stiffened, and his mind raced with questions as to why neither his watcher sentries nor his chameleons had detected or alerted him to the intruder's presence, but the answer became obvious enough when narrowed eyes made out the figure of a wolverine drone as it emerged into the clearing. 

It was likely a part of the hunting party that he had sent out to roam the woods, he supposed. Was it returning to recharge? Alone? His units were stoic, dependable and unyielding in every definition of the word, but for all their strengths, they were not without fault. 

As all beings required, they too needed sources of power to fuel them. Humans demanded food and water, but his constructs needed differing amounts of manelectricity, a unique source of power supplied by structures like the terminus and population nodes. They could operate indefinitely without pause whilst in its radius but outside it, they dealt with a battery life that limited their operational range.  

His hunting troops had returned a few times to bask in the terminus’s aura since he’d sent them away, so the wolverine’s return came as no surprise, but they had never returned to him piece-meal before. 

Something tingled at the back of his mind, and it became ever more chillingly alarming the closer the unit drew towards him. It was mangled. 

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That was not good, he thought. One arm was missing, shorn off at the elbow, and the other was a ruin that hung on by only the smallest of wires. Indents where it had been struck by heavy blows littered its chest and one of its legs was twisted in an awkward position that made it hobble with an awkward, unbalanced gait. 

Its shield too was gone, and its sword whilst whole was slick with a foul green ichor. Jimmy immediately barked out an alert that demanded his every military unit form up into a wall of steel and blades facing the forest. 

Slowly, weakly, the wolverine stumbled its way towards them. Jimmy’s attention was affixed onto the trees, seeking any signs of chase. He cursed himself for not being cautious enough to build up a wall facing the forest. It would have made the prospect of dealing with an attack far more tolerable. 

It was a mistake he would immediately amend. He queued up a stretch of wall between two of the sentries. He hadn’t enough essence to fund it all, but every inch of cover would prove useful. Every worker he had available to him was directed to speed its creation, whilst Jimmy spared a moment to consult with the System. 

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The Enlightened Tinkerer, Master of The Circuitarchy 

Leader of the Nation of Space 

Era: I 

Population: 33 - Units: 83/130 

Controlled Sectors: 0 – Controlled Settlements: 1 

--- Resources --- 

346 SC – 245 Essence 

--- Nation Skills --- 

Divine Weight I 

--- Leader Skills --- 

Your Faith, My Might I 

--- Unit Production Skills 1/3 --- 

Chameleon Recon Drone (I) 

--- Structures Tab --- 

Common Structures: Terminus (I), Pylon (I), Population Node (I), … 

Military Structures: Assault Assembler (I), Cover Wall (I), ... 

Industry Structures: Resource Extractor (I), Manufactorium (I), ... 

Religious Structures: Piety Terminal (I), Network Pylon (I) 

Culture Structures: Bitrecessor (I), Bitron Pylon (I), ... 

Economic Structures: Trade Hub (I), Exploratorium (I), ... 

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His unit count had dropped by the exact number of troops that he had tasked with hunting duties, save for the lone surviving wolverine. Jimmy frowned and wiped at a bead of sweat that glistened on his forehead. Something out there had slain far too many of his units for his comfort. Something strong. A monolichen, perhaps? Not the matriarch, he thought. It was too far from its territory, unless there was another that claimed the woods for its own. 

Or something worse. 

Jimmy clenched and unclenched his fists. The air tasted full of tension and dread, and for all that his mind remained calm and clear, he could not deny the mounting weight upon his shoulders. 

The wolverine crossed the threshold of his sentries and hobbled its way past his burgeoning walls as it made its way towards him. 

“Stop.” he commanded it when it was still a few meters away. He wasn’t sure why, but his paranoia demanded that he maintained some semblance of separation from the unit. 

“Maker acknowledged. This unit returns.” it said, its voice shaky. 

“Report. What happened to the other units?” 

“The troop was assaulted by an unknown monster. Size, large. Speed, fast. The troop could not strike it due to the trees. It picked each unit apart one by one until only this unit remained.” 

“How did you escape?” 

“In the absence of the troop, this unit decided that it could no longer fulfil its objective of hunting monsters. This unit thusly chose to return for further orders.” 

“What about the monster?” 

“It was driven away.” 

Something strong enough to tear through five wolverines and three eagles at once was... driven away before it could slay the last unit in the troop? 

It was plausible, he would admit. His units had proved their competence already, but... 

His instincts roiled. 

He turned from the wolverine and stared at the treeline. He saw nothing. Sensed nothing, but something about it made him uneasy. 

“This unit requests permission to seek repair.” 

He glanced at it again. The worker automata would be able to repair it. He wasn’t entirely sure how given their lack of material, tools or replacement parts, but The System provided where he could not, or so the being had told him during their discussion. 

He was about to nod and wave it away when he caught sight of something. It was minute, and perhaps it was only his heightened perception that even allowed him to make out the oddity, but he was certain in what he saw. There was something vaguely plant-like within the wolverine’s workings, in between the holes and damage-worn dents of its chest-plate. 

“Stop.” he told it. “An automata will repair you here.” 

It was likely just debris from the battle, no doubt. They were in a forest and his units possessed numerous gaps in their bodies that a fallen leaf or bit of plant matter could nuzzle into. It was not something he would even have given a second thought to under normal circumstances, but something about the situation gnawed at him. Paranoia and caution intermixed to create a sense of unease that demanded he further study the unit. 

He called for a worker to come over and turned to eye the wolverine but the unit was already moving towards him. 

“I told you to stop.” he said, and yet it continued. If anything, it was getting faster. That was not right. His choice came to him immediately. 

“Destroy that unit.” he ordered; his voice cool as he passed down his sentence. Every wolverine, mastodon, eagle and chameleon, as well as his sentries in range, all turned to eye the battered construct, their weapons alive with emotionless intent. 

Swords were raised. 

Rifles were bared. 

Cudgels were readied. 

Turrets churned. 

And the unit exploded before a single shot had been fired. His mastodons threw themselves before him at surprising speed, their shields slamming onto the earth to forge a wall of metal against the scorching heat of the blast. Their timely intervention saved him from the worst of it, leaving him to only bear with a sweeping heated wind that licked at his eyes and nose. 

It was foul but not harmful and he managed to rise from his cocoon of metal to survey the situation. 

The unit had been turned into a shrapnel bomb, he realized, and bits and pieces of it had shorn away at a dozen of those that had been closest to it. A few wolverines attempted to rise but found their limbs torn away underneath them, or their eyes shattered by a shard of brass. 

One sentry had similarly suffered damage, though it seemed operational still. His eagles seemed fine and whole due to their positioning in the formation, and his bulky mastodons bore nothing worse than surface scratches to their thick armor. 

Perhaps the worst casualties were his worker automata that had been working on the wall. Of the eight that he’d had, only three remained, and they too were damaged. The wall was largely whole due to its innate defensive nature, but only partially completed. 

It would have to do, he thought, as his sentries churned with alarm, and then his chameleons a few seconds later. Something was coming. A lot of somethings. 

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