Infinitium

General Duvall looked around at his new office and marveled at what had happened over the last 100 days. A man, a singular man, had somehow saved 71.3% of the population, most of whom were in the facility that had expanded quite a bit. With Ray running everything, food wasn’t an issue; everyone had access to anything mundane. They even had a couple of leveling farms at this point. The most dangerous of which was outside, though no one was high enough level to use it yet.

The safe zone Adam had placed included all of Alamogordo which the nanites had already repaired and upgraded. People weren’t living in the city yet because of the psychopathic aliens. As soon as they received the all-clear, some had already requested permission to live on the surface. With Ray taking care of everything, it shouldn’t be an issue. For now, Ray had created a couple of places in the mountains where people could go outside to get some fresh air that was relatively safe.

The General was brought out of his thoughts by a knock on his door, “Come in,” he called as he focused on the man he’d just been thinking about.

Adam stepped through the door and sat in one of the General’s chairs, “Sorry, I haven’t sat down in, well a long time. Thought I’d stop by and see how things are going and make a suggestion.”

“Nice to see you again Adam. What’s the suggestion, so we can get that out of the way first?” General Duvall asked.

“Well, we have just over 23 hours before Stage 2 starts. I would offer that this is a perfect time to let people return to their homes and grab any items of sentimental value. Ray can replace anything they have even sentimental items, but they wouldn’t be the original If people have things they’d like to pick up, right now is the perfect time to do so. I know it’ll be a bit of an undertaking but Ray and you should be able to handle it,” Adam said.

“I’ve put Captain Clarkson and Lieutenant Baker on heading that up right now. As I understand it Ray can duplicate anything in her sphere of control so digital pictures, drives, etc. can be duplicated as long as they’re brought here.”

Adam looked thoughtful for a moment before he offered, “If you have teams ready, Ray could open portals to any server sites and have the sites brought here, or she could extend cables through open portals into those rooms. We’d have to supply the power and the connections but it shouldn’t be an issue. Honestly, the safer way would be to bring everything back here. Open portals can be detected and tracked.”

“Won’t they be able to detect us with a sensor anyway?” General Duvall asked.

“Maybe, but unlikely, at least until the truly powerful make their way here. I mean the administrators for the SYSTEM know we’re here and the information can be purchased from the SYSTEM Shop but anyone entering this area will have a very bad day,” Adam said with a wry smile.

“Why is that?”

“While I haven’t been back in over three months I do have a connection to Ray and have checked in every once in a while concerning the technical stuff, like portal construction, power generation, satellite and sensor coverage,” Adam explained as the General gave him a look that asked what that had to do with anything. Adam smiled and continued, “When we first met this facility had barely enough power for me to open portals to the Moon, possibly even Mars. 100 days later, we can open portals into space at least 100 light years from here.”

“So what does that do for us?”

“Well, anyone that comes into this safe zone and pisses me off can be shoved through a portal that will put them a long way from here. If they have magic, they might be able to come back but more likely they’ll have to use the SYSTEM to save themselves which should return them to their homes, or they just die, which works for us too.”

“Adam, how many hunters did you kill?”

“Stage 1 had one million hunters, not including the humans that also tried to enter the race. I killed every hunter that came here and every human that tried to become a hunter that attacked me. There are probably a couple of humans out there roaming around near one of the green pillars that killed a hunter. If they don’t come after me, they get to live.”

“Do you think you’ll have any issues with Stage 2?” General Duvall asked.

“Not really but it depends on what type of event the Xeli Corporation thought up. On that note, I need to visit the SYSTEM Shop. Before I leave, how is the housing situation now that over 5 billion people live in one 50-mile area on the planet?”

“Honestly, it’s going a lot better than expected. Once people started disappearing for fighting the physical altercations stopped. Also, we set up sections that are sealed off from other sections even though everyone has access to whatever they need.

“So what happened to the ones that started a fight?” Adam asked.

“Well, your previous location that everyone was sent to is now within the 25-mile radius of the center of this facility but part of White Sands is still just outside the Safe Zone. Ray redirected them there and we even put some of our people on the edge of the safe zone so they could hand them supplies to survive the day.”

“Any issues with monsters in that area?”

“There were some worms but after Ray created a few weapons towers on the edge of the safe zone the monsters stayed away. Once their timer is off they step into the Safe zone and Ray opens a portal to the area where they move to.

“And it’s not crowded,” Adam asked.

“Nope, inside this safe zone, every single person we have could have at least 100 cubic feet that is their own. While that doesn’t seem like a lot, with Ray’s ability to make anything almost instantly everyone has their privacy, though I do have a question, roughly 1% of the population has disappeared. I am getting questions as to why?” The General asked questioningly.

“The individuals in question have violated the rules of basic decency toward their fellow men, women, and specifically children. Before they could act out their depraved fantasies, Ray moved them to another part of the facility which is completely cut off from everyone else. They currently have access to each other but there are no children in the vicinity and the two sexes are also separated.”

“Are you going to leave them there?” General Duvall asked.

“General, I don’t know if you haven’t noticed but it’s a brand new world. I’d just as soon get rid of them but I know that’s not something people will like so I separated them from the general population to give you a chance to get everything set up. Once Stage 2 is done, they will be the Government’s problem, whatever form that takes. I just figured you wouldn’t want to deal with distraught parents and depraved individuals while we were trying to save as many as possible.

“Well, you guessed right, thanks,” General Duvall said.

“Okay, I’m off to the SYSTEM Shop, I have some more of those scans to turn in for funds.”

General Duvall nodded as Adam walked out of the office and made his way to the SYSTEM Shop node. General Duvall kind of wished this place was run by the Uniform Code of Military Justice which would make taking care of that 1% super easy, but he knew just killing pedophiles and individuals that had tried to commit murder but didn’t wasn’t going to sit well with everyone. It seemed Adam had taken care of the problem for now so he activated his comm and called out, “Captain Clarkson, update please?”

***

Adam thought the talk with the General had gone well. His days of being the overbearing asshole making all the decisions was done. Someone else could be the asshole, unless they tried to kill him. Yeah, if they tried to kill him, Adam absolutely reserved the right to be the asshole. Adam put those thoughts out of his mind and entered the SYSTEM Shop. He went up to the counter and sat in front of Alerna who held up her finger in the classic, “One Second,” pose.

While he was waiting Adam could turn in the sample collectors. Once he entered the shop he realized that he hadn’t been fast to save everyone on Earth when he was notified that the Shop had detected that he had 1,273,517,000 new samples to turn in. That was fine. Adam accepted the payout and looked at his new credit balance, 1,273,530,545,923,120. As he saw his new credit limit he couldn’t help but smile as he thought. Don’t you worry, Karma is going to visit those dirtbags, really soon. Besides, it was always a good thing when the people you were going to bring justice to paid both the monetary and karmic bills themselves.

Alerna looked at Adam with a bit of apprehension and asked, “Is everything okay, young Master?”

“Fine, Alerna. I was just thinking about what I was going to do with all of those credits,” Adam said with a self-deprecating laugh.

“Well, I can see that you’re at the threshold of being able to choose a Tier 3 class, if you have any available. Are you here to choose your class and acquire some class skills early?”

“No, that’s okay,” Adam said.

“Will there be anything else?”

“I do have a question. As I use my skills and class abilities is it normal to get the points that were invested back as I use the skill?”

“Of course,” Alerna said. “The skill points that are available to you are so that you can lock in skills that you find at the higher rarity class and level. Once you have used the skill long enough the points are returned to you.”

“Do you know how long that takes?” Adam asked.

“Yes and no. Studies have been conducted on skills up through the Advanced level. Let’s say that you find a skill scroll that will give a skill at Advanced Rarity level 10. You spend 55 skill points to lock that skill in at Advanced Level 10. Now skills are a bit weird. They don’t earn experience points, instead, they level based on use. After many tests scholars have determined that a skill must be constantly used for just over 70 days, or 101,842 minutes to reach Advanced Level 10.”

“Wow,” was all that Adam could say, and then he looked at his log. His Chaos Conversion, Hyper Focus, and Running skill had all increased to Master rarity level 1.

“What is it?” Alerna asked.

“It would seem that I have been constantly busy for 100 days. Three of my skills have risen to Master Rarity level 1

“Three different skills, you’re sure?” Alerna asked.

“Yes, three skills,” Adam affirmed.

“Can you show me?” Alerna asked.

Adam pulled up the skills and willed them to display without any of the descriptions or the word chaos.

“And you’re sure these skills all leveled to this point within 100 days?” Alerna asked.

“I only earned these skills 100 days ago, so yeah” Adam affirmed.

“Thank you,” we hadn’t had anybody confirm how long it would take to level a skill that high before.”

“You’re quite welcome. If the difference between Advanced level 10 and Master level 2 is over 30 days I think it will be quite a while before any skills locked in above Master rarity could have the skill points locked up in those skills back.

“Well, you only need skill points to lock the skill in and of course, you need at least one skill point to create a skill from scratch,” Alerna said.

Adam froze before he asked quickly, “Alerna, what do you mean by creating a skill from scratch?”

“Well, you know how you have to lock in class skills to level 1 with a skill point as they become available?”

“Yes,” Adam said as he nodded.

“And you know how you need to spend skill points based on a level no matter the rarity of the book or scroll you are learning it from which we were just talking about?”

“Yes, of course,” Adam said.

“Well, let's say that you are good at something or know something that is part of another class that you wouldn’t normally get as a class skill yet you figure out how to do it and the SYSTEM registers that you do know how to use that skill. The SYSTEM will offer you the choice to lock in that skill at Common Rank 1 for 1 skill point. When you’ve used the skill enough to earn Common Rank 2 the SYSTEM refunds the skill point.”

“How would that work with the Perk Skill Savant?”

“Skill what?” Alerna asked.

Adam pulled up the Perk and displayed it for her

Skill Savant - All skills are known to you through the many memories you have absorbed, while you receive no additional bonuses you are proficient with all weapons, tools, and vehicles

“Honestly, I’ve never seen that perk before. I wouldn’t know how that would affect creating level 1 skills since you technically have the skill. Maybe you just need to use the skill long enough to get level 2 for it to lock it in without using any skill points.

“Well, I’ve been using Psionic Blast and Chaos Blade almost exclusively for the last 100 days…” Adam was interrupted as notifications filled his vision.

Skill Review In Process

Skill Psionic Blast used continuously? Yes

Skill Blades used continuously? Yes

Adjustments made

Psionic Blast increased to Master Level 1

Skill Blades (Chaos Blade) increased to Master Level 1

“What just happened? Alerna asked.”

“It would seem that I was moving too fast for the SYSTEM to keep track of. It reviewed and backdated my skill growth with two skills,” Adam said.

“That’s amazing. I mean I know it happens, but in your case, that is amazing,” Alerna said.

“Yeah, it was pretty nice,” Adam agreed.

“Are you done now?” Alerna asked.

“For now, I’m sure I’ll be back after the next stage of my quest,” Adam said.

“Well good luck, I hope to see you soon,” Alerna said.

Adam nodded and left the SYSTEM Shop. After he appeared next to the SYSTEM Shop node, he stepped through the portal into Ray’s inner sanctum and sat down in a chair the nanites had created for him. Next, he activated Technomancy and reached out with his mind. He wanted to check in on the whole facility as well as the rest of the world. He had satellite coverage across the planet and sensors in a lot of places. Also, over 1 billion people still live outside the facility.

Adam had 22 hours. To start with, Adam was going to create pallets of supplies with Mold Chaos to supplement what Ray had been doing. Once every minute Adam created a pallet, and used Chaos Conversion, which had also leveled to Master 1. Leveling that skill had taken him from spending 10 hit points, stamina, mana, or psychic energy to get 1 point of chaos to get a 1 to 4 ratio here 1 hit point earned him 4 chaos though he was using his mana to recover his chaos.

Also, his Mold Chaos skill had leveled quite nicely as well. He could spend all 3,720 points of Chaos to create 81,840 pounds of materials and his mana regeneration of 20,711 per 10 seconds could replace it. with a 1 to 4 ratio he only needed to use 930 mana to do so. Adam settled back and started reviewing the state of the world while he created one pallet per minute.

As Adam reviewed the planet the people that had not made it to his bunker that Ray could detect things seemed to be doing okay. Most were at least 200 miles away from any pillar and had gone to the ground and were hiding. Adam continued making pallets and scanning the globe until he received the notification that his Skill level with Mold Chaos had increased to Rare Level 3. Which still only had a cost of 1 Chaos but now he could make 23 pounds of materials per point of Chaos.

Using his Perfect Memory, Adam sorted through every use of Mold Chaos and realized that he had used the skill exactly 9,051 times. This meant that leveling skills at the common level was based on multiples of 10, Scarce was based on multiples of 100 and Rare skill leveling was based on multiples of 1,000. Therefore it shouldn’t be very hard to get skills from level Common to level 1 Rare easily. After that though, it would get time-consuming and expensive which meant he should probably only spend skill points on Common level 1 skills or on skills that were above Rare rarity.

That also meant there was no way he was going to get Mold Chaos to Rare level 4 before Stage 2 started. Besides he had a few new skills he wanted to try. Adam spoke into the air, “Ray, I’m done supplementing for now. I’m going to try something else.”

“Very well,” Ray said into the room

Adam spent 100 Psychic Energy and activated Astral Projection.

Adam’s point of view lifted up from his body and he looked around. His body was still sitting in the chair with its eyes closed. Next, he activated Spiritual Strength and felt his body materialize around him as the energies of the Astral Plane solidified and formed his body. Sure he was only 1% as strong as his normal body but that still meant that his base physical attributes were over 2,641.

“Adam, why are there two of you in my chamber?” Ray asked.

“This is just my Astral Projected Form solidified. Please scan me and see if you can tell the difference. Also, be ready to scan for this type of variance going forward.

“Understood,” Ray said as Adam felt a tingling sensation before Ray said, “The copy of you that is moving and talking does not possess a quantum signature. It reads as solidified energy or a hologram.”

“That makes sense,” Adam said as he dropped Spiritual Strength and Astral Projection which brought him back to his body. From his sitting position, Adam activated Safe Haven. He had thought a door or something would open but that didn’t happen. It felt like a sheet of saran wrap had just reached out and covered his whole body simultaneously. Adam’s vision was flooded with both realities. On the one hand, colorful gases billowed out and around him as far as the eye could see in all directions, even through the ground. On the other hand, he could see everything in the Material plane within his area of perception which was about 60 miles. He could see through solid walls and was even able to take in all of Racoon City without moving. Both images were overlapped in his vision making it very unlikely that anyone without sufficient intelligence or willpower would not be able to get anything out of using a skill like this. Also, Adam intuitively knew that he could Astral Project into either location with no issue.

Adam activated Astra Projection and exited into the Material Plane. The whole point of trying these new powers was to reach out to other people he hadn’t been able to contact and either provide them with supplies or bring them back to Racoon City. Once he did, he could no longer see into the Astral Plane. Unlike his other forms of movement, he could be anywhere with a thought. At 186,300 miles per second, he could get to any point on the face of the planet, which he tested as he appeared in Paris, then Moscow, then Hong Kong, then Sydney, and back to where he’d started within 10 seconds.

Unlike normal movement, if he had a good memory he could go anywhere with a thought. Also, there was no sense of movement. To him, his point of view simply shifted. Of course that wasn’t true when Spiritual Strength was active. He activated the skill and tried to move to Paris and nothing happened. He was able to walk from one side of the room to the other, but the fast travel that Astral Projection allowed was not available while he had a solidified body. Adam checked and sighed half-heartedly, with attributes at 2,641 his new movement speed was only 1,513 miles per hour, or just over two times the speed of sound. He couldn’t travel from one side of the planet to another in a moment but he was still quite fast.

Adam checked his energy expenditures and recovery. It looked like he wouldn’t have anything to worry about on that front either. The upkeep costs were far lower than the initial costs that his natural Psychic Energy regeneration could handle. If he ran out of energy he could supplement for a little while with Chaos Conversion by converting mana into psychic energy. As it was, he was already back to full in all attribute pools as he deactivated Spiritual Strength and flashed to the first place he wanted to visit, Nome Alaska.

On the west side of Alaska, Nome was literally in the middle of nowhere with only one road that led to Teller Alaska which was about 58 miles to the north and west of Nome. Both locations had small airfields but nothing had been flying, except the hunters, Adam, and a few others that had learned a spell or skill. Ray had tried to establish communication but had been ignored so for the last 3 months Ray had simply dropped off pallets of food and water near the hospitals as needed in both locations when no one was looking.

Ray had come up with an ingenious method for doing so. Ray could create anything she wished in Racoon City that wasn’t alive with nanites. She could then move those items outside of Racoon City so long as there were no nanites in them. Adam had given her the programming that allowed her to move the terminus of the portals which made everything easier.

A pallet was placed on the ready location, above which was a clamping mechanism that could stabilize and hold the pallet from directly above. The clamp would lift the pallet, or item, off the ground at least an inch, and then a portal would open horizontally directly below the pallet. The portal would shift up, which made it appear that the pallet was dropping through the portal but realistically the pallet only moved one inch as the clamp lowered the pallet to the ground on the other end of the portal. Once the portal reached the top of the pallet or item, the clamp would release, and withdraw into the ceiling at which point the portal disappeared.

To anyone at the target location, it looked like a horizontal portal appeared about an inch off the ground, and a pallet lowered to touch the ground as the portal rose until the top of the pallet was visible. A clamping arm that was holding the pallet on two sides released and moved straight up through the portal, which then disappeared.

Ray had been creating and dropping off supplies like this for the last three months to the human settlements that had been ignored by the hunters or were too far away from any of the green pillars where some of the natives had fled to. Ray had a whole staging room for pallets and General Duvall had put a team together that looked over the locations and helped Ray put together the list of items a pallet would contain. After Stage 2 was complete General Duvall was going to send out teams to make contact with everyone Ray had been helping. If they’d made it to a green zone they were safe for the most part. As for Adam? Adam was heading to places like Nome Alaska where the people didn’t understand what was going on and refused to step through the portal to safety or talk to General Duvall or Ray through the supplied communications devices. Ignorance was not bliss and Adam needed to show them that.

A moment later Adam’s Astral Form stood at the doors of the Norton Sound Regional Hospital. He activated Spiritual Strength and materialized before he walked toward the police officers who had drawn their guns on him and were standing guard at the main doors.

“Freeze!” the police officer on Adam’s right said.

“Yeah, No,” Adam said as he continued to walk forward.

“I said freeze dirt bag or I’ll open fire.!”

Before the police officers could react, Adam flashed forward, grabbed both barrels and shattered them by squeezing them with his hands. With a carrying capacity of 29,000 pounds in this limited form, it wasn’t as easy as it would normally be but he still had more than enough strength to overcome the barrels and squeeze them until they broke.

“Now, where is your leader, I need to talk to him”

“You aren’t getting anything out of…”

“Ray?” Adam said

“Whose Ray the officer on the left asked.”

“Adam didn’t have time to put up with two idiots. A room filled with foam appeared behind both police officers as portals opened. Neither had noticed the portals and were completely surprised when Adam pushed both at the same time and they fell backward into empty space when they both expected to be stopped by a wall. As the portals were closing Adam called out, “Someone will collect you in a few minutes, just relax until they come get you.”

After that show of force, which everyone in the front lobby saw, it was only a moment before the leader showed up, Mayor Anik. Once Adam explained to her where he was from, where the food that had been appearing as if by magic had been coming from and that a significant portion of humanity was safe in Racoon City it wasn’t very hard to convince them that they’d be better off with the rest of humanity. He’d also cheated a bit by having Ray create a portal directly over a working monitor which Adam used to show everyone what Racoon City could offer with the promise that they could come home once everyone was safe. This would be so much easier if nanites worked everywhere. He was definitely adding that to his “To Do” list.

For the next 7 hours, Adam moved to various locations around the globe and recovered a small portion of those humans who had not been contacted by General Duvall or who had been contacted and didn’t leave. Some stepped through portals into Racoon City while others still chose to stay behind. Adam set up communication devices that Ray could monitor so they’d be able to contact her in an emergency and evacuate if needed. Adam also made sure to warn them to hide when Stage 2 started.

Unfortunately, the largest contingent of people he couldn’t recover were in mainland China. They were spread out and hard to find. Even if he’d been able to find six people every minute for six hours straight, that would have only been 21,600 of the half-billion people that were still unaccounted for based on the numbers the SYSTEM was supplying versus the number that Ray had found so far. Adam focused on leaving signs in the local language and establishing surveillance for Ray to monitor.

With one hour left before the start of Stage 2, Adam stepped through a portal into General Duvall’s office where Captain Clarkson and Lieutenant Baker were waiting.

General Duvall nodded to Lieutenant Baker who began to speak, “Hello again Adam. We have recovered the equipment from all of the hunters that you dispatched and were wondering what you wanted us to do with it?”

Adam looked confused for a moment and then remembered that he hadn’t given any instructions other than, Ray take care of this, oops.

“Adam?” The lieutenant asked tentatively.

“I leave it to you all to figure out what to do with it. If you have people who are leveling against monsters, there are probably good weapons in there. There are also probably some storage devices as well as some money and supplies. I can make anything I need and the quest items I’ve recovered from the hunters have given me enough credits that I can buy what I want from the store. After this is over you should ask me about ‘The Asshole’ singular, because there is no bigger asshole that has ever existed. Anyway, you all keep the equipment. Use the stuff to get some people trained up.”

“That’s very generous,” General Duvall said.

“It’s practical. I’m not planning on sticking around forever. You all need to get ready for what’s coming. Ray will be here and if one of you can get a technological-based class I’ll do some quick training before I take off but right now, I’m just living day to day while I come to terms with this new SYSTEM, “ and figure out how to circumvent it, Adam thought before he continued, “After this next event is over, there will be another event and another and another. You will not have me around all of the time so others will have to step up. Ray will be able to help a little bit, as will the SYSTEM Shop. You can buy any information you need from there and Ray gives you the ability to create things to sell to the shop so you can get the credits you need to buy the items you need.

“All good points, “ Captain Clarkson agreed. “Where are you going to go when this kicks off?”

“With the SYSTEM in play, I am sure that someone has bought the information to know about me. I figured I’d make it easy for them and go wait out in the open. I was thinking of sitting at the center of Delacorte Theater in Central Park. Should be fun,” Adam said with a crazy smile.

“They’re going to try to kill you?” Lieutenant Baker said

“Yep,”

“And you’re not worried?” she asked.

“Not really, no,” Adam said. “Ray, set up surveillance so they can watch. Time to go,” Adam said as a portal opened and he stepped onto the middle of the stage in Central Park New York. Delacorte Theater an open amphitheater in Central Park and it was a bit chilly, but the chill didn’t hurt like it would have hurt when he was human and wouldn’t even bother his true body now. Adam considered how to proceed because there were a couple of ways the beginning of this next stage could go and it honestly depended on what kind of event Stage 2 was.

Adam activated Mold Chaos and created a nice lazy boy chair which he then sat down in. He extended out the legs laid back and closed his eyes while he waited. Of course, he didn't have to wait long because he only had five minutes to go when he sat down. Honestly, this should be fun. As far as he could tell, while he was Astral Projecting and using Spiritual Strength they could kill his body but that wasn’t going to do anything to his true body which was still back between dimensions in his Safe Haven. It would be interesting to see what happens if the body he was manifesting into died as that wasn’t covered in the skill description.

At exactly 24 hours Notifications started scrolling down his vision.

New Quest, “Supremacy”

Duration: There Can Be Only One!

The hunters are being given an optional quest to hunt you.

Your quest is to survive and kill all of the hunters.

You CANNOT Decline this quest!

The number of hunters is variable until all registered hunters have accepted or declined the changes to this event.

Possible Hunters for Stage 2: 100,000

Hunters have 1 minute to accept the changes to the event or decline the event altogether.

Reward? Based on participation and the percentage of hunters personally killed.

There were a couple of notifications that detailed how the pillars worked for the newcomers but Adam skipped them. When the minute passed a new counter appeared in the top right of Adam’s vision

Hunters Left: 59,647

The pop beside Adam was from the change in air pressure as someone teleported beside him and fired a very big gun point blank into his chest. To be honest, Adam had been expecting that. What he was not expecting was for the teleportation to contain signs of temporal alteration or that the person trying to shoot him was none other than a doppelganger of Apolyn.

Even so, the body Adam was inhabiting was strong enough to take a single shot. In a smooth movement, he stepped off the lazy boy chair and disarmed Apolyn as he took a step back and said, “Using time travel to get the kill, for shame Apolyn, for shame. Of course, once a cheater, always a cheater.”

Apolyn only had time to ask, “How do you know my name?” Before blood exploded from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth as Adam hit him with a Mind Bolt at point-blank range.

Unlike his Physical Traits, his mental traits were still normal. Adam sighed, “One down, 59,646 to go!”