When the event was over Luon had met the other competitors who gave him a deadly stare, they have been starved, scared, and had many traumatic experiences that they would typically never experience. Luon gave them a sly smirk and left causing their anger to reach their upper limits, to him those engineers were just greenhorns with some ability.
In his first simulation, Luon knew it himself that he wasn’t the best engineer, many of his comrades were better than him and taught him new ways and perspectives to look at things. He found that the simulated humans were more idealistic than the ones actually living in the current era. Luon couldn’t help but be amazed at how system simulated things if humans were calculatingly perfect as he had experienced than Inzektors wouldn’t exist. In the end, greed, self-indulgence, lust, and other factors came to play making the utopia that the system had created into a flawed existence.
As he was walking down to the lobby, he met Shizuka who gave him a bright smile upon his arrival. Luon couldn’t help but think he was seeing things as he began rubbing his eyes to make sure he was still sane. After doing so he found that Shizuka didn’t have a smile, she was expressionless as always. The two chatted about the relationship between resources, engineers, and innovative technology. Without resources, engineers wouldn’t be able to create weapons, tools, and other essential items. To get more resources they would need to secure it themselves in which they would need to obtain the tools for it. To acquire tools they needed resources, in the end, because Luon and Shizuka prevented the enemy from expanding their influence they were able to change the tide.
Things would have been much different if they had decided to spread out from the start and slowly centralize their sphere of influence, in other words, the area they operated within.
Luon and Shizuka received the qualifications of passing the examination at the lobby along with 8 others, half of which were the survivors in the enemies camp, the others remaining were people who managed to barely survive by hiding from the constant daily searches that the large group had made.
Although Shizuka wanted to talk to Luon some more, she knew she had some duties to attend, she saw her father wave his hand from the corner of her eye before he left the area. At this point she may be considered a proper heiress to the organization now, there was still much to do. There was an option to overthrow or halt the decision of the head of the organization to prevent dictators. If 80% of their members disagree to the head decisions than a debate will occur, causing the delay of precious time, and if it escalates in a more problematic manner, the query would be ultimately be judged by the system.
The reason why they don’t use the system for all of their decisions was that they wanted to break away from the way the system handles things. It only made logical decisions rather than rational ones, and it sided more with the goal of eliminating Inzektors at any means necessary. Although the system was set up centuries ago, not many had known how it works, the designer was from the Ichihara family had never passed the method down as he merely said, “Just don’t touch it. It will work for centuries as long as you don’t touch it.”
His words held some truth behind it as it did indeed last for centuries without a single error, very few researchers considered studying it since it was already so perfect. The last prevalent researcher would be the one that had incorporated the system into Vortex Containers, although he had only touched the outer core of it, he was able to access a repository of information. Some debated that the system is an enormous computer that one couldn’t possibly comprehend, not only that but it was operated by a complicated AI system. The decision to incorporate the Vortex Container was decided by the system but the choice to incubate children was made by the government. Although the system had recommended this choice, it still took human rights into consideration as it weighed in the emotional factor.
Shizuka needed to solidify her standings, she couldn’t help but feel that the system’s way of doing things is heartless, especially during the instance when they asked it in regards to Arisa’s marriage with Deminier, which it agreed with the notion to proceed to do so. It wanted a powerful heir to eliminate the Inzektor race, and any sign of sympathy was non-existent.
“I guess I’ll see you later at the exams, right?” asked Shizuka as she found herself unable to say much once she realized that she needed to leave.
“Yes, I’ll see you then. Thanks to your support during this test, without you, I wouldn’t be able to handle 40 of them like that,” Luon said.
“You’re too modest, I bet if you actually tried you could have easily dealt with them all. All I did was help arrange your equipment during the raids and help every once in a while,” Shizuka said as she smiled inwardly at his honest remark.
“Without you there, it would have taken me much longer to eliminate their forces, and during that time they would continue to expand their influence, and although I can probably fight for several days straight, I’m only human. I’ll eventually tire, and a single mistake would have caused me to perish. Honestly, you did more than what I could ask for,” said Luon.
Shizuka couldn’t help but look away from Luon who complimented her as such as she said, “Ah, I don’t want to take any more of your time if you’re doing something after this. But if you’re free…”
At this moment Luon got a notification from Zekar who he messaged after he had passed the examination. Zekar gave him a brief congratulations before saying that he made some modifications to the ship to celebrate and that he should come to check it out. Luon couldn’t help but say to Shizuka, “Ah, sorry I have something to do now. I’ll see you later then.”
Luon quickly ran off, seeing him fade away Shizuka couldn’t help but sigh. Luon was always like this, he would appear out of nowhere and disappear just as fast. Shizuka’s face went cold, and the atmosphere around her did the same, now was a time to clean up the organization. She needed to build connections and create a social network. How many people would be willing to listen to someone much younger and possibly smarter than them? She doesn’t know, but if she didn’t do anything, then the worst possible situation could happen. The organization will become a headless chicken.
…
After bidding Shizuka farewell, Luon continued to train and prepare for the final examination which will determine whether or not he would graduate. Marks are merely a minor factor to him, to employers it mattered more about quantity rather the quality for soldiers, and for engineers, that would depend on their rankings at Novera Corporation. Of course, being known as the best student interested him, but it wasn’t necessary for his future job as a lowly grunt. Although, a grunt at level 67 is something quite admirable.
With his level 3 engineering license, Luon’s options had become much broader, not only was he able to access more research materials that he had yet to cover, but he was also allowed clearances in certain activities with a high level of priority. For example, when he was shopping at the marketplace they would prioritize tending higher ranked officials rather than the commoners, there was also a discounted price on top of that.
Military officials and scholars have more benefits than what one could imagine, but that’s only because they have a lot of responsibilities as well. They were a part of the frontline who would die standing for the citizens.
“Your movements are getting much better. To be able to kill Inzektors at ease, you’re doing quite well without the NG-Arms,” said Thanatos as he oversaw Luon’s training as a coach.
Luon nodded in response as he said, “I learned that without my gear I would be physically useless in combat if I had to fight an army straight on it would be difficult to come out of alive, no, rather it would be impossible unless I had my NG-Arms.”
“But if you used the NG-Arms you’ll never improve, isn’t that right? You can already feel that the levels beyond level 80 are too great to use external equipment,” Thanatos said.
“That’s right, and the amount of energy the system requires is too much, especially at the current market prices,” Luon said.
Similar to gas prices from several centuries ago when the planet was lacking the ability to transport oil, energy crystals cost tons of Galaxia coins. Anyone could make them, only the quality and time it takes to make one was just too long for many to do. Some shady businesses kidnaped kids and forced them to craft these crystals, but with the regulations that the system had implemented, those organizations had vanished as if they never existed in the first place.
To reach the full capacity of his NG-Arms Luon needed to spend several days in real life condensing his energy to use it once. Fortunately, the number of situations where he needed it in real life was slim. Besides the survival camp, he had never used it at all since he was able to use it in the Vortex Container freely.
“How are you going to prepare for the examinations?” asked Thanatos as he couldn’t help but recall his times at the military academy.
Luon stopped his training and gave it some thought before he responded, “For combat, well I got you to help me out for that one. As for engineering… I should be good for that with Zekar’s help. But commanding is kind of…”
“Lacking?” Thanatos said.
“Yes, yes, it is rather lacking. For the examination, I heard that the format is different than the regular virtual wars I have fought online. According to the previous seniors and some records that the school has, the simulation would randomize an era and arrange armies against each other with an equal amount of units. You are simulated as a general under a king with the ultimate goal of slaughtering the opposing king using any method possible. Assassination, bombs, or in one on one combat while in the war, there are many ways to do so. The condition to fail is to die before accomplishing the goal of slaying the opponent’s king,” said Luon as he recalls the information he had heard about for the exams.
“What happens when your own king dies?” asked Thanatos as he didn’t think about the possibility until now.
Luon who had never heard of the concept before searched it up on his BMPU and found an article stating that if their king were to die first, the army morale would drop by nearly half while the match will continue on until the general or the opposing king dies.
“That’s quite an intense setting. Not only that but the average soldier is at level 40, while some elites may be around 60. If it’s your current state right now, you can probably deal with nearly 1000 regular ones or several elites before falling due to lack of stamina,” Thanatos analyzed.
“And that’s without gear right?” asked Luon who didn’t even bother doing the calculation.
“Yes, but you shouldn’t be that reliant on it right?” said Thanatos.
“I probably won’t, this examination is looking carefully at my ability to command the troops, if they are placed well I would be able to pass without pitting myself against my opponents,” Luon said.
“For now you need some practice, too bad I can’t really help you because, for one, I’m only a fragment of yourself in your memories, and two, I would one-slidingly beat you, you know how much experience I have with war compared to you. In fact, the only reason you’re doing well so far was that you used my basic knowledge as a foundation. It wouldn’t be much practice for you at all,” said Thanatos.
Luon wasn’t happy with his remark about being one-slidingly beaten, he would provide some resistance, or he hopes so. Luon began to think how would he practice for the exam as he slowly muttered to himself, “Who is about the same level as me in commanding and will be willing to help?”
“Why not ask that one girl to help?” Thanatos pointed out.
“Who?” Luon asked.
“Why it’s Arisa. She seems to be an excellent commander from my perspective, and her family background could vouch for it otherwise,” said Thanatos.
“It would indeed be helpful to battle against her but will she be willing to help me? She has examinations to study for as well,” Luon said.
“And that’s exactly why you should contact her, you too can train together before the finals. It’s only a week. If you try to contact her now maybe she’ll come flying right in here,” said Thanatos.
“Only a week… in reality, that’s so but in the simulation that’s more than two months,” Luon pointed out.
“Well I guess I can always try to contact her and see if she is available,” Luon muttered as he used his BMPU to contact Arisa.
From the time it took to call her to the time where she agreed, it only took a matter of seconds.
