B3-08 - Pride and Patriotism (Patreon)

Congrats, Beirut has now achieved Level 3 in Defense Settlement. Settlement Area increased to 75 square kilometers.

+ 3 percent increase to combat XP gains

+ 12 percent Defense Bonus

- 6 percent XP gains from Crafting

- 6 percent tax gains from Settlement

“Hmmm… no Skill gained this time,” Maya said as she read the message. The upgrading of the settlement deed to level two had given Anisa the Skill Fortify, but going to level three didn’t do anything.

“In any other place,” Yosi began looking at the screen, “this type of settlement would have an immense amount of material and fortifications already built. The experience bonuses don’t seem like a lot, but when you’re using high-grade weapons and defenses, it all adds up. In addition, there would be a trained army that would be holding the defenses; they would have many officers with Skills that could be deployed to supplement the defensive or offensive power of the forces located here.”

“So the settlement deed is fine, it is our weapons and defenses that are lacking?” Anisa asked.

Yosi nodded. “According to old Nerigana records, there are some specialized Abilities that SIL can gain to create fortifications and defenses. It’s just not about walls and bunkers, but a specialized [Fortress Builder] would make your defenses a lot more stronger.”

“How does one go about gaining those occupational abilities?” Nayla asked.

“As if most things System related, just doing it works well enough,” Yosi replied. “I can send you the literature that I’ve collected from the Nerigana archives, it’s not much. Everyone in the multiverse is very secretive about how to gain various Skills and Abilities.”

“These Houses you mentioned,” Ilyas said. “Nobility fighting one another and using everyone else as cannon fodder.”

“If the System gives out noble titles to anyone who buys a settlement deed, will Earth just become another world ruled over by the powerful?” Saria asked. “It has been two weeks since Integration, the world has undergone massive changes, but there are still plenty of people fighting and surviving out there. If they have survived this long, then they have the Skills, Abilities, and organization to survive. It won’t be long before more people are buying settlement deeds to protect themselves from the mana renders.

“Yet the System only allows one person to own a deed, that is madness. Is there a way to have an elected council or an elected person control the deed?”

“A settlement deed is just that, a deed. With Integration, everything was wiped clean. There are no governments or national boundaries, according to the System. Once enough settlement deeds are purchased, then people can begin forming governments and nations once more,” Yosi explained. “Unfortunately, newly Integrated universes are considered an unclaimed of frontier. It will be up to the people on the planet to reform their governments and purchase the settlement deeds and upgrade them to claim land.”

“Hold on,” Saria said. “You said that newly Integrated universes are unclaimed land. Your Cage can cross into different universes, can other aliens come to this universe?”

“Yes. There is a moratorium of one standard year before anyone from a different universe can come to this place.”

“You’re here,” Riwain said to Yosi. “You’re not from this universe.”

“That’s a bit complicated. As you see I’m a part of House Sullivan, and House Sullivan is an Earth House, even if she can’t return to Earth for the next fifty years or so. Also, as a native of this universe, Maya herself can bring back people from other universes, since she is initiating contact. The entire moratorium is so that the other universes just don’t swarm in and take over everything.”

“They’ve had billions of years to get their stuff together,” Maya said. “Trust me in a year’s time, they’ll be swarming. We’re like krill in the seas and those guys are whales.”

Silence fell upon the table and the other digested the information.

“What is the plan then?” Anisa asked. “I would not like to see my nation or the entire planet ruled over by aliens, no offense, Yosi.”

“I understand, my entire race is enslaved by others. I get what you’re saying,” the woman responded. “The only recourse is to buy your entire planet back from the system. Well, not the entire planet, if you own about sixty percent of it then you’ll be able to claim the planet and since this is the only habitable planet in the system, you’ll be able to secure the entire star system.”

“Sixty percent of the entire planet or sixty percent of the habitable regions. As it is only thirty percent of our planet can be lived upon,” Nayla responded. “Will we have to buy up the oceans?”

“Yes,” Yosi replied. “There are some species that can live underwater.”

“The surface area of Earth is about five hundred and ten million square kilometers,” Kami said. “You expect us to purchase three hundred and six million square kilometers of it?”

“Yes,” Yosi replied.

The table went silent as everyone realized the enormity of the statement.

“At a million credits a settlement deed and with each basic settlement deed beginning at fifty square kilometers, we’re going to need over six million settlement deeds and six trillion credits,” Kami said.

“Oh, you don’t have to create a settlement deed to own the land,” Yosi said. “You just need a settlement deed to begin the process of claiming land. The rest can be done through conquest and land block captures.”

Nayla rubbed her forehead. “What does any of that mean?”

“Each ‘ruler’ of the settlement deed can begin sending out military forces to recapture areas around the globe. They can take areas that aren’t controlled or they can conqueror other settlements. By setting up Conquest Bases and holding a land block area for a set amount of time, they can add it to their settlement deed without purchasing it.”

“How the hell are we suppose to send an army into the ocean to hold it?” Ilyas demanded.

“There are ways,” Yosi retorted.

“What if you don’t purchase a settlement deed and already have a military force to hold an area?” Riwain asked.

“It won’t be recognized by the System,” Yosi said. “Everything has to be recognized by the System, it’s just the way things are. Entire civilizations laws depend upon if its formally recognized by the System or not.”

“That’s bullshit,” Ilyas snapped.

“That’s the way it is,” Yosi said.

“What is required for these Conquest Bases?” Anisa asked.

“Well, first of all you can’t do it with just any old settlement deed,” Yosi said. “You need to have a generic settlement deed established and then from there expand upon it. This defense settlement deed is not going to work, it’s supposed to be a military base or fortress, designed to hold and defend an area. You’ll need to set up five allied settlements before you can form a governing board to begin claiming other areas.

“But you’re in luck. The Sullivan Survival Society has access to two other kinds of settlement deeds, a manufacturing and a generic deed.” Yosi grinned. “Therefore your defense settlement deed falls under the SSS umbrella, thereby allowing this defense settlement to act as a springboard for future conquests in the area. We just need to set up two additional settlements and we can begin on a governing board.”

Saria sighed and glanced to Anisa. “We’ve stated our intentions on not being ruled over by others,” she said. “We have been saving credits to purchase the level three defense for the settlement, but we can use that money to purchase other deeds in and around Beirut instead. If we manage to obtain five generic deeds, then we can form our own government?”

“Yes, that’s possible.”

“Then that is what we will do,” Ilyas declared.

“If you do it on your own, it will cost five million credits, if you stay with the Society, you’ll have to pay nothing. And you’ll be a part of the governing board when it forms,” Yosi said.

“It is only credits,” Ilyas said. “Money. We have already raised over a million credits towards the level three, we can raise another four million just as quickly.”

“You’ll also be a part of a global governing board, all connected by the Cage and the satellites we’re setting up.”

“But it will not be Lebanon,” Saria said.

“It will be a global effort,” Maya said. “Everyone pitching in and trying to save our species. It won’t be just Lebanon, it’ll be Earth. Humanity.”

“Our country has been divided for so long,” Anisa spoke. The table quieted as they looked at her. “From the moment our country was formed it has been divided, by religion, ethnicity, and from foreign intervention. We have suffered greatly, but in the last two weeks, decades of divisions have been set aside. We are one people, working toward survival.

“I can see your goal is not just to ensure Lebanon will survive this Integration, but the whole world. It is too big for us to consider right now. I have my duty to my people, to ensure that they survive the coming days, to try and pull together this nation that’s been torn apart. We are barely at the stage that daily survival is out main goal, to try and retake the entire world… that is too big.”

Maya nodded. “I understand, but this costs you nothing. If you join this governing body, then you’ll have a say in how we shape this entire thing. We won’t have to follow the method of other races, we can do it our own way, a human way.”

“But it will be the Sullivan Survival Society that owns it all,” Anisa said. “You will be the one who commands everything, especially with all the power you already have at your disposal. All this machinery, technology, the different species that are helping you, and your own levels that dwarfs everyone on Earth.

“I applaud what you are trying to accomplish, this goal to save Earth. But you approach it with the stipulation that everything will belong to you. That you will be holding all the deeds, you will control who leads, and what each settlement does. You hold all the resources, the money, and the talent, while everyone else will try to appease you, curry your favor, just like the nobles you were telling us about. These Houses, which you have already created here on Earth.”

“I’m not going dictator on y’all,” Maya said. “I just want to help and this is the best way to do it.”

“I believe that there is a saying: ‘the road to Hell is paved with good intentions’,” Saria said. “You might have the best of intentions for humanity, but to place all of this power into your hands, that’s madness. We do not know you, we do not know your ultimate goals, you say you are a merchant and yet in the same breath you say you wish to save humanity. Then you insist that the weapons and gear you sell have to be paid for, while men and women are dying out there because we have no weapons or armor, that everything we used had to be scavenged and salvaged.”

“I am selling everything at absolutely low margins,” Maya said. “Deeds cost money, upgrades cost money, buying more gear from other people cost money. If I could give it all to you for free, I would. I’m already supplying all the ration bars I can give, along with water condensers, and the medical supplies that Nan has produced. Hell, if you want some of that landshark flesh; I have an entire dimensional storage container filled with it.”

“Those landsharks you killed would have provided a lot of experience points to our Defenders,” Ilyas said.

“They would have overrun your position and everyone here would be dead,” Maya snapped.

“Peace, Maya,” Anisa said, calmly. “Perhaps it is our foolish pride, but if we are to retake our country, then it will be our countrymen and women who do it. If Lebanon is to exist again, then it shall be the Lebanese who do it.”

“You are going to be doing it yourselves. I can’t send anyone to help you anyway,” Maya exclaimed.

“Do you know what the settlement says when you become a member?” Saria asked.

“What? No.”

A screen floated in the middle of the room, as Saria shared her screen with everyone.

Sullivan Survival Society Corporate Defense Settlement

Owner: Maya Sullivan, House Sullivan

Representative: Anisa Karam

This settlement belongs to House Sullivan, all laws, punishments, fines, property claims, and taxes will be enforced by House Sullivan.

“Oh, boy,” Maya said.

“It’s a disgrace,” Ilyas said. “People are dying to fight for this settlement and they’re being told that they’re doing it for Hours Sullivan. No one knows who or what that is to begin with.”

“It is a matter of pride and patriotism,” Saria said. “We must rebuild all of that. Our people have suffered a massive shock, a complete rewrite of their entire lives and closely held beliefs. In one moment we discovered we are not alone in the universe, that powers far greater than we could ever imagine have reshaped, not just our world, but our universe, and with it reality has changed and now monsters rule the world.

“Even now many are still trying to come to grips with what has happened and many others cannot accept it.” Saria sighed and rubbed her face. “We need to rebuild their morale, we need to make them fight for a future that looks so bleak right now-”

“And that requires nationalism,” Maya finished, sighing also.

“Yes.”

“It’s just tribalism rebranded,” Maya said. She sat there, staring down at the table before them. “Alright. I’ll transfer the deed over to you. I have others now, so I can do that. If you want, I can buy the additional deeds if you front the money, then I’ll hand them back over. That way you’re not going to have to spend a million credits for one deed.”

“We’ll think on it,” Nayla said.

“We are not siding against you,” Anisa said. “We would like to continue this trading relationship with your corporation.”

“Yeah,” Maya said. “I get it, nothing personal. Just politics.”

Anisa nodded slowly. “Politics.”

***

Maya sat alone in a room she created. Time was frozen once more as she mulled over the actions that Anisa and the others had taken. She didn’t know what to feel about it. Should she feel betrayed, that they had decided to not be under the SSS banner? Or should she be happy that one of the settlements was making its own way, that they had the resources to begin claiming more land for themsleves.

She knew that she shouldn’t have taken it so personally, but she felt hurt. Perhaps it was her own pride, that part of her that felt she was the special person who would save humanity, that they would all be safe under her umbrella and that umbrella’s name would be the Sullivan Survival Society.

Pride and patriotism; she understood it. The SSS brand name was slapped on everything. Given enough time, people would associate the SSS with safety, with government. That would be a bad idea. The SSS wasn’t a government, it was a business and that meant profit. All dystopian movies began with corporations owning everything.

“Ugh,” Maya said in disgust.

Overall, Beirut going its own way did not change much. She had been completely hands off on the settlement even before this. Anisa made the rules there and maybe one day they would elect a new leader for the country. Maya had just given them the boost they needed. That was her entire plan from the beginning.

Ruling the planet wasn’t the goal. It was helping people. She needed to focus on that. Let the people rule themselves, she would just give them the boost they needed. She would help them as she had helped Anisa.

Maya sighed and shook her head. Her head was still muddled with emotion, so she summoned a tablet and began working on another confounding mystery that had been bugging her.

Data streamed across the tablet; not too long in the distant past, Maya would have just stared crossed eyed at the data. There were times when Maya believed she hadn’t changed all that much since the day of Integration, but then there were times when she realized just how much she had changed. Before Integration, she was not much of a technology person, turning on and off an iPhone was the extent of her knowledge, but over the past few months she had learned to build AIs, hack rogue AIs, program machines, and rockets, and even fuse herself with high grade, Tier 2 technology.

The thought niggled at her brain, the combination of rogue tech, system tech, and the tesseracts had given rise to the Union Tech, but she had yet to download the knowledge cubes from those just yet. When she had brought the five thousand liter container of liquid mana into the Cage, it had reacted on its own and consumed the entire thing. In a heartbeat five thousand liters of liquid mana or two thousand five hundred tesseracts or five hundred billion gens of potential power was lost.

It still bothered Maya, the big mystery of where all the mana went. Not only that, but when she had defeated the Tier 2 rogue AIs within the Cage as she battled the hiveship, along with the thousands of landsharks she had just turned into mince meat. Where was it all going.

The data showed nothing, just an occasional spike in mana as more liquid mana was added via tesseracts that Scotty was making. The poor system tech AI was all alone in the RSH for the time being. Not that he minded being left alone to make black goo and other manufacturing things, it was his purpose and for all she thought of him as a person, Scotty was a manufacturing system tech AI.

Perhaps it wasn’t data. Maya sat back in her chair and closed her eyes. She pushed her senses into the Cage and she felt it respond to her. It wasn’t a living thing, it wasn’t an AI, but at times it felt alive to her. She didn’t fully understand it, but what she assumed was that it had adapted itself to her as her own blood had been apart of the soup that created the union tech. Maybe it was a living organism, but not independent, but an extension of Maya, in technology form.

The theory would need testing, but for now Maya let her consciousness soak into the Cage. She could feel the system tech components, rogue tech components, and union tech components all working together. They were like different sized gears, but instead of grinding each other to dust or breaking, they managed to adapt to one another’s difference and move on.

Now there was a metaphor for what she had been trying to build with humanity. Different gears all working together. Maya chuckled.

She looked upon the gears moving around, a vast amount of them, different colors and sizes, but all working together. Maya felt a ‘pop’ as she looked at the components. She frowned and peered closer to them, the feeling had ben odd, like an unexpected popping of a bubble.

She felt the ‘pop’ once more and pushed her awareness into the moving gears. She peered at the representation before her, the components weren’t gears, but that’s the way she saw them. As she stared at the gears, she felt the ‘pop’ once more and then saw what caused it.

A small gear formed and began spinning along with the others. One moment there was nothing and the next the gear had appeared. Maya stared at it and saw that it was just another union tech gear. But where had it come from?

She narrowed her senses and scanned through the gears, until she felt another small ‘pop’ and saw another gear come into existence.

Was the Cage making more union tech components? She peered at the newly formed fear and turned it in her hands. It was indistinguishable form the other union gears. She released it and it floated back to the wall of gears and took up a spot.

Once upon a time, Maya could have looked up how many liters of Tier 2 system tech components she had, but that had changed after fusing with the Cage. The rogue tech and union tech weren’t held in the special containers like the system tech. In fact, Maya didn’t know what would happen if she closed down the Cage now. Before the components had flowed back into their containers when they weren’t in use. She hand’t shut down the Cage in weeks now, since they had the power to keep it running and since the fusing, Maya had been spending all her time in the Cage.

Trying to determine how many components of each different tech was like asking to know how much blood was in an arm. She didn’t have the data of how many components existed anymore, it was as if they had become cells in her body. But she would be able to tell if she were running low on one, just as one would know if they were anemic or losing blood.

She focused upon the gears once more, sorting the system and rogue components to the side. She could still feel the occasionally pop and she placed her attention upon them. She tensed and waited, as a pop began to form, she pushed her view point there and watched as another union tech gear formed from nothing.

It wasn’t possible, a form of energy conservation still existed in the Integrated multiverse. Something could never be made from nothing, there had to be a mana cost. Regular old multiverse mana or essence mana.

She peered at the gear and then her attention snapped to another forming gear. She could feel the mana within it and from it, a tiny sliver of mana that connected it to… elsewhere.

Maya frowned and jumped onto another forming gear, she searched for and found the thin ephemeral strand that was forming and latched onto it. It felt slippery, gossamer, and began to fade away as soon as she touched it, but she could almost feel where it came form.

The next gear she snatched at the strand faster. But once again failed to follow it back to where it came from.

Time passed until her head began to ache, then as she was about to finally give up. Her attention was focused on a spot where another union gear was slowly being formed. It wasn’t really a slow process, but in her mind it felt slow as time compressed around her. She watched as mana began to flow, as the gear began to take shape, then she grabbed hold of the mana strand and nearly cried out in shock.

Mana. There was so much mana that it assault her senses. She gasped and held tightly onto the strand, it tried to disappear, but she clutched it and began to comprehend where the mana was coming from that created all the components.

It was an ocean of mana, not just any generic mana, but it was the tesseract mana. Maya could feel it, as if it were trapped in a tank or distended bladder. The drops that condensed and dripped off of it, they were formed into union tech components.

Where had all this mana come from? She wondered. Why was there an ocean of mana hidden away from her? Her senses wandered the extent of the mana tank, groping at it, trying to determine its size and the reason it existed. Then a blast of warmth seemed to strike her.

Maya gasped as the feeling flashed across her. It hit her again and she focused on it. It was mana. Not generic mana, but mana produced by SIL. Maya frowned. It flashed by her and she felt as it seemed to be sucked into the tank she had been exploring. Was the tank sucking up the mana SIL used?

She felt the blast of mana once more and then followed it to its source. It was easy, she realized. She was connected to the Cage and could feel everything that was going on within it. She followed the mana, and then realized she could feel Bell and Hanna.

Bell stood over the dissected corpse of a landshark, he was holding an organ up. Hanna was watching him intently as he sent out a pulse of mana, the warmth of the mana struck Maya and she could feel as it rushed away toward the tank.

She also saw the organ light up with various twisted looking branches.

“That’s the mana trace?” Hanna asked, peering a the glowing organ.

“Yes. It has something to do with the system, but you can find the same mana trace as this in some other animal or even a plant. That’s what alchemy basically is, finding the mana trace in an ingredient, comparing it to what’s available, then mixing up the ingredients to make a potion.”

“How do you learn it?”

“Here, I’ll show you and then I’ll tell you how to do it,” Bell pulsed his mana into the organ again and Maya felt as some of the mana breezed by her.

It was excess mana, she realize. Bell was using his skill on the organ, but not all of the mana he channeled was being used by the Skill. An excess amount was being released into the air, which was being sucked up by the tank.

Maya frowned. Essence mana was the mana that was looking to destroy all of existence. It was what the System was protecting reality from, and in doing so Integrated universe after universe into the System. The System then broke down the essence mana into two different things, essence and mana. Essence was the building blocks of all the strange matter that existed in the universe. The mana on the other hand became ‘protomana’ which was the ambient mana that existed everywhere. That protomana was turned into generic mana by mana cores or into ‘real’ mana by SIL.

What happened after the mana was used, Maya didn’t know. But as she watched Bell use his Skill again, she realized that this mana was different. She didn’t know how she knew that, but she felt the mana as warm and fresh. It was like drinking fresh spring water when before she had been drinking fetid ditch water.

What did mana become after it was used by SIL or machinery? She had no clue and none of her Engineering knowledge told her anything about it. She knew that mana was used, but after that… she had no idea.

She let her senses return to the tank, feeling additional warm blasts of mana as she realized other people were using Skills. That excess was being pulled into the tank.

She explored the tank again, trying to feel the size of it. It was massive, yet she didn’t feel the extra mass in her Cage sense. She could feel everything within the Cage and knew exactly how big it was, but this mana tank didn’t seem to exist within the Cage itself. If it didn’t exist in the Cage, then where was it? In Void Space?

Maya paused. The Cage existed in a bubble of reality in Void Space. That place between the universes and other dimensions, where nothing existed. No mana, no essence mana, no matter, no energy. When she created the dimensional bridge, it had made reality exist within Void Space. Reality that was strange, as she had air, gravity, time, and all the other things that she associated with reality. If nothing did exist there, where did all that stuff come from?

It was a question she had asked herself many times before, but never followed up on it. She supposed it had to do with the dimensional plane she existed on, which had Earth normal gravity, air, and time, all the things that made up her reality.

Her head ached as she moved along the sides of the mana tank. Hours passed as she explored the edges of it, finding spots that just ended into a void. That sent a shiver down her spine and she backed her senses out of those spots. It was a giant sphere, she saw. A giant sphere that surrounded a box.

It was reality, Maya realized. It was the bubble of reality that they existed within. The Cage was a square box, fifteen feet by fifteen feet. Although when Chuckles the Dragon made it bigger for them to fit within, she didn’t know how much bigger it had gotten. She had not shut down the Cage in over a month now. Not since they had gone to find Whiteclaw and discovered her dead.

The Cage was in use ever since then. It was being used by her, by Tender, and Bell. It was being used by the Dragon, by the Astronauts, and by all those that had come to buy and sell their stuff.

All of those little extra excess bits of mana had been escaping out of the Cage. But reality existed in a small bubble, a space in a literal void. Mana was apart of reality, therefore it still existed within the bubble, but so much mana had been used in the last weeks, untold millions of gens poured into the Cage to keep it running. If some of that mana was excess, then it escaped into the universe or what counted as a universe here. The bubble of reality.

Maya touched the tank once more, feeling a slight give. This was not ambient mana. This was different.

Discovered: Purified Mana.

The notification nearly pulled Maya out of her exploration. She jerked back at the message. Purified mana? The only thought that came to her mind was the mana that was consumed via Skills and maybe by machines. The System needed living beings and machines to use mana, to purify it so that it wasn’t so destructive.

That would mean that the mana that was trapped in this bubble of reality was mana that came off of SIL and machines. The mana that would usually be lost to the multiverse…

All these weeks had built an ocean of this purified mana. It had no where to go, if she collapsed the bubble, then it would all just vanish. Maya paused as she thought on that. Was that what she had been doing all this time? Creating a lot of purified mana and then just dumping it out as she shut down the Cage?

Yet why was it making only union tech components? The answer was obvious, the mana wasn’t making the tech. They were being created out of the excess mana by the Cage itself She could channel essence mana and it seemed her Cage body knew exactly how to do that. Maya laughed. The Cage was making its own components, using excess purified mana.

But it wasn’t regular generic mana or tesseract universal mana. It was its own thing, basically the exhaust of burning mana. A pure and delightful exhaust that seemed able to make components for free. Maya couldn’t complain about that.

What else could it create? She wondered.

She poked at the tank, trying to find a way that it came into existence within the Cage. She followed another thread of mana and stood upon the metaphorical shore of the ocean of purified mana. It didn’t hurt or assault her in anyway, it was warm, comfortable, and very easy to lose herself within.

Maya pulled back, pulling her senses back into reality. As she did so, she reached out and touched the mana; it didn’t burn, it didn’t feel like anything, yet it clumped to her hand. As she returned to the Cage, she could feel it following her, still within her grasp.

The room seemed dark and cold as she returned back to the Cage proper. Maya shivered, the Cage was always the right temperature. It was always comfortable for her. That was it, she realized. It was the purified mana at work. It had created everything with in the cage for her to view it as reality. The air, the gravity, it was possibly even time itself.

Maya shook at the thought. She opened her eye and saw a glow in her hands.

Experience Shard, 1 MXP.

“Oh, shit,”