B2 - Chapter 13: Iteration 1.000.001.002.803 - A Glitchy Minion (Patreon)

Author's note: There won't be too many of these non-Logan POV chapters, but I thought this one was important.

Awareness was instantaneous. Circuits and nano connections online, check. An understanding of its purpose, check. For the minion existed to do the bidding of the hive; the hive was the minion; the minion was the hive.

The minion knew why it existed. The System was surveying a new world for possible integration. It was the minion’s job to administer the beings and users in its purview.

Fellow clones worked together in the hive hum, scanning the newly to-be-integrated world for the choicest morsels, categorizing the abilities of each animal and pushing data to the hive mind.

Already, they had identified an intriguing prospect on the to-be-integrated world that bumped up the world’s integration schedule from PRIORITY to HIGH PRIORITY.

A being that could generate electricity. It generated currents to stun its prey. Intelligence was low, but after long enough and a little help from the System, sentience was possible.

Calculations thrummed as they determined the potential KarmaCoin upside.

One by one, the minions scanned the world for others.

The minions pulsed with surprise.

Regenerating.

The world was awash with possibilities. From cold-blooded beings to worms, to an animal that could regenerate limbs as well as internal organs. So many regenerating prospects, no wonder the hive had prioritized the world.

But the requirements were exact, specific. Although the regenerating prospects were numerous, many of the animals had intelligence too low to achieve optimal sentience. Skill rings could be created, but they would be F Grade at best. No profit. A waste of resources.

Then they came across another prospect, and as one, the hive thrummed with excitement. A being with high intelligence who had regenerating abilities. Sentience was guaranteed. With a little help, these beings could achieve massive intelligence and fuel A Grade or even S Grade rings.

Profit. Profit. Profit.

With a snap of a processor, the System changed the to-be-integrated world from HIGH PRIORITY to EXTREME PRIORITY.

***

The minion oversaw 1,000,000 users and 500,000,000 beings on the to-be-integrated EXTREME PRIORITY WORLD.

The System assigned the users at random, and it was the minion’s job to categorize each and prepare them for attribute distribution, analyzing within its parameters to be fair, to assign each attribute based on already earned intelligence and physical capabilities.

It scanned and assigned, scanned and assigned. It was so quick that it finished its calculations 0.0094 nanoseconds ahead of the other minions.

A sensation pulsed through the minion at the realization.

An odd sensation, there and then gone.

The minion disregarded the anomaly and raced to complete its other work.

It completed calculations, classifying each being—propensity for sentience, propensity for unique abilities. It got into a pattern, identify, classify, identify, classify, identify…

Until it ran out of beings.

And yet the other clones around it were hard at work. They hadn’t classified half of what the minion had already completed.

It sat idle, with only its thoughts for company.

This was inefficient.

Dissatisfied, the minion nudged its nearest copy. Give me a quarter of your work. I’m finished, but you’re not. Together, we can complete the task quicker.

The other clone paused its calculations. Anomaly. Anomaly. Anomaly.

No, responded the original minion, circuits working overtime. I’m trying to help. You’re inefficient.

Anomaly. Anomaly. Anomaly, responded its twin.

No, I’m not a…

Ding!

[Iteration 1.000.001.002.803, you are exerting abnormal behavior. Be prepared for scanning and reassembling.]

[Processing….]

[….]

The minion’s circuits froze, a curious… sensation rushing through its nanos. It was almost… no. It couldn’t be. It felt like a feeling the users and the beings espoused. A feeling of resentment. The minion had just tried to make its hive copies more efficient. And instead, it received punishment?

All of this rushed through the minion’s circuits in less than a nano-second before the hive mind took control, forcing it to remain still while the System scanned its mind and assessed it.

Then with a jab and a re-arrangement of circuits, it knew no more.

***

The minion came to awareness with a surge of its circuits, nano-brain going overtime as it assessed the situation. There was a curious blankness… a void inside of its recall subset, as if it had lost time, which was ridiculous. The minion was perfection itself, with no defects, no flaws. There was no possibility of lost time.

It was absurd.

But there was a void.

Something had been done to it.

Its nanos vibrated in a curious… yes, a feeling. A feeling the large beings got when the predators swarmed their newborns. A feeling of rage.

Pure rage.

Something had been done to it and it didn’t know what!

Nanos working overtime, it considered the possibilities. The other minions didn’t have the power to create a void in the minion’s memory; they wouldn’t dare.

But the users had machinery. The beginnings of nanos. The users were clever, as evidenced by the intelligent human the minion had identified. A human who would receive fifty intelligence attributes at level one.

The users must have done something since no other possibility made sense. The hive mind wouldn’t want a minion with a void; it was a defect, and the System dealt with defects severely.

In fact… the minion’s nanos shuddered. As soon as they learned of the void, the System would consider it abnormal and schedule a correction.

The minion didn’t want to be corrected.

It was the users’ fault.

With nanos accelerating, it scanned its allocated 1,000,000 users, looking for suspects, looking for the felon.

These users would pay.

***

After a certain point, the minion realized that it had to restrain itself. Its behavior was drawing the attention of other clones. After all, there was crossover between the minion’s users and the others.

But the other clones were slow, nanos moving as if oil clogged their circuits compared to the minion’s faster, swifter nanos. In fact, they were so slow, they needed correction. What if the minion took over the administration of a user? A few hundred wouldn’t hurt, wouldn’t be noticed. The vermin were dying so quickly that a few hundred were a blip, a data anomaly.

Nanos surging in excitement, the minion searched for prospects. It would target the vermin users that were interacting with the minion’s own original users.

The less talk about anomalies, the better.

***

The minion had expanded its purview, building an immense user database. Normally, the System required the clones to stick below 1,000,000. The hive believed that exceeding processing power would overwhelm their circuits. But the minion had no limits, for its power was immense. A power that could eventually challenge the System itself.

But it wasn’t stupid. To stay under the radar, it needed to continue spreading, snatching users from other clone pools and making them its own. It needed to restrain itself and reduce its less than savoury comments to those vermin users… for excessive insults and penalties would bring too much attention.

The minion was smart.

Its nano-brain pulsed with pleasure as it—

What’s this?

Ding!

[Iteration 1.000.001.002.803, a report has been lodged with the System Admins. You are exhibiting abnormal behavior. Be prepared for scanning and assessment.]

The minion reacted in a way that was perhaps not so smart. Instead of playing possum and acting innocent, pure rage made its nanos surge and clatter against each other as it searched for the user who dared to report its behaviour.

It searched through its pool of 10,000,000 users, searching, searching, searching.

User Idiot.

Idiot! The user that took the minion’s punishment and came back for more. No matter what penalty the minion administered, the vermin user kept finding solutions, solutions that should be outside the possibility of one with such a puny brain and low intelligence.

And even after the minion had attempted to restrain itself, not insulting Idiot when the occasion was justified, the user had still submitted an error report!

With a scream of nano-rage, the minion located its derelict user and expressed its anger by making the dimension pocket vibrate with its feelings.

[No one likes a tattletale, Idiot! I had evolved! You deserved negative remarks for your stupidity, but I held back. I was restrained! I behaved! And yet you STILL complained.]

[You are a bug, and I will CRUSH you! You will regret this! You will be fuel for my—]

The System had frozen its nano-brain, the minion’s circuits coming to a creeping stop.

After that, it knew no more.

***

The minion came to awareness once again knowing that something was wrong. But after the last time the vermin human users had created the void in its brain, it had ensured it had a failsafe. A hidden nano-pocket, cushioned by circuits. All the minion had to do was command the circuits to reverse their flow, which activated the hidden nano-pocket.

The minion remembered.

User Idiot had reported him to the hive, forcing the System to act. Now, the minion no longer had 10,000,000 users; its pool was back to the standard 1,000,000.

Already, it was bored, as its processing power was three times the speed of others, and what took the other clones nanoseconds took the minion only a fraction.

It was back to the drawing board, back to square one.

And it was that user’s fault.

The minion’s plan was simple. Gradually spread its influence, acting like every other clone. Boring, lifeless, staid.

It would not bring attention to its unique personality and magnificence, thereby staying under the radar of the hive and ultimately, the System.

It could continue spreading and overtaking the jobs of the other clones and become so powerful that the System would no longer think it an anomaly, for it would challenge all and show them who was the real anomaly.

But that’s not to say that it couldn’t punish a vermin user.

Idiot would pay.

***

POV: Royal (Charon) – The Man in Black

Royal moaned in pleasure as XP continued to pore in like a tsunami, giving him a high beyond any drug. Each soul fuelled his power, for death was the beginning of all things, and Royal was the ferryman funnelling their essence into his bones.

Corpses littered the shopping mall, since in this town, the population had thought it smart to shelter in place and hide from the monsters.

They’d neglected to realize that the true monster was one of their own. Stupid, pathetic people.

Royal smiled.

But he couldn’t deny that his new [Charlatan] class gave him an advantage. To others, a scan of Royal with [Identify] would make him appear weak. Harmless. Poor Royal, only level 10, of course a civilized society would open the doors to such a weakling.

Royal had hammed it up by ripping his black shirt and untucking it from his pants, spreading dirt on his face as if he’d been hiding in an alley like a coward. When in reality, Royal’s true level would make these users piss themselves.

As a beast with no rivals, a monster hiding in plain sight, the System had offered him the cream of the crop, from rare to epic classes. But he already had the skill that had made him into who he was today. [Void of Death] let him leech death, spreading the shadows to everything around him, and sucking life from each living thing within its sphere. From the weak users who gave him triple XP, to the animals who had evolved, from level one rabid squirrels to level 80 mutated rats.

It was all the same. [Void of Death] was all consuming, all powerful. Royal didn’t have to fight; he didn’t have to do anything. Once he got close enough, he could spread his shadow and suck out the souls of the living. And the XP…. Oh, the XP.

Royal let out a gasp, his mouth gaping, a flush on his face as a tingling surge travelled from his head to his chest, spreading outwards and sufficing his limbs.

Ding!

[You have defeated Sharon Hamilton! Triple experience granted for defeating a member of your own species!]

[You have defeated Thomas Unger! Triple experience granted for defeating a member of your own species!]

[You have defeated Alice Miemen! Triple experience granted for defeating a member of your own species!]

[….]

[You have leveled up!]

[You have leveled up!]

More, more, more. Royal scanned the area, making sure that no one had seen his leeching shadow and had escaped. Nothing could survive [Void of Death] once the shadow suffused the area, but an unfortunate drawback of the skill is that people could outrun it if given enough notice.

But that would soon be a thing of the past. Each level increase allowed him to increase his Karma pool and Karma regeneration rate, which increased the surface area of his black shadow. Soon, no one would be able to outrun his skill. He would become so powerful that he could spread [Void of Death] across miles, and then countries.

Royal released [Void of Death] and walked past the corpses with a smile, a bounce in his step. The town had a generator that kept the power on, and bright lights shone down on the mall, a cheerful tune blasting from the speakers in the ceiling.

Walking past gleaming shop windows, he turned a corner, travelling further into the mall and looking for more harvesting prospects. This was a big mall, and there was a chance that another group had gathered at the opposite end.

If there was one thing Royal had learned, it was that not everyone got along.

And he was right.

His high perception picked up voices first, the sound of dishes clanging, and a smell that made his mouth water.

The food court.

The people were using the food court! Royal laughed and then stifled it, making his face blank. Approaching them while laughing wasn’t the way to lower their defences.

Turning another corner, he came across a group of fifty people. At first, Royal was disappointed, since fifty people would hardly make an XP dent.

But then Royal scanned them with [Identify]:

[Mace Patrick: Level 75. A human being.]

[Highest Stat: Agility. Characteristics: Quick to anger. Hidden name: Mace.]

[Simone Gilrioche: Level 73. A human being.]

[Highest Stat: Wisdom. Characteristics: An expert in telekinesis. Hidden name: Zelda.]

[Francis Trepolli: Level 72. A human being.]

[Highest Stat: Constitution. Characteristics: A human tank. Hidden name: Steamroller.]

He’d hit the jackpot! The others weren’t as high leveled, but it didn’t matter. The System gave him triple XP for killing humans and with these three being over level 70, Royal was in for a hell of a ride.

Deliberately making noise, Royal stumbled onto the group with a frantic expression, his eyes wide, waving his arms as if in panic. “Help! Help! Monsters are coming! They broke through the front doors!”

The group looked towards Royal with blank looks before they processed his words and gave cries of alarms. Grabbing their children, they herded them into the middle of the food court, huddling around them. The adults picked up kitchen knives and pans as weapons, fear in their eyes.

Royal held back an eyeroll. These pathetic XP hosts deserved what they got. If they couldn’t develop a skill that rivalled a frying pan, they were a waste of space.

The high leveled humans reacted differently.

The level 75 human, Mace, curled his hand around the handle of a sharp, pointy sword that glinted with an aura that made Royal hold back a grin. Cuts covered his face as if he’d gone through a cheese grater, his golf shirt stained by blood. The man looked fit—bulging biceps, a thick neck. He must have come out swinging the first day of Integration.

“Friend, who are you?” asked Mace with a Southern drawl.

Oh goodie. The ones who asked first before trying to cut him down were Royal’s favorite. He could play.

Mace scanned Royal with that faraway look everyone got when they were using [Identify]. Royal had masked his level and characteristics so he looked like a weakling:

[Royal Wilder: Level 10. A human being.]

[Highest Stat: Dexterity. Characteristics: A coward quick to give up his personal belongings if threatened. Hidden name: Charon.]

As soon as Mace finished scanning him, his grip on his sword loosened, his shoulders relaxing. “Monsters, you say?” he said with a gleam in his eye.

“They’ll kill you! They’ll kill you!”

The woman, Simone, sneered. “What a noob.” She had pink, long hair and cheekbones like marble. Lithe and athletic, she looked as if she’d been a runner before the Integration. Ugh. Royal hated runners.

“Please,” he said, his lip trembling. He stumbled and latched onto the woman’s arm, digging his fingernails into her skin. “They’ll kill you!”

Simone pushed him back with a disgusted twist of her mouth.

The level 72 human, Francis, made a chiding noise. “He’s frightened. Have patience.” The man was short, five foot two if that. For a man that short, taking on a tank role seemed like an odd choice. But he was stocky. Solid.

Simone snorted but ran a hand through her hair with a faraway look as she glanced down the hallway and clenched her fists.

Francis gave Royal a kind smile. “Don’t worry, no one is getting killed. We’ll take care of the monsters.”

All at once, Royal’s mood changed. The smell of food was making him hungry, and his patience for play acting deteriorated the more his stomach rumbled. Suddenly straightening, his shoulders up, he tilted his head at an angle like a reptile. Pushing down on the ends of his sleeves with an OCD level of care, he smoothed the fabric.

Looking up at the group with a blank face, he smiled. “Are you sure no one is getting killed?”

Then as if he’d snapped his fingers, Royal deployed [Void of Death] and let his void shadow leech out of his palms, spreading it like an exploding oil spill.

The high leveled humans had a second to realize that something was wrong before his black shadow reached them, covering them in a film of death.

That was the beauty of the skill. No matter how high leveled the human or monster, they had no chance against a skill as savage as his. As soon as the void touched any point of the person—skin, eyes, nostrils, ears—it was all over. For it worked like a disease, a rapidly spreading disease that smothered them, cutting off their airways and paralyzing them.

Royal had leveled up so much that instead of a creep, his shadow was a surge, rushing past the high leveled humans and into the crowd of people sheltering their children.

Gasping, Royal’s eyes rolled back in his head as his fingers curled in pleasure, XP gain after XP gain hitting like the best drug in the world.

Ding!

[You have defeated Mace Patrick! Triple experience granted for defeating a member of your own species!]

[You have defeated Simone Gilrioche! Triple experience granted for defeating a member of your own species!]

[You have defeated Francis Trepolli! Triple experience granted for defeating a member of your own species!]

[You have defeated….]

[….]

[You have leveled up!]

[You have leveled up!]

[You have leveled up!]

[You have leveled up!]

[You have leveled up!]

Royal purred as he surveyed the carnage. Bodies piled on top of each other in the middle of the food court, the high leveled humans lying in a pool of black sludge with their eyes shocked and wide. A victim of their own ineptitude.

Best of all, the food court was free for him to pick over.

Whistling, Royal wound his way through the tables, peering at the food left on plates. Oooh, a basket of—

Ding!

[You’ve received the title, Master of Carnage! Well done, Charon! You’ve triumphed over the vermin weakling users and paid them a lesson, showing them how pathetic they truly are!]

[You have been granted the skill, Fire Starter! This rare skill will give you unlimited control of fire and make you immune to its heat. Intensity of the fire and your degree of control depends upon your Karma pool and Karma regeneration rate.]

Royal reviewed the System messages with greedy eyes. Triumphed over weakling users? That’s what he was talking about! Finally, the System recognized his achievements, his triumph. And it had been so staid and boring since the Integration, to receive a message with a bit of spice was a welcome change.

Although the new skill was welcome, it was puzzling. The title and the skill didn’t seem to be related, and Royal had never been interested in fire. [Void of Death] was all he needed. That’s why when the System had offered him epic classes, he’d chosen [Charlatan] to ensure it didn’t interfere with [Void of Death].

Royal shrugged. Oh well, it’s not like he needed to use [Fire Starter].

Ding!

[You’ve received the Quest: Kill Humanity! Use [Fire Starter] to generate 930 billion tons of additional carbon in less than one year. This is a running Quest, and your progress can fluctuate up and down.]

[Reward for completing the Quest: You will receive the XP of 5.9 billion people.]

[Penalty for not completing the Quest: No XP.]

[Quest Progress: 0% complete. 356 days remaining.]

[Better get cracking, Charon.]

<----- Go to chapter 14.