The choice became obvious a second after Kave and Elena walked into the room: it would not be [Toymaker].
"Bro, just hear me out."
"Nope!"
"Do you realize the 'joy' people can get out of this?"
"I do, especially after you started thinking of it that way, perv!"
With a harsh rejection, Adam turned away, deciding this was no longer a rational subject to discuss, even with his closest friend.
Kave almost clung to Adam's legs, trying to convince him about the [Toy Maker] skill. Adam, however, realized the deep pit of perversion Kave was trying to coerce him into stepping into, and instead focused on the two other skills: [Rune Stitching] and [Spirit Geometry].
In a way, the word "Rune" in [Rune Stitching] led him to believe that it would open a guaranteed path to Rune Knowledge, but Adam found it distasteful to work only on broken runes. Aside from that, the gamble of taking the [Spirit Geometry] skill was luring him to explore that path. He would have to figure out Runesmithing the hard way, but if the ideas that were sparking in his head were on the right track, Runes would simply be a bridge to a greater frontier, an expanse of knowledge yet to be uncovered.
Adam couldn't deny the excitement he felt for that, and so with a shaking hand, he chose the [Spirit Geometry] skill.
≪ You have gained a New Skill! [Spirit Geometry] ≫
≪ Your skill [Artifice (X)] was Archived. You can reinstate it once again if you choose to, at the cost of splitting its growth power with the new skill [Spirit Geometry (I)] ≫
**—————[ STATUS ]—————
**Name — Adam Clay
Role — Survivor
Class — Sorcerer
EXP — 3
**—————[ STATS ]—————
**Might — 5
Trick — 4
Spirit — 8
**—————[ SKILLS ]—————
**(Archived: 3)
— Chef (VI)
— Charisma (VII)
— Gun-Fu (III)
— Psyche (VI)
— Sage (II)
— Sanity (V)
— Senses (V)
— Spirit Geometry (I)
— Toughness (III)
— Warfare (III)
**—————[ POWERS ]—————
**— Font of Magic (Class)
— Puppeteer Rune (???)
— Bending Rune(Item: Alfari Bracer) ————————————————
Watching the new skill take its place in his status and with his MVP skill absent, Adam had a surge of discomfort as if he was stripped of his most important weapon, but then again, his mind started to piece many new things together.
"I… I see…"
He rose from his chair in his personal residence, immersed in inspiration as he gestured, and the Hologram Caster followed his fingertips as he started drawing things midair.
It took him a while, but he was trying to make an imitation of the tree that the Force Rune took the form of, but it wasn't nearly as accurate as he hoped, as the image kept going lucid in his mind every time he tried to focus on it.
He gave up on that endeavor, since it was hopeless to try to figure out something this complicated, and opted for a new approach: utilizing the "geometry" of the skill he had just learned and following the main patterns of the tree to form something simpler. Yet, it still failed.
His mind got too tired from the work he did, so he went for a well-deserved shut-eye that extended into a deep sleep in which he had some of the strangest dreams he'd ever had. The next day, he started the day with a warm shower and decided to meditate on some of the ideas he had, calmly staying in his residence while keeping an eye on things from the terminal.
The Universe, in its ultimate wisdom, decided to give Adam the entire day off, and not even a dire wolf appeared that night. While it was a good thing, many began to stress over the change, as unknown variables were dangerous in battle, and whatever made the wolves disappear that night was one such variable.
By the next day, good news arrived as Elena kicked the door in and went straight for Adam.
"Commander, Sir!" She cried, a hint of reserved enthusiasm in her tone.
"Oh, yes. Just kick my door and act casual." Adam came from upstairs, wearing a bathrobe after taking his morning shower, and asked, "Has the world decided to go even crazier or what?"
"Quite the contrary, sir." She replied before grinning ear to ear, "The Base Bastion is complete."
Adam halted his steps, turned around, went upstairs, then came back down in exactly a minute, fully dressed in his Justiciar attire.
"That was fast!" Elena exclaimed before checking him out, "Looking good, though."
"Don't you have a boyfriend?" He retorted and walked past her out of his residence.
On the way to the newly finished Command Center, Adam decided to take the longer route and walked to the front door, not the one right beside his residence. The building may have been used in its incomplete state for a while, but now that it is finished, things should proceed in an official manner.
All the Sergeants were already gathered, and Adam found himself staring at a blast door that a main battle tank could drive in and out through without much trouble.
With a radio signal, it yawned open lazily, and a dark interior was revealed before multiple lights illuminated the large corridor leading to the heart of the bastion.
The building was triangular in shape; the main entrance was at the top of the triangle, and its two sides would widen as one walked into the cold and windy interior.
As Adam and his Sergeants walked in, the maw of the bastion closed behind them, and a thick air of power settled around them. This was no longer a simple command center; it was something more sinister and domineering.
This building alone housed enough space to swallow all the buildings of the previous phase, and Adam was very happy with how it turned out.
"The Lunar Engineers did a marvelous job with this one. Truly, the Solarium's best architects." Adam exclaimed, touching the durval concrete walls with glee.
"Argh! I wouldn't call that lot builders or anything, Commander. They just aim their Blazers at a pile of dirt and make sure it's up to shape." Duke, the newly promoted Titanite sergeant, was the first one to reply.
"You say what?" Opposite him, Sergeant Wright of the Lunar Engineers interjected with a scowl, "You unsophisticated burrow animals have something to say about architecture to us?"
"Bah! Words would fall flat on deaf ears anyway. You'd probably still aim a Blazer at some dirt and call it architecture." Sergeant Duke scoffed at the Lunarman and walked past him.
"You…"
"That's enough, both of you." Adam turned to the two bickering Sergeants and gave each of them a glare, "You two should be models of discipline to your troops, or do you want me to set you both straight?"
The two old men looked at Adam before looking at one another, and did not help the feeling of dejection that was swelling through them.
"I apologize, sir."
"Won't happen again, Commander."
Adam looked between the two sides and knew that such differences would sooner or later pop up in his ranks. Lunarmen and Titanites have competed in being the best fort builders in the Solarium in almost all editions of the lore.
The men of the moon were innovative builders, using high-tech to build roads and shape buildings on a planet's surface, even from space. While their methods were insane, the Titanites were the fast diggers and improvised builders who could set up any building in mere hours.
"Listen up." Adam turned to his men the moment they all arrived at the heart of the Bastion, an empty hall with a high ceiling and a well-lit interior, "This is Earth Legion, not Luna, not Titan, and not even Urd. I know you all had great origins, even historical; some of you were born and bred to honor these legends and to live up to them. I'm not telling you to stop doing so; I'm telling you that you are in a different legend now, one that your predecessors seldom had the chance to encounter. Have pride in that, I tell you. If you want to compete, look at your past self and rise above it. Be better than you were yesterday, and promise yourself you will defeat today's you when tomorrow comes. That's the only kind of competition allowed on Earth Legion. Did I make myself clear?"
Adam finished his unplanned, heated speech with a question that made all the Sergeants salute him in unison:
"""Sir, yes, sir!"""
"Those words are to be passed down the chain of command to the ears of every private, word for word."
"""Sir, yes, sir!"""
With that, he eyed every one of his subordinates for a while before continuing past another blast door into a narrower corridor for personnel, then past a third blast door to reach the Command Room that was now as big as a basketball court.
Operators at tens of screens greeted Adam the moment he walked in, with Kave, Megan, and Yuki standing in the center of the room at the new tactical holo table. Adam walked closer through the brutalist interior of his Command Room, thinking of ordering some decorations for it, such as flags, maps, a statue or two, and maybe something that speaks of Earth's identity.
"Commander on the bridge!" Elena called out, and the entire room saluted Adam.
"At ease!" He said and approached the holo table, looking intently at the map.
"Looking hot, by the way." Kave approached him with a smirk, which made Megan tilt her head with amusement.
"Don't you have a girlfriend?" Adam replied with an exasperated tone.
"Just making sure my backup is on warm fire." Kave replied while avoiding Megan's pinchy fingers.
"You, me, the boxing ring, later." Megan spoke to him before turning to Adam, "Want to see the latest notification?"
"Pull them up." Adam nodded, and Elena pressed a few buttons on her side of the holo table, removing the map view that Adam was checking out. While doing that, Adam asked:
"Still no wolves?"
"We encountered some this morning, but our estimate is that they were being attacked by rival monsters." Megan replied.
"We found crude weapons stuck in some of them. Stone age stuff." Kave added.
"Gobzkin?" Adam asked with a frown, "I thought they were hiding for the winter."
"A winter variant is our best guess, but we need approval for a patrol deep behind enemy lines." Megan said.
"Ready up the program for Ajax's Team." Adam said, turning to Yuki, who nodded and walked away.
Adam then finally turned to the messages that Megan pulled from the main terminal.
> REPORT — PHASE 2 COMMAND CENTER (BASE BASTION) CONSTRUCTION COMPLETE.
> REPORT — ALL BASE BASTION TECHNOLOGIES AND AUTHORITIES HAVE BEEN UNLOCKED.
> REPORT — BASE BASTION LOCAL COMMANDERY IS SET FOR "BRIGHTHAVEN" TERRITORY, MULTIPLE DIVISIONS DETECTED, TOTAL DIVISIONS UNDER CONTROL: "1"
> DIRECTIVE — FURTHER INFORMATION ON MORE DIVISIONS THAT FALL UNDER DE JURE COMMAND OF BRIGHTHAVEN COMMANDERY WILL BE REVEALED WHEN THE FOG OF WAR IS LIFTED. CONSTRUCT MORE SCANNER BEACONS.
> REPORT — NEW BUILDINGS UNLOCKED! — PLASMA GENERATOR — LOGISTICAL CENTER — WAR FACTORY — STAR HANGER — FIREBASE BOMBARD — SIGNAL SCRAMBLER — DURVAL FORTIFICATIONS — PROPAGANDA CENTER
"Fuck yeah!"
This was it!
The most exciting thing that could ever happen; all those upgrades and technologies, they were all here.
"War Factory and Star Hangar are the next order of business, everyone." Adam excitedly spoke out, "Let's have our forces conquer the land and thunder through the skies!"
The announcement earned him a loud cheer from all the subordinates surrounding him, and the Sergeants had their agendas issued for the day. All squads had their own roll calls now, and Adam would only need to give orders to the Sergeants.
Seeing everyone excited about the new progress, he himself couldn't wait to hear the rumbling engines of his war machines rolling across the fields: cold iron tanks and personnel vehicles hunting wolves and gobzkins with absolute brutality, fighter crafts rumbling through the sky and clearing major threats before the ground forces roll in, and heavy bombardment coordinating with all forces.
In a way, Adam was now stepping into the wet dream of any war gamer, his forces becoming more versatile now that the most important variable that would make them different from a mere group of apocalypse strugglers was going to be introduced: War Machines.
The War Factory would make it easier to produce and sustain a fleet of ground vehicles. The V-Bug light personnel vehicle and its variants, the War Bug and the Heavy Bug, were Adam's first choice to advance into the monster-infested grounds, map them, and create an extensive force of hit-and-run units with all sorts of anti-monster weaponry, then to cover them with aerial units like the Stingray drones and the Harbinger support crafts.
Adam's plans were finally coming to fruition; he had prepared sites to build the War Factory and the Star Hangar, just in time as a new enemy made an appearance through the thick dunes of snow that covered the northern expanses of North America, one neither Adam nor any of his people expected to face.
✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧
Read the next chapter for Free here and 10 Premium Chapters ahead.
Join Discord for spoilers and chat.