The boom of railguns was constant like background music in a VR. Years ago, he trained in various VR platforms learning new skills. He knew how to drive tank, fly a helicopter, and operate power armor. It was a competition between his generation to see who could learn the most skills. Johnson wasn't the best among them, but he had his area of expertise. He could shoot a full auto Masquerade rifle with the best of them.
A Masquerade rifle is a small arms rail gun. He missed handling them. They weren't allowed to use real guns inside the village. He could only hold his rifle in the virtual world. Masquerade rifles were sleek, black, boxy, and heavy. The barrel looked like the teeth of some deranged monster and when it fired it had the quick of a mule. Small arms chemical propellant guns didn't have the same feel as a real railgun.
The second he exited the isolation room he heard the sound. Boom! Boom! Boom! The rail guns fired with impunity at any who would dare invade the Farron compound. Scrap iron was melted down to make more rounds for the defensive turrets. The other houses throughout the village mocked them for spending a massive sum of credited notes on AI controlled artillery cannons. The guns were made with a series of super magnets wrapped around a tube. When a piece of metal entered the barrel, it was fired forward at a good percentage of lightspeed. Not much could withstand such a blow. Even the monsters that surely assailed their home were wary of the mounted weapons. Under the control of Leroy nothing would get in.
For the moment they had some breathing room. His father had called a meeting to decide their next move. Doll helped him into his best coat and fasted the buttons on for him. His hands were still cracked and healing it would be a few hours before the nanites finished healing his skin. They had given him a much larger dose of them than normal. He looked at Doll seeing the cracked skin and the red stained skin. "How's your arm?" Johnson asked.
"Functional, though my skin will take a few more days to fully grow back. I won't blend in well until its healed." Doll said. He smirked to himself she was ever the assassin. Blending in would always be one of her main concerns. "What of your hands?"
"I'm glad your healing. My hands are getting better. I should be able to take my suit off after this meeting myself." She fastened the last button and pulled his pants up.
"If I had a better weapon or more rounds you wouldn't have had to damage your hands." Johnson nodded. With five or six grenades she might have been able to destroy the monster by herself. As strong as monsters were conventional weapons were still effective. That's why Scale had battalions of battle droids. They set them out south as a mobile wall to keep the more powerful monsters at bay. It had worked to protect them for nearly a millennium. It seemed the evolution of monsters eventually found a way to bypass that defense.
"Nothing is static everything changes. If you had more rounds that might not have changed the outcome. Still I wouldn't be alive without you." Johnson said. Doll nodded. Then slipped his shoes on him and tied them.
"You're moving up in rank. Its not every son of Farron that goes to a house council meeting. Master Ralph must believe you to be special." Doll said. This wasn't like his father. To show recognition to a lowly 5th stage mental cultivator was abnormal. Failure had garnered attention but only because he was an embarrassment and his father had the time. Now he should be below notice unless there was a suicide mission for him and a few other expendable sons.
He remembered his time with Selene. Free of pain in the arms of a goddess. Things had looked so hopeful. Her scent was permanently filed in his memory. Johnson sucked in a breath and let it out calming himself. He left the room and walked down the hall with Doll escorting him.
The walls were thick enough to cancel out most of the sounds outside, but the shaking of the ground couldn't be ignored. "Johnson is that you. I thought you died in your meditation room." Mocked Janus.
"It seems I'm harder to kill than you realized." Retorted Johnson. He flexed his qi feeling it transform slightly into energy. Static filled the air as his qi saturated the room. Janus smirked and unleashed his qi. Johnson could smell rust as qi battled qi. Johnson was at a typing disadvantage. For a time they were evenly matched, Johnson's electric blue matched Janus's rust red blow for blow.
Suddenly, Janus flexed his qi surrounding Johnson's own in a veil of rust red colored qi. To his third eye the world had been swallowed up by a cloud of rust. Janus smirked expecting Johnson to concede. Johnson returned the smirk and pushed against his brother's qi. Janus had better control and far more qi.
Janus held a look of confusion up until Johnson's qi began to take ground. Johnson sucked all the vital energy from the room and turned it into qi at a constant rate. With nothing to recover his reserves Janus began to lose ground as he was forced to retreat. Johnson spread his qi around Janus and touched his brother's skin with it. Janus looked at him with fear in his eyes. Johnson had just bypassed his brother's defenses and touched him. Johnson observed the fear in his brother's eyes for a moment before letting up and walking on.
"It seems you have grown powerful in your isolation. My brother will be pleased." Uncle Isaac said and brushed his beard in contemplation. "Come all of you the meeting will start soon." Johnson bowed along with many of his brothers. Some of them he remembered during the night they beat him. Janus hadn't been the worst of them, but he was the most confident.
Bang! A robotic hand smashed a tablet into bits before a servant droid quickly removed the pieces. "Leroy update our situation. What have you managed to catalogue?" Demanded Ralph Farron his father and the man who commanded him to go in isolation before this began.
"Water reserves are dangerously low, and the life tree pumps have been tanted. The 5ft sublevel and deeper are overrun with monsters. The fetuses growing in the vats have been transformed by the hundreds of thousands. Our ammunition won't last two weeks, and the guns may break down before then. Outside are monsters outside have been unseen since the last great monster destroyed the holy capitol of mecca. The qi that scrambled all the AI with an ACU has grown denser. The casualties continued to climb all over the city. There are also two messages from the capitol. One a village wide broadcast and the other for us directly." Reported Leroy.
His father looked at him and then the others. Over 400 young men of house Farron waited in the theater above the council. Ralph Farron smiled as his eyes surveyed each one of them. "You are my precious sons. Each of your lives have been marked in difficulty in one form or another. Even so none of you sought to rise above your place in the family. Content like sheep you've kept to your station. None of you are needed to hold our networks together. None of you are chemists creating new materials to improve life for those around you. And none of you are engineers building new androids or android parts. That all changes now. I with the power devested to me by my father before me. Knight all of you as knights of Farron warriors of the house. I'm updating your systems now." Johnson's eyes opened wide. His father just conscripted him. Before he could close off his system from the network, he felt the new code merge with his AI.
Farron Knight system
QP (Qi Potency) (lv x STR) x (magnitude ^ BCS) = 10(11.3)
Johnson Farron lv1 0 of 100 MC (Monsters Cells)
Mental Cultivation Stage 5 (MCS)
Pathway Cultivation stage 6 (PCS)
Body Cultivation stage 1 (BCS)
SOC 50,000 of 100,000 = (lv x RAM) x magnitude ^ MCS
VEU (Vital Energy Units) 100,000 of 5,000,000
QU ((lv x INT) x magnitude ^ MCS) +1% = 101,000 of 101,000
Barrier (lv x 1000) x (magnitude ^ PCS) = 1b
Barrier Regen (lv x WIS) magnitude ^ PCS= 33,333/sec
health ((lv x VIT) x magnitude ^ BCS) = 10.1
Health Regen ((lv x END) x (magnitude ^ BCS) = 10/min
PATK PDEF PRES
Blunt 11.3 1 1%
Stab 11.3 1 1%
Slash 11.3 1 1%
QATK QDEF QRES
Energy 200% 200% 2%
Steel 0 0 1%
Nature 0 0 1%
Light 0 0 1%
Dark 0 0 1%
Fire 0 0 1%
Water 0 0 1%
Stone 0 0 1%
Air 0 0 1%
attributes
STR 1 DEX 1
VIT 1 END 1
TFM 2 RAM 1
INT 1 WIS 1
Skills
Qi Saturation lv1 – +1% Qi
Qi Enhancement lv1 – +1% QP
Qi Cell Wall lv1 – +1% Health
Qi Barrier lv1 – 1% qi = Barrier
Energy Beam lv2 – SOC 10k (9.5k) +10% QP
Energy Transformation lv1 – SOC 5k -5% Energy skill cost. +1%QP
Gallant Horse lv1 – +1% QP
All at once, he felt infinitely more powerful and more vulnerable. His life was protected by the vicious energy leaking through his body. This knight's system honed his cultivation into a fine blade and even finer armor, but he was lv1.
Energy Beam transformed into something much more dangerous.
Energy Beam = 10k x (11.3 x 2) = 226,000 energy damage.
The price of the attack had decreased, and it became infinitely easier to use. With his barrier regen, he could hold the attack indefinitely. There was only one reason why his father would promote so many to the knight class.
"Many of you will notice that your systems have been changed to the template of the knight class. Some of you have become quite powerful." His father turned his eyes on Johnson for a moment then looked away. "Near our home is a Saxon plant. It is a fully stocked facility with all the raw materials we need to build a better filtering plant for the tainted sap and munitions for the artillery."
Order received #1
Reach the Saxon Plant and facilitate the transfer of raw materials back to Farron Manor.
Failure:
Self-Termination
Self-Termination the nanites in their bodies would shut down their vital organs and they would die. It was a power the lord of a house had over the household. Something rigged up near the creation of nanites. There was no getting out of it until the current lord died. With the knight system update it was made worse. Steady reports from his AI would find their way to his father now. Normally such tyranny wouldn't fly. Those of the same generation were immune to the nanites of their siblings. Isaac remained by his father's side face solemn and resigned.
"You will fight your way out of the compound in the cover of night and make your way to the droid frame plant." Markus his brother stood up in a blur a light spear appeared in his hand aimed at their father. He threw it long before the nanites could stop him. The spear impacted their father's barrier cracking it in several places. When one layer of the barrier cracked the room became awash with their father's qi.
Qi once cloud like shifted into a liquid form transforming into a sharp piercing spikes that lashed out ripping through Markus's barrier. A hand made of very solid qi touched Markus. Johnson looked away from the spectacle and into the eyes of his father. The man's eyes were hard and manic. After a century of peace, the man was unprepared. They were attacked too quickly, their village wall bypassed, and now the richest house in scale didn't have enough resources to stave off dehydration for long.
He heard his brother gasp as the nanites in his body attacked him. Markus gasped and spluttered as his lungs shut down. This wasn't the normal self-termination this was a spectacle for compliance. Johnson stood up. He had beaten Gloria if he had to kill his father he would.
"Enough," Johnson yelled at the top of his lungs. Even his father's eyes widened at the outburst. "We need him." Johnson said lowering his voice to a conversation level. He had their attention. "There are 400 and we need to break the monster line twice. Every man's life is precious if it must be sacrificed then let it be spent with meaning. Markus isn't an engineer, but he is a mechanic. He can build a carrier and armor plate it against the monsters outside. I can't do that and not many of us can. Those that can may not make it. We need Markus to complete this mission." Johnson said. He met his father's eyes the whole time trying to read the man.
The man nodded his head and dropped his qi to a comfortable level. Markus began to breath again taking in painful gasping breaths. "All of you report to the quartermaster to receive your gear. Any rations will have to be found outside the mansion walls. There isn't enough left for any of you.
From there the ball started rolling. He was directed to a pod with his name on it. Above the pod was his armor. Titan 1 Ballistics powered armor it was colored grey. Most of the metallic plates were removed from the armor and replaced with hardened plastic. The helmet was rounded like a dome and still had the metal plates protecting the user. There were numerous joints running throughout the armor places were horns, claws, and spikes could easily slice through. The pauldrons had been replaced with plastic giving the armor a shinier appearance.
He entered the pod. "Hello Johnson." Leroy spoke.
"Mayhap you had something to do with this Leroy?" Johnson asked. The arms of the pod began to move piecing the armor on him methodically.
"Perhaps, I had something to do with your promotion. You've managed to impress your father three times in the span of two weeks. Once by surviving ten experimental pills. By the way those were not the pills your father had assigned to you. The pills you were assigned were in your locker. Did you take all of them?" Leroy asked. "No matter they aren't important to your father anymore. He had hoped to use them to break into the immortal stage. A feat that would have helped this situation a great deal. The immortal stage holds powers tens of magnitudes beyond the mortal stage."
"No cultivator ever achieved immortality by pills alone. This crisis is probably father's best chance at immortality." Johnson replied.
"When did you get so bold. Could it be the brain damage?" Leroy said. He remembered his battle against Gloria and then his absolute fucking of the titan Selene. He was a man of Farron now. There was no going back. No trip into a monster's womb would change him.
"It may have helped."
"The second time you surprised him was your battle with the natal droid turned monster designation Gloria. You were expected to die and when you didn't, it was impressive. To top it off you of all people the boy he punched for wasting house resources stood up to him. You didn't have to and Markus's talents as a mechanic are matched or surpassed by many going with you. He was proud of you for defending your brother." Johnson knew he would never hear it from the man. It wasn't a matter of pride but appearances. He couldn't be seen praising a son that opposes him in a time of crisis.
Titan I Ballitstic armor x10 PATK, +1000 PDEF, and +10%PRES
PATK PDEF PRES
Blunt 113 1001 11%
Stab 113 1001 11%
Slash 113 1001 11%
He stepped out of the pod and slammed his knuckles together. The armor accelerated his movements making him a little faster and much stronger. It made him a whole magnitude of physical power stronger. That and his defense was high. He would rely upon it if his barrier ever failed.
From the weapons rack he saw numerous arms, shields, and guns. What caught his eye was an energy powered weapon. He picked it up feeling his typing sing with its presence. "A good choice." Leroy commented. It felt odd hearing him in his helmet. There was a whole chat going on using the helmet's communication system. Short messages moved through bursts of qi from one armored unit to the next.
Johnson grabbed as many grenades as he could put on three belts and wrapped them around his waist. In his hands was the only weapon he would need. A Tesla Converter, a one hit wonder that destroyed everything in its path. He could use his energy beam through the weapon without damaging his power armor.
Everything was going to be alright. He had one guaranteed kill.
Tesla Converter: Energy Beam damage = (10k x 11.3 x 2) ^2 = 51,076,000,000
The Tesla converter was the crown jewel of energy weapon research. There weren't many anymore but there were still some schematics of them out there. This wasn't a treasure of house Farron. It was in the armory with everything else. He took a Masquerade rifle and a solidly built Cavalier revolver that used exploding rounds big around as his thumb.
The door opened leading out of the mansion they needed only cross two floors of monster infested territory. After that they would be on the street. On the street they needed to head west for the factory and avoid as many fights as possible. Find a way in the building. Jerry rig a vehicle. Load it up with raw materials. Find rations. Return quickly.