The moment the bus left for the airport, Vikram turned on camouflage.
He stored away the entire arsenal in his inventory, including the hundreds of grenade launchers, submachine guns and revolvers, as well as the bullet proof shields.
Then, he stripped the building of all its contents including the potted plants. Except for rats and walls, he has taken away everything.
Yes, that included the nailed-in iron walls, etc.
The other arsenals, that is if they could be called one, were in four corners of the country.
He will retrieve them when he can.
For now though, it's time to go back and organize his resources.
Payal returned to Vikram's home, to continue the conversation as if nothing happened.
She tried poking her own skin with the safety pin. The pin would not go in at all.
Seems her husband had been right about sweeping out all of their savings to buy this gene mod.
Whatever may come, with her fighting prowess, Payal was sure she could protect their family. Once again, she praised herself for choosing the correct husband. He may not have been great looking, or had a killer body, but he does have a killer mind.
He is as good as a prophet without spiritual power. Moving them to this city all of a sudden had been a good choice. Looking at the news, seeing what's happening in other countries, if the predictions about portals come true, then, they are situated perfectly.
Thus, after some more time, Payal bid their new neighbors goodbye, left to rest.
An hour after the guests left, Vikram returned to a silent home, with Vinod alone waiting for him in the living room.
Virat was still seriously playing video games.
Vinod sat in the living room, with a writing pad on his lap, as he looked at his cell phone, and wrote something in a notebook.
" What are you writing ? " Vikram asked curiously, looking at the posture of his brother.
" Apocalypse predictions. " Vinod answered.
" There are various theories on the internet about what's happening now. There are various guys in various countries with different theories. Some of them set up paid sites. I paid twenty thousand for information from Squid Master, ten for initial information from DragonTamer, and fifty for his nine star martial scroll. " Vinod explained.
Vikram said nothing about the money his brother spent.
The tablet is lying aside.
They have one more hour to create their plan of action.
" This is from Squid Master ? " Vikram asked, opening the pdf on the tablet.
He read the information mentioned there.
There is more than he talked about in the initial stages.
According to Squid Master, the portals indicate the passing of a certain era on earth. Like him, they predicted the dungeons will support people in evolving.
This is where the man's information differs.
If a dungeon is cleared before the breakout day, the dungeon orb one obtained will become an evolver.
The evolver will store gene modifier fragments, any number of them. However, that's not where it's functionality ends.
The gene modifiers dropped in the dungeons are rough gene modifiers. While they modify a single part or attribute of the body for most parts, they also carry a minuscule amount of genes to modify other miscellaneous parts.
For example, golden skin carries with it a fat burning muscle gene modifier. These minor changes that accompany real gene modifiers could be separated into its own modifier to be sold.
The most important part of the entire explanation was that only an evolver could give gene modifiers to other people. A normal person could not remove the gene modifier that affected his body no matter how he tries.
' Wow ! doesn't that mean his value went up ? '
Vikram read further.
This is where his experience and Squid Masters differed.
According to squid master, after the first clearing of the portal, another portal will not form in the same place. However, that wasn't Vikram's experience. In his hometown G, as soon as he cleared the portal, another formed !
An announcement existed underneath this statement.
֎ I bet my reputation on above statement being correct. If you can prove the above statement is incorrect, then I will refund ten times your money. Ofcourse, after verification !!! ֎
Vikram felt this entire promise was fishy.
Looking at it, it's quite a misleading statement. It doesn't need much to know the information is wrong. Yet, looking at it from another perspective, Squid master is trying to find such locations. Why? Was there an advantage to such locations ?
Vikram frowned.
He read onwards.
After the portal breakout, the dungeon orbs would be converted into Crests. A man owning a crest could have people join him, by swearing an oath to the crest. Once an oath is sworn, the men are bound together with that crest, under the leadership of the crest bearer.
More crests a user holds, the more he could control his underlings.
With the portals, there's a curious phenomenon. In Squid Master's words, each portal carries a count with it. The portal will not vanish before this count has become zero. Ideally, each day after the breakout increases the count of a dungeon by a day.
However, there are undetermined other factors which increase a dungeon's count. Each time a person enters and exits a portal without conquering it increases a portal's count.
The land expansion happens when all dungeons in a closed loop have the same count, even if it's not zero. Unfortunately, there's no way to know this particular count.
After all the first tier portals are cleared, second tier portals will open.
Second tier portal's dungeon orb is a shelter. With this shelter, you could claim any land. All beings in your shelter are under your surveillance. There was more to it, which will be explained in a higher tier info bundle, which is priced thousand dollars.
The information from the dragon tamer was the same, only, Dragon tamer thought the expansion did not happen until after second tier dungeons were cleared. Moreover, in the words of Dragon tamer, relics control the spawning of the dungeons.
Unless the relic controlling a set of dungeons is claimed, the second tier dungeons will not open. However, the person holding the relic will know all the details about the dungeons, including getting protection from it, and controlling the beasts in the dungeon, so on, so forth.
Hell, they could even establish a portal of their own.
Vikram chose to just pay and buy higher tier information on both of them.
Then, he set out a board, to tally the information.
Looking at the information which only differed in what element comes at which stage, Vikram remembered the most discussed fad in the scientific community.
Multiverse theory !
Despite the non-existent evidence as to its existence, the theory is the most hypothetically supported scientific theory ever in the world.
If he assumes he was not the only person to be reborn, then this entire information becomes sensible.
Yet, if he assumes that, there is another assumption he must make.
That the relics are capable of sending souls out of time and space.
There are a thousand other unbelievable things a relic could do. It's clear that a world breaks away from any normalcy when relics come into picture.
The high tier information from squid master contained the dungeon combos for the beast armor.
As expected, the armor was associated with the relics. At times, the first tier dungeons change the species inside themselves. This happens when a portal is near a relic site.
However, it could not always be considered a sure fire way, for event dungeons spawn seasonally. They absolutely occur near a relic, but they could also open at a location for no reason whatsoever.
Squid master gave out a list of most useful event dungeons that could spawn in many countries, including India.
Dragon tamer on the other hand gave out a set of armors, and possible cold weapon blueprints that could be made with animal parts as long as one obtains them. On top of that, he gave a list of each and every relic located outside china.
Seriously, both Squid master and Dragon Tamer were truly generous with the information that did not belong to their own countries. In the case of their enemy countries, they even created a checklist of props, suitable weather, and how to overcome hurdles created by harsh geographic conditions.
One could see the millennial style patriotism overflowing in both articles. Conversely, they both had pages upon pages of their own citizens asking for resources they could obtain on their own.
Compared to both of them, Vikram's little primer on how to survive, it's child's play. Other than being able to say I am first of these new age seers, Vikram could not say any thing about it at all.
Tr…rr…ing !
The sound is not from the clock but the TV.
As he looked at the headlines, Vikram wondered if his patriotism was lacking, for he really really wanted to sit and close his eyes for a nap.