Nine months later.
Whilst I was relaxing in my room like I usually do when I have a moment to chill, I started thinking about how it's been quite a while since I've last gone over what I've accomplished. And man, have I made a ton of progress in these last several months.
To start off this progress report of mine, my perception training idea I had a while back before bed involving the pitching machines rigged up with turret targeting modules ended up being very successful indeed. Although I initially had trouble getting the hang of it, since it's not exactly easy tracking several baseballs coming at you from multiple directions.
Despite the difficulty, I eventually got the hang of it after getting hit in the face more times than I would like to admit and when I finally managed to, I was able to break through to 11 Perception with relative ease once I was past that point.
As for my reward for reaching 11 Perception, I received a very useful perk that should help me immensely on my upcoming wasteland adventure.
| All Seeing | Requirements 11 Perception: You've surpassed human limitations for perception, thus you've acquired the ability of a 360-degree field of awareness up to 11 meters. This ability will become stronger the higher your perception rises and for every additional point of perception gained beyond 11, the range of this ability will increase by 1 meter.
When I resumed my perception training after acquiring that perk, I noticed pretty quickly that my agility was improving somewhat as well with this exercise. So that was a nice bonus to discover even though it wasn't nearly as good as a dedicated agility-based exercise, unfortunately.
From there, I continued my training regime like normal for the following few days and soon found that my perception didn't appear to be progressing like it had been previously. Thus I began brainstorming and at some point or another, I came up with the bright idea of adding a blindfold into the mix.
After implementing that idea into the exercise over the next couple of days, it seemed to have done the trick, bringing me back to optimal progress again. That said, it required me getting hit in the face several more times by the pitching machines before I got somewhat used to the new training style.
Moving onto the next major thing in this nine-month report would have to be the progress I made with my workshop slash research facility. To start this section of the report off, it took me just about a month to get things up and running with all the different pieces of equipment that needed to be fabricated, assembled, and transported from the other areas of the vault.
But once a majority of that had been completed, I was off to the races, developing, researching, and manufacturing everything I could. From replicating the mole rat repellent recipe from the wasteland survival guide to performing research and experiments with Buffout to rid it of its negative side effects. And to see if it was any better than the anabolics from the previous world I left behind for the Fallout one.
When I initially started my activities there, I set my sights on the mole rat repellent recipe first. Surprisingly, not long into my research, I figured out the formula and decided to start getting ammo production up and running so I could begin accumulating as much of the stuff as humanly possible before my journey into the wild wasteland.
Even though I knew I needed a ton of the stuff, I couldn't be spending all my time on making ammo personally, hence I started coming up with various solutions to the problem I found myself with. Once I had gone through and eliminated several of them, I settled on fabricating a few fully automated ammunition manufacturing machines.
These machines of mine could make a large assortment of different ammunition types, ranging from microfusion cells used to power energy weapons all the way up to 20mm shells used in autocannons. On top of that, all those rounds produced by these machines can be manufactured with junk for the most part thanks to my Junk Rounds perk.
When I wasn't working in my personal lab I was improving my relationship with Amata by having her join in on my training, and teaching her about all kinds of subjects and ingraining as much knowledge into her as I reasonably could, since it would benefit her as well as myself in the long run.
Thankfully, she took to it and seemed to enjoy both the training and the learning if her regularly smiling face and bright sunny mood were anything to go by, so that was a plus. It would've sucked for sure if she wasn't receptive and showed zero interest in either of those two activities. Though now that I'm thinking of it, she may just be happy to be spending time with me… or maybe she's just interested in the same things I'm interested in but it's probably a combination of the two.
As a result of spending all that extra time together, we have now grown so close to the point that we are rarely ever seen apart other than to head home to go to bed. I'm sure if her dad would allow her to have her way, she would even be sleeping in the same bed as me every night if it was up to her.
Another thing that happened in this period is that I decided to take Butch and the gang under my wing and to start training them. My reason for doing all that was that the three of them looked to be pretty loyal and trustworthy, so I could see them becoming a major asset to me later on when I start establishing myself in the wasteland and begin building my faction.
And then possibly a country or some other kind of entity in the future if I make it that far. Future kingdom building aside, I'm glad I did since they've been making substantial improvements in their training these last few months with those vault security uncles that adopted me as their nephew.
Furthermore, at the rate that they're progressing, they should be able to handle most higher-tier raiders by the time I set out for the wastes, as long as they have the required firepower to penetrate their armor. Thus, I'm sure they'll show their usefulness when I'm in need of some extra firepower and manpower.
Backtracking back to my S.P.E.C.I.A.L.s, I've made some significant gains across my strength parameters and as a result of that, my strength stat now sits at a solid 8. That upgraded strength has given me the ability to wield my AER 18 LMG with relative ease for long periods.
Due to that, I've become quite accurate with it after clocking in many, many hours at the shooting range and also killing several hundred-mole rats in the old vault mines. Sadly, as a direct result of that slaughtering I committed, I now have a difficult time finding any of them to hunt, even after several hours of searching.
So they aren't really a viable xp source anymore, which is unfortunate. I guess the mole rat leader or leaders smartened up and retreated into the depths of the mines with their numbers to prevent any further losses and to not be bothered any further by me. Quite the intelligent bunch they are.
On the positive side of things, on my second trip back into the old vault mines, I learned how to delay my level-ups, which in all honesty makes the loss of an xp source not feel as bad. That discovery will allow me to increase my skills and S.P.E.C.I.A.L.s easier through my own efforts than if I was forced to level up and distribute my skill points into whichever skill I decided to go with for that level up.
Adding on to that, if I manage to increase my intelligence again from now until I leave the vault, even just one additional point of intelligence will give me half a skill point more per level to distribute. So if my intelligence was to be increased by four points, for example, I would get two additional skill points for every one of those level ups I have saved up. Meaning, all in all, it's not too bad of a loss, I'll just reallocate the time I would've dedicated to hunting for an activity that will increase my intelligence like reading through the rest of the books in the vault library.
…
I think that just about covers the progress report for the most part, though I only went over a few of the things that were relatively significant or have seen some decent improvement in this period. Anyway, overall I would say I've made some pretty good progress these last nine months.
As for the future, I'll just keep increasing my stats through training, performing different activities and tasks till it's time to leave the vault so I can get the maximum amount of benefits possible. And when that moment finally arrives, I'll spend my accumulated level-ups on whatever I think will be needed at that moment.
After I finished going over my recent progress, I checked the clock to see how much longer I had left before Amata arrives.
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If you want something else to read, that's similar to this, check out my other webnovel Wasteland Conqueror. It has a lot more chapters released.