Chereads / Borderlands: Unnatural selection / Chapter 33 - Broken hopes

Chapter 33 - Broken hopes

"Counter argument, gun." she says and I pause to consider it.

"I mean yeah I guess I could turn it into a gun instead but that's so lame when I could have a robot butler that can kill armies." I say with a frown.

"You can do that!?" she asked in shock.

I rolled my eyes "Weren't you listening? I can make anything mechanical that the Eridians could so long as I have the materials. Honestly speaking they were kinda hacks with how wide their tech reached in applications. The only reason their robot guardians hadn't been unstoppable was that the race seemed more focused on making them last rather than making them as powerful as possible." I said honestly.

"Can't you do both?" she asked curiously.

"If you had the time and resources to spend on one super bot sure. These Seraphs though were meant to be easy to mass produce and long lasting. Besides the Eridians were borderline pacifist from what I understand and not the sort to make ridiculously powerful weapons without sealing them away for safety reasons afterwards." I said with a shrug.

"If you are using Eridian knowledge to make your robot then what will make it different than theirs?" she pointed out.

"Complexity, Seraphs are simple constructs. Well most are anyways, thanks to my new knowledge I can think of a few exceptions but for the most part this holds true. Anyways my robot will be almost complex enough to be considered false life. Wait! FUCK! I forgot about that!" I went to explain my plan before realizing a huge issue and cursing loudly.

"What?" she asked confused.

"All this knowledge I have will let me make the body of such a robot but not the mind. The knowledge doesn't include the programming for A.I's!" I said frustrated.

"Can't you just use a normal A.I?" she asked confused about my frustration.

"Can an idiot drive a ship? Yes! Would you trust them to do so correctly though? Not if you valued your life! The same applies here. Sure a normal A.I COULD operate a robot like this but it's like putting an idiot behind the wheel of a ship, a VERY bad idea." I sigh after my explanation "Looks like you get your gun idea after all." I mutter a little annoyed.

"Well look on the bright side, awesome gun!" she said trying to cheer me up.

She failed.

Admittedly it wasn't her fault as I was just a little drained from the vault monster fight and double disappointments from my ideas getting strangled in the cradle twice in a short span of time. I know I should just be happy with the big benefits that I had gotten but what can I say except that I was a perfectionist? Once my disappointment went away and I could really think about my gains I couldn't help but grin. Whether it was in terms of traits or loot I really had gotten lucky as shit. -

Just the engineering knowledge alone made me potentially the most valuable person in the six galaxies due to the sheer potential there. Obviously I'd need a whole helluva lot of imagination or directions to utilize this knowledge fully but the potential for a mass revolution of various fields through this knowledge was there. There was however one thing that sort of put a damper on this, responsibility. Look my morals might be all but nonexistent but even I could understand that what I release into the universe I am responsible for.-

This means if someone uses my tech for some really fucked up shit then it's kinda on me for enabling them in that way. Like I'm not saying that if someone took my tech and twisted it's purpose I am directly responsible for it since obviously I hadn't made them do that. But to a degree I had to understand that once a piece of tech was released it may end up used like that. This lead me to deeply thinking about what if anything I should release into the world. I found a few things that immediately got put in the "keep to yourself till death and even after list".-

Weaponry, armor, energy to name a few were things that under no circumstances could I let the information on out into the world. Energy in particular was a big one because after gaining this knowledge on the Eridians usage of it I understood the truly devastating potential it had. You know those world destroying sun exploding things I thought about a while ago, yeah that kinda stuff was childs play to accomplish for the Eridians. Needless to say I was going to be keeping that particular set of knowledge to myself.-

What I found astonishing as I dug through my new knowledge pool to familiarize myself with it fully was that some parts of this knowledge used the powers of sirens as a component. For example there was a few parts that needed the touch of [Phaseshift] to finish up correctly. I didn't stay for long after talking with Maya as the corporate troops were starting to spread out in search of the person who opened the vault. I wasn't worried about them bothering Maya or the monks much as they wouldn't find anything even remotely Eridian that wasn't in the siren vault at the far end of the monastery that no one could open.-

I said my goodbye to Maya and teleported my house for the last time until it was time to head to Pandora. I didn't leave my house after getting to Eden six though as I wanted to integrate those traits that had been sitting inside me idly.[Amphibious lungs], [Water resistance],[Quick thinking], [Efficient lungs-Rare grade]x4, [Fire resistance-Epic grade], [Elemental body(fire)-Legendary grade], [Superior vitality-Epic grade] were all waiting for my input. The first two and two stacks of [Efficient lungs] I stopped procrastinating with and stuffed into the egg along with 3000 units of lifeforce.-

Greedy thing was costing me an arm and leg to sculpt as I wished but I still felt it would be worth it in the end as I doubt many people can claim to own a dragon. Anyways with that done I made my way to my bathroom and stripped before sitting on the floor near the drain. Prepared for what came next I nudged [Superior vitality], [Quick thinking], [Fire resistance] and the last two stacks of [Efficient lungs]. Immediately my body began to seize as my neurons rearranged themselves for faster thought. My body swelled larger as my vitality increased by three fourths, not my lifeforce mind you.-

While lifeforce was tied to vitality it wasn't the same thing but rather a more potent vitality meant the lifeforce you did have went further in how it effected you. Anyways [Efficient lungs] went to work transforming my lungs into oxygen gathering machines that near perfectly ripped all the elements out of each breath I took. The greatest change however came from [Fire resistance] as my skin began to slough off only to be replaced by darker bronze skin with a noticeable red tinge to it.-

This transformation only lasted a few moments as per normal but I felt like shit afterwards which was to be expected given the amount of traits I had integrated all at once. I also noticed that my original [Fire resistance] trait had fused into the new one but had pretty much no difference due to the sheer disparity between their grades.

'My fucking hair! I just grew that back for fuck's sake!' I complained as I notice the changing of my skin had caused my regrown hair to get discarded, again.

I cleaned up the mess from this round of integration before finally moving onto the main course, the legendary grade [Elemental body(fire)]. The integration of this trait went VERY differently than any that had come before. Rather than causing a change in my body that was purely biological my tattoos that covered my entire right arm, leg, chest and stopped under my eye expanded. They glowed a vibrant green as the odd swirling symbols on my chest started spawning even more on my belly reaching over to the left side of my body before stopping.-

Unlike before where the tattoos only covered my right side and the center of my chest I now had tattoos across my abs as well with only my left side being free of them. This transformation was also entirely painless but I felt the traits effects clearly. Unlike what the trait was supposed to do on a biological scale of engulfing my entire body in flames I could instead choose what went up in flames almost like a form of pyrokinesis. With an interested look I raised my right hand and with but a small flex a red flame sparked into existence on my palm.-

As I had thought I still felt the heat on my skin but thanks to my resistance trait no harm was coming to my body from the flame and in fact the skin of my palm even hardened slightly instead. With a bit of mental manipulation I could even control the direction the flame was projected out like the bug had and with some strain even increase the temperature of the flame. Blue flames was my limit as any further and even my ridiculous resistance began to falter and I felt some pain.-

Still that was more than enough as far as I was concerned as I doubted that I'd be trying to bathe in intense flames anytime soon. With my integration done I had worked up an appetite and certainly didn't need a bath since I'd literally shed off any grime on me. I ordered a massive amount of salmon, poutine, cinnamon rolls, grape soda and salad before digging in once I got it all. Once I was good and stuffed I got dressed again and finally left my house. My room in the Jakobs manor was just how I left it minus a bit of tidying up that Baldrin had clearly down while I was gone.-

Nothing major mind you just a bit of a floor polish and having my bed made up is all. To my surprise however there was an item that I certainly hadn't put in here present, a suit. It was a smooth formal thing made out of a brown silk and had green scales embroidered along it's length using cleverly placed stitches. The undershirt paired with it was emerald green and it even had a pair of brown leather shoes to match the outfit as well.-

There was a note pinned to the neatly folded fabric that I carefully removed before reading.

Boy if you are reading this it meant you've come back to the manor and found the suit I left for you. I hope you like it because I had to set aside my feelings on the matter and reach out to that buffoon Torgue to get a guess at your sizes with some extra room in case you suddenly grow a bunch as well. You are a part of the Jakobs family and that means you should damned well look like it.~ Sincerely, Montgomery Jakobs.

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https://www.pa treon.com/user?u=81578854#:~:text=pa treon.com/pa treon_loskro

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Alexander Drake

Lifeforce: 374,110

Integrated Traits: [Gun expertise-Uncommon grade], [Clever mind-Uncommon grade]X3,[Enhanced senses-Rare grade], [Omega body-Rare grade]x4,[Superior bones-Rare grade],[Armored hide-Rare grade], [Bone regeneration-Uncommon grade], [Corrosion resistance-Uncommon grade], [Energy projection-Epic grade]x2, [Superior vitality-Epic grade],[Flame breath-Uncommon grade],[Minor regeneration-Rare grade][Iron stomach-Uncommon grade], [Disease resistance-Epic grade],[Amphibious lungs-Uncommon grade], [Thermal sensing-Uncommon grade], [Water resistance-Common grade],[Active camouflage-Epic grade], [Eridian engineering expertise-Mythical grade], [Amphibious lungs], [Water resistance],[Quick thinking], [Efficient lungs-Rare grade]x2, [Fire resistance-Epic grade], [Elemental body(fire)-Legendary grade],

Stored traits: [Energy reservoir],