As he coded, Wallace felt a sense of excitement and nervousness. He was creating something that could potentially change the course of this world's history. An artificial intelligence that could connect to every part of the planet using mana, without the need for satellites. He worked tirelessly, his fingers flying across the keyboard as he brought his vision to life.
After hours of coding, Wallace finally finished. He took a deep breath, saved his work, and transferred the final code to the memory crystal. The crystal glowed brightly as it absorbed the information, and then, suddenly, it went dark.
Wallace waited, his heart pounding in his chest. And then, a soft hum filled the air, and the memory crystal began to glow once more. The artificial intelligence, code-named "Echo," had been born.
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Wallace arrived in the jungle that night in his mecha. Unlike the last time he used the mecha, when he had to use vigor after transiting the city, this time he felt just like a human would after putting on shoes for the first time. The slight discomfort disappeared shortly after. In fact, he now had control over the mecha like it was an extension of his body.
This time was different from the last time he came here. Last time, without his mecha, even some rank one mutated beasts could kill him. But now, even without the mecha, very few rank three beasts could contend against him.
His target was not the outer part of the jungle, where he had been hunting in the past. He was going into the deeper part of the jungle, where humans didn't venture.
He soon arrived at the end of the outer part of the jungle. What differentiated it from the inner part of the jungle was the series of energy barriers surrounding the outer part of the jungle and the city. The barrier prevented beasts from coming out, as anything that came into contact with it would rapidly melt. At the same time, it also prevented humans from venturing deep into the jungle, so they didn't know what was in the deeper part of the jungle.
No one could bypass the security measure except Wallace himself. He could transport anywhere his eyes could see, and since he could see the other end of the barrier, a black hole opened in front of him, and he entered. Not even a second later, he arrived at the other end of the barrier.
He looked back at the barrier before he spread his dream sense out and scanned the whole forest.
"As expected," he thought. He could feel the terrifying energy radiating from the bodies of rank three beasts walking in groups. These rank three mutated beasts were even stronger than those inside the barrier, because here it was survival of the fittest. They killed and ate each other, so any weak rank three beasts would have been filtered and eaten long before he arrived here.
He drew the halberd behind him and swept it outward at a speed that couldn't be seen, and not even a second later, a dog-like headed creature fell to the floor. He held the spear in reverse and thrust it back without needing to look back, and a snake that was almost ten meters long but dark was creeping up from behind him was stabbed in the head.
As expected of the dangerous place, he had only been here for some seconds, and he had already met with two beasts. The two beasts provided him with one thousand blood energy; he would be able to gather the blood energy required for evolution to the next stage here.
He didn't have to worry about rank three beasts running out, and he might even run into beasts beyond the mutated beast realm. He walked towards where other beasts were. An hour later, he had already ventured almost a kilometer away from the barrier and had already killed close to twenty rank three mutated beasts.
*Level 18: 6730/25600*
This was the result of him grinding for the past hour. "Hmm," he frowned as the corpse of a lion-headed beast dropped to the ground. Almost fifty meters away, he saw what looked like a mini city that enveloped almost ten meters. The city was covered in walls that weren't high, but he saw that beasts just moved around the base like it didn't exist.
His dream-sense picked up the insignia of a sword piercing into a skull, and meanwhile, the walls were pitch black in color.
"What's that?" He thought as his sense penetrated into the structures in the city. He saw that inside the buildings were children and adults who were in dirty clothes and looked like they had been malnourished for ages.
He squinted his face when he saw them,
"These people must be up to no good," He thought as his sense went deeper into the city. There were cages holding various weird beasts, and his dream-sense could pick up the mana fluctuation coming out from these beasts. He knew that these must be magical beasts, after the mutated beasts were the magical beasts that could control elements to some extent.
He also saw some rare mutated beasts inside some cages and saw that there were people in gray robes who were drawing blood from some beasts. His sense penetrated the main structure of the city, which was built like a castle, and inside was what looked like a large lab with scientists occasionally moving about.
He saw some humans strapped to beds being occasionally injected with some solutions. This memory reminded him of when he just arrived in this world.
"There's an underground," he sensed that there was an underground passage that could be entered through the lab.
His senses entered underground, but were not able to go far, but he saw some things. His face widened as he tried to confirm them; he moved closer to the city until he was seeing it, but they couldn't see him.
Underneath the research lab were what he could call wretched humans. Sunken faces, skinny bodies, and pale skin. He couldn't even finish counting their numbers. Instantly, he could tell what this organization was trying to do; they were trying to create a mixture of humans and beasts because he had already done it back on Earth, mixing the genes of normal humans and beasts together, and this would allow them to possess the ability of the beasts.
These people were also trying to create something like that, but it was clear that there was a side effect or something like that, and it resulted in the mysterious creatures underground.
*A glimpse of the future 1*
*Threat to the universe: Midgar is more than what it looks like on the surface. You've just come into contact with the League of Shadows. An organization of super-naturals, beings that have broken the shackles of humanity and managed to fuse with the genes of beasts to create an entirely new race. The Blood Race. This is just the beginning of the many things that you will see in the future, and the conspiracy is more than what it seems on the surface.*
The words appeared in his sight as his sight changed, and he arrived in another time. This time, the creatures he saw underground were running rampant, and he saw some people floating in the air. They had human structures except that their bodies were larger than humans, and they had scales covering their bodies with claws protruding out from their fingers and wings expanding from their backs.
These beasts were running rampant on the planet, destroying city after city, and in every city they destroyed, they would leave a portal open. The portal connected somewhere, and some creatures wearing black cloaks came out from the portal. He wanted to know who these creatures were, but his vision darkened, and he arrived back in the normal world.
*Find out the conspiracy behind this and save this planet from its impending doom*
*Penalty for failure: Destruction of humanity on Midgar. Rewards: 1000000000000 prime credits*
He saw what looked like another three zeros added to a billion, but his mind was not there. He didn't know how long his consciousness entered into another world, but within that instant, he had already been discovered, and he was rapidly being surrounded from all sides by creatures that looked like humans but had scales surrounding their bodies and also had claws protruding from their hands.
Ten of these creatures rapidly approached him, and he could sense that he had already been found out. If he tried to use spatial teleportation here, he would be discovered, so he retreated towards the base because it was the only space that was open. Since he had been discovered, he would use the chance to investigate what was inside the city.
He could also tell that reinforcements were currently on their way from inside this city. He drew his halberd as he sensed those approaching him, their internal structure not different from a human except for the red core beside their heart that was the size of a finger and was constantly beating as it absorbed mana into it and turned it into the red energy that was supporting every part of their body. The red energy is constantly fusing with their bodies. It look like his internal energy which made him confused.
The first wave of the ten blood creatures arrived and surrounded him in a formation. One of them, clearly a guy, looked at the strange mecha up and down with his red eyeball.
"Interesting, is this now what the Holy Cult has been working on?" he talked, but the mecha was silent.
"Did the Holy Cult send you here to scout and also note the progress of our experiment?" the guy, almost five meters tall, asked, but Wallace did not answer.