"It's alive!" Lux cried as he finally finished the stupid game. He had really not expected it to be this damned difficult to create everything. But he had to cater to his audience a little bit with the game design. Making it at least a bit more capable of being a competitive game with some minigames in it that required varying levels of fitness to be able to complete them. Hopefully it would hit pretty well. He had actually coded a second game in his spare time, and this one he knew for a fact was addictive and annoying as hell. It was a recreation of Flappy Birds. Except he'd altered it so that there were settings for people up to the Surpasser rank. This one had literally taken him all of five hours to put together and it irritated him that it was so easy to make after he tried it out because it was freaking addictive to him! And he'd known what he was making!
He had been back home for a couple of days, finished up the game. Submitted, both the first one he had made and the flappy birds one to the Commlinks App store. And both had been accepted within a day of the application. With that done, he would only need to add stuff and update them every so often. He was planning to just hire someone else to run those aspects of it. He just wanted to see if they would take off at all.
Lux was just thinking about heading out to hunt when his commlink chirped with a message from Qin Xuan telling him to get his but over to the Station training center. She wanted him to participate in training to prep him for the entrance exam to get into the Blackhawk Military Academy. The admissions was just a little less than a month away and Qin Xuan, even though she had seen the his fitness score, wanted him to participate in some training covering warframes, and some flight simulators for starfighters and starships.
Lux would pass just based on his physical fitness level alone. Not to mention that [Machine Learning] had already filled in the gaps in his education and was pushing everything forward with every bit of new information he learned. He felt kind of like a snowball that had very solidly grown into a snowboulder and would soon become an avalanche. Everything information related was too easy for him. Even physical skills were easy to learn as all he needed to do was see it done or described and [Machine Learning] just ran with it and created muscle memory and practice out of it. He never really felt like he was doing things for the first time anymore. But all that said, getting to train in some simulators would be an interesting experience even if he sat in the cockpit and felt like he'd been in there a million times before.
Lux grabbed a piece of his Armadillo jerky on his way out the door, eating more still. He had been eating these strips of jerky almost non-stop and had received almost as many points as he figured that he was going to get from the Armadillo already. He was up to 52 Sacred-Blood Geno points now, having gotten 8 points out of the Armadillo meat. He still had about five pounds the jerky yet, but he wasn't really holding out hope of getting any more points out of the meat.
On the way to the Station Lux found himself pondering a few things about the Sanctuaries themselves. That Silver Bird that had attacked Lux and company on their hunt had been damn close to being a Super Creature if he was correct in his thinking. The very first Sanctuary had spawning mechanisms called Nests that produced creatures seemingly at random, it naturally produced some creatures of every Rank. Those creatures then fought for dominance, fought for resources, and applied themselves to surviving the world around them. When they eventually grew strong enough, had eaten enough resources and all of that good stuff, they would eventually ascend to the Second Sanctuary. Then they would repeat the process. Lux didn't know how the 1st sanctuary ascension went down for creatures. Even with a great amount of reading through forums and the like, Lux had never come across any mentions of some kind of process undergone by creatures in the 1st Sanctuary. In the 2nd Sanctuary there had been rare reports of doors opening in the sky and beasts leaving through them. But not in the 1st. As far as Lux could tell the entirety of the Sanctuary was designed to evolve lifeforms from the ground up. From what he remembered of the Anti-verse, which was admittedly not much, humans were not supposed to be in this side of the universe at all. Humans were native to the Anti-verse, and were brought to this side by someone, and humans born on this side had the whole Sea of Soul thing going for them that was OP as hell. But remembering that made him wonder if in the Anti-Verse there might be a similar setup. 1 through 6 sanctuaries that promote some kind of development of a being. If you go by the theme the Anti-Verse would be evolving the soul, and this side of the universe was evolving the genes.
Lux shook his head as he tried to recall as much as he could from the novel. The problem was that what he remembered was a mixed bag. [Machine Learning] couldn't recreate memories that had been truly forgotten well before he had ever even had the trait. Stuff like the Shura incident. Lux had known that it would happen as some point, but he hadn't remembered the specifics of it. Remembering his past life was great and all, but he could barely take advantage of those memories at all because they were vague. He remembered a lot of things that were oddly specific, then just nothing for big stretches. The logs had shown how damaged his soul had been when the System became a part of it. Lux was beginning to suspect that his memories had also been damaged, pieces of his memories just deleted by whatever had damaged his soul. If it weren't for that [Machine Learning] would have probably reconstructed the vague memories by now and he would be able to remember everything clearly. But he was stuck with a hazy mixed bag of memories and a personality that was not really a match to the culture or people that he interacted with. It was slightly depressing to know about things but not be able to take advantage of them.
The Dongxuan Sutra for instance. Lux remembered that Han Sen had gotten it quite early. But he couldn't remember if that 'Early' was in the first or second sanctuary. He just remembered that Han Sen found a corpse in a cave that had the Sutra on them. If he remembered more, Lux could probably hunt it down and have another powerful Sutra on his person already. Sure, he had already learned a lot more than Han Sen had. But Lux would absolutely not say no to another piece of the pie. The same could be said for The Story of Genes. Lux had no clue where Han Sen had gotten his hands on that particular Sutra. Lux wanted it. But he had no idea on how to get his hands on it other than to try to follow the small bit of the plotline that he remembered. But even then, Lux didn't remember at all where The Story of Genes was first found at all, so Lux would be floundering even with trying to follow the plot.
Lux groaned internally as the maglev train stopped at the Teleportation Station. Trying to force recall memories that just didn't exist was exhausting and irritating. He was just going to have to make sure that he scoured every Sanctuary as he went, milking everything he did for maximum value. The most irritating bit over all was that he didn't remember when and where Lux first met the Golden Growler and got his first Super Geno points. Arguably one of the most important pieces of the entire story. And he just couldn't remember. Which was always a worry in the back of his mind. With a final sigh, Lux stopped thinking about useless things that were just making him worry. He already had far better prospects than Han Sen had ever had.
Lux soon found himself face to face with Yang Manli who was looking at him with a strange expression. Last time he had seen her she had practically fled his presence and seemed to be going into heat or something. Lux had thought of turning off the buff that made his pheromones super powerful, but he found it pretty hilarious how differently women treated him now. The difference between being super attractive to women and not was incredible. At least now most women treated him like he was an actual human being instead of just being invisible to them. If the price was that they also need to change all the time Lux was willing to make the sacrifice.
"So, what is on the agenda today?" Lux asked.
"Well first, Stationmaster Qin Xuan wants to talk to you in her office. After that, we will be conducting training on Mech, starfighter, and high gravity operations." Yang Manli said as she guided Lux to Qin Xuan's office.
Once Lux arrived at the office, Yang Manli headed out closing the door behind her. Qin Xuan was seated at her desk, but with a full setup and she was making tea.
"Ah good, Han Sen take a seat." Qin Xuan said gesturing to the chair across from her, "I had you called here to interview you a little. You see, I am putting together a special squad. I'm thinking that you will be a good addition to the squad, but I need to learn a bit more about you first."
Lux internally sighed, this was one particular thing that he had remembered. Qin Xuan drugging Han Sen and interviewing him. Lux sat across from her and accepted the tea that was obviously drugged… well obvious to Lux anyway. He didn't beat around the bush; he knew that he was fully safe from the effects of the drugs and took a sip. The tea tasted weird but was not unpleasant.
"So, Han Sen, what do you think of me?" Qin Xuan asked, leaning forward and emphasizing her rather great assets.
"I think that you are one of the hottest women that I know, and I wouldn't mind taking a tumble in the hey with you." Lux spoke, he knew that she was trying to get him to talk about things that would 'normally' be out of the norm or something that people would avoid talking about.
"So, you think I'm attractive? What about me do you find the most attractive." Qin Xuan asked, repositioning herself 'innocently' in a way that purposefully drew attention to her chest.
Lux thought fast, how would a drugged person really respond to this kind of situation? He didn't know what kind of drug it was, but since the military used it to conduct interviews for top secret stuff, he was willing to bet that it was a form of truth serum. People were super reserved around the opposite sex in this world, so being forward was not the norm even if one was thinking about it.
"I'll give you a list. You have such a sexy figure that it's a wonder you can walk down the streets without breaking the necks of every guy around. Those boobs have got to be at least an E-cup and are perfectly proportioned to the rest of your body. Your skin is so clear and smooth that it makes me want to taste you. That ass is so perfect I want to bounce a quarter off it… and other things too. And I would guess that you look incredibly cute with something your mouth." Lux leaned in a bit and reached across the desk as if to grab her chest.
To his surprise, Qin Xuan leaned in grabbed his wrist and firmly placed the palm of his hand against her breast with a sharp intake of breath. With his very enhanced senses from not only the Geno points, but also his practice of the Jadeskin Sutra, Lux could smell that she was rather aroused. He wasn't sure if this was a good or a bad thing. He decided to see how far things could go. Qin Xuan was hotter than sin after all.
He squeezed and managed to find and pinch her nipple through clothes drawing another sharp breath from her as she appeared to be trying to collect her thoughts. She leaned back to collect herself blinking fiercely and breathing a little erratically.
"S-so, are you part of any of the other gangs? Do you have any organization that you belong to outside of the Sanctuary?" she huffed out unsteadily.
"No." Lux drew his hand back to his side of the desk, "I'm only part of Bullseye. Never even been approached by other organizations. Unless you count going on a hunt or two where my skills were needed."
"Are you Lux?" Qin Xuan almost blurted out.
"I wish!" Lux said with a huff, "Guy seems to be luckier than the next million people combined."
After Qin Xuan managed to ask Lux about a dozen more questions she pressed a button on her intercom and had Yang Manli come in to escort Lux out. She was tense as a wound spring and Lux smirked as he left the room and followed Manli to the gravity training room where she told him to do the course before leaving.
-
Qin Xuan was embarrassed by what had happened. The interview with Han Sen had only confirmed that he was perfect for her squad. But she couldn't understand her practically unreasonable level of attraction to him. He was too young for her… and he was a man. She had never seen men that way at all. But her body was practically screaming at her by the end of the interview to pull into her cot and ride him until her hips gave out. She shivered at the thought of how his touch had felt. She needed to be alone for a little while. Or better yet, have Manli's company for an hour or two. Just as she thought that Manli entered her office and locked the door behind her.
"I told you that he's too attractive to do this by normal means." Manil smirked, "You were the one who took care of me after he got me all hot bothered last time remember?"
"I thought it was just you making things up… Or that you were just randy already. Not… that…" Qin Xuan said as Manli circled around behind her before she felt questing hands snaking around her body.
"Maybe we should schedule a little personal training with the three of us? I've never felt like that for a man before, maybe we should… see if we can get it out of our systems?" Manli spoke as her hands moved.
Qin Xuan shivered at the thought, her breath caught in her throat at the image in her mind.
"We should think about it…" she agreed before she lost herself to Manli's tender ministrations.