Andrei woke up with Mini's alarm clock and remembered he needed to make a list to hand to the SPRU Commander and the first name was Mini McGuiness. He returned the favor to her which had become the new norm as well then they headed to the group shower to clean up and get ready for the day.
Outside of each of the rooms was hanging a new suit fitted to the individual's measurements for graduation. Men had a white tailored military suit with a slight offwhite camo pattern. The women had navy blue suits with a slightly different shade of blue camo pattern to theirs. They proceeded to get dressed and entered the Assembly hall which now had chairs in place for all of them to be able to sit for the ceremony.
Each chair had their name on it and was alphabetically organized so the cadets found their seats as the last of them sat down, the drill sergeant appeared at his usual balcony. The balcony was larger than usual and shortly after the drill sergeant five other individuals came out and stood behind the drill sergeant.
Andrei recognized the Commander of the SPRU since they just met the day before, the other four Andrei could only guess as to them being similar rank to the Commander, probably Commanders of different parts of the military.
"SILENCE!" The drill sergeant started out his speech. "WE ARE GATHERED TODAY TO CONGRATULATE YOU FINE CADETS ON MAKING IT THROUGH THE FIRST CHAPTER OF WHATEVER YOU MAKE YOUR MILITARY LIFE ABOUT."
The speech went on and on and Andrei realized more and more how short and simple always goes a long way. "...FREDDY ASHTON COMMANDER OF THE SPRU" Andrei snapped back into what was being said, looking at the balcony the drill sergeant had side stepped and backed up while Freddy had taken a step forward. His voice was amplified by the drone just like the drill sergeant's.
"THE FIVE COMMANDERS YOU SEE HERE HAVE ALL TAKEN TIME OUT OF THEIR BUSY LIVES TO PERSONALLY COME AND CONGRATULATE ALL OF YOU ON GRADUATING. SOME OF YOU HAVE ALREADY BEEN ASSIGNED TO ONE OF US, SOME OF YOU WILL RECEIVE FURTHER ASSIGNMENT TOMORROW."
"THE MILITARY NEEDS EACH OF YOU TO FILL YOUR ROLE, KNOW IT AND YOU WILL SUCCEED AND BE SOMEONE, THAT IS THE ONLY OPTION." The commander stepped back and the rest of the commanders gave speeches that pertained to themselves and reiterating the importance of knowing your station.
Andrei felt a lot of their speeches were belittling the cadets, he felt like one day when he has a say that is something he is going to stop from happening. The same way the driver of the yellow transport had talked, it was prevalent throughout society and he wanted to figure out how to stop it.
Then on the walls a video of the past three weeks highlights started playing. Most of the cadets were in complete shock that this was going to happen. The silence was only interrupted with reactions of unison as everyone was locked in on the highlights. A lot of the highlights came from yesterday's VR battles which Andrei watched with fascination as all the groups had to do so many different tasks all being displayed in a montage.
Andrei noticed there were none of the highlights from the five captains as they had been teleported out of their VR units and the Military still had not figured out how that occured. Mini offered to help but admitted it was her brothers that knew the VR fixes and she was a mech specialist.
Then a graphic of the faces of those that passed on the hunt. The group went silent and the mood had shifted. To change the mood the video continued on to announce the final scores. Posse Loco came in last place, Delta Squad finished 4th, Fire Brigade finished third with Badass Battalion getting the silver so to speak.
Then Andrei's face was plastered on the screen and it read Captain of Death Squad Cadet Andrei Ieirdna and footage from class with him raising the longsword in slow motion was played and Death Squad members shouted "Hoorah, hoorah, hoorah".
The ceremony concluded by a Commander telling them that their MIDs would display their next room assignment. That they would have the next 2 days to explore the campus which included the market that the forgers of the academy created. Andrei was most excited by this prospect as he had a lot of beast cores he wanted to see if he could get things made.
Commander Ashton approached Andrei at the same time that Mini had as well who gave him a squeeze around the hip. Commander Ashton cleared his throat "I am guessing Miss McGuiness is going to be one on the list?" spoken with a smile.
Andrei handed him a piece of paper that had a printed list of names; Mini, Henry, Goombi, Airwrecka, Sophia, Lily, Loco, Poco, Julia, Edwin. Ashton smiled at the paper and gave a simple response "Done".
"Enjoy the next two days, then its showtime son, Death Squad will get its first assignment before you know it." The Commander calmly commented as he walked away from the two young soldiers.
At midnight Andrei was woken up by his interface. Mini was startled awake but she quickly fell back asleep.
[Quest Complete: Join the Military]
[Reward: Goliath project subroutine started. 48 hours till portal access is unlocked. Personal message left do you wish to view?]
"Hey Andrei, not sure if this video is a good thing or a bad thing but I do know I made you better. So far you have been experiencing an interface I have been developing in order to harness all the galaxy's resources, powers, abilities, you name it because no matter what you believe or you are told we are all in grave danger. There are powers that we don't comprehend but we know exist and it's up to you to figure out how to harness them.
There is a group of planets throughout the galaxy that you will need to visit and conquer them all. This will sound crazy but Dragons, Vampires, Werewolves, Lychen, Succubusses, Demons, Ghouls, Gargoyles, Fairies, and other mythical creatures exist and can be found on those planets. This system will guide you as there are some advantages that we do have since we have been to those planets many times and some have established bases even if abandoned.
I hope this message finds you well as you just graduated from being a Cadet. Tell myself I still owe for chocolate cake at Gina's Grill." Tears started pouring down Andrei's face as he hadn't seen his best friend's face in over a month's time and it was the first time since that night. He then thought about the fact that he did not even have a funeral to say goodbye. He then replayed the video and replayed it till he had memorized every detail. Finally falling back asleep from exhaustion Andrei felt a bit of his mind was whole again.
The next day Andrei and Mini ran into the three girls again and since they were all going to the market to check out the forgers products they all decided to walk together. Andrei took this opportunity to tell them that he had selected them for the SPRU.
"SHUT UP! You have to be joking!" Lily stammered with excitement
"Wait, are you being serious?" Airwrecka even had a look of shock and excitement on her face.
"I am totally sucking your dick right now, drop the pants big guy!" Sophia exclaimed. Andrei laughed at her joke and Mini giggled, grabbing at his belt to lower his pants an inch and suggestively looking at Sophia.
"Yes we are all going to be in SPRU but remember we have more grueling training before we can even go on our first excursion." Andrei reminded them. They all had heard about the 60 days of stress tests to the extreme.
Reaching the market everyone decided to go their separate ways as they all had different agendas that led to different forgers. Andrei had his "Identify" running constantly on all the items and that is when he noticed that one stall had a lot of + gear but was mostly Standard and Intermediate gear.
He walked around the stall and did not find anyone. He started to wonder who owned the stall but got distracted by a commotion not far away.
"You think you can just take my gear and sell it yourself, you only make pure shit. Look at your stall surrounded by no one. No one wants your junk" And the larger man had a hammer in his hand and went to strike the younger smaller man but Andrei grabbed the hammer out of the man's hands before he could swing forward.
"Is this stall yours?" Andrei confidently questioned the old man while flipping the hammer in his hand while pointing at the stall they were next to. The older man nodded in acknowledgement, "Because all of it is shit, you have zero gear with advanced properties. His stall, that one you try to claim is full of shit has only advanced properties on each piece including the standard." Andrei pointed out that the old man now started to lose his temper and was infuriated by the disrespect by two young men.
The older forger didn't quite understand how this guy could know so much but he also knew it was true that he was unable to make advanced properties on his gear. "To top it off you have the same short sword without the advanced properties, lesser base stats so you utilize the core less, and you charge twice as much. You are the true thief" Andrei belittled the man making sure he felt the pain to not pull that stunt again.
"Private Andrei, nice to meet you" Andrei held out his hand toward the young forger in front of him.
"Private Jayson, what can I help you with? Did you want to purchase something from my stall? Is my sales bot not working?" He was nervously rattling off questions. He was not good at the sales part and also didn't understand why this man was helping him at all.
"What can be made with this?" as he summoned the Advanced tier beast core to his hand while he had it hidden behind his back. Placing the core in the forger's hand his eyes lit up with anticipation.
"I don't want to fool you, I do not know the answer but I can find the answer and get back to you. Take a piece of gear as collateral that you can keep even after I'm done with my research." Andrei smiled at the excitement in the young forger's face and knew he found the right guy. By the way Jayson was holding on to the core one would think it was fragile, cores could be used as large cannon balls, standard cores usually end up being used as ammo.
Andrei browsed the shop and decided he was going to sell all of his Standard beast cores on the GTN so that he could get rid of his Standard gear and get Intermediate from his new favorite forger.
His cores started selling and soon he had enough to cover the cost of any four pieces of gear that Jayson was selling so Andrei took the rest that hadn't sold off the market. He wasn't sure if they would be worth something besides credits down the line and he didn't need to hold onto credits for any particular reason currently.
Andrei started interacting with the stalls interface to select and try-on the gear. Slight adjustments could be automatically made based on the user's build so a quick scan was done of Andrei's body and then what he searched for popped up with the options Jayson had created.
[++Intermediate Chest Piece of Mental Power]
[+10 Agility + 5 Strength]
[+1 Biotics +1 Lightning]
[+ 50 Defense]
This opened up two new skills for Andrei when he placed them on. He put his Standard Chest Piece on the GTN to sell for 1 credit and it sold instantly. He figured someone had a bot to automatically purchase such sales. Andrei figured he would do the rest with his standard but maybe put a bit more for the boots as they were a + gear.
He selected the only option left under Lightning which was labeled as "Shock". Then looking at the Biotics tab he figured "Mirror Image" would help but went with "Barrier".
[New Skill learned: "Shock" LVL 1]
["Shock" will stun the opponent for as long as contact is maintained. The stun will cancel once contact is lost or opponent can cancel/counter]
[-20 Spirit per second used]
[New Skill learned: "Barrier" LVL 1]
["Barrier" can be summoned at any desired location within 30 yards of the user. Persists for 5 seconds. Breaking the barrier will slow down the opponent momentarily.]
[-100 Spirit per use]
He was looking forward to testing out both of them. Lightning element seemed to be extremely powerful so he started to pay more attention to gear with that stat line and figured he should start using it even if it's overkill.
[++Intermediate Leg Armor of Opposites]
[+10 Agility +5 Stamina]
[+1 Element Water + 1 Element Fire]
[+20 Defense]
The +1 to Fire opened up the last available power "Dragon's Breath".
[New Skill learned: "Dragon's Breath"
["Dragon's Breath" is a massive ball of fire that can travel in a straight line from the user's mouth up to 10 yards.]
[++Intermediate Gloves of Beasts Wrath]
[+10 Agility +5 Spirit]
[+ 1 Pet Slot + 1 Pet active]
[+10 Defense]
Andrei was super excited seeing the chance to have another pet with Fluffy, he was hoping his helm would work so he would have two clone pets out as well. He was developing his own pet army, he pondered. Probably will never get rid of these gloves was his last thought about his near gear.
[++Intermediate Boots of Constitution]
[+20 Strength]
[+2 Constitution]
[+25 Defense]
This made his "Skin Hardening" skill to level up to 3 and it had a new description.
["Skin Hardening" allows for the user to block and defend themselves. The higher the skill the more dense the skin will become as well as the desired area will react faster. Skin has hardened to the point that Standard weapons can not pierce even without activating the skill.]
After swapping his gear out and selling the old on the GTN in his mind, Andrei said goodbye to Jayson who mumbled a bye not really paying attention. He was wondering how he could work on his abilities and combat skills when his mini-map flashed a yellow and the arrow appeared to the southwest.
That is when he saw Jojo Dojo stall setup but next to the stall was VR pods. Walking up to it he noticed that the sign had rules. Your abilities mean nothing when you run out of spirit, one must master all forms of combat. Enter Jojo's Dojo and compete to be the best at Hand to Hand combat. "He has his own VR game?" Andrei quizzically thought to him.
No one was using the five pods setup next to the stall and when Andrei entered one he expected to have to pay to open the door, instead it opened and he walked right in kinda surprised. He then loaded the VR experience and was just like in real life at Jojo's Dojo when he first found his powers.
Then Jojo appeared doing his typical chin rub with his right hand while supporting the arm with his left hand on the elbow. The VR Jojo then went on a spiel about the importance of Hand to Hand combat and then proceeded to demonstrate the basic attacks that they had all learned already in class. The VR could sense his frustration and a "Start" button appeared in front of Andrei.
"Level 1 Begin!" Jojo's disembodied voice spoke and a generic humanoid grey figure appeared in a fighting stance. The bot then proceeded to attack Andrei at a slow speed. Andrei actually was wondering if he had accidentally activated "Adrenaline Rush" but it was just the level 1 bot.
Andrei proceeded to make it to level 10 and before it started VR Jojo appeared with a statement "Beat this next opponent and you will learn techniques. Lose to this opponent and start from the beginning". This was quite the challenge for most people to make it to level 10 but Andrei felt everything was simple.
Andrei decided to take it seriously and activated "Adrenaline Rush" which like his first fight in Duel he was able to finish off the opponent before the skill deactivated. It also leveled up at the same time as he defeated the opponent.
[Skill level learned: "Adrenaline Rush" LVL 2]
["Adrenaline Rush" Gives the user enhanced speed, vision, control for 3 seconds. 15 Second cooldown, cooldown can be reduced by multiple factors, including early cancelation]
Andrei continued to dominate the levels making it to level 50. The VR Jojo appeared again and proclaimed "This is the final test, if you can win this fight you will be in the 1% of the Galaxy in Hand to Hand combat."
The final boss was Jojo himself as the character made a fight stance right after finishing what he said. "Skill Sap" Andrei thought maybe the VR version would count as a different opponent.
[New Skill learned: "Elemental Fists" LVL 1]
["Elemental Fists" encases the user's fists in the user's elemental attunement. Based on the attunement the "Elemental Fists" will have different effects on the punch. The current level only allows for one Element.]
[-1 Spirit per second channeled]
VR Jojo then started his attack. The speed of it was significantly faster than what he remembered just the last opponent being. Andrei ducked out of the way just in time, then stayed on the defensive as VR Jojo was relentless. The attacks continued and Andrei was only defending for what seemed like an eternity to him.
That is when he noticed the slight opening and took it. "Snap Dragon Kick" and it landed on the thigh of Jojo who was now knocked off its rhythm and Andrei took the attack. "A Thousand Fists" Andrei thought and his hands went to work. The VR Jojo blocked all of the attacks and left Andrei wondering how to attack next. "Hurrican Kick" and VR Jojo shifted out of the way.
VR Jojo went back on the offensive and the blocks that Andrei had to use were starting to use up his Stamina. The fighting went back and forth with neither yielding much of an opening. Andrei then decided to go off the board completely and slapped VR Jojo across the face, this caused it to lose its balance again and Andrei was able to get a perfectly timed "Snap Dragon Kick" right to the VR Jojo's temple.
The VR Jojo went flying across the Dojo and a big "Congratulations" screen appeared in his view. Then something completely unexpected was that Jojo himself appeared on a video call and it appeared it was live since Jojo was quickly clearing off paperwork that was in the camera's view.
"Cadet Andrei? Is that you?" Jojo inquired through the video call.
"Private now sir." Andrei politely corrected his former teacher.
"Well call me impressed, you actually are the first to ever beat my game, I thought no one would ever since the previous record was somewhere in the 20's." Jojo announced while trailing off as if it was some stat he had rattled off from his head and now wasn't sure if that was correct.
"My goal was to congratulate the winner then offer them a free lesson in how to achieve your life force in its final form. I have called this Zii as I believe it's the end form of all of us. The lesson is simple. I want you to close your eyes and think about what you did to activate beast weapons."
"Now I want you to focus on that energy. The only thing in your mind is that energy. You must focus on it and think of nothing else. My voice should start to fade away as you focus more and more on that life force inside of you."
Andrei hadn't moved a muscle and Jojo was observing to see what reaction would happen. The few that he had taught this to have a physical reaction, changes to their body would happen almost instantly when someone connected with their Zii. He was not surprised when nothing happened since it would take the few he taught months to figure it out. The fact that someone who just graduated Cadet was able to beat his highest setting he figured there might be a reaction of some sort.
That is when not one but all of Andrei's freckles lit up, the light from each was intense, radiating light rays were extending out of his skin from the freckles, gold in color. Andrei opened his eyes and saw his body light up.
[New Zii Skill unlocked: "Final Form: Rage"]
["Final Form: Rage" can be activated to boost the user's base stats. Energy of the universe has been amplified in the user's own life force, Strength/Agility/Spirit/Stamina all increased by 1,000,000%. Time spent in Final Form is 1 minute. The cooldown for "Final Form" is 10 hours.]
He checked out his interface and was unable to see a new Ability tab for Zii but he got a new Zii skill. He found the Zii skill with his "Snap Dragon Kick" in the first Skill tab that was labeled "Skills". "Adrenaline Rush" was in there with "Skill Sap" and it seemed like as he learned new abilities they would sort themselves out, or maybe he was always bound to learn the ones under "Skills" Andrei hadn't figured out the true story. "Elemental Fists" was also located in this section.
Andrei stepped out of the VR Pod and was delighted to see it was night time and didn't have to come up with an excuse to go home. He was tired from beating Jojo's Dojo game and a good night's rest was needed.
"Portal Home" he thought and discovered that Mini was already there with all her gadgets she had been working on. "Protypes for mechs" she would mumble if you asked her about it while working. She did not have the ability to multi-task when it came to concentrating on the task at hand. She could multi-task when she thought about it and put her mind towards that objective but that was only in specific circumstances.
Andrei noticed in the corner was a baby mech that looked to be barely bigger than Mini, then it hit him that it was a Mini Mech for Mini. "You realize you have a mini mech that is designed by and for Mini? It's kinda funny when you say it out loud like that. Mini's Mini Mech" He jabbed at Mini who was lost in her train of thought.
Andrei had never told her to move in, she never said she was going to move in, Mini just moved in. Andrei didn't know if this was a good thing or a bad thing but he knew that he was not going to start complaining.
Mini turned around knowing she lost her train of thought and was not going to get it back. She looked up at Andrei and was shocked, "What happened to you?" with a concerned look. Andrei did not know what she meant and she grabbed him and pulled him over to her mirror and had him look at himself.
"Am I too sexy now, is that the problem?" Andrei playfully jabbed at his new roommate. But he did look in the mirror and realized his jawline just changed, his eyes were sunken in a bit more, and his hair had grown. He also thought he might be wider than he used to be but wasn't sure if it was the mirror playing tricks.
The two of them cuddled up on the bed and Andrei was out quickly. Mini was lying there thinking about how much she had seen him grow in just the 30 days they had known each other and without thinking about it had activated her powers to talk to computers. She then received a weird response from her ability, it was like when she would try to hack her brother's equipment it would give her a slight shock.
The next morning after their routine Mini decided to inquire about what she felt the night before. She figured that honesty would get the best response from him so she admitted that she accidentally used her powers on him. Then she explained the coincidence of what had only happened when trying to talk to her family's equipment that they had locked her out of.
Andrei knew she didn't have to share this with him and with a warm smile decided that he would confide in her the system that was injected into him when Sam was killed. She actually enjoyed when he would tell stories of his past but she instantly shot up when he mentioned the Goliath protocol.
"How long did you say till it is online?" She had cut him off mid sentence wanting to know the answer.
"Um, I didn't, let me see…" While he searched for the answer trying to remember where it would be, he opened up his quest log and sure enough the timer was visible for the quest reward to be received. "If my math is right, midnight tonight."
"Please let me see it! I want to see it!" Mini was really excited, similar to when she talks about mechs.
"I don't even know what it is, why are you so adamant about seeing Goliath?" Andrei inquired, not sure what she knew.
"Ok so I don't want to spoil the surprise but you have to promise me that you will allow me to help out with Goliath?" she responded to his question with her own question.
"I don't even know what I am agreeing to but you are so excited right now I can't say no" with that they finished their morning routine and headed out to see what else they could get into. That is when he also disclosed "Mini's Alarm Clock" and how she was responsible for making him twice as powerful every day she woke him.
Mini had a devilish grin on her face the rest of the day as she was planning to make her man even more happy. She wasn't sure when she was going to pull it off but she knew exactly what she wanted to do.
The two of them toured the campus grounds, Andrei introduced Mini to Jayson who was quite awkward introducing himself to Mini. Andrei showed Mini the Jojo Dojo but she did not feel like trying it out. It sounded to her that it would be a lot of work and take a long time and she was just wanting to spend time with him before SPRU training tomorrow.