The last of the hairless, multi-jointed predators dissolved into a slurry of raw molecules as the NOM module finished its harvest. Robert stood in the gore-stained snow of the nameless wilderness, his energy bar pulsing a deep, violent blue. He had no map, no compass, and no idea where "The Continent" even was. He was just a soldier standing in a prehistoric nightmare that defied every survival manual he'd ever read.
TASK COMPLETE: INITIAL SURVIVALREWARD: 500 Credits.BONUS UNLOCKED: Starter Gift Pack - "The Founders Edition".INITIALIZING DEPLOYMENT...
The air didn't just shimmer; it fractured with the sound of a thunderclap that shook the pines.
In a violent explosion of white light, a massive, sleek structure of carbon-lattice and reinforced steel materialized directly into the side of a jagged cliff. It was a CryNet Deep-Research Command Post, looking like a fallen star against the primitive, unmapped peaks.
Robert staggered back, his Tactical Visor screaming with proximity alerts as the heavy blast doors hissed open, venting pressurized air into the freezing woods. Out of the fog stepped thirty men and women in C.E.L.L. tactical uniforms and lab coats. Leading them were the two men Robert had only ever seen on a screen or through a life-support tank.
Jacob Hargreave and Karl Ernst Rasch.
Hargreave looked decades younger, walking with a cane but with a spine made of steel. He ignored the strange, alien flora, his eyes locked on the Crysis System windows floating in the air.
"Commander Taylor," Hargreave said, his voice carrying the chilling authority of a man who owned the future. He stopped at the edge of the snow, peering at Robert's HUD data. "This... 'System.' It creates matter from data and pulls an unidentified atmospheric radiation from the air as if it were a common battery. It is the most elegant violation of thermodynamics I have ever witnessed."
Rasch followed, looking remarkably relaxed for a man who had just been teleported into a wilderness. He kicked a clump of snow and looked at the jagged horizon. "Relax, Jacob. You'll bore the boy. Personally? I'm just glad to be out of the tube." He looked at Robert and gave a mock salute. "No Ceph, no world-ending spores... just a fresh start. Though I have to say, the air here feels... charged. Like we're standing inside a particle accelerator."
Robert stared at them, his mind struggling to bridge the gap between his memories of a game and the physical reality of the men before him.
"Hargreave. Rasch," Robert said, his voice filtered and bass-heavy through the suit. "I don't know where we are. The stars don't match any charts, and the 'radiation' you're talking about... the suit is eating it. It's infinite."
"An exotic energy source," Hargreave mused, tapping his cane against a rock. "It isn't electricity, nor is it thermal. It behaves like a sentient wave-form. I want samples. I want to see what happens when we lace a Nanosuit with this 'Ambient Chaos'."
Rasch smiled, looking toward the distant smoke of a settlement Robert hadn't noticed yet. "And I'll handle the logistics. If we're going to survive, we need to build. I'll start work on basic infrastructure—maybe show these locals what a real lightbulb looks like, once we find out who they are."
Robert looked at the two men—the architect of evolution and the master of logistics. He finally had his command.
"We need a 360-degree sweep of this AO," Robert ordered, turning toward the high-tech sanctuary. "We don't know what's out there, and I want to know exactly what kind of 'energy' is powering my suit before it decides to melt my brain."
Inside the pristine white corridors of the CryNet Command Post, the air was climate-controlled and smelled of ozone—a sharp contrast to the rotting musk of the woods outside. Robert stood at a glass terminal as Jacob Hargreave analyzed the "Exotic Energy" telemetry.
"It's erratic, Robert," Hargreave muttered. "The energy doesn't follow a linear path. It reacts to intent. To biology. I need more than air scans. I need the lifeblood of this world. Go out there. Bring me everything that breathes, grows, or crawls."
NEW MISSION: THE BIOLOGICAL ARCHIVEObjective: Harvest 10x Flora samples, 5x Fauna samples.Reward: 2,000 Credits.
Robert didn't argue. For days, he haunted the woods like a ghost, his Tactical Visor tagging glowing moss and energy-saturated predators. Each kill was fed into the NOM module, but instead of just fuel, the System was stripping data.
By the time he returned, the System chimed with a massive notification. Robert gasped as the Polymath trait forced decades of scientific expertise into his neural pathways. He now understood the molecular structure of his nanites as clearly as his rifle's fire rate. He spent his newly earned points to purchase the CryNet Scientific Database and trigger another summoning.
"Summoning: Dominic H. Lockhart and C.E.L.L. Tactical Squad," Robert commanded.
A ripple of distortion tore through the hangar. Out of the light stepped a man in a high-collared tactical coat, his face etched with scars. Dominic Lockhart looked around the lab with his signature cynical sneer, followed by a squad of C.E.L.L. operatives who snapped to attention.
"So," Lockhart rasped, his voice gravelly. "I die in a flooded New York, and I wake up in a damn refrigerator in the middle of a forest. You the one in charge of this circus, Taylor?"
Robert stepped forward, his suit's plates shifting with a metallic hiss. He looked at the C.E.L.L. squad. In his world, C.E.L.L. eventually became a corrupt force of debt-slavery and "skinning labs" run by greedy board directors. But as he scanned these men, he realized the System had plucked the original breed—the professional military contractors, not the later-generation goons.
Karl Ernst Rasch stepped up beside Robert, watching Lockhart with an amused expression. "Easy, Commander," Rasch said, leaning against a console. "You've got to understand the distinction. These aren't the brainless goons you saw working for the later corrupt board directors. Those were just thugs following orders from men who couldn't see past their own bank accounts. These boys? They're the professionals—the ones who still remember that C.E.L.L. was meant to be an elite enforcement and logistics unit."
Lockhart's lip curled, but he gave a sharp, begrudging nod to Robert. "Hmph. At least the gear works. My boys are ready to sweep the perimeter. Just don't expect me to start hugging trees."
Robert turned back to the monitors, his new scientific mind already calculating the molecular density of the samples he'd collected. "Lockhart, get your men on the walls. Hargreave, start the synthesis. We're not just surviving anymore. We're accelerating."