Chapter 57

KILL QUEST

Alexander spun lazily on the stool, holding his favorite drone in his hands. Little had changed in the few days since the System’s reveal.

The workbench was a place of chaos. To one side sat the alien cube, still giving off pulses picked up by his Technopathy. Still refusing to yield any secrets.

Only now there was one more secret it kept.

On the first night back, Alexander had pushed himself through fatigue and distraction, focusing on repairing the two lesser drones. The damage had been almost beyond repair, with their outer shells sheared all the way through, destroying many of the internals along the path of destruction. He’d persevered, stripping them down and replacing components, reinforcing newly identified weak points, then finally replacing the armored outer layers with some of the starship armor he’d stolen.

Bought.

They were sturdier and more refined, but still not nearly good enough to replace his favorite drone.

Also stolen.

He frowned. Am I becoming a thief? So far, it’s been a few hovercars, but only in an emergency. Then it was a pile of treasure, though I suppose that’s mostly Auggy’s doing. Yeah, that’s not on me. The drone was recompense. And the armor was purchased. Not my fault she misunderstood how I was going to carry it. Making Max pay for my milkshake… Well, that’s a fair exchange for the intel I provided. Santiago’s blueprints and secrets… Hm, they started it, so it doesn’t count. And the magic armor from the knights was obviously legitimate spoils of war.

“Nope,” Alexander concluded to himself, “not a thief.”

He tossed the drone into the air mid-spin, then caught it when he rotated back around. One side of it had been damaged, with a hairline fracture running horizontally across its face. Metallokinesis pulsed, sinking into the drone and feeling for the damage. It was gone.

The second day back had seen him buried in the workshop with projects. Deciding between them had given him decision paralysis for longer than he wanted to admit. Flipping a coin, and maybe giving it the tiniest of nudges, had seen him examining the knight’s magic armor.

And it was most certainly magic.

Sure, the material itself was only a little stronger than steel, but it was also exceedingly light and much more flexible. And that flexibility had solved a problem that he’d been stuck trying to solve ever since he’d seen an emerald glint in the sky.

He wasn’t ashamed to admit it. He was envious.

Alexander wanted a fucking dragon.

He wanted to see the look on Maximilian’s face when, one day, a giant metal dragon fell from the sky and beat up his inferior dragons.

Creating the frame and shaping it would be easy enough. Anyone with a brain and enough time and metal could do that. No, he’d been stuck with three relatively minor problems.

The first was figuring out how a metal dragon might fly. Metal wasn’t the most suitable material for a wing’s membrane, and he refused to resort to something like leather. That would be like admitting defeat. Hoverdragon had a nice ring to it, but it also felt like avoiding the problem.

The knight’s enchanted armor solved that problem, though he'd need a lot more of it. Bonus points because the armor had been slowly self-repairing itself.

The second issue lay in having robust, advanced internals. He could solve the power system with money, but he knew that off-the-shelf cybernetics wouldn’t be good enough for his needs. The forces involved with falling from the sky and crushing your scaled, emerald enemy would undoubtedly destroy basic parts like that.

Especially if designed for human size and weight.

No, he’d need superior designs that could be scaled up. That problem was solved now that he had the entire catalogue of Santiago Systems cybernetics, including their cutting edge, yet-to-be-released-to-the-public…

Alexander had almost forgotten. He’d released them all to the public.

Does that count as theft? Surely not. It’s more like… being a modern-day Robin Hood, right?

“Yeah. Still not a thief.”

What he needed now was a full workshop rebuild, including some of the latest nanoscale 3D printers. That would not be a problem now that they were rich. He just had to convince the team to let him dip into the operational funds, because his personal wallet would not cover it.

The ultimate problem had been something he didn’t know how to solve. Off-the-shelf mechatronics and artificial intelligence systems would simply not be good enough for his masterpiece.

Unfortunately, his research had led him to realize that while the field of AI was far more advanced in this universe, compared to his own, all hints of true artificial intelligence had so far been met with planetary glassing and species extinction at the hands of the Galactic Council.

And then he learned about Animachina. It was obvious to him, perhaps even too obvious, what it might be capable of. If it synergized with Technopathy the same as his other powers did, it would likely mean granting a semblance of life, perhaps even a soul, to a machine.

Machines. Like a behemoth-sized metal dragon.

Maybe a starship.

Or Droney.

Alexander casually tossed the drone into the air once more, watching it spin, before catching it again.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

He had spent hours yesterday trying to force his new power to work. The worst part was that he could never admit the lengths he’d gone to.

At first, he had tried standing still and Willing it into existence, knowing that Willpower was such a powerful factor in everything they did. That hadn’t worked, so he’d moved on to hand signs, sketching awkward shapes in the air like some bargain-bin sorcerer.

Then he tried shouting, ‘Soul power, go.’ That had been the low point, the words echoing around him until he wanted to crawl out of his own skin.

When that failed, he decided maybe it needed blood. A nicked finger later, and he was bleeding on the drone like an idiot, waiting for it to come to life. It hadn’t.

There had been other ideas, too, like holding the drone and his breath until he nearly blacked out to simulate possibly dying. Speaking to his soul and asking it to wake up. Finally, he’d surreptitiously tried planting a kiss on its dome.

None of it had worked, of course.

Which had forced Alexander into a corner. A long time back, he’d seen the term ‘ensouled machines’ referenced in the information on how his Blackout technique worked. Knowing that the System acknowledged the existence of machines with souls, and that he now had a superpower basically called ‘give a machine a soul’, he’d realized there might be a way to exploit his way into revealing the power.

It wasn’t free, though.

The price was using up a Technique slot to accomplish something that might be a basic feature of the power.

Alexander had decided the cost was worth it. And so he’d reached into Droney with all of his powers, straining them to the limits in a way that he hoped would shape his intentions.

And uttered his second technique into existence. “ENSOULMENT.”

A wave of exhaustion had swept over him, forcing him to drop the drone as he nearly passed out.

After recovering enough, and pulling up his Status, he saw two new entries right where they should be. The fourth superpower differed from the others, though, and there was no explanation as to why.

Animachina | Class S, Tier 1 | 1 / 3

Mastery ✧ 17%

Having a line claiming mastery was an interesting joke, given he had absolutely no control over it at all.

That it showed one of three, and he’d also gained a new Technique, implied the trick had been a success.

Ensoulment

Grant a fragment of your soul to a machine, protecting and enhancing it with your Will. An Ensouled Machine can develop sapience, but remains bound to its owner. As such, it cannot Dream.

1 / 3

(Note: Ensoulment capacity is increased with each Tier of Willpower Ascension. One at Tier 1, an additional two at Tier 2, and so on.)

However, once he’d picked up Droney, nothing appeared different. Not to his eyes, and not to his senses.

Shaking it, talking to it, even threatening to recycle it had changed nothing.

So, Alexander had dropped it on the workbench next to the other annoying piece of tech he had—the blue-black alien cube—and gone to bed.

And found something different the next morning.

Droney had somehow absorbed part of the alien cube. The hairline fracture was gone, replaced with the alien composite. And over it, shaped like a visor that wrapped around the face of the drone, was a whole layer of the stubborn material.

Nothing else had changed. The drone still functioned as normal, though it appeared the new visor-material gave the drone a wider field of view, and even enhanced its visual acuity.

Alexander sighed and placed it back on the workbench. Opposite where the cube lay.

Still, he’d learned something from this accident. The blue-black cube wasn’t a hyper-advanced computer, nor simply a block of fancy geometric layers. The device remained a mystery, but he was leaning toward it being some kind of advanced alien repair tool. Maybe designed to affect automatic repairs onboard a starship.

Alexander turned to the magic armor with a thoughtful look. If Ensoulment worked how he thought, and he wasn’t ready to give up on Droney just yet, then he might have just solved his intelligence problem.

With a smile, he pulled the armor to him and began shaping sections into small, overlapping scales.

He’d start with a prototype. A proof of concept. It would still require expanding the workshop, and he’d have to miniaturize some of the cybernetic designs, but with the blueprints it should be doable.

Alexander settled in, focused on the work. Hours slipped by.

Until a sound interrupted his thoughts. Frowning, he pulled up the notification.

[SYSTEM MESSAGE]

Greetings, EARTH_1. Congratulations to the victorious Dreamers of the first multiversal engagement.

Thank you for your patience. Universal and Multiversal Bounty System calculations are complete. Interfacing with the Galactic Bank is complete.

The Universal Bounty System ranks your place according to power and accomplishments against all other Dreamers in your universe. All Dreamers in your universenow have a bounty.

In keeping with your chosen theme, you will receive the bounty payout for successfully eliminating those of your opposing faction, whether SUPERVILLAIN or SUPERHERO. Eliminating a member of your own faction results in receiving only 10% of the total bounty.

The Multiversal Bounty System ranks your place according to power and accomplishments against the Dreamers of every other universe. All Dreamers

now have a multiversal bounty.

The first System message was immediately followed by a second.

[SYSTEM MESSAGE]

Greetings, EARTH_1. To celebrate the successful launch of Phase One, and the completion of the Bounty Systems, the first Multiversal Individual Combat Challenge will occur 7 days from now.

Participation in offensive multiversal engagements is voluntary. However, your Dream must always be defended, and defensive multiversal engagements are mandatory.

As an incentive for participation, your first Quest is being issued.

[QUEST]

Multiversal Individual Combat Challenge

Voluntary

Join the first Multiversal Individual Combat Challenge and emerge victorious, having proven your Dream superior to a participant from another universe! Dreamers will be matched against desirable Dreams of similar strength where possible.

The following rewards will never be offered again.

Reward: Partial obtainment of the slain Dreamer’sDream. Examples: Superpower, Soulbound Spellbook, Cultivator’s Core, Faith Enchanting, Entropy’s Touch, Saurian Hybrid-form.

(Note: Partial obtainment of an ability will preferentially enhance your Dream, but may take an alternative form if incompatible.)

ACCEPT? YES | NO

Time remaining: 6 days, 23 hours, 57 minutes.

Alexander sighed and started packing away his tools. He could already hear Annie shouting from the living room, and the thumping footsteps coming to ruin his peace.