HLCRiseofthefirstnecromancer
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Chapter 59
🕑 Added 2023-04-26 03:42:00 +0000 UTCChapter 59
Drew and Sindra made their way across the community towards the newly established [Pillar of Civilization]. The citizens of Sanctuary gave them a wide berth as they went about cleaning up the battlefields and organizing the corpses of dead beasts for processing. Although a few citizens continued to follow behind the duo at a fair distance to give them space, it was obvious they were more interested in the angelic visitor than doing their jobs. Drew could hardly blame them, seeing a Valkyrie in person had likely stirred some intense emotions in the new members.
“A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away…” Sindra began.
“I take it you’ve recently seen Star Wars?” Drew asked with a knowing smile.
“Yes! They were so good! It’s a shame there were only six movies.” Sindra said, with a somewhat downcast mood.
“Trust me, it’s a good thing. There are more, but we don’t talk about them.” Drew said, with a grimace.
“Really?! I’ll have to find them next time I have free time. They can’t be that bad, the first six were fantastic.” She said, perking up.
“Uh… let me put it this way, some fans would likely prefer going through The Descent again over being forced to watch those other movies. My suggestion, watch the shows. They’re much better.” Drew said with certainty.
“There are shows?!” Sindra practically screamed, her wings flapping slightly in excitement. She quickly recomposed herself.
“Yes, one of them involves a bounty hunter, I think you’d enjoy it immensely. Now, we were talking about The System before?” Drew asked, wanting to get back to the subject that seemed important.
“Oh… right, where was I?” Sindra asked.
“I asked why your battle sisters couldn’t just run into the incursions and give the invaders the boot, and you asked me how much I knew about The System.” Drew asked, slightly amused by his friend’s interest in Earth’s movies.
“Right! The System wasn’t always present in the Multiverse. Before The System came into being, people throughout the cosmos sought power and advancement in very different ways. Some looked towards technology, while others focused on the individual pursuit of power through the primal concepts of reality.” Sindra began.
“Those people who sought power through the primal concepts of reality, and thus enlightenment, we call cultivators. From what we’ve been able to gather, the cultivators used to refine the mana of the multiverse through their bodies. They gained power by absorbing this mana and using the energy to empower themselves permanently. They sought to understand their place in the cosmos by searching for primal truths, what they called Dao.”
“The cultivators and the technological superior races constantly came into conflict with one another. Each side was extreme in their beliefs and war raged through their home universe. As their universe grew old, and countless generations of people died, some from each side grew exhausted from the conflict, and went their separate ways, isolating themselves from the universe.”
“A third faction was born from these people. The faction contained both cultivators and the technologically gifted, and we call them The Ancients. They learned to embrace their differences and find common ground while the rest of their universe burned in the fires of war. Eventually, the original two factions learned of the third, and a new war began. The purist factions set aside their war to snuff out the third, which they viewed as an abomination to everything they stood for.”
“War once again ravaged the universe, with the purists constantly assaulting the isolated Ancients. The Ancients held back the purists by using their unique combination of technology and cultivation, but the war hounded them from all sides and their enemies had far superior numbers. In their desperation, The Ancients created The System.” Sindra finished.
“Interesting, but what does that have to do with my question?” Drew asked, a bit overwhelmed with the information.
“I’m getting to that! Quit being impatient.” Sindra quipped back, her eyebrows scrunched together.
“Anyways, as I was saying, The Ancients created The System. The System’s original goal was to integrate the entire universe, eliminating the long-held powers of the purist factions. The ideology behind it was to strip their enemies of their collective powers and force them to start over from scratch, while The Ancients had time to rest, recuperate, and raise new generations of warriors using what they believed would be the combination of technology and cultivation through The System. It didn’t go as planned.” Sindra began.
“Oh boy, I think I can see where this is going…” Drew said, having read too much science fiction to not see the foreshadowing.
Sindra nodded.
“The System went far beyond its original scope. Back then, the multiverse was very new, and still limited in expanse, at least compared to now. It broke through the boundaries of The Ancient’s universe, and changed the physical laws of nature as it slowly expanded. Worse still, it did not use a combination of technology and cultivation, but rather created a brand new way to acquire power. But its original goal remained the same, to expand, to integrate, to strip civilizations of their previous powers and get them to start over from scratch.” Sindra began.
“The Ancients, even with their combined strength of cultivation and technology, were also stripped down, and forced to start over. In a last ditch effort to survive the future wrath of the original purist factions, they were able to input one last command to The System before it locked them out forever.” Sindra continued.
“What was the command?” Drew asked, clearly enthralled by the story.
“That’s where the details become a bit fuzzy, as I said this was an incredibly long time ago. But the most commonly agreed upon theory is the raising of warriors.” Sindra replied.
“Warriors? What do you mean?” Drew asked, his head slightly tilted in question.
“We believe The Ancients originally wished to be given an advantage over the other two factions, for The System to help them raise new warriors who would grow in strength. Unfortunately for them, The System accepted the command, but gave everyone an equal shot, regardless of faction.”
“Oof. I take it that The Ancients are no longer around?” Drew asked.
Sindra laughed.
“No, that was so long ago that their dust doesn’t even exist anymore. That universe collapsed into a singularity and eventually rebounded into a new universe, likely three or four times by now at least. They’re long gone.” Sindra chuckled.
“Ah, well that definitely answered one of our biggest science related questions, but what does it have to do with my question?” Drew asked.
“Conflict. We believe The System determined that the most efficient way to raise new warriors that grew in strength was through conflict. Or, that’s the best theory that we have currently. To answer your original question, we could interfere and kick out the incursions, but doing so would incur an incredibly high price to The Lady. The System wants to develop more elites and powerhouses, and as I’m sure you’ve figured out by now, battle is the fastest and easiest way to grow in power.” Sindra said, in a matter of fact way.
“So what, we’re going to be constantly forced into bullshit as long as we live? And what’s the difference if you guys go kick their asses, or if we had some super powerful warrior to do it?” Drew asked, infuriated that The System pushed this upon Earth.
“Every person and civilization is different, some will choose a more peaceful path, but conflict is rewarded with strength. As for The Lady’s Cadre, stronger forces face penalties when directly subverting The System’s goals. Remember, the goal is for your people to grow in strength, one way or another. If we, or some other force came in and just fixed everything and swept it under the rug, we’d be punished for it, and ultimately it wouldn’t benefit your people.”
“But what about all the people who have died during The Descent, all the people who die during these incursions, isn’t that counter-productive to creating strong warriors?” Drew asked angrily with a raised voice.
“Look, I get it. My home planet was integrated when I was just a child. I understand what your people are going through, but don’t take your anger out on me. I’m not The System, and I don’t make the rules. We’re able to defend your people here, and that alone wasn’t cheap. From my understanding, The Lady sacrificed a great deal of Divine Energy just to protect this tiny settlement, on this tiny speck of dirt in the incredibly vast cosmos. You should be thankful that she was willing to even go that far, because the other Divine Beings would have said ‘tough luck’.”
She was right. Drew had been out of line when he raised his voice and spoke in the manner to Sindra, it wasn’t her fault. They just got dealt a shitty hand, and now they had to make the best of it.
“I’m sorry, I apologize for raising my voice and speaking like that. You didn’t deserve it, and it was wrong of me to push my anger on you.” Drew apologized, his head turned down clearly feeling ashamed.
Sindra reached out and patted his shoulder.
“Apology accepted. Trust me, I understand your frustration. The System is neither benevolent, nor malevolent. It just is. It’s a fact of life, but that doesn’t make it suck any less. If you have any more questions about The System, ask myself or The Lady. In the meantime, let me show you how you can improve your situation here.” Sindra said, leading Drew into the Pillar.
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Drew stood inside of the [Pillar of Civilization] with Sindra by his side. Several new menus had popped up once he’d gotten near the center of the building.
“This is your Pillar, but you can think of it as the heart of your territory. Now that it has been properly established it will have new functions available to you as the settlement owner. The most important function is that it prevents monsters from spawning within its area of influence, but that’s not the only ability.” Sindra began.
“The Pillar will allow you to grow, expand, and protect your settlement. For now, options will be extremely limited due to your population, wealth, and total territory. Currently, you’re broke.” Sindra started.
“Sounds about right.” Drew muttered.
“The pillar will allow you to summon in System based stores, defensive and offensive arrays, buildings, and even technologies. Every new pillar will include a free scan of your surrounding area. This will search for valuable resources that you can later process into wealth. I recommend you use that scan now.” Sindra stated.
Drew looked through the menu options, and sure enough the winged woman was correct. All the options were currently grayed out and he couldn’t even see what they were. The only available option he had highlighted was a scan. Drew shrugged his shoulders and mentally hit the scan button.
A pulse shot out from the building and the ground rumbled, the pulse kicking up dust like a small shockwave had hit somewhere nearby. Drew coughed while waving his hand, trying to push the dust away from his face.
“Yes, this area of your planet is very dusty.” Sindra nodded her head, seemingly unaffected by the particles filling the air.
Drew continued coughing until he summoned a water canteen from his inventory and took several gulps, wiping his mouth when he was done.
“Ugh, so much crap in the air. So, what’s this scan looking for exactly? Lumber, oil, or what?”
“I’m not sure what oil is, so you can cross that off your list. It will be searching for harvestable resources. Timber is one of them, but that’s usually low value unless it exhibits special properties. It will be looking for raw resources that can be processed by craftsmen. Herbs, minerals, and natural spawning points. Anything that will allow your settlement to earn wealth.” Sindra answered.
“I see. Well, I have a feeling that I’m going to be disappointed. This is Oklahoma, there’s nothing out here except dirt. Before The Descent, we had a lot of solar and wind farms to generate electricity, and a lot of agriculture, specifically in ranching.” Drew rubbed his chin, trying to remember if there were any other major industries.
“Ranching?” Sindra asked.
“It’s a form of agriculture, I guess another word for it would be animal husbandry. Ranchers would raise animals, breed them, and then sell them for different purposes. Kinda like those animals over there.” Drew pointed out towards the pasture with the cows, goats, and horses.
“Ohh, so like the Dickens your settlement has?”
Drew grimaced.
“Yes, like those… I guess.”
*PING!*
Scan complete
Comments
Ethan Barrow
Firstly, I loved learning more about the backstop of this universe. Secondly, loving having Sindra around. Thirdly, Dicken Ranch! And lastly, thanks for another chapter!
