Weapons of Mass Destruction

Three days pass and the weather only seems to grow colder and harsher; the snow, despite frequent cleaning, begins to collect against the tents. The skies grow darker and many times a person can barely see a few steps ahead of them.

Yet we continue as before.

Sophie, Aaron, Dennis, and I continue to help in the workshop and work towards gaining access to more and more advanced parts and information all the while absorbing as much knowledge as we can.

Lily, guarded by the others, is often called to heal as more and more of our smaller expedition units find themselves stumbling upon mimics near our camp and are forced to fight them.

One thing’s for sure, sooner or later the enemy will notice the quantity of mimics dying in this area and send someone stronger to take a look.

I also have to wonder why we’ve been sent here in such a rushed manner why we didn’t spend more time in the rear to continue fixing the parts there. Especially since Exoria and Praxion still seem to be damaged in much the same state they were in before we left. Our mission seems to be important, urgent even, That’s the only reason we could have been sent here so unprepared.

One of the smaller groups of mercenaries eventually decides to rebel against the lumorans, taking a few technicians as hostages and threatening to kill them. It’s a dumb decision, but it speaks to their desperation. They just ask for some equipment so they can leave, nothing else. They know they won’t survive in that cold as they are.

Group 4 watches with the other mercenaries as Serabeth kills them all without leaving so much as a scratch on a single lumoran technician.

The mercenaries’ bodies implode into small balls of flesh or find themselves pressed into the ground under the incredible gravity, squished into once sentient pancakes.

“What? Now?!” I hear Maya gasp in surprise.

I pay it no mind and upon reaching the tent that serves as her “office”, I send a signal.

After a bit of hesitation, the canvas flap opens and I enter to be welcomed by a warm orange light and a clean, minimalistic room aside from the two dozen plants littering the shelves in one of the corners. Serabeth is sitting in her chair behind a wooden table and I grab a chair and wait for her nod before taking a seat.

“So, I begin. I’ve been wondering if you know what’s going on or if you’re like us, left in the dark, and my opinion on the matter just keeps changing. One day I think you know something and a few hours later I suspect you know nothing.”

“What conclusion did you settle on?”

“You have to know something, but even you don’t know everything. They’re probably limiting the number of people who know, just in case a mimic takes over. It’s also possible, you being you, that you’ve been trying not to think about it, that way if you were to fall to a mimic, it wouldn’t be able to get the information out of you.”

“That’s a reasonable conclusion. In that case, if you came here to ask any of that…”

“I did not. I want to join the scouts for a few runs.”

"No. You’re too valuable right now. Even Quent seems to like you, surprisingly enough. Personally, I find you to be a pain in the ass, but the technicians clearly see something in you." 𝘳Ã𝐍ôВÈš

“I can join scouts in my free time and…”

"No, this conversation is over. Do you think I don’t know about Dennis and Aaron rummaging through our storage? I’m aware they took one of the smaller tents and some supplies. I also know about the connection you’re making to our array and I saw you examining the Signature Isolation Framework."

She leans closer, her golden eyes dangerous. “All of this was allowed by me because of the value your team brings to the table and the fact you know so annoyingly well where the line is, and haven’t stepped over it, Nathaniel.”

"I’m not naïve enough to think you wouldn’t notice—it’d be pretty lame if you didn’t. But I also know that heading out with the scouts still stays on the right side of that line."

Serabeth groans, and I feel the pressure on me increasing as pale blue mana swirls inside her crystalline features.

“What do you expect to get out of it?” she asks, clearly annoyed.

“Honestly? I’m not sure yet.”

Her eyes harden even more, but I know I’m still within that line.

“Fine. You may go scouting with tomorrow’s group. And Nathaniel…”

I nod, “If I break the rules, I will be killed.”

Leaving group 4 in the care of Biscuit and to a lesser extent Tess, I head for the meeting spot. All my pyramids are dissipated, The Restrictive Training Emblem is turned off, as are my Burden Enhancement Inscriptions.

Even though I have been working a lot, my crown is humming with a decent amount of mana, not to mention my body with its boosted mana pool after my Primary Class upgrade.

And with my daily training, both on my own and with the other members of our group, my skills have also been leveling nicely, bit by bit.

Active skills (10/10):

Focus - Lvl 60

Perception - Lvl 55

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Redistribution - Lvl 58@@novelbin@@

Mana Domain (Pride) - Lvl 57

Mana Crown - Lvl 52

Mana Manipulation - Lvl 62

Ley Line - Lvl 47

Bone Knitting - Lvl 29

Eclipse - Lvl 16

Empyrean Lance - Lvl 11

Part of my mind tunes in to the lumoran archer, our leader for this scouting expedition, as he explains the rules. Rules I already know which he nevertheless proceeds to remind everyone of. Breaking any of them will get you killed, whether by the mimics, the weather, or the Lumorans themselves.

All fun stuff.

The group consists of 10 members, Myself included. Five lumorans, two humans, and two thylarin mercenaries. Three of the lumorans are likely approaching level 400, and the rest of the group hovers around levels 300-350.

It’s clear that our group chose one of the more challenging options on this floor, judging by the average levels of everyone around us. If we had gone to the 6th Front instead, we’d likely be encountering people around level 300 or lower.

Following our leader’s instructions, I adjust my clothes and put on the amulet they gave me. It uses a mana battery to make the cold more bearable, a function that will last for 12 hours before needing a recharge.

I’m also connected to something akin to the link the twins can create, though it’s not quite that expansive. This connection apparently allows for the transmission of simple orders: things like “attack,” “fall back,” and “enemy on the left.”

When we pass through the defensive array, the mood shifts and the atmosphere changes as we trudge through the snow, our superhuman bodies easily moving it aside. But the cold increases and the wind strengthens, making audible conversation nearly impossible.

We walk for only a few seconds, but when I look back, the Exoria Deployment Camp is nowhere in sight. It’s not just the weather obscuring it—its defensive and camouflage arrays are clearly working together to conceal it as well.

Disconnected from the twins’ link and Sophie’s web and even forced to cut off my Ley Lines, I feel a sense of dread at that sight. My heart thumps and I feel a chill down my back not caused by the weather.

How easy it would be to never find that camp again, passing by time and again for hours on end, without ever managing to locate it, and neither my eyes nor my skills would help.

Prodded by a signal from the leader, I turn away and keep pace with the group.

For some reason, I’ve decided to try my very best to keep the leader and any other lumoran that knows the way back alive.

The biting wind intensifies the cold, but no one uses their mana; instead, we stick to relying on our equipment as planned.

We start walking in a huge circle while a few of the other members send out some kind of special detection frequencies, which I examine. They seem to be an attempt at locating mimics without a “host” in our vicinity.

A mimic without a host can take the shape of almost anything: a tree, a stone, hell, maybe even a pile of snow. The limiting factor is the mimic’s original size, and the stronger a mimic is, the larger the object it can mimic and the stronger the person it can take over.

Some mercenaries in the camp like to tell rumors about Champion-grade mimics being able to spoof entire buildings, such that they simply let people walk inside before devouring them.

Without a host, a mimic’s powers are limited, as is its intelligence. They have dangerous poison, an extremely durable body, and are great at hiding, not to mention their incredibly sharp teeth that tend to possess incredible properties the older or stronger a mimic is.

Once a mimic takes over someone, that’s it, it can’t return to its original form. That’s why they’re so selective, especially when it comes to stronger mimics.

Sometimes a powerful mimic can end up taking over a low-level lumoran, thereby having its power limited. In other cases, a weak mimic can luck out and take over a half-dead Champion, and wind up unable to fully utilize the body’s powers.

Once the mimic takes over, it has access to most of the host’s memories all the while realizing that it is, in fact, a mimic and acting to advance the mimic “cause”, or whatever it is. These “rules” change a lot when it comes to powerful mimics and the powerful beings they take over, with any number of exceptions and dozens of little things serving to influence the final result.

The current consensus is that once a mimic takes over, the host is effectively dead, leaving behind only memories that the mimic uses to impersonate them. However, there’s a rumor that there’s a unit of lumorans that has a theory about reversing the process. Some call it false hope, while others argue that even if it did succeed, the 'person they've brought back would just be a mimic with the host's memories, unaware of its true nature as a mimic.

Either way, it’s possible to resist attempts by a weaker mimic to take over. As for the stronger ones, it’s best to avoid them whenever possible or focus on taking them out from a distance.

So even though it’s not strictly necessary and I’m told I can rely on our scouts, every time we pass by a boulder or a tree covered in snow, I form a dagger and give it a stab.

I know there probably should be lines of text with a level and monster name, but at this point I expect the system to actively hide them until we truly locate them. Even though it goes “against the rules,” the system I know, hate, and love doesn’t seem to mind twisting these rules to keep the attendees from abusing them, all for the sake of the “intended experience.” That’s what I think happened to that mercenary when his class and level didn’t change despite having been taken over by a mimic.

It makes me think of another way the system twists the tutorial, about something my handler once told me—not to abuse Beyond Stay tokens to escape danger. Apparently, the more I do so, the angrier the system becomes, twisting things when I return to punish me for it.

I strongly suspect that when I abused it in the mana desert and came back, buried in the white sand and then those damned whales, that was one of these things. So I have to wonder what would happen if I were to do it again. Even so, I know I would still do it if I really needed to.

While I think about that, our scouting expedition continues, and my expectations of danger and battling monsters begin to fade after hours upon hours of uneventful scouting. The romanticized life of constant danger, hunting monsters, and evading powerful foes quickly fades into a monotonous trek through the snow in wide circles, stabbing trees and stones along the way.

It’s the same for the entire 12 hours, not a single mimic, not a single enemy presence in the area, much to the relief of some of the scouts.

We return and I intently observe the way the leader locates the camp, remembering the movement of mana around him, its frequency, and the way it affects the ambient mana around us. I even observe the movement of his body and the vibrations emanating from him.

All this information is compacted,and kept fresh by one of the 6 parts of my mind that immediately starts turning it over time and time again, [Focus] allowing me to push through that boring task and continue my efforts. I also examine the way the Signature Separation Framework examines my body.

For a moment there I wonder what would happen if it just broke and didn’t light up. Thankfully it does, and I live another day, as the lumorans calm down around me.

There are additional checks to get through before I return to our tent though. And I immediately restart my training and allow my body to radiate some heat causing my muscles to feel like they could melt—a feeling almost like jumping into a hot bath on a really cold day.

With Biscuit on my lap, I open the Beyond Community just to see what I’ve missed.

Hadwin -little pup, I will be joining you on the 7th floor in one month.