Chapter 24: Super Gene Immortal Chapter 24
"Sen!" Lux smiled as he looked at the holographic display that was showing Lin Beifeng, "Hurry up and get to the Shelter! I just got tipped off to a place teaming with mutant creatures. We need to hurry before someone else decides to put together a hunting party."
"Do you know what kind of creatures these are?" Lux asked.
The hologram nodded, "Some kind of insect colony that moved into an area really close to the shelter. It should only take us a few days to go out and get a lot of profit from this."
Lux sat back in his chair and glanced over to what he'd been working on today. Just more programming stuff, but he was getting more and more stuff done. He didn't need any Mutant Geno points anymore, but a colony might have a Sacred-Blood leader. So the hunt could definitely be worthwhile. After a few moments of thought Lux finally nodded.
"Give me about twenty minutes and I'll meet you at the Shelter gates." He said as he stood and started gearing up.
"Sweet! I look forward to hunting with you again brother." Beifeng said cheerily before hanging up.
Lux shook his head and quickly changed his clothes into his hunting garb before strapping his pack on and heading out. As he headed into the sanctuary Lux contemplated the fitness levels he had already achieved. The max that was just from eating creatures of the Ordinary to the Sacred-Blood ranks would be a solid 15. He wasn't sure about what the level would be from maxing out super genes, but he was pretty it was 30. With the addition of utilizing Hyper Geno Arts someone who had maxed out up to Sacred-Blood could be somewhere in the vicinity of 18 to 22. But that was really not a usual situation, and one had to be practicing the best of the best Hyper Geno Arts for results like that. Right now, Lux had measured himself and found that he was sitting at exactly 17 which he hadn't been expecting, he had thought that it was higher than that. The reason that he thought he was higher was because of the fact that [Machine Learning] made him so good at using his strength appropriately. By the time he maxed out his Sacred-Blood Geno Points, Lux was sure that he would end up being at around 20.
Things would get a lot different once he reached the Second Sanctuary. According to the statistics of the Alliance, 100 ordinary Geno points from Second God's Sanctuary could increase one's fitness by 8 to 10 points; 100 primitive Geno points could increase one's fitness by 15 to 20; 100 mutant Geno points could increase one's fitness by 25 to 30 and 100 sacred Geno points could increase one's fitness by 40 to 50. Second God's Sanctuary was vastly different from the first. There were no Shelters for humans to rest inside. There was nothing around the teleport devices. Humans were just dropped in at a random location and needed to fight on their own for everything.
Thinking about the second Sanctuary was definitely too early at this moment. Lux wasn't going to move on until he had maxed out his Super Genes even if he maxed out Sacred-Blood geno points right this second, it would still probably take a couple of years at the minimum to just find the required Super creatures, not to mention that he had no way to kill them at the moment. Even the Shura sword that he had gotten and barely ever used would be useless against a super beast. Perhaps he would be able to make a material that could solve the problem for him and actually be able to damage the super creatures but for right now he didn't know how he would accomplish that. Even though [Machine Learning was plugging away at material science along with everything else, it was kind of like it had run into a wall at this point in that regard. He needed access to information that was just not available online.
Lux was finally pulled out of his musings when he arrived at the Shelter gates and Lin Beifeng ran up to him with a smile on his face.
"Brother! Are you ready? Is everything going well with the academy?"
Lux shook Beifeng's hand in greeting and nodded, "Everything is going as well I expected."
"Good. Now let's go before we lose this chance."
Exiting the Steel Armor Shelter, Lux summoned up his newest mount, the Sacred-Blood Horned Sand Fox. And Lin Beifeng summoned up a beast soul mount that was obviously of the primitive variety.
"Beifeng! How haven't you gotten a better mount yet?" Lux asked in astonishment, "Here, Take this one."
Lux leaned over to Beifeng and transferred the Swamp Strider over to him. It was a Mutant rank mount and significantly better than the one the guy was using. Lin Beifeng suddenly had a vacant look on his face as he registered the gift.
"Brother I cannot take this for free." Beifeng stammered out.
"Nonsense. It was mine; I can do what I want with it, and I want to give it to you." Lux dismissed the refusal.
Beifeng looked contemplative for a moment before nodding to himself, "As you say, one can do what they want with their own property. I happen to have a gift for you when this hunt is finished that I think you will like."
Lux sighed; gifts were not a competition. Beifeng was a genuinely good guy, and friends looked out for one another.
Lux and Lin Beifeng moved silently through the wilds, the dense forest stretching out in all directions like an endless sea of green. The morning light filtered through the trees in soft, golden shafts, dappling the moss-covered ground beneath their feet. The air was crisp, carrying the faint smell of pine and damp earth, with a light breeze rustling the leaves overhead.
Lux, sat atop the Sacred-Blood fox mount which swiftly traversed the uneven ground. Headed into the deep forest that held their destination. Lin Beifeng followed closely behind, his newly acquired Mutant Swamp Strider keeping up with the pace if a little unevenly. Lux having to slow his mount down to allow the lower rank mount to keep up. Every movement, and every sound, was registered in Lux mind as they moved through the terrain. It was quite relaxing and almost meditative traveling this way.
"Have you noticed how quiet it is?" Beifeng asked as they moved through the forest.
Lux nodded; it was abnormally quiet. The area that they were moving through normally had a large number of creatures that would be moving about in quite a hurry. claiming food and hunting each other normally. This colony of creatures that had moved into the area were probably the reason why the local creatures were absent or hiding out.
"What kind of creatures did you say that these things were?" Lux asked.
"Some kind of large ants. My informants said that they were really close, and I pay them a lot to keep me informed."
"And this is the area where they are supposed to be?" Lux asked as they both dismounted and dismissed their mounts.
"This was the area that was reported to me. I trust the guy to have been truthful his paycheck depends on it after all."
"Alright, be ready and let's start searching around here then." Lux said as he materialized his bow and arrow beast souls.
Together Lux and Lin Beifeng moved wordlessly through the dense forest, their steps quiet but deliberate. The wilds of the Sanctuary were vast and untamed, the air thick with the smell of wet earth and rotting wood. It was easy to forget how untamed everything was since Lux usually hunted in basically impregnable armor while flying. Overhead, the canopy blocked most of the sunlight, casting the ground in a cool, dim light. The only sounds were the distant rustle of leaves and the soft crunch of the underbrush beneath their feet. Which just felt unnatural in the usually bustling activity of this particular area.
Lux walked ahead, his eyes scanning the ground intently. His bow at the ready, and arrow knocked and ready to be drawn, as he searched for any sign of the ants that they were there to hunt. He cocked his head to the side when he spotted a row circular indentations in the ground near one of the trees.
"I think that these might be the tracks of our prey Beifeng." Lux pointed out the indents on the ground.
Beifeng nodded and gestured off into the distance, "Looks like the tracks lead that way."
After a few moments of getting their bearings, Lux and Beifeng headed deeper into the forest. Following the trail as the undergrowth of the forest became sparser and sparser. They followed the trails until the ground began to slope downward, leading them into a narrow valley. Lux paused at the edge of the slope, studying the landscape before them.
That was when they finally encountered their prey. It was just a lone Ant as far as Lux could see. Lux and Beifeng froze, their bodies blending into the shadows of the forest. The ant was as large as a medium sized dog, its carapace a mottled dark blue. The ant moved slowly, its legs tapping against the ground as it crawled across their path towards its nest.
Lux drew back and loosed his Sacred-Blood Arrow in a singular smooth motion, planting the arrow directly into the ant's compound eye. It collapsed immediately, but its mandibles clacked together rapidly releasing a series of slicks that sounded like a machine gun going off.
Lux glanced over at Beifeng as a series of clicks responded from all over the forest around them. Things were about to get hectic. Within seconds groups of the ants started filtering into the area. Clacking their mandibles and zeroing in on Lux and Beifeng.
With Beifeng at his back, Lux began unleashing a storm of beast soul arrows as ants the size of pit bulls came charging from everywhere. The pair backed up as Lux did his best to thin the swarm while Beifeng put his beast soul sword to work guarding Lux.
The voice of the sanctuary was ringing through Lux's head over and over again as he killed one ant after another. Beifeng was no slouch either, he wielded his sword with precision and skill, a beast soul shield in his off hand to ward off attacks while he delivered killing blows left and right.
Fortunately for Lux and Beifengm the ants were not particularly fast creatures. Nor were they very smart. They moved so predictably that it was quite easy to just keep ahead of their movement and slaughter them as they came at the pair.
Soon enough, the duo had killed about two hundred of the things and they found themselves surrounded by the corpses alone in the forest.
"There wasn't even a single mutant in that horde just now." Beifeng cursed.
"If the ant colony can send out that many primitive workers out, then there is bound to be a ton of mutants down there where their actual nest is. Let's keep moving. These are worthless to us… Did you get a beast soul through all of that? If not, I got two of them." Lux spoke.
Beifeng nodded, "I was luckier than you in that case, I got three of them!"
Beifeng was ecstatic over getting the ant beast souls. It was usually insanely rare to get more than one beast soul from even a swarm like the one they had just killed. The fact that he had gotten a few of them was actually quite amazing. On top of that, this particular beast soul would sell incredibly well because it was an armor type beast soul that looked like a full plate armor made of crystal. Beautiful and functional. Even the primitive beast souls would go for a high price just because of how pretty they were.
The duo set off towards the source of the swarm of ants and found the hive. They were immediately beset upon by another swarm. Though this one was composed of mainly Mutant Phantom Ants, which is what the Sanctuary labeled them as. These ones were much faster and stronger than their Primitive counterparts. But between the two of them, Lux and Beifeng managed to slaughter them as they came.
Then as if on some hidden cue. A larger and more crystalline looking ant emerged from the hive. Lux barely managed to dodge out of the way in time when the thing lunged across the backs of the Mutants that were steadily getting slaughtered trying to get to him. Beifeng was absurdly lucky and somehow managed to position himself in such a way that he got sent flying only to land on his feet in a perfectly safe location.
Meanwhile, Lux unleashed his Sacred-Blood arrow and managed to land a hit that slowed down the Sacred-Blood ant that was still on his ass. He dodged backwards as a pair of crystalline mandibles snapped shut just inches away from his face. And summoned up his Mutant Quaggoth Sword beast soul while dismissing his bow due to the close range.
Slashing his sword at the weakest points he could target. Lux ended up in a deadly dance, where he slashed and stabbed at joints until he finally managed to incapacitate the Sacred-Blood Phantom Ant and then dispatched it by driving the blade of his sword through the joints between its thorax and abdomen and severing the entire thing in half.
Lux was gasping for breath, more from the excitement and exhilaration than actual need, as he stepped away from the Sacred-Blood Phantom ant that he had just slain and turned to find Beifeng dispatching the last of the Mutant Phantom ants looking like Christmas had come early.
"We did it!" Beifeng crowed as he took in the surrounding corpses, "Did you get its beast soul?"
Lux smirked and summoned his newly acquired Sacred-Blood Phantom Ant Armor around himself. Now both of his personas had armor that would probably be equally good. Though the Phantom Ant armor was crystal and clear, looking almost like a blue tinted glass plate armor.
After a brief celebration, the two of them gathered up all the mutant corpses, and the Sacred-Blood corpse before tying them all up and dragging them back to the shelter where they divided up the Sacred-Blood ant evenly. Beifeng sold off most of the Mutant corpses then told Lux to wait for him near his room.
Lux obliged and only waited for a few minutes before Beifeng returned with a suitcase smiling like a madman.
"This is something that I… well I got exclusive access to it through some connections. It's what the developers are calling a 'Super Warframe' Its transportable in a small form like this." Beifeng gestured to the suitcase, "But once you put in the code on the panel here, it deploys around you. It doesn't have any integrated weapons systems, and it is just a prototype. But this thing is top of the line as far warframe technologies go. I want you to have it. I'll never actually use it as anything other than a display piece, so I figured you might like it."
Beifeng pushed the suitcase into Lux's hands before he made hasty retreat back into his room and presumably teleported out of the shelter and back to the Alliance. Leaving Lux holding an insanely valuable, possibly illegal to own, prototype warframe.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone