Chapitre 21: Super Gene Immortal Chapter 21
The admissions testing was surprisingly fun for Lux. There was the regular fitness test that had a minimum requirement of like 9.8 for Archers, which he passed with a significantly higher rating than the minimum. Though he did keep himself in the believable range for most people. The next tests were Warframe piloting theoretical and a minor practical. Basic education test that was easier than breathing. Then there was the Archery scholarship specific tests that were a blast.
Lux was allowed to use his own bow and arrows for the testing. It was like a SWAT course, Sniper course, and midrange combat course all rolled into one. The entire test was so much fun that Lux was genuinely disappointed when it ended. Shooting moving targets that were shooting back at him had gotten his blood pumping. And landing a half mile shot with a bow and arrow, even a beast soul bow and arrow, was just awesome.
Archers had a scholarship program in the military academies even though guns and snipers were still technically superior in the alliance because at higher levels the script flipped. A Surpasser using beast soul bow and arrows was like a railcanon with infinite ammo. Not technically better than a sniper with a modern firearm, but at that level of combat a person with the correct armor and training with a bow and arrow could be considered a mobile weapons platform and was cheaper to maintain and didn't use up huge amounts of resources in ammunition. Because of all that, Archers were in high demand, yet difficult to come by because of how difficult it was to truly get good at the art. Military academies were rectifying the lack of archers by incentivizing training, but just like how even with the free Sutras that Lux had released to the public would only result a few more power houses emerging, incentives only did so much to promote the practice of archery.
Needless to say, Lux passed the admissions with grades that put him in the number one position of the newly admitted. So far at least. New admissions would continue for the next two weeks before all new students were registered and the first day of class would start in 19 days. That gave Lux plenty of time to acquire his stuff from the Steel Armor Shelter and go on a hunting trip to get more mutant geno points. He was also looking into seeing if he could post a job to get people in the alliance to use their Aura beast souls near him so that he could collect the buffs that they provided. Aura was rare, but there were at least a dozen different known Auras from between all of the sanctuaries.
The awesome thing about Blackhawk Military Academy was that they had a whole building dedicated to teleporters and it was right beside the dorms. Lux had about a minutes' walk to get from his dorm room to the teleporters which really sealed the deal in his mind that he needed to splurge to get a teleporter back home. It only took him about half an hour to move his stuff into the dorm. Which was a small room with a bed, a desk, and a small standing shower/bathroom. The room was small as hell, but it was really all he needed.
After making sure he had everything, Lux headed back into the Sanctuary and headed for a place that he hadn't explored yet. The Crags. The place was known for its variety of eusocial creatures and swarms. Swarming creatures tended to be on the smaller side, so he was pretty sure that he could get ahold of a lot of Mutant creatures that were small enough to be worthwhile hunting. The problem with the Dark swamp was that there seemed to be a lot of really big mutant creatures, but few small ones.
The wind-swept crags were just like they had been described on the Skynet. It was like someone had pressed a chain-link fence made out of barbwire over a mountain range. Huge rocky cliffs and canyons through which winds howled continuously. Lux hadn't even entered the various canyons yet and he already knew why people avoided this area like the plague.
He spotted ants the size of chihuahuas seemingly at war with what looked like termites the size of large house cats. Above the ongoing battle of nature's finest was a swarm of some kind of dragonfly that would drop and grab unsuspecting members of both armies of bug that were duking it out.
And all of that was just at the entrance to one of the canyons. This area spread out over hundreds of miles and the swarms were supposedly ever-present. Few had ever ventured deep into the area, and the only accounts he could find of those who had reported that it was all more of the same just with varying types of creatures.
When the area was first found, people had flocked to it to try and figure out a way to farm creatures up to the Mutant Rank. But soon abandoned that idea when they realized that even if you tried to strike from a distance the swarms would laser focus on the outsiders first then go back to their eternal wars.
What had not been mentioned in the forums which Lux was seeing now, was what the swarms were fighting over. Plants. Bushes with berries were being harvested by and protected by the ants. The Termites seemed to be on the offensive to take control of the ant's food source. Lux was honestly quite impressed with what he was seeing. It was fascinating to watch eusocial insects going about their daily grind no matter what anyone said. Especially in such an obvious format like what he was seeing here.
The best thing about what Lux was seeing though, was the presence of three species of Mutant creatures that were pretty well within a reasonable size bracket for consumption. The ants, the termites and the dragonflies were all small enough that he could easily use them to fill out his Mutant Geno points. Through a whole bunch of them into a big pot and boil them all up and he would just have to drink the broth to max out his points and he would more than likely be able to unlock Aster's combat form.
There were tens of thousands of creatures visible and crawling around the warzone. Of those Lux spotted a few hundred among them that were obviously different. More than likely the Mutants. He wasn't sure exactly how he needed to approach this situation. The ants and termites had jaws that, while they wouldn't be able to pierce his armor, they might be able to tie him down with pure numbers. The dragonflies didn't seem to have any true offensive weapons, but they were fast. He decided that the best play would be to fly and avoid getting dogpiled.
Unlike with the wasps before, Lux wasn't about to try and exterminate the nests of these creatures. It would probably take months of effort, assuming that he could kill the creatures faster than they were being replaced. For all he knew this place was a spawn zone or something.
Flying above the carpet of ants and termites, Lux focused on aiming for the mutants. He didn't want to do it at range because as soon as anything died in the fray the corpse was dogpiled and dragged off. Lux was going to swoop down, skewer and retreat, then repeat.
[Mutant Creature, Jade Ant, Killed. Beast soul of the Jade Ant gained. Ea-]
Lux ignored the sanctuary's voice as he lurched back up into the air. The instant that he had skewered the ant with his spear it was like a ripple went through the entire area and every ant turned directly towards him. He absolutely did not want to deal with all of that. So he had taken to the air once more. Retrieving the Mutant Ant corpse from the end of his spear and shoving it into his pack as dragonflies harassed him trying to steal his prize.
When Lux finally turned back to the ground he saw that the ants were so determined to get to him that they were creating towers of themselves into the air. Desperately trying to reach him and ignoring the termites that had decided to push hard into their territory. With a smirk he flew towards the termites and scanned them for a Mutant.
[Mutant Creature, Ivory Termite, Killed. Beast soul of the Ivory Termite gai-]
A similar phenomenon to when he killed one of the ants rippled over the hoard of termites as Lux took to the air with his second prize of the hunt. Storing away the new corpse and circling in the air. The frenzy that the ants and termites went into dissuaded Lux from trying to kill one of the dragonflies until he was absolutely ready to flee. He did not want to get dogpiled in the air and forced down to the ground. Even if he knew that he would survive just fine, he didn't want to deal with wading through a sea of savage creatures that were actively trying to eat him that might be able to immobilize him.
Lux decided to see how long this weird aggro mechanic lasted so he flew around in circles over the hoards for a good two hours before he eventually decided that they would probably stay fixated on him until he broke line of sight for a while. So he flew deeper into the canyons leaving the two armies in the dust as they attempted to pursue.
One thing to note, the winds here in the canyons would have made it impossible for anyone using regular flying type beast souls to fly here. Strange eddies and randomly swapping air currents tore up and down unpredictably and even with Lux's juiced up beast soul wings that didn't get tired it was very difficult to remain aloft as he progressed.
After flying for a good while, Lux found a good ledge to land on before pulling out the ants corpse and cracking it open. The meat inside the hard exoskeleton was amazing even raw. He ate as much as he could stomach before storing the corpse once again and taking off to search for more prey. Ignoring the notifications about geno points gained as he went.
Exploration was going quite well in Lux's opinion. The canyons were dotted with various flora from cactus to flowers and trees. Some even growing out of the cliff faces. Any plant that had fruits or flowers on it was actively surrounded by some kind of swarm or another. Lux saw a cactus that had a swarm of twelve-foot-long bright red centipedes around it. A whole orchard of what looked like peaches that was surrounded by thousands of white rabbits with ruby red eyes.
Naturally Lux swooped down and harvested samples of fruits and flowers and such. Scarfing them down and fleeing from hoards of creatures every time he did this. The rabbits were small enough that he had killed one that he was pretty sure was a Mutant before grabbing both its corpse and a peach and fleeing as a hoard of fluff zipped towards him with a vengeance.
[Mutant Creature, Caerbannog Headsman, Killed. Beast Soul of the Caerbannog Headsman gained.]
"It has huge, pointed fangs!" Lux laughed as he flew away.
Lux spent the next week flying throughout the canyons, killing a choice few mutant creatures, stealing fruits and flowers, and generally spending the majority of the time trying to eat his prey and feeding extras to Aster. But that had been all it took. He had maxed out his Mutant Geno points.
It had been… not easy, specifically. What he was doing would be suicidal for anyone else. Even for Lux he had run the risk of getting dragged down by hoards and turned into a regenerating food source for a while. But overall, it had mostly been a chore. He had upgraded a few of his buffs and gained a shit ton of unknown ones. Maxed out his Mutant Geno points and collected hundreds of beast souls.
One thing that he had noticed was that he had not seen a single Sacred-Blood creature at all. He was pretty sure that the swarms had at least one Sacred-Blood creature in their midst, but that they were probably inside the dens or hives or whatever their kind had as a base.
Making his way back to Steel Armor Shelter, Lux found Qin Xuan and traded all of the excess beast souls except the ones that he wanted to keep. By far the most common beast souls were weapons of various types. Having beast souls of every kind of weapon imaginable was not something that interested Lux. He wanted to keep specific ones because he felt like they were cool or interesting, and he wanted to save some for Han Yan too. But aside from that he cleared out his inventory.
Han Sen(Lux Luxor): Not Evolved.
Status: None.
Lifespan: 200 years.
Geno Points Required for evolution: 100 Geno Points.
Geno Points Gained: Ordinary 100(Maxed), Primitive 100(Maxed), Mutant 100(Maxed), Sacred-Blood 59, Super 0
Beast Souls Gained: Sacred-Blood Black Beetle(Armor), Sacred-Blood Bloody Slayer(Shapeshifting), Sacred-Blood Obsidian Wyrm(Weapon-Spear), Sacred-Blood Purple-Winged Wyvern(Flying), Sacred-Blood Ruby Wasp Queen(Weapon-Arrow), Sacred-Blood Crystal Armadillo(Shield), Sacred-Blood Angler Gulper(Clone), Mutant Three-eyed Cat(Pet) Mutant Yellow Winged Wasp(Weapon-Arrow)X10, Mutant Green-Scaled Beast(Weapon-bow), Mutant Red-Scaled Basilisk(Mask), Mutant Swamp Strider(Mount), Mutant Scarlet Wasp(Weapon-Arrow) Mutant Swift Mantis(Weapon-Dagger)X2, Mutant Kuo-Toa(Weapon-Net), Mutant Quaggoth(Weapon-Sword), Mutant Rust Monster(Armor)X15, Mutant Jade Ant(Weapon-Scissors), Mutant Caerbannog Headsman(Weapon-Sulthan), Mutant Rocky Kobold Shaman(Weapon-Staff), Mutant Rock Spirit(Symbiont)
Lux's beast soul collection was getting big. He didn't forget to use the Angler Gulper to make a clone of Han Sen and made sure that Qin Xuan saw them both while inside the Shelter to make any lingering suspicions that Lux was Han Sen dissipate into dust. It had been a little tricky to control the clone to talk and do things while he was negotiating with Qin Xuan over beast souls, but he'd managed it just fine.
After the successful hunt, Lux returned to his dorm in the alliance. Immediately upon teleporting out of the 1st sanctuary his commlink practically blew up with tests from his mom. She had been notified that he had successfully enrolled in Blackhawk Military Academy and was absolutely ecstatic about it. She couldn't be happier that her little Sen was making moves that would secure him a great future.
Lux called her as he walked back to the dorms, and they talked about what she had been doing in the second sanctuary. How Han Yan was doing in school, which turned out to be fantastically. And they just generally caught up and talked about nothing important. It was odd to Lux how easy it was to fall into the role of being a son to someone he hadn't known, but it was also pretty nice to have a good relationship with his mother for once in his lives.
After the chat with his mother he tried to get in contact with Zhang but found that he was probably in the 1st Sanctuary. Lin Beifeng, however, picked up after the first ring and they chatted for a while about random topics. Beifeng was extremely happy for Lux getting into such a prestigious school and was excited to talk about who the hottest chicks in class were. He wanted detailed descriptions of all the women in his class once it was assembled, even going so far as to demand pictures. Lux vehemently denied the requests and told him to go find his own hoes.
Once social obligations were taken care of, Lux whipped out his computer and started working on more games that he was going to release. That was all he was going to do alongside his Sutra practices until classes started.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
-- Classement
Power Stone 
-- Power
stone