35 Chapter 35: Hidden Treasures
[ERROR...ENERGY LEVELS RISING PAST MAX CAPACITY..]
Steam began to rise from Vulcan's body as his body overheated. Images of Jess before she was sent hurling in a fiery explosion repeated in his mind. His eyes and different parts on his body that shone with any bit of light started to glow with such intensity that if you were to stare at him, it would have you covering your eyes from the stinging pain. Messages in dark red appeared over and over again, but all he could think about were the final moments of seeing his mother in her casket as he saw her lowered onto her final resting place. Those memories were crossed with him burying Jess, but now in his new metal form.
Why had he reincarnated? Was it to suffer once more? Had anything changed from back then?... Why was he so weak!?
Just as his hearing only picked up a white ringing noise, a single line was heard in his head. It was the voice of his late father and the last thing he heard him say at his own mother's funeral.
"What a waste of time you both were. You think I didnt suffer tolerating both of you after you became a burden? You know why she's down there? Its because she was weak. Like mother, like son."
[CRITICAL DAMAGE TO CORE]
That was enough to cause Vulcan's core to soar to new heights. It may have been seconds between what had happened earlier, but to him, it was an eternity in his mind.
His body moved without thinking, going faster than he ever had before. Every step he took created massive craters on the ground.
The Alpha Wyvern looked towards him but had its neck snap upwards as he hit it with a fierce uppercut to its chin. Being hit with just that one attack made the Alpha reel back, and its eyes began to swirl as it was confused as to what had hit it.
He didn't stop there. He grabbed onto the wing that was cut apart and with immense strength pulled harder than he had ever before. An audible snapping noise was heard as the Alpha's wing was broken in two. It sounded like a large tree breaking in half. Deep pain was all the Alpha could feel as its wail was heard from miles away.
"SHUT UP YOU DAMN LIZARD!!" Vulcan appeared behind the Alpha's head and punched its mouth shut. The powerful hit caused its head to not only forcefully close but also slam against the ground.
"Your screams are only the beginning of your end." As he punched down on its well-protected neck. This caused the Alpha to let out a gurgling wail as it coughed out blood. Inspecting his arm, he found that the armor plating of the thing had destroyed his arm.
"No matter, I can do this all day." He took out a stim and injected himself; the arm healed within seconds. Thus his use of the Alpha as his punching bag began again.
His body parts would get damaged; he would stim up. Another arm is gone? Stim. His leg bent the wrong way from stomping on the thing's tail? Stim. Eventually rage consumed him and he forgot to stim, and now both his fists are gone? It didn't matter, he still had his legs. He was so fueled with hatred that he had lost reason and forgot to stim again. He now laid as a metal torso next to the severely beaten Alpha Wyvern.
After what felt like hours only lasted 15 minutes. It may have had extremely strong armor to defend from attacks, but what about hundreds of punches and kicks all over its body? The internal damage was severe, and that was on top of the already existing injuries it sustained from the air battle.
Just when he thought he had won, the thing began to drag its head towards his body. It's eyes, those same red slit eyes showed him that it wanted to kill him before it fell to the endless slumber. Slowly opening its maw revealed most of its teeth had chipped away, but at the back of its throat a small light of fire told him the damn wyvern still had one last attack to end him as he laid there without any limbs.
"Fuck you, if you think you'll be the one taking me down." As he began to initiate his self-destruct on his core. His last glowing eye kept staring at the beast's slit eyes. Just when everything was going to end in a large explosion, the Alpha's left eye exploded in a gory mess. It let out a shrieking groan. Then a second time it was struck in the same spot only this time its head collapsed, and he received the kill notification. Powering down the self-destruct on his core, he turned his head where the attack came from. Where Jess crashed against the mountain, a long sniper barrel protruded from it, and behind the gun scope was Jess. But she wasn't looking too good either.
She dropped down from the crater on the rock wall, and using the sniper as a crutch, she jumped on one leg. One side of her body was charred and burned while part of her arm was gone. Her left leg was gone too, and half her face was burned along with some more cuts were bleeding pretty badly. She reminded him of two face. As she got to Vulcan's torso, exhaustion caught up to her, and she fell right next to him. Joining him on the floor with their backs on the ground. They stayed there for a few seconds until he spoke up. "You don't need to take the sniper training anymore. As a matter of fact, keep that one." He said nonchalantly.
She began to laugh but it was cut short when she started coughing and wheezing. Activating his inventory, he made a stim appear above her in the air. Quickly grabbing the thing, she was about to stab him with it before he rolled his torso.
"I'm a damn piece of metal for fuck sakes Jess, please just use it on yourself before you really die!" His tone not giving her room to argue. With a small smile, she stabbed her chest as her body regenerated; once her lungs were healed, she took in big deep breaths. Once he knew she was safe, he made another one appear, and this time he allowed her to stab him with it.
"Can we take a small break before we take on another large quest like this again?" Asked Jess as she gazed at the destruction of the area and the dead body of the Alpha wyvern.
"Yeah, that sounds like a good idea." He responded as he also blamed himself for being too hasty and accepting Marchioness Valeria's request without considering the consequences.
From the sky, the rest of the commando sentries and regular ones descended. While he was fighting the Alpha, they were working together to finish off the rest of the wyverns. They had it rough as well, as signs of battle were displayed on their bodies. They would need more help after this fight; out of their group of 36, they lost 8 sentries to the wyverns. But one of the commandos that was still around the nesting area let him know that there was something special about the cave that the Alpha came out from. Curious, he had two commandos fly him and Jess towards the Wyvern nest. Now that they had gotten rid of the problem, it was pretty empty and peaceful up in the area. As if no major battle or large creatures were ever present.
Once he got close to the enormous cave entrance, he felt it. This time he was sure of what he had found. Without waiting for Jess, he ran inside. In the deepest parts of the cave, he found it. Against the walls were reflecting veins of metal. Chipping a small part was a tough task, as just a small portion made his fingers take damage. Raising the piece to his eyes, he inspected the metal fragment. It was dark black but had thin silver lines running through it. The system notified him that it was a certified rank 3 metal called Olcrum.
Finally, the rank 3 metal he had been searching for was found. He checked his Energy points, 286,459 saved up. Those recent blueprints weren't cheap. Now, with the purchase of the 100,000 medium factory, he cringed at spending so much but knew it was worth it.
He also spent EP on the three small factories for the mines the commandos had found. Once they got running and producing automatons, they would seal the entrances and create underground bunkers below the mountains that would be interconnected. Why go outside when they could slowly grow below the humans' land? He got the idea from the ant colony and how there are literal small pockets of underground spaces that are filled with monsters just waiting to be discovered by some poor bastard.
Since he was able to get the jetpack and invisibility ability, he had sent out dozens of teams of commandos throughout the lands of every kingdom. No need to put all your eggs in one basket after all. He would grow and build secret factory underground bases everywhere. If anyone in the future tried to interfere with him, and you will receive his wrath.
His main fortress base had grown considerably now, even making deep tunnels into the mountain where he built his magnum opus of an underground lair. It's still in the works, but with the extra help from the new medium factory sentries, he could build a small city within a day.
"Vulcan, I need to show you something!" Jess called out from behind him. He was about to activate the medium factory cube but relented upon her request. Running over to her, she beamed with a smile, a drastic change from what she looked like after the fight. Commending her mental strength, he followed her. They rounded the corner, and in full view was a large nest the size of a car. Inside were about 20 unhatched scaled eggs, maybe two times the size of an ostrich egg.
"Not only did we manage to find your ore vein that you were looking for, but just this alone would make someone rich for the rest of their lives! Kingdoms have gone bankrupt just to be able to obtain unhatched wyvern eggs. A powerful wyvern rider can obliterate a small army of bronze fighters," she explained as she began to caress the eggs.
"That's pretty good, but is that all?" he asked. It wasn't that he was unimpressed, but with the jetpacks now, creating elite air units wasn't an impossible thing anymore for him. Noticing his lack of interest, she walked over to another corner of the chamber.
"THIS is what I was most excited for," she said, pointing down towards a glistening flower surrounded by an even larger patch of dead grass and moss.
"A flower?" he asked curiously.
"It's not a flower, it's a freaking silver grade herb," she began explaining. "That's why that Alpha Wyvern was able to grow so damn strong. This cavern was filled with large patches of this stuff but the stupid lizard ate most of them only leaving us this one. If the kingdom found out that this was where this stuff was growing, even the king himself would come here with his elite royal guards and kill the wyverns himself!!" Her voice conveyed that she was dead serious; this tiny herb was enough to have the top members of the kingdom come here and retrieve it.
"Okay, I understand it's valuable, but WHY is it so coveted?" he asked, trying to get to the point she was trying to make.
"I'm a peak Iron stage fighter, and I have been for a while now. If I eat this herb, it will allow me to finally raise my cultivation to SILVER STAGE!"
