27 Third Dimensional Clone

After hearing that kind of remark from the other line, Aldrin was more relieved than mad from how he was called.

"Is that how you greet your brother, Althea?" With a visible smile on his lips, he addressed the caller who's none other than his little sister.

She's five years younger than Aldrin and although they grew up somewhat differently, his sister looked up to him as a role model.

He was proud of that fact until he flunked on his college entrance exams. Ashamed from that failure, he ran away from home.

During the 1st year of his new life and when he was still working at the convenience store, Althea kept on messaging and calling him. However, he never answered.

After being looked up to by a sister that was excellent in more ways than him, he could only be ashamed if he returned without any face to show for. Especially, when he became a slacker and thought even lower of himself years later.

"If it's my idiot brother who went AWOL just because he flunked all of his college entrance exams, then he deserved it. He even waited until a disaster happened nearby before having the courage to answer his beloved sister's call." Althea answered with an extremely frustrated tone as she listed Aldrin's wrongdoings.

Upon hearing that, Aldrin felt like he was being stabbed multiple times because of how guilty he was. He couldn't refute what his sister just said. It was true after all.

"Anyway, how's life going for you? Mom and dad are worried." His sister continued, changing her tone for the better, yet still somewhat frustrated.

"I'm great. I'm still eating, by the way." Aldrin answered before switching the topic to the most important one at the moment. "Have you all evacuated to safety?"

"I won't be able to call you if that's not the case. We're currently in an evacuation center and will stay here overnight. Tomorrow we will be allowed to return to our house." Althea answered and told him their current status.

"Right. How silly of me." Aldrin heaved another sigh of relief.

Although the spread of damage was only minimal to the neighboring Districts. Minimal still amounted to a thousand casualties near the border.

Their house was somewhere in the middle of the district so Aldrin was somewhat confident that they had evacuated safely.

Moreover, this call from her sister was a great timing to confirm it, relieving him of worry that... It might be too late.

After a minute of silence, his sister's voice reached his ears once more, "Hey, I'm about to graduate high school. Won't you at least come home to see me graduate? It's a special occasion. Even if you forgot to greet me during my birthdays, you're still my brother and… I want us all to be there."

'Together...' Aldrin lamented. In the first place, he's the one who was too ashamed to return because of his failure.

And now that his life changed and became an Energy Refiner through the IDLE Database, he decided to go back and apologized to them. If living together would be hard because of this new path he's treading, Aldrin was already thinking of how he could help them. He could send money that he would earn from the IDLE Database or give them a better life.

Either way, he wanted to atone for his selfish decision from before.

"You're right. You're at that age now..." Aldrin said in amazement. "Congrats Althea. You're finally going to surpass your useless brother."

Upon hearing his words, Althea responded with a voice full of agitation. "You! Stop that! That's not how I remembered you, idiot brother!"

Perhaps if he was in front of her, his sister had already lunged at him with punches and kicks.

"Is it? I apologize then... By the way, Althea. I'm going there. Tell me which evacuation center you are in."

"Huh? That fast?" Surprised at his sudden announcement, Althea almost couldn't believe it. She was asked to call him but she never thought that her brother would return like this.

"I'm on the Plasma Train already. See you soon, Althea."

Aldrin held off telling her that he was right in the heart of the incident location earlier. His sister was already surprised enough that if he added more shocking revelations like he survived and even killed a Rift Monster, he would probably be called delusional instead.

In any case, he's not going to keep it a secret for them anyway. And it was better to tell them about it in person.

"W-wait. I'll tell mom and dad!"

"Sure. Message me the address. I'll be there."

-

-

After ending the phone call with his sister, Aldrin's phone screen returned to the Idle Adventure mode interface.

The view instantly returned to the two Dimensional Clones that were currently resting while holding onto their wounds to stop the bleeding.

Not including the 470 IDLE Points that he received earlier, the two Dimensional Clones had already amassed more than 1000 IDLE Points throughout the few hours that passed ever since he left the vicinity of the Dimensional Rift.

When he read the status log, during the call with his sister, the two Dimensional Clones encountered a battalion of Soldier Ants led by an Elite Soldier Ant. Although they barely won by targeting the spear-equipped Soldier Ants first, it earned Aldrin 120 IDLE Points just with that battle alone. That battalion was composed of 20 Normal Difficulty Soldier Ants and 1 Very Hard Difficulty Elite Soldier Ant.

From what he read, the wounds the two Dimensional Clones received were mostly from the Elite Soldier. If not for the stun that was induced by Tank's shield, the two Dimensional Clones would be dead.

And after reading further. The Ant Colony's alertness had already gone up another level because of the number of ants he killed. It was now more normal to encounter groups of Soldier Ants and worse a Battalion led by Elite Soldier Ants. There's also the possibility of running into a Commander Ant that would be leading a legion of Soldier Ants.

The one he encountered before when he first controlled the Dimensional Clone manually was most likely moving on along with those Soldier and Elite Soldier Ant. Moreover, the security of the Ant Colony wasn't that high yet at that time. That was a lucky occurrence for him.

If he encountered another Commander Ant, he better expect to fight against hordes of angry ants who would be too aggressive due to the threat it was facing, the lack of Worker Ants to search for food.

'Let's see... There are still a few hours that will be enough for the 5th run before the reset. I better put them to work for a little bit longer.'

Aldrin tapped on the first tab and healed the two Dimensional Clones by using 10 IDLE Points. Although they appeared ragged, as soon as their wounds disappeared, Striker and Tank grabbed their weapons and stood up to look for more prey.

Following that, as he was totally satisfied with his current gain, Aldrin didn't hesitate to upgrade the Multiply skill.

'Another worker to earn me IDLE Points... With this, a perfect party set up will finally be established.'

[You leveled up Multiply...]

[Generating another Dimensional Clone]

From the screen, he watched as Striker split into two once more. Almost the same as what happened earlier, a third clickable square appeared at the Equipment section for the third Clone.

Despite what he experienced earlier as well as seeing the Multiply Skill add another 0 to its required IDLE Points, Aldrin was grinning from ear to ear when he renamed the third Dimensional Clone to 'Hitter' and upgraded its seven pieces of equipment except for the back part to Level 1.

He then switched Weapon(R) to a Bow because a gun was still unavailable to be picked. As for Weapon(L), he picked a dagger. In case an enemy could creep towards Hitter, it would be able to react faster using that dagger.

With this kind of setup, Aldrin watched the three Dimensional Clones move together and rack up 200 more points before ending the 4th run.

He's still a novice Energy Refiner at the moment, but seeing how his IDLE Point gains were growing bigger and bigger, Aldrin had an inkling that he wouldn't stay like that for too long... thanks to IDLE Database.