Another One Bites The Dust

Jack quietly got up and left the group under the pretense of relieving himself. He walked to a mountain range and, from the shadows, observed the creature moving toward his group. It seemed to be alone, but Jack was not entirely convinced that this was the case. He kept scanning the environment and tried to spot additional creatures, humanoid or otherwise, nearby, but he could not find any.

"Why don't you warn the group?" the assistant asked.

"It wouldn't make a difference. It has already seen us and is clearly walking toward the camp. Even if we put out the fire, it would be able to track us. The only option would be to escape through a portal, but that will not be necessary if it's just one creature," Jack said while intently observing the creature's movements.

"How will you deal with it?" the assistant asked.

"I have thought about my previous encounters with it and have a few things that I want to try," Jack said.

"Will you not notify them at all?" the assistant asked.

"No. I will kill it quickly," Jack answered.

Jack patiently waited and observed the creature's movements. He had used a window portal to move himself out of the creature's direct line of sight, which would allow him to flank it and catch it off guard. The creature was not following Jack but kept its eyes fixated on the group sitting around the fire. Jack wondered if it was attracted by the fire or by something else. He patiently opened a window portal and directed it at the exact spot where he expected the creature to walk by. He observed its steps and calmed his breath to get the timing of his nightly assault just right. The creature was three steps away from the target spot. Two steps. One step.

Jack launched himself through the window portal and suddenly appeared just a few centimeters from the creature, which turned around quicker than the normal human eye could follow, but it was too late. Jack's plan was designed to be so quick that nothing could react to it. All he needed to do was make the assault so destructive that there would be no opportunity for a counterattack.

Jack emerged from the portal with a knee kick that landed right on the creature's head. At the moment of impact, he grabbed the creature's head with both hands and dialed his frying hand ability to the maximum by condensing the largest amount of Sym energy possible into his palms. It became so hot that Jack could even feel the pain, and the heat seemed to rise well over 1,000 degrees Celsius.

The creature released a scream but to no avail. Its head melted as if it were made out of wax and eventually collapsed like a paper box under pressure. Its body went limp and was dangling in the air as parts of the creature's head were still sticking to Jack's hands like a burnt piece of meat on a stainless-steel pan. The operation was a success. Jack looked back to the group to make sure that everything was okay, but he found no reason for concern. Jack observed the creature's lifeless body and saw a small Sym crystal that had dropped to the ground and was presumably inside its head like it was in all the other creatures. It looked smaller but also darker with a stronger density of Sym energy. He threw it into the portal connected to the cave and looked for anything else that would be valuable enough to take, but it seemed of no value.

The humanoid creature looked almost human with a few important differences. It had no recognizable features, and its body looked like it had either undergone a transformation process in case it used to be human, or it had been created by someone who had only ever seen the silhouette of a human. But it looked strange and nightmarish to Jack. The creature had no hair at all, and it even lacked nipples, a belly button, and genitalia. After turning it on its stomach, Jack could also confirm that it had no anus or even separate butt cheeks. From his previous observations, he did not even remember seeing a nose, lips, or ears on the creatures' heads, which gave them an uncanny appearance.

The humanoid was simply a being that had the shape of a human but had nothing in common with it. Jack wanted to know more, but he had no way of gathering more information than what he could see with his own eyes. Then he had an idea. He placed his hands on top of the creature's chest and activated his healing ability. It immediately allowed him to connect himself to the creature and feel every part of its body. "I hope you're recording all of this data," Jack said to the assistant.

"Yes, I am studying its body. You can turn off the ability now since I have already gathered all the data. Allow me a minute to finish my calculations," the assistant answered.

As Jack was waiting for the assistant's response, he decided to hide the creature's body by burning it underground in case it could attract other monsters. He also hid a portal in the vicinity in case he wanted to revisit the corpse later and do more experiments on it.

"I have completed the analysis of the data. The creature has the same organs a human would have with some exceptions. It has no intestinal tract or stomach, and its esophagus is leading to a type of organ that I have not encountered yet. Its function seems to be storage because it is largely hollow, but it does not have the shape or functions of the stomach such as stomach acid secretion. I can sense a condensed Sym energy inside it, which suggests that this creature was functioning through the usage of the energy," the assistant explained.

"Didn't you say that the people here use Sym energy like nuclear power?" Jack asked.

"Yes, it was used as a centralized energy source 5,000 years ago, but technology might have evolved since then. Maybe the creature also uses it in such a way, or it requires the storage of Sym energy for another reason. I have also noticed that the creature was able to accumulate Sym energy in its entire body, which explains its enforced skin, but its density is below that of yours since you are constantly circulating and condensing the energy in your body."

"Interesting. What else could you gather?" Jack asked.

"As you placed your hands on the creature's head and charged them with Sym energy, I was able to briefly scan its brain, which allowed me to detect Sym energy accumulations in specific brain regions. Unfortunately, their brains seem to have a different structure from human brains, which does not allow me to deduce what its abilities could have been. Since its basic brain structure still follows that of mammals, I will aim to create a conversion model based on all my available research on the topic. I should have a result calculated within a few days," the assistant said.

Jack had been listening attentively and was observing the environment and the group as they were sitting by the fire. Since he had been gone for almost 20 minutes by now, he noticed some of the members looking around. When he saw Morena get up to check where he had gone, he quickly jumped back through his portal and emerged from the mountain range.

"I would not go there if I were you," Jack said with an apologetic face. "Got some wine left?"

Morena looked at him with a careful but relieved expression. "No, I drank it all," she said with a smile as she walked toward another mountain range and disappeared behind a corner. Jack smiled and slowly returned to the group, which warmly welcomed him. Juz had fallen asleep again since he was still recovering and had just eaten his first large meal in a long while. Jack sat down, and the group started to talk about how they should select teams of two for guard duty with Jack, Ark, Lance, and Morena taking turns while the remaining members get to sleep through the night. Since Jack had started to accumulate Sym energy on this planet, he had required less and less sleep every night. He could now easily skip a night of sleep and would be fine if he only slept one hour or less every night. He even thought that he will be fine on one hour every week, before long. But he still enjoyed sleeping and would sleep a bit more if he had the time.

"I will take the first shift," Jack said as he stuffed some more of the grilled boar into his mouth.

"Then I'll join you," Morena said as she slapped her hands on Jack's shoulders from behind. She sat down next to her brother Ark and continued, "We should be at the garage within three days if we continue with our current tempo."

"Garage, what's that?" Jack asked.

"Maybe you don't know this if you have only lived in an isolated village, but there are garages all over the country. We can rent vehicles there for long-distance trips and just leave them at our destination. Quite convenient, don't you think?" Morena said as she drank some more wine.

"That's awesome, how fast can the vehicle travel?" Jack asked.

"On this terrain, we will probably be able to drive at 30 to 50 kilometers per hour, so we should arrive in the next city within six hours," Ark answered.

"Got it. Is it common for creatures to walk around outside of the high-density energy zones and attack people?" Jack asked.

Morena and Ark looked at each other and then looked down. After a moment of contemplation, Ark answered: "Creatures do not go into low-density areas, which is why they should not be a problem here, but over the last few years, more and more sightings of creatures have been reported. Jalk City is the first case that we have heard of where an entire city was being attacked. It was common knowledge that creatures do not leave the high-density areas, but now things have gotten crazy," Ark explained as the flames of the campfire flickered in his eyes.

"Maybe it's because of the war. They have started to use these huge weapons, so this must be the consequence. Sym energy should never have been used to destroy things at such a scale," Morena added.

"Can you tell me about the war and the weapons that were used?" Jack asked curiously.

"I can tell you all about it during the first shift," Morena said as she put away the cups and packed the leftover foods into plastic bags.

The group started to get ready for the night and placed their blankets together near the fire. Jack got up and closely monitored the environment to check if other creatures were nearby. Even at night, his vision was as accurate as during the day, which must be an effect of the accumulated Sym energy in his eyes. While his visual field did not increase any further and remained at approximately 2,500 meters, his visual acuity and especially his night vision have been improving every day since he arrived on the planet.

Once the group had settled in and got ready to sleep, Morena joined Jack and sat next to him by the fire. After sitting together in silence for a moment, she began talking about the current situation of her country. The country's name was Cibolas, and it was currently involved in a large-scale war that involved a total of ninety-five countries. There were three alliances that had formed between the countries, namely the South Alliance, the West Alliance, and the Cibolas Alliance. Since Cibolas was economically strong, it was the center of the alliance, and it was also geographically positioned close to its center due to its peculiar shape.

The ninety-five countries were located on thirty-six different continents, whereas Cibolas was located on the continent called Terranos. Terranos is generally a mountainous land with significant flora and fauna as well as ample natural resources. In fact, Terranos is one of the most resource-rich continents on the planet with its minerals and metals, oil, variety of livestock, and strong agricultural sector. As Jack found out, oil was not as sought after as on Earth due to the relative abundance of Sym energy as well as the technology to harvest it from the atmosphere and concentrate it into Sym crystals. But, like on Earth, oil is used for a variety of products such as plastics, cosmetics, and other materials used in industrial processes such as lubricants. He had already assumed as much after seeing the well-equipped markets in the city of Jalk, but Morena's explanation confirmed his suspicion that this planet was quite advanced.

One thing that Jack noticed was the absence of computers or semiconductor-based electronics. He saw lights, and there clearly were vehicles, but no complex electronics. Since oil is not used for energy and no steam engine exists in this world, the car must likewise function with Sym energy. Earth has seen a gradual development of technologies such as electricity, light bulbs, connected grids, steam engines, and industrial machines for mass production while it has become more and more complex, leading to innovative components such as semiconductors and transistors. From there, Earth was able to develop phones, computers, satellites, and made its way toward neural interfaces and robots. But this planet has taken a different turn.

Since energy has always been abundant in the form of low-density Sym energy that covers the entire planet, all innovations have focused on ways to harvest and utilize that energy. Additionally, since humans were gifted with abilities derived from Sym energy, there was an entire branch of science and innovation that was dedicated to individual cultivation, something that did not exist on Earth. In this world, technologies have in some way exceeded the industrial age with mass manufacturing, automation, and communication networks, but in other ways, it still seems archaic. Because Sym energy is not based on electronic transport as is electricity, many applications, but especially semiconductors, are not part of their technological developments.

Factories are powered by Sym energy generators that are off-grid since no large-scale grid technology exists in this world. Since energy is ubiquitous, it was more convenient to set up local generators that harvest energy than to centralize the grid at a generation source like nuclear power plants or coal generators. There are likewise varying robotic systems that are largely used in factories and in some civil applications such as elevators or in the service sector. Long-distance communication also exists through devices that utilize unique properties of Sym energy, which allows people to communicate wherever they are as long as they are connected by the same cloud of Sym energy, which means that the entire planet is connected due to the energy-rich environment.

Morena was not able to explain all the technical details to Jack since not much about the scientific understanding around Sym energy is public. Due to the war between countries as well as the strained relationships across the planet's history, research relating to Sym energy was kept strictly confidential since it is a dual technology used largely in military applications. What is known to the public is that Sym energy generators draw in Sym energy from the environment and condense it into a special type of mineral. This technology has been developed thousands of years ago after researchers were able to analyze Sym energy crystals that were found inside the brains of creatures, which are assumed to use a similar process to condense the energy.

While humans avoid creatures and do not fight them, there are many expeditions that are sanctioned by all major countries to search and recover Sym energy crystals since they are the most valuable material on this planet due to their military and industrial use. Since creatures are constantly engaging in combat with each other, it is possible to find dead creatures in certain regions, but it is a dangerous occupation with a high mortality rate.

Jack was also surprised to hear that there were no guns or other firearms including explosives in this world since all weapons are based on Sym energy. The entire population of this planet that is fifty times larger than Earth has never developed any of the technologies that Jack thought were essential for human societies. The existence of Sym energy has greatly transformed human ingenuity and maybe even humans themselves.

Jack was not able to gain a deep understanding of how Sym energy works, but the scientists seem to have discovered a way to manipulate the way Sym energy resonates, which gives rise to certain phenomena. In the same way in which Sym energy responds to particular electromagnetic fields that differ subtly between brain regions, there are certain ways to manipulate Sym energy. But the artificial ways of Sym energy stimulation seem to be greatly limited, which, so far, have only allowed certain devices useful in creating robotics and vehicles through movement phenomena, light through emissions, and varying other devices such as refrigerators, communication systems, and a large variety of weapons. Morena estimated that weapons make up at least fifty percent of all the created Sym energy devices since they are determining the security of each country in a highly dangerous environment, especially with regards to creatures, which are a constant threat.

Morena had been lying down as she was explaining the intricacies of Sym energy to Jack, and he had noticed her pauses getting longer and longer whenever he asked another question. Finally, he could hear her breath loudly as she had fallen asleep next to the fire with Jack sitting next to her. He still did not feel like sleeping and felt like his need to rest had almost disappeared. Or maybe he just couldn't imagine sleeping on the ground if he has such a comfortable mattress in his cave back at home.

What surprised Jack the most was how much he missed not his home back on Earth, which was still his one and only goal, but he missed the high-density Sym energy in his cave. He wondered if he had become an addict through a physical dependency or if he was just longing for the solitude of his cave since he had not been used to being with people for such a long time during his coma.

"Can I get physically addicted to this?" Jack asked the assistant.

"I am not aware of any records covering such an addiction. But keep in mind that Sym energy accumulation is toxic to normal humans outside of very small regions that are safe due to genetic manipulation. You have the ability to freely accumulate and condense Sym energy in your entire body. I have no insight into how this can impact your physical or mental health. I can sense that your body is perfectly healthy and that you continually condense more energy even in this low-density area, albeit at a slower rate. I postulate that the effect that you are sensing is related to a lack of sleep or potentially an impact on your immune system, which might create some type of phantom craving for the energy absent of a physical dependency," the assistant said.

"Tell me when you notice any signs of a physical addiction or a psychological shift," Jack said as he got up. He had no intention of waking up Morena or the others to switch their shift. He would let them all sleep calmly so that they would have the strength to continue their journey. He still promised himself to sleep for at least three hours on the next day just to make sure he gets sufficient rest as he sat down to meditate and circulate his energy. He had found that placing a Sym energy crystal on his lap as he circulated his energy enhanced the amount of Sym energy he could accumulate and was almost as refreshing to him as being in the high-density area. "I am not addicted," Jack said to himself.

And so their journey continued, and the group traveled for another three days toward the garage. During this time, they grew closer, and Jack was able to learn more about this country's state and culture. He asked many questions to Ark regarding the creation of his business and the way traveling would be possible considering the war and the current restrictions. He also was able to find out that Sym energy crystals are a highly rare commodity and were bought at a high price by governments. There was a ban on selling Sym energy crystals to any entities other than government institutions due to their value but mainly due to their military capabilities. Curiously, this did not fix the price of Sym crystals, which would be expected if the government controlled the entire market. Instead, the price was subject to market dynamics regardless. This was caused by the ability of Sym crystal sellers to bring their business to other nations anytime if a country tried to fix the price or keep it artificially low.

There were entire intelligence units in each nation whose only job it was to determine the current market value of Sym crystals. It was like a mix between the CIA and Wall Street, Jack thought. Sym crystals were gathered by explorers who used safety equipment and protection to delve into high-density Sym energy areas in order to find dead creatures. Their most important devices were body protectors to withstand the dense energy, weapons to fend off creatures in the worst case, and visual enhancers to see through the fog. Most professional explorer companies have an engagement rate, the rate at which they are spotted by a creature, of below five percent since engaging a creature brings a ninety percent risk of death. The most important rule in exploration is to only go into areas with 360° visibility to avoid surprises and always make sure that the visual field is at least one kilometer in all directions. The second most important rule is to only use weapons to hinder the creature's mobility in order to escape rather than to try and overpower the creature. Since the explorers wear bulky protective gear, the creatures' high weight and their mobility are an impossible obstacle to overcome in combat. Their best strategy was to gain enough time to mount the high-speed vehicle and make their escape even if they were not able to recover any crystals that day.

Jack made it a point to rest a few hours every night even if he was not able to sleep properly. Whenever he was idle, he monitored the environment to make sure that no creatures were approaching them. During the rest of their journey, he did not see a single creature in the area.

Jack thought that it would be too suspicious to bring fresh food from Jalk city's supermarket every day, so he opted to "get lucky" during his hunts whenever he left the group to rest. He brought boars, some type of cattle, smaller rodents, and any other animals he could find, claiming that he just got lucky every time. He even pretended that he found some fresh rainwater that had accumulated inside a rock formation after refilling his water bag with the groundwater near his home cave. Maybe the group had already stopped caring about logic at this point, or they just accepted his feats as a gift from God, but no one doubted him when he presented a bag full of candy and packaged foods from Jalk city that he claimed he had forgotten about.

The rest of the trip went smoothly, and Jack felt well prepared for the next chapter where he would create a trading and healing business to travel the world and gather information which will allow him to find a way to perform a dimensional jump or maybe create dimensional portals. But that would have to wait as Jack and the group could make out the garage that slowly started to appear on the horizon.

"What's that?" Morena asked while staring at the large facility in the distance that seemed to be covered by some large boulders and full of smoke.

"Maybe there was an accident," Ark said, trying to carefully examine the scene that is still too far away to make out.

Only Jack remained silent with an empty expression as his advanced vision got a clear view of the environment. The large facility was entirely covered with creatures. There was a black-purple fog all over the area, and he could clearly see two humanoids and at least thirty regular creatures.