"How can I leave it to you?" Amanda demanded, "I know you're strong and intelligent but even you must have a limit. You can't do everything by yourself, you're a human after all. It'll be better if we worked together."

'Yeah work together and lose my chance to kill some monsters and gain EXP while doing so? Nope. Not happening. Furthermore, I work better, when I'm alone. My summons are enough for me... gosh, that sounds so wrong!' Arnold thought before saying anything. ​​

"You seriously don't know about me do you?" Arnold gave her an annoyed look before continuing, "I thought you said, you knew 'all' about me?"

"I would've if General Nathan, hadn't restricted us from accessing information regarding you or your past. Maybe he already knew that the Church would come after you if the information regarding your abilities somehow got leaked."

"Damn! That guy is a General now? No wonder you guys are in a f*cked up situation." Arnold sarcastically replied.

"He's the General of the Armies of the United States, you will take his name with respect!" Amanda snapped.

"Yeah yeah, he might be that for you, but for me, he's family." Arnold calmly replied back.

'Is this how I used to behave as well? snapping at others because of irrelevant things?' a realisation hit him, 'Nah, back even then I was a bit now reasonable than her. At least that's what I'd like to believe.'

"Whatever it might be, I still can't allow you to do such a dangerous task alon-"

"Excuse me, but who did the church attacked?" Arnold asked.

"It was you but they did so inside an army-"

"So who has the right to punish them?"

"I get what you're trying to-"

"I'm thankful that you understood what I was trying to say. That's all."

"I could-"

"If you wanna help then try not to include anyone else in this matter."

"Would you stop cutting me of-"

"I think I should probably head out." Arnold smirked and got up from his chair, "The weapons you requested for have already been completed by the way, they are in the back. So as I've finished my task I'll be leaving for two days, in the meantime I hope you can handle the things here. Adios."

Arnold up and left the workshop even before Amanda could try to stop him. Not that he'd have listened to her anyway.

"That prick! His audacity! I'll set him straight one of these days! How dare he ignored me!" Amanda kept cursing Arnold under her breath. Her cool and collected persona completely vanished. "He's right though... someone powerful must on the church's side. I should try to look into it."

****

"Sir, it's not recommended to leave the base without protective gear! The radiation is dangerous!" The private stationed at one of the rarely used exits of the alpha base, exclaimed.

"Don't worry, I'll be fine. I already have my protective gear."

Even though Arnold said that, after a few more warnings from the private's side, Arnold finally relented and wore a combat enabled hazmat suit before heading out.

"Are you planning on walking?" The private asked looking confused, "We do have vehicles that you can borrow if you want..."

Arnold knew there were a lot of vehicles around the base, but the thing was... he never learned how to drive a car... So he decided he'd ride over something else.

"Don't worry about that soldier. Just open the gate."

"...if you say so. By the way sir... do you even have the permission to leave the base?"

"Ask Amanda." Arnold mumbled as he stepped into the wasteland.

****

SOMETIME LATER...

"This should be enough." Arnold looked back to see whether the base was still visible or not.

He had been walking through the barren wasteland this entire time as he wanted to make sure that no one from the base got to know about his summons. He already knew that they knew about his automatons by now but he didn't wanted to risk it anymore. He was being extra cautious because he knew that at least one of his enemies was hiding inside the base.

"After I've dealt with the church, I'd have to do something about that person as well."

After he was sure, that it was safe to call out his summons, Arnold opened a portal for his domain and summoned everyone out.

"First of all, automatons, everyone of you link yourselves to my communicator." Arnold instructed, "There's about 200 of us that should be enough... okay, form four groups having fifty summons each among yourselves, and make sure there are at least 5 automatons in each group as they will essentially act as a communication relay between me as well as the others. Talos, Duke, Asterios, and Bad-Breath you guys will be the group leaders. Your task is to search the area near the Alpha base and look for some kind of a hideout. But be discreet and if you find something, DO NOT engage until it's absolutely necessary to do so and inform me and the others as soon as you find anything. Cerberus, you'll stay with me. All clear?"

"YES MASTER!" All of his summons yelled simultaneously.

"I TOLD YOU TO BE DISCREET IDIOTS! DON'T SHOUT!" Even though Arnold told them to be discreet, he himself was yelling at the top of his voice, "Now off you go and try not to get destroyed."

"Yes... master." his summons whispered.

While his summons slowly got out of his sight, he opened the interface. Right now, there were only two tabs available on his interface, as the rest of the system was 'offline', one was the quest tab while the other was the tab that contained information about his subclasses. He quickly selected the tab containing his subclasses as he intended to use all of his experience to level up a particular subclass.

___

SUBCLASS :

• (lvl 10)

EXP : --/--

[QUICK SHOT] (lvl : 10)

[EXPLOSIVE SHOT] (lvl : 10)

[LUCKY SHOT] (lvl : 10)

[CRITICAL SHOT] (lvl : 10)

• (lvl 7)

EXP : 0/3000

[QUICK ASSEMBLY] (lvl :7)

[EFFICIENT RECYCLING] (lvl : 7)

[NOVICE PROGRAMMER] (lvl : 6)

[QUICK DISMANTLING] (lvl : 5)

• (lvl 14)

EXP : 4785/15000

[BLOOD NECROMANCY] (lvl 14)

[BLOOD BOURNE INTELLIGENCE] (lvl 12)

[BLOODLUST] (lvl : 10)

[BLOOD BOND] (lvl : 10)

AVAILABLE EXPERIENCE : 105,598

___

Without giving it another thought he dumped all of the EXP to level up his subclass as he had a quest related to it, that he had to complete.

___

Subclass leveled up!

(lvl 21)

REWARDS :

Mana +5000

INT +70

[BLOOD NECROMANCY] upgraded to level 21.

Additional effect upgraded!

[BLOOD BOURNE INTELLIGENCE] upgraded to level19.

Additional effect upgraded!

[BLOOD BOND] upgraded to level 17.

Additional effect upgraded!

[BLOODLUST] upgraded to level 17.

Additional effect upgraded!

___

(Author's note: don't worry about the new skills that you are seeing, he obtained them during the timeskip at the beginning of this volume. The affect of these skills would be disclosed soon.)

"Now since that's taken care of, It's time to go and hunt some monsters." Arnold mounted on the back of Cerberus, who transformed into a chimera, and sprinted deeper into the wastelands.