Author’s Corner: Official Chapter 100! Woohoo! *disco ball descends*

After dying, and then… undying? I’ll think of the proper term later. Anyways, after I left the medbay, Yo went back to my room to play games, while I headed to the bridge with Sharon. I just recovered after being out of comission for two days, and before that we lost several crew members. It just feels like I should say a few words, you know?

On the way, Celeste filled me in on what had been going on. In order to play it safe, she had chosen to remain in this system until the upgrade to the engines had been completed. We didn’t want to risk something happening in subspace if the engines upgrading caused a problem. In the meantime, she had us move towards a large cluster of asteroids and sent out her construction drones. Although mining was not their specialty, they were capable of breaking down the asteroids and transporting the ores back until she made a small mining vessel.

After that, they used the mining vessel, several crew members getting experience with short distance flights outside of the ship. That lasted until about noon yesterday, when the crew had a space burial for the dead elves. I was glad that Celeste handled that part, even though they weren’t sure when I’d wake up.

Celeste must have let them know that I was awake now, and that I was feeling better, because there were several people in the bridge that did not actually have a post in there, and were just standing to watch the entrance. Others that were at their consoles had also turned around and were facing the door. Walking in on this… I’ll admit that I deactivated my limiter and took several very long seconds to calm down. Focus… focus… Pretend they’re all in their underwear.

That may have been a bad thing to think, because Celeste provided me with a mental image of them all being in their underwear. I was kidding! Thankfully, Celeste cancelled the image and I was able to take another long period to think and plan, while my body remained frozen midstep.

After that step finally ended, I reactivated the limiter and cleared my throat, something I was unable to do while essentially frozen in time. “Thank you all for being here today.” Not like you have anywhere else to go besides this ship. “I know that recent events have been hard, despite the journey having just begun. I cannot tell you things will get better from here, because I cannot guarantee that they will be. For all we know, we could encounter an abstract attack every time we jump out of subspace.”

I could see their expressions turning a bit grim at that, so I took another de-limited moment to collect my thoughts. “Celeste has assured me that these monsters are rare, but this is a new frontier for all of us. As such, these events will happen, no matter how carefully we plan. This time, we got off with as few casualties as possible thanks to the foreknowledge provided to us. However, we naturally can’t have this same advantage when it comes to everything. There will be times when we are caught off guard, when we lose people because we don’t know what we’re up against.”

You know, this had started off so well… I suck at speeches. “When that happens, I’ll be counting on each and every one of you to do your best. To make sure that, even if lives are lost, they are not lost for nothing. Our mission is to help whatever races we can, so that they can better deal with this new world. And, I’ll do my best to help, but I am still new to this whole captain thing…”

I had played space games before, and they were fairly realistic, however I never had the aptitude to be a captain. I would always end up as either a navigations officer or a mechanic. So basically either read a screen and tell people when the dots move around, or play a mini-game to fix technology that hasn’t been invented yet.

There was a long silence after I was done talking, and surprisingly it was Officer Ackbar that spoke up first. “Salute!” Suddenly, everyone present, Sharon and Celeste included, performed the elven salute that we had witnessed before. I could see smiles on several of the faces, and it seemed that they had approved of my failed attempt at a speech.

For the next two days, I stayed on the bridge whenever possible. Even if I was cultivating or training my psychic power, I would do so in the captain’s chair. At the same time, I had Celeste ‘tutoring’ me on the basics of being a captain. I still had trouble accepting this, and I probably would for a while, but this chair isn’t going anywhere… And it is technically my chair. The most comfortable chair I have ever sat in. It’s a good chair… What was I thinking about again?

Anyways, I made some interesting discoveries with my power testing for these couple of days. Although my physical body can only move at its normal speed, even when the limiter is removed, my magic and psychic abilities are controlled by my mind. My magic still has a limit to how fast it can move, which is roughly double what I had been using it for, but my psychic abilities seem to work at the speed of thought.

I also made what could be counted as the single most important discovery of my Toybox power, and likely the reason that it had its name.

New Ability Unlocked!Toy Chest - Toybox - ★★★★★★

It took you a hundred chapters, but you finally got one of your OP abilities! Those who possess the Toybox power are capable of accessing a special linked space, with an essentially unlimited capacity. However, this single space is shared by all users of the Toybox power. Be careful of what you put in there, because anyone with the same power as you can take it out!

I unlocked this ability after I did a test to see what would happen if I tried to force a portal to stabilize without setting up a connecting portal. The result felt like it was splitting my head open, but I didn’t hit the nosebleed stage. However, a small black hole opened up in the space in front of me. When I stuck my hand in, I could feel what seemed to be a solid floor. Either there was nothing inside the Toy Chest, or it was just not near where I opened it up at.

This ability has the potential to be truly overpowered. Just think, if I found someone else with the Toybox power, and we both opened the Toy Chest, we could move across the entire galaxy instantly. Also, I had no idea what that message meant about a hundred chapters? Is there some sick bastard god that is writing about the lives of people being changed by their events?

Anyways, I spent most of these two days training my Toybox power, until I could finally open small portals and stick my hands through them, and only get a minor headache. That was already a great improvement over when opening just a small portal would cause me a migraine in my elven form. Soon, I will be able to combine this with my druid abilities hopefully, and make some epic combos.

Fast forward two days, give or take, and we arrive at the time that the engines begin their automatic upgrade.

Upgrade Timer Complete! Commencing engine upgrade! It is suggested that you evacuate nearby chambers while the upgrade is in progress. Upgrade beginning in two minutes.

Naturally, I gave the quick order for everyone to evacuate the areas around the engines, just to be safe. Two minutes later, there was a brief rumbling through the ship, and I felt a rush of mana from far behind me. “Captain!” One of the officers… her name is Saren, in charge of internal security. Anyways, Officer Saren called out over the comms. “Our internal scans just went wild at the rear of the ship.”

“The upgrade’s happening… things might be shifting around.” I really hoped that’s all it was.

“Roger that.” Saren called out again, seeming to accept that answer. I should see about getting her to train Yo how to use the staff better. Maybe we can get some armor for her even.

Upgrade has been completed.Engine Thrust +15%

Maneuverability +20%

Engine Power Cost +10%

I groaned slightly as I read that message. Pushing a button, I called down to engineering. “The engines are going to be taking about a tenth more power from now on. How much more can the generator take before we start taxing it?”

There was a brief pause before a reply came. This one… his name… Halinth! That was it. Halinth Fathoel, Chief Engineer. “We’re still running good down here. I’d say there’s about another twenty percent or so leeway, even if we had all systems running. But if you’re going to keep upgrading, I’d suggest adding the generator to the list before too long, Captain.”

“Understood.” I could have gotten that info from Celeste, and it may have been even easier to do so… but I am a Captain, I have a crew… I need to talk to them, right? I can keep Celeste as my excuse to run down to the planets when it is time to do so. Normally, the captain would stay on the ship at all times, and assign an away team to go down. However, since we are technically a diplomatic ship, and I am considered the leading diplomat for some reason, my presence down there is required. Thus, I can dump the responsibilities on Celeste when it’s time to go planet-side!

“Alright… next… Celeste, got any generator upgrades that the system might accept?” I looked towards the Deus Ex, who had apparently assigned herself standing behind my chair and to the right.

Celeste smiled at me, and nodded her head. “I’ve got a couple that might work. Otherwise, I’ll have to brainstorm with the engineers to draw up a schematic.”

I nodded back to her, and chose to upgrade the generator as my next option. Thankfully, the first design Celeste offered me worked, since she knew to take it in small increments this time. And the timer for it was only two weeks, which seemed rather good. “How long until we reach our first stop?”

Uhm.. you.. what’s your name… Xavril? The navigations officer looked back to me as he gave the report. “We’re just over seven days out from the first planet on the list.”

I didn’t have many hopes for this planet having a sapient race, since it was just one of the ‘remote possibility’ planets. However, I knew it would at least be inhabitable. That meant that Sharon could use it as a point for her quest. By the way, I asked about my party’s patrons when I found out that we could get quests from them.

Celeste is, unsurprisingly, a representative of the god of technology. Yang has the goddess of evolved beasts as her patron. Yin has the god of storms. And finally… the one that was perhaps the most ridiculous of them all… Yo had the goddess of breasts as her patron. I was expecting the god of children, god of slimes, or even the god of Tuesdays… but the goddess of breasts? I made a note to not let Yo take any divine quests.

Aside from her, the others all received a quest after praying to their patron. Yang has to create an entire suit of armor, as well as a weapon, from the body of a single slain creature to prove her ability. Yin has to demonstrate her power by summoning as powerful of a storm in a monster-infested world as she could. As for Celeste, her divine quest was the creation of the Deus Ex race. Yin and Yang were offered rewards based on the results of their quest, but Celeste was immediately offered a medium favor if she completes this, and a large one if she helps them adapt to the new system after doing so.

Naturally, since I am technically capable of turning a robot into a Deus Ex, I’m willing to help her with this. Medium favors are not something to laugh at, hell even a small one got me a skill like Spatial Comprehension, which can completely turn the tide of a crisis situation. A large favor… I was quite interested in seeing an intelligent item. It was possible that between my various magic types, I might even be able to create one if I can understand the principles behind it.

With the next upgrade selected, we departed into subspace again, heading towards our first planet on the road to the robot world. Only later did I find out… that as a ‘free’ addition with the new upgrade, one of the spare rooms was turned into a temple, with about three dozen small god statues present. If there is anything to be thankful for, it is that Aria was not among them. It seemed to be only the patron deities of the crew members, and luckily none of them belonged to the goddess of fashion.