Author corner: Greetings all! Here is another Nebula. I noticed everyone seems to hate Lia so i would like suggestions to turn her from annoying to funny and more... wargon like since that is the main target. (obviously the target is Warhawx himself) main reason i made her that way.

Noah PoV

I really need to be careful with how much time I spent in game. Because of how busy I was I totally forgot to logout and take care of business. When I finally did log out I was nearly pissing and shitting myself and was starving.

It took me a few minutes to resolve it all though and once I did I crashed into my bed and went to sleep. I would lose a day in game but then again, everyone would so I can catch up.

After a fitful sleep and my morning stretches, I returned to Nebula and appear inside my room in the military ring.

I stretch as my body was stiff here as well since it was in bed for a whole day.

After getting another set of morning stretches I head out and found the Dwarf fighters air field with a drastic rise in the number of elves.

I found them repairing parts while others were making new parts. There were some with their arm against some mecha and with their eyes closed. There was a feeling of psi moving in great quantity around these people so it just meant they were pumping it full of psi. This is probably that psi capacity thing of the machine.

I move towards the beginner area and find colonel barking orders at the beginners. The number had reduced which meant players were off.

“Sir?” I called and Colonel looked back.

“Noah, finally awake now! Fuck man you sleep like a brick! Not only you but several other of you foreigners as well!” He shouted.

“I think it may be something from travelling so long through space in cryogenic sleep.” I said making an excuse.

“Hmm… need to check with the others to see if that’s true.” He muttered.

“So which one do I train with?” I asked.

“Hmm? Ah! Right that one, that robot a tad bit taller than the others. Kinda rare for a tall dwarf to appear but we keep a suit ready.” He said.

The suit was only about 10 cm taller than the normal ones but it didn’t look any stronger than the others.

Colonel walked over with me following and took a ladder up and put his hand on the chest making the plates open.

“Now take your boots and gloves off. There is two spots for feet and hands were all your psi gates are blocked and ye need to open all of them again. These are much harder than just gloves or boots.” He says.

“Alright.” I said and took them off as he said and looking around I spotted two entrances. Inside the cockpit of the suit were two openings on the side which were for the hands and two near the bottom.

Without the boots on I walk in backwards and stick my feet into the open metal boots that closed around my feet.

“Hmm, needs a bit of size adjustment… stick your hands in and say adjects size.” Colonel said.

The hands were a few centimeter above my head so it would obstructing the flow of blood.

I still put them in my hands in and said what he said.

Instantly the boots pushed up and the hands lowered a bit becoming just right were I won’t feel much problem.

“Good, now you can start.” He said and left.

I sigh and close my eyes and start working.

Since I didn’t know how it was exactly I focused on one gate only and tried to stick a bit of psi inside to try and start circling it and opening the gate.

Unfortunately it wasn’t that easy. No it was far from it. First off the gate I could feel. It was right in front of my own gates but the psionic tech gates of the suit was extremely closed. The opening was as big as the very point of a needle.

I sighed since I knew what I needed to do.

Gritting my teeth I push all my psi into my entire hand.

The wave of pain almost made me faint but when I stopped to prevent myself from fainting the pain continued a bit before my head cleared up.

After a bit I recovered and went to check out the gates. It had expanded to the width of a needle which was an improvement.

I took this chance and form a small bubble of psi in all the gates because I feared it would close.

Then starting slowly shave away the gate. After 2 minutes I found I didn’t have enough psi to do all the gates.

Reluctantly I removed psi from half the gates and spread it over the others but doing this I eventually I had to pull back more until I was left with 1.

That single opening with all 480 psi points I had were there. Because all the areas with gates were blocked by psi tech I wasn’t recovering anything.

The gate had only opened…

“SHIT! Only a third of the way, seriously!” I cursed.

As I cursed I started to wonder what to do.

All the psi was in a that single bubble.

I pulled it back and as soon as the psi returned to my body it popped and released flowing like a raging river. The river was so strong that it caused pain throughout my body as I tried to return it to a calm flow unlike before.

When I had finally recovered I noticed that my HP had actually dropped some.

I tell the machine to let me go and it releases my hands and feet.

Jumping out and landing on my face disoriented it took a bit for me to finally get my bearings.

“AHAHA! So you feeling the backlash eh?” Colonel suddenly said as he appeared.

“You know and didn’t tell me?” I said.

“Course I new! Good lesson to you to not just randomly stuff psi into a compressed bubble. you gotta learn to control your psi properly. Ye need 50 points at max.” He says.

“There is no way that so little psi can open it.” I tell him.

“Course it can. When you make a the bubble of psi cover what you opened with just the spread out 50 points of psi. Then make an opening in the middle of your cover of psi and from that just push the psi to the edge and split it while expanding it.” He said nonchalantly.

I just sigh. My own fault for not asking how I should do it. My own stupidity for thinking a much more advanced level of technology would be as easy as a more simple tech.

I just turn around and lay on my back.

“Seems you got a good enough head to notice when you're wrong.” He says.

“My fault for not asking. I’ll go back in after a few minutes. I took some damage from the return of the psi so I just need to rest a bit so that I don’t endanger myself again.” I tell him.

“Good, oh right, you weren’t here but your dad said you were making a ship. I talked with Gunner and we he agreed to give you some ship building lessons as you get more parts for it.” He said.

“Good to know, was wondering if I would have to pay someone for that.” I said.

“Oh and your dad will be providing the beer that we will be drinking when you actually finish it.” He said.

…

Did he just say what I think he said.

“You said my dad would make the drinks… alcoholic?” I asked.

“Aye a giant dwarf. Still wondering how he had a normal dwarf as a kid?” He said confused.

“...”

I started to think how to reply and an idea hit me.

“He is my step dad. He adopted me which is why I’m so different from him. Also, I suggest not drink anything my dad calls a “strong” drink because even as if you’re a dwarf, you will fall flat on your face after drinking a bit of it.” I tell him.

Everyone nearby that heard that suddenly frozen and looked my way.

“Kid, you know what you're saying right. A drink that can drop a dwarf isn’t something to joke with. That would be like saying you found a dwarf that can use psi better than an elf.” Colonel says.

I sigh and shake my head.

“Then you will just have to wait. Dad doesn’t have any brewing gear but I doubt that will last long.” I say.

“Aye, I sold him a small one for him to start practicing.” Colonel says.

“Oh? Then I guess getting the money for the ship’s parts will come faster than I thought. Considering my dads skill in brewing… it will take him around a week for the first produces to be ready and maybe 2 months before the real thing.” I said.

“2 months to make something to knock a dwarf out. You joke with us kid cause it’s not funny. I made sure that you father doesn’t have brewery skill.” Colonel said.

“Only the skills we learned from the course seemed to have been left after we came to Kelha through Cryogenic sleep, maybe memory lose or something. The skills just don’t show up but we still have the knowledge just need to retrain them.” I replied dryly.

“Why don’t I believe you kid.” Colonel said with a frown.

“Not up to me to show you it seems. Still just wait to drink my dad’s drinks.” I said and got up shrugging and climbing the latter back into the suit.

“I’m going to train a bit.” I said pretty much saying I wasn’t telling them anymore since I wasn’t being believed. At least by NPC’s since the players somewhat understood that dad learned in other games.

I settle into the armor and close my eyes and focus on the gates ready to train this new method of opening them.

Roktar PoV

Hehe finally I got a brewery! Damn i’ve missed brewing some good drinks that fruits on earth can’t ever make.

The brewery was a small one and very simple but any good brewer can make something good from any size brewery.

I had this installed to my room after getting a job at the guards corp.

I also made a quick trip to the market and got some, a fucking lot, of ingredients because I need to grind my brewery level until it’s sufficient enough to let me produce the desired effect with the skill boost.

I spend at least 3 hours to produce a small batch of alcohol from some common grains used to make it.

Loading it into two different 1 gallon glass tanks then chop up and add a few locally grown fruits from one of the planets in this system that produces food.

Since I still needed to do further training and take some jobs to get funds for the alcohol brewing I leave the two gallons in the the closet and go get some work.

Oh right, I was called by Noah’s interesting AI and told about some third gender Pilot that has somehow put in his mind that he wanted to join our crew. When he told me his… yeah let’s go with his, skill level I couldn’t help but be impressed. Not everyday you find a pro.

Because of that I told him to join me in the guards corp as a pilot.

Now finding him at the board I call him and we find a request for patrolling the area for several hours and the pay was 400 credits for each of us and a bonus is given if we locate and kill bandits that try to come around. If we locate a large group, which means 10 ships or more in an area, and tell the station we get a bonus of 1000 credits.

We readily accept and head to the assigned ship we would use, me at the ship’s upper turret and the kids at the pilot seat, and we head out.

We took down 2 bandit ship and gained 100 credits extra but it was fine since we got money.

Seeing as there wasn’t much else to do I decide to call all the people that had shown interest in making the crew and we agree to meet in one of the parks in the residential ring.

We agreed that the first person reaching a park would determine which of them it would be so by the time I reached the residential ring Jessica was already at one of the parks so we went over to her.

I found Jessica with Hilda already there, with me and Alex, it left just Noah and Lisa to arrive so we can talk and see if Lisa will join us.

“Hi Jessica, I presume this is the young lady you said tol…” I start saying but the Android suddenly runs over and bows to me.

“MY NAME IS HILDA SIR AND I WISH TO BECOME YOUR DISCIPLE!!!” She shouted drawing the attention of everyone nearby.

“Sorry uncle but she’s a battle junkie. I’ve showed her some of your videos when you were younger and she drooled to learn from you for a long time.” Jessica said apologetically.

“Nah, it's fine. I’ve tutored enough people to know one or two would want combat lessons. If you don’t mind, I would like to see which skills you possess and which weapons you use.” I tell her casually.

She didn’t hesitate to show me.

Laser Weapon Mastery Level 8

Missile Weapon Mastery Level 1

Sword Mastery Level 10

Martial Arts Level 7

Pistol arms mastery Level 5

My brows raise at her mastery levels as well as martial arts. This showed she had some real life skills she trained in game. VR games had become a common thing to reach higher level of proficiency in sword arts for a long time already since it lets you fight real foes and people to the death.

“So you're from a martial arts dojo?” I asked her.

“Yes, my father only built it recently, we aren’t some thousand year martial arts family like some families from japan or other asian countries. My dad used several dozen games over the years to develop it and will probably continue doing so until he dies and will impart that to future generations.” she replied.

“What’s the style?” I asked.

“Gale Dance style… or was it something else?” She replied.

“AH! I heard of that! It’s a sword dancing style that can be fought by using either swords or iron fans. Most fantasy setting VR games would probably put this martial arts style as a skill taught to blade dancers.” I said.

“Really, now I get why my dad had me do so many of those dumb dancing classes.” She said with a frown.

“Dancing is a good exercise. I would suggest to start practicing it in earnest since it seems to fit the sword style.” I told her making her sulk a bit. I could more or less understand her personality already. Tomboy swords woman and a battle junkie who probably wants to be better than men at what they do better which is strength based things. I can already guess that because she doesn’t like dancing she is really rigid with her fighting style since she wouldn’t want to add in dancing.

I don’t know if I can help with the fighting style but some pointers here and there I may be able to tell her.

Since we still needed to wait for Noah and Lisa I sat down and had Hilda show me her fighting style.

Hitting the bullseye with my guess, she was as rigid as a rock when performing her attacks.

I didn’t know exactly how the fighting style went but it was clear as day that instead of stopping a swing and then fixing your posture for the next one you needed to be more fluid than water.

“As expected I guess.” I said with a sigh.

“Was it good?” She asked me expectant.

“Want the sugar coated answer or the real pro’s analysis?” I asked her.

She looked perplexed by my question and frowned hearing it.

“The real one.” She finally said.

“Your movements was like watching a rough rock trying to dance. The movements were slow, the fluidity of the fighting style was nonexistent, and I am thoroughly amazed you were able to get your sword mastery to level 10 in such a short time training like that.” I said out right and as bluntly as possible.

“Uncle!” Jessica exclaimed.

“Jessica, you know how I think of fighting, she asked for a pro’s analysis on her own fighting style and I gave it to her. I more or less already figured her fighting style to be agility and dexterity based with quick fluid motions meant to attack weak points while fighting in a large crowd against several opponents. As she is fighting she can fight only one opponent at a time.” I say in a serious tone.

Jessica doesn’t reply back since I was talking seriously on the matter.

“It’s fine Jessica, he told me what I wanted to know. Should have actually taken my father’s instructions more seriously though.” She said with a wry smile.

“You can always improve on his style but as it is, it’s a blade dancer style of combat. If you practice it you may be able to remove that dancing but that will take a long time and you need to perfect the original style to make it different.” I instruct her.

She simply sighs and sulks but nods agreeing. I hope she will take the dance classes more seriously now.

As we started on different topics Noah arrived… being levitated by Lisa.

I looked at her as she puts Noah on the ground.

“So… what happened?” I asked.

“He was training to use the dwarven robots. Seems he took a heavy backlash and fainted. If I didn’t speak with Colonel about who he was I would have never even looked his way when you called to meet.” Lisa said as she sits down next to the girls.

“Wait, the call… don’t tell me he got distracted by the call?” I asked.

“Apparently yes. He was working to unlock the Psionic Tech Gates found in Dwarven Psionic Robot armor and the call suddenly broke his concentration and his psi rebound back into his body causing a lot of damage before he got in under control but as he calmed down the pain took its toll and he blacked out. I healed him and then brought him with me here.” Lisa explained.

“I see, then he should wake up in just a few minutes.” I tell them.

“I doubt it, he will probably be out for a few hours.” She said.

I ignore her as I walk to a faucet and start pouring water into a cup. Then I came back and without pity or care dumped the cup onto Noah’s face surprising him and making him flail around.

“Rise and shine princess!” I said with a grin as I sit down.

“You’re an ass, you know!” Noah says pissed off before letting his body fall back on the ground and he held his head.

“Damn it my head! It hurts so fucking much!!” He complained.

“You blacked out from the backlash of getting distracted while opening psi gates. I healed the injuries but the pain is still present.” Lisa said.

“Huh?” He said and looked at her probably wondering who she is.

“You haven’t met her yet son, this is Lisa, she is an elf that specializes in Healing and support branch of Psi techniques.” I introduce her.

Noah gets up still grimacing but gives a small bow.

“Thank you for the help and I apologize in advance if I am not in a good mood. No one would be at the moment with this pain.” He said and sat down.

Lisa seems to brighten up as she seems to understand something, probably personality wise about Noah.

“Alright, with everyone here we can start. As I told everyone in the call, this was to see if we all agree to form an official crew.” I tell them all.

“What is the point of crews exactly and what is it in the technical terms?” Lisa asked.

“First of all crews would best to a guild in a fantasy setting game. Second you need a crew to pilot the ships and do maintenance and everything on the ships.” I explained.

Nothing like some good old fashion research. A huge pile of information about the game was released once the game went live. I looked for important info that would be needed in short term like now.

“I guess we also all pitch in to help each other fund equipment for each other and help with ship maintenance and in our case, build one.” Noah says.

“I see…” Lisa says.

“Just like Noah said, unlike a guild in fantasy settings were each one needs to fund his own things and may hunt down items from drops of a monster, it’s already been proven that you don’t get drops from monsters in this game. You need to harvest them yourselves and gather materials to process and make equipment.” I tell them.

“I just thought of it but what happened to the party system?” Hilda suddenly asked.

“It’s still the same. A temporary team that hunts, mines or works together. Ah speaking of this, being in a crew gives a bonus to XP gaining when in combat. Party system can help you share xp evenly or even focus on just one person to power level. The thing with the crew bonus is that you must be working with your crew to gain this. Space combat like in a spaceship dogfight would count as a crew effort.”

“Dog...fight heh heheh…” A sudden mutter came from my side.

I looked through the corner of my eye and saw the Tosk without a clear gender blushing while hazy eyed and drooling a bit.

Everyone noticed and were a bit weirded out by this.

“Urg… let's… forget what we saw.” I mutter and everyone nodded. “So is there anyone against the idea of forming a crew?” I asked.

“Just one question? Who is the captain?” Noah asked.

There was an abrupt silence as everyone looked at each other and then everyone’s eyes focused on me.

“Me?” I called out.

“Well yeah, you’re the oldest and most experienced.” Noah said.

It made sense, I did have the most experience and age and can judge a situation in the best situations.

“Well I am the Captain, now we just need the positions of each of you.” I tell them.

They looked confused but I was prepared for this.

Pulling out of my backpack a small packet of papers and writing my name in one of the black spots I showed them.

This contract is an official order that proclaims that those on this list have accepted the terms and regulations and have chosen to become an official crew.

Rule 1: No one member can have criminal charges or crew will be disband and be blacklisted and marked as Bandit Crew

Rule 2: You must possess the minimum of 6 individuals in the original founding of the crew.

Rule 3: You must choose a captain, it can be anyone of your choice.

Rule 4: In the page behind you must write all the names and official positions the crew will do aboard the ship.

Rule 5: Crews will disband if there is less than 6 people in the crew.

“These are the rules and regulations that officially name us a crew.” I tell them.

“Needs positions for each of us?” Noah said.

“Yes, for me it would be captain. Noah would be vice, Alex pilot and so on.” I say.

“Is that so.” Jessica mutters. She goes quiet for a bit and after a bit she sends something to our AI and they make a screen appear to shows us. “What do you think of this?” She asked showing us.

RoktarCaptainJessicaVice Captain/GunnerAlexPilotLisaDoctorNoahMechanicHildaGunner

“Hey! Why does yours says Gunner like mine?” Hilda asked.

“That’s because I have already begun to train with long range weapons and will probably request training to fire ship turrets for when we gain a ship large enough for one. As for you, you’re a close quarters fighter, I’m sure Uncle will have you learning how to fire bigger weapons and eventually turrets as well.” Jessica says.

“Maybe we can change gunner for Hilda then.” I tell them. I do the same as Jessica did.

RoktarCaptainJessicaVice Captain/GunnerAlexHead PilotLisaChief DoctorNoahChief MechanicHildaSecurity Chief

“Why did you add Chief or head to the titles?” Noah asked.

“Because as we grow and get bigger ships we will have to increase the number of people we have on the crew to manage the ships.” I tell them.

They seem to understand.

“Can’t it be changed?” Alex suddenly said.

…

Everyone looked at him and blinked. I sigh and rewrite the list removing the leading titles.

“Alright so does anyone have anything against the list like this?” I asked.

“When we are a crew what will we do?” Lisa asked.

“I guess the main priority would be to raise money to repair the ship. Noah and Jessica obtained a Life support which was repaired and functions now. For now we need around 5000 credits to remake the hull but the estimated total to completely remake the ship to how it was before being scrapped with every system in it, it’s between 500k to 700k credits.” I said.

Everyone but Noah became wide eyed. I heard this from him and it was told to him by Gunner so there wasn’t a false estimate.

“It will take us months to get that much.” Lisa said.

“I know but as a crew it will go faster. As we have already shown, in a crew setup we can work more efficiently. Once Noah finishes his training and can build some Psionic armor he can aid me in fighting. While he waits he can act as repairmen and a mid and short range fighter with the guns he purchased. Jessica can upgrade with scout and gunner upgrades so that you can use your long range gun to scout and back us up. Lisa is a healer and support so you can heal us.” I said.

“And I would be the space transport.” Alex says.

“You would be the main fighter in a space fight. If we take a larger guards ship we can use turrets to fight bandits while you fly which will help you level. I found that Classes unlock after level 10 so after that we can gain additional boosts by the class we gain.” I say.

“So to sum what we need, money and taking bounty hunting missions with the crew.” Jessica said.

“Sounds about right. There are party and guild quests in most games so there should be crew missions in a sci-fi one.” Lisa said.

“Let’s go register first. We can decide what we can do after that.” I tell them and with a nod everyone gets up and I lead them to where we should register right after we write everyone's position in the crew.