[/Remaining_biomass_count: 17% of original size]

[/Remaining_mineral: #404 Data not found]

[/Construction_completed: Nanite Hive Factory]

[/Drone_construction_queue: General Purpose Drone x2, Mobile Nanite Constructor Drone x1, Hirudocrystallus Harvesting Drone x1, Viricrystallus Harvesting Drone x1.]

[/Facility_construction_queue: Magical Energy Reactor]

The core puts up a construction queue after the Nanite Hive Factory is finished, now that the base could defend itself, and soon there will have some drones walking around to keep it running in a good shape, the core can leave the area and go hunting for more biomass to feed the Viricrystallus, its original departing time has been delayed for 9 hours so far, the core does not wish to delay it any further.

The core goes through the list of available nanite that it can use during the hunt, 35% of the nanite are combat nanite, 40% are general purpose nanite, the rest are construction specialized nanite for hull repairing duty. Like the last time, the core also decided to use the 2 reduced size body instead of a full-sized one as the smaller body seem to be more mobile and able to get in tight spots easier than the big one, beside, with 2 bodies the core can lay down a much more dangerous nanite ambush at the same time too. Perhaps the core will utilize this small body until it builds up enough of a drone army to support itself in combat so that it can freely use the big body, it also plans to reconstruct the body by using the new found material sources once it collected enough resource to spare too.

As the two reduced size bodies exit the small tunnel, the two immediately looks around to find any sign of life, bugs preferred, or rather, big bugs prepared, the bigger they are, the more biomass they yield, or at least that is what the core thought.

As the two bodies wandering around, they spot a small group of golems slowly fighting a group of giant lizards, it seems like the golems has invaded the lizard's territory or the other way around, the core can not tell what is the right one, and the core does not care about it much, maybe if the lizards are all dead when the battle finished, the core will wait for the golems to leave the area before it moves in to claim the dead bodies. The core does not want to intervene for now as the nanite would be more or less harmless against those walking boulders since there just have too much to cut and break down with the current amount of nanite it is carrying.

The core orders the two bodies to leave the area and continue the search for the bugs and other lifeforms that are not engaged in combat against those golems, until the core can get a physical body as strong and durable as Pioneer 0's hull or gathered enough drones, the core will avoid fighting those golems all together.

[/Movement_detected]

[/Hostile_lifeform_found]

After 10 minutes of wandering around, the core finally receives a report of bug sighting from the second temporary body, a rather large hunting group is carefully moving through the area, 30 Evolved Hivewarrior, 24 Evolved Hiveravager and a single Greater Hivewarrior, way more numerous than the core has expected, frontal confrontation would have a very low chance of success, ambush isn't any much better. The core needs a different plan.

The core can try luring the group toward the golems in the area first, and then it will do a surprise attack when the time is right. Or it can also try sending the second body off to lure more golems into the fray to soften the bugs down even further and causes more chaos that will allow the core to hit them harder with a surprise attack.

The core decides to pick the second option as it orders the two bodies to change their arm structure into lightning rods to try out the new Arc Projector technology it just developed recently before splitting up, the one holding the core going to stay and follow the bugs while the second body goes looking for golems to provoke.

After a couple of minutes passed, the core notices the Greater Hivewarrior suddenly slows down and starts looking around, it seems like it has felt Pioneer's present in the area, or maybe the thing making it anxious is the Viricrystallus in its legs, the thing is emitting magical energy that the nanite can't just convert all at once at the moment after all.

[Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP]

The core decides to make a change of plan as it raises up the lightning rod and aims at the bugs before striking an Evolved Hivewarrior with a lightning bolt, the loud thundering sound created by the lightning bolt surprised all the bugs as it is too loud for the bugs to guess where the sound came from, the bugs begin looking around quickly to find the attacker as the lightning struck bug spasms around for a moment before falling down on the ground and die, the bolt of lightning has zap fried its brain and shut down its circulatory system at the same time, the weapon is much stronger than the core predicted.

As the core finishes charging up for a second strike, the core notices this time the lightning bolt does not hit the desired target as the lightning bolt curves upward and strike a long stalactite on the ceiling, it seems its intended target is standing outside the attack range of the lightning rod, the attack still stunted some of the bug thanks to the loud thundering sound each time the lightning rod is activated though.

"Specter of Blizzard...consume my mana and crush my enemy!. Poison Ice Lance!"

The core notices the Greater Hivewarrior just constructed a big purple, point ice rod and is throwing the thing at the temporary body, the bug seems to aim for the body's head based on the raw ballistic data the core just analyzed.

[/Deconstructing_head_module]

The core lets the head unit to be detached and falls off its body to dodge the incoming ice rod before it fires another bolt of lightning at the approaching bugs, then it picks up the head, turns around and starts running away from the advancing bugs, the bugs has taken the bait and now the core will try leading them toward the second body which is being chased by very slow golems as well.

[Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP]

[Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP]

The core tries ordering the body to zap some bugs while running to lessen the number down a little bit as it watches out for incoming ice rods and leaping bugs to dodge, so far nothing terrible has happened yet aside from grazing damages that can be repaired quickly by the nanoconstructors. The second body also reports no difficulty as well since the golems' running speed is about equal to the body's walking speed.

As the core carefully micromanaging the body to do run-stop-zap-run order at a rapid pace, the bugs' respond to the loud noise become weaker and weaker, some of them don't even seem to notice the screeching sound of nearby bugs anymore, the bugs have gone deaf or something by the look of it, the machine has successfully disabled the bugs' ability to cooperate with each other by accident, however, it also make the bugs more ferocious as the quietness is driving them mad.

Before one of the deafened Evolved Hiveravager could leap onto the running machine, a bolt of lightning strikes the bug hard and pushes the bug backward as it spasms around violently in the air, the second body is here and it is now running alongside the core as the golems notice the rampaging bugs right in front of them and start throwing rocks at the group, however as the bugs are deafened, only the bugs that got hit could notice the golems behind the group as they turn around and crazily charge at the golems. The Greater Hivewarrior also notices the golem too as the thing has not deafened yet thanks to its durable body and rapid recovery power, seeing that its brethren are being tricked by the two unknown beings the Greater Hivewarrior becomes angered as it quickly casts mass heal on all the bugs, the spell depletes its mana pool immediately and restores the bugs' hearing ability as the Greater Hivewarrior orders the lesser Evolved Hivewarriors to deal with the golems while it chases down the two fleeing machines along with the Evolved Hiveravager.

[/Deploying_Combat_Nanite]

[/Deploying_General_Purpose_Nanite]

The core plays its ace as it turns around and charges at the Greater Hivewarrior and the Evolved Hiveravagers around it, for now, the core will focus all combat nanites into the Greater Hivewarrior as it is the strongest threat in the group, the Evolved Hiveravagers can be dealt with by using lightning rods to zap fry them one by one. The General Purpose Nanite will have to travel quite a distance to reach its intended targets which are the Evolved Hivewarriors. The golems will be dealt with later by using the lightning rods and raw strength melee combat.

...

[Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hiveravager | +1200 XP]

[Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hiveravager | +1200 XP]

[Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP]

[Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hiveravager |+1200XP]

[Pioneer 0 leveled up]

[Pioneer 0 is now level 23]

[Pioneer 0 received 1 unallocated point]

[Pioneer 0 now has 9 unallocated points]

An hour has passed since the battle began, the core has managed to take down most of the Evolved Hiveravagers and Evolved Hivewarriors in the area, the golems are also defeated by the Evolved Hivewarriors earlier as the remaining Evolved Hivewarriors are now joining the fray to help the crippled Greater Hivewarrior, the thing is extremely hard to take down due to its immensely powerful immune system and healing spells, 72% of the combat nanites have already destroyed while fighting against the bug's immune system and messing its inside up. The remaining 28% are struggling to finish the fight as they are reinforced with the less powerful General Purpose nanites.

[/Targets_locked]

[Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP]

[Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP]

[Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP]

[Pioneer 0 defeated Evolved Hivewarrior | +900XP]

The two bodies zap fries four evolved hivewarriors who were leaping at them with the lightning rods on their arms, the rod can instantly kill a evolved hivewarrior with a direct hit, for Evolved Hiveravager it needs 2 to 3 strikes to bring down the creature. Quite a powerful weapon for its rather simple looking construction.

Now only the Greater Hivewarrior remains, the core could not use the lightning rods against the thing as it will risk destroying the nanite swarm inside, so the two bodies will have to beat the crap out of the softened bug with their bare hands instead. The battle has turned from a tactical micromanaging hit and run into a 1 v 2 boxing match where punches are traded with extreme killing intentions behind them.

The two bodies spend forty minutes punching the Greater Hivewarrior while having the nanite disrupting its circulatory system, respiratory system and nervous system inside the bug, and they actually dishing out damage faster than the bug could recover those wounds. It was not until the two machine decides to stab its softened body from head to toe that the thing's life signal ceases to exist, Pioneer finally killed its last opponent.

[Pioneer 0 defeated Greater Hivewarrior | +20000 XP]

[Pioneer 0 assimilated Greater Hivewarrior | Advanced Evolution Core gained 1800 XP]

Since the thing is a Greater type evolved creature, the core decides to assimilate it to get some XP point for the Advanced Evolution Core, at the same time it orders the other body to return to the base and relay an order to get the 2 general purpose drones following the body and return to the area to transport all the dead bodies back to its base. The core will remain in the area to gather the corpses around and pile them up to prepare for transport.

Soon the core will have to send out the drones to explore the big tunnel in the base area and find more crystalline lifeform to harvest and expand its base, and these dead body will be the fuel for its expansion, the core is eager to do more and push the growl of its base.

While the core orders the body to gather all the dead bugs and golem pieces, a group of adventures also has settled down and created an outpost to clear the collapsed paths and dig for ore veins nearby. And in those adventures, a female black knight can be seen sitting near the campfire next to the Hero's party and looking at the dirt walls as she mumbles to herself quietly.

"I'm coming for you, Urchin."