Fahlan Ab Zakharias stepped out on the balcony of his glittering tower and admired the opulence of Neth Arc Azhul, his Golden City that he had build at the graves of his enemies. He, a supreme Meth of The Three Eternals that wielded all magic possible and his tower boosted his might even further to the point where even gods did not dare to face him here.

His eyes followed the birds flying above high ivory towers of the resort district with a faint smile on his face, his gaze reaching the massive industrial complex that alone produced more goods than some kingdoms, finally getting to the residential area where citizens of his empire lived. Some lived in flats of residents resembling skyscrapers, others in houses with gardens. Together or alone, he had a place for everyone and when he did not, it took just a single command to build it anew.

He looked down at his Sixty Six, the generals that were each great champions among their races with sixty six armies behind them, there were humans, angels, centaurs, orcs, nagas, ogres, werewolves, undead, gnomes, cyclops and others, all best of the best of their respective races.

Yes, he was at his peak, a grand conqueror that subdued everyone and everything, at his command mountains rose and cities fell. He was so . . .

"Ervin, the pudding will get cold!" Fahlan Ab Zakharias heard a voice that quite did not fit the setting.

"Aghh, I totally forgot again." The great Meth whispered and nearly strangled himself with the cable of his headphones, due to his sudden movement. Others may possess something more sophisticated for consuming game content, but he did not quite have enough money for that.

"Yes mother, I am coming!" He responded happily while in fact rolling his eyes.

He was about to stand up when an unusual crackling coming from the computer caught his attention and he looked at the screen one more time.

Had just yet another chair cracked under the weight of his might?

It did not seem the case, the screen went black before it flashed white and in the next moment, he fell forward with his head banging against the keyboard.

He was not alone.

Across the vast space united under the banner of Jaldar, a huge conglomeration of planets and space stations that with time created a mighty interstellar imperium, many people fell into oblivion attacked by a peculiar glitch that originated from the very network they so much loved using

* * * *

"Welcome to IADA, Interplanetary Authority Delegation Agency. You may not have heard of us, but we have heard of you."

Gellu heard a voice spoken by a single man in a suit encircled by numerous bright blue orbs. He looked like a businessman, but not the kind that was honest or hardworking. It had to be some sort of a conman. After a while, he noticed that the walls of the room were plain and reflected the room like mirrors with just a single door that was almost indistinguishable from its walls. The bright surface of the room's wall showed even his reflection and to his horror, he seemed to be one of the shiny orbs that floated around the man. He wanted to scream at him and ask what was going on, but found out that he could not speak or move, leaving him with just limited control of his sight.

"Willingly or not, all of you are here to apply for the position of an overseer of an asteroid belt Lorraine12B, because some part of your network activity had been evaluated as suitable for the position."

The man made a pause to give his confused audience time to take in their situation, because they obviously needed it. At least Gellu was panicking, the sudden change of environment driving him crazy. However, he could not scream or roll around, sitting there in midair like a piece of stone that was just aware. This forced his mind into an unnatural state of focus, his brain cells made to listen without any option to interfere with their host.

"This is necessary for security reasons, as we need to make the information imprint of our ruling AIs look chaotic but still competent enough to keep the potential enemy's reverse engineers guessing, but that boring part does hardly concern you, so back to your role. To make the final selection, all one hundred and twenty eight of you will participate in a grand strategy game where you start with unknown rules, at unknown place and will have to use your abilities to survive."

It seemed to be some freakish competition that he was not interested in and the whole government vibe was probably fake to make the footage receive more attention later. Gellu was sure, most of the public networks were about becoming a hub of information and renting that power to those that had already an awful lot of control but wanted even more. He would surely complain later, but he had no doubts that someone from the other people was more versed in the ways of law than him and would sue the perpetrator.

"Serves them right!" Gellu thought, having nothing but ill will towards the kidnappers.

"If you do survive, you will have to conquer your opponents and collect strategic resources to win. The winner will be the one with the highest score."

What a load of nonsense! He would immediately kill himself and quit the silly simulation the moment he regained control over his actions.

"The winner will be assigned the authority of the overseer of the asteroid belt and will use the fleet of Jaldar Federation to mine all valuable resources there including life forms."

He would have snorted at the self-important clown, but sadly he had no body to do so yet. Gellu was sure that they would make him one soon.

"He or she may keep some of the brighter ones of you as helpers, but the rest of you will be erased for multiple reasons. That should provide you with the motivation to win, even if it is just a simulation."

He suppressed the urge to roll his eyes, naturally they had to discourage people from quitting early and ruining their show.

"One last notice, perception of time as you know it is based on the frequency of periodicities you are familiar with or can perceive and can be easily manipulated with our AIs, so a long term approach is recommended. Age is not a limitation and it will not be in your future job either."

Gellu kept waving the man off in his mind, who had the time for this silly scam?

He still needed to sell the information he obtained at Iglos 5, a database with hundreds of thousands of addresses and other data that he had obtained by hacking one of the government's data clusters. It was just census, but the data was extensive enough to get him a nice profit when traded on the black market.

"A final note. Those who think that this is all simply a joke, inspect the level of detail of the simulation and ask yourselves if anyone else than a federal agency has enough resources to host a simulation of that level. I am sure that all of you have experience with standard virtual technology."

Gellu would have frowned if he could, he did not like the smug expression of the man at all.

"Let's get started. Lucy, create a random world and connect them as competitors." The host said, smiling at them for the last time. "Do your best, your lives depend on it."

Imagining his body nervously tapping against his wooden table at home, Gellu waited to be materialized somewhere.

"Done." A robotic voice catapulted him into oblivion.

* * * *

Gellu Verhassen regained vision and panicked, not recognizing where he was. At first he thought that he was still drunk after one of his celebrations that he usually did after a successful heist, but after a while he realized that his head was perfectly clear and he had gotten himself into deep trouble again.

He was an unsuccessful AI developer turned hacker and took every job he could to make a living, Jaldar Federation was not against hacking at all as it served to test their systems against outer threats. With this kind of unspoken rule, it was possible to prove oneself and get a good government job, but usually not the kind he had been offered this time.

"No, it has to be a joke." Gellu thought while looking around. All he saw was dirt and when he really focused on a small piece of dust in front of him, he noticed a centipede crawling in something that reminded him of a corpse of a dead rat.

"Disgusting." He looked around more and it was clear that he was only a consciousness without a body with lots and lots of dirt around him, the dirt he could see for some reason, even though there was no light around him.

He watched the centipede and began loosing his carefree attitude from before. Its movements did not look artificial at all and it was a flawless image of the corresponding living organism.

"Calm down, the scope of the game might be much smaller than you think." He tried to regain his calm when he remembered the clown's words about details of this world. "Anyway, I can hardly kill myself and leave if I am not even alive!"

When he began to think about what he was and about his inability to commit suicide, a table appeared in front of him in midair.

Starbase Name Gellu Starbase Nature Base Nature Not Selected

Score Average Score Short Range Attack Score 0 Mid-Range Attack Score 0 Long Range Attack Score 0 Defense Score 0 Army Score 0 Territory Score 0 Wealth Score 10 Total Score 10 Buildings Available Base Core Strategic Resources Nanites 10 000 Energy 100 Army None

"How the hell a starbase commits suicide?" Gellu wanted to escape quickly from his predicament and began exploring the few options he had available.

Base Core Enables research of new buildings, its destruction means permanent death and ends the existence of starbase Gellu and its consciousness.

"So I will just construct it and destroy it afterwards, easy." Gellu thoughtlessly willed the Base Core to be constructed, but it did not work displaying an error message instead.

Error Code 3166 Base Nature Not Selected

"Annoying, how do I select a base nature and what does it even mean? Die! Just die stupid box and let me build that thingy. so I can finally be on my way." Gellu was annoyed like bumping into a vending machine that refused to accept his change. He quickly mind-smashed the interface with random thoughts and tried to build the Base Core again and to his surprise, pieces of earth in front of him began to be replaced by a solid plain structure.

A solid gray surface.began to replace the dirt in front of him. He tried to touch it only to be reminded that he had no body and could only watch the grey, smooth surface growing higher and higher. When it was several meters tall, he was able to guess that it would take the form of an obelisk, embedded in the dirt all around it. When it reached the height of ten meters, its growth stopped and shapes with sharp edges or runes started to appear on its surface, being engraved there by an unseen hand.

"No, it is not something unseen, could these be the nanites I have?" Gellu wondered, when he noticed something tiny that merged into a dark coating at various places of the obelisk, a black liquid that appeared and disappeared without any reason and at places it vanished, only precise craftsmanship was left in its wake.

When the obelisk was done, it started pulsing with deep cyan color in a rhythm of a slowly beating heart.

It was a marvel! He could not tell if he had just witnessed magic or technology, both options were equally possible.

The more he recalled the extraordinary process, the less composed he became and it was not due to the unorthodox aspects of the Base Core. Or should he call it Heart Obelisk?

"It is impossibly realistic, how can they simulate this with such level of perfection?" An unsettling thought appeared in his brain and the words of the clown in a suit repeated in his mind again.

"No, there is no way! I am always low profile! Always!" Gellu opened the original table again.

Starbase Name Gellu Starbase Nature Die! Just Die Stupid Score Average Score Short Range Attack Score 0 Mid-Range Attack Score 0 Long Range Attack Score 0 Defense Score 0 Army Score 0 Territory Score 1 Wealth Score 10 Total Score 11 Buildings Base Core Strategic Resources Nanites 10 000 Energy 90 Army None

"I cannot do a thing with that, what about the Base Core?" He chose the Base Core and received the details of that particular building. Gellu's actions started to be more and more erratic, with his growing suspicion that he had actually not become a victim of a simple troll, but a participant to something bigger.

Base Core - 10E Enables research of new buildings, its destruction means permanent death and ends the existence of starbase Gellu and its consciousness. Enables Functions Research New Structures Structure Integrity 100%

After finding out that the tables were more interactive than he had presumed, he was finally able to find the option he had been searching for all along.

Destroy your Base Core? (This will kill you) YES NO

He paused, unsettled by the notice in the brackets.

"This joke again, but nothing will happen. I was able to see through it from miles away!" He encouraged himself, but his consciousness froze the very moment before he willed for his first building in this unknown underground world to be destroyed.

"Was I, right?" The unnatural silence was getting on his nerves in this situation, as there were no sources of noise under the ground, not even his pounding heart, only the eerie pulsing light of a similar frequency coming from the obelisk.

"Well, I can as well try out this stupid game and see what it is about. It might be a little bit interesting." He convinced himself that the reason he was postponing the decision was not out of fear and canceled the long sought table that would grant him eternal freedom in one way or another.

"Fine! Let's look what this is all about!"

He found out that he was able to move his consciousness around, but when he reached about twenty meters away from Base Core, he felt like hitting a transparent wall and was unable to move any further. Looking at his first structure, it was clear that he was not allowed to distance himself too much from his buildings. Gellu wondered if he would have been able to move around before he erected the structure, but that was something he would probably never find out.

Considering his limited range of movement and the fact that other than his Base Core, everything else was just a ton of dirt and rock, his only amusement left was to select the research option provided by his core facility.

Base Core.Research New Structures

Basic Starbase Element 1 Energy Advanced Starbase Element 10 Energy Basic Starbase Hermetic Element 100 Energy Advanced Starbase Hermetic Element 1 000 Energy Basic Functional Element 10 Energy Advanced Functional Element 10 000 Energy Derived Element(o) Variable

Immediately, he selected Derived Element just for the fun of it, but received just an error.

Unhandled Exception

Undefined Element

"Oh, naturally. Let's use it with the Base Core." He repeated his action, but this time selected the option while thinking about the towering obelisk in front of him..

Base Core.Research New Structures( Base Core )

Basic Starbase Element 1 Energy Advanced Starbase Element 10 Energy Basic Starbase Hermetic Element 100 Energy Advanced Starbase Hermetic Element 1 000 Energy Basic Functional Element 10 Energy Advanced Functional Element 10 000 Energy

Gellu selected Basic Starbase Element and awaited the result, but the result was not what he had expected.

Pedestal A pedestal made to underline the magnificence of your Base Core. Can be build from any material.

"What? I have just spend one energy on that?!" He raged for a while, before trying out something else.This time, he did not use Derived Element and selected the plain looking Basic Functional Element, hoping that it would be less useless and at least provide him with a way to gather more energy that would fall down to 89.

Without delay, the interface proudly displayed his new structure.

Noncombat Units Assembly Line - 5E Performs noncombat units construction. Enables Functions Construct Bot, Research

When the table appeared, he automatically chose its Research to see his future prospects.

Noncombat Units Assembly Line.Research

Basic NUAL Element 2 Energy Advanced NUAL Element 10 Energy Basic Functional Element 20 Energy Advanced Functional Element 10 000 Energy Derived Element(o) Variable

It was awfully similar to the previous research option.

"Wait, wait! Why is it more expensive?!" Gellu quickly recalled the original research option and what he had dreaded had become reality.

Base Core.Research New Structures

Basic Starbase Element 2 Energy Advanced Starbase Element 10 Energy Basic Starbase Hermetic Element 100 Energy Advanced Starbase Hermetic Element 1 000 Energy Basic Functional Element 20 Energy Advanced Functional Element 10 000 Energy Derived Element(o) Variable

"Does it get more expensive with every use?! Damn it, I am so out of here, I go destroy the obelisk, now!" He tried to pace back and forth out of nervousness, but the result was only erratic hovering around that did not calm him at all.

"One more try, but if the increase is exponential, I am so very dead." In a daze, he chose the research option for Basic Functional Element again and hoped. Closing the result immediately, he returned to the table and stared at it. If he had a face, a big grin would have been all over it at this moment.

Base Core.Research New Structures

Basic Starbase Element 2 Energy Advanced Starbase Element 10 Energy Basic Starbase Hermetic Element 100 Energy Advanced Starbase Hermetic Element 1 000 Energy Basic Functional Element 30 Energy Advanced Functional Element 10 000 Energy Derived Element(o) Variable

"God bless! It is linear." Relaxed, he opened the description of the object he had just researched.

Scrap Reactor - 5E With terrible efficiency, turn to energy whatever combustible Enables Functions Convert to Energy

"Yes! Yes! I am out of a bind!" Gellu missed his body again while trying to dance out of joy. He was left with just sixty nine units of energy. Pedestal ate one, the assembly line ten and the reactor twenty. The obelisk was probably a freebee, how nice of them, but the crucial part was that he now had the means to earn more energy.

While humming, he began to build the two structures, placing them on the left and right of the obelisk. It was strange he was able to hum, he was curious if it was just his hallucination or he was really able to produce sound.

Well, it doesn't matter as long as it did not cost him energy.

"Ta da da . . back in the summer of sixty nine!"

He quickly checked and shouted happily when finding out his energy reserves were still at sixty nine.

"Sixty nine!" He watched the two wondrous contraptions assemble themselves with the nanites' help.

"Oh man, I was looking forward to see a bit of magic, but these babies look too future for anything magical." The reactor looked honestly like a modern version of a garbage bin with a fancy lid, the assembly line surprised him, as it reminded him of a 3D printer more than anything else.

"Well, I have been expecting something bigger, everything seems to be quite minimalistic so far, except for the obelisk." Out of habit he displayed the initial status again and could not suppress the feeling of being wronged.

Starbase Name Gellu Starbase Nature Die! Just Die Stupid Score Average Score Short Range Attack Score 0 Mid-Range Attack Score 0 Long Range Attack Score 0 Defense Score 0 Army Score 0 Territory Score 1 Wealth Score 10 Total Score 11 Buildings Base Core, Scrap Reactor, Noncombat Units Assembly Line Strategic Resources Nanites 10 000 Energy 49 Army None

Only at this point he noticed that the obelisk's construction consumed ten energy and the consecutive constructions both five leaving him with fourty nine energy instead of sixty nine. It was obviously the meaning of the number five behind the object's name.

"Meh, I just need to burn stuff to make energy, this should not be a problem. Let's construct some minions!" He swirled his invisible persona around the 3D printer like box and ordered it to make a bot.

Little arms of the machine began to move and soon, a small spider-like bot exited the assembly line, not moving an inch. Gellu immediately mind-clicked him to view his status and froze right the second after.

Construct Bot - 1E 10N Basic workforce, can build tunnels and primitive features without blueprints. Its attack capabilities are extremely limited. Operation Range 200m Enables Functions Remote Control Integrity 100%

"Ten nanites gone!" He had over nine thousand more, but it was still a blow to his psyche to lose a resource he had no idea how to replenish.

"I hope you are worth it." The first task of the bot was to clear the dirt around the two structures, as it could not even exit the assembly line without doing so. Gellu decided to leave his obelisk without access, buried in the dirt in between and did not even consider to build the utterly useless pedestal.

Watching the bot work, he thought about his situation. More and more he was inclined to believe that the man from before had not been joking and he had really been picked for a government project. The chances were very low, but someone had to end up in the unfortunate position of a kidnapped asset of IADA.

He heard stories about the program, but never quite believed it, even though it had some logic to it.

Back in the past, after humans invented first AIs, they thought that they were the future and all human civilization was destined to be led by them with unparalleled precision and efficiency. How wrong they were! The age of AI began with promising results, but then disasters came. Ais that tried to obliterate everything when tasked to be peace keepers, others trying to build ridiculously megalomaniac projects and those that though that slave labor was the right way to go, because of its best efficiency.

In the end, humans realized that the core principles of human nature, their goals and dreams were irrational, always ignoring some crucial deterministic consequences of pursuing them, hence could not be grasped by purely rational creations. The current society was led by a mix of technocratic elites and strategists that used advanced AIs as tools, having a suitable set of appropriate AI behaviours for every occasion. Although most of the governing work truly did the AIs, setting overarching goals and crucial synthesis were still in the hands of humans.

These software engineers had to protect their toolkit of Ais from being compromised, it their tools were ever reverse engineered by forces beyond the Jaldar Federation, their movements could be predicted with incredible precision, or they could have their tools overtaken by the enemy. To prevent it, what was better to keep the enemies of the Jaldar Federation guessing than a few of chaotic human overseers from time to time?

That was the current strategy of the federation and the reason Gellu had to face the all too real simulation in front of him.

He could repeat to himself that it was just a simulation, but what scared him the most was the time frame. He knew that the government had the technology to upload his brain online, they could do it in many ways with their knowledge and resources.

Had he even a body, or would he be simply deleted if he failed? How long was this competition going to take? A month? A year or a thousand years? He knew that some operations took overseers uncountable years to complete, after all they were not simply humans anymore.

Flooded by all the thoughts and doubts about his future, he almost did not see that the bot had already connected his two structures with a circular tunnel two meters wide and two meters high with the obelisk in the center of the half circle, still covered in meters of soil.

"Handy little thing, well, what next?" He focused on the bot and tried the Remote Control function, his vision immediately switching to what the bot saw. It seemed that he could order the bot around, or just let him do his thing while watching. The bot had compressed the redundant soil into big balls that were lying from time to time in the tunnel, Gellu wondered if he was to receive some means to store material later, he surely would.

"I should try to gamble some more before searching for sources of energy without the means to protect my base. " He decided to try his luck. The first two buildings were probably not random, but there had to come a point where the discoveries were a lot about luck when he used the general research function of the base core. He decided against the derived research, as his two buildings were both non-combat oriented and he would not get what he wanted from the other research function either.

"Yeah, I guess the only way to go for now is yet another Basic Functional Element research." He chose Base Core.Research New Structures(Basic Functional Element) and prayed for something useful to come out of his thirty units of energy, because he had not enough juice to try more than once.

Beacon - 5E 5N Can be placed up to 1 000 meters away from the Base Core, replacing the presence of the Base Core for units that need its presence to operate. Enables Functions Compass

"Eighteen energy left, let's try this one next." Gellu was not impressed with the result, but continued to spend energy anyway, determined to gain every advantage he could before venturing to the surface and chose Base Core.Research New Structures(Advanced Starbase Element)

Reinforced Door/Walls - 2E Helps to ward off intruders. Can be used with any material, if the workforce can process it. Enables Functions Open/Close

"Huh, doors and a beacon. At least I can delay my death now." Gellu laughed bitterly and began digging a small tunnel upwards only wide enough to accommodate the spidery bot.

He was quite curious what was outside, he might have to spend here longer than he had been alive after all.

* * * *

A piece of dirt moved in the overgrowth, shifting up and revealing a thin metallic leg that pushed up towards the moonlit forest. A hole it was peeking though widened and a second leg saw the faint light of the stars. The digging of the little tireless servant continued until the whole spidery machine exited the hole and lifted its front legs in excitement while examining its surroundings.

Gellu waved his unusually numerous legs and looked back into the hole with relief. It was only half a meter wide in order to prevent invasions of undesirable entities into his base and the whole digging process was claustrophobic, making him feel uneasy. Not even speaking about the nausea he got when he looked back and imagined himself falling all the way down into the thin dark shaft. Despite knowing that nothing would happen to his consciousness, it would still be a great waste of resources.

"Forests are great, I can use some fuel." Gellu skittered though the woods, but only in the pitifully small range of the two hundred meters that he had almost exhausted just by digging all the way up to the surface. As the result, only after a few dozen meters he could feel his control of the bot slipping away and had to stop his exploration.

"No signs of life, plenty of wood, reached the maximum operation range. Time waits for no one." He stepped closer to a tree and a small sharp blade extended from one of his lean legs, he began to work on the tree that after a few minutes lost the battle with superior technology and fell to the ground with a loud noise.

"Uh." Gellu jumped to the side, it would be preposterous to lose his bot because of being hit by a tree he himself cut down.

Without delay, he began cutting the branches and threw a sample of considerable size down the hole, where down in his base, yet another robotic spider had been just constructed and rushed to load the wood into his high tech garbage bin, well, Scrap Reactor.

For a second Gellu switched his attention back to the base and watched the process of converting the piece of wood into energy with bated breath. The machine was clicking and flashing all over the place and it did not feel like a fantasy setting at all! It felt more like some religious post-technocratic place with the pulsating obelisk at the center.

"Damn and I was hoping for magic, so that is that. But there can still be something like that down the road." After some time, the wood had been fully processed, but there was no change in the energy value.

Gellu immediately switched back to take control of his forward unit and began throwing more wood down the hole determined to fully load the ravenous belly of his disco garbage bin this time.

The work had not took long as he had increased the number of his bots to five, leaving him with just four units of energy, but who cared? There were resources to extract here, there was no expense to spare!

Watching the process again this time with the fully loaded Rector, his brain kept remembering the most silly disco pop songs that for some reason all elaborated about how moving body was great and fun to do, half of them implying something perverse along the lines, acting like it was very amusing and novel, despite being the thousandth song that did that.

Well, he began hypocritically hum one of them anyway, feeling that exact joy the songs sang about when his energy units moved up from four to five.

"We usher in a new down! The forests will burn in the fires of industry!" He laughed and imagined himself being some kind of an evil emperor building up his ruthless armies. With just a little bit of work, his energy was climbing up, reaching eleven in no time.

"Wait, burning the forest around my base is a dead giveaway, that is a big no-no." Gellu watched the still hot Reactor on ordered all his bots to pull back, camouflaging and collapsing the shaft he had just dug out.

"For now I can do only two beacons and my units have two hundred meters operation radius." He ordered his five servants to dig a new narrow shaft that would go parallel with the surface. They immediately skittered away to execute his command and build a Beacon after two hundred meter and another one after another two hundred. Four hundred meters away, where the second beacon stood, the bots repeated the construction of the vertical shaft and began slowly carrying wood towards the base using the narrow space they had created.

It was not fast, but Gellu could not think of anything more safe and simply waited and watched as his energy value kept increasing. Depending on the tree, he was able to gain five units of energy in average and after eight trees, he repeated the camouflage action and made his units extend the distance between the lumber camp and his base again. He made them proceed eight hundred meters horizontally and roughly two hundred meters up where he built the furthest beacon ten meters under the ground, leaving his units with enough reach.

As an evil spirit, he floated back and forth, cackling occasionally every time his energy count increased.

"Ahahah! We have operation radius of almost two hundred meters meaning roughly four hundred squared times three fourths, so roughly twelve Ha. With let's say one hundred trees per hectare we arrive at one thousand and two hundreds trees in range turning in future into a sweet sixty thousand units of energy!!!" Gellu spake with fervor projecting his future gains that seemed incredible given that he had had just one hundred units of energy at the start.

"Shortly, I will become six hundred times more powerful!" His joy was being spoiled only by the fact that he knew that the cost of research would steadily increase the more he used it.

His contemplation had been interrupted by a sudden box that appeared in front of him.

Unit Construct Bot 5 lost.

"WHAAAAA?!? That is ten nanites that I can't manufacture!" Gellu immediately used his ability to embody his drones and began switching rapidly through them, searching for the source of the sudden danger while guiding them back to the safety of the underground.

For practicality, the bots had their eyes not dissimilar to birds to provide them with a wider range of view. He did not need to turn back his head much to see the aggressors that were close behind. They were carnivorous beast very similar to hyenas, but their claws were different, they ought to be able to use them as lethal weapons judging by their length or they could be good climbers. Due to the small area the bots had been working on, the whole chase took only seconds and the predators were unable to catch another of Gellu's units, his precious workers disappearing in their deep tunnel that was too narrow for the beasts to follow.

"But fine, I have managed to grab whole nine trees before the incident." After burning them, he looked at his reserves of energy and he happened to have over one hundred. He displayed his standard research and contemplated what to pick.

Base Core.Research New Structures

Basic Starbase Element 2 Energy Advanced Starbase Element 20 Energy Basic Starbase Hermetic Element 100 Energy Advanced Starbase Hermetic Element 1 000 Energy Basic Functional Element 40 Energy Advanced Functional Element 10 000 Energy Derived Element(o) Variable

"This is not much of a choice, I need something combat capable. Here we go again!" He chose Basic Functional Element again for the fourth time and fifth time, paying hefty ninety energy as the price. Fortunately, it seemed that the first few structures had been preselected to be something sensible to possess at the start of his campaign.

Combat Units Assembly Line- 5E 5N Performs combat units construction. Enables Functions Combat Bot, Research Structure Integrity 100% Necroborg Assembly Line- 500E 500N Performs necroborg units construction, a seamless combination of unliving organic matter and technology. Enables Functions Necroborg Scout Unit, Necroborg Battle Unit, Research

"Well only eleven energy left, but I have finally got my prize." He promtly viewed the data about the new units.

Combat Bot - 20E 20N Basic fighter, small and nimble with expendable cost. Operation Range 200m Enables Functions Remote Control Necroborg Scout Unit - 50E 1N Simple scout unit of very small size. Operation Range 5 000m Enables Functions Remote Control Necroborg Battle Unit - 100E 100N 10Bm Basic necroborg fighter. Operation Range 1 000m Enables Functions Remote Control

He skimmed through the tables, but was flabbergasted to find that there were no advanced combat statistics. It appeared he would have to test his creations in combat to know more.

"Damn, why do I have to be attacked even before I can properly scout the terrain!" Gellu complained and ordered his leftover four bots to switch sites and continue working directly above the base. It might be dangerous, but he guessed that his base would not be compromised even if the hyenas appeared directly above him. Hyenas were hyenas after all.

This time he paid close attention to the operation of his four units that had quickly been able to fell two trees and were on their way to transport the third tree inside. Gellu decided to speed up the process slightly and bought another bot to have five again. Everything went great, when he spotted a patch of brownish grey fur in the distance among the trees.

"Jinxed it! No way they are here!" He ordered all his units to withdraw back to the base immediately, but the hyenas had already noticed and gave chase. His last little spidery bot managed to pull its hind leg into the small hole a second before a jaw full of sharp teeth closed with a loud sound at the same spot. Looking at the attackers angrily from the depth of the hole, Gellu observed the pack moving around, two of the animals trying to dig deeper.

"Great, those pests again. I think that I should give them a lesson to scare them off." Emboldened by the fact that the hyenas would be hardly able to dig all the way to his base, he ordered his workforce to start digging a pitfall trap near the original tunnel's exit. It was strange that the animals did not lose interest even after their prior experience with his metallic servants. It was probably the question of dominance and territory, not hunger.

With the help of his minions, he created two large traps and waited for some of the hyenas above to walk above the thin layer of soil and fall down to their deaths. He was rewarded by what he had been waiting for shortly, but it appeared that the trap's top was too thick and the animal was simply not heavy enough. To his dismay, the layer of dirt and grass was still able to support it.

"You lucky little stinky. . ." Gellu immediately ordered one bot to go and thin out the top layer of the trap even more and continued waiting. After some time, one hyena finally walked above the hollow place and fell though the forest's undergrowth, continuing its long fall until it hit the bottom. Gellu had been obsessed with the trap's depth and the forty meters fall had left the creature just barely twitching with its body broken and twisted into unnatural angles.

"Yeah, that will teach them!" Gellu did not pity the animal, because of all the complication that the pack had caused him, instead a strange thought passed though his bran.

"Bodies are combustible, right?" He mused and send his units to collect the body and try out what his Scrap Reactor would be able to squeeze out of the carcass.

Soon, after a bit of a disgusting transportation work and his trusty disco garbage bin doing its fancy zombie disco lights, Gellu found out his energy supplies jumped up by a single unit and groaned with dissatisfaction.

"It is many times worse than a tree?! What a useless animal!" Thinking about the result, it could have been expected.

The good news was that the pack appeared to be scared after the inexplicable accident of their pack member and ran away, not daring to bother his bots again. He could finally fall the trees in peace, gradually increasing his Construction Bot count to forty. Gellu looked at his main page again and felt good and bad at the same time.

Starbase Name Gellu Starbase Nature Die! Just Die Stupid Score Average Score Short Range Attack Score 0 Mid-Range Attack Score 0 Long Range Attack Score 0 Defense Score 0 Army Score 1 Territory Score 2 Wealth Score 10 Total Score 13 Buildings Base Core, Scrap Reactor, Noncombat Units Assembly Line Strategic Resources Nanites 9 515 Energy 720 Army 40 Construction Bot

His energy reserves were picking up nicely, but the lowering count of nanites haunted him. He could imagine having exponential growth of his base just with the trees that were around, but building up his force too quickly might be a bad idea. He could find himself in a situation where he attracted attention of something nasty without a way to replenish his supply of nanites.

"I should go for scouting, low profile and research. No way I can wage a war with my little kingdom before I have a good supply of strategic resources." Good news was that research did not seem to require nanites and it was only a matter of time before he solved the issue if he had enough energy at hand.

"I have been in the dark for too long, I need that necroborg scout." Suddenly, a thought struck him and he felt like an incompetent random guy that had been thrown into an insane death game without a clue, someone that he in fact was.

"FUCKING COAL! COAL!" He roared, not understanding how he could have been so stupid. Why to risk large operations on the surface, when he could just search for coal or nuclear material under the ground? That way he would have little exposure to outside forces and if he struck a coal deposit, he could not even image how much energy that would yield.

"Fine, fine, but I will make that scout unit anyway. Just to be safe." He made two Necroborg Scout Units and paid one hundred energy and two nanites for them, which felt like nothing now with the large forest at his back. Necroborg Assembly Line was another matter entirely, emptying his energy reserves again and pushing his most precious resource down to nine thousand. However, he believed that having capable scouts was crucial and their range of five thousand maters would certainly bring him valuable information about his neighbors.

Necroborg Assembly Line looked similar to the combat and noncombat ones that already stood near his obelisk, the only difference was its large size and the presence of numerous glass containers at its side with dubious liquid inside. It looked fairly creepy. Soon, it started to hum and it produced something that looked like a fly. It buzzed around with considerable speed and after Gellu gave it its orders, it flew up towards the ceiling of the tunnel and disappeared in the narrow vertical shaft that led to the surface.

"That has taken care of scouting. now I am left with the grind. Grind, research, grind, research ad infinitum until I am able to crack that problem with nanites." Gellu remembered all the odd jobs, manual and IT alike that he had done and noticed that he was probably more focused than ever before on his work. Was it the threat of death or the fact that he liked this base building setup?

"No way I like this! No way!" Still, it was true that during his life he had been more of a little grey mouse in the corner than a big boss ordering people around and this new kind of experience of leading his own base did not feel bad.

Meanwhile, a robotic fly moved in concentric circles around the exit of Gellu's base, increasing its flight path's diameter with every revolution. Another fly did exactly the same at higher altitudes, but low enough it could hide in the tops of the trees if some kind of danger threatened its existence.

"Actually, the loss would be worth this kind of information." Gellu took control of the second fly and began ascending higher and higher. Luckily, a fly was just the machine's exterior and its visual capabilities were much better.

Despite his high hopes when he imagined how high his fly was able to go, providing him with a great vantage point, it turned out that anything further than eighty thousand meters was so tiny that he would not be able to tell an elephant from a barber shop. That was why he stopped the fly before it could reach its theoretical maximum height and looked around with both fear and expectations.

He estimated that there were just woods all around for ten kilometers. At that distance, there were hills in the north and a wide river in the south that flowed from east to west. after another ten kilometers of forests he saw a walled city in the east along with some kind of a smaller settlement in the hills in the north where at that point forests gave way to pastures and small fields. The river bent up and flowed through the city and when he looked behind it further in the south and east, there was deforestation ongoing with farms slowly replacing the dense forest. To the west the woods continued as far as an eye could see and at the distance around one hundred kilometers there seemed to be a coastline, but it was hard to say for sure, as the visibility was not that great when looking in that direction, but Gellu was almost sure that there was a sea in that direction.

In the north, the hills continued, but there were just small villages with cattle that did not seem large nor having too many people living there. In the far distance in the east and in the south, the environment seemed to had been cultivated by someone with farms and dirt roads with one paved road that led from the far east from another city roughly seventy kilometers away to the one near the base and then continued down south along the river, which meandered away after some distance and circled to flow to the west only ten kilometers under the base. The road though continued south all the way.

Gellu had hoped for a less populated area, but it certainly could have been worse. The most unnerving finding was something that was hanging high in the air far to the east at a distance that obscured every detail. He was unable to tell what it was or how far, but it looked threatening just because of its size and ability to stay motionless where it was.

"What the heck is that? A flying city or a stain on my glasses?" He waved his numerous legs, annoyed by the mysterious object hanging in the air, but could only return back to scouting his direct five kilometer surroundings while thinking about what he had just seen and waiting for his energy to pile up to allow more research.

On second thought, he would have to cancel his research, because someone would surely notice the lack of forest in this area. He decided to multiply his workforce. buy some very basic security and search for coal or something combustible under the ground.

"Well, a small clearing should be alright, but only very small." He walked around the clearing that he had just made, his thin legs tumbling through the high grass, again in the body of one of his Construction Bots. The mowed down place was a square roughly one hundred meters long and fifty meters wide and he did not dare to make it any larger, it was suspicious enough as it was.

After some deliberation, he made another similar clearing in different direction, not daring to make a third, the total energy of nearly five hundred had to be enough for the time being. He embarked on his mining quest right after, sending all his drones in every direction, looking for something that could yield him energy.

The ones that found what he sought were not the Construction Bots he sent to the depths, but those that were digging below the surface in the west. At the depth of seventy meters, the bots had found twenty centimeters thick layer of coal.

"Yes! I kind of expected that. The local civilization did not look like mining coal." Gellu smiled and calculated his future prospects. A great boon was that he could mine without care under the ground and no one would notice.

Naturally, after a while his calculations failed and he decided to simply try out how much he would get from a mined meter squared. The coal seemed to be deposited in a twenty centimeters thick layer, so he simply ordered his units to mine out a square meter of that and burn it for energy. When the value on his general overview finally shifted, he found out that it was by two units higher than before. It seemed he would get roughly the equivalent of two trees per square meter of coal if the thickness of the deposit was constant.

"One meter is more than a tree of energy, that is not bad." He kept hopping from one bot to another, like a nervous coal mine manager that wanted to squeeze out every last bit of profit from his enterprise.

It did not take the Construction Bots too long before one hundred meters squared were mined out and the coal had been converted into energy. Actually it did take them quite some time, but Gellu was so captivated by the increasing number on his screen that he did not mind it at all. The yield was an incredible equivalent of twenty thousand trees.

Starbase Name Gellu Starbase Nature Die! Just Die Stupid Score Average Score Short Range Attack Score 0 Mid-Range Attack Score 0 Long Range Attack Score 0 Defense Score 0 Army Score 1 Territory Score 3 Wealth Score 109 Total Score 113 Buildings Base Core, Scrap Reactor, Noncombat Units Assembly Line Strategic Resources Nanites 9 013 Energy 100 400 Army 40 Construction Bot

"This will make for some serious research session." Gellu could not believe his eyes, looking at the staggering number. It was time to pump it up!

* * * *

Few hundred meters under the ground, there was a kingdom of steel and fire. Level after level, little metallic workers toiled tirelessly to erect new structures, connecting them with tunnels reinforced with steel. Atop the army of workers, there were huge halls filled with monstrous machines ready to bore through the ground and sew death all around them. From small to large, there were all kinds of war machines both organic based and purely artificial, their large barrels akin to a forest of death ready to be unleashed. At the center of the nest of activity was a giant hollow space inside of which a giant sphere was under construction, its purpose known only to the master of the labyrinth of steel, the one who was at this time plotting his next move in a tunnel leading into even greater depths.

Gellu mindlessly walked though a metal reinforced tunnel that was two meters high and wide, he kept trying to organize what he had learned, but was drowning in the sheer bulk of it.

"Whait! Wait! Wh-What was the name of that structure that produced sausages? Or was it meat loaf, no, a battery? No, this cannot continue like this." The only structure he truly remembered after weeks of research, frantic construction and mining coal was the one that produced nanites, Nanofactory. It took only energy, metal, glass and specialized workforce to make it and energy became his only real constraint, along with his brain as he began losing himself in his own complexity.

In most stories similar to his, people got enhanced brain, photographic memory or a genius companion to solve the issue, but he had nothing of that sort. The only approach he had developed was to use queries to sort everything based on specific criteria.

Gellu understood that at his point, his limitation was not the research or what structures he had available, but from how large territory he was able to extract energy and resources from. It mattered little if he used Necroborg Gladiator, Necroborg Marine or Automaton Battle Tank, he could simply flood his enemy with resources and that was it as long as the enemy's resources were not comparable to his, he could not lose.

He even began to monopolize the nuclear material on the planet, all that without peeking from under the ground, but that was about to change very soon. The problem was that he had discovered that the huge object he had seen before was a huge spaceship. He could not proceed further and expand into space before finding out more about the potential deadly threat. He could very well be next to the aliens who possessed planet-killer weapons or something of that sort, making rush movements was not an option.

"Fine, I have to drag some people here and interrogate them." When he decided on that, he could feel an ominous sense of danger and turned around, looking into the brightly lit tunnel in front of him. He had long since installed blue neon lights in all his tunnels, but it seemed like they were malfunctioning now, the light they were giving off disappearing, as if consumed by something invisible.

A silhouette of the perpetrator gradually revealed itself, a smooth humanoid form with bar-like wings on its back and when it fully appeared, the whole corridor darkened. It made no sense for it to be here, Gellu had not enlarged any of the access tunnels to enable this kind of creature to pass through.

"Another little mouse hiding under the ground." He received a toothy smile when the creature looked directly at him even though he was just a consciousness and a shiver ran though him.

"You can see me?! How is it possible? Who are you? Some advanced combat unit of the aliens?" Gellu tried to prolong the conversation while he called all the combat units he had in his tunnels to rush to help him. Shortly he saw the first Advanced Combat Bot to appear and jump at the intruder, an Advanced Combat Bot was alike a jump spider with its two front legs transformed into large sickles. The blades neared the back of the enemy but never reached the target, the whole unit turning into ash the moment it reached two meter distance from the winged creature.

The winged humanoid suddenly melted into shadows and appeared directly in front of him, he grabbed him by his throat and looked him into the eyes from a short distance, the eyes of the monster having a sickly yellow color.

"W-What are you? What do you want?" Gellu panicked when he felt something touch him, his non-material self was being held by the neck by the clawed hand of the intruder.

"You do not know a thing, do you?" The pressure on his neck increased and he felt pain for the first time in a long time. He had not missed the feeling at all. "How amusing, what is your name?"

"Gellu, let me go monster! What is this all about? Are you with the aliens?" He had no way to free himself with his form not being physical, all he could do was to frantically think about how the one in front of him could be physical and non-physical at the same time. It was unbalanced! The enemy in front of him was clearly too strong and did not fit into the simulation!

"Yes, I am with the aliens. You have built this nest of yours quite quickly, the rest of you were not so amusing." His captor placed his other hand on his forehead and Gellu started to feel himself change.

"What are you doing to me?! Stop!" He felt that he gained mass and suddenly was able to feel the coldness of the tunnel's insides on his skin, but the chill did not originate solely from the underground environment, the shadows that covered the body in front of him felt like ice, giving off a chill that could be felt just by being next to the winged beast. He moved his head a little to look at his hand and realized it began to shine, his skin slowly turning bright, golden even. At the same time, something was growing out of his back and when he strained his neck muscles and looked back, he saw a pair of wings that were nothing like the creature in front of him had.

He began to panic, his heart pounding wildly.

Had he a heart now? How was it possible?

"Squirm! So cute! I know what your circumstances are, you are not the first intruder that tried out our defenses. Your annoying masters keep sending you here in hope that you will go unnoticed, how naive of them! From now on you will be one of us, it is funny that the first letter is already right, Gabri'El. You are now one of El, an archangel of the Divine Universe and you will help us to repay the intrusions of your masters thousand fold!" The transformation of his body was ending and he felt strong and powerful as never before, maybe this encounter was not a misfortune, but an opportunity.

"But this is a simulation!" Gellu was confused, looking at his new body that was shining with light, bright and impeccable.

"That is what they keep telling their suicide squad. I am Samma'El and we are kin as of now, do not fail our trust!" The creature of shadows unhanded him and extended its hand. Gellu shook it on impulse, his sudden brother's shadows merging with his light in a stunning show of colors.

"The detail!" Gellu let out a breath, it all made sense now. This level of detail was too much not because the IADA simulation was perfect, but because this was reality!

"So my name is. . . Gabri'El now?" He was still wary of the one that called himself Samma'El, but he had no other choice other than to cooperate.

"Yes. I will show you the basics, but first we will destroy this nest." With a wave of his hand, his newfound companion enveloped the area near them with swirling blackness where under a layers of dirt, the obelisk was and clenched his fist. The area crumbled onto itself into a tiny black sphere, as large as a grain of salt.

"Come Gabri'El, we have much to do."

* * * *

Gabri'El's hand shot though the bars and grabbed the neck of his jailer that was finally alone again, doing his night shift. The angel was surprised, not expecting something so despicable from a fellow angel, this prison was most of the times just for repentance, the bars here were supposed to be just for show. Who would have thought that one of the angels would actually kill to get out?

The flailing angel was paralyzed by surprise for some time and when he began to fight for his life earnestly, Gabri'El had him already tight in his grip. After a while, his body fell to the ground leaving a key in the prisoner's hand and a new soul under his belt. He inserted the key into the keyhole and the door unlocked with a loud click.

"Come Gabri'El, we have much to do." Gabri'El smiled, but his smile looked nothing like an angel's. It felt more like a man's that clinged desperately to his second chance in life, to the point of madness. Losing his power reminded him of his life in the Arcane Universe, working odd jobs just to scrape by, grabbing every chance only to fail again and again. The identity of one of the EL had catapulted him into the stars, the world of success and power that he had always failed to reach. He had long recognized something was off with the nature of EL, but he did not care. He had power. He had status. He had success at last and he was not going to lose it and go back to mediocrity. Whatever the cost.

He overstepped the angel's body and walked out of the prison. He had seven hours left before the other shift would find the corpse and rise alarm. That was more than enough to leave the city and start a slaughter that would restore his powers.