Art: Our application is accepted! We will start tomorrow night.

Aria: Thank you, Art.

Aria glanced over at the mech training machine, her sore muscles aching as it was being kneaded professionally. It was only 9pm so after the massage was over, she'll take another ability stone and ingest it.

Carefully plucking a large blue colored stone and a green one, she cut them and set them on different ring bands. Cleaning the remaining cubes, she put the blue one in her mouth and swallowed.

Her chest became cold and flowy, like small waves gently hitting the shores inside her. Then she set a timer for 3 hours of nap time to allow her body to fully absorb the first stone.

The alarm rang and she immediately tried to activate her water ability.

She felt wetness all over her body. She brought her hands up to see little beads of liquid coming out of her pores.

It looked kind of gross, like she's sweating.

Aria thought of activating the water ability on her hands only.

All her fingers then turned into leaky faucets. Water dripped down at a constant rate from her hands to the ground.

What. The. F. ?!

Why is it like this? She saw a lot of people activate their abilities in front of her in the past, none of them was this weak! Then she remembered a random memory of reservoir workers who were too weak to fight so they have jobs working for the base to fill up the reservoir instead.

Although this allowed them to practice their abilities a lot, it was really only 1 or 2 movements. These monotonous actions plateaued the ability and consequently stunted the growth and advancement of the individual. Complacency plateaus growth.

Dammit. More annoyed this time with the ability hiccup, Aria resolutely swallowed the green stone and fell back to sleep.

Across the world, Country M, City HH experienced a huge earthquake. The Richter scale showed that it was a 6.3 magnitude quake. A crack appeared along City HH and caused multiple fires and explosions.

The news of this quake was quickly known all over the world. Stocks of medical and relief companies skyrocketed in hours as other stocks fell drastically in reaction to this event.

A night owl from Country C saw the news of the earthquake and remembered reading an unusual post on an unusual account that he followed. He did a quick search and found the post. It listed the exact details of the earthquake in Counte M, but was posted almost a day before.

The Prophet 3033 @theprophet3033

September 15, 3031

Earthquake alert

Date: September 16, 3031

Time: 2:47:18pm

Country: Country M, City HH

Magnitude: 6.3

@countrym.... @cityhh.. @@..

He reposted it on his Pin account, tagging the same group of @ and included some of his own. "The prophet predicted this earthquake yesterday, you guys! You should have listened and prepared for it!"

His Pin was reposted through his social networks and the prophet account garnered more attention. Everyone wanted to ask how the prophet's account knew about the earthquake ahead of time but there was no response.Regardless, 97.4M followers were added, most of them from Country M.

Aria woke up and remembered the earth ability stone she absorbed last night. Learning her lesson from the other few times, she specifically activated her earth ability to only affect the rock on the floor, trying to get the dirt to nudge it.

It moved!

Aria was so happy she almost cried.

Even with such a big cheat, owning the Xing Plants, it's still so hard for her to use the abilities to how she wanted to. S3 interrupted her musings as she got ready for the day.

S3: The earthquake in Country M occurred. The next earthquake will be 2 weeks from now in Country L, then Country E, etc.

Aria: Thanks S3. Can you help draft them into the same format as my Pin posting? We'll release them a day before the event happens. Please remind me when to post them and notify me after the event takes place.

Aria was surprised S3 took the initiation to follow on this matter. Aria then went on her trading account and sold all the Country M stocks, making back 3x her investment due to the initial panic following the quake.

After eating a decadent breakfast (which she copied, thank you very much), she jumped on the plane to City PR where the lab that made the storage button disconnection disc.

After landing she immediately copied a random car and drove to the lab location.

Aria: S3, can you connect and show us the floorplan and security footages?

S3: Here you go.

Aria: Okay. What we'll do is send Little Eros in. Similar to how we robbed the Tang pharmacies, I want you to take everything. Let's go through the empty rooms first, then the backup generator. Then take the server. S3, you deactivate the security cameras and turn off all the lights. During that time, Eros, you go and steal the rest of the things where the people are. Don't leave anything behind. I want furniture, wires, clothes, computers, equipment, phones, etc. S3, make sure you copy all the data before wiping it clean and overriding it with dozens of layers of pornography.

We'll stay here for an hour while people freak out and take out things from their space button. S3, pay attention to see if any of them bring out anything important related to the weapons research and confiscate them.

The plan went along smoothly. Alarms were triggered but unfortunately the lab was cut off from outside communications because it took some time for people to remember to use their cell phones after redressing themselves.

Aria knows this is a huge hit for the company here so she waited for the phone conversations to start. Weeding out the crying and panicked workers, S3 quickly identified one man who looked angrily at the building as he explained the situation to the other person on the phone.

Angry Man: "I don't know what happened. Suddenly the lights went out and we waited some time for the backup generator to kick in. Suddenly everything started disappearing. The chair we're sitting in, our tables, files and computers. Even our clothes! We finally dressed ourselves and made our way out the building.

What? Yes, all the research was backed up in the server. Yes, yes, except for your copy, all the 'weapons' are locked up behind Joe. No one can get past Joe. He's still inside guarding the inventory. Yeah, I'll take care of the police report and send the researchers home for now. I'll update you once they find anything. Bye."

The angry man waved a disheveled female over as he gave her instructions to pass along. He then approached a police officer to find out what's going on.

Aria quietly drove away from that location. For 3 hours, Eros collected drugs while Aria searched for good local foods. Thinking about collecting snack food next, she found a local who produced amazing beef jerky. Thinking that it might not be convenient to pull out hot food all the time, Aria bought out the seller's inventory with various spice levels. The beef jerky were thin and crispy, like chips.

Thinking about chips, Aria went to the supermarket and bought small bags of the kind that she liked, regretting to buy and copy the candy and snacks in Country M. She asked S3 to remind her to gather some next time she's in Country M.

Speeding to the red location nearby, Aria swept that city, hitting the Tangs again. As long as Aria is Country M, and if she sees a Tang Pharmacy, she swore to rob everything they have. Their princess, Sherrie, acted the way she does because of their indulgences which stems from the overwhelming wealth they possess with the Tang Pharmacies. Each city that Aria hits she stole close to 10M of pharmaceutical equipment from them and 2M worth of drugs in their inventory.

If the ZA doesn't happen, she is a super wealthy woman living life as a thief. Oooh, just think of all the things she can steal from all the people that did her wrong in the last life.

She took 4 hours from lunchtime to the afternoon hitting a few smaller cities nearby before ditching the copied car and back in her EOS. She jumped back into her G Space and started her daily training regiment. 4 hours of physical body training: 1 hour of gymnastics, 1 hour of ballet, 1 hour of martial arts, 1 hour of cold weaponry.

These types of training simulation were a lot easier for Aria. She fought and survived during the ZA so fatal movements are quick and easy for her. But she noticed the training simulation helped to make her movements more efficient without wasted movements.

Being able to optimize her movements by half a second with greater force is the difference between life and death so Aria took the training very seriously. Those training also comes with its hundreds of simulations.

Seeing a cute nursery, Aria walked in and browsed around. Not that she planned to have a baby in the next 8 years... but old people, kids, and babies were the most pathetic during the ZA. Babies cry which attracts zombies and trouble. Copying all the clothes in various stages of growth, Aria stopped curiously in the accessories department.

Sales lady: "Hi! Do you need help?"

Aria: "Ah, yes. My sister is about to give birth and I'm wondering what's the most useful for her and the new baby?"

Sales lady: "Well, babies cry, poop, and eat a lot. Transporting them is also a hassle. And you need to stimulate their minds so they grow up healthy. We have everything here to help with that.

We have reusable leak proof diapers here. The material is thicker than regular diapers but that's because the diaper will prevent the waste from adhering to the baby's delicate skin. You use water and regular detergent to clean the diapers or a diaper washing machine.

This machine is this small but you just fill it with water and detergent and it will clean the reusable diapers and dry it in this mode. This is only good for cleaning one diaper at a time.

This small diaper changing machine will change the diapers for you in seconds. You place the baby's hip inside this machine and it will open, lift, clean, powder, and replace the diaper in seconds. You place the stacks of new diapers here, which can hold up to 50.

This small little helmet helps the baby sleep by creating a soothing sound inside for the baby to listen to. The screen is naturally dark too so that they won't be disturbed by the light. As for crying, the upgraded model also has a soundproof option where you and the baby crying can't hear the baby's cries. The frontal display will show data about the baby and you can see the baby's facial expression. The lights will indicate if the baby needs urgent care either when it cries too much, is too hungry, or needs a change. Unfortunately, silence mode can only be activated if the parents have the earpiece on where they can hear the sounds of the baby's cries. Although this sounds counterproductive, it's actually for the baby's safety. In the worst case where the parents are incapacitated with no response or heartbeat, the baby's sounds will be unmuted.

This machine helps stimulate sleep... This machine helps bathe... These shoes expand as the baby ages from newborn to 6 months, then this one is 6 months to 1 year..."

Aria: "that sounds good. You know what, I'll take all the ones you mentioned."

Aria was rightfully amazed at this small world of babies. Hopefully she will be able to pass this along so that more babies can be saved. Copying the rest of the electronics including light weight baby cabins where parents can walk or run with their babies inside the cabin without much gravitational jostling, she then left the store.

Seeing a kid's store next to it, she absentmindedly walked in and copied everything there too. Just in case. Then she saw an educational store. Going in she saw a couple of teaching robots and screens. She copied them all and bought an advanced teaching robot that specializes in teaching and tutoring students from the age of 5 to 18. Another nurturing robot for the baby to 5 year old age, and then a university one for advanced education. She purchased all the school curriculum and study tablets.

After the ZA is over, society will need to be rebuilt, and the children leftover will need to learn how to count and read again in order to advance humanity forward even after such a devastating event. Only through knowledge will civilization move on, not backward to the less civilized times.

Seeing different subjects available, like basic farming, engineering, etc. she bought all the subjects data they had. The total was close to 1M for all the data.

Booking a reservation at a high end steakhouse earlier for dinner, Aria ordered a large prime rib with some sides and a test flight of some red wine. Aria spent some time gazing at the beautiful sunset from atop the mountains. This was a winery that has made her favorite wine before. The purpose of having dinner tonight was to stock up on alcohol and good meat. She finished her meal and waved the waiter down with specific instructions before passing over the to-go containers. This time she wanted the meat cooked and cut up in bite sized portions so that later on when she wanted to eat steak again, she only had to open the container and eat them instead of cutting them all up.

As the containers came out one after another and were put away, the sun finally set, bright yellow lights from the city below shimmering like glowing flowers in the night.

-- Author's Notes --

Btw- Please "" for the chapter if you like the chapter/story since it's like the currency for my story to climb higher on the leaderboard or something and will attract more viewers.

Nbd if you don't, but for those that do, I feel like I'm personally writing for you. (づ￣ ³￣)づ Thanks for the constant support and I really appreciate all the comments and votes! It definitely drives me to continue to release 1-2 chapters a day as promised.