Chapter 491 (1/2)

Congratulations! You have been connected to New Earth.

Congratulations! Your Zone 1 is the first Zone to connect to New Earth. As such, a random effect will be added to both of the Danger Zones that spawn near your Zone! In addition, all individuals who originated in Zone 1 will benefit from 2x experience and item find until the next Zone connects to New Earth.

Now that New Earth is slowly forming, you have come to realize that to truly continue growing, sources of energy are needed to give your people access to better Classes, as well as increase the speed at which you train. Addition energy will be given to your Zone by controlling Fate Stones. Your first Fate Stone is within your Raid Dungeon and automatically controlled by you. However, beware allowing neighboring Zones access to the Raid Dungeon, or they will steal that energy for themselves…

For your safety, you will be given a notification when you are moving into a named Danger Zone.

The Danger Zone the Black Caverns has received a Rare random effect! Demonic energy has been added to the Black Caverns. Warning, monsters in the Black Caverns have increased in power! However, controlling the Fate Stone of the Black Caverns generates double the amount of ambient energy as a normal Danger Zone.

The Danger Zone the Crystal Arena has received a Runic random effect. The body of an old god is buried beneath the Crystal Arena, causing unpredictable effects. It is impossible to determine how controlling the Fate Stone will benefit your Zone.

Hank, along with the rest of the squad, looked carefully at the messages they received the next morning, signaling that their Zone had proceeded to the next stage of this System. In his heart, Hank felt a hot rush of pride that theirs had been the first to reach here. He wasn’t sure of the details, but he believed at least 5 other nations on Earth had received word of the System’s arrival, just as they had.

Yet here they were, number one, both in numbering and in the finish.

But very quickly, Hank tempered those feelings down, settling down to wait. After all, this just meant that they had a small headstart. They couldn’t slack off now in the least, or other’s would catch up with them.

The rest of the group seemed to have more muted interactions. Ezekiel, Laurel, and Katie just began hypothesizing what was contained in the different named Danger Zones. Affina simply sipped her tea, content to wait calmly until they were called.

Hank shook his head, then went out on his own. For whatever reason, he felt set on fire by the announcement. Although he had been initially very lukewarm to the idea of leaving his town, there was a fire in his belly now, and it wasn’t the liquor.

That afternoon, he trained like he hadn’t in months, gaining 20 Skill Levels in 8 hours. Chest heaving, he returned home just in time to receive a call from Alan.

“Looks like the Danger Zones are just Dungeons that are on Earth, rather than in their own place with sped up time,” Alan said simply. “Ghost’s scanners indicate that the New Earth area we connected to extends at least 100 miles in every direction. No sign of humans so far, but there are the remains of cities. That’s gonna be a lot of ground to cover, but maybe we can recover some supplies.”

Hank said nothing, waiting for the other shoe to fall. He recognized this tone in his brother’s voice; the leader of the UHF had bad news.

“...still, we have suffered a few small setbacks.” Alan continued as if this were the most normal thing in the world. Which it was, but if it was just normal setbacks, Alan wouldn’t have managed it. “The monsters… are a bit stronger than we anticipated. Most of the monsters outside of our Zone are between 51-58. One of the 58 took 100 men, including three Tier 5 Citizens, to put it down. Two people died.”

Both men were silent at that, and the unspoken implicated; they hadn’t even reached a true Danger Zone yet, as far as they understood it.

“What does Ghost havta say?” Hank asked, already knowing the answer.

“Everyone involved agrees that this was something of a shock, after so many months of peace,” Alan responded, “But this is good. We needed to be reminded that this is a struggle for dominance, and humanity needs to focus to stay on top. We’ve had it easy lately, but we cannot relax. Not when another Zone could connect to New Earth any day.”

Hank rolled his eyes. How could another Zone compare with the preparations they had made…? But he said nothing. It was a pointless conversation.

After returning to the group and letting them know the news, Hank suggested they head to a nearby Dungeon to get a sense of each other’s style in the field. Everyone agreed. Inwardly, Hank was ecstatic that the punk kid had snuck off during the day at some time, and wasn’t there for this talk. So, as a group, they went to the Dungeon, their first true training together.

The Dungeon itself was Level 39, which was pretty impressive, as far as Dungeons went, but it wasn’t enough to challenge Hank. Very quickly, it became clear that the only one who was at a place where this was work was Laurel, but she wasn’t a direct fighter, to begin with. Most of the benefits she brought were assistance for non-combat matters.

It did, however, give Hank a clearer picture of their party. He was very clear on his own strengths and weaknesses. He didn’t use explosives or plasma to attack large amounts of enemies, nor did he have a railgun that could pierce any armor. However, he was confident that his Bullet Infusions could deal out a similar amount of damage, even if his ammo was limited. Besides that, he was precise and focused; very rarely did his attacks miss the mark.

Meanwhile, Ezekiel Ghosthound was much more like a long range, high damage type. His strange Pierce Skill was relatively inaccurate, by Hank’s standards, but it could rip a hole in most monsters and would knock back those it didn’t puncture. He also could produce Mana Grenades that destroyed quite a bit, when they went off.

Katie was their tank, as she had an exosuit similar to Mordecai’s. But where Mordecai’s had been a powersuit with some energysuit features, Katie’s was pure powersuit. Her legs, especially, were greatly enhanced, giving her the ability to leap across the battlefield to come to ally’s aid when it was necessary.