Jean returned to her own housing dimension of 7891 before finally examining her earnings in her second mission.
And boy, that was quite a lot.
Jean took out everything, from the first 3 watches she stole from Violet to the 19 she collected during the final battle to the reward Gregor gave her. She poured all the things inside out and had her minions sort them out, find out their usages, and create an index.
As her minions worked, Jean closed her eyes and laid down on the ground, getting some rest. She might be both psychologically and physically enhanced, but months of stressful combat and conspiracies still took a small toll on her.
Just logging in everything took a full hour. When Delta came to her with the reports, Jean immediately opened her eyes and sat back up.
She started very the essentials.
“The loots include 32,000 coins. 20,000 came from the Protector.”
Jean nodded. That was a lot of money. A single red crystal is worth 100 coins. A necromancer upgrade is worth 1,800 coins, and it is enough to make an individual go from nobody to someone with a CAS of 300, powerful enough to go against Jean in one to one combat.
If she used the 32,000 coins well, they could shoot her power level all the way into the sky.
“The loots include 1450 red crystals, 239 orange crystals, and 5 yellow crystals. All 5 yellow crystals came from Gregor.”
That made sense. If the Voyagers had yellow crystals left, they wouldn’t have been killed in the first place. Most of their energy storage were depleted, which was how they fell. Jean nodded and motioned for Delta to keep going.
“Among the 22 watches from the Voyagers, there are a lot of objects from different fields.” Delta explained. “They go from magic potions to dragon eggs to spell books to enchanted melee weapons. I don’t see anything worthy of special attention. What should we do? Merge them into our ranks or sell them?”
Delta handed Jean a list, and Jean glanced them over. Delta was right. These things went all over the world. If she was still the beginner in the Starcraft world, she would keep them all in her watch and use them whenever she needed to. But after seeing how Voyagers fought, Jean realized on the battlefield, quantity wasn’t as important as quality. It wouldn’t matter if you have ten layers of completely different shields if they all snap like paper in front of attacks. If you only have one shield and it is capable of deflecting every strike, then that’s all she need.
“Pick out the ones that might be helpful to Blink. Arrange the rest to be sold.”
She already had 32,000 coins, but currency was something she would never complaining about having too much of. She would rather get more money than try to use weapons and gadgets of different fields and risk burning herself.
“Affirmative.”
Delta ordered the Purifier Swordguards to do the according sorting as he continued explaining.
“That’s it for the 22 watches. Now we’re going to Gregor’s reward.”
Jean nodded. She only had the chance to take a slight peak at what was inside the reward watch, but that slight peak was enough to tell her she was in for a treat. Even better, unlike the diverse yet unhelpful categories from her previous loots, she knew these ones would be in her league.
Delta turned around and made a gesture, and Jean watched as a phalanx of figures approached from a distance away. All of them wore silver armors. In one hand, they held one man tall silver shields. Anyone who glanced at them would feel safe behind that shield. In their other arm were giant blades almost half their height.
“Kashank Guardians. They are a common type of alchemy creation, known for their durability in combat. They usually serve as the bodyguard to important yet fragile Voyagers such as summoners and wizards. As long as their cores are intact, they can always regenerate from injuries. Gregor included 100 of them. Their CAS is around 150, but all of it is focused on defenses. Their ability in dealing damage is disappointing.”
Jean nodded, satisfied. This was perfect. Right now, her fleet was countless times more powerful than she was. Her zerg evolution seemed puny in front of all the spells and powers of the Voyagers. The fact that she was almost killed by the Shieldbearer scout party was a prime testification. In the past, she had to rely on G-1s, but G-1s were better as assassins than bodyguards. They protected Jean by killing anything that might pose a threat to her, but unlike popular belief, sometimes attacking wasn’t the same as defending. Sometimes, the threats are too covert to be rooted out with lightning force.
A small group of elite units devoted to protecting her would drastically decrease the chances of her being killed before her forces were defeated.
Delta went on. She had quite the list.
“Class 5 quantum computers. One million times the computing power of our current terran hardware. Simulations show that implementing them in Warden units will raise their CAS by increasing firing accuracy, idealing energy usage, and maximizing probability of survival on the battlefield.”
Jean’s Warden units adopted the same computational technology of the terran in the Koprulu Sector. Compared to worlds who have barely made it out of their home planets, it was multiple steps ahead, but when faced with countless challenges all across the Infinite Realms, the traditional AI just didn't have enough computational power. This meant Jean could only equipe her Warden units with standardized AIs unless she wanted to make them twice the size. These standardized AIs knew how to tell friends from enemies and how to prioritize their targets, but that was about it. Throughout the war against the Shieldbearers, Jean has seen multiple issues with Warden AIs. S-1s would focus fire on enemy melee units and do nothing against archers. F-1s would dive down in the sky and be shot down by random missile units.
They simply had trouble adjusting to the ever changing battlefield and styles of combat. Even Warden Command Units failed at their jobs. In the Starcraft universe, Jean could cover up the weaknesses by having sufficient information entered into the database, but she no longer had the advanced knowledge she enjoyed in her recruit mission.
If these quantum computer technology were implemented throughout the forces, it meant the AI would take up less space while their processing power increase dramatically. Every S-1 strider could have the same intelligence as a past Warden Command Unit.
“Good. Do what you can to implement this technology into the Warden ranks. What else?”
Delta projected a hologram into the open. Jean glanced at it. She was no scientist, but she had a brief idea of what it was.
“Is that...some sort of alloy?”
“Yes. This is a formula to create a alloy specialized alloy called Cecilium. Testings show Cecilium is three times as durable as the original Warden and Purifier shells. They are twice as durable as runed shells.”
“What is their density?”
“Their density is greater, but simulations show that the increased weight will not have a significant impact on the speed or agility of our units.”
The formula didn't look as impressive as the Kashank Guardians or the Quantum Computer. In fact, in the hands of the wrong person, it was useless. If the schematics was given to Blink, the best thing she could do was sell it for some coins because she had no need for it. With Jean, on the other hand...Jean had resources. With armies of enslaved scientist conscious, from Dr. Amanda in the Starcraft world to rune crafters from the World of the Runes, she was fully able to turn the technology into power. More importantly, she had an army of metal machines that could be remodeled to use this new alloy.
“Make a few test models first and place them in combat. If they prove effective in combat, start trying them with runes. If all is well, transform all Warden and Purifier units. As soon as you’ve got the test models out, do an estimation of their CAS with the quantum computers implemented.”
No doubt, all of these upgrades would make Jean’s forces even more deadly than before.
“Is that it?”
“No. There’s another significant item. It’s also a schematic.”
Delta swiped in the air, and the hologram of the alloy was replaced by one of a ship. Jean didn't realized anything about it until she glanced at the numbers. According to the schematics, the ship was 100 kilometers long, 20 kilometers wide, and 5 kilometers tall.
The length, the Spear of Adun and two leviathans. The width, the length of two leviathans. Even the height was the length of five Minotaur battlecruisers side by side.
Jean frowned. If completed, the ship would no doubt be a terrifying beast of war. Its size surpassed the mothership dozens of times, and size meant more firepower. That was the rule in the Starcraft world. But as she stepped into the Infinite Realms, she learned that sometimes size wasn’t everything. First of all, the amount of specialized material needed for such a giant vessel would be off the roof. Secondly, a large ship might as well mean a large target. It would be deadly against weaker enemies, but against a foe with similar strength, its size would become a liability.
But she kept her mouth shut and let Delta do the explaining. Gregor’s rewards might be common place to the Protector himself, but for her, they were nothing short of the work of god. All of the previous items Delta introduced could take Jean’s forces to a whole new level. There was no reason this last one would be any different.
“Worldship. According to the descriptions, they are designed to imitate how different dimensions work.”
Jean rose her eyebrows. Things are just getting more and more interesting.
“Imitate dimensions?”
There was a reason Jean had Delta go over all the newly gathered information. Jean was smart, almost unnaturally smart, but her human brain’s processing power still couldn’t match that of Delta and the Purifier data net. Delta could absorb the information first, process it, and explain it to Jean in an understandable way.
“Apart from a few special occurrences, the worlds in the Infinite Realms act in the same manner. They are like individual entities. Their total energy level is fixed, but they are constantly circulating in the form of objects and living beings inside the worlds. When a person dies or an object is destroyed, the energy is conserved. It merely changes form.”
Jean nodded gently. “Do these worlds have conciousness?”
“Some do. Most of the worlds don’t, but they have basic instincts.” Delta slowly explained. “Do you remember when the Ancient One claimed he received a message from the world itself? It wasn’t a hallucination. According to my simulations, when the Protector first descended into the World of the Runes, he practically destroyed that world. So much energy was depleted fending off the Protector that the energy level of the world plummeted. Those energy were not conserved. It was reflected in the significant difference in power between the Shieldbearers and the two empires, and supposedly the Shieldbearers were at a weaker level than the ancient civilizations they came from.”
“After that, the basic instincts of that world realized that foreign intrusion meant harm, and since then, it has done everything in its power to repel outsiders like us. It must be too weak to take direct action, so all it could do was give warnings to its inhabitants.”
“Does that mean we might be facing worlds with more advanced thoughts?”
This was bad news. From what Jean saw, the World of the Runes was at the bottom of the food chain. There are more powerful dimensions, and these dimensions might be able to do much more to repel Voyager intrusions.
“Likely, but we don’t need to worry. I am sure the Protectors will take care of anything outside of our realm.”
Jean nodded in agreement.
“And how does the Worldship imitate that?”
“The Worldship requires a power source that at least needs to be a yellow crystal. The stronger the crystal, the more powerful the Worldship is. With sufficient power, the vessel can act like its own dimension. At its peak, it can generate suns and planets, create life, and foster civilizations. Even at its most basic state, it is extremely capable in combat. First, it can act as a staging ground and a base of operation. Its nature means most attacks that come into its surroundings will be captured and reduced to pure energy and absorbed, strengthening the vessel. It can attack its enemies by transforming its energy into any form you wish, whether they are flames or arrows or lightning. As long as the energy is in place, it is invincible.”
“From what I learned, the Worldships are a popular vessel in the Infinite Realms.”
Jean tapped her chin.
“What’s the CAS?”
“With a yellow crystal, it is at 1,500.”
“That is...impressive.”
