The plan has worked; Yuki herself confirmed it.
By the next day, when Professor Hendrick returned to the base downhill, he gathered the students who had previously spoken about Wartopia and held a secret meeting with them. Yuki's high-level Senses skill easily eavesdropped on their conversation, as the Professor asked his students to lay out everything they knew about Wartopia.
The students laughed and explained to the professor that the Black Chronicles, Wartopia's Unofficial Wiki, had no less than 60,000 articles when there was something called the Internet.
While the Professor was shocked by the sheer amount of lore that he needed to go through, he was even more shocked to learn that Wartopia wasn't just about two or three factions. His students told him that the Solarium wasn't even a single faction in what they described as the "Galactic Grand Saga" of Wartopia. The Solarium was the tolerable half of the galaxy, composed of half a dozen great factions, while the other half of the galaxy had its own anti-Solarium factions.
The Solarium was split into two governments, Metaphysical and Physical. The Metaphysical government is called the ATEN, the Forbidden City where Sol Imperius resides on the North Pole of the Holy Sun, and that alone has two factions: the Companions of Sol, his angels and personal army, the strongest force in the galaxy; and the Valkyrian Order, the winged shield maidens, solar emissaries, and keepers of secrets.
Then the Physical government—the Supreme Council of the Sacred Solar System—has its own departments, which have hundreds of factions under them. The Inquistorium, for example, is three forces joined together under one faction: the Speculatio Inquistorium, the Eyes of Sol that see everything; the Heretechia Inquistorium, the heresy and espionage hunters; and the Excommunicado Inquisitorium, the mute Wraithwalkers who specialize in swift assassinations.
Then there are the Legio Bellarium, one faction under the Bellarium—the Department of War—that manages and deploys all planetary legions across the galaxy, each legion a full human army that exists solely for endless war. Their bigger cousins are the Ordo Bellarium, composed of independent Knight Orders that sponsor and create superhuman soldiers, who are a crossbreed between a Companion of Sol and a Common Soldier, famously known as Star Paladins.
Lastly, the Lawmen are a force of interplanetary space police that operate as light armies, overseeing day-to-day law and order across planets, distinct from the local law enforcement structure of each planet.
While a dozen in theory, each of these factions and more bled into each other. The Justiciars, for example, were independent judges, juries, and executioner figures who could appear with any faction. The Mentors and Monks of the Scriptorium would also appear the same way if theology or IT specializations were needed. But the previous six main factions were only considered main because the game developers designed them as the biggest forces that could often collide with each other if players wanted to, under the pretext of conflicts of interest, and the lore justified it more than once.
As for the Non-Solarium, there are the ironic Privateers, who could be considered the Solarium's hypocrisy of finding a loophole to trade with other nations through proxies. However, Privateers could come in simple parties called Crews, all the way to large entities known as CorpoNations, and that is what Professor Hendrick and his students have become.
There are also the evil trio: the Demonic Infernium, the Eldritch Hive, and the Rogue Machina. The students described them as Biblical Hell, Lovecraftian Horror, and a blend of The Matrix movie, all scaled up for a space opera and thrown against the Solarium.
Even with their own sub-factions, there are other minor factions like the Umbra'Kin, an Illuminati-like cabal of fake humans trying to hijack the Solarium from within; the Elmwald, the anime furry, tree-hugging hippies of space that everybody hates; and a dozen smaller factions.
This recounting of every important faction in Wartopia made Professor Hendrick almost regret not having dipped his toes into that lore back when he was invited a dozen times by his students to join the fun, but since he didn't know the future, there was nothing for him to feel guilty about.
However, his sudden interest in Wartopia confirmed many suspicions and led his students to question him relentlessly, since most of them were already sure of the identity of their saviors. While the Professor tried to honor his association with Adam and his faction, his answers vaguely confirmed that these people were indeed from the Solarium and that someone had managed to reverse-engineer the Rift Phenomenon to summon people from the universe of Wartopia.
That someone could be none other than Adam Clay, the face of the Solarium on Earth.
Their revelation would travel as rumors in the coming few days; they would twist and turn, but Yuki was ready to twist the narrative even more to optimize it to suit their situation best, and for some reason, this manipulation and control of information gave her a sense of power and excitement she rarely felt in her entire life.
✧ ✧ ✧ ✧ ✧
To complete the Focus Crystals project for the Blazer-arms, Adam and Megan worked through the night to build their homemade Blazer gun, capable of firing lethal bolts. Adam integrated a hand-cranked dynamo to generate power within a fluxgel, allowing him to calibrate the power a crystal could withstand.
This calibration established both the minimum and maximum capacity of the crystals, thereby determining the maximum damage output and the number of bullets per Fluxgel cell. He then formulated a mathematical equation to govern these parameters. After verifying the new design against the Sacred Code, they finished their work at the first light of dawn.
Megan was given a break from today's duties by Elena, since she worked a night shift, and Wrench took over the process of making the Auxiliary-grade Blazer-arms, the most basic Blazer rifles of the Solarium, and one of the most robust tools of war.
Auxiliary-grade Blazers can come in many shapes, such as pistols and rifles, and Adam's first order was to make ten rifles and five pistols. The rifles were for the human recruits; the pistols were for him, Officer Reeves, Senator Carter, and Professor Hendrick. He wanted to get two pistols for himself, a pistol for Officer Reeves, whose training phase was almost over, and authority Blazer-arms for the Senator and the Professor to make it clear that he was not favoring one over the other, and to keep a balanced relationship between the two political factions in the Survivor Base.
Adam also left the process of delivering the trade supplies to Sergeant Elena, who, in turn, would hand them over to Professor Hendrick and his Privateer group of students, who, in turn, would take them to trade with the Alfari. The trading location was outside the borders of Springhead since Adam didn't like his base's location being known to the aliens.
Right as he organized that much work, he went straight to bed at 9 AM, but he was met with a cheerful Megan who seemed not to have succumbed to sleep just yet.
"That's a nice surprise you left me," she said, and sat by his chair at the Command Terminal inside the Command Center.
Adam approached her, eyes tired, and he seemed to long for a tight hug, but as he started leaning on her, he asked with closed eyes:
"What surprise are you talking about?" He asked.
She leaned back, looking at him with a smile that didn't seem to catch what he meant.
"The Minis," she said, and pointed at the crafting table. "I didn't know you finished all those by yourself. When did you have the time?"
Adam didn't react right away, but he then raised his head, blinked thrice, and then turned to Megan.
"What are you talking about?" He asked with a flat tone, completely unaware of what she meant.
"Those ones!" she pointed.
Adam turned his head, following her gaze towards where she pointed, and on the other side of the Command Center, where he had his personal Workbench stationed, Adam saw a set of Miniatures that he didn't recognize, all assembled, primed, and some even painted.
His eyes twitched, and his brows furrowed.
"Did Kave come here yesterday?" Adam asked, pointing. "I don't remember doing those."
"Kave?" Megan frowned, shaking her head. "No, Flint had him all day yesterday, and Elena was complaining long and hard about it, thinking Flint would make advances on Kave when she's not around."
"She's right to feel protective of him. He's getting his charms back," Adam smirked.
"Careful, he may become my backup plan once again," Megan said with a dirty smile.
"Joke's on you, bitch. He's my backup plan, too," Adam fired back, causing Megan to cover her mouth in shock.
"I'd pay real money to see that," she said, her face flushed red with the fantasies playing in her mind.
"I'd pay real money to know who painted those," Adam retorted, looking at the Minis organized neatly on the Workbench. "Not a bad technique, but that's not our work. Solid priming, but that… it looks like Plastic Cement. We didn't salvage any of that, though."
"No, we didn't." Megan got up and walked closer. "Also, only five have access to the Command Center: You, Me, Kave, Sergeant Elena, and Captain Creed."
"I did give access to Sophie and Biscuits," Adam said.
"Why?" Megan asked.
"Biscuits wanted to get Sophie to do some work in the base, so she gave her cleaning duties. I was against it at first, but Biscuits insisted that Sophie needed to be busy with something."
"I'll check the security log," Megan said, and walked towards the Command Terminal before reviewing its security data, only for her hand to halt. "Adam, it's only you going in and out all night long."
"Yeah, I checked the radar every 30 minutes during dark," Adam said.
"And you didn't spot anyone on your workbench?" Megan looked at him with a raised brow.
"It was dark, I only headed in and out without looking around much."
"Then if it is not you who made these Minis… someone sneaked in to put them together?"
Adam looked back at the Minis and held one of them up, recognizing the techniques used to assemble them and looking at the inside of a half-complete one under the magnifying glass.
"This is not Plastic Cement; it's internal welding using sprue parts. The seams are covered well. This is some fine work." Adam still analyzed the work and felt a chill run down his spine. "Who would do that?"
Adam counted almost twenty miniatures lined up side by side; most were finished, and the others were about 70-90% done.
"You think Captain Creed did it? He wasn't busy yesterday and spent most of it praying and fixing things," he asked.
"He wouldn't," Megan replied. "Have you forgotten his size? It would be like painting his own nails."
"Well, they wouldn't paint themselves," Adam said, and put the mini back before picking another that belonged to the vehicle. "I was working on this last night, and I faced a problem, but whoever had worked here didn't fix it. They painted the other Minis, though."
"Well… either a security breach or…" Megan started thinking for a moment before walking closer to Adam.
Suddenly, she yanked him away and pointed her pistol towards the Workbench.
"Hey! What are you doing?" Adam panicked, looking at how his sleep-deprived lover was staring intensely at the workbench.
"This thing… it could be AI!" she said, and pointed her finger at the Workbench in general, before focusing her aim at the Workbench's terminal.
"What?" Adam frowned and looked at his favorite working spot before shaking his head doubtfully. "Benchy isn't AI. I didn't even use the Puppeteer Rune on her."
"Her?"
"Well, sorry for Misgendering my Workbench, but I've been glued to it all day last week, and my degenerate self prefers to be stuck to a cute bench-anime-girl rather than being alone all day."
"Oh, God! You're in a bad way. Are those withdrawal symptoms from having no internet?" she asked.
"Imagine other people. At least I have a girlfriend," Adam looked in horror.
"Anyway, I still suspect the workbench. Unplug it from the network until it is confirmed it didn't do anything," Megan said, still looking at the Workbench with suspicion.
"Fine!" Adam said as he did so from the Command Terminal. "But you'll owe Benchy an apology if she's innocent."
"Fine…" Megan rolled her eyes before cussing under her breath. "Weeb!"
As Benchy's screen lost power, the lingering logic lines surfaced from its random-access memory:
> HUMAN MEGAN…
> (˚ ˃̣̣̥⌓˂̣̣̥ )
> …SCARY!
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