36 Epilogue 3: Absolute Being

It has now been a few days since the Totality took off from B1 and started heading out towards the more central region of wild space and the territory of the Grey Wolf.

Lady Lily had been working in and around the settled regions to gather all the high-end scientific instruments required for full on scanning and recreation of the artifacts for such a good while now that she actually missed the wild space.

This is where her journey all started, and the familiarity really brings a warming sense of nostalgia.

Currently, they are travelling through the neutral flight path in between factions where merchants and dealers typically go through, and it will only be a few hours before they officially entered the region of the Grey wolf and appear on their 'official' radar.

Over the past many years since the beginning of this age of Absolute Being, the master has established a firm connection with the biggest war lord in this region, promising to provide his troops with elite level training as well as technology in exchange for a foothold and planet level independence.

This is where he gathered the four artifacts this organization currently have, two of which had already made an appearance. Using the starting resources offered generously by the Grey Wolf, master started the Absolute Academy. This is where men and women became legends.

Those that were invited to enter are put through various stages of trials and training in order to become proficient in areas like combat, science, strategy and everything that makes one become a more 'complete' human being. With techniques like accelerated learning and recovery, incredible processes can be made in an extremely short amount of time. This was what happened with Lady Lily and Sir Deva.

As more and more people accepted the invite and the challenge, more individualized training then took place, which brought everything to a whole new level. Lady Lily and Sir Deva were the ones that were in the first wave of academy students that had the luxury of a more refined training approach, and that's one of the reasons they excelled.

'Lady Lily, where should the final destination be?' The navigation officers asked the question once the exact coordinates of the destination became significant. When you are light-years away, getting to the right system is the top priority.

'Drop me and the cargo off at the academy, then head towards the operation base for service of the ship. All of the crew can take some time off before your next sets of missions, and the management will award you accordingly.'

'Yes, Ma'am!' The officer responded positively and entered in the coordinates. The giant ship began to adjust it's trajectory slightly and heads towards the very first destination, the academy.

Absolute Academy is located on a tiny rock planet a little bit larger than earth, but about the same mass. The gravity there mirrors earth quite nicely with a bit of extra just to make the academy students a bit tougher.

Within the system that belongs to Absolute Being, the Academy is located some what in the middle regions. It didn't take long at all before they have approached the planet and began the descent towards the space elevator station, and Lady Lily left the room and headed towards the cargo bay. Albeit a different artifact user that she has brought back this time alongside with the scientific instruments, it's an artifact user nonetheless.

Lady Lily thought. As a glass container filled with fluid and an unconscious Aquarian is loaded onto a small spacecraft, Lady Lily thought of the crazy journey that all of them had went through in the past couple of days.

However, she is almost certain that those artifact users are going to come for Dolon, and she will be ready. Maybe this time the sloppy plans of theirs will give up yet another artifact user for their cause.

'Excuse me, Ma'am.' A medical droid's exaggeratedly caring voice came from behind her, and she stepped to the side. A trolley floats by closely behind the droid and boarded the ship too. Gold is the being it's carrying. The prideful smile on his face is no more, and despite being unconscious, Lady Lily can clearly see a mixture on pain, anger and shame from his face.

His major injuries had been patched up, but the healing process will only begin after proper operation is performed at the base. Then, another few trolleys came by with the scientific instruments that they have gathered along the way.

The soldiers are all especially careful with the loading of this as any unwanted bump might have ruined all of their hard work. Even though the hovering trolleys they use can avoid vibrations caused by the unevenness of the surfaces, sometimes the distance sensors can overreact and make something worse.

The two bearers of the pseudo artifacts, now without the gear also boarded and ship and greets Lady Lily as they went past.

'Ma'am, everything is loaded and ready.' After performing a check on board, one of the pseudo-artifact users popped his head from behind the door, and Lady Lily stepped onto the space craft too. As Totality approached the space elevator, it then reduces it's speed to geosynchronous and moves around the planet at the same speed as its rotation, maintaining a constant safe distance between it and the space elevator.

The space craft took off from the parking bay and began the short journey towards the space elevator.

The whole loading and unloading sequence repeated itself once again before everyone hopped onto the space elevator, and the peacefulness of the ambient music in the background surrounds everyone in the room.

Lady Lily looked out of the elevator window to see the clouds and the green underneath became larger and larger. The terraforming of the whole planet was a pain in the neck for them, but when it's done it's totally worth it.

Greenery and the ocean began to alter the climate of the planet as small ecosystem began to form and flourish. The whole process is incredibly costly, but ultimately worth it. No matter how far humans left their roots, the genes encoded within their DNA still longs for the nature.

The descent takes around twenty minutes this time due to an extra long deceleration process as requested due to the injured and the delicate on board. As the clouds cleared, they can now finally see the space port down below. Right next to the space port is the main railway link towards the main site of the academy.

And with another twenty minutes on the train they would get to where most of the current academy students are working and training at. There must be about a few thousands students now, or more.

Lady Lily isn't really one to keep up with the human resource department of the organization, but instead she is interested in those that came through the entire process and can truly be taken to the next level of power, those that were in a similar position to her before.

The last leg of the journey flew by, and before Lady Lily knew it, she is standing in front of the main site of the academy once again.

'Take all the pseudo's to the workshop and wait for my instructions.' Lady Lily spun around and ordered, 'bring Gold and Dolon to my lab. You two, take the day off.'

'Yes, Ma'am. Thank you.' The soldiers and pseudo-artifact users nodded and dispersed.

As everything is sorted out, Lady Lily then prepared for herself and heads towards Master's office. The master is also the principal of the Absolute Academy, as all of his is his life's work.

His office is located on the mountain overseeing the small village that the Academy sits in, and the only way in or out is through the steep incline through the woods. The life in the academy is full of such challenges on the physical and mental level, and Lady Lily has had her fair share of it.

With a click of her heels, the shoes underneath her feet began to transform as nano-sized machines brought a layer of extra grip and close fit, turning her formal heels into a functional and minimalist close fit of a running shoe. She tied her hair up and began the run.

'Ten minutes? You have become slower, Lily.' Right as she appeared in front of his office, Master is already waiting for her outside. He is dressed in an oriental fit of grey suit today, 'but that is to be expected, as you have been working hard lately.'

'Yes, master.' Lady Lily took a second to catch her breath, and looked up at the young man in front of her.

'Come in.' He smiled at her and turned around, 'Let's do a debrief and get you sorted.'

Master's room layout and atmosphere changes almost every time Lady Lily is here, and now it's gives off the strong old time Chinese vibe with the bamboo shoot plants, oriental paintings that Lady Lily couldn't quite make out, red wood made furniture and a scent of meditative candles. All of this mirrors Lady Lily's own office on the ship Totality in a unbelievable way, and Lady Lily wondered if this aesthetic choice is intentional.

'I really like this interior design.' Lady Lily scanned around the room, 'how long have you had this?'

'All of this? A few months.' The master didn't look back as he continued to march towards his office just at the end of the hall way, 'I can see why you like this so much. It does give one a peaceful sense of mind. Anyways, take a seat.'

'Thank you.' Lady Lily nodded and sat down.

'So, talk to me, what's the progress?' Master sat behind in a desk opposite her and wiped away all of the holograms projecting on the table as he leaned forward and prepared to listen to what has transpired in past few days and weeks.

'I see.' Master nodded in understanding, 'so as of right now, we already have all the tools we need to at least begin the analysis and manufacturing of the more basic artifacts?'

'Yes.'

'And despite the capture of Zel, another group of artifact users had appeared and rescued him, but you managed to capture one of them in return?'

'Yes.'

'I see.' Master sat back, 'what do you plan to do with her?'

'The extraction of the artifact from her would be easy to do, as the integration isn't as complex as the last case.' Lady Lily confirmed, 'It's something we could have been able to do on the base back on B1.'

'That's good.' Master said, 'but you don't sound like you plan to do that?'

'No, Sir.' Lady Lily shook her head, 'out of the few bearers we have here and we have encountered, she is definitely the strongest. Instead of taking away her power right now, I feel like using her as a training exercise might have been more valuable to the whole organization as a whole.'

The master didn't say anything for a good minute. Then he began to chuckle and offered Lady Lily tea. She didn't move, so he just raised his hand in defeat and took the drink himself.

'So you are serious about this?' Master said with a proud smile on his face, 'you know why I like you so much? It's because you always seemed to find the most outrageous ways to do the most outrageous things.'

Lady Lily blushed a bit, but didn't say anything.

'I agree with you.' Master put the empty cup down, and the table morphed around to form a pipe that pours in even more tea into it, 'but before that, you need something from me, right?'

'Yes.' Lady Lily looked up at him in the eye, 'to get her to join our course, or at least be under control, I believe we need you to do some...work on her.'

'Done.' Master noted this down on his journal, 'and if you don't mind me asking, how is Gold doing?'

'He was injured quite badly by one of the bearers.' Lady Lily said, 'he was knocked out rather bad.'

'Was it him, or the artifact?' Master asked.

'Unsure, but if you think he is ready to take Lock down, then I will arrange for the challenge as soon as he is fixed up.'

'Yeah, I will leave it to you.' Master said as he puts down the second cup of tea, 'I will leave quite a lot more to you, in fact. I will be leaving here for a good while. When I am gone, can I count on you to run the academy?'

Lady Lily opened her mouth as she looked at master in shock, but ultimately nodded firmly without saying a word.

'I know I can count on you.' He smiled, 'But before I go, let's sort out a few more things together. First, Deva had returned from his previous adventure but had no luck, the rumor turned out to be a bust. He said there is something in the wild space that he is interested in, however, and it's unlikely that he will be around for long. Second, let's get the challenge ready for Gold, I think it's finally time for him to take the next step. Third, let's talk about you.'

Master stood up from his seat and clenched his fist. Tiny waves of particles began to move underneath his skin, and a thin almost invisible layer is formed around his fist and wrist, 'your nanotech enhancement treatment is ready. The question is, are you ready to take it to the next level?'

In the next coming months and years, things are only going to get harder. The artifact users they will face will only get more and more skilled and hard to face. Being enhanced through nanotech enhancements will be the next step in becoming stronger and a more powerful being. Ever since the dawn of this technology, it's not only exciting, but inevitable. Like a snowball in fiction, it's finally time for Lady Lily to move up in the cosmic power scale.

An arms race is about to begin, and Lady Lily is going to be at the front of the pack.

She is ready. With more responsibility, and more power in her hands, she will take Absolute Being to its new heights.

The age of the artifacts is finally here.

As of right now, Absolute Being is in possession of five artifacts, but in no time, more will join their cause. This is why master is leaving for the next little while. In order to be the forefront of evolution, in order to be the elite group of people to take the lead in this galaxy, they can no longer stay behind the scenes.

It's time to use the power they have cultivated, and tip the balance of the galaxy, starting with the master himself. From this day forward, the playing field will no longer be the same.

What a time to be alive indeed. Lady Lily leaned back with a smile as she glanced up at the ceiling. The mirrors up top showed the red dragons on her dress roaring high up in the clouds.