10 9th Move | Birth of Capitalism

"Hello there," I said with a well-practiced smile—

...which they cannot see due to the helmet.

My face relaxed and the smile disappeared upon that realization.

The trio of armed men and women slowly got up from their lying down position, their movement, posture— everything about them screamed wariness and distrust.

Hmm, they must've been scared by the helicopter noise and the sound of a hundred sonic booms from those bullets. It also made sense how they were not reacting like the goblins when they first heard my unnatural voice: the bullets triggered their survival instincts, causing everything else to be seen as secondary.

A tense silence befell the clearing as I grasped how similar the current situation was to when the Europeans arrived in the Americas or when the United States forced Japan to open their borders at gunpoint: a way more technologically advanced power is interacting for the first time with a group of feudal or even more primitive people.

Along with that historically repeating recognition came my understanding of the current power imbalance. That is, I hold all the power in this situation, just as the Europeans and Americans held all the power with their guns.

However, just as in business and in life, it is generally more productive to go for the peaceful option. Thus, I made sure to point my coilgun away from the group but still close enough that I could annihilate them in case they were hostile.

The first one to speak, the first one to break the tense silence, was the blond-haired guy of the group.

"Uh, hi! My name is Kaval and these are members of my adventuring team: Eren and Gido." Then, the now-revealed Kaval pointed a thumb behind him at a black-haired masked woman wearing white clothing, "The lady in the white mask is a traveler who decided to go with us for companionship. Her name's Shizu."

Kaval and the rest of his team looked like they were members of a theater who were just about to perform a play about the Medieval Ages in Europe. Shizu on the other hand...

My eyes shifted to focus on the woman, who must've somehow sensed my attention and tensed up accordingly.

Shizu had long black hair with black leggings, white clothing, a cape, and a sword held within a sheath of crimson and gold.

"I see, so what's your business here?" I asked after nodding along and crossing my arms. Then, I followed [Psychology]'s suggestion and brought my right hand up next to my helmet and lifted the glass visor.

[Psychology] said how people trust faces more. Thus, if I want the adventurer to feel at ease, I'll reveal my face to them.

I heard the quiet gasps coming from those adventurers as they gazed upon my face that was without the necessary flaws to appear human. A basic glance at their body language told me how the one known as 'Shizu' in particular seemed to recoil in response to me revealing my face to them.

Once again, my eerie perfection comes to affect my attempts at building potential relationships.

Although that name... a name different from the trio. Interesting. I put a note in the back of my mind about Shizu's name.

Kaval was the second to take control of himself right after Shizu. "Well, Miss, you see we were..."

The man hesitated as if he were debating with himself whether or not to tell me a secret. He then eyed me up and down before a familiar glint reflected off of his iris, a glint that I am almost intimately familiar with...

"Well, you see Missy, some weeks ago we found this knife." He carefully took out a long object wrapped in dark brown cloth, "an unenchanted crystal knife that erupts into flames whenever it's swung quick enough."

Oh fuck.

"Our Guild Master Fuze then asked us to find whoever made this knife..." Kaval trailed off.

Was my haunted look really that obvious? [Acting] aided me in taking control of myself, on the outside anyway.

[Silenced Emotion 60%]

How was the knife still active? I didn't make it with [Longevity] as I do with all of my current tools!

Kaval now looked like a sleazy salesman pushing a product he knew would sell if he simply put a little more pressure on it.

"Are you perhaps the owner of this knife?" The man unrevealed the smoking gun and unfurled the whole thing, letting sunlight reflect off its shiny surface.

I flinched involuntarily, partially deducing my belief in the idea of exchange, the very foundation of an economy is what revealed my presence to the world before I was ready...

My movement must've been the final nail in the coffin, as I saw Kaval, Gido, and Eren's faces lit up in pure joy. They knew they found their knife's mysterious maker.

[Silenced Emotion: 80%]

Any guilt I could possibly have for what I was about to do was completely erased from the face of the map. Slowly, I started moving the barrel of the coilgun towards the trio. It was slow enough that one could easily mistake it for a subconscious moving of the body to avoid cramps.

"Huh, I see. But, how did you know it was me?" With [Acting] in full control of my voice, no one knew what was going to happen.

It's either due to natural obliviousness or stupidity or whatever, Kaval happily continued with his deduction while the masked woman slowly reached for the handle on her sword.

"Well it's obvious, isn't it?" Kaval started with a happy tone that felt like it belonged to an office worker who'd just been promoted, "It was more of a hunch than anything but a few things tipped me off. First, just look at how fine your metal armor is, and it's not made with any magic! There's no way anyone short of the creator of the knife can create such an armor that also is capable of flight. The second one? Your unnatural beauty just screams you aren't human. The Guild Master literally asked if we had met a god. The third one? Your thunder weapon that annihilated those giant ants that—"

He was cut off as he realized the 'thunder weapon' that decimated the ants was now aimed toward his group.

Kaval's face twisted in horror.

"My apologies," my voice was unnaturally cold, so much that it even caused a shiver to go down my spine.

Unfamiliarity with my new body.

"But I cannot allow you to leave with that knowledge."

"WAIT—"

I pulled the trigger without any hesitation or reluctance in my move. The thought of snuffing out four human lives as being something regrettable didn't even occur to me at the moment as an issue that deserved any extra thought.

Despite almost fitting the amoral businessman stereotype to a T, I still possess ethics. Just that those ethics apply to a very narrow range but they're absolute to make up for how few situations they may be applied.

*CRACK—ACK—ACK—ACK*

The sounds of loud thundering cracks echoed throughout the forest.

Coilguns are a subtype of what's known as an electromagnetic linear motor device. Unlike its much more popular cousin the railgun which uses a pair of parallel conducting (rails) as boosters, coilguns (also called Gauss rifles) use one or more electromagnet coils that wrap around the barrel.

The coilgun I'm holding can accelerate projectiles to Mach 4 speeds with a maximum range of a few kilometers. As with anything moving at supersonic speeds, it creates a vacuum close behind the object.

The sonic boom is the actualization of the constant attempts made by the atmosphere at collapsing the vacuum and subsequently slowing down the supersonic bullet.

In the span of a single blink, the woman with the white mask appeared in front of the trio with her sword drawn and—

*BWWOOOSSSHHH*

Bright flames.

The sword was engulfed in bright flames that somehow caused the bullets to miss their targets.

What?

Was that magic? Or was the woman something more than human?

I flicked down the visor and had the biometric scanner run a preliminary check on the woman.

The scanner took in all the visual data I could collect in an instant. From the woman's height, body structure, and behavior, the CPU inside the Aerial Combat System came to its conclusion in less than a second.

>Target appears to be of the Homo Sapien Sapien race

But how? This 'human' moved so quickly she blocked bullets! Even without [Mathematics] and [Biology], I knew the g-force alone from accelerating so quickly would flatten any normal human into a pancake!

I screamed inside my mind for an answer, and while many specialties replied with solutions, [Magicule] was oddly quiet as if it wasn't authorized to reveal information to me.

However, while I was having an internal crisis with the impossible human in front of me, I was the very definition of calm on the outside thanks to [Acting].

"So you wanna tell me how you blocked that?" I said casually as if I hadn't just tried to murder the four, "because I highly doubt that anyone could just casually block rounds moving at Mach 4, which is faster than what the naked human eye can track."

(AN: Play Luke Leon - Ants)

Whoever this Shizu was, she ignored my attempt at probing for answers and charged straight at me.

I moved to smack a section of my left forearm that was covered by the control gauntlet. However, before my right hand could reach it, I felt the heat radiating from Shizu's flaming sword half a meter away and closing in rapidly.

Thankfully, just as the sword was centimeters away, my hand touched a section of the gauntlet that showed a red triangle with an exclamation mark inside it.

*Pssssssh*

Instantly, four covers facing in front of me were blown open with rocket exhaust billowing out as I suddenly lurched backward and out of the range of Shizu's stab.

The emergency movement option. If I were human, I think my neck would've snapped from the whiplash. At the very least, I'd have gotten a concussion as my jaw slammed into my chest.

Recovering quickly, I noticed how I was now half a hundred meters away from Shizu's position.

The combat computer locked onto the masked woman, and the visor paired with the HUD highlighted exactly where I needed to aim.

I ignored the computer and instead listened to [Marksman].

*CRACK—ACK—ACK—ACK*

In three seconds, thirty ferromagnetic rounds burst out of the coilgun. All of them aimed at Shizu's head, heart, palm, pinky finger, diaphragm, Achilles tendon, aorta, brachial and femoral artery.

All are instantly lethal or at the very least catastrophically crippling.

Shizu moved. The superhuman was somehow able to react and dodge most of the bullets with a grace I'd never seen before. For those that she can't dodge she used the flat side of her sword as a makeshift shield.

Damn, I really underestimated the humans of this Tolkien-esque world.

The helicopter blades on my back started rotating. I'd have a greater advantage in the air than on the ground. Three dimensions offer me an additional axis of movement, after all.

Shizu, realizing what must be happening, rushed at me.

Crap!

Recalling how Shizu moved to block the rounds aimed at those adventurers, I swirled my minigun-like coilgun and aimed it at the trio behind Shizu.

Huh? Where are the adventurers? The trio was just there but suddenly disappeared!

Switching to infrared, I saw a large mass of redness around five meters away from where I had aimed and rapidly moving away in a single direction.

Some kind of invisibility on the visual wavelength of light...?

Shizu flinched, stopping for a brief moment and showing hesitation.

Then, I aimed the barrel toward that red mass and slammed on the trigger without a second thought. Desperate time calls for desperate measures.

*CRACK—ACK—ACK—ACK—ACK—ACK—ACK*

*WHOOOOSH*

A massive inferno erupted from Shizu's sword in defiance of my rain of death. The inferno was so hot and so overpowering that on the infrared vision, it appeared simply as this overpowering explosion of pure white.

The Combat System automatically switched back to normal vision, and I was able to clearly see how it was a tornado of fire that widened itself. Akin to a deadly rose blossoming in spring, the tornado bloomed into a shield that protected the trio of adventurers by vaporizing the metals as they passed through.

Once the inferno passed, it revealed the trio of now-visible humans who, while displaying first-degree burns, were relatively unharmed. The area around them was devoid of life while the air was especially dry thanks to the sheer heat that radiated from the fire.

"Okay, what the hell?!" I yelled out, the billowing, cool wind from above touching my skin that was facing toward the inferno.

It was so hot I felt like I was naked in Death Valley!

Just who the hell is this Shizu?!?

While I was pondering that thought, I was finally being lifted off the ground as the helicopter blades achieved the proper rotation speed.

It wasn't enough.

Shizu rushed forward, so quickly that I barely had any time to even aim my coilgun at her and fire off a few rounds.

That she deflected with her flaming sword.

I was now panicking a bit as I fully lost control of the situation. It wasn't the type of 'becoming unable to think' kind of panic as [Silenced Emotion] ensured I wouldn't feel such intense emotions.

While this body is stronger than my old one, I didn't know how strong, and I'd rather not test my durability today.

Shizu then leaped as she got near. Time seemed to be in almost slow motion as my eyes widened at the approaching white-masked missile. Her blades seem to be nearing agonizingly slow.

That was when [Martial Artist] kicked in.

I won't be able to do a counter-attack. So instead, I tried and choose where I would be getting stabbed.

"..." That thought didn't disturb me at all.

Another side effect of [Silenced Emotion].

I abandoned the coilgun. Instead, choosing to use my hand to clasp around Shizu's unstoppable approaching flaming sword and divert it away from its apparent target of my heart to elsewhere.

With my new physiology, I was able to move my limbs much faster than I used to. Thus, I clasped around it in milliseconds. I could barely feel the flames that were cooking my hands with how fast I was moving.

Red lines crawled down my arms like vines growing, but they weren't fast enough.

I bled for the first time since I reincarnated as the sword went into my shoulder.

*SHUNK*

"ARGH!"

I was in a world of pain. A world devoid of everything except for the blinding, burning pain that stuns my entire upper body.

I couldn't think of anything else except— GOD DAMN IT! It was painful!

[Silenced Emotion: 85%]

It was a shock of sobriety, partially aided by how the flames killed the nerves connecting to my right arm making it so all I could feel was numbness. I felt like a drowning man suddenly erupting out of a stormy sea and onto the surface, with a lifejacket now around my body.

The sword stabbed itself into my right shoulder. Even if I couldn't feel it, I could still tell it came out of the other end and stabbed into the helicopter jetpack, damaging it to the point one of the rotors became inoperable.

Shizu tried to pull the sword out, but I grabbed her forearm with my right hand and held her in place. Despite the constant, buzzing pain in the background of my mind, I can't help but smile.

Shizu's trapped.

The masked woman seemed to realize that as well.

She's fucked up.

"My turn."

A long metallic sword popped out of my only free hand's gauntlet. I moved to return the favor and stab Shizu as we both started falling.

It was the most harrowing experience I've ever had. If I had been a human, it would definitely have been my last. Me, crashing into the ground as the helicopter jetpack started spiraling out of control. The wind blew and caused both of our hair to start to go wild like reels in a thunderstorm. Shizu blocked my stab by grabbing the sword.

"Ah!"

Finally, I forcefully yanked the sword upward and sliced off all the fingers of Shizu's right hand except for the thumb.

And that's when both of us crashed into the ground.

(AN: Stop music)

"Girraaaahh..." I could feel my right arm dangling by a few muscle fibers. Apply any insignificant amount of force on it and it can easily be torn off.

If I were human, I think I'd be panicking right now. But, I don't feel any particular attachment to my limbs.

Looking around me in a daze, I saw how Shizu stood up from the straddle that she was in, pulled out the sword from my shoulder, and was moments away from finishing me off.

Fuck, if I didn't suddenly recall how I was a Perfect Homunculus I think I'd have truly started praying.

You're going to need more than that to kill me.

Like, more than entire nations apparently.

However, before Shizu could stab me, a large moving mass of a white thing suddenly clasped around her figure, and the superhuman was thrown off of me.

Raising my head from my fallen form to look at what happened to my soon-to-be slayer, I saw how the white mass was in fact a large, sticky web that blanketed Shizu, who was currently struggling to get out.

I was about to get up but I was suddenly engulfed in a cool, blue, gelatinous substance.

What...?

I could only see blue, and perhaps the vague outlines of the forest beyond but I wasn't 100% sure.

Due to the flames cauterizing my shoulder, there wasn't any blood leaking out. However, the feeling of touch began to reemerge from my right arm to my shoulder as if something had reconnected it.

Despite being submerged in something akin to quicksand, I could still breathe, oddly enough.

As sudden as the blueness, I'm now on the ground. Particles of dirt clung onto my arms like paint thanks to the fresh wetness that appeared out of nowhere.

It took me several more seconds before I realized Rimuru was here and he was the one who healed me... by eating and spatting me out.

After going through the most harrowing experience I've had in both my lives, I can't find it in myself to feel disgusted. In fact, I can't feel much of anything emotionally thanks to [Silenced Emotion] being turned up so high.

"Guh..." that's all I could say as I flipped myself onto my back and simply stared at the clouds above me.

"Wait! There's no need to fight!" Rimuru yelled out.

Idiot. I raised my upper body into a seating position and saw how Rimuru was in his elf form, "You idiot, that bridge has already been burned."

The elven slime turned to me, "There's no need to fight! We could easily talk this out like civilized adults!"

The gears inside my head started to turn. Any sane person wouldn't get anywhere close to those who had tried to kill them. It's basic common sense.

"I'm fine with talking!" Kaval spoke up. Both Kaval and Gido stood protectively over the mage Eren as if she were more important than their own lives.

[Psychology] helped me quickly deduce Kaval's reasons for wanting to talk. The man must've realized how useless they were since they didn't even bother trying to help Shizu during our fight. Now with their biggest stick out of commission...

I looked at the downed Shizu, who was halfway out of the webs.

... make that temporarily out of commission. Either way, talking for them was the only way they could perchance get out of this alive.

[Silenced Emotion: 30%]

"Now..." Rimuru said slowly, emphasizing each of his words, "Can someone explain to me the exact sequence of events that led to you guys fighting?"

"Your friend over there tried to kill us! All because we confirmed if a knife belonged to her or not!" Kaval said and each of his companions nodded fiercely.

Rimuru turned to me and asked, "Is this true?"

I pursed my lips and thought about how to respond. In hindsight, from any perspective other than mine, I would appear as the unreasonable one. I don't know about this world, but I think killing someone simply because they confirmed me to be the maker of a knife would be preposterous at the best of times.

Some context is needed.

"Rimuru. You remember what Veldora said about me yes?"

"Uh-huh," I can see him nodding.

I pointed at the group "And do you remember the crystal knife I had given to this trio of people at the entrance to the cave?" A nod, "That man right there has the knife. I cannot allow them to leave with that information before the Jura Tempest Republic becomes a fully operational technological superpower capable of projecting its might all across the world."

Rimuru looked conflicted, "Scientia, that's... not a really good reason to just up and kill someone."

I felt my right eye twitch.

"Look, I know how much danger you must be in if that information is released. Whole nation-states would try and kill you. But come on, if you don't trust first, how can you make allies? I'll apologize to them and ask for forgiveness. I think they would understand it if—"

"Rimuru, we are not telling them about my race," I said in a voice that permitted no defiance.

The slime-in-elven-form instantly put his hands back up in deference, "I wasn't going to. Look, let's just try and find a peaceful solution."

Rimuru then turned to face the adventurers and the now-freed masked woman.

"I must apologize for the action of my companion, Scientia. She's usually very secretive and gets extremely upset when said secrets are found out," Rimuru explained with an apologetic bow that has his upper body leaned forward until it parallels the ground. "As I'm sure you could've figured it out."

While Shizu is taken aback, almost seemingly surprised by the action, the trio seems to relax.

"Heh, no kidding, sheesh," This time, it was Eren who spoke.

"..." How harsh must this world be, how dangerous daily life must the trio live in to accept the apologies of someone who tried to murder them? I wondered as I gawked at the interaction.

There was no doubt in my mind that had this been in my old world, they'd have dialed the police by now. Yet, they accepted the apology as if it I had merely gotten into a catfight with them.

The sheer difference between what I expected and what's happening is really throwing me off.

This... I felt my reaction speed delayed as an out-of-body experience hit me. [Psychology] noted how this is one of the ways for the mind to deal with sudden traumatic revelations or experiences.

Ah, I see, I guess that means even now it never fully sunk in for me how I'm in another world...

[Silenced Emotion: 80%]

I shoved all of that into the deepest recesses of my mind and I turned to face Rimuru, who was currently on his knees with his head touching the ground. It almost looked like he was praying really hard if the surrounding was changed to that of a temple.

Is this a Japanese cultural thing? He does realize that these people are from an entirely different world yes?

"Please! Allow us to make up for our mistakes by treating you all tonight and healing your wounds! Believe it or not, my companion Scientia is our best healer who can heal any wounds!"

I wanted to scream at him aggressively, or perhaps at the very least whisper aggressively for privacy reasons, except he silenced me with a sideways glare of his own.

It was so surprising I had no words, so shocking that I didn't know how to respond.

Kaval bit his lips in indecision, before looking toward his teammates and then the Shizu woman.

"Well..." the man trailed off, "fine, we adventurers always welcome a warm place to stay for the night— but, know that our Guild Master already knows where we're headed, so if we don't return, he'll send search parties for us."

If you're going to threaten someone, do it at least discretely. In the world of business, relationships are one of the most important factors determining whether or not a deal will go through, and straightforward threats are one of the fastest ways to ruin someone's mood and the mental image of you.

Shizu, seeing how the adventurers whom she protected were now accepting Rimuru's hospitality, had no choice but to reluctantly accept it as well.

Just before we left for Metropolis, while I was carrying the largest scraps coming from the Combat System, I saw how Shizu collected her severed fingers and placed them all inside a leather pouch.

_____________________________________________

Later.

As Metropolis came into view, the newcomers were shocked at seeing everything it had to offer. I should know, I too was a bit surprised at how quickly the city developed.

Tracing their line of sight, I saw how the Egg caught most of their attention.

As it should. In my old world, during the Medieval Ages, other than churches, castle spires, or the tombs of pharaohs, no building even came close to the 60-meter mark of the Egg.

Many hobgoblins stopped to look at the humans as though they were strange animals in a zoo. Many security guards whom we passed saluted sharply before going on with their patrol, in their minds probably thinking whoever we brought into Metropolis can't be that bad.

The whole layout of the Capital City of Metropolis was different from those of my old world. Due to the low population, all concentrated within a single building, everything, from the many newly established factories and small businesses, is situated around the Egg like how plant life surrounds a watering hole in the desert.

Small businesses are probably the most important thing to me at the moment, as they represent the individuals themselves seizing the means of production.

In other words, Capitalism.

Rigurd and the rest of the Conservatives and MPPs besides Rimuru were confused by the ideas of Capitalism, which was understandable. Given how they were barely more learned than grade schoolers, economic systems like Capitalism were way out of their reach.

I gave a quick 30-minute crash course that generalized the ideas of Capitalism. While some of my own bias may have seeped into my course, I was eventually able to get the 13 current members of Congress on board.

I started by mimicking what Deng Xiao Ping did by making a few people rich, and then the rest followed. As the people had no capital to start with, I had to personally kick-start Capitalism by giving out free blueprints of easy-to-build tinkertech products and luxuries that the hobgoblins would enjoy.

After that, I simply just let nature run its course.

This first wave of entrepreneurs would then set up stalls to sell the products that they made according to the blueprints.

When you let people get rich instead of taking away their wealth, they'll get rich, who knew?

With the start of the internal economy, the first wave of entrepreneurs would get rich. Those who have more ambitions would reinvest in their business, and start hiring more people that'll then, hopefully eventually lead to the creation of the first corporations.

Once they see how much more money they'll earn once they reinvest back into their business, those entrepreneurs would then try and borrow loans from the recently set up Tempest National Bank, which they'll then reinvest into their business again to grow as quickly as possible.

Those investments will end up in the pockets of additional workers the entrepreneurs hire. In the end, this will end up in a trickling effect like the water dripping down the slope of an umbrella where the money earned from the business is then spread down from the up top.

It becomes a cycle.

Of course, I knew how similar what I was doing being similar to Russia right after the collapse of the USSR. So to avoid the government turning from a democracy into an oligarchy, I plan to introduce several laws later when the Jura Tempest Republic becomes a functional superpower that'll separate politics from the interest of private corporations.

Yes, it does feel like me betraying my own kind. Especially given how I wanted less government interference in my old life.

My eventual goal for this is to show the world that Capitalism is so much better than Feudalism. Granted, part of it is also in hopes of instilling the idea that these tinkertech blueprints are the source of wealth and to use corporations as our primary source of soft-ish power.

Soft power describes the ability of a nation to co-opt and influence a foreign nation, such as through non-coercive measures like culture, political values, and foreign policies.

I imagined these corporations making large sums of Direct Foreign Investments (FDI) into other nations. Once those nations get a taste of these FDIs and see how much they improve their lives, and since the Tempest government dictates what the corporations can do, they'll be more likely to bow down to our biddings.

The corporations will effectively become a Trojan Horse if you will. A poisoned gift, our way of meddling within the internal politics of other nations.

Money talks.

I then walked over to a standing security guard, who promptly gulped and saluted, "COMMANDER!" his hands shaking from how tense he was.

"At ease soldier." I then started taking off the ruined Aerial Combat System. "Look over these pieces of armor, I'll return to collect them soon enough."

"YES, COMMANDER!"

Turning to face the newcomers, I was about to apologize for the hold-up before I saw how Kaval, Gido, Eren, and even Shizu appeared to be gawking at me like I was doing something scandalous.

"Yes?" I asked, tilting my head, "Is something the matter?"

Rimuru took a massive breath in before sighing.

"Scientia... your clothing..."

Looking down, I saw how I was wearing a set of ripped clothing, the same ones I had when I was sunbathing.

I don't really have any problems with it. It's not like it has anything to reveal. I mean, this new body of mine possesses no genitals at all. What's more, it isn't entirely inaccurate to describe my reincarnated body as a mannequin.

But, I see Rimuru's point. I should wear something formal.

"I see your point. Go ahead without me, I'll get changed." My head shifted so it was facing the adventurers. With [Acting] in full control, I spread my arms out wide as if I was about to give someone a hug. Theatrics describes every bit of my actions.

Add in a charming smile that has the two male adventurers blushing up a storm, I introduced them to the city.

"Welcome... to Metropolis, the City of the Future. I hope you enjoy your stay."

_____________________________________________

[Inspired Inventor]- a Unique Skill that borders on the strength of an Ultimate Skill. Every day, the owner is given 5 charges that can light up 5 different specialties.

-[Scientific Intuition]: This skill allows one to have an intuitive understanding of science.

-[Engineering Aptitude]: This skill grants one the ability to easily apply all user-known sciences to physical machines.

-[Endless Shard Knowledge]: A library locked deep within the recess of the owner's soul, containing the information to everything in existence, an Akashic Record that knows how everything functions. The only way to access this information is through the many keys that are given to the owner daily which are burned away the moment the clock resets.

-[Escalation Engine]: this skill demands to be used, and it shall be used. It will subconsciously influence the owner into building more and more powerful machines without end.

-[Final Ascension]: [Unknown]