Chapter 3: Time skip

James was fiddling with a newly created drone's body, trying to harden the skin more so the flaw he saw can be quickly removed to some degree of damage. 'The hardened hide causes the drone to lose a few points to its mobility but it may be possible to push up the strength of it. Maybe, creating a Warrior caste that focuses on strength, defence, and agility; or a Tanker caste that focuses heavily on defence and strength, maybe even a range cast to fix the issue of projectiles.' James then created three more drones and tested different kinds of ideas he had.

For the first drone, he enhanced the hide of the tentacles and focused on strength by adding more muscle like tentacles to its body and some knife like spikes on its arms and legs while changing the tail and instead of 6 spinal tails,he removed them before adding two pairs on the shoulder blade with the tail ends hardened into a sharpened curved blade whip. 'This may be an ideal Tanker, quite possible for further modifications and upgrades as times pass. Then, time to test something.' James then created its complete form before trying to see how much energy it takes. And not a moment later, a huge chunk of stored energy was taken, which caused James to mentally wince at the sudden loss, before the tanker broke out of the black pool and crawled ashore, it was far taller, buffer, and larger than the drones. The tanker stood up at exactly 2 metres (6 '5) when on all fours, reached 5 metres which was almost at tree height and when stood up properly would be 25 metres in height and a width of 14.5 inches. Its hardened skin and knife spikes, causes it to have an atmosphere of danger to all that see it. 'Tanker 01, Get me more resources for energy, bring a few drones to help.' James ordered and watched as the tanker growled before going on all fours and slowly but quickly moved. Its speed was comparable to a moving truck at the speed limit of 20 km. The drones that followed it jumped and landed on its back, just like what ants do. The tanker waves its shoulder whips and cuts at least 4 trees in front of it, the drone on the back moves on the edge of its body before reaching out its spinal tails and wrapping them on the tree trunk before throwing it towards the area near the pool. 

Once the tossed trees landed on the ground, the drones that didn't move with the tanker grabbed the trunks before dunking it to the pool and letting go. The process continued a few more moments before stopping once 300 trees were put into the pool. 'Now let's see what we can try.' James thought before focusing on the following drone bodies.

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A few months passed by, the pool and a 2 km radius of it, changed into a huge mound of dirt mixed with debris. The pool became 3 football stadium large and a depth reaching two thousand metres, the drones which now numbered in thousands continued to move like ants and kept patrolling the area it twos or threes, while a few tankers can be seen lounging about. The body of the drones have adjusted and changed in some areas.

There were three distinct types of drones separated. One was the normal type, another looked like an amalgamation of a porcupine and a tree, still containing an all black design except the pulsating orange colour in its chest, and the last was an orb the size of an average human hand with six les and two scorpion like tails with an inverted stingers. Its colour was still black but it was mixed with a light shade of neon blue on some parts of the body. James has experimented a lot as times passed and slowly got used to controlling and making things, the most proud creation he had was the third type of drone, The Swarmer, he called them. Its function was to take control of the victims movement. It would first need to insert its six legs in the nape of the victim to its foramen magnum, to control the nervous system and the tails to the spine to latch onto the victim, making it hard to remove. If removed forcefully, the tail will hook onto the victims spine and be ripped off with it, so the victim can't give certain information if living, the current number of swarmers was large, their small stature drains less energy than a normal drone and tanker. Which makes them the most used canon fodder, the infected and survivors under his control were now reaching the thousands. The area he was in has a large group of survivors fighting each other and a large infected horde with different difficulties.

The tanker on the other hand has no change other than the variant version which had a cannon like tentacle facing the front of it, it had orange light on major parts of its body like embers and they mostly stood guard on the periphery of the pool, the variant versions numbers were few since they cost a lot more energy than the normal one. They were called Siege beasts. John was never really good at naming things, he usually let the researchers under him to name things. James created 200 Tankers and 30 Siege beasts, he experimented on how much energy the infected and survivors give. The normal infected gives him 2 times the energy that 3 trees give him, the survivors however give him 5 times the energy of 2 trees. While the survivors are 10 times off that of a single tree and as a bonus, John manages to understand the human body as well. He may have focused on neuroscience but now that he had three survivors dropped into the pull, he managed to understand the human body a little more than what was known. John was already experimenting on an avatar body for him to walk around, he theorised that his life was bound to this black liquid and he did not want to risk it. In the past months he ordered his drones in creating a large pool far away from him. The time had given him a lot of exploration, although the survivors here are human, and language is in some way similar to English with slight variations and an unknown accent, the culture and some knowledge is by far not from home. The written language is something like cursive letters yet not, the words are like lines that make up different meanings. James hoped that in time he would understand it little by little or gather some books once the drones or the swarmers manage to find a building similar to a library, the area he was at is at most close to a suburb. His exploration of the area was still in progress. On the other hand, he tested on the black liquid in and found out that the drones can absorb small amounts of it the size of a water balloon and transport it on the newly created pool in the deeper parts of the dead forest, at least 30 km away, He did lose a few drones in the exploration of it, there were territories of different mutated animals and the most troublesome one was the mutated wolves to the south east of him 13 km away. From his drones observation, they were one pack of at most a thousand under the leadership of a large wolf as dark as knight and eyes blood red. The drones and the wolves fought a few times and a few times injuries from both sides and some unfortunate casualties. They're territory was large from how he mapped it, it was surprising for such a pack to hold that much lang the size of a large village that can hold tens of thousand of people.

Although after the initial contacts and skirmishes, John believed that He and the wolf king, as James likes to call it, had a tacit understanding and ordered their underlings to not interfere with the other. With the problem of the wolves done with, the remaining exploration further out of the area John claimed as his own. The new pool was dug up on the cliff of the nearest mountain. And from the times the drones transported his dark liquid into a small puddle, John felt a new connection and his mind seemed to expand and he had a feeling that he could create something more complex. Jamesfelt like he had an upgrade and tried to test something. He ordered the drones in the newly created pool to throw some things for energy and from what he saw through the drones, after they threw in trees, bushes, and a few mutated animal carcasses; The small puddle of black liquid was now 2 times more than an average pool and filled the hole by a quarter.

Once James found out, other than exploration of the surroundings, he mainly prioritised the new pools finalisation. From the new expansion, James tried to test what changed and noticed that the energy he can absorb has also expanded and that his creation of drones and its variant version quickened from the production line. James was now able to create two drones and their variants in 2 minutes time. 'It's time…' James thought before he sent an order to all drones and swarmers. 'Split in groups and spread into the city, swarmers take control of any infected. Drones, one order: HUNT.' Once the orders were said, all of the drones and swarmers roared or screeched to the sky and echoed towards the city. Unaware it gained the attention of countless Safe zones inside the city and caused the infected and monsters to rampage everywhere.

'Gather to the forest periphery! Tankers and Siege beasts guard the pool! Second pool will still not be activated, drones and tankers in the area will protect it and keep feeding the pool.' James kept giving orders while he moved the siege beasts to encircle the main pool, from the moment he sent the orders, the drones and swarmers formed a large line on the periphery of the forest. Meanwhile the second variant of the drones dubbed as Wickerman, stood up with a inch taller than a drone when they stood up, its spike back slightly lowered and the pulsating energy from the chest spread out into its right hand before it deformed into a spear like arm that started from the elbow and ended from the fingertips with a spike with its tip glowing and radiating heat like a heated rebar. After some waiting, the majority of the drones, Wickerman and Swarmers were at the periphery with one third to stay and protect the main pool. James who wished to see the progress in real time entered the leading wicker man that was slightly taller than the others, this was his first wickerman that nearly drained all of his energy in one go that led for the succeeding wickermans to be weaker than it. 'Hopefully, there will be no accidents with a force this size.' John comforted himself, while sensing the surroundings. 'The swarmers have gathered the ones with bodies under their control, let's see…I sense and count at least a thousand.' He then looked towards the buildings with a little hesitation before he steeled himself. 'Follow me!!!' John shouted to the connection he had to his creations, while the first Wickerman he created roared like an aged tree mixed with a lion's roar. With his order, John controlled the wickerman's body forwards and led the march towards the centre of the city. Behind him were the roars, screeches, and groans of his units with the ground rumbling from the movement like a small mobile earthquake. 

Meanwhile, the survivor camps from within the city noticed the large looming dust clouds over the south east. It was so thick and the distant vibrations caused all survivors and soldiers to be alert and began to panic with people speaking over the radio asking other camps in the ruined city. Back to John and his group of lovecraftian horrors, we see that the swarmers with bodies have doubled. Currently, the group is battling against an undead horde with quite the number of mutants. The wickermen raised one of their arms as the vines twisted and twirled into a cannon that replaced their sharpened claws before an orange pulse travelled to its roots and like a bullet, aburst of a spark from a fired rifle as something flew quickly in the air before piercing through the head of a Faceless and embedded itself on an undead bear, killing it mid roar. The projectile in question was orange hardened sap that was bruning the rotten skin and sizzling with heat comparable to a regular fire. Then with their hand that was shaped into a spear stabbed and slashed to those that got close.

The drones ran around in groups of three, wildly slashing and clawing, whipping anything deemed an enemy. They ripped and tore through the undead ranks, singing in a horrifying choir. The view pans into a black tide that moves and flows like water, as it consumes the dead and mutants unlucky enough in droves, knocking them down before standing up again and attacking its former allies. The first Wickerman stood at the back, James watching through its eyes. 'Wickermen-1, charge in and enter berserk mode.' John ordered while a mutant dog, the size of a 10 year old child, lunged at the wickerman's tall frame before it was grabbed by the snout and raised above the wickerman. Its free hand opened wide like summoning something, and like the other wickermen, the orange sap slowly slither to the end of its forearm following the roots into the open palm. 

The roots formed into a hilt before a flat and thin root slowly unsheaths from the small hole in the hilt before the sap followed it along. The sap formed a liquid sword that was dripping on the ground, sizzling, the Wickerman shook the weapon a little before it glowed and gave off heat, the liquid form now hardened and sharp and burning. It raised the hilt towards its face, like a knight making an oath to their king, before tilting it and stabbed the mutant in the head. It whined a little before it stopped moving. The wickerman marched forward, the dead mutant long thrown away, and like a maddened beast, swung its blade. It decapitated 10 undead and 5 mutants that charged towards it on the first swing while on its second sliced an entire group of the opponents in half before being squashed by its foot. 'Finish the battle and I'll send some Tankers to transport the bodies. After the transportation is done, return immediately.' John ordered before abruptly cutting off the connection. Once his sight returned to the area near the pool and sent three Tankers before focusing on something else. 

In the distant city from its northern direction, the Main pool's direction would be the eastern direction. A huge cement wall loomed over the buildings with guards patrolling, drones being flown, and turrets on stand by, from within the huge wall that towered over five story buildings, was a bustling city district with people walking around like a normal society would look like 

On the centre of the settlement was a building that was fenced and guarded, from within was rows upon rows of rooms with different people of various occupations doing their own job. A guard with a man wearing an extremely tight business suit that showed off his muscles and was following the guard that now stopped and stood near the door before motioning to the door. "They are waiting for you Sir." The guard informed the man before standing aside a little more.

The man nodded before reaching his hand to grab the door, but before he could even grasp the handle, it opened on its own and a person wearing business attire walked out. He looked at the man for a few seconds before glancing away and left the room. The man was confused but pushed it behind him before entering the room. 

Back to James, he was currently fixing up the new pool, he was making sure to expand the pool as much as he can and experimented on the stones and some lucky find ores to be absorbed by the pool. 'The regular stones are equivalent to half the energy a singular tree gives.' And from what he noticed the ores, the drones luckily found, give varying amounts of energy depending on the material. Maybe materials used in building, cars, or even scraps can be used for gathering energy. ' I can do something with this…' James looked at the pile of ores and another huge pile of scraps. 'Drop it to the pool.' A nearby drone walked towards the back of the scrap pile and began to push it into the pool little by little. 

Once the entire scrap pile was pushed down, James entered the deep part of the pool and focused his mind on his new test. He started to create a wickerman template first, before he removed the spikes and made more human-like features. He couldn't edit the template too much but it still left him with a height of 6 '4 and a sort of normal limb length. With the limbs and features done, he focused on the full body and tried to edit as much as he could. 

After an hour or two editing, the wickerman template became the height and body of an average human in their mid twenties. The template was still in black and white so the best James could do was use the energy and the material matter of the scraps to create a somewhat futuristic suit that had metallic lustre and looked like it was woven into its form.

The entire suit was connected to each other and wrapped itself into the human template and fused itself with the body. 'This is better…' James did not complain and began to prepare the energy needed to finish it to finality. 'I couldn't edit the face, it would cost too much energy somehow. Maybe the higher templates the higher the cost of energy.' John then tried to finish the template before a sudden loss of energy even in the main pool gave him a huge headache. If he had a body then he would have stumbled from the dizziness. 

After a while, once John managed to steady his mind he noticed that the mountain pool was almost a puddle left and from it stood the template he made. Blankly staring at nothing as if waiting for an order.John made a move to enter the template but felt something akin to a wall stop him. Trying to question the wall, his senses heightened and something told him from the back of his mind that if he entered the body that he would die. 'What the hell was that?' John stared at the template before he thought of something and sent an order. 'Get out of the pit and gather the needed energy.' Their arm twitched before the head turned towards him with a blank stare. After a while, they looked back down and bowed their head towards him before moving their body a little rigidly, climbing out of the pool while some drones were throwing materials for energy. Once the Template climbed out the pool and stood up again, they looked towards the drones pushing materials, scraps, and some bodies into the pool. It tilted its head, after a few moments of observing the drones, it looked at a nearby pile of ores and scraps before it raised its hand towards it and slowly twisted it like they were holding a wine glass. Not long, the materials slowly moved before it rose and hovered in the air. It started with one iron ore before it affected the others in the pile and slowly hovered as well, bobbing up and down. The template moved their hand and turned around before pointing their hand towards the pool. The materials followed the movement before all of them were thrown in with the templates movement.

'Astonishing!' James exclaimed and felt excited from the outcome the template has shown 'Is it sentient or equivalent to a child's mind?' James observed its every move and noticed a slight distortion on their hand that flowed out like water distorting the air and held the materials in the air. 'Can this be considered telekinetic ability or is it manipulation of gravity?' He wondered, but before he could observe and do further testing, a sudden pang of pain stung at the back of his mind that forced him to switch his view into the First Wickerman.

The scene that was in front of him was surprising at the least, as a group of human soldiers neatly lined up and pointed guns at his creation. But after James narrowed his vision and focused a little, he noticed that most of them were shaking with their eyes looking everywhere and their breathing quick and erratic. Looking back on the environment around, the drones were still holding or dragging infected bodies. Behind the drones were swarmers and wickerman looking at the line of soldiers but he could sense that they were itching for another battle. A slight twitch made James realise that there was a gaping wound in the First Wickerman's abdomen. 'That must be where the pain came from.' He looked back up from the line of soldiers and just only noticed vehicles behind them guarding a black car with tinted windows.

'Well, I guess it is my fault for sending out such a large group. But, I still have my humanity intact, I'll only attack if they do.' James thought recklessly but firmly before controlling the wickermans left arm that was not holding the Scathing Ember Sword. He made a circling motion before dropping it down and turning to walk away. The drones, wickermans, and swarmers either growled or hissed before moving and followed their pathway back to the forest with the drones still dragging the bodies. 

'I can sense their tension still.' James thought while he continued on the return of the first expedition. Meanwhile, the line of soldiers watched as monsters of unimaginable horrors marched in silence to who knows where. All of them were shaking and the captain of the group slowly reached for his radio and sent out a message. "Sir…Targets are moving away, what are your orders?" The captain prayed that they won't send out orders that'll kill them.

The radio let out a static before a gruff and husky voice was heard. "Send out a prisoner and test the tall one." The captain silently sighed in despair before looking back and made a gesture from one of the trucks. After a while and some groans, a man walked out wearing a yellow overall suit that was chained from his legs that connected to his wrist and neck with wires. Once he reached the line up and saw the retreating monsters. The captain nodded at a soldier, who pulled out a knife from their belt and cut the wires out before another removed a revolver from their holster with one bullet and gave it to the man. 

"Prisoner-1294, your service requires you to walk towards the monster and shoot the tall one." The captain informed the man, who expressed his fear through his eyes, the captain sighed and patted his back. "I'm sorry but you volunteered." The man shakily closed his eyes and let out some tears silently before opening them and took a shaky breath. He looked towards the soldier and took the revolver before walking towards the group. 'He accepted his fate.' The captain thought and sighed tiredly. 'Where did we go wrong that we had to resort to this?' He questioned himself before he watched Prisoner-1294 stopping a hundred metres away from the targets and raised the revolver..

'May they forgive me.' Prisoner-1294 prayed and took one final breath before pressing the trigger. 

BANG

The gunshot echoed from the surroundings and the First Wickerman's right back shoulder twitched a little and a sting twitched at James' mind. 'Hm? They shot at me?' He turned around the wickerman while also ordering his creations to stand by. What greeted him was a man in a yellow overall suit that had a raised gun and was erratically breathing. His form was shaking and tears poured out of his eyes. He willed wickerman-1 to walk towards the man, purposely making its feet heavy, each step resounded with a loud thud. The closer he got, the more the man shook before he dropped the gun and dropped down to his knees, spreading out his arms like a sacrificial offering. 'They sent out a prisoner to test me.' James thought to himself with realisation before looking back at the line of soldiers who were more tense the moment wickerman-1 was in front of the man. 

James stood there for a moment in thought before he raised the wickerman's hand and bent down a little. His hand reached out towards the man, who whimpered and loudly breathed. He made the wickerman eyes narrowed out of instinct before he traced the man's face with his middle fingers claw. 

'Poor soul, with how the world is, why are they lessening their numbers?' James thought naively before he noted at the corner of his vision that the soldiers were less tense and more curious. 'How 'bout I let him follow me?' he suddenly thought before he grabbed the man by his armpits and raised him up to stand making the man stumble a little in finding his balance. The moment he did, he looked up at him and stared with a spark of hope in his eyes and a grief hidden within. He stepped back a little and observed the man before he turned around and walked a few steps and glanced back at the man and made a soft growl. The man's eyes widened and the spark now bursted into frenzied flame. The man stepped a few inches and noticed that the others were just watching him, not moving to attack and just observed him. James made the wickerman growl while sending an order. The other creations turned away from the man and continued their march while the wickerman stood still.

The man released a sigh of relief before he took another step, then another followed by another. James inwardly smiled before he turned back to his front and began to march with his creation, the man quickly followed after him with a smile too wide for a person. 'I guess the abandoned sports stadium I found is gonna be used.' James thought before he secretly sent drones on the very front to scout ahead. 

"Orders sir?"

"Follow them within sight distance."

"Understood."