The Almighty Ring

Jiang Fei was with his harem in the Demon Dragon Fortress until it was time for him to log off.

After the game, Jiang Fei had breakfast and went back onto his journey to find and gather the flesh of the Level 5 Alien Beast.
Day after day, the harvest count had only gotten worse and less frequent.
The flesh he found was getting smaller and the interval was getting less frequent.

Still, he was able to gather a good amount; almost at the point of arm’s length.
Even though he knew that his search more flesh will only get harder, he was still satisfied that his hard work had paid off.

“Captain.
It is advised to spend more time in the game and earn more reputation points with the female NPCs.
It is vital to increase the number of our allies in preparation of the war with the Metahumans,” said 0541 as Jiang Fei was having a lunch break.

“Enough with that,” said Jiang Fei as he did not want to delve further into that particular topic.

“Captain.
I am being serious.
Even though there are many girls who have reached Infatuated level of Reputation, it would not be enough at your current state,” said 0541 as it continued to bug Jiang Fei.
The reason behind its continuous battering about female NPCs was Jiang Fei’s refusal to further expand his harem.

“Enough is enough,” said Jiang Fei.
Jiang Fei did not want to deal with more females, not after he lost Isabella and Ariel.
For better or worse, he did not want to invite any more trouble.

“Captain, I am only thinking about your future.
Your current mission is to gather as many female NPCs as you can.
It is to cultivate more artificial souls to strengthen your own personal army!” said 0541.
0541 was an advanced artificial intelligence yet it lacked the most important function; emotional empathy.
Despite being the greatest mind on Earth, it lacked emotional understanding.
Hence, even when it understood Jiang Fei was not loving the talks, it continued to do so despite adding fuel to fire.

“Enough.
On the authority of the Captain of Braveheart, I command you to hibernate for half an hour!” Jiang Fei roared.

“As you command, Captain,” said 0541 before turning its system into hibernation mode.
Once Jiang Fei invoked the authority as a Captain, there was no disobeying of any words that Jiang Fei said.

While 0541 was quiet, Jiang Fei thought about what 0541 had said.
Courting more NPCs was never his intention but 0541’s suggestions made sense.

If Jiang Fei could only find the Main Engine of Braveheart, Level 5 aside, he might be able to mass produce Level 4 of the Pinnacle stage Bio-Humans.
When he crossed that bridge, who would take the helm of such a powerful army? Would it be him? Even though he feared the outcome of having such a powerful army, it was vital to have it in hand to counter the army of the Mutants.

The best “people” to take control of the Bio-Humans’ bodies would be the NPC females who would be loyal to Jiang Fei.
With the technology of Planet Namek, 0541 could extract the program out of Dawn Break and implant them into the soulless bodies of the Bio-Humans.
They would inevitably, become the most loyal army to serve Jiang Fei.

0541’s suggestion was to have more female NPCs who possessed higher intelligence such as Sylphy, Isabella, Nina, and Hua Mulan.
The purpose was to cultivate a stronger soul that could master the perfect Level 5 bodies.
Normal artificial intelligence, or what Jiang Fei would refer to as dumb NPCs would never be able to handle such a complicated body without breaking.

Half an hour later, 0541 was awakened from its temporary hibernation.
Now, due to its lack of emotion, 0541 failed to understand that the command to hibernate was a form of punishment for talking too much.
Once it had regained its functions, 0541 started to talk about the topic again.

“0541, stop talking about it.
I understand the importance of it.
Shall we concentrate on our current task? To find the flesh of the Level 5 Alien beast?”

“Very well sir.
I understand multi-tasking is not human’s forte.”

For the next few days, Jiang Fei spent the light of day searching for flesh while he would indulge himself in the game during the night.
And most of the time, he would participate in PvP fights.
If he had time left, he would spend them with Sylphy and the other girls in his harem.
Even though the words that 0541 kept on repeating in his brain troubled him, Jiang Fei could not help but think about it seriously.

Five days have passed in a blink of an eye and Jiang Fei had finished the first preliminary fights of the PvP battles.
There were no players who he fought that possessed any of the Treasured Cauldrons.
The only player that was confirmed to possess a Cauldron was Freewill but sadly, he was not within the group that Jiang Fei fought in the first preliminary rounds.

Within this time period, Jiang Fei had spent his time with Sylphy and the other girls to cultivate their feelings.
Sadly, their emotions were not as great as Isabella.
It would be improbable to cultivate such an emotion similar to Isabella in such a short time span.

The only good news so far was the amount of flesh collected.
Even though it was far from enough to revive both Isabella and Ariel, it was still adequate to revive just one person.
Jiang Fei would want to revive Isabella first before Ariel.

While he was excited to see Isabella again, 0541 pour cold water on his head.

“Captain, you may have collected enough Level 5 Alien Beast’s flesh to revive one person, but we lack the other vital part of the process – power.”

“How much do we have and how much do we need?”

“My current power reserves are so insignificant that we need to collect 99.99% more power,” said 0541.

“…”

Jiang Fei was agape when he heard what 0541 had just declared.
He had only just recently collected so much Uranium from the Vatican as well as the Mutant Brotherhood.
Even though he had spent a few on the recent war in Japan he had never thought that 0541 current power reserve was so little that he needed to find 99.99% more!

“Why on earth would you need so much power?” Jiang Fei asked.

“Captain? I do not understand the question.
Power or energy cannot be created nor destroyed.
To create a body that matches a Level 5 power level, I would need a similar amount of energy to be able to do so! Right now, we have enough to make just an arm of a Level 5 body.
What could I do with the rest of the body? Do not forget that everything that you request of me would also consume energy.”

“Shucks… So how did the Japanese make their Bio-Humans so strong? Did they have a power source?”

“Yes and no.
Even though the method is different, the Japanese used the same principle as me.
My power source comes from inanimate objects such as nuclear energy.
The Japanese used Life Force as a substitute.”

“Life Force?”

“Living sacrifices in layman’s term.
To create one Level 4 body, the Japanese sacrificed a large number of weaker Level Metahumans.
That is how they did it,” said 0541, revealing the secrets of Japanese technology to make Bio-Humans.

“Sh*t… That’s too cruel even for my taste,” said Jiang Fei as he got goosebumps from imagining grinding a thousand men just to make one Bio-Human.