Chương 69: Forbidden BO-GO Is a Bad Option

Before she could turn STARnet into a pillar for her Faction, she felt it prudent to look into the other requirements. She made her tea, then settled back onto the chaise-longue before querying the Guide. She hoped, perhaps foolishly, that it would give the answers she sought. [Base (Faction): A location to which a Faction is bound. While Factions may operate across disparate regions, the anchoring of a base is prerequisite to Faction establishment or relocation.] [Permitted Faction Bases: Cleared and Stabilised Portal Worlds* Cleared Nexus Worlds Established Safe Zones* Unclaimed Safe Zones *Only the Portal World Administrator may anchor a Faction Only the Nexus World Administrator may anchor a Faction*Only a Safe Zone Administrator may anchor a Faction] That was unusually helpful. Scarlet took a chance and asked another question. How do you become a Safe-Zone Administrator? [To become a Safe-Zone Administrator Establish a Safe Zone. Obtain or usurp the authority of a Safe-Zone Administrator.] Scarlet stared at the words floating in front of her. What do you mean, usurp the authority of an Administrator? she queried the Guide. [Clearance insufficient. Obtain administrative access for additional information.] Ah, she'd been lulled into a false sense of security. That would have made it too easy, wouldn't it? Still, she had options. She could create a Safe Zone herself.

She could find and clear a Nexus Portal World, then become its Administrator. Or she could find the Administrator of an existing Safe Zone and either convince them to give her the administrative rights or take them by whatever means necessary. Or she could apparently, if she somehow 'subjugated' its administrator, she could just take the Safe-Zone as a package deal. A Forbidden BO-GO as it were. Yeah, that was a worst-case scenario. One she'd make Kain deal with if it came to that.

Doing the whole 'people' thing was the reason she'd even resolved to suffer through his proximity in the first place. She wouldn't make him one of her Deputies, there was a loyal but wily little rat she had in mind for that position, but one of the core members? Maybe. Hopefully it wouldn't come to that, though. If she was at the point where she needed to usurp another Administrator's authority, it was very likely she'd have failed her first ever Quest.

[Quest: Establish a Safe Zone] [Description: During the post-Integration 'Adaptation Phase', increasing mana saturation will give rise to progressively higher-tier entities. Establish and secure a settlement zone to impose regional stability and suppress hostile incursion.] [Time Limit: 7 →4 'Earth' Days] [Objectives: Eliminate hostile threats within designated boundary Secure primary claim of designated area Maintain control of settlement zone for 30 consecutive hours Optional sub-objectives may appear] [Base Rewards: Pillar of Establishment Administrative Rights (valid during Earth's Post-Integration Seclusion) Token of Ascendance Additional Rewards: Variable based on performance] Four days, she thought.

It was closer to something like 3 days and whatever hours, but the point still stood. If she wanted to double up on the rewards with the 'Faction' Quest, she'd need to hustle. Better execution meant better rewards, and earning standard credits had suddenly become a priority. Scarlet pulled her phone out of storage and checked the time. She'd been sitting for nearly an hour, so when she saw 07: 33, she realised it had taken roughly four hours to transition to Tier 1. Wasn't that a little long?

She remembered the Historian saying the process generally took the equivalent of a little over one Earth hour. She queried the Guide. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. What is the average duration of Tier 0 to Tier 1 advancement on fully saturated worlds? It had taken her almost 4 times that. Why did my advancement take so long? She queried. [Insufficient planetary mana saturation.] She was Tiering up on a baby world only days into full Integration. Would it have been less painful if she'd had access to denser ambient mana? The Shop had formations to increase different energy saturations in a given area, like the ones in Villa #3's training rooms. Something for future Scarlet to consider. She finished her cup of tea and rose from the chaise. Then because she wasn't a barbarian, she washed and dried the cup before heading over to the control room.

She pulled a new, beautifully embossed notebook from the archive crystal. Then, from her inventory, she retrieved one of her favourite artifacts: a jade pen of ever-flowing ink. It was one of her earliest permanent enchantments, and it was both beautiful and practical. The gorgeous opalescent green went quite well with the leather, if she did say so herself. It was a lovely bit of beauty and comfort before she voluntarily subjected herself to the internet comment section. As a service provider.

During a global crisis. She grabbed her phone for the first time in months, and her mind reached automatically for the info-net as she would have with a data slate. Only there was nothing for her mind to grasp. Scarlet paused. Right. This was not a data slate. This was a cell phone. It felt almost insulting to call it a smartphone now, considering the technology she'd experienced beyond the Portal World. There was no beautiful net of data and information travelling like shooting stars across pathways made of magic.

The signals she found connecting to her phone, and other wireless devices were anaemic in comparison. Not only were they weak, they were unstable. Ironically, the signal jammers she'd installed were significantly less affected. Then she looked at the cables; the solid, thick lines of energy that created her internet access port, along with the many divergent lines meant to obscure that information.

Looking at Earth's advanced technologies Scarlet couldn't help but compare it with her new understanding of what was possible. The systems needed a serious upgrade, and not necessarily because they were inferior – different systems meant different solutions – however the mana in the air was already interfering with Earth's tech. Bluetooth. Wi-Fi. Cellular data. Everything was struggling through an environment they had never been designed to accommodate. Even the grounded wires weren't entirely unaffected.

Electricity wasn't quite just electricity anymore. Mana was beginning to interact with it, slowly transforming or converting portions of it into what off-worlders had called lightning mana. Yep, that was going to be a problem. She reached out with her psionics, reinforcing the transfer of information between her phone, her computer, and the wider web; but she could only reinforce it across so many kilometres.

Even turning off the jammers, and boosting her phone with her abilities, she had fewer bars of service than she should. The internet on her desktop chugged along so laconically it brought forth and intrusive memory of elementary school computer labs in the early 2000s. It had been a while since an involuntary shudder bypassed Meditation. With the jammer off, her phone pinged with a message from Kain sent early that morning. Looked like she'd be seeing him today or tomorrow.

She sent a text, once again reminding him not to come to the property. It wasn't like he didn't have a beyond serviceable manor near the private airfield, purchased for him by daddy-dearest. Then she turned her attention back to her computer, only to be immediately inundated by an absolute torrent of questions and requests the moment she opened the website. People wanted the ability to add friends, create independent channels and groups, and communicate privately within those groups.

They wanted mapping and geolocation. Picture identification. Better information sharing. They didn't just want the forums, the question-and-answer sections, or even the ability to upload videos. They wanted a full-spectrum, the-world-is-ending starter pack, news network, and social media platform disguised as a website. So long as it meant she kept the monopoly of moving information, and monopolised people's attention, Scarlet was all for that. She'd even make the companion app people were so adamant about.

Before, making those changes would have been astronomically slow. The servers needed to house that much data alone, along with the AI infrastructure required to manage it, would have been ridiculous, even for governments or multinational corporations. Luckily, she had a solution for that. From her Inventory, she pulled out probably the magnum opus of her time enchanting. There were two rectangular pillars, each 7. 5 x 30 centimetres. These were her compact servers.

Having seen it as no threat to him or his interests, the Historian had been unusually decent and helpful in assisting her in creating them. Scarlet thought about the ridiculous, ugly, resource-stealing, noise-polluting, parasitic data centres. Then she looked at the elegant pillars that could hold the equivalent of three of those data centres each. They were more durable than a black box, more portable than a gaming console, and more energy-efficient than any server farm on the planet.

Of course, they were soulbound as well. The Historian wouldn't teach her how to do it, but with her ability to reverse-engineer and the fact the labyrinth box was a crafted soulbound artefact, the old vulpian might as well have given her a blueprint. An unclear and frustrating blueprint that had basically shattered the moment she'd uncovered its secrets. The ability to create soulbound artifacts for the destruction of what had become more of a novelty than a training tool? She felt it was a fair trade-off.

Now, she controlled the data, she stored it, she encrypted it, and she damn well wouldn't be selling it to anyone. Why give the competition an advantage you could use yourself, after all. Not just that, but she could solve the data-transfer speed and insecurity issues herself within a closed system. Because frankly, who had the ability to decrypt complex enchantments? Nobody yet, except for her. This was beyond an opportunity. This was a burgeoning monopoly. One she would need if she wanted to stay ahead.

She flicked open a tab on current affairs to figure out what global developments had happened while she'd been away. STARnet was an integral first step to establishing her Faction. What, and how Scarlet chose to update it would be determined not just by recurring requests, but real-world problems. It was all well and good to give people what they wanted, it was much more lucrative to create a resource they came to need.