BXBX NOVEL Chapter 113: Insufferable Journey?
And sometimes, it hurt even more, just like now.
Even though Arcturus thought that he did, but it seemed that everything went to shit just after two days or so. In the end, being confined together for some time already, note to the line, it was just after three days that Jeniael and Zehal immediately started arguing over something utterly unimportant.
Fortunately, the spaceship was rather significant, so both of them spent most of their time without really seeing each other. Which was, in his opinion, rather good because it seemed that his hopes that they would be civil with each other were...
Naive, one could say.
It was indeed that way.
Neither of them could keep civil with each other for more than a few hours because their rivalry from childhood was too strong for them to overcome.
Not to mention, Jeniael was really prone to violence because every single dammed time when Zehal said something, especially when she was provoking her, the white-haired young woman immediately went for her sword and wanted to solve the problem with her fist.
Which wasn\'t really that surprising for her.
Arcturus tried to ignore it for most of the time because he realized that they would need to remain here on the starship locked together for several weeks. And that was just the journey to the Ziras IV., not counting the time they would spend on the planet itself and then another journey back to the Phoenix Prime.
Foruteanly, because they were using the standard primary hyperplanes of the Empire, the journey would take them around three weeks, which was better than his initial estimate of something between four to five weeks.
Still, he tried to keep the two of them apart for most of the time because, apparently, neither of them planned to play nice. What was considered a blessing was the fact that Jeniael decided to spend most of her time in the sparring room and train.
Not to mention, there was one new facility that was installed on the Obscurus aside from the traditional training room that Red Queen proposed creating on the spaceship and to which, Arcturus eagerly agreed.
The Holodeck.
Holographic Enviroment Simulator, or the Holodeck as it was more commonly referred to, was a rather fascinating piece of technology that Arcturus managed to get his hands on. Some of the blueprints for the Holodeck were freely available through the ExtraNet and Imperial NetSphere, and he managed to get through the points of the Imperial Phoenix Military Academy.
Red Queen then started putting it together and created a relatively advanced form of the Holodeck that was called the Matrix 1.0 Version.
Holodeck was form of Holotechnology which ran holographic programs, they were mainly used for the purpose of training and experiencing various simulations, though they were also used for things like entertainment, carrying out scientific experiments and other things.
A typical holodeck consisted of a room equipped with a Hologrid containing Omnidirectional Holographic Diodes, enabling holographic projections and holograms.
They were equipped with Hardlight Generators that allowed one to use Holographic Matters through the condensed Hardlight by manipulation of photons contained within the Force Fields and materializing light to materialize the projection of objects, people, and everything that one would need in the simulations.
Arcturus wanted one of those because they could be used as a form of very advanced training, and one could train in countless scenarios in them. Obviously, they were not used to train the Psionics or Psyker Abilities, but rather oriented towards the more mundane aspects of life.
Still, the usage was phenomenal, and in many aspects, it was superior to Virtual Reality.
Even though he had to admit that Virtual Reality was far more versatile, there was one huge downside to it. While one could experience virtually everything and anything through virtual reality, that only happened in the brain.
While the uses of the Holodecks were certainly limited, it also allowed the person training in the Holodeck to train his own body and physique, which was crucial for training in various martial arts, weapons, shooting, and many other disciplines.
For example, while the soldiers could and would complete many courses through the very advanced virtual reality if they trained and learned martial arts in the virtual reality, they would then need to acclimatize their bodies for the usage of the said martial arts in the real world as well.
That was one huge downside of virtual reality and the reason why Arcturus headed toward the direction of the Holodeck instead. While it sacrificed a bit of versatility, it was more practical for his needs.
Because Obscurus was huge; the Red Queen constructed an enormous Holodeck on the starship that became his playground. Of course, the thing was finished only due to Zehal\'s interference in the last calibrations and adjustments to the systems of the Holodeck.
Right now, both he and Jeniael were in the simulation on some randomly generated planet that was being infested by the Arachnid. Tghoiugh for the change, Arcutrus was using the standard equipment fo the Impeiral Soldiers as his armaments for this time.
The standard equipment of the Imperial Soldiers consisted of a Lasgun, Laspistol, Stunner, and a set of throwing knives for ranged combat.
Then there was also a standard sword, combat knife, and personal shield generator that created a small forcefield that shielded the soldiers from the projectile weaponry that became virtually useless, and the personal shields could also withstand several shots of advanced energy-based weaponry.
Aside from that, there was also standard battle armor that every Imperial Soldier was issued.
This was also the first time that Arcutrus was using the advanced gadgets of the High-Level Civilizations and High-Level Star Nations, and he had to admit that while shooting the Lasgun at the hordes of approaching bugs was rather fun, it was rather anti-climactic.
Overall, the performance of the advanced weaponry was subpar compared to his own Psionics and Psyker Ability, and it was much weaker. He now understood why the Professionals used their cold weapons.
They were more effective than the long-ranged weapons. For example, the Warriors could dodge the projectiles, even from the Lasgun that he was holding with relative ease and kill the person shooting the rifle before they even realized what was going on.
Still, the reason why he chose to use this kind of equipment was because it was relatively safe for the time being, and he would never really use it in the real world. Obviously, he wasn\'t rich enough to get his hands on some of the Disintegrator guns that were able to shoot even High-Grade Warriors in one shot, so he still wanted to try some of the advanced guns.
At the same time, because he now had the Holodeck on his starship and a lot of free time on his hands, he was undergoing some of the training courses that were uploaded to his database.
The Training Courses were essentially Holoprograms that consisted of the training regiments on how to pilot starships, fire guns, take care of the equipment, and a shitton of different things.
Every citizen of the Eternal Empire of the Asurya had free access to around a hundred or so Holoprograms that ranged from everything around weapon maintenance to piloting starship that anyone could access for free.
Due to his status as the Highborne Asuryani, he had access to a wider range of Holograms, including many advanced ones. If he wanted access to even more Holoprogramms, he would need to pay for them in Universe Credits, and the price of some more advanced ones was rather costly.
Another immensely useful thing about the Holodeck was that it allowed one to fight against various types of enemies,s including the bugs, greenskins, squids, automatons, and practically everything that the Eternal Empire of Asurya has encountered.
However, similar to the Holoprograms, there was only a limited number of free choices. The ones that were for free were the most common types of enemies among all species, and some of the "rarer" ones needed to be bought with the Universe Credits.
Obviously, Arcturus invested additional Universe Credits into this because he wanted to have a bigger library of opponents, especially among the Arachnids that they were going to face right now.
Because nobody from their trio has ever really fought against the Arachnids; it was an invaluable experience for them. Even Zehal was rather a frequent visitor to the Holodeck and trained together with Arcturus and, much to her dismay, even with Jenaiel.
This was something that he had seriously insisted on because they needed to have some sort of synchronization as a team. Because they were going to the battle zone, they needed to know to fight like a team and not like lone wolves on the battlefield.
Even though personal strength is everything, one should never underestimate the power of teamwork in most scenarios.
Arcturus fired his lasgun in rapid succession at the group of the Warrior Bugs that were rushing towards them from the ruins of the building because they were having a fight in the scenario of a ruined city.
Coincidentally, it was a map of the standard capital city of the colony of the Imperial World that was infested by the bugs, and they were playing the role of the relief force from the Imperial Navy that had come to eradicate the bugs.
When they started the simulation, he noticed that Jeniael was even worse when it came to the guns than him. Even though he was not really a good shooter, with his enhanced reflexes and Neural Extranet Terminal Gene Implants, he was a very good marksman.
Obviously, it was far better than any non-augmented human could ever be, but obviously inferior to anyone who spent years mastering their craft, especially when it came to the Imperial Soldiers because the Neural Extranet Terminal Gene Implants were something that everyone had.
For the Imperial Soldiers who were not Professionals, they received specific augmentations to their neural pathways that allowed them to have superior reflexes, but such cases were rare to the mass production of the Gene Enhancement Serums for the Lower Grade Warriors.
Jenaiel was acting as the front fighter, while Arcturus was supporting her from behind by accurately shooting toward the weak spots on the Warrior Bugs.
Warrior Bugs are quadrupedal Arachnids, approximately two to three meters long, with coloring that camouflages them to specific terrains, which showcased their really high adaptability, even though they were just at the bottom of the Arachnid Hierarchy among the Swarm and were considered as most ordinary cannon fodder out there.
The rearmost pairs of legs were much longer than the two front legs, serving as the primary means of locomotion, with the forelegs being one-third shorter. Warrior Bugs were also very agile and fast, capable of climbing and burrowing through many surfaces.
They had powerful pincer-like mandibles capable of crushing rock, metal, and severing limbs as their primary means of attack. Their two upper forelegs, or "side mandibles", function like swords for both offense and defense.
Overall, every single part of the body was perfectly designed and engineered to be the perfect killing machine for the Swarm.
"Jen-Jen, on your rear, there are seven more incoming!"
Arcturus shot at her, as he took aim and fired several shots at the Warrior Bugs that were approaching them, perfectly hitting their nerve stem, which was their weak spot. He spent a lot of effort to learn everything he could about the most obvious weaknesses among the most common types of bugs.
He was rather surprised that, contrary to his initial expectations, these creatures didn\'t have many obvious weaknesses that could be easily exploited. This was another part of their species because once something a weakness appeared in one of their "models", if it could be called such, then the Queens would take notice of it.
And once the Queens took notice of it, they would just annihilate the weakness and evolve their bugs to a better version. Among the bugs, there were very, very, very few ones that had true sentience and were capable of self-thought.
Thus, not many of their bugs had some pretty strong weaknesses because once they appeared, they were quickly patched up in the next version of the bug. They were species that were constantly evolving and for their evolution, they were consuming and assimialting everything in their path.
Obviously, they were not Cosmos-scaled menace for no reason.
Jeniael noticed that the bugs were approaching them, as she didn\'t even have time to retort to Arcturus, who was constantly calling her Jen-Jen, much to her annoyance. What was even worse for the white-haired girl knight was the fact that even Zehal started calling her that, and that was bringing her to madness.
She immediately jumped at the bugs with a power sword in her hand as she slashed at the head of the Warrior Bug and stabbed her sword through its huge skull, destroying it in an instant.
Just as she was about to be attacked by another two that were near her, several shots of plasma went by and hit the two Warrior Bugs in their eyes as the Holo Bugs screeched in pain because this was an extremely realistic simulation, and another a few shots fired in immediate succession finished them off.
The Holoprograms on the Holodeck were extremely realistic, and right now, they were using no Safety Protocols, so theoretically speaking, one could be easily killed in a simulation like this.
The Hardlight was deadly... easily, so if there were no Safety Protocols in play.
Something that Arcturus didn\'t really want because that was lowering the experience and thrill of the battle.
And Jen-Jen agreed to it, too.
There were countless people who got themselves killed in the Holodecks during the training with no enabled Safety Protocols. Mostly, it stems from the overestimation of their own capabilities and power and then...
Boom, and they were killed.
Arcturus then turned his eyes to a small group of more Warrior Bugs crawling from the ruined parts of the city around him, and he was being ambushed by them. Which was rather clever from them, or in this case, from the Red Queen, as it was she who was running this simulation.