Chapter 71 - Units

[Essence Storage: 2/100]

Two minutes later, its storage had begun to be filled. Aldrin only checked the Booster and didn't purchase any of it yet. He had to see first what else the Idle Storage could bring him in terms of benefits.

Idle Adventure allowed him to take the first step to become an Energy Refiner.

Idle Shopping provided him with an easy way to procure anything that he would need as an Energy Refiner except those that were possibly locally available.

Thinking about that trend, he's expecting great things that would come up from utilizing the Essence.

While the Worker Bots were still tossing the corpses of ants inside the furnace, Aldrin checked the Craft and Upgrades tabs.

At the 'Craft' tab, Aldrin found two available craftable items; Essence Grenade and Allcure Elixir. They both cost 100 Essence to craft.

Just reading their name, Aldrin easily understood their uses.

"Offensive and recovery items. They're supporting items when it comes to games but if I use it openly, it will surely garner attention. I have to try their effectiveness first..." Aldrin evaluated the two before moving on to the Upgrades tab.

As he expected, the first one on the list is the Essence Storage Expansion and below it, the Idle Storage Expansion.

"It costs 100 Essences to expand the Essence Storage, huh? Since it's equivalent to its current capacity, it's safe to assume that it might retain that nature. I will have to fill the Essence Storage to expand its capacity. As for the expansion of this Idle Storage... it's a whopping 10,000 Essences. It's too far away from 100 Essences. Apart from the two, there are no other available upgrades yet. Most likely the other upgrades and craftables are the ones I need to unlock."

Although he had the urge to sigh and rant after expecting a little higher for those two tabs, Aldrin brushed it off and continued to the 'Units' tab.

He already read the description of the Guardian Ant Core earlier so his expectation was already met.

As soon as he tapped that tab, a prompt popped up again asking him if he wanted to use the Guardian Ant Core.

Without further ado, he tapped 'Yes' and a notification about the Guardian Ant Core being consumed appeared before him.

After clearing the interface, he finally had the chance to see what's needed to summon a 'Unit'.

[Guardian Ant

Monster Level: 21

Race: Royal Ant (Colony-based Insect)

Required Essence: 1100

Summonable Unit: 1/1

Core Experience: 0/10000]

[Note: Units can be summoned in any Dimension scanned and calibrated by IDLE Database as well as Host's current Dimensional Plane.]

[Note 2: Summoned unit can move by itself and will obey Host orders. However, they cannot live indefinitely as the Essence making up their bodies will slowly wither away.]

[Note 3: Each Unit will be supported by the Monster's Core and will accumulate experience each time you use them. However, every Core will accumulate experience separately.]

[Note 4: Gather and use similar Cores to summon more units.]

"Another one that I cannot use yet because of low Essence. However, everything about it is just fantastic! It has the growth attribute and what's more, its initial level corresponds to its level when I killed it. This is a great piece for conquering the Small Insect Colony... It can also be a trump card like my summonable Dimensional Clones."

With the excitement building up inside him brought about by this new feature of IDLE Database, Aldrin left the Idle Storage for a while to start the 2nd run of Idle Adventure and turned on the Automatic Renewal before going back in.

He could already use the simplified interface without sending his consciousness inside but still chose to dive back in.

"Rather than watching the numbers go up, I'd rather watch the bots doing their job."

That's his excuse.

And while he's there, Aldrin decided to spend 500 IDLE Points for one hour of 8x efficiency of the Essence Furnace raising its productivity to 480 Essence/hour.

An hour later, Aldrin successfully expanded the Essence Storage twice by spending 300 Essences.

His guess was right, after all. Next expansion, he needed 300 Points to expand it to 400. Although he found the increment of only 100 each expansion, he believed that it would improve in the future just like how the prices from the other features were incrementing.

After waiting for a few minutes to accumulate 200 Essences once the booster expired, Aldrin crafted one Essence Grenade and one Allcure Elixir for testing purposes, leaving the Essence Storage empty.

While putting on a satisfied smile, Aldrin keenly watched more corpses being transferred inside the warehouse from out of nowhere before leaving the small dimension of Idle Storage. His Dimensional Clones have begun their hunt.

"I have five hours to sleep without worrying that the Essence Storage will be filled, halting its progress."

That's one of the reasons why he emptied it, he just didn't want to burden his mind from thinking about the Essence Storage.

Five hours later, Aldrin woke up like an alarm clock as he accessed the simplified interface of the Idle Storage.

[Storage Capacity: 35%]

[Essence Storage: 300/300]

Aldrin immediately went to upgrade the Essence Storage before tucking his phone away and reminding himself to check it again 6 hours and 40 minutes later.

Following the trainees going out of their rooms to go to the cafeteria for their breakfast, Aldrin instantly spotted his group occupying a table.

As always, Clark was sticking next to Irina while Frederic and Caroline were across them.

As soon as the girl spotted him, Irina cheerfully waved at him and squeezed to the middle of the dining bench to give him a space to sit on.

Upon seeing that, Aldrin couldn't help but shake his head.

He knew that she was just being friendly to him but the guy next to her was taking that the wrong way.

Aldrin told Irina yesterday that he'd talk to Clark but he got no chance to do so because of their sitting arrangement. He planned to do it today during the Metadome Lessons but it seemed that his jealousy had once again intensified.

"May I ask? You're all from an Energy Refiner Lineage, have you all been taught to operate a Metadome?" Aldrin opened a discussion while eating.

He noticed the quietness and it's also a way to divert Clark's attention from being jealous of him because of Irina.

Moreover, he's also curious if he's the only one who had zero experience with it. Although he read some books and bits of information available in the dimnet as well as Janet's tips last night, he's a literal newbie about it.

"Yes, I'm taught to operate one. However, according to my father, the operating scheme is different for an ordinary soldier and an Energy Refiner." Irina was the first to answer, seemingly enthusiastic over the topic.

"That's right. I am also taught to operate one like a normal soldier but it's a lot different when you're an Energy Refiner. They have this thing called Neural Quintessence Link or NQL." Frederic continued.

"Uhm... It's practically a module added to a Metadome for Energy Refiners to link their brain and Energy Quintessence in it. Instead of operating it like any mechanical vehicle, Energy Refiners can operate it like our own body. The NQL is copying the signals sent by our brain." Caroline explained.

"Being a commoner, you're definitely a newbie when it comes to it. Do you want us to give you pointers?" Lastly, Clark brought back his condescending attitude towards Aldrin.

In any case, Aldrin only smiled at that as he knew where he's coming from, "Sure, I'll be counting on you."