Chapter 73 - Gears Turning

The first day of Metadome lessons ended with no one from the five trainees catching Janet. 

Despite holing up in the Association's Building for years, her skills in manual control of Metadome were still considered top-notch. No matter what the five trainees under her did, she could slink away flawlessly by skillfully maneuvering the Metadome.

Clark even called her out that she's cheating. Due to that, the Tyrant Princess gave him a taste of how it's like to fight her using a Metadome. In less than five seconds, the Training Metadome along with Clark that was operating it inside flew from one side to another, embedding himself inside the thick wall of the block.

He's not injured though. Janet pulled back her punch a split second before hitting him squarely. However, the shock he received was enough for him to rethink the choices in his life.

"I think I successfully went past the newbie rank in manual control but still no way better than the other four. I tripped countless times. Furthermore, elder sister even gave me more handicaps than the others despite her desire to get back at me for what happened last night."

Aldrin was back in his quarters, mulling over the result of the lesson.

It's not like the other trainees got it better. Although their teaching style might be different, some were stricter than Janet's.

Most of them felt dead tired and exhausted for the day and tomorrow, it would be the same tiring sequence of events.

"Tomorrow Janet said they'll invite other Energy Refiners that were close to our strength for a spar using the Training Metadomes. And among the tips she specifically shared with me, they will not hold back like her. The saving grace is that... we'll be allowed to use the NQL while the guest Energy Refiner will use manual control."

After going over the things he learned today on the path of being a genuine Energy Refiner, Aldrin then shelved it to the back of his mind as he took out his phone to check on IDLE Database.

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Outside the training camp, the one spying and looking out for the whistleblower had just been informed about tomorrow's lesson. The spy from his organization made sure that he would be one of those guest Energy Refiners.

He just had to make sure not to be found out that he's a late Stage 2 Energy Refiner or Instructor from the camp would be able to unmask his identity.

"This is tedious but tomorrow, I can finally identify that moron who had the gall to record my voice. I still remember his weak energy signature. Even if he progressed a bit, I am confident in singling him out."

The devilish grin on his lips was further complimented by the fact that he's hiding in a dark alleyway.

Although the fortress blocked signals for the dimnet and any sort of communication, every organization had a way to circumvent that.

As a matter of fact, he was informed to quickly finish his job as their employer did something drastic. Drastic enough to force the Overseer of the planet to make landfall to personally investigate and prevent whatever plan was being hatched.

Although he's not clear as to the real purpose of their employer, his organization was hired or rather bought by them to follow each and every order.

"After killing that moron and erasing the trail back to us, I will finally receive that Concept Book and that elixir to increase the harmonization of my Merged Concept within my Energy Quintessence. It won't be long for the union of my 'Energy Streams'." He clenched his fist tight. "Joining a gray organization was well worth it and the dumbasses from the Association and the Federation are clueless about our existence."

The man snickered and after looking from left and right, he disappeared from where he was observing the camp to prepare for tomorrow.

However, a few seconds later, another figure appeared from where he was standing. "Hmm? Commander Yun's foresight is truly great. Letting those spies think they're not detected to catch a bigger fish. The sender of the audio is one of the trainees."

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When midnight arrived, Aldrin prepared himself for another dive. He had upgraded the Essence Storage to 600 capacity and the Idle Storage was sitting at 60% capacity even after continuously melting the corpses.

The Worker Bots he initially bought only lasted for half a day. Using that as a standard, he switched them to the Worker Bot Ex spending 2000 IDLE Points.

Because the Essence Storage is still low, apart from purchasing the 8x efficiency booster before he slept earlier and a 2x booster to fill 500 Essence before midnight, he had yet to touch it again.

After estimating the time that he would spend by doing the manual run, he left it as is before.

He had already renewed the 50 Small Merchant and he's still left with more than 17,000 IDLE Points.

He converted half of it to Dimensional Energy, increasing his progress once more.

Compared to when he's still an early Stage 1 Energy Refiner, the energy being refined by his Energy Quintessence would slowly circulate around his Energy Channels or meridians, gradually expanding it to allow smoother flow.

8500 IDLE Points made him feel that the Energy Channels located at his navel up to half his chest had successfully been expanded. It's a slow process so he didn't know how many IDLE Points he needed to convert to complete it.

But thinking back about the previous threshold, he dreaded the possibility that he needed to multiply 25,000 to 25 again. That's a hell lot of IDLE Points if that's the case.

"It's probably not that exaggerated, right? Otherwise, how the hell Janet and the other veteran Energy Refiner progress without the aid of IDLE Database?" He shook his head and put on a positive outlook.

However, with him being a realist, he gulped down and just prepared himself if it's really 25 times. Consoling himself that soon enough, he'd earn millions of IDLE Points a day.

That's too far away from his current state but not impossible so that successfully eased up his mind.

After making sure that no one would knock on his door again like last night, he laid down on his bed and began the first run of the day.

This time, he picked Poker's body to possess. Its main weapon is a spear, however, thinking that he's not that used to it, he quickly changed it to a pair of sabers like Striker before overlapping it with his sword.

It's quite mystifying for Aldrin to see how his Dimensional Clones' weapons were melding with a real-life weapon but he didn't mull over it to uncover its secret. That's the reality in his eyes. It's not like he needed to continuously look for an answer when he's aware that it's next to impossible to uncover it.

Soon after that, he used 6910 IDLE Points for the multipliers and upgrade one Weapon slot to Level 5, allowing the clone he's possessing to be able to use the Ripple Skill.

With the direction of Ant Queen Lair memorized by him, he immediately set out to return inside it and finish what he couldn't last night.

"Hopefully, an Ant Queen will be the same as most ant queens I learned from science, not used to moving their bodies and only lingered in one place to continuously lay eggs," Aldrin murmured as he safely followed behind his three Dimensional Clones, making a path towards the Ant Queen Lair.