They had already spent all of their Survivor Medals, and none of them had spare Energy Cores to use. They also had no interest in wasting more Experience Points on ordinary items that they could live without. At this point, everyone had the same goal as Aya. They wanted to keep farming Experience Points and level up as much as possible, even if the Gene Trader disappeared before they were finished.Xander reloaded his revolver before joining the others in clearing away the Mutant corpses.“Fine by me. More kills, more points. Just don’t fall behind, Aya. I’ll get more Experience Points later!”Layla sighed as she looked around at her companions. Everyone still seemed full of energy, which was surprisingly impressive considering how much fighting they had done. Their Health and Spirit Points were restored whenever they leveled up, but their physical stamina didn’t recover in the same way. Their bodies still had to deal with the exhaustion accumulated from hours of fighting.Even so, La

Cade froze as the enormous shadow of the flying fortress passed over him, covering the ruined buildings below in darkness.What in the world? Isn’t this supposed to be a rebellion of human-made Artificial Intelligence? Why does it feel like I entered an Alien Invasion Apocalypse? This is cheating!For the first time in a while, Cade genuinely couldn’t imagine himself fighting something like that. Even with everything he had built, standing against that mechanical citadel would be suicide. Unfortunately, all he could do was complain silently. The last thing he wanted was to attract the attention of whatever was controlling that monster in the sky.The fortress was simply too intimidating.Its massive engines rumbled like distant thunder, while dozens of cannons and unfamiliar weapons protruded from its metallic exterior. Some were so large that Cade couldn’t even imagine what kind of firepower they carried.Of course, it was the same fortress Max’s group had encountered earlier.For a

Max still had a decent number of Survivor Medals saved, mostly because of the other Foreign Survivors living in New Ark-45. They regularly traded him a Survivor Medal for bullets, food, medicine, and other supplies he could provide, and Max was quite generous with his prices.Everyone understood how valuable a single Survivor Medal was, so nobody complained about the arrangement.Because of that, Max had enough Medals to create a Guild immediately. The only thing holding him back was whether creating one right now was actually the best choice. There might be other things he could spend those Medals on later, and once they were gone, he couldn’t simply get them back.Then another thought crossed his mind.Wait… I can’t waste the chance of getting a reward for creating the first Guild. I’m sure the System will give something for that.Max had already learned enough about how the System worked to know that being the first to accomplish something often came with special rewards.Before do

“What in the world am I seeing?” Max asked, stunned by the sight of the A.I. base before him.This was nothing like what he had expected to find. There were no towering walls, reinforced bunkers, or massive defensive structures surrounding the compound. Instead, fields stretched around the base in every direction, and the people working those fields were humans.Their bodies were painfully thin. Their faces were hollow from hunger and exhaustion, and every movement seemed to take more effort than they could afford to give.Max stared at the scene, struggling to make sense of it.“Why would the A.I. use humans for labor? Machines are more efficient… The A.I. should know that better… This doesn’t make sense. Is this some kind of punishment?”Then a memory came back to him.The mechanized army had used humans as meatshields before. Tianna and Gina were living proof of that. The two girls had once been dragged into battle and treated as expendable bodies.Max had witnessed it himself.Wha

Ding![ Notification: Talent Upgrade Complete. ][ Current Talent: Infinite Cache (SSS) ][ Reminder: Further evolution possible with additional Talent Upgrade Crystals. ]Max let out a long breath as the crystal dissolved completely, its red glow fading into nothing.“Perfect… this is exactly what I needed.”A smile spread across his face when he saw the updated description.“And I can actually get both the Basic and Enhanced versions of Caches! This is amazing!”There was no chance he could hide his excitement. The upgrade was far more useful than he had expected, and Max immediately opened his Status Window to see how much he had progressed.[ Name: Max ][ Title: Skilled Survivor, Trailblazer, Siege Breaker, Guardian, Strongest One ][ Level: 30 ][ Health: 1,600/1,600 ][ Spirit: 250/250 ][ Physique Rating: C ][ Talent: Infinite Cache (SSS) ][ Active Skills: Spirit Pulse Lv5, Specter Step Lv3, Fast Appraisal Lv2 ][ Passive Skills: Keen Sense Lv5, Bio Adaptive Constitution Lv5