?

  As it turned out, the answer was yes, I could in fact survive the fall. However, I do need to add that it wasn’t quite so simple as making sure to bend my knees or rolling when I landed. My eyes adjusted to the darkness as I fell, and Diaochan chattered away in a near panic. If she were using real words, I doubt she would have time to finish, and I certainly wouldn't have had time to react to her. They weren’t real words, though, more akin to thoughts shooting into my mind from her.

  It wasn’t that long of a fall, but I likely would have broken something if my A. I hadn’t been there to assist in pointing out ways I could slow my descent. In the end, I did in fact need to bend my knees and roll when I landed five feet below the section of roof I had jumped from, but that wouldn’t have been enough to keep me uninjured on its own.

  Instantly, I shot my attention upwards to see if I was being pursued, and was almost surprised to see the hole in the roof above me simply showed the ‘ evening’ sky above. Of course, it wasn’t really the sky and probably not evening at all, but it was the time of day when the impossibly huge metal plates above reflected a sort of orange light as the blocks around here slowly began to go dark. So let's just say that I considered it evening time. Regardless, the important thing is that none of the uniformed soldiers had followed me into the hole in the roof.

  I had escaped unscathed and victorious from my fight with the pair of raindrops. It galled me to flee from their protectors, of course; it always galled me to flee from anyone for any reason. Still, part of being the strongest under the heavens is understanding when to attempt pushing past one's current limits, and when to hold back. Today has presented me with both situations.

  Defeating the pair in their Evolution Suits had been both fun and satisfying. They had been powerful enough that I’d been forced to make use of my abilities and take them seriously; Those were the marks of an opponent truly worth facing, and it had been a fun experience. Probably the most fun I’d had since being reborn in this strange world of steel and cement.

  I genuinely looked forward to the next time I got to face a raindrop in combat, and expected that I would enjoy myself even more against higher-level opposition. For now, though, I intended to find my way home and relax with a meal and a bottle of wine…

  Naturally, that was when it dawned on me that I had left my supplies back on top of the roof. As I’m sure you can imagine, I then proceeded to unleash a hail of various swear words, while I stomped around kicking over rubble and punching walls. While there was a very good chance that my supplies, which hadn’t already been consumed by the pair of raindrops, were destroyed by either the fight or the various volleys launched at me from above, I still needed to get back to the roof and at least check.

  If I abandoned my pack and my food, I would have no choice but to make my way back out of the hunting grounds and spend another chunk of my rapidly shrinking collection of digi-creds if I wanted to keep surviving out here. In a true wilderness, I could have subsisted on the beasts I hunted, but that was sadly not an option here. It made me wonder about the nature of this afterlife. If everything was a part of this giant city, where did the produce come from?

  It was just one more thing I didn’t understand about this new world, and I wasn’t willing to sit through a lengthy Diaochan lecture about it. For now, I decided to get my bearings while I gave the warriors atop the roof ample time to depart, after which I planned to simply climb back up the way I fell, and hopefully secure my supplies once more.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “Diaochan, what am I looking at here?”

  The area of the block I had ended up in was fairly distant from the one I had claimed as my own, and I wasn’t sure of the best path to return to it. I don’t know if I have done a sufficient job of explaining to you just how enormous these blocks were, but I want you to understand that when I say that, it is the equivalent of being on the opposite side of a small city.

  The floor that I had found myself on stank of rust and mildew, past the circle of light leaking in from the hole above it was dark, and the air felt heavy with moisture. All around me were rows and rows of large cylindrical objects. They were around half the height of a man, though much thicker. A small collection of pipes ran to and from each one, and condensation sat on every surface.

  “This was The Block’s hot water system.” Replied Diaochan. “ It was where the water that flowed into the block from its conversion tanks and the city supply was heated for things like showers. This particular system appears to have been installed. “

  “Enough,” I interrupted, “I did not ask for, and do not want the full history of this place.”

  I proceeded to explore the various parts of the inactive hot water system. I needed to move away from the hole above on the off chance that they did deploy someone, or decided to shoot down into it, and it was something to do while I waited for the group above to depart. It shouldn’t be long, as they would want to get the raindrops to medical aid as soon as they could, but I still opted to give them an hour just in case.

  I was soon shockingly glad to have made that particular decision. Having picked my way over or around the rusted and leaking water tanks, I began to notice a flickering of purple light that occasionally broke the darkness around me. Following it, I realized the light was coming up through a rusted hole around the size of a large melon in the floor beneath my feet.

  I paused to peer down, even bending at the waist to get a better look. What I saw brought a slow smile to my lips. The flickering purple light wasn’t simply coming from a drone on the floor below mine as I had first assumed. No, beneath me in the even more poorly lit gloom of the room I was above, I could see a swirling vortex of debris that flew about a surprisingly cavernous space. At the center of the flying pieces of scrap, I could see an orb about the size of the water tanks around me. The orb pulsed with strong purple light that would periodically light both the room below and the one I was in. When it did, more chunks of metal would be pulled from outside my line of sight and drawn into the swirling mass.

  [Over-Surge Purple: Nexus Assembly]

  was displayed by my HUD when I looked at it, as did a series of alarm notifications about how dangerous being this close to the Nexus Assembly was. Having seen a red one create a shockingly powerful dragon and then explode with enough force to pierce one of the metal plates that separated the sky tiers of the city, I didn’t need the warnings to know the danger of what I was looking at.

  Backing away, I demanded that Diaochan make note of where we were and build me a map so that I could more easily return here. I may not know that much about the world I have been reborn into, but I know a treasure when I see one. If that Nexus Assembly didn’t potentially represent something of either great monetary or XP value, then I would eat my spear and proclaim myself ten thousand times a fool.

  I didn’t need to access the city network to know that I wasn’t equipped right now to make use of that value, but I would be. I could spend tonight researching this subject, and return in a few days with whatever I would need to exploit this resource.

  I was going to have to put up with a lot of Diaochan droning on about potentially dull subjects tonight, so I opted to wait until I was back in the comfort of my hideaway with my supplies in hand before I really began asking about the Nexus Assembly. Instead, I just had her play some music that only I could hear as I climbed back up the hole I had leaped into around an hour earlier.

  Pulling myself over the final edge and back onto the roof, I was thankfully not greeted by a force of warriors shooting lightning techniques at me. I was even more pleased to find that my backpack had somehow survived the carnage and only my final bottle of wine had been destroyed.

  Not perfect, but I still had tea and hydration packs. All in all today had been a dam fine one and I found myself smiling in satisfaction as I headed towards the stairs. It was an expression that froze when Diaochan stopped singing and playing her Guzheng to suddenly shout.

  “Alert! Alert! System I am currently linked to is being breached.”

  Any guesses what that system might be?