Rise of the Phoenix - Apocalypse Rebirth

Chapter 35 - Military Base Excitement

August 3031 - Country G

Since Aria was in Country M, she quickly visited the 65 red locations and added more variety of geological landscapes to the G Space. The surrounding 5 countries were visited too, harvesting 23 additional red locations.

A few locations already had plant mutations happening, a whole floor of bioluminescent moss. She thought they were cute... before turning into scary mutated zombie plants. So anytime she encountered mutated plants, she took them into her space.

A couple of hot springs, towering majestic trees, whole rock caves and waterfalls. She even found a few small patches of green shrubs that S3 identified as medicinal herbs. During their nature trek, S3 identified some animal mutations that were similar to reported beasts after being infected by the virus, so Aria brought them into the space too.

By this time, her body has gotten a lot stronger because of the system cleanse. Although she didn't grow that much taller, her body has been strengthened from the inside out, her skin no longer easily penetrable. She has 1 month left before she can use the Xing Plants to start activating abilities.

Art: Sister Aria, I have enough minerals to upgrade to level 7. Perhaps it's time to start mech training?

To train on a mech, one needs to start off with a mech simulation machine, which she doesn't have. When they visited the base with John months ago, all the machines were in use so it was inconvenient for Eros to directly steal them. In fact, Eros was only able to lift 25% of the secret stuff in the base. Luckily S3 has a copy of all the current projects the military was involved with and kept track of what was missing. They will need to head back to the military base to do a last run of supplies before leaving this side of the continent.

August 3031 - Country M

Aria booked a ticket to Country M, City K, the airport right outside the base. Aria waited until dark before sneaking into the base. Since it's not wartime, the schedules at the base are operating under peacetime law. Lights out at 2100 and wake up at 0400. The night shifts are manned by smart military robots to sense fluctuations in body temperature in each room.

Aria smiled ironically as she donned the full body temp suit outfit. While S3 kept track of the surveillance, not manipulating anything in the recordings since an alert would be triggered. Military security is of the highest level so any deviation or anomaly automatically analyzed by the AI machine would trigger the base security within seconds.

With S3's help to outline the items to be copied, Aria slowly worked her way throughout the underground laboratory. 5 hours later they finally made their way to the mech department.

Art was paying special attention to this part of the collection. Even though he will be creating cold weapons for Aria to use later, who doesn't like guns and lasers? Mechs, weapons, tools, machines, parts. Nothing was left untouched. Reaching the specific machine that S3 and Art chose, Aria copied it.

Aria finally relaxed after being so tense for hours while making her way down to the mech department. She accidentally bumped against the machine and a small sound was heard. That was enough for the security AI to take note. An alarm was triggered right away inside the base.

S3: Not good! They know we are here! Get as far away from this area as possible and jump into the space!

Aria: S4, summon up a dozen speed spirits to trigger the robots in other places of the base. Create as much chaos as you can to draw the people away from me.

Aria's movement was quick and nimble as she made her way towards the exit. Hearing clambering noises from behind the door, Aria scanned the surrounding area for a corner nearby to jump into the G Space.

The door pushed open right when Aria disappeared.

In the G Space, Aria watched the display in front of her of the many summoned humans S4 had running around the base. Over a dozen dark figures flashed through the corridors from different places.

Figuring out that the base might be locked down soon if she doesn't make her way out of the lower levels, Aria changed into a military outfit and braided her hair tight against her scalp military style before jumping out of the space to mix in with the rest of the group running around.

Summoning 2 nimble figures in the military outfit, she had them equipped with a bomb and sent them in two different locations outside to detonate.

Meanwhile, the other summoned figures were still wreaking chaos inside the base. As Aria got closer to the base exit, S3 finally attacked the base's security cameras and Aria snuck out of the loud base.

One explosion was heard in the distance. All the lights were on and all military personnel were awake and determined to catch the terrorists who dared to attack their base.

Aria crouched and ran across the flat field. Knowing that S3 has blocked all transmissions and surveillance at the base, Aria made a bold move and pulled out a small ShieldCraft. The ShieldCraft is the size of a van, small and nimble. And most importantly, silent.

She activated the sound shield and directed the craft's computer to hightail it out of there towards a large dense forest 60 miles away. Another explosion was heard right as the engine turned on and flew away from the base.

After entering the forest, Aria took out an old car she stored away earlier and drove to the airport. Her next destination is the WSD nation which comprises around 35 small countries. There were 34 red locations.

Aria secretly enjoyed her time traveling to many of these sites. Her "world tour" was something that only extreme nature-ists would appreciate and tour themselves. The majority of these locations are in beautiful areas full of natural beauty. Some were tourist attractions so she was able to enjoy a bit of the culture, people, and locally grown foods and animals. She purchased a lot more animal and seafood stock as the space expanded.

Seeing wild animals like bears, deers, and boars, she had Eros isolate some land masses so they could be collected too. Sometimes in very isolated areas, she had Eros directly collect a whole piece of land that includes wildlife, trees, herbs, insects, etc. to place inside the G Space.

It's good to collect farm animals, but it was devastating when wild animals mutated and started to become extinct.

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The base was in chaos and the enemy was quick. There were an estimate of over 2 dozen hostiles who somehow snuck into the base! At first the other departments didn't really care since it was only the army's location that was infiltrated. But when the staff noticed all the security cameras and surveillance robots were offline, they got pissed.

The base was locked down and each department did an aggressive sweep room by room. No corners and shadows were left unchecked.

Male 1: "Sir! We cannot find the hostiles on base! We have searched for 3 hours and there are no signs of anyone."

Male 2: "Have you checked if they mixed in with our own men?"

Male 1: "All personnel were accounted for prior to leaving their dorm and after during roll call. These people might have used the ground attacks as a diversion to escape. The investigative team suspect that this may be a covert operation testing their new stealth technology. Although the navy was too far at that time, they did sense a flying object right after the second bomb exploded."

Male 2: "Dig deeper! Find out how they were able to get in and escape! Our defense is too laxed!"

Unbeknownst to Aria, this episode haunted the base's management for a whole year without any new clues. They were convinced that another attempt will be made to their base due to the "relaxed" security so they were soon approved to expand the perimeter of their territory another 25 acres outward with 25 foot high walls. Each department added more staff so as a result they were able to get a CFP company from Country C to station 2 CFP plants were within the base to provide food for the soldiers.

This unfortunate event for the base resulted in many decisions that will benefit the base in the future. Most importantly the base famine.