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The Portal

The rest of the night passed with some more reading from Tira or trying to sleep as she had fallen asleep again.

He was so excited about getting out and seeing what there was and testing what he could do.

He got the tablet, but this time didn't tell the nanobots to get it for him, but he walked towards Tira and took it. He seemed to have enough strength to walk short distances by himself.

He was paying attention to the moves of Tira while reading the story, so he could open the book and read it himself as he had nothing else to do.

There seemed like she had other books on the tablet, some of them being published before The Advent.

They were called Light Novels, and there seemed to be a variety of what they were talking about. Each seemed to have at least a person of whom you were reading his or her adventures.

Codex noticed the book to be categorized by the type of story, and he soon understood what each one was supposed to mean.

He showed more interest in the protagonist getting into a land of Magic or a game-like world, trying to become the strongest or just to survive.

He thought he was in a situation like that, but he didn't have a reason to become stronger than the protagonists had.

There wasn't a great Evil that he had to fight or someone hurting him and wanting to become stronger to take revenge or any reason for him to get stronger. Other than him being excited to see what he could do, of course.

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R-PORTAL DETECTED

Difficulty: Easy

Do you want to access it?

YES / NO

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Codex sensed some strange energy emitting from the tablet on his hand, which seemed to be what the Panel was talking about.

It seemed interesting to him, but before he pressed to accept, he got his head and tablet and the covers so that the camera wouldn't be able to see him.

As he selected to accept, a new panel appeared in front of him, replacing the previous one.

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Choose your nanobots.

Slots: 12

You have 1 minute to decide, or the remaining slots will get filled randomly.

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It seemed like he could use some of his bots to help him deal with the portal, whatever this meant.

He used the ones who had completed some successful assignments.

He, of course, would not choose #8172 as it still was under development.

In the end, he had chosen two with three successful assignments, four with two, and the rest had each succeeded at one.

As he let the System know of his decision, an image of a blueish hole appeared on the tablet screen.

Out of the fingers of Codex, sparks started appearing.

His chosen nanobots made a circle of their own around the image of the hole in the tablet screen.

The sparks formed numbers of 1 and 0, which moved towards the image and went through it like getting absolved by it.

Similar sparks appeared from the bodies of the chosen nanobots, making a similar effect.

Codex was getting tired at the point of not being able to keep his eyes open.

Everything turned dark since he closed his eyes, but it all became blue as he seemed to fell.

As he was falling, his nanobots started appearing out of nowhere, falling with him and when the last one appeared under them existed a similar hole like the one they show on the screen, and as they passed through it, they landed in an empty room.

The first thing he noticed was his nanobots weren't as tiny as before but were larger than him, which was a massive change in size.

He also noticed that his skin was blueish, and if watched closely, he could see that it was made of energy which produced sparks that let out Os and 1s.

Looking around, they seemed to be in a vast dark hall, and he wasn't able to see any walls or ceiling.

One of his nanobots pulled out an antenna on its face, which started emitting light to help Codex see around.

Even with that help, though, he couldn't see any walls or ceilings.

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WELCOME TO R-PORTAL 650

Difficulty: Easy

Task: Find and destroy the V

Duration: 1 hour

Reward: 1 TP Recharge, 50 Exps

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Codex was excited to see the reward, even if it was for only 1 TP.

Since the difficulty wasn't that serious, 1 hour wouldn't be needed even if he didn't know what a V was.

It didn't seem like there were many things here, so probably the V was the only other creature other than him and his nanobots.

He rode one of his nanobots. Firstly, so that he could see things from higher ground, and secondly because it seemed a fun thing to do.

He could hear the voice inside him telling him to be serious, but he found everything so fascinating and just wanted to play around.

But he understood dangers could exist, so he told the rest of his nanobots to make a circle around him and keep looking for anything suspicious or sign of someone or something else being here.

He hoped this would count as assignments so he would learn more about what the number was about.

Four of the nanobots, one at its side, were having a Light antenna making their space brighter for Codex to see.

He noticed that the color of the lights differed slightly from each other.

Half an hours past and he had found no sign of anything else existing in this hall. Also, there was no sign of an end of the place.

His bots also didn't tell him of detecting anything suspicious happening in the surrounding area while looking.

"Could it be I am going to fail my first time? Are you guys sure you don't detect any creatures in the area?"

As he said that, the antenna of one light-beares pointed to his left.

"Did you find something there?"

There was no response.

"Hmm... I know what to do. From now on, if I ask you a question, blink your light antenna once for yes and twice for no. Did you get that, everyone?"

All 12 of them had their light antenna brought out if they didn't already and made it blink once.

Codex was happy of making some progress and thinking of a smart way like that to communicate with his nanobot.

"Ok, let's see.... your id is Nanobot #1318. Oh, you are one of the three tasks, if I remember correctly. So did you detect something over that direction?"

Its antenna blinked once, bringing a smile to Codex's face.

"Is it what we are looking for?"

No response. It probably meant that it didn't know so that it couldn't answer with a yes or no.

"From now on, if the answer to my question is maybe you blink three times. Pass this info to the rest when we return. So #1318 same question as before."

This time it blinked three times.

"Do you detect anything else other than us and it?"

Two blinks were the response.

"Does it seem to be far?"

The response was one blink.

"Ok, then everyone, let's get ready to move and deal with that V. #1318, keep your sense on it, and lead us towards it."

He climbed at the back of #1318 this time as it moved on towards the direction it pointed before.

After a while, it seemed to turn its direction a bit.

"Did it move?"

One blink let him know that this was really the case.

"Let's hurry then and not let it escape."

After a couple of minutes, he saw some movements on the horizon.

It was another bot, but instead of having the shape of an insect as he looked, it looked like an ape.

It didn't have fur, but its structure was that of one.

It detected them and started heading towards them, but it didn't act as organized as his bots but like a wild beast.

"Everyone attack."

Four of his bot made it to the ape and had a different antenna out, which was utterly metallic, and were ready to strike the ape with them.

But the ape didn't seem to like the idea of someone striking it as he punched them with significant force.

Its speed wasn't that great, but the bots didn't avoid the attack and took it, which led to them getting destroyed.

"What are you doing? Don't just stand when he tries to hit you. Avoid the attack and hit him when you have the chance to."

The rest of his bots blinked their antennas once to show that they understood, which surprised Codex. It made him a little proud of seeing them doing something smart without telling them to do it.

His remaining bots other than #1318 that he was riding were fighting the ape as Codex stayed behind to keep seeing everyone and give orders as needed.

Their opponents' movements weren't that complex, and Codex got the hand of them quick enough as he started dealing damage to it.

As he focused on the ape, he could see a green bar appearing over its head with the letter V over it.

"This should be the health bar those books were talking about. If we empty it, we should win."

Each of the hits of his bot seemed to reduce its health by 1/10th of its max, meaning that ten hits were all he needed.

He soon reached its health as one-third of its max, and at that point, he noticed that ape acting differently.

"Retreat."

He called his bots back as the ape started hitting its chest as a real ape would do on TV.

Codex didn't have time to consider what TV was as he understood what happened as he read something like that in one book.

The ape entered Rage Mode.

This meant it would change the way it would fight and be harder to deal with.

Codex waited for its next move, which took little time to happen.

It just charged towards the nearest enemy.

"You run around everyone else, attack, and move away for it after you hit it. If it follows, one of you, the one it follows, should run away, and the rest hit and repeat the process."

This was the best plan he could think of right now, and it seemed to work.

The speed of the ape was even slower than before, but its power seemed to have increased.

Also, each of his was doing less damage, which seemed to be ten times less than before.

This would increase the battle time, and the countdown of the task had 12 minutes left.

But he couldn't hurry, or more of his bot would get destroyed, and he wouldn't let that happen.

There were some close calls of one of his bot almost getting hit, but the others seemed to had used their attack's force to either stop the attack or make it miss.

Shingi was happy about seeing them using tactics like that, even if most of them were because he ordered them to do.

In the end, the ape fell and became a pile of scraps as his bots continued hitting it even after it died.

He let them do it as a sign of respect for their fallen people.

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Congratulations on completing R-PORTAL 650

Reward: 1 TP Recharge, 50 Exps

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TP RECHARGE

Description: A consumable capable of filling 10-50% of the user's TP.

Chance decided on use.

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Codex smiled as he seemed to have possibly earned more than he thought.

A blue hole appeared in front of him, and his bots started going through it one by one.

He passed through it, and he was back to the hospital room under the cover of his bed.

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