“Our version of their concepts is a bit different, as you well know we still haven’t been able to manage matter compression on such large scale.” Lasani said, referring to the lower scale mater compression that Clan Warpath’s military R&D was attempting to use in their battle suit and armor development.
“But we did manage to recreate the shimmering field. Ours is working on a slightly different concept, we have no internalized circuitry to handle the field creation in the material itself, but rather specialized nanobots that move through the coils that are connecting field emitters, and they can be added to the bottom of the hull walls, which means that we can add the field to any kind of hull. Our field is a bit stronger, about forty percent, but it also requires a lot more power. Our hull is more durable, able to withstand a lot more punishment and is more heavily based on metal alloy of risuminum and steel and as few ceramic as possible, that is why we chose to name the material ri-steel. Basically, it is superior in all areas except the mater compression.”
As soon as she finished Adrian smiled widely. “Well done! How soon do you think that we can start producing the hulls for the Tiamat and the Titan? And do you think that it will be possible to update the hulls of the rest of the ships?”
“Production can start in a few days, as for the updates, that will depend on the ship, for a few we can replace the old hulls as they aren’t that far ahead in the construction, for others we will need to improvise. Maybe add a lighter layer of the ri-steel over the existing hull, we will just need to try and see how it goes. In any case all of the ships will have the shimmering field installed, whether they have the ri-steel hull or not.”
“Great, good work chief. I will leave you and your team to the work.” Adrian said, then he turned to now grinning Isani and together they walked out of the room. All the while Adrian thought how things happened to fall into place at the exact moment he needed them to. But then again, it was nice that things went their way for a change.
Chapter Five
Adrian sat with his legs crossed on the floor of his bedroom, if anyone was to look at him now they would assume that he was meditating, relaxing. But the truth was far from it, inside his mind he fought a battle.
More than thirty years ago when he was barely a teen, Adrian received a prototype implant inside his head. This implant came with its own Ai, an Ai that wasn’t programed with all of the knowledge it required, instead it was given only enough to know what it was, and the rest the Ai would learn as human children did, from experience alongside Adrian. The Ai with Adrian’s help chose its name – Iris, and ever since then the two had grown together. Adrian was the only person who had this experimental implant put in before their brain was fully developed, and as Iris and he grew their connection deepened, and unforeseen side effects occurred.
The interactions between the Ai, the implant, and Adrian stimulated his brain, to the point where he developed unique abilities. Or more precisely allowed him a greater control over his brain and body’s abilities. The human brain was an amazing thing, it was powerful, capable of so many things that would seem supernatural. But most of humans never used their brain and bodies to their full potential, the human brain was inefficient, its potential and power bundled up inside a net of pathways.
It was capable of so many things, abilities that human brain was already capable of subconsciously, altering the perception of time – like when solders or martial artists suddenly start seeing events in slow motion during tough situations, conscious control over mind’s information processing, ability to consciously remove the limiters that the brain puts on the muscles strength – like when a mother suddenly gained the strength to lift a car and save her child, and others like shutting off pain receptors. And ever since the moment he realized he could do this, Adrian trained in order to master it. For now he was still the only one who could do it all consciously, but his mind was constantly scanned and monitored by the Empire’s scientist through his implant in order for them to replicate the effects, they were still unsuccessful.
But along with the ability to consciously do things that any human could do subconsciously or in times of great need, Adrian had developed one more unique ability that had never been documented before. He simply called it mind space. It was an ability where his brain suspended most of its control functions over the body in order to focus everything on a single thing, thought and imagination. It was very dangerous, the first time Adrian accidently went into mind space while meditating, he had stopped his heart, or rather his brain did. He would have probably died if it weren’t for Iris and his control implant. The only reason he survived was because Iris through his implant and nanites inside his body temporarily took over the control of his vital processes, while his brain focused on something else.
The mind space ability allowed Adrian to enter a world inside his own mind where time flowed at a much faster rate than it did in the real world. It was all an illusion of course, his mind was processing and imagining things at a much higher rate than it usually did, he wasn’t spending more time in mind space, his perception of time is what was altered, like dreams – a dream usually lasted about 5 minutes but it always seemed longer.
That allowed him to ‘shadow train’ inside his mind, and coupled with his unique ability to have greater control over his body’s function meant that theoretically anything he trained for or learned in his mind space would transfer over into the real world, what his brain learned his body would be able to replicate without the need for him to develop muscle memory. He still had to keep his body in a fit condition, real strength, agility, and stamina couldn’t be trained inside mind space. But the mind space allowed him to do so many things that he otherwise wouldn’t have the time to do. It was also one of the reasons why he wasn’t worried about the participating in the games. Others might have spent years training in the real world, but Adrian had spent decades training inside his mind space, coupled with his other abilities he knew that there were very few people in the Empire that could challenge him in hand to hand combat.
That being said, he still needed to prepare himself. That was what he was doing in mind space, training. He was fighting against conjured images of the masters he had sparred with. Even though his conscious mind might not remember every single nuisance of another person’s fighting style, his subconscious did, and in the mind space he had access to everything he had ever seen, heard, or learned. Every book he read, he remembered perfectly as if he had just read it, every memory as fresh as if it was made moments ago.
The scientists that were testing his ability had told Adrian that by focusing so much of brain’s processing power on the mind space it allowed him to refresh pathways to memories and data stored in the depths of his brain. That was also the reason why he remembered everything perfectly when he came out of mind space, but over the past thirty years he had learned that memories and knowledge that were not used frequently would become… Not forgotten, but buried beneath new knowledge and memories. Buried until he refreshed the pathways of his brain in mind space.
In mind space, Adrian moved sideways as one of his opponents attempted to kick him in the head, raising his hand to block the inevitable attack of the second opponent as Adrian stepped inside his reach. Blocking the attack, he gently guided the hand of his second opponent as he spun around, then Adrian pushed the hand towards the incoming attack of the first opponent. Losing his balance the second crashed into the first opponent, both of them falling to the floor.