In a small apartment just 2km away from the wall; Eze was sitted in his room, his Ogbunigwe on the floor, dismantled into smaller pieces. Bolts and knots, a long bow string, some metal pipes and chords, two long blades and an amethyst gem, an Evo-Beast core.
The core was on top of a larger core, a silver white core; The same he had taken from the C-Class Fenrir.
Soon the Fenrir core began to shrink, before turning to dust. The Other Core though, emitted purple light shimmering around the dimly lit room. Eze looked at the clock, it was 5:26am currently, and he'd spent most of the night awake.
"Finally, your such a slow eater eh Ogbunigwe?"
As if to reply him, the core buzzed, spraying purple light around. He then began the tedious task of coupling the bow. He spent an hour doing this exercise, before placing it into the box.
Then he took the SpaceTech container on his bike, then he opened it. Prior to that time, his sister had directly messaged him to open the box when he was free.
'Lets see what she got me this time' he thought as he began to offload the items.
First was a cubic container. Inside was a hive shaped compartment, with pen like objects stacked inside. Eze picked one of the pens, put them in between his fingers of both hands and pulled.
It extended, turning Into an arrow.
"Nice, and there's over two hundred per box" and there were three boxes.
The next was five canisters and a small electronic centrifuge and mixer. Eze smiled and nodded. Each canister was loaded with about a liter each of Chemicals and poisons from Evo-Beasts. The centrifuge and mixer meant for mixing and separating poisons and elixirs...
Eze was not only good in minor engineering, but also with chemistry. His mother had trained him in the art of poison and medicine making with the help of herb extract and poisonous liquids found in some Evo-Beasts.
Then a peculiar gadget caught his eye. It was somewhat of a gauntlet and a cutout glove combined. On it were two devices shaped like bugs, a pair of Air pods and contacts lenses.
"She actually did it!" Eze exclaimed, he put on the glove and then wore the contact lenses. His vision didn't change much, but when he put on the airpods, a familiar mechanical voice rang in his ears.
'Combat Systems online... All bugs in check... Hello Eze!'
"What are your functions?"
'Straight to the point I see, the SCB's are a mini scouting tech meant for long range stealth reconnaissance and patrol. I will be your AI assistant to help you control these bugs whilst in combat'.
"Is there any manual control?"
'Positive, though it won't be tasking to control just one as compared to two. One SCB will take over your vision on the contact lens'
Eze put his hand on his chin and scratched it. He the decided to try it out. He placed one bug on the floor, causing it to unfurl from its cocoon like state.
'Manual mode activated, please use the control gauntlet to control the bug'
Eze look at the gauntlet wrapped around his arm and tapped on it. A console popped on its surface on a screen that appeared. Then one of the lenses on his left eye began to glow blue, sharing his vision with the bug.
He could see in about 270° around himself. It also has flight and camouflage capabilities, making it a good scouting unit. After doing some tests, he kept them aside began load up his weapon box.
Soon all his weapons and tools were arranged in proper order, making ejection of his artillery easy. The box was semi-mechanical, with small sensor that reacted to taps made in a sequence. The sequence determined what would eject if the box couldn't be used in battle.
As soon as Eze finished his arrangements, he lay on the ground and began to sleep. Due to just moving in, he had no furniture save a table and a chair.
About an hour later, his phone buzzed in alarm. And it wasn't his clock.
It was an emergency call. All Ascendants that registered usually got news about gate openings or incursions faster this way.
"Finally, the wait was getting boring!" He exclaimed before grabbing his brown overcoat jacket he had spread in the floor. This was what he had been waiting for all his life since he found out about Ascendants. His first gate incursion.
He wore his overcoat over a black sleeveless tank top and army green combat pants and black boots. His overcoat had inbuilt straps inside for a knife and a few miniature traps and a few grenades.
Armed to the teeth, he walked out the door, locking it behind him. As he ran down the stairs, he met some others doing the same.
"Oh hey?" A lady said in greeting, before dashing down the stairwell. Eze was stunned at her greeting at first, before jumped into the stairwell, running down four steps at a time...
He soon got to the garage and drove his bike out towards the wall north of his house.
***
Just at the edge of town, in a secluded part of the walled part of the city, the morning sun began to shine, painting a shadow on the city in tandem with its large wall.
In a corner, the void shook slightly, and then more profoundly, before cracking and opening a slit. Then it opened rapidly.
A gate had opened... An event that could spell catastrophic if not taken care of early.
In less than three minutes, military personnel with heavy military vehicles sectioned that part of town, making sure to evacuate civilians. In less that ten minutes, the city was a ghost town, except for the sound of the gate humming.
Soon, Ascendants from all corners of the city flocked to the gate, some preparing their weapons, others grouped up and began chatting. Soon Eze zoomed in, parking his bike in a secure zone.
He reached the barricade made by the military, who had created a queue for check-in. When he got to his turn he did his check-in and signed, before walking towards the gate. Soon, he was in front of the gate, a dark mass of primordial chaos and nothingness.
He took a big gate and sighed
"All Ascendants, Gate D21 is now stable for incursions. You're permitted to access of entry... Happy hunting" a loud voice from a megaphone screamed across the area. Ascendants dived in, some as teams, others went in solo... All in all, bodies dived in, disappearing from sight.
After clicking on his gauntlet, Eze walked towards the alley large gate and whispered
"Let the hunting begin"
***
After a few minutes later, Eze fell out of the void, into a land unknown. The landscape was vast, a plateau with small hills and trees, warped in vast array of colours and shapes.
It had a bluish gold sun high up in the sky, giving off the feeling of a midnight day. This with the blue fauna that dotted the landscape an efflorescent feeling.
'Looks like the mushroom biome in terraria'
But two things occured to Eze as he walked out...
First, the amount of smells in this place was...
Overwhelming! He almost threw up at the sheer amount of information his brain had to process because of his overly sensitive nose. Two streaks of blood began to flow out, before Eze was able to clamp at the Quather pathways in his nose, sufficiently reducing the effect of his abilities.
The next was ... There was no one in sight of him.
"An unstable gate huh?" He thought, looking around and sighing. Unstable gates were like this. Only with the right Technology, spatial abilities or with a Carrier vehicle could one bypass the wild attributes of an unstable gates.
And vehicles were only usable on the prerequisite of a gate above the B-Class.
Eze looked into a forest just ahead, and then on the fields, he noticed the forest seemed to be teeming with alien lifeforms he'd read about as a kid. Some took the form of advanced earth animals, others were monstrosities he couldn't fathom. He put his went down on his left knee and scooped a pile of dirt, taking a small whiff, he looked south of him... Then he tapped his gauntlet and asked...
"Hey, what is the time sync of this world to ours?"
The AI in the gauntlet replied...
World index unknown, currently reevaluating, please wait for a few hours to fully recalibrate
Most worlds didn't have the same time as earths, so People used AI with recalibrating capabilities in order to keep track of time in both worlds...
But what ever the time was, Eze wasn't perturbed. He slowly opened the Quather channels that flowed into his nose, slowly taking in the smells of the new world he'd entered. At first it was mind boggling, but slowly he got used to it .
At a tender age, Eze had been trained to smell objects and scents of Evo-Beasts from so many sources, it was unreal. In essence, his nose was a walking encyclopedia of Evo-Beast knowledge. One or two whiffs were enough for him to recognize the species of most Evo-Beasts.
His nose then caught on to two scents.
One far east which seemed a far distance away, a species he could barely make out whether it was a Kazhan or a Myocen.
The other one up north...
"A Ruin Deer, four of them, one male three females... Seems I hit a jackpot" he nodded before arming his bow and running up north into the forest ahead, charting unknown lands as he ran.