Museum Core Chapter 128: Barren Wasteland

She was going to kill Frye when she got back to Bristol.

Yes, every single one of her bonds was from the warmer climes, and perhaps being part reptile should have helped some.

And, technically, an expanse of ice and snow was also a desert, if you wanted to get down into the weeds of scientific definitions, so her claiming this was her first time in one wasn’t entirely true.

Bollocks to this whole bloody desert!

… or maybe it was just the local system getting to her, perpetually getting on her nerves, grinding down her patience to the point where she’d likely blow her top the first time any even remotely acceptable target entered her field of view.

The exact same nonsense.

Every.

Bloody.

Day.

Tribune, you are required to activate the System of the Warborn upon ascent to Prefect.

Tribune, you have not activated the sensory power you should have gained upon your ascent to your current rank.

And so on. Constantly, ceaselessly, endlessly.

As far as Jaclyn could tell, the ranks of the System of the Warborn were based on military ranks, and the overall assumption was that she was not only military, but also a part of this military. As in the one who’d once marched through the area that had now become the most annoying transformation zone on planet Earth.

It was overall a pain in the behind to deal with, 0/10, would rather swim through raw sewage than voluntarily deal with it.

Initially, there’d been an option for “declaring the war over” due to the military rank the system felt she ought to have, at her current power, but trying to end a conflict that had been left behind on whatever world this place was from was apparently not okay, that required authorization from someone who was also on that world.

And eventually, the system stopped even so much as offering her the option, it just continued bombarding her with nonsense.

All that being said, however, she could see the use in this system. It was a solid military system that seemed to be offering the “complete package” of military skills from resource acquisition to marching, creating someone who might not be at the absolute peak of personal power, but collectively forging the perfect army, especially when the power-picks were coordinated.

Large groups with easy access to food and water, smaller groups that could produce medical and building supplies, then make sure the crafting powers were likewise properly spread out to allow for rapid camp building, ensure that the movement powers were partially group buffs that sped up everyone while training others to be specialists in various forms of crafting …

In the end, you’d likely end up with something along the lines of the Roman legions, and she didn’t just think that due to the vague similarities in the ranks.

A perfectly coordinated group of people capable of marching for just about any distance it could realistically be expected to be deployed to at the drop of a hat, putting up what basically amounted to a fortress in a single evening, and breaking down said fortress in barely more time than it took civilians to get ready for their day.

Anyone looking to build a proper army would likely jump at the chance, but at the same time, becoming a powerhouse required all of one’s powers to combine to form a greater whole. Something to strengthen the whole wouldn’t necessarily be too helpful to an individual.

Even so, merely reaching the center of the Piss-colored Desert wasn’t enough to get you access; you’d likely have to show that you deserved to become a soldier as well, perhaps even by swearing yourself to whatever army had once marched through this place.

The system certainly had declared she’d been “drafted” when she’d gotten the first message. Which she’d ignored, and the system had ignored her ignoring it.

She’d had bosses like that before, but this thing took the cake.

What a rude little berk.

But she’d decided to put up with it, since the first announcement of the Earth Unified System had said that the way to gain access, other than “proving oneself worthy,” was finding a lost city of some kind, which was definitive proof that there was a lost city to be found.

And she was going to find it. Fixing that as a goal in her mind helped her ignore the annoyance of the system, for the most part. It was still wearing on her, though, grinding down her patience. If she ever figured out how to punch concepts … but even if that wound up happening, it would do so in the far, far, future.

Therefore, on to another day of searching under the blazing sun, then trying to sleep in the freezing night. Temperature might not exactly harm her anymore, mind you, she could probably swim through liquid nitrogen without being injured, but that did not mean that she enjoyed those kinds of environments.

Yes, her new power let her do something with her hands while flying, but it wasn’t fun in the slightest. Until something finally changed.

The buildings rose from the sand in the distance, like the skeletal fingers of some long-dead monstrosity, burried by the desert, wooden beams dried out by the centuries looking ready to collapse into dust the moment someone so much as looked at them wrong, stone structural elements scattered across the surrounding area like the fragments of some giant shattered piece of pottery …

Only a single structure was left reasonably intact was a massive square building, fifty meters long on each side, sitting atop a far larger square that was slightly raised out of the desert, a clear indication that there was more to see underground.

Jaclyn started at it for a few moments, then decided that the whole thing was likely some kind of ziggurat, but if that was the truth … then how big must the whole thing be?

A kilometer on every side at the base, probably.

She paused in midair for a brief moment, looking around, waiting for the system to chime in, to inform her that she’d found the lost city or perhaps whine about how she wasn’t doing enough …

Mercifully, this was the one case where that perpetual annoyance kept its pie-hole shut.

Slowly, she began to lower herself down towards the main entrance, a massive black hole that would have allowed anything short of a jumbo jet access.

“Please tell me that’s not an indicator for how big the monster is ...” she muttered under her breath.

It probably was, though. Logic dictated that all transformation zones had an anchor beast, and that the beast would be in the center of said zones.

And guess where she was? Smack dab in the middle of the Piss Desert.

She just hoped the monster would show itself without her having to go too deep into that place.

Weirdly enough, if it had been a dungeon, she’d have been entirely okay with walking into the lion’s den. Doing that into an ancient building of dubious durability, on the other hand … there were far worse fates than merely dying, and being buried alive so deep that even her badger digging skills wouldn’t get her out, that her toughness would only serve to keep her alive longer without actually letting her do anything …

Jaclyn shivered. She was damn tough by now, but someone dropping the artificial mountain she suspected the building to be on top of her head would likely kill her anyway.

Cautiously, she touched down on the “plaza” that was really just the roof of the second story of the titanic ziggurat, ready to launch herself back into the air in an instant if the old bricks started to crumble.

But that didn’t wind up happening.

Instead, in an instant, the entire top story vanished, blasted to pieces that were flung skywards with impossible force, a geysir of sand and muck exploding up from the bowels of pyramid, rising nearly a hundred meters into the sky … but Jaclyn was already nearly five hundred meters away, turning back to look at the devastation, at where the entire top area of the ziggurat was crumbling inwards, everywhere save the dead center, where solid column of sandstone was rising into the sky.

And standing atop that pillar … well, Jaclyn wasn’t too sure what to call it, but it was sure as hell the anchor beast!

She could feel the grin start to creep onto her face.