Damon's Ascension-Chapter 147: Relay Management

The central terminal flared to life under Damon’s hand, bathing the room in a soft white-blue glow. Lines of code scrolled past, login prompts accepted without hesitation as the relay system acknowledged the transfer of ownership.

The Human race’s flag blazed briefly across every screen in the room.

Then came the dashboard.

A massive 3D interface burst open, holograms spiraling upward like a torrent. The Relay Management System - normally reserved for IUAS-authorized relay heads - was now in the hands of the human race, and it was dense.

Even Damon paused for half a breath.

"...This is going to take some sorting," He muttered with a soft smile.

"Yikes!" Henry exclaimed, leaning over his shoulder.

He recoiled and shook his head rapidly. "It’s like someone combined a logistics terminal with a financial mainframe, a diplomatic ledger, and... what is that, a weather forecast?"

"That’s the dimensional drift monitor." Felicia answered automatically.

"It tracks how stable the portal opening is between our universe and the Chaos Realm in this sector." She folded her hands and explained casually.

Henry blinked mischievously. "Okay, nerd."

Felicia raised an eyebrow. "Says the guy who spent part of his cryosleep pretending to be a fox demon to copy martial arts."

"Don’t judge my enlightenment." Henry mumbled evasively, eyes darting around.

Meanwhile, Damon began reading aloud the key categories listed across the upper part of the interface:

1. Explorer Registry.

2. Resource Taxation Records.

3. Sector Entry Logs.

4. Chaos Essence Flow Reports.

5. Relay Contract Offers.

6. Base Logistics (Safe Zone 5 and Safe Zone 15).

7. Item Appraisal Catalog.

8. Research-Extraction Requests.

9. Black-Flag Incidents.

10. PR Management Queue. ƒrēenovelkiss.com

"That’s ten too many tabs if you ask me. One is enough, just slap everything under it." Kyle complained as he listened to the words of Damon.

Protizen Echo was already tapping into the system from another terminal, visor scanning and cross-referencing data. "Hmm... over 4,200 explorer entries processed in the past two months alone, the majority of them from mid-tier races."

He then pointed to some spreadsheet data. "Look at this! Here is a datalog of a Jorge race team logging 77 Units of raw Chaos Essence mined in Sector 51 over the past 3 months, taxed at 0.1%, routed to the elf treasury."

Connor glanced over. "What’s all of that come to in EC? The total amount of units taxed and rerouted quietly over the past two months, I mean."

"Approximately 5.7 million Essence Coins taxed," Protizen answered without pause.

"Damn, that’s almost our national education budget." Levi whistled.

Xela raised an eyebrow. "That’s if we had one."

Bane cracked his knuckles. "Good thing we’re here now. Let’s make sure the taxes flow our way."

Damon nodded slowly, pulling up the explorer registry. It displayed data fields with names, races, affiliations, rank, entry time, exit time, and deposit results.

Dozens of entries still bore elf supervisor tags.

"We’ll need to purge the admin metadata and switch this all to human relay oversight, and we’re going to need our own processing team. Volunteers?" Damon noted.

Nicholas raised his hat in a greeting. "I’ll vet the explorer psychological profiles. We don’t need psychos wandering into chaos without insurance."

Xela stepped forward with interest. "I’ll curate the item appraisal side. Some of these artifacts could cause planetary events if mishandled."

"Uh, one of these entries says someone tried to smuggle back a tree branch that speaks in what has been identified as Latin." Marshal said, flipping through the Item Catalog.

He scratched his head. "Its current status is ’intermittent chanting.’"

"That should be from the famous Plant World Area of Sector 32." Felicia said, thoughtful.

Damon nodded. "Their sentient plant zones are basically cursed libraries, not much danger in terms of power, but in terms of mind and spirit, hearing the wrong piece of information could scramble your very existence."

Henry pointed at a different record. "Wait, what’s this? ’Instance Delay Claim – Species: Leers – Party of 7 denied exit by area rule anomaly’? What happened here?"

Damon tapped into the log and a playback showed grainy footage of a minor Leers exploration team being forcefully delayed in a time-dilated area.

The Leers were a bunch of bipedal like felines, similar to Lynxes or Servals, but their height inly reaches the average human’s waist. They had strong Mobility and not bad Mentality, ranked 124th in the Universe.

The rules stated they had to reenact a historical myth from human culture to leave. Unfortunately, no one on the Leers team had a strong understanding of Earth myths.

"They got stuck in a new area called the Trial of Prometheus." Xela explained softly.

Felicia looked over and folded her arms. "Hmm, the area demands one of the group be chained and have their life essence consumed every hour. The others must either share the pain or solve the puzzle to unlock the chains."

"...They all failed?" Kyle asked grimly.

Damon shook his head. "No, they argued about whether Prometheus was a Titan or a God based on the information they had received beforehand for three hours. Then they passed out."

There was a moment of silence.

"Yeah, we need to add a cultural literacy crash course before sending anyone in. Otherwise people are going to die debating myth categories." Connor said dryly.

Damon opened another category, Relay Contract Offers. It listed standing requests from companies, races, and organizations asking to partner with the human-run relay.

Some offered to supply exosuits, navigational AI, or even guided entry services for a cut of explorer profits.

"I’ll handle contract vetting. I’ve recently been reading their trade laws like bedtime stories. Half of these offers violate IUAS fair competition rules." Felicia offered.

Bane peered at one offer. "This one says they’ll ’guarantee relic recovery from Sector 45 for a 20% finder’s fee plus the adventurer’s soul for 12 hours.’"

Felicia snatched the screen. "Yep, illegal. That’s soul slavery."

"They phrased it like a customer service policy. Gotta admire the marketing." Kyle muttered.

Xela slid open another panel labeled Safe Zone Logistics and a hologram of the base on the Chaos Realm side of Relay 5 appeared. It was a wide circular fortress made of reinforced etherglass, designed to float atop whatever terrain the receiving sector had, which was currently a shifting stone ocean.

It had eight docking towers, a market square, a medical wing, sleeping quarters, a soul sanitization chamber, and a training coliseum.

Xela scrolled through its status. "Still functional, since the Behemoths maintained it well before leaving. However, the elf staff running it now are using half the recommended security."

Levi smirked. "Which means it’s running like an unlocked vending machine in a riot."

Nicholas sighed. "We’re going to have to audit everything."

"I volunteer to handle the market square. I have some... thoughts on how to improve item categorization." Marshal suggested gently.

"You just want to rearrange the potions by color gradient." Henry accused with a pointed finger.

"And shape too." Marshal replied seriously, unashamed.

Damon suppressed a small smile. "Everyone will have duties assigned soon, but for now, let’s finalize system control."

He brought up the last tab, Black-Flag Incidents. A red list of forbidden items, corruption events, and interdimensional anomalies popped up.

There were a few disturbing ones.

1. "Black Hole Breadcrumb Trail" – Found in Sector 81. It suspended movement for 14 explorers mid-path and relocated them across sector boundaries. Item confiscated.

2. "Mimic Portal – Friendly Version" – Lured explorers in with a coupon deal. Result: They lost all their accumulated stats.

3. "EX-Grade Item: ’The Rememberer’" – Briefly caused entire Safe Zone 13 to loop one day backward every hour. Memory recursion lasted for 36 hours before containment.

Connor let out a long whistle. "Man, I thought Earth was bad. At least our vending machines don’t time-loop us."

"Not yet," Marshal added.

Damon closed the logs and stood. "This relay is our responsibility now and not just a formality nor a trophy. This is the gateway between our race and the truth of the galaxy."

He looked around at his crew.

"Handle it well for now, and we might earn real footing. Handle it poorly, and the whole galaxy laughs."

Felicia nodded. "Then let’s build it properly."

Protizen straightened. "I’ll begin encrypting the registry systems. They’re still vulnerable to elf-side backdoors."

Nicholas added. "I’ll flag every explorer that’s ever caused a public incident. We’re not letting ’meme warriors’ into the realm unsupervised."

Connor raised a hand. "Can I at least keep one cursed item? For... science?"

"No." Everyone replied at once.

Damon finally smiled. "Get to work, Vanguard Team. Humanity’s first true foundation in the galaxy begins here."

And just like that, Relay 5 which was once misused, neglected, and quietly stolen came alive.

The crew all went to the respective allotted stations and began implementing the basic set up procedures so that whoever came next for the handover would be able to continue smoothly.

It took a few hours of nonstop work, but with everyone increased stats, they weren’t tired nor fatigued after this as the basic framework had been put up successfully.

"Good job everyone, you can take a break in the VIP lounge while I prepare the things for our journey into the Chaos Realm. We will be leaving in an hour, so remember to gather at the Chaos Gate by then."