“It’s easy,” Nicolas, the level two gunslinger answered him. “You just touch a dead body and you get its Tec.”

“How do we decide who gets how much?” one of the other guards demanded. “I got injured defending the place, I should get more than those who stayed back and shot from safety.”

A chorus of angry yells followed his words.

“I took out a monster before it managed to jump at you, you asshole!”

“I helped bring down at least a dozen!”

“Everyone, shut up!” Diamond roared. Despite the heated atmosphere, everyone instantly obeyed.

Lana felt a small urge to keep her mouth shut as well, but she resisted the impulse. “There’s no need to argue,” she said. “We need everyone working together to get us through this. There’s a simple solution. We need to form a party. Join our faction. We’ll extract the Tec as a group, everyone will get their share.

“Huh, I just got a message asking if I want to join the Earth Force,” Diamond mused. “I hope you know what you’re doing, kid.”

Diamond has joined your faction

Cattie has joined your faction

Noah has joined your faction

Nicolas has joined your faction

…

…

After the nearly forty people joined, Nori spoke up. “Now spread out and touch the Warped remains. When asked if you want to share the Tec with your party, say or think yes.”

“Do it,” Diamond ordered.

“And quickly,” Bulco said. “Or the Old Stadium might not be there when we arrive.”

Several people hurried back out through the platform and started running around the corpse-strewn ground. A moment later increasingly bright flashes of light erupted out from the dead Warped and flowed into each Earth Force member.

Lana squinted at the slew of messages.

Extracted 0.03 Tec

Extracted 0.06 Tec

Extracted 0.3 Tec

Extracted 0.04 Tec

...

…

The lights and messages continued for several more moments before finally dwindling down.

“Alright,” Lana said. “In total, we each got about four Tec.” She looked at the excited people. For most, it was the first time gaining a level. Several of the guards even made it to level four, allowing them to use the Warped Buster rounds.

“That’s all the bodies we could find!” one of Diamond’s men shouted as they returned to the ship.

“And we got the last batch of magazines on board,” Bulco added.

“Alright, everyone, sit tight, I’ll get us to the Old Stadium,” Nori said and hurried to the bridge.

Lana approached Diamond and presented the shelter’s leader with a thin piece of metal. “You should put this on.”

“What’s this thing?”

“Communication implant,” she explained. “Each one of us has one. You ought to have one too.”

The elderly man frowned. “You want to implant me with an alien knickknack?”

“It’s safe, I promise, and we are going to have a way to keep in touch. Besides ...” She pursed her lips. “You’re already kinda full of alien Tec anyway.”