Infinite Armory: Modern Weapon and Demonic Interface – [Nation-Building LITRPG]

Bell opened his eyes to a surreal blue hue enveloping his body, casting an ethereal glow within the confines of a tubular chamber. He found himself lying there, devoid of any knowledge regarding how he had ended up in this situation or who had stripped him down to his bare essentials. Not a single layer of fabric covered him.

Various tubes of different thicknesses snaked their way across his body, each serving a critical purpose. Some were connected to his mouth, acting as lifelines delivering oxygen or perhaps medication. Others extended to more private areas, suggesting the pod's capabilities for comprehensive medical intervention.

Despite his inability to move, a profound calmness washed over him, deterring any inclination to shift from his comfortable bed. He could sense liquid flowing through the veins in his arms, likely administering a sedative to immobilize him completely. Additionally, he noticed a peculiar device attached to his head, the purpose of which remained unclear.

As the liquid continued to permeate his body, inducing drowsiness, he felt compelled to close his eyes once more.

[WARNING: MEDICAL POD #1 HAS REGAINED CONSCIOUSNESS]

Suddenly, when Bell opened his eyes, he found himself gazing upon the familiar sight of the ancient lab once more. The room was filled with computers and test tubes of unknown origin. Positioned in front of him were both Harris and Amelia, so close that Amelia's face obscured his entire view. Bell experienced an odd sensation – he couldn't move anything beyond his eyes, and he couldn't even feel his own breathing. Uncertain of the situation, he suspected it had something to do with the pod. Yet, he could still feel his mouth.

"Bell, hello. It might feel strange, but you are inside of a drone," explained Amelia.

"A drone?" Bell asked, unsure of her meaning.

"It's complicated. We aren't sure what the pod will do, but we're following the instructions on the terminal, hoping it helps you wake up. Listen, the railgun nearly cooked you alive. I didn't even know that the electricity from the battery leaked outside when it was fired," Amelia clarified.

"Am I dead?" Bell asked the obvious question, uncertain of his life status.

"Well, if you were dead, we wouldn't be talking, would we? Anyway, just a heads up, I want to give you a tour of this facility," Amelia added.

"How long have I been inside that pod?" Bell inquired.

"Fifteen days. Yes, that's how long you've been in there," Amelia replied.

"Shit…"

"We'll figure it out later. Right now, your body is stabilized enough, but we still need two more hours until you can move. So, instead of wasting time, Harris and I decided to give you a tour of what we found in this ancient laboratory," Amelia explained.

"Alright, show me."

As Amelia's voice resonated through the drone's speakers, Bell could only mentally acknowledge her words, realizing that his nod was more of a mental gesture than a physical one. Harris deftly manipulated a control pad, causing the drone containing Bell's consciousness to effortlessly hover alongside them.

The drone glided down the hallway, trailing behind Amelia and Harris. The corridor stretched quite a distance, adorned with the usual white paint on metal walls. Bell couldn't shake the eerie feeling; this facility should have been bustling with people, yet only the three of them were present. Where was the original occupant? He remained in the dark about that. This ancient site held many secrets, and so far, they had uncovered only a fraction.

"This place is enormous, I mean, really huge. I bet the previous hangar-like space is actually a testing area," Amelia further explained.

Curious, Bell inquired, "What have you discovered so far?"

"Two things stand out: the railgun, aka PROJECT ZEUS, and another peculiar find. It's a shame Lisa isn't here to see it," remarked the white-haired individual.

"Lisa? How so?" Bell pressed for more information.

"PROJECT ANIMA and PROJECT SOMA, a duo of projects designed by the biomedical and medical research team of this… place. It's so… special. Even as an engineer, I couldn't adequately describe what I've just witnessed," Amelia added.

As the drone glided through the sterile corridors of the ancient laboratory, Bell's virtual eyes absorbed every detail. Amelia and Harris, leading the way, seemed dwarfed by the sheer scale of the facility. The long, deserted hallways echoed with the faint hum of the drone's mechanisms.

"The railgun, PROJECT ZEUS, is just the tip of the iceberg," Harris said, his voice echoing slightly. "This place... it's like stumbling into a treasure trove of forbidden knowledge."

"The system that I got is forbidden knowledge on its own, at least to me. It produced technology beyond the understanding of the people of my era. If this facility is as advanced as you say, it would look like pure sorcery to me, and I don't mean it in a magitech way," Bell added.

They arrived at a large, sealed door, marked with faded symbols that none of them could decipher. Amelia entered a code on a nearby panel, and with a hiss, the door slid open, revealing a room filled with lab equipment—microscopes, immunoassay machines, clean rooms, and more. However, what captivated Bell were two cylindrical tanks on the left side of the room, each containing what appeared to be a human-like doll. Their white skin and the metallic plating on the lower part of their bodies rendered them faceless and featureless. One was male, and the other female, discernible only by their body shape.

Amelia gazed at the lifeless, faceless android bodies, her expression a mix of fascination and confusion. "These shells," she began, her voice tinged with uncertainty, "they're more than just advanced robotics or typical androids. From what we've been able to piece together, they represent a fusion of several technologies – some of which I can barely grasp."She circled the tanks, her hands tracing the air as if to physically grasp the concepts she was describing. "Think of them not just as machines, but as vessels. They're designed to host a consciousness, but not in the way we understand AI or digital minds."

Bell's drone hovered closer, its sensors focusing on the humanoid figures. They possessed an eerie beauty in their simplicity, with sleek lines blurring the boundaries between organic and synthetic.

"The 'soul' part is where it gets tricky," Amelia continued, her brow furrowed. "It's not necromancy in the traditional sense. It's more like... they've found a way to integrate a human consciousness into these shells. It's a blend of biotech, cybernetics, and something else – something I can't fully explain with my engineering background."

Bell processed this information, his mind racing. "So, they're not alive, but they're not just machines either?"

Amelia paused, choosing her words carefully. "To say they're not alive isn't quite accurate. These shells, they're hosting something very much akin to a human soul, or consciousness. But they're also not machines in the traditional sense. They weren't born from artificial intelligence or purely synthetic processes."

Harris intervened, "Look, what she's trying to say is, this thing is impossible to recreate with our current understanding of technology."

"In a way, yes," Amelia nodded. "It's beyond my field of expertise to fully grasp how they bridge that gap between a living brain and these... constructs. It's not just technical; it feels like they've touched on something fundamentally human, yet entirely new. It's as though they've created a new form of existence."

"This is PROJECT SOMA, right?" Bell asked, knowing that SOMA was related to the body. The physical body was present, without any soul in sight. Without a face or identity, they weren't alive, were they? And Bell didn't want to be the first test subject for that thing.

"Correct, the physical body."

"Where's PROJECT ANIMA then?" Bell asked.

"Follow me," Harris walked out of the room, and Bell followed him. The room was just located across the hallway.

Harris led the way to a door directly opposite the one they had just exited. This door, like the other, was marked with indecipherable symbols, but these seemed to be more intricate, almost elegant in their design. Amelia punched in another code, and the door slid open with a quiet whirr.

Bell's drone floated in, sensors adjusting to the lower light. The room was filled with equipment that was even more complex and unfamiliar than in the previous lab. The previous room had cylindrical tubes, while this room had cylindrical vertical beds that could encase a whole person, probably the same kind of bed that Bell was inside of right now. However, inside of the bed, there was a circular restraint on the head part of the bed. There were three beds inside the room.

Near those cylindrical medical pods were computer terminals with floating holographic screens on top of them. The medical pod was empty at the moment, and Bell could only wonder how it would even work in the first place. Right now, the device on Bell's head allowed him to project himself inside of the drone, but the device on this medical pod might serve another function.

"This," Harris said, gesturing towards the beds, "is PROJECT ANIMA."

"A bed?" Bell asked.

"The best way to describe PROJECT ANIMA," Harris said, "is that it's where the consciousness, or the 'soul' if you prefer, is prepared and preserved. Think of these modified medical pods as... incubators or converters, where a mind is made compatible to be transferred into the shells of PROJECT SOMA."

Bell's drone hovered closer, examining the intricate setup. "So, they prepare and preserve consciousness here?"

"Exactly," Harris confirmed. "It's where a person's essence is encoded, ready to be transferred into the shells of PROJECT SOMA. The crazy part is, this is actually just an expansion of necromancy, a field which anesthesiologists have mastered in terms of preserving soul integrity."

Amelia, observing the circular restraints and the holographic screens, added, "It's a complex blend of neuroscience and quantum computing. These beds map and digitize a person's consciousness, making it compatible with those shells."

Bell's gaze, through the drone's sensors, fixated on the sophisticated beds. "But if you transfer someone's consciousness into a shell, is it still the same person? What about the sense of self, the continuity?"

Harris leaned against one of the terminals, his expression thoughtful. "That's the crux of it," he said. "The consciousness is continuously monitored during the transfer. The process ensures that the essence, the 'self' of a person, is maintained. It's not just a copy; it's the actual, continuous stream of consciousness moving from an organic medium to a digital one."

"Heck, you can talk to the person during transfer, like I said, don't be fooled by the computers, it's still necromancy, but post-modern necromancy," Amelia added. 

"How about the original body? You can't have two consciousnesses at once, can you?" 

"Yes," Harris nodded gravely. "The original body essentially becomes lifeless once the transfer is complete. It's a one-way journey. The person, in every way that matters, lives on in the shell, but in their organic form... it's left behind." 

"In short, 'they' tried to achieve partial transcendence and full immortality. What's more convincing is that your soul becomes data, that could be returned to its nearest spawn point when the shell is, say, killed," Amelia added. 

As Bell hovered in the air, his mind raced with questions. What was the purpose of this mysterious facility? Who was it designed for? It was puzzling that neither humans nor snow elves had stumbled upon this place earlier, considering how conspicuously the portal stood out. This led Bell to speculate about the rock; the portal selectively allowed certain objects to pass through while barring others. This selective permeability might explain why the facility remained undiscovered by the outside world, shrouded in its own enigmatic rules of existence.

He considered the potential uses of the facility for weapons development or finding a solution to the plague that had haunted him for the last two years. However, his immediate priority was to leave and share the existence of this place with others. Then, he could bring in personnel to commence research and perhaps uncover the creator of this place.

As he followed the two engineers out of the labs and into the main lab where they found the railgun, Bell couldn't stop pondering what this facility might be hiding. Advanced technology? Most likely. A weapon capable of destructing the entire continent? Highly unlikely, but still a possibility.

Now, on the table in the middle of the central lab, the finished railgun prototype awaited, ready to be fired. Modifications were evident – the rifle was thicker, the battery smaller, and a modern scope was attached. Overall, a new and improved rifle.

"Did you two redesign the rifle?" Bell asked.

"Hell yeah, we did. If not for the medical pod or the bomb suit, I don't know what would have happened to you, boss," Harris replied, lifting the rifle from the table to showcase the upgrades. "We made sure the shielding is adequate by adding more materials, not to mention the newly engraved magical runes after spending 15 days to make it work."

"What he's trying to say is, the gun accidentally became more powerful by adding safety features."

"Have you tested it out?" Bell inquired.

"Yes, but the portal doesn't open, so I guess it's really up to you, boss," Harris added.

"That makes sense," Bell replied.

"Heads up, I'll wake you up," Amelia added. After that, Bell's vision went dark again.