Defiance of the Fall

br>Zac guessed that she had expected to finally be able to leave this prison of theirs pretty soon, but that door had suddenly closed right in her face.

“I cannot speak for my elders… But if what you’re saying is true, then Clan Cartava might be able to help you locate these threats.
But can you explain what’s going on? I’m willing to act as a liaison between our forces,” she said after some thought.

Zac immediately explained the threat of The Great Redeemer and the Church of Everlasting Dao in broad strokes, about the Karmic Ties that needed to be severed for their planet to remain hidden.
This was not some secret intelligence, after all, but rather something that was generally disseminated by this point.
Of course, a lot of people believed it was just a ruse by him and Port Atwood to seize control.

“A Deviant Karmic Cultivator, at peak D-Grade at that?” Leviala blanched.
“It seems the outside isn’t all that safe either.”

“We all have our problems,” Zac said with a wry smile.
“Now, the door?”

“A Datamancer is needed to open this thing, along with the specific key-code.
This whole world is full of hidden pathways like this, but we know of less than one percent of them.
Forcing the gate-protocol to activate is almost impossible without the prerequisite knowledge. ”

“A Datamancer? What?” Zac asked.

“That’s what we call those who can interface with this base.
Only they can rewrite protocols and bypass the restrictions.
You should have people like this as well.
Opening the gate to this forest was a test of sorts.
Unless you have people extremely skilled in data manipulation you wouldn’t be able to pass that gate, let alone let us out,” Leviala explained.

’

“Hackers?” Zac muttered.
“I’m sorry, but that’s not how we got here.”

“What?” Leviala said with confusion.
“Did you manage to break the door open? Do you possess such powerful means?”

“No.
One of my friends almost got himself killed trying that,” Zac snorted.
“I have clearance high enough to open the door.”

“Clearance? Wait… You’re part of the Builders?!” she shrieked as she tried to get away.

Zac was a bit surprised at the strong reaction, but he couldn’t let the girl get away.
He instructed [Love’s Bond] to snatch up the running girl, which wasn’t too hard considering how weakened her current condition was.
She didn ’t even get to her feet before she fell over again, only making it three meters in her escape.

Using the chains was as much to help her get up as to prevent her from escaping.
It was a bit of a safety measure though as he was afraid Leviala possessed some sort of escape treasure or skill.

“Calm down.
I’m not part of any builders,” Zac said after Leviala had stopped struggling against the bindings.
“The terminal where we arrived gives out clearances left and right.
Most people got Tier-2 or Tier-3 clearance, but I managed to get Tier-4 clearance thanks to an item I acquired off-world.
That’s how I got in here.”

Of course, Zac suspected that he tenuously could be considered part of the “builders”, provided that Leviala was referring to his mother’s Clan.
But he wasn’t about to divulge that sort of information seeing her strong reaction.
Still, her reactions just now had divulged a lot.
Not only did the natives completely lack clearances, but Clan Cartava didn ’t seem to know as much about them as he ’d feared after seeing the signpost left behind.

“What? Such a thing is possible? I ’ve never heard of a terminal giving out clearances.
Is it because you’re outsiders, perhaps? It seems a lot of our assumptions about you were incorrect.” Leviala mumbled with a slight frown before her eyes lit up.
“You have traveled between worlds? How is it? What kinds of places exist out there?”

“I’ve been off-planet a few times, yes.
There are all kinds of worlds out there, but I can ’t tell you about it right now.
I’m a bit strapped for time,” Zac said.
“So, the Base Power? Anything among these things that has it? I want to activate the tablet.”

It felt like Zac had over a hundred questions rattling around in his head, but he needed to prioritize his quest for now.

“These things are called chargers,” Leviala eventually said as she pointed down at a cylindrical item.
“Press the sheer side against the bottom of the tablet for a few seconds to instill it with power.”

’

Zac followed her instructions and it worked just as described.
The tablet turned on after two seconds of charging, though that didn’t help Zac much.
Rows and boxes full of illegible text covered the screen, and Zac couldn’t make heads or tails of it.

“Do you know how to work these things?” Zac asked.

“No,” she said with a shake of her head.
“I can read the language, but I don’t know how these things work.
It takes decades to learn these things, and only the Datamancers can make use of this information in any case.
You would have to find the line for activating the door, and then bypass the security protocols.”

Zac thought for a second before he showed her the tablet.

“Let me worry about the security checks.
Can you tell me if one of these boxes is related to gate opening? ”

“It’s either that or climbing through one of the cracks,” Zac added.

“That’s even more impossible!” Leviala said.
“There are security protocols in place to trap research subjects.
You’re almost guaranteed to get trapped inside the Memorysteel if you try to enter through one of those places, and there are no builders to let you out.
Not a single one who has been caught inside a wall has ever made it out as far as I know.”

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Zac simply stared at her in response as he held the tablet toward her.
She eventually sighed in defeat before her eyes started darting back and forth for almost a minute.
She finally pointed at one of the boxes, though hesitation was written all over her face.

“Perhaps this one? It seems to mention something about a security check, which is always performed when opening a door.
The other algorithms seem to be more related to the general operation of the wall itself,” she said.
“But just finding the right program isn’t enough.”

Zac nodded in thanks before he took the tablet.
He honestly had no idea what to do from this point on, but he gained some confidence from the simple fact that he got the quest by the System.
It seemed to believe he would have a chance to complete it, meaning he should be able to open the door.

He didn’t even try to understand what he was looking at since it was too far beyond his understanding and he simply pressed the box Leviala indicated.
However, he did take one precaution though.
He had taken out his mother’s token from his Spatial ring, and he held it against the same spot as the charger when he pressed the button.

“Wait, what are you doing?! You will alert the security protocols!“ Leviala screamed when saw Zac’s impetuous actions, but her words got caught in her throat when the gate started forming without issue, and at a much greater speed than when the werewolf was trying to conjure it.