The air still tasted of ozone and iron.
Orion crouched beside the creature's ruined body, the dagger in his hand slowly receded into him.
He placed the hand on the corpse, and his fingers began pulsing faintly as the Omni-Scan initiated its boot sequence.
Blue light spread out across the corpse in slow, uncertain waves.
'Omni-Scan, full biological analysis', he thought.
The HUD immediately popped up in his iris.
{PROCESSING…}
{Lifeform not registered in biological database.}
{Estimated scan duration: 29674 hours, 32 minutes.}
{Estimated energy cost: 148374% total reserve.}
{Risk: Potential immobilization during deep-data synchronization.}
'81 years, 3 months... Yeah not happening.'
Although he expected the time taken would be long, he didn't expect something so ridiculous, but he could understand why.
There were several reasons to this, first X-core had absolutely no information on this lifeform meaning it would have to start from the base.
Not to mention that X-core had barely any information on gene theory and other basic building block of life so that would have to be do that first.
Yes, the database was no longer empty but the memory bank that was copied was that of a battle suit and most of the information was also corrupt.
'Cancel function.'
{Function Aborted.}
{Note: Database lacks genetic and metabolic reference for target class.}
He looked at the corpse in reluctance... it was obvious that the ancient beings that created the X-Core most likely also created these lifeforms.
These meant that whatever information he got would most definitely be of help to him in further upgrading the X-core.
And then it clicked.
'Helix Corp.'
He remembered that a few creatures similar to this lifeform had been killed previously and their corpse frozen to be dissected and studied.
These will happen after safely returning to the main headquarter since the technology they had here was not sophisticated enough to study it without issues occurring.
This simply gave him another reason to find his way back to the Landing Zone for evacuation.
However, that didn't mean he was going to leave with nothing.
He switched to a basic physical scan instead, letting the X-core's sensors run a minimal sweep over the carcass.
The results came in fragmented, a mosaic of numbers and skeletal overlays building across his HUD.
___
{OMNISCAN BASIC OUTPUT}
{Lifeform ID: Unknown}
{Class: Predatory Class}
{Mass: 217.4 kg}
{Height: 2.31 m}
{Muscle Density: 5.2x human average}
{Bone Composition: Carbon-enriched calcium lattice}
{Dermal Layer: Dual-density plating, semi-organic, reactive to kinetic impact}
{Internal Temperature: 19.6°C (post-mortem decay)}
{Neural Activity: None detected}
{Weakness Indicators: Cervical spine joint; ocular cluster; sub-pectoral gap (suspected organ access)}
{Additional Notes: Traces of synthetic binding agents found within bloodstream. Possible genetic modification or cybernetic hybridization.}
___
Orion frowned as the last line flickered.
"Synthetic binding agents," he repeated quietly.
That meant the ancient beings most likely combined several creatures to create this thing by splicing their DNAs which would make it very complex.
He cut the scan short and stood, brushing dust from his armour.
The creature's blood had started to crystallize into faint, glassy shards on the ground and thankfully it didn't stick to him.
He marked the corpse's location although he wasn't sure he would be back here and even if he did come back there was no way to know if the corpse would still be here.
He grabbed his guns and bag and immediately made his way out of there.
On the way he checked his status.
___
{Name: Orion
Vitals:
Health: 79%
Stamina: 70%
X-Core Reactor: 65% (3 MES)
Recharge Rate: Passive 15 KES/min (≈0.5% per min equivalent)
External Recharge: Available
******** (Processing Function…)
Environmental Filter: 75% efficient
Energy Cloaking: Active
Overdrive Availability: Locked (Reactor >70%)
Physical Enhancements (Passive):
Class: Beta (High)
Strength: +200%
Reflexes: +480%
Durability: +200%
Regeneration: +200%
HUD Neural Link: Active
Deployable / Battle Mode:
Combat module: Active
Adaptive Bio-Armour: Active
Weapon Morphing: Ready
Mobility Boost: Ready
Life Support: Active
Analytical / Tactical Systems
Tactical Scan: Online
Omni-Scan DB: Online
Tech Interface (Remote): Online
Direct Connection (Hard-link Jack): Online
Adaptive Morph Understanding: Active
Scanned Weapons
Small dagger
EN-2 "Courier"
Combat machete
Wrist Blade}
___
Yes, his HUD system and done through an update after absorbing the data from that broken data bank.
He scanned the Combat machete from one of the dead mercenaries while the wrist blade was from the data bank.
Unfortunately, the battle armour it came from was a low grade one so most of it weapons were Projectile Class and the other energy class was corrupt.
One of the other major pieces of information he got was on human grade classes, there are a lot of things to be considered when putting someone in a class, but the major ones are Strength, Agility, Durability and Reflex.
There are several ways to improve them from new organs to neural implants to enhancement drugs to cybernetic implants and many more.
So far, he only had information on the first four classes.
Baseline, which was just a fully trained human, Beta Class where basic enhancement takes place, Gamma Class and delta class.
He knew there was going to be an Alpha class, but he just wasn't sure what level would be.