After what happened and a week of trying to predict the future, I've come up with a horrifying realization.
First of all, for now there are four major teams to deal with.
My team is Capitalism. We are the Merchants and Workers of society. We are loosely held together by a need to make money legally.
The opposing teams are as follows:
The Mask and Anarchy. They are people who use Immortality to do insane stunts of depravity and madness.
Patriarchy. Which is just a male sex addict's society.
And Edward Abaddon's perfected society. Which we honestly can't avoid as eventually his society merges with mine. He is just a stick in the mud that slows things down. He's a bureaucracy. And his morality is different from mine, so we oppose each other on rare occasions.
And this is just what we start with. My side breaks down into a thousand different teams eventually based on the type of government we want. We all end up absorbed into Edward's society as it is a Democracy. Which is a good enough honeytrap for all Capitalists to fall into.
With this in mind, my path has become clear. Be a Capitalist that wins too hard. As such, I'm using future sight to invent a Tank as early as possible.
We have just invented the automatic grinding wheel, but it still spins a bit slow. We can improve it by adding more smoke and lubrication to parts. It's a fine path.
"It's time to move onto the automatic wheel, ladies." I say fondly.
My workers groan, annoyed.
"Can't we make a cannon next?" Qian Yu whines.
"Probably. If you're lucky. But we need wheels to move things around." I say warmly.
I work on using future sight and my knowledge of cars in the future to figure out how to make wheels work. While I make the girls bring my ideas to reality and try to make them work.
I will admit for now I'm still focused on my combat capabilities, but I'm still working hard. I gather the metals with my Yin chi so they can make the devices we're creating. Along with the weapons and armor.
It's good practice for metal chi. Though I am upset constantly while I'm here. Because Wu Bin doesn't mess with people's metal or earth magic while we're at the mines. So if I'm in a metals rich area, or even just heavy with plant life. I am relatively a God. I can create a raw iron club within seconds of calling out to it with my chi.
It makes me mad because he is like an overwhelming God of the Earth. Who just forces everything to stay underground. I can beat him eventually, but not when he's close.
This became a certainty when I tried it recently. We both happened to be on the same path. I glared at him, having to know if I could. I tried summoning a iron rock from beneath my feet. However, I felt his chi clamp onto the Earth with a vice grip of logic.
Logic that the Earth shouldn't be tampered with. Intense spirits of him and the whole village refusing to let me summon a rock to potentially throw at Wu Bin. Or someone else. He trots tensely past me on his horse as I stand tensely still. Shaking as I try pushing through their spirits to summon a rock.
It takes five intense minutes, but I get the rock. I am just utterly exhausted by the end of it. To the point I go home, and take a nap. In my dreams, I see the village laughing and cheering as the most dangerous woman couldn't overwhelm Wu Bin and his allies. I wake up, grumpy at the thought.
Now my Chi workouts are grueling, and happen in my living room. In the former owner's house, which is also now my house. I just keep trying to summon rocks and keep them. I manage to get them out of the ground almost every time. The problem is when I let go. If it sits too long, it gets absorbed back into the ground.
It's annoying and sad honestly. This is one of many signs in the magic world where I'm blocked by people I only vaguely know through my future sight.
Another sign is Poison itself. It's due to rebels in this village purposely stealing my metals to trigger the poison. And then learning to resist it. They're partial training against me. It's annoying but to be expected honestly. It's the most offensive to me as poison is my favorite thing.
It's a woman's best weapon after all. We're a bit weaker than men, so we have to fight smarter. With technology and alchemy. It's the ultimate answer against a big, brawny man that's seven feet tall with a greatsword.
But my training improves well over time. Too well eventually. Because the earth in the mines calls to me. The very spirit of Mother Gaea. It compels me to fall asleep in my mine shaft one day.
In my dreams, I speak to a man of the future. A Oil Tycoon whose name can't be revealed to me until I am truly alive in his era. But he tells me of what to dig for to create oil based technologies.
And it begins with pissing off Wu Bin. Because with this vision, the timeline is altered unless Wu Bin stops me. Because he is an Eco Terrorist who hates Capitalism because it leads to cars that pollute the planet.
Surprisingly every other group of Oracles on the planet is mostly quiet. All I see from them is visions of them trying to hit me with a car they buy from me, or figure out how to build themselves. Some of my enemies even wish me luck with making cars in the vision, before then still trying to hit me with their car.
So we begin to work on cars as we make the automatic wheel work. Cause why not, it was leading there anyway. I just need to get oil to burn. So now I sit in a dead field of dug up stones and dirt willing oil to come out the ground.
I do this for ten minutes before Wu Bin shows up with a squad of 20 people. All men. They're all wearing dear skin leather and wielding wooden weapons studded with animal bones and fangs. I smirk amusedly as I cover myself with my poisonous metal. My whole body, excluding my face for now. And I create two knives of poisoned steel. That drip with poison.
I feel a flash of sadness as I think of my adoptive mother, but move past it. I need twin daggers for a poison build with a crowd like this. The speed of poisoned knives will be beautiful.
They stop about thirty feet ahead of me, and Wu Bin steps forward. Meanwhile, his men surround us quickly. But maintain their distance.
"Kobra Withers, we admire your strength and diligence as a Merchant. But we must ask you stop here. Can't you just rely on magic instead of abusing Gaea?" Wu Bin pleads with dignity.
I shrug without a care.
"Pollution is just poison. Die or learn to live through it, weakling." I say with an evil lack of fucks to give.
Wu Bin and his men stomp in unison. And the Earth becomes quicksand beneath my feet. But I was prepared for this. I made the Arena beneath us solid stone. It's just a few feet I sink down before touching the stone. I smile smugly while standing with my shoulders level with their feet.
"My turn." I say cockily.
I use a powerful burst of poisoned air to shoot out the quicksand hole, and land on the ground a few feet behind the crowd of Eco Terrorists on their east side. Off the trail a bit, where it's especially filled with metal rocks.
Metal rocks I prepared ahead of time. I was just hauling metals out of here before doing an oil spill. I raise both my hands up, and make every rock I've pulled out the Earth begin to float. They do their best to make them stay down, but I resist harder.
It's intriguing to resist in a battle of wills. You wanna know the best way? Just vibe with yourself hard as hell. I just kept thinking "I'm stronger than all of you. I'm already Immortal. Die." And then it finally popped off.
The rocks all flung themselves at the Eco Terrorists. And they all nearly got stoned to death. Almost all of them were knocked unconscious by rocks. Except for Wu Bin, who managed to overwhelm me just enough for the rocks to stay a foot away from him.
They float in mid-air, a visible showing of my malice towards him as the air between the rocks and him is sizzling with Yang and Yin energies clashing. Purple and Orange sparks fly wildly.
My first major fight with an Oracle begins now. I rush forward as I force the rocks to keep trying to crash into him. But he resists with a flick of his hand, turning the ground I stand on to mud. I leap out my shoes with a plume of poisonous smoke. And decide to fly on the smoke to avoid touching the ground.
"This snake has wings, what now Wu Bin?" I ask cockily.
I shoot Poison Darts at him out my eyes while lazily circling him. It works to a minor extent. He just becomes more enveloped in a war of our energies. So I just glare at him, and try to overwhelm him with a forced beating of my Yin poisons.
It's a pretty staring contest. It's a beautiful show of amazing colors that honestly help keep me entertained during an otherwise, boring staring contest with Wu Bin.
It gets worse when we start debating each other.
"Why pollute the Earth? You live here." Wu Bin says angrily.
"Because I need to make money to not be a whore." I say angrily.
"You are just worthless no matter what. Who would want to serve you?" Wu Bin says angrily.
"They never like their boss unless their job is easy. Shut up and get a job." I say angrily.
"You truly are despicable." Wu Bin says angrily. "You give me no choice." he says gravely.
He claps his hands together. And prays. While calling to the Earth to strike me with a thunderbolt. My future self tells me lightning comes from the Earth and goes up apparently. Good to know. I don't know how it works yet, but we'll get there eventually.
I see the Earth glow slightly beneath my feet. And I feel my hair begin to rise. It tingles in a neat way. So this is his spell. I understand to an extent as I watch what he does with my rocks.
He's grinding his Yang chi against my Yin to create something my future self calls static electricity. It's easy to counter it then.
I drop my Yin energy from around him. Which causes a wide burst of Yang energy to wash over me harmlessly. At first. Then it intensifies into a heat field around me. Which makes Wu Bin grin smugly at me while crossing his arms.
"How does Global Warming feel? This is the suffering you will cause to Gaea eventually, you piece of shit." Wu Bin says with smug disdain.
I smirk as the heat washes over me. It's bad, but part of it just feels like what I've felt from blacksmithing. I shrug without a care.
"I'm a blacksmith. I can handle Global Warming. Tell them to evolve better." I say smugly.