The Warrior Mechanic

His first job now would be to find a more adept thruster system for his design to utilise.

This basic thruster system had four circular openings to allow the drone to be thrusted upward and around. The thrusters would use variable amounts of force, which would allow the drone to change direction.

If the thrusters on the left thrusted more than those on the right of the drone, it could move in a rightward direction, for example.

This system was a very poor system for agility, that worked but just wasn’t very efficient. He was looking for virtual thruster components with the ability to move around, and he had 600 extra credits from the mana cores he’d sold.

This meant he could get a virtual component that wasn’t extremely cheap but actually somewhat useful.

With the TechForge Simulation Lab in front of him, he made a new panel and pulled it away from the other collection of projections. He then began searching on the ExoTech Marketplace for a better thruster system.

He searched for thrusters capable of moving around to provide greater mobility but found that this component was much more expensive than their unmoving counterparts.

“1,500 credits?! Who in their right mind would pay that much for a virtual thruster?!”

The prices irked him a lot, but he knew that there was some money still left in his bank account besides the extra 600 from the mana cores. It was money that he was going to use for other things like food and bills, but he only needed slightly more to purchase the virtual thrusters that were on the cheaper end.

“Looks like it’s going to be struggle meals for me for the next month.”

The system didn’t exactly say that he had to form an above average design, but it would be a waste forming a design that was poor from the beginning just to complete the quest. He’d have no chance of selling the design in the future and making his money back.

Therefore, he decided to buy a small, moving thruster system that came with four thrusters just like the base model. It was 830 dollars, and he forced his body forward to purchase the item before it could pull itself back in reflex.

The money was gone from his account, and it was now almost totally empty. He had rinsed his small savings and had nothing to fall back in case something bad was to happen.

With this new item, he could see in the simulation lab that it had updated to showcase this new component. Moving over to the panels across his room, he clicked on the thruster system, and it appeared just beside the sensory drone.

Cael then clicked on the thruster system already within the base model and dragged it to a virtual bin projection near him so that it vanished.

Now, he had to fall back on the knowledge that he had gained from his assembly tutorial. This flight system was slightly larger, since it contained actuators so the thrusters could be moved around in their sockets.

He hadn’t really worked with any complex designs in the past but just upon seeing how he’d have to fit these components together, he was stumped.

“Why did I not get an assembly skill instead of a programming one?” He wondered, upon inspecting how the design was complexly assembled.

Cael left that issue for the time being, then went on to trying to reduce the weight of the sensor. He wanted to reduce its weight significantly to grant it better speed and agility. If it was lighter, it could even fly in the air longer as the thrusters would demand less power from its power supply.

He examined the layers of armour that were placed on the exterior components of the sensor. This was the shell of the drone and was made so that it could withstand at least some damage.

Of course, a straight blast from a strong enough rifle or explosion would destroy it but if the drone could try to evade, it could receive scraping blows and remain operable.

He shed off some of the armour from the drone, but not so much that it would be too weak. He took off about 25% of the armour, that was one of the heaviest components of the drone. This was quite pleasing to Cael, as he saw the weight of this item steadily dropping as he removed the material.

The drone now had a sleeker, more bony appearance where its components were more visible in its shape. However, this wasn’t an issue. Nobody would care about the aesthetics of a sensory drone tens of metres in the air anyway.

It took him days to work with this design, and he ran into several issues. Many of his tries to fit everything together didn’t work and he had to take an intensive look at the internal components to assemble everything.

He had never done such a thing before and the assembly in the tutorial was most certainly not of this calibre. Nonetheless, after 12 full days, he had gained a full design.

After placing the final component onto the model, he sighed with relief then wiped his sweaty face.

It was tough having to work on this design after such strenuous exercise in his institute. Life was not easy an exosuit cadet, and the institutions were known for constantly pushing the limits of their students.

For Cael, who had only slithers of mana compared to his companions, the training was like hell.

“The design’s finally complete! Progress makes perfect after all!” He said internally, swirling the drone around with his hand.

The drone was about as large as his lower torso, so he could easily carry it with his hands. It was a surreal feeling to be moving the projection, since it had total weightlessness.

He was just touching air.

“So, what should I call this model? Since you’re faster than your predecessor, I should call you the Vulture XR-1... Aero!”

[Design Complete!]

[Name: Vulture XR-1 Aero]

[Type: Sensory Drone]

[Evaluation]

[Speed: 38/100]

[Agility: 40/100]

[Durability: 14/100]

[Sensor Accuracy: 65/100]

[Sensor Versatility: 24/100]

[Range: 30/100]

[Overall Rank: 20/100]

With that, his design was finally complete but what he did realise was that it’s overall rank had fallen below the rank of the base model.

“That’s annoying, I thought it’s greater speed could enhance the model. I guess it’s because its main role is to sense things and if its sensory capability diminishes, it’s quality almost diminishes too in a way. At least its greater speed elevated its quality slightly.”

[Quest Complete!]

[+30 Gears]

[+1 Basic Metals Package]

[+1 Schematic]

[Schematic: Basic Bipedal Locomotive System]

[Type: Locomotion]

[A basic bipedal system designed for short bursts of speed and strength. This system has very poor endurance and energy efficiency, demanding high power consumption for its energy-intensive movements. Requires on-site mana cores for usage.]

[Gears to Unlock: 0/100 Gears]

[Speed: 30/100]

[Strength: 30/100]

[Efficiency: 50/100]

[Ease of Assembly: 63/100]

[Durability: 45/100]

[Energy Efficiency: 35/100]

[Weight: 39/100]

Cael was very pleased with the notifications he received, and was happy to see that he was not going to be losing his life.

It felt like a tremendous weight had been lifted off his shoulders, and he could finally breathe again.

He was happy with the gears that he had received, because he could unlock new skills, but he also looked more intently at the other rewards he had received.

This schematic would give him access to a full-on design that he could then utilise in his future work. There was no reference to the virtuality of the schematic, and he assumed that this would work as a design to use virtually and physically.

100 gears was a big price to pay for it, though, and he wasn’t going to be able to get that design any time soon.

As for the basic metals package, he had no clue what that would be about.

“Uh, system, what is a basic metals package?” He asked curiously.

[A basic metals package is a container of cheap, common virtual metals that are used in support bots and their respective components, such as mana cores, actuators and sensory systems.]

[New Feature!]

[The user can now apply stat upgrades to the statistics showcased in the stats menu for a price of 100 gears.]

With 30 gears that he had received from completing this quest, he decided to place 20 gears toward unlocking the schematic. It wouldn’t be good to place all his eggs in one basket and he wanted to also have some progress toward upgrading one of his stats.

This left him with 10 gears. He would split any gear rewards into both this schematic and then into just his current balance of gears so that he could then upgrade one of his stats.

Just as he finished doing this, he received another set of notifications.

[New Quest!]

[Quest: First Sales]

[Now that you have created your first design, you must sell it. Sell 5 virtual versions of your newly created support bot within the Vault.]

[Time to Complete: 30 days]

[Punishment: Death]

“Goddamn.”