The Warrior Mechanic

It was a rather quick process, as it took just a day to buy the items and have them brought to his home, along with the crew of robots that readily began their work.

It was a Saturday, and so Cael was within his apartment to see everything built together.

Cael decided to move his only dark brown sofa out of the living room area, and just intended to get rid of it. He was totally found not having a living room anymore, as he barely spent time in it in the first place.

During this time, Cael was surrounded by several projections, hard at work on his design. He could feel his head almost getting warm as he had to put so much mental effort into trying to get this design just right.

He simply didn’t want to screw it up and could feel that his skills were aiding him. The job was not easy, but he now felt like it was doable.

In just a few hours, his workshop was complete, and he heard the robots signal to him that it was complete. Upon exiting the door in his bedroom, he took a left to see the beautiful plywood exterior of the workshop.

It was a creamy white, mixed in with light, earthy browns, and he went through the entrance to see that his equipment was laid out just as he had intended.

On an island table, there was a large 3d printer that took up a large portion of the little workshop. Around the edges was a table that was also contained the induction furnace, along with extra space for him to complete his work.

He could feel a load of cool air wash over him as he looked up and saw the several air conditioning systems on the walls of the room.

“You guys did a good job here. Thanks a lot.” Cael said, giving a thumbs up to the group of support bots.

Just like the urban control bot, the intelligent bot of this group was a dark blue and black bot, with a screen that acted as its face. It showed an emoji of a smiling face, before giving a thumbs up back to Cael.

“No problem.” The bot politely replied with its slightly robotic voice.

Nevertheless, it took Cael about 2 weeks before he had the chance to fully complete his design. Instead of splitting his resources between the two quests, he was going to try and complete one fully, before moving onto the other.

It allowed him to focus all his effort into one main task, and he was hoping that the total time to complete the quests would decrease as a result.

45 days was certainly not a long period, and he had to use every trick that he had up his sleeve to complete it.

With a little over 2 weeks left to complete the following quest, his Vulture XR-1 Titan was complete.

[Name: Vulture XR-1 Titan]

[Type: Sensory Drone]

[Evaluation]

[Speed: 43/100]

[Agility: 48/100]

[Durability: 27/100]

[Sensor Accuracy: 67/100]

[Sensor Versatility: 30/100]

[Range: 36/100]

[Overall Rank: 36/100]

It came in at around 3.5 kilograms, which was significantly heavier than his other designs, but the thruster systems were made to handle much greater weight.

Now, what was to come would be for him to find somebody to sell this design. Even after all his improvements on his design, it was still given an overall rank below 36. With his novice to beginner level knowledge on the aspects of mechanics, he simply couldn’t flesh out an impressive design.

The base model that he had to work with was also basic, which meant that he wouldn’t be able to form substantial improvements on it even if he could.

His drone was slightly heavier now, and more built for real-life applications beside the Vault.

He searched all over the internet and was aiming for potential buyers on the same planet as himself.

He wasn’t planning on conducting any interplanetary business just yet. It just didn’t seem right, reaching so far from his little hobbyist workshop as just a single person.

As he began to do so, a special notification appeared.

[Market Trends Report #13]

[Overview]

[Advancements have been made in heavyweight systems. Fall in demand for marine border control bots.]

[Heavyweight Bots: The demand for these bots have increased as a result of decreases in the weight of robust armour plating and increases in power efficiency of actuator systems.]

[Marine Border Control Bots: Most buyers in search of these bots have already acquired them. This has led to a decrease in demand, but costs remain low. However, prices have decreased significantly.]

“Of course! The market trends report!” Cael realised.

He had always overlooked this report because he simply couldn’t use any resources to take advantage of the demand. However, now, he could use this trend to make more money on his second quest.

While he was looking for a person to buy his physical models, he would also need to create his physical items and start working on his second design, all at the same time.

With two weeks already gone, he had a little under a month to complete both these quests, and the workload was going to be insane.

However, he was up for the tasks. It wasn’t like the system was giving him much of an option with its incredible detrimental punishments of banning his ExoTech Marketplace and Vault profiles, while also removing all his programming and manufacturing skills.

That was something that he just wouldn’t let happen.

For now, he focused on trying to get some work done on finding a seller. He focused on factories and farms, trying to look for small, independent firms that could be attracted to a lower tier drone like his own.

He started finding small firms that met his criteria, and slowly reached out to them. They didn’t reply to him immediately and so, he decided to move on to making his drones.

Using the ExoTech Marketplace and his trusty teleporter, he’d have to begin buying the components and materials that he needed to get to work.

First, he wanted to get the armour shelling and the alloys done. He knew it would be a rough task, since he had never done it before, but he had the knowledge implanted into his mind after unlocking the metallurgy skills.

It was just a test of whether his body could properly follow the command of his educated mind.

He felt a shiver down his spine, and a sense of anxiety upon thinking about the possible failures that could occur.

“How can I succeed if I don’t at least try?” He told himself, before buying the metals.

These ingots of metals were transferred in several trips, and he receives ingots upon ingots of the metals that he desired. These were dresium -to be used in the frame and lower armour-, rescanor and seprum.

The three metals were similar in colour, but rescanor was a darker silver, almost like a black rock. Dresium was a simple silver colour, like most other metals, while seprum was a green-grey colour. It almost had the appearance of a heavily dulled green crystal but had all the properties of any typical metal.

He had several metal ingots, and he started wearing the necessary equipment. With large woolly gloves, a heat shield and some fireproof clothing that he had also purchased, he got to work.

VRMMM!

Upon powering on the furnace, he could already feel the extreme heat building up. Even though he was very well shielded from it, that area of the workshop increased in temperature rather significantly.

He decided to increase the intensity of the air conditioning above before continuing.

Now, he had to form the ingots.

To the left of his induction furnace was a bandsaw that he had purchased along with the final furniture of the workshop.

He cut up the ingots so that he had the 9:1 ratio that he desired, before placing the metal contents into the crucible-like container within the furnace.

There was a low bubbling as he could see the two metals swirling together. He could barely hear it through the perpetual humming of his induction furnace, and he allowed the metal to turn to a complete, runny liquid.

The metals swiftly melted and become a fiery orange colour, then he started swirling them around to try and get a perfect mix between the metals. He was surprised to feel that he could follow what his mind was telling him to do.

Since there wasn’t a large amount of material and his induction furnace managed to get extremely hot, he could melt all the metal in mere minutes. With that finished, he had some moulds for simple ingots.

Pouring his original alloy into those moulds, he could see the black-green colour showing up as they cooled off.

The metals required exceptionally high temperatures to melt and so, once they were taken out the heat, it wasn’t long before they started to solidify.

Cael completed this with a smile, as he felt a sense of accomplishment within himself. He never would’ve expected to have done this so easily. It felt as if his mind was being controlled by a different person.

He continuously made his alloy, until he had filled up several of his moulding trays. He had got most of the metal that he needed and now, he would move on to the other parts of the assembly.

His main task would be to fix up the internals. That would be done as components were added, but he wanted to make sure the base was as good as he could make it.

Placing the ingots of metal within the advanced 3d printer, it started vibrating like the furnace, but more calmly and with a higher frequency.

Luckily for Cael, there wasn’t much he had to do here. All he had to do was use the projections shown to him to give the 3d printer the right model to work off of. With that, the basic frame of Dresium was being formed and in the meantime, he could move on to different things.

It was fascinating to see the intricate technology’s protruding arms slowly creating his design. Within, it would melt down the ingots of metal, to then form it into the desired shape.

The next tasks just consisted of getting the right equipment and components. Cael purchased what was necessary and started with 15 models of the drone.

With more than 10 items to sell, he could have a higher chance of covering his requirements since he wouldn’t have to exhaust his supply completely.

The components were hard to work with in real life, as he had to hold the weight of some of the items, while trying to fiddle with them. This wasn’t an issue within the simulation lab.

Cael took utmost care in assembling his very first drone. His skills within microscale manipulation and internal design were the main things keeping him going.

His movements were controlled and precise.

There wasn’t room for a single mistake.

One misplacement could push him back several steps.