A vast quantity of food lay before Jay, he had never seen so much real food in one place. The life of a nutrient bar goblin like him leads to only staleness in the palate. Sure, the bar is filled with nutrients sufficient to ensure your life but it could never fill your heart. Since humans came into existence food has been the first need and Jay is ready to follow that instinct.
He gulps down saliva and goes on to pick Sally's food. It occurs to him when looking at that food that he doesn’t know what she likes to eat. So he gets a little bit of everything on the plate. An imperial fried chicken, Gulong soup, and a golden cabbage salad. A balance of everything.
Jay noticed that after he finished assembling the plate, they had a service bot that could bring it to the table. Jay placed the plates down on its tray and set them on his table. When that was done he went ahead and built himself a plate of his own. It’ 's roughly the same stuff but he added legendary seafood that could not be found in Conticus II to the mix. This one they call it “Lobster sushi roll”. He picks out 3 of those and put it on his plate.
This time however he did not use the service bot and walked back to the table himself. When he arrived he was surprised to find more than one person at the table.
“Jay, this is Risa! A senior 1st year Pilot at Conticus Mech Academy and her partner is also in the 1st year at Conticus Mech Academy, mech designer division. His name is Max”
“Hello” They both greet him with a smile, The woman sitting next to Sally is properly Risa and the guy wearing a thick square glass is likely Max. Risa has red eyes and black long straight hair. She has a cheerful and confident atmosphere around her contrasting with Max who’s more reserved. His hair is also black but he put it in bun styles, a unique choice of hair style.
“Hi, I’m Jay, the mech designer”
Jay greets them and sits down, not sure what to talk about. technically he was the oldest here, so it was rather awkward.
“You must be a senior at the mech building division!” Risa said looking at Jay with intrigue. His red eyes stare at Jay.
“I drop out.”
“Oh?” Risa seemed a bit surprised “Why did you drop out?”
“Family problem” Jay answers vaguely, they are not close enough to share details. And Risa seems to be the type to talk a lot.
“Then how did you get in? Blackmail someone?”
“UCN competition? I got a connection and Sally tagged along for the ride.”
Jay said digging into his meal, Risa seemed to be interested in talking to him. Jay picked up a spoon and fork and went to work shoving food in his stomach. same for Sally who’s half listening and half eating.
“How did you meet Sally? I didn’t mean to disrespect but I don’t think you could enter this competition.” She looks at him with inquisitive eyes, she doesn’t like the fact that a good junior like Sally got paired with a dropout. From what she could find, Jay is not the best of character.
“I..”
“Jay got the skill to be here!” Sally cut Jay off “He could build a good mech!”
“...” Risa look at Sally. “I’ll take your word for it, anyway is the food good?”
“Yep,” Sally replied. eating a fried chicken that Jay brought for her. Risa and Max also turn their attention to a meal of their own.
“How about you? how did you meet Sally?” Jay returned her question, from what he gathered Sally didn’t have many friends.
“Oh, we fought in the arena! The UCN arena let the pilot go wild like Bah bah bah. And she’s quite aggressive like me. So we’ve been dueling to improve ourselves. She even got many rounds over me!” Risa recounts her experience with a smile. She seems to enjoy telling her aggressive piloting style. She also makes some weird sounds when she gets excited.
“I only won like 1 round out of 10…” Sally's cheek went red from embarrassment.
“That’s pretty impressive for a high schooler! Not many could say that they have won against me! Risa the rusher!“
“...” Sally ate more to hide her face, which left only Jay to be out of the loop. Who’s Risa? Sensing his questioning look, Risa answers him.
“I’m second place in my year. Don’t be too surprised~”
Is this Sally 2.0?
“That’s impressive, but I’m curious, who’s the first place?”
“My best rival! Magnus Razars, that guy’s a real beast, you couldn’t crack his cool if you tried. He often finds the perfect opportunity and paw paw paw! he finishes you off.” She punches the air to mimic how Magnus's mech would act. She is both respectful and competitive when she speaks about Magnus.
Jay just now remembered. He had studied the competition before. Both Risa and Magnus are on the list of people he has to be aware of. Two other mech pilots are also a first place contenders and both of them work as mercenaries.
The competition allows apprentice mech pilots or under, they didn’t lock the age. Some are even more than 40+ years but if they were in this rank that long, they didn’t have the talent for a mech pilot. An average mech pilot could reach a higher rank in a decade, so people who are stuck in apprentice rank either didn’t have the drive, had no talent, started late, or cripple. People like this get less respected.
“So are you expected to win?” She asks Jay with a cocky smile, a little friendly taunt.
The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“I don’t” Risa grasped, Jay seemed like that guy that would want to win “But, your junior over there begs me to build her a good mech.”
“You’re the one who can’t find any partner before I grace you with my presence.”
“I rest my case”
The meal goes on for roughly an hour with Jay and Sally's friendly comments and Risa's cheery attitude. Max didn’t talk much but he chimed in whenever he felt like it. The table felt more lively than Jay used to have.
“See you later, I have to get back to my mech.”
“Yeah, we just finished ours! it would be so good!” Sally said with a big mile, she badly wanted a win over Rissa and that seemed, to be Jay's work speed that she used to brag about. They said goodbye and went back to their simulation pod leaving Max and Risa at the table.
“Are they good?” Risa asked Max after they left.
“From what they look no..”
“But..” She interrupts the obvious twist.
“My sense says that they could go far”
“How far?”
“Top 64 far”
“Despite both of them not being an apprentice?”
“That’s why I say how I feel.”
“I guess the seer could be wrong sometimes”
“That's why I’m not ranked 1”
—------------
“She is super cool…”
Jay was half listening to her and half checking his smartwatch. He needs to catch up on what going on in the world. He sees some good news and some bad ones like the plague one. Jay couldn’t imagine the dread he would feel from that. However, when he was checking the smartwatch, he got a call.
A voice call from an anonymous number. He gestures for Sally to go ahead without him.
“Hello, who’s this?”
“Your best friend Danny.”
Jay's world froze over, he never thought that Danny could trace back to him but now that he’s talking with the guy. Jay could think of several ways to connect the thing back to him.
“What do you want?”
“Chill there alright.” Danny said, “I’m not here to cause you trouble. In fact, you should thank me because I brought you debt from the Franky's gang.”
“What!?” Caught off guard by the sudden turn event. Jay's brain shuts off.
“I didn’t hear a thank you, but whatever.”
“Get to the point”
“Jeez, so serious. Fine, I just need you to do something for me. A little request if you will.” Danny sent a picture over to Jay and he could see it. A picture of Sally.
“I just need a replacement license, nap one from her. I have someone that would pay a huge sum for that”
“I don’t want to” Jay quickly declined, he wouldn’t ruin her life for the debt, he could always pay Danny later.
“You don’t have a choice when you pass along an illegal license.”
This is what he was worried about. That dump decision caught up to him quicker than he thought it would.
“You don’t have proof”
“try me”
Jay felt a bit of anger well up in him. The inability of him to do anything frustrated him to no end. He couldn’t take the chance that Danny didn’t have proof that Jay operated his ID when Danny's avatar gave out an illegal license. Worst off, does he need to steal Sally's license? He couldn’t do it.
Report to the police? Jay would get arrested too, he could go that route but not when he competes.
“Fine, but it'll take time”
“No rush, but I would like it before the competition ends. See ya”
The calls cut off right when Jay's anger boiled. he almost throw his smartwatch on the floor if not for the fact that he needs it. He walks back to his simulation pod in a solemn mood. He sits down on it and the glass slides close loading him into a simulation.
—-------
Jay arrives just when Sally has returned from her testing, She also has this troubled look on her face.
“What’s the problem?” Jay asked
“Our mech doesn’t work”
“How?”
“Let me show you”
Jay got sent footage of her doing test after test but what he could pick up is that the mech control was like a piece of brick that could move. It’s stiff and doesn't move like it was supposed to. After reviewing the footage, Jay went to check what he did wrong and found out that some wires in [Type 2 Yaman soldier MK2] weren’t compatible with other wires. The [Type 2 Yaman soldier MK2] has been built specifically in the Yaman empire and to protect their tech, they usually rework most systems to be functional with the same series. This makes Jay work harder than before.
“What's the problem?” Sally couldn’t help but worry when Jay seemed to be struggling with this. They still have time to fix, the wire but Jay needs to learn Yarman's wiring, and then he has to adapt it to Other place wiring.
“Te Yarman wire is not connecting with others”
The first option that popped into his head was to check the system.
nothing pops out, and nothing new has been added. Jay hovers over one option to fix this issue.
[mech recycler I] [100P] [22 Brain capacity]
Jay could buy this right now and he has a decent chance of it working on the Yarman wiring but the risk of it was the brain capacity. He only has like 10 points of brain capacity left.
Should I take it?
Jay looks at the mech and looks at himself. Another time to gamble has arrived. Hopefully, his head won’t explode when he takes it. Hopefully, the skill will help him be able to fix this problem.
With a press of the screen, he acquires another knowledge injection.
[Thank you for your purchase! Please prepare a safe space for information injection.]
[The information will be injected in 3]
[2]
[1]
Contrary to past experience, Jay didn’t feel anything. Maybe it’s because he is in a simulation? He needs to remember this trick for next time when he inevitably gets another information injection.
[Brain capacity 114/100]
[Caution, you overload your brain capacity, your body has been paralyzed. Your whole body will shut down in 3 hours if you do not fix it. You could avoid this by increasing your brain capacity or finding a skill to manage your knowledge.]
Shit
He now got his answer, he didn’t feel the pain because his brain couldn’t feel anything anymore. He was lucky that this happened inside a simulation pod. otherwise, this would look ugly for him.