CHAPTER FORTY

The flood of information was absolutely brilliant.

In fact...

Jason didn't know what to do with it.

The watchdog's senses of smell and hearing were among the top of all Hemoborn.

As a result, a storm of data blazed across Jason's screen. The quality of the information was far greater than that of the individual Watchdog Grunts. Jason had only ever read about the Maximum Quality gene samples before, he'd never actually used them. This was an all-new level of ability bonus.

Initially, Jason had assumed that the watchdog would only hear or smell opponents. Indeed, enemy information was prioritized.

Although the enormous wall of mist covered the entire map, Jason knew exactly where his opponent was and what they were doing.

They were charging up a lightning strike to take advantage of the shifting terrain.

However, the modified Red Minerva gathered far more data than enemy locations.

Julian's screen translated the Red Minerva's keen senses and displayed the data as a pair of heat maps, one for smell and one for hearing.

It heard the faint rippling of underwater waves and the sound of the enemy Spell Titan charging up its weapons.

Although Jason was new to the hearing ability, he could immediately tell that he'd gravely underestimated it.

At the end of the day, sight, smell, and hearing were different senses for a reason.

Although both the watchdog's smelling and hearing allowed Jason to track enemies, they provided different kinds of valuable information.

Of course, the primary olfactory abilities were just as good as promised.

There was even information on the kind of food cooking in the houses. This was purely for lore purposes. However, it could still be very useful.

The Resort stage was the same each time. If Jason memorized the list of food items, he could travel across the map blindfolded.

Best of all...

Out of the five senses, sight was most commonly used.

It provided information quickly and effectively.

However, it also had certain limitations.

In particular, the Red Minerva's eyes could only see what was directly in front of her.

In contrast, the senses of hearing and smell could detect opponents anywhere within the red dragon's radius.

For lack of a better term, those were "area of effect" senses.

As a result, Jason immediately realized that the Watchdog-2 version, the one with both smell and hearing, was the correct option.

While his machine would have lowered defenses, the Mech's advanced abilities would allow Jason to predict enemy attacks ahead of time with enough practice.

It was the exact sort of buff he loved - something that awarded attention to detail and came with a huge mastery curve.

A bolt of lightning smashed into Jason's machine, knocking him cleanly to the ground.

The Red Minerva's hands jolted, and Jason cursed.

He hastily dismissed his weapon, and Titan's Macuahuitl disappeared into thin air.

The gigantic Aztec club wasn't destroyed yet - it would take more than a few blasts of water to dissipate the weapon.

However, dropping it into the entire sea was a very different matter. If he fumbled the large club, he'd lose it for the rest of the match.

It was a good thing Jason had reacted in time.

His opponent's lightning blast hadn't been fatal, but it'd knocked the Red Minerva's arm completely jerked of position.

Jason pulled up his damage report.

The triple damage lightning blast had wreaked havoc in his arm, bringing it down to the thirty percent mark.

A second attack would not only vaporize the limb. It'd also inflict splash damage and take out a good portion of the Red Minerva's shoulder and chest.

This was the negative of adding the watchdog genes.

They were very skill testing.

In exchange for the hypothetical ability to predict his enemy's attacks, Jason dealt with the very real downside of an easily injured machine.

In this case, Jason had been so overwhelmed by the flood of possibilities that he'd forgotten the basics.

Instead of analyzing everything at once, Jason concentrated his smell abilities on detecting the surrounding terrain.

With the whole stage blanketed by mist, he had to watch his step. He didn't want to get his feet stuck in a stray home.

However, he primarily focused on using the Red Minerva's upgraded hearing abilities to detect his opponent's location.

Several bolts of golden lightning streaked at Jason's machine, but he avoided every attack.

His opponent must have thought that Jason was psychic.

Instead, the watchdog's hearing simply allowed it to avoid the attacks as soon as they came out.

Ironically, the mist was helping Jason.

It allowed him to ignore the Red Minerva's visual cameras and focus entirely on the two maps in front of him.

Right now, Jason was still a beginner at scrutinizing all this data. He needed all the help he could get when it came to focusing.

The scenario reminded Jason a little of the Daredevil comics. The protagonist had a very similar ability.

With Jason dodging the attacks again, the machine returned to its prior level of ineffectiveness.

After all, the water spray had inflicted no damage - it simply increased the strength of future attacks.

Meanwhile, Jason returned to his original plan - herding his opponent out of the water.

This time, the mist helped him.

It significantly delayed the time Phil had to react before the Titan's Macuahuitl appeared.

Jason aimed directly at his opponent, but they could still dodge the enormous pillar of fire.

However...

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This time, the bladed club was far too close to the Spell Titan for comfort.

In addition, Jason had carefully angled the Titan's Macuahuitl so that it cut off his opponent's access to the sea.

Phil was forced to return to land.

Jason grinned.

It was an all-new battle now.

In essence, both players had made a trade-off.

The mist gave Phil a terrain advantage.

However, both players were back on land now.

Phil's damage might have been significantly increased, but Jason had improved his positioning.

Without a doubt, Jason had won the trade.

If he was given the option of fighting where he wanted to fight in exchange for letting his opponent deal triple damage, Jason would happily take that trade every single time.

Dodging attacks was about skill.

On the other hand, the terrain was one of the most randomized aspects of Overdrive.

As a result, it was more important to gain a terrain advantage.

Jason dismissed the Titan's Macuahuitl, then clapped his hands together again.

It was time to go on the offensive.

BLAZING AVARICE: VALOROUS JI

The burning weapon appeared in Jason's hands.

As soon as it did, a light flashed at the corner of his screen.

DAMAGE REDUCED! (ELEMENTAL EFFECT)

Jason tsked.

He'd hoped that this wouldn't happen.

The water vapor in the air was automatically nerfing his weapon.

That hadn't been as much of an issue for the massive Titan's Macuahuitl, but it was hurting him here.

He probably couldn't sever a vulnerable point in a single blow, even with perfect play.

Jason lunged forward on two stable legs.

The four-legged mode was an excellent bonus, but with his weapon out, it was time for a direct attack.

Phil fired mid-air, but Jason was gradually adapting to the Red Minerva's keen ears.

He could roughly guess when the cannon was charging, and he could similarly intuit when it would fire.

Jason landed safely beside his opponent.

Although he had the opportunity to land a downward slash while falling, Jason wisely chose not to.

Right now, his weapon was weakened.

A downward slash while landing wouldn't remove his opponent's limb.

Instead, it would mess up Jason's footing and render him vulnerable to a counterattack.

After firmly planting his feet, Jason struck upwards.

To strengthen his attack further, Jason put his partner's full weight behind the blow with a complete rotation of his waist.

His spear was angled directly at his opponent's right elbow, right as they turned around to use their lightning cannon.

Clang!

Just as Jason expected, the burning spear was simply too weak to sever the elbow in a single blow.

Despite the weakened Spell Titan elbow, there was still a significant difference in the quality of their parts.

In its current state, the Valorous Ji was a badly nerfed weapon.

Phil's Mech was a competitively built machine using the highest quality metal available.

Even though it was listed in the D-tier for defense, it was still significantly stronger than Jason's severely weakened weapon.

However, the angle of Jason's strike had knocked his opponent's arm upward, jerking the cannon so that it fired wide over the Red Minerva's head.

The lightning gun fired harmlessly straight into the air.

Phil immediately tried bringing the cannon down again.

It was obvious that Phil was in a dangerous situation, but he stayed brave.

That was one thing Jason had always admired about the local tournament regular.

In fact, Jason had occasionally thought about Phil's playstyle during his tougher matches as a One Star Boss.

Phil wasn't particularly good, but he diligently stuck to his game plan despite the situation, no matter what machine he was on.

Phil knew that his machine didn't stand a chance fleeing from Jason.

His Mech was both fragile and slow.

His only chance was to fire a shot from point-blank range.

As his opponent slowly lowered the electric gun, Jason leaned forward, using his Mech's left hand to jam his foe's elbow.

Jason could not use the Hand of Destruction to burn his opponent.

He'd been able to damage hands and other body parts in his inventory. Unfortunately, the Blazing Avarice's notification system clearly stated that the hand's flames would only work on items tagged as melee weapons during actual battles.

However, a hand was still a hand.

At ultra-close ranges like this, Jason could still use it to grapple or fight in close combat.

It was a very niche application, but it worked wonders here.

Normally, Hemoborn were at a sizeable strength disadvantage against other machines.

The Overdrive Corporation's reasoning was rather obvious - with rare exceptions, biological parts were almost always weaker than mechanical parts.

This weakness was a way to balance the Hemoborn's unique bonuses and terrain advantages.

However, the Hemoborn was still physically stronger than a Spell Titan concentrating in long-range firepower. In this case, the Mech class's extremely skewed stats worked to its disadvantage.

The frame was extremely weak, allowing Jason's mostly biological Red Minerva to push the arm aside.

For a moment, the two Mech's grappled back and forth.

The slender gunner desperately tried bringing its arm down.

Metal creaked as the two machines fought against each other.

Due to the weakened spear, it was actually more effective for Jason to use his bare hands.

However...

Jason had an even more valuable weapon at his disposal.

Jason tapped in a few quick commands, and then his partner's wristband burst open.

A silver coil briefly flickered through the air before wrapping around the Spell Titan's cockpit.

Under normal circumstances, the Mindmeld Garotte was meant for assassinations. Normally, there was no use using the alternate win condition when facing your opponent head-on.

However, the current circumstances were extremely strange.

The Red Minerva wasn't meant for extended hand-to-hand combat.

In addition, many of her best moves were weakened by the terrain disadvantage.

As a result, the Garotte had become the best option for a direct attack.

After tying up the cockpit, Jason let his opponent's arm go, smoothly spinning to the Spell Titan's left side as the lightning-empowered cannon jerked back to the ground.

Phil fired the lightning gun again, but it was no use.

Jason carefully rolled around the ground, taking care to keep the Red Minerva's body away from the Spell Titan's right-hand side as he hugged his opponent's left.

WHOOSH

A sudden jet of water slammed into Jason's chest.

His opponent had fired from point-blank range with the water cannon, reducing the health of Jason's torso down to about seventy percent.

As a creature of fire, the Red Minerva was weak to water.

It was a good move by Phil, but Jason wasn't caught off guard.

He knew the risk of hugging his opponent's left side.

It was bound to happen eventually.

At such close range, it was impossible to avoid every single attack, even with perfect play.

Instead, it was a matter of knowing what his partner could take and what she had to avoid.

Despite the Red Minerva's fear of water, the water cannon alone wasn't impressive.

The Spell Titan's elemental split weakened it, and unlike with the lightning strike, the water cannon didn't gain an additional bonus from the mist in the air.

The two machines continued furiously rolling across the floor, but there was nothing Phil could do.

His machine simply couldn't inflict enough damage in time.

The Mindmeld Garotte's two-minute timer expired, and Phil's pilot avatar asphyxiated.

BATTLE WON!

Jason pumped his fist.

Initially, he'd expected an easy battle.

But even though Jason had gotten the expected result, Phil had definitely gotten stronger.

The store's regulars had improved in the last five years since Jason saw them.

He could get good practice here.

Jason pressed the red button by the side of the pod.

The circular door smoothly swung open, allowing Jason to step outside.

Phil stepped out too.

The defeated pilot good-naturedly slapped the side of the door.

"Dang it! You always know my own Mech better than I do. I like this build, though. I might stick with it a while before switching."

In Jason's opinion, Phil needed to stop switching Mechs all the time.

It would make him much better.

He had decent mechanics and in-game intelligence.

On top of that, he was a reasonably good in-game performer. Unlike many other casual players, he stayed calm under pressure.

He'd even come up with a good strategy to counter Jason.

Even if Phil didn't want to play the same machine all the time, he'd benefit from sticking to a relatively similar style of play.

Few players were as dedicated to a single frame as Jason, but most pilots stuck to a specific archetype of machine.

The World Champion vermillionangel owned a wide stable of Mechs, but he almost picked a very fast flying Paragon that served as a frontline attacker.

The skilled player used a number of different builds - hawks, bats, dragons, and, of course, an angel, the Mech design he'd named himself after.

However, his general experience with high-speed aerial combat meant he could always find an area where he had a significant advantage over his opponent.

In a competitive game with such a broad player base, the best way to succeed was to find a specialty where you were head and shoulders above everyone else.

True versatility meant succeeding in different situations, not using totally different Mechs every single time.

Phil's play pattern guaranteed that he was a master of all trades and master of none.

On top of that, Phil spent too much time copying builds he'd seen online.

In competitive card games, this process was known as "netting" or "netdecking."

This wasn't a flawed strategy for most players because content creators knew what they were doing and created good builds.

At higher levels of gameplay, players would be prepared for the most common machines.

It was only natural that Jason would know Phil's machine better than him - the Mech's strengths and weaknesses were public information.

In addition, players didn't truly know their machines until they crafted them for themselves.

However, it was none of Jason's business.

Phil had never said he wanted to be a competitive player. He just wanted to blow his money on the game and try out different builds.

Once again, that was a huge advantage to playing alone.

Jason could play his own game, and Phil could play his.

Nobody would be negatively affected.

With his match won, Jason returned to the sign-up area.

Jacob grinned.

"Nice win! You're even better than we remembered."

An excited glint flickered through the big man's eyes.

"You know, we have a new player who came in late. You know our rules, but he's a bit of a celebrity. What do you think about giving him a match? I think you can give him a run for his money - he said he's happy to play anyone for their spot in the tournament."

Jason turned and glanced at the man Jacob was pointing at.

As soon as he saw the other pilot, Jason forcibly stifled a gasp.

He could hardly believe his eyes.

One of the best players on the entire server was sitting in the store.