Let’s turn back the clock…

Just before the Battle for Earth began, Bob was with Kanna and Klara at the Tanifuji Workshop. He had given his orders, the plan was in place. The shield was holding, Earth’s defenders had gathered, and Nemesis and the AVS were on standby to provide reinforcements if the situation required it. The superweapons had been fired, and were now cut off with the shield in place.

There was nothing left for him to do there.

So it was time for the next phase of the plan.

He stepped up into a metal casket, the doors closing on him.

“You sure about this, Bob?”

“Absolutely.”

“It’s just…this is practically everything, you know? All the Iesnorium we have left, all your magic flowers and what not, you sure you want to burn everything right now?”

“Don’t you want to see your masterpiece in action?”

“HECK YES I DO!”

“Then pull the lever, Kanna.”

She shrugged and pulled the lever.

Bob took a deep breath.

And started to drink some potions.

Magic potions to boost his strength, speed, and endurance.

A cultivation pill designed to open up his energy pathways, make his body more resilient to the flow of energy.

A ninja pill designed to give him all the stamina and nutrition he’d need for a full day of fighting.

And then…

Robotic arms began to uncurl around the casket, carrying various robotic components. And robotic body parts.

The arms began placing the parts all along the casket, screwing them together.

Until a mighty suit of armor had formed around Bob.

The heads up display lit up. A robotic voice rang in his ear.

“Running Diagnostics…primary core…online. All systems green. No errors detected. Preparing for organic-cybernetic interface.”

A Schieffer-Oscillator engine thrummed to life in the center of the casket.

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A helmet lowered onto Bob’s head, thin metal sheets clamping on the sides of his head.

“Activating Harmonization protocol. Please stand by.”

Bob grunted as the panels began to glow with yellow light. His head burned as he felt as if fire was boring into his mind. His perception forcibly expanded.

And then all the lights suddenly shut off.

“...Harmonization complete. Please calibrate controls.”

Bob panted for breath. And then he tried to lift his leg.

A huge robotic leg took a step forward in the workshop.

Kanna’s face broke out into a wide grin.

Bob raised his hand…

A huge robotic arm swung into the air, grasping experimentally.

Bob nodded and stepped forward.

A large robotic armor suit stepped forward, moving like Bob’s own limbs.

It was Kanna’s masterpiece.

The results of her work on the NSLICE program’s data, assisted by the latest data on the Mental Unifier and its ability to interact with the mind from the outside.

A suit of armor, capable of interfacing directly with the user’s mind, obeying the pilot’s commands as if it were their own body.

And those were just the controls.

Bob lifted a palm. A robotic voice responded to his command.

“Profile Loaded: Gravity.”

The core flashed with purple light.

A screwdriver floated into the air.

Of course, they had also installed a second Mass-Energy Manipulator Array. An onboard AI patterned off of Elise’s would assist with the calculations. Since it wasn’t bonded directly to Bob, it wouldn’t be as powerful or flexible as Elise, but they had also uploaded all the data Elise had already recorded, along with Bob’s own records gathered from his own work as a minion, EL Bank applications, his insiders in the ILS, and the AVS’s member surveillance. The suit would have a vast arsenal of pre-recorded powers to utilize at Bob’s command as a result, though it would have a harder time replicating new powers on the fly.

And then Bob added his own flair.

The exterior of the suit was covered in magical circles and Japanese characters. Elise, Saydaa, and Nana had cooperated to cover every inch in seals and enchantments, everything they could think of. The suit contained many surprises beyond what lurked in its physical compartments.

And finally…

The second core. The ultimate trump card that would allow this suit to battle gods.

The Schieffer-Oscillator engine could provide endless, sustainable, clean energy…but just that. It was ultimately limited in the amount of energy it could output at any one time. That sufficed to run the suit itself, but ran into a limit when considering the Mass-Energy Manipulator Array. A power could only be replicated accurately if the Array had enough energy input to match the original. What’s more, since energy was invariably lost when converting between types, the Array required greater input than the power it sought to replicate.

This was even worse when considering magic.

Elise had noted that the conversion from mundane energy types to more exotic and mystical energy types seemed to be less efficient than mundane to mundane, or non-standard to non-standard.

To match magic required a core outputting significantly more power than the spell in question required mana. Or waiting to convert the energy required slowly over time, which is generally how Elise pulled off large spells. Or else an external source of energy for the Array to manipulate instead.

But for the sake of this armor suit, if limited to a single fight, Bob had a solution for that.

A cultivation alchemy furnace, repurposed into an engine fueled by elixirs. A device that could output far greater energy levels than a reasonably sized Schieffer-Oscillator engine ever could. Of course, that energy was unusable if one wasn’t a cultivating alchemist…until the development of the Mass-Energy Manipulator Array that is.

Now Bob could simply burn an elixir, and harness its raw energy directly. A massive source of mystical power that could be used to supercharge copied powers to the limit, as well as grant the suit the strength and durability required to survive such a battle.

Of course, that was a horrifically wasteful proposition. Burning elixirs that could grant a cultivator fifty lifetimes just to power something big for fifteen minutes? Every cultivator on the planet would have his head for even considering switching that core on.

But if a fight absolutely needed to be won…

If a mere mortal needed to compete with gods…

No, to compete with those who slew gods…

Then he would waste whatever he needed to.

“Calibrations complete. All systems online. Welcome, Commander Bob. Awaiting orders.”

His eyes narrowed.

It was time for the Faceless Minion to join the fight.