Chapter 8 – Testing, Testing.

After Matt’s leg had healed from the potion he drank, a matter of only half a minute, they had decided to break camp and relocate. Their former site was only a few dozen meters from where they had made a rather effective stand. Tobias had noted that there were 48 wolves in total, or at least that’s how many he figured at since more than a few had ended up in smaller bits over a wide area. Matt also thought the situation was strange, normal wolves would not have fought to the last like these had but maybe that was just Earth wolves.

They ended up loading back up into the mech and moving another kilometer into the forest and set up shop on a gentle rise, giving a decent view of the surroundings. Matt pushed mana into his armor, repairing the shredded base layer around his knee and also generated a couple new magazines to replace the ones he had used in the fight. He still marveled at how such complex items could be generated and repaired just with mana, then remembered the cost. 3 magazines and the repairs to his armor had cost him nearly 400 mana points, most of which was repairing the armor.

Tobias suddenly spoke up from where he was leaning back against a large rock. “Despite that whole encounter being awful and us getting semi ambushed, I got some sweet gains.”

Matt pulled up his System notifications and read through them, finally getting a decent recounting of all that had happened in the form of kill notifications.

You have killed Forest Wolf. Level 10

You have killed Forest Wolf. Level 9

You have killed……

Bonus experience earned for killing enemies above your level.

Class Pilot – Skirmisher is level 8.

Stat Points awarded.

“I got 3 levels out of that.” Matt said, realizing how much of a difference the bonus experience could make in progression. “How did you do?” he asked Tobias.

“4 levels and a skill selection now that my Defender class is up to 5.” He paused before continuing. “Mind if I take a look at skills?” He asked. Matt just gave him a thumbs up as he scanned the wood line, toggling between thermal and regular night vision.

“Hey Van, how are you holding up on power reserves?” Matt asked in his mind.

“Good enough, I only used about 400 points between generating a new magazine and operating on my own. How are you feeling? I was nervous about your injury, but it seems you handled yourself well.”

Matt explained some of his past military and contracting experience and how he had been wounded before. He didn’t like the pain and couldn’t exactly ignore it but could manage in most cases unless it was a severe wound to his vitals or something. Matt hadn’t had that experience but imagined that he would not be able to continue fighting if that was the case. He currently didn’t feel anything from where he had been bit, the potion completely healing the injury.

Tobias came out of his daze after a short while, taking extra time to allocate stat points after getting his first skill. He ended up with a common rarity skill called Huddle Up which gave him a small boost to resistance when fighting defensively with others in close proximity. This reminded Matt that he didn’t know the practical effects of his Imbue skill, it may have helped in the fight, or it might not have. With that in mind he set a plan to have a testing and training day after they woke up. They could try out skills and some other things that had been put on the back burner since they started the journey. Setting a watch schedule, they settled in for the remainder of the night.

The System had observed the fight Matt and company had, much like it observed everything that had happened. It considered for a moment how that would have gone for a similar group from its seed worlds. Its conclusion was that the wolves would have won, easily won in fact. This observation led the System to believe it had made the right decisions on some of its schemes. While it had no control over the initial funds and design of Matt’s construct, it did make some small changes to how things should have gone. The diverted arrival zone was a test to see how the young pilot would handle no support and also proved him to not be a solo player by how he had helped Tobias level.

The System was also pleased to see how Matt acted with the core of his construct. Changing the text size to be half a point bigger and the color to be 5% brighter was easy and made it stand out from the list of other enhancements. Matt, having discovered the burden of pilots early on in his readings was just plain good luck, well not luck per se since that worked completely differently. Still, the System was pleased and decided to give another nudge, this time to a powerful being, hoping to create an encounter for the trio. It wasn’t going to give them any handouts, but it wasn’t going to be completely malicious either.

Matt eyeballed the enormous tree that he arbitrarily decided to use as a test bed. It was about a meter thick by his guess, round things were hard to measure when he only had his rifle as a known length. He decided to first test how tough the tree was, to set a base line for his future comparisons, without further delay, he pulled out his tomahawk.

Matt knew about how much it would cut into a hardwood like oak or maple, and he took a firm but relaxed swing at the tree with the blade side. The blade sank in around three centimeters, perfectly average by his recollection since tomahawks were not made for felling large trees. He repeated the process with the spike end, getting nearly double the penetration. Next, he tested his rifle from a distance of 25 meters, firing a single shot into the middle of the trunk. There was no exit hole which confirmed that the bullet was likely fragmented inside the wood, even the penetrator not making it through.

Base lines set and tomahawk back in hand, Matt focused on his skill urging the mana to flow into the tool. He noted it consumed 5 mana per second, 10 mana per second when he forced more in at a faster rate. The blade glowed with at first an orange red light before moving to a bright yellow with the increased mana. He could also smell ozone, similar to when electricity arced between two points, confirming that this was his plasma affinity. He lined up with the tree once more and did his best to swing the blade with the same force as his first tests.

The blade sunk into the trunk of the tree until the handle bounced off the trunk, kicking the tomahawk back out from the rebound. Matt was shocked at how little resistance there was and inspected the mark from where the blade had hit. There was a deep cut mark in the tree, the same width and length as the blade, also it was slightly smoking. He took a closer look and saw that the inside of the cut was charred, not blackened like when fire burned a log but more, caramelized looking. Tobias wandered up from where he had been watching and took a peek.

“Shit man, too bad you didn’t have a sword or something cause that’s halfway to a lightsaber.” Tobias laughed, poking his pinky finger in the hole. “I wonder what that will do with a bullet?”

“let’s find out.” Matt said as he wandered back to where he fired his first test shot from. He aimed a fresh spot on the trunk, channeled mana into the skill and fired another round.

“I saw splash behind the tree.” Tobias said. He had been off at an angle in relation to Matt, managing to catch the small eruption of dirt on the other side of the tree.

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Matt slung his rifle and wandered over to the hole in the trunk. It took some doing but he was able to line up the hole and see light on the other side. Wandering around to the far side of the trunk, he was a good-sized tear out in the bark, roughly the size of his thumb. Tobias then called him over to where he was poking at the ground with a knife.

“Careful, it’s still smoking hot, glowing a bit actually.” Tobias said as he poked at the now slightly deformed bullet which was cooling off in the dirt. “I’ll pour some water on it, maybe help cool it a bit quicker.”

Way more water than they originally thought necessary, and the bullet was cool enough to touch. Matt thought it looked normal, but Tobias pointed out how it was still in one piece, the jacket not separating like it normally would. It clearly hadn’t been hot in the barrel otherwise it would have turned to fragments when it left the muzzle. Matt then nudged Tobias and pointed at a large rock, halfway sticking out of the ground. With a nod, Tobias joined him as Matt took aim and tested a non-imbued round.

After several rounds of very accurate, serious, and scientific testing that wasn’t at all 2 guys shooting a bunch of shit in the woods, Matt and Tobias had some hard data. What the plain bullet wouldn’t penetrate, an imbued bullet would, unless it was thick rock or very thick trees. Honestly, the rock testing was kind of a bust since if the bullet went through, they couldn’t find it and if it didn’t, they couldn’t dig it out to see how deep it went. Matt did notice that at longer ranges, the imbued bullets had an effect similar to tracers, an orange streak marking the bullet’s passing.

Matt had used the down time to continue reading and also gave Tobias another list of things to work on. He put on there a blast shield for the end of the cannon after the previous night’s fight the probably left the humans with TBI or at least CTE from the concussion. He also asked for a suppressor for his rifle, something that would be nice to have but not needed. Tobias had been working on his other item designs, netting enough experience to get to level 5 in Forge Master.

After a couple hours testing and probably disturbing the local wildlife for years to come, Matt and Tobias loaded up and set off again. The waypoint was still pointing them in the same direction, deeper into the woods. Van had been asking to test the cannon with imbued rounds, but they decided they would have to wait for something bigger to test against.

“Hey, Toby. Got a question for you.” Matt started after an hour of travel. “How would you go about doing a coaxial or similar secondary weapon for Van?” He had been thing about the wolves and how Van had been limited to holding fire till the smaller enemies grouped up. He could of course have fired at individual enemies, but it would be wasteful, like using a Semi Truck to haul a single brick.

“I would probably try and mount it to the mech’s head.” Tobias began. “It provides the best vantage and would track wherever you look, kind of like the chin mounted gun on attack helicopters.” Tobias paused for a minute before continuing on about how a true coaxial attached to the cannon would be sub optimal incase there was damage to the gun.

Matt and Tobias talked back and for the about it for a while before Van brought up that they couldn’t really design anything until they had a forge. Tobias could design mounts, guns, feed systems and everything else but it wouldn’t mean anything without having a way to make it and modify the mech. They also didn’t know what the capabilities of the forge were or the associated costs, another thing to wait on.

As fate would have it, Matt wouldn’t have to wait long to test out the cannon and its version of imbued projectiles. They stumbled on the tracks of something big, well they assumed it was big by the size and depth of the prints left behind. Tobias agreed to following the trail and getting some additional training in. They followed the trail for a few kilometers as it wound its way through the trees. The creature must have been going to a specific place since it didn’t seem to stop at any point in its journey.

Matt had been using the thermal overlay, hoping that it would highlight their prey through the trees and sparse undergrowth. He had been right, finally spotting a large mass of something party obscured by trees. He used identify as soon as he spotted it, still over 500 meters away.

Giant Steel-Flank Boar. Level 28

Matt moved to be obscured by one of the larger trees that allowed him to keep a line on the boar. Crouching down, Matt shouldered the cannon and fired a normal round, straight at what would be the vitals on a normal boar. Bang-Thump. Matt didn’t see the effect since it was fired through some obscuring brush, but he did see the boar turn face them. With a bleating cry, it charged, and Matt realized they might have made a mistake.

The beast charged at over 40 kph, far faster than Matt expected but he still had time to fire a salvo of rounds. All but one hit the boar in the face and chest, small explosions marking the dull metal that made up its skin. Matt saw the rounds had little effect and fired an infused round. It penetrated, the trace showing a hit to the boar’s right shoulder before Matt dodged to the left avoiding the charge. The boar squealed in pain as its leg gave out, causing it to tumble into a tree, knocking it over in the process. It was not to be deterred however, rising once again to its feet it rushed at Matt again aiming to gore him with its tusks.

Matt back peddled and fired another trio of shots at the boar, only 1 hitting it in the chest and passing through, coming out at the middle of the boar’s other flank with a fountain of blood. Matt circled around and fired a dozen more shots into it, all being complete pass throughs. The boar was definitely slowing but it had managed to close the distance and smashed Matt with its head as he tried to avoid the downed tree. Matt was knocked flat on his back, painful feedback coming from his left side and his rifle once again thrown from his grasp.

“Go for the Axe!” Tobias yelled over the sound of the mech crashing to the ground.

Matt followed his friend’s advice and rolled over getting back on his feat and pulling his tomahawk from the scabbard. He noticed that his mech left leg wasn’t responding and his display confirmed it.

Left lower leg: Crushing Damage

Left upper leg: Piercing Damage

Matt felt every bit of those notifications, the gouge carved by the boar’s tusk acting as a pinching sensation in his hip. He pushed mana toward the upper leg damage, willing it to regenerate and restore mobility to the hip joint. He rotated his way to face the boar as it came around a tree and forced mana into his oversized tomahawk imbuing the blade in plasma. The boar once again charged as Matt rotated to the side so it would pass him.

The boar missed him by what felt like centimeters, but Matt struck true with a sweeping upward slash at its throat. He saw the blade sink in and yanked back as hard as he could, ripping the bearded portion through the iron hard skin like a can opener. He was rewarded with a tearing noise and a bright red gout of blood spilling from the wound.

The boar passed, freeing the tomahawk from its throat and took a few stumbling steps as it tried to turn around and face the giant metal man. Its efforts were in vain as its front legs buckled, forcing it to its knees. The boar tried to stand up once more, but a yellow hot spike descended towards the crown of its head, punching through the hardened hide and skull before hitting its brain. With a shudder, the boar died, snout planted in the ground and its blood creating a meters wide pool around it.

Matt stood over the boar, watching for any signs that it would get back up before moving off to go find where his cannon ended up. He found it a moment later sticking in the ground by the barrel like a giant lawn dart. Matt groaned at the thought of having to strip it down to clean out the bore before he remembered the power of magic and the Self Repair enchantment. After he cleaned out his cannon barrel and finished repairing the armor on his mech, he checked the notification that had been buzzing in the back of his mind.

You have Killed Giant Steel-Flank Boar. Level 28

Experience earned.

Class: Pilot – Skirmisher is now level 9.

Stat points awarded.

Congratulations you have defeated an apex beast above your level.

Title Earned

Slayer of Legends: With fleetness of foot and strength of arms, you have defeated an apex beast.

+5% to dexterity

“Well, that was almost bad but kinda worth it in the end.” Matt said. “Good call on the tomahawk Toby, sorry for the rough ride on that one.” He then checked in with Van mentally, confirming that he was fine. There was an odd sense of rage that came through the bond, but Matt felt it wasn’t directed at him and instead at the now dead boar.

Too bad we didn’t get any bacon from that thing Matt thought as the moved away from the creature to set up camp in a more secure area. On the way, Matt willed his free point into his stats, feeling the rush from the increase so close to a level up even while keeping 5 points in reserve. While they moved, Tobias completed a design for the blast deflector netting himself another level.

They found a nice place to set up camp near a small creek, finally able to refill their water supplies and clean up after a few days of being constantly on the move. It wasn’t as bad as it had been in while they were in the army since they had magical self-cleaning clothes. Matt still enjoyed some time sitting in a slightly deeper part of the creek, letting the cool water run over him and thinking about how much his life had changed.

As he climbed out and dried off, he randomly decided to inspect the flowering bush that was near the stream bed. He felt so incredibly stupid when it clicked with him on all the good loot they had been missing out on. He crammed himself back into armor before jogging off to tell Tobias how they had both been colossal idiots.