[Skill Upgraded!]
[Skill: Lv. 2 Script Sage] -> [Skill: Lv. 3 Script Sage]
[Skill Upgraded!]
[Skill: Lv. 3 Microscale Manipulation] -> [Skill: Lv. 4 Microscale Manipulation]
[Skill Upgrade!]
[Skill: Lv. 3 Combat Specialist] -> [Skill: Lv. 4 Combat Specialist]
Upon making these upgrades, he was immediately hit with the overwhelming sensation of the thoughts flooding into his mind. The knowledge wasn’t organised or structured like language, it was almost like the information was already processed in the form of abstract memories and concepts.
Down to 860 gears, he also upgraded his useful compacting skill. A much more valuable skill, it costed 200 to upgrade.
With that, he also upgraded his armour fitting, which would have some bearing on compactness. If he could use armour more efficiently, it would make his bot more durable but also let him use more armour to achieve the same level of durability.
[Skill Upgraded!]
[Skill: Lv. 2 Armour Fitting] -> [Skill: Lv. 3 Armour Fitting]
[Skill Upgraded!]
[Skill: Lv. 3 Compacting] -> [Skill: Lv. 4 Compacting]
With those skills costing a combined 350, he was down to 510 gears that were ready to use.
[Skills]
[Skill: Power Surge]
[Skill: Mana Stream]
[Skill: Lv. 1 Rapid Update]
[Skill: Lv. 3 Script Sage]
[Skill: Lv. 1 Quick-Build]
[Skill: Lv. 4 Microscale Manipulation]
[Skill: Lv. 4 Internal Design]
[Skill: Lv. 4 Combat Specialist]
[Skill: Lv. 2 Alloy Mastery]
[Skill: Lv. 4 Compacting]
[Skill: Lv. 2 Scarcity Crafting]
[Skill: Lv. 3 Armour Fitting]
[Skill: Lv. 3 Circuit Routing Proficiency]
[Skill: Lv. 1 Gauntlet Overdrive]
[Skill: Lv. 1 Mana Shield]
After these upgrades, the main feature that Cael had felt improve was his ability to minimise the space of his designs.
Looking at his baton, the technologies deduced by the creator still looked perfect to him. Even from a different, more experienced perspective, he left those areas untouched. However, as for his additions, he swiftly worked on moving apart different parts of the design to condense it.
He didn’t do this for long, but only tried to cover the main flaws that he managed to pick up. Forcing himself to a stop, he moved onto his stats to see which of those he could upgrade.
[User: Cael Breckenridge]
[Titles: Competent Merchant, Vault Novice, Creator I, Warrior I]
[Strength: 13]
[Speed: 9]
[Durability: 9]
[Intelligence: 23]
[Dexterity: 6]
[Creativity: 14]
[Focus: 17]
[MP: 15/15]
[Skills]
The main stat that he noticed was lacking was his dexterity. Being honest, he could see that his physical stats were also lacking quite a lot. With those stats only taking 100 gears per upgrade, he felt it was right to focus on those instead.
The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.
Placing 400 gears straight into his dexterity, he managed to raise it all the way up to 10 in one go.
[User: Cael Breckenridge]
[Titles: Competent Merchant, Vault Novice, Creator I, Warrior I]
[Strength: 13]
[Speed: 9]
[Durability: 9]
[Intelligence: 23]
[Dexterity: 10]
[Creativity: 14]
[Focus: 17]
[MP: 15/15]
[Skills]
Now this was a much better base for him to work on. As he tried to add some more micro-adjustments to the design for his baton, he could see that his arms followed his mind much more easily.
He could move his hands much more quickly but remain precise and controlled. He really did improve a lot from these upgrades
The game was on now.
Days passed, and Cael continued analysing his work and found that with time, he could use his creativity to find new, intelligent augmentations to his designs.
One thing he hadn’t done was even fully read the second folder of files he received from the creator.
Opening them up once again, he finished his reading of the first prototype, the kinetic absorption. The prototype was established, but just a single one of those exosuit models employing those technologies would cost an absolute fortune, much more than even he had at the ready.
Since the technology was innovative and transformative, it would make sense for someone to have a large benefactor fuelling the fabrication of the model. However, who would believe a 17 year old kid about saying they could make this.
He did have at least an iota of credibility through the fighter-mechanic event alongside his somewhat successful merchant profile, but it wouldn’t be sufficient to convince anyone, really.
To purchase and utilise these expensive materials, he’d just have to increase his own capital to get to that point.
Firstly, he could work with the energy shield component base. He had capitalised on its energy efficiency to make a baton, so what if he could use it to create even more things too.
His first idea was some form of blade that would protrude from over the fist. It would work well with someone that mainly used punches in their fighting style. Instead of just relying on gauntlets and tough knuckles, adding a super-heated blade into the mix would change the whole game.
With this energy efficient model as foundation, he could make the blade much hotter than expected. This could make it almost like a knife cutting through butter with certain armours.
The baton he’d created was a lot more chaotic in terms of its design. All it did was disperse current in any which way across its surface from the power source. With a super-heated blade, a greater level of precision and complexity existed behind it.
For him to translate the base for an energy shield into something for a heated blade wouldn’t be easy. In his mind, it wasn’t impossible, but it would be a serious challenge.
For these following weeks, it would be all about this challenge. Looking for a reference to work from, he decided to take a closer look at Leon Areno’s autonomous bot design.
[Name: Areno 360 V1]
[Type: Mediumweight Attack Bot]
[Evaluation]
[Speed: 65/100]
[Agility: 73/100]
[Firepower: 42/100]
[Power Efficiency: 60/100]
[Intelligence: 56/100]
[Maintenance: 65/100]
[Versatility: 66/100]
[Framing: 65/100]
[Overall Rank: 68/100]
The speed and agility of the bot was astounding. How he’d managed to keep it so sleek and compact was honestly beyond him.
Mulling over the design, he could discern more and more, but knew the design was above what he could create.
Instead of just fawning over the brilliance of this model, he wanted to magpie and learn from it. He started to study the nifty techniques that he used, learning from them as he went on.
This carried on a few extra days, and this is when he really started creating his own design. The main model would consist of a bot standing at around 6’0 tall. He was aiming to make it 180 lbs but found it could end up being around 200lbs when analysing his models more critically.
That wouldn’t be much of an issue, though – he didn’t need to form an extremely swift or agile bot.
Hell, he even leaned more toward the idea of raw power and explosion for its key attributes.
Across its left arm would be an energy shield, with a baton snugly held in its right. Attached over both fists, he hoped, would be a form of his super-heated blade design.
He aimed to make the blade thin, almost like an over-extended claw just slightly over the knuckles. Making sure there was no hindrance to the speed or movement of the punch was a must.
As he continued with his designs, Leon felt excited to tell him that he was doing the same. He was instead opting for more of a heavyweight design, and Cael felt excited to see what its final rendition would look like.
That would be a tough job for him, but he felt excited to see what Leon could make of that type of bot. With his brilliant mind, he felt certain he'd fabricate a true juggernaut of a bot.
Silently, with utmost focus, he began assembling the components he wanted to use in the TechForge Simulation Lab. Several parts of the bot in a disassembled format floated all around him.
He started in pieces, working up the limbs and torso and headpiece into main components. After that, he then worked on the internals between these skeletal pieces before finishing off with the armour assembly.
As always, internals came first. Upon upgrading the other skills like microscale manipulation and circuit routing proficiency, which were very similar to internal design, it made that process even better for him.
Now, he could say the internals of his models were no longer a glaring flaw for them.
Standing back, with his hands by his waist, he felt like it was a job well done.
“It feels great to be back.” He thought to himself.
After so much time in the combat world, it felt great to return to the sphere of mechanics. Putting so much effort into his craft, he felt great enjoyment from just the process of making and assembling designs now.
It just got better and better as he improved, in addition.
During the weeks going up to the autobot showdown, the internet was filled with like-minded mechanics discussing their progress toward partaking in the event.
Cael and Leon held back from their work on the business side of things from several weeks before the event.
Surrounded by this atmosphere, Cael couldn’t help but feel nervous. How could he not? This was the best chance that he’d had yet to really get his name on the map; the same could be said for Leon.
For independent businessmen like them, getting respect and credibility from their performance would be a dream come true.
Cael spent his time working on accumulating gears not just for his skills, but also for his stats. During this time, he managed to upgrade his dexterity all the way to the 15 limit and upgraded his Alloy Mastery then actually, his programming Rapid Update skill.
[Lv. 2 Rapid Update]
[Performs minor patches/updates to a block of code to improve its performance.]