The cheaper drones could be a few thousand dollars to make at the very least.

He then opened the ExoTech Marketplace. This was a marketplace filled with support bots, their components and exosuits for purchase and direct use. It was run by a large and rich interstellar firm, TEC, which stood for the Technological Exchange Council.

However, Cael was not looking to form a physical object. The quest never said that he couldn’t form a virtual version of a design and he decided to go down this route. This could cut prices down significantly, but everything still had a price.

Even getting raw materials in their virtual form costed money but this was so the virtual market within the ExoTech Marketplace wouldn’t be flooded with terrible items formed from free materials.

In Cael’s case, though, he wouldn’t even need to make a model but just design an alteration.

He studied several sensory drones by entering such in the website’s engine, then setting a filter so the cheapest models came up first. There were only five items on his screen, but this was all that he needed.

He really wasn’t working with the biggest budget here and so, didn’t want to go down the route of using an advanced model. Upon some brief analysis, he settled on the Vulture XR-1 Basic that was at the very top of the screen.

It was a low-level, small farm operator that provided some security and also monitored crops. It had a large variety of sensors, so it gave a lot of information back to support bots and workers.

The only issue was, it had quite poor mobility and agility, so it could be easily shot down by any semi-competent aggressor.

This was something Cael immediately thought of changing.

“Okay, so this device seems a bit clunky and slow. If I take away some sensors, I can shed its weight and even layer off the armour too.” Cael realised.

It was hard for him to get a good look at the model since he hadn’t received an alteration permit. He was only left with the images provided by the sellers. However, he was sure that this was the model he’d start with.

[Name: Vulture XR-1 Basic]

[Type: Sensory Drone]

[Evaluation]

[Speed: 33/100]

[Agility: 35/100]

[Durability: 18/100]

[Sensor Accuracy: 65/100]

[Sensor Versatility: 31/100]

[Range: 37/100]

[Overall Grade: 19/100]

On this model, there was some information provided by the marketplace to grade it. This gave Cael a better description of what he was working with. The information given to him here only fortified his theories.

If he was to remove some of the sensors, he was sure that the range of the device would take a hit. However, if it could have greater mobility, it could possibly cover that smaller range by moving around more easily and swiftly.

With this, he had to get the license. The company behind the design was Vulture Designs. It was a small company headquartered in Oseron, the massive capital of the Soburg Empire.

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He then found that a license for this design would cost a massive 5000 dollars. This was an insane upfront cost, and on the lower end when it came to other designs. He simply placed his forehead in his palm with his elbow resting on his desk, distressed.

All that he had saved up was 2,000 dollars from all the payments he’d received from the government. His parents didn’t seem to be very good savers, but he wasn’t surprised if the other Breckenridges had swallowed up all the money wherever it was.

He didn’t have the best relations with them, because he was so weak in terms of combat. They believed there was much better potential in the next generation elsewhere.

Upon looking at this cost, he had to start now. He started packing up a large volume of old clothes that he still had around the place and sold them off one by one. When using objects of very low mass, these items could almost be teleported away to their recipient.

He also sold the items on a basic marketplace that didn’t require him to put a lot of information for a profile on himself.

Using a special, circular device called a teleporter, it manipulated space-time itself, allowing small items to be transported across a star system almost instantly.

Through these teleporters, on the receiving end, there’d be a projection of a robot holding a box containing the recipient’s item.

Upon taking the box from the bot’s hands, the projection would literally fabricate into the item that they had bought.

After selling these items, he had gained a few hundred dollars, but he still needed far, far more.

There was more than 2,400 dollars he needed to cough up before he could receive the alteration permit.

He rummaged through the belongings in his room, before looking at his bed. He fell still upon looking at it, because he knew that under was some of the belongings of his parents.

He reached out his hand to try and reach under, but his body was almost stopping him. He didn’t want to lose the last physical connection that he had to them. Those items that he had managed to scavenge before they were repossessed by the Breckenridge family held a lot of sentimental value to him too.

However, he found something that he could never identify when he was younger. Now, after spending so much time looking at support bots and exosuits, he knew what this was.

The sleek white case of material was a container of several mana cores. They each had their percentage capacity, which was near full.

To fill each one to 100% wasn’t a problem for a person like Cael. He possessed mana himself and as soon as he touched the top of the battery, it started drawing from the mana in his body.

The capacity of each battery slowly but surely climbed, until he felt drained from how much it drew from him. Most of the cores now had a full capacity, while the others had capacity within the 90s.

He felt a pain in his chest upon realising that he’d have to give up such a possession. With this resource, he could’ve kickstarted his progress as a mechanic to formulate his own support bot alterations, or even original designs.

However, he’d have to sell it and start from very little in the future.

“It’s what must be done, though. I still have a few other things left from them.” He told himself, trying to justify these actions.

He placed his items on the ExoTech Marketplace as a basic seller. He didn’t classify himself as a merchant, which was a person that could sell their own designs and alterations. He just wanted a one-time account to sell these items.

The marketplace provided him with what he wanted, and he placed 3,000 credits on the price of this component. Upon looking at this marketplace, he had seen a price of around 3,500 to 4,000 credits for this number of mana cores, but he just wanted the item gone as quickly as possible so that he could start his designing.

In about 60 seconds, the item had been purchased and he placed it on his teleporter. The teleporter on his desk lightly vibrated, before turning into blue particles. The particles resembled a projection of the item before dispersing and fading away, leaving nothing of the item behind.

Cael just sighed upon watching him lose one of the last possessions he had of his parents. It hurt him to do so, but it was for the greater good, and for his life basically.

Now, with 5000 credits sitting in his personal bank account, he immediately bought the alteration design for the Vulture XR-1 Basic.

As he bought this license, he opened the TechForge Simulation Lab and entered the designing section.

Using his projector, multiple projections began to surround him. These projections covered his field of view, and he just smiled while looking at the alluring aesthetics. Each panel was sleek and glossy but also minimalistic and easy to discern.

Reading one of the panels directly ahead of him, he could see the Vulture XR-1 Basic in his list of usable designs. Clicking that item, it was formed right in front of him in the form of a projection.

The other panels retreated to give him more space for manipulating this model, but he first just swirled it around, inspecting it closely.

He then opened the components that had been put together to analyse them individually and figure out why they had been assembled in that way.

The first thing that he didn’t like was the thrusters. They were fixed in place, meaning that the drone simply didn’t have as great agility.

“Okay, let’s fix that.”