The Warrior Mechanic

His comments were true, and he could sense that. His form was sloppier than usual, and consisted of just full power punches and kicks that were aimed to knock him out.

“Even so, he spars in the same way with other people here and absolutely clobbers them. You might be one of the strongest people here now!” Miles realised, with a surprised expression.

“Most likely not. I’ve gotten stronger yes, but being one of the best here? No.” Cael bluntly commented, as the next two sparring partners stepped up to the plate.

*****

Days remained before his event in Oseron. Adding some finishing touches and finalising the assembly of his exosuit, it was now ready to go. Covered in a dark golden sheen, Cael wore it to then get a feel for his creation.

Upon wearing it, he felt that it was surprisingly smooth for its quality. Even with its demand for mana and the quality of the components that he used, his body could don this suit particularly well.

He threw a few light punches and kicks, and could feel his body almost floating as he did this. With the enhancements of his exosuit, moving around his body in this manner was complete child’s play.

Gracefully landing back on the ground, he removed the exosuit and left it to rest in his workshop.

For the following days, Cael spent his time resting and just sharpening his mind for the upcoming event. He saw no need to overdo his training so close to what was coming, and he purchased a return ticket to Oseron.

The venue was going to be held in a specific borough, called Wesson Boulevard. Even though it was labelled as a boulevard and sounded quite small, it had a population of over 1.5 million.

Each borough of Oseron could individually function as a city. There would be a business district within each borough, of a respectable size so that people could live, work and pretty much do everything that they wished to within a specific borough of the city.

The day had come, and it was now a bustling Friday night. The event was to be hosted on the weekend to give everybody the opportunity to attend, and Cael was ready. He decided to wear his exosuit instead of storing it, since it was just an efficient mode of transport.

At the main spaceport of Carlo City, he was there at the early hours of the morning and so, didn’t meet very much traffic at all. There were still thousands and thousands of people traversing the halls of this airport, but it didn’t feel as cluttered and densely packed as usual.

Resorting to Cria Flights once again, one of their donut-shaped ships descended onto one of the landing pads, with its signature commercial centre in a central ball.

The ship was soon off on its path toward Oseron, and Cael took his time to enjoy the leisure activities of this ship, just like he had done before. There was even a special venue that allowed for playing mini golf against autonomous bots, which was quite the experience.

Cael didn’t feel like it would be entertaining, but he was humoured by the bots and their odd eccentricities.

The ship landed with a deep thud, now in The Capital Planet.

Cael arrived at the same expansive road system that he had seen before, with up to 10 lanes per side of the road.

Taking an airbus, Cael was transported to the boulevard that the event would be taking place in. Cael wasn’t even offered a place to reside in during this time, and was slightly infuriated with that lack of thought. However, he knew exactly who these people were.

What else could he have expected from them?

He was even grateful that this meant he could have a place to himself, in the beautiful city of Oseron. The boulevard was about 100 miles away from the central business district of the entire city, which was close enough to let him enjoy the facilities within the Soburg Empire’s capital before the event began.

He had about 12 hours to himself before the event was scheduled to begin, and Cael decided to take a trip to the central district of Oseron.

Entering a colossal airbus with three floors, each floor housed at least 20 bots that stood totally still at the back of them. Even though there were more than 200 seats available for passengers, there were only a handful of seats that remained for Cael.

Nonetheless, this large bus glided across the road paths of Oseron, headed straight toward the central district.

After a somewhat short journey of an hour or so, the bus arrived at the largest bus station in the entire country. This station was larger than some airports in the smaller planets of Soburg. It was bigger than any facility found in Carlo City or even the planet of Saevis as a whole.

Cael was surrounded by several skyscrapers that pierced straight through the clouds, embellished with several bright advertisements and animations that made the streets seem even more lively. The streets were densely packed with people and colourful, bringing quite the pleasing atmosphere to the place.

He arrived at one of the major markets within the city, that had several floors and buildings connected through special glass hallways.

There were exotic meats from some of the rarest animals in their entire section of the galaxy. Some of these meats were of animals where only tens of thousands of the species existed throughout the galaxy.

Cael’s tastebuds danced atop his tongue as he tried out these delectable treats on offer, and he couldn’t stop himself from going from place to place to try out the several meats, pastries and confectioneries on offer for him.

The district was illuminated by the bright golden sun, that gave the several skyscrapers a glowing, divine gleam.

To pass the time, he found himself on a simple bus that took him through the several historical structures in the city. It talked through the establishment of the Soburg Empire as a whole, and the first human settlers in this section of the galaxy.

The Soburg Empire was a relatively old empire, which was formed by some of the ancient ‘explorers’. These were humans from an extremely long time ago, that were first to explore past the Sol star system and conquer new territories.

There was soothing audio, explaining the structures that surrounded him and Cael found this weirdly relaxing and soothing.

Soon enough, it was time. Cael had a slight tremble in his hotel room as he wore his exosuit once again. He was preparing to leave the place and gave himself a final look in the mirror.

It was time.

To throw away all the previous stereotypes that he and others had placed on himself. To transform his image and to command respect from those that previously ridiculed him!

Cael threw his body away from the mirror by pushing against the sink placed just below it. Giving himself a final nod; he felt ready.

“Here it comes.” Cael told himself, cracking his knuckles.

He lightly stretched certain parts of his body, before performing an acrobatic front flip to land straight back onto his feet.

Cael took an airbus straight to the venue, which was more of a leisure centre compared to where the fighter-mechanic event was held. Of course, that still had numerous restaurants and resorts to pass time in, but that was simply because the stadium was massive.

Those facilities had to be there to keep over a million people entertained. Here, the venue was substantially smaller, with only a few thousand seats. The central ring resembled an ancient Greek battleground, with a sandy floor and rows of seats for people to spectate from.

Reaching the reception area, there were tens and tens of fellow Breckenridges stood around. They were all almost miniature families. They consisted of their contestants, along with the siblings and parents that would be watching.

Then, there was just Cael. A lone wolf, totally isolated.

“Welcome to the tournament, Cael. It’s been a while since I saw you!” Asher Breckenridge greeted, approaching him.

Cael had to hold in laughter because this man looked like a complete shadow of his former self. He used to have lush black hair -similar to himself- and a muscular, lean body. Now, the hair on his head was kept quite short, and his beard was much larger and scruffier than it once was.

He still looked muscular, but resembled a Viking warrior that liked eating maybe a little bit too much.

“It has. It’s great to see you again.” Cael fibbed, reaching out his hand to shake his.

“I must commend you for your efforts in the fighter-mechanic event. I knew that you possessed some form of talent somewhere, I mean everyone does.” Asher commented.

Cael took a few brief seconds to just stare at the man in his eyes. He could see straight through the jab at his weakness, and Cael was here to make sure that image of him would fade away.

“I guess so.” Cael bluntly replied, as Asher returned to his family.