The Warrior Mechanic

“Greetings, Orson. It has been a while, hasn’t it? I remember when you were just a little boy, still training under your father, Luther.” Rukkon called out, with a deep and beastly voice that made the hairs of the nobles on Orson’s side raise.

However, Orson was trained to hold his position as emperor. To do so properly, he had to make sure to never falter. To never show fear.

“Anyways, we are here to discuss the emergence of the boarman known as Gorkag. Would you please explain to us why and how he appeared in our galaxy and on Amburg?” Orson demanded.

He remained polite in his words, but his question was still bold. They could tell by his demeanour that he was demanding the answer, and the truth for that matter.

“Well, that man was of the Gor- caste. Don’t pay him attention, he was a peasant trying to go for glory. We had no intentions to cause such commotion, and the boarman has been properly dealt with. We can give you his head if you want it.” Rukkon replied, placing one of his legs over the other as he gave out a snort.

“We don’t believe that to be true as of now. He seemed equipped with a special teleportation technology that seemed far too advanced for your previous capabilities. Wouldn’t this sort of item had to have been provided by an established organisation of some sort, like a government?” Orson furthered, increasing the tension between the two groups.

“We can go on further to ask why an established government of that sort would provide an item to a boarman of the Gor- caste, without an ulterior motive?”

Rukkon laughed in reaction to this, but his voice was so deep that it sounded more akin to a grunt. He snorted before replying.

“That technology is no longer advanced for us. We may not use technology in military scenarios, but they are great supplements in other fields. He must’ve found a way of stealing it to get a moment of glory. I mean, look around us. Hundreds of trillions, if not quadrillions of our people are watching this as we speak. This is the attention that Gorkag wanted all along.” Rukkon replied.

There was silence between the groups because he’d made a fair point. The humans had assumed that their technology couldn’t have advanced as fast, and Gorkag could’ve easily just gone for show.

As Cael watched this, he felt like the explosion that gave off further strengthened their point. Causing as much destruction and chaos as possible was almost definitely going to cause a conference of this sort.

They continued to bicker and discuss the event that had taken place for a long time, and Cael’s eyes did not leave the panel as they continued. He was sure that -just as Rukkon had stated- many quadrillions of humans and boarmen watched on in a similar manner.

Cael couldn’t believe this was happening, since this was almost a once in a lifetime thing. For most humans of his age, they assumed that they would never see a boarman in their entire lives. From the previous wars and conflicts between alien lifeforms centuries ago, he wasn’t bothered by that fact.

In history books, these species were depicted as devils and warlords. Of course, Cael was not blind to the propaganda but couldn’t prevent the image of these malevolent boarmen being etched into his mind. Seeing them laugh and act positively felt alien to him, since they were always just war-mongering demons from his point of view.

The meeting was soon over, and the royalty were escorted out of the large conference room by their respective guards.

Cael couldn’t believe what was happening, and soon saw that the internet had turned to chaos as this event was trending everywhere. Articles and comments were receiving billions of views in minutes, and his projector could barely keep up with the inexorably growing feeds.

Taking his mind off what was happening for a short minute, he noticed another notification that had been given to him from a Breckenridge.

“Oh, Uncle Asher. What does he want?” Cael thought hostilely, reading the title of the email

After a few seconds of thought, he knew exactly what he was texting him for. After having no contact with his family for literally years on end, Asher was here to reward him for his recent performance in the Fighter-Mechanic Event.

“Congratulations on your victory at the Fighter-Mechanic Championship! Your innovative exo-suit design distinguished you in this fierce competition. You've demonstrated exceptional skill and creativity.

We look forward to your future contributions to exo-suit engineering.

Best regards,

Uncle Asher”

Cael couldn’t help but scoff after reading that email. He could see right through the ruse of this double-faced man through the text.

Not paying the text much attention at all, he gave a short and quick reply before receiving yet another notification.

This time it was from yet another Breckenridge. Cael felt a little concerned because he knew this person was a little more important in the family. He was an esteemed warrior and lived in Oseron on TCP.

Why would someone like him be receiving an email from such a person?

Giving the lengthy text a skim-read, he saw that there was an upcoming event between the several young Breckenridges to test their skills. He was invited to the event to see what he was capable of.

Cael couldn’t believe that he was invited to such a thing, because he’d only showed off his mechanical skills. How would they know that he had gotten more able at fighting as well?

“oh, right!” He realised, clicking his fingers.

That was the whole point. They believed he was the same strength. They wanted to use this event to humiliate Cael, as a way of making sure that he would know his position.

He just laughed upon seeing the glaring character of this Breckenridge. It was funny to see that none of them had changed in the slightest.

A single second later, another notification appeared. This time, it was from his system.

[New Quest!]

[Combat Advancement]

[Your two-faced family have finally given you a chance to showcase your skills. Utilise the power of your system to illustrate your talent! Advance your MP to 10 and create an exosuit tailored to your needs for the battling event.]

[Punishment: MP halves, -250 Gears]

[Time to Complete: 90 days]

[New Quest!]

[High Supply]

[Sell 15 new copies of a new drone technology with a versatility rating of 70/100.]

[Punishment: -4 Creativity, -4 Dexterity]

[Time to Complete: 45 days]

A wide smile cracked across Cael’s face upon seeing these notifications. He was back in the game now.

What he was most excited about was the first notification. If he could advance his MP then -hopefully- receive some additional rewards from the system, he could be in a much better position to fight in the event.

Looking at the basic description of the upcoming family reunion, he could see that the participants were permitted to bring their very own exosuits. This meant that he could do what the system had asked him to.

Utilising his own mechanic abilities to tailor to his own style, he could possibly gain an advantage. He suddenly felt a strong desire to prove himself at this event and was willing to spend a little extra to form a more advanced exosuit to power himself.

His higher MP would also allow him to do so.

However, the main issue would be the cost. As items got more expensive, there were diminishing returns. An item that was 10x as expensive as mid-tier equipment would only be 3 to 4x as powerful.

These increases simply didn’t climb as much as the cost, so high-tier equipment was exponentially more expensive than their mid-tier equivalents.

If he wanted to give himself a good exosuit here, he’d have to go for profit in his second quest. If he could amass enough revenue from the new technology he’d sell, he could then move onto advancing his exosuit and providing it with the most advanced equipment his body could properly sustain.

Going overboard would just cause the exosuit to poorly follow his own movements and drain his stamina.

Giving the second quest deeper thought, he realised that 70 versatility was not going to be an easy task. Forming a drone to be so versatile would require many different sensors, but he still didn’t know if that would be enough.

Opening the TechForge Simulation Lab, he began by looking at his old designs and trying to form alterations to hopefully increase their versatility.

Returning to his usual time at school, he continued with this design and felt slightly warmer treatment from some of the weaker members of his year group. After he destroyed Miles Larson, his power surge skill meant that he could easily take down people stronger than himself using exosuits.

This gave him more respect with those people, but just made the others even more confused. Growth as an exosuit warrior wasn’t supposed to be limitless like Cael was depicting it to be. There was almost a ceiling, determined by your genetic aptitude.

From what he’d been showing before, they assumed his ceiling was incredibly low, but it seemed that that was no longer the case, somehow.

After the first week back, he had fleshed out two main designs that he tried to improve the versatility on. He lowered the number of thrusters on both while basically jampacking them with different sensors.

He didn’t put much work into the internals and other details, since he just wanted to see how high he could get his versatility stat.