The Warrior Mechanic

Shooting forward from his previously fixed position, a single punch was all that he needed to further display his power. His coarse knuckles landed right on Miles’ chin, stunning him with the strike’s inherent power.

With his nose bleeding from his fractured nose, Miles remained firm with his guard to try and minimise the damage from Cael’s bomb-like punches. He managed to take some of the punches and kicks, but he wasn’t fast enough to stop each attack from inevitably breaking through his guard.

Haymakers landed on his gut and face, causing him to draw blood. Cael felt like he was truly in his element. With a faster, stronger body to rely on, his body and mind were more synchronised. Almost every technique that he thought of doing, he was able to.

He also felt like his attacks were more precise than usual. Even after so much training throughout his lifetime, he could tell that his accuracy had also improved.

Cael stood there, awaiting an attack from Miles with his head open. His right fist was tucked to the side, ready to be unloaded at a moment’s notice.

Miles couldn’t miss up on this chance to strike and threw a swift, snappy jab. However, Cael was stood far enough so that the strike couldn’t even hit hm.

“Amazing…” Arlo whispered under his breath, startled by the young boy’s perception of range.

The only issue was that this wasn’t boxing. His head lingering so close to his opponent left him vulnerable to any form of kicking attack. Miles was aware, hurling his right leg toward his chin with ferocity.

This would be to change the dynamics in his favour. However, Cael simply stepped back and parried the shot like it was a jab. Even with such a powerful strike hurdling toward it, he handled it properly and calmly.

The two fighters continued their fight, and Miles was starting to get tired from taking so many body shots and haymakers. The two fighters ended up grappling onto each other, pushing at one another in the form of a wrestling match.

The crowd was no longer as contemptuous as they were before. As much as they wanted to assert their superiority over weaker fighters, they had to admit this sparring match was quite entertaining.

Cael, pushing at Miles, soon felt his lack of strength. The boy was smaller and clearly less experienced. He could tell that his countless matches in the vault were helping him here.

Hurling Miles to the ground, a downward punch straight onto his nose was all Arlo had to see to break things up. Diving in between these fighters, a light shove from him launched Cael back several steps.

It was like he was wearing an exosuit from his monstrous strength. This made Cael wonder just how much mana soldiers and instructors like Arlo really had.

“Good job, Cael. You’ve truly beaten the odds in recent times. After performing so well at the fighter-mechanic event as a mechanic, you still perform spectacularly here. Kudos to you.” Arlo praised, lifting Miles off the ground.

Miles nodded at Cael with a smile, wiping blood from his nose.

“Mechanic? Why would he waste his time with things like that?” Blaine asked, slightly envious of his diverse skillset.

Many of these warriors here were just warriors. They’d have no hope of entering the field of mechanics, including Blaine.

There wasn’t much care from the students, though, as they looked at mechanics with disdain. In their eyes, they were weaklings.

Near the end of the school day, Cael walked toward the four main skyscrapers of his institute to begin training in the vault. Even though his fighting abilities had improved significantly, he still had to make improvements.

Cael was aware of some of the talents that were in his family. He wasn’t very close to them -due to his previous talentlessness- but knew they existed in the family. If he was going to face them, he’d have to work on everything about his game.

Just before he entered the game to begin competing, though, he sat in his pod and revealed his projector. Here, he began searching up current and historic scientists, scouring the internet in search of this creator.

Upon searching, he cursed the system for giving him no help in actually locating these so-called ‘Lost Files’.

After searching for a few minutes, he found no leads but wasn’t concerned. He had all the time in the world to complete the quest, anyway.

Cael entered several matches, and was surprised with how easily he beat down his opponents. They simply couldn’t match up to him and his overwhelming strength. He also found it easier to pick apart his opponent, identifying the glaring holes in their style much faster.

Cael still did meet true powerhouses, but could use his power surge to beat them down with ease.

Currently, Cael had his guard up against an opponent, fearfully remaining out his range. After receiving so many powerful strikes straight onto his person, he kept as far from Cael as he could.

This didn’t help him, however, as Cael shot forward and landed a devastating punch to the man’s helmet. Upon being hit so powerfully, he felt the need to land an attack himself. He swung wildly at Cael’s head, but he was already bent down and stepped to the side out of his line of sight.

Whenever he received a strike, he’d open his eyes to see that Cael was absolutely no where to be found. A split-second later, he’d be hit from an odd angle, which left him unable to throw back himself.

Cael, activating his power surge, grabbed onto the much smaller warrior and hurled him into the floor with his greater power and weight. With such an impact, the already beaten down warrior couldn’t continue. His body turned to nothing but blue particles and vanished.

[Match Won!]

[+7 Power Points]

[+4 Gears]

[Rank Up!]

[Novice III]

“Alright!” Cael said to himself with excitement.

Here, he was hoping the system would give him some form of reward after his next rank up into the skilled ranks. In a second, he just entered another match and was right back in another match less than 30 seconds later.

Cael remained focused totally on his opponent, trying his best to discern as much as he could before the fight commenced. The fighter, with username Sultank was clearly a brawler type, standing at 6’5, with a clunky silver exosuit. Across its exterior were glowing white areas, and there seemed to be substantial actuators placed in the hips and arms.

“We’ve got another one here.” Somebody stated, from the growing crowd around this match.

Match after match, Cael remained focused on his matches but didn’t notice that the seats surrounding the arena ring were getting fuller and fuller. Now, over 25 people sat in these seats, watching over this fighter.

“I almost had him then he just used some weird power to get me down. I thought this mode had no weapons?” His previous fighter complained to the person beside him.

“That makes one more of us. He’s been doing this for a long time, he’s been in the forums too. Don’t worry, it won’t be long until he gets banned.” The boy replied, watching the fight intently.

The match begun, and Sultank stormed toward Cael like a beast. He came in, throwing several powerful punches straight at his face. However, Cael managed to use his greater speed to dodge many of them.

In the end, however, he was caught with a great shot that landed right on his forehead. The strike rattled him quite a bit, and he felt surprised with just how much force this man could put behind his shots.

He felt the force behind the strike in his spine, leaving him stunned for a time. He was forced to lift his guard and stay put, receiving punch after punch onto his forearms. Luckily for him, the strikes that managed to break through his guard didn’t have very much weight behind them.

Cael used this time to try his best to recuperate and recollect himself. He didn’t want to get walloped like that again and fought in a more calculated manner. He couldn’t continue with his increasing sense of relaxation and confidence.

If he fought in that way, he’d be shut down with incredibly powerful shots.

A punch shot toward his face, but he slipped to the outside of his opponent while stepping forward. This allowed him to land a perfect hook to the open side of his body, before kicking at his left knee.

Kicking his knee, the fighter started to descend and this gave him the perfect opportunity to land a straight punch to his face.

The strike was fluid and powerful, knocking his head to the side as his armoured knuckles crashed into his chin.

However, only a split-second later, the massive warrior sprung back up to his feet and responded with an amazingly powerful strike. Cael was nearly knocked off his foot as he fell to his hands and knees.

Luckily, this wasn’t just punching, and the fight wasn’t going to end after this happened. Cael swerved around, using his hands and feet to keep balance; he was still struggling. Even though his body kept still, his vision continued to sway.