The Greatest Mecha-Chapter 38: Breakthrough

Five days had passed with nothing heard from the young mech designer boy. The mech division continued without any hitch in how it normally operated.

The cadets who had just been promoted were banned from going to the training room for a week. Still, Amy persisted in searching for Alto under the guise of a morning walk.

Meanwhile, in Alto’s room, he was hard at work in the virtual fabrication room of the game. He had spent days learning from the internet the basics of working with a 3D printer and the fabrication process. His hand worked slowly but deliberately.

After his fallout a few days before, he decided to enrich himself with the knowledge he was lacking rather than force his way through the problem. This time of self-learning opened his mind to what he was missing. The working of a 3D printer was simple: it turned the fragments of the metal into a digital model where the mech designer would interact with the fragments. The 3D printer would automatically alter the fragments to react like threads, allowing the mech designer to weave them through simple but calculated means.

Alto had learned that, as a mech designer, simply creating the designs was the easy part. It was always the work of a mech designer to bring their designs to life. Through every failure, Alto would try to rectify his mistake. He would start slow until he got the hang of it. It took him half a day before he managed to create a chest piece that looked just like what he had envisioned.

The trick with working with a 3D printer was to weaken the fragments into shape and fortify them as best as possible to retain their structural integrity before they would solidify. When Alto had done his first mech piece, he almost cried for joy, but he stopped himself from that until he was done with the fabrication of his mech.

Alto realized the importance of taking breaks between his work. They helped him remain focused and reduce his mental stress. There were times he dozed off while working on the 3D printer. The mech plates he was designing were a simple one-layering; Alto could not stop imagining the horror of doing double or triple layering, where he would have to create more than one layer of the armor plate at quick intervals between each other. Luckily, it was just a single layer.

By the fifth day, Alto was done with most of the mech pieces. He would have taken more rest had he not been working on a tight schedule. He finished working on the second foot, and after one good look at the work, he discarded it immediately. The corners of it were not well done—everything had to be exactly as it was in the design.

Big corporations had machines that could do the strenuous work of fabrication, or they would use technicians. Alto wondered why the game made it manual. Sure, the game offered some auto-aid to some extent, but he felt they could go further. Alto came to the conclusion that the game did not want just anybody to come in claiming to be a mech designer. He realized how the game liked to challenge everyone that played it, whether directly or indirectly.

By the sixth day, Alto was already done with the helmet design, and that being the last thing on his plate. He would have loved to rest, but his work was far from done. He initiated the assembler machine, which was a bit easier to work. Three magnetic holographic coils hovered around each of Alto’s hands; they reacted to the movement of his hands and fingers.

They controlled what seemed like six mechanical arms out of thin air. They stretched out and took parts of the mech pieces he designed. Alto felt his mind ripping under the stress of controlling so many moving parts at once. Even when he tried to simplify it, it always put a lot of stress on him. Alto groaned as he started to put the pieces of his mech together. The arms went where they should—the front and back of the chest piece, the torso, the legs.

Watching every part of his hard work come together caused his eyes to water. Still, he wished this part of the game was more automatic than manual. It took half an hour for him to put everything together, then came the work of fixing everything with bolts. Luckily, the game assisted in pinpointing where the bolts should be and where to place them.

One of the parts of the mech Alto wished he could affect was its power core. He initially aimed to change it to increase the mech’s lifespan in battle, but after careful consideration, he realized he would be doing more harm than good if he chose to optimize a power source that would overload the mech’s circuitry and systems. With his limited knowledge, he had done it.

Alto looked at his mech with pride, but he knew he was anything but done. Alto had done a lot to try and make this the best he could. There was no way he would submit this as the finished product without painting it.

He had seen many players in the game falling for the flashy colors of mechs. Aside from a mech being perfectly operable, giving it a set of finishing touches made it seem special.

Since the mech was a ninja, he decided to paint its head, chest, back, and legs black. He then proceeded to make both its hands white with a few black lines like scars. He then added a few white lines like scars to the helmet. After that, he paused, looked at the mech, and smiled. It did look like an assassin. He had painted the sword silver and its boots a similar color. Alto was no artist, but he felt he could be one. He couldn’t help but shed a few tears for his mech—it was like watching a child he had created come into the world. He wondered if this was how parents felt when they had a new child.

Alto felt good knowing he had created something for once. He finally realized that he had achieved his goal—even though it took years and the help of strange technology, he had done it.

Sensing his ego getting inflated, he took a deep breath and spoke to himself.

"No, Al, don’t you get ahead of yourself just yet. You still have to sell the mech. I don’t think I’ll be a mech designer until I sell my very first mech."

With that in mind, he calmed down and proceeded to sell his mech, but it required a name first.

Alto thought long and hard before coming up with, "The White Blade." Next was the price he would set. The game’s AI optimized a price of 85,000 credits. Alto felt somewhat cheated by this analysis. He found it strange that the game didn’t compensate for his huge losses, but there was nothing he could do about it.

If he tried to calculate his initial cost in the game, it would be around 80,000 credits. Alto was a bit annoyed by the fact that the game still demanded a two percent tax on each sale he made. It felt insulting considering the amount of work he had put in. Then the game had the audacity to ask him to pay a few thousand credits for publicity as a mech designer under the scam that it was a "newbie bonus."

Alto took one final look at his mech before sending it off for sale and said,

"So this is goodbye, buddy. I hope you make your buyer happy. That way, he’ll tell his friends, and I can make more sales."

After sending the mech to the selling point, he collapsed on his bed, exhausted. He received a ping from the mech designer protocol. He wearily opened its interface, expecting to see a congratulations screen, but the system—as usual—was down to business.

[The user’s design will now enter the evaluation phase]

"Give me a break already," he said half-heartedly, though he wanted to see the praises the system would rain on him for all his efforts.

[Design Evaluation]

Mech name - The White Blade

Mech type - Assault

Weight Class - Light Mech

Variant Name - Fenwick-720 Reborn

Original Design - Fenwick-720

Original Manufacturer - Redshot Enterprise

Mech role - Speedster/Infiltrator

Aesthetic - D+

AI Interface - F

Armour - F

Endurance - E

Flexibility - C

Firepower - E

Mobility - C

Power Management - C

Sensor System - F

Tactical Versatility - E

Special Feature - F

Performance Improvement - 23.5%

Total Rating - E

Overall Evaluation - While the newer model is a stronger contender than its initial model, it falls short due to lackluster performance and poor workmanship. While the ability for the mech to combat in different terrains is interesting, the mech lacks an AI interface for proper optimization of its features. The mech’s lack of sensors makes it more of a joke than a weapon of war. The armor is poor, and the mech lacks any special features.

The only redeeming quality about the mech is its mobility, but the lack of adequate firepower makes it fall short of the standard set for it.

[You have received 50 CP for completing and improving upon an original design]

[Congratulations on completing your very first design. You have received a gift box—please check your package to claim the reward]

Alto sighed heavily. Despite the painful remarks of the system, he had still managed to build a somewhat capable mech with many flaws. He doubted anyone would actually purchase it, but he was satisfied that he had tasted what it felt like to build a mech. He had tasted the bitterness and hardship. He had also tasted the joy that came with it. And he knew that this was just the beginning of his story.

All the stress he had accumulated from day one overwhelmed him at once, causing him to drift off into a very long sleep. Through his time working with the mech designer protocol, it had been a total of eight days. The young man who once lacked promise had now become a capable beginner in mech designing. He still had a year to go before he became a novice mech designer—a journey with hurdles unseen.