Second Genesis

Grey walked up to the table, an eagerness in his eyes. He grabbed a bit of Tempered Steel and shoved it into his mouth. Holding a Cyber Core in one hand and steel in another, he chomped down.

And nearly broke all his teeth.

"FUCK!"

Grey spit and spurted, coughing continuously.

By the side, Amunet stifled a laugh and Grey could only give her a small glare.

"Fuck me, what happened?"

That was when Grey remembered something.

—

Energy Reserve: 0.0/10.1

—

Grey frowned. He tried to pour more energy into his iron jaw, but it wasn’t responding. It was almost like it had become a dead hard drive. Everything on it was iced out from viewing. He couldn’t communicate with it at all.

’Dammit...’

Before, Grey had known that something bad had happened when his Energy Reserve hit zero. He had thought that the mech would just be destroyed, but what if this was what a destroyed mech looked like?

Just as he was feeling down, he grinned.

Why was he disappointed? Who cared?

Grey hooked a hand into his iron jaw and took a deep breath. Then he yanked.

He grunted, his body shuddering as the Neural Frame connections were directly torn out.

The world spun around him and he stumbled a step back, catching himself just in time before he collapsed.

’So long as I have Prometheus, it’s fine. I can just make another one.’

He had been worried about what might happen to Prometheus’ system, but clearly this wasn’t as huge an issue as he thought it might be. Although he certainly wasn’t going to be resurrecting again anytime soon.

’I guess that fight was more life or death than I thought. Or was it? I don’t even know how this loop thing works anymore. Why did I come back this time even though my Energy Reserve was at zero?’

Grey shoved the thought to the side. Answers weren’t coming like this.

What was coming, though, was a new iron jaw.

Grey grinned ear to ear, forging it step by step just like he had the first time. However, it just felt... different during his second go at it.

The first time he had just been doing anything he could to make sure it succeeded. But now he had sat with the mech for a while, and he had experience.

He forged it even more perfectly this time than before, and when he looked at the result...

—

[Name: Grey Temolt]

[Frame: Prometheus]

[Frame: Magnetic Hero (Proving Class)]

[Pending Quests: 2]

-

Stamina: 10/10

Sync Rate: 0.01%

Energy Reserve: 13.2/13.2

-

Sync Rate: N/A

Energy Reserve: N/A

—

’This sync rate is still trash, but the Energy Reserve is at 13.2 even though I haven’t tried adding any metals to it. This is pretty good.’

Grey nodded to himself, gripped onto his iron jaw once more, and then yanked it off again. This time, the pain barely made him shudder.

"Hey, are you a masochist or something?"

"Just focus on your little book, Cleopatra." Grey waved a hand and ignored her.

Holding a Cyber Core in hand, Grey paid one energy unit to run a diagnostic on Tuned Jaw 0BJ37.

He had done it alone the second time just to check if he had improved, but also because he couldn’t seem to access Prometheus’ abilities while it was in a dormant state.

During this loop, he had only been able to see the diagnostics because the blueprints had already been devoured by Prometheus before. But the blueprint for Tuned Jaw 0BJ37 wasn’t available in his Cyber Space just yet.

He had benefited from this roundabout method, though. His mind was already swirling with ways he could improve further, and he wanted to compare it with what Prometheus came up with.

—

Tuned Jaw 0BJ37

Points of Error: 13

Modification Cost: 1,200 Energy Units

—

’Oh?’

The number of Errors and cost were substantially less. This was probably one part due to the fact the Mechanical Jaw Lineage was quite decent, but the larger part of the reason was definitely because a prosthetic was far more complex than a normal mech.

Grey’s gaze flickered. ’Pay it.’

50,000 Energy Units was way too much. That alone would eat up basically 90% of the Cyber Cores here. But just 1,200? There would be plenty left over after that.

Grey picked up a particularly large and hefty Core to the side.

—

Object: Cyber Core

Energy Reserve: 1500/1500

—

This was probably one of the biggest if not the biggest here. Grey was actually a bit worried just holding it. But luckily, Prometheus and his Cyber Space could take it directly and he didn’t have to pass it through his body first. Otherwise, he might end up frying his own corpse again.

—

Object: Cyber Core

Energy Reserve: 300/1500

—

It was all done in an instant.

Grey closed his eyes, watching as the blueprint morphed and changed before him. But when it was finished, he couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.

’That’s it? Basically nothing changed...’

—

Vessel: Tuned Jaw 0BJ37

Weight: 2.7kg

Faces: 208

-

Raw Materials:

Tempered Reinforced Steel: 100 Faces

Flexweave Mesh: 99 Faces

Aurum Nullite: 9 Faces

—

The only difference seemed to be just one extra Face of Tempered Steel. Well, and the fact it had gone from "any kind" of Tempered Steel, to Tempered Reinforced Steel specifically.

It took some looking, but Grey just managed to find a piece of it in the endless piles.

’There’s only one piece of this thing? Is it that rare? It only has 103 Faces too. Not much extra room to work with...’ Grey grinned. ’Let’s do this.’

Grey focused his entire mind on his task, every step meticulously flowing into the next.

When he got to the Intent stage, crossing through from Form to Loading with practiced ease as though he had done it hundreds of times before, he found himself naturally tweaking it a bit.

This was no longer just the Tuned Jaw that the Gnomes had wanted it to be.

It would now be a devouring jaw.

Chi.

The mech solidified into a black plate along the length of Grey’s jaw.

This time, he didn’t so much as flinch as it fused into his Neural Frame.