Second Genesis

Grey collapsed into a heap, laughing.

The echo of his laughter shook the room and he had to hurry to shut his mouth before he blew the whole place down.

Reaching down, he patted at his belly and grinned. He was burning through a lot of his credits, but he honestly didn’t give a damn.

His belly had shrunk again. While he was still obese, it wasn’t to the point he had to waddle anymore just to make room for his thick thighs. He was sure, if he could craft an Established Class mechanical jaw of this level, he should be able to go back to his original weight. Grey checked the pages of the tome and sighed in relief when they finally started flipping again.

It took him way too long to do this one. If he still had to clear all the others first, it would be a complete nightmare.

The moment he did flip the page, though, something flickered.

—

Operation: The Call of the Mechanical Jaw Spirit

Quest Rank: Legendary

Mission Type: Retrieval

Objective: Retrieve the Mechanical Jaw Spirit

Description: The Tome of the Mechanical Jaw Lineage has acknowledged you as its master, but with great power comes great responsibility. The often forgotten, but far more important saying just might be with great knowledge comes great weight.

The Mechanical Jaw Lineage comes in two pieces as do all the Lineages of the Fallen Savages. You have retrieved one part, but the Ancestral Spirit of the Mechanical Jaw remains unclaimed in the unmarked lands of chaos. Find it and claim what is yours.

Rewards: Full access to the Mechanical Lineage Tome. Mechanical Jaw Spirit.

Note: The Spirit has spent too long without a master and it loses energy every day it must fight off those it deems unworthy. Time is running out. Time remaining: 13:23:59:53

—

Grey’s eyes narrowed for a moment as he read the quest. Then he shrugged his shoulders.

’Whatever. One problem at a time, I guess.’

He was somewhat curious what exactly the Mechanical Jaw Spirit would be, though. It obviously sounded like the perfect Spirit, but usually Spirits came in two forms from his reading.

Either they were elemental or they were a creature of some sort. Prometheus was obviously elemental, at least Grey thought so. The Wolf Spirit was obviously a creature.

What category did a "Mechanical Jaw" fall into. Or was it that his information was incomplete? He couldn’t be sure.

’But this probably means...’

Grey frowned and then began swiping through the pages one after another. To his surprise, he was actually able to swipe into the Vector Class Mechanical Jaws. However, when he tried to go into the Vanguard Class, the pages stuck together again.

’Better than I expected. At least that gives me some room to maneuver.’

Maybe only Grey would be worried about two weeks being a long enough time that he’d need Vector Class mechs to work with. Still, the tome had been more than nice enough.

’In that case, should I try skipping right to Vector...?’

Grey’s lips pursed as he looked at the page he was stuck on. Since it was on the last of the Vector Class pages, it was probably the strongest of them.

There was some give and take in that conclusion. While it was probably the objectively strongest one overall, there were other mechanical jaws that came before it that were probably better in niche circumstances.

But Grey had to admit, this one looked kind of badass.

It didn’t even look like just a jaw anymore. In fact, Grey couldn’t even see where the mouth was supposed to be. It looked almost like what he’d imagine a mech pilot’s helmet would look like. Of course, he wasn’t referring to mechs in the sense that the Genesis Games seemed to all the time, he was referring to true Gundams the size of buildings.

The odd part was that the mechanical jaw had an opening for his hair, and its face plate was formed of grill grates with space between them filled only by a deep, crimson energy.

It was red and a deep maroon, carrying hints of blue as well.

’This thing looks like if that character from Goblin Slayer went 500 years into the future... and there’s even space for my luscious hair.’ Grey grinned. ’Let’s do it.’

—

Vessel: Tuned Jaw 0AJ22

Weight: 24.7kg

Faces: 10,333

Raw Materials:

Crimson-Gold Weather Alloy: 2690 Faces

Tempered Steel (any kind): 120 Faces

Flexweave Mesh: 81 Faces

Fractal Resin: 5,170 Faces

Halo Mesh: 2262 Faces

Woundkind Nullite: 10 Faces

—

It was the largest list of items that Grey had ever seen.

’I don’t have everything here...’

Grey frowned for a moment and then grinned.

"Oh, Siiilllvaaaa..."

Why use his own money when he could exploit others?

...

It was about half an hour before Silva got back to Grey. It turned out it was easier to contact people in your given city than Grey had thought. He had been about to run over to the Baron’s house, but on the way he ran across a shop selling communication cyber hubs.

Turned out this was just something you could super easily connect to your system. He found Silva on a registry after that and gave him a call.

"Sir Temolt, these materials..."

Silva’s eyes widened when he saw the changes to Grey. What sort of dieting plan was this?

Then again, it didn’t make sense for someone as fit as Grey to end up so fat in the first place.

"Don’t worry about it, it’s for a worthy cause, I promise."

Silva didn’t seem to be too sure. These materials had cost him tens of millions of credits. They ate up the budget the Baron had left behind instantly.

"... Do you mind if I watch?" Silva asked, still skeptical.

"Sure." Grey waved a hand, not caring. Even if Silva realized none of this was for the armor, who cared? Clearly, Giyoto didn’t know that the moment the Mech Soul was applied to the armor, it would fix everything. There was no mech tech needed in the first place.

Grey clapped his hands and then sat down.

Now the fun would begin.