Second Genesis

Grey swayed and fell to a knee. ’Holy shit that is bad.’

He coughed, his body feeling like it had suddenly been put through the wringer.

’What the fuck just happened? It was like I couldn’t digest any more.’

Grey frowned and felt that he had two explanations, and maybe both of them were a little right in their own way.

The first problem was his iron jaw. It couldn’t just take on an infinite Energy Reserve. If he could just infinitely absorb more metal and improve it, that would, indeed, be a bit broken. He should have known he wouldn’t be so lucky.

10.1 was probably not the absolute limit, but Grey felt that he could at most get to 10.3, maybe 10.4 before there really was a hard cap. But that would require a lot of pain.

The second problem was that his Abilities weren’t keeping up. In order to digest the materials it would take to reach 10.4 units of energy, Grey had the feeling that they needed to be better than just Tempered Steel.

His iron jaw was already saturated in Tempered Steel now, and it even felt quite heavy on his face. If he wanted to improve it further, he would have to use the other two materials he had used to craft it, and both were of a much higher quality level.

That was to say that the main issue of the second prong of his problems was that his Metal Digestion wasn’t good enough. That was why he had vomited what he ate back up.

"Fuck..." Grey mumbled. There went his hopes of an infinite money glitch.

He wiped his mouth, standing back up to his feet and giving Esmeralda and Amunet both two thumbs up and the best grin he could muster.

"Nothing to see here, nothing to see here at all."

Amunet was little more than a flickering shadow so he couldn’t see her reaction at all, but Esmeralda’s was cold. Frighteningly cold.

The scar that covered half her face almost seemed more violet than red now, almost like it was beating akin to a heart.

Grey chuckled. "No need to glare at me like that. As you can see, I can’t eat my way to becoming as powerful as you so is there really a need for you to worry so much?"

Esmeralda suddenly smiled, the frostiness vanishing from her.

"I do not know what you mean, descendant of the Mechanical Jaw. I was only worried for your safety."

"Of course, of course." Grey nodded and walked back toward the table, taking a deep breath and exhaling.

’Let’s open it up, then, I guess?’

The slightest glow came from his pinky ring and Grey felt something in his mind crack.

His eyes went white with blooming flames.

—

[Welcome, Prometheus]

—

Grey’s body was still in place, but it was like his mind had been transported to a new world. Well, if a space of endless greyish white and blade gridlines could be called "a new world".

’This feels like...’

The Cyber Space was something Grey had been mostly interested in because it allowed him the special ability of removing his mechs without decoupling from them. Essentially, he could have his cake and eat it too.

Usually, mechs were so ingrained into your Neural Frame that you basically had to walk around with them in full visible view all the time. Only the highest level mech technicians and engineers could allow you to store them in this way.

Now Grey had his own.

But he also realized that this might be the simplest of the Cyber Space’s abilities.

’I think I might be able to use it to identify items and materials as well, like I would with a Cyber Mat.’

Grey wasn’t sure yet if that was a huge matter, but he would find out slowly.

He pulled his mind out from the Cyber Space. It didn’t change much about his situation, but he at least felt like he had accomplished something.

Picking up the Cyber Core to the side, he sapped up more of its energy until he was topped back up to 10.1 in Energy Reserve.

"Are you finished?" Esmeralda asked.

Grey looked back at her. "What did I say about looking over my shoulder?"

Esmeralda only smiled in reply, but Grey could feel the pressure mounting. It seemed he wasn’t going to have much of a chance to stretch things out any longer.

—

Object: Cyber Core

Energy Reserve: 76.6/100

—

’Well, at least this will last a little longer. The Cyber Space is at least more convenient than a Cyber Mat is...’

Grey unceremoniously put the Cyber Core into his waistband and then moved toward the blueprints. For maybe the millionth time in the last few hours, he cursed the holy knights for taking his convenient tool belt before he began going through the sheets of paper laid out before him.

’How the hell am I supposed to tell what is what now?’

He went through the blueprints, but the more he did so, the more shaken he felt. It was like he was standing in front of an insurmountable mountain.

It was worse than a mountain. At least with a particularly tall peak, all you had to do was put one step in front of the other.

But Grey didn’t even know where to start. How could he take a step if he didn’t know where the path was?

Some of these blueprints were super clear and he could read even the smallest number in the smallest font. He couldn’t understand it, but he could definitely read it.

But some others were just blurry messes. Even when he squinted and put his eyes right up to the wispy, old blueprints, he couldn’t read much more than a few smudges.

’Fuck me.’ Grey took a breath. What the hell was he going to do about all of this now?

One after another, he went through the blueprints, looking for something, anything. But as light waned and the hours ticked by, it only became more and more obvious he had not a single clue what he was doing.

"I’ve had enough."

Grey only heard the words. He didn’t even have the time to look back and give a snarky reply.

A bolt of blue ripped right through his chest. As he collapsed to the table before him, he barely saw Amunet running for her life out of the corner of his eye. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

—

[You have died. Better luck next time. Oh wait, there won’t be a next time. Toodle-oo.]

—