Published at 10th of August 2023 11:24 am

Chapter 119: Version 0

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Kyle furrowed his brows as he listened to the old Nest informant in the council building. “Repeat what you just said, clearly.”

“The war has begun. Count Leon is on the move, having already crossed the border three hours ago. His forces are poised to attack Ocra in a day, and, subsequently Tenar. The other two Counts have joined him as well, attacking from the other borders.”

Faster than expected. Kyle checked the date on a nearby calendar. It has not been two months since he first got the order to build the weapons factory for Baron Cain, and only two and a half weeks since he arrived in Versia.

“Are you sure?”

“The information is spreading through the Nest network. The Versian military had already been mobilising at Ocra as well, so all available Nest hitmen are being redirected there at this moment to stem the main assault.”

“Okay. Keep me updated on the progress.” Kyle dismissed the old Nest informant, pondering to himself as he was left alone in the room, his new office arranged by Diya.

Ever since he had reached Versia, he felt like he had been tossed about in a whirlpool of events. He had tried to make the best of it as far as he could, but the announcement of the war occurring ahead of time truly threw a wrench into his plans.

I had hoped I have a few more weeks to build up a stronger power base or even overthrow Mornero, but it looks like my hand is forced. He unfurled a map of Versia, noting down the location and strategic objectives that both sides would be angling for.

Kyle was extremely clear on what Count Leon was trying to achieve – a blitz attack on the capital of Versia before they could even react. The speed of mobilisation by Count Leon has been remarkable, planned months in advance in conjunction with the other count’s forces, all of whom joined in hopes of sharing a slice of the pie.

Ending the war between Versian and Yual too early was not a good thing for Kyle: the whole point of him entering Versia was to profit. With a surprise war and a fast capitulation, Kyle would have no chance to make money selling weapons. A prolonged conflict would be the best for him, so he had to do everything in his power to ensure no two sides had the advantage.

As of now, the Versian military was on the clear backfoot, outnumbered in Ocra despite having known about the military exercise in advance. Count Leon would still have to put in some effort to root out the entrenched defenders of the town, which may take more than a week.

It’s a race against time. If I can bog down Count Leon’s forces and supply line as much as possible, I can weaken the offensive and drag it out into a protracted war.

Kyle returned to the underground tunnel base, where Hayden was still working on utilising the old furnace to build a new one from scrap metal for the makeshift factory that was to be set up in Desham. Hayden was preparing to transfer all of the equipment over to make use of the new area allocated for them, thanks to Kyle’s effort at subverting Desham.

Hayden was initially pessimistic about Kyle’s attempts to gain a foothold in Desham, but it was clear after the revolution that Kyle was no ordinary person. In fact, she began to feel as though he was a capable leader, albeit morally lacking. Although I was no different during the revolution…

She worked with Feldon, joining up with the workers in Desham to set up the new factory, though they were still missing deposits to exploit.

The mineral ants and their paired village members were still hunting for ore deposits all over the nearby area, Kyle using their natural instincts to try and lock onto veins. Instead, he had only found deposits of clay, granite and small pockets of iron ore and copper, hardly enough to sustain the operation that he needed.

With Hayden and Feldon moving over to Desham, Kyle had Drake take over the search operation. Drake was well aware of what had happened to the town, having heard through the others what Kyle did.

He still had mixed feelings about what Kyle had done to the village as well as his aggressive actions in fomenting revolution. However, he was not against mining and sourcing food, leading the hunter pairs around the Keru Forest, herding mammoth hogs and foraging fruits and other fungi.

With this, Kyle now had three groups working under him – Diya controlling Desham, Hayden and Feldon working on the new makeshift factory, and Drake leading the hunter pairs for sourcing food.

It will take more than a few days to get everything up and running. If Count Leon is going to strike within a week, then I must be prepared to fight alone. Kyle was planning to intervene in the war in order to even the scales, but as he was right now, it would be impossible to singlehandedly kill Count Leon’s forces.

Unlike the Desham guards and garrison soldiers, most of whom had not been involved in a real war or battle before, Count Leon’s forces were well-trained and equipped. Kyle knew that, especially because his factory was the one that was selling the weapons and equipment to them. How ironic that I’ve created my own obstacle.

If he wanted to make an impact, he would have to be able to overcome his own Seven Snakes-designed weaponry. Lucky for him, his trip to the dungeon had only given him even more materials than ever to work with.

It’s time for my exosuit. Version 0.

Kyle did not have the ancient exosuit spine with him on hand, it being in a vault in a Seven Snakes safehouse. What he did have on hand was the Advanced Arcia Crystal, the three slovesa cores made of concentrated Sturore, and an entire slew of old workshop equipment left behind in the underground tunnel network.

The nerval network isn’t necessary – I can supplant that with arcia energy. Galactic Era exosuits were all dependent on a nerval jack that allowed for baseline humans to control the hydraulics and electronic devices. With the availability of arctech engraving, Kyle would have even more options at hand; the entire armour set able to be completely covered in engraving.

Just like an exosuit, any damage would impede the operation of the devices, sensors and motion. Kyle considered carefully how he was going to protect the critical engravings as much as he could, layering armour on top of them and making sure they were not easily affected. A large dent in the middle of an engraving would mean that the entire plate is effectively useless.

Kyle began to plan out the armour pieces one by one, jotting down what he needed while ensuring freedom of movement around his joints to maintain manoeuvrability. I don’t know any flying engravings, but that won’t be necessary, seeing that I have mineral ants to make up for that.

He drew out the engravings that he wanted on each armour piece. Chestplate and Legs would be Harden and Pain Nullification. vambraces Point Defence. Gauntlet, Delayed Assualt. Boots, Sprint. Kyle was utilising all the arctech engravings that he had to learn over the months, copying the equipment that he currently had.

Lionel’s neon red hammer’s engraving was to be put onto the gauntlets, while the point defence vambrace he had obtained at the goblin den would be improved further. Kyle slated for two layers of engravings on the chest plate to maximise space.

He continued planning and designing the helmet. I need the most information fed to me. Kyle engraved an arctech radio engraving into the helmet, allowing for seamless communication without having to pull a radio out. The helmet also had a Point Defence engraving on it, giving his entire armour set a total of three-point defence engravings. If he wanted to, he could stall an entire machine gun without having to dodge.

Kyle began prototyping, creating the arms first, along with the shoulder guard and gauntlet. He got the help of Hayden to create the steel pieces, making custom moulds just for his vambrace and pauldrons. It was a slog, with Kyle and Hayden having to manually pour out the molten steel and separate slag with long metal poles. If only I had a metal 3D printer….

Eventually, the first prototype was ready, with Kyle donning the armour pieces on his right arm and flexing his fingers in the new metal gauntlet, testing the range. “Section A12 needs a rework; Fourth finger is too tight and needs to be reheated and tempered again. Section E65 has a weird deformation that’s poking into my shoulder blade. Entire surface is far too rough, and needs polishing.”

However, there was no specialised equipment here for doing such fine work, prompting Kyle to use the lightning sword to grind away at the surface of the metal, sanding it down to a smooth glossy surface.

Certain metal pieces were remade from scratch, combining again to form the second prototype. Kyle was satisfied this time with the fit, but he still had to etch the arctech engravings onto it. With an old rugged arcia etcher left behind by the former revolutionaries, he slowly carved away at the steel with tenacity and patience, working long hours to finish one arcia engraving to the best of his ability.

He soon realised that there was not enough space for implementing the expanded arctech engraving that he wanted to implement on the vambrace. He had already gained some insight from his previous title of Arcia Engraver that he wanted to employ, but there was a limit to how big a vambrace could get.

Unless… Kyle considered the possibility of splitting up the engraving into multiple layers instead. He had originally always been working along the idea of a single engraving per layer, but this was a clear new direction. Similar to chip stacking. This may be feasible.

Instead of making a brand new vambrace, Kyle tested the idea first on a few pieces of scrap metal. He drew out the entire improved point defence engraving on paper before isolating and recognising key sections and modules that were present in the engraving.

Five components in the engraving – I can stack them in a three-two configuration and have the arcia energy route through a few through-holes or a direct connection via metallic stubs. He got to work and performed a quick test on two plates of scrap metal.

However, the arcia engraving failed to start up, making Kyle confused as to why it did not work. If I assume arcia energy is like electricity, then a single power line should be enough. Yet it was unable to power up the engraving…

Kyle examined the engraving carefully again, this time carving out the whole engraving on a larger piece of metal and documenting its start-up procedure. He soon noticed that all five components lighted up at the same time without delay rather than in sequence. Does this mean that I have to power all of them at the same time?

Working on that hypothesis, he quickly redesigned the engravings, creating the same two layers but having their entry point of the arcia engraving all linked together. Placing the two layers on his hand, Kyle focused as he channelled the arcia energy in at the same time, accounting for the difference in distance to achieve the same timing.

As expected, the engraving worked as expected, activating with a low hum and glow. Perfect.

With the new method of layering engravings in place, Kyle made a much more ambitious change to the blueprint of the armour, redesigning the engravings to their larger form but separated into multiple layers.

Hayden dropped in from time to time over the next two days, watching the armour suit come into being as Kyle meticulously crafted each and every piece, testing each engraving’s strength and durability before continuing. The slovesa cores were all melted with the steel, the Sturore merging to form a much stronger alloy, nearly unbreakable by conventional steel.

The addition of the Sturore gave the armour a dark blue colour, the unpolished, raw surface full of grainy imperfections. Hayden inspected the engravings, shocked at the scale of some of the engravings. “We don’t have enough arcia fuel for this armour – the consumption would be off the charts! Even with the regenerators, we would not be able to sustain this.”

She could instinctively tell that if there were not enough arcia fuel to carry, the person would be unable to activate the armour, instead being completely locked inside. She herself could barely lift the armour with both hands, making her wonder just how strong Kyle was.

The regenerators in the base were useful for keeping the furnace and basic equipment running but were not enough to sustain Kyle’s armour. However, Kyle already had designed for that. Even he did not believe that his Arcian physique would be enough to sustain the entire armour.

He designed a slot for an arcia crystal on the back of the armour. Slotting in the Advanced Arcia Crystal into it and covering it with thick layers of armour, Kyle’s Version 0 exosuit was completed after three days of work, the entire armour a deep shade of navy blue on a polished surface. Kyle activated the armour, taking the first step as the weight of the armour cracked the ground slightly. He threw a few punches, the air rippling from the sheer mass displacement as he tested the mobility and range of the armour.

With the weight, the armour was far from being mobile, clearly restricting Kyle’s speed. But what it lost in reflexes, it made it up for defence and power, supported by the Advanced Arcia Crystals, whose yellow arcia energy surged under the layers of armour.

“Next up, the weapons.”

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