You were shocked to find Spitfire waiting when you arrive at the tower the next morning, grinning at the stunned expression on you face your mentor manages to keep down his laugh. "Well, if it isn't my cute little disciple. I knew the little crow was bringing friends but I hadn't expected you to come along Anthony. Then again with your rate of improvement I suppose you'll need a tuner of your own soon enough. Introducing you to them might be smart."
You actually weren't sure you would. You knew that tuning was a way to adjust the fine details of a regalia so that it didn't overwork the body, but you were also pretty sure the people regalia were originally made for didn't need them. Not to mention how strong your body actually was. Ikki had filled you in on some of the reasons he was here, getting his regalia repaired and finding a tuner of his own. Knowing your little buddy was going to become a king before you was frustrated but to be fair the kid was a straight up monster when it came to ATs.
Of course it wasn't just Spitfire and you and Ikki. Along with your friend and your mentor were a smug looking blonde guy with slicked back hair and glasses and a sexy dark haired woman in leopard print with revealing pants. These were Yoshitsune and his right hand Benkei. The Yakuza AT boss was considered one of the most talented storm riders in the world and kept together the entire Trident team with his sheer charisma and skill. Benkei was incredibly dangerous all on her own. Sheila had come along with you in case of danger, remembering how odd this tower had been.
You couldn't help feel a sense of urgency as you climbed in the elevator to ascend. Yoshitsune was theoretically Ikki's subordinate, which meant your friend and rival had a damn solid amount of influence. You on the other hand were stuck on your road and couldn't advance. If you couldn't get your regalia done and get a team together and working well before the tournament started you were starting to get a sinking feeling some very bad things would happen.
The world of ATs had been growing darker and hungrier as you trained, slowly revealing some of the brutal underpinnings to you. Based on some of that damage that you'd seen in higher ranked parts wars you'd gone to and some of the things Spitfire had said you were fairly sure people were going to die during the tournament. You could bring them back sure, but only with a body, and only at the cost of a shitload of attention.
Speaking of which you were starting to get seriously worried about the forge. Aside from not connecting in quite some time (well for the last month you had suppressed it last time because you were busy) you felt a distinct shift in the way it worked. You couldn't say what made it clear but you knew somehow that artifacts weren't going to be the trigger for your next jump. Which was fine for now, you were having fun learning to ride and meeting new people, but if you ended up having to bring someone back and anyone found out not being able to get off world was going to be an issue.
You were broken from you reverie however by the elevator stopping. Sheila stepped close and grabbed your arm, tugging you close protectively in a motion that probably looked to everyone else like she was hiding behind you. You had gone with the little sister lie here since she looked so much like you so her sticking close didn't raise any red flags with anyone. When the door opened you couldn't help but be impressed. The inside of this place looked much more impressive in the daylight, the massive gears all shifting in turn to an unseen beat.
Waiting outside the elevator were a group of people. First was a pretty older blonde with an incredibly tall up do. She wore severe glasses and carried herself with strict dignity. Her aura flared with affection when she saw Spitfire, and weirdly actually connected to his in a way you hadn't seen before. Based on context you were going to assume this was Ine, Spitfire's tuner.
The second person was a mousy girl with brown hair in buns. Her aura was...slightly unstable. She was an insecure mess and desperate for the approval her peers. You hadn't used aura sight on anyone with this particular brand of desperation before. The crippling self doubt was just sad, you kind of wanted to give the poor girl a hug. She was looking nervously around the group and when her eyes fell on Ikki they lit up, her aura flaring with determination.
Your attention however was all for the last girl. Her hair was a cascade of bubblegum pink, long and flowing with barrettes in it at regular points. Her smile was gentle and kind and her gorgeous hazel eyes were blazing with curiosity and life. She had long thing fingers, fingers you recognized as an artists fingers, a mechanics fingers. Just like yours. Oh, and she was a monster.
Like...seriously terrifying. Ikki was a terrifying talent at ATs, even with artisan and stone age otaku you had trouble reaching his level, relying on perks to remain neck and neck, but ATs were specific to this world. This girl was a different kind of monster. This girl had so much talent she made your dad look like an eighty year old who didnt know how to work a toaster. The level of mechanical talent flaring in her aura (and yes you could see it, you knew it well enough from your fathers) was staggering. Even with your perks and abilities this girl was as talented at mechanics as YOU.
You stepped forward and may have bulled past Ikki a bit to offer your hand to the pink haired beauty. She looked down at your hand when you offered it and blushed a bit. You smiled softly at her, trying to be reassuring "Hi there, I'm Anthony, it's nice to meet you. Mind if I ask your name?"
She offered her hand hesitantly and you took it and kissed the back. Her face turned bright red as she stuttered out "K-k-kururu. My name is Kururu Sumeragi. It's n-nice to meet you Anthony." Her eyes had gone wide in surprise at your forwardness and the stutter was adorable, but her aura didn't show any discomfort just a bit of shock and uncertainty.
You heard a chuckle from the direction of the blonde woman, Ine " Fufufu, Isn't that sweet, our little genius has a suitor. Come Hako, Spitfire, why don't we leave thse two to get to know each other and show the little crow around. I can look at the regalia personally, I can't think of anyone more qualified to fix it than me." The rather intimidating woman grabbed your mentor, your friend, and even your daughter and started herding them away, leaving you alone with Kururu.
You smiled reassuringly, offering her your arm in a gentlemanly fashion. You always felt a bit dramatic when flirting and tended to default to being mockingly formal, it had worked on occasion before the forge, but formerly self deprecating humorous technique had become actually debonair and charming after exposed to artisan. You were fairly sure no one else you'd met could pull off acting like a courtier unironically but artisan made many things possible.
She took your arm blushingly and lead you...in some direction, you honestly had no idea how to navigate this clusterfuck. Kururu seemed at home here though, literally if you didnt miss your guess. You decided to try to ease her into talking about tech, if she was really as much like you as you figured technical talk would be soothing. "So I would have figured they would have you work on the wind regalia, she did call you their little genius and judging by your hands you do quite a bit of work with ATs. Which I mean as a compliment of course."
As you expected even mentioning her specialty flipped a switch, bringing out her confidence and letting her tense shoulders ease a bit. "I was actually, or I was in consideration. However there was another project that came up." She looked over at you and smiled "Spitfire wants to commission you a tuner to help build you a regalia. You don't have a road yet from what I hear, but you're developing one, and tuners have an innate sense of what their king needs in terms of function."
You smiled back at her widely "I wouldn't be opposed to a tuner if they're someone I feel can keep up. Or if they would actually be capable of helping. But are you saying you can build me a regalia that fits the road I'm making even if I don't know what that is? Because that's pretty impressive. I'm a damn talented engineer and I live in my own brain and even I have no clue what regalia would work for me."
Her expression turned pensive, worrying her lip as she tried to figure out how to explain it "I understand it sounds presumptuous when you put it like that. But I've been working on ATs since before I could walk. I played with wrenchs in my crib and listened to stories about the original kings to fall asleep at night. It's not that I'm saying I'm better than you at engineering, though I suspect I probably am, I'm better than most, its that I was made for this specific purpose. In any case, I like the idea of building my own regalia more than repairing a broken one. I've even been...studying you...while you ride."
Her rather fetching blush intensified as she forced her eyes forward. You felt a surge of amusement at her reaction followed by one of jealousy as you tracked the fact that she would have been studying Ikki if she had decided to repair the wind regalia. You shook off the thought and smiled at her charmingly. "I don't mind being studied by a genius. And I don't dislike the idea of having help on my regalia, if you're willing to work with me on it. I don't expect you to just trust my abilities of course, do you have a workbench or something I can use to show you a bit of what I can do?"
Her face was still red, but her eyes narrowed at you as she shot you some side eye. You were absolutely floored by how expressive this girl was, granted some of it was body reading but still, she was pretty much the opposite of Nat, every emotional response might as well have been posted on a billboard. Without any response to your question she steered you off to one side walking you towards a workbench behind a gear you hadn't even seen here.
Gone was the shy teen girl who was flustered by a cute boy, in her place a brilliant scientist ruled her workshop with an iron fist, awaiting disappointment from yet another failed challenger. The odd thing was that her aura had no trace of arrogance in it. She knew she was the best but it didn't go to her head, it was just a fact. Water was wet, snow was cold, and Kururu Sumeragi was the best engineer in any room.
If she had been talking anyone else, even the old you, or even your father she'd have been right too, but you were a celestial artificer damn it, and if you couldn't impress a pretty gearhead girl with your crafting skills you might as well hurl your ass into the depths of this ridiculous tower. The question is, how do you prove it?
You flashed through a couple options before settling on something fairly flashy and revolutionary. If this girl was going to be your tuner (which given her superior understanding of ATs might actually help you pick a road) you needed to establish yourself as an equal so she didn't just make the damn things without you. You could supply materials she didnt have and effects she wouldn't be able to duplicate.
You settled on something that should not only prove how talented you were but probably help her with the regalia design as well, an idea you'd had kicking around your brain for literal days but hadn't really known how to implement. You were going to build a kinesis module. You started to arrange tools and parts on the bench, dead space tech was a futuristic earth variant so the stuff in the tower should be enough to make it work, and if not you had duct tape master.
Luckily it looked like you had everything, the tropaion was insanely well stocked and Kururu in particular had access to at least any component parts you needed. Well, almost any. There were some chemicals and isotopes you'd have needed for the power cell...if you were using a bog standard dead space cell. Luckily slipped in with the supplies your dad had rustled up before you left had been a little surprise. The family secret. You were going to build an Arc Reactor.
You had some ideas of how to build it a little more stable with the power cell tech worked in, but your old man had made one in a fucking cave once so it should at least be doable for this project without giving away the existence of your lab. Your hands started moving unconsciously through actions you knew perfectly despite never having done them before, and deciding to be a dramatic bastard you looked Kururu right in the eye as you worked.
Not that she noticed, because she was staring at your movements...hungrily. Like a wolf gazes at a pack of unusually fat sheep. She tracked the motion of your hands, her eyes flickering back and forth as she licked her lips, which moved imperceptibly as she muttered silents to herself about what you were doing. Lip reading being an artisan skill you followed just well enough...to be terrified. She was tracking exactly what you were doing.
Dead space tech took place in a future with planet cracking spaceships and FTL travel. Granted this place was built on future tech, but still it was damn impressive she could follow the science, even if she wasn't going to be building any of the other stuff there for a while. The kinesis module was actually in her wheelhouse if you were being honest so it did make sense. Kinesis modules, contrary to their name, were not actually performing any kind of TK at all.
Kinesis modules utilized a sort of manipulated gravity field to grab and move things, it's why you had picked it, you were hoping she could incorporate it into her designs. Kururus aura was getting...intense, and your hands started to speed up, using a torch and hand tools to alter or shape what you needed. Environmental immunity came in damn handy for forging because hot metal in a forge or workshop was very much an environmental hazard, so hand kneading objects became a viable option.
It might actually not have been smart to show her you could handle white hot steel with your bare fingers, but hell you were as into this as she was, or at least close, judging by her aura Kururu was actually getting visibly aroused by watching you work, like full on squirming and rubbing her thighs together as you worked. When you got to the Arc Reactor you saw her eyes widen in shock as you got the thing running and it hummed to life, seeing the energy produced and marveling at the output.
Finally after several minutes of deft hand motions a normal human being would have been literally incapable of making but you suspected Kururu would be able to mimic just fine you closed up the kinesis module and clicked the last button needed to turn it on. Before you could use it though Kururus hands shot out and snatched it up bringing it to her face almost lovingly. Her eyes were dilated in a combination of excitement and arousal and her breathing was coming out in sharp pants.
She flicked that intense gaze up to you, her eyes looking like she wanted to swallow you whole. "You don't need to show me. I know what it does. Minor spatial and mass distortion through remote gravity manipulation as a semi-solid or solid medium." She cooed adoringly over the module, continuing to talk as she looked from you to it, seeming to drift of into talking to herself "Obvious applications for solid mid-air movement dynamics, or potential attacks, what an elegant solution to the mass equation, and such a novel power source."
You were getting...weirdly turned on by this honestly. This girl was basically having a literal nerdgasm in front of you and it was incredibly sexy. You loved your girls more than life, but they didnt get the crafting thing like you did, Kururu very clearly did. She was also freakishly good at it. You couldn't imagine what she would be capable of with a 25% boost. Stepping back to let her fondle your creation you decided to finally let the forge hit after a few times locking it down.
It had been quite a while since you had gotten a new perk. As you felt the forge trigger for the first time in over a month you fleetingly wondered how you were going to handle the production of the actual regalia. You wanted to work on a project with this girl so fucking badly, and you couldn't imagine what would come of it.
Celestial forge accessed: Genius of Your Age (Sword Art Online SB) (600CP) Sufficient CP! Purchased! Total remaining CP: 0.
You considered the potential ways the kinesis module could be used as she cooed over it, inspired by her passion and obvious enthusiasm for the device. As you thought through the issue though, ways to use the kinesis module during a ride became clear. You saw in your head the way you could finally build your own road, a road that no one else could use without your tech.
The kinesis module had been part of the dead space perk, some of the first real technology you had gotten. You liked the symmetry of using it as the foundation of your road. You also had a ton of experience with independent three dimensional movement from your armor. You pushed some parts off a table and pulled a pen from your pocket, you always carried a pen just in case.
Without any further ado you started to draw right on the metal (you had good pens). Your artisan perk and all the other creation perks piled onto each other as you drew out complicated machinery and unusual mechanics, tapping into great man and any number of smaller bits of knowledge from your other technology perks. You felt someone bump your shoulder as Kururu shoved herself into the space next to you to stare down at your design, her eyes alight with glee.
She shook her head and pointed "That won't work, we use DG-27 as a liquid base because the temperature variables are exponential. You need something with almost no evaporation point. The aluminum alloy isn't a bad thought for it, it does evaporate at an unusually high temp but you underestimated the ramp up. And that needs to be adjusted, the metal you're using seems weird and durable as hell but the actual wheels will be made of a gel based polyfiber and that kind of torque will cause too much friction."
You blinked down at the design. She was right actually. Soulsteel wouldnt work for the core because the boiling point of the metal was too high. You needed a liquid base to serve as the foundation for the gyroscope that would stabilize the mechanism, but with how how Soulsteel needed to be it would melt through pretty much anything else, and if you use more Soulsteel the combination of the heat from the friction and the melted slag would warp the delicate gearwork inside.
You'd written out the heat calculations you used so it wasn't weird for her to understand the melting point but picking that up so quickly had been impressive. The two of you started tossing ideas back and forth, you writing out the properties of your available resources and her doing the same. You didnt have DG-75 but knowing about the problem and having something close you were able to substitute in a combination of Duct Tape Master and soft physics like you'd done in the old days to work in its place.
Explaining soft physics to Kururu had taken longer than trying to explain where the soulsteel came from, and you'd had to literally demonstrate the damn thing a few times before she believed it and would allow you to make the adjustments to the plans. Duct Tape Master was harder to prove and it took about an hour of detailed tests before she believed you could work without the DG-75.
Finally after about a dozen iterations you were ready to start. You stepped into your workshop as Kururu got ready and smelted several ingot of soul steel. You had already told her you would need to work the actual metal, using fresh Soulsteel was easy but pre smelted bars were a pain in the ass. You hadn't even been able to do it until you got grudge forged because Goblinfire was the only thing you had hot enough and before grudge forged it had just lit the damn metal on fire.
As you started to work with the Goblinfire pen torch and the soul manipulation gloves from weird genius, you let yourself slip into a crafting headspace. Kururu was to your left assembling long strings of mechanical gear work you would have to use soft physics to compress into an AT even after everything was wound and packed down. Her hands flew as you perfectly sculpted each piece of machinery and slid it over to her, assembling them more quickly than even you could manage.
You also saw her tap on a few pieces of gear work and toss them back to you after listening to the metallic clink, dissatisfied with the quality of the pieces. You smiled and remade them, stone age otaku refining and improving each thing as you worked on it. You felt the metal reacting as you worked as well, even the kinesis module was made of soulsteel and grudge forged was imbuing all of it with a potent aura of destruction.
You felt the field the ATs would produce for the kinesis module warp and change under the effects of grudge forged. The previously stable surface of the field becoming acidic and destructive to anything it touched except the ATs themselves. You grinned to yourself. It was perfect. As you worked the two of you grew more in sync. Learning each others rhythms and style and becoming more adept at working together.
Finally as you finished the last bit and clicked it into place you felt a surge of exultation as the final factors of your creation and its use cemented themselves in your head. Kururu looked down in awe at your new device. Turning to shoot you a questioning look about the details. She knew the technical specs of course but not how you planned to use it. You grinned back at her standing to flourish your hand dramatically (artisan probably helping you come across less absurd) "A road that rides across empty air, destroying everything that crosses its path. These ATs will be my Phantom Regalia, and they will carry me along the Void Road."
You considered meeting up with the others after your Phantom Regalia was finished but honestly you couldn't resist the thought of testing the things. You were putting them on already in the elevator on the way down, willing your smart clothes to recede from your feet so you could put them on and tie them up. Luckily you had practice standing in freshly tied ATs or you'd have looked like a complete dumbass in front of the pink haired engine goddess.
When you finally got to the base of the tower you couldn't help but smile at the fact that Kururu seemed as excited as you did. As you skimmed out of the elevator you looped around to grin at her. Her experience in tuning and AT design had been integral. With your own knowledge of your style and her grasp of the technical aspects of the design process you'd tweaked these to be literally perfect for your riding style.
Much like Spitfire you didn't need a tuner, being able to adjust them yourself and having had them made for you, but adjustments were needed and Kururu had much more experience at it than you, so you'd decided to take her on as your tuner in any case. She grinned over at your zooming form as you shot back and forth on the dreamlike new designs. Spitfire's training mixing with the perfected new equipment and artisans ability to hold and move yourself beautifully.
She giggled at the enthusiasm " Yes I'm sure they're very comfy, but if you dont mind we have an infinity atmosphere to test. I'd like to see why exactly you decided to call it the Void Road. I feel like something happened that I didn't understand. You mentioned destruction? Where exactly did that come from?"
You returned the grin, shooting forward for a wallride a few hundred feet up the clock tower. As you reached the peak of your rotation you pushed off (didnt want to wreck part of her house) and activated your kinesis module, triggering a subroutine that created a flat place in front of you at an angle, a literal Void Road. Your wheels hit the road, connecting due to the solidity and being immune to the corrosion.
In stark contrast to the normal white glow of the kinesis unit (not that you had seen it, you just knew) the Void Road was so dark it literally ate light. The black streak rending the air looked like an open wound. Due to the complete lack of any obstacle or unevenness your speed spike fast on the Road, allowing you to use the dark energy as a sort of speed platform. You were thoroughly grateful for the destructive nature in general when your aura sight caught a blur of what might have been a liquid shooting toward you in time to shift your feet to the side and arc them up with your hand on the road to intercept.
The black energy formed under your feet near instantly, creating a dark shield in front of...what appeared to be some kind of acidic air shell? Shifting the road down you used the speed boost to shoot back down to the ground skidding to a halt in front of Kururu protectively. To your surprise though rather than scared the girl looked pissed. She glared in every possible direction for the source of the attack. "Gabishi! What the hell is Sleeping Forest doing attacking a neutral part on Tool Tou To territory? This isn't how we do things!"
An echoing laugh bouncing off the nearby walls made it difficult for a second to track down the source of the attack, and when you had you kind of wished you hadn't. The guy who had attacked you was fucking creepy. Long white hair that looked natural somehow, dark ratty clothes and a twisted black metal mask. His aura was fairly twisted, though remained unimpressive compared to someone like Bakuto, but the main thing that had you shuddering was that...abomination on his feet.
Somehow shaped like a pile of skulls (and dear God what edgelord had been allowed to get away with that) the aura on the things made it clear they were regalia or at least subregalia you weren't super clear on the difference. Whatever it was however it's aura was fucking disturbing. You weren't entirely sure because the composition was so odd but it kind of looked like the ATs were...hungry. But like specifically for human faces.
Bakuto's sword has been evil and made of hate but this was just fucking weird in the creepiest possible way. The high pitched laughter echoing out from him was also not exactly comforting. Nor was his response. "Our territory too little girl! Don't forget you aren't a queen yet, watch how you talk to your betters. Can't attack the wind brat here without kicking off a war but this one is free game. Seen him with the wind brat, gonna be a new king in genesis! Not if I can help it!"
Kururus response was biting, and you expected if you were willing to look away from king crazy mask of the face eating wheel shoes, you'd have seen her glaring. "Being friends with the future leader of genesis doesn't mean he's going to join up, you gibbering psychopath! You can't just attack whoever you want! King or not there are rules, no way did Kilik ok this nonsense!"
You expected some kind of response to her accusation, at least a dismissal or some more twisted logic, but none of that happened. Two more of those weird heated liquid air shells cracked the air in what appeared to be literal laser driven launches from the insane face munching murder hobo. Eyes widening you grabbed Kururu and streaked out of the way of the blasts before they smashed into the pavement where the two of you had been a moment ago, melting the cement and flinging the slag everywhere. This might be a problem.
You hated this clock tower. You hated it so much. Hate shoes had said this was his territory too, why had no one seen fit to mention the serial killer living here? He wasn't even attacking for a valid reason. You weren't going to join Ikki's new team, no way did you want to try to fight through all those storm riders to be one of the ones that actually got to ride in the tournament.
You knew from the feeling your power gave you that you needed to participate, and you wanted your girls to be doing it with you. Well, most of them. Sheila was strong and durable as hell, but helicarriers werent really graceful, and you knew from hearing stories some of these bastard had attacks that could rip open the hull of a battleship.
Speaking of bastards who could rip open a battleship apparently even hate shoes wasnt nuts enough to go all out in front of his own house. You had a chance to watch his regalia this time when he fired his little attack and you could see the thing had barely been ramped up. Despite that the shell of superheated acidic air that hit the spot you had just been in broke the sound barrier as it ripped yet another melting hole in the concrete.
In fact you were pretty sure not only was this asshole not attacking his hardest he wasn't even trying too hard not to miss. You found this particularly concerning since he barely WAS missing and seemed to be getting more accurate even with the lazy potshots he was taking.
Before he could release another volley of hot death air you clicked on aura sight. Sifting through all the weird energy shit going on here was rough but you managed to find what you were looking for and bolted for it, using your void road to push your speed to the limit and bringing Kururu along as you made a mad dash for a small unobtrusive patch of wall.
Unfortunately your team had no emblem whatsoever and didn't even have a name or enough members. You hadn't made any stickers or anything and even you couldnt improvise something like that mid assassination attempt without any paper .But you didnt need to. The challenge came from covering their emblem. You flicked out one of the smaller knives you kept on you for carving or detail work and cut a quick design into the wall half over top of the artistic tree emblem.
Artisan and your other three or four crafting abilities kicked in. Color wasn't an option here but it didnt need to be. You decided to use your void road as a theme and carved a spooky cloaked figure with an empty hood filled with only a pair of glaring eyes. Beneath it you scrawled the words "Phantom Hammer" a nod to your ATs and your skill as a forger. YOu fingers flew through the design and you spun to defend yourself from another attack...but none came.
You erstwhile attacked stood motionless, staring at you. His aura seethed with impotent rage...wait impotent? You looked a bit deeper and...well shit. Gabishi, as Kururu had called him, was one of the kings of sleeping forest, and aside from being a face eating psychopath (or face ripping? it might have been the shoes doing the eating like symbolically) he was also extremely prideful. The honor of a king and of sleeping forest was paramount.
You had challenged his team to a parts war, which meant killing you would be telling everyone that either Sleeping Forest was afraid of you or that they didn't care about the parts war. You could practically hear his teeth grind from where you stood. "As you, the challenger are of lower rank, the match will be an F class match. State your chosen time, and Sleeping Forest will choose the location." The vitriol bubbling under the surface of the forced calm in Gabishis tone might have been funny if you couldn't see how much he wanted to murder you still painted all over his aura.
It took you a second to switch gears. You'd expected a challenge to work but you thought you would have to convince him. This immediate shift from attempted butchery to negotiation was weird. You looked at Kururu, who made a twirling hurry up gesture with her hand before shrugging. "Ok we'll face you in one week. Contact us with the location through Kururu. She's my tuner now and...a member?" You turned to Kururu who gave a decisive nod "A member of my team as well as Tool Tou To."
The maniac responded by literally hissing at you like a cat before streaking away up the side of a nearby building. Fucking nutcase. You turned to Kururu and were just checking to make sure she was ok when the elevators opened and everyone from upstairs poured out, all shouting at once. Ikki was freaking out that you'd been attacked, seething over Sleeping Forest's casual disregard for everything but their own will.
Spitfire was...angry. That was actually worrying. You'd never seen your mentor actually furious before, but his aura seethed with white hot rage at the audacity of the attack. Sleeping Forest had been his team once upon a time. To try to use the name he and his friends had treasure to snuff out his own apprentice was an affront he couldn't possibly ignore.
You stared at your mentor, at the anger he felt on your behalf and you felt touched. You made a decision right then and there to give him the vivifier. To give him back the use of his leg and then some. You made another decision too, the only one you could make under the circumstances and manage to get your team ready for this fight. You accessed the forge power for your workshop and dumped all the energy you had saved up into the time compression feature. Now who would be on your team.
Additional purchase made. Time compression, times three, times four. 300 CP spent. 0 CP remaining. Workshop square footage doubled, doubled again.
You bid Kururu and the others farewell after catching them up on the challenge. Everyone had been fairly worried about the fact that Sleeping Forest was on the move. They all had to check in with their various forces to make sure they were prepared in case of an attack. Ikki left with Yoshitsune and Benkei and Spitfire came with you.
When you got home to the penthouse you asked Spitfire to come up with you, and once he was up there with you, you sat him down to discuss something you'd been considering doing for a while now. Sheila headed back to meet up with her mothers and Nat and let them know what was happening. With the new boost in effect for the workshop you essentially had a month of training time before the match in a week.
You looked at your mentor across the table, sipping joyfully at what he insisted was "the only proper cup of british tea he'd found in japan" despite him having been literally born here based on some of what he said. Despite that if anyone could make a proper cup of anything it would probably be you so he might have been right. Your cooking skills got better every time you used them thanks to stone age otaku and cooking counted as creating for all your perks.
Sipping your own tea you couldn't help but hum in pleasure yourself. Your cooking was the best. Shaking your head to refocus you locked your eyes on your mentor. "Spitfire. I haven't been honest with you. I mean, I haven't lied to you either. I just didn't tell you a bunch of stuff. A lot of stuff. Stuff we can get into later. For the moment the important part is that I have a way to not only fix your leg but make it better than ever."
Spitfire's expression grew serious as he set down the cup. "That's a bit hard to swallow mate. But I take it from your timing that you have a request to make of me in exchange for this little miracle?" His aura shone with hope, but underneath it was a current of disappointment. That you felt the need to hold him hostage like this to get his help.
You shook your head and reached into you pocket, pulling out a citrine vial and sliding it across the table to your mentor. "No. You're my friend, and my mentor, and I was always going to help you. You've spent this last month training me with no expectation of repayment and you've taken care of me and my girls better than anyone could have asked. For all those things the vial is yours. The favor I ask has no strings. Sheila isn't built for ATs. She's slow and tough. This match is gonna be F class, which means dash. I need someone who can move, and someone damn good to help us get ready. I want you to join my team."
Your mentors aura cleared somewhat. The disappointment being replaced by satisfaction at the kind of person his disciple was. His face clouded as his thoughts clearly turned to other matters though. "I dont know. I'd like to help. They attacked you and insulted myself and everything i stand for. But they were my family. My friends. And though I don't like to admit it part of me is afraid. Kilik is...a monster. He was always the strongest of us all. I doubt I could have taken him on my best day. Even with my leg fixed."
You grinned at him and reached out to tap the vial. "Your best day will look like baby town frolics compared to this. That formula wont just cure your leg. It'll make you one quarter stronger, faster, tougher, smarter, more observant. I've seen the way your brain handles mapping and course adjustment Spit, with a twenty fiver percent perception boost you would be a monster yourself. Not even mentioning the physical boosts. Plus it'll make you better looking and more charismatic. We both know how vain you are."
Your mentor burst out laughing. "That we do mate. Alright, you convinced me. I still don't know whats going to happen, but I can't let my cute little disciple go up against a beast like Kilik without his mentor to watch his back. If this does everything you say it does I'm in." And before you could process what he was doing he popped the cork and slammed the whole thing.
You'd seen the change before of course. More than a few times. But every vial you made of vivifier made it stronger. This was the twenty five percent brew. You hadn't managed anything better yet, not that you wasted much time stockpiling. The formula shifted your mentor around and altered him as it always did. Nat was the only person you'd seen get the twenty five percent brew, and Spitfire was...more. You still werent sure exactly what your teacher was, but it wasnt human. Not completely.
You saw him straighten and shift, your body reading and aura telling you his pain was gone. His features got more refined and his muscles denser. His already startling force of personality practically blazed like a bonfire, and his eyes showed a clarity and wisdom that had been there before, but duller and less refined. Like his mind had been honed to a razors edge by the draft. His hair darkened and grew wilder as his age regressed an imperceptible amount.
Finally he resumed sitting, having stood almost without you noticing during the change. His voice when he finally spoke had changed, become more resonant and powerful. "Well I have to hand it to you mate. You definitely deliver. Like I said, I'll join your team." He clenched a fist in front of him, watching the newly enhanced muscles play across his forearm and grinned. "And suddenly im much less worried about the outcome."
The inside of your workshop was...very large. It had been decent sized before, somewhere around the size of a ballroom. Now it was closer to two high school gyms. Of course you didn't just get a big strip of empty space, more like each section got spread out. Your nanotable had its own separate area now, as did the soul forge. Your work bench had a ton of extra space. You were however able to move things around, which you definitely did.
Dragging everything off to the side gave you a huge empty space to train in, a space everyone took to with gusto. The girls all had their ATs on custom jobs from your Avatar, who insisted on being called Randall. Randall as it happened, was in here with you, having been busily working on using the TV to rewatch every show or movie you had ever seen.
Your Avatar and sub soul was insistent that memories he got from you were secondhand and that he desperately needed to build his own set, refusing to do anything until he had a solid foundation of pop culture first hand with which to relate to others. You could have just forbidden his existential nonsense but Sheila enjoyed spending time with her "Uncle Randy" and was getting a pop culture education of her own.
Said helicarrier daughter was sulking in a corner with her uncle at this moment in fact. Bitter that she couldnt join the team, she had sequestered herself on the other side of the workshop and was shunning you, an issue you would have to deal with later. Nat, Felicia, and Ruby all looked various shades of excited to be here, you hadn't invited Kururu who was nominally a member because introducing her after the month of training seemed smarter.
Spitfire stood in front of all of you, having already been introduced as your mentor several times before. His manic enthusiasm for being able to ride at his full potential was actually kind of offputting at this point, but you supposed you couldnt blame him. He grinned over at the girls "Hello there, now Anthony informs me I'm going to be coaching you three on your rides. You're actually incredibly lucky to have gotten me specifically, can any of you tell me why?"
You raised your eyebrow at the enthusiasm you saw not just for the ride but for teaching. It made sense you supposed, he had taken two apprentices. Still it was nice to see your mentor so happy. Felicia, ever the enthusiastic participant in anything that interested her, raised her hand. "Is it because you were a member that Snoozing Woods gang? Those guys are supposed to be really hardcore right?"
You had to choke back a laugh at his pained expression, but he soldiered right on ahead. "SLEEPING FOREST, are very skilled storm riders but no. The reason you're lucky is that the flame road is the template upon which all other roads are based. The flame contains every kind of ride, so I can teach you anything you want to learn. Now I know Anthony covered the basic roads for you, did any of you decide which sounded appealing?"
You had decided that without artisan or your other perks self designing a road in a month wasn't feasible. Leaning in a month with all the boosts from the formulas was totally possible though so each of the girls was going to pick a road. Ruby grinned toothily at your new teammate. "I decided to go with the fang road. I like it's style." You had to admit she could probably apply her training best with that one.
Nat went next, you oldest and calmest girlfriend placidly responding. "I decided on the thorn road, the flexibility necessary to use it properly is a strong suit of mine." She shot you a sultry wink, her aura shot through with amusement at having a chance to tease you a bit and not a small amount of genuine lust. You reminded yourself to make time to spend with Nat soon, you hadn't had time to try for the baby recently.
Finally Felicia went. "I actually had a lot of trouble deciding." Your normally effervescent girlfriend seemed serious. "This is a big decision, it'll give us a way to fight at a higher level and that's going to be important for a long time I think. I debated on a few different roads. Thorn would work well for me with my own flexibility. But I think we should cover as many bases as we can. I do have something that Nat doesn't though. Or rather something I've got more of." She turned with a grin and slapped her right ass cheek. "The bubble road uses the glute muscles to create water cavitations that can cut through steel. Pretty useful, and I know you won't complain if i tone up my ass a bit more."
You had to snicker a bit at Spitfire's obvious discomfort with seeing his extremely bottom heavy new disciple spank herself, but he righted himself pretty quickly. "Anyway. Yes, those roads are all ones I can help you with. The sonia road is a bit difficult for me to keep up, the male pelvic bone isnt really built for it. That said i can use it for short periods to demonstrate and I'm more than familiar enough to teach you the thorn. Same with the other two since you have the AT's needed to use them. Now. Let's get you girl's started. I'm told we have a month to train for this...somehow. We'd better make the most of it.
After you left the work shop and then penthouse you headed for the tower. You were reticent about going back honestly, the place was terrifying. Spitfire was adamant that you were in no danger though, once Sleeping Forest accepted the challenge you had nothing to worry about from them until the day of the parts war.
Luckily your memory was good enough to remember the code for the elevator, which you took up to the top floor to meet with Kururu. Despite her not expecting you, you were sure she'd be glad to see you. Coming out into the darkening tower you headed for Kururu's work space. She was at her bench, her fingers flying through the creation of what looked to be an attempt to copy your kinesis module, and a frighteningly capable one at that.
You cleared your throat at the nearly zombified pinkette, failing to get her attention. You repeated the action. Nothing. Finally you rolled your eyes as you headed over to stand behind her and, waiting until her hands weren't touching anything important, grabbed her under the arms and lifted her off the bench with a squeak, carrying her away from her project.
Her squawk of protest was followed by a fair amount of kicking and squirming as she hissed at you "What are you doing? I was working on a project? I almost had it! Just another hour or two and I could have gone to sleep!" Her voice was obviously hoarse from disuse and as you set her down on a nearby pile of bearings that didnt look too pointy she glared daggers at you.
You tolled your eyes a second time "No, you did not almost have it. You misfitted the quark oscillator, if you had tried to turn that on it would have created a field around the device about one foot in diameter, which would have cut your arm off at the elbow. Something you would have noticed if you weren't clearly about to burn out. I know you won't sleep when told because I wouldn't but I want you working on something without horrifying ramifications if you get too tired. You're going to help me develop tricks for my road."
Her cute pink brows scrunched up in confusion. "Why me? I'm not a storm rider? You could have asked the crow easy enough, though admittedly he isn't hear. He left the regalia with Ine after his meeting with Hako about her becoming his tuner." Her face took on a sad look "I don't think he wants to work with Hako, he didn't seem impressed by her skills. He'll do it I'm sure because I'm not available, but being second choice really hurt her feelings."
You pulled her off the pile into a princess carry and headed off in a random direction where you could see floor space to practice on. Normally practicing inside would be insane but honestly the inside of this fucking tower was bigger than your workshop. You still weren't entirely sure what this place was even for. It seemed stupid to build a massive clock tower in the middle of a city and fill it with a weird parts mine, but then again this whole world's power structure and technology was based on rollerblades, so stupid wasn't exactly a deal breaker for them.
Finally you reached an empty area and set her down. "Ok Kururu, so you know the basic breakdown of my abilities. My road is the Void Road. Paths of black energy that devour stuff. What do you have for tricks? So far i just make the road through the Void to block stuff and let me travel insanely fast." You smoothly slipped away from her to stand alone in the big empty space.
Kururu looked pensive. "The way I see it your road needs three things, though they can overlap. Mobility which you have, and offense and defense. You could make a case for defense with the blocking but honestly I think you can do better. So you need two tricks, one defensive and one offensive. At least." You considered her point, the list was a solid place to start so you thought of possible defenses.
The AT structure seriously limited your fine usage of the kinesis module. The original specs had been designed to lift and throw, not to be stood or ridden on and you'd needed to make adjustments for your road. You lacked the ability to make a force field around your body now like you could have managed with a normal module. Thinking through the issue you decided to try something more spacious. Slamming your foot down you manipulated the field into an orb around you. The resultant sphere was about seven by seven feet. Not exactly the ritz but it gave you a foot of clearance head wise and tons of room side to side.
Stepping out of the sphere and protected by your defenses against your own powers you turned to survey you hand word and nodded. Turning to see Kururu looking less than impressed. "Bit boring isn't it? But whatever, you can work on detail later. It'll work for now. For the offensive skill you could probably just use a scaled down version of the thing. Like Gabishis shell attack. Think you can manage something like that?"
You sneered at her lack of confidence and slammed down your foot again, creating another orb, this one closes to one by one foot. Shifting sideways you used the other foot to generate a strip of path and using pressure from your leg and forward motion skidded it off the strip like a launch pattern and sent it careening forward into a nearby wall. The resulting hole was fairly satisfying. You turned to grin at Kururu but were distracted by the windows behind her shattering. You had the fair impression the large masked storm rider man in the fringed hood that dropped down into the tower wasn't supposed to be here. Which might be an issue since his aura was the strongest you had seen since you got to this world.
_
Perks:
Genius of Your Age (Sword Art Online SB) (600CP)
Kayaba Akihiko, all told, is a genius. Not just in computer hardware, although the NerveGear and Medicuboid inventions have revolutionised entertainment and medical treatment for terminal patients, but also in the fields of computer software and code design. He was instrumental in the goal of crafting artificial intelligence, serving both as the creator regarding top-down AI such as Yui and Cardinal and massive inspiration and guide for the bottom-up AI known as Fluctlight. Now, you happen to be just as smart as him. A revolutionary in electronic hardware and software design, able to recreate his inventions and even improve on them with your own special touches (or perhaps just more time and prior working examples), you possess all the knowledge and skills this one man was known for. Crafting your own virtual worlds is now entirely possible, as is life born of electronics and computer code instead of flesh and blood. The very secrets of the soul are now known to you, Jumper, in the form of Fluctlight creation.