I soon found myself back in a separate room along with all of the fighters that went to that battle. All of them are talking to each other, presumably about the battle that we won.

Just before we left that Hellion Crater place, we individually found different boxes, similar to the one back in my bay. There were just enough for one box each.

I also quickly found out, through overhearing a conversation, that they're called Salvage Crates. From what I can see, they seem to come in various colours. Whether that depends on what's inside or vice versa or what, I don't really know.

But I got myself a golden Salvage Crate. What's inside this one? I dunno, I'll open it in my bay.

"Hey, Ozone." Sky called from behind me. I turn around, spotting her immediately. She's holding a silver crate, knowing that gold is typically better than silver, it's likely not as valuable. She's eyeing at my crate. "I see you have a gold Salvage Crate."

"And you have a silver one." I pointed out the obvious, as she did. "Is there a difference?"

"Well, with gold being a higher tier than silver, you're likely going to get better gear than I will." Sky explained. "There are six tiers: Rusted, bronze, silver, gold, diamond and protonium. In order of rarity."

"And by 'rarity', you mean the gear that is most likely going to be inside?"

"On average, yes." She nodded.

"Hmm... I wonder what's inside..." I hummed to myself, eyeing my crate.

"There's only one way to find out:" Fight? "Open it." Oh.

"Right here?"

"Well, you can open it anywhere really, with no restrictions of any kind. Though it is recommended that you open the crates in your bay, Ozone."

"I see." Just as I said that, one of the walls of this...rather small room, barely big enough to give everyone breathable space, one of its walls moved upwards, revealing the hub.

Many other fighters are in the hub, but they seem to be going on with their own businesses.

"I thought there would be a crowd waiting for us to return." I wondered aloud.

"It's normal, Ozone." Sky dismissed. "You'd be lucky if someone actually was waiting for us."

Huh...

Bay 02, the one with my mech, the mech I just went to war in. I've placed my salvage crate in the same place I found my first one. The only difference is that this one is golden, rather than Protonium.

Though I do wonder why no one even realised that we won that battle. Or at least no one that I saw. Could it mean that it wasn't a major battle, just a minor one or something?

Something I should take note of and ask about it later. For now, this salvage crate. I pull off the lid and reveal its contents:

A Wheel Discoverer. Most likely for robots.

A 'Thermo-Neutraliser Microchip'. Er...what?

A Nanotech Mender. Again, likely for robots.

And a Grapple Gun. Which looks somewhat similar to my SP Wasp, but the tip of the barrel appears to have a small, electric ball on it.

For all of which, as I pulled them out of the crate, my HUD highlighted them and displayed their names.

But is that it? Nothing else? Ok then. So for these two larger items, the wheel and the Nanotech, I'll just put them aside. This microchip, which has a fire icon on it, is the same size as my previous microchips, so I believe I can just plug it in my helm right now.

Like before, a live picture of the back of my helmet comes up, along with my five slots and which ones currently in use. Once I've slotted the new chip in, the temperature appears on the HUD, quickly moving to the bottom-right.

Apparently, it's 21°C in this bay, room temperature. So is that all this new chip does? Tells me the temperature? Surely there's more, surely.

I'll get onto that in a bit. But this grapple gun, I've heard of grappling hooks that catch themselves onto thin bars or something, some of them can literally penetrate into a surface and secure themselves.

But this one, a Grapple Gun, just looks like it uses a small sphere the size of a golf ball (43mm or 1.69 inches in diameter). It doesn't look very effective...

How effective is it?

I point the gun towards ceiling of my bay, directly above the mech. If it does what a grappling hook normally does, then I'm expecting this to pull me upwards.

I fire the 'hook' at the ceiling in the same way I fire my Laser, which didn't have as much recoil as I thought, the sphere traveled surprisingly fast. On contact, the sphere seemed to morph into the ceiling, creating what looks like a picture of an electric explosion around it.

But between the sphere and the barrel is a straight light blue beam connecting the two. I do hope it's strong enough to support me. I try to pull the hook back and, lo and behold...

I got yanked upwards.

I managed to keep my hold on the gun somehow. I'm not complaining though, but I pulled myself all the way to the ceiling, which actually is a lot higher than I thought.

I don't want it to let go, I don't want to fall. Just...lower down slowly. Which it did so, but I stopped just above the mech. I swing my legs towards it, then back, then forth, then back, then forth, each time going further than the last. Until I made the sphere detach from the ceiling, dropping me onto the mech.

The sphere retracts back onto the tip of the barrel just as quickly as it came out when I fired. So overall, this Grapple Gun really acts like a typical grappling hook. Cool.

So I can just repeat that to get down. Firing at the ceiling, then I jump off, letting the grapple extend and lower me down. Finally detaching the hook once I'm close to the floor.

I love this grapple already!

There won't be a time soon I'll let it go. But now I'm left with a wheel and a Nanotech. If they're for the robot, I assume they need to somehow go into that Cube Placer. Question is: How?

I fetch the tool from the front-right corner of the bay, it somehow got back there on its own. I don't think I've put it back there myself. Maybe it just teleports there if left idle for too long? Just a guess.

Anyway, with the tool in my hand, I walk back to my new gear. I wonder how this is going to work... For all I know, I'm probably going to do this completely wrong.

But I noticed something, something that I didn't notice previously about that Nanotech mender. I see a hole on its back with a handle inside.

Could I fit my hand in that hole?

I put the tool to one side and inserted my hand into the hole, finding the handle inside and grabbing hold of it. The weapon lights up its 'barrel' and container-like cylinder on the back, which tells me it's now active.

If I think about firing, a constant beam comes out. Though a very thin one, probably because I don't have anything damaged here that needs fixing.

Anyway, if I can use this Nanotech myself, I wonder if it can still be used on robots. I pick up the Cube Placer and held it close to the weapon...

Nothing...

I must be missing something, but what? How do I add my Nanotech Mender to my...um...inventory?

Right before my eyes, the weapon exploded into the rather familiar blue particles, all travelling into the Cube Placer. The tool flashing once in blue after all that.

...That...was unexpected.

And if I want to do the same thing to my wheel...

The same process happens to it.

I probably should've expected that, thinking about adding these things to my inventory simply makes them do so. And to double check, I take my tool and select the Nanotech Mender.

Sure enough, the small screen displays "1" with that weapon selected. As for the wheel, same thing. Though surely in order for wheels to be effective, they should at least come in pairs.

I doubt it's easy to make a three-wheeled robot, or any robot with an odd number of wheels.

But now that that's all of them, I want to know more about my new microchip. Who's active?

Sky R - Active

Cray - Busy

Lava F - Busy

Just Sky? Huh, ok then, if I want to know what the 'thermo-neutraliser' does, let's hope she knows.

Call her.

Calling Sky Royalton...

"Hey Ozone! Whatcha get?" Perfect opportunity to get straight to the point.

"Some microchip called a 'thermo-neutraliser'."

"Nice! That thing is very useful on the ice planet." What?

"Ice planet?"

"Planet GJ1214b. A planet much colder than Mars. I believe the average temperature for it is about -116°C, Mars' average temperature is about -63°C if you want a comparison."

"That's...very cold."

"You wouldn't last a second there without a thermo-neutraliser. Believe me, I saw someone learn that the hard way."

Ouch...

"The extreme cold forced him to forfeit that battle and retreat back here." That's enough.

"Okay, I get it. The microchip keeps you warm in cold conditions."

"It also works on the other end of the spectrum, it keeps you cool in hot conditions." Alright...

"So let me get this straight."

"Hmm?"

"The Thermo-Neutraliser maintains a fighter's standard body temperature in extreme conditions." That sounds the most logical.

"If that's how you want to describe it, then yes." She confirmed. "So, what else did you get in your Salvage Crate?"

"Well, I have a grapple gun."

"What!? No way! I always wanted one of those!" I thought she'd already have one, maybe even multiple of them.

"For how long?"

"Never mind that, I'm just very jealous of you now." That's surprising.

"Well I also got a wheel."

"Boring..."

"And a Nanotech Mender." I finished.

"Eeeh... That's alright, not my preference. But good catch, Ozone."

"Right, well that's all I wanted to say really. I suppose I could self-train on my grapple gun, see what I could do with it."

"Aw, I really wanted one myself, but I've always been unlucky. Well, I'll see you soon, I suppose."

"Yeah, and thanks, Sky." I never thought I'd say that.

"Well, what can I say except: 'You're welcome'? Happy to help."

Huh, she just hung up then and there. Oh well.

At least these new items will come useful in the future.

Indeed they would, as I do have a plan or two that would put them to the test. Anyway, I do have 3 things I want to say:

1-In case you've seen my note about whether to rewrite Ozone's first battle and don't know what's going on still, I've decided to leave those chapters and somehow implement the new battle system in the beta release.

2-Lets just say that I'm bad at pranks, I admit. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's the note I've posted on the 1st of April 2017, aka, April fools day.

3-The temperature for the 'ice planet' is a mere guess of mine, but for Mars is actually true, look it up.

And to finish off, I have 1 review to respond.

laura justice dtm (Chapter 13): "Well im once again very pleased to have waited for this! Its so interesting but... there only 3 fusion towers now right? And Ozone was right pulling the crystals off would be much quicker... Seriously guys we're humans not brainless machines! ...Right?(probably not if you look at the tutorial) Anyway im rambling hope you get over that writers block!"

Rynowm: "Yeah, prior to the beta release, there were three fusion towers, referred to as Top, Middle and Bottom towers in each map. Though there was a time when there were 4 towers, but that didn't last very long.

And in the game, we are actual machines, but those machines are supercomputers with the intelligence of humans, if not greater."