Chapter 90: Chapter 87 – Misguided Disciple

Ceres focused hard, working out the design, dimensions, torque requirements and the mass and volume budget of the exosuit.

It was going to be a heavy exosuit, but he could not make it too large as well, otherwise he would not be able to enter some of the smaller tunnels without digging.

Imagining how he would use the spiked mace to fight, he realized that it was drastically different from how he fought in the competition and before. He previously used his high speed to deftly dodge attacks and gain a combat advantage that way.

It was going to be impossible to dodge every hit in this heavy exosuit.

He had to shift his entire mindset on how he was going to fight in the subterranean environment. It was already clear that speed was not going to be its strong suit. Additionally, Ceres’ previous second fighting style of laying traps and bombs was not going to work that well in the tunnels too.

The interconnected systems of caverns and tunnels were too dangerous to employ any large scale explosives of sorts, especially if he did not know how they were linked. A single explosion could collapse multiple tunnels and endanger others.

The air underground was also fairly limited, so Ceres could severely injure himself from the lack of oxygen.

This made him move away from having any explosives or flamethrowers on the exosuit, despite flamethrowers being a strong area-denial weapon. Even if he had enough air to support a raging area-wide fire, he did not have the right propellant combination to generate flames of a high enough level to melt the mawsies,

Finding a preliminary rough gauge of the overall design, he began to draw on the blueprint a wiring plan, connecting the servo motors to the power source. He added a suspension system of springs to his legs and arms in case of hard impacts to reduce the burden, as well as a hydraulic network to the arms.

The town did not have a wide range of electronics, rendering Ceres unable to create a proper heads-up display in his helmet. Perhaps he could use the borrowed multi-terminal as a scuffed holographic display, but he decided against it. He had used exosuits without helmets before, so having a non-digital helmet was alright as well, just a bit more restrictive in view.

A nerval and support spine was needed at the back was well. Ceres had experience making basic spines during the legal riots in the city of Athen, so he was no stranger to the requirements of the spine. Lucky for him, the town had a few spare processors and nerval jack, so he did not have to make everything from scratch. It was better to use components off the shelf as much as possible.

He drew out any additional pockets or storage compartments in the frame, though he did not put many. Ceres did not intend for the exosuit to be a walking supply train. He rather carry external containers instead.

Creating an electric schematic throughout the exosuit frame, Ceres became more and more confident that the exosuit would work. It was his first time truly designing everything from scratch, so he relished the opportunity to do so.

He actually had no choice but to hope it work. Every other plan he had in the future – studying the mawsie, leaving the town and reaching Rockhold rested on his ability to utilise this new metal that he had.

Ceres also felt that he should come up with a new name for the metal. The cobalt blue metal showed remarkable properties in its ability to integrate well with the exotic metal Sturore unlike other common metal. It was not an important task however, so Ceres left it for later.

Right now, he was about to begin his first in-depth design when he noticed someone at the entrance to the workshop. It was the young guard that he met during the mawsie horde, who he told to grab the spears and swords. “You’re the kid that’s supposed to learn from me?”

The young guard saluted in a proper stance, his eyes filled with adoration as he shouted “Yes sir, Mercer reporting for duty! It’s an honour to learn from you, sir!”

Ceres naturally felt that the young guard was not faking it; he really had a lot of admiration for Ceres.

It was to be expected: Mercer had lived his entire life underground and not met anyone from the surface apart from the town chief. Who knew that the newcomer was proficient in both combat and exosuit designing?

“This is a bit rushed for me, so I don’t really have a proper teaching plan for you...” Ceres said as he tried to recall how he practiced with Ardan back in the Gladius. The most glaring problem was that there were no VR pods in the town, so it was hard to spar effectively. Mercer did not have a nerval jack either – even if the town had such installations available, he was still too young for it.

On top of that, the nutritional level of food in the town was not comparable to the high quality nutrient paste that he ate in the Gladius’s VIP practice room, so Mercer’s body was fairly underdeveloped. “It will be hard to teach him combat, so I’ll leave that to the town chief,” Ceres thought to himself.

“Do you mind coming back maybe a few days later? Perhaps by then I will have more to teach you. For now, if you want to learn about combat, you should pester the town chief. He should be agile enough now to guide you.” Ceres did not want to waste the kid’s time when he did not have anything prepared to show him or guide him.

“Yes Teacher!” Mercer saluted again before running off towards the chief’s office.

“Well, at least he has the spirit..” Ceres muttered to himself before double checking that he had everything needed to begin the design process, and subsequently the first prototype manufacturing process. It was not a particularly complicated exosuit, the only unique thing about it was the armour.

As for the internal electronics and other systems, Ceres could easily upgrade them personally when he reached the surface or Rockhold City. He felt bad using the resources of the town for his own personal goal, so he tried not to take too much, giving back as much as he took.

He had already informed the town chief and Captain Kai to not disturb him over the next few days, as time was precious. He had to leave in two weeks, otherwise Oswa’s grodaw farm would be in danger from hungry squealing grodaws.

Confirming that everything was in order, Ceres began to focus, just like he did during his competition matches. He zoned everything out beyond his workbench and design blueprints – completely tunnel-visioning onto making the first prototype of the exosuit project. “Let’s do this!”

***

“Why are you so insistent on using the spear? Haven’t you been practicing with the rifle your whole life?” The town chief sighed as he finally could properly teach his first student in four years. He had only agreed to this because he wanted to get out of his boring office job.

“Because Teacher Ceres used it to kill the mawsies and it was amazing! I want to be just like him,” Mercer replied excitedly as the two of them stood in the town square. There was no proper sparring area and the town square in the center had the most open area. A simple barricade was set up to prevent people from getting hurt as bystanders.

The townspeople watched on, not strangers to combat training. The expedition members were all also previously trained by the town chief, but he was crippled at the time, so this was the first time that many saw the town chief in action.

The town chief scoffed at Mercer’s reply. “Trust me, you don’t want to live a day in Ceres’s life. That kid is cursed. He might as well be the main character of every terrible story. And you’re not allowed to call him Teacher when I’m around! It makes me feel old, seeing that Ceres is my student.”

“Yes sir! I will not call Teacher Ceres as Teacher Ceres when you’re around, sir!” Mercer saluted again.

“You know what, fuck it. Let’s do a simple spar. Try to take me down.” The town chief picked up a prepared practice spear, while Mercer did the same. The practice spears were more like poles than spears, their edge blunted to prevent injuries.

“Do your best, Mercer. This is one of the rare few days you’ll get to spar with me!”

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Mercer nodded, trying to recall in his head how Ceres fought the mawsie. He had been amazed by the simplicity and rapid stabs of the spear that enabled Ceres to easily disable or kill a mawsie outright.

He knew the town chief wasn’t lying – It had only been a few hours since Ceres handed him the prosthetics. No matter how good the new arm and legs were, it was impossible for the town chief to be fully accustomed to it within that short of a timeframe.

“Begin!”

Mercer rushed forward, getting into range of the town chief in order to unleash a flurry of rapid jabs at the town chief with the practice spear.

The town chief could not dodge every jab, his familiarity with the range of the prosthetics still being low. Yet when the jabs were to land on his body, the town chief used the armour plating on the limbs to absorb the hit, resulting in no damage to the body.

“Shit, I have to hit his actual body!” Mercer knew his strength was not enough to penetrate nor do serious damage to the new prosthetic limbs. He himself had fought a mawsie before as part of a team, but his sharp spear had failed to pierce the armour. How could a blunt practice pole do the same.

Mercer instead started to focus his attacks on the human body, forcing the town chief to dodge better or block in weirder angles. The two of them continuously danced back and forth in the sparring arena.

The townspeople were surprised that Mercer, a young 15 year old boy was able to fight this well, but they were even more surprised that the town chief did not suffer any hits to his main body despite being so clumsy. Mercer did have the agility and skill, but he lacked the actual physical strength.

Clenching the pole harder, Mercer focused on increasing the speed of his jabs, just like Ceres. He ramped up the frequency of hit, causing the town chief to be hit more frequently. However, all the hits landed on the prosthetic arm instead.

Suddenly, the town chief counterattacked at the same moment Mercer lunged forward in an attack. The town chief’s practice spear swept from below, utilizing the flaw exposed in Mercer’s posture while his arm was outstretched. The practice spear hit hard into Mercer’s belly, causing Mercer to wince in pain as he immediately collapsed on the floor, dropping his own practice spear.

“You may have the speed to pull off such a spear combo, but what’s the use of a spear combo when none of the hits can finish off the opponent? You don’t possess the same amount of strength as Ceres, so how can you pull off the same combat technique? From now on, you need to focus! Don’t be led astray by fanciful moves and beautiful techniques when the foundation is unclear,” The town chief taught.

Mercer was still rolling on the floor, breathing hard as he felt his body winded as though he had been hit by a truck. “So this is the true power of the town chief,” Mercer thought to himself.

After resting for a minute or two, Mercer finally recovered enough to ask a question: “Sir, if you and Teacher Ceres were to fight, who would win?”

The town chief didn’t reply immediately, thinking hard. Sure, he had countless years of experience as a mercenary group leader in the past, having fought on battlefields all over the Melsura Star Sector. However, fighting Ceres would be like fighting an undiscovered alien species: dangerous and unknown.

“I think as of right now, I would lose to Ceres in a head-on fight. However, I would probably win in everything else. Don’t worry about this kind of hypothetical situations, focus on yourself first!”

This meant to Mercer that Teacher Ceres was stronger than the town chief. If the town chief could tell his flaw in a single short spar, how much more insightful would Ceres be when teaching him?

The two of them fought a few more rounds of sparring, in which Mercer tried to master the basics of spear thrusting, being aware of his flaws and exposed weak points as the town chief continuously exploited them to deal devastating damage in one blow, ending each round.

“It’s so boring to simply do the basic moves! I want to practice what Ceres did during the mawsie fight!” Mercer complained, while the town chief just rolled his eyes.

“Ceres grew up in a military environment, so his foundation is a lot more stable than yours. You can practice the more advanced moves, but until you learn the basics first, you will never be able to reach his level! And I’m the one who taught him! Don’t you want to follow in his footsteps?”

Mercer frowned as he heard this. Was it really worth it to put in this much effort? He wanted to be gifted with talent and strength, not having to slog through hours and hours of practice.

What he did not know was that Ceres did not ask for any of these gifts and had to practice as well.

The town chief smiled as he saw Mercer’s unsatisfied expression during the spar. A quick swift blow from the town chief sent Mercer sprawling to the ground, struggling to get up.

“There’s no further point to sparring any longer. As long as you don’t hear it from the person yourself, you will never move forward. Go find Ceres and ask him the same things.”

Mercer could not wait to go learn from Ceres, so after the spars with the town chief were over, he ran to the workshop, intending to ask Ceres for advice or guidance.

However, when he reached the workshop, Ceres showed no sign of entertaining him. Mercer tried attracting his attention by waving from afar or even calling Ceres’s name, but Ceres seemed so engrossed in his exosuit design that Mercer was basically ignored.

Mercer felt a bit down, seeing that Teacher Ceres was ignoring him. Was he really that unworthy of teaching? He knew Ceres was merely passing by the town and won’t be here for long, but to be ignored like this still made Mercer sad and a bit worthless.

He was about to leave when he suddenly thought about it a bit more, looking intently at Ceres’s action. Ceres was designing a very simple part – the base of the exosuit’s feet.

Ceres put great care into the base of the exosuit’s feet, continuously mumbling to himself. He ran through a few iterative designs, running some calculations on whether it could handle the weight of the exosuit, or would it crack when he jumped. What if he kicked someone else, would the stress cause the entire thing to fall apart?

Mercer was startled. “How can someone be so focused on designing such a basic part? Isn’t it just a flat piece of metal?”

Yet the more he dwelled on it, the more inspiration Mercer drew on it. He recalled the town chief just told him to focus on his foundation, so Ceres must be implying to him to focus on his foundation too!

Mercer slapped his head as he finally figured it out: Ceres must be teaching him through his actions rather than by words.

Invigorated by this ‘enlightenment’, Mercer saluted Ceres again: “Thank you for your inspiration, Teacher Ceres! I will not fail this homework assignment! Once I solidify my foundation, I will come find you again for sure. Thank you again, Teacher Ceres!” He then ran off excitedly to train again, while Ceres reacted too slowly, only turning around a few minutes later as he was too focused on designing the heavy exosuit.

“Was someone talking to me?”