"Milady, Aitoshuri sent a link to the umbrella class, Tinkerer. It connects Technician, Mechanic, Trapper, Surefire (Alchemist, Smith, Blaster), Robot Handler, Drone Pilot (Driver), and Magetechician (Runemaster, Technician). You've got only three of the four needed classes. There are additional requirements about achievements, inventions, designs, and modifications and their quality, but you already fulfill these."
"Great! Excellent job, Aito! I have already wanted to get Robot Handler, and Magetech sounds interesting as well! Learning about Runes and Alchemy is on my 'I will look into it as soon as I have time'-List. So how can we get one of those classes?"
"I'm sorry, Milady! I thought Robot Handler was only available at the Metaworld, but Aito found a hint that you can get it in the Garage if you have registered for the Robo-Melee. She also thinks that we might have a chance to acquire Magetechician at the Magetech Institute if we get the quest from Snoralga. The only other option to get the fourth class in the Metaworld is learning Blaster via a scenario and go from there."
Flora beamed back to the Garage. First, she rechecked the local network, whether she had overlooked a quest-giver.
Then she started to ask around. A forewoman referred her to Hangar 29, where the weekly was.
There, an old technician sent her to the managers in Hangar 12 to get permission.
Flora jogged to the hanger. After watching the receptionist polishing her nails for a quarter of an hour, she got access to the administrative staff. Before granting a permit, they wanted to have a certificate from the robot technicians in Hangar 31.
The robot technicians demanded to inspect the Blade-Roller-Extreme to judge if she was worthy of the class. For that, she had to fetch her robot from Hanger 29.
There, the old technician told her that she wasn't allowed to transport her own robot because of possible cheating. She needed first the approval of the managers in Hangar 12.
Flora changed into her new mech-suit because it had the built-in sprinting skill. Also, the soles of her old mech-suit, as well as Flora's temper, were near the boiling point.
The receptionist was still polishing her nails when Flora returned. After another wait, the managers sent her to hanger 3 to get a foreperson to accompany her.
The only one who had time was an ancient crone. Flora estimated that she was a good twenty to forty years her senior.
Carefully, the crone set her cane on the ground. Then she dragged one foot after it, then the second. After that, she placed the cane 10 cm further away and repeated the process. Three iterations later, she made a pause to catch her breath.
"May I carry you, Ma'am?"
"Haha, you young people are always so impatient!"
Instantly, Flora forgave her and the Garage everything. It had been decades since anyone had addressed her with something with the word 'young' in it.
Name: Qadima Muhandis
Class: Technician
Level: 250
Rating: B
RGS: 1
Flora fetched the Treasure Chest and transferred a good haul of the small parts into a sack. Then she exchanged it with the Hungry Chest and sat down inside of it.
"Do you want a ride, Ma'am?"
"No, no, dear. I'm fine! I might look old, but I'm fit for my age!"
Then Muhandis stared at the Hungry Chest.
"My, my, quite a ride you have," she muttered, but finally resumed walking.
Flora grinned wrily and commanded Aitoshuri to follow.
"So, what is your specialty?" Flora asked while sorting the parts. The hungry chest swayed like a drunken sailor on shore leave, but Flora used it to test her balance, dexterity, and telekinetic abilities.
"Drives drive my drive! The cores of all machines!"
"That's right. Can you tell me something about heat management in the Cetviwos? I did a scenario, and you wouldn't believe the atrocities I've seen!" Flora described to her the most terrible faults of the turrets.
"That could only happen in tiny parts of the world where runes don't work. Runes are the last magic to give out when technology reigns. The MI assholes claim that their schemes can withstand any metal handicap, but you know, I've heard things."
"So, you fix overheating with runes?"
"Yes, sure. You can use spells, of course, but runes are better. My favorite rune-scheme transforms the excess heat into mana and feeds it back into the system."
"Neat!" Flora whistled.
Flora to Aidan: "Start recording, this is priceless."
"The magic is the thinnest in deep space, far away from everything that flows, maybe except ether, void, and space itself, but you better talk with a mage about that stuff. But space is cold. Hence you can dump the heat, no problem."
"The area I worked in was heavily shielded. Could that have interfered with the heat management?"
"For sure, lass! Ice is an elemental force, and nearly all shields have at least rudimentary protection against them."
Flora XYZ-rayed her multitool and compared it with the available components. At least, she could rebuild the on-size-fits-it-all spanner, she reckoned.
Once the woman started, she never stopped talking. Flora learned more about the connection between electromechanics and magic than in her whole playtime before, including workshops and scenarios.
Flora even figured out where the strange nagging feeling in the back of her head came from when someone mentioned runes.
The CAD System innovated near the end of its runtime a curious feature: the Chips. They looked like black patches and had nothing on them but a fantastical description of what they were able to do.
Flora had been obsessed and devoted her entire time to playing with them. All her best creations, like the fusion-box and the fountain, incorporated them. For the fusion-box, she even wrote her own Chip. That had to be one of the 'runes' CentralTank credited to her.
After the CAD-System stopped working and forcing her into official retirement, she worked hard to put away all thoughts about them.
Somewhat because she was ashamed to be fascinated by something that whimsical but mostly because they dominated her imagination to such a degree that she spent hours drawing pictures of bizarre devices and art.
After half an hour, they arrived at Hangar 29.
The older man fetched the Blade-Roller-Extreme and chatted with Muhandis.
"Ey, lass. There was this handy invention a few years back. It's called 'wheel'. Ever heard of it?" The crone looked pointedly at Flora's robots.
Flora's jaw fell to the floor. Wheels!
"I'm so stupid! Wheels! When you only have a hammer, everything looks like a nail! Just because I haven't used wheels for a few dozen years, it never occurred to me to implement them! I even invented subconsciously silly reasons why not having them was better! Wheels!"
"I've seen guys trying to reinvent the *bleep*ing wheel, but never someone who forgot about them! That's too rich!" The older man threw in his two credits worth, and they all had a good laugh.
Flora felt enlightened! Her mind spurned out ideas on how to add retractable tires to the Hungry Chest.
"Metaworld to Flowing Flowers! We still have to figure out how to transport this sawblade monstrosity to the robot guys! Sure as hell, I won't carry it, and you are not allowed!"
They threw back and forth some ideas, like putting it in the back or on the top of the Hungry Chest "I can't see it there", fetching a lifter robot "all are occupied", hiring a random guy "What if you have planted him in advance!", at last, they decided to hire the next guy that came out of the quest area.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
PeppyPeppe Pepperpower had a good day. He just finished the weekly quest at the Garage for the third week in a row and trusted that his robot was a robust design and would do well in the competition on Saturday. When he exited the area, the gazes of three older people locked onto him.
"Hey, boy! Do you wanna earn some coin?" An old technician who administered the area asked.
Smelling a quest, Peppe walked closer.
"Sure. What's up?"
They explained to him that a robot had to be carried to Hangar 31. That wasn't far from where he was at the moment. The robot looked, well, he looked... Let's say, unconventional. If standard Robo Melee bots seemed to spring out of a children's horror movie, this looked like it escaped an adult movie.
"Be careful, dear, not to hurt yourself, and of course, my sweet little creation." An older woman, Flowing Flowers, said to him. She even gave him a sleeping bag to wrap around the device that he could carry it better.
Unique Quest: Carry the Roller (The Garage)
Description: Carry the Blade-Roller-Extreme to Hangar 31 without damaging or tampering with it.
Rewards: 10 VirDos, unknown
Penalty: unknown
Difficulty: B
The difficulty was unexpectedly high, but his concentration was on the word "unique". It was the first time that he caught a unique quest, and he was looking forward to it.
The third person, a freaking level 250 NPC, started to walk. At least he thought that was her intent. He wouldn't call it a walk. One step of his was three steps of hers. Then she took a break to recuperate.
Pepe realized that the quest was going to be harder than he initially thought. The sharp edges cut through the wrapping and in his skin, and the weight drained his stamina like a toilet flush.
Separate from the physical ordeal, his mind was challenged as well. When the two grannies started talking, he was able to guess the topic was wheels and axles. But the conversation included principles of mechanics and magic and especially the combination of both that baffled him. He tried to follow the discussion, but his brain got twisted like a pretzel.
In school, he took a fair share of crafting classes. He built his own computer and helped a friend to tune his car. He had thought of himself as a savvy guy who could find his way around a workshop. Now, he felt like a babe that had pretended that his toy-workbench was the real thing.
Only the constant level-up messages kept him going: Mechanics, Electronics, Physical Power, Regeneration, ....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Flora's assembly of the multitool made good progress. She not only got the spanner and the vibro-knife to work, but made headway into the screwdriver.
The poor boy who accompanied them wasn't faring well. The robot weight over 50 kg and was challenging to carry. He got the first cuts when they weren't even out of the door of Hangar 29.
Flora hit him with a refresh. She doubted that he would make it otherwise.
After a good twenty minutes, they arrived at their goal.
Peppe sat down the Blade-Roller carefully and then crashed next to it on the floor.
The robot technicians swarmed around the device and even inspected the Hungry Chest. Which made sense, it was another robot.
-------------------
You gained a class: Robot Handler
Class: Robot Handler
Branch: Technology
Passive:
+1 Training efficiency modifier for ability hacking
+1 Training efficiency modifier for AI abilities
Active:
Bonus for abilities and skills of the robots
Bonus for skills of the robot handler class
-------------------
You gained a new skill: Overcharge Regular Mode
Description: Boost your robots regular mode
CD: 25 sec
You gained a new skill: Overcharge Build-In Skill
Description: Boost your robots Build-In skills and features
CD: 10 sec
You gained a skill: Grease with life's blood.
Description: Heals your robot, but lowers your own health.
CD: 25 sec.
You gained a skill: Hurry up.
Description: Increases the robot's movement speed.
CD: 25 sec
You gained a skill: Human Machine Connection.
Description: Channels your stats into your robots.
-------------------
Flora cheered. Those were solid skills! But at the same time, she wondered how the other contestants were doing without them.
A tech walked over to the still recuperating Peppe.
"I really appreciate with what care you treated the bot, and it wasn't even your own! Do you want to get the class Robot Handler?"
Flora smiled wrily. Luck and the right timing were skills, too. And it wasn't like he didn't earn it.
After thanking the technicians, especially Qadima and Peppe, and of course paying him, Flora offered the multitool to Qadima, but she rejected the gift.
The endeavor took longer than Flora had anticipated, but she learned a great deal and got an excellent class, so she was satisfied.
"Alright, dears. Where do I get the tinkerer class?"
"You should have gotten a letter, Milady."
"Yes! We can finally go home!"
Aidan was right. The letter was in the mailbox, along with a lot of others.
------------------
You gained a class: Tinkerer.
Class: Tinkerer
Branch: Technology/Crafting
Passive:
+1 Training efficiency modifier for crafting abilities
+1 Training efficiency modifier for technology abilities
Active:
Bonus for all abilities and skills you perform with the help of gadgets that had been tinkered with or were created by you
-------------------
You gained a skill: Tinker.
Description: Buff. The device gains an additional Stat or Feature.
CD: 25 min.
-------------------
Flora connected the classes.
Then she studied her balance sheet and used the magical ledger skill on all the financial letters she had received over the last few days.
A considerable increase in sales sprang to her eyes. The StehaufmÀnnchen sold like hot toast! She got VirDias from the Cetviwos shop, VirDos, from direct sales.
"How did the customers know about the product? Did someone advertise it?"
"Yes, Milady. RadLana did posts in the jerky forum and made some videos about her training and progress of her sync rate."
"Great! Let's give her a cut, is 20% of the win fair?"
Aidan added Lana as a collaborator, and they adjusted the division of the income retroactively. Still, Flora earned 9532 VirDos and 6232 VirDias and 142122 Credits after taxes, including the sales of her other products as well.
Additionally, she found the voucher Lana had talked about: 30 hours of the services of the Clan Riverstone.
Flora fetched her wetsuit, the flamethrower, and the other knick-knack she ordered. Even the millionaire's exemption had arrived. Now, she could order anything she liked from the Cetviwos shop without having to pay it in chunks.
"Let's tidy up my inventory first before I fill it with shop items!"
Flora put the mannequin-routine statues and the cockpit of the H-Wing fighter in her flat. She had already copied those items and the rest of her inventory in the workshop.
Then she walked down to put all the loose parts and trash into the 3D Printer. She stared at another shredded sleeping bag.
"I have to design one of those and bedrolls myself! I destroy them as fast as tissues during allergy time!"
After Aidan dutifully reminded her of the topics she wanted to tackle at home, Flora printed two boxes and put in the essentials: 10 healing potions, five mana potions, the headlight, the rope, bandages, 10 Nutella toasts, 1-liter water, and of course, a new sleeping bag.
While the printer worked, she amended the Rainbow-Intensity-Meter for ball sports and ordered Aidan to communicate it to the concerned parties.
On her way up, she met Deriga.
"I've finished the list, Auntie Flow."
"Can we go over it now in my workshop? Or better in the simulation grounds? Do you have a nock, dear?"
Indeed, Deriga had a nock, and Flora gave her a jack for the workshop and hopped by the mailbox to fetch another item she ordered spontaneously.
Wide-eyed Deriga chose a spot to sit on the floor. Her eyes darted nervously between the statues, the training coffin, and the cockpit.
"The best place is where the debuffs of the coffin hit you, but you won't die from it," Flora added.
Deriga's eyes nearly fell out of their socket, and she inched away from the training coffin.
Next, Flora changed the auto-mode to the next Energymaster skill, Force-Field. After she had connected so many of her classes, she was eager to link the last two, Energymaster and Kinetic Mage, as well.