[New Quest!]
[Quest: First Sales]
[Now that you have created your first design, you must sell it. Sell 5 virtual versions of your newly created support bot within the Vault.]
[Time to Complete: 30 days]
[Punishment: Death]
Just when he thought he was going to be getting a break, he'd received another very difficult quest to complete.
Unlike before, he was sure that he'd have to use every day that he could get this quest complete.
The Vault was a virtual platform, like the TechForge Simulation Lab, but this was instead a simulation battle game.
You would sit in a virtual reality pod that had a brain-machine interface, which would totally submerge you into the game to make it seem indistinguishable from reality. Within the game, you could then wear exosuits to fight in several various battle modes with other people online.
The good thing about this game was that you didn't have to possess mana to wear exosuit technology within the game. However, the far majority of those that played in the vault had mana.
It wasn't very beneficial to use exosuits when you didn't have mana to use one in real life, and people didn't want to constantly be haunted by their genetic ineptitude through playing such a game.
Items within the Vault had to be bought on the virtual version of the ExoTech Marketplace. The ExoTech Marketplace: Vault Edition. This was the marketplace that Cael would be using to complete this demanding quest.
Along with people wearing exosuits, you could also bring along your own virtual support bots in certain modes to help in battle. This was where Cael's Vulture XR-1 Aero would inevitably be used.
"So, how am I supposed to find the money to buy 5 copies of all the components in this drone? That'll cost me a lot of money." Cael thought, with his hands at his waist.
He would be competing against large companies that used this marketplace to make a profit. They could buy components in the masses, utilising economies of scale to decrease their individual item costs.
Cael was in no such position, but he still had hope. He was sure this system wouldn't just give him a quest that was impossible.
"Even if it isn't, I'm not going down without a fight. It always seems impossible until it's done."
****
Within his institute, they were training together in a large training facility. They were in one of the four towers located at the centre of his institute. One wall of the facility was made almost totally of fortified glass, and this gave them a dazzling view of the towering skyscrapers not just of their school but also of Carlo City that surrounded them.
Cael's teacher was stood beside him, as he stood on a white canvas platform. The students were wearing dark blue vests and training shorts.
This was one of their many sparring sessions that they had, and many students in the crowd were panting from the intense exercise.
"I need to upgrade my physical stats because I can't take this anymore." Cael thought, in a battle stance.
He had his fists up to protect himself from any incoming attacks, and ahead of him was a girl called Vanessa that was around his age. She had smooth, silky blonde hair in a ponytail, with piercing sea blue eyes and curvaceous, athletic figure. She was from a prestigious family, the Fonti family.
However, she was seen as an outcast due to her poor talent compared to the other youths in the family. This led her to be sent to the C-Grade Institute that Cael was currently in.
Even if she was in a C-Grade institute, it was like she didn't belong at all.
"Cael, you must learn to fight those stronger than you, don't cower away from a battle." His teacher ordered.
"How do I hit somebody that blocks or dodges ever punch I throw?" Cael wondered, hearing this comment from his teacher.
"Yes, Sir Arlo." Cael replied, before blocking an impactful punch from Vanessa.
Before Cael could properly react to her attack, she had already stepped to his side with immense speed. She then landed a hook to his stomach, before stepping back with amazing technical skill.
Now that Cael could attack again, she was already out of range. She fought with such technicality that allowed her to deal significant damage, while keeping herself unscathed.
Whenever he threw attacks and landed, he could never connect with any part of her body but her forearms. She could read his attacks like a book, and new how to perfectly block and counter every move that he made.
She jumped in the air, moving slightly forward while spinning her body around. She then drove her foot into Cael's chest, knocking him backward. As she landed, she advanced swiftly and threw a rapid combination that her opponent could barely perceive, let alone block.
Cael had gotten much better at defending himself from attacks, but just defence meant nothing. If he tried to just defend himself against a warrior like Vanessa, it would only be a matter of time before she'd break through his guard.
A punch managed to whip past his lifted forearms and landed right on his jaw, knocking him out of the makeshift ring that they had been fighting within.
He harshly collided with the ground, and Vanessa just wiped her hands before entering the ring once again.
"There's no use pitting that guy against me." She stated, cracking her knuckles with excitement.
The students in the crowd were laughing, astonished by the girl's strength. As much as the boys wanted to act arrogant and strong, most of them were way too scared to step in the ring with her.
Even if she was a woman, mana allowed people to break the human limits placed on their physical bodies. She possessed large amounts of mana compared to those around her and could grow her physical strength more quickly, and to a higher level.
In a fight, Vanessa could easily knock the average grown man without mana in mere seconds.
Cael wasn't bothered about his weakness right now, because he knew that he could get stronger over time. He shut out the laughter around him that was directed at him, because he knew that it wouldn't last much longer.
As he lifted back up to his feet, he smiled as he revealed his system panels.
"It won't be long until I surpass all of these arrogant fools." Cael told himself, trying to hold back his smile.
What he had found was that people around him couldn't see his system's projections. It wasn't that the projections were coming from nothing, it was coming out of his mind.
He had 30 days to complete his next quest of selling 5 of his Vulture XR-1 Aero models and so, had to use every bit of free time that he could to complete it.
Materials within the ExoTech Marketplace: Vault Edition were cheap, much cheaper than in real life. The main reason prices were placed on materials was to just stop the market being overflooded with awful designs and products made in mere minutes by incompetent mechanics.
With his basic metals package, he could use these metals to form the internal framing and armour for the drone, but that was pretty much it. Luckily, the package contained 100 kilograms of material and so, he could sell most of those materials to then buy the other components that he needed.
The most expensive components would be the sensory equipment and thruster system, while the other things he needed to virtually fabricate his model wouldn't really be much of a worry.
His model also possessed less armour than the base model that he had worked on, so he could sell even more of the 100 kilograms of metal on that same marketplace to kickstart his production.
Once his school day had ended, he stood in his bedroom with several system panels surrounding him. Some were from his system, while others came from his pocket-sized projector that he used to access the virtual ExoTech Marketplace.
Here, he'd have to make a new profile, under the Merchant tier. This would allow him to sell components found in exosuit and support bot technology.
It was another cost that he'd have to endure to complete this quest; it was 100 credits per month for him to have an account of this tier.
During this time, he had received his 3000-credit payment from the government and so, used the small fraction that was left to cover the first monthly payment of this account.
[Merchant Tier Account Created!]
[What username would you like to use for your new account?]
Cael hadn't really thought much about this and didn't want to either. He just wanted to get going with selling his surplus metal, and just named his account the first thing that came to mind.
[WarriorMechanic]