CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The next morning, Jason woke up in his own bed, then jerked up a little in surprise.

"Huh."

He blinked a few more times in surprise, then let out a startled laugh as he realized what was happening.

After his battle, he'd sleepwalked through setting up his room, washing his sheets, and putting them back on his bed. Then he'd slept like a rock.

The mentally challenging battle had left Jason completely exhausted.

Although he had experience grinding out battles for long hours, he'd never been in such an intense multi-stage fight before. Both pilots had displayed every ounce of their skills inside the Vault.

Jason had gone to bed knowing he was back home again, but he'd instinctively forgotten after waking up in the morning.

After waking up to the stark white walls of the gaming complex for so long, it was jarring to see the mint-painted walls of his childhood bedroom.

His mind instinctively cringed at the thought of getting dressed and heading back to school. Jason had not been a particularly good learner.

It was only after living by himself and working as a One Star Boss that Jason finally realized why he'd had such a hard time. He had a natural aptitude for gathering and remembering facts, but only if it was in a topic he actually cared about.

A perfect example was mathematical proofs.

Jason loved logical thinking over almost everything else. He loved taking various clues and piecing them together to make a final deduction. Unfortunately, he just didn't care about whether or not some hypothetical triangle had a right angle.

Jason yawned a little and shook his head.

Fortunately, he was free of all that now.

The fired One Star Boss hustled back over to his old beat-up computer and turned it on.

Those customized keys of his keyboard had made all the difference in last night's tense battles. Back when Jason was in high school, he'd redesigned his keyboard to better fit with his fingers.

His fingers were significantly longer and narrower than the average person's, and he thought he would be more comfortable with a custom-designed board.

He'd been right.

His fingers deftly maneuvered across the battered and irregularly spaced-out keys as he set up his equipment again.

Unlike his personalized keyboard, his headset and control board were state-of-the-art equipment issued by the Overdrive Corporation. In this case, Jason had gotten these items gifted to him at a company Christmas Party two years ago.

Like most One Star Bosses, Jason was very concerned about overheating his equipment. He always unplugged it and set it aside after finishing his matches.

Wass would scream at players for days if they ever damaged their company control boards. Usually, Jason rolled his eyes at Wass's furious antics, but he agreed with the perpetually red-faced supervisor in this particular case.

The control boards were extremely expensive.

A One Star Boss who constantly destroyed their control board would lose the Overdrive Corporation a lot of money.

Now that Jason was on his own, he only had two boards, the ones gifted to him at his last two Overdrive Corporation Christmas Parties. He needed to keep his equipment in top shape at all times.

He clicked at the Overdrive application, then placed his virtual reality headset over his head. Next, he turned on the Overdrive Anywhere control board he'd strapped onto his keyboard.

The familiar thrusters and buttons buzzed as they linked with his keys.

Pale blue text briefly flashed at the top of the board.

[Stationary Mode Selected]

The advanced Overdrive Anywhere equipment allowed players to play anywhere they wanted, even without a CPU.

The virtual reality headset and wireless control board could remotely connect to the Overdrive server, allowing players to battle any time they wanted.

However, the remote mode had a very high battery cost.

On top of that, players had to hold the control board in place by themselves. Normally, the control board smoothly plugged on top of a keyboard.

With Overdrive Anywhere, the operator held the two halves taut with their hands.

As a result, Jason preferred plugging in his equipment whenever possible.

The familiar Overdrive logo flashed on his screen before flickering away to reveal the enormous Smoulderhulk.

The mechanical dragon roared proudly. The enormous pack on its back sent out a celebratory slew of fireworks.

MECH WON: SMOULDERHULK [Bet Battle Yesterday, Delivery Processed Today]

Huh?

Jason had to reread the announcement a few times before he understood what must have happened.

Yesterday's match against the AngryBoardMember had been a Bet Battle.

Bet battles were a special form of player vs. player combat where both players wagered their Mechs on the result. The winner would receive the other player's machine. Jason's victory yesterday had earned him the powerful Smoulderhulk.

Although bet battles had been a part of Overdrive since the game's initial creation, few players willingly engaged in them.

The risk of losing a beloved Mech was usually too much for any player to bear.

Jason frowned thoughtfully.

That was strange.

Normally, Bet Battles came with glaring warning signs. The Overdrive Corporation didn't want players getting tricked into losing their machines.

However, Jason and his opponent had gone into the match as soon as possible.

It took him a few seconds, but Jason quickly pieced together what had happened.

Once he figured it out, Jason could only shake his head in disgust.

It was only another reason why he was glad he'd left his job. He appreciated some of the perks and the free housing, but crap like this was unbearable.

Wass and the AngryBoardMember had planned on cheating Jason from the start.

Now Jason understood why Wass had started cleaning out Jason's room as soon as the match had started.

Jason was going to leave the building regardless of the match result.

If Jason had lost, he would have lost his Red Minerva to the AngryBoardMember.

If that happened, his career would be over. He couldn't be a One Star Boss without a Mech.

Of course, he'd still gotten fired. However, winning the Mech had been a very unexpected boon. Jason might have gotten canned, but Wass and the AngryBoardMember had inadvertently given him a nice exit package.

The Smoulderhulk was an extremely rare frame.

Jason knew that there were only a handful of copies in existence.

Replicas of tournament-winning Mechs had once been a huge money earner for the Overdrive competition.

After each tournament, the company would create duplicates of the top eight machines and sell them.

However, the Overdrive Corporation eventually discontinued the practices after realizing they could make more money by sticking the replicas in lootboxes.

After the World Championship, the Overdrive Corporation claimed that they'd added vermillionangel's signature Vermillion Draco as a one-of-a-kind unique lootbox drop. Allegedly, there were only two copies in existence - vermillionangel's personal craft and the copy in the lootbox.

So far, nobody had managed to find the lootbox machine. The community had opened millions of boxes, but it was nowhere to be found.

Jason had heard an internal conspiracy theory inside the company that the Corporation had done no such thing - they just wanted to encourage more people to spend real money.

Regardless of the truth, the explosion of lootbox purchases after each tournament meant that players were clearly interested in replica frames.

On top of that, the Smoulderhulk was an old machine that'd fallen out of production years ago. It was essentially a limited edition item.

It was hard to say exactly how much the machine was worth.

A community of Overdrive finance experts purchased parts in bulk to speculate on rising prices.

In the past, Jason had never paid them much attention.

But now that he was capturing rare parts of his own, Overdrive finance was going to become a big part of his life.

When it came to finance and economics, Jason was a total initiate with zero understanding of the field.

Yet now that he was an independent pilot, every small part of his life was related to his Overdrive skills. Making more money and using his earnings efficiently naturally meant more time to train.

In addition to the Smoulderhulk, Jason also had the rich trove of items he'd earned the night before.

Jason dismissed the Smoulderhulk and opened up his inventory.

It'd been utterly barren when he left the Overdrive Corporation, but now it was absolutely overflowing with parts.

Jason's eyes gleamed as he read the long list of items. For a former One Star Boss, this was an absolute dream. In addition to the abilities he'd gained, Jason's Mech had more or less tripled in strength.

However, calm and rational thinking soon cut through his enthusiasm.

He had plenty of treasures, but this was just start-up money.

It would provide a comfortable cushion for now, but it wouldn't last forever.

He was eager to sell the items, but the temporary earnings wouldn't be an accurate way to judge his future success.

Jason needed to create a sustainable long-term plan.

If he could crack open a Vault every day, he would quickly become a millionaire. However, if he aggressively spent his current nest egg, he'd be broke in no time. The secret caverns were the pinnacle of Overdrive mapping, but their numbers were extremely limited.

First things first, Jason needed to make a decision about the remaining two Vaults.

Finding the Vaults and gathering the new items wouldn't be a problem. If Jason entered the Vault with the Red Minerva, he wouldn't need to battle the bonus bosses. He could simply take the rare items and leave.

On the surface, this offer was extremely tempting.

Money was money.

However, Jason was a completionist.

Now that he knew the challenge existed, he wanted to complete it.

In particular, he knew that entering the Vault without bringing the appropriate machine would seal off the challenge forever. The Vault vanished whenever someone found it.

As a result, Jason wanted to grow stronger to challenge the two hidden Vaults and defeat the bosses with the appropriate frames.

Jason was determined to use the Red Minerva as his main frame. After all, he'd used the cyborg dragon Mech for many years.

However, gaining other powerful frames was still a good idea.

Jason wanted to sell the Smoulderhulk as soon as possible, but that was only because it was a very expensive Giga Mech. Spending time practicing on a machine that couldn't be used on most maps was a total waste of time.

If Jason eventually captured the powerful pirate and vampire frames, he could use them as off-role Mechs. Alternatively, he could take parts from those powerful machines and add them to the Red Minerva.

If the frames didn't fit his playstyle, Jason wouldn't mind selling them. If Jason had to guess, the hidden Vault frames were probably worth a ton of money. After all, they were one-of-a-kind unique prizes.

But despite Jason's determination to gather the last two frames, he was also a realist.

Considering how close his battle was last night, Jason knew that he just wasn't good enough to win the pirate and vampire bonus battles with his current skill level.

Jason found his battle against the Red Lamia to be totally eye-opening. It showed him just how much he had to grow.

Although he'd won, Jason was not the kind of player who simply looked at wins and losses.

Instead, he always focused on areas where he could improve.

In Jason's opinion, four categories decided which player won a match.

Players could control three of those categories - the strength of the machine, the skill of the pilot, and their familiarity with the map and their Mech.

The last category was luck, which couldn't be controlled.

Jason had only won yesterday's match because he had maximum familiarity with the map and his machine.

He had the ultimate home-field advantage while fighting in the Vault.

Even then, his victory had required a great deal of luck.

Jason could point at several fortuitous events that'd led to his win.

In comparison, he couldn't think of a single time when his opponent had gotten particularly lucky.

If he attempted the next two secret boss missions, Jason couldn't count on those two factors.

While Jason could practice with the pirate and vampire One-Star Boss Mechs, there was no way ordinary training could compare to the two straight years he'd spent playing as the Red Minerva twelve hours a day.

On top of that, luck was just random. Jason only cared about aspects he could control.

The conclusion was obvious.

If he couldn't win with familiarity or luck, he needed to work on his mechanical skill and gather more powerful items.

If Jason had to guess, the same player probably handled all the secret Vault boss missions, and the Red Lamia's pilot had been just as skilled as Jason.

Jason would rate their control skills equally, which was an obvious area where he could improve.

While Jason had pride in his control skills, he could always do better. Mechanics were an area where Overdrive provided almost unlimited growth potential.

His gameplay could always get more fluid.

He could always learn additional techniques.

Secondly, Jason needed to acquire more powerful items.

Improving his control skills would take time, but gathering more powerful weapons was an area where he could swiftly grow stronger.

When battling the secret Vault bosses, players only needed to use the appropriate base frame.

Due to his time as a One Star Boss, Jason had no other items to equip during yesterday's battle. He'd been forced to fight with the tools available in the Vault.

However, Mechs had a Credit customization cap of 50,000 Credits.

When using the vampire and pirate Mechs, Jason intended to equip items designed to counter the Vault boss, much like how the Dragonbane Sword was designed to kill dragons. Those powerful counter items would make the match much easier.

However, Jason needed first to acquire the parts or earn the Credits he needed to buy them.

Overall, Jason had to get more parts and develop his control skills.

Right now, Jason's path was clear.

He needed to play more maps and grow stronger so he could challenge the two remaining Vaults.

However, Jason would restrict himself only to elite maps - the most challenging missions Overdrive had to offer.

Unlike an organized guild, he was only a single player. He couldn't run his head into a wall playing basic missions and hoping to luck into Rare Drops.

He needed to be a specialist who focused on high earnings.

Now that he knew what he was doing, Jason returned to examining the loot he'd earned.

He splayed out all the parts and began closely scrutinizing his options.

What would he equip to his machine?

What blueprints would he acquire with the Blazing Avarice ability?

What would he sell?

Jason was just sitting around his room and looking at his inventory.

However, he concentrated just as much as if he were in a tight battle.

This infusion of rare parts would only happen once.

His decisions would have an enormous impact on his long-term success.