CHAPTER NINETY SEVEN

The Minor Vampire Vault was the first vault, but Jason still knew about another one - the Pirate Vault. Challenging that Vault was a high potential prospect, especially if the parts allowed Jason to create some kind of naval armor. However, the parts largely wouldn't align with his own Mech. The pirate was a Paragon, which had almost no intersection with the Red Minerva. Now that Jason had seen the vampire's vault, he suspected he wouldn't get many useful parts. He'd complete the mission eventually, but he wanted to focus on the parts he already had for now. Considering the Biomancer's complexity, he was best served focusing on it first.

After compiling and sorting his items, Jason closed off his computer and started his now-familiar walk to the Good Game Shoppe. Considering his last few narrow incidents, he did his best to avoid thinking about Overdrive when crossing the road. About an hour or so later, Jason found himself at the store. By now, it was around the middle of the evening, and most of the regulars were already there.

Phil, Vinny, Taylor, and the other regulars heartily congratulated him for getting past the second round. Jacob grinned and shot Jason a thumbs up from behind the counter, where he was sorting some newly sold parts and downloading them into various USB drives.

Jason called over to him.

"Thanks for letting me borrow the parts! Glad I didn't lose any of them."

Jacob laughed.

"Yeah, no problem."

Jacob didn't make a big deal about it, but Jason owed him big time. He never could have afforded the upgraded Antigone Armor without the Good Game Shoppe's generous unofficial sponsorship. Now that Jason had made it to the final round, he had a chance to pay them back. The eight individual players who survived the Round 3 Melee were given public interviews and player profiles on the Illusionist's website and streaming channel.

The Good Game Shoppe was already pretty well-known, and Jason's shout-out probably wouldn't help too much, but at least it'd be something. It was the only way to get started paying back Jacob's kindness.

Jason groaned as he realized he probably had to practice for the interview. Talking in front of thousands, if not tens of thousands, of fans sounded pretty daunting, but now that Jason was finally seeing some more competitive success, he knew he had to become more of a public face. He'd hoped to avoid that after leaving the Overdrive Corporation, but now he realized that'd been a pretty immature opinion.

Playing with the BAG Guild had improved his team play and interaction, and it made sense that he could practice his interview skills too. He'd probably never be a real people pleaser, but he had to be passable!

Jason walked over to the other Good Game Shoppe regulars, who laughed as soon as he arrived. Phil grinned widely from ear to ear.

"Jason! You're getting us all in trouble at work - my boss saw me watching the Tournament of Assassin stream at work today. I couldn't flip it past my Bloomberg window in time."

"Dang, what happened?"

Phil laughed it off.

"Ah, it turned out pretty alright, I make them too much money for them to get rid of me easily."

Taylor groaned.

"Yeah, the same can't be sad for me. I was listening to the stream in my headphones, but I didn't want to watch...I'm pretty sure I'd get canned if I crashed the ranger cart."

Vinny grinned.

"Nice wrestling moves, by the way, I recorded the stream and watched it during my break period. You're getting pretty good at that shoot!"

"Ah, I'll be honest. It's all thanks to you guys. Thanks for all the playtesting, I never would have improved so quickly otherwise. I'm actually putting a new build together too - it'll probably take me the rest of the night and maybe even tomorrow, but I'd love to get some more matches in this week."

"Yeah, of course!"

"Would love to practice more!"

Jason was just about to head for the prep area when Phil called him back. The experienced crafter was very interested in the Angry Duck, and he wanted to know more about how Danny had fused the two different machines together. Unfortunately, Jason had no clue, and he was about to try doing the same thing with two machines with much lower compatibility. Jason shot Danny a text to ask for his permission, then gave his contact information to Phil.

However, Jason headed over to the computer without asking for additional advice.

Jason and Danny had already agreed to train together, but asking him for help building the machine felt wrong. Even asking his friends didn't feel quite right. Playtesting and practicing was one thing, but when it came to designing his machine, Jason wanted to beat Danny using his own power and abilities. Right now, Danny was clearly the superior crafter, and Jason felt like he had to outmatch his friend and rival in every area with his own strength.

Jason pulled up the sandbox crafting simulator, but a large notification appeared on his screen.

NO SIMULATION POSSIBLE - TWO UNIQUE FRAMES

Jason winced and closed the app before opening up HemoLovers, but he received the same information. The simulation apps predicted transformations based on prior data. The awakened Red Minerva was a unique machine, but the apps had still been somewhat useful because Jason had added well-known parts. Now that he was fusing two completely new machines, the apps wouldn't help him.

Jason would have to directly upgrade his machine, which was a far riskier process. Unlike many other games, the Overdrive crafting depot did not have a "revert state" feature. Players went in knowing full well that a mistake would weaken their precious machines.

If he wanted to upgrade his machine with the Biomancer's Mana Gatherer Spikes, he had to risk everything. As jarring as that was, Jason felt like it was also his only reasonable option. As things were, he just wasn't strong enough to compete with the best players at the event. His battle against Castor had ended in defeat, and he wouldn't catch up by being overly conservative.

On top of that, his need for new strength wasn't restricted to only this competition. Even if he decided to play it safe for the Tournament of Assassins, he'd eventually run into tougher opponents at later events. If he really wanted to be a pro, he had to go all-out and accept the risks.

However, Jason still wouldn't leap in right away. He still lacked the experience level and knowledge to modify his machines. The Biomancer's description clearly stated that its Mana Gatherer Spikes could be added to a Hemoborn, but the game system wouldn't make things easy for him.

He logged off the useless simulators, then opened up the internet browser and started searching for Mechs that combined different classes.

Combining machines of two different types was extremely uncommon. The only player who'd done so was Phillips, an expert crafter who was one of the top twenty players on the server. One of her main machines, the Cat Guardian, consisted of three different individual units - one each of the Paragon, Spell Titan, and Kingbreaker classes. Phillips controlled each of the individual pieces as their own individual machine and she consistently overwhelmed her opponents with the sheer diversity of her machines. She would freely alternate

However, it wasn't all upside. The three miniature machines were very powerful, but the unique building process meant that the Cat Guardian also had some distinctive weaknesses.

The most notable weakness was that the machine couldn't use its Overdrive bonus. The reasoning was unknown, but Jason guessed it had something to do with the machine's split engines and generators. Since he was adding the Mana Gatherer Spikes as a new power source, it was possible that the Red Minerva would suffer from the same weakness. Unfortunately, he would probably have to figure that out through first principles.

After another thirty or forty minutes of searching, Jason hadn't found any other pro builds that fused two different Mech classes. The Cat Guardian was a pretty good sample, but it combined the three purely mechanical classes. Jason wanted to find a model that specifically worked a Hemoborn, so he turned to various gimmick channels and streams instead. He found five different fusion-style builds, but all of them seemed too weak. In theory, a fusion build should combine strengths from both Mech classes, but all of the proposed builds other than Phillips's Cat Guardian were simply terrible.

In the end, Jason was back where he started - he had no choice but to go on his own.

He decided to get started just trying to envision how he'd use the two machines together. The Biomancer's greatest strength was its ability to create and manipulate biological material, but just one look at the machine's original frame showed a clear and obvious weakness.

The Biomancer had spent most of its credit cap bringing ooze with it onto the battlefield. If Jason wanted to retain the Red Minerva's own abilities, he wouldn't be able to do that - he would be forced to create his own ooze while fighting, which would be too slow to be competitively viable.

However, the Red Minerva also had an innate advantage.

Since it was a living creature, it brought its own biological material with it. The Biomancer had battled using its summoned ooze beasts, but the original Minor Vampire frame had hemomancer abilities. After Jason installed the Mana Gatherer Spikes, he'd be able to attack opponents with the Red Minerva's blood. He cut his own machine and then control the spilled blood just like the Biomancer had controlled the ooze.

However, bleeding himself out would still cause him to take damage and suffer from blood loss. It was a good emergency ability, but it couldn't be a primary starting point.

In the end, Jason realized what he had to do.

Unfortunately, it would only make his final crafting process even more difficult and risky.

As it was, the Red Minerva couldn't produce ooze like the Biomancer, but that didn't mean it totally lacked the capability. The cave dragon's natural poison sac was already a powerful ability, but Jason thought he could upgrade it even further. What if he changed his machine to produce manipulatable ooze? Controlling tides of poison fit well with the Red Minerva's current strength, and it sounded obviously powerful - he just wasn't sure if that would work.

On top of that, it'd require tearing his partner apart and rebuilding her from the ground up. Jason had avoided the trouble last time by copying Vile's trick, but this time, the dramatic and risky transformation was inevitable.

However, Jason knew it would be worth it. The combination would work particularly well with the Red Lamia mode, which he always felt like he'd underutilized.

The snake-woman was already a powerful long-range attacker, turning her into a spellcaster would synergize well with the Biomancer's abilities. The machine's biggest weakness was its long-charging time. Ideally, he could use the Biological Beasts to stall opponents while charging up the Pestilent Snipe. A Pestilent Snipe that could be used either as a projectile or a summon was extremely powerful.

Then Jason thought longer, and realized that wouldn't be enough either. The biggest problem with the disparate Red Minerva and Red Lamia modes was the two second time period required to switch. Considering he was taking his Mech all the way apart, he might as well do it right.

Jason logged onto the server, then headed over to the Towering Crag. He grinded the map for a while and accumulated several new Red Minerva frames. He'd practice first with them, but after that, it was time to take the biggest risk of his fledgling Overdrive career.