CHAPTER ONE HUNDRED AND FOUR

"Woah!"

"Hell yeah!"

"Damn, that was pretty cool!"

Jason grinned.

Beside him, Stephanie gave him a friendly punch in the shoulder.

"Alright, I gotta admit, that was pretty damn cool."

She clamped his arm with her fingers, then laughed as she imitated his final attack.

"Chomp!"

Jason grinned. That win had felt pretty good, and it felt like he'd taken two critical steps in his Overdrive career.

After failing to realize that he should have been a gateway for the community as a One Star Boss, it was good to encourage players in his own style. Losing on purpose or taking things easy hadn't fit with his style, but this showed Jason that he could contribute to the community in his own way. At the end of the day, Overdrive was an awesome game, and Jason wanted to share it with as many people as possible. The leadership and generosity from people like Danny, Steven, or Jacob was totally inspiring.

Even better, Jason had managed to win the match while acting as a sort of leader. Telling his teammates to stand out of the way as he battled DISTINCTIONMAN wasn't anyone's idea of leadership, but it was a good first step. He'd even roughly directed his forces against the Devoted Monks, although it had been a pretty funny mistake to ignore his teammates' actual builds...he'd have to do a better job about that, especially if he played with more beginners.

Jason would never be a social butterfly, but maybe he'd shortchanged himself. He probably wouldn't pull in as much money as someone like DISTINCTIONMAN, who could put on an exaggerated personality and cater to a niche fanbase, but maybe he'd become a coaching-style streamer after the Tournament of Assassins...

"Hey! Hey! Jason! What are you doing?!"

Jason jerked up, then saw a pair of Devoted Monks charging at him. Both of the Mechs carried heavy staves. Unlike the rare Triple-Gravity Staff, this item was much more common - it was a straightforward interconnected pole that allowed the user to break past the opponent's shield.

Of course, defeating DISTINCTIONMAN was just the first start. The streamer had butted obnoxiously into the game, but there were still actual mission objectives they had to complete.

Jason sent another wave of ooze at his opponents. This time, instead of using the storage tanks on the back of his machine, he re-used the slop he'd thrown at DISTINCTIONMAN. The dog had dissolved after returning to him with the Triple-Gravity Staff and the shark had exploded upon contact with the Lionknight, but most of the biological reserves were still remaining. As a result, he was able to sweep his opponents off their feet from behind.

As they stumbled forward, Jason summoned his new item - the Triple-Gravity Staff. After absorbing the item's blueprints, Jason had been required to remove another item from his storage. Jason had chosen his shield without hesitation - the rebounding shield was a useful item, but it was the most common out of all his options. If he regretted his decision, he'd be able to redo it without too many difficulties.

The three-part item appeared in his machine's right hand. He slung the weapon over his shoulder and then stepped his Mech's body into the blow as he swung with maximum force. When it came to attacking with the Triple-Gravity Staff, Jason was still a total beginner, so he tried to emulate the most similar item he had in his inventory - the Urumi of Envy. The staff was better at overwhelming single-target damage whereas the Urumi was superior when it came to taking on multiple opponents, but he figured the attacking system was similar.

He was wrong.

Due to the added weight of the gravity cores, he had to carefully maintain his balance while swinging the three-link staff. Due to his carelessness, he fell over and crashed face-first to the floor. The item flew uselessly forward, slamming into the ground and leaving a massive crater, but not hitting either of his opponents.

Shit...

If it wasn't for Stephanie's sharp shooting, the Monks would have crushed him underfoot. Fortunately, her covering fire gave him a chance to scramble back onto his feet.

Everyone laughed.

"How the hell did you beat DISTINCTIONMAN?"

"Jason, what kind of move was that?"

"Damn, I guess you just got lucky..."

Jason groaned. He knew they were just joking, but he'd felt pretty cool after beating up on DISTINCTIONMAN, and he'd wanted to keep the good vibes going!

He hastily dismissed the Triple-Gravity Staff. Considering the number of eager witnesses, now probably wasn't the time to practice with the extremely complicated item. He swapped out of the Triple-Gravity Staff and brought back the Urumi of Envy. It'd taken him a long time before he could master the multiple swords, but now he was comfortable striking multiple opponents at once with the eight segmented blades.

The flame lashes streaked through the air, burning everything in their path. Instead of outright killing his opponents, Jason focused on crippling them instead. He swung low, slicing off the Devoted Monks' feet and letting them crash to the ground. Not only did the downed Paragons block off their allies, but they were also easy pickings for Stephanie and the high school kids. While playing under Danny and Steven's leadership, Jason realized that the skilled captains liked feeding his teammates easy kills to keep them involve and motivated.

It didn't take a lot of skill to gun down a crippled Mech, but the kids hadn't taken down much of anything. So far, they'd played extremely timidly and conservatively to the point that even a few enemy attacks sent them scattering to the winds.

Jason hoped that getting a few easy kills - and earning the corresponding kills that came with them - would encourage the beginners to take more risks and play more aggressively. Jason had already earned the item he was looking for. The Martial Arts Event had other excellent options, but Jason was now extremely happy with the seven options he'd selected with the Blazing Avarice. At this point, any additional item was just a bonus.

It took a while, but the high schoolers eventually got into the swing of things. Before long, they were chasing enemies down so aggressively that Jason and Stephanie had to start bailing them out.

Meanwhile, Stephanie was playing better than ever. The Martial Arts stage had a fairly obvious exploit - the stage was built entirely around the idea of honorable close-ranged combat. A Mech like the old Red Minerva could play the stage properly by battling against the Monks from close range. The current upgraded version and its biological spells had a significant advantage - since Jason could just safely blast away from range, he could defeat the Paragons at their weakest. Stephanie's machine was even more formidable.

The Mechs had access to a chi-blast-like technique, but it wasn't nearly enough compared to Stephanie's sheer firepower.

Before long, they'd finished the first stage and the kids were peppering Jason with questions about his Mech.

"Man! How did you come up with such a cool idea?"

Jason just shook his head.

"Yeah, I'll be honest - I was just upgrading my Mech with all the cool items I found. I actually had to learn crafting techniques multiple times to put it all together."

"Man, that machine seems overpowered. How would I possibly beat it?"

Before Jason could answer, anyone one of the kids chipped in.

"I think they are patching it already. Did you guys see the new notes? They are adding a machine that can attack the blood inside another Mech, it's the perfect counter!"

Jason couldn't help but laugh. He was pretty sure the Overdrive Corporation wasn't making patch decisions solely around his machine. If anything, he thought it was a product of the sheer number of new Mechs the company put into the game. They were always trying to get more creative, so it made sense that they'd eventually develop some pretty one-sided interactions while pushing the envelope. As a competitive player, Jason couldn't worry too much about the design element. He just had to put his head down and play the best game he could.

As they continued whittling through the hundred Devoted Monks, the stage became easier and easier. Although the individual Grunt quality was high, the AI was fairly poor, and the machines were heavily reliant on pack tactics.

Soon, they were spending more time talking than actually playing. Even though the kids spent most of their time speculating how to beat down Jason's Mech, he didn't really mind. At the end of the day, these guys weren't actual competition, and even if they were, he was glad they were talking about Overdrive.

At the end, they finished the first stage without too many more problems. Out of the hundred Mechs, Jason wound up destroying twenty-seven of them by himself. He probably could have taken down many more if he was going for the maximum number of kills, but he wasn't sure how many...

It'd be fun to replay this stage on his own later to push the limits.

A new notification appeared on their screen.

PROCEED TO LEVEL TWO?

BATTLE MODE: MELEE COMBAT

DESCRIPTION: ONLY MELEE WEAPONS ARE ALLOWED! BATTLE THROUGH A SERIES OF DEVOTED MONKS IN SINGLE COMBAT. DEFEAT FIFTY IN A ROW TO PROCEED.

CURRENT RECORD: 276

ACCEPT CHALLENGE?

Jason glanced at Stephanie, then shook his head. The mission sounded pretty fun, but she wouldn't be able to play it. The artillery unit had a huge advantage in round one, but it was more or less useless in this next round. It carried no melee weapons and it'd have to fight with its bare hands.

He already had the weapon he was looking for, and they'd beaten enough of the Devoted Monks that they had enough of the chi-emulating gloves to put Stephanie's new alien Mech together.

The high school kids wanted to see how far they could go, so Jason and Stephanie bid them farewell and then withdrew from the mission. After that, they took all their parts and returned to the crafting room.

The Devoted Monk's sensory devices were located in its eyes, just like any other Mech. However, the base store for the energy was hidden in the gloves, which allowed it to power its weapons and blast out long-ranged attacks.

Between Jason and Stephanie, they had just over sixty Mechs in total - due to her artillery machine, Stephanie had actually picked up even more kills than Jason. Although the alien obstacle Mech was much larger than the Devoted Monks, the sheer quantity of parts meant they were able to install the sensory devices and power sources without too many problems.

Installing the sensors was much easier than the in-depth changes Jason had to make on his own Mech while adding the Mana Gatherer Spikes. The sensors detected available information, then fed it directly to the alien Mech's cockpit.

All of the changes were external - Jason and Stephanie removed the power sources from the gloves and added them to the machine before adding the sensors to the fine thin tentacles trailing out of the beach-ball-like machine.

While the energy chargers could still attack on their own, doing so was unadvisable. The power sources were the eye-less Mech's main source of sight, so depleting the battery made the Mech almost unplayable.

To help alleviate the tension between attacking and seeing, Jason decided to help Stephanie out with a few high-quality weapons. He gave her a few sporadic missile launchers and anti-aircraft cannons he'd won from various stages, then topped it off with a charge-up cannon he won after defeating the Red Lamia.

The item was a weaker version of the Queen's Wrath Sniper Rifle, but it followed similar principles. Jason would have liked handing over the Five Star item, but he couldn't afford to just this yet - maybe if he won the Tournament of Assassins or won a few more big sponsorships.

After Stephanie added in the parts from her usual machine, the final build was a terror to behold. The armored shell now carried a mix of missile launchers and energy packs, and the mass of tendrils allowed Stephanie to sense attacks from every direction. The machine's outer shell was now dull iron minerals dotted with cold gray metal and brightly glowing blue lights. The tendrils were pink and haphazard, and Stephanie allowed them to trail far out of the shell to gather as much energy as possible.

Of course, the most prominent feature was the large gun battery at the base. Jason's charge-up cannon was pointed by two large bazookas taken from her artillery unit. Not only were the heavy firearms threats in their own right, but they could also narrow down the enemy's escape path, granting the main cannon sufficient time to fire.

With the build finally done, the only thing left was to test it out in battle.

By then, the other Good game Shoppe regulars were filing in, so Jason and Stephanie registered for the tournament. To their pleasant surprise, they were paired in the very first match.