"The boss is here!"

"Mr. Grok is here!"

Excited chatter erupted inside the factory as the giddy engineers could not help but look at the owner of the Construction Company.

Mr. Grok was dressed to the teeth.

He wore a stylish velvet black suit with a red collar, accentuated by a red bowtie, a limited-edition golden wrist watch and a pair of bombastic black boots screaming Synth luxury.

He walked into the factory with a big bottle of wine in hand. The bottle itself was made of pure gold, screaming money and luxury.

This was the most expensive wine in Mr. Grok's collection.

He walked into the factory with a big smile on his face, and the moment he entered the engineers erupted into cheers.

This aging Synth who rarely showed emotions before today let loose. He started a crazy dance right in front of his workers, shaking his body and twisting his legs in a crazy manner as the engineers cheered excitedly.

"Where's my capable Head of Engineering?" He asked.

An extremely excited Supervisor Jeff pointed Mr. Grok in Leon's direction.

At that moment, an excited Sonas who was perplexed why Mr. Leon didn't join the celebrations yet finally turned to look at the chair beside her.

And then, she froze. The chair was empty.

The chair was empty!

'Where's Mr. Leon?' Sonas panicked immediately.

By the time Mr. Grok arrived, a mini commotion already started as they looked for the enigmatic engineer who sat there a moment ago, and yet he was nowhere to be found.

Mr. Grok stood, stunned when he heard the news. "Mr. Leon is nowhere to be found?"

All of a sudden, the celebrations died down, replaced by a feeling of dread.

In a factory filled with engineers, it was inevitable as ideas began floating like dust. 'Was Mr. Leon kidnapped? But how? We've all been here'.

Then the crazy conspiracy theories sprouted. 'What if Mr. Leon was never real? An engineer with such abilities always seemed unreal, I knew it!'

'What if… Mr. Leon is a ghost?'

As another commotion started, Mr. Grok stood in the middle of it all, still stunned and in a state of disbelief. 'He's gone?' He asked himself the question for the umpteenth time.

The expression on his mechanical face turned complicated. 'My friend, where you even real?'

'Where you just a ghost? Or… an angel?'

He knew him for just 2 days, but this Geneform who didn't look like a typical Geneform made such a big impact in his life.

Despite knowing him for just 2 days, he already saw him as a friend. Afterall, he was the only one who saved him when he was drowning and almost lost everything. If that is not a friend, then who is?

Mr. Grok felt like he would never forget him.

…

The Fringe of the Wastes.

It was evening again, and once again, Talia and her crewmates searched for Leon to no avail.

At this moment, Ghostwire who had barely said a word for the past 2 days finally spoke. "He's gone".

It was just two words but it made the mood instantly plummet.

Thud!

Kain collapsed to his knees with a lost expression on his face. "I can't, I can't…" he mumbled to himself repeatedly before covering his mechanical face with his hands to hide his pain. "I can't lose both of them".

Talia could feel the pain in his tone, she winced.

At that moment, Brick spoke. "It's already been 3 days here in the Wastes, there's no way he's surviving that long here alone. He's either dead or already succumbed to ADE corruption, or somehow, he already left the Wastes, but…"

"That's impossible". Ghostwire completed the sentence for him. "We would have seen traces left by him".

At that moment, Daren clenched his fists tightly till they made cracking sounds with a ferocious expression on his face. "I'll kill him!" He growled softly.

Talia looked at him with a complicated expression.

"I'll kill him, I promise!" Daren growled again before looking into the horizon with tear-filled eyes. "That D Rank Gene Augur, I'll kill him!" He snarled.

"D Rank? I'm not scared of it, I'll kill him!" He vowed. "No matter how long it takes me, no matter how treacherous the path is, I'll get strong, I'll pursue power till I kill him".

"Until he's dead, I won't rest!"

Tears flowed down his eyes freely as his shoulders shook.

Daren was always the extrovert and outgoing guy in the crew but despite all his misadventures, he somehow became friends with two silly Mechanists.

The time he spent with them was short, but in that short time he developed a bond unlike any other with the both of them.

And now, to lose them both so cruelly, for the first time in his whole life, Daren felt true rage. And for the first time in his life, he also felt inadequate with himself, he felt inadequate with his power.

On this day, Daren vowed to pursue power.

He wiped his tears, then he turned and looked Talia in the eyes. "Boss, I won't follow you back. I want to go to Leviathan Quay".

Talia looked at Daren, then she calmly asked. "Why?"

"I want to join the Gene combat sports tournament. With the price reward that I'll get, I want to use it to get an opportunity to enter one of the Geneforge Clan's subterranean ADE fortress".

Talia looked at him. "You want to attempt a Trial?"

"Yes". Daren nodded resolutely.

Talia nodded, but then she reminded. "Follow us to Canyon Hub first, let's lay Rex's ashes to rest and give him a proper burial".

"After, you're free to go".

Daren didn't object, he simply nodded without saying a word.

After that, the 5 Ascended finally started the Karaki CT-3X super bikes and they started their return journey from the fringe of the Wastes.

…

DING!

~----~

[You have met the target!]

[Well-done engineer, you can now rest.]

~----~

When Leon saw these words, the first emotion he felt was relief. 'Finally…'

Before, he thought the showdown against the Zmer gang was the most difficult endeavor of his life since his awakening.

The showdown was still the most terrifying and blood-pumping moment of his life in terms of the intensity and action, but when it came to how drained he felt in the aftermath, how tiring he felt at the end, his Trial definitely took 1st place.

The grind of having to construct, plan, and direct things non-stop for over 40 hours was just as hard as he expected.

Leon felt absolutely cooked at the end of it, his brain felt fried.

'Thankfully, I succeeded… it's worth it!' He thought.

At this moment even as his forehead throbbed in pain, the world in front of him suddenly started fragmenting.

In his last moments, he looked at the transparent glass walls of the Big Gig Construction Company, he looked at Sonas who stood beside him, and Mr. Grok who walked into the factory in a bombastic manner, engraving them all to his brain.

'I'll miss all of you'. He thought. 'It was a short time, but it's a short time that I'll never forget'.

He grinned. 'Goodbye, my work buddies!'

CRKSH!

The world shattered and disappeared, replaced by an entirely white world where he was the only one in existence.

And then, this white world also cracked, fracturing and turning into floating plates of metal, circuitry, and raw material, all coming together to form an exaggerated futuristic factory.

Spectral assembly lines formed in midair, and gigantic holographic blueprints rotated overhead.

Streams of molten light flowed like rivers in this strange factory, and Leon felt the condensed ADE in the environment rushing into his pores.

Sounds of hydraulic pressure releases, distant hammer strikes, and the low hum of a planet-sized engine filled the air.

The world above darkened into a metallic forge-black void that was lit by a gray, blue, and white industrial glow.

Everything inside this domain felt manufactured.

The moment Leon appeared here, his consciousness instantly felt invigorated.

'I've recovered!'

He could tell that this was not a mere recovery, this was something deeper, an evolution of life that increased his soul power, strengthening and massively amplifying the power of his consciousness.

'I did it, I'm now a Neo Mechanist!' Leon almost started a happy dance.

Then he observed the world around him in wonder. 'Where is this? Whose factory is this?'

Unlike Talia who realized that she was inside the psionic network, Leon didn't realize where he was and what this factory signified.

Suddenly, the world brightened as Leon felt like the factory was bombarding his consciousness with a bunch of concepts and knowledge that he didn't know before now. They saturated his brain like a flood.

All this information melted inside Leon's consciousness body as he felt a warm feeling permeate through his whole body like nourishment.

This continued for a few minutes before it stopped.

Once it stopped, Leon opened his eyes and his black eyes suddenly turned dull gray, gleaming mechanically. It felt like he suddenly turned into a robot.

Leon took a moment to adjust to his current state and once he did, a bright smile blossomed across his face.

In that moment, he finally comprehended all the new abilities and innate talents that his consciousness unlocked.

Despite not being in his body at this moment, the first change that Leon detected was related to his Neural Core. At E Rank, his Neural Core's synchronization with ADE increased exponentially.

He no longer felt like ADE was a foreign energy invading his body to strengthen it, instead, he felt that ADE was now a part of himself.

It strengthened him significantly, both in his capacity for ADE and in how much power he could draw from ADE.

Leon gained 5 new abilities: Nanofabrication, Miniaturization, Drone Control Matrix, Neural Overclock, and Enhance.

Nanofabrication is self-explanatory. With it, Leon can finally work with nanotechnology on a complex scale, and can now deal with miniaturized technology and micro-level construction.

As for Miniaturization, it has two utilities, the industrial aspect and practical aspect. In the industrial aspect, with it, Leon can make his constructs much smaller while improving their functionality during construction. This is permanent.

As for the practical aspect, with Miniaturization, Leon can temporarily make any construct of his extremely small. With enough ADE, he could theoretically make a pistol become bean-sized!

With enough ADE, he could also theoretically miniaturize a Truck to palm size, enabling him to sneak it anywhere he wanted.

Leon could easily imagine a hundred different scenarios where this was a game-changing ability.

With his current ADE capacity, Leon felt that he could make a pistol bean-sized and maintain it for 4 hours before needing to replenish his ADE.

Alongside the first 2 abilities, he also unlocked a blueprint- Chip.

With it, he could finally create his first smartphone. It was also the last piece of the puzzle to creating his own computers.

As for Drone Control Matrix, it's an ability that enables an E Rank Mechanist to establish a neural connection with his drones through a chip and ADE.

At E Rank, a Neo Mechanist can control up to 5 drones simultaneously!

This gives a Mechanist a whole new edge in battle. Its simple utility was using it for surveillance, meaning a Neo Mechanist can be in 5 places at the same time, see in 5 places at the same time.

Its combat utility can make a Neo Mechanist omniscient in battle with 5 drones giving a perfect 3600 view of any battlefield.

And if a Mechanist can modify his drone blueprints, enlarging and working on them to integrate guns or even missiles, a Mechanist can quickly turn from a harmless Rat into a towering Dragon.

As for Neural Overclock, it doubles System Processing Speed and reaction speed when using Deconstruct and Construct.

This essentially meant when activated, the speed of using Construct and Deconstruct through the system will be doubled!

When his free access to the System functions were blocked during the Trial, Leon already had his suspicions but with Neural Overclock, he finally confirmed that his System was likely related to the very nature of this world, ADE, and Trials.

His guess was that he was the only Mechanist in existence with Neural Overclock.

His other reason for having this outlandish guess was because of the other change to the System's Construct function.

At E Rank, the System's Construct function upgraded to enable semi-automated production!

This meant the System no longer needed his hands-on presence when constructing. He could simply give the System a target and automatically, it would use the Construct ability by itself to construct gadgets using his blueprints.

Leon could be fighting outside while in his hidden warehouse, the System can be crafting new weapons for him with his blueprints.

The only reason why it wasn't automatic was simply because it still needed his ADE to work with.

As for Enhance, it's a passive ability but Leon felt that it was the strongest of all the abilities he unlocked when it came to combat.

At E Rank, a Mechanist's ADE changes, enabling a Mechanist to enhance the power, workings, and abilities of all mechanic constructs.

By wrapping his ADE around a weapon, Leon can enhance the power output delivered with each attack with his ADE, meaning a simple attack that's supposed to deal 100 damage can be amplified to deal 150, 200 or even more damage depending on the amount of ADE expended.

Leon took a moment to absorb all the changes in, then he grinned. "I've taken the second step in my path as a Mechanist".

Unlike what he expected after all the changes though, a suction force didn't drag at his consciousness immediately.

Instead, the world cracked again.

CRKSH!

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