Chapter 538 (1/2)

The facility where the drones were being researched and produced was a hundred times nicer than the place where Randidly was before. So much so that Randidly was getting a little annoyed as he walked around. Included on the premises were a cafeteria and a gym that could support weights up to a ton.

Partially, this was for the workers, but also it served as a convenient way to test the drones. Foreman Davey, who now wanted Randidly to just call him Davey, showed him the different locations, and then the workstation where Randidly would do most of his work.

“The problem is demand is still lagging a bit behind what we expected,” Davey said, shaking his head. “So the prices for the drones are still low. So much so that Ghost is subsidizing their production. You’ll get an extra 20% of your selling price from the government. That should change soon though, the government finally made a deal with the Unity Church.”

Randidly nodded without comment as he scanned his workstation.

This place was three rooms. The first was a typical lab, with different materials for cutting equipment and electrical appliances. Another was a library, with two computers and several bookshelves filled with leather-bound volumes. Davey told Randidly that these were all primers that he should read through before starting to try and create a drone.

“There are just so many parts to each, and industrialization won’t get us what we want,” Davey said with a sigh. “ Sure, we could mass-produce the things, and have, but they are weak. Around Level 20, monsters can overpower them without breaking a sweat. It’s not a matter of materials either, but of some quality that is imbued in by a Skill. Skills become so important after 20. We have a few people here who have the Drone Assembly Skill, and its reached near 50. Their drones have 30% higher performance in the field. That’s what we are after. But in the numbers of a mass production, so we need a lot of laborers to fill it out. You have no idea how happy I am you bought your citizenship so fast.”

“Is there anything else I need to buy?” Randidly asked, running his fingers across the books.

“No, the materials here were included in your starter package,” Davey said, then he flexed his hand and produced a folder. “Plus these three basic blueprints. The System did some fucked up things to electronics, simplified them to an absurd degree. The fact that they continue to function is ridiculous. They are more runes than circuitry. So you’ll have to throw out everything you know about electronics and learn that. It’s something of a grind, especially when your Intelligence is below 80 or so. If you have any questions, let me know.”

Randidly, with his Intelligence of 325, smiled politely.

For the next three days, Randidly lost himself in the books. Making materials was one thing, but assembling the drones was quite another. Materials had inputs and outputs, but they were static. The drone was a series of parts and connections between those parts. If the parts failed, the drone was broken. If the connections failed, the drone was broken. If the parts were connected in the wrong way, the drone was broken. If the power couldn’t flow to the parts and to the connections, the drone was broken.

The three days wasn’t just spent reading, but also refining his image for As the Sun Stills, or whatever new Skill it would become. At nights, he returned to the forest and added the finishing touches to his underground base below the forest. This was a much more difficult task now that Randidly was staying on the drone compound, as everything was monitored, so he created an underground tunnel from his room to the base to avoid suspicion.

With his starter package, Randidly had obtained three blueprints: the Skylark, the Porpoise, and the Bull. As far as Randidly could tell, these were named randomly. The Skylark at least flew, and was an observation drone. The Porpoise was about the size of a large dog and was mainly designed for overland transport, with an interspatial watch hidden inside it. The Bull was smaller, maybe the size of a beaver, and contained explosives. At its front was a drill. Apparently, you just sent it to dig under the enemies and blow them up.

As Davey had said, the electric circuitry of yesteryear was replaced with a variation of runes. Although they were different from the runes that Randidly knew, as they were discovered by a different author, very soon he understood the details of the language. Honestly, it was extremely crude, so much so that Randidly made several improvements within his first 12 hours.

He didn’t mind using these improved versions of the different power and data transferal runes, as he suspected that even Ghost wouldn’t notice. After all, the details that Randidly could correct were focused on how the runes were engraved upon the material. There was no real change to the shape, but instead, he evened out the application in many places, deepening the reserve of Mana to add to its effect.

Even with all of this, assembling his first drone was difficult.

But difficult in the way of a puzzle that you are delighted to solve.

For one thing, Randidly was a bit too strong sometimes. He had grown used to using his hands to bend the metal into the shape he wanted, and it soon became clear that this was a bad habit; there just wasn’t enough precision in his hands to get the metal in the right shapes. Especially for the two propellers in the Skylark, they wouldn’t function if they were bent out of shape.

So Randidly began training with tools, taking his time. He lost himself in the sensation of working with metal. It was a heady experience and one that Randidly had never truly felt before in his life. It was strange to him, to take such a dead and inert substance and bend and shape it into something extremely productive and useful.

There were several times that strange Skills popped up, but Randidly rejected them out of hand. He didn’t want to learn something like Metal Bending or Electric Rune Mastery. They were useful, and would likely generate PP, but Randidly suspected he could discover a more holistic Skill to spend one of his Skill slots on.