New Quest!

He soon arrived home and continued to dig deeper into this system of his. His mech remained tucked under his clothing and he kept it there since he didn't know how his parents would react.

He couldn't just say that he found it out of a bin, no one would believe him. How was he going to use his mech in school without raising suspicion?

Anyhow, he took his mind off that and focused on the system that he now had. Opening his system's panels once again, he was given a new message.

[New Quest!]

[Quest: Blades]

[Add a module for a bladed weapon and perform 25 minutes of dummy & target training in the training area of the academy daily for 3 weeks.]

[Rewards: 1 Skill, 100XP]

Looking back to his stats, he saw that he needed just 100XP to level up, and this quest he had just read was going to give it to him. Additionally, he would most likely be given a skill pertaining to this blade he was to use.

Modules were not cheap -as were mechs- but his mech combatant academy had a large supply of items to aid students with things like that.

He was sure they'd have a basic module like a bladed weapon.

Now, he would have to try and explain how he had received this mech. Upon thinking of various scenarios, he soon decided that just telling the truth was likely the best option here.

Making up a more believable scenario was difficult and also unnecessary. He had no clue why there was a mech in a bin and if no one believed him, that wasn't his problem since that was what actually happened.

Standing at his door with a smile, he opened the door to then enter their living room.

"Hey there, Alonso!" His mother said, waving at him with a keen smile.

His father nodded with a smile also, with his arms extended across their sofa as they watched TV.

Without replying, he just imagined the expansion of his mech, and soon enough, it followed his command.

It extended from his spine and pulled itself over his clothing. His parents couldn't take their eyes off what they were seeing. His father started laughing upon seeing this, then his helmet fully manifested and chucked down a vice across his eyes and face.

His mech was completely black and his mech was slim and glistening.

"How did you get a mech?!" His dad blurted out.

"Well, I just found it outside as a core. No one was using it and it just bonded with me. It hurt quite a lot, but I finally have one now!" He explained.

His father raised to walk toward him, but his mother still looked suspicious.

"Why would there just be a random mech outside? You bonded to a mech without a mech issuer?" She asked.

"Why are you asking so many questions, Charline. He has a mech now, that's all that matters." He replied, before giving his son a hug.

Charline just decided to throw her suspicions away for now, and hugged Alonso also, who removed his mech helmet in their embrace.

He just exhaled calmly. His feelings of peace previously weren't peace. It was escape. Now, he felt totally and truly at peace.

***

The following day, the news was spread to the mech combatant academy, and the students didn't really care very much. Students only thought about those who were the most promising candidates for becoming mech combatants, because they were seen as more important and higher value.

Just as usual, no one paid attention to his existence, but this only fuelled his flame further. The desire to have his name chanted by his people had never disappeared. Now, he just had to work exceptionally hard to gain his position.

"What are the two main methods of providing power to a mech?" Mr Piedrabuena asked.

In a somewhat large lecture room, Mr Piedrabuena stood and faced the students. There were rows of seats for students to sit in, that each had special holographic devices at their disposal. The further the row was from the teacher, the more elevated it was to give those students a better view.

An eager student in the classroom raised his palm.

"The first way is through gaining electrical energy through a chemical store like a battery. The second method is through H-M conversion, where the fat deposits in the human body are converted by the mechs into electrical energy to power it."

While he was in school, Alonso just spent a lot of time looking through his system. He was stuck on the MechMod Market and from the way others remained somewhat focused on their teacher, others could not see his system.

The MechMod market sold beast crystals, heavily damaged mechs, destroyed mechs and other things. Mech constructors and designers would scavenge this marketplace for those goods to further their developments.

It was a great system to advance humanity's progress with mechs.

The day soon came to an end, and before he headed home, he headed to a special building.

It was square-shaped and wasn't covered with glass like the other towers but was made of brick.

With holograms surrounding him from his mobile device, he placed an order on a module for a dagger. The school had not only an application to keep all of the students together but basically an entire operating system. It would run on the devices of the students and staff of the school, and could be accessed at pretty much anytime.

This building was an area where students could pick up items that they ordered for use. Alonso was from a working class family and so, didn't have money to just spend on a mdoule.

Therefore, he had to issue out the module under his name to then hand it back once he was done. He was given 4 weeks of use of the module and from the description of the quest, he was sure he'd be done in time.

There was a register and the woman working behind the glass retrieved his special module.

"Good luck with your training." She said, before continuing her work.

Right after, he headed to a special training facility that was extremely large in size. The halls had glowing lines of energy flowing across its floors and ceilings.

The large building, that was more than 20 floors, had single rooms where students could perform different forms of training.

Then, reaching near the top of the building, he entered a large, extensive hall with various white platforms.

The school had advanced facilities for students to hone their skills and the hall was akin to a stadium in size. Various students ran on things like treadmills, punched dummies or trained their usage of weapons.

This building's single rooms cost money to just use and these floors were the communal training areas, where people could train to their heart's content.

Alonso's mech took form and coated his entire body. His helmet fully formed and he then stepped onto a platform which had a large dummy at its centre. This dummy weighed tonnes and was not something that one could easily throw down.

Revealing his module, he was taken aback by its sudden movements. His mech started to bond to the grey device, and his fingers were moved so that it felt just like he was holding a dagger himself.

However, his mech had fused with the module and so he couldn't drop the module. This meant it couldn't very easily be used on himself, while it gave him more control.

The dummy had its arms extended and was made of a soft, gel-like material that was similar to ballistic gel. It was intended to have similar strength to human flesh and he began to go to work on the dummy.

Still training in the academy, he knew how to use various weapons. He wasn't as skilled as people like Kai but he was somewhat average in that field.

He tried to recall the techniques that had been given to him and he made sure to pay attention in class when they would next train their dagger handling.

His movements were still stiff but with this mech of his to enhance his speed and strength, it was exhilarating. His body moved way faster than he ever could've moved it just by himself and his stamina was lasting much longer than usual.

He continued training for about an hour, then decided to head home shortly after.

In the following weeks, he continued to train his dagger and started to watch a few videos that were online on how to improve his dagger usage.

On the galactic web, there was a special database that was free to use for all and it was called the MechAtlas. It was similar to the MechMod Market in its appearance and user interface but it wasn't a market.

Instead, it was a database holding vast amounts of information pertaining to the use of mechs and mech combatants. Just on the use of daggers, there were folders and folders of videos, discussions and books detailing the different martial art techniques that he could use.

He wasn't at that level yet and decided to stick to simple fundamentals. Specialising into a certain type of dagger user would be further down the road for him.