By the time Jiang Qi came barreling into the bookstore, Old Homa was busy serving customers.
He didn't say much to Jiang Qi, merely jerking his chin toward the counter nearby.
There was a wooden crate sitting on it, filled with damaged low-grade energy cores. From the sharp, unpleasant smell, Jiang Qi could tell these had probably all been bought from scavengers.
There were twenty-five in total. Jiang Qi gave them a quick scan. Twenty-three of them were still repairable, while the remaining two were badly damaged—just enough to pair with the severely damaged core left over from yesterday.
All told, he could make twelve intact energy cores out of today's batch, with one damaged one left over for tomorrow.
At a five-to-one submission ratio, he only needed to hand over five repaired cores, which meant seven more energy cores would go into his own pocket today.
That brought the number in his possession up to seventeen.
And if he added the damaged cores he had picked up in the garbage mountain last night, plus tomorrow's batch, then by tomorrow morning he could probably scrape together all twenty-five low-grade energy cores he needed.
Jiang Qi honestly hadn't expected this.
He had thought collecting the energy cores would be the hardest part, but instead, it was the repair progress on the energy bay that was lagging behind.
Not wanting to interrupt Old Homa's business, Jiang Qi greeted him briefly, then picked up the crate and headed straight for Homa's workshop.
After using Synthesis to finish the repairs, Jiang Qi stuffed all the energy cores into his backpack, then glanced at his watch.
Mm.
Not even ten minutes had passed since he'd started work.
That was what you called efficiency.
No—
that was what you called efficiency.
Having cheats really did feel amazing.
No wonder so many people abandoned all sense of balance in games just to—
Ahem. Off topic.
A transmigrator's golden finger couldn't possibly count as cheating.
At most, it was compensation for having the beauty of modern civilization ripped away from him.
Slipping the backpack onto his shoulders, Jiang Qi locked up the workshop and headed home.
Old Homa would keep minding the store until around ten in the morning, then usually spend some time over at White-Claw Crow's place or handling other matters. He wouldn't head to the workshop until lesson time in the afternoon.
That stretch of time belonged entirely to Jiang Qi.
Naturally, he had no intention of wasting it.
Starting today, he planned to devote all of that free time to repairing the main energy bay in Glaxia's chest.
Once home, Jiang Qi checked Glaxia's condition again.
The countdown was still steadily shrinking. The good news was that its estimate was extremely accurate—there was almost no discrepancy between the time displayed and real time passing. In other words, the remaining time shown was the genuine remaining time.
After that, Jiang Qi carefully inspected the state of the main energy bay again.
At present, the repair workload wasn't exactly small, but thankfully the core structure itself wasn't badly damaged. Most of the work was just replacing parts, so the technical difficulty wasn't too high.
Jiang Qi estimated that as long as he had enough parts and materials, he could finish it in a few days.
As far as time went, things were still very comfortable.
The whole morning slipped by before Jiang Qi even noticed, absorbed completely in the repair work.
And during that time, he discovered that his Synthesis ability had another advantage he'd never noticed before.
That advantage was machining precision.
The parts produced by Synthesis were made exactly according to the specifications and dimensions in Jiang Qi's mind. Their precision was extremely high.
Thankfully, that was the case.
Otherwise, the parts Jiang Qi produced would never have been precise enough to meet the requirements of a machine like Glaxia.
He didn't even want to imagine how troublesome it would've been if Synthesis didn't have that function and he had to hand-make those high-precision parts using the equipment currently available to him.
"At this rate, the progress might actually be even faster than I expected..." Jiang Qi thought to himself as he tidied up his tools.
He checked the time.
It was already noon.
Time for lunch.
At the thought of lunch, Jiang Qi couldn't help swallowing.
Who knew what dishes would be available today?
With that in mind, Jiang Qi hid Glaxia away, slung on the backpack containing the energy cores, and stepped out of the house.
At the entrance to the restaurant, he happened to run into Homa, who had come to eat as well, and naturally followed him to the same table.
Compared to the morning menu, lunch was a bit more generous, with two extra dishes to choose from.
Jiang Qi ordered a baked flatbread, a plate of braised meat and vegetables, and a bowl of mushroom soup—and ate with absolute relish.
As Old Homa put it, just watching Jiang Qi eat improved his own appetite.
Then Old Homa insisted on paying for the meal again, which meant Jiang Qi ended up mooching yet another free lunch and felt rather embarrassed about it.
After the meal, the two of them headed together to the workshop.
"As I said before, I'll be guiding you in assembling your own mech-fighting unit from scratch during the afternoons," Homa said, pointing toward a storage rack nearby. "Just use the materials in the workshop. I bought some extra yesterday, so there should be enough."
Jiang Qi looked over. There really were noticeably more materials on the rack than before.
"But today's the first day of lessons, so we're not in a rush to start building. First we'll do some planning and decide on a goal." As he spoke, Old Homa took out paper and a pen from a cabinet beside the desk. "Let's start by trying to draw the mech-fighting unit you want to make. Then we can discuss revisions, settle on the general direction, and go from there."
"You mean we start with a concept design?" Jiang Qi asked.
"A concept design? Mm, not a bad term. More or less, yes." Homa stroked his chin. "By the way, how much do you know about different mech types?"
"Uh... not much," Jiang Qi admitted, scratching his head.
Other than the Tiangong Mecha Tournament recordings, the only mechs he'd seen were Bauer's and Homa's. How was he supposed to know what kinds of mech types existed in the Wasteland?
"Mm, that's fine. Later, when there's time, I'll show you some recordings of wasteland mech fights. You'll gradually learn what the common mech types are." Homa paused, then continued, "As for your first mech, as a beginner, I only recommend one type..."
"That would be the same route as Bauer's machine: the stacked gun-platform build."
"Layered armor and direct-fire slugging matches—the eternal theme of beginner mech fighting."
"I have three reasons for recommending this type. First: it's simple."
"A stacked gun-platform mech is the simplest type in terms of design, construction, and even remote control operation after it's finished. It's the easiest type for a beginner mechanic to get the hang of, and it's also cheap to build."
"The second reason is that it's cheap to repair."
"As long as you surrender in time when you feel the armor won't hold much longer, then after the match, you basically just need to fix the damaged armor and the mech will be as good as new."
"Compared with other mech styles, this one has the lowest repair cost."
"The third reason is practicality."
"You need to understand something: one major reason mech-fighting machines are so popular in the Wasteland is because they aren't just toys for mech fighting. They're also highly lethal remote-controlled weapons in actual combat."
"One major advantage of this type is that if you stick it in the cargo bed of an off-road vehicle, it instantly becomes a vehicle-mounted turret."
"This will be your first mech-fighting unit. If you're not planning to keep it as a souvenir and let it gather dust in a corner, then its best destination is to sell it to the gang as a vehicle-mounted weapon."
"This type of mech sells for the best price, and that money can become the startup capital for building your next mech."
At that point, Homa picked up his water pouch, took a drink, and asked, "That's my opinion. What do you think?"
"I think it makes perfect sense," Jiang Qi said seriously.
Such a pragmatic plan suited him perfectly. In fact, he couldn't think of a single reason to object.
"Good. Then it's settled." Homa extended the pen in his hand toward Jiang Qi. "Now let me see what a mech of this type looks like in your mind."
Join here to read ahead.
In Star Rail, Ultra-Beast Armored — Have I Caught "Equilibrium"? l (Chapter 80)
Uma Musume, But I Only Have Five Years Left to Live (Chapter 130)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 105)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 105)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter99)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter91)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter65)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter80)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 58
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 62
From Junkman to Wasteland 45
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 32
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 35
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 31
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