A little after midnight, a certain "rookie" finally set down his pen.
Spread across the sheets in front of him were several conceptual sketches for mech-fighters, each with a different shape and a different design philosophy.
Jiang Qi had drawn out every idea he could think of for the moment. As for which one to choose, he planned to discuss it with Glaxia before deciding.
After all, in his plan, this mech was going to be piloted by Glaxia herself.
She was not only a pilot, but also a top-tier humanoid combat machine. Logically speaking, she should be able to offer some pretty useful advice.
Well…
Probably.
Thinking this over, Jiang Qi tucked the drawings away into the drawer.
He let out a yawn without meaning to, then glanced at the time. At long last, he had managed to stay awake past midnight.
Ever since he started getting up in the dead of night to scavenge, he had usually gone to sleep around dinnertime. By the standards of his biological clock, this absolutely counted as staying up obscenely late.
But now, he still had to keep going.
Glaxia was hidden outside the town. Although Jiang Qi was confident that the hiding place was safe, he still could not truly relax until he had brought her back.
After locking the workshop door, Jiang Qi dragged out his handcart and left.
To reduce the chance of running into anyone on the way, he deliberately avoided the main roads and instead slipped through the maze of scavenger shacks.
At this hour, the scavengers were basically all asleep. Even the rare few who were still awake were probably just lying in bed playing with their phones. Other than the wind and the rattling, flapping noise it made as it swept across sheet metal and plastic tarps, the whole area was nearly silent.
Once he was out of the residential area and back on the wasteland itself, Jiang Qi quickly found the familiar path.
He had walked this road to the garbage mountain so many times that the sheer familiarity of it gave him an odd flashback to walking to and from school on foot in his previous life.
Still, this was probably going to be the last time he walked this route for a while.
Once he brought Glaxia back, other than going out for meals with Old Homa, he didn't plan to leave the workshop much at all for the time being.
It wasn't that Jiang Qi was especially afraid of those friends of Natuba's.
It was just that he had too many secrets on him. The fewer conflicts he had with other people, the better.
Some time later, following the route from memory, Jiang Qi arrived at the place where he had hidden Glaxia.
He brushed aside the sand, moved the sheet metal covering, and opened the buried wooden crate.
The sight of Glaxia lying there quietly at last let him release the breath he had been holding.
After closing the lid, Jiang Qi dragged the crate out, set it onto the handcart, covered it again with the sheet metal, and then hauled it back to the workshop as quickly as he could.
It was only after he had shoved the crate beneath his bed that he truly relaxed.
And at the same time, all the exhaustion that had built up from staying awake so late came rushing over him like a tide.
He was so tired that he couldn't even work up the energy to wash up. He simply collapsed onto the bed, shut his eyes, and fell asleep on the spot.
The following evening.
Old Homa had a toothpick in his mouth as he waved Jiang Qi off with his mechanical arm, then headed out to tend the shop.
Jiang Qi watched him go, shut the workshop door, and locked it.
Back in his room, he opened the box where he kept his energy cores and counted out twenty-five of them.
Looking at the pile still left in the box afterward, Jiang Qi felt rather emotional.
Not that long ago, he had thought that saving up twenty-five energy cores was an impossibly difficult task. Who could have imagined that after only a few days, he would have so many that he could barely use them all up?
He lined the twenty-five cores up on the workbench and began the synthesis.
This second time around, the process felt slightly easier than the first.
Only slightly.
Clearly, while the Synthesis ability did allow for a bit of "practice makes perfect," the effect was extremely limited. If he really wanted the situation to improve significantly, he would have to work on his knowledge and understanding instead.
After setting the newly synthesized energy core aside, Jiang Qi leaned back in his chair, closed his eyes, and rested for a while.
Only once the fatigue had mostly receded did he get up, pull the crate containing Glaxia out from beneath the bed, open it, and lift her out, carefully placing her on the workbench.
Come to think of it, even though most of Glaxia's body was made of metal, she actually wasn't that heavy.
Part of that was because so much of her body was missing.
But more importantly, the material itself was unusual.
According to Appraisal, nearly every metal component in Glaxia's body was made from different models of something called Yunting Special Alloy.
Jiang Qi had no idea how many models of Yunting Special Alloy existed in total. On Glaxia alone, however, he had already identified Types One through Five—five different variants.
Each of these specialty alloys had different properties, different characteristics, and different intended applications.
But they all had one thing in common—
Jiang Qi couldn't synthesize any of them.
The technological sophistication of these materials was obviously too high. Just as Jiang Qi could not synthesize military-grade power cores, these specialty metals were also beyond what he could currently produce.
So if he ever wanted to restore Glaxia to her full peak condition, then aside from the issue of technical skill, materials would be just as critically important a problem.
Of course, that was something for the future.
Given Jiang Qi's current circumstances, it was far too early to worry about things like that.
For now, his approach was simple: whatever he had on hand, he would use. He would make do as best he could. With conditions like these, he didn't exactly have the luxury of being picky.
He opened the energy bay in Glaxia's chest and inserted the core.
Even though this was already the second time he had done it, Jiang Qi still felt a faint trace of nervousness for some reason.
It wasn't until Glaxia's tightly shut left eye slowly opened that he finally let out a relieved breath.
Glaxia turned her head slightly, her pupil shifting as she swept her gaze around the room before finally settling on Jiang Qi.
At the same time, the tablet beside them suddenly lit up, and a text box popped onto the screen.
[You scared me half to death. Why did it take you so long to give me a new core? I thought I was going to die.]
Jiang Qi's mouth twitched. He glanced at the several secondary and auxiliary energy cores that were all still holding plenty of charge, then said, "Oh, cut it out. It hasn't even been that long. It's only been two days. Your hibernation mode can last more than a month."
[How would I know how much time passed when I was asleep? Do you have any idea how terrifying it is when you can't feel anything at all?!]
Glaxia's eye opened wide, and to Jiang Qi's astonishment, an unmistakably human trace of grievance appeared on her face.
Then she suddenly froze for a second, before tilting her head in delight.
[Huh? You fixed my hearing module? But why is it only on one side? Mono audio feels really weird. And I meant to ask before too—why did you only fix one visual module as well?]
"In the wasteland, conditions are limited. I can't exactly find proper replacement parts, so obviously I had to cannibalize one to fix the other," Jiang Qi replied with the excuse he had already prepared long ago. "You'll just have to make do for now. If I ever get the chance to find compatible parts, I'll install them for you later."
[Fair enough. That works.]
Glaxia accepted the explanation surprisingly quickly.
"Right, there's something I need you to choose," Jiang Qi said, pulling the designs he had drawn earlier out of the drawer and pointing to the various mech concepts on them. "Which one of these do you like better?"
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 150)
Zenless Zone Zero: I'm a Doctor, Not a Bangboo (Chapter 115)
Ben Tennyson Wants to Join the Justice League (Chapter 110)
TYPE-MOON: Redemption Beginning with the Holy Grail War (Chapter105)
Yu-Gi-Oh! — Transmigrated into the White Dragon Girl (Chapter100)
"Is this chat group even serious?" (Chapter69)
I, Lord Ravager, Utterly Loyal! (Chapter95)
Can Playing Games Save the World? 65
Crossover Anime Multiverse: The Demon Hunter of an Unnatural World 70
From Junkman to Wasteland 55
Weekly Refresh of Overpowered 31
I'm Grinding Proficiency Like 40
From Kiana, Lord Ravager, Onwa 45
Honkai: Is This Still the Prev 42
Elf: My Starter Pokémon Is Inc 32
Warhammer: My Primarch Is Remi 31
From Demon Slayer to Grand Ass 31
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