22 Test Piloting

It seemed that the mountain valley section of the campus simply served as the resting and leisure place for students. Conveniently, a transport hub was built at the very end of the road where students can be sent to their respective destinations as quickly as humanly possible.

The second Daniel and Jake entered the dome-shaped building, they found themselves feeling as though they had been transported back to the train terminal where Daniel had departed from this morning. A bright digital noticeboard is hanging from the ceiling of the building showing the departures of the next trains and cable cars from this station. The words displayed on the board seemed to change within a few seconds as another train departed or arrived within that time.

"Welcome to the White Valley Transport Hub, a terminal where students need to pass through every day in order to get to school and back. These trains are for the use of students and faculty members only, with each transporting people towards a different training area or towards an airport where they would be directly transported towards the orbital elevator located on the equator hundreds of miles away. There are also cable cars taking students up this mountain towards the training areas above." Amelia explained with a smile.

"Since Daniel is interested in the mechs that we have to offer, why don't we head towards Parking Lot A, where a portion of our shared-use mechas are parked."

Seeing Daniel nod with acknowledgement, Amelia escorted them towards Platform 3, which closed its doors seconds after the three of them entered through the train car.

Since the train is unreserved, Daniel and Jake simply took a seat next to each other on a random row located close to the center of the train car while Amelia sat across from the two of them. Within seconds, the maglev train shot through the tracks, moving through the countryside at around 300km/h. Within a minute though, the train already started to slow down before finally coming to a stop after another half a minute or so.

"Arriving at Mechanical Unit Parking Lot A. Please mind the gap between the train and the platform. Please remember to bring all your belongings with you." A robotic voice spoke as the door slide open.

***

"Wow! This is great! I've gone through some virtual simulations of piloting a mech before, but it really cannot be compared to the real thing!" Jake exclaimed. "Maybe I'll ask my father to get me one when I get back home tonight."

"All mechanical units are classified as military essential materials and cannot be bought or used by civilians." Daniel retorted as he stared at the enthusiastic person before his screen, looking quite amused as though he had just been given a new toy.

Daniel mentally moved the live image of Jake to the top left corner of the screen before him before taking a deep breath. He concentrated with his mind and began to move his legs. In less than a nanosecond, the mech suit that he's currently encased within moved according to his will, lifting its legs at the same time as him.

After a few minutes of getting used to the mech suit currently connected with his brain via VR technology, he managed to walk naturally towards the empty field located right outside the storage factory called Parking Lot A.

"Wow, you really look natural using the mech suit!" Jake exclaimed, complimenting his best friend in a flattering manner. "It looks as though you're already a pro! Is this your natural talent or because of your bloodline?"

"I've simply connected the mechanical body of the mech suit with my nervous system." Daniel replied with a snort. "With it being able to sense my motor functions, of course I would be able to walk around naturally with the mech suit, since the VR technology does everything for me. If you have decided to connect your central nervous system with your mech instead of using that old fashioned keyboard then you would be able to move as naturally as me as well."

"No thanks, I don't want to get my brain fried from overuse." Jake replied, shaking his head. "Besides, as an avid retro gamer, I'm definitely used to using AWSD to move instead of directly connecting the mech to my body like that! It feels as though I'm cheating!"

"Well, good luck with that then, because I'm taking this bad boy for a run without you." Daniel replied with a sneer.

"Hey, wait!" Jake shouted, wanting to follow his best friend towards the field in front of them. Unfortunately, it was too late, before Jake could even manage to take another step, Daniel had already started the mech's jet propulsion system and flew off into the sky, leaving him behind in the dust.

***

Ms. Amelia watched both of the teenagers from within a command room located deep within the building where most of their mechs are stored. Since the command room allows for her gain emergency controls of the mechs that the two teenagers were using in case of something going wrong, she had to stay inside and monitor the behavior of those two, lest they manage to break the multi-million dollar machine that they spent years of research to build.

Initially, she did not really have much expectations for the two kids. However, when she saw how Daniel managed to gain full control of one of their latest mechs in such a short time, she couldn't help but feel slightly surprised. "As expected of a hero's son." She couldn't help but thought to herself.

***

Of course, testing a mech suit wasn't as simple as simply operating it and taking it out for a few runs. Instead, Daniel also needed to test out its weapons functions.

"Hm… two Mark IV laser rifled, one Mark II beam saber. Standard modification." Daniel thought to himself as he viewed the stats of the mech suit before his screen. It was at this time that the entire pod where he sat started to flash in red, indicating that a hostile object is heading towards him.

Daniel immediately multitasked by having the radar and map function appear before his left eye while getting the natural view from his position with his right. There are camera located all around the mech suit allowing Daniel to get a 360-degree view of his surroundings, as though he himself was standing in the middle of the air without any other obstruction.

Within an instant, he saw a laser beam heading towards his direction with astonishing speed. Using his reflexes, he managed to dodge the laser beam by inches before instantly taking out his own laser rifle strapped beside the mech suit's thigh and shot back.

Since he used Minerva to determine the direction of the laser beam and trace its origin, he was directly informed of the location of the bogie that was obscured behind the clouds within a nanosecond.

Daniel did not hesitate and immediately shot back, instantly destroying the assailant within a second. It turned out to be a combat drone like the one he saw last week.

After destroying the drone, Daniel could not help but give out a sigh, "Luckily, I've played my share of VR FPS games, or else my reaction speed wouldn't be fast enough to dodge the laser beam just now." He thought to himself in relief.

"Although, I had been informed beforehand that directly entering combat while maintaining a mental connection with the mech suit would be quite straining for the human mind, how come I still don't feel anything after doing such a drastic move?" Daniel thought to himself, feeling slightly confused.

[That's because of your heightened ability to wield soul energy, Master.] The system suddenly barged into Daniel's inner thoughts and interrupted.

Daniel felt a little irritated that the system within his brain would just suddenly speak like that without warning, but he decided to let it off for now since there were more important things to worry about. He asked, "What do you mean?"

[Well, as I suspect, it requires a lot of mental concentration for a normal human to control such a large mechanical suit, since it is much larger than a human body. The neural transmission within your brain needs to be digitized before being sent towards the mech as information, so a higher amount of energy needed to be exerted from your brain. Due to this, a normal human's brain would come under strain and get tired out easily.]

"Okay, but what has that gotta do with my soul and how I wield my soul energy?" Daniel asked.

[Soul energy are one of the ingredients, along with oxygen coming up from the bloodstream carrying nutrients, to power the brain. To be precise, it powers the psyche. A normal person who doesn't know how to use soul energy can only use their limited amount of energy converted from nutrients from within the other parts of its body, using it to power the neurons within the brain. For Master though, this would be unconsciously supplemented by your soul energy instead.]