Chapter 7: A Sentient Construct

Carman woke up early in the morning, groggily, he stood up and did his morning routine.

"Alrighty, Livre mentioned before that he'd be away from the shop for the next few days to visit his parents. Since the workshop is out, what am I going to do today..." said Carman while he pondered what he could do for the next few days. "I have a reasonable amount of Mora now, I could probably get some supplies... Wait, I've got new quests, let's check the system before making any concrete plans."

Opening the quests tab of the system, there were a many mundane tasks that only provided a few system points, the Daily Workout Routine quest had finally popped up again after he reached level one.

A few quests did stick out to Carman however.

[Main Quest: Enroll in a Middle Class School

Description: You live in the city of Fontaine, there are three levels of education based on your social standing, Higher, Middle, and Low class. The Fontaine Research Institute only accepts students from Higher or Middle class schools. Unfortunately due to being disowned by your aristocratic father your chance to learn in a higher class school is gone, however Middle class schools will take anyone who can pay the enrollment fees. Build up funds and enroll in a Middle class school.

Rewards: 5 Normal Gatcha Tickets, 50k Mora, random E rank blueprint.]

"Interesting, more Gatcha Tickets as quest rewards, but these are for the normal Gatcha and not the Special Gatcha." Muttered Carman as he looked over the rewards.

[Quest: Project Toymaker Part 1

Description: you are now an employee of Leschots's Clockwork Workshop, your employer, Livre wishes to bring smiles to children's faces through clockwork engineering. Create a product for him to stock in his store and get more than one person to purchase it.

Rewards: 50k Mora, 300 System Points, 1 E rank Blueprint.]

"Speaking of the Gatcha, I should probably figure out what I am going to do with the automata I got yesterday."

Pulling up Y-Series 001 on his item storage he looked at the description.

[Item: Inital Y-Series 001 "Ryuzu" + containment/transfer unit

Type: Gearwork construct (demi-sentient)

Description: a metal containment unit holding a gearwork automata from the Initial Y-Series. The automata contained is Inital Y-Series 001, "Ryuzu," along side many spare parts, tools, and notes left from the many clocksmiths and Misters who have attempted to find and repair the malfunction preventing the automata from booting up.

This unit comes from a parallel timeline where the MC of the Clockwork Planet universe had.to flee his apartment building early due to the building collapsing faster than in the Cannon timeline. If it had not been collected by the system, the containment unit and it's contents would have fallen below the surface of the planet and been lost for eternity.]

"Whelp might as well take a look." Said Carman, "seeing as she isn't booting up, there should not be any danger with opening the box up and taking a look."

Clearing up space in his room, Carman selected the containment unit in his item storage, dragging it off of the window, it stuck to his hand and he watched as a GUI like overlay overlapped his normal vision, selecting the space he wanted to place the containment unit, it slowly appeared as though someone was pulling an invisibility cloak off of it. There was not sound of metal hitting the wooden floor, it was as though the unit was always there.

Carman looked at the containment unit he had summoned. It was made from a dark colored alloy which he could not identify. There were places where gears from the opening mechanism were exposed, at the center where all the plates composing the lid intersected, there was a large gear fused in place with a button in the center of it.

Pressing the button, Carman stepped back as the lid plates let out a hissing noise and split apart in four pieces as they moved outward and folded over the sides of the coffin shaped container, revealing a female humanoid automata, she was dressed in a mix of a Victorian maid uniform and a Gothic dress skirt, with a dark overcoat that blended in almost seamlessly with the dress.

Carman took a bit to admire the beauty of the automoton, before he moved on and looked at the various materials and tools that where stored in the containment unit with Ryuzu.

From what I remember, she is still capable of observing her surroundings even while in this state. Carman thought, continuing to play the part of a curious child, while digging for the notes mentioned in the description. Once he found the notes, Carman looked around the container and found a button that made the lid close again.

Sorry Ryuzu, I'll repair you later, I promise. Thought Carman as he watched the lid close and sat down to read the notes. Looking at the notes, most of were were written in english, Carman was glad he had remembered to keep his literacy through writing in a journal he still has from his time in the orphanage. He felt it was perfectly safe for him to write about his memories as a reincarnated person in this journal since nobody would be able to read it because he hadn't met anyone who understood English yet.

Looking through the notes Carman was half surprised by the number of concepts that were shared between clocksmithing and clockwork engineering. However there were a few areas where the two diverged, clockwork engineering was heavily focused on utilizing the various energies that can be found around Teyvat, Clocksmiths on the other hand used other power sources ranging from steam, the rotation of the central planetary cog, gravitational anomalies, to accessing and manipulating other dimensions.

According to the various notes stored with her, nobody has figured out what was exactly wrong with Ryuzu, but they had narrowed it down to a malfunction either in her main logistical and memory processors or in her power core. Taking a few hours pouring over the notes.and trying to remember what he could from the manga and anime, Carman finally remembered that Ryuzu's current state was caused by a screw coming loose in her core, causing an important gear to come out of alignment and stick.

Reading through the rest of the notes on Ryuzu's construction and components, Carman resolved himself to make a few changes. First of all, I need to change how she registeres her "master" there is no way I am having her suck one of my fingers, that's just too weird, let's reconfigure some things so she can use a drop of blood and do some facial recognition, I remember Livre mentioning Gardemeks having that function and showing me the gear configuration connecting ocular input and memory storage.

Pulling out another piece of paper, Carman took his charcoal pencil and started sketching designs one after another, trying to take designs he had memorized and written down from watching Livre's work and remix them to fit into Ryuzu's design.

I'm still not getting it, maybe I should put some bonus points into my wisdom and intelligence.

Pulling up his status screen, Carman looked at his stats before clicking the Free points button at the bottom.

[ [Status]

Name: Carman [removed]

Titles: [Descender], [Clockwork Engineer: Trainee], [Clockwork Engineer: Apprentice], [Survivor], [StreetRat].

Level: 1

Exp: 0/100 [+]

Avalable Exp: 0 [+]

Stats:

Str: 5

Dex: 7

Con: 5

Int: 20

Wis: 22

Chr: 4

[Avalable stat points: 8 ]

[Skills Tab] ]

Still being careful to not let Ryuzu hear him Carman pondered in his mind what to do with the stat points. Well, I could allocate some to every stat, but I think I should save some for later in case of emergencies. Hmmm.

In the end, Carman put 2 points each into Int, Wis, and Chr, seeing as they are the stats he wasn't sure on how to increase other wise.

[ [Status]

Name: Carman [removed]

Titles: [Descender], [Clockwork Engineer: Trainee], [Clockwork Engineer: Apprentice], [Survivor], [StreetRat].

Level: 1

Exp: 0/100 [+]

Avalable Exp: 0 [+]

Stats:

Str: 5

Dex: 7

Con: 5

Int: 20→22

Wis: 22→24

Chr: 4→6

[Avalable stat points: 2 ]

[Skills Tab] ]

Immediately, Carman noticed a change in his mind and body, he felt his posture straighten, his hair started to feel softer, his eyes and skin tingled slightly for a few seconds. His mind felt clearer, he remembered things more vividly, and connections between concepts he had been pondering suddenly clicked.

Feeling all of these changes, Carman was hit with a rush of euphoria, in his daze, he almost allocated his remaining points, wanting to feel the rush again but he quickly regained control over himself. Damn, that was a rush, and addicting too, and that was only 2 points in each. I've got to be careful with those points, don't want to get addicted.

With his new level of understanding, Carman quickly completed the designs on Ryuzu's facial recognition hardware.

-ding-

Not expecting the noise, Carman jumped slightly as a system window popped into his sight.

[Congratulations host on learning the skill [Clocksmithing (D):0→2]. Refer to [Status] for details.]

Huh, so Clocksmithing is considered different enough to be it's own skill. Interesting. Thought Carman as he read the system message, as he read it, new information spread in his mind regarding the mechanics behind Clocksmithing, many fundamentals he had been missing quickly showed up in his mind. Reviewing his design, Carman quickly noticed and fixed a few minor mistakes that could have caused it to fail. Glad I noticed those before they became a problem. Reflected Carman as he edited the design.

Opening the containment unit again, Carman followed the notes on how to open Ryuzu's exterior, pressing a button on the back of her head, causing a seam to split along the front of her dress, temporarily exposing her human like anatomy before sections of her abdomen split into sepperate panels and opened to show the trillions if gears with her. Using one of the tools in the bag, Carman pressed several tiny release buttons, one in her ear, on the roof of her mouth, and one at the top of her head under her hood. Following the same mechanics.as her abdomen, Ryuzu's face plates split along hidden seams and retracted exposing the mechanisms within.

"From what the notes say you are still conscious, so sorry for altering your mechanisms without your permission like this. I promise I'll fix what is wrong in your core soon." Carman said to Ryuzu, looking her in the eyes while thinking, Damn, seeing her like this reminds me of those creepy animatronics from that one game, hopefully she doesn't get triggered and chomp my head off or anything.

Activating a few mechanisms to move parts of her internal structure aside, Carman quickly detached the current chain of gears connecting Ryuzu's eyes to her logic processors and memory. It took him a few hours and painstaking effort to disassemble reassembling the various components, but eventually, Carman threaded his new design into Ryuzu's internal mechanics, installing facial recognition capabilities into her logic and memory cores before connecting it to her artificial eyes.

After reactivateing the mechanisms to close her internal structure and external plates, Carman took a brief moment to fall down on a cussions he had moved from his bed to his work area. Sighing in relief nothing had gone wrong. After resting for a few minutes, Carman got back up and moved down to Ryuzu's abdomen, using a screwdriver, Carman activated mechanisms to shift the outer layers of Ryuzu's gears out of the way and finally saw her heart shaped power core which also contained the "Imaginary Gear" that allowed her to warp space-time around her. From what he understood from the notes surrounding the core, Y had placed a gravitational anomaly into the core which allowed for perpetual motion once Ryuzu's staring coil was wound up. Unfortunately, he had to install a failsafe into the core as the friction caused when Ryuzu used "Mute Scream" could heat up and damage her internal workings, so once the Imaginary Gear was activated, Ryuzu would eventually be forced into a dormant state, needing time to cool and be rewound before being active again.

Currently, there was nothing Carman could think of to fix this problem, maybe if he had Initial Y-Series 004 "AnchoR," or notes on her construction, he would have been able to come up with something, but unfortunately he did not.

Deciding to get it over with, Carman made use of his "Steady Hands" skill to carefully move his hand with a surgeon's precision, he threaded his screwdriver through the casing, various gears and managed to find the loose screw and tighten it. Hearing a soft clicking noise, Carman knew the job was done. Pulling the screwdriver out, Carman watched as all of the mechanisms activated and closed Ryuzu up.

After all of the plates closed and Ryuzu's dress reassembled itself, Carman fell back onto his rear, taking a deep breath as he closed his eyes and layed down onto the ground. It was slightly uncomfortable the way his back was bending from the uneven level between the cussions and ground but he was too tired to move.

When he opened his eyes he came into contact with a pair of curious amber ones staring back into his. Ryuzu had silently sat up and started staring at him in the moments his eyes were closed. Letting out a small scream, Carman rolled backwards in surprise from Ryuzu's sudden movement.

Ryuzu just continued to stare at Carman, particularly his face. They both stayed where they were, silently staring at one another. After a few moments, it was Ryuzu who broke the silence,"to think that after 206 years, it would be a child of all people to fix me. Either humanity has made great advancements in education, or I was fixed by mere happenstance by the fiddlings of what appears to be a runaway child."

Getting up out of the coffin, Ryuzu stood up and walked over to Carman and leaned over, inspecting his form and the various notes and sketches around him. "Has humanity really advanced to the point where a mere run away can understand the writings and logs from multiple meisters, or are you some sort of prodigy?"

As Carman continued pondering wether he sould reveal he could speak English or not Ryuzu commented on his silence. "Do you understand what I am saying? Or has the language of the world changed since I was last active?"

Deciding to explain his ability to speak English later by saying an old man he had met taught him, Carman said slowly pretending that he wasn't confident in his speaking, "He-hello, my name is Carman.... I can understand you... But, you are the only one other than the old man who talks in this language that I have met."

Taking a second to process his words Ryuzu replied, "apparently you weren't taught proper sentence structuring, but at least we can understand each other, for a moment I was worried humanity had grown in mechanical knowledge at the cost of language and that I was going to have to communicate using gestures and grunts."

Was she this much of a snide jerk in the anime? Well, seeing as she's been conscious, waiting to be repaired for over two centuries, I guess she has the right to be a bit grumpy. Thought Carman as he frowned slightly at Ryuzu's comments.

Straightening and standing up Carman barely came up to Ryuzu's stomach in height. "Why do you have to be so mean Miss Meka Lady? Did I do something to hurt you?"

Ryuzu stared at Carman's slight pouty face, still taking some time to adjust as she was able to fully see and understand his facial expression. After the slight pause, Ryuzu said, "It's not very gentlemanly to undress a lady and alter her without her permission."

Normally Ryuzu would have called him a pervert, but she wasn't sure if this small child understood the concept of different genders yet. Little did she know that she was actually speaking to a grown man in the body of a child, and that the only reason why he was not affected by seeing her bare form was because his body was barely older than a toddler, and had not gone through the hormonal processes yet to have a labido or sense of physical attraction yet.

This strange, silent at times interaction marked the first meeting of individuals who would leave a large impact not only in the history of Fontaine, but of Teyvat and beyond.

-to be continued.