2.53 New Ride

While Squad Four-One, Eddie, and Frogger still fought for their achievements, Flora experimented with her magic and magical perception.

Now and then, she jotted down notes on her new robot−virtually of course, the flames from the hotplate would incinerate paper in a matter of seconds. Initially, she wanted to base her future mount on the Hungry Chest. However, most of her previous adventures took place in sewage systems or the narrow corridors of the Doom Moon. The 3x3x3 meter robot vehicle was too big. Nonetheless, she wanted to have her robots with her in case of a surprise attack (1), so she needed the space to transport them as well.

Must have:

- Enough space for me, 1-2 octopussy, 1-2 Gollies, 1-2 turrets

- Able to be stored in my inventory (max 3x3x3 meters)

- Navigate most of the possible terrains: city, forest, caves

- High defense

- A bit of offense

Nice to have:

- Speed

- Flying or at least hovering or swimming

- Underwater capabilities

- Fighting capabilities

- Self-repair feature

- Low mana-reg per min, or at least high utility for the cost

- It should be a toaster or at least a home appliance for the Church of Evailyn bonus

Flora stared at her list. There was a solution. "Let's build a transformer!"

While Flora was excited, more and more of her companions dropped out of the race. Only Frogger, who started later, still flung magic like a possessed man. Mia, Eddie, and Shari continued channeling but did nothing else. Gram changed his strategy every few minutes and mixed channeling and casting spells interspaced by cursing. Dice hugged his dummy; now and then, he managed to conjure the power for one more hit. Cherrya had abandoned all visible activities and seemed to be reading.

Flowing Flowers to Shiny Frenemy: "I have to go! Now! To build a Killer-Robot-Transformer-Bike! Prepare for your back-rest to vanish!"

Shiny Frenemy to Flowing Flowers: "Haha, I'm used to you giving me the cold shoulder. I will survive a cold back, too."

Flowing Flowers to Shiny Frenemy: "As a warm brother, your back never gets cold."(2)

Shiny Frenemy to Flowing Flowers: "Zing! Homophobic Flora strikes again!"

Flora rolled her eyes but let him have the last word. There were more important things to do than verbal sparring, namely killer-robots to build! She logged out of her bedroom and landed in the Rat Climb in Deriga's workshop. Immediately, she dashed to the drawing board and started sketching.

Flora wanted a sleek design with lots of propellers. Weaponizable propellers! The robot should use them in killer-mode like a blender and carve up its enemies. Blenders of death, despair, and delicious smoothies! For the driver, she wanted just a cabin, maybe a capsule, and another cabin as a trailer. If she built them 1.2 m in diameter and 1.5m long, she would have enough space for herself, one guest, and 1-3 Octopussies or Gollys.

The propellers could be used to hover and for water movement too−if she added a rubber ring around them as wheels.

In fight mode, the propellers would prop up the cabins, and she had a 3-meter murder robot! Alright, the connections between the capsules and the cabins and the propellers had to be hardy. She wanted a maximum of moveability and security. Probably, impossible. But what if only one cabin moved vertical and the other stayed horizontal, like an erected caterpillar? If she added enough blenders, sorry propellers, it could still hurt the enemies but had fewer weak spots.

Flora fell in love with the tiny model she created, but then she remembered that she had to check the Mana-Regeneration cost before making any decisions.

When Flora scanned at the selection of similar-sized flight-capable vehicles in the marketplace, she felt like crying. 58 MR/min, 64 MR/min … the cheapest she found was 50 MR/min, but it looked as if it would fall apart with one sneeze. She only had 35 MR/min! And she needed Mana Reg for her weapons, mech-suit, and emotional-support octopus!

Flora scoured the forum for a MR/min per kg ratio of flying crafts. She found a guy who bragged that he managed to power his 47 kg drone with only 5 MR/min.

"One Flora in a mech-suit, 150kg, one Octopussy 30kg, one Golly 50 kg, one Killer-Blender … hmm with all the propellers at least 200 kg … let's say 450 kg overall … 45 MR/min. Burned Toast and stale jam! Okay, I can't pay for the gadgets if I have to spend so much on the ride. Wait! What if I let the golly power the ride?" Flora bounced up and down. "Aidan, how much MR/min for a Golly who can use establish a connection to feed the Killer-Blender?"

"21 MR/min, Milady. However, I studied the patch notes, and there will be changes to the mana requirement for golems and robots, Milady."

"So, they will change the boxes, golems, and robots. Maybe I'm overly sensitive, but I'm feeling targeted. If they ban toasters, I stop playing! Retirement Home yes or no. I board a cruise ship and spend the rest of my life on a toilet with diarrhea!"

"Please don't leave us, Milady. The patch contains hundreds of changes. No toasters were mentioned in the entire document. There might be a few more issues that you could interpret as damming the flow of flowers, but we should wait and see."

"Hehe, 'damning the flow of flowers' that passage alone made the information sweeter." Flora waved. "I'm just doing my duty as German, complaining until the end. I'm still having fun, even with faulty patch notes without toasters. Okay, these notes are probably the only thing in the world, which is better without toasters than with them!"

Flora looked around. "Where were we?"

"The golem would currently need 21 MR/min to power a 45 MR/min vehicle, Milady."

"Excellent! Let's ask the System about the changes." Flora went over the question in her head and then said: "System-Request: Please give me the MR/min value, my golem needs to power an A-rated 450 kg flying vehicle with my current stats or if they change as well… burned toast! My stats won't change, right? Now, I messed up the request!"

***************

42 MR/min, and your stats will change.

This answer cost two requests because the two questions weren't sufficiently connected.

***************

"Say something epic again. I'm sad." Flora whispered.

"With the toaster's might, we will burn down any dams that prevent the flow of the flowers!" An unfamiliar female voice belted out.

"Aito, was that you?"

After a short pause, a meek *beep* sounded.

"Truly epic sentence, dear! What a blast! We'll get an oversized bumper-sticker with it! Not that I will add a bumper for the Killer-Blender… we spray it directly on the body!"

Flora didn't want to make a big deal out of it, but that Aito spoke her first sentence outweighed any paltry patches on her scale.

"System-Request: How much MR/min can the Golem support with Establish Connection when I cast him with 20 MR/min."

***************

29 MR/min

***************

"The conversion rate is even better. If I add 16 mana generators to the ride, we'll have the 45 MR/min. Great, and thank you, I don't want to know if that is still possible!" Flora paused. "Can I add 16? If the diameter is 1.2m, it's probably too slim for generators. In three meters, I can place 4, 4 additional on the other side. The eight generators perpendicular to them are the problem. How much diameter do I need? The diagonal of a 1x1 square… Hello Pythagoras, old friend! Long time no see! You may have calculated the height of a pyramid from its shadow, but I have built one! Ah, that brag felt good. Or was Thales the pyramid guy? Whatever! So 1^2 + 1^2, that's two, and its square root is a too fat ride. Nevermind! We'll find a way!"

*beep!*

"Yes, Milady!"

"Aito, start mixing tier 1 materials with the fusion box. The lighter, the better. Prioritize mats with good resistance against ranged weapons and able to withstand high speed for the body. Maybe hemp and plastique, a bit of Kevlar… that kind of thing. What do we do for the propellers? They have to be able to make smoothies out of monsters… maybe bone?"

Flora gave Aito a 10k budget for mats and returned to her model. She added the generators' placement, but the more she worked on the project, the more she realized that she was in over her head. She had forgotten everything about aerodynamics she might have learned in university and never worked with flying home appliances until she made the Dragonfly toaster. So, she bought a few blueprints of promising air busses and analyzed them.

Because there was no need to read in Deriga's crowded workshop, she logged back into her bedroom. Squad Four-One was gone, but Eddie remained, sitting in her jacuzzi and watching video clips about sailing. She convinced him to look for ship construction and propulsion videos, and he happily agreed.

To her astonishment, Eddie was versed in the basics of nautic engineering.

"You can't be the best rider if you know nothing about horses, love," Eddie explained to her, and it made sense. Flora had taken a few cooking and baking classes just to construct better home appliances.

The oldies watched ships with shiny screws and interchanged opinions about them until Aidan reminded Flora that her first skill teacher, Jelonso Emba, was expecting her on Riverstones Island.

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Jelonso was part of Ressa's Squad Two-One and part of her 3v3 PvP team, named Team Fire. He styled his brown hair in a fashion reminiscent of an early 2000 Superman and had colored a strand orange. His chiseled chin reinforced the look.

Although Jelonso was polite, he wasn't warm. Flora didn't mind. She was here to learn spells, not to make friends. Emba provided them in exchange for her "Healing Fire" version of them.

Class:

Magic Shield

Branch:

Warrior/Magic

Passive

+ 1 Training efficiency modifier when Magic Enhancement is active

Active

Reduces the Metalhandicap of shields

STA:

Magical charged Shield Bash:

High aggro and chance to interrupt casting.

AoE:

Magical charged Shield Cyclone:

Creates [magical charged] shields between every enemy and every group member.

DEF:

Magical charged Shield Wall:

Creates [magical charged] barrier in front of the caster

MOV:

Magical charged Battering Ram:

Charge with your [magical charged] shield at your enemy.

SIG:

Magic Enhancement:

(Boost) Adds an extra magic secondary effect to your physical attacks

The Healing Flame Shield Cyclone turned out especially nice. When an enemy hit one of the little floating shields that protected the caster's party, it not only protected them but also healed them a bit.'

Flora's stay on the Island didn't go unnoticed by the rest of the PVP team. Hub joined the session to learn Light Shield and gave her the Light Sword class for modifying into a healing version. At the same time, Zapple watched them with envy. He was using a scepter.

"Why is there no Scepter-Master class? I feel discriminated against! I'd love to have Healing Light Scepter skills!" He whined, and BBQ agreed with him whole-heartedly. There wasn't a specialist class for foci either.

"What kind of skill would such a class provide? The STA and AOE skill would basically be just a normal bolt or rain, right?" Flora mused. She wasn't sure and vowed to think about it.

Class:

Magic Sword

Branch:

Warrior/Magic

Passive:

+ 1 Training efficiency modifier when Magic Enhancement is active

Active:

Reduces the Metalhandicap of swords

STA:

[Magical Charged] Sword Light:

A magic-empowered Strike or Thrust. The magic effects reach farther than the physical sword.

AoE:

[Magical Charged] Sweep:

A magic-empowered Sweep. The magic effects reach farther than the physical sword.

DEF:

[Magical Charged] Parry:

Parry the next skill or spell, reduced its primary and secondary effect

MOV:

[Magical Charged] Sword Charge:

Charge at the enemy

SIG:

Magic Enhancement:

(Boost) Adds an extra magic secondary effect to your physical attacks

The passive boons of all her magical-weapon classes didn't stack to Flora's disappointment. However, she appreciated getting the metal handicap reduced for all her weapons.

(1) The inventory is locked during combat.

(2) Warm Brother = Warmer Bruder = German slang for a gay man. It's not derogatory but used by people who don't dare to say the word gay.