Autobots (2)

Alonso stood in the centre of the platform and calmed his mind. Before his fight began, he gave the status of his mech a quick glance.

'Open stats!'

[User: Alonso Del Valle]

[User Level: 2]

[XP: 0/200]

[XP Boosts: 0]

[Mech Level: 1]

[Skills] [expand]

[Traits] [expand]

[Mech Details] [expand]

'Open mech details!'

[Type: N/A]

[Strength: 1]

[Speed: 1]

[Amorphousness: 1]

[Durability: 2]

[Power: 99%]

[Efficiency: 25%]

[Damage Status: None]

[Temperature: 36°C]

[Modules] [expand]

*exhale*

Bzz!

The grey autobot revealed itself, and started to walk out onto the platform.

Alonso's mech helmet manifested and he made his boxing stance, awaiting its advancement.

The autobot soared toward him with immense speed but he remained calm and ready. His perception was much greater than it once was, and he managed to dip under the punch heading for his head.

He struck his adversary right in its abdomen, only to receive a punch to the face shortly after.

Dazed by that forceful blow, he received a kick to his stomach to force him up against the wooden wall of the stadium.

He held the area of impact and gritted his teeth in pain, but he hadn't received much injury.

His system hadn't warned him of any damage to his mech and felt motivated to continue.

The spectators expected him to forfeit as he cowered up against the wall but he pushed off it and made his stance once again.

'Come on then, you stupid robot!' Alonso internally roared, with his pain fuelling his anger.

Instead of advancing toward him again, the autobot lifted its forearm to reveal a black barrel. It's opening started to glow brightly until it shot out an odd projectile.

It latched right onto Alonso' body before he had the time to react, and he instinctively tried to pull it off his arm.

It tightened its grasp onto him and he pulled forcefully, to no avail.

Boom!

The device suddenly exploded and forced Alonso back into the same position that he was once in.

"Mech Damage: Minor."

'These bots have literal bombs?!' He thought, as his mech attempted to heal the wound he had gained.

Through the thinning smoke, the autobot soared forward to try and land a knee, but Alonso used all of his speed to just about evade. He was becoming accustomed to the use of his mech and the immense speed of it wasn't hard to control for him any longer.

The two warriors exchanged blows for a time and seemed to be like equals. The autobot possessed explosive speed and strength, but Alonso had technique that some of the weaker students started to acknowledge.

His mech was weak -by far the weakest out of all of them- but his movements were technical and precise.

"Mech Damage: Moderate."

Alonso stood across from his opponent with a pant and bleeding face. He had caused some damage but it simply wasn't enough for him to take it down.

'If I want to win, I need to take it down in one fell swoop. Judging from its speed, I assumed my dagger wouldn't work, but I have to give it a shot. It's my only way of success now.' He stated, aiming the newly created dagger at his enemy.

Voom!

He shot forward and crossed the distance between him and the autobot in a flash.

In his advance, his dagger started to heat up and he jabbed the dagger forward.

Just before it hit his target, he pulled it back to see the autobot throw out its hand for a parry.

'Perfect!'

He then drove the dagger right into its neck, causing sparks to fly out.

The autobot shook around violently before coming to a halt and falling.

"Brilliant, Alonso!" Mr Piedrabuena commented, nodding straight at him.

The students gave him looks of envy and contempt -as usual- but Alonso knew that he was making progress. Those arrogant kids weren't going to be a good indicator of how much improvement he was making.

The other students made quicker work of their Level 1 autobot, then Lennox, Kai and Bernando were placed against the Level 2 autobots.

Alongside them was a female student who had long, flowing blue hair. She possessed a similar mech to Lennox in terms of colour but it was much lighter and sleeker than his.

She also dismantled a Level 2 mech -although with far greater difficulty- and her name was Lina Esperraguera. The Esperraguera family were known for their mech combatants and she had a genetic score of 0.74 out of 1.

Generally, a score between 0.3 and 0.5 was average. 0.2 to 0.3 was below average and anything below that was rare and very poor. Anything between 0.5 and 0.6 was considered above average, 0.6 to 0.7 great, and anything above 0.7 was truly exceptional.

Upon returning to his humble abode after his long day of school, he slouched back in his seat and continued to look through his system.

While doing so, he came across his inventory.

'Open inventory!' He commanded.

[Free Slots: 10]

He wondered what his inventory really was. There didn't seem to be any method of storing something without his mech or most mechs for that matter. One would have to be a true bruiser type to find the space to do that.

"How does my inventory work?" He asked the system.

"Your inventory works by almost acting as a pocket realm. It holds a certain volume that is fit for 10 'slots'. One item can take up 1, up to even 10 slots on its own based on its size and difficulty to store. All the user has to do is command the system to store an item of their desire." It explained.

He hadn't a clue what to store initially, but decided to just store his pair of white socks. He lifted them and as he commanded them to be stored, they became shrouded in blue light.

Following this, they then disappeared, making Alonso quite shocked.

'Where are my socks?! Are they really in their own pocket realm?' He wondered.

It took a lot of effort to open specific pocket realms. The energy signature of the operation had to be at a certain level, and a certain mass had to go through 'super-acceleration' to then form a rip in space-time. Super-acceleration was a term used to refer to when objects were made to move faster than the speed of light.

[Item: Pair of Socks] [Slots: 1]

[Free Slots: 9]

'Return them!' He ordered.

Just as he did so, blue light and energy formed in his hand, and the pair of white socks were revealed once again.

[Free Slots: 10]

That was going to come seriously in handy. It would allow him to store various materials and items that could be used at his disposal. Looking at it with a darker perspective, he could easily steal things without being caught if his mech was activated to conceal his identity.

[New Quest!]

[Quest: New Realm]

[Enter a pocket realm.]

[Rewards: 100XP, XP Boost]

Alonso smiled as he saw this quest and immediately got to work.

Pocket Realms were not simply up for grabs but were instead monitored by Pocket Realm Agencies or PRAs. Their job was to identify pocket realms by achieving unique energy signatures in faster than light travel. Higher speeds caused higher energy signatures, which made pocket realms with higher energy signatures harder to enter.

It was also found that there was a loose correlation between a pocket realm's energy signature and how dangerous its dungeon planet would be.

For dungeon planets that had little to no resources and were very easy to get into, they were usually opened up for free access to the public. It was only mainly mech combatants or students in mech combatant academies who were daring enough to enter a pocket realm.

Upon looking up a PRA, a bright idea popped up in the young boy's mind. With this inventory, he could hide resources that he was to attain from the planet to not have them confiscated.

One rule for when these dungeon planets were freely accessed would be that they could never take any form of resource from outside of it.

The growing human population was also a growing mech population and humanity required pretty much every single resource they could get their hands on.

The total human population was now in the tens of trillions, and their demand for resources was very large.

Alonso ventured out into the city after saying to his parents that he was heading back to his school's training facility. He knew they wouldn't have let him enter a pocket realm because it was dangerous.

However, with his mech, Alonso felt like he could do anything now. It would just require perseverance and he didn't want to miss out on the XP Boost and XP that he was being offered.