Grey stood back, looking at the monstrosity he had created with a confused and annoyed look in his eye. He swore that he had done everything right.

The logic was sound. Was it because he had changed the external shape of the mech too much? Were the raw materials not quite right?

He didn’t know enough about the material science of this world to change that. He had barely studied mechs and he was being carried by OP aids like the Prometheus Spirit and his own talent for it.

But if he had to go back to the drawing board and somehow change the chemistry of the raw materials, he wouldn’t even know where to start.

—

Name: Steel-Toe Shrouds

Weight: 10.7kg

Faces: 12,185

Grade: Vector Class

Raw Materials:

Twice Tempered Voidsteel: 8200 Faces

Eclipse Resin Mesh: 2400 Faces

Shadowweave Binding: 1565 Faces

Darkphase Nullite: 20 Faces

—

Grey frowned. He didn’t see anything wrong with the balance at first glance.

Voidsteel was the stronger version of Tempered Dusk-Iron and it fit the need for heft the mech had.

He chose Eclipse Resin Mesh because it was a lot like optic fiber tubes, it just worked differently. Optic fiber worked by manipulating the refractory index of light to keep it trapped within it, the Eclipse Resin Mesh did something similar and was the best material available.

He was leaning heavily into shadow aspects, but his Dark Solveign Frame was actually a Frame with dichotomy. Its Abilities hadn’t become 12 because he gained six new ones, but instead because they were perfectly split down the middle.

By allowing the two halves to play against one another, there was an added strength you could gain.

For example, the reason Grey was so fast was because he both pulled on the Fog of Chaos and used solar winds to propel him forward. Push and pull working in tandem together increased his speed exponentially.

He went through his logic for each one and found it all to be sound. Where was his mistake?

’Am I relying too heavily on darkness? No. This is the right way too.’

Grey’s eyes flashed. ’It’s all too rigid. Maybe...’

He had the impact of the ultimate steel-toe boots. They were heavy and perfect for stomping, and rather than working against his Shadow Forces, they worked together. They could also make the best use of what was ultimately his greatest asset when Dark Solveign was activated.

His speed.

’Hm... Let’s try some outside the box thinking, then.’

The mechs Grey saw always had the same routine for raw materials. There was one underlying steel, two meshes of some sort—often resin and an actual mesh—then there was a conductor—often a Nullite of some variety.

These were the four pillars of a mech. You needed the steel to frame it and make up the bulk of the material. You needed the meshes to give the insides structure and flexibility, not to mention passage for energy. And finally you needed the conductor—or the Nullite in many cases—to actually conduct that energy.

So long as those four pillars were there—technically three in a lot of cases—you could make a mech.

But who said you only needed one of a kind?

If he couldn’t manage to find a way to form a perfect raw material to make a blueprint work, why not create an alloy?

Grey started with the tempered steel, messing around with the quantities.

’Each face goes in a particular location... if I assign one type of tempered steel to each face and mix it just right, the effective result might not end up as good as a custom tempered steel, but it will be close enough that it should work...’

Grey, at this point, was just trying to go as far as he could before he ran into a wall.

To his surprise, he succeeded. It wasn’t at two, but instead three types of tempered steel.

He chose to use Twice Tempered Voidsteel, Tempered Dusk-Iron, and Twice Tempered Obsidian Steel in a 1:2:1 ratio.

It was just as Grey expected. He needed the rigidity of voidsteel, but it was too rigid on its own and lacked the flexibility he needed. Adding in the dusk-iron flattened out the curve a bit and made things easier, but together, they still weren’t enough to fix everything.

Ironically enough, he ended up needing to use a tempered steel type to help along his mesh.

Obsidian Steel was highly reflective like real obsidian was, and it could likewise be spliced into very tiny pieces and faces, just like a mesh would need to be.

Eclipse Resin Mesh was good at trapping light, but its capacity wasn’t very high and it could be very easily overwhelmed by too much light. That was where the rigidity of the obsidian steel came into play, and the fact it could be separated into small enough Faces that it could fit into the places usually only mesh types could go into was huge.

Every solution Grey found put another smile on his face, and by the time he was done, he was grinning ear to ear.

—

Name: Steel-Toe Shrouds

Weight: 12.2kg

Faces: 13,199

Grade: Vector Class

Raw Materials:

Twice Tempered Voidsteel: 5200 Faces

Tempered Dusk-Iron: 3800 Faces

Twice Tempered Obsidian Steel: 2400 Faces

Eclipse Resin Mesh: 1200 Faces

Shadowweave Binding: 575 Faces

Darkphase Nullite: 24 Faces

—

This time, Prometheus accepted it.

Without missing a beat, Grey made Prometheus improve it, but he froze when he saw the cost.

’Three million Energy Units? Are we serious?’

Grey’s lip twitched continuously.

It seemed his blueprint was pretty rough if it took that much to improve it, but he didn’t have the time to try and save on Energy Units and Cyber Cores right now. But he also didn’t have enough in his inventory. And even if he did, he couldn’t burn through them so easily. He needed them to fuel his other endeavors.

Grey tossed a pile of Vanguard Class raw materials at Elowen’s feet.

"I need three million Energy Units worth of Cyber Cores."

Elowen blinked, then looked down at the materials.

"... Okay."

Grey couldn’t wait. The moment he got what he asked for, he immediately forced Prometheus to output what he wanted.