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Many Worlds Chapter 29
“Isaac… Mr. Asimov, can you hear me?”
Isaac took his eyes off of the computer monitor he had been focused on. “Yes, sir?” He was at work, and his boss had apparently been attempting to get his attention.
“While I admire your focus on your work, it is time for the meeting.”
“Right. I’ll be there right away, sir.”
Isaac watched his boss walk off to the meeting room. While it was generally true that he would focus on work, this time he had been thinking about something else. It wasn’t not work, but it wasn’t work here. Isaac supposed he should go to the meeting, even if he wouldn’t be all there.
—–
When he’d first joined Many Worlds, Isaac had expected machining factories to have more sparks. Especially more people with face shields leaning over large sheets of metal, causing those sparks for some reason. However, there just weren’t that many. It was actually easier to cut with enormous amounts of weight than a spinning blade, and the equipment lasted much longer. Sometimes, they polished sharp edges off of sheets of metal, and that did lead to sparks, but it wasn’t a continual thing.
Isaac was currently at his second job, in Many Worlds, or perhaps more correctly on the planet Uesmeth, in the city of Fesmoilia. This job was more engaging and fun than his desk job. First, because it was new. Second, he was actually working toward something specific, instead of just working to survive daily life. He was working toward better equipment, specifically armor. With the landshift coming up, many industries were stepping up production, and that allowed adventurers to more easily get jobs, especially since many were willing to work odd hours.
This particular place had landed on Isaac’s radar because it produced plenty of scrap metal. Not poor quality metal, but pieces that they didn’t need. They would normally sell or recycle those pieces, but Isaac had worked out a deal to obtain some of them, which he would use to make armor. That also required use of some of the tools available at the machining factory, but he also secured access to those.
Normally, armor made from scrap, even high quality scrap, and by someone who was only slightly more skilled than an amateur, would hold its user back more than it helped. However, Isaac’s secondary class allowed him to circumvent that problem. Objects with which he felt a personal bond would work more efficiently. It was a strange ability, but he had tested its effects. Just firing a gun, his accuracy had been decent. However, after he gave it a name, with no factors such as practice, his accuracy improved significantly. More than the placebo effect could account for. Making the armor himself would create an even better bond, allowing it to function as least average quality armor more cheaply than would otherwise be possible.
Once Isaac, Douglas, Robert, and Jules were better equipped, they would go out hunting monsters again. However, equipment was one of the things holding them back. Certainly, practice and levels would help, but they could practice coordination in safer ways. In addition to combat practice, Jules was gathering the group together to teach them telekinesis. Certainly, it might not be useful in combat unless they spent a lot of training on it, but they weren’t necessarily learning it for that reason. They were learning it because it was telekinesis, and it was awesome. Perhaps they would all eventually develop it to the point it could be used in combat, but if not, everyone would still be satisfied. One thing they could all understand is the desire to pick up something dropped off the floor without bending over. Not everything needed to be useful in combat, or even more efficient than what they could do by just using their bodies. Sometimes, it was better to just do things for fun, and if they turned out to be practical, it was a nice bonus.
In addition to learning telekinesis, mostly for fun, the group of friends went to a few restaurants, though not many since they didn’t particularly have much money in this world. They found one that had something akin to burritos. Meat, cheese, and vegetables wrapped up in a soft, tortilla-like cover. Of course, none of the meat, cheese, or vegetables, or what went into the wrapper were something familiar to the group, but it was a similar dish. They were also tasty, in their own similar but different way. It was a very nice change from digging up wild potato-like or other plants.
—–
Isaac eventually scraped together a suit of armor. It was mostly just a breastplate, bracers, and shin guards, but to him it was a suit of armor. It was heavy, but it was a good feeling weight. It would take some time to adapt to it, but that was fine. He would get stronger as he carried the weight, and as he adapted to this particular suit of armor, it would get even better. It had been very fun to make, and Isaac knew it would be fun to use. He hadn’t yet decided what he wanted to color it, but he knew it wasn’t going to stay the plain silvery metal color it was now. No, not it. Shultz, that would be his name. Isaac was going to take good care of the new member of the group.
Next on Isaac’s list would be a custom made gun, but he didn’t have the capacity to do that at the moment. Armor had many less moving parts, whereas guns required more precision and technique. Certainly, good armor had a lot of precision and technique, but serviceable armor was much easier to make than a gun of the same quality. Isaac could probably make a functional sword, but he had no intention of using one, if he could help it. Though, a hammer could be good… He would probably have to invest points into Strength for a number of levels, with the way his equipment choices were going.