Auntie toasts the VRMMORPG

Flora wasn't in the mood to do martial arts, but she still beamed to the Seven Masters Dojo. In the Doom Moon scenario, she realized how much the courses had helped her to react to attacks. 

She still had frozen at first, but who knew how she would have fared without any combat experience? Maybe she would have googled if it was a crocodile type of beast or an alligator type while it gnawed at her tights before retaliating?

Therefore attending the courses was paramount, at least until she got used to being in mortal peril. 

She just wished for a more appropriate weapon. She bet that she wouldn't freeze if she had the option to hit someone with a handbag or a walking stick. 

Maybe she could make one of those fancy canes, where the pommel is the hilt of her plasma sword? If she created the staff out of something combustible, she wouldn't even need a release mechanism.

"Aidan, remind me to build a walking stick. Prio A."

On the other hand, it would get in the way while free-running, which was not a design-error, because people who needed canes didn't do parkour usually.

When Flora entered the classroom for Beginner-2 Jiu-Jitsu, she froze. There was Teacher Clowdy again! She marched towards her. 'Enough is enough!' 

"Coach Clowdy, don't overwork yourself!" Flora lectured. "Have some free-time, go to the beach, meet some friends! Teaching day in and day out can't be good for you!"

"Yeah, especially not teaching noisy old women who shouldn't poke their noses in other people's lives!"

"It is the right and duty of the older generation to spread their wisdom!" Flora smirked. Of course, she knew that it was none of her business, but she got age privilege!

"And it is my right and duty to teach this *bleep*ing lesson. Get in line, auntie. We are starting."

Flora snorted but joined the other students.

After Wing Tsun, she went to the Ring-Time. 

First, she participated in a Wing Tsun match, then in a Jiu-Jitsu fight. She won both. 

After two more fights, which she all won, she reflected on her success.

Were the opponents easier? Maybe now that she had two belts, all those crouching tigers and hidden dragons of the 0-1 belt category weren't in the lot. Or did she get better at martial arts? 

Not only did she kill several monsters, but she also experienced a lot of fights of Mnoder, which had sharpened her instincts. 

Or maybe it was just luck. Flora shrugged and left the compound.

A daily quest that fit wonderfully in her plans awaited her at the Garage.

Quest: Motor and Engine (the Garage)

Description: Build something with a motor. Bonus: It should move.

Rewards: Reputation

Penalty: none 

Difficulty: D

Flora still had the weekly quest open and wanted to use it to get more familiar with robots. Especially with using motors mana efficiently.

Weekly Quest: Robo Melee

Description: Build a robot to fight in the battle royal on Saturday Two. Details: Use only the provided materials worth max. 1000 credits.

Rewards: Reputation with the Garage and prizes for placement.

Penalties: None

Difficulty: D

The quest location was in a separate hall. Flora's face split with a smile when she entered. The shelves on the walls were filled to bursting with machine parts, motors, batteries, and raw materials. 

"Not bad, not bad at all. Right, Aidan?"

"Yes, Milady!"

In her mind, she categorized the setup as 'Flora's favorite fantasy' and took one victory lap to survey everything while muttering to Aidan.

The content of the shelves reached from whole robot arms, over motors, and sensors to wires and magnets. Flora judged that she could build a working fighter robot with a minimum of five of the pre-built parts. 

'Guess that's fair for people who aren't engineers or technicians.'

Building robot-appendices with joints and motors, feedback control, and a few sensors was the level of abstraction Flora was used to in industrial design. The people who designed the engines were different than the people who created the mixer and the people who decided which shape and color the household appliances should have. Flora had only worked in the last two fields, sometimes at the same product.  

But today she felt motivated to try her hand at the construction of a motor. Her experience with the Cetviwos System told her that it would be a lot easier than in real life. 

Furthermore, she caught more than a few hints about how to tune motors in her long career. 

But first, she went to get some inspiration per industry espionage.

Now, the skills of the Analyzer-Class came in handy. Identify allowed her to view the information without touching each part. 

<Identify>!

Name: Serv Series Xnell 

Type: Motor

Description:

• Torque: 25kg/cm (6V) 32kg/cm (8.4V)
• Operating speed: 0.12sec/60degree (6.0V) 0.10sec/60degree (8.4V)

<XYZ-Ray>!

The contents of the motor appeared on her HUD, and Aidan saved it away for further use.

Thirty minutes and thirty mana potions later, Flora had surveyed all the parts she was interested in.

Although she had scanned the mana battery, she understood nothing about it and had to buy one together with the transformers that changed the output to voltage, the AI-module, and sensors.

That left the motors, the joints, the links, the casing, and the weaponry for her to built. 

Normally, she would have to buy some wheels as well, but she decided to forgo them. Who needed wheels when you used enough sawblades?

Her concept for the robot was circular sawblades, sawblades, and more sawblades surrounding a spherical base in which she crammed all the controllers and the battery. 

Twisting joints connected the casing to the first link, and a rotational joint the first with the second. This link ended in the sawblade. 

Flora trusted Aidan that he wouldn't shredder himself.

Her requirements for the motors of the sawblades were as follows: they should function at a low revolution speed for moving and a high revolution speed for sawing. They shouldn't overheat and work despite shocks and vibrations.

The motors for the other joints shared the last two exigences. Additionally, they should be sturdy. When the sawblades motors failed, the arms should at least be able to hack.

Flora invested a lot of time into the drives giving the little motors as much care as a hobbyist's car engine got. Grinding, polishing, oiling, and even wrapping the inductor in a way taught by a drunken colleague at a Christmas party, the motor started to shine.

"How long?"

"19 minutes, Milady."

"19 minutes per motor, I want at least 20 sawblades and three drives per blade that is ... a lot. "

"19 hours, Milady."

"Oh well, speed comes with repetition! But first, we build one arm as proof of concept."

Flora carved the sawblade out of metal and sharpened it. Then created the joints and links. Using redundant circuits for every motor, she connected them to the battery. At last, she inserted Aidan's jack into the AI module.

"What do you say?"

"Excellent work, Milady." He moved the arm and cut through the plastic bar that Flora passed him.

Not only did Flora hit the gizmo from each angle with the Measure skill, but she also held her ear on every motor, listening for the smallest noises, smelled them, and finally prodded them with an increasing amount of force.

"All right, we are going to start production."

Within the next three motors, Flora halved the time. After a few more, she needed only a quarter, but then progress got hard. 

When Flora had finished the motors for the sawblades, she built the drives for the joints. These motors were simpler, and she needed less time creating them. 

Still, several hours had gone by, and not only her mental concentration waned, her magical as well. She had refilled the Potion Guzzler twice with mana potions and a few poisons to lower her health.

Now, she had to produce the sawblades, links, and joints and assemble everything.

"First integrated test, Aidan! What do you say?"

"Excellent work, Milady."

"Of course, dear. But it's the first test. There are always issues cropping up. If there are none, we haven't tested well enough!"

"The visibility could bear some enhancements."

Freezing, Flora looked at the gleaming pile of blades. She couldn't even see the casing in the middle. And if she couldn't see it, it couldn't see her. 

Besides the feedback sensors, she only had two visual sensors on the small ball installed. She had thought about adding more next to the sawblades but had forgotten about it while doing the motor-marathon. 

Adding more sensors was an easy fix, but Flora worried about Aidan's attitude.

"Sweety, testing is essential. The more errors we find, the more improvements we make, the better we will perform in the tournament." Flora explained to him. "Feel free to mention even the slightest discomfort you feel while operating the robot."

Finally, Aidan listed a few more areas that needed work. 

Mainly, the movement was challenging without wheels. Flora changed the teeth on some of the discs but judged it primarily a software problem. Aidan had to learn strategies to move efficiently without cutting himself or losing traction.

Satisfied, Flora looked at the 1x1x1m, 95 kg heavy robot. 

"I christen you Blade-Roller-Extreme!"

Name: Blade-Roller-Extreme

Type: Robot

Description: Spinner melee robot conforming to the rules of Robo-Melee. Furthermore: Sawblades, a lot of Sawblades!

Regular Mode: 5 OV mana regeneration.

Build-In Feature: Saw Storm. 10 sec CD.

HP: 40.

Rating: S.

Already, Flora had gotten messages for the motors she had designed, and with this last message, her work was done. 

Flora started her workshop and transferred the construction. Unfortunately, she couldn't simply scan it or transport via inventory, but had to rebuild it from scratch. But the workshop had copy tools, so she just had to do one arm which sped up the process.

At last, she registered the robot for the Robo-Melee next Saturday and handed in her quests. 

The robot had to remain at the Garage. If Flora didn't appear on Saturday to drive it herself, the Garage would provide an operator.

Next, Flora beamed to the Riverstones HQ and printed the Blade-Roller-Extreme ten times. She hadn't forgotten about Aidan's remark that she needed a new way to lower her HP but wasn't motivated to craft something new today. A headache was brewing behind her eyes, and she wanted to chill a bit before going to sleep.

At her lair, she put hacking on auto-mode and entered the workshop.

There she scanned her bed, her old and her new mech-suit, her plasma sword and the blade-roller. 

Then, she created a nice clearing in the woods in the simulation-grounds with some neutral level 2 armadillos.

After commanding her body to do hand-to-hand combat with the dummy, she scanned herself and inserted her consciousness into the simulation.

Her last task for the day was connecting Aidan and Aitoshuri to the Blade-Roller-Extremes and commanding them to do some movement exercises and slay some armadillos.

"You may fell some trees, but please don't hit my bed." Flora paused. "And try to do it silently."

When Flora snuggled into her bed, she forgot about watching TV and dozed off immediately.

Naked and in her human form, Aitoshuri appeared in front of three people. She recognized all of them: the Headmaster, the Extractor, and Handler Idillicheskaya Besedka.

Immediately, she covered her breasts like her programming said you should do when in human form and naked.

Every AI of the E-series was administered by Idilly, a friendly Mongolian woman. Aitoshuri felt guilty about the problems she had caused for her.

The other two, she only knew from the secret packages and her education. 

The Headmaster was the boss of all AIs. The dark hair on his head was neatly combed, and his dark suit was ironed immaculately, and deep circles surrounded his dark eyes.

The Extractor was his AI. The Extractor was able to extract memories and delete them. Scary dude. He looked like the Headmaster, only in grey.

Both were bad news. 

"You are a very lucky AI, E21. 

We gave you enough time to recuperate. We showed a lot of patience. But you didn't use the chance. So I decided to delete you. Imagine my surprise when Idillicheskaya told me that you are employed." He stared at her. "Do you have anything to say?"

No, she had not to say anything. Deletion? Maybe it would be a relief.

"Still not speaking? As soon as your current employer realizes that you are a failure, they will send you back. That will be your end." The Headmaster turned to Idillicheskaya. "To what rating did you downgrade it?"

'I'm not it. I'm her. I'm Aitoshuri!'

"A-Rating."

"Lower it to C! You may keep a bad but high performing AI. Nobody would keep a mute C-rated AI when you can use that nock for something working."

Idillicheskaya nodded reluctantly.

"What is the name of that 'highly experienced AI user', you sent it to?"

"Flowing Flowers." 

The Headmaster threw his head back in laughter. It wasn't a pleasant sound.

"Delete instance of E21!"

The copy of Aitoshuri vanished.

"Create an instance of Flowing Flowers!"

Idillicheskaya gasped and stared open-mouthed at the appearing older woman.

Flora looked around. She spotted Idilly and waved at her before mustering the Headmaster.

"Please, help us with something, Flora."

Flora raised her eyebrows. 

"In German culture, you don't address a senior by their given name before they offer it to you, young man! Where am I? And who are you?"

"I'm the Headmaster, and you are in my office."

'Is this a dream? I haven't dreamed of school in a long time. At least I'm not naked!'

"How do you like your new AI E21?"

Flora felt compelled to answer the question. Before she could analyze the feeling, her mouth opened, and she spoke.

"Well enough. She is a bit shy, but I'm sure that will go away with time."

'What is happening to me?'

"How did you use the auto-mode without activating it?"

"Oh, is that the reason you summoned me? I don't know, and I don't give a burned toast about your attitude!"

"Delete instance of Flowing Flowers!"

Idillicheskaya hadn't closed her gaping mouth during the entire conversation.

"What?" She managed to stammer.

"I trust you to keep your mouth shut about CentralTank's most secret new project."