Grey had already had experience Forming the Ball Bearing Eye Prosthetic Mech once before. He had felt that he was at the precipice of success the first time. In fact, he had successfully formed the outer shell. It was just that his Neural Frame had overheated and ended up in an Overloaded state when he tried to finish off the internal channels.
Back then, he had been so focused he hadn’t even realized just how burned out he had been. It was hard to care about pin pricks of pain when you had been burned to death more than once before.
This time, though, Grey was far more cautious. And thus he was all too aware of one thing. It was...
Easy.
It was like his Neural Frame had been primed by the diagnostic. Adding that to the fact he had personal experience with the Prosthetic Mech already and it was like he was reliving something he had already done.
But there was one more cherry on top.
The Loop Necklace.
The memory of what he had done before came even more naturally thanks to it, and the three prongs formed a trifecta that left his body singing for more.
In just a few minutes, the outer and inner shell of the Ball Bearing Eye had completely finished, flickering to life as it hovered above the Cyber Mat and slowly faded from illusory into reality.
The Faces—a combination of geometric shapes ranging from triangular to hexagonal—settled into a solidified form, each point arranged to the perfect state.
Or, almost perfect.
Grey could almost feel it, almost as though there was a slight tickle at the back of his brain. Prometheus was telling him that it was good enough to pass, but nowhere near true perfection.
But this was good enough. In fact, the mistakes Grey had left had been left behind on purpose.
’Will this work?’
Grey looked up to meet Esmeralda’s eyes only to find them widened in shock. In fact, the witch was trembling from head to toe. It took every fiber of Grey’s body not to bark out a snarky comment.
If this witch hadn’t spent so long killing him, he would have figured all of this out forever ago.
"I just need to program it now. The final intent step will take the both of us as it will be your Prosthetic Mech." Grey said.
Information that he hadn’t had before filled his mind thanks to the diagnostic. It wasn’t exactly like Prometheus was giving him a list of information, but instead that it was giving him an instinctual understanding toward the mech.
Grey knew that Esmeralda’s intent would be needed to help finish off the mech because it would be fused with her. That was the only way it would work, and as such he had come to "know" this fact.
Esmeralda could only nod absentmindedly.
’Good. I bet she won’t say anything about it now.’
When Grey picked up another Cyber Core to refuel himself, Esmeralda, indeed, said nothing at all.
’This next step, though...’
The Loading phase of crafting a mech was essentially like the software side of things while the Form phase was the hardware. The latter came naturally to Grey because it was just spatial awareness, but the Loading phase of something as complex as a prosthetic wasn’t just a simple series of "if" and "and" statements.
If Grey was going to use coding analogies for this as well, then if the iron jaw could be done with simple script coding, for a prosthetic you were essentially building an actual operating system.
The good news was that the blueprint was already here. Grey knew what it had to do, this wasn’t nearly as difficult as building your own mech from start to finish.
The trouble was that actually doing it was several times more difficult than the Form stage. That was because the programming was done through glyphs, special characters that gave the electrical pulsing energy that flowed through Neural Frames instructions.
The Loading process wasn’t as forgiving as the Form stage. You could still tweak and change things until you allowed the mech to solidify at the Form stage. But in the Loading phase, there was no chance to do any of that.
One mistake would ruin the entire thing. You’d have to break down the materials again and try again. In some cases, the raw materials would become unusable.
The trouble was that Grey wasn’t just trying to follow instructions this time. He wanted to end this endless loop.
’No mistakes. Don’t fuck this up.’
Grey already knew that he’d get another life now that he had topped himself back up. But he was tired of dying, and he refused to wait another life to stick it to this damned witch.
’Just wait, you bitch.’
Grey’s eyes flashed. He went through his thoughts one more time. And even when he was sure, he did it one more time.
Memories of the raging infernal star that was Esmeralda’s Neural Frame replayed in his mind again and again. Though he had suffered under its hand, he had felt it much more intimately than Esmeralda could imagine. It was like a cross burned into his memories.
Grey took a breath and then another. To the side, Esmeralda waited with anticipation. She seemed to have gained all the patience in the world all of a sudden, while for an extra hint of irony, it was Grey, this time, who didn’t have any patience at all.
’Let’s do this.’
Grey’s mind flourished as he held onto the Cyber Core. One after another, the energy began to bloom, forming a long line of glyphs that curved along the air currents and flooded into the body of the prosthetic.
Grey’s lips moved rapidly as though he was continuously speaking to himself, his eyes glowing a fiercer and fiercer red with every passing moment.
And then it all suddenly stopped, beads of sweat falling down his brow. There was a heat rushing through his veins. Just a few seconds more and he might have passed out again.
But not this time. This time he had made it.
’Prometheus, you gorgeous bastard.’
Grey held up the face plate. It looked almost like a masquerade ball mask, a rotating ball of molten silver swirling where the eye socket was.
Taking deep breaths, Grey looked toward Esmeralda.
"Now for the final step—."
She appeared in front of him, snatching the prosthetic. Her breathing came out in labored gasps, her chest heaving.
"Tell me what to do. Quickly."