Chapter 3 - 18 years later

Chapter 3 - 18 years later

"Hunter, what the hell is wrong with you? Why don't you always listen to instructions? Don't you want to be in this team?!" Lucianna, the female captain of a ten-person team that Hunter Stone was part of, screamed at Hunter with great anger in her eyes.

Lucianna was a nineteen-year old girl who was really beautiful and incomparably ambitious. She wanted to be the first person on Earth that would be a Cosmic Mechanical Emperor, one that all mechanics in the world will fearfully submit to and reverently see and worship as their Lord; a Goddess in control of vast armies of planet-shaking mechanical monsters.  

She was over five feet tall, where she was only an inch away from becoming a six-feet tall female. She had a strongly attractive oval face, bright emerald eyes that was filled with determination and held strongly unwavering hopes for the future in the thickest blackest night. She had pearly white teeth that dazzled whenever she opened her mouth to speak, admirably long, natural royal-blue hair that almost reached her waist, and an extremely fair, unblemished radiant skin that glowed beautifully, such that her skin could be likened for milk. 

Lucianna was a really intelligent girl that always came top in the class and was filled with a bit of pride and arrogance because of it. Also, she was a quick adoptive learner and an highly creative, multi-diverse thinker that wouldn't really listen to others, which therefore made her seem unending and unyielding to others. 

"Chill, Lucianna. Your blood is really hot. It could combust into flame anytime soon." Hunter playfully said and shook his head, while the others in their team laughed within themselves, afraid to expose their teeth to Lucianna who as the Instructors' favorite, could call down any of the Institute instructors upon them. 

Lucianna exhaled heavily and walked away in ire, while Hunter immediately said with widened eyes, "Come on, Lucia. What have I said to warrant such an expressive exhalation? Wait, where are you walking off to? Don't tell me you want to abandon our project." 

"Ugh!" Hunter groaned in a displeased manner since Lucianna only ignored him.

Hunter, also known as Geltorak who arrived in 106th-century Earth as a two-year old baby, had grown into a dashing young man with shining dark-black hair. He had chin shaped like that of a chisel, possessed pointed nose and sharp mirror-clear eyes that had intense crimson irises in them, indicating to others that he was possibly an alien-human hybrid. 

Furthermore, he was over six feet tall, possessed an incredible muscular build for his age, had an attractive charisma and a calm, confident and powerful disposition. It was like even if the entire sky was collapsing to the ground, he wouldn't panic. Lastly, he had a calming magnetic voice for a male, such that his voice would attract everyone and make them feel cool. 

Overall, he was exceptionally handsome and remarkably attractive to the point that 99.5% of girls would blush and develop all sorts of blissful fantasies in their heads whenever they came across him.  

He had enrolled into the Andorra Institute of Technology in the Purplevelle region, a professional training institute where he would be trained to become a Mechanic, which was what he told Alexander, his earthly father that he wanted to become. And by Mechanic, it was simply a professional term that encompassed many things, such as Cybermancy, Technomancy, Hacking, Energy-Based Machine Summoning, Technocrafting, Machine Building, Collapsible-Space Myriad Machinery Evocation, Mechanautic Engineering, Technokinesis, Machine-Enhanced Battling, Mechanical Knighting, War Mechanic and so on. 

As a world that had its technology revolutionized by the super-intelligent and super-inventive Jaegurr race, their outlook on technology was made much broader to cover many things that they didn't think possible, which then gave rise to many schools, both visible and invisible which taught different sub-professions under Mechanics.

But other than Mechanics, there were other professions like Sorcery that was taught in certain schools by pure human witches and wizards which allowed people, mostly people in their line of profession to access an unseen dimension of limitless arcane energy and bring about countless magical effects and phenomenal metaphysical manifestations, whether dark or good. 

Another was Soul Manipulation by some races that could generate horrifying, soul-based energies and soul-suppressing or soul-limiting auras, which was only taught to their races and their bi-racial hybrids, since the genetic trait to tap into such a power was exclusively possessed by them. Also, due to their mastery over souls, whether whole souls, fragmented souls, or fully dispersed souls, another branch was created which was called Necromancy, which however didn't need magic but their divinely manipulative power over souls. 

Hunter, who chose Mechanics as a profession, chose one of the numerous sub-professions under it called Technocrafting. 

Just as it name implied, it was a sub-profession that would one allow one to become a Technocrafter, where one would become a versatile inventive maker of items called Technological Artifacts that could range from nano-sized artifacts to planet-sized artifacts, and could be partly composed of numerous things from other fields of study such as organics, inorganics, chemicals, neuronics, optics, biologics, electrics, electronics, robotics, pneumatics, hydraulics, and so on.

"What's going on here?" A tall, metal-skinned man who was called Galzael and was their group instructor, suddenly appeared before them with a noticeable frustrated look in his face.

The people he put together in a team were giving him headaches, especially Hunter who behaved like he knew more things than everyone else in the institute. 

But this was true, actually. Hunter had a Technology-Based Primal Creation Intelligence of 70,000 that could rival those of the higher-hierarchy Jaegurrs, a Technology Advancement/Revolutionary Quotient of 70,000, a Mech-Based Versatility Aptitude of 80,000, a Technology Blending/Permutation/Combination Quotient of 200,000, and a Technology Affinity of 168,100, which was far above the average of 78,000 for the Jaegurrs.

However, the institute didn't know this. Neither did Hunter himself. But Alexander and some of his research scientists knew, which absolutely shocked them when they conducted large series of intelligence/aptitude tests for him at the age of 13. 

So, his astoundingly high, technology-centered, otherworldly inventive intelligence, always caused him to disagree with everyone else, including instructors when it came to building, coupling, arraying and assembling units and components of certain devices and machines. 

"Nothing much, Instructor Galzael. We are only trying to understand each other and work past our differences to become a team that would be envied by even an elite team of instructors." Hunter calmly said with a radiant smile in his face, while the others in his team looked at him with surprised expressions in their faces.

"It better happen that way. Or I will scatter you guys and put all of you into different teams. And believe me, I will make sure you guys are demoted by at least, two classes. Depending on how lenient I would be at that hour." Instructor Galzael strictly said and turned around to leave. While Hunter simply rolled his eyes at him and lightly sighed. 

A few moments later, Lucianna returned with a smile in her face, seeming like she was the one that reported Hunter to Instructor Galzael. 

"See who's back." Hunter said and smiled. While Lucianna only ignored him and went to stand in front of the others. 

"Guys, we are terribly lagging behind. The projects that were given to other teams have been nearly completed by them. While we are still here, trying to figure out this and that, all because of someone who thinks he is many times more inventive and creative than the rest of us in the team." Lucianna said with both spite and ire in her heart, which then surfaced in her face the next moment. While Hunter who knew that the statement was directed at him, simply chuckled within himself and restrained himself from speaking out. 

'Okay. Do your thing. I won't say anything anymore.' Hunter said internally and listened to the instructions that Lucianna gave to their ten-person team, which was instructed by Instructor Galzael to build a technological artifact based on a certain blueprint that he gave them called Scepter of Zorris, which was simply an uncommon-grade scepter that could have any shape and color for aesthetic appeal, but would possess the ability to expel streams of flame.

The scepter must have the ability to unleash streams of flame in a single direction, in two directions, in multiple directions, or in all directions which would make it akin to a large explosive burst of flame that grew outward in every direction and covered dozens of meters very quickly. If the scaled-down Scepter of Zorris built by them, using the blueprint given to them couldn't exhibit any of these characteristics, then they had failed their project. 

"So guys. Let's start." Lucianna said with a serious look in her face.

She then turned to look at an idle Hunter and asked, "Care to join?"

"Of course, I will. I am part of the team. So, it's mandatory for me to join and help the team achieve its goals." Hunter said smilingly.

"Good! And I hope I won't hear any more bullshit from you." Lucianna fiercely said and turned her head away, while Hunter groaned and slightly shook his head.

30 minutes later...

Working on the project altogether, with Hunter keeping mute all through the task, the Scepter of Zorris was finally completed.

Wielding the scepter in her hand with a satisfied look in her face, Lucianna said, "See, this is what happens when no one tries to show that they are inventively better than the others. Look at the beautiful scepter, a combination of our ideas and innovativeness. Can't wait to show this to Instructor Galzael and see what beautiful remarks he would say about it."

"Hmm." Hunter muttered and shook his head.

While they were making the scepter, he looked at what they were doing and noticed that they did it all wrong. But he didn't say anything to correct them, as he didn't want to attract Lucianna's ire towards himself again. 

The igniter unit, miniature-sized cylindrical fuel tank, flame-circulation control unit, fire-discharging mechanism, on-board electronic circuitry, plastic-based circuitry protection layer, flame-projecting orifices/perforations, rapid-cooling units, plastic-based thermal insulators, ceramic-based heat insulating plates, flame-conduction pipes and many other important constituent parts were all wrongly fixed, making it a waste of resources, time and effort. 

Actually, they were following the blueprint which was wrongly designed to make their team commit numerous errors. Their instructor didn't want copy and paste from them, he wanted them to actually use their heads in building the technological artifact. And since Lucianna was an unbeatable, outstanding class-topper, he wanted to see what she would do about it. He wanted to see if she will come up with her own blueprint design and create a scepter for them that will still function like the downscaled Scepter of Zorris. 

Although Hunter's sets of skills were thousands of times better than Lucianna's and could easily pass every tests if he wanted to, he intentionally restricted himself from passing too high, keeping himself only at the average level as he didn't want to attract too much attention to himself. Or if he became too well-known for being able to build techs that were far too advanced, like dozens of centuries advanced than the techs in their current century, he could become targeted. But not by instructors, but by vicious members and leaders of hidden terrorist organizations who would coerce him at gunpoint to build sophisticated mass-extermination machines and terrific futuristic devices for them. 

'Well, I did try to correct her. I have done my best.' Hunter said and simply waited for the opportunity to reverse all these. Or they would fail and be marked down, and then receive poor grades in the process which would definitely affect his Technocrafting professional rating and make his dad seriously unimpressed with him, which was absolutely something he didn't want occurring.