The weapon dealer's son

Chapter 22: The arena.

"I worked as a mercenary for the army for 3 years, they sent me to space, there is no peace in space." Johnny sighed, tears built up in his eyes as he remembered the things he lived through in that duration. 

He traveled from a planet to another, aiding the earth's army in hunting dangerous monsters that threaten the human colonies.

"That tower was my last adventure out there, I lost my arms and legs and got my spinal cord destroyed. All they had of me to save was some brain matter and most inner organs." He said, finishing his story, while looking at Sydni. 

Sydni had no more tears to shed as she listened to the details of the accident that happened to Lan, who's now called Johnny. "At least you still remember the kid you lost." She snarled. 

Johnny looked at her for a while, his eyes showing a badly hidden sympathy. "I hope I see you more often Sydni, it was nice catching up! Goodbye!" he said as he passed his hand on a transparent area on the table, indicating that he payed for their drinks.

Sydni stared at him leaving, she said nothing, watching his dark golden car coming to pick him up. 

She froze, her brain was taking a while to process what she heard, what she said, and what she should feel. 

'he went through hell, and all I did is to remind him of the hell he was trying to escape!' she almost slapped her own face, 'maybe Adam is right, I do put people through shit just to feel better about my self.'

Adam was the first one in a long time to face her with the cold bare truth. 

"Dory! Hey! It's Sydni!" Sydni said as the number she dialed answered. she desperately wanted someone to talk to her, she couldn't handle the amount of emotional pressure she feels.

Previously, Sydni have acted strong, but deep down, she still feels as miserable as she felt 11 years ago. 

… 

Meanwhile, Adam finished the registration procedure for the toy core contest, he joined the hard mode. 

This contest wasn't just for children, it's free for all. Even though it has 3 different difficulties, easy, casual, and hard mode.

In the easy mode, robots win by knocking down other robots.

In casual mode, there are battle Royals, 10 or more robots are released in a small map, they need to be the first to solve some puzzles and survive to the end of the count down, knocked out robots gets eliminated. 

Hard mode on the other hand, is a one on one battle, but the winner must completely destroy the other robot. 

A core has a range, and a capacity. they cant control the connected fabric if it gets out of range, and they can't purposefully drop it out of range, that is against their programming. The amount of fabric a core can handle is decided by the quantum processing power. 

To create a robot, or any other construct, the core must have the blueprint for it. The more powerful a robot is, the more expensive it's blueprint, and the more strain it pose on the quantum processing unit. 

Blueprints can't be created by imagination, they need specific calculations and mapping. And applying these calculations depends on the core. 

A core also must supply the fabric with the energy needed for it to work, it's usually done either by charging the fabric before hand, or electromagnetic radiation transmission, which transmits wireless energy in a specific wave length. 

"why did you join the hard mode! Your core is gonna burn out! These guys have professional cores!" Mela complained, she didn't want Adam to lose the core that can make the cute little unicorn, she also knew a core that can add that much details to a construct must be expensive. 

If a core gets overloaded by trying to fix the construct multiple times, it would heat up and burn itself. 

"I told you its not a core!" Adam whispered as they headed to the spectating seats. 

He looked at the transparent ticket in his hand, and it showed him that his match is in 20 minutes. 

"hey! Adam! Where were you? I looked for you every where!" said a man among the crowd, Adam didn't recognize the sound until the man left the crowd and approached them. 

"hey Jerry!" Adam waved his hand casually, not bothering to answer his question. 

Jerry is a 19 year old man, whom Adam met 2 years ago in his first time visiting the park. 

In that time, Adam was amazed in his own way by every thing in the park, he tried hunting a squirrel.

When Jerry saw Adam climbing up a tree like a monkey, and chasing the squirrel, he told him that he would get in trouble with the peace keeper if he damaged the wild animals.

Of course Adam was too stubborn to listen, and the peace keeper, which is a drone controlled by the tower, tried to punish him. Jerry acted as a brother to him and apologized on his behalf, and the peace keeper just gave him a warning. 

Jerry helped him because he was impressed by his Agility and strength, a normal 7 year old shouldn't be able to naturally climb a tree, and Adam was following that squirrel as if he lived there his entire life. 

Every since that incident, Adam would sometime hang out with Jerry. Jerry invited Adam to join the Martial arts school with him and Adam wasn't interested, because it includes touching other people, and he disliked that in the past, because it was totally unnecessary. 

"You here to watch?" Jerry said anxiously, as he signaled his group and joined Adam and Mela in their search for a seat. He wanted to tell Adam about the upcoming martial arts championship, but Adam seemed distracted by the robotfight. 

Usually the elimination rounds takes about an hour, the spectator seats starts filling up when they end. 

"nah! I'm number 13!" Adam stated, not caring to take his eyes off the match that was about to begin. Mela's eyes was glued to the arena as well. 

"ok I'll be cheering for you! See you after the matches end, I have a good news for you! So don't leave before seeing me." Jerry waved his hand to them as he walked back to his group. 

The screens above the arena showed two robots entering the arena simultaneously. 

the one on the left came in flying in a huge balloon like bird shape, and the moment it came above the arena, it turned into a 30 cm tall red robot, with multiple spikes and sharp edges all over its body, the distance it fell was about two meters, however, it didn't seem to take any damage.