Patch Update

It seemed like a perfect time for him to take a little break, returning to his family's temple. If nothing else, he felt that his martial arts training was completely out of touch. He'd gotten through Mercury's little… incursion mostly based on his speed and dexterity, but the strength and precision that he needed in order to give him assurance in his battle prowess was severely lacking. Part of his training at home had been martial arts for the purpose of meditation, but he had never taken the training at less than its face value. That is to say he used it for the purposes of meditation but did not value it as much as a way to defend himself. If there was one thing the Incident with Mercury had driven it into him that everything that he possessed was unpolished, unfinished and incomplete. In general, as he had been taught, it was never the job of a person to be perfect, but to seek improvement. Perfection of the self was unattainable, but in seeking there was the joy of discovery.

With his father as his master again, and the wandering mages providing various types of new skills and improvements to his form and technique. Although his father was coming along in age, as he and his mother had been a little older when Tsubasa and his sister had been born (and there was a six year difference between them), he was still young enough to put Tsubasa through intense training meant to rapidly improve his form and physique. When he wasn't taking lessons from his father, the other mages that would frequent the temple helped him sharpen his magical skills (of which his father more or less lacked) and helped him work on his original magic. He hadn't touched his more mechanically inclined magical skillsets in days.

And thus he had fallen into an almost clockwork rotation. He worked for ten hours training each day, four hours cooking and the remaining eight hours sleeping. Whatever free time he had given himself to mess around or watch videos had been set aside. It was really only thanks to Ahab himself that the footage from the test chamber had started to be edited and prepared for upload. This was taking an inordinate amount of time because each time Ahab moved the mouse, it would take him a few seconds as it was roughly equivalent to a human constantly rearranging a small couch. He kept a solid ear out for Tsubasa, but understanding both sides of what had occurred, he knew that it was probably gonna take him a bit to recover from the shock of something like that. Ahab almost felt bad about it. Tsubasa had never actually gotten mad at him for his part in it. Yet, he supposed.

And so Tsubasa fell into something of a daze. Although he needed to be specifically present for training and everything, it felt as though he was watching himself improve, rather than doing the improvement himself. He felt the changes, the soreness in muscle and the new skills that he acquired, but considered himself quite passive in the entire process. His responses too were a bit distant. He was physically there in conversing with his family and the traveling mages, but it was as though he was far off and sending a messenger in his stead. Things came to a head when, one day while cooking brownies for dessert, he cracked. Literally. While attempting to gently crack two eggs into a bowl, he crushed them in his palm, sending yolk and shell alike throughout his mother's kitchen as though he had detonated a well-planted ovum bomb.

And just like that, it felt as though all of the time he had been passive for had suddenly caught up with him, smashing spiritually into him like a runaway freight train. "Sorry!" He said, with more emotion in his voice than he had felt in weeks. "Sorry," He repeated again. He hadn't really moved to clean it up, but more looked as though the mess was going to somehow multiply like a self-replicating liquid that would drown the kitchen. "S-sorry," He said a third time.

His mother stepped forward and said in a reassuring half-whisper, "It's okay, Basa. I'll clean it up. Go take a little break, okay? The brownies will still be here when you get back." He nodded and turned to exit the kitchen. As he did, his mother slipped a dishrag in his hand, which he numbly took, in order to clean the goo off of his hands. Throughout his work over the past few weeks, he had streamlined Hodgepodge with the clarity that he had obtained during the Incursion with Mercury. And yet all of his other magics remained roughly the same. They were fun, they were interesting, but they lacked the straightforwardness that he felt that he was ready for. That he had been aiming towards. The sense of purpose that he wanted to reflect in his work. Before he realized it, he had found his way back to his room. He whipped off his hoodie and set it gently on the bed. "I don't know if you've developed a mind of your own… or how that would happen, really. But you and I are gonna work on some things." He reached into the pockets and pulled out a small device which looked like it would work as the iLac model for five years from now. Not too different, but noticeably so.

Pulling a few wires from his nearly infinite pockets, he connected them to small, hidden sockets in his hoodie. This was how he had managed to alter the suit despite it keeping its hidden properties. He flipped the iLac open and got to work. Since the baseline for everything had roughly been built in, and even blueprints for things that he hadn't finished yet, most of the heavy lifting had been done in the past. Now he was focused mostly on streamlining and finding purpose for everything that had been built. The weapons all had form and function, but everything could be improved. Looking through the iLac screens and working with the abilities that he had obtained, he took every weapon and item that he had created and gave it a single purpose.

Still, because he was Tsubasa and his personality hadn't changed at all, he spent a considerable amount of time ensuring that every single one of his creations still looked rad as heck. The new suit was sleeker and more simple, allowing alterations to be built onto the base model without interrupting the internal flow of mana and maintaining the overall image that he was trying to protect. He also binned the overwhelming superhero aspect of the outfit, as well as the musical influence, choosing instead to go for a more low-key antihero look, which was augmented more with technological-looking additions. It wasn't hard to see which of his teachers had been the inspiration for these augmentations, but he had definitely taken the steps to make this his own, rather than just a copy of another kid's homework, as it were.

He worked for what felt like days. This time the clock on the wall seemed to blur not because of his lack of internal focus but because of the unwavering depth of it. When everything started to slow down and the final compiling was taking place, he looked around his room and found that someone had picked up some of his clothes and he had definitely eaten a few times. At his desk lay Ahab, curled up on the warmth of the computer tower with the editing program still open where he had collapsed mid-graphic. He and Ahab would need to have a talk at some point. They hadn't been as close since the incursion either. But that would wait. The little flying squirrel had definitely been working hard to help in his own way.

Tsubasa looked at what he had made. He still had the same base idea of items and weapons that he could summon from the ether using his own mana as a focus, but with these additions came the option to reinforce the mana focus with physical focus items. He had been working on applying this same idea to his summoning technology, plugging specialized chips which held specific data into the primary device, so reversing it for larger weapons was actually much easier for him. It would allow for greater advantages and impact in strictly combat situations.

There was a lingering question in the back of his mind. He wasn't sure why he was preparing so heavily for some combat that may not come, but he knew just as well that some of the jobs he would be taking soon would definitely require increased firepower. After all, he wasn't nearly as strong as some of the mages he had trained and worked with. To stand on their level and to face the challenges they faced would prove to himself that his adventuring had real purpose. Regardless, it was definitely better to have and not need. Folding the hoodie up and unclipping the wires, he slid everything back into the pockets of the jacket then turned to pick up Ahab, laying him on the pillow that had been neatly fluffed on his bed.

Then he stood up and stretched.