272 Space Race Part 3

Ace continued to make some arrangements about his upcoming Spaceship Launch. 

Due to this, he had to place 70% of his workforce to the construction of the Mass Driver.

This Mass Driver was basically an electromagnetic catapult that would fit small-size and mid-size spacecraft. It was a structure that he previously believed to be less priority. 

Just yesterday, only ten automatons were working on it so the slow construction process was taking too long.

It was due to the fact that he didn't really have plans to have the Excellence or any other spacecraft he was about to create to be launched very soon.

"This should be fine. Anyway, this construction should only take for less than a couple of week... I can even prepare other things..." 

Ace muttered after arranging his workforce. 

Now that the situation made him put his attention on his Space Launch project, he decided to focus on this Mass Driver and delayed the creation of other small size spacecraft. 

Anyway, with the size of his underground base, hangar, and the vacant space in this mountain including the forest, he can only have about 5 mid-size spacecraft like Excellence and 50 small size spacecraft that ranges about 120-170 meters in size. Of course, he had to remove more trees in the vicinity for that to happen. 

Now that it was settled. Ace decided to contact Lacus for assistance. It would be his first time meeting her with his current body so he was unsure how she would react.

'It should be fine. Even my classmates accepted my changes...' 

Ace encouraged himself as he contacted Lacus who was in the capital. 

"It's been a while..."

"Yes... I'm sorry for only contacting you when I needed a favor." 

"That's fine. Have you encountered problems while studying the final stage of AOTL?"

'Crap...'

He wasn't practicing it at all. He was even unable to perform the breathing technique or the first stage of the Secret Art with this body.

He may be able to do so if he practiced for several days but he didn't have the time. It should be the other Wallace working on it!

"Aah... That's not it..."

"Is it about the Spirit Forging Magic? Wait, don't tell me that Doctor Charles failed his job... Are there any side effects?"

"No, no... Senior... It's not like that... I actually had some trouble with two clans. I'm just a bit worried about what they can do to me."

"What?! Which clans?"

"Ugh... It's the Vermont and Skywalker Clan..."

"This... What did you do? Tell me everything, don't leave any small details... I'll do my best to help as your senior. If in any case that I can't help, you have other seniors we can rely on..."

"Thank you, senior Lacus. This is what happened..."

Ace told her about the group of Lucent Force's members who sneaked into his property and about the accusations he faced from them. He also mentioned what he learned from Aaron and what he was about to do now...

"You have your own Spacecraft? How did you create one? Wait, why would you even build one?" 

"Well... The idea just came to me. Anyway, do you think that they would no longer find any trouble?"

"I'll look into it..."

"Thank you, senior Lacus."

"Well... About your Space Launch. I would like to attend... Wait, I'll invite your other senior apprentices too..." 

"Sure! Thank you for supporting me..." 

"No worries. I'll be contacting you once I learned something on the other side. By the way, before I forgot... Did you use body modifications this time? Are you really inclined to increase your Iron Knight's sync rate? I think that your rating is already too high..."

"Ah? No! I'm not... I just worked out a bit."

"Haha! As if I'd believe that. Anyway, don't do too much of these modifications... It's better to acquire them naturally."

"Of course, of course... Thank you for your concern, senior..."

Ace smiled awkwardly before they ended the call.

Their conversation went well and his senior would now help him keeping the two clans in check. There were also new people adding to the gallery when the Space Launch event would take place in a few days. 

'I guess... I should prepare a small celebration for this event?' 

Ace thought after realizing that his Space Launch would indeed be the focus of the country even if the two clan's project would be successful or failure... 

People would surely await the result of his own project.

"Avalon, should we make a little change about our fourth phase? Can we invite our players to this event? What do you think?" 

The players were still not aware that the creator of the virtual world, Traceless Hands, was also Wallace Ravencroft.

Some of them were aware that Wallace was involved with Traceless Hands. Someone who works for that creator but they could never imagine that he was the Traceless Hands himself. 

[ Analyzing... ] 

[ No problematic issues found. Revealing your identity would further help us acquire the pilot needed for the Mech Frames and you can easily find people who will man the space fleet. ] 

The Mech Frame and spaceship could not be all controlled by Avalon. It will be ineffective since Avalon was only made as a guide to help its user. It will not be able to bring out the machine's full potential especially to those that require a bit of mana to operate. 

He can only hire some people to do it for him and he wanted them to come from the players who would volunteer themselves. That was supposedly his fourth phase of VR Project and would only take place once his flagship was already constructed. 

However, it seems that he had to adjust his plans a little. 

"Right, I'm curious about the spacecraft made by the two clans... Can you find any information about it?"

Ace asked Avalon in case it could find information online. 

[ Negative. No information found. Permission to connect to Veda to access more information. ]

"Permission granted... I guess."

[ Searching... ] 

[ Veda is connecting... ] 

[ Hello! Ace. ] 

"Aahh... Veda?"

[ Yes... I see that you wanted information about their spacecraft. You're curious? Did you want to copy their design? ]

"Of course not."

[ Don't think too much about it. I only gave them an idea... I don't even think that they created it perfectly. ] 

"Wait, so you helped them?"

[ Not really. You know that I'm an Artificial Intelligence meant to help doctors and patients. I don't have knowledge about building spacecraft at all. I just gave them a bit of encouragement since they've been trying to find a way to do it for many years... ]

"Haa~ Is that so? Anyway... Are you aware that they're trying to cause problems to me?"

[ You call that a problem? Well, yes. Anyway, do you still want information about their space shuttle? ] 

"Ugh... Yes. Since you're already here..." Ace answered since he was indeed curious about it. 

[ Here you go... ] 

Veda showed him the various photographs of the space shuttle they planned to launch in the next couple of weeks. 

"This is their Spacecraft?"

[ Yes... ]

"That's cute..."

Compared to his majestic mid-size transatmospheric battleship, their space shuttle was looking cute if they were put together.