Chapter 7 - Initial Showing of Force (1)

Proofread by Peter Gong

Thinking about a second, he can’t help asking, “What’s the difference between the two modes of fighting?”

“Please choose a battle mode,” the iron armored beast repeats the previous remark again which dismays Rowen.

“Well, I’ll choose the man-machine combination mode then,” Rowen has no choice but to choose a mode that sounds like a combination.

As Rowen’s voice falls, the body of iron armored beast bursts and opens like a small door. Fortunately, Rowen has seen a lot of strange things today, and he barely accepts the presence of this little door, so he remains calm.

A ray of soft light shots through the little door and wraps Rowen up.

Rowen feels a faint warmth. The rays seem warmer than the sun. The iron armored beast’s voice comes again. “A physical scan is being performed for you, please wait.”

Physical scan? What does this mean?

Rowen has read a lot of books over the years, but now he finds his knowledge is so limited that he cannot understand most of what the iron armored beast said.

“The body scan is over and your body index is 30. You do not meet the minimum requirements for the man-machine combination mode, so you cannot choose the fighting mode.” The iron armored beast speaks again, and this time Rowen basically understands his words. However, he wonders that this summoning beast is quite strange as everyone knows summoners are mostly of a bad physical constitution, but how can it be the reason for not choosing the man-machine combination mode with the summoner?

Rowen is about to express his doubt when the iron armored beast speaks again, “Due to your physical condition, the system takes the initiative to select the in-cabin operating mode for you. Please wait while Mecha is out of shape.”

The rustle of metal begins again and the iron giant begins to change rapidly. A fit of dizziness comes over Rowen for a moment, and the iron giant’s movement finally stops after a few seconds.

No, it can’t be called the iron giant at this time because it doesn’t look like any human form now.

At first glance, the iron armored beast looks like a huge butterfly, with outstretched wings at least five or six meters wide. The length of the whole body of the butterfly is about three or four meters long, but its height drops a lot, so it looks only three meters high at most.

With closer inspection, however, it turns out that this is not a real butterfly. The pairs on the back look like wings, but they are obviously fixed, and the body part is obviously different from the butterfly.

It is a real eye-opener for Rowen today! And now he knows for sure that the iron armored beast can conduct a transformation. In a few minutes, the iron armored beast has shown him three different images. It has gone from an iron box to an iron giant, and now from an iron giant to an iron butterfly. Now he wonders if the iron butterfly will change into something else in a little while.

Then suddenly a door appears on one side of the iron butterfly. The door is about a meter high and half a meter wide, almost big enough for one person to get in and out. The voice, already familiar to Rowen, sounds again, “Enter the cabin, please.”

Rowen doesn’t know what a cabin is while he can almost guess it by now, and without much hesitation he ducks through the small door and gets in.

It occurs to Rowen at first that it is a small room made by metal. Although the room is smaller than a normal room, it is large enough to accommodate three or four people at a time. There is obviously no problem in putting in a bed that is not too big. Of course, there is no bed here but something Rowen has never seen before.

Being amazed, Rowen continues to observe other things in the room. Under the big mirror there is a metal table which looks like the toilet table that Rowen once saw in Nina’s home. That table in her home is her mother’s on which she puts lots of stuff, and there are various buttons on this table with some strange symbols on each button.

On the right side of the metal table, there lies a metal stick. Rowen touches it, finding that the metal stick is moveable. Curiosity drives him to hold the stick back and forth, left and right, but the iron armored beast doesn’t respond.

Next to the metal table, there is a metal chair which doesn’t look very special.

Apart from these, there seems to be nothing else inside the little metal room. Rowen looks around, finding that the small door has closed silently without his notice. The metal walls on both sides are smooth without flaws, like a piece of naturally formed metal.

“Strange! What shall I do next?” Rowen murmurs. The iron armored beast keeps silent and it seems unlikely for him to get out. He will be kept here all the time?

Rowen contemplates for a little while, but he doesn’t figure out what he should do. He feels tired from standing like this, so he sits down on the metal chair.

As soon as he sits on it, something strange happens. “Click.” He hears a sound and feels his waist is tightened. He looks down, only to see that he is tied up by a metal belt and unable to stand up when he tries to do so.

When he still doubts about what has happened, he hears that familiar voice again, “Hello, please read the mecha manual before your first operating in this mecha.

“Manual?” Rowen feels a little encouraged. He asks, “where is the manual? And, what is a mecha?”

“Mecha model number, FD36 light-weight; Mecha weight, 16 tons; Maximum Speed, 2,000 kilometers…” The iron armored beast doesn’t answer, instead, it says a great many words that Rowen cannot fully understand, “the weapon system, light saber and energy gun…”

Rowen listens for a while, and though he cannot understand most of its words, he still figures out something. That is, this armored beast he has summoned has another name called Mecha. It seems that it can run very fast, but he doubts that whether it could run 2,000 kilometers per hour.

2,000 kilometers per hour, what does that mean? He can hardly imagine that. All he knows is that it is only over one thousand kilometers from the Mayor Town to the Imperial City. If his iron armored beast could run that fast, it would take less than an hour from here to the Imperial City. Is that possible?

“…If you have already fully understood what I’ve said, then you can start Mecha.” It’s hard to know how long it is before Rowen finally understands these words.

One thing that Rowen has been vaguely aware of is that the iron armored beast cannot attack others on its own because it has to be activated before it could fight.

“Then how can I get it started?” asks Rowen, who has heard so much from the iron armored beast but it doesn’t tell him about this question.

“Please press the Start button.” This time the iron armored beast answers him, but the question is: what is the Start button?

Rowen has no choice but to ask again, “where is the Start button?”

“At the left bottom of the console.” Answers the iron armored beast.

“Then, where is the control console?” Rowen can only keep asking.

It takes some time before the iron armored beast replies, “Please look at the screen.”

Rowen can’t help smiling wryly. What is the screen? As he is about to ask more question, he suddenly notices that the picture in the large mirror begins to change. The previous things on the screen disappear and a metal table shows up. That is the metal table in front of him and there is a striking sign pointing at a button at the left bottom of the metal table.

At this moment, it dawns on Rowen that the large mirror in front of him is the screen. The metal table is the console and that button is the Start button.