Chapter 78: Skipping Out On PT

I woke up in my bed feeling refreshed but alone. Mikota had kept me awake for along time, and she had fallen asleep in my arms, but she must have woken up and left early. Mikota probably didn't want the girl to see her come out of my room in her nighty.

I sat up in my bed, looking around the room. It was pretty spartan, with only two small shelves and a small wardrobe. Besides that, there was my bed with a trunk at the end. I got up and walked over to my closet and pulled out one of the bodysuits that I was getting used to wearing now, pulling it on and heading over to the chest.

When I got there, I tried to open it, but the thing wouldn't budge. I went down on my knees to see if I could fidget with the lock, but the was nothing to mess with. The entire front was just a normal chest with no lock, but no matter how hard it tried, nothing would open it.

I finally gave up and was about to open my door when I hear a ding and then a voice over the room's speaker.

//Dave? Are you awake?-Irellia

I opened the door, and Irellia stood in her own uniform, with a large smile plastered on her face. She grabbed me by the hand and started to drag me toward the hangar bay. I just tried to keep up with her, just short of jogging, but everyone was waiting when we got there.

The girls were each standing by their MAS suits and waiting with eager smiles. Irellia motions for me to take my place beside Diamond Edge, and then she took her place with Jill. We all looked to the cart in front of Jill that had six crystals in a row.

"Thank you for joining us, Dave. We all wanted to let you sleep for a bit since you did find them, but everyone is excited to try the crystals out."

"It's ok. I was already up and dressed when Irellia came to get me. Sorry I kept you all waiting, but now that I'm here, how does this work?"

"Inside each crystal is a form of condensed Dynam found only in monsters, and it feeds the MAS units internal AI. You probably all noticed how the suits know how to react sometimes to help you or if you promote it to? Well, each upgrade increases that response time to be faster and the thoughts more complex."

"Interesting, so the more crystals like this we get, the better?"

"Yes and no, we need to collect strong ones for level 3, Chaos Dynam, four is Monstrous Dynam, and five is legendary Dynam gems. And we need more than one of each, so we have a ways to go. Regardless, this is a great start!

With that, Jill and Irellia started to hand us each one gem. The girls each accepted the gems with reverence and held them carefully, but I didn't think they would be so easy to break. Though I received mine gingerly and cradle it in my arms, Irellia instructed us how to use the gems after all were handed out.

"Hold the gem against the inside of your suit, and it will be absorbed. The first time I will only need one; the next upgrade will take three gems. After you are finished, you can step into your MAS and test it out, but be careful; there will be some noticeable changes. Today we will be working on getting comfortable. Tomorrow you will be doing more PT and running until we get to Prime."

Everyone groaned, but complaints were lost in the girls' excitement, and I started to press our gems into our suits. Each time a suit would flash a rainbow of colors that made the girls crying out in excitement each time like it was the first. I, myself, had to admit the colors were fascinating to watch, and I waited to do mine until everyone was finished.

I took my crystal and pressed it to the back, feeling the crystal get smaller in my hand until it was gone. My gray MAS flashed the same rainbow across its hexagon patterns and then back again. I guess that was all? Now I just needed to step inside and see if there were any changes.

I looked over before getting nad and saw that everyone else was ready to move around, but their movements were off, almost like a newborn trying to walk again. I studied them for a minute and then realized what it was; there must be a big calibration difference since the gems should give the AI more pure energy to grow with, so both the AI and pilot are learning together again.

Backing into my suit, I took a deep breath as my suit closed around me. It was the same feeling at first when I got in, all the small displays that popped up were normal, and nothing seemed new. Then I tried to walk, but my suit thought faster than my thoughts, and it happened partway through the idea.

"Now I can see why everyone is having trouble, we made the AI smart now, and it can read out thoughts before we can put them into action. How can we fix it?"

"By doing this, just practicing. he AI need to calibrate to us again, think of it like a system update that upgrades everything. Since everything is new, none of the old commands work, so it's trying to figure out our movement patterns and how it can help to improve them."

I went back to my awkward gate across the hangar bay, trying not to run into the others. The whole thing looked ridiculous, but soon we started to get the hang of it, and the computers started to adapt to our movements. Soon, we all were moving faster than we had been before.

It was nearly lunchtime after we finished, so we decided to relax while our food was made since we were done our bit of fun for the day. After we ate, it was going to be back to the grindstone again, run run run, and then run some more. I wasn't going to complain. It would get more comfortable, and then we will be able to better use our MAS units and have a chance to win the race.

Each got our meals and sat down at the table; this time, I sat between Kyrina and Kyrin. I had completely forgotten about them and only just realized that they weren't at the hangar with us. I guess it made sense since they could transform and all, but why didn't they have to do PT. Even asking the question in my own head made me feel like a bitter child watching others had fun while I worked.

Kyrin noticed my inner dilemma and explained that they were doing some special work on the ship and the suttles, but he wouldn't go much more into details, so I didn't push. Kyrina was eating a bowl of consume soup with some kind of steamed dumpling; part of me assumed they would have eaten a different type of food to support the android type of body, but Kyrina was thoroughly enjoying her soup. I turned back to my plate of fettuccine alfredo and started to eat, and soon I was finished.

I leaned back and stretched my arms out, then Kryina pressed into my side, making me close my one arm around her. I looked down, and she had a slight blush on her face, so I pulled her closer and kissed the top of her head. I was sure I could feel Kyrin's gaze on me, but it didn't have any killing intent, so I figured it was just the natural big brother effect.

After finishing our meals, everyone except for Kryina started to leave; even Kyrin was following them. I tried to go with them, but Jill stopped me.

"I would like you to work with Kyrina, int the other hangar, Diamond is already over there, but I want you to get used to working together. One of the things that weren't mentioned about the race is that it is done in pairs, only two people can enter together, so everyone will be paired off for the next week while traveling inside the system. After that, we will be heading down to the surface o try to find the last part of our crew before the race starts."

Last part of our crew? Did they already find the person?

"No, but we have suspicions about them showing up with an event like this; there might even be more than one. We don't know, this is all just guessing right now, but we will know more when we can scan the planet. It will just be harder to pinpoint since we would have time to do that type of scan."

"How will we know if they are one of us?"

"None of us will know, but you will know. You can sense more than just the normal things in this game, right? You know what the so-called lost souls feeling like, right?"

"Yeah, you have a point. I guess I will just have to pay close attention while om down there. Thanks for the update; I will go with Kyrina and help her out and do the best I can."

Jill smiled at me and patted me on the shoulder before turning and leaving the room. I turned back to Kyrina, who was waiting at the table out of earshot; she was such a nice and timid girl. I wonder what she was working on? I walked over and stretch out my hand to her.

"Ready to go?"