Grey let out a long sigh and then, he swiped his hand over his face. At that moment, his Helm Frame appeared and he blinked in surprise.
He wasn’t surprised because of his Helm Frame. He knew it was still there, he just hadn’t needed to use it since the events of the rebirth waters. Granted, his Grace Helm might have helped out a couple times against Caldrin.
But it was unnecessary, ultimately.
The real reason he was surprised was because he felt it was easily 10x stronger than before.
Grey realized what the problem was instantly. If it could be called a problem at all, that is.
This Helm Frame was Vector Class in grade, and now that he was in the Vector Class as well, he could truly and properly use it. But more than that... it seemed that the blueprints the gnomes created were perfectly curated for their bloodlines.
Now that he had fully integrated with the gnome bloodline, his synergy with the Helm Frame had actually increased even further. In fact...
—
Sync Rate: 0.81%
Energy Reserve: 12,100./12,100.1
—
It was directly reflected in the numbers.
’That makes no fucking sense at all...’
Sync Rate was a measure of the compatibility between the Spirit of the mech and the mech itself. It wasn’t until now that Grey realized there was also a measure of compatibility with the mech user themselves as well.
’I’ll take it.’
Grey finally turned his attention away from his Helm Frame to the gnomes across from him. All of them had frozen.
"Good," Grey said. "I’m sure you all can feel what this is. And," Grey flipped a palm and took out the tome, "recognize what this is."
He put the tome away.
"Now, you have two choices. The first is to attack me and try to take the Mechanical Jaw Lineage away. That will only really end one way. You will all die, and I won’t even feel all that bad about it. Well, I guess I’ll feel a little bad, but it’ll be your fault for being retards.
"The second option is to listen to me and we can all be friends. I’m not going to let you waste the Mech Soul I risked my life to get on something so utterly—"
The gnomes all began to kneel one after another, the old man at the head of them seemingly the most hesitant. But in the end, he took a knee as well, though it was just a single one compared to the two the others fell to.
The old man looked up at Grey with a clenched jaw.
"The Mechanical Jaw Spirit has chosen you. We are bound by our ancestors to follow your words."
"You don’t seem that convinced," Grey said with a raise of an eyebrow.
"It is impossible for me to be convinced. You are no gnome, I have no understanding of your skill, and I do not know why the Mechanical Jaw Spirit has chosen you. But the fact is that it has chosen you."
"How do you know I’m not a gnome?" Grey said with a grin.
The old man hesitated, and then he seemed angry that Grey was testing his intelligence.
"I have eyes," he finally said.
Grey laughed, surprisingly. "Fair enough. Technically, I’m not a gnome. But functionally, my bloodline is probably even purer than yours."
"Such is the blessing of the Mechanical Jaw Spirit," the old man said coldly.
"True enough, too," Grey said. "Stand up. Kneeling is just weird."
The old man didn’t need to hear this twice. The others were more hesitant until he glared at them.
"What is your name?" Grey asked.
"My name is Gleeb."
"Do you know a gnome named Nebb or Globb?"
Gleeb frowned. "My son is named Globb."
Grey’s gaze flickered. "Is that the real reason you’re angry? Do you think I killed your son?"
Gleeb’s frown deepened. "No. My son had some insights as to where the tome was, but if he had succeeded in taking it, I would know because our entire bloodline would benefit."
"So you know that he is dead."
Gleeb’s expression became more downcast if that was possible. He did not reply, but that answer was obvious enough.
"I put the head of the guy responsible in front of his grave. You don’t need to worry about it anymore."
Gleeb looked up at Grey, his eyes flickered. Tears seemed to form for a brief instant before they dried and the old man looked away.
"You know that your son was the one working on the armor too, right? Is that why you want to fuse the Mech Soul into it?"
Gleeb still didn’t reply, but Grey had understood everything well enough.
He took a breath and exhaled.
"Tell me then, old man, what would I have to do to get you to leave this matter alone and let me take the Mech Soul?"
Usually, Grey wasn’t patient enough for this kind of stuff. But this time, he decided to make an exception if for no other reason than Globb.
"There is no need," Gleeb said with a hard voice. "We can already see your skill with the Helm Frame. I was giving you a hard time."
Grey chuckled. "But you still don’t seem convinced."
"It is easy to have good results when you have perfect blueprints," a gnome said from behind Gleeb. "We haven’t had a perfect blueprint in generations. That is the only reason our skills have fallen behind."
"Yeah?" Grey looked over toward the younger gnome with a jaw that was maybe 20% too wide for his face. "And what’s your name?"
"Shay!" he said with confidence.
Grey flipped his palm again and the tome appeared. Then, he tossed it forward and it skidded to a stop at Gleeb’s feet.
In truth, he had already downloaded every blueprint in it. He simply didn’t need the tome anymore, so he might as well use it to prove a point.
"I’m not going to waste my time anymore dancing like a monkey since Gleeb here has already said he can see my skill. So back up your words, hot shot. Pick a blueprint in there and show me what you can do."