Ceres Chaos [Exosuit Progression]

It’s been close to a week since Ceres finished the first iteration of the heavy exosuit. Having undergone multiple improvement phases, the heavy exosuit was now in its completed form.

Ceres still harboured unfulfilled design ideas, but it was hard to implement them in such a resource-scarce environment.

He felt slightly bad that he was using the limited electronics that the town had left, but he was resolved to use the exosuit for the better of the town.

Ceres was not so evil as to leave a place worse off than before he arrived. It simply went against his pride – how could an exosuit repairer make something worse?

“Once I figure out how to tame the mawsies, the town will have more purchasing power that could alleviate its food shortage. With the expedition returning soon in the next few months, it may also bring additional surplus metals for the town to bargain with. Then I’ll leave for Rockhold.”

Ceres began to wear the exosuit, stepping into the opened exosuit before aligning his neck with the nerval plug at the back.

“System checkout procedure begin.”

The heavy exosuit began to close around him, sealing his body inside. The nerval processor whirred to life as the heat radiators at the back flexed between its open and close configuration, looking like the gills of a fish. Ceres flexed his arms and hands, testing the response of the exosuit, as well as moving his legs and twisting his waist, ensuring the full mobility range.

The heavy exosuit loomed with a menacing aura in the workshop. Coloured in a deep shade of blue, the heavy exosuit featured full mawsie armour plates with minimal gaps, allowing Ceres to survive being splashed with lava.

The more flexible joints were sealed using a layered armour technique, though the thickness of the armour was much smaller, potentially being a weak point.

A short, spiked mace lay on the floor next to the exosuit, made of the same deep shade of blue. The spiked mace was fairly heavy, weighing close to 10 kilograms of pure mawsie metal. The previous Ceres would not be able to even lift such a heavy weapon, but with the strength enhancement Ceres had, it felt like one-third of the weight to him.

Standing at a height of 2.1 meters as he wore it, the exosuit only gave Ceres a slight boost in terms of dimensions. He did not see the point in making it much larger than himself, especially considering that he had to fit through cramped tunnels underground.

Though it was a heavy exosuit, it was notably lighter due to lower requirements on hydraulics and suspensions, seeing as Ceres’s body did some of the lifting.

In order to make his way out of a potential collapsed tunnel or cavern, he also included a modified power drill in the exosuit’s left wrist, allowing him to carve a path out of loose rock.

Ceres held a helmet in his hand, designed around his mask in case he was exposed. The heavy exosuit also featured a strong air filtration and compression system as well as the ability to attach air tanks, allowing him to breathe if he had to venture deeper into hostile areas. Ceres expected most of the underground cavern system to be breathable, however, especially where the expedition was located.

A small yet powerful floodlight was also mounted to the top of the helmet, in the event that there were no radioactive stones to act as a light source nearby.

Ceres knew that his grayscale vision would be able to see no matter the lighting condition, but he did not dare to take risks as well.

Regarding the grayscale vision, Ceres knew that it was definitely emotions that he was visualizing. He theorized that the vision kicks in when he is in a combat scenario, but still could not figure out why it triggered when he was alone in the chasm.

Ceres clearly recalled the feeling of hunger, but despite rationing his own meals over the last three weeks, he had seen no noticeable increase in the rate of vision swapping.

Ceres considered the greyscale vision his first real ‘superpower’. The increased strength, agility and body size were all part and parcel of genetic enhancement. Such enhancements were so ubiquitous throughout the galactic human society that it was barely considered an advantage.

It might be an advantage for Athen who rarely had such things due to the high cost, but Ceres knew of large-scale enhancement present in the Loeric Empire’s military.

Despite genetic enhancements to enhance vision, either to see better or to see in a different spectrum, Ceres has definitely not heard of any spectrum for ‘feelings’.

“I’m not sure what to call it. Maybe Immortal Transcendent Ultimate Emotional Sutra of the Nine Heavens? That’s too long... or emovision? Sounds weird. Hmm… horaothymia?”

A bastardization of the Greek words for sight (horáō) and feeling (thȳmós), Ceres felt that it was quite apt as a descriptor. “It sounds like I have a special mode – H.T. mode.”

Putting on the helmet, his vision was limited by the visor on the helmet. Usually, modern exosuits would have a full helmet holographic display, making the user feel as though he was not wearing a helmet.

However, Ceres had no choice – the town did not have any of the requisite electronics, nor did he have the expertise to make such a thing either way.

Despite having redesigned the helmet multiple times, he still was not really used to it. His entire prior life on the surface was characterized by light and minimal exosuits, meaning he never really had to wear a helmet before seriously. He had a few experiences in practice but was never fond of it.

He could barely fit his mask in between his face and the helmet, but it somehow worked out.

“Wow Teacher, you look amazing! Is this what a full exosuit looks like?”

Mercer clapped happily while Zhang merely scowled at seeing the exosuit boot up into life, the visor lighting up with a yellow hue. Mercer had not seen a fully functional exosuit before, with most of the exosuits he has seen being far too damaged when they arrived like the town chief’s.

“If I had my way, your armour would be two times harder!” Zhang complained.

“If we implemented your treatment process, I would have far exceeded the two weeks limit. It’s only less than three days till I have to escort Oswa back, so no thanks.”

“That old foggy doesn’t need any protection. He’s a hard one to kill, living till that age.”

Ceres didn’t reply, instead testing the movements of the exosuits. He tried walking, before running and performing some combat moves. Ceres definitely felt slower than he usually was, but he knew his punch packed a lot more strength than he ever had. His punch might even be four times that of Braton in the past.

“Braton sure would be excited to fight me after seeing this… I wonder where he is…” Ceres thought to himself.

In terms of speed, he was actually moving as fast as a normal medium exosuit would, so the idea of making an even lighter exosuit in the future excited Ceres. How fast could he really go if he wore a light exosuit instead?

He had no choice but to design the exosuit to be heavily armoured. The terrain was just too hostile, and while Ceres was slightly confident in his new body, he was not confident to survive.

“Teacher, I’m sure you can kill a mawsie in a single hit with your new exosuit now!” Mercer jumped up and down with excitement, as though he was watching a live superhero movie in action.

“Well, maybe it’s time for a live test?” Ceres smiled as he placed the spiked mace on a mounted slot on his back, preparing to head out.

***

In a cave closer to the town, the lava river that flowed through bubbled with fervour before erupting as a mawsie leapt out of the river, followed by another mawsie. The two landed on the ground, eyeing each other warily as they clacked their claws at each other.

One of the mawsies was already injured, its wound seemed to be inflicted a few hours ago. It was unknown how long this mawsie had been running, but it was obviously running out of strength. It held on tightly to a metallic-like fruit, as though it was the treasure of its life.

The other large mawsie on the other hand looked perfectly fine. It was much larger than the injured mawsie, clacking its claws in a show of force, as though it was gloating at the impending demise of the injured mawsie.

It eyed the metallic fruit in the injured mawsie’s hand intently, slowing inching forward step by step.

Suddenly, both mawsies stopped moving completely, their natural instincts picking up a large tremor moving through the ground. Intuitively knowing that it was not a mawsie based on the pattern of the tremor, the two mawsies did not focus on each other any longer.

Why fight each other when there was food moving towards them? The mawsies were capable of detecting and characterizing tremors from different animals or plants in the subterranean environment. They were the apex predator of the area, after all.

A series of clicks conveyed between the two allowed them to form a temporary truce. They would always work together where necessary.

The tremors were immediately characterized as humanoid, as the thuds came in one after another rather than in a flurry. The two omnivorous mawsies began navigating towards the source, hungry for anything that moved. Rapid clicks formed a basic strategy, a pincer attack as per usual.

However, the scale of the tremor far out scaled anything they had experienced before as they got closer, triggering a warning sign in their brains.

As the source also came closer, a large heavy humanoid figure burst out into the cavern with a power drill in its left arm, slamming down on the ground so hard that deep impressions were made on the compacted floor.

The two mawsies couldn’t recognize the object, only knowing that the ‘skin’ of the humanoid figure was similar to their own shells.

The humanoid figure was about the same size as them, but it felt a lot more inorganic and rigid in its movements than the humanoids they were used to eating.

There were no eyes in its head, only a floodlight attached to the top that shone a light into the cavern as the humanoid figure seemed to be breathing hard through its exhaust pipes, the rumbling sound audible from both it and the motors as well.

Before the mawsies could figure out if the humanoid figure was one of them or not, the humanoid figure immediately swung its other arm downwards with a large, spiked mace, catching the larger mawsie by surprise and smashing its entire head in, the orange bodily fluids spluttering crazily all over the place.

The injured mawsie immediately dropped the metallic fruit and ran, attempting to dive back into the lava river when the humanoid figure grabbed it by the tail, holding it up in the air like a freshly caught fish.

“Test completed: first specimen caught.” Ceres smiled as he held the squirming mawsie up by the tail. He picked up the metallic fruit as well, bringing both of them back to town. He also had to research what the mawsies ate as well.

Captain Kai and Mercer watched in awe as Ceres walked back to the town gate like a successful fisherman, burning the sight into their memory. Who else could wrangle a mawsie like Ceres? He lifted it up like a dangling fish, continuously slapping away its attempts to claw at him with his left arm.

The two of them followed Ceres to a makeshift cage outside the town gate. Naturally, no one agreed to holding the mawsie inside the town. If it were to break through the cage and wreak havoc within the town, Ceres would have hell to pay.

The injured mawsie was dropped into the makeshift cage built by Zhang with his new prosthetic arms. The cage was made out of the same mawsie metal and other composites to further strengthen it. Ceres had tried punching it himself, ensuring that it required significant effort to break out.

The injured mawsie naturally tried slamming into the cage, shaking it with great force but the cage was anchored firmly into the ground.

Mercer yelped as he watched the injured mawsie lunge towards him from within the cage before being blocked. Despite it being caged, Mercer still couldn’t rid himself of the fear of mawsies. They had been a permanent scourge ever since he was born, so how could he see it as something to be tamed?

Ceres still held the metallic fruit that the mawsie was fighting over in his hand, wondering where it came from. It looked like a coconut, except it was glossy as though someone had polished it to perfection, apart from the clear indentations where the mawsie had grabbed it. Ceres recounted to Mercer and Captain Kai what he saw.

“That’s actually a common fruit that grows on trees along the lava river. It can survive the heat in the lava and uses the river to propagate. I don’t think anyone has ever tried eating it, seeing as the lava river is hard to approach without the right equipment. Not to mention the threat of mawsies as well.” Captain Kai explained.

“We call it diamond fruit! People used to mistake it for gems when seen from afar. Seeing it means there’s bound to be signs of life in a cavern. I’m surprised that the mawsies actually eat it. I thought all of them would be carnivorous or something.” Mercer continued explaining.

Ceres nodded his head, thinking to himself. If the mawsies were carnivorous it was hard to sustain their current numbers. There was a distinct lack of ‘meat’ in the subterranean environment, the two largest populations being humans and mawsies with a trailing third being the grodaws.

However, the number of grodaws won’t be able to provide a proper supply of food. Naturally, the dominant predator had to be omnivorous in order to not be picky about food.

Ceres wondered if it was possible to grow the metallic fruit. From the looks of it, no one in the town knew how the fruit even worked. Perhaps this could be another source of food for the town as well.

Ceres headed back to the cavern where he found the two mawsies previously, the corpse of the larger mawsie still there. He scanned the area near the lava river, eventually noticing a sparkling tree that looked like it was made out of multiple diamonds.

It extended far up near the cavern ceiling, the branches snaking along the walls while the main trunk remained near the bank of the lava river, barely touching the flow of lava.

Using his multi-terminal to record every little detail, he slowly began to figure out how the tree was growing. He also found a sapling that had just started growing recently, enabling him to extrapolate most of the life cycle of the tree. Ceres had yet to see any dead diamond trees, so he plucked three fruits and headed back to town.

Bringing the diamond fruit back to the workshop, he used tools to cut the fruit open, revealing a mushy interior with a much harder seed in the middle. Ceres could not wrap his head around how the branches on the ceiling of the cavern were able to collect enough water vapour to condense into the fruit, but it did not matter.

All he could confirm now was that the diamond fruit could be cut open normally without any additional strength, and the inside seemed edible.

However, he did not know whether it was edible by humans. Seeing as he could eat an entire grodaw raw without being poisoned, he had pretty high confidence in his poison resistance. How bad could a fruit from a metallic tree get?

Ceres decided to eat the fleshy parts of the mushy interior, before immediately gagging them out. The taste was horrendous like he was eating sewage mush topped up with a pile of poop that slinked and slimed into his throat, coating his innards.

Ceres choked and tried to remove as much as possible from his throat, but he still involuntarily swallowed. The grotesque sludge began to rumble in his stomach, causing it to churn for a while before settling.

“This is fucking disgusting! What the hell is this monstrosity!?” Ceres grabbed a tap nearby and rinsed his mouth as much as he could. It took a few minutes to finally get rid of the taste from his mouth.

Despite the bad taste, it was still edible and not poisonous at all. Ceres finished the fruit and monitored himself, noticing no adverse changes. Perhaps the fruit was... okay?

He tried feeding it to the injured mawsie as well as a few grodaws, noting that they took to it well too. A quick sample scan by the multi-terminal didn’t reveal any known poisonous substances either, so it seemed edible by humans.

Ceres immediately thought of an interesting plan, smiling to himself. Perhaps he could solve the town’s food problem without even domesticating the mawsies fully…

“Teacher, you called for me?” Mercer stood outside the workshop, before suddenly flinching as he saw a wide sinister grin on Ceres’s face. He shuddered instinctively as Ceres walked closer to him with the diamond fruit in hand.

“Good, you came on time. I have a small sample of a special delicacy for you…”

***

Three days later, Ceres was fully geared up in his heavy exosuit and the empty grodaw container, waiting in the town square with Oswa. It was the day for him to escort Oswa back, but he had something special to do first.

The instructor, Zhang, Xi and Captain Kai were all gathered here as well, sitting on a long table with a diamond fruit that had been already sliced open for them. The townspeople gathered around them, watching them.

More than two dozen boxes of the diamond fruit were stacked near the side, the result of Ceres’s three days of harvesting alone. The total weight was more than 400 kilograms were definitely enough to help the town last a little longer.

“Are you sure this shit is edible?” The instructor looked warily at the diamond fruit. Zhang gingerly poked the mushy interior while Xi stared at Ceres intently, watching for any irregularities.

“Trust me, this is the way for your town to temporarily have more to eat. I may be gone for more than a few weeks doing research on how to tame the mawsie, but I believe cultivating these diamond fruits provide an alternative source of food. Now that we have the seeds, we can easily plant them ourselves.”

“That’s true, we can plant them in our nearby caverns where we have lava rivers used for geothermal power production. Shouldn’t take more than a few weeks to see some results.” Xi nodded.

“Well then, no need to stand on ceremony. Give it a try.” Ceres clapped his hands, but none of them moved.

“Don’t worry guys! The taste is unique and exquisite, you won’t taste anything like this anywhere else!” Mercer shouted from the crowd in support of Ceres, though he noticeably stayed far away from the long table and eyed the fruit cautiously.

Seeing that even Mercer said so, the instructor finally relented. “Well, this definitely alleviates the food problem…” The four of them took a bite into the mushy interior of the diamond fruit, with Ceres’s grin becoming wider.

Immediately the town square was filled with the sounds of puking, retching and curses. Before their attention could be turned towards Ceres, he didn’t bother looking back, grabbing Oswa before sprinting out of the town towards the gate, his face holding a serious expression.

“The time has come. RUN!”

M.G.Driver

I apologize for the lack of uploads yesterday at the timing, I forgot to schedule it. This is a makeup for yesterday, there will be one more chapter coming out today.