Leon didn't just jump into work without any planning.

It was called a Trial for a reason. Even after rising to the top of the hierarchy of this Construction Company, completing the Trial was still going to be hard.

To meet the unrealistic quota at the deadline the Federation set still needed a miracle, and to create that miracle, he needed to think outside the box.

'I'm a Mechanist but just because I'm one does not mean I can singlehandedly lead this company to meet the quota before the deadline'.

'To do it, I need to take advantage of the existing structure of this company- the industrial scale machines and the workers'.

He tapped his right index finger against the desk in his office. 'I need to leverage the collective ability of all the hired engineers that are working for the company. By leveraging that plus my ability as an F Rank Mechanist, only then can I create the miracle that I'm looking for'.

To start, Leon divided the 5 needs of the Omnicore Army into 3 levels.

He drew a chart.

[Level 1: Need 1- 18,000 units of standardized melee weapons, Need 2- 28,000 units of standardized guns, Need 3- 120,000 rounds of ammunition]

[Level 2: Need 4- 800 basic missile chassis parts]

[Level 3: Need 5- 85 retrofitted, light-armored Trucks]

Level 1 was the simplest level where every engineer working for the Big Gig Construction Company could make themselves useful.

Despite not being Mechanists, every single one of these guys worked most of their lives with mechanical tools and basic blueprints enough to be able to craft basic melee weapons, guns and ammunition easily.

This was the Level where the construction company had the highest chance of meeting the quota of their employers despite the ridiculous numbers.

As from Level 2, the difficulty level rose exponentially.

On one hand, Leon was disappointed that the goal was just to produce basic missile chassis parts since it meant that he would not get his first Missile Blueprint.

On another hand, constructing real Missiles would have been a nightmare compared to just producing basic chassis parts.

For that he was grateful but still, the level of difficulty required here was a significant jump from Level 1 where all the expertise needed was hands-on knowledge on constructing basic melee weapons, guns, and ammunition.

From Level 2, the engineers needed to actually be learned and have higher education. They needed advanced knowledge on Physics, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, and for some components they even needed knowledge on Nanotechnology!

It was a whole lot more than just piecing together a pistol.

Even Leon didn't have knowledge on Nanotechnology.

But thankfully, the construction job didn't need them to have the complete knowledge, it just needed them to be knowledgeable on Nanotechnology enough to be able to piece the parts into other parts to form basic missile chassis parts.

Leon was the only engineer in the whole Construction Company who could do this, this showed the Federation's intent right away.

Afterall, this meant if he never showed up, the Big Gig Construction Company was always destined to lose the contract.

As for Level 3, once again, it was a significant upgrade in terms of difficulty from Level 2.

Constructing light-armored military-grade Trucks was supposed to be a job left to large-scale industrial Construction Companies with Mechanists and automated technology, not a Construction Company without a single Ascended.

Again, Level 3's difficulty was evident of the Federation's intention to force the Big Gig Construction Company out of business.

But luckily, they now had Leon.

Leon started work not by constructing immediately, instead, he took all 8 blueprints and modified them to the best of his ability to be easily comprehensible to lay men like Daren not to talk of capable engineers.

This way, constructing the melee weapons, guns, and ammunitions would no longer be like a simple math of 12 plus 4 divided by 8.

No, Leon directly took all the complicated parts out.

He took division out, he took BODMAS directly out of the board and simply left the blueprint in a simple numerical format of 1, 2, 3, and 4.

This way, the engineers would no longer need calculators to solve high numerical value problems like 1180 divided by 53. Instead, it would be smooth-sailing and easy like simply counting from numbers 1 to 10.

It was the exact same thing that he did when he optimized Rex's ADE Nullification Shackles blueprint, but this time it was even more optimized because he didn't need high technology to craft guns, melee weapons, and ammunition.

After that, Leon instructed Supervisor Jeff, the A.I Construct that once berated him to distribute the modified blueprints to all the engineers.

He reckoned that the modified blueprint would increase the efficiency of the Construction Company by at least 5 times!

If the engineers got more used to it, efficiency could increase by up to a staggering 8 times!

This was the transformation that a single Mechanist called Leon could do.

Of course, this only applied to the blueprints in Level 1.

As for Level 2, there was nothing Leon could do simply because there was no complete Missile blueprint; he couldn't optimize it.

Leon didn't try to kill himself over this though, instead, he decided to designate twice the number of engineers that previously worked on this project now to at least double the production speed for it.

The only part that would be left to him was the single component with Nanotechnology. But since it was only 1 out of multiple components of a missile, it meant Leon just had to work on this specific project 800 times to meet the quota.

As for Level 3, this was where he decided to personally get involved.

Afterall, it was the hardest of all the targets slapped on the Construction Company by the Federation. If he truly wanted to create a miracle, directly working on the light-weight Trucks was where he could start weaving his magic.

After making his decision, Leon didn't leave to the Welding and Assembly Area immediately, instead, he asked for a smartphone.

The reason why he needed a smartphone was simple. 'I need to Google'.

Leon didn't remember exactly what the term 'Google' meant, but for some reason, he felt that it was the right word to express what he intended to do.

Immediately after he got his hands on a smartphone, he confirmed that it was connected to the psionic network (internet), and then he dismissed his assistants before accessing the psionic network.

He typed.

["Ways to quickly regenerate ADE".]

Click!

As soon as the prompt started loading, Leon waited.

He wanted to learn of ways to quickly regenerate his ADE.

Afterall, what he was about to embark on was not a sprint. Rather, it was a marathon that was going to last 48 hours!

48 hours of non-stop work.

A marathon where the only time he would get to rest was if he wanted to visit the toilet. Considering how tight his schedule was, Leon had no intentions of sleeping or even eating during this period.

As an F Rank Ascended, he already realized that he could easily go a few days without eating and yet he would still stay in tip-top physical and mental shape.

During these 48 hours, Leon knew that the only thing that could stop him was if his ADE got depleted and it was inevitable. This was something he didn't have a solution for since he never had any reason to ask Talia or Kain about it.

As for his actions, he was slightly afraid.

Afterall, considering how tightly the Omnicore Federation restricted information and activity on the psionic network, him asking for such sensitive information related to Ascended in the network would definitely attract the attention of the Federation's cyber-dogs.

Maybe he would be lucky to escape their detection, but there was every likelihood that NetRunners would immediately zero down on his location.

But Leon had a trump card for this. 'Mr. Grok'.

Mr. Grok was the name of the owner of the Big Gig Construction Company.

No matter the current situation of the company, to have such a big construction company, Leon was willing to bet that this was a man of significant standing in Omnicore society.

If the NetRunners of the Omnicore Federation trace the signal and discover that it came from Mr. Grok's factory, they would immediately make the connection to the target that was imposed on the company by the Federation.

This was also risky but Leon was willingly playing a gamble.

He was gambling with the information the System revealed to him that the Omnicore Federation was once again in the middle of another Civil War.

His brain whirred. 'What Civil War happened in Year 583 A.G? I really need to learn more about the history of Neo-Tokara when I return, that's if I survive'.

His gamble was that the Federation would decide to pardon Mr. Grok if they found out that he somehow managed to employ the services of a Mechanist.

By employing the services of a Mechanist, Mr. Grok would have essentially proved his competence and importance to the Federation that he could actually help in the war effort with his company.

This was likely to lower the Federation's desire to immediately usurp his company.

If the Federation was reasonable, the smart thing to do is to let Mr. Grok retain ownership of the Big Gig Construction Company through the period of the Civil War and trust him with more construction jobs in the future.

And by the end of the Civil War, they could take further steps either to leave Mr. Grok his autonomy or still find a way to hijack his company from him.

Either way, by then, Leon would have long completed his Trial.

He was willing to believe and gamble that the Federation was reasonable.

DING!

The smartphone lit up with a notification.

Leon looked at it and he immediately heaved a sigh of relief. Just like he expected, there were more than one way to quickly replenish ADE.

According to the article that his search led to, Ascended can quickly recover ADE through either ADE Crystals, food that are rich in purified ADE, or through ADE nutrient packs.

All three were rare and controlled commodities in the Omnicore Federation. To get them, you need connections in the military.

Leon took a deep breath, then he dialed another number through the smartphone.

Ring! Ring!

[Outgoing call to Mr. Grok…]

As soon as the call connected, Leon cleared his throat and said.

"Good evening sir, I need a few things if we're to meet the quota".

…

30 minutes later, a familiar purple Luxury Car rolled by the Construction Company and a Synth who seemed advanced in age walked in with a square-shaped bronze box in his hand.

He walked straight into Leon's office.

"Mr. Leon, this is what you wanted". The owner of Big Gig Construction Company, Mr. Grok said in a respectful tone.

Just like Leon expected, this man had a few connections in the military. This was why his company survived so long in his ownership.

And through these connections, this man got him what he needed.

Leon nodded calmly and approached the bronze box to open it. Opening it, he saw that the box had 12 different compartments and every one of them was holding 12 fist-sized crystals glowing in a pristine silver color.

Leon looked at Mr. Grok. "These are ADE Crystals?"

The middle-aged Synth nodded respectfully. "Yes. My client says one of them can last between 6 to 8 hours depending on the drain".

Hearing that, Leon immediately flashed a grin.

"Good, this is exactly what I need". He closed the bronze box and patted it with a satisfied expression on his face.

The moment Mr. Grok left, Leon also left his office with the box and he walked straight towards the Welding and Assembly Area.

He cracked his knuckles. "It's time to get my hands dirty".

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.