Chapter 5991 A Life of Struggle

Chapter 5991 A Life of Struggle

Tusa Billingsley-Larkinson was in pain.

For days on end, he spent his time lying on a bed that had been moved to the darkened mech workshop.

His stomach and gradually the rest of his body continued to suffer as tiny quantities of phasewater dispersed throughout his bloodstream and constantly threatened to tear open his veins and other body tissue.

"Nghh..."

He should have known that this would happen.

He was not ignorant about the consequences of ingesting phasewater. There were so many warning stories on the galactic net that even children knew better than to get into contact with this lethal substance.

Just because it had 'water' in its name did not mean it was drinkable!

Yet despite how foolish it was for him to do so, Tusa did not refuse Ves' challenge.

The competitive part of his mind irrationally wanted to accept the challenge.

Since Ves believed that Tusa could do it, then what was the harm of swallowing a bit of phase lord blood?

He already regretted this decision shortly after phasewater began to wreak havoc in his mind.

Fortunately, Ves was right that Tusa's willpower along with Blackwing's shadow control could exert just enough suppression to keep the phasewater in line.

It was not easy. Tusa constantly felt as if he was holding the leash of a bucking horse. He had to maintain constant focus and keep his willpower active on drops of phasewater that continued to circulate throughout his body.

While Tusa had reasons to feel confident that he could stay in control at first, as the struggle to exert his willpower and keep track of the phasewater in his body dragged on, he became increasingly more strained over time.

The difficulty of keeping phasewater in check constantly rose as a result. The struggle turned more and more life-threatening as Tusa found himself straining his willpower far longer than he used to whenever he was piloting his expert mech.

The battles he participated in never demanded Tusa to resonate with his mech and strain his willpower for hours or days on end!

Tusa had always considered himself to be a sprinter rather than a marathon runner. He excelled in quick and surgical strikes. Neither his combat approach nor the Dark Zephyr were suited for prolonged attrition warfare.

Yet that was exactly what he ended up with after ingesting a bit of phasewater!

Tusa cursed under his breath for the umpteenth time as he blamed Ves for accepting a challenge that happened to target one of his weaknesses.

"No wonder they call him the Devil Tongue!"

After accompanying Ves for so many years, Tusa finally fell victim to the patriarch's infernal persuasion.

The result was that Tusa unexpectedly entered into another struggle of his life!

The hours that passed since the expert pilot got hoodwinked by Ves had become one of the most difficult tests of his life.

The mental burden of exerting his willpower was already bad enough. Whenever he slipped up, he would have to endure the pain of feeling his own flesh shift in ways they shouldn't!

He already began to suffer a few instances of internal bleeding!

If not for the fact that his own piloting suit came with automated injury treatment functions, he would have been in much worse shape by this time!

This was why the outcome of the test granted him so much relief.

"I'm a potentate! I can pilot mechs!"

Discovering that he not only possessed the right genetic aptitude, but also above the threshold required to pilot combat mechs in a serious capacity "My genetic aptitude is C! I can enroll in any mech academy!"

Third-rate states such as the Bright Republic never imposed high demands on genetic aptitude.

Many mech academies even accepted potentates with D-grade genetic aptitudes as they could still serve as cannon fodder once they learned how to pilot frontline mechs.

His life started to pick up after that. It was as if he finally received compensation for all of the doubts and misery of his early childhood.

Many other cousins failed to obtain the right genetic aptitude. The Larkinson Family always raised a lot of descendants with the obvious expectation that only a fraction of them would be able to serve in the Mech Corps as mech pilots.

Instantly, many boys and girls that previously pretended to be better Larkinsons than Tusa had no leg to stand on anymore. How dare these norms claim that Tusa was a fake when they couldn't even contribute to their state as fighters?

Tusa was over the moon. The Larkinson Family possessed excellent connections with numerous mech academies, so he had no issue with enrolling into one that already did a good job in training a lot of Larkinson descendants.

In fact, it was not unusual for retired Larkinson mech pilots to serve as mech instructors in those very same mech academies!

It was then that Tusa began the second struggle of his life.

"Mech piloting is hard."

It took 12 to 15 years of full-time studying and training in order to become a qualified mech pilot.

Tusa had to spend much of that time on learning math and science. Even if the mech academies dumbed all of the complicated science down, it was still difficult for the mech cadets to become proficient in subjects that did not interest them in the slightest!

Then Tusa had to exercise his body and practice personal combat skills. Since the combat effectiveness of a mech was highly dependent on the fighting skills of the mech pilot, mech academies always forced their cadets to become proficient fighters even without the involvement of a mech.

The physical training might not be too intense, but it often sapped their strength, causing them to retain less energy for other training!

The piloting sessions were the most enjoyable moments for the mech cadets. Tusa spent a lot of time on virtual reality training simulations where he could fool around with virtual mechs without worrying about breaking anything expensive.

Yet it was the realspace practice sessions that excited him the most!

The chance to interface with actual mechs granted him validation and allowed him to feel that he had become an actual Larkinson.

However, Tusa soon learned that piloting mechs was not easy.

It did not matter if he crashed a virtual mech, but the story was completely different with actual mechs. He could not afford to make any mistakes and often had to practice the same repetitive movements and actions over and over again until he completely mastered all sorts of operations.

Plenty of classmates began to overtake him. Tusa felt less worthy of the Larkinson name as his learning ability and his genetic aptitude failed to make him stand out from the rest of his fellow cadets.

Though the Larkinson Family always helped out its descendants by offering private training, they only helped Tusa up to a certain point.

It became too difficult for him to excel in any of his classes!

This was why he decided to specialize in a single mech archetype early on. If he wanted to become more than an ordinary grunt in the Mech Corps, then he needed to forget about mastering everything and put all of his effort into mastering a single mech.

This turned out to be a lot harder than he thought. As a young mech cadet, he had yet to develop his skills, let alone put enough time in becoming familiar with every possible mech type.

How the hell was he supposed to figure out his specialization without wasting so much time on training combat skills that ultimately became irrelevant?