A Black Market LitRPG

Kyle returned to Desham, pondering over the question. Now that he had obviously found a market for the products of the factory, he needed a good way to fly them over, preferably stealth.

While the venom-spitting hornet was good, it had a limited range with a short flight time than what Kyle would like. It’s ability to carry cargo was also already limited by the arcia fuel system that powered its stealth engraving. Furthermore, there was only a fixed number of mineral ants, meaning he had a hard limit on his fleet. Until Kyle figured out a method of upgrading the Artificial Hive Core, he had no way of increasing the number of mineral ants.

He could not reorganise the remaining mineral ants – ten were used for hunting, while he used the remaining two, now both modified with stealth engravings. Kyle did not plan on wasting his time on trying to find the upgrade method when he already had a good understanding of an alternative solution.

“I hope it’s not a tunnel again,” Feldon remarked in a meeting with Kyle and Hayden on this topic. “No fucking way we’re digging a tunnel that far! We wont even have enough base resources to build a support structure for it!”

The weapons factory was running on scrap metal collected from the town and the former slums, but that pile would soon run out. Kyle had to work fast to get a buyer for the products, which was why this entire operation was planned.

“We’re not miners, and we don’t have any existing tunnels towards Ocra either. Its too damn far!” Hayden joined in.

“Stop talking about tunnels, I wasn’t planning on making one. Instead, we’re going to make an arctech hovercraft.”

“A what what?”

Kyle laid out the requirements for the machine, with Hayden immediately rejected as far too insane. “You want to fly like a mineral ant and a wyrm? Are you crazy? The material cost would be insane! You’ll need enough arcia energy to counteract the weight, control its vertical acceleration AND push it horizontally.”

Kyle placed the Advanced Arcia Crystal on the table. “I understand. It’s all a matter of energy. However, we do have a source for this.”

Feldon shook his head rapidly as he soon realized what Kyle was planning. “Nonononono, we’re not going back there!”

“Back where?” Hayden was lost.

“Feldon and I know of an outcrop that has crystals just like this. If we can harvest all of them, we can create a corresponding amount.”

Hayden examined the crystal that was nearly half the size of her forearm in length, but she was still unsure of how much energy the arcia crystal could hole. She knew that the crystal could power Kyle’s railgun and arctech armour for days on end, but she had only seen one so far.

“But this time, we’ll be going back with a full raiding party to mine it properly.” And kill whatever that thing is attached to.

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Hayden nodded, aware of the existence of the regenerators. They weren’t exactly efficient, with the mechanical regenerators only having a fifteen percent efficiency, meaning it was completely economically unprofitable to use animals to charge arcite ore, as there was still a food cost and limited stamina.

Kyle continued drawing out his plan on a piece of paper. “The energy issue can be solved simply:

1. We collect the crystals from the outcrop
2. We use them in the hovercraft.
3. We charge them using a watermill.

And this loop can be repeated infinitely. We can convert ambient mechanical energy in the environment to our benefit.”

Hayden nodded, understanding the basic principles. While it was her first time using an arcia regenerator, she had used it in the past for automation purposes, using it as a sort of engine.

“Now, the requirements of the hovercraft.” Kyle pulled out another blank piece of paper, this one much larger to serve as the main structural blueprint.

“It has to fly.” Feldon smugly pointed out, earning a stern glare from Kyle.

“Altitude requirement, one-kilometre minimum. The entire surface must be stealth-engraved. Must be able to carry at least a quarter ton of cargo. Small form factor. Single controller. Mechanical interface for controlling engravings rather than rely on arcia energy from the user.”

Generally, Kyle understood arcia machines to mostly rely on user internal arcia energy to send intentions into the system. Still, he wanted untrained individuals to be able to use it as well. Many of the locals of Desham had less than 1MP, some not even having any to speak of at all. If they flew for more than one hour in it, their arcia energy would be drained halfway.

“Distance, from here to Tenar. Flight time of eight hours continuous.”

Hayden nearly choked on a water flask she was drinking, sputtering it. “WHAT?! That’s more than three hundred kilometres away! Not even a wagon can get there on a single charge!”

“Let’s treat it as an ideal. The power budget can be changed anytime.”

Kyle crafted the base design, with Feldon chiming in on whether it was possible for the current steel factory to make the parts. “The fillet here would cause severe stress to the entire structure – you should…”

While Kyle knew the basic operational principles of a hovercraft, he did not know how to check for finite element stress and strain, as well as any point of repeated mechanical fatigue. He also could not verify the properties of the metal used, only having a rough gauge as to their temperature operating point. I used to have a free program on my multi-terminal for this…

On top of that, he wasn’t sure how well engravings could work at a consistent temperature like what he intended. If everything went to plan, his engines would be chugging air at a tremendous rate similar to that of a ramjet, providing thrust through acceleration engravings. The compression and high heat would melt most basic metals, as well as damage the engravings.

Working through the night, he had two other hunters do the supplying and observation of the siege of Ocra, recognising that Count Leon had given up on attempting a frontal assault as the Versian Garrison was far too entrenched and fortified. If it was me, I would have nuked or gassed the city, but they have their own unspoken rules and honour…

It would take three more days of designing before the team reached an acceptable first prototype. Hayden found it mysterious as to how Kyle knew about all the hidden applications and principles of flight. As far as she knew, this would be the first invention of a human-operated flying arctech machine. It was such a foreign concept to her, her life was only filled with the knowledge that birds, mineral ants and wyrms could fly in the sky – not humans.

The war on Versia did not remain static in the three days that Kyle was designing. The siege of Ocra had further deteriorated the economy, increasing the already inflated price of goods that Kyle was shipping there. Masir had began to carve out his old gang areas again, dominating parts of the economy and setting his own prices according to demand. Everyone was now buying from him, with him being the new king of the black market.

In other parts of Versia, the two other Counts had begun their assault, capitalising on the misguided focus of the Versian military who were attempting to break the siege of Ocra. Their troops were far fewer in number but attacked at other crossing border points, laying waste to bordering villages and smaller towns, and establishing two new war fronts.

With the front split into three, the Versian military could no longer concentrate their forces, instead shifting divisions to protect other flanks and prevent the three Counts from linking up.

All of these only meant that the war would last even longer than expected. With Kyle’s timely intervention, Versian military had kicked into high gear, their mobilisation now fully completed with conscription on the rise. Count Leon had already lost the element of surprise. The war was now in a protracted phase.

And that means more money for me. With the increasing destitution of the people across Versia, Kyle was planning to profit from everyone involved – not just Ocra. He would have profited much more if Dekar was still in power and gave him the licenses for the mines, but Kyle was the kind to make do with the hand that he had been dealt.

Soon the first prototype of the hovercraft was being manufactured, with parts continuously rejected due to quality control as well as safety concerns. Kyle didn’t want the pilot to randomly drop out of the sky or crash into the ground, revealing its existence to the world.

Kyle was the natural option for the test flight, but even he did not take any chances, wearing his Version 0 exosuit for protection. We’ll need to design some safety gear for the pilots as well.

The hovercraft was assembled over the next week in a small clearing at the Keru Forest, far away from prying eyes. Kyle ensured that everyone involved in the production only knew a part, with only Feldon and Hayden knowing the true configuration of the entire thing. Kyle used his Advanced Arcia crystal temporarily as a placeholder.

Drake stood in awe at the unpolished raw metallic machine, which looked like a dagger with two oblong cylindrical tubes attached to its side via mounting shafts that could rotate.

The dashboard was exceedingly simple for Kyle – a simple joystick with throttle configuration to control the engine. As he flicked a switch, the twin arctech ramjet engines on the side swapped from their horizontal position to face downwards, preparing for a vertical takeoff.

“Ready for the first test flight.”

“Clear!” Hayden yelled, prompting Feldon and Drake to scamper away, avoiding the ensuing air blast. Kyle increased the throttle slightly, the hovercraft’s engine quietly sucking in air and pushing it downwards.

“5% throttle insufficient for takeoff, attempting 10%,” Kyle reported his actions into the arctech radio, with Hayden marking down each test checkpoint on paper.

[Report on dashboard readings.] Her voice crackled through the radio, prompting Kyle to read off the indicators such as energy gauge, stealth engraving operation and so on.

“10% throttle now.”

The hovercraft began to jerk slightly, the air blasting the surrounding grass like a helicopter’s air draft, swaying wildly in the rapid wind.

“15%”

At this stage, the hovercraft began to rise slowly, ascending upwards.

“Activating stealth engraving.” Kyle flicked another switch as the hovercraft disappeared from view, the stealth engraving still equally pixelated and blocky. Drake rubbed his eyes as though he was staring at different patches of the sky despite looking in the same direction.

[Sound is quite noticeable.] Feldon remarked as the air draft was quite audible to him even as Kyle rose ten meters into the air.

“Nothing we can do about that. We just have to land in a less populated area.” Kyle could not control anything about the speed of sound in the air, nor did he think there was any arctech engraving that could mitigate the effect. The stealth hornets had a similar issue as well when they flew with their wings beating rapidly.

Suddenly, the left engine cut out randomly as Kyle hit twenty meters, causing Kyle to suddenly turn into a spiral as the right engine spun him around along the long axis of the hovercraft.

Fighting the immense G-forces that threatened to squash his brain, his high G-force training from the Galactic Era quickly kicked in, flicking a switch to cut off the engine. “Where’s the ejection button?!” Kyle grunted through clenched teeth as his vision swirled.

“Huh?! What’s an ejection?”

Fuck me. The hovercraft nosedived into the ground, the metal parts flung and splintered as it crashed, digging up a trail of the soil before coming to a half as the nose slammed into a tree trunk.

Kyle shoved the broken metal plates away from him, panting heavily from the crash as he stood up shakily from the vehicle. Feldon and Hayden quickly rushed over towards him, but instead of checking whether he was alright, they sprinted past him, quickly salvaging whatever parts were left of the hovercraft. “NOOOO! PROTOTYPE 1!” Feldon wailed as his hard work was all flushed down the drain in a single moment.

Kyle was surprised that his body managed to stay awake during the high G-forces in the spiral. A normal, unmodified human would have fainted immediately, impressing onto him just how good the Arcian physique was. Not my worst crash landing either. Time for Prototype 2.