"There's a flaw in the design here..." Viktor said, his mechanical fingers pinching the pen as he rapidly sketched circuit diagrams across the page.
"And this section, if you drew it with a binary tree structure, it would be much more efficient."
Heimerdinger stood nearby too, offering his own unique insights into Zeri's weapon. "It might still need a few more rounds of testing..."
"Maybe," Caleb added from the side, managing to get a word in as well.
"No," Viktor said. "Based on the calculations, her upper limit already falls completely within the theoretical load-bearing range."
Zeri was stunned.
Viktor, Heimerdinger, and even Caleb. How were these people spotting so many ways to improve it?
She had practically grown up playing with chemtech machinery. Her neighbors had all been old miners, and most of them made their own prosthetics. Yet the gear and weapons they had designed had been picked apart in over eighty places in just a few minutes.
"If you don't mind, I can help improve it," Heimerdinger said kindly.
He looked like a little old man helping you solve the last few moves of a difficult board game.
"Thank you for the help," Zeri said. After bowing, she ran off.
Her voice had been trembling a little just now. She would probably go find some corner to cry in.
"I'll take the set that can turn into electromagnets and let her grind along steel structures," Viktor said, taking one of the jobs for himself.
"I heard the recent Chem-Barons have all been hiding in the Sump. Trying to search it with normal manpower puts us at a real disadvantage."
That was exactly what Caleb had been worrying about too.
Those people were willing to run into the heavily polluted zones and breathe in toxins like lunatics. There was no way his side could just charge in after them headfirst too.
"Zac can move freely in there," Viktor said thoughtfully.
Caleb shook his head. "Zac alone, I don't think that's enough."
As a single combat unit, Zac could ignore bullets and blades, but explosions could still slow him down.
Zac chased, the Chem-Barons ran, and the whole thing became a dead loop.
If there were another person to help form a pincer attack, they could cut off the enemy's escape route. And as the saying went, a crafty rabbit has three burrows. In situations like this, the more people they had, the better.
"Allow me to introduce you to my son, Blitzcrank."
When Viktor said the word "son," there was a faint trace of a smile on his face.
A brass-colored robot walked over from not far away, one massive hand trailing a steel cable behind it.
Seeing the roughly three-meter-tall Blitzcrank, Caleb was pleasantly surprised too.
"You really are a genius," Caleb said with a click of his tongue. "He really is something else."
"Hello." Blitzcrank's voice was still stiff, and its arms swung awkwardly from side to side as it walked over.
Caleb looked at the guy and immediately thought about his old life, about how this was the machine that always hooked him in-game, while whenever he played it himself, he only ever hooked minions.
Stay calm, Caleb kept telling himself.
"I heard you brought a helper with you. Zac, Blitzcrank, and that other helper of yours, the Chem-Barons are in for a miserable time now."
Under Viktor's steel mask, there was even a rare hint of laughter in his voice.
...
Seraphine was nervous.
Even though travel between the two cities had been opened up, she could still feel that some things remained in people's hearts.
The disgust of Piltover's people. The hostility of Zaun's.
She had already made up her mind to use her song to smooth over the rift between them, but when she actually stood on the bridge, her heart still started pounding.
She looked toward her best friend beside her, even if that friend had now traded her old body for a mechanical one.
After receiving a small nod from her, Orianna began playing the accompaniment through a speaker powered by a hextech crystal.
Seraphine cleared her throat, then sang the first word of the song she had written.
By the time she finished, thunderous applause had already broken out.
...
"It was really that good?" Seraphine asked shyly as she looked at Lady Camille.
Even though the blades of her legs gleamed with a cold edge, Seraphine could feel that she was actually a good person.
"Yes. Your song was very well received, girl."
Camille's voice carried even more chill than usual, while beside her Orianna remained bent in a respectful bow.
"But do you understand that even if hextech crystals can be mass-produced, half of them still need to go to Zaun?"
"In Piltover, the spread of hextech also has to happen step by step."
Camille sounded like she was scolding the girls, but inwardly, she was actually pleased.
That little girl's singing had just made Enforcers and Zaunites embrace each other.
The result was a good one, but it also meant the two of them needed to be warned.
"Gray Lady, we know we were wrong."
Seraphine's voice came out pitifully soft, with even a hint of spoiled sweetness to it.
She couldn't help it. That was one of her talents too.
She could hear the hearts of others and, through her hextech amplifier, spread her own emotions into the hearts of the people around her.
Because of that, she also knew that even someone as infamous as Camille would not actually do anything harsh to her or Orianna.
"Orianna, take on two extra assignments."
A purple light glimmered in Camille's eyes before she turned to Seraphine.
"As for you, I'll arrange a few concerts for you. Your performance fee will be very low."
"Okay!" Seraphine answered immediately.
Was that supposed to be punishment?
This was obviously just giving her a bigger audience.
...
Thanks to Caleb's relentless efforts, he had finally managed to understand the table of contents.
"The first spell... Waterball Spell..."
No matter how hard his face reddened with effort, the water ball he formed in the end was still smaller than the tip of his finger.
"I really am..."
This was the eighth time Caleb had thrown the book to the floor today.
Even the ground had ended up pitted and uneven.
...
Warwick looked at Vi, who was wearing her gauntlets.
Through Ekko, he had learned how Zaun had developed over the years.
He could not help but sigh. Zaun really had grown strong.
It was no longer some gutter trash to be pushed around at will, but a Zaun that could truly speak to the City Above as an equal.
He watched that pink-haired figure hurrying around in those massive gauntlets.
Warwick wanted to go over and hug her.
She must have gone through a lot all these years...
But he was also afraid that if he did that, he would only frighten his daughter.
Caleb had not explained his identity to Ekko in detail, so the choice had naturally been left to him.
Looking the way he did now, barely human anymore, why should he go disturb her?
Watching Vi laugh and chat with the blue-haired woman beside her, Warwick turned away.
Lowering his head, Warwick headed in Viktor's direction.
He had heard there were two new partners he was supposed to meet.
...
Jinx came back carrying two Chem-Barons.
She had gone deep into the Sump and blown apart two Chem-Baron camps with gunfire and rockets.
"Praise me already."
Her face was full of smug delight.
"Well done," Caleb said with a smile as he closed the book.
"But you won't need to go anymore after this."
"What?!" Jinx exploded the moment she heard that.
"The Sump is harmful to the human body. From here on, we'll be sending people who won't be hurt by the pollution."
"Like that rat you crushed to death?" Jinx said with disdain.
She admitted that rat had been pretty big, but dealing with it would have taken nothing more than one burst of gunfire.
"Uh... I wasn't the one who crushed it..."
Caleb said awkwardly. Back then, he had been completely helpless against the invisible Twitch.
It was only because Warwick had shown up and bailed him out.
"Go on then," Jinx said. "What helper did you find this time?"
She planted one foot on the back of the chair beside Caleb's head, and the aggrieved look on her face made her look exactly like a little girl who had been bullied.
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