Science/Magic

"And… Done!" Bloed's excited voice resounded in the spaceship. "Tito, what do you think?"

Tito's lone eye observed Bloed's work carefully. [Well done, young master. I never saw anyone progressing so quickly as you.]

"Hahaha, do you think so?" Bloed grinned. He then looked at the artifact in the ground and smiled in pride.

It had been six months since Bloed started to learn mechanical engineering, and he was already almost fourteen years old. Bloed's days had been busy and fulfilling. He practiced his fighting techniques up to 9 in the morning. Afterward, he had breakfast and trained his ESP ability. Finally, at 2 in the afternoon, he started his engineering classes until it was night.

Although his schedule was tight, Bloed was happy. He could feel that he was growing visibly stronger and smarter each day. Plus, he enjoyed the Camilla's company.

Bloed's growth could be seen clearly every time he hunted. Recently, he found it much easier to hunt stronger monsters. Although he could not face the truly strong monsters yet, many of the monster that he found threatening before were now his prey.

Such improvement was not only due to his stronger combat techniques and better equipment, but also thanks to his ESP ability. Although [Enhanced Brain Capacity] was not an attack-type ESP ability, its uses in battle were many.

Increasing his reaction time, predicting the enemy's movements, determining the best course of action in battle, finding the enemy's weakness. The advantages of [Enhanced Brain Capacity] in battle were countless. Bloed felt that his battle strength doubled just by virtue of his ESP ability.

Unfortunately, his current psychic power was Peak E-Grade. Otherwise, his strength would be many times greater.

Anyway, today Bloed was constructing his first high-tech machine. It was nothing too impressive, just a hovering skateboard, but it was constructed by Bloed from scratch. He designed everything, from the smallest piece until the hovering mechanism. Something like that was incredibly impressive for someone that had less than one year learning mechanical engineering.

[As expected of an academic-type ability. Although its uses in combat are lackluster, it shines in an academic environment.]

"… I think that its uses in battle are already excellent enough, though." Bloed said.

[It looks useful because your current battles are too low-leveled. Against B-Grade enemies, a quick brain is completely useless compared to a giant explosion.]

Bloed was unable to refute that. Actually, he had already noticed the limitations of its ESP ability. However, he continued thinking that this ability was incredible.

Furthermore, he just discovered a new way to use it. Of course, he needed to put it into practice before he could be sure that it was doable.

[Okay young master, I have confirmed that nothing is wrong with the skateboard. It's time to show me how it works.]

"Understood." Bloed smiled. He then took a small sticker-like transmitter from a table and put it on his temple.

[A transmitter? So you used a thought-controlled mechanism. Admirable, but it will use a part of your thought processes, making it useless in dangerous situations.]

"Did you forget my ESP ability? This small amount of thought processes is insignificant if you take my thought capacity into account."

Thought capacity is the ability of an individual to multitask. A normal person needs specialized training to be able of multitasking skilfully. But an ESPer is different. Thanks to their psychic energy, ESPers can multitask more easily and skilfully than normal humans. Stronger ESPers can realize until five different tasks at the same time.

It was widely known that thought-controlled machines need of a strong thought capacity to be used. Due to that, only ESPers can use this kind of technology in combat, but even S-Grade ESPers can only use two or three thought-controlled machines at the same time.

But Bloed was different. His thought capacity was around four times stronger than an average ESPer.

Tito fell silent before nodding. [So you tailored it to your abilities. A very good idea.]

Bloed nodded. He then stepped on the skateboard and sent a thought to activate it.

The next second, the skateboard started to hover.

"It worked!" Bloed shouted excitedly. "Tito, it worked!"

[Excellent, young master.]

"Hahahahaha! It's cool! Let me check if everything else works!"

Bloed then manipulated the skateboard according to his thoughts. He was a bit unfamiliar with the controls at the start, but soon, he was moving at full speed through the corridors of the spaceship.

"Hahahaha! It's incredible!"

[Be careful, young master. Don't break anything.]

"I know, I know! Don't worry!" Bloed shouted and continued using the skateboard.

Fortunately, Bloed's powerful brain turned him into a skillful skateboarder. He skillfully flew through the spaceship without breaking anything despite his high speed.

Quickly, his movements turned more and more daring. Some of his movements were so impressive that even a professional skateboarder would have found it hard to mimic him.

After circling all the spaceship, Bloed appeared in front of a mature-looking beautiful woman seated in a wheelchair.

"Mother!" Bloed shouted excitedly. "Look! I succeeded!"

Camilla smiled gently. "Congratulations, my child. I'm impressed by your progress."

Bloed scratched the back of his head in embarrassment.

"Thanks, mother."

Now that he had grown a bit more, Bloed started to feel embarrassed in front of Camilla. It was a strange feeling, he liked it when she praised him, but he also felt embarrassed and disliked it when she treated him like a child.

Unfortunately, Bloed was completely clueless when it came to love. All his love experience came from movies and TV shows. Due to that, not even he had realized that Camilla was his first crush.

Camilla was even more oblivious to that. She saw Bloed purely as her son, so she could not imagine that he was seeing her as a romantic interest.

Perhaps, the only one that had an inkling of the situation was the non-human Tito.

"Bloed, we are going out tomorrow." Camilla suddenly said.

"Huh? What is it?"

"Tito found a human village this morning. The village was abandoned, but it had signs of being inhabited not long ago. I'm planning to visit it tomorrow to find more about the situation."

"Ah? Mother, but your legs."

Camilla smiled mysteriously. "You will see tomorrow."

...