"Ahem!" The woman changed the subject. "Allow me to introduce-"

"I don't really care about you all that much. I know I'm being rude, but can we get moving? Because of you, I just happened to lose a lot of time here today."

If it weren't for that woman, I wouldn't have had to take the stairs and die of fatigue in the first place.

So I was definitely pissed if nothing else.

"Rude! HMPH!" She pouted and turned 180 degrees.

I guess I offended her more than necessary.

"You might want to apologize," Johnathan whispered.

"Hey, woman." I raised my voice. "If you're going to be like that I'll leave right away. And I assure you, I'd be sure to complain the entire way about how you guys molest kids and how you guys turn them down and-"

'Apology? Yeah, no thanks.'

"Alright, alright. Geez, what's wrong with you? I thought you were some cute kid on the lift, and this is how you treat me?"

I sighed. Taunting never was my forte anyway. But I guess it worked, so no complaints.

"Alright then, I heard you were good, so let's get started." Of course, I didn't know anything about her, but that didn't stop me from flattering her either. After all, if I only gave her the stick then how was I going to get anything out of this?

"If it can't be helped." She glanced at me from her peripherals, pouting all the way.

Was I missing something here?

Johnathan slapped me on the back. "Never doubted ya!"

I was pretty sure the guy doubted me from the moment we got out of the academy.

***

The room itself was pretty big and there were all sorts of Holo monitors, quantum computers, and even some fancy transparent traditional ones. Johnathan wasn't kidding when he said this place was specked.

"Insert your hand here." Shockingly the woman was pretty professional in her approach.

And it would have been just fine too if she wasn't licking her lips every two seconds while stealing glances at me.

Instead of an empty scabbard this time I just had to put my hands inside some sort of small hole in a large machine. My inner me was screaming at me for some reason to not even get near this thing, let alone put my hands in it. But I wasn't going to chicken out after going through all that, at least not now.

Besides, I wanted to get this over with as soon as possible.

So I just shoved my right hand in. it was a bit warm in there and lubricated. The feeling was weird- was the best I could come up with.

"Keep it in as I take in the samples."

"Sample?" Only a second later did I feel the immense pain that nearly made me fall down to my knees. "AHAHHHAHAHA" I didn't know why but I was screaming a lot louder than I could suppress. It was like electricity pulsed through my whole body, scorching me.

The pain stopped exactly two seconds later. Time had slowed to such an extent that I felt like it was an eternity.

Strangely my tolerance to pain was a lot higher than I thought.

My hands slipped out and I sat on the cold floor catching my breath.

"You okay?" Johnathan rushed towards me.

"What was that?" I couldn't talk properly over all the panting.

"It's extraordinary." The woman on the other hand was busy staring at her monitor and almost salivating. "This is amazing!" She screamed. "AHAHAH!" I couldn't differentiate if she was laughing or moaning.

"Wasn't there anyone else?" I really didn't want to be here right now.

"She's the best in the club." Johnathan sighed. "She was one of the best of the whole federation but you can guess why she ended up here of all places."

"Her attitude?"

"Yup. If only she'd get her act together-" Johnathan sighed, pulled me up and we went closer to the woman. "EWW!" He, however, was trying his best to wipe the lubricant off his hand.

But now that I thought about it, boy was there fluids on my hand. 'What is this translucent stuff, anyway?'

I did not want to dig further in.

"So, what did you find?" I stood next to the woman.

"You're amazing! This is the best sample I've seen! It's almost as if I'm examining the genes of the sword king himself!"

"Sword king? Who's that?" I probably heard the name before but I couldn't really remember.

"You haven't heard of him? He was the best lightsaber wielder in the history of the academy. He ranked first, three years straight. He graduated twenty years ago. But kind of disappeared a decade ago." Johnathan seemed pretty well versed in this stuff.

I guess that was natural since he was the club leader and all.

"Name?"

"Albert Jonaheim, I think."

"Yeah, I think I've heard of the name before. Can't remember though."

It was probably a long time ago anyway.

"Anyway, you have a lot of potential, if she compares you to the king! I never doubted you for a second!" Johnathan flashed a thumbs up at me.

I didn't trust his trust one bit.

"So, what now?" I didn't care about all this amazing nonsense. All I needed was a saber that was good enough for me to win so I could swim in chocolate.

"We can use this data to make a custom saber for you." Halfway through the woman started to squirm again. She got up and grabbed both of my hands. "Let's go." A second later she picked me up with her tentacles and ran out of the room.

I didn't know why but I was awfully calm about this whole thing. It didn't seem like it was worth for me to get riled up about.

Johnathan just followed us like it was no big deal as the woman was basically carrying me like I was some sort of a potato sack.

The elevator was going down, so she just ran up the stairs instead. I actually thought she'd tire a few minutes later, but strangely that never happened.

This woman had more stamina than even Johnathan!

She just kept on running upstairs like a steam engine. Her sweats were covering my body and I just wanted to char her, literally: for once I was glad she was wearing some sort of perfume. But it took a lot of patience to not fire gamma subconsciously.

This wasn't so bad, though. I finally got to see Johnathan sweating and panting. The poor guy was looking down on me the whole day, and now I was looking down on him, albeit not from a position I wanted to.

Okay, maybe this wasn't something I could have been proud of.

***

Eventually, we got to the 99th floor.

The woman was still carrying me. "Can you let go of me now?"

This was surprisingly quick. It hadn't even been ten minutes and we were already at the second top floor.

"Oh, sorry dear."

She let me down. I thought she'd create more fuss but she didn't.

'I really need a shower.'

The sweat didn't smell but I certainly didn't feel comfortable.

"The engineer we're about to meet is the best in the business. He's a bit hard on the attitude department but I think you'll get along just fine," She reassured me.

It wasn't like we were here on a picnic. So I didn't have time to get along. I just wanted a frigging saber.

No reassurance necessary.

The moment the door opened, a blast of heatwave almost singed the hair of my face. This room was hot.

'Is this how people feel when I burn their skin?'

The color profile of the room was also warm. And there was a literal fire in the corner, going rather strong.

"What is this place?"

It was definitely hotter than a sauna.

"The smithy?" Johnathan cocked his head.

"Weren't sabers supposed to be made in top-secret government facilities using nanobots or something?"

"Amie told you that huh? Well, yeah but this guy's work has better quality than the ones you'll find on the mass-produced ones. I can personally vouch for that." Johnathan was proud.

"Oh, if isn't boya, how's it going lad?" A man was in the other corner, wearing rugs and some sort of goggles. He had a big hammer and something on the table. It almost looked like a sword.

He was pretty solidly built but maybe a bit on the thick side.

"All good pops, you?"

"Fine." The man kept on hammering and loud clangs reverberated.

"I thought I was going to get a saber, not a sword?" I sighed.

Well, at least I was getting something.

"Ya there brat! Ya come to my house and disgrace it with yar shitty logic! Do ya even know the wonder of a sword boy!"

I didn't know what to say. Really, I just felt stupid and so I just stared at him, no emotions.

This went on for a minute: the staring competition.

I sighed. "You do see I'm carrying a sword, rather than a saber, right?" I sighed again. "I just need a saber for a tournament. That's all. And I never said swords were better than sabers anyway." I didn't know what his problem was but that attitude sure rubbed me the wrong way.

But come to think of it, my attitude all day was kind of weird too. I wasn't acting like my usual self and lately, I got a lot of violent and weird thoughts. And then there were the contradictory thoughts. It was almost as if I wasn't myself. 'What's happening?'

The man chuckled hard and dropped the blade in water, pulling it out a second later. "Alright, show it to me. I'll determine yar character with yar sword."

'How the hell does that work! And this isn't my sword!'

"I really don't have time for this. But yeah, sure. It's a memento, so I'd appreciate it if you didn't try anything funny."

"Relax, I'll just take a look."

I handed him the sword and he pulled out the blade from the sheath, looked at it for a second, shook for another second, looked at me for roughly a minute without blinking, and then finally sheathed the sword again. "Wh-What's yar connection with Juil-"

I grabbed his hand before he could say another word and just shook'em. "Helio R. Jintel, nice to meet you." I shook more than vigorously to get him up to speed.

His eyes opened wide. "So the geezer had a son." He smiled to himself.

'Why do people keep assuming, I'm gramps's son?'

It wouldn't have been an issue if only one or two people assumed that but whoever knew my gramps just naturally assumed I was his son. I kind of did inherit his powers but that didn't mean I was his son, right?

I cleared my throat.

He got the cue. "Right, I'm Rojack Brownly. I'm the guy who made this bad boy. Till this day, my best work." He shoved the sheath at my chest and I grabbed it.

"You made this?"

"Yup. This is probably one of the best swords of this world, if not the very best. Pure 95% Sylvanide, 4% Tungsten, and 1%..." the guy gave me a very wicked smile. I guess the one percent stuff was rare and he couldn't say it in front of the two behind me.

But really, Sylvanide? That stuff was expensive, way too expensive. And I had a whole sword made out of it? I guess gramps really was amazing.

But why did this had to be a memento? If it weren't, I could have just sold it and lived happily. But even I wasn't that much of an idiot, or desperate for that matter.

After all, mom would have certainly killed me this time.