Like I told Howard; progress can’t be stopped. I am sure someone, somewhere out there, is already working on this issue. I could do nothing but silently sigh at the thought. Howard was not totally wrong.

Ignoring the legal and moral questions others were already discussing on the web, I concentrate on my own problem. How do I integrate the FLJ into a battlesuit? After reading through the information provided on the web, I realized that no answer will be forthcoming. Either no one have yet to tackle the problem of integrating the Forever Life technology into a battlesuit, or no one is stupid enough to release the information onto the net. Considering that the professor had said that the military was interested in this idea, it was probably the latter. However, there was another possibility.

The military may be the only sector that was interested in my idea. Everyone else was just looking for ways to transfer their minds into a Forever Life machine. Although the professor hadn’t began selling Forever Life machines yet, everyone knows that it will not come cheap. The professor said that he had spent almost twenty years on it, and the research was still ongoing. Billions of credits had already been spent and by the time the machines went on the market, most suspect that only the rich and powerful would be able to afford it.

Most of the conjecture I read on the web were for ways to lower the cost of the machines, to make more affordable to most people, or for ways to bootleg it. There was nothing about putting the machines in battlesuits.

This means I had to gain the knowledge myself, which means I need to do some good old fashion Research & Development. On this, I had subjected the FLJ device to a variety of tests. It was a little dangerous as it was the only device I had, but I had to know more about the thing before I could build around it. Luckily, the tests went as well as I could have hoped. By the end of the week, I had an idea of how much power the FLJ device could handle, how well it works with other technologies, and how hardy it was. The device had short-circuited a few times during the tests, but it always bounced back. The professor may have screwed me over, but I had to admit that he knows his stuff.

Although designed to work best with Power Core Technology, I found that the FLJ could work with a variety of technologies. I hook it up to a Steam and a Clockwork generator and the device worked well with both. More importantly, there was no breakdown. I powered the device for five straight days, and there was no issue with the device. Professor Wang made the thing to last.

However, this was not enough. I may have done some preliminary tests on the FLJ, but I need to do a lot more before installing it onto a battlesuit. This will be something new to me. Although I usually performed many trail and errors till I got what I desired with my battlesuits, all the parts I installed had history behind them. They all had been tested before and there was a record of performance I could follow. I generally knew what would happen after installation. This was not the case with the FLJ. The device was brand new; the technology was brand new, and the professor was still working on the device. I only have the prototype.

This put me in a dilemma. Should I do my own research or wait for others to publish their research. Despite my name being on the list of researchers of Mana Technology, I was no researcher. I am a Battlesuit Designer. I wasn’t daunted by the challenge of doing my own R&D, but research used up a lot of resources and time. I wasn’t even that interested in the field. If I was, I would be making my own battlesuit parts instead of sourcing them from D.I.V.E. This was not the exact same scenario, but it was close enough.

The FLJ wasn’t on DIVE, and no one knows how it could interact with a battlesuit. There was no papers or examples I could follow. It would be Mana Technology all over again. I would need to find a way for the technology to interact with existing technologies on my own, only this time I won’t have the Councils backing me. They won’t even if I ask. Despite what I said to Tanner, the professor’s research has taken some steam from Mana Technology. Several energy companies had shown interest and there had been investments, but the numbers were nothing like what we had hope. We were now only multi-millionaires, instead of multi-billionaires. The only good thing is that no one was blaming me for the failure. Professor Wang’s work surprised everyone.

With no financial backers, it would be wiser for me to wait for others to experiment with the FLJ and then reap the rewards of their research. However, if I wait, my profits will severely drop. Early birds get the worm. There was also my issue with the professor.

The professor said in his message that his sponsors believed in the financial opportunity of my idea, and I really want to get one over him. The military may have expressed interest, but I doubt they were the professor’s priority. If I can get my battlesuits on the market before he could deliver them to the militaries … that was what settled it for me.

Now, how was I going to do this?

I looked at the FLJ in front of me and decided to take a little risk. I picked it up and insert it into one of my empty ports. My cybernetics came with a series of standard ports, and I never filled them up. I had noticed from the beginning that the FJL was the right size for a High Port; a port that was usually used for high-end cybernetic devices, and my GX-Torso just happened to have two available High Ports. I inserted the FLJ into one of them and waited. It was a little risky, but I was ready to reject the FLJ at a moment’s notice. Then a series of messages appeared through my cybernetic eye.

[New device detected]

[Forever Life Jumper- Version 0.1 installed]

[Do you wish to download?]