Chapitre 4: Chapter 4: Questing Time (pt.2)
Jogging around the Streets of Fontaine, Carman did not see any places he could do pullups without being interrupted by other people. There were places, such as the sites of recently abandoned development projects, however the Guardimeks patrolling the area to discourage squaters were a major problem. Eventually Carman decided to try to macgyver one. He looked around the city and eventually found a rusted metal pipe laying by several empty wooden crates which were waiting to be taken away.
Carman lined up two of the boxes and started slamming the metal pipe into the soft wood. Due to his childish strength, he didn't influct any significant damage to the crate but his strikes left dents on the edge of the wood that formed into grooves where the pipe could rest without rolling out.
Carman then, using substantial effort, stacked crates underneath the ones he would place the pipe on. Due to the size of the crates relative to him, he had to jump in order to reach the pipe.
Expecting to be able to do this exercise with no problem, Carman was shocked as his back muscles started straining and aching after the first pull up. Why is this so bloody difficult?
Carman had to push himself, falling from the pipe often from his grip failing. Eventually after taking a few breaks in between pullups, Carman made it to 5 pullups. "I guess that's why the required amount was much smaller than the push ups and other exercises." Carman said as he fell on his butt, exhausted and his back muscles screaming in pain.
-Ding-
[Quest complete: Complete a Workout Routine]
[Quest rewards are available, Generate? (Rewards can be postponed and received later in the [Quests] tab.)]
[Yes/No]
Carman clicked yes with no hesitation
[Generating rewards]
[Congratulations to host for receiveing 5 free stat points, 25 exp, 200 system points, selecting random E rank blueprint...
Host has received E rank Blueprint [Eight Inner Gates, Beginner Body Weights] check [Item Storage] for details.]
WTF !?! Thought Carman, seeing the blueprint he had drawn, the Eight Inner Gates was a powerful technique in the story of Naruto, with the last "gate" giving the user enough power to surpass most mortal restrictions on strength, however each gate came at different costs with the final one killing the user after use.
But there is no Chakra in this world, what the heck am I supposed to do with these? Carman thought remembering the scene.in Naruto where Rock Lee dropped his weights and caused major damage to a stadium from how heavy they were.
Opening his item storage, he pulled up information on the new blueprint.
[Item:
Type: Blueprint
Design: Eight Inner Gates, Beginner Body Weights
Description: a booklet containing notes on the production on wearable weights used by martial artists in the Elemental Nations to constantly train their muscles throughout the day. These notes contain instruction on how to create weights weighing 5 to 25 pounds.]
"Ok... That is surprisingly reasonable, I guess even Guy didn't start Lee with hundreds of pounds of weights at the start." Carman said after reading the description.
"Now I just need to create something to sell..." Carman came to a stop as he turned a corner and caught the view of a medium sized building. It was made of the same marble brick and brass trim as the other buildings on the front there was a sign saying "Leschots's clockwork workshop."
"Why is that here? And why is the workshop so small? When the traveler visits Fontaine the workshop is in a large building out on the main street." Carman stood looking at the workshop for a bit before an idea came to his head.
"Maybe that will work." Carman mutters to himself as he walked over to the workshop.
Entering the shop, Carman couldn't help but notice all of the toys on the shelves, some obvious repaired models from other shops, and a few which were wholly unique to the shop.
It's amazing being able to visit the insides of many of these buildings we see in the game. It's so surreal and trippy sometimes. Thought Carman as he passed by the shelves and went to the counter.
There was nobody behind the counter and apart from a few handwritten item lists a quill or two and a small brass bell the desk was otherwise bare.
I guess before the business boomed and was selling their own clockwork toys during the events of the game, they used to mostly do repairs and resell junked toys. Thought Carman as he pondered his next move
There are a few machines that I think could be made with the clockwork engineering here in Fontaine, several steam age machines come to mind. However I am more familiar with electric age tech, so I'll need someone to teach me the basics of gear based kinetic transmission.
Carman finalized the plan in his mind as he stood on his toes to reach the bell on the counter.
-ding a ling-
After Carman rang the bell, a young man dressed in a mixture of a merchant and workman's clothes came into view, his hair was slightly messy, he had small bags under his eyes and a fresh streak of oil along his jawline.
"Welcome to Leschots's Clockwork Workshop, my name is Livre, how can I help you today young man?"
Damn he looks really different from how he does in game too. If he hadn't said his name I wouldn't have recognized him. Thought Carman as he took in Livre's appearance.
Pretending to be a somewhat shy child, Carman carefully looked up at Livre.
"He-hello Monsieur Livre, my name is Ca-Carman"
After his initial introduction, Carman pretended to be a regular poor orphaned child living off of the streets. He mentioned that his birthday was around this time of year, and how he had wanted to get a toy for his birthday like other children did, but the amount of Mora he was able to gather wasn't enough to get anything from the other stores.
Livre, being a young man and toymaker who enjoyed seeing the smiles of the childen entertained by the toys he repaired or felt a pull on his heartstrings as he listened to Carman's tale. Carman offered to help Livre around the shop saying that before he was on the streets he was good at cleaning and organizing things, which was technically true as in his previous life he perfered to have things organized to the degree people often thought he had OCD. At first, Livre was hesitant about letting Carman help around the shop, not knowing the kid's origins and why he want in an orphanage raising some flags for him, but seeing Carman's pleading expression, he was willing to give him a chance.
-to be continued.
L’AVIS DES CRÉATEURS 
Blasopher
Blasopher Hello Everyone,
hope you have enjoyed this chapter, sorry that it took a bit longer than I anticipated to get the chapter finished, had a few delays due to errands I had to run witch took up most of my day.
Many thanks to folks like Weltruam_Giest who have left comments and feedback. I am glad you are interested in my story enough to help me improve it. I'll post at least one more chapter by the end of this week, but there may be a delay next week as I do more research for future chapters. I may be interested in Genshin's lore but I am far from Zhongli who is a walking, speaking history book.
I also have to consider the characters that Carman interacts with, some of the NPC/PC's are too young to playuch of a role in this part of the story, and for some of the ones who are old enough, like Livre in this and upcoming chapters, I had to create a new background and story which is loosely based off of what we know in-game. appolgies if the backgrounds I give to some of these NPC's do not completely adheare to Cannon, I am not the best a digging for lore, especially when it comes to most NPC's who don't play much of a role in the main storylines.
As always, thank you for reading and please feel free to share any feedback you have in the comments section. I am always looking for ways to grow in my storytelling.
Chapitre 5: Chapter 5: Working at the Workshop
After convincing Livre to let him help around the shop in exchange for a toy in stock, Carman walked back to his hideout. Looking up at the sky he was surprised by how much time had passed as it felt like it was the afternoon just a few moments ago. Carman was exhausted from acting like a child, but it was better in his opinion to dumb down his intelligence and maturity unless someone finds it suspicious.
Getting back to his little hole in the wall, Carman sat down on the bundle of cussions he called his bed and went to sleep for the night.
Waking up the next morning, Carman gathered his daily necessities and left the hideout. Walking towards the workshop, he passed a few men as he turned to the side street and continued walking to his destination. Arriving at Livre's workshop he entered and rang the bell again and waited for Livre to come out.
"Please wait a moment dear customer, I'll be out in a moment, do not rush me lest I be crushed by... Hysterical Hilichurls!"
Hearing a bunch of thuds followed by an odd utterance regarding hilichurls, Carman carefully walked around the desk and through a doorway into the backroom of the workshop. Following the sounds of shifting metal and cursing Carman located Livre in what looked to be a storage room. Livre seemed to have knocked over a few boxes of various supplies and was digging himself out of a pile of gears.
Quickly moving to his side, Carman helped Livre lift some of the bigger gears off and pulled him out.
"Ah so it was you, sorry you had to come and rescue me, I was just visited by some fellows and had to get parts I need for a few orders ready since the deadline is coming up. I swear I told my brother to help organize back here, but as you can see, notuch has been done."
Carman nodded while looking around the disheveled storeroom, he felt his eye twitch as he looked at the haphazardly placed boxes and schematics laying on the ground.
"I've been meaning to get everything sorted but since I need funds to return the loan I took to open up shop, I haven't had time to optimize the placement for everything yet."
Livre noticed Carman's eye twitching and said "to think even a child would be annoyed by the state of this room. Come to think of it, I agreed to let you work here temporarily yesterday didn't I? Would you mind helping sort all the small stuff, don't bother trying to lift the heavy boxes and gears, I don't want you to hurt yourself."
Carman nodded and started making a beeline towards a broom and started sweeping up all the small gears off of the ground. After he got all of them into a pile, he took a few boxes and started sorting them by type some gears were the size of a tick, some were bigger close to an adult's fingernail in diameter. There were gears with rectangular teeth, some whose teeth were rounded, and others had slanted teeth.
Initially, Livre watched Carman work, interested in seeing how well he could tidy up and was surprised to see that Carman noticed the difference between the gears and cared enough to keep them separate. In his opinion most kids wouldn't have noticed a difference and even if they did they would likely just toss them into the same box. Figuring that Carman had everything settled, he left the room with the parts he needed and walked to the workroom to do some assembly on his commissions.
After spending an hour sorting all of the gears into sepperate boxes, Carman walked over to the schematics that had fallen on the floor, he noticed that several of them had notes scrawled on the side denoting who had commissioned each machine detailed on the schematics.
Uncrumpling one of the schematics which seemed to be the one that caused Livre to slip and fall he came face to face with what seemed to be an older version of the dog modeled gardemeks.
After sorting through the schematics, placing the ones with future completion dates on a stack of crates close to the door, Carman looked over the schematics, hoping to learn more about the intricacies of clockwork machines.
Most of the designs flew over his head apart from basic mechanisms such as the use of Ousia and Pneuma infused parts or canisters to generate rotational force similar to how electricity could be used in electrical motors. Pneuma and Ousia, when smashed together at certain ratios caused varing amounts of energy to be released, there were cores that used this energy to turn water into steam which was used to power the various Meka.
Knowing that Indemnitium would eventually be replaced he skipped over the parts of the schematics that included power cores running off of it. Delivering into the details of the schematics and trying to understand their principles, Carman lost track of time and his surroundings and was surprised when he felt a tap on his shoulder.
"If I didn't already know I don't pose a threat to any big wigs of my line of business I would have thought you were a spy looking at those schematics with that intensity." Livre said with a kind smile.
"If you are that into clockwork mechanics I could talk to you about the principles behind these creations, but I'll want you to work for me when you grow up since this information wasn't cheap for me to learn either. Normally you'd have to attend a medium to high class school and then get into the Fontaine Research Institute to learn about some of these components."
Livre was shocked by the conviction Carman had on his face as he nodded his head in understanding. "When can I start?" Asked Carman in a serious tone.
Livre, surprised yet again by Carman's certainty said,"well, I guess since you've cleaned up most of this room already, I could take you back to the main work area. So long as you don't touch anything I can explain anything you might have questions about."
Carman followed Livre to the back of the store where a cramped workroom was located again there was tools strewn all over the place, tables, shelves, the floor, and even on top of some mekas in various state of construction.
Seeing a humanoid gardemek laying on the main work table, Carman walked over to it and inspected the components he could see from the places where its armor plating had been removed.
"Ah figures you'd be drawn to one of those, seeing as they are almost everywhere in this city. Not so scary now that is laying down right?" Livre asked.
"While I understand the idea on making it so intimidating for catching criminals, their appearance does tend to scare kids, and yet they also use these mekas to search and catch lost or runaway children." Livre continued.
"I was actually wondering where it does it's thinking, and how it can see."
"Ah, well to start these machines don't think the same way you or I normally do, they have an area here," Livre pointed at the gardemek's chest,"that basicly has a series of dos and don'ts that the meka has to follow, this includes the laws of Fontaine and what the Meka is allowed to do when it sees someone break the law. As for the second part of your question, I am not really sure myself, all I know is that the component was developed by a person from the Institute when they took part in an exchange program at the Akademiya in Sumaru."
Continuing to talk with Livre for a while, asking a few questions. Which elicited answers longer than Carman could have expected, Livre eventually informed Carman of his need to return to work in order to meet his deadlines. He stated that Carman could stay and watch if he wanted, but that Livre didn't have much for him to do at the moment.
Not having anything better to do with his time, Carman sat on a crate and watched Livre work. When it was heading towards evening, Livre was pulled away from his work from his work hearing a stomach growling behind him.
Turning around he saw a slightly embarrassed Carman, "you've been here this long, don't you have...." Realizing what he was about to say, Livre stoped in the middle of his sentence. "I don't think I've seen or heard you eat anything all day, come on, let's go out, as your boss, I'll treat you for your first day of work."
Carman was hesitant to follow Livre at first, but the offer for freshly cooked food that he didn't have to hunt or scavange for and Livre's nagging eventually broke down his resistance.
-Semi Livre's Pov-
Carman followed Livre to an outdoor cafe where Livre ordered a few light dishes for both of them, a bottle of sunsettia juice for Carman and and a coffee for himself. He watched amusidly as Carman did his best to maintain his manners while devouring the food in front of him.
Vaguely Livre pondered if this was what a father would be like, he had never been in a serious relationship before having mostly devoted himself to his dream of opening a clockwork toy store. He thought that seeing the smiles on kids faces, but having hung out with Carman all day and interacted him similar to how Livre did when he visited his father's work when he was little, Livre didn't think that being a father himself was a bad idea.
-Carman's POV-
Having finished his meal, Carman helped tidy up, and said his goodbyes to Livre as they went their sepperate ways. Carman had been out in the open longer than he had liked, however it didn't seem like anyone had been paying him or Livre any attention. Still being careful to avoid being followed to his home, Carman made it back safe and sound.
Wriggling through the crack and I to the room, Carman used a burnt pice of wood to write a few notes on a misprinted steambird paper being sure to write down the key mechanics he had learned from Livre durring the time they spent together.
Finishing that task, Carman finally went to sleep for the night.
-to be continued.
État de l’alimentation hebdomadaire
200+ Classement
Power Stone 
2 Power
stone 
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