The Font of Life (Overdrive Book 3) Read online

  THE FONT OF LIFE

  Overdrive Volume 3

  © 2020 by Ryan Tang

  Table of Contents

  Copyright Page

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

  EPILOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  "NOW, WITH MY SPECIAL guests introduced, it's time to explain today's special activity."

  Julian listened with bated breath.

  What kind of game were they playing today?

  How would the alliance and the new pilots factor in? Why was somebody pretending to be Emma?

  His brain felt like somebody had stuck it in a blender. It felt like the Selection was 80% intrigue and only 20% Mech battling skills. Instead of providing any new information, The Mechanical King promptly launched into one of his usual winding tirades.

  "The most important thing to test in my Fortress Masters is individual skill! I hope they can inspire all players on the server to emulate their plays."

  Julian frowned. Were they going back to one-on-one battles? The Mechanical King had made similar statements about individual skill both previous days of the Selection. Ordinarily, the Fortress Teams were designed to fit together as smoothly as possible.

  But once again, the Overdrive Corporation CEO switched topics without providing any further clarification. The Mechanical King wasn't looking at the players at all. He only had eyes for the financial reporters. Allegedly, the journalists were here to watch an Overdrive competition. Instead, it seemed like the players were watching a business presentation.

  "Of course, I hope they also spend money to emulate those machines! The Reality Shapers will send the stock price going up, up, and up!"

  Julian tried not to grimace.

  Ah.

  So that was the real focus. Julian was disappointed, but it shouldn't have been a surprise. The Selection was different now. Overdrive itself was changing quickly.

  According to TiggerLuvr, the overpowered Reality Shapers were created to quickly raise the company's stock price. Under normal circumstances, building a game-breaking Mech would have taken countless hours of dedicated parts grinding and a healthy dose of ingenuity.

  Julian's reforged Starlight R and the newly recovered Heaven's Boxer were both close combat machines, but the time taken to build them - and the skill required to use each of them - couldn't be more different.

  The Starlight R was the culmination of Julian's six years playing Overdrive. He and Emma had custom-built the Mech to suit his preferences.

  When he'd found the Heaven's Boxer, it was already a fully formed machine. Not only that, the Reality Step nullified the biggest weakness of close combat Mechs.

  When piloting the Starlight R, Julian needed to carefully approach his enemies while watching out for long-ranged snipers and supportive artillery units.

  The Heaven's Boxer could simply teleport into range. Even a relatively weak pilot like Liefield could succeed with it.

  Julian tried not to fall asleep as The Mechanical King pulled out a series of charts and graphs, each with a giant logo in the top right corner. Julian recognized it as the symbol of some famous consulting firm. If he remembered correctly, Tyler had interned there before.

  He smiled.

  According to his best friend, consulting firms didn't do much of anything on these sorts of business presentations. Instead, their purpose was to serve as a stamp of approval.

  "Trust me, I reviewed the data, and you can listen to this guy."

  The utterly forgotten contestants mulled around, unsure of what to do. Normally, Felix never would have dared to speak while The Mechanical King talked, but it was clear that the starstruck Overdrive CEO wasn't paying any attention to his players.

  His friend turned and whispered to Julian.

  "What happened? Did she sell her spot?"

  It was pretty obvious who "she" was.

  The alliance was unfortunate, but it wasn't really surprising. Becoming a Fortress Master was one of the most coveted jobs possible. It was more or less a matter of time until somebody tried rigging the Selection. The Mechanical King's attempts to boost Overdrive's stock price was even more predictable. Julian had played pretty of games that used power creep to juice their finances. It was always a bummer for budget players like himself, but that was just the way things worked.

  The imposter Emma was just downright bizarre.

  Julian shrugged. Ordinarily, selling your spot in the Selection would have been impossible, but Emma used a Guest Account, which hid her appearance from Overdrive's usually mandatory facial scan.

  "I mean, she must have...I just don't..."

  He trailed off.

  He'd known from the start that Emma wouldn't want to become a Fortress Master. His friend feared that the publicity would be totally overwhelming. Despite her incredible talent, she played Overdrive just for fun. In a way, selling her spot was the perfect compromise. It was a chance to strike it rich without any of the drama that came from working as a Fortress Master.

  But Julian just didn't want to believe it.

  He had no idea who the beautiful woman on the stage was, but her new all-powerful Font of Life made her a clear contender for the Selection.

  He didn't want to believe that Emma would make things more difficult for him. It was just two nights ago that she'd told him she couldn't wait for him to qualify.

  He pulled out his phone and sent her a message.

  "Hey, what's this girl's deal? Someone is at the Selection pretending to be you?"

  Moments later, she texted him back.

  "Yeah, I'll tell you more about it at dinner tonight."

  "What's going on?"

  "I'd prefer to tell you in person. It'll make sense when you see me tonight. Can't wait to see you!"

  Julian relayed her message.

  Felix scowled.

  "That's unfortunate. Would have been nice to have her by our side against the alliance."

  Then he shrugged.

  "Ah well. She probably just didn't want to play on stream. Some of the fans can be pretty creepy when you're a girl. I know Lilac puts up with a lot of weirdos. Plus, you said she was pretty shy, right?"

  "Yeah."

  Emma had a brash personality in real life, but she had no patience for the game's unfortunately invasive full-body scan. Her decision made sense, but Julian was incredibly bummed out. He needed more friends at the Selection. So far, Julian knew he could only trust Felix and Brandon. Not even Phillips, who'd saved him from Seedster's previous scheme, could be fully believed.

  "Did she say anything to you last night when you got dinner?"

  "Oh. We ended up not eating. I did my own thing."

  "Ah, that's a bummer. Maybe she was meeting with this new girl."

  "Yeah."

  To Julian's relief, Felix didn't ask what he'd been doing. He didn't think he could lie to his oldest friend.

  As much as Julian wa
nted to brag about retrieving The Heaven's Boxer, Tigger had sworn him to secrecy. The two of them had borrowed accounts from beginners to reclaim the powerful Reality Shaper. If word got out, their reputations would be ruined, and Julian would almost certainly be permanently banned.

  The only thing Julian had done was tell Felix, Tyler, and Emma about the powerful Crafter's Pride. The ultra-rare gem let you create an all-new item that ignored Overdrive's usual ability restrictions. Phillips had used the powerful jewel to counter her opponents' items by imbuing raw metal with the obscure Spawn ability. The powerful combination allowed her to create new weapons in the middle of games. Julian had used his own Crafter's Pride to steal the Heaven's Boxer back from Liefield. Although his gem undoubtedly would have helped him at the Selection, he wanted to stop Liefield from bullying beginners as soon as possible.

  Besides, TiggerLuvr888 had a plan to return the Boxer to Julian in time for the last day of the Selection.

  Now all he had to do was survive for the next two days. Julian took another look at the silver-haired woman and sighed.

  "Man. I wish Emma came. If we were fighting together at the Selection, we'd be unbeatable. And look at that flag. It looks like an upgraded Item Mech, so it's probably insanely nasty. Think about how hard he tried to make them work last time."

  "Yeah, it's almost definitely an Item Mech."

  Felix laughed, but his anxiety was obvious.

  Item Mechs were yet another example of how little Overdrive's success had to do with The Mechanical King. It was charismatic streamers like TiggerLuvr and vermillionangel who'd publicized the game. Meanwhile, Overdrive's diligent design team worked tirelessly behind the scenes to create new parts and machines.

  If anything, The Mechanical King held the company back by bizarrely insisting on certain unpopular mechanics.

  The body scan was the most obvious one. Very few people liked it, and almost everyone wanted in-game avatars. The strength estimator - which tried to guess how strong you looked based the body scan - was somehow even dumber.

  The Item Mech class was one of the funniest examples of The Mechanical King's overreach.

  There was a rumor that Overdrive CEO had added them into the game so he could try and play on a World Championship team. After all, the community constantly mocked him for being so bad at the game he'd created.

  For specific niche missions or battles, players sometimes brought hyper-focused machines. For instance, one of Phillips's opponents had tried using an all-artillery unit to quash her fragile Power of Nine. The Mech was so weighed down by offensive parts that it was more of a gigantic cannon than an actual Mech.

  The hyper-focused Item Mechs took that idea to its illogical conclusion.

  They were literally incapable of moving. One prominent example was the Fortress Cube, a machine built entirely out of shields. Another was the Excalibur Sword, an enormous Mech-sized blade that used a long row of thrusters to accelerate its swings. Item Mechs couldn't move on their own, but the concept was that using the machines was such a boon that it'd be worth playing three against four.

  The idea had completely flopped.

  No casual player wanted to sit inside a stationary machine for the entire battle, and the vast majority of Overdrive pilots played casually.

  And there was no way to balance them in competitive play. Their one-dimensional nature meant that they were always either totally overpowered or totally worthless.

  Item Mech Month was probably the darkest time in Overdrive's history. The debacle had ended with the company's executive board stepping in and forcing the design team to start releasing regular Mechs again. Knowing The Mechanical King, the banner-like Font of Life had to be blatantly overpowered. It combined two of his longstanding goals - the Item Mechs and the Reality Shapers.

  The players sat in the packed room for another thirty minutes as The Mechanical King went on and on. He was sweating heavily and kept bungling basic business terms.

  Eventually, Julian started feeling bad for the extremely nervous Overdrive CEO. The Mechanical King was annoying, but he was clearly out of his element here. Julian had failed both the business classes he took with Tyler. He knew just how esoteric finance could be.

  Eventually, one of the reporters coughed and gently stopped the overbearing CEO. Judging from all the glassed-over eyes in the press section, the financial journalists had no idea what The Mechanical King was talking about.

  "Um, sir? I thought we were mostly here to observe the event? Shouldn't we be getting on with that?"

  The Mechanical King stammered for a moment before composing himself.

  "Yes, yes, of course, of course!"

  He pushed a few buttons on his podium, and an enormous board reappeared behind the screen. The in-game name of nearly every player at the Selection was listed at the right-hand side. Julian's name was nestled between sm0ke's and goldenangel's.

  He scrolled the list a few times then nodded as he understood.

  He didn't recognize all the missing names, but neither Seedster nor Felix were on the right-hand side. Brandon wasn't there either. The pattern was obvious. The listed pilots were the ones who hadn't finished in first place after yesterday's event.

  Julian smiled.

  It was a pretty basic deduction, but figuring it out felt good. Especially now, becoming a Fortress Master wasn't just about piloting skills.

  He needed to calm down and think about things from a bigger perspective. For all he'd grown as a pilot, he needed to improve when it came to looking at things outside the server. If not, the alliance would swallow him whole. The risk had only grown after his escapade with the Heaven's Boxer. Professional Overdrive wasn't anything like casual play - it was your livelihood, and the stakes were raised correspondingly.

  There was a loud ding, and then the board's left-hand side listed the rest of the players. The original list had confused him, but it only took a glance for Julian to understand what was happening now.

  The majority of the crowd murmured, but Julian caught Brandon and a few other players smiling. Julian's roommate Tyler was the starting center on their college team, and he loved the NBA. After they'd watched a few games together, Julian had gotten pretty into it. The athletes were truly breathtaking, and it was astounding how hard they worked.

  Traditional sports were still so far ahead of Overdrive.

  One moment stuck with Julian in particular - during one of his post-game interviews, LeBron James had rattled off an entire sequence of plays starting from a random minute in the third quarter. That kind of knowledge and memory was incredible. Julian doubted if even vermillionangel, the World Champion, could have done something similar.

  Tyler and Julian couldn't always coordinate with their busy schedules, but they always tried to catch a game at least once every two weeks. During the summers, they texted back and forth about the draft. Seeing new players enter the league was so exciting and inspiring. The two of them had idly speculated about an Overdrive draft before, but the college and amateur scenes were completely underdeveloped.

  The display looked just like a sports league draft board. In place of team logos were small portraits of the highest performing players.

  The slots were arranged in order of ranking.

  Pick One: Sweetshot, Rank #4

  Pick Two: Seedster, Rank #42

  Julian's eyes widened.

  That hadn't been Seedster's rank yesterday. Julian had seen the alliance leader's rank yesterday when they played in the same pod. Back then, he'd only been in the top 150.

  He must have played a ton of ranked games last night to place himself near the top of the pack. The player listed after him was at rank 43 - Seedster had barely secured the second pick.

  Ordinarily, everyone's rank slid during the Selection. Not only were the players busy, but there was generally no need to play ranked games other than to qualify for the Selection. In fact, the Selection was usually the time for lesser skilled players to make a desperate push for the top
rank, which provided a special golden custom pilot suit. Even a player ranked in the 600s could sneak to the top when all the best pros were occupied.

  During his previous match against Seedster, Julian began suspecting that the charismatic pilot had insider information about the Selection. His alliance had an almost uncanny ability to predict the mini-game events.

  Now Julian's suspicions grew even further.

  Brandon's ranking made sense. He was a notorious Overdrive fiend, and his Patchwork Mechs required constant practice and tuning. But otherwise, there was simply no reason to play on the ranked ladder during the Selection...unless you knew that it would play a role in the coming matches.

  The rest of the list went on.

  Pick Three: Slexer, Rank #43

  Like everyone else, Slexer's rank had fallen, but Julian knew he was the real deal. Emma watched his games to improve her sniping. Considering how skillful his friend was at long-range shooting, that had to be the ultimate compliment.

  Julian grimaced.

  He wished Emma were here.

  He shot another look at DISTINCTIONMAN and the imposter. It was a bit surprising that they weren't captains. Maybe The Mechanical King wanted the audience to see them getting picked high.

  The raw power of their machines made them an obvious choice. But if Julian had to guess, DISTINCTIONMAN wouldn't be picked for a while. The muscular pilot had an abhorrent personality.

  The list went on. To Julian's pleasant surprise, Felix was the fourth pick.

  Pick Three: D1NNERT1ME, Rank #101

  Pick Four: Felix, Rank #148

  Pick Five: Chuck272, Rank #151

  Pick Six: 718, Rank #161

  Pick Seven: Skinner, Rank #184

  It trailed all the way down to Darren.

  Final Pick: Darren, Rank N/A (Special European Representative)

  The second round flipped the script, allowing Darren, who'd previously played last, to pick first. Julian recognized the arrangement as a snake draft, named because of how it wound back and forth.

  That dulled the unfairness a little.

  By some standards, Darren technically should have picked first. He was the rank one player on the European server, which allowed him to qualify for the Selection as a special representative.