Progress

Chapter 27

Over the next two weeks, everything went calm again. Progress with the neural link was going great. Otto was just about ready for human trials so Xavier wouldn't have to wait all that long to be able to connect with his creations.

When it had come to his bots, he had started on an upgrade for them as well. He had noticed what was happening to Oscorp's tech and wanted to make sure that his creations were more sound in the future.

With that in mind he fixed his new shooters. They no longer jammed when in use and worked smoothly. They were created so that he could build up webbing inside of them and shoot thicker blobs of webs.

As far as old projects go he has finished most of the countermeasures now. Some of them ended up changing some but eventually completed and were ready for use. For some like Rhino, he knew they would be getting better suits and that he wouldn't be able to finesse his way out so he stuck to his plan of using his new webs.

Tony Stark had started an internship at the New York department of Stark Industries and apparently he was planning to visit. Actually he had planned to host more across America, but NY was his starting point. Being the arrogant man he is, Tony's only advertisement was a post on his twitter about it.

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Don't care that it's X now, it's stupid.

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When Xavier saw the tweet and signed up without hesitation. Even though he was working with Oscorp, he liked Tony better because he didn't host supervillains. He didn't expect to join full time, he mostly just wanted to know him as Xavier as well as Spider-Man. That and plant his newest model of spider bots on him.

That was coming up in a few days, so he was attempting to make a new robot just for the presentation. To get into the internship, those who wanted to get in would have to compete for spots. He was creating a lot of very small bots that could be controlled remotely.

The idea was that these small bots would be used to move big objects with more ease and less risk of damage. Each one was a pill the size of a fingernail but they all had small legs to move around. They would be able to stack together magnetically and create any other object that way.

Obviously it was only a prototype so Xavier made only enough to make something approximately the size of his arm. He planned to shoot it off by presetting multiple shapes and making a glove to control them with.

Other than that Xavier had tried to find Venom in his free time. He was convinced that the symbiote didn't die after the crash because of Dredd's existence in the first place. He found nothing. Xavier had a hunch it would be Eddie Brock but he had no clue where he was.

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Three days later, Xavier was excused from school to go to the competition. It was taking place in Stark Tower, which was recently built. Today was the grand opening before the competition.

Arriving at the building a half hour early, Xavier looked up at the night before him. 'I've gotta dive from here.'

Inside, the woman at the reception desk looked up from her tablet, giving him a beaming smile. "What can I do for you sir?"

"I'm here for the internship competition."

"Great! You can take the elevator to the 5th floor, there you will scan your online ticket and go to your assigned area. Have a great day!" She had obviously repeated this for hours on end.

"Thank you." He said, turning to the elevator. Luckily the bookbag that he had his boots in wasn't very heavy since he had made the light weight, so he wasn't worried about any weight issues in the elevator.

Pressing the button for the floor he was going to, he waited while thinking about what might happen today. 'It's early in the series so there won't be any super villains or anything here. Should be just a calm day of competition between teenagers.'

Walking out of the elevator, he was met with a scene of pure chaos. There were people running around everywhere rushing to plug things in and grab tools to fix problems. Xavier chuckled at how panicked most of these people were before looking around more.

Soon enough he found the kiosk that the receptionist told him about. It looked similar to one of the big tablets you'd see at a fast food restaurant more recently, with a camera at the bottom. Xavier brought up his ticket on his phone and scanned it. The kiosk loaded for a moment before telling him he was one of the last in line to be checked.

He would be in the back of the space at number 439, with 500 being the total number of participants. Strolling through the place, he was met with a variety of people. There were all kinds of different descents here, and all kinds of emotions too.

Most of the participants were nervous, anxious or frustrated. Rarely did he find someone who wasn't one of these three. There were a lot of different types of inventions here as well. He saw things from attempted halotech to a new fuel source.

Xavier found his work station soon enough. It was a good sized table that was about a meter wide on each side. Slinging the bag off his shoulders, he began to unpack his things. The bots ended up weighing about three pounds all together which was extremely light compared to their volume.

Also in the bag he had some items that would serve as an example for what his creations could do. He brought various weights to use as an example for its strength together, a few other things as well but not that much at all.

The weights were shaped as various large objects like shipping containers but scaled down for model work. The lightest one still weighed 50 pounds, so it was not to be underestimated by its size.

'Wish I could have made these in nanotech but there's no way I can do that right now.' He complained to himself.

After the weight blocks were set out and ready, Xavier sat down in the chair he was given, propped his feet up on the table, and proceeded to take a nap.

Dredd had gone temporarily dorman once again to finish his 'incubation' as he called it,but he still drained Xavier of his energy every once in a while. That was mostly due to him snacking on his favorite food- Xavier's Shadow Ki.

In his free time he had managed to find a manual in the system shop for Ki circulation. It was in a weird language that only translated into, 'The Depth of My Shadow.' By using it, it would automatically transmutate his Ki into Shadow Ki for use.

Apparently there was a way to increase his Ki this way, but he'd need to be able to do the circulation subconsciously before he could do that. But he was content to have a way to increase it in the first place.

Because Dredd's favorite snack was the Ki, at least once a day he would george himself on it. While he could recover it quickly, the sudden lack of energy would still drain him.

With the energy of this massive contest going on around him, people scurrying around and many of them yelling, Xavier fell into a deep sleep. Many people who saw him giving him weird looks, but he could care less of what they thought of him.

"When you need sleep, you sleep." He muttered before he fell asleep.