"So tell , why did you leave?"
Lerman stared at Lucas, trying to read his thoughts from his expression.
"Why did I leave? I already answered it. The race is over." Lucas nonchalantly replied.
"But you're—"
"Losing?" Lucas chuckled before staring at Lerman in the eyes.
"Losing...it's been a long ti since that word has been associated with . But unfortunately, today isn't the day."
Lerman was confused and prepared to dig deeper, but then, he suddenly felt his communicator vibrate. Soone had sent him a ssage.
Frowning slightly, Lerman lifted his arm up and clicked on the communicator tied to his wrist. As he read through the ssage, his eyes widened in shock.
There were only just a few words, but the content was shocking.
/ The clone is winning./
Lerman couldn't understand just what was happening. The aning of the ssage was clear, yet that interpretation was supposed to have been impossible. The original Viper had already caught up; the ten tres gap was the sa as nothing in drift racing.
Despite all of that, Lucas' vehicle had soone retained the lead. No, it didn't just retain it; it perford so convincingly that the vestige-smith who sent this ssage practically believed that there was no coback for the original Viper.
"How..."
Lerman murmured before glancing at Lucas. Seeing the latter's unbothered expression, Lerman imdiately left the scene as he bolted for the top floor.
Lucas didn't follow right after Lerman but instead focused his attention on the food being brought out by the waiter.
Naturally, Lucas had already known that he would win the race; there was never any doubt nor debate. The reason for this confidence lies in the design of the core engine. The core engine of the Destroyer was modelled after the manual gear transmission system on Earth.
In simple terms of a car transmission system, the switching of gear was done to improve engine efficiency, durability and power output. However, in hover cars and racing shuttles, the transmission system was different and focused mostly on moving stellar energy from the energy unit to the core engine and then dispersing power produced from the core engine to necessary parts of the vehicle.
When Lucas designed the Destroyer's core engine, he had stumbled upon a difficult problem. Although he knew countless ways to make a better racing shuttle that could beat the Viper —the product of a seventh level stellar practitioner and high rank Tier 1 Master vestige-smith— he lacked the ability to do so. As such, Lucas had to think outside-the-box and consider various thods to achieve his goal. It was during this brainstorming session that he decided to copy Earth's transmission system.
Of them all, Lucas implented a system he liked very much about Earth cars; the manual transmission system. However, Lucas chose the Intelligent Manual Transmission (iMT) and excluded the clutch for practical reasons.
In summary, the Destroyer had four 'gears' developed within it. With each change in gear in ascending order, the engine would generate more power for the racing shuttle. However, there were two criteria for gear switching, especially upward gear switching.
Unlike with the iMT cars on Earth that had gears easily switched in a second with a turn of the shaft, the gears within the Destroyer needed enough torque to be able to be switched. Also, there was an energy requirent as well. The majority of the energy unit's power was spent powering up the racing shuttle, so there was very little that could be stored up for the gear switching. It would take a while for enough energy to be stored up to perform a gear shift. Lucas had calculated that 'while' to be after two laps.
Hence, after seeing the performance of the original Viper and not spotting anything noteworthy or attention-grabbing, Lucas left the place because he knew once the Destroyer changed gear, it would be all over. Even if the transition, from '0' gear to first gear, wasn't enough, there was still the second and third gears.
With all that in mind, Lucas was never worried that he would lose.
. . .
Lerman returned back to the viewing platform but what greeted him first was the dumbfounded expressions of the public. No one could believe what was happening.
Not wanting to waste a second, Lerman refrained from asking for explanations and turned his sights to the track. That was when he finally understood why everyone had gone speechless.
On the mini circuit, the gap between the original Viper and Lucas' modified copy was no longer the previous ten tres. Instead, it had extended to a whopping three hundred tres and the gap was still rising. What's more, the gap was constantly increasing. Even though there hundred tres wasn't exactly much in drift racing, it was the manner the Viper clone had carried out its lead that shocked everyone. All this happened in one lap —the third— and there were still two more to go.
"Impossible!" Orvel barked, refusing to understand what had just happened.
The L2.13o was his pride and joy. Whether it was the ingenuity applied in combining two transmission systems, or the complex but powerful core engine put in place, it was a work-of-art; a masterpiece of the team. Despite that, it was now overtaken, no. It was disgraced and left behind in the dust by the creation of a human. No matter what his eyes showed him, Orvel refused to believe it.
But the most painful lesson about reality was that it didn't need one's permission.
The race went into the final lap and by this ti, the gap between the two shuttles increased to one kilotre. At this point, no one believed that the original Viper could make a coback and this was true.
The Destroyer was built in a fashion that promoted incrental power. However, the L2.13o was a standard engine with a fixed power output. If it was fast, it was fast. If it was slow, it was slow. It wasn't like the Destroyer that could cause an upset after a while.
When the race was over, Orvel was still unrelenting and had asked that the two engines be tested for their paraters using an appropriate equipnt. He argued that Lucas' Destroyer was more unstable than the L2.13o. If this was true, it would an that Lucas had lost the bet.
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The bet was that his engine would have to be at least twenty percent more power and efficient than the L2.13o. The power aspect had already been checked with the race, so it would be pointless to argue that. But the efficiency and stability wasn't, which made Orvel's argunt a good one. This was even more so since the Destroyer perford too well. Many believed that it might have sacrificed stability and efficiency for power. The race wasn't enough to point this out as it was much shorter than a typical drift race, so a professional test was indeed necessary.
"No problem." Lucas calmly agreed when this was explained.
His calm deanour reminded everyone of the mont he left the viewing platform earlier, and for a second, the vestige-smiths of the Versoa team were beginning to lose hope of winning.
The test was short and after thirty minutes, the results ca out.
Lucas had won.
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