Volt stared blankly at the new mastery icon that was proudly displayed in front of him. A shimmering circle with those familiar lotus-shaped petals. Underneath the icon were two words: Middle Master. After night after night of long, tedious grind. After so long gathering resources for his Railjack. After weeks and weeks of shoving Forma into Kuva weapinry… Volt had finally did it. He had reached the rank of Middle Master.
And he had done so with his original Volt Warframe. The same Warframe that had awoken, dazed and confused from a cryopod on Earth, nearly… four… four years ago? Was it really that long ago?
“Hey, gz!” someone exclaimed as they wandered by. Volt blinked his neural sensors, snapping back to reality, as his clan mate Wisp wandered by, her non-existent feet scraping across the ground as she finished up at a trading station. Her trading partner had already left.
“Cheers…” Volt replied. Wisp was already a Middle Master, but that was because Wisp was a Tenno Founder, a far, far older Tenno than even Volt was. She had access to the insanely rare and mysterious Excalibur Prime, and would occasionally use the first Prime to flex. “You seen all the new Corpus stuff yet?”
Wisp nodded playfully. “Saw it, fought it, farmed it. Just waiting for my foundry to finish building. Now I’m gonna sleep.”
With a giggling wave, Wisp disappeared, leaving Volt alone in the dojo. Normally, Volt wouldn’t mind, but he was still feeling… he couldn’t explain it. Anxious almost? That Mastery Rank test had been stressful. Not because it was hard, but because he was being timed. Volt never did well in timed situations. On the plus side, he had managed to do the test on his first try, and he never felt too close to running out of time. Not like the Silver Sage test, where he’d gotten stuck on a ledge in the middle of a fight.
Another voice interrupted Volt, again snapping him back to reality.
“Uh, hi, nice dojo. Sorry I took so long.”
Volt suddenly remembered why he was there. He was there to make a trade with someone. A Limbo with a silver trim and a MOA by his side had appeared.
“Not a problem!” Volt beamed, picking himself up. “Was it the Stropha barrel or Stahlta barrel you wanted?”
“The Stahlta. You have problems with the names too?” the Limbo asked.
“A little, they are quite similar!” Volt replied with a friendly tone, as he accessed the trade console.
Limbo joined the trade and Volt placed the desired item on his side of the trade window. He also threw in a Velox barrel and an Ignis Wraith blueprint as well, since he had some spares.. The Limbo responded by putting in far too much Platinum on the other side. Well, it was 25 Platinum, but that was too much for the cheap items Volt was offering.
“Dude, that’s… no. Just give me a [Redirection] mod.”
The Limbo stared at Volt. “But it’s expensive.”
“I have extras. That’s why I’m giving them to you.”
“Are you sure?”
Volt eyed the Limbo. They were small. Only a Gold Seeker. “Yeah, I’m 100% sure.”
“But why? Surely you could sell this stuff for Platinum?”
Volt thought for a moment. “Well, firstly, I’m a Middle Master, Platinum isn’t that big of a concern for me. But honestly, I just want to help as many fellow Tenno as possible.”
“Oh, fair enough!” Limbo shrugged. “I appreciate it.”
After some fiddling around, the trade completed successfully and Limbo bounced gleefully, glad to not have to farm for those weapon parts any more. As Limbo was about to leave though, he stopped and turned back to Volt.
“Uh, sorry to bother you, but do you have a Rubico Prime blueprint I can buy?”
Volt grunted. “Let me have a look.”
It took Volt a while to look though his massive inventory. To his surprise though, he didn’t have a Rubico Prime blueprint. He did have something that could help though.
“Sorry, mate. But I do have a ton of relics with the blueprint in them… if you want to run them with me.”
“You’d do that?”
“I have nothing better to do right now.”
Limbo bowed, amazed and blinded by the fact that this weird, bright yellow, Middle Master Volt wanted to help him.
“Thank you!”
“No worries. Plus, we always need more ducats…”