Max was standing in front of his workbench, the quiet buzz of his cluttered workshop resonating around him. His hands trembled barely as he grasped the scattered pieces of the suit—bits of metal, wires, and power cores—hacked about like random puzzles across the workbench. The blueprint, stained with his father's meticulous plans, lay open before him, a guide to something greater than imagination. Yet when he tried to put it together, his confidence faltered.

  The first attempts were a disaster.

  Max gazed once more at the instructions, trying to decipher the bewildering diagrams. He held one piece of the torso frame of the suit in the palm of his hand and tried to fasten it onto the shoulder piece, but it was not right. The bolts were misplaced, and the joins would not click as they should. His brain spun, but frustration brewed in his chest.

  "Why is this so difficult? I know how this is done!" Max complained, pushing the piece aside in frustration.

  He scowled at the pieces as if they were mocking him. He was trying to work from his father's notes, trying to measure up to the legacy his father had left behind, but the sheer complexity of it was starting to look like a wall he couldn't climb. The designs were beautiful in theory, but in practice? They were a puzzle too complex for his untrained hands.

  He took a deep breath, trying to calm himself. But the thoughts kept racing in—what if he was not good enough? What if this was more than he could do? What if he would never be able to live up to his father's intelligence?

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  Max slammed his fist on the table, the sound echoing in the small room. "I'm not going to keep failing like this. This is my one opportunity. I'm not going to blow this."

  He could almost hear the voice of his father in his head, such a persistent echo from the past. "Max, there'll be hard times, but you have to keep fighting. The world is not friendly to those who surrender."

  He closed his eyes for a moment, collecting himself. Max understood now. This was never meant to be easy. If it was easy, his father would have done it years earlier. The obstacles were not there to block him; they were there to make him stronger. His father had not left this to him so that he could fail; he left it to Max in order for him to prove to him that he needed it.

  Taking a deep, soothing breath, Max took hold of the next piece—this one part of the suit's power core. He moved slowly, double-checking the fit, ensuring the pieces, ensuring each was in its correct position. The failure was fresh in his mind, but he would not allow it to dictate his next move.

  He spoke to himself aloud, softly at first, gathering steam: "If it were easy, my dad would have been finished."

  He felt something waking within him, a consistent but immovable determination. Max wasn't giving up, not now. His dad's pride, the meteorite, and everything else that came with it—all of that had led him to this point. And he was where he was supposed to be.

  Max labored with a fresh resolve. He wasn't merely building a suit anymore; he was building his life, his destiny as the caretaker of the meteorite power. Every small triumph in building the pieces together, every wrong error rectified, was carrying him closer to something bigger.

  "I will finish this," he muttered with quiet conviction, staring down at the intricate pieces of the suit. The frustration was still there, but now it was accompanied by something else—resolve.

  He was no longer the frustrated, aimless inventor. Max Cole was becoming something more. Something greater.