Unrecognizable

~Chapter Twelve~

"Yeah, Mumbo! It's well-done!" The admin looked up and turned to Mumbo. "Not that I expected anything less."

That went... surprisingly well. Compared to his attitude before, this was completely different. Not that Mumbo was complaining, he wasn't. The moustached man was simply taken aback by this sudden attitude switch. He opened his mouth to thank X before the bee-suited admin suggested something that Mumbo was certainly not expecting.

"Would you like me to give you a hand?" 

The admin grinned behind his helmet at Mumbo as he offered to help the brit with his top-secret, surprise machine. The same machine that he had just seemed to be displeased about or maybe even against. This was all too confusing. "Didn't you... not... want me to do this?" Mumbo inquired, shaking his head in confusion. 

"No, no," X said quickly. "I wasn't against the concept. I just wanted you to be careful; we don't exactly have a wonderful track record with them. I think this is a fun idea, actually, Mumbo, and I wanted to see if I could be of any use." 

Mumbo thought for a moment, then responded, in turn seeming to surprise the other Hermit this time. "No, thanks. I think I'm good to do it myself!" The redstoner grinned, showing slightly crooked teeth, as he turned away from X and towards his machine. "I've been working on it this long, I may as well see it through 'till the end." After a moment, Mumbo continued. "What, are you afraid it'll turn out like-"

The admin quickly waved his hands dismissively. "Oh, no, of course not! I have complete trust in you to not end the world, Mumbo." At Mumbo's disconcerted expression, X laughed. "Kidding. But in all seriousness, I do believe you'll do well. You cracked AI in three days, remember?" Grinning, X moved to the staircase. "Well, that's all, really. I just wanted to check on you." 

Mumbo nodded. "Alright! Well, glad you seem to have enjoyed yourself," he chuckled. 

"I did," X confirmed. "And if you ever need any help-"

"I know who to message. I got it, I got it." Mumbo rolled his eyes in fake annoyance, though his grin gave away his joking intentions. "Bye, X!"

"Bye!" The bee-suited Hermit felt around for the button to open the staircase for a moment before ascending, waving as he went. After a moment, Mumbo heard the closing of a piston door and a distant, "Mumbo?"

He really needed to fix that.

Pressing the button to let Xisuma out, Mumbo turned back around, digging an apple out of his inventory. The moustached Hermit had a lot of work to do yet.

-----

2 months earlier

Mumbo sat back triumphantly on his couch, taking a bite out of his now infinite supply of apples. It had been an entire month since he had begun work on his project and, after all this hard work, it was finally finished. The brit had tested his project primarily on his fruits, and it worked perfectly. And it never electrocuted him at all; not since he worked out the kink that was the cause of that mess. The only issue, he hadn't tried it on himself-- or any other living creature-- once yet, and he didn't exactly have anything to test it on. Besides himself, of course, and while he'd surely respawn should anything unfortunate happen to him, there were more problems with operating the machine on himself.

The most prominent of which being that he couldn't actually do that.

To operate his machine, the brit had to press a few-- hundred-- buttons on the screen. It would be impossible to do so from within the cell. Mumbo had to figure out a way that he could be in multiple places at once.