Chapter 19 : Chapter 19
Chapter 19 : Ambitions
The cafeteria was bustling.
This was one of the few places where students from different cohorts could mingle simultaneously.
Class schedules were organized differently throughout the day to rotate various classes and faculty, but lunch and dinner times operated according to a fixed timetable.
Sal knew the cafeteria operated almost all day, but no one wanted to miss the core hours when set menus were offered.
Because it was the difference between a sandwich or a steak.
When it was finally his turn, Sal ordered and configured his meal to his taste with just a few ‘yes’s and ‘no’s.
Then he picked up orange juice and headed to an empty table.
"Sal!"
Suddenly, Divinity appeared and called out from the opposite side.
Her plate was full of what looked like a pile of vegetables.
It was the complete opposite of the steak and mashed potato combination Sal received.
She sighed as she sat at the table with Sal.
"Still out of it because of that class. How about you?"
Her voice was tinged with fatigue.
Sal looked at his tray and sighed.
Noticing he hadn't picked up cutlery and was staring blankly at his meal, a steak knife and fork came sliding across the table toward him.
He smiled as he accepted the cutlery Divinity handed him.
"Future sight is the best."
“So, how are you holding up?”
After eating silently for a few minutes, Sal shook his head.
"I feel like I'm the only one so detached."
Glancing at the tables where laughing and chatting students were sitting, he simply couldn't understand how they could be so carefree.
"I wonder if there really is anyone who can fight such people... no, monsters!"
Sal shuddered and took a sip of juice.
Meanwhile, Divinity had a look as if she realized something.
"It's because you didn't see the combat practice before that class."
She said with a sigh of relief.
"You don't know yet how strong the kids in our grade are. Since the Silver Cohort is mostly supporter types, there aren't many star-class talents but... did you know there were people who succeeded in defending against Professor Sinclair?"
“What?”
Sal dropped his fork and stared blankly at Divinity.
Divinity nodded.
"It's true, there were a few! You probably didn't see, but there was a kid moving like lightning? That kid dodged all attacks. Couldn't take down the Prowler, but didn't die either. Also, some girl fired a barrier to trap the Prowler and protected other students too, and some guy struck the Prowler away in mid-air during the first attack."
Divinity's voice grew increasingly excited.
"There are already many people doing well. We just need to do our roles well too."
Only then did a smile slowly appear on Sal's face.
But Divinity seemed to have more to say.
"Sal, I can see the future little by little, you know. I've seen a lot of how great of a job you do."
Divinity picked up a cherry tomato, popped it into her mouth, and grinned.
"So don't think too much and just do what you're good at. Not all of us were born to fight on the battlefield, right?"
Finishing her words, Divinity winked and started eating again.
Sal smiled and said.
"Thanks. That was comforting. Seriously."
Divinity rolled her eyes.
"I knew it. Told you I see the future? If it weren't for me, you probably would have been sitting gloomily all week? Doing nothing!"
She laughed, gesturing roughly around the cafeteria.
"Sal, if you want to get into the Savior Class, you have a lot to fix."
Sal raised an eyebrow.
"Suddenly the goal is the Savior Class?"
Divinity nodded and tapped her head.
"I saw the list roughly, you know? But you weren't seen there... Hmm, I guess maybe not."
Sal saw for the first time that she wasn't sure about the future.
"Why aren't you sure?"
Divinity sighed and shook her head.
"I caught the announcement ceremony exactly, but I can't see any faces. All I figured out so far are code names! But there was a code name like Oracle too? Do you know who that is?"
Although she pretended to be sulky, Sal could feel Divinity was quite excited about the thought of getting into the Savior Class.
"But you know, the future I see is only one possibility after all, and everything could change. For example, remember that barrier user I mentioned earlier? When I saw before, she wasn't even a candidate for the Savior Class? But suddenly a possibility appeared. What changes people is always an event. Like what happened with the Prowler. Things like that can completely change our future."
Listening to Divinity, Sal thought of Hannah.
‘Did Hannah getting a Rare grade item perhaps influence that?’
Leaning back on his chair, Sal organized his thoughts.
‘I can make someone get into the Savior Class with equipment I made... but I myself can't get in?’
At that moment, Sal reconsidered that theory, and eventually felt his own conceit was funny.
Divinity rattled off names of kids she couldn't see well, and one of them caught Sal's ear.
"Wait, that last name... appears in your vision?"
Divinity nodded.
“Mythos? Yeah, he's there but he's totally like a ghost. There's zero information!”
Her annoyed tone melted away as soon as she saw Sal smirk.
***
Sal pressed the door button with his elbow to close the automatic door.
His hands were full carrying materials and the tool set gifted by the crafters, so he was short of hands.
Originally he contemplated leaving it in the workshop, but after the auctioneers on the Credit Floor provided a new tool set, he decided to bring the top-grade set to his room.
Losing a few Uncommon grade tools wouldn't be that big of a blow, but if he lost Rare grade tools, he was confident he would faint on the spot.
After finishing his meal, Sal called his father for advice on the contract, and Pietro gave several suggestions to make the contract more favorable.
Sal passed those suggestions to Porge, and not even an hour later, he received the revised contract and returned to his room.
Somewhere in his head, the words Divinity said kept lingering.
The words that Hannah was able to rise to the upper ranks thanks to the equipment.
Even in bed, she had said how strong the equipment made her feel, and Sal came to think that maybe he could help other people in that way.
He barely suppressed the urge to lock himself in his room and immerse himself in the workbench right away.
He realized he had been moving too spontaneously until now.
“Okay, then let’s organize what we know now.”
Sal placed the tools and materials on the workbench and returned to the bedroom.
“Mythos Crafter is my skill, and I can craft items of all grades from Common to Mythos... at least as far as I know.”
Talking to himself, Sal took out his tablet and organized all the information he knew.
“Upgrade and Restore are also included in that ability.”
Recalling the memory of refining the gauntlet, he roughly wrote down the energy consumed by each action.
“Without crafting skills or experience, with just Essence, only small to medium-sized Rare grade items are possible.”
Each note like this was clarifying his weaknesses.
“Parts can be reinforced with Essence, but stamina consumption is high and it leaves black residue.”
Sal turned his gaze to the bed sheet and vowed to wash it before sleeping.
He opened another tab and started organizing crafting ideas.
Although the idea for armor stemmed from his own fear, it wasn't a foolish thought.
Approaching it commercially, any student who experienced Professor Sinclair even once would have a high demand for protective gear.
“But how do I block a Prowler attack?”
Sal mumbled as he opened a new tab and started organizing a list.
“Should I learn rune crafting, or learn how to implant students' abilities into equipment?”
He didn't want to become a crafter relying on just a single skill.
He vowed not to be satisfied with just learning the self-charging rune, but to learn other rune patterns as well.
Although he had seen countless runes with his eyes over many years, he had never properly studied any of them.
His eyes stored that self-charging rune in his head like a template, and Sal could utilize it by engraving it onto a surface.
He hoped that someday he would be able to handle other, more powerful runes at that level.
About an hour later, Sal looked down at the tablet and confirmed there were at least twelve tabs open.
Each tab organized factors to consider.
He sighed, turned around to activate the console, and started looking through various options accessible to him there.
One of them was the internal store where Q-Credits could be used.
Premium coffee was 2 credits, Sleeping Tiger drink was 20 credits, and subject pre-registration was a whopping 100 credits.
Fortunately, Sal was selected for the crafting class so that cost was waived, and for the Administration subject, no one wanted to take it so there was no need to compete.
But the Analysis subject cost money.
The Q-Credits initially given to him were 600, but now they have been reduced to 490.
And that was despite only having been in the university for a few days.
Sal was browsing the store's category list looking for items needed for his room when he discovered one interesting item.
“Weapons and Equipment?”
Sal adjusted his posture to see the screen properly.
The list was... enormously vast, and for the first time, Sal felt a bit confused.
He could check photos of the items, but his eyes didn't provide any information beyond that.
Ultimately he had to read the product descriptions, but even those descriptions were excessively vague.
He wondered if perhaps he had too high standards for products.
“Then I should look at only crafted items.”
He selected the filter, but there was almost no noticeable change in the list.
That’s how many items were crafted.
“Rare?”
Only when he clicked the Rare grade filter did merely dozens of items remain.
Some of them had fixed prices listed which were unimaginably expensive, and the rest were being sold in an auction format.
Sal clicked on a grey breastplate, which looked quite similar to the uniform he was currently wearing.
Checking the detailed information upon clicking, it was made by a 3rd-year student.
Grey Armor!
Scale armor handcrafted by 34th rank Pavi Mackles.
Each scale was carefully molded by hand, and total production time reached two months.
Made of refined cobalt-infused steel, emitting a blue glow upon grey when activated.
Grey Armor is impervious to direct hit type attacks, and possesses resistance to Prowler claws.
Starting Price: 300 Q-Credits.
Sal shook his head at the crude appraisal result.
If it were a real Rare grade item, there should definitely be much more diverse effects than what was written now.
Especially reading the nonsensical part about cobalt infusion again, he frowned.
“Is that real, or just marketing lies?”
He was about to open a new tab, but recalling the reason he entered the store in the first place, he sighed and returned to the main page.
He just wanted to bring something like a bulletin board into the dorm to write down to-dos, but the university store surprised him once again.
“Entire Dormitory Renovation?”
Sal shook his head looking at the price.
“Who would spend 5,000 Q-Credits on something like this?”
The sorting criteria was set to high price order, but because he double-clicked the console, the most expensive item popped up on the screen.
Sal clicked inadvertently, and what unfolded before his eyes was surprisingly a luxury penthouse apartment.
There were several rooms, and Sal pressed each one with trembling fingers.
Not only a workshop equipped with industrial equipment seen on the industrial floor, but there was also an alchemy station and a rune assembly table.
In another room, various fabrics and a bunch of mannequins were prepared.
Excluding the hot tub, the most impressive part was that there was a practical training room.
“5,000 Q-Credits.”
Sal held his breath looking at the screen.
“Per month?”
Clicking the price sort again, cheap items purchasable with even 5 Q-Credits appeared, and Sal finally felt a sense of relief.
Still, a question suddenly arose.
Could he really earn that much money?
‘Rare equipment is 300 credits... could I not do it?’
Somewhere in his head, an image of himself becoming rich began to be drawn.