Chapter 41 : Chapter 41
Chapter 41 : Organicity
After finishing the basic crafting class, Sal was surprised that his body wasn't as tired as he thought.
Maybe it was because the seniors let him sleep for a few more hours in Room 17.
Upgrade was surrounded by students as soon as the class ended.
Seeing them asking questions or their eyes shining like fans, Sal didn't wait and stepped out first.
He wanted to ask how to link the gloves with his ability, but he could ask that later.
Just as he was thinking about sneaking onto the staff elevator to bet on his new hands, someone suddenly appeared next to him.
“Hey, where did you get those gloves?!”
When Sal turned his head, a male student with sand-colored hair was thrusting a tracker toward the gloves.
It was a tool Sal had seen a few times at the auction house, worn on one eye to activate Appraisal or Analysis abilities.
The one he was using now was quite old and crude.
His eyes reacted instinctively, and numerous ideas for improvement came to mind simultaneously.
Perhaps because his eyes suddenly activated, the other person was startled, raised his hands, and stepped back.
“Ah, sorry! I didn't mean to get this close. Your gloves just made this friend go crazy!”
He laughed awkwardly and pointed to the device hanging on his ear.
Because a square lens covered his left eye, that side looked a much deeper blue than his right eye.
Before Sal could say anything, the male student reached out his hand and then immediately pulled it back.
“Ah, sorry again! I feel like I shouldn't touch it. Those gloves... just looking at them, they seem more expensive than my entire fortune.”
Sal reached out his hand and smiled gently.
“It's okay. I drank too much coffee today too, so I'm a bit out of it. I'm Salvatore Argento. And you?”
The other person shook hands with Sal with a nervous expression.
Still unable to take his eyes off the gloves.
“Ah, I'm Josh. Josh Mitchell. Everyone calls me Twitch. There was... an incident, but it's nothing big. Anyway, nice to meet you!”
Josh hurriedly let go of his hand and pulled back.
“Aren't you, uh, super high up in the Silver Cohort? I saw you fighting Dominic. But I was totally surprised to see you taking the crafting class!”
Josh shook his head and laughed, then suddenly turned his head away as if flustered.
Sal tried to recall if he had encountered this stranger in the past week.
“Were you at the party yesterday?”
Sal hid his disappointment and turned away from the staff elevator.
Then he started walking towards the stairs with Josh.
“Me? Ha, no. Didn't get an invite....”
Josh laughed and waved his hand.
“They scheduled the party knowing there was a crafting class today. Those kids... aren't my type. You know?”
Josh pointed to the crafting students around them.
“This atmosphere is exactly my style. But... wait, Argento?”
Josh's eyes widened as he turned his body towards Sal.
“Argento Auction House?! Wow, that's huge!”
He shook his head and praised Sal.
“Hey, but why are you here? You... just... don't really need to be a hero!”
Josh ended up blurting that out.
Sal was baffled about how to take this situation.
Fortunately, Josh continued talking on his own.
“Living with a famous last name must be really cool. Mitchell? Nobody knows it.... Well, obviously. Mitchell Repair Shop is on a different level from Argento Auction House, right?”
Sal smiled apologetically and said.
“That wasn't done by me, but entirely by my parents. I haven't done anything there. It's only been one week! As Upgrade said, we are all on the same starting line now, and skills are something you build yourself.”
Saying that, Sal looked at Josh.
Josh looked like he was about to scoff at any moment.
As expected, Josh didn't disappoint.
He shook his head as if Sal was talking nonsense.
“Yeah, maybe within Upgrade's class.... But we aren't just evaluated on crafting, are we? We have to fight in Rust's class too... and there's Sinclair's survival class. Even if I do well in Upgrade's class... I'll probably be expelled within 6 months.”
Josh looked back at Sal apologetically.
“Sorry, sometimes I fall into my own thoughts like this. Do you have any external activities this weekend?”
Sal shook his head and pointed to the dormitory tower that would be somewhere beyond the wall.
“No, I'm going to spend the weekend quietly. Do some crafting and prepare for next week in advance. My parents also said I don't need to come down for a few months.”
He laughed as if talking to himself and looked at Josh again.
“You?”
As if Sal had flipped a switch, Josh's expression darkened.
He rolled his eyes and said.
“My dad will nag me to fix broken things from the moment I step in the door. Forget it, I'm not going. The really hard part is... it feels like I'm being punished for that stupid race on the day of admission.”
Sal frowned, not quite understanding what he meant.
“Are you talking about the rankings? Those will change soon. I heard they're shuffling them again in a few weeks.”
Josh shook his head in annoyance.
“No, it's not because of that. There's an external activity with the Paradox Recovery Guild this weekend, but the participation fee is 200 Q-Credits.... That means only the top-ranked kids can go.”
Josh gritted his teeth in rising anger.
“In the end, just because they did well on one exam, they take all the opportunities to connect with guilds. Does this make sense? How are we supposed to earn that money in a week?”
Then a voice came from behind.
“Stop whining, Twitch! Do you think the Academy owes you anything? Why don't you start doing repair work or something to earn money?”
Josh immediately shot back without even turning his head.
“Shut up, Anders! How many credits did your street stall earn?”
Sal turned his head to look at the black-haired male student following them.
He sent a cold gaze toward Josh and answered.
“30 Q-Credits. That's 30 more than you earned. If we hustle a bit more, I think we can go to the external activity at the end of this month? Do you even have a plan?”
The two continued to argue as they went down the stairs.
Several students' gazes gathered, so Sal quietly listened and didn't intervene.
Finally arriving at the first-floor lobby, Sal quietly waved his hand and tried to slip out of the group.
But Josh called him to stop.
“Hey, are you going to the workshop? I was thinking of going too... wanna go together?”
A few people around seemed to have similar thoughts, as they hesitantly stood and started glancing over.
But Sal shook his head.
“I stayed up all night yesterday.... I think I need to get some sleep. See you at the workshop later!”
He turned his body to leave, but at that moment, an unfamiliar voice mocked Josh.
“Trying to suck up to the Silver Cohort rank 2, Twitch?”
Another voice chimed in.
“He said he stayed up all night! You heard him too, right? He probably got invited to the party yesterday?”
Sal sighed and moved his steps toward the dormitory.
He was in no mood to deal with them, nor in the mood to force himself to go to the workshop with them.
He decided to get some rest first and then go to the workshop to pick up his new uniform.
Then he could make plans for the weekend.
Turning his head, he saw the black-haired male student who had been arguing with Josh on the stairs walking beside him.
Not remembering exactly what his name was, Sal looked at him, and he reached out his hand first.
“I'm Anderson Royce. Just call me Anders.”
Sal smiled as he took his hand.
“I'm Salvatore Argento. Everyone just calls me Sal.”
Anders pointed to the group behind with his head and said.
“Don't mind them. They're just looking for excuses to blame others for their lack of skill. The one who does well always becomes the target.”
Sal nodded with a slight smile on his tired face.
He was glad for the bright energy he felt for a moment, unlike the heavy atmosphere on the stairs.
“Are you on your way to the dorms?”
As Sal asked and walked with him, Anders shook his head.
“No, I haven't eaten anything since yesterday. I'm on my way to the cafeteria now.”
Sal realized he was in the same boat and blinked.
“Can I come with you?”
Anders pointed ahead and smiled.
“Of course. But there's one condition. You have to tell me what you wrote during class earlier. I honestly had too many ideas, so choosing one was torture.”
Sal smiled and followed Anders to the cafeteria.
And only then did he keenly start to feel that he was getting hungrier.
***
“Bandage... robot?”
Sal mumbled as he put rice in his mouth.
Anders laughed.
“She said to imagine without limits! I don't know how it works, but... not having to rely only on healers on the battlefield. Isn't that totally awesome? It's like first aid but much better than a drone.”
He waved both arms and explained passionately.
“Like automatically stitching up open wounds... or, you know, cauterizing wounds with a laser to close them. I don't know much about healing, but maybe it could save more lives?”
Perhaps realizing belatedly how unrealistic his words were, Anders softened his expression.
“It's a bit funny, but... I just wrote it down.”
He laughed sheepishly and poked at the remaining piece of chicken in his salad.
“Okay, I embarrassed myself, so now it's your turn. What did you write for your personal project?”
Sal leaned back in his chair and laughed.
“No way, I don't want to talk about mine after such a masterpiece. I'm in favor of the bandage robot!”
Anders gave up on the chicken and looked at Sal with a blank face.
“Yeah, right. It is a bit of an innovative bandage robot.”
Sal smiled, pushed his empty plate aside, put both hands on the table, and sighed.
“My idea is... a combat robot.”
Seeing Anders getting up from his seat, Sal laughed and made him sit back down.
“It's true. I saw something similar to a combat drone blueprint before. I thought maybe I could make it myself. Equipping it with a self-recharging Core to use like an infinite battery. And attaching lasers for dismantling Essence equipment like I saw in the workshop. I thought if the output is sufficient, it could slice monsters too.”
Sal got more and more excited as he talked about the project he had drawn in his head.
“I could attach equipment to extract monster Cores.... I don't know about the tracking device yet, but maybe remote control with a headset at first, and ultimately a program where it recognizes monsters and fights on its own? I don't know if it makes sense, but....”
Sal thought his idea would sound as absurd as the bandage robot.
But judging by Anders' expression, it didn't seem that way at all.
Anders suddenly asked.
“What's your Skill?”
Sal was a little flustered but answered immediately.
“It's mostly on the Appraisal side. But these days I'm learning crafting. Understanding how things work and what characteristics they have turned out to be really important. What about you?”
Sal was nervous that Anders might get defensive for no reason, but there was no such sign.
However, he could feel that his gestures were subtly awkward.
“Sorry, Sal. I just asked to confirm. A friend of mine works on the Credit floor. You know the auction specialty area above the workshop? They said some amazing crafter in our grade has been holed up in the blueprint office for days. Since you talked about blueprints and mentioned drones, I wondered if it might be you.”
Anders leaned back in his chair and laughed.
“I was genuinely scared, you know.”
Sal shrugged his shoulders.
“Even if I were that amazing crafter, what's the problem?”
He put on as nonchalant an expression as possible, but inside he was dying of curiosity about why Anders' reaction had changed so much.
Anders scoffed and looked at Sal.
“Imagine that my first idea presented to such a legendary crafter was a bandage robot!”
He burst into laughter once again.
The salad had now been pushed to one side like Sal's plate.
“Ah, right.”
Anders said as if recalling something.
He picked up a wilted piece of lettuce from the salad and showed it to Sal.
“In an era overflowing with food, there probably isn't a single person who appreciates my ability.”
Sal frowned as he looked back and forth between the lettuce and Anders.
He wasn't connecting the lettuce to his words.
A few seconds later, golden rays of light spread from Anders' fingertips and extended to the wilted leaf.
Just as Sal was about to ask what was happening, the lettuce began to come alive, taking on a fresh green color rapidly.
Anders smiled as he slowly released the light wrapped around the wilted vegetable piece with a nonchalant expression.
A fully grown head of lettuce fell from his hand onto the plate.
“Let me introduce the most useless ability in the current era.”
Sal stared blankly at the lettuce, and Anders burst into laughter.
“How about delivering vegetables with drones?”