Rising Against Fate

14th January 3068 (Friday)

"Dude, did they really arrange the clubroom this soon?"

Razak and Kat stepped out of the elevator. They were on the second floor of the club building which was entirely made up of clubrooms of different clubs.

"Yes, that is what the email said."

"No matter how you look at it, it sounds shady to me. They are probably giving us a crappy room that no club wants."

This sounded shady to Kat because he wasn't aware of Razak's meeting with the student council president the day before. If he was aware of this, the early arrangements would make sense.

"It's not that strange though. In our case, all they needed to do was arrange the room."

In the meeting, they didn't present any resource or financial support request to the student council. They did ask the council to request allowing the use of old resources in the storehouse. But this was something that the school administration agreed to without any second thought.

The club activities were about to start so the hallway was crowded. Most of the students in the hallway were second- and third-year students. And the way they were staring at Kat and Razak was giving a rather unwelcoming vibe.

Despite the rude welcome, both of them quietly walked towards the end of the hallway where the club room of their newly established club was supposed to be. Both of them knew well that responding or even reacting to those rude stares wouldn't end well. Minding their own business, in this case, was the right course of action.

They stopped in front of a door that had no door sign and took out their MMs. Their MMs also acted as their ID card which they needed to scan before entering the clubrooms.

The door opened after they scanned their MMs, both of them then entered the room.

It was a large empty room with just furniture. There was a transparent glass in between beyond which the club's lab was. The lab itself had a large empty space in the center.

"This… is different from what I was expecting."

Kat was surprised to see the room. Unlike his expectation, this turned out to be a fine room that basically had the set up they needed. The only downside was It could only hold around 15 students, which in this case, wasn't necessarily a disadvantage since they were just starting.

When Kat was looking around, Razak took pictures of the furniture and layout of the room. This was so that they could use these pictures to bring only the resources that would fit in.

After Razak finished taking the pictures, both of them walked towards the storehouse that was behind the Advanced lab building. Since the club activities were ongoing, there wasn't anyone around this part of the Academy.

Both Razak and Kat were already granted the access, so all they needed to do was scan their MMs to enter.

Inside, there were several house-bots cleaning the place. The materials they needed were on the right side of the storehouse, so they walked towards that direction.

Today, they were only planning to take a look and list the materials so that they could carry them to the clubroom bit by bit.

As they were looking at the material, something caught Kat's eyes. It was a cuboidal device that was as big as an old radio.

"Mobile MM V42, the device that contributed the most in magical evolution. Knowing how dangerous this really is, it shouldn't really be allowed in the school."

"But wasn't Mobile MM version 43 the revolutionary one?"

Razak was indeed correct in making that assumption. Before the invention of Mobile MM V43, people feared the use of MMs. It was somewhat regarded as carrying a ticking time bomb. But after the invention of V43, which could limit one's magic, society slowly became adapted to its use. Though these models were invented to limit MM's functionality instead of improving them, this was something necessary to adjust magicians in human society.

"No dude"—Kat lifted the Mobile MM V42 using his hands— "Current MMs are more similar to V42. It's just that V43 became popular commercially back then."

"That makes sense. But what makes such a huge difference between these models?"

Kat's gear-shaped pupil started glowing, and with that, MM V42 started disassembling itself. The pieces were floating in the air, and among those pieces was a long cylindrical rod that he slowly moved towards Razak.

"This same alloy that this rod is made up of is used in today's MM. While the degraded version of this alloy was used in V43."

After saying that, Kat reassembled the pieces of MM V42 into his hand.

The ability that Kat just used was one of the most controversial spells. There was a huge debate on MRS about its classification, but in the end, it was classified as a general class spell. The spell was called assembling and as the name went, it could assemble and disassemble mechanical components.

"Damn those 22nd-century scientists. They did all the research they could, and all we can do now is change its shape and size."

Despite the casual tone and expressionless face, Razak could sense Kat's frustration. And this frustration proved his seriousness when it came to research and engineering.

"Yes, but that's because we weren't able to cross the biggest hurdle after that. Till now, mana only exists on paper."

Despite being in the conversation, Razak was listing all the necessary materials that they could take from the storehouse. After finishing the listing, both of them walked out of the storehouse.

The path was crowded when they were walking towards the entrance. It was time for the club activities to be over. Students were flooding out of the club building entrance. Everyone was in a rush since the weekend was almost here.

"Hey dude, do you think anyone will join the club? The minimum club requirement is 10 members."

"Yes. We need to meet that requirement by the first of March, but you know what's there next month."

"The ranking match."

Both of them stopped walking when they reached near the entrance of the Academy. From here, Kat was going towards the parking area while Razak was walking back home.

"Okay, cya dude. I am tired… Haa-yh."

"See you."

With those words, Razak walked towards the academy entrance.