Gathering Funds
After a while of scrolling, Mike finally found a few commissions that he should—in theory—be able to do with mediocre difficulty and get done before his classes started next week.
As for why he wanted to get started before classes? Well, for starters, he wanted to make as many Credits as possible before classes started, because he'd have a lot less time on his hands. He'd done some research and found out that most timetables end sometime around 4 in the afternoon.
As such, he'd only have time to do one or two commissions in a day or two due to classes, and that's not including the time he'd need to study or train.
Meanwhile, he had a couple of days to do whatever he wanted within school bounds. So instead of wasting time sitting around, he'd use it to accumulate Credits. He'd be able to do multiple commissions in a day, so if he did things properly, he could earn an upwards of 2,000 credits by the end of this brief break.
One might ask, what about the library? He could still learn some things from there.
Well, as tempting as it was, Mike figured he'd do much better if he got actual guidance from someone who knew what they were doing. It was a school, after all, and instead of wasting time trying to make sense of whatever he read, he'd just do something he knew how to do, and then pay immense attention to his classes.
After eating quite a bit of food to ensure he was set for at least a few hours, he stared down at his watch as he regarded the commissions he'd chosen. Three, to be precise.
[Supply Transport: Upper Gym to Training Wing. 150 Credits]
[Core Disposal Assistance: Biology Lab. 200 Credits]
[Equipment Assembly: Maintenance Bay. 180 Credits]
He'd read the details of these three commissions, and they seemed easy enough. His instincts were also pretty quiet, so he guessed that meant there was nothing wrong with them.
The first one was pretty much exactly how it sounded. He needed to transport supplies from the upper gym to the training wing. It stated that there would be a few dozen things to supply and recommended someone with good physical strength for the task, something Mike was confident he had.
The next was somewhat similar as it still dealt with carrying things, but instead of equipment, it was cores that were deemed to be useless.
For context, it was stated before that animals mutated into beasts/monsters after the Bestowal occurred. Other than them being stronger than what made sense, another thing was that monsters tended to form cores in their body, which were summarized as the total concentration of all their power. Humans couldn't use these cores normally, however, they served to be phenomenal energy sources and were often used as batteries or tools for experimentation. Cores were used frequently when it came to research as they were a readily available energy source.
Mike heard they were harvested from farms, with the lower-level ones being harvested along with beastsbintended to be used as food sources. He found it pretty neat, actually.
Anyway, this commission involved him disposing of cores that had most of their energy sapped. Typically, if a core ran out of energy, it'd just become a mundane rock, albeit a bit tougher than most rocks, but yeah, he'd need to take them to a designated disposal area where they would be ground down and turned into construction materials.
Again, pretty neat.
As for the last commission, well, he thought it was a bit intimidating at first, but when he read the description, he found that it'd probably just be a monotonous task.
Pretty much, there was an assembly house for training equipment, and his job was to place certain parts of different equipment into their designated spots to be assembled by machinery.
He accepted the commissions and decided to do them in the order he'd chosen them.
He sat there for a minute before shrugging, deciding not to waste any time. He took down their locations on his watch and set out.
He listened briefly to check if there was anyone outside his room, and when he was sure there wasn't, he set out of his dorm room.
He left the building soon after, and without hesitation, he started heading towards the first area which—luckily—wasn't too far away, and was just placed at an easily accessible spot between the dorm buildings and a place he assumed belonged to the staff.
It was a wide building that was only three stories tall, but Mike was surprised by the number of people moving in and out of it, most of them seniors.
He took a breath and quickly walked inside, making sure not to attract any unwanted attention. However, it was a bit hard due to his height. Most people looked at him curiously, probably wondering why a kid was walking through the gym with their uniform.
His instincts came in clutch here, and he had a vague idea of who intended to approach him in one way or the other, allowing him to avoid interacting with them.
He did briefly inspect the interior of the gym, and he saw dozens of students using all sorts of equipment he didn't recognize. It looked cool, but it wasn't his task.
He moved deeper into the gym, and soon enough, he reached a door that had 'Store Room' written on it. He hesitated for a moment, then he knocked.
He soon heard movement from behind it, and it swung open. A head peeked out and looked left and right before aiming down. It was a disheveled-looking woman. Her hair was messy, and she had a few cuts on her face which looked fresh. Her skin was dark, and there was an eyepatch on her right eye. A snake also slithered across her shoulders, its blue slitted pupils regarding him with an uncanny level of intelligence.
"... Hey kid, you lost?" She asked with a raised brow, her voice slightly raspy.
"Uh, I came to complete the commission for transferring items from here to the training wing," Mike replied, slightly miffed at being called a kid.
Her brows raised in surprise, and she gave him a look over.
"Huh... you sure? It's a pretty physically demanding task." She asked again.
"That's why I picked it." Mike shrugged. The two of them stared at each other for a few seconds, then she sighed and shook her head.
"Fine. Come in." She moved away from the door, allowing Mike to step inside and look around.
Unsurprisingly, the storage room was large, and there were racks filled with all sorts of weapons and armor. There were also boxes around filled with some advanced equipment and gadgets Mike didn't recognize.
"That's what you're meant to transport." She pointed at a bunch of boxes arranged in a corner, each one nearly half as tall as Mike himself.
"If you can't do it, just say so. Wouldn't want you to break your back." She said the last part with a smirk, and Mike just raised a brow. However, instead of responding, he simply walked over to the pile of boxes.
He squatted near the first one and managed to grip the sides. He was aware of the woman still watching him with thinly veiled exasperation, as if she was waiting for him to fall over and hurt himself. He huffed and gripped the edges so that his fingers dug into the material, and he stood.
The look on the woman's face rapidly changed from exasperation to surprise, and then outright shock as Mike lifted the box with minimum effort.
"... Well I'll be, each of those boxes weighs at least 300 KG!" She exclaimed. However, Mike frowned.
'Carrying them one by one will take too long.' He tilted his head and dropped the box before regarding it along with the others curiously.
"Hm? What's wrong Ki-" Her words were cut off when Mike carried another box and stacked it on the first one. Then he carried another and stacked it again, making it three boxes tall. It was easily taller than Mike.
"K-Kid... what are you...?" Mike ignored her as he squatted once more, and with a bit more effort, he heaved and lifted the three boxes. He wobbled a bit, but he quickly stabilized himself to ensure the boxes wouldn't accidentally fall over.
"There we go." He mumbled. He quickly realized he couldn't see in front of him, but oh well, he had his other senses.
"Can I start going?" He asked a bit dryly, and he felt the woman was looking at him with some stupor, then she chuckled.
"Heh, guess I had that coming. Alright, go ahead kid." He felt that she was no longer looking at him with exasperation, and Mike smiled in satisfaction. Other than efficiency, he truly had stacked the boxes simply to show off.
Leaving the gym was... funny.
The stares of dozens of people, looking at the small boy carrying boxes that weighed almost a ton. He felt many wanted to approach him, but were too bewildered to do so.
The scene was similar when he left the gym, as students stared at him in shock.
As fun as it was, Mike was surprised at their surprise. Everyone here had an ability, so was it truly so shocking to just see a very strong person? Granted, if they knew he wasn't using an ability, then their reactions would be far more valid.
'I guess they just don't expect someone of my stature to move around such heavy stuff.' He thought.
The process was also quite fun. Mike hadn't really used his strength since he became a Lupine, so it was nice to finally push himself.
Moreover, he was certain he could go higher.
Sadly, he had no confidence in carrying four boxes without them just falling over, so he stuck to three.
Once more, his instincts and senses came in clutch as he managed to avoid walking into anyone or tripping on something while on his way to the training wing.
It took about ten minutes of brisk walking before he reached his destination. He briefly out down the boxes to check the map while ignoring everyone who was staring at him, then he nodded to himself as he reaffirmed where he needed to go and picked up the boxes once more before going to his destination.
The training wing was even bigger than the gym. Numerous buildings and structures were scattered about. Some had domes, while others were open fields. What they all had in common was the large number of students within training with each other and sparring.
Mike was enamored, and he was tempted to just sit down and watch people fight with their abilities, but he remained steadfast in his goal and soon reached his destination.
Dropping off the boxes was far less climactic as a bot simply waited for him where he needed to drop the boxes. When he did, it opened them up and started arranging them to be used.
'I wonder why they don't just have a storage room here if this is where the equipment is meant to be used.' He mused before shrugging and going to carry the next batch of boxes.