Smithing Class

John wasn't sure what he had been expecting Mary to do at the start of his next class. He knew what he wanted her to do, but if the past few hours were anything to go by, then Mary might have just had yet another pleasant surprise waiting around the corner for him. At least...he hoped it would have been pleasant. She could have just done whatever she wanted, really. John wasn't even sure that he would've called any public attention to the fact that he stole her ropes. It could have put him in a dangerous spotlight, and he didn't want that.

Smithing hadn't actually been something that John was interested in. It had been a class to him, of course, but nothing more. It wasn't even a class that he had chosen. It was something that someone else had signed him up for. He had just been put into it to try and gain some 'life skills' that he felt like he could have just learned online if the moment ever called for it.

Smithing was just the form of the class that he had actually agreed to. He hadn't cared for any of the technology or mechanic classes that had been thrown in front of him. Hell, he had barely cared for smithing at the time. It was just the next best thing to anything video game related and, at the very least, he could have walked away with something neat to hang on a wall.

Like everything else, though, after the arrival of a new and more powerful John, his views on the subject changed. Things like history and art became useless to him, while things like chances to make weapons and armor became important. His other classes were all fun, and he was already missing the way he got to ogle his art teacher if he didn't skip the class but...they weren't necessary... Certainly not if there were other magic users.

He didn't need history because he felt like he was becoming history now. He was some massive turning point of the world now. A guy with powers? Why wouldn't he be so important? Using his time to learn about things of the past wasn't going to help him improve by this point. No, he needed to throw himself into a situation where the circumstances would either help him to improve on the abilities he already had or set him up to unlock new ones. Smithing was one of those very situations.

It also meant he got to learn how to make himself a sword.

As the classroom filled up around John, he found himself flooded with various confused looks and astonished stares. The classmates who knew him, at least as much as they could have known someone who had lived like a shut in around them, were smart enough to realize that John normally wouldn't have bothered with that class.

He wouldn't have cared enough... certainly not enough to take the time to clean up his station in the workshop. He did though. As the rest of the class finished filing into the room, John was hastily stuffing away the little bits of paper and schoolwork that would have normally cluttered up his workstation. Every last doodle, assignment, and booklet was stashed away into a nearby locker set up for his area and then tightly locked away.

At least that's how it looked... John really just kept pushing it all into his inventory once it was out of sight.

It wasn't long after the bulky form of Miss Brooks closed off the classroom that a light knock appeared at the door, and upon opening it, a familiar cheerleader was found to be standing at the classroom door.

Even from a distance, John could see the fair tint of a blush creeping over Mary's cheeks as she struggled to talk her way into the class. She knew what she was doing and knew about the risk of further embarrassment that it put her in by listening to him... but she was doing it anyways.

She was dressed differently, too, John noted, when Miss Brooks finally let Mary into the room. Instead of the standard Ashcroft cheerleader uniform that John had found her to be wearing when he ran into her earlier that day, Mary was now in one of the versions of the typical school uniform... and it was probably because of him.

At first glance, the cheerleader seemed withdrawn when she walked in the room. Her tiny arms, which were now clad in a deep blood-red blazer, were pulled tight to her lithe figure and crossed over her chest in some kind of instinctive manner to protect herself. The blazer, drawn tightly across her midsection as she stood there, was buttoned neatly down her front to cover as much as possible, with nothing more than little glimpses of the blouse she wore underneath available. The typical blouse and skirt combination, a regular for Ashcroft cheerleaders, was discarded today. The missing skirt, that John had never once seen Mary without, was replaced with something that now felt reserved and protective in a way. Instead, she wore a pair of neat, black slacks that he felt were supposed to be somehow blocking him off from her.

It wasn't very effective.

When class eventually resumed, Mary was left standing in the center of the room. Her eyes slowly searching through the crowd of students until they found John, and she nervously moved to sit in one of the empty seats that were always beside him. Her book-bag fell to the ground beside her with a heavy thud.

The attitude of the class had a silent, anxious shift as Mary slid in next to him. They could both feel the eyes of the people who were now watching them intently after hearing rumors about what happened in Mrs. Wentworth's class, and despite them, John outright turned to face her. Mary's eyes practically bugged out of her skull when John blatantly turned away to face her. His attention for what was supposed to be the focus of the class was simply abandoned as the teacher wrote out the objectives of the class on the front board.

"You wanted to talk?" he asked with a sly grin. Mary seemed to withdraw further into the safety of her buttoned up blazer as John spoke. The attention John seemed to 'instinctively' call to the two of them just kept compiling and growing. It was all just too much on her poor little heart. Part of the whole fun of her games had been for her to just not get caught.

"S-stop..." she mumbled softly. Her voice was so gentle and frail already that John didn't even hesitate.

"Sorry, what was that?" his voice raised slightly as he spoke, and Mary watched as even the teacher paused for a moment to look in their direction. A low wave of whispers washed over the class, and everyone stared as if they were waiting for the teacher to do something like perhaps kick Mary out of the room... but it didn't happen. Eventually, after Miss Brooks finally turned back to the board, Mary spoke up again. It was a little more forceful this time, but just barely.

"Y-you need to stop," she stuttered and leaned in closer to John. Her nose wrinkled slightly, and John wondered what it was she might have been smelling. It had been a long day already, and it could have been any number of things. The three likely conclusions to John seemed to either be the smell of sex from the time he spent with his mother, the smell of deodorant when he tried to cover up the scent of sex, or the smell of smoke when he got killed by an explosion...

Wow, what a day... he thought to himself as the teacher set the students to work. There wasn't really any specific goal in mind for the day. Most of the people there had some experience with working various metals or leathers, and Miss Brooks had to get an idea of just what it was each student could do... so she gave them each some time and materials to just work freely.

There was an interesting moment for John when, without any explanation or reason, the materials Miss Brooks gave him came with a pop-up listing for each one. Each pop-up had little bits of information on it and listed things like iron or leather, how many units of it there were, and the quality of said material. Luckily, it was all of a fine material.

"Stop what exactly?" John asked and began laying out the material he had been given on the table. In his eyes... it was a lot of random shit. There was no specific idea in mind for what he was supposed to build; though the teacher had given the class some ideas.

The look Mary gave him was not a kind one.

"You know what I'm talking about," she practically growled at him this time. A familiar, angry tone bubbled to the surface as she spoke. A tone that John recognized. She was talking down to him in the same way that Vanessa, Mary, Frank, and all of their friends had been speaking at him over the past few years. It was like suddenly every word she said was spat out full of disdain and disgust... It was the same way John felt like she had tried speaking to him through text before he started messing with her.

He didn't say anything when he heard her talk like that. He didn't feel very good at it, or very confident in the idea that it was a good thing to do, but when she finished her sentence, John turned on her. He didn't touch her, or even move closer to the sassy cheerleader. He just... glared at her.

Or he tried to... the effect he had been going for was supposed to be a duplicate of the angry look his mother gave him at times. The kind of look that could speak a thousand words to him at a time. One that could have warned her about some kind of forbidden line that she was on the verge of crossing...

From her reaction, though, he felt like he may have just looked constipated.

"You need to stop, and you need to give it back." There was that tone again. That pompous edge in her voice that worked like it was constantly cutting him down. The edge that had given him so many moments filled with hatred and loathing in the past and, more recently, stuck so many more ideas of **** and-

John stopped and glanced over at the supplies on the table as he finished gathering the tools and supplies he would have normally needed for a simple birdhouse or box. Ideas of ****... It was perfect. Another sly smile crept across John's face as he stood there, and the orders or insults or whatever it was that Mary kept muttering about faltered suddenly when she saw his cheshire grin.

There really was no better word for it in that moment. He was grinning, and even he knew that his grin had a subtle eeriness about it. The tone in Mary's voice spluttered and died off, and after a couple seconds, she even let out a little plea. She could actually see the gears in his head turning, and whatever it was he had thought up...she only felt dread for it.

One of your abilities has changed!

Alchemy has changed!
Alchemy has become Craft!

New Skill: Craft. Level 1.
Craft: Use raw or refined materials to create simple items. Mana cost varies with each item.
(This ability can pair with other abilities. Observe: Observe may now give more details about certain materials and what they can be used for in crafting.)

Perhaps grinning was an understatement. He was ecstatic. The arrival of these pop-ups was preceded by the arrival of another. One that John would have used if not for the fact that Mary was standing right there. The idea he had had turned out to be something he could make, and the pop-up confirmed it for him.

"John..." Mary mumbled from off to the side as John hit no when his screens asked him if he wanted to instantly finish his project. He wasn't going to waste the mana. "John, di-did you hear me?" she said and watched as he picked up a metal rod and some pliers. His movements seemed almost robotic by this point, like he wasn't even thinking about what he was doing... He was just working.

Even with the help of his ability telling him what to do, crafting took a while. In his experience, it always did take time. In video games, there was always some time limit for making things. If you were lucky, there was an option to skip through the waiting process or there was something around you could distract yourself with, and while there was an option to skip for this, the cost it called for was too expensive. He just didn't feel like he could afford it, and it felt dangerous to try and do it with Mary sitting right next to him.

She had all but figured out on her own that he had been behind the disappearance of her panties. By that point, all she needed was knowledge of his magic, and then she probably could have been able to put two and two together to figure out his whole situation. A large part of him didn't even dispute the fact that she could have just figured out everything that had happened to him over the past couple of days if she had that little bit of knowledge.

Maybe it was just that she seemed smart enough to figure it out... or perverted enough to understand him. It was one of the two for sure.

"You got what you wanted..." she paused and watched as John picked up a nearby mallet and held it over his work. "Just...you don't need it anymore... Please."

Woah! That made him pause. With a gasp, that may have been slightly exaggerated, he looked up to meet the contemptuous glare of the olive skinned submissive and smirked at her. To be fair though, he couldn't think of a single circumstance before that where the cheerleader had ever said please...to him or anyone else! It kind of made what he was about to do just that much better.

"Mr. Newman!" The strict voice of his thickly built smithing teacher suddenly boomed out from behind as she appeared over one of his hunched over shoulders. In a way, it was like she just popped into existence beside him, perched like some kind of body-builder gargoyle wrapped in a pair of blue mechanic's overalls. Miss Brooks and her deep, alerting voice leaned over John as she spoke. A devious smile already curled up in the corners of her mouth, like she was proud of the fact that she had been trying to sneak up on her students just to make them jump.

Unfortunately for her own enjoyment, John was far too distracted for it to work. She managed to sneak up on him for sure, thanks to the help of his new Craft ability, but that same distraction also prevented the surprise of what she was doing from scaring him. He was magically **** to be so 'in the zone' that he didn't even budge.

"What is it you're working on, John?" she asked once she realized she failed to make the young man jump. A slight air of disappointment eased from the older woman as she spoke, mostly in the form of a sigh, but she still leaned over him with a hint of curiosity.

John was all too pleased to show her.

The item John lifted was made of two specific types of materials and barely any of it. The majority of what he had been given and the leftovers of the materials that he had used, were all stuffed and secured into one of the many boxes of John's inventory.

+10 units of fine Wood
+9 units of fine Iron
+5 units of fine Leather

As he lifted it up, Mary yelped just on the edge of his vision upon seeing what he had made. Her hands shot up from the safe place she had struggled to find at her sides and clamped down tightly over her lips as Miss Brooks and John both cast her a strange glance.

"It's a collar" John explained as he handed it off to his teacher. The dark, syrupy brown leather glistened under the classroom light as Miss Brooks, with one hand, lifted the strangely heavy piece up for inspection. John's project was made of two separate layers of leather. The first, inner layer was made of a soft, comfy strain, colored with a nice caramel brown tint. The first layer was thin compared to the rest of it, and all of it still remained damp. Apparently, wetting the dried leather made working it easier on John, just as long as he didn't use soap or any other chemical like that. The second, outer layer was almost the exact opposite of the first, like it came from a whole separate kind of source. A strain that was darker, thicker, and tougher in every regard.

"My mom has this little chihuahua back home that she just can't stop doting over... I figured she might like the idea of getting her a handmade collar," John lied and watched with a grin as his teacher grabbed the collar with both hands, and with a tug strong enough to make it echo, she snapped the hard leather taut in front of them. It straightened and strained, with the large iron ring on the front of the collar dangling loudly below it, and off to the side; Mary jumped in her seat. Miss Brooks stared at John's little project for a few more lengthy, silent seconds, her eyes glancing over the various little comments that John had tooled into the leather itself. Things like 'Good girls get cuddles' or 'I heart treats', with a little, sweet, cartoonish heart replacing the actual word, popped out at the reader as they looked at it. Those were just two of dozens of sweet little comments like that.

"It's a little big for a chihuahua," his teacher remarked and slowly handed the collar off back to him with a shrug. Mary's thighs slowly squeezed shut from somewhere off to the side. Her whole face had flushed into a deep, dark crimson color again.

"Yeah, I was hoping that I had guessed the right size earlier, but looking at it now, I may have to shorten it when I get home." He slowly turned to face Mary as he spoke. She didn't look back at him. Her head was buried in her hands. She didn't even bother trying to peek out between her fingers as John and Miss Brooks spoke.

"You may also have to fix that ring. No leash is going to be able to clip to that, Mr. Newman." Still, Mary would not look at him. He couldn't blame her. It would have been embarrassing, and the fact that John just continued on with the conversation just proved to further that humiliation...

...but he wanted her to look at him. A part of him was settling into this role, adjusting to the idea that maybe he could have just done things like...taking the instinct to talk condescendingly out of someone. It was...exhilarating for him. It was like everything he did suddenly helped to exude this air of confidence from him, one that even he could feel.

"Yeah..." John mumbled under a soft breath and stared hard at Mary. There was no way that a part of her didn't ache longingly at the idea of that collar. John refused to believe it. He had caught her wearing rope for underwear for christsake!

The rope...

"It may be a little difficult to take that back off though..." he paused. She still wasn't looking. "At the very least, I suppose could always use a piece of rope for a leash..." He left that part hanging and watched as Mary's head abruptly shot up to look at him, her face still redder than a tomato. Her eyes widened dramatically as she stared at him, and her breath hitched in her throat. One of John's thumbs tauntingly rubbed at the leather in his grasp as the teacher walked back to the front of the classroom. They both heard her speak, heard her tell the class to begin cleaning up, but neither one moved. He didn't need to; John already had his station clean. All the leftover trash and units of material just got dumped into his inventory, along with some simple spare tools.

They both just sat in place... John refusing to look away. He wanted to claim this gaze and hopefully establish some kind of moment with her. A memory or an order at the very least to leave her with no further instinct to talk down to anyone. For Mary, she just stared back at him because he held the gaze. She watched him out of worry, fear, and hope for whatever it was he seemed about to do... he just didn't hurt her.

So much of her little heart already seemed like it was just in his hands.

"Even if I were to give it back to you..." John paused and slowly pushed to his feet as the end of class bell rang. His eyes narrowed and hardened slightly; all of his attention became solely focused on her and the idea of holding her in her seat with nothing more than his gaze. He didn't even make a move to grab a book bag or anything. He just loomed over her with his presence, and this time she froze.

"...I would still have all those lovely pictures that you sent me," he said and silently dropped the collar into her lap.