Planning ahead.

John locked the door behind him and went to his desk. His dad had given him a Bluetooth earpiece he never used, it was made by the company he worked for. He put it in his ear and dialed the number that June gave him while working around in his room. The idea of talking to a girl he barely knew and never talked to while totally naked and doing magic in his room sounded strange, but extremely exciting to him.

He started looking in his closet for a box of old clothes he grew out long ago to use as crafting materials.

"Hello, who is it? "

"Hi, my name is John Newman and Ms Summers from the Ashcroft Academy gave me this number. Is this Kim Moon?"

He found the box of old clothes and scrapped it, getting 39 units of fabric and one of organic materials. It made him think of the trash he had in his inventory, maybe there was a way to use it after all.

"Oh, it's you. Miss Summers didn't give me a name and I didn't recognize your number. Did she explain what it is all about?"

"She told me that you needed to work both on your drawing and confidence. So you will work as a model for me and I will teach you how to draw. And to motivate us we get an extra credit if the work done is good enough. Is that correct?" he decided to paint the proposal a bit differently than agreed but doubted June would mind.

Hey, awesome he could transform his 27 units of trash into 7 units of organic materials, 2 of plastic and 1 of light metal.

"Oh, yeah it's exactly what it is. I am a bit worried, she told me I will have to.... undress!"

"You see, I draw comics as a hobby and when Ms Summers told me that a very athletic girl might pose for me, I found it awesome. The thing is that having a model is especially good to see the shape muscles take in some position, because superheroes costume are often skin tight. So if you want realism the model has to wear as little as possible to show all of her muscle groups."

He was facing an old wooden chest at the end of his bed that served as a toy chest when he was a kid. He emptied it and used Craft on it.

Upgrade to Reinforced Storage Chest:
Locked by key
120 inventory slots
Cost: 1 old wooden chest, 30 units of heavy metal, 20 units of light metal, 125$.
YES NO

Hell, yes! Materials were cheap thanks to the wasteful nature of modern society. No need to look for ore veins like in medieval fantasy video games, there were tons of metal left there to rust covered in garbage.

The chest didn't change much in looks from the outside, but he could see the lock and the inside was coated with metal. He had received a key in his inventory. Once the chest closed and as long as he had the key he could use it through an inventory window to transfer things in and out of it without having to open it.

"So where and when do we meet for this thing? She said you might not be available right away."

" I think if you lack confidence the best to keep you comfortable and ease you in would be to do it at your place. Where do you live?"

"I live above the dojo on Blossom Street. When can you come?"

He almost answered with a dirty joke, but caught himself.

"What about Friday after school? I could take the bus going your way, so we get there together. My classes finish at 4 pm."

"Alright, perfect. See you then at the bus stop on Friday."

Once she dropped the call, John looked around and began to think of other things to improve. With a sheath he would be able to have his blade on an equipment slot without having it in his hand. He crafted 3 packs of slingshot projectiles and noticed that he could stash things in the 4 extra inventory slots his hoody provided as long as he left it on his alternate equipment set. The ammo was crafted by 10 but stacked up to 50, so he put the slingshot and ammo in it. He also put 5 of his remaining cans of Blue Boar in there. He wanted to have some in case he needed it in an emergency. He tested it and by putting his hand on the pocket it opened the 4 inventory slots for quick use.

He found a whole bunch of leather belts that were slightly worn off. He picked the biggest and used Craft on it.

Upgrade to Leather Harness?
+2 inventory slot
+1 weapon slot
Cost: 6 damaged old belts, 4 units of fabric, 1 unit of light metal, 53$
YES NO

So either through luck or design he could go around the randomness of the craft skill by improving the correct items. He wasn't sure if intent had an effect or if it was his luck at play.

The harness had two pouches on the side and a place on the side for a weapon, as soon as he put his sword near it, it fixed itself on it by a sheath of half the length of the blade. He figured that, with it being designed like a video game item, it needed to be able to fit any weapon.

He then tried to improve his blade but it told him that its quality was already better than what his skill level could produce. It made sense as among all what he owned it was the only thing that was a real weapon forged for battle and he already repaired and sharpened it.

He was having trouble deciding whether to improve the slingshot, it said he could, but he was afraid to lose the special ability to gain a bit of damage. He decided that whenever he would have some time he should try to go to a sport or hunting shop. He wasn't sure about getting a firearm because he didn't know how to craft ammo for it and the laws to get one were pretty strict in this state.

Before going to sleep, there was one last thing to do. He remembered the book (hopefully a skill book) he got from the fight in the junkyard. He picked it up and read the pop-up that appeared.

Learn skill: Invocation lvl 1, 80 mp, 20 hp
Summon a random minor creature of low lvl for 20 minutes who will fight for you and obey simple orders.
YES NO

Well it was underwhelming. Eating half his mana and some hp for a near useless creature would suck, but hopefully he could get the skill higher and get a better pet for longer and cheaper.

Tomorrow would be his first day in a couple, he wondered what it would change in his life. He realized that he forgot to exchange phone numbers with Anna and hoped she'd forgive him for that.

He put most of the stuff he didn't want to keep in the chest and after checking that nothing was in sight that did not belong in a normal teenager's room he unlocked his door (not to make his mother suspicious) and jumped on his bed to go to sleep.

His life had became insane...

Insanely AWESOME!!!