My Plunderer System

Chapter 84 82 - Finding Avery

With the festival having concluded, Milo had a new goal to accomplish before he would be heading back to New York for his summer break, and he had ten days to do it. He needed to find the student named Avery Becket, who had created the rare ranked equipment with an attached skill from the equipment show.

Milo made his way down to the smithing hall, where there were many rooms that had students working away at the stations creating equipment. Milo wasn't sure what method of finding the student named Avery would be the most efficient. Milo eventually just started using his inspect skill to check the names of all the students he saw. Making his way down the hallway, Milo checked every boy he saw looking for the student he was trying to track down. He hadn't been able to see them yet, so he began to peek his head into rooms checking each student that way. After going through every room, he still hadn't found the person he was looking for.

Milo didn't know where else he may be able to find Avery, being a smith he expected them to be in the smithing hall working on any commissions they may have received following the Equipment show, but maybe they had gone to work on the commissions at their home forge already. Because of this, Milo thought that maybe he had missed the chance to talk to Avery, he got bummed out and began to make his way to the exit. As he was about to step through the door he heard a commotion in one of the rooms.

"What the hell Avery, take a break you've been working non stop for 2 days! I'm surprised you haven't passed out from exhaustion already."

Hearing the name Avery perked Milo's ears. Could it be the student he had been looking for? Milo tracked down the room that the commotion was coming from, and found a smaller student shouting at another student through a thick mask with a dark visor over the eyes. Milo inspected the student being yelled at first, but it wasn't the right person, meaning that it had to be the stranger in the mask. Opening the inspect skill, he looked down at the skill window that popped up:

[Avery Becket]

Ability: Reinforce

Status: Healthy

Relationship: Stranger

Target is currently angry at another student for interrupting their work

[clear]

Seeing that it was indeed the Avery he was looking for, Milo waited for the argument between them and the other student to settle itself, before he walked up to introduce himself. Once he introduced himself, he got quite an aggressive response.

"The name's Avery, why are you here?" they said, their voice was a bit muffled from the smithing mask they were wearing.

Not expecting the straightforward response, Milo stuttered for a second before saying, "I saw your entry in the Equipment Show and was wondering if I could commission a piece of equipment from you."

"Unfortunately I don't do favors, so unless you have the money to pay for the materials you're out of luck."

Milo was once again shocked into silence by the straight forward response of the student in front of him. They had a very candid personality, Milo knew this wasn't necessarily bad, but it would take some getting used to. "I already have a core to use, as well as some parts from the monster that the core was in, but I don't have any metals to use, how much would it cost?" he said.

"Depends on the piece of the equipment you want and the core you've got," Avery replied.

Milo went on to pretend to reach into his backpack, and pulled all the beast parts and the unique core from his inventory, if he hadn't Avery might question why they appeared out of no where and he didn't want to have to think up some lie. He then placed them all on the table in front of Avery. Milo couldn't see it beneath the mask, but Avery rolled their eyes before taking a closer look at the core placed on the table. When taking a closer look, they were able to realize that it was in fact a unique ranked beast core.

"Where did you get this?" they said.

"I got it from a gate when I was out on an in-field experience," Milo responded.

"Wait, you're from the X ranked class?" they said, "Why didn't you have your family buy you a piece of equipment?"

Milo went on to explain that he didn't have a rich and powerful background like other X ranked kids, before asking, "well how much is this going to cost?"

"How much do you have?" she asked.

Milo didn't want to lose all the credits he had, so he threw out a number and said 1,500. Which was about 500 less than the amount he currently had. After thinking about it for a few seconds, Avery said that it would barely be enough. They went on to mention that that would only cover the materials they needed to make it. Milo hadn't realized how expensive the materials needed to make equipment cost. He then said, "is there a commission fee?"

Avery then thought for a second, they had only been able to work on common and rare ranked cores so far due to them having insufficient funds and said, "instead of paying me for the equipment, make a deal with me instead."

"What kind of deal?" Milo asked.

"Whenever you need equipment, come to me. Make me your exclusive smith, if you are in the X ranked class, you must be pretty strong, and that means you could go on to be a great gatecrasher. If I made your equipment, it could end up being a huge profit for me in the long run."

Hearing this, Milo couldn't have asked for a better deal. He was hoping to find a smith as good as Avery once he graduated but with this, he'd always have one when he needed it. While it annoyed him a bit that they wanted to ride on his success, he had received the offer that he had been looking for.

Avery then went on to explain that it would take them 5 days to make a chest piece and to come back then for the finished piece of equipment, they also asked if there were any specific requests in terms of design, but Milo decided to leave it up to Avery. After transferring the credits for the materials, Milo added his new exclusive smith on his holo before leaving the smithing building and heading back to his dorm so they could get to work.

He had five days to kill and he had no idea how to do it. Eventually he decided to see if any of his friend's wanted to hang out, and sent Zach a message on his holo asking him if he was free, but he said he was supposed to hang out with Krista. Seeing this, put a smile on his face, it was something he figured would happen, but wasn't sure how long it would take. Since Zach and Krista were busy, he sent Mark and Chris a message but they said they were busy as well. That left Maria and Allana as the only two left in the group to ask to hang out.

After debating whether he should bite the bullet or not, he figured now would be as good a time as any to figure out whether he really had feelings for Maria or not. After coming to this conclusion, Milo sent Maria a message asking if she'd like to do something together, and it wasn't long before he had received a response, she said she'd love to but asked him to give her some time to get ready.

Milo then got dressed and prepared for his get together with Maria, he wasn't sure whether to call it a date or not but just in case she thought it was, he wanted to dress appropriately. After showering, he checked his hair in the mirror and it still had the look of a young actor from when he went with Chris to prepare for his test date with Krista, but was a bit messier, so he cleaned it up a bit before going to pick out an outfit. He went with a pair of black slacks, a white shirt and pulled a black blazer over the shirt to give himself a bit of a business casual look. He went with a nicer pair of shoes and took a look in the mirror, the outfit wasn't far off from when he went out with Krista that one fateful day, but he still thought he looked good enough for his night out with Maria. After getting ready, he waited for Maria to let him know when to come pick her up from her room, and once she did, he left his room and made his way up to her room.