With Nothing But a Box of Scraps, Young Man?

Kirie buzzed with restless energy, sleep stolen by anticipation for his upgraded armor. The suit's boosted performance—twenty-five percent faster conversions, seven seconds shaved off mana flow—ignited a torrent of ideas, each demanding more from his creation.

NEOS, the AI pilot, shared his fervor, its drive to prove itself fanning Kirie's relentless hunger for innovation, their partnership a spark poised to blaze.

In the lounge of Empyrea Solis, the freshmen gathered under the warm, golden glow of floating chandeliers, their light casting a soporific haze over the paradise resort.

Not all had claimed a full night's rest—some eyelids drooped, weighed by the trials' toll. Deb, flanked by his entourage of professors, strode forward, his flamboyant robes swirling.

"Good morning, dear freshmen!" he boomed, voice cutting through the murmurs. "Let the worries of the past two trials slip away, for today, your minds will be tested! Behold, the Genesis Atelier!" His usual theatrics clipped short, he snapped his fingers with a resonant crack.

In a flash of arcane light, every student teleported to a colossal workshop, its steel and metal expanse pulsing with magical currents.

Kirie landed amidst the group, Alden's loud yawn rumbling nearby, while magically attuned students flinched, their senses recoiling from the workshop's raw energy.

Engineers like Kirie stood rapt, breath caught in their throats, hearts racing with the promise of creation.

"Before us stands the cradle of technological wonders," Deb proclaimed, striding toward the towering gates with exaggerated grandeur, his robe's flowing sleeves trailing motes of exuberant magic.

"Here, the greatest mechanical minds converge, refining their craft through peerless collaboration and relentless toil—the Genesis Atelier!"

He flung his arms wide, and the heavy metal doors hissed open, powered by gusts of wind and tongues of fire magic. Their weight reverberated through the floor.

The chamber unveiled a spectacle rivaling the Sidus Athenaeum's grandeur, but forged in steel and circuitry. Drones whirred overhead, weaving among experts who hammered, welded, and tested contraptions—some petitioning bold new designs, others pushing mechanical limits.

The air thrummed with innovation, a symphony of clanks, sparks, and arcane hums that could either crush a freshman's curiosity or set it ablaze.

Possibilities engulfed Kirie. Surrounded by kindred spirits who shared his passion for invention, the fires of creation roared within him. His gaze swept across sprawling branches of study—holistic robotics, medtech marvels, and beyond—each a new frontier.

Ideas surged like waves, crashing and swirling in his mind, each vying to take shape.

As the two thousand freshmen splintered into groups, Kirie's cohort was led to a vast workshop littered with a chaotic heap of scrap—parts unrealized, defective, or forgotten, their potential waiting to be reclaimed.

Elspeth—his aunt, a stern figure of authority—took charge of Kirie and ninety-nine others. Her mechanical hand gleamed, magical strings spooling from its fingers to tether small, box-shaped carts that trundled forward, one halting before each student.

Elspeth's piercing gaze swept the group, a weighty scrutiny that sent shivers through some, her presence as unyielding as the steel around them.

Kirie met her stare with a curious, inquisitive smile, his cyan-hummed eyes alight. She acknowledged him with a subtle nod, a flicker of recognition.

"Today," she declared, voice clear and commanding, "we test your ingenuity and technical prowess. Whether you wield magic to aid or hinder your craft is your call. Your goal: build a robot that passes five rudimentary tests and adheres to Neptune's Law of Robotics."

At the mention of his mother's name, Kirie's chest swelled with pride. Neptune Neo-Tunia had reshaped mechanical engineering, weaving magic into blueprints, forging metals in mana-rich forges, and cultivating malleable ores that thrived in arcane soils.

Her Law of Robotics—ethics, intelligence, and function fused with purpose—had revolutionized robotics across her lifetime, a legacy now challenging her son to prove his worth.

"For you, Kirie," Elspeth whispers after making her way towards her dear nephew, "Your challenge is not using NEOs and the nanobots." She'd say with a stoic expression.

"That's all?" Kirie cocked his brow. He's been studying robots and disassembling them so many times that he can rebuild something without a blueprint AND blind just by feeling out its components. All ever since he could walk and think. A father's curiosity and a mother's ingenuity were bestowed in spades on the boy.

"Give me an aluminum can with wires and buttons and I'll make you a robot." She'd merely smile and scoff at his gusto before turning back and centering herself against the hundred freshmen.

"You all have thirty minutes. Salvage what you can. Stealing and technical sabotage are allowed, but grievous harm will not be tolerated. May Ophelia guide you. Start!" 

At Elspeth's sharp signal, the freshmen surged toward the towering scrap pile, a chaotic mass of jagged metal and forgotten tech.

Some burrowed into its base, others clambered to its peak, and a few, Kirie among them, plunged into its middle, where the odds of unearthing something salvageable flickered like a faint hope.

The air thrummed with the clank and clatter of parts—steel scraping against silicone, obscure plastics grinding underfoot—each sound echoing through the Genesis Atelier's vast chamber.

Kirie waded through the grime, unfazed by the oil-slicked surfaces and dust that coated his hands. Once a neat freak in his family's home, he'd long since hardened to such filth, a resilience forged in the days before inheriting his mother's workshop, NEOS, and the nanobots.

Those early years of scrubbing parts clean had dulled the sting of grease. But scratches and cuts were another matter—navigating the pile's heart risked jagged edges and hidden barbs.

Still, the middle offered a gamble: defective or surplus parts, overlooked but brimming with potential. Above all, he needed a power core—a robot's beating heart, without which it was merely a husk of ambition.

His lilac-cyan eyes darted across the heap, searching for that vital spark. A core could be anything—star-shaped, square, or some organic, amorphous anomaly—so long as it stored and channeled power.

Two meters away, a glint caught his gaze: a small, star-shaped container, its surface scuffed but intact. Kirie lunged, fingers closing around it before he scrambled free of the pile, boots slipping on loose debris.

He reached his box-shaped cart at the pile's base and secured the core inside, snapping its lock shut—a sturdy mechanism that, to his novice mind, rivaled the kingdom's finest security. Whether true or not, only a thief bold enough to break it would find out.

A fleeting reflection in a nearby mirror-film panel revealed his stained polo and chinos, smeared with oil and dust, a stark echo of his childhood.

Back then, he'd been a curious kid, tearing apart his father's spare phones and budget appliances—gifts from aunts, uncles, or clearance bins—reassembling them with a spark of wonder.

Now, he stood in a scrap pile, vying for defective parts in a trial that could secure his place at one of the kingdom's premier academies. The weight of that journey fueled him, a quiet fire stoked by the drive to create.

Kirie dove back into the heap, tunneling like a mole through a snarl of arms, legs, wires, and circuit boards. The clamor of freshmen echoed—shouts of struggle, yelps of pain from cuts or collisions—piercing the chaotic net around him.

Metal groaned, parts rattled, and the air grew thick with the scent of rust and ozone, but Kirie pressed on, his mind alight with the promise of what he could forge.

Kirie Isogai-Neo-Tunia clutched his haul: irregular arm segments, bent metal sheets ripe for joint plating, wires of dubious voltage and alloy, a laser pointer, two dented aluminum cans, and limbs of roughly matched length.

His polo stretched taut, sagging under the weight of parts tucked into its hem, but his robot still lacked eyes—cameras, sensors—and a logic module, the core of its intelligence and learning capacity.

He'd sifted through countless modules in the scrap pile, but none matched the palm-sized board he envisioned, compact yet potent.

"Cameras… lenses…!" he muttered, eyes scanning the chaotic heap. A faint glimmer caught his gaze—a logic board, its circuitry winking from the pile's heart, fifteen meters deep.

"There!" Kirie scrambled forward, crawling and trudging through the jagged maze, metal scraping his skin. Broken limbs and razor-sharp edges bit into his arms and legs, leaving scratches and shallow cuts that trailed faint streaks of blood. The pain was a distant hum, drowned by the thrill of his prize.

"Five minutes have passed!" Elspeth's voice boomed over the forge's loudspeakers, sharp and unyielding. Twenty-five minutes remained to forge something from nothing.

"Got it…!" Kirie's fingers closed around the logic board, but another hand seized it simultaneously. A tug sent him tumbling out the pile's far side, crashing into a softer landing than expected.

His vision steadied, and he opened his eyes to a startling sight: a pair of ample breasts, framed in opulent white, red, and gold fabric, loomed inches from his face. Strands of red, orange-tinted hair spilled across the woman's chest, tickling his cheek.

"Ugh…" A chipper voice, strained by the scramble, cut through. Kirie's heart skipped.

"Ignatia!" He rolled aside, scrambling to help her sit up, only to freeze as the logic board—snapped clean in two—slid down her stomach, its halves glinting mockingly.

"Oh, Kirie! Aw, the board I found…" Ignatia's smile flickered, then dimmed into a pout as she cradled the broken pieces, her golden-brown eyes darting to the scrap pile with a sigh.

"Hi, uh…" Kirie faltered, torn between guilt and fairness. They'd grabbed it at the same instant, unaware of each other's presence.

"I've been hunting a logic core for five minutes," he admitted, scratching his cheek with an awkward smile.

"Same…" Ignatia stood, brushing grime from her ornate outfit. Her cart stood empty nearby—had she fixated solely on the core?

"How's your progress?" she asked, her voice brimming with innocent energy, devoid of calculation.

"Just needed the logic core," Kirie replied, his tone sheepish. 

"Really?! That's my first part!" Ignatia's face lit up, her enthusiasm undimmed by the setback.

"You don't have to make a robot," Kirie offered, a hint born of empathy. She didn't deserve to falter, not with her heart so open.

"As long as it passes the tests—something functional, durable, effective." Her eyes widened, gears visibly turning behind a scrunched, thoughtful frown.

"Can I make a weapon or something?" she asked, voice alight with dawning inspiration.

"Yeah, should work," Kirie nodded, channeling his aunt's knack for simplifying concepts. "If it's sturdy, works well, and does what you intend, it'll count."

"Ohohohoho!" Ignatia's giggle erupted, a spark of passion igniting her gaze. "Okay, I'll make gauntlets!" With that, she dove back into the scrap heap, vanishing into the chaos within seconds.

Kirie exhaled, muttering, "And I'll find another logic core…" His scratched arms stung, but he turned back to the pile, resolve unbroken.