Chapter 99: Solidified Conviction

The phone almost dropped from Declan’s hand as he covered his ear, the explosion ringing out from the other side of the call.

It was so loud that his ear continued ringing for about three seconds.

"Morgaret!? Morgaret, you okay?"

He spoke into the line.

"I gotta go, Declan. Call you soon," she said.

"Wa..."

The connection was severed in the next moment, and Declan stood there staring blankly at his device.

"Tch."

He clicked his tongue and flung the device back onto the desk before collapsing into his seat.

But he rose again almost immediately, his expression thoughtful.

"I gotta get out there..."

[You only just heard the news, and you’re fired up emotionally. I get it.]

[However, any decision you make now will be an emotional one, and emotional decisions tend to lead to bad endings.]

[You need to calm down first.]

"I am calm!" he shot back.

[No, you’re not!]

The system shot back, and he quieted down.

He rose from his seat and headed to the bedroom before collapsing onto the bed, placing the inside of his elbow over his face.

Silence reigned for about an hour before Declan finally lowered his arm and turned to stare quietly at the ceiling.

"The invasion has been ongoing for more than a week now... and I had no idea."

[That’s reasonable.]

[All of the students in X Guard have family outside.]

[If the news is released that the Ember have invaded, it will do nothing but shake the students up for nothing.]

[They cannot leave the academy anyway, and what use are they even if they’re allowed out?]

[It’s better to keep things unknown and let the students continue their functions.]

"Ignorance is bliss, huh?" Declan mused quietly, turning his gaze toward the window.

He understood why the academy wouldn’t release the news, but he knew now.

The image of those skyscrapers being burned, those fleeing humans being crushed, bridges collapsing into the sea and ending the lives of children and adults alike...

Those things couldn’t leave his head, and there was no pretending they hadn’t happened.

He needed to do something, but...

What could one dude even do?

"There’s not much I can do... right now," Declan mused quietly as he rose to sit on the bed, looking at the academy grounds through the window.

Morgaret was already out there and was at least a Physique Nexian.

Moreover, she definitely wasn’t alone.

The government, wanting to reclaim the territories invaded by the Ember forces, must have deployed Nexians.

And no Nexian would be sent unless they were at Heartian Nexian.

With such power already deployed against the Ember, what need was there for a single human with strength only at Pseudo-Physique grade?

If he rushed out now, what could he do?

Could he reclaim the cities overtaken by the Ember, or even defeat an entire squad of Invasive Supreme races on his own?

He might be able to struggle, perhaps drag down two or three Ember with him, but in the end, his fate would still be death.

And if he died in such a way, he would have died for nothing.

"But..." Declan murmured, rising to his feet and stepping closer to the window as he watched the students filling the grounds.

"I can grow."

"And not just grow... I can grow extremely fast."

"My intelligence is unparalleled as what takes others months to comprehend, I master in hours."

"Additionally, I have a power that can enable me to build anything."

"Mech armor? Mech weapons? Defensive gadgets? I can build anything, with enough material."

"I build faster than anyone."

"If I combine my superior intellect with the functional Mech designs in my imagination, then channel that through Mecha Forge to turn thought into reality..."

"If I’m supported by such tools, then I can become something neither the Ember nor humanity has ever witnessed."

"Something different... and superior to their understanding."

"A being like that should be able to make a difference. A being like that will be needed."

"All I need is to become that."

He mused, and in that moment, conviction flashed in his eyes. A Conviction to not just be better, but to be superior.

To become something the world had never seen before.

BADUUUUMP!

BADUUUUMP!

BADUUUUMP!

As he dwelled further on that thought, the conviction solidified deeper and deeper in his mind, and naturally, what followed was a process.

Piece by piece, the image of what he needed to become began to take shape, and in that second, Declan shut his bedroom window and covered it, reducing the room to darkness.

He stepped into his other room, completely shutting the world out until there was no sound reaching the space at all.

Then he took off his hoodie, grabbed something lighter along with equally light shorts, and moved to his desk.

He had thought he could take things slowly here in the second year, enjoying the advantage of being one, but now, something much bigger was at stake.

He had made his choice.

To finally turn those imaginative Mech concepts he had kept postponing into something real.

Opening a design interface, he quickly began, the room filling with nothing but the sound of keys being pressed with laser precision.

Sleep normally wasn’t needed much for him.

Theoretically, a Nexian’s body could go for days without sleep, though Declan had never tried it before, as he had never had a reason to.

But now, he did.

He became so deeply immersed in crafting and executing his ideas that he forgot about food, sleep, and every other physical need.

Only his brain continued its unbroken rhythm, refusing fatigue and sustaining a level of focus no human should logically be able to maintain for a duration Declan had long since stopped tracking.

His device, the one thing capable of waking him, rested on the sofa behind him, muted by the "Do Not Disturb" setting.

He never heard it ring, though its surface gleamed with light more than once.

When his fingers finally paused and he pushed the seat back slightly, a small smile curled at the corner of his lips, though incredibly large circles had formed beneath his eyes, the kind that belonged only to an unsleeping psychopath.

"I’m done... finally done putting it down. All ten Mech Creations," Declan whispered to himself.

Ten Mech Creations.

For someone to say he had up to a thousand Mech Creations in his head wouldn’t have been a lie at all.

But out of all of them, Declan had condensed his ideas, adding function after function into a single object until he finally ended up with ten different Mech Creations.

That alone had been incredibly difficult, even for him.

He had to create hundreds of thousands of designs, deleting nearly half of them before finally arriving at these ten.

And even then, confirming their final forms and the materials they needed had been another great headache of its own.

But he had pulled through, and the joy he felt as he looked at the designs on the screen was beyond anything.

"Now all I need is to gather their materials and do a couple of mock creation tests," he mused quietly.

But then,

GROOOOOM!

GROOOOOOM!

The vibratory ringing echoed from behind him, and he turned his head to see the light shining from his device.

It was his phone.

When he looked at the number, he was puzzled, unable to recognize it, but he still picked it up.

"Hello?" he said into the phone.

A gleam crossed his eyes when the voice replied.

"Hello, Declan Ezra. It’s been quite a while."

"Instructor Oileren!?" he blurted out in quiet surprise.

It was Instructor Oileren, the instructor responsible for his Mech Module Class.

"My apologies for being intrusive, but I’ve just noticed you haven’t been around for about three classes straight."

’Three classes straight!? What the!?’

"I was wondering why that is. Could you perhaps be working on a project?" the instructor asked.

Declan paused, his eyes drifting toward the monitor where the designs of the Mechs were displayed.

"Actually, Instructor... yes. I have been working on a project, and I’d love to hear your opinions on them."

A thoughtful hum came from the other side.

"Very well, then. The class has only just begun. I will be awaiting your presence."

The line cut.

Declan turned to his desk and rapidly transferred the design files to his laptop.

"While I do have the designs, I’m not very sure about the form they’ll take and the scientific possibility of those forms."

"I need someone versed in Mech physicality. And the only one I know who is the best in that... is Instructor Oileren."

A notification popped up, showing the files being transferred to his laptop.

When the transfer was completed, he shut it before slipping it into his bag.

The words of Instructor Oileren crossed his mind once more, and he paused.

He had said Declan had missed three classes.

A class only happened once a day, so had he been sitting in the same seat for three days?

He wasn’t sure, and in that moment, he decided to ask.

"Hey, System, how many days have passed exactly?"

"A total of 5 days."

The system panel flashed, and he froze, his jaw dropping in disbelief.

He’d been sitting down unmoving for five days!

"That’s a really long time, but at least I got a part of the job finally done,"

He muttered, placing the bag on his sofa before heading to the bathroom to take a bath.

Just fifteen minutes later, he stepped into the living room and donned a Tiffany blue lab coat.

Picking up the bag and his device, Declan stepped out of his room and headed straight to the elevator.

It was time to move on to the next phase of his plan: bringing the designs to life.

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