That evening, [Come to my room when you are available.]
Minx looked at Logan's message. Her watch read 9:30. Curfew was 30 minutes away. She was moments away from walking into the dorms. She decided to head up to his room.
[Be there soon.]
In Logan's room she saw a metallic L-shaped kitchen. It was complete with a sink, cabinets, plates, cookware, stove and oven.
Minx stared at the contraption. Not only was it a marvel but she could see cleared floor-space in the normally cluttered room. "This is incredible! Is this for me???" She stared at it in awe.
Logan hit a button on the side of an upper cabinet above the sink. She watched raptly while the whole thing folded into a 2 1/2 feet wide cube. Her eyes were as wide as saucers with shock.
"Give this a try. You will need to add water to the tank under the sink. It's operated off an integrated beast crystal, so you now have access to an oven while cooking outside. It also doesn't need fire so there is no risk of burning the school down," Logan stated with no facial expression.
"You are brilliant!" Minx exclaimed, jumping up and down clapping her hands like a 5-year-old.
"Please save the praise until the equipment has been testing under various conditions. Run with it, fast-packing, comfort in carrying it, these sorts of things. Here is the bag I designed to carry it in."
Logan handed her a metallic backpack. The straps looked comfortable, the material flexible like cloth. She carefully placed the kitchen in. She threaded her arms through the straps and realized there was a second strap that she could wrap around her waist that provided additional stability.
"Thank you, Logan!"
She put her arms out and took a step clearly intending to hug him but stopped herself. Instead, she smiled, waved and bounded from the room unable to control her excitement. She returned to her room 10 minutes from curfew. She hugged her backpack then placed it with reverence next to her bed. Raven was already asleep, so she did her routine and struggled to sleep, excited to test out Logan's gift.
On Saturday, Minx decided to walk around campus since it appeared safer than the park before heading over to her tree. This enabled her to listen to the trees and at least see the area Tucker liked to hang out in. She saw Vorden sitting on a bench just outside the first-year building. She decided to walk up and sit down.
Vorden turned his head to see who it was and sighed, "oh no, not you again."
Minx giggled at him, "don't like much me, huh?"
Vorden sighed, almost in defeat, "you're trouble."
She smiled brightly, "that makes us perfect for each other," she smirked then returned to a serious expression. "Look. I'm not asking you to like me. You can hate me if you want. You are way above my station, and I need to stick to my lane of no-man's land. Midas and the others are busy, and I was hoping to spar with someone. I'm not ready to show everything to my team yet. Since you can keep a secret, I was hoping to borrow the nice one in there."
Vorden looked shocked, "nice one? Who's nice?"
Vorden: Raten, you can't be serious. You can't spar with this girl! Heck, you've already kissed her once!
Raten: You need to let us out more. And she is asking nicely. She is not like the others. We can trust her. Get out of that chair. I'm taking over and I'm helping her.
Vorden sighed and let Raten take the chair.
"The one who held that bastard's arms for me. The one who wore such a sexy smile I couldn't resist kissing him and holding his hand. He can fight. Maybe he can help me improve."
Vorden didn't hear anything past sexy as Raten took over. "The name's Raten," he said with that same smile.
She grinned, "did he tell you my name?"
"Actually, I see most of what he does. Only when the Little One is upset do I miss things. It's nice to be officially meet you, Minx."
"It's nice to meet you too, Raten. I'd like to meet the Little One? as well someday but for today, my combat style uses trees so can we go over to the Agricultural Club?"
"Trees?!?! Um, sure. Only if I can walk behind you and stare at your arse the whole way."
She laughed and her face turned red, "I guess." She got up and headed off to the grounds her favorite tree was living on with a smiling Raten trailing behind her.
Later that day, Minx was able to have time to fully explore her new kitchen. She was a bit sore from her match with Raten. She had missed what he did to Brandon, having only seen the aftermath. She learned a lot just in the one session. They had agreed Monday, Wednesday and Saturday pending any issues that came up. With working with him, she would work with Raven on Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday with Friday to spend as much time working with Dr. Hayley as possible to gain experience.
After he, as Vorden, left to return to his friends, Minx decided to pull out her new contraption. It was lunchtime, after all. She felt she was the best person to test out new technological advances meant for the general population. As long as she and technology were at odds, if she could use this contraption, the potential was great for opportunities in the future.
She had already inspected the outside of the bag. There were 2 pockets on each side at the base of the bag which currently held her four pots with dirt. The back side had other pockets which currently held bottles of water. The top was secure enough to keep anything from getting in, such as rain or sand in a blowing conditions. There were pockets inside which would be good to hold seasonings.
Logan instructed her not to store anything inside the kitchen as it would not fold up. Only the parts he made would do so. Adding anything would prevent the folding process.
There was an insulated open space in the middle to store other things. If they were planning on being gone a few days, meat could be stored in there. It would be preserved for a few days, longer if ice was used.
Next, she tried to remove the kitchen and realized everything needed to come out to remove it. This was a negative in her book. She did as she needed to do then she pulled out the kitchen. She found an up arrow and placed the cube on the ground in accordance with the arrow and pressed the button.
She watched in awe as the kitchen built itself before her eyes. She could have sworn there were little spiders forming different aspects of the kitchen. She observed the kitchen leveling itself on this dirt ground. She smiled at how cleanly and efficiently it built up. She hit the button again and watched the time on her watch. It took less than three minutes to reform into a cube.
She giggled like a child, hitting the button once more, bouncing up and down in excitement "Now to try it out."
Just as she hit the button again, her friends arrived carrying bags of food from the store with their weekly food purchases.
Everyone gawked at what she was standing in front of. She grinned at everyone.
"Do you like my new kitchen? Since you're here Aqua, can you fill the water tank?"
"Easy," he smiled.
"Where did you get this contraption?" Revlis said in wonder.
Midas' jaw was on the floor.
"Our classmate invented it and asked me to test it out," she smiled.
She looked in all the cabinets and drawers to see what she had and where it was all stored. She assumed everything needed to go back to these exact spots for the folding process to work. Logan incorporated everything she had in her bag.
She checked to make sure everything worked meticulously. Everything seemed to work properly. The real test was to actually use it.
She grew food in an arc instead of a circle around her, from one corner around to the other. This allowed her to have all the ingredients she needed at her fingertips. If something was too far away, they were able to hand some of the items to her. This worked well for her as she integrated this gadget into her cooking routine. The placement of everything enabled her to find what she needed easily. The stove heated evenly and cooked far quicker than she was used to.
What she did know why or how but cooking faster was better, in a field-type situation. She made up a salad and soup and even a very hearty bread. She made extra bread as she had become accustomed to doing just in case. She didn't want to use the "clean" button just yet. She wanted to wait on that because she has some recipes she wanted to try.
At the 3-month mark, the student marketplace would open. She could have a stall on campus, and she wanted to be the first to sign up amongst her fellow club-members. This meant she could sell not only fresh produce, but pies, jams, and tarts as well.
This kitchen could expand her capabilities enough so that she could increase her potential profits. Maybe she could expand to making fresh food right there in the stall. Even with Power Fighter, the boys were making slow progress on increasing their skills and abilities.
She needed to buy those ability books. Maybe having them help her, so they would feel they earned them through their own work would be beneficial.
She decided to try that now. She made each person a blueberry pie and a strawberry tart, with an extra that she made for Vorden as a thank you. Once she was done cooking, she hit the "clean" button and watched as little spiders formed arms that came down from the bottom of the upper cabinets and scrubbed down the surfaces using the water that Aqua put in the tank.
She then sat down with everyone, and they enjoyed the dishes she made.
"I'll cook that meat up for dinner. In the meantime, the kitchen has a mini-fridge."