“It’s not fun if it’s too simple anyway,” Voxxy grinned. I got a peak of the engineering soul behind that sex presentation. “We need some kind of crane. That way, we can control the movement.”

“Hardest part will be to build the kind of clamp that can grab and release the cube,” I mumbled, scanning the materials for anything that worked.

Voxxy was already creating blueprints for some kind of claw. “I can do some wiring, no problem.”

“Alright… hmmm… the condition was ‘directly’ moving the cube, right?”

“Right! We can save ourselves a lot of distance and keep the crane itself smaller if we have a way to push the platforms together.”

“Do we know… never mind.” I meant to ask if we had any idea what surface the experiment would happen on. Looking over to the teacher, I realized that he had put the conditions for the experiment onto his own workbench while I wasn’t looking. The two platforms stood on a smooth, lacquered wood surface. Mister Jenkins was currently in the process of writing down any further information we may need, like the material and weight of the platforms. “Give me a moment, I need to re-create these.”

I dismissed the current constructs and resummoned them with the correct density. Voxxy weighed one in her hand, before redoing the model. With our two goals in mind, we moved into the design stage properly.

We needed three mechanisms and a way for them to move properly. First, we needed two horizontal hooks that could wrap around the platforms and pull them without toppling them over. Then we needed a simple crane that grabbed the cube, raised it the minimal amount, and then dropped it on the second platform. Lastly, we required the claw to actually grab it.

After having designed the shapes we needed, the next question was that of the force between each movement. The claw required constant pressure, so a motor solution made the most sense. Voxxy had already drawn up a design, so that task clearly would go to her. Since the crane would be lifting something, consistent movement via a motor would also be the best. Only the platform hooks, due to the amount of force needed, we decided was best done manually. A crank, of some sort.

Putting the final touch on our design, we quickly drafted a case that would put all of our three mechanisms into the same contraption. Then we got to work. I started with the hook, she with the claw. As we worked, we picked up where we had left off.

“So, why did you stop sleeping around?” I asked, hopeful to finally get a solid idea of how loose or not loose she was.

“Dunno, I grew out of it,” she answered dismissively. “Realized it wasn’t satisfying, so I stopped. Then there was this whole ‘comprehending the Dimensional Truth well enough to travel’ thing that kind of took my attention.”

“You got that solved though… what are you going to do now?”

Voxxy spoke quietly, staring at the stripped cables she was carefully securing inside the improvised claw, “Study… I got here because I heard that there were more interesting materials to work with… the whole Anomalia thing is just a hot side-bonus….”

“No more fucking random guys then?” I asked outright.

The green skinned shortstack did not answer immediately. “Fucking… I need something thin to push this in…” A moment after she said that, I handed her a manifested screwdriver that fit her requirements. “…you got the right tools for all the holes, don’t you stud?”

“In both presence and application,” I assured her. For a solid minute, we were just dedicated to our individual tasks.

“I dunno,” she finally answered. “Probably not? I love sex with big folk, but I was doing all of that because I was in it for the heat of the moment. Since you’re supposed to become part of a harem around here… yeah, no, wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do.”

“It really wouldn’t be,” I agreed with her.

I was dissatisfied that she looked at it from the perspective of ‘smart’ rather than ‘proper’. A minor hang-up. With all of that established, she was definitely on the list of potential interests. That she had done solo porn, I didn’t care about. A promiscuous past was mainly an issue if I had reason to believe she would fall back into old habits. The way she spoke made me believe that she was still interested in getting railed, but not enough so to ruin her chance of finding a permanent partner by becoming a free ride.

“My apologies for riddling you with such private questions.”

Voxxy waved it off with one hand and repeatedly tapped the power button of the claw with the other. It opened and closed without issue. “I don’t care about telling anyone about any of that. I’m not ashamed about it. I wanted to get fucked, I did the things to get fucked, now I want to be a haremette, so I’ll do the things to be a haremette. It’s that easy. How’re the hooks going?”

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“Pretty well,” I said, pulling the smaller of the two platforms with the improvised construction. For the sake of stability, I had extended the original plans upwards. A parallel bar ten centimetres above the first prevented excess wobbling. “You’ll take care of the crane; I’ll do the crank and casing?”

Voxxy nodded and we continued our work. “Much as I enjoy you penetrating me, stud, I think it’s my time to ask questions.”

“Shoot,” I responded jokingly.

“You said you already have a harem?”

“I have an Anomalia,” I stated. “I have a Queen. A second member is pending. Truly, her heart is mine already. Conditions of the world, her father most of all, demand a delay on the officialization of her status.”

“Is her father, like, a local or how the fuck does he even know about your relationship?”

“He’s the headmaster.”

“…Are you fucking with me? Because this is the kind of fucking with I don’t enjoy.”

I gave her a smile of sunshine and rainbows. “Read my lips, for you have missed much in your four months’ delay – I am Karitas, almost certainly the strongest fighter of the freshmen. For my deeds I was awarded a mansion to live in for the first year and I share it with the woman I fought for it, alongside the headmaster’s daughter, and my friends.” Generously, I gestured towards the rest of the classroom. “You can ask just about anyone here for confirmation.”

“…Gimme a moment,” Voxxy stepped off the bench and waddled to the nearest woman in the room.

Contently, I smiled, waiting for her inevitable return. I did quite enjoy being an outstanding individual. Whenever I boasted, I could back it up. The boasting itself was nice in a limited way. It was the respectful expression of the goblin on her return that I truly cared for.

“And here I thought you were just some big-dicked guy with confidence,” she said.

“I am that and much more.” With one push, I snapped a piece of metal into the cranking mechanism. “I know you wanted to ask me some questions, but another one just came to mind. Want to share those personal reasons you were missing this long in the first place?”

Voxxy played with her bright red hair as she answered. Her answer was a quiet mutter at first. Correcting that on her own, she repeated herself after a sigh. “I passed the exams but I wasn’t able to figure out the whole ‘dimension travelling at will’ for a while…”

“Ah.” I stayed quiet and looked at her intently for a little bit. She seemed genuinely bashful. The connection she had to the Dimensional Truth had to be awfully weak for her to need an additional four months to figure out how to get to Welldark – presumably with the aid of whoever had gotten her to the exam. “If you need someone to show you around, you can give me a call sometime.” Before she responded, I had already written down the first few letters of my number on her graph paper. “Or just drop me a text message.”

“Hmm, I just might,” she purred in an overtly sexual way.

We continued chatting about this and that. Primarily, she asked me about how magic functioned, taking great interest in my Artefact and gravity spells. I continued to explore her sexual openness for a little while, until I was truly firm in my knowledge that she had left the slut life behind. From there on out, I was more interested in what her hands were doing. Since she fulfilled my two most basic requirements (being attractive and potentially exclusive to me), I naturally grew more intrigued by what she was capable of.

Of the two of us, she was definitely the better engineer. Most of my building talents were raw and physical in nature. I was impressive at visualizing what I wanted to create and to pick the correct parts to accomplish that goal. Voxxy could do both of these things, and she could sketch her solutions, and she understood how to abuse the laws of physics much better than I did.

We put our contraption together, tested it, ironed out some kinks, improved on it, and finally declared it finished. Had it not been for the delay we took due to our ‘bathroom break’, we would have been… about fifth to finish. The four that went ahead of us all utilized much simpler solutions. They did not care about the prize money.

A common design used by our peers was a swinging claw. It grabbed the cube on one side, swung up in a near semi-circle overhead, and released the cube once over the second platform. Hilariously, they proved that our claw was immensely overdesigned. With wire and some metal, most of the people in the room had created a manually workable clamp. They never touched the cube directly.

One person, the one to finish first, actually took it so far that they had come with nothing but a hastily created pan and prod. They pushed the cube into the pan and then just carried it over to the second platform. The teacher complimented them on their time efficiency and reprimanded their lack of application of engineering knowledge. That same person would go on to bring a second, more appropriate model later.

As for our contraption, it worked perfectly. Having an accurate test station gave us a definite, probably unfair advantage. Where everyone else had studied the floorplan of the labyrinth at the entrance, we marched in there with the map. The hooks pulled the platforms together, the claw gripped, the crane went up, and the cube was placed properly on the elevated ground.

We were certain of our victory for the longest while. There was a moment of uncertainty towards the end of the class, when a design clearly inspired by ours was placed on the table. A key improvement was that this improved contraption aimed to not push the two platforms together, but also raised the starting one to the level of the target. That made the crane entirely superfluous, as it would only take a nudge to get the cube to its destination. It was, doubtlessly, the minimum amount of movement.

It also did not work.

The elevation mechanism was not strong enough to keep the platform clasped. With the materials provided and in the time given, the team of three had not managed to construct a horizontal grip sturdy enough. Another hour would have doubtlessly let them solve that issue, but that was the end of the class.

“Fifty Dark split between Karitas and Voxxy. Good job you two,” the androgynous teacher complimented the two of us. “Good job to the rest of you as well. Some of your machines did not work, but all designs were promising. We’ll continue these kinds of contests for the remaining three lessons. I want all of you to apply what you have learned this semester.”

We all answered in the affirmative.

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