(18) Upgrades

I open the door and notice Yasuna hastily getting up from her desk and walking over.

“What did you do now?” She asks me.

“So did Mia and Aiko tell you, or did you find out about it yourself?” I ask.

“The second one, it’s all over the forums and message groups.” She replies.

“*DEEP SIGH*, of course it is. How much is this going to affect me?” I plainly seek.

“Well…” she thinks about it for a second, then tells “Other than being offered a position as a professor, not much.”

I rapidly blink, then question. “Professor? How does beating someone with an FTK make me anywhere near qualified enough to teach about duel theory?”

She shrugs. “Good point, but the money is good.”

“Yasuna, I’m already getting paid for just being here. Why would I want the headache of having to deal with students?”

“Ask the Director. You can just refuse if you don’t want to, you can also just refuse, there’s nothing that prevents you from doing that. I think if you reject it, you are going to be excluded from mandatory attendance for his class.”

“I already am. For the first year, at least, I just went because I felt like seeing what it was!” I once again reveal.

“Then I don’t know what the director will do. This is quite literally unprecedented.”

“Well, anyway, I’m not accepting the offer for the job if he gives it.”

“I would call you crazy but you've already shown that you are.” Yasuna jokes.

With that discussion over, I sit down by my desk and bring out my duel disk after putting my phone in. I’m quite interested in changing my gear now that I have resources to do so. First, I go to GlobalNet and check out that company that Yasuna mentioned, dragonfruit. From their GlobalNet site, looks like they are a high-end electronics manufacture that sells phones, smartwatches, Home projectors and all sorts of other stuff. Their dueling equipment options are only duel disks and duel gazers, at least for the individual. They appear to sell some more beefy solid vision projectors to venues. There’s also a list of duel runner companies listed that are “DragonFruit Verified” and only those duel runners are compatible with their duel disks…

Wait…

I facepalm.

‘How did I take this long to realize that this is just Apple?!’

Being a techy back home makes this a lot worse, as I should have realized that when Yasuna said they’re the only company that make duel disk only compatible with their own fucking phones!

Going over to forums and review sites makes this even more apparent as the general image of them is “That tech company for rich people”

You’d think this would make me not touch them with a 10-foot pole, but quite the contrary… I’m not broke. And as such, I have more than the… 6000@s!!!!!! Holy shit! 2000 dollar phone everyone! and there’s even a bundle called: “The Ultimate Experience” that includes their top phone, earbuds and smartwatch… for 7500@.

I’m pondering, pulling the trigger. It’s scary how much my self-control is going down the drain. I still have 9400@ in my account and I wouldn’t be opposed to leaving 1900 for a month… I mean, excluding food, I don’t really have any more expenses… Fuck it. I bookmark the page and open the NWDA app, searching for the top of the line DragonFruit duel disk and end up finding a bundle with a duel gazer for 350DC. By the way, the names don’t help the apple comparison. Hear this, the bundle comes with a “DFphone XXV Pro Max”, “FruitPods Infinity+6” and “FruitWatch Tetra Pro”. And the duel disk? “DragonDisk Max 8”, the duel gazer doesn’t have a name, as they are impossible to order out of a bundle.

So am I pulling the trigger?

…

I just did

…

[Purchase Confirmed for DRAGONFRUIT INC -7500@]

[DC renewal successful, your package will arrive by tube.]

Honestly, it’s impressive how fast I can make myself broke, well you know what they say? A salary is not a onetime payment… I’m pretty sure that’s a saying having to do with not hiring people that aren’t necessary, but anyway…

Yasuna seems too busy on her PC, which, by the way, it’s the only stationary computer I have ever seen since coming here, even after having been to the director’s office in the city and here.

After waiting for 20 minutes, I get the notification that both my packages are ready to pick up. So I get up, storing my duel disk, and make my way out of the room.

“Where are you going?” Asks Mia.

“Oh, just got a delivery.” I tell her.

That made Yasuna perk up right away.

“Don’t tell me… What did you get?” Yasuna asks, exasperated.

“You’ll see.” I say, closing the door.

I ride down the elevator to the lobby that this time is a lot more empty. Next to the front desk, there’s a locker that has the symbol for “Tube Express”. I walk up to it. Miss Umeda is still at the front desk and we exchange a “Good night” but she seems busy with something else.

I don’t pay attention to it and just hold my phone up to the locker.

[Two packages pending. Retrieve?]

After selecting to retrieve both and waiting a minute, the locker opens to reveal two boxes, one larger than the other. I grab them, close the locker, and hurry back to the dorm room.

Opening the door, I see Yasuna talking with the twins, but they stop when I enter.

“So, what’s the damage?” Yasuna asks.

“Hehe, wouldn't you like to know?” I gleefully state with a teasing smirk.

I close the door and put down both packages on my desk. Yasuna stands up and walks behind me to look at what I bought.

“Noooo…. You didn’t!” She exclaims.

I put my hand over my head like in a theater performance and joke “The temptation was too much!”

“Haha, hilarious. Now, how about you open it so I can see how much you’ve spent?” She retorts.

“Good idea.” I say.

But first I took out my duel disk and ejected both decks so I wouldn’t have to do it later.

Opening the bigger box. Inside is a phone sized box with "DFphone XXV Pro Max” written on it and two other smaller ones with the other bundled items. I open the box revealing a 7 inch bezel-less smartphone which, again, just looked like a pane of glass with rounded edges.

Grabbing it, I find it feels surprisingly good in the hand. I touch the screen and it turns on.

[Welcome to DragonPhone, Please transfer your Virtual ID to proceed.]

“Hey Yasuna, I don’t feel like reading the manual. How do I do that?” I ask.

“Just hold your older phone next to it.”

I do as instructed and, after an identity check and confirmation on my old phone, the process starts. Virtual ID, as I found out later, is the individual id every person who lives in a city gets, it is a requirement to access the GlobalNet and can only exist on one device at a time, other devices that also access GlobalNet - like a smartwatch or a stationary computer - can be configured as secondary devices and need to either check in with the primary once per day in case of PCs or are always connected in case smartwatches or other personal gadgets. The box has a duel disk adapter inside, but Yasuna tells me it’s not needed if I use it with DF duel disk. Continuing the setup allows me to transfers over my old data and ends with making me creating a Dragonfruit account based on my V.I....

Phone done with, I set it down and move to the other boxes

I open both smaller ones that came in the bundle. The watch is not any different from a smartwatch I’ve seen back in my world. After putting it and after synching it. I learn that it’s very neat; it shows the time and notifications like you would expect, but also has a micro solid vision projector that can project hand-held items.

I move on to the earbuds and am surprised by their shape and how light the case is, which doesn’t seem to have a battery.

“Hey Yasuna, how I’m I supposed to use these?” I ask.

“Oh, just put em in deep.” She reveals.

“What?”

“Well, they’re supposed to be always in.”

I raise an eyebrow. “What about earwax?”

“They both have a nano solid vision projector used to mimic the natural process of wax removal.”

“Gross…” I murmur.

“Better than going deaf.”

“True that.”

So I push them in until I can’t hear the outside.

[{Synching successful, adjusting}]

I feel them moving around in my ear. It’s a really strange and disturbing feeling.

When they stop moving around, I hear again.

“Yuumi?”

“Yes, I can hear you now.”

I look at the phone, which now shows a menu that allows me to change the sensitivity and other modes. Just to test them, I crank the sensitivity slider all the way up.

“YES YES! LICK ME THERE!!! OH YES!”

I quickly turn it back down… My face turning red like a tomato.

“I was about to mention… You don’t really want to hear what people are doing around this time…” Yasuna warns.

…

…

After an awkward silence, I move to store the now empty boxes into the big bundle one and put it in one of my drawers.

I move on to the duel disk box. Opening it reveals the duel disk itself with a duel gazer, plus the usual armband and belt clip. The duel disk is smaller, just about one centimeter larger than the phone that goes in it, but somehow heavier and much denser.

“It doesn’t look that impressive.” I comment.

“Huh, read this.”

She passes me over the manual for it she grabbed when I opened the box.

It says: “The new Dragon Disk Max 8 is equipped with 28 full powered solid vision projectors with the ability to lift off and project a 20 person duel independently!”

“Lift off?” I mutter and look at Yasuna.

She shrugs “I don’t know, honestly I know little about DF duel disks other than their basic specs.”

I slot in my new phone.

[Preparing Duel Disk..........]

‘At least the old one told me what it was doing.’

After a minute of waiting, it continued

[Private Duel Disk, Registering Owner]

“Ouch!”

[Owner Registered, Applying NWDA Customizations... Complete]

[Welcome, Yuumi Matsunaga.]

The interface differs from the old one and resembles the phone’s interface design.

With that done, I change the old duel disk accessories for the new ones. Then after registering the duel gazer, I collapse it down and store it in the disk like the setup process told me to do.

I take the duel gazer back out and wear it, then turn around to face Yasuna and my other roommates.

“So, how do I look?” I ask doing a pose.

“Like one of those rich girls from the blue dorm.” Tells Yasuna.

“Come on Yasuna. Yuumi looks good!” Mia complements.

“I just don’t like the idea of you using that as a red rank…” Yasuna says.

“What? Who would rob me?” I ask.

“Well, no, it’s just that there may be blue ranks that claim you stole from them.”

“What? I’m sorry, isn’t this stuff like registered to my own ID?”

“Yes, but they could go to the front desk and claim you did. Then you would have to go there to prove the purchase.”

“Then so be it. I don’t care.”

“It’s your choice.” Yasuna finishes and goes back to her “Battle station”

I fold the gazer back up and store it. Then store the duel disk box and my old gear in another drawer.