Acrid, dark smoke welled up from the hood of one of the involved cars, a white little Toyota with its front crushed and the whole of its side dented. A red Ford lay on its side near the railing, its wheels spinning, and a gray pickup with the motor still running stood between them, much of it torn apart.

  A few people were scattered around the vehicles, waving their arms about, or with phones pressed to their ears, screaming into them. Luke drew in a deep breath and ran to the tipped over car to look through the cracked windshield. The driver was the only one inside, lying on his side near the ground. His eyes were wide open. Blood welled from his nose, staining the front of his T-shirt.

  "No seatbelt," Luke murmured as he heaved himself up to the side of the car, careful not to tip it over. Leaning into the open driver's side window, he couldn't quite reach. Extending his arm, he shimmied himself farther into the car while holding on to the sides with his legs to prevent himself from falling in and on top of the injured driver, who was staring up at Luke with wide eyes. The driver's open mouth moved, but no words came out.

  Even with Weaver's Grasp, Luke couldn't reach.

  "Your arm!" Luke shouted.

  "Guh?" was all the driver was able to say, his gaze going from Luke's face to the thread of mana almost connecting them.

  "Arm!" Luke tried again. This time, the word registered and the injured driver reached out.

  The thread latched on to one of the driver's fingers, and Luke got to work. Weaver's Eye gave Luke a clear image of what was wrong the moment he reached the car. Internal bleeding. Broken nose. Crushed femur. Several cracked ribs and, among all other things, an inflamed appendix.

  So many things were wrong, and all Luke could do was fix one thing at a time. First, the bleeding. The mess made around his insides made for a difficult time identifying the sources of bleeding, but once he did, stopping the flows required almost no mana. After dealing with the worst of the fractures, Luke decided the appendix needed seeing to.

  However bad it’d been before the crash, it was now throbbing, close to bursting. If it ruptured out there on the highway, sepsis and infection would follow, and the driver’s life expectancy would drop to mere hours in the condition he was in.

  Needle of Life was a bit of a misleading name for the skill, because it worked just as well as a scalpel. Luke began his impromptu appendectomy by separating the inflamed appendix from the surrounding tissue. Following that first step, he threaded mana to close the incision, then grimaced as he attempted something new and cut his way out of his patient from the inside.

  The driver heaved and shuddered, like he was about to vomit, then screamed, pulling his outstretched hand away. On instinct, Luke reached. Not with his hand, but with another thread of mana, trying to grab hold of his patient. Half-expecting it, or perhaps even full-expecting the thread to pass through the hand, Luke's eyes widened when it didn't. Instead, the thread of mana wrapped itself around the driver's hand and wrist, forcing him to stay in contact with Luke's healing.

  The wriggling and screaming made for a difficult time, but Luke soon opened his eyes to see the driver's T-shirt bulging outward as he pushed the appendix out of him. It flopped out from under the shirt and fell with a squish as Luke closed the wound. The patient still screamed when Luke let go, heaved himself up, and dropped from the toppled over car. Perhaps the driver wouldn't thank him for the rough treatment, but at least he'd live.

  "You're one of them, aren't you?" someone asked.

  Luke turned to find a young teenager with his phone pointed straight ahead, filming him.

  "Are you filming me?" Luke asked.

  "Well, aren't you? One of the new superheroes, I mean?" the boy asked.

  "Sure, kid," Luke chuckled, turning away to check out the other injured.

  The driver in the pickup truck just sat there, staring straight ahead. There wasn't anything wrong with him, at least not injury-wise, so Luke left him there. Unfortunately, that did not hold true for the old couple in the Toyota. They were dead. Judging by their injuries, they'd been killed in the crash. A relief, in a way. If they'd died because he prioritized the younger driver first, then these two might've weighed on his conscience.

  Not wanting to get into a philosophical discussion with himself about weighing one life against another, Luke left the scene, ignoring the gathering crowd. Ambulance sirens wailed in the distance, getting closer. This hadn't been the first time he ever saw dead people, but it hammered down the difference between the Tutorial Dungeon and the real world. Here, death was permanent.

  By the time Luke made it back into the city, he was once again a sweating mess, but he felt a little better even than when he'd run that same distance just a little earlier.

  System Message: Boon of Potential grants you an attribute point (+1 Agility).

  If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Closing down the interface and nodding to himself, Luke couldn't help but feel triumphant over his choice of boon. Three attribute points already, two more and it would equal an entire level. Considering his level drew his attention to another bar he hadn't paid much attention to since leaving the Tutorial Dungeon, the experience bar. It'd moved.

  "What the," Luke said, stopping to consider. Did he gain experience from running? No, that couldn't be it. The healing! Of course! Since he was a healer, it made perfect sense that he'd gain experience from doing just that, healing. This meant he could level without ever getting in harm's way. If he just parked his ass in a hospital and healed people, he'd level up in no time.

  Enthusiastic about the choices he'd made so far, Luke hurried farther into the center of Chicago, toward the orb, walking at a comfortable pace to cool off after all that running. The directions from Ray were easy enough to follow, and he soon joined his friend at a table by an open-air bar. The place was crowded. Music blared from speakers affixed to the wall of the building. Cars drove right by, and a little farther down the street, a group of people were waving signs around, shouting something that was drowned out by the music. Several of those sitting down around the tables played with daggers and other weapons, and someone had created a flower made out of fire for decoration. A waitress created ice out of thin air to cool down peoples' drinks, getting shouts of excitement from the patrons while others threw nervous glances at a flying imp-like creature sitting on a red haired woman's shoulder. Things were changing.

  "About time!" Ray shouted, wrinkling his nose as Luke high-stepped over the red rope that sectioned off the bar. "Didn't you say you were going to shower?"

  Ray was the same age as Luke, but where Luke was skinny, Ray carried around quite a bit more heft. Now, though, some of that weight looked to have melted off him. Still overweight, to be sure, but not like before. Part of him becoming Integrated, perhaps. His long brown hair was up in its usual bun at the top of his head, like he played at being a samurai, and he still wore his signature cargo shorts and a black anime T-shirt. At least he'd stopped wearing the fedora.

  "Ran back into town," Luke said, sitting down with a glass of water he'd retrieved from the bar.

  "Really?" Ray asked, crossing his arms over his chest and leaning back in his chair. "Sounds exhausting."

  "It is," Luke agreed. "But I got two attribute points out of it. Endurance and Agility."

  "For real?" Ray asked, leaning forward instead to rest his arms and hands on the glass table separating them. "What's that Boon called?"

  "Boon of Potential," Luke said.

  Ray sighed. "Didn't see that one."

  "What did you pick?" Luke asked.

  "Boon of Silent Kills. It lets me attack from stealth without revealing myself."

  "That sounds decent," Luke said.

  Ray showed his teeth in a wide grin. "I'd wreck you in a one-on-one."

  Luke shook his head. "I'm a healer."

  "What were you thinking?"

  "That I wanted to heal people."

  "Right," Ray said. "So dumb. Beer?"

  "Just water for now. Thanks," Luke said. "So you mentioned something about lizardmen? My dungeon didn’t have those."

  Ray shuddered. "They were everywhere. Thick-skinned lizard bastards running around with bows and daggers. One got me good, but I hid and stealthed away. Had to wait around a long while until I could sneak out through the portal thing and complete the dungeon."

  "You didn't kill the boss?" Luke asked.

  Ray grimaced. "No way. That thing was huge."

  "Fair enough. Need healing?"

  "The DIA patched me up once I was out, but it still kinda hurts like fuck. Throw your most powerful healing spell at me, oh greatest healer."

  Luke put his hand on the table, grimacing at its stickiness. "Give me your hand."

  "Why?" Ray asked, pulling back.

  "Need to touch you to heal."

  "For real?" Ray asked. "That's pretty grim."

  "Shut up. You want healing or don't you?"

  "Fine, fine," Ray said, putting his hand on the table.

  Luke grabbed it. Having sensed the wound on the back of Ray's upper thigh as soon as he sat down, Luke knew what to do right away. Since it wasn't infected and he spotted no poison or venom in Ray's body, he just sutured it together.

  "Motherf-" Ray shouted, slamming his free hand down on the table. His eyes bulged, and he gritted his teeth, then tried to pull away. Luke grabbed hold and finished his work.

  Once Luke withdrew, Ray emptied his considerable glass of beer, sighed, and then shuddered. "You are without a doubt the worst healer I've ever met."

  "I'm the only healer you've ever met."

  "True," Ray said. "Still the worst."

  An air of excitement filled the city and the two of them chatted away for a few moments, enjoying themselves in the early summer day until Ray’s phone dinged and he brought it out, raising an eyebrow.

  "Have you seen this?" he asked, showing Luke the screen.

  A couple of article headlines popped up:

  Integrated banned from participation in the NBA!

  How can you protect yourself against the Integrated?

  10 tips to deal with your Integrated colleagues.

  How to leverage your Integrated status into higher-paying jobs.

  "Just a bunch of dumb shit," Luke muttered, shaking his head.

  Then another headline appeared on the screen:

  US PRESIDENT SIGNS EXECUTIVE ORDER INTO PLACE REGULATING ACCESS TO INTEGRATION ORBS. CITIZENS DENIED!

  "Oh crap," Luke grunted. Such a nice day ruined.

  "What?" Ray asked, pulling his phone back to look at the screen. His face turned red and his nostrils flared as he shook his head. "What does that bloated fuck think he's doing?"

  Luke's mind raced. This was not something he'd foreseen. Looking around, more people had just found the headline, and they weren't pleased. Not at all. This wasn't how it was supposed to go, with the government coming in and forcing their way of thinking on everyone. The orb and the system were for all of them. They all needed to grow stronger, together.

  He stood, pushing his chair back with enough force to topple it over. "Let's go!"

  "Where?" Ray asked, looking up from his phone.

  "Where the hell do you think?" Luke asked. "We're going to take back the orb!"

  Ray stood and raised his fist into the air, a wicked-looking dagger materializing in it. "Hell yeah, we are!"