“Can I give you some advice?” Sandwich asked. He had walked over when she started listing out her class choices.

  “Sure,” Vanessa said. “As long as it is quick. Luke says I gotta be quick.”

  “You have at least twenty minutes,” Sandwich said. “I asked around about classes for a while before I actually got one. All of the chosen have different philosophies about their classes, but one thing everyone agrees on is that you should choose the class that calls to you the most. Something that feels like you on a deeper level.

  “You’ll be stuck with this class for the rest of your life. Don’t choose something permanent to solve a temporary problem. Don’t choose what you think you should choose. Pick what you want to pick, and the practical considerations will fall into place later.”

  Luke nodded along, that was good advice.

  Vanessa tilted her head to the side and then turned to Luke. “Would you be ok if I ended up with a terrible class? ‘Cus, I think the Passionate Brawler is the better monster hunting class. It’s all about fighting and the skills will help me hit harder. The Elemental Pitcher, though. It might be useless, worse than the arm cannons you made for me.”

  “Sounds like you want to pick Elemental Pitcher anyway, otherwise you wouldn’t be conflicted. Go ahead. This monster hunting thing might last for a year or ten. But your class is with you for life. Sandwich is right. Pick the one you really want.”

  “Ok. I’m gonna do it.” She clapped her gauntlets with a clang and hopped in place.

  She stared off into space and Luke knew she was looking at the system interface. She stood motionless for a little while, her eyes darting around like she was reading something. After a moment or two, she doubled over and held her stomach.

  “Ugh, that felt weird. Almost like period cramps. Why didn’t you warn me?” she said.

  Luke saw a slight fuzziness around her stomach. He said, “Looks like you just got your mana core. It felt weird, but not painful, right?”

  “I guess not. But still, weird. I wanna say invasive, but that’s not right. It’s part of me now. It’s like suddenly discovering I have a tail. All these new sensations.”

  “It’s something else, that’s for sure. What skill choices did you get?”

  “I didn’t get a choice. It just gave me a skill. It’s called Power Juggle. I can grab and well, juggle, energy. Like lightning and fire, but not poison and ice. Not yet. I think I’ll be able to grab them when I have more levels in the skill.” Vanessa held out her hand. “I wanna try it now. Hit me with some lightning!”

  “No way. If you aren’t able to catch it you’ll be seriously injured, maybe die. We aren’t going to test out Power Juggle by risking your life every time.”

  Vanessa’s shoulders slumped and she exaggeratedly said, “Awww. But I wanna.”

  Luke chuckled and said, “We’ll talk to Kruro after we get back. I bet she knows some novice elemental runes that would be safe enough.”

  “Well then, let’s go!” she said and started walking south.

  “Wait, wait, we gotta pack up first,” Luke said with a laugh.

  They grabbed all the magic mortars and everyone gave Luke the monster cores they had harvested. He had brought a bag for them, and was glad now that he had been optimistic. They ended up with 53 tier one mana cores. It was the biggest haul they had ever had.

  They hurried back to the estate village. Luke had the drone scout ahead so they could avoid monsters on the way back. Vanessa wanted to try out her new class, Luke needed to learn his new rune from the inner runewright, and everyone else got the rest of the day off.

  As they entered the city, Shepard turned to Luke and said, “So, how many bonuses do we get for today? Five, right?”

  “What? No. One bonus for the day. I should split the 10k bonus between all eight of us, but I’ll be generous and give everyone 2k each.” Luke replied.

  “That’s bullshit. We brought you over 200k in cores. You can afford to spread the wealth, don’t try and deny it.”

  Luke frowned. “That’s assuming we get full price, this many cores may tank the market. But you don’t need to worry about the company's financial strategies. I’m giving you more than the daily bonus we agreed on. You are right, you brought me a lot of cores, but that’s basically all you did. I’m the one that gathered information, made the plan and bait, built the mortars and killed most of the monsters from their ambush. You are getting a short day and 2k on top of your salary for a little bit of harvesting. Which, again, is more than you were promised.”

  “Oh, so you get to get rich off our work and you say that’s fair?” Shepard said. He swore and shook his head. He glanced back at Barrow, Green, and Davis and they gave him a nod. Shepard turned back to Luke and said, “We quit. We are tired of you taking advantage of us. We have a better offer elsewhere.”

  Luke stopped walking. “What? Who’s giving you job offers?”

  Shepard flipped up his visor and gave him a wide grin. “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  Luke rolled his eyes. “Don’t try to be all mysterious. You clearly plan on working for one of the other estate villages. I was just wondering which one.” He flipped his hand. “Anyway. I accept your resignation. You’ll still get your pay for this week, and today’s bonus. We won’t miss you.”

  Shepard kept smiling. “You keep thinking that. Come on, boys.”

  Luke cleared his throat. “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  “What is it now?” Shepard growled out.

  “Those mechs aren’t yours. They are company property of Monster Jaeger Inc.”

  “Uh, no. These four are the ones Kruro made. You don’t own them. I’ll talk to her about buying them off her, don’t you worry your little head about it.”

  “That’s where you are wrong. Cormac gave me all of the mech suits when I took over.”

  “Bullshit, you are just making that up,” Shepard said, his voice wavering.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Luke gestured towards Kruro’s shop. “Ask yourself. When she tells you that you made a huge mistake, then go ahead and leave the mechs at the back of her shop. I’ll have Bumblebee and Sandwich escort you back to Earth.”

  Shepard mumbled some nonsense words and hurried into the runewright’s place. It wasn’t long before the workshop exploded into yelling and cursing. Luke did his best to remain professional as they flipped out.

  It would be a little inconvenient to have the extra mechs here instead of on Earth, but Luke thought this would be best. Getting them to relinquish the mechs here was easier than on Earth when they could just lie about who owned them and walk off. Here they had Kruro weaving her tail around the mech’s legs and giving them a little extra motivation to give up the machines. It took some convincing, but eventually they left the mechs and were escorted out.

  Luke admitted to himself that he felt a great deal of schadenfreude watching them go. Shepard and his friends were jerks and he had already been planning on firing them. This way, they couldn’t claim unemployment. Training the new hires would be a little harder now, but at least they wouldn’t have a bad influence.

  “Sorry about them, Kruro. At least this will be the last you see of them,” Luke said after Sandwich led them out.

  “I hope so. You should have exiled them when they let Bumblebee get hurt,” Kruro grumbled.

  “Yeah, probably. Anyway, that’s the last we will see of them,” Luke said. “Oh, by the way. You mentioned you wanted to talk to me about a rumor involving me. Did you hear more about that?”

  “I did. It seems the seer believes you are being groomed as Lord Edobar’s Malamon champion should we lose the first phase.” She looked at him to gauge his reaction. Luke did his best to nod noncommittally. She continued, “If that were the case, that would be very bad for you.”

  “I’ve heard a little about Malamons. I understand some of the staff could die in the event of a loss, but the combatants weren’t in danger. Was I wrong?”

  She slashed her hands down. “No, warriors are not sacrificed to the gods. The only danger is accidental killings. The fights are always intense. The only reason I mentioned the rumor is that although the warriors don’t get sacrificed, the champion does. He’s the one that leads the trial and is the first to be sacrificed in the event of a loss.”

  Luke grimaced. “Kruro, hopefully your coalition wins, but if not I will make sure not to accept any champion title.”

  She slashed her hands down again. “This is something that is covered by your oath to Lord Edobar. If he assigns you the title, you must compete.”

  “Ah. So if I hear you lose the first phase, maybe I should go on vacation or something, huh?” Luke said. He hadn’t actually sworn an oath to obey Lord Edobar, but since everyone believed he had, he might as well play along.

  Kruro looked away. “I would never suggest going against our lord’s wishes. If I hear for a fact that he wants you as champion, I will do all in my power to make sure you lead the Malamon for him.”

  “Ah. Well. Ok.” Luke said awkwardly. “Um. In other news, Vanessa got a class just a few hours ago. She would love to tell you all about it, particularly if you have some weak elemental runes you can show her. I would love to stay and help out, but I have an appointment with the inner runewight I am late for,” Luke said.

  He jogged off, bringing Jinx with him. She didn’t have her back legs right now, so he didn’t want to leave her until the greater healing potion gave her legs back. Besides, maybe Izekor would like to meet his cat.

  ???

  “I have to admit, it pleases me that it took you two times to learn the Adept Mana Containment rune,” the inner runewright said and sighed. “But I must still admit that humans seem to be particularly well suited to inscribing runes. You did well.”

  “Thanks,” Luke said.

  He gave Jinx a rub behind her ears because she had been so good while he worked. This containment rune would be fantastic for improving his spell rifles, and generally making his mech less noticeable to monsters.

  Once Izekor pointed it out, he realized that several different types of monsters had set up ambushes for his team because his suits leaked mana. The wizard leeches, hive wolves, kobolds, and lightning bats had all snuck up on them because they sensed the human’s mana. He would install a version of this new rune on all of his suits.

  “And the next time you come, please do not bring a dangerous unbonded animal into the tower,” she said and pointedly looked at Jinx.

  “Aw, she wouldn’t hurt you. Nevertheless, I will respect your wishes anyway and not bring her next time. Speaking of which, do you have some suggestions for what the last rune would be?”

  “You wanted a master rune, yes?”

  “Yes, I want to see what the highest quality runes are like. Hopefully a rune I could use on my mech,” Luke said and gestured to where the power armor sat outside the office.

  She gave him jazz hands. “Yes. I have a few suggestions. First off, does your language have a word for ζ??????”

  “Evidently not. What does it mean?”

  “It’s a complex concept, which is why I thought to ask in the first place. It is related to symmetry of retribution, but not. Regardless, if you do not already know the word, it won’t be a suitable rune to learn. I will keep thinking on it. Until tomorrow.” She waved him away and went back to her pastry on her desk.

  Luke rolled his eyes at her casual dismissal. She clearly thought that elves were better than humans. But the fact that he was able to learn runes so quickly was messing with her mind.

  He collected Jinx and headed back to the outer runewright’s place. The difference in architecture was reflected in company. Cold and indifference made way for warmth and friendship.

  “Luke! Look what I can do!” Vanessa said excitedly.

  She bounced over to Kruro’s obsidian workbench and pressed a small device. A light lit up above the bench, glowing brightly. She reached over and plucked it out of the air. Then she threw it up into the air and caught it again. With one hand she kept throwing the ball of light into the air, and the other hit the light device. She produced another ball of light and tossed it into the air as well, juggling both balls of light with one hand. She added a third ball of light and Luke had to squint. It was brighter inside than outside in the sun.

  “This is basically effortless. I don’t have to think about it, juggling the light balls is so easy with Power Juggle,” she said with a ‘bright’ smile.

  “That’s really impressive. I’m glad you can practice with something so safe. Thanks, Kruro.”

  “Yeah, thanks, Kruro. You are the best,” Vanessa said. “But it’s not completely harmless.”

  She lowered the height of the throws until she had all three balls of light close together. Then with a quick snap of her wrist, she sent them streaking through the air towards a thin plate of metal in the corner. They hit the metal with a staccato burst, the pings of impact almost overlapping.

  Luke blinked to clear his vision and saw the metal was dented and blackened. “You did that with light? That’s amazing.”

  “Yeah! Isn’t it great? The longer I juggle something, the more oomph I can put into it. And that’s just with light. Can you imagine fireballs?”

  “I’m sure we won’t have to imagine for long. You look like you have this elemental manipulation down. Should we move on to like, electricity next?”

  “There are safer options to practice first,” Kruro interjected. She slithered over to the center of the room. “Sound for example. Then you can work up to heat, sparks, and then finally fire. Electricity should be saved for one of the last because it is a wild element, you need to work with tame spells at first, Vanessa.”

  “Whatever you say, beautiful snake lady. You are the best,” Vanessa said and gave Kruro a half hug.

  Luke laughed at Kruro’s uncomfortable expression. “How about you teach me a few of those elements and I’ll inscribe something on Earth so we can practice there. I’m sure you don’t want us to practice with fire in your workshop, right Kruro?”

  “Yes,” Kruro quickly said, happy for the out. “I will teach you a few novice runes. It will not take you long to learn.”

  She quickly sketched out a series of simple runes and sent them on their way. Once they were out of the village, Luke said, “I think you made Kruro uncomfortable with the compliment and hug.”

  “What? No.”

  “I saw her face. Either she has a crush on you, or she doesn’t like being touched,” Luke insisted.

  Vanessa turned to him. “Don’t joke about her love life. I get the feeling it’s a sore spot for her. But either way, I’m going to have to talk to her about the hug next time I see her. I don’t want to make her uncomfortable.”

  “For sure. She’s great. But for today, let’s see if we can’t make some elemental runes for you. I really want to see what a ball of sound looks like.”

  “We won’t stop there though, right? I don’t think I can call myself a wizard if I don’t throw some fireballs.”

  Luke nodded, glad that the company warehouse was mostly metal.