There were several surprises on his stat screen now that he took the time to examine it.

  The first thing that jumped out at him was that his class buff from War Machine was now twelve across the board. Each stat used to be different, ranging from 7 to 11. Now they were all bumped up to twelve. He did a quick calculation and this one change was the equivalent 7 of extra levels for passing the threshold. That was an extra 36 levels from the class buff. No wonder he felt so much stronger, faster, and more capable.

  That made him realize he had been right to choose the four skill evolutions that would let him get in the thick of it. With his class buff active, he was more than twice the fighter of anyone else at his level. It shouldn’t be a surprise to him that he was constantly punching above his weight class.

  It was interesting that all four of his new skills started out at level twelve. He suspected that the twelves were a result of the system message. It liked that he had sacrificed all of his glory and ‘smiled’ on him. Better skill evolutions, better class buff, and four skills that started at twelve instead of one.

  Predictably, his health and mana pools had gone up as well. Another surprise came from the fact that his Machine Soul resource had changed to Greater Machine Soul. The number of souls had gone down from six to three, which kind of sucked. But he bet that they were better in some way. Maybe he could control larger machines now, or they made his constructs stronger, or they were smarter. Time would tell.

  First though, it was finally time to get some use out of the book he spent twelve million dollars on. Sort of. He grabbed Runes for High Intensity Combat and started leafing through it. It didn’t take long for him to run into a problem.

  Kalibutan’s writing system was considerably more complex than its spoken language. Luke considered himself perfectly fluent in spoken Thenubian, but there were many gaps in his reading abilities. Luckily, he had an easy solution for that. He walked over to his luggage and got out his cell phone for the first time in many days.

  The magnetically shielded container kept mana from frying his cell phone, protecting it from the equivalent of magical radiation. He hoped that someone would invent a way to mana-proof electronics soon. With mana constantly leaking from the portals on Earth, it was only a matter of time before it would be an issue back home as well.

  Luke quickly scanned in every page of the combat runes book with his cell phone and had it translate everything. Once the cell phone was tucked away again, he sat down to start crafting. He thought about how to use the new runes as he worked, but the first step of the crafting process was a liberal use of the mana torch.

  The tool slowly loosened up the titan bone so he could bend it into shape. It was at least ten times harder than the materials he was used to working with. Which was great for armor, but meant that crafting anything would take forever.

  For now he decided to make a white gauntlet to put on his large Black Mamba mech. The color contrast would look badass. He spent literal hours working the material into place. Finally, it was ready for runes.

  He had thought a lot about what to put on the gauntlet. He was still undecided on which attack option would be best. But he didn’t have to wonder what rune would be best for the gauntlet’s bracer section. A shield rune.

  The holy grail of runes was his now. He could create a transparent wall of mana, a force shield. The bulletproof shield was Kalibutan’s main advantage over Earth. Not anymore. He couldn’t wait to post it up on WikiRunes.

  Luke carefully traced out the Master Shield Rune, keeping himself absolutely focused on the task. He wasn’t too surprised when it worked the first time. In addition to his greater class buff, the titan bones seemed to suck in the magic, making the whole process easier.

  Then he added control runes, power regulators and connected everything to the core. Unable to wait, Luke hopped into his big mech and activated the rune. A large shield sprung up, six feet around and a few inches thick. He could see through it, but it cast everything in a faint blue light. It was bigger than most humans, but looked like a small buckler on his huge suit of armor.

  A few taps to control runes and the shield extended up and down, turning into a tower shield. It would use up more mana in that form, but would give him much better protection. He swung it around, happy that such a huge shield didn’t weigh anything.

  He dismissed the shield to save on mana and then got out a new strip of titan bone. He covered up the runes and welded it into place. Since the shield rune was basically a state secret, he couldn’t let anyone know he had it. He wouldn’t have even bothered carving it out, but he wanted to try it and have a backup protection in case his life was on the line.

  The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

  Once it was covered up, Luke moved to the gauntlet’s fist. He had initially considered carving an attack rune on the palm and firing spells around like Iron Man, but that would be limiting. He wanted to be able to attack while holding a sword or hammer. He prepared the back of the hand instead, so that the spell would form above it and then shoot forward.

  There were a dozen options from the book, but the one he wanted to try out first was the Dissever Beam. Unlike many of the other listed runes, this one wasn’t an elemental attack, so it would be different from the other spells he had used. The book said it would create a shaft of purple energy that tore apart the bonds of existence. He hoped that meant it was a disintegration ray.

  Although this rune was only apprentice level, he didn’t succeed on the first few tries. The problem was trying to visualize something he had never seen. But after each failure, he re-read the instructions and focused his intent. Eventually he got it to work. Probably. He couldn’t test it out inside, but the rune successfully formed.

  Kruro returned a short while after he finished cleaning up. He had sent her out to change his undercity monster hunting reservation. She slithered in and gave him an appreciative nod.

  “It seems you are able to create masterworks whenever you feel like it. Your glory has grown to an acceptable level. You no longer need to fear being thrown in jail while walking to the undercity.”

  “Glad to hear it. Speaking of which, when is my new slot?”

  “Just after midnight. The fourth hour of the crow.”

  Luke frowned slightly. That was still hours away. “Is there any place I can try out my new gauntlet and practice my skills while I wait?”

  “Yes, there are several options. Most aristocrats practice at a hunting club. They have magic-proof facilities that can stand up to extreme punishment. The best clubs have realistic moving targets that can mimic any monster, but even the basic ones have something you can shoot. I’m sure at least some of them are open at night. I’ve never looked into it before, so it might take some time to track it down.”

  “I’d rather not waste time finding a gym. You said there were other options too?”

  “Yes, you could head out of the city. A half mile out of the city and you may use any magic you wish. There won’t be any monsters to target though. The capital cullers are quite good and snipe anything wandering about. If you want to pit yourself against monsters, you could fight in one of the craters in the undercity.”

  “Craters? Like volcanic craters or meteor strikes?”

  “No, the third kind. Magic made. Sometimes people are overzealous and detonate too powerful a spell. The blast often takes out the cave systems and walls and leaves a wide crater. It messes up the undercity’s funneling efforts so fighting monsters is free-for-all there. No one cares what you do there. Usually only weak monsters pass through the open ground, so most aristocrats don’t bother to hunt there. It’s a place for craftsmen and merchants that want to supplement their income. Lord Momoh wouldn’t dream of getting caught there, but I imagine you aren’t quite so proud.”

  “Not at all. Let’s do that one.”

  “Actually, now that you are fit to be seen in public, do you mind going alone? I’m exhausted and I wouldn’t be fighting by your side anyway.”

  “That’s fine. Where should I go?”

  “Take the zipstring purple line east as far as it goes and head down from there. You should be able to see a crater nearby. Fight as long as you wish, but make sure you are at the center-west pillar by the fourth hour of the crow.”

  Luke thanked her and suited up in his Black Mamba mech. Jinx hopped up onto his shoulder and they headed out. The zipstring Kruro mentioned was one of the public transportation options in the city. A large cable was embedded in many of the main thoroughfares throughout the city. The cable ran in a long loop along the middle of the street and was always moving.

  When he got to the one he wanted to use, he rented a hover sled and sat down on it near the cable. Then he dropped a connector onto the cable and was pulled along. It was like a mix between a cable car and a ski tow line.

  This time of night he was mostly alone along the streets, the chill night air whistling across his helmet as he sped along. The city was mostly dark, very few dim lights lit up the streets and almost no one had lights on in their apartments. They were going almost fifty miles an hour, which would be harrowing if this street had been busy. The end of the purple line came up about a half hour later and Luke hopped off before the cable looped back and headed west again.

  Luke walked down the spiral ramp and into the undercity. Paradoxically it was brighter down there than it was in the city above. The fungus and lichen on the roof were always glowing and provided more light than the nighttime city above.

  It was easy to spot the crater. It didn’t really look like the caldera he was expecting, it looked like a bomb had gone off. There was a wide area of damage and it didn’t dip too deep. There were a few dozen monsters wandering about, although some of them might have been people. It was hard to tell from a distance. He walked closer, using the interconnected catwalks high above the action.

  He was sorely tempted to test out his new Blink Ball skill to get down there, but it likely wouldn’t take Jinx along, so he walked down the slow way, using a protected staircase attached to a nearby pillar.

  There was a sign at the exit door about keeping a watch out for monsters hanging out nearby, so Luke was on high alert as he crept across the battlefield. There were more monsters here per square mile than anywhere else Luke had been in his life. He suspected it had to do with the city above.

  Seer Theobaldine had a theory that monster spawns were like white blood cells, there to take out an infection and to keep the body clean. If the planet considered people to be an infection, then it made sense that a huge concentration of them would prompt more monster spawns.

  Right as he got to the edge of the crater, he ran into his first monster. A Hell Pig was rooting around the barren landscape, turning over rocks and unsuccessfully trying to dig into the bedrock. Luke was as stealthy as you could be in a fifteen foot tall mech, and got within a hundred feet without it noticing him.

  He aimed and fired his new gauntlet. The Dissever Beam rune pulled mana from the suit and fired off a tight ray of purple magic. The edges of the ray turned into a spray of sparkles, making the magic seem like a powerful waterjet.

  It hit the Hell Pig in the shoulder, knocking it back a foot. A spray of magic splashed away from the impact point. The heavily horned monster squealed in rage and started running at Luke. He kept the Dissever Beam trained on the monster’s face. The longer he kept it trained on the monster’s thick skin, the more it started to eat away at it. The pale skin turned a dark purple and then puffed away into a cloud of dust. Not just its skin, but its skull and brain as well.

  Its body tumbled to the ground lifelessly. Luke smiled. That was a good rune. It took some time to work, but once it overcame the atomic bonds, the monster’s head had disintegrated completely. He assumed this monster was fairly weak, but if the Dissever Beam scaled well with stronger monsters, it would be a fantastic titan killer.

  The monster’s body was still fifty feet away. Luke finally got a chance to practice his new skills. He activated Blink Ball for the first time and marveled as a grey ball manifested in his palm. It was about five inches wide and had violet lines across the surface in repeating fractal designs.

  He tossed it towards the monster corpse, but it sailed over it. He tsked, but gave himself a break. His gauntlet didn’t have tactile feedback so throwing things would be difficult. The ball landed and the magic activated abruptly. He was transported faster than he could process, one moment there, the next here. Luke swayed slightly from the sudden change in perspective.

  He looked down to see that he was still standing, but he was much lower. The spell had only taken him and his slim armor along for the ride. The Black Mamba mech still stood where he had been an instant before.

  “What are you doing, Luke? You can’t leave my ride behind, this furry black one is most comfortable,” Jinx said from where she was still perched on the mech’s shoulder.

  “I wasn’t trying to leave the Black Mamba behind,” Luke said and walked over to the Hell Pig corpse. He touched it with a small ice baton. It wasn’t a great weapon, but it made harvesting cores easier. “But that’s why I’m here, to test the limits of the skill, and overcome them if possible.”

  He shattered the frozen ribcage and pulled out a clean monster core. Tier three, nice. That meant it had given him a little bit of glory, instead of taking it away like a tier one core would.

  “Speaking of testing, I’ll give you this core if you let me test my Blink Ball on you.” Luke formed a ball in his right hand and held the monster core in his left.

  Jinx narrowed her eyes and stared at him as he moved his hands up and down.

  “Will it hurt?”

  “I don’t think so. It will just instantly teleport you somewhere else.”

  “Fine, just this once. But do not treat me like a dog. You won’t get slobbering loyalty from me.”

  “I’m glad,” Luke said and threw the ball. “I wouldn’t have it any other way.”