“What do you mean? I did what you asked me to, I repaired the mech suit’s arm,” Luke said.

  This time Kruro didn’t wait for his cell phone to translate for him. Instead, she fired back in English, “But how? You fixed the arm too quick.”

  “Too quick? Do you want me to work slower?” Luke asked, confused.

  She didn’t answer, instead reaching forward and pulling the mech suit to her so she could inspect the repaired arm. It took Luke all of his strength to lever the suit onto the bench, but she was able to lift the mech into the air with a single scaled arm.

  The right arm underwent her detailed examination. She moved it through the points of articulation and tapped every rune in sequence. She tapped the upper pauldron a few times and then turned towards him.

  “This is very good. Very fast,” Kruro said with grudging respect. “But you made one mistake.”

  “Really? What did I miss?” Luke said. He moved to stand up, but he hadn’t put his right leg back on yet.

  She continued in elvish, “?? ??? ??? ? ?? ??? ??? ?? ??...” Luke eagerly waited for the translation from his cell phone. “The agility rune is the wrong one, you used a Novice Agility rune. Perhaps that is the only one you know. But these are combat suits, they need a higher quality rune. I have been using the Adept Agility rune.”

  Luke replied, “I had no idea there were different grades of runes. What makes them different?” He circled her to look at the mech’s opposite arm to examine the agility rune she had inscribed. Sure enough, it was different from the one he knew. It was much more complex but wasn’t any larger than the basic version.

  ???

  ?????ζ

  ??????

  ζ??

  It was fascinating. The rune was hard to understand with a different symmetry connection system. It meant that his regular agility rune wouldn’t sync with this more advanced version.

  Kruro said in elvish, “There are four grades of runes. Every base rune has a novice, apprentice, adept, and master version. Each one is much better than the one before it. The agility runes on the arms and legs are adept, and you cannot use a lower quality rune on the other arm, otherwise it will be unbalanced and fall down.”

  “Can you teach me all the new runes? Cormac said part of my payment would be in learning new runes,” Luke said, his eyes glittering when he thought about creating a suit with all adept runes.

  “I do not know,” she said. She set down the mech suit on the table and said, “This morning I was sure you would be a waste of my time. Now that I see the quality of your rune work, I am not so sure. Perhaps the Lord was telling the truth after all.”

  “The truth? About what?”

  Kruro slithered over to the western wall and plucked something off a crowded shelf. Luke recognised it immediately. It was a Rubix Cube. She held it out and he took it with a smile.

  Luke said, “I used to love these as a kid.” His hands started working out of habit, solving the simple puzzle cube.

  She said, “Last year, three of your human years, Lord Falodun visited me here in my shop. He told me a story of human children. He claimed that your people gave your children these chthonic puzzles. That children before the age of responsibility could solve them with ease. I didn’t believe him. I didn’t say so to his face, of course.”

  Luke had finished solving it by then. His muscle memory from years of playing with them helped him solve it in less than a minute. He said, “Well, to be fair, most human children cannot. It’s only those with the inclination and temperament that ever really solved a Rubix Cube. Most people can’t do it.”

  “On this world, inclination and temperament mean nothing in the face of a puzzle like that. We are born with the ability to solve what we can see, not what we cannot see. Only runewrights can solve a puzzle like that, and that is only because of the skills our class grants us. Skills that allow us to think in depths otherwise impossible,” Kruro said as she examined the completed cube he had given her.

  Luke wasn’t sure what she meant at first. Then he had an idea. “Do you mean your species has trouble thinking in three dimensions? Do humans just have better spatial reasoning?”

  Her hands came down in a slash, “Better? No. Different, yes. Human’s minds are warped and strange. But your strangeness may have some benefit. It may allow you to carve and link adept runes, even without a class.”

  Luke wasn’t sure if he should be offended or complimented. Kruro continued on to teach him the components of adept runes and which ones linked where. She also went into depth about the Adept Agility rune and how it differed from the novice version. Apparently the new rune did everything the basic one did, as well as adding the concepts of dexterity and swiftness.

  “What does the Master Agility rune look like?” Luke asked as he traced the rune out on paper as practice.

  “Similar to this one, only twice as complex. It incorporates the concepts of celerity and coordination to the runic matrix. I won’t be teaching you it, now or later. It is much too valuable for your eyes. Speaking of which, the secrecy oaths that you swore with Cormac this morning apply to everything you learn from me, not just runes.”

  Cormac hadn’t made him swear anything this morning. He must have forgotten. Luke had no desire to swear any oaths, so he decided to change the subject. Instead he said, “Of course. I think I’ll practice the new agility rune a few times and then add it to the pauldron. What exactly do they do with the suits anyway? Are they guards or gladiators, or what?”

  She tilted her head. “You don’t know? The Seneschal has hired them on as mercenaries. They kill the undesirable monsters so the good ones may thrive.”

  “Good monsters?”

  “Yes, of course. I am told your world has an unending thirst for healing potions. A key ingredient in those potions are Red Slimes. There are herds of them all through the southern edge of the peninsula. The humans' job is to kill monsters that would prey on the weak slimes. Which is almost all of them. There are other valuable monsters like Crystal Golems and Purpleheart Ents that they must protect as well. Their job is to go hunt predators, and my suits of armor are the only thing keeping them alive.”

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

  Luke nodded along. That kind of made sense, they were monster ranchers of a sort. “Is there a reason you don’t breed them in a pen? Seems like a real hassle to trek all over the countryside.”

  “Of course, the mana.”

  “... What?”

  Her expression brightened and she laughed. She had been teasing him. “The way that monsters grow stronger is that they absorb mana from the land. If they are too close to each other, they fight over the same resource and both grow slower. The monsters must be spread out and the predators killed. Your fellow humans are not the only team out there though. Cormac has other warrior teams made of Orcs and Elves. The humans take their unwanted jobs.”

  Luke nodded and said, “Thanks for the explanation. I’m not sure what I expected, but it makes sense.”

  His brisket sandwich disappeared shortly afterwards. He didn’t get back to work immediately, knowing that he would have to be mentally rested to attempt the new agility rune. He got out his phone, but without the internet, there wasn’t much he could do on it. He would have to download some books and movies for tomorrow.

  He glanced up and to the left. The little progress bar expanded into a blue screen covering most of his vision.

  Two percent. He had been here about five hours now and the assessment had progressed two percent. It was going to take forever at this rate. A thought returned it to an unobtrusive progress bar once more.

  “Hey Kruro? How long does the system assessment period take?”

  She placed her tools down and turned her attention to him. “Between one and four days. Why do you ask?”

  Luke shrugged. “It just seems really slow.”

  Kruro slithered over to him in a flash. Luke jerked back as she thrust her face inches from his own. She said, “Are you chosen? Is the system assessing you right now?”

  “Uhhh, yeah. Doesn’t it assess everyone?”

  She slashed her hands down. “No, the System of the World only chooses a select few to assess. Ten percent at most. You will gain a magic class when the assessment period ends.”

  Luke gasped. “Really? It’s guaranteed I’ll get magic?”

  She slithered back and did jazz hands. “Yes. Your class choices depend on what you do over the next few days. If the system judges you unremarkable, it will give you a single bronze class. If you are above average, you might get a pair of silver classes to choose from. If you do something impossibly difficult or unusual, you will get multiple gold classes offered.”

  “So I have to do something amazing in order to get a good class? Does that mean I have to kill a dragon myself or something?”

  Kruro scoffed. “You would die before you got close. No, you must accomplish something great, but it does not have to be combat. The warriors in the training camp to the north eliminated monsters for their classes, but you could do your job well to earn your own. A scholar could memorize a difficult spell, a cobbler could make the perfect pair of shoes, an idiot could survive a lightning strike. I heard a story of an elf that romanced the king’s daughter and got a platinum sorcerer class. Some say the System of the World chooses people with interesting fates to observe.”

  Luke tilted his head, “An interesting fate, huh? That kind of makes sense. I wouldn’t say I’ve had a good life, but it has been interesting.”

  “No, well yes, but no. The system is assessing you right now because it believes you will have an interesting next few days. It does not take your past into account,” Kruro said. She slithered back to her obsidian workbench and then glanced back at him. “I am not sure if I want interesting things to happen in my shop. Why don’t you go on a walk through the estate? That way fate can get its claws in you without scratching me.”

  Luke chuckled softly before realizing she was serious. He thought about it for a bit then shrugged. He was a bit interested in seeing the city. He donned his stump sock and slid on his prosthetic leg. As he was heading out, Kruro advised him to stay out of the way of any carriages.

  He walked out the front door and headed towards the city center. The population grew more and more dense as he walked along the stone paved roads. Unlike the cobblestones on Earth, these roads were paved with huge rocks, each one at least four feet wide. It was like someone had strewn boulders along a pathway and cut the tops off.

  There were more and more people out and about. The average building size was four stories tall now. There were patterns in the metal siding, reminiscent of the orc’s patterned skin. Luke happened upon a busy market. It was shaped like a hexagon with a fountain in the middle. All around the edges people were lined up, shouting and jostling for attention. Everyone was brightly dressed, orcs, elves, and dwarves each vying for the most garish clothing.

  Around the middle wandered people pulling carts, mostly orcs with a few dwarves in the mix. When someone shouted for their wares, they would turn aside and walk up to whoever had flagged them down. The sale was very conspicuous, with flourishes of coins and ornate packages. They were selling everything from jewelry to vegetables.

  It was just the opposite of a human market. Instead of the customers going up to stalls, the salesmen walked up to the customer. They also seemed to have a strange relationship with money. The customers wanted everyone to see they were spending money, but also that they didn’t care how much money they were spending. They would look away as they handed over the coins, even if it meant they dropped some coins. No one ever picked the coins up, not even the salesmen.

  Luke walked closer to get a better look at what they were selling. The jewelry looked fairly similar to ones from Earth, with more wooden pieces. The green leafy things looked like vegetables, but he noticed that everyone that bought one wiped them on their face before putting them away. Another vendor had a collection of palm sized insects in cages and Luke couldn’t tell if they were food or pets. One vendor was selling stuff from Earth; ball caps, scissors, and analog clocks.

  A nearby dwarven salesman was clearly using magic. He had a half dozen pairs of shoes hovering over his head and when someone bought one of his shoes, he magically resized them for their feet. It was the second most interesting thing for sale.

  The runed objects fascinated Luke. The saleswoman’s cart was filled with mirrors, lights, cups and cloaks. Luke wanted to examine all of them. He guessed that they were expensive by the way everyone stared at the cart but no one called her over. He couldn’t be sure though, because he didn’t understand most of what the people were shouting.

  The translation app was having trouble keeping up. With everyone shouting over each other, his earpiece was flooded with translations, all of them in the same voice. There was no way to tell who was saying what.

  Shortly after he arrived, the closest dwarves noticed him and said something his translator couldn’t understand. Then the orcs nearby noticed him and a cacophony of sound hit him. His translator app had a fit trying to keep up with what they were shouting at him.

  What is- Paper Person-

  Sloppy- The mother’s- Disrespect-

  Kill- Paper Person- Disrespect!- The Mothers-

  Die- Around- Kill- Think motherly-

  From the opposite side of the market, an orc wearing red and blue pointed at him and shouted something. Space seemed to warp between them, and Luke felt a pulling sensation. The orc took a single step forward and he was immediately in front of him. He clapped a hand on Luke’s shoulder and held fast. Luke tried to squirm out of the way, but the fingers were like iron bars.