The teleportation circle had dropped Luke straight back into Maine. He found himself inside a government controlled facility. The world now operated in two halves: the Modern Society, still governed the old fashioned way, and the New World, ruled by the nobility, the strongest people on Earth. And since those same nobles had ended every major war in the past, they held influence over both societies.

  “Do you want us to call your home?” asked the government agent walking beside him. His name was Joffrey.

  “No,” Luke replied. “I don’t even remember anyone’s phone number.”

  Agent Joffrey chuckled. “We’re the government. We can find that kind of information.”

  “I’d rather tell my family in person.”

  They continued down the hallway. Luke felt strangely out of place surrounded by people in business suits. This was the SIA’s field office for Maine.

  “System Intelligence Agency,” Luke murmured, reading the name on one of the walls as they walked.

  “We’re the rebranded CIA,” Joffrey explained. “No more wars, no more terrorists… but new problems came up. Instead of gun runners and drug cartels, we deal with system users who turn to crime. So aside from managing travel between the Modern World and the New World…”

  They stepped into a small room.

  “…we also maintain order within the United States against any dangerous individual with a system. That’s why everyone who accepts the system is registered. Makes monitoring a lot easier,” he added. “And yes, all of us here have systems as well.”

  Luke thought of Eleanor. Her father probably worked for this agency.

  The room resembled an interrogation chamber. Luke sat at a metal table. The agent tapped his bracelet and pulled out a stack of papers, an item storage device. Then he grabbed a tablet resting on a wall mounted dock.

  A tablet. An actual tablet.

  Luke stared, almost smiling. He hadn’t seen one in ages. He found himself lingering on the glow of the security feeds, not because they mattered, but because they felt familiar.

  “Luke, your file says you just came out of a tutorial and were accidentally transported to the New World,” the agent said, scrolling through the data.

  “And I ended up way farther from home than intended,” Luke replied.

  “That’s an understatement,” the man said. “Good thing teleportation was invented.”

  He continued reading… and suddenly froze.

  “Rank E?” he blurted out.

  His eyes flicked up. “How old are you?”

  “Nineteen.”

  “You’re way too young to have reached that kind of power.” Joffrey scrolled again, still processing. “No one you’ve seen in this building is Rank E. Only special agents who hunt system criminals.”

  “Seriously?” Luke asked.

  The man locked the tablet and set it aside. “I’m not a field agent. I stay at a desk. I haven’t even gotten past level three in my class.”

  Luke almost didn’t believe him at first, but the man’s expression didn’t lie.

  “And you,” Joffrey muttered, “you’re at least level sixty in class… at nineteen. You’re basically a one man army.”

  The man studied Luke for a moment, then asked, “How would you feel about joining the SIA?”

  “What?” Luke blinked, caught completely off guard.

  The man picked up his tablet and tapped a few times. A photo appeared: a young woman in light medieval armor, a sword in hand. Short red hair, freckles, and the American flag stitched onto her outfit.

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  “This is America’s Hero, Serena,” he explained. “She’s probably a little older than you. She works with the SIA as well.”

  Luke took the tablet. Promotional lines splashed across the screen: Come explore the New World with America.

  “In the old days, the CIA recruited from universities,” Joffrey said. “We just updated the model. Instead of scooping up talented tech students, we recruit talented system users. Serena is one of the rare people in the world with the Hero class.”

  Luke set the tablet back on the table. “Right now, I just want to go home,” he said, careful not to sound rude.

  “You’ll have plenty of years to decide. You’re going to live a lot longer than me,” Joffrey replied with a soft laugh. “But I had to try. If those New World factions are recruiting left and right, we’re not going to fall behind.”

  He kept explaining how things would work from there. The SIA was already used to people disappearing during the tutorial and returning months or years later, so handling Luke’s “return from the dead” on paper was simple. They’d even arrange some money for him. They offered to call a cab to take him home, but he declined. He wanted to take a bus, walk the streets, feel normal for a moment.

  He was now reading a long document he was required to review before leaving the building. Honestly, it was a book, a manual of rules and instructions on how to behave in society. Technically, Luke was now someone stronger than a military tank, especially as a Rank E. The government added extra regulations for system users, including different penalties for crimes and specialized detention facilities.

  The rules ranged from Do not remove any item from your inventory inside a bank, government building, or near any embassy without authorization to entire sections on smuggling and contraband.

  “There’s something else I should tell you, Luke,” Joffrey said. “If you brought back anything valuable from the tutorial, items, materials, ore, we buy that directly. And because you’d be selling to the government as a good and responsible citizen, we don’t charge you any taxes.”

  Luke paused his reading and looked up. “Explain that a little better,” he said.

  “It’s simple. People returning from the tutorial, or travelers coming back from the New World, often carry valuable things. Could be a sword looted from a monster, a chunk of rare ore, or even a piece of animal hide you can’t find anywhere on Earth. We buy those resources through government backed companies. We also handle private purchases. So if you have anything valuable you’d like to sell, you just let us know.”

  “And gold?” Luke asked. “Do you guys buy gold?”

  “Of course we do. If you’ve got a little pouch of gold coins, I can even hand you the cash right now,” the agent said with a light laugh, sipping his coffee.

  “I have a few pouches of gold…” Luke replied.

  “Alright, put them on the table. I’ll grab the paperwork and get you your money. We can deposit it into an account or pay you directly.”

  Luke glanced toward his pocket dimension.

  “Look, it’s a lot of gold,” he warned.

  “Don’t worry, I’ll grab a bucket if I have to,” the agent joked.

  “No. You’re not understanding me. It’s really a lot of gold.”

  Joffrey’s smile faded slightly. “How much are we talking about?”

  Luke pulled out several wooden barrels from his storage all at once. The room filled with five full barrels, each overflowing with coins, jewels, necklaces, and solid gold bars.

  “Holy” Joffrey blurted, staring wide eyed.

  “Actually, there’s a lot more where that came from.”

  “Yeah… looks like paying you in cash won’t be an option,” the agent muttered, still stunned.

  ***

  Not even Joffrey could believe the sheer amount of gold Luke kept pulling from those barrels. Word spread so fast he practically became a minor celebrity in the building. The agent mentioned that a few other people had shown up with gold recently too, and Luke assumed they were probably folks from his tutorial who also lived in Maine. According to Joffrey, each of them had brought in the equivalent of about five hundred thousand dollars. But Luke…

  “Eighty three million dollars,” Luke muttered, sitting in a chair, still trying to process the number.

  'We’re rich, Luke. Filthy rich! We can buy all the burgers and pizza in the world!' Artemis cheered in his mind.

  Sure, Luke always knew all that gold had to be worth something, but in the tutorial walking around with gold bars had been useless. Healing potions, not currency, had been the real treasure.

  I’m rich.

  A part of his life goals, something he never even allowed himself to dream about, was now complete. His family was set for life. His little sister wouldn’t need to work out of necessity. She could choose the future she wanted. Joffrey also explained that Luke could convert modern money into New World currency whenever he wanted, meaning he was wealthy in both societies.

  A bank account had already been opened for him, though Luke didn’t really care to understand the details. He kept one barrel of gold purely as a souvenir.

  I feel like Walter White carrying a barrel of cash.

  He took fifty thousand dollars in cash to bring home. Not that he needed anywhere near that much, one hundred bucks would’ve gotten him home just fine. But before going back to his family, he planned to stop at a few places and buy some gifts.

  “I think that’s everything, Luke,” Joffrey said as he escorted him back to the public area of the facility. “You’re definitely going to give me a few stories to tell at work.”

  “I can imagine,” Luke replied.

  Joffrey offered his hand. “Good luck getting home, Luke. And if you ever need anything, remember you can always count on America to handle your problems.”

  ‘Let America know you’re basically a walking magnet for disaster’, Artemis muttered.

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