“Mr. Fulgen, What does a typical work day look like for you?”

  “Well, I wake up about the crack of noon, lay in bed for an hour or two longer, sluggishly get ready for the day, cram down some food that’s easy to grab and requires no preparation, laze around for a while longer, realize I need to be somewhere, and reach for my skidstick.”

  “Uh…”

  “Don’t tell me. This job is going to be an adjustment.”

  I’d had a personal trainer during my brief months in the Grand City Pro Skid Circuit. I thought he’d pushed me pretty hard.

  Turns out he was a wuss.

  When your trainer is an Amazonian sorcerer whose physical enhancements extend to her vocal cords, it’s a hell of a motivator. First I ran on a treadmill, unenhanced, until my legs felt a fire my powers couldn’t absorb and I was ready to collapse. Then I worked my chest, shoulders, and triceps until I thought the muscles would fall off me and flop on the floor like fish. Then it was back on a larger, more powerful treadmill, where things started to get interesting.

  I kicked it up a notch. Habby kicked it up a notch. Between us I could see my own legs almost become a blur beneath me as the hum of the treadmill pitched ever higher.

  “Breathe before your life support kicks in!” Valery shouted.

  I gasped, not realizing I’d even been holding my breath. Faster I went. I knew I was at professional sprinter speed now, maybe even faster.

  Just when I thought either the treadmill or my thighs would start to smoke, Valery brought me to a gradual stop.

  “Not bad,” she said, still furiously taking notes on her tablet and rarely looking up. “You peaked at thirty miles per hour.”

  I tried to add an appreciative exhalation to my wheezing, but I don’t think it took.

  “Not good either, of course,” she said. “You are fire affined and you have that nasty hit to resilience. You want to survive? Outrun your enemies. You need to improve your alacrity. Should be nearly tied with might.”

  Next, we did not skip aether enhanced leg day. The machines and freeweights in the enhanced section of the gym were all almost comically large. They looked like something a beefcake bully in a cartoon would work out with just before chewing a wad of iron ore and spitting out nails.

  Which described Valery, in an offhand way. She was muscular but believable when walking around normally. Then she demonstrated the leg press machine and it was almost like something out of a horror movie. She groaned in an almost animal-like way. Then her legs transformed. Her muscles bulged, veins protruding. I studied the weights she’d racked into the machine, my eyebrows creeping up as I did the mental math. Nearly five tons. I was pretty sure some small semi tractors weighed that much. I glanced back at the roaring woman.

  ?Thighs, Habby? Hmm? Thighs??

  [My position is wavering… slightly. Overall, it remains firm.]

  ?‘Firm.’ I’ll bet.?

  I was feeling pretty inadequate when I slid into the machine. I knew that because my physical enhancement was “uncapped,” I could potentially press five tons right this very second. But as Habby had helpfully illustrated, it might be only this very second, after which my aether would poop out and I’d be on my own.

  So we started at the bottom and worked our way up. Valery kept adding weight and I kept experimentally pressing. I was still pretty impressed with myself. The storied “sweet spot” was at around two tons for me, so that at least meant a decent sized sedan. “Not bad,” Valery said. I wasn’t sure if that was code for high praise in her vocabulary or if she literally just couldn’t get any more excited. In any case, no sooner had she said that than she had me do reps until my aethervoir was a wiggling sliver in my interface, and I thought I’d have to ask Wally to build a pair of legs for me.

  “Ok,” Valery said. “Very good first day.”

  “Yes, thank you for the reminder,” I said, still trying to rub the kinks out of my hamstrings.

  Then, something new happened.

  Uncapped Physical Enhancement has reached Tier 1 Level 10. Tier upgrade available.

  “Hey!” I said, “Looks like I just capped Tier 1 Physical Enhancement, and I can promote it.”

  “What? Wonderful news!” Valery looked at me hungrily. “Maybe tomorrow I can give you real workout!”

  Maybe I should have kept that to myself.

  “Check your options, if you have, and promote the skill!”

  I dove into my menus. I had two choices for advancing the skill. Each would provide an overall increase in its power and efficiency, plus an additional modifier.

  ?Habby? Focus. What’s my best option??

  Efficient Physical Enhancement: Reduces the aether cost of physical enhancement at any level, and reduces the efficiency penalty for increasing or lowering the effect.

  Burst Physical Enhancement: Greatly increases the efficiency and reduces the cost of physical enhancement over brief periods of time.

  [I think it’s fairly clear. Your Rekindled Flame already favors using skills in short bursts. Boost that capability and your overall effectiveness will soar.]

  With some trepidation, I locked it in.

  Physical Enhancement has been promoted to Tier 2 level 1. Current modifiers: Uncapped: Burst.

  “Your absorption skill fills your aethervoir, yes?” asked Valery.

  “You mean the spice thing? Yeah.”

  “Good. Follow.”

  I limped with her to the front desk of the gym. She fished around underneath and came up with a rack of stoppered vials containing a blue liquid.

  [Aethersab?] Habby popped out and examined the vials. [No wait. It’s the opposite.]

  “Sapsab,” Valery said proudly. “Drink one before breakfast. Second day, add one before dinner. Third day before lunch, fourth day before bed. We see how it goes from there. Stop if you feel symptoms.”

  “Of what?”

  “Aether fatigue. You don’t know?”

  [It’s what happens if you recharge your aether too many times in a day. Doesn’t matter how you do it, though absorption skills and the like are a bit gentler than, say, an aethersab. Aether fatigue causes hangover-like symptoms, often accompanied by muscle weakness or difficulty concentrating. I see what she’s doing.]

  “My Lecti’s trying to fill me in. What’s the point of this?”

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “Drinking a vial will completely drain your aethervoir. Eat your food of choice immediately after to restore. It will power level your aether stats. Mostly Arcane and Vitalis, where your skills lie.”

  [Assuming you’re truly safe here, that is actually quite ingenious. It’ll have diminishing returns, but it’ll give you a real head start. Months of intense aethervoir cultivation done in weeks.]

  “That sounds… good?” I said uncertainly.

  “Right then. Break for lunch, then come back to third floor. Got you lined up for some skill training in the practice rooms, then maybe a sparring match or two.”

  Lunch? Damn. I looked out a nearby window, dazed at the persistent brightness and the thin shadows on the streets below. Somehow I was expecting to see the last orange glimmers of sunset after a workout like that. Instead the day was barely at the halfway point.

  “Molerat used to be a forger,” said Fu.

  “You know I loathe that nickname, Tetsumi,” Colin groused. “Can’t you change it?”

  Fu put a hand to her chest, as if genuinely taken aback. “Change a—? You hear this guy, Sabaton? I can’t even.”

  Colin had a pair of powerful magnifying glasses on, which combined with his large nose did give him a mole-like appearance. He was carefully drawing runes on a sheet of what looked like old fashioned parchment using a fine-tipped brush. He finished a row, then quietly counted the runes by going back down the row, pointing at each in turn. Satisfied, he looked up.

  “Are you practicing?” Wally asked.

  “It’s only practicing if you screw up. Never seen runesmithing at work, eh?”

  “No. I don’t think Jett has either, and he used to own a band. They had him try on some test bands, then shipped his real one to him. What did you forge anyway?”

  Colin curled his lip. “Runes. Among other things, but at one point I had a neat little side business of fake single-rune bands that I sold to people for general use. The placebo effect kept me out of trouble for quite a while. After my prison stint, I realized I was only a step away from the real thing. I'd worked so hard to make my runes look authentic I was only a few strokes away. Plus an artifact that would give me the aether to power the runes. Fortunately, that's about when G-Tech started recruiting.”

  He blew on the parchment to get the ink to dry, then took out an odd pair of tweezers. He also placed a blank metal band on his work table next to the parchment. He shrugged and continued, “Fell in love with the craft after that. You know, it’s one of the few aether techniques left in this world that isn’t zero sum? We actually make new artifacts when we make runebands. We create new, lasting aetheric power that others can use.

  “Now let’s see.” He studied Wally, still using his strange bug-eyed glasses. “Quick-witted, yes? Good with electronics? Perhaps, perhaps some electrical affinity. Hmm.”

  Colin grabbed Wally by the wrist, startling him.

  “Yeah, probably not much benefit to Resilience, but I'll keep a Warrior build—one each of might, alacrity, and resilience—in my back pocket. My first thought is Assassin though. Let's start with an alacrity rune.”

  Wally felt his cheeks flush. That sounded ridiculous on multiple levels. Alacrity? And the Assassin build used two, along with one might rune. Two alacrity runes, for a cripple? He rested a hand on a metal-wrapped leg. His atrophied muscles still moved, but they did little more than give his metal legs commands.

  “I'd make a poor assassin,” Wally muttered.

  Colin waved a hand dismissively. “It’s just a word. One of many uses for a particular combination. Lots of speed and a little strength? Yeah, it works well for an assassin. Doesn’t mean that’s the only thing you can do with it.” He smiled wryly. “Your friend was what, a Rune ‘Slayer?’ how many people did he slay?”

  Wally shrugged. “Good point. Jett used to tell me, ‘Watch me slay this.’ Whatever he was talking about, it never ended up slayed. Unless it was a bowl of curry.”

  Colin and Fu both laughed. Then Fu noticed Wally self-consciously touching his leg. “Yo, don't worry, Sab! Alacrity isn't just for track and field! It boosts reflexes and fine motor skills. We get you in that armor we were talking about, hook you up with some ranged weapons, you'll be a damn terror! Plus I'm a Rune Knight with no alacrity at all, so you'll work circles around me here, soldering electronics and other delicate shit. Give me more time for metalworking anyway.”

  “We’ll complement each other,” Wally said hopefully.

  “Damn straight. I'll be like, ‘Nice legs, Sab!’ and you'll be like, ‘Damn, Fu, that's the second biggest mechsuit-mounted machine gun I've ever seen!’”

  She gave Wally a wink, and he thought his head might explode with embarrassment. Not to mention trying to figure out whether she was joking or genuinely flirting.

  Colin grasped one of the runes with his tweezers.

  Wally gaped when he saw what happened next.

  The edge of the rune lifted, despite being drawn in ink on the parchment. The entire symbol wriggled and shifted. With practiced care, Colin tugged, repositioned his wrist, and tugged again. After a moment, the rune became a glowing blue symbol. It lifted off of the page, leaving no ink behind.

  Colin carefully directed the rune over to the metal band. When he set it down, the symbol compressed and fit to the smaller space. It appeared not as a drawing in ink, but as an embossed symbol sunk into the metal.

  “What?” Wally breathed. “How is that possible?”

  Colin shrugged. “Runes are a lot more than just a couple of lines or a shape. If you know the right runes you can do a lot of things. Funny thing about these tweezers.” He tapped them with a long fingernail, and Wally could see a line of tiny runes running down the tweezers themselves.

  “Yeah, it’s pretty cool,” said Fu. “I guess.”

  Colin offered the band to Wally. “Put it on. Let’s see if it works.”

  Fireball has been promoted to Aim Assisted Fireball, Tier 2 Level 1.

  Concussive Fireball has been promoted to Focused Concussive Fireball, Tier 2 Level 1.

  “Finally!” I gasped. “My fireball skills are upgraded!”

  I took a moment to catch my breath and let my aethervoir tick back up a few percentage points. I was in one of the third floor practice rooms, and I’d spent a long time practicing both of my fireball skills against thick wooden targets mounted on the tough metal walls or dangling by chains from the ceiling. The room smelled like campfires and sawdust, and a few embers drifted lazily through the air, giving the place a post-apocalyptic appearance.

  My hand glanced across the comfortable but form-fitting grey uniform of the G-Tech sorcerers. Light blue trim ran along the sleeves and across the waist and collar, clearly part of the whole “Hey have you heard about our Ice Guardian?” aesthetic.

  I was not in love with the color choice, but as it turned out, I wasn’t alone.

  “First prototype,” Valery had said after I got dressed and voiced my opinion, “was almost all the light blue shade. Designer was very proud of it when he presented it at an all hands meeting. Right up until someone yelled ‘It’s a boy!’ A redesign followed soon after.”

  I studied my handiwork. Accuracy was an issue, as evidenced by the numerous scorch marks on the metal walls around the targets. One wouldn’t think that throwing a magical exploding fire sphere would require finesse, but there were no crosshairs or laser sights involved. Of the two methods I had for launching fireballs–“shooting” them directly from my palm or “throwing” them with a swing of my arm–shooting was slightly easier to control. However, throwing them caused them to travel much faster, allowing less time for a target to dodge.

  “Very good!” called Valery over the speaker system. “Now test upgrades!”

  “You read my mind,” I said.

  I was learning a couple of interesting quirks about skill families through this exercise. First—and I really should have noticed this sooner—skills shared some experience with their “parent” skill. That was why the standard Fireball had crept up a couple of levels despite me using the Concussive version almost exclusively. There was also some partial overlap of the modifiers I selected at tier up. So when I selected the Aim Assist modifier for the standard Fireball, a bit of that carried over to the Concussive Fireball.

  Which didn’t do much, I realized as I whiffed yet another shot. I could certainly feel the effect, but I’d still have to practice and stop sucking before it would make a difference.

  ?Are there more accuracy modifiers I can get later??

  [There are. In fact, there are modifiers that will cause fireballs to be drawn toward their targets, or even allow you to manipulate them in midair. Issa had a limited ability to throw fireballs around corners. That one took many an enemy by surprise.]

  So, I potentially had homing and guided fireballs to look forward to. I’d keep an eye out for those for sure.

  The Focused modifier on the Concussive Fireball was interesting. It actually–and thankfully optionally–shrank the fireball and its area of effect, but magnified its impact. When I tried it out for the first time it blasted the wall with such force I could feel the vibration through my feet. An alarm went off for a moment and was quickly cut off.

  “Well,” said Valery. “Shit. That was potent.”

  Then I saw what she was referring to. The fireball had punched all the way through the wooden target, and there was even a tiny hole in the metal behind it.

  “Damn. Sorry about that.”

  “No, Fulgen. You are doing your job. What the hell you think our tier 3 sorcerers do to these rooms over time? My job is ordering holes patched and new panels installed. And deciding when you need bluntsab to practice. Now try with weapon.”

  I pulled Bullet Train and blasted the targets a few more times. Aiming was a little easier when I shot the fireballs using Imbue Weapon, but they were also weaker.

  “Ok, is good.” There was a pause. “Strong first day of training. We got a lot accomplished. Congratulations, Mr. Fulgen.”

  I froze, scarcely believing what I was hearing. Had the gruff beast of a woman really just complimented me?

  I heard a click over the speaker, as if Valery had shut the microphone off. After a few seconds, she came back on. “Anyway, getting late. Want to have you try at least one spar, just to see how it feels. Go to next door training room; this one is too messy for sparring. Take a bluntsab.”

  I dismissed Bullet Train, exited through the spaceship-like sliding door, and tapped the button to open the next training room over. It also slid open.

  “Oh,” I said when I saw who my opponent was. “Great.”