Josh checked the visor. The spare keys fell into his hands. He smirked. His dad had done that exact same thing with his ancient family car. Of course, Josh had never actually had a chance to drive that car. By the time he was old enough, the Jungle had encroached too far, and driving wasn't really possible.

He remembered the basics, though. He inserted the key into the ignition, took a deep breath, and turned it. There was a grind as the engine tried to turn over, as the spark tried to take. In the end, though, nothing happened. Josh sighed and got out.

Mary and Anna were giving him impressed looks.

“You found a good one,” Mary said.

Josh frowned. “It doesn't work.”

Mary rolled her eyes. “The gas has been sitting there upwards of eighty years. 'Course it's not working. But the rest of it seems solid enough.”

“Petrol,” Josh corrected absently. He might have grown up in America, but his parents had been rather firm on linguistics. “How long does it take petrol to go bad?”

Mary and Anna shrugged.

“Six months,” Beor rumbled.

Josh raised an eyebrow. “Huh. I would have expected at least a decade or two.”

Beor shook his head. “Six months.”

Josh didn't see a need to ask how he knew that. “Does the town have any stockpiles?”

“I think so,” Anna said. “Most of our forestry and earth mover machines run on gas.”

That made Josh do a double-take. “Hold up. Since when do we have shite like that? Big machines and all that much?”

Mary rolled her eyes. “Even I've seen them out on the edges. There's got to be all sorts of paperwork on them, too. You're not letting Baara do everything for you, yeah?”

Anna shrugged. “We only have a handful. I think two of those big brush cutters, and a big tractor or backhoe or whatever the difference between the two is. If you've been busy, I could see how you could miss them.”

Josh sighed. “Well. Let's finish up here. Make decisions after that.”

They found a few interesting things in the cars. An old cell phone—long dead, but still intact. Some maps that were now useless, but might be worth something to historians. A scattering of weapons. The sword had some interesting runes, and the knives looked interesting, but any magic was long dead. Enchantments needed to be used by humans every once in a while to hold their power.

They also found a small pouch with four bloodstones.

They all sat on the ground, staring at the stones, glittering like perfect red rubies. They didn't look any different from any other bloodstones they had ever seen. For all they knew, they were just duplicates of the normal eight stones that the world had kept for the past eighty years.

Josh, however, was hopeful. No, that wasn't the right word. Hope didn't usually make his heart beat so fast that he could feel it bruising against his rib cage. Hope didn't usually make his mouth dry and his palms sweaty.

Mary stared down at the stones. “Four bloodstones, just sitting in a car,” she said dully. “What are the chances?”

“Better than the chance of finding one in a factory in the middle of the Jungle,” Josh said. His tone matched hers. “How many bloodstones you got on you right now? How many stashed back at the house?”

“Then why haven't we found any on the surface?”

Anna snorted. “Monsters eat bloodstones, remember? You go to that field of wrecked cars in front of the town, see how many of them still have intact windows. Monsters would have gotten to anything on the surface.”

Josh nodded. “This was the only realistic way of ever finding anything. Some place protected.” He chuckled. “If we could find an actual vault or bank, we might find a full organized collection.”

“City hall used to be the bank,” Beor said, not taking his eyes off the stones. “Defensible.”

“Well, that would have been too easy, wouldn't it? If there was anything in there, they would have found it a long time ago.” Josh sighed, then motioned at the bloodstones. “Who wants to do the honors?”

Mary nodded. “I'll do it.” She hesitated, then reached out and plucked one of the stones out of the pile. She held it for a moment, staring into the distance. Then she took a deep breath, closed her eyes...

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

...and fell over laughing.

Anna and Beor looked concerned, but Josh just frowned. “If this is another Woodcrafter stone, I'm calling shenanigans.”

Mary's chuckles started to die down. “No, it's—” She giggled a little more. “It's a Gunner bloodstone.”

Everyone stared at her for a long moment. Eventually, Josh put his head in his hands.

Gunner was a useful class. It had some interesting differences from the Archer class, and would lead to some technological advancements at the higher tiers. This was a valuable bloodstone, without a doubt.

However, it was also an [Attacker] class, which they already had more than enough of. Furthermore, they knew how to evolve an Archer into a Gunner with minimal difficulty. Short of the eight bloodstones the world already had, this might be the least useful one they could possibly have gotten.

And, of course, the other three in the pouch were also Gunners. That wasn't uncommon. Someone on a Gunner path would still find those stones useful for advancement, and the last thing anyone wanted was to get caught on the reset, missing the stone for their favorite class. That had happened to Josh more than once. It wasn't fun.

“All right,” he said at last. “This is still useful, and we'll get it to one of the kids as soon as possible.” He looked at Mary. “Can you do anything with it, yourself?”

She pursed her lips as she held the stone in her hand. “With the rift crystal I got, I can use it to advance to Gruff Gravity Gunner. It's Exemplary-tier.”

Which meant both Mary and Ruth would be Exemplary-tier, while Josh and Darius were still stuck at Basic-tier. It was hard not to feel bitter. He forced a smile onto his face regardless. “You planning to go with that one?”

She made a face. “Maybe? I don't like the explicitly elemental classes. They tend to overspecialize.” Her eyes cleared, and she pocketed the bloodstone. “Especially if we're already going to have a gravity girl in the party. Doubling up on elements is just begging for some weird monster to pop up and steamroll us.”

Josh had met more than a few fire elementalists who found themselves completely unable to handle a low-level enemy that was immune to fire. He wasn't sure it was possible to be “immune” to gravity, but he respected the sentiment. “We can clear out a few more rifts, see if you get anything else worth getting got.”

Mary nodded. “Sounds like a plan to me.”

Josh clambered to his feet. “So! Everything we need all packaged up?”

“I believe so,” Anna said as she rose. She looked back the way they had come. Josh had widened the tunnel by using his blueprint to add a second tunnel right next to his previous one. “You planning to drag the cars out?”

He shook his head. “We don't have the resources to pull them out of the pit yet. Best to just leave them where they are for now.” Besides, he wanted an architect to come down and double-check his work. He thought the stone pillars were unnecessary, and could be removed to allow the cars through. He wanted to be sure. “Let's go.”

Mary slung her bag over her shoulder with a grunt. “Was really hoping we found a Gatherer bloodstone down here. Would love to have an inventory right about now.” She glared at him, clearly thinking about the storage ring he had looted from the elf.

Josh chuckled. “You wouldn't be able to use a new bloodstone anyway. Too valuable. Need to give it to one of the unclassed kids.” He narrowed his eyes. “Besides, what level are you? It's not as though you can just use it immediately.”

Mary raised an eyebrow as they walked. “I'm level 39.”

“What!?” he said, louder than he intended. “How did you manage that? I'm still 37!”

She shrugged. “I've been going out every day to hunt monsters. Even with the stupid penalties for fighting lower-level monsters, it still adds up.”

He grumbled to himself as they walked through the tunnels. He was supposed to be the one leveling at an impossible pace. He got experience every time he made anything, and he made things constantly. Yes, he was barely getting a pittance for any of his blueprints these days, but it should be adding up!

Maybe he needed to be working more on unique blueprints. He had been leaning hard on his [Instant Crafting] and [Hands-Free Crafting] spells to auto-build simple blueprints for multiple uses. Sure, he could build a simple room using six [Wooden Walls] to build a cube, then knock out a doorframe, but that was still just one blueprint six times. It didn't get him much in the way of experience.

He was still thinking over the problem when he stepped out into the pit. He walked right into Beor's back. “Oi!” he snapped, harsher than intended. “What's the big idea?” He looked around Beor, and froze.

Eight people stood in a half-ring around them. Six of them were not wearing masks. A quick glance over them told him that the weakest of them was a [Level 40 Attacker]; the strongest was a [Level 43 Defender]. Josh might be confident in the four of them tackling six enemies with a slight level advantage. He was the weak link, and he could at least survive long enough for his friends to handle the others.

The last two, however, were Hou Zheng and Kun. They still wore the full-body leather armor, completely obscuring all their features, but they were impossible to mistake for anyone else. Hou Zheng towered over everyone else, even Josh, and Kun had the lithe grace that he associated with assassin classes.

Last they had known, Hou Zheng was level 64. He might be stalled at his current level—there wasn't much experience around to push someone much higher—but that was still far too high for them to deal with. Especially since he was a [Healer] with a party to support.

Still. This might turn out all right. Maybe.