“Think you’re ready to take me on again, Master?” I asked as I looked across the clean, stone arena from my tall pedestal.

Woong-ji grinned, flashing a set of perfectly white teeth. “You’re getting a bit cocky for my liking, Acolyte.”

She pulled her small control panel onto her lap, and while I did the same, I did it for show. Over the summer I had honed my ability to remote access Tuko’s systems, which allowed me to operate him without additional machina—like a control panel.

“With my help,” Mae blurted in my head over my train of thought.

‘Yes, of course.’ I replied with mentally.

There were staff members in the audience arena watching, and while a select few of them knew my situation with Mae, not all of them did, and we preferred to keep it that way. We didn’t want to become a spectacle, or a science experiment. Mae’s knowledge was powerful enough that someone would kill me to get to her.

Her information on nanites, what my people knew as munje, or magic, was immense and invaluable. I’d grown more powerful in a year of her guidance than I could’ve imagined. While my initial core design was of my father’s doing, Mae was the one who’d made all my dietary choices to help complete my second band and start my third for my core.

I could combine two munje at once now, manifesting more interesting spells like glimmer for Tuko, or lightning infused punches—neither of which I could control well, but the possibilities were there. And the possibilities were endless!

“Are you going to dawdle all night, or make a move?” Woong-ji taunted and her bot, the Rabid Rabbit, surged forward.

I went through the motions on the control panel to pull Tuko out of the way, but with remote access, it was just a show for the others. In reality, my direct connection with him allowed me much faster response times—so fast Woong-ji had yet to beat me since our renowned fight six months ago.

“Where’s your head at, apprentice?” Woong-ji asked as the Rabbit’s armor burst apart, and snaking tentacles reached for my retreating bot.

The sparse crowd whooped and cheered for the Boss, hoping in earnest that she’d put me down for once. I skittered Tuko around the corner of my pedestal and dropped a smoke bomb in my wake.

“Silly boy,” Woong-ji murmured as the Rabbit twisted its tentacles like a fan, blasting the smoke from the air. She gasped as the smoke dispersed, revealing Tuko mere centimeters from her Rabbit. She hopped backwards, looping her tentacles in a sphere around Tuko, but I already had the kill shot.

Tuko’s claw clamped down on the Rabbit’s neck and I shouted, “Bang!”

Woong-ji disengaged the Rabbits tentacles with a sigh as the crowd moaned in disappointment.

Ryni cupped her hands to her mouth and shouted, “Next time, Boss! You got it!”

Woong-ji put her control panel aside. “You keep changing your tactics. How am I supposed to learn?”

I put my right fist to my left palm and bowed. “Adapt faster, Master.”

She mirrored my bow. “Get back to the workshop and finish for the night, then go home for the season.”

I cocked my head. “But there’s still a week left. You don’t need me?”

She shook her head. “Of course I do, but your family needs you more. Go spend time with them before school.”

I bowed all the way to the floor. “Thank you, Master.”

I walked Tuko along with me through the halls as I made my way to the workshop; my home away from home. There were three levels of shelves, all loaded down with spare parts, metals, wiring, scrap, and more. The previous ‘artisan’ had left the place a complete mess. I’d spent two weeks just reorganizing the shop to be usable.

Level three was where I kept the plastics and hard metals. Level two was a combination of soft metals, raw materials like gun powder, and spare components that were prebuilt and ready to go. Level one was all the tools, a huge metal desk to work at, and the order’s device—reminding me of approaching deadlines—with a cubby for all the bots awaiting service. I built a pulley elevator at the center of the room I could activate with ma munje to take me exactly where I needed to go for the part I wanted. Everything had its place.

“Neat freak,” Mae joked.

I chuckled. “Maybe. It’s just easier when everything is in order.”

I found the last order sitting on the desk. It was a brawler type bot, the most popular, but was unique because it had four arms for pummeling. I pulled up the work order on the display device built into the desk. The owner wanted to add two more arms.

I grimaced as I pulled the bot to the center of the workstation. The two arms protruding from the back already felt tacked on, rather than part of the initial design. The bot had several dents and scrapes on the chest and a completely unnecessary head. The secondary arms coming out from the back were longer than the two coming from the shoulder joints, but were still too short to block chest shots.

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I reviewed the proposed request and scoffed at the over-engineering. This wasn’t the best way to go about it, but it was my job to follow the design requests, not to work on what I knew was best for the bot. Woong-ji had made that clear after my first bot upgrade where I’d gone a bit off the rails—

“More like a complete redesign.” Mae crackled through the speaker on my chest as she materialized on the desk beside me.

“Yeah, yeah,” I said as I waved her off. “I’m not going to take any creative liberties, just follow the work order.”

I got down to business melting open the chassis for the addition of the two limbs at the chest cavity. My en munje had advance significantly since working at the Rabid Rabbit, giving me great leaps in skill that would put me above the other second year students, but my ry and li were still pathetic. Hana wouldn’t let me live it down.

“Perhaps you should spend a summer at a dance house,” Mae mimicked Hana’s voice and I frowned at her.

“Don’t do that.”

She rolled her eyes, and practically her whole head. “You know I love Hana just about as much as you do—

“Hey,” I cut her short as I pointed the spanner at her light projection on the table. “Boundaries. Remember?”

She shrugged. “Sure, sure, but anyone could see how infatuated you are with her in a single glance, so I’m not preying on your thoughts.”

When the upgrade was complete, I put the bot back in its cubby and cleaned up my station. Nothing was wasted. I melted down the small remaining pieces and put them back in their appropriate metal bucket. I walked to the door and called back my ma munje that kept the lights running. I beamed at the clean, orderly, dark room.

“’Til next time,” I whispered.

I made my way through the long hall past the bathrooms and up the stairs to the bar.

“Come on, Ry-ry, just one more drink,” a patron slurred as he leaned over the bar, hand groping for the bottle Ryni held just out of reach.

“You better relax, or I’ll negate your buzz,” she warned, her free hand glowing a cool teal. It was a ry-li spell, one-part persuasion and another part life magic that would zap the drunk’s core into action, producing zo to cleanse the alcohol from his system. I’d seen her and the bouncers use this method on people who’d had far too much several times. It was an intriguing spell, but nothing I needed to concern myself with. I was here to fix and upgrade bots.

“Night,” I said as I waved to Ryni.

“Jiyong, wait,” she called as she pushed the drunk back onto his seat and hopped over the bar.

I turned and she pulled me into a tight hug, then ruffled my hair. “I’m going to miss you, nam-do sae.”

I chuckled at the familiar moniker which meant something close to little brother, and scratched the scar on the side of my head that would never again grow hair. “I’ll be back on some rest days, I’m sure. I don’t think any amount of class work will keep Woong-ji from assigning me bot repairs.”

“Hey,” Ryni scolded, pointing a finger at me, “call her Boss.”

I shook my head as I watched the drunk patron lean over the bar, clumsily grabbing at the bottle Ryni had put just out of reach. I pointed and said, “Better do something about that.”

Ryni looked over her shoulder and gasped. “Ai-yah! That’s it! You’re out!”

She stormed back inside, and I walked out into the warm twilight, hands stuffed in my pockets. I caught the start of Ryni’s scolding when the door jingled shut. I was sure it would jingle open again in a moment when the patron was kicked out.

It was a humid trip to the train, and I was grateful that the air circulation system was operational when I stepped on. The train designers created machina to pull the moisture from the air as it passed through the vents, which helped sterilize it of any illnesses as well. It was a precaution to keep the sicknesses of outer-cities from reaching the kingdom on the express line.

The train jostled as we made our way to Pi-Ki, the last outer-city stop on the line. Pi-Ki was a decent sized city, due in part to the train system. There were various establishments for liquor, tea, fighting, dancing, shopping, and more. It was a commerce point that kingdomites would frequent for cheaper wares, too.

The foliage grew dense the further from the kingdom we went, and the stars shown more brightly than in the thick neon glow of inner-city. I’d spent a fair amount of time in both places, and while I would miss seeing the sky so clearly, the kingdom had everything, even at night. Hot, fresh dimsim? No problem. Entertainment of every sort; zo and ma fights, dazzle dances, and more. Malady healing of all kinds from skinned knees to broken hearts. The kingdom was a hub of activity and wonder.

“Final stop, Pi-Ki na-dosi.” The overhead speaker crackled, and I pulled my bag onto my shoulder as I stood. Few weary faces around me were ready to depart, and collapse. Kingdom work was rarely easy for the outer-city folk. From cleaning sewage at Yuri’s parents’ company, to tending rooms and running laundry, outer-city folk always had the back-breaking jobs. I was lucky.

Woong-ji paid me well for my work—forty percent of all upgrades and ten guli an hour for everything else. I had saved more than enough to get my family moved into an apartment in the kingdom with a shared garden space, a patio for private use, and four bedrooms! Indoor plumbing—no more running to the river for water—and quick access to several well renowned Primary schools.

The best benefit by far was the proximity to the hospital. There were specialists there whole believed Machina Core Theory, the idea that our magical cores were made up of machines—something Mae had already confirmed for me long ago. While I still called it munje and spells out of reflex, I knew that my core was made almost entirely of tiny machines called nanites.

Almost entirely. The black crystal at the center of my core was something Mae had never encountered. She didn’t understand how, but it played a role in turning raw energy from my food and surroundings into different munje for spellcasting.

I yawned as I took the steps down from the train platform to the lively Pi-Ki. There were rickshaw drivers stationed all around the street calling out to the weary travelers. Many of them took up the offer at a guli a minute.

I waved away the offers as I got onto the road home. I could keep a good pace and be there in forty minutes and save my hard-earned money for something more important, like citizenship paperwork for my family. The pattering of my feet on the dirt path merged with the chirping of crickets and grenifrogs with their loud, growling ribbits, creating a night-time orchestra of sound.

I was eager to get home to my bed, so I upped the pace and cycled zo for a boost. The summer air was still warm, though the threat of fall was on the horizon, and the moisture made my dobok cling to my skin. En munje cycled easily as I approached the river. I diverted the flow of magic to my feet, preparing to try something new.

“I don’t think this is going to work the way you want it to,” Mae warned, and I shrugged her off.

The soles of my leather shoes became rigid and a chill shot up my legs to the base of my spine. The ground below my feet frosted over with every footfall, and I picked up speed toward the river. I pulled down a deep breath as I stepped onto the water—

And fell straight in.