Felix looked around at the room around him that was made of some material he had no hope of identifying. The mostly white walls and floor were marred only by the door and the arcane symbols from a lightly glowing emerald green inlay. The ceiling was completely black, as if there was no ceiling at all and the room simply continued upwards forever.

Felix took a breath, and silently thanked The System that he could breathe here, then took a step towards the door. Before his foot even made contact with the floor in front of him though, the door slid open in an instant. Standing in the doorway was what appeared to be a man except he had 2 pairs of eyes and a single horn that curved back originating in his forehead. His skin was a dark reddish brown color and he had a short black beard. Otherwise, he appeared completely humanoid. He wore a white full length robe and held a small sheet of metal in his hand.

“Is this your first time here?”

“Yes.” Felix responded.

“Makes sense. We haven’t seen a portal spell that ancient in… well it’s ancient so.” The man shrugged.

Felix didn’t know what to say to that so he just stayed silent.

“You also used… very precise coordinates… Where the hell did you get those?”

“System.”

“That’s… unusual. Sorry, doesn’t matter. This is your first time here so we’ll need to register you. Do you mind if I perform a preliminary scan?” The man tapped away at the sheet of metal in his hand, not bothering to look up.

“No.” Felix shrugged.

“Excellent.” The man gave a brief nod.

The man simply stared at Felix for a few minutes then tapped once on the sheet of metal in his hand.

He sighed, “Alright… guess we do this the ancient way as well then. Could I have your name please?”

“Felix Kade.”

“Two names? First and last?”

“Yes…”

“Alright. Grade and level?”

“D, 221.”

“Perfect. Human? At least originally?”

“Yes.”

“Alright. Are you carrying anything inordinately dangerous?”

Felix thought through Eretheas, Grim and the two rings he wore then cautiously said, “… Yes?”

The man simply nodded, “Alright. You can go now. Please head through this door and just follow the hall.”

The man stepped aside and Felix walked through the door into a hallway that led in exactly a single direction. He followed it, along with the couple of times it made a turn and ended up at a large desk made of some unidentifiable material with a Drakene behind the counter. Seeing as there was nothing else in the room other than a door on the opposite wall, Felix walked up to the desk.

The Drakene spoke to him from behind the counter, the eagerness in her voice apparent, “I take it you’re Felix Kade?”

“I am.”

She leaned over the table and looked at him.

“Alright. Let’s get you registered then and you can be on your way”

The Drakene spent a few seconds doing something behind the counter then she reached out and handed a small disk to Felix. The disk was about the size of a large coin and had multiple holes around the outside. In it’s center, it read Felix Kade.

“This is your registration. Try to keep it with you at all times. It identifies you and acts as a membership for public buildings like the library as well as some private buildings.”

“Library?”

“Yup. Just look for the castle, it should be pretty easy to see from here. As for the rest of the city, your map should update automatically so you can just check that.”

“Oh, awesome.”

“Since this is your first time here and we can’t tell where you came from, try not to do anything stupid. The punishment for all crimes is permanent exile from the city. On the flip side though, everyone is pretty lenient about enforcement. If you do need help, just channel mana into your registration and an officer will come running. Try to avoid false summons though.”

Felix frowned, “What’s the punishment?”

“There isn’t one. You might get fined or something if you do it too often but it’s more about wasted resources than anything.”

“I see. In terms of stupid things I shouldn’t do? Just in case my idea of stupid is different from the city’s?”

“I have a list here if you’d like but steal, murder and so on. If you do steal, you’ll be given the chance to return or pay for what you stole to avoid punishment. As long as the other person explicitly consents to a fight, if you kill them you probably won’t be punished. Try to avoid fighting in general though because it tends to cause damage to the city which is strictly enforced.”

“I see.”

“In general, if you do something that somebody doesn’t like, they’ll call an officer over and they’ll sort it out on the spot. What else… oh right, if you lose your registration, you can simply get someone else to summon an officer to escort you or head back to this building and we can get you a new one. Don’t worry about it being stolen, it’s keyed to you alone and impossible to forge.”

“Is there a cost to losing it?”

“Nope. Again, you might get fined if you lose it repeatedly but that’s more preventative than recuperative. If you need to teleport back to the city, try to use the anchor on the back of your registration instead of the coordinates.”

Felix looked down at the small disk in his hands and flipped it over revealing, a portal anchor. The anchor symbol was far more complicated than the other’s he had seen, but he didn’t see any reason why it couldn’t function exactly the same.

Mostly out of curiosity, Felix cocked his head, “Why?”

She shrugged, “It’s easier on the teleportation anchor multiplexors. It’s not a huge deal but it’s less annoying.”

“The what?”

The Drakene pointed towards the exit door, “You can go to the teleportation hub out that way and ask them or head to the library, they should have some information on it.”

Felix frowned and looked towards the hall he had come from, “Isn’t the teleportation hub just down the hall?”

She shook her head, “Nope. It’s on the other end of the city.”

Felix took a step to the right and looked down the hall he had come from with a confused expression on his face.

She nodded in understanding, “Yeah, that happens. You probably walked through a portal without knowing it.”

Damn I was so distracted I didn’t even notice the lurch in aether.

She tapped at something behind the counter then looked over it again, “Can you fly?”

“Uh… yes?”

She nodded, “Would you like to apply for a flying license now?”

“What does that entail?”

“Speed and maneuverability test. That determines how high you’re allowed to fly in the city.”

Felix shrugged, “Alright yeah, we can do that right here?”

She nodded, “Yup, just head through the door at the end of this hall and loop around the track as fast as you can. Feel free to go around as many times as you like. Once you’re done, just stop for a few seconds and the course will change to an obstacle course. Loop around that as well then come back here.”

Felix followed her directions and headed down the hall she pointed towards which was the same one he had come from. At the end of it, he walked up to a sliding door that automatically opened and revealed a long circular race track. Felix walked into the room and onto the track then flew up into the air and started circling. Theoretically, he wasn’t sure if there was a limit to how fast he could go, it would just consume exponentially more mana. He also wasn’t comfortable going too quickly so he limited himself to how fast he would normally travel at.

He looped around a few times then stopped and suddenly, a series of obstacles appeared consisting mostly of walls and balls. He circled around the track and avoided them as best he could but they started moving slightly as he flew. He slowed down a little to make sure he didn’t run into anything but managed to mostly avoid them. Once he was done, he stopped and started lowering himself to the ground but then, couldn’t help himself from reaching his hand out towards one of the walls.

His hand simply passed right through it, which he was somewhat expecting. He hoped that didn’t count against him but he was too curious to resist. He dropped himself, fell to the ground then walked back through the door he had come in through and back over to the desk.

She started speaking without even looking over at him, “Alright, I’ve updated your registration to include your license. You have access to green flyways. If you become faster in the future, just summon an officer and they’ll escort you up to blue level. If you can keep up with the speed, your access will be upgraded on the spot.”

Felix nodded, “What’s above blue?”

She shook her head, “Blue is the highest. It has no maximum speed. Try not to fly through red or green flyways too quickly, if you’re much faster than everyone around you, you’re going too fast.”

Felix nodded, “Stupid question probably, are the ‘flyways’ labeled?”

She nodded, “You’ll understand when you see them.”

“Uh, ok.”

She looked over the counter and smiled at him, “Do you have any questions at all or need anything further from me?”

“Uh… what’s the city called?”

Her eyes widened a little, “Oh, you’re that new. Well, welcome to Telviras, often referred to as the capital of the multiverse. We are currently located on the planet of Am’Dorez. Anything else?”

“Uh… Oh, how do people… level up? I take it there aren’t just creatures to fight roaming around.”

“Good question. Most people teleport out of the city. If you don’t have anywhere to go though, there’s the adventurer’s guild where you can take various jobs. Some will have creatures you can safely slay for experience.”

Felix nodded, “Where’s that?”

“Refer to your map. Don’t worry, it’s pretty hard to miss it. You might want to use a portal spire to get there from the library but it’s up to you.”

“A what?”

She smiled, though Felix could tell it got just a touch faker every time, “You’ll see what I mean. Any other questions?”

Felix shrugged, “Not at the moment I guess.”

She nodded, “If you do have any more questions, the library is a great place to ask. You can also come back here, to the registration center at any time. Feel free to leave this room through that door whenever you feel ready.”

The Drakene woman pointed to the door on the opposite wall from her desk, the only other door in the room. Felix thought for a moment to see if he could think of anything he should ask her but failed to come up with anything. He walked across the room and up to the door which slid open as he approached. Light poured in from the outside and blinded Felix for a few moments while his eyes adjusted.

Once he could see again, Felix looked out from the top of a large tower down upon a sprawling city that was very different from what he had expected. Instead of an incredibly dense city with sky scrapers everywhere, the city instead seemed to be made up of architectural marvels covering the ground.

In total though, the vast majority of buildings maxed out at around 5 stories. Each and every building looked like they might be historical monuments with intricate carvings, lattice work and structures. They all seemed to differ in style fairly drastically with some Victorian, some modern and other’s that were just plain weird.

The weirdest thing about each of the buildings though was that they were each covered in doors. Felix saw buildings he could normally expect to have maybe a single door instead have 50 doors laid out on it’s front side in 5 rows of 10. The doors were perfectly uniform and fit the buildings they were attached to but each one of them had completely unique signage.

He also saw doors on each side of the buildings, not just their fronts, though he was starting to think they didn’t actually have fronts at all. He was just so used to buildings having fronts and backs that he had assumed these did and looked for them.

Between each of the buildings, on every side, there was more than enough room for people to move about and travel. Within those paths, arranged in a grid pattern around the city, Felix saw what he assumed were the portal spires. They were the only structures other than the one he was standing on and a few other odd exceptions he could spot that stood high in the sky.

The portal spires were simply tall, thin spires with 4 sets of 4 evenly spaced portals on each side of the spires for a total of 16 portals per spire. He saw people entering and exiting from the portals all over the city, running through the pathways and flying over the city, all going about their day.

The first thing he did was head directly to the library. As the Drakene woman had mentioned, the library was impossible to miss. It was one of the very rare exceptional buildings that stood far above the other buildings in the city. Felix confirmed using his map, but he saw and immediately assumed the massive castle made of sleek black stone off in the distance was the library. It was made entirely of angular walls, towers, parapets and main structure, not a single curve in sight. As far as he could tell, though it had many doors on the side he could see, it didn’t have nearly as many as most other structures in the city.

He stepped off the balcony with no railing he had walked out onto and flew out just far enough to look back. The registration center he had just exited looked like a massive rectangular tower that ascended far into the air above him and extending an unknown height past the cloud cover above. Other than the balcony he had just stepped off of, there were thousands of balconies just like his all arranged in a grid pattern, each one with it’s own door.

As far as he could see, it was by far the tallest building in the city, though the city extended over the horizon in every direction he looked so he had no idea whether or not that was accurate. Felix oriented himself towards the library and started flying in it’s direction, very aware of how fast he was going so he didn’t break the law. As soon as he got about a kilometer out from the registration center, he noticed a small floating ball in the air. It glowed a bright green color and seemed to be fixed in place, completely ignorant of the breeze.

Looking above and below it, Felix saw a ball where the top half was blue and the bottom green just a few hundred meters above. Below it, there was another few green balls before he saw a ball with it’s top half in green and bottom in red.

Flyway height indicators I guess.

Felix made sure he was between the green balls then shot off towards the library. As he flew, thousands of people darted off in different directions, some passing him going in the same direction just faster than he was. Others, flew perpendicularly and others at random angles. Not everyone flew with their own bodies either, while some had wings or flew magically like Felix, other’s rode small vehicles.

Felix saw vehicles that people straddled like bikes, other’s they stood on like surf boards. Some were much larger like cars but those were entirely located in the blue zone above him. There was no order to how and where people flew, no side of the street to stay on or lanes to stay in. Felix thought it was complete chaos and wondered to himself how there weren’t constant collisions. Just a few minutes after that thought though, he actually saw a collision.

Two humanoid creatures with unidentifiable races due to their clothes, smashed into each-other in the air. One of them fell a little then recovered and the other plummeted to the ground. The one that had recovered simply continued on their way and the other continued to fall until someone caught them and flew off.

Having seen the blatant disregard for the collision, Felix started watching around him vigilantly to avoid colliding himself. Luckily, it seemed that was a rare occurrence because he didn’t notice any other collisions as he flew. People seemed to be relatively aware of their surroundings and completely able to maneuver around each-other so Felix’s worries were slowly quelled.

It took him a few hours to reach the library which was far more than Felix had expected. Looking out over the city and seeing the castle in the distance, he hadn’t actually realized how big the castle was and how far away the horizon was. He was so used to Earth and then Trenus that he had seen the castle about a third of the way to the horizon and thought it wouldn’t be that far away. He was completely misjudging the planet and the size of the building before him though.

Whether or not the castle library was built by or for Giants, Felix thought it would very comfortably house them. While the doors themselves were large at about 10 meters tall, they were not proportional to the rest of the massive structure. The towers that marked the corners of the castle walls were perfect squares and hundreds of meters wide.

Felix had no idea which of the 5 doors he saw to head towards so he simply stopped in the middle of the air, as he had seen others do, and checked his map. He had opened the map briefly to confirm this was in fact the library before, but hadn’t noticed anything different about Telviras’ map. He saw the general layout of the city just as his map had shown him for Atalus.

Now though, Felix zoomed in. As soon as he did, the buildings around him came into focus. The library was so massive that it quickly dominated his map but as soon as it had, Felix saw small arrows and labels indicating the function of each door. The one he headed towards was the general door because realistically, he had no idea where to find anything yet. The other doors indicated a vault, study, fiction and a memory section.

Felix approached the large double doors at the center of the wall that said ‘General’ above them and entered into the library. The first thing he noticed was that no matter how large the building had been on the outside, the inside was bigger. As expected, there were thousands of bookshelves arranged neatly on each of the countless floors that stretched both above and below him farther than he could see.

Initially, he had hoped he might be able to scan the library’s contents with his skill, though he knew it was far fetched. He then saw the actual building and realized how massive it was. Now, standing inside where the library was so much larger than the exterior of its building would suggest, he knew it was impossible. Even if he had the time to scan it in it’s entirety, there was no way his head could store all of this. Not now and Felix wasn’t sure if it could ever.

On the floor he was on, Felix saw a massive array of desks though only the ones with customers had librarians behind them. Felix quickly walked forwards so he wasn’t in the flow of constant traffic moving in and out of the building and hesitantly approached one of the desks.

As soon as he got within a meter of it, a librarian from somewhere deep in the shelves zipped over so quickly, Felix wasn’t sure they hadn’t just appeared on the spot. They seemed to be an elf of some sort judging from the ears but he couldn’t actually identify their race so he swapped his identification back to defaulting to names.

[?] Sarseyran (Lvl ?)

The elf nodded in Felix’s direction then reached his hand out, “May I have your registration please?”

Felix handed her the disk he had been given just a few hours ago and waited. Sarseyran almost immediately handed it back to him and nodded, “First time then.”

Felix smiled, “Yup.”

He nodded once, “Is there something in specific you’re urgently looking for or would you like a tour and general information?”

Felix nodded, “Can I get the tour and general information then ask specific questions afterwards? How much time do I get?”

The man smiled, “I’m your personal librarian for as long as you need, within reason. You are welcome to ask me anything.”

Felix cocked a brow, he had a lot of questions, “What’s reason?”

The man shrugged, “A hundred days? It’s completely up to me and I have nothing scheduled till around then.”

Felix scoffed, “Oh, alright that’s more than enough.”

“Thought so.” Sarseyran walked around the desk and into the shelves. Felix assumed he was supposed to follow so he did.

“This is the grand Telviran library built within the former castle of the empire, Am’Etaros. As you al-, likely already know, we stand on the planet of Am’Dorez. This planet most notably, before Telviras, housed the empire, Am’Etaros. As the empire grew, the city of Telviras, originally a vassal state, declared it’s independence with the full support of the emperor. Over time, the Am’Etaron empire fell to ruin but the city of Telviras, thrived.”

Felix nodded along as Sarseyran spoke, “Who was the emperor?”

It’s gotta be some mythological person we’ve heard about right?

“A man named Amos Etaros. I know, creative empire naming scheme.”

Nope.

“The city of Telviras was located centrally to multiple notable surrounding star systems and through it’s neutrality from the empire and any religion, it became a hub for just about anything and everything. Once Am’Etaros had fallen the city was free to expand to the rest of the planet. It quickly tore down most of the old city but kept it’s more notable buildings, like the castle, and simply restored, repurposed and relocated them.”

Felix frowned and looked around him, “This castle was moved?”

The man shook his head, “No, some of the churches and other more impressive structures were moved to fit within the city’s grid layout. The castle was not moved, that would be… difficult to say the least.”

No kidding. Though maybe a god?

“Given the city’s independence and neutrality, people flocked both to trade and live within it. The city grew as did the library we stand in now. It now houses the single largest collection of books in the multiverse… well, that we know about.”

Felix frowned again, “What do you mean?”

“It’s possible a god’s personal collection is larger but… I doubt it. This collection of knowledge was started some time in the first few epochs of the city’s founding which was, itself, during the first integration. Maybe C- It’s unlikely.”

Felix’s frown grew deeper, “Epoch?”

The man frowned as well, “I see, you’re that new. Not sure what measure of date and time you used but here, the generally accepted measures are one day for the full rotation of Am’Dorez. 10 days is a dekad. 4 dekads is a term. 10 terms is an epoch.”

Not that far off from week, month, year. It’s just 10 days instead of 7, 40 days instead of 28, 29, 30 or 31 and 400 days instead of 365. At least the divisions are nicer I guess.

Felix looked around him in awe, “So this is almost guaranteed to be the largest collection of knowledge in the multiverse?”

He nodded, “Highly likely.”

“Does that mean some of just about all knowledge is here?”

The man scoffed, “No, not even close. The biggest gaps in the collection are secret technique, skill, profession and class manuals. Those are generally closely guarded by those who own them, which is most notably, the gods and their factions.”

“So this is all publicly available content in here?”

Sarseyran nodded, “In the general section, yes. In the vault there are areas reserved for those who have access and those will contain… well anything. I obviously can’t just go in and look so I don’t really know. The other sections are just more specific but more of the same and all publicly available.”

“Even the memories?”

He nodded again, “Yup. That section just doesn’t contain any books, as you may have guessed… it contains memories.”

“So I can read anything in here?”

“Yes. It’s all publicly available. Try not to destroy or damage anything. We have replacements but we would still prefer if you avoided doing so. You are welcome to read, rent a copy or even purchase a copy of anything in here. It’s all run by The System so it should be pretty intuitive.”

I guess my library was run by The System too…

“The shelves are organized based on topics. Each floor is a general topic, some topics covering multiple floors. From there, it get’s more specific. If you’re having trouble finding something, ask a librarian or use your map, it will show you the different sections of the library.”

Sarseyran led Felix to a large empty table in the middle area of the library, right next to the railing that surrounded a massive hole for traveling between floors.

“Do you have any questions about the library itself or would you like to move on to specific information you’re looking for?”

Felix nodded, “Eramith?”

The man nodded immediately, “Widely considered to be the most prestigious educational institute in the multiverse, which is impressive given that it’s more or less neutral.”

Felix cocked a brow, “More or less?”

“Just like the city, it’s neutral. Neutrality is a gradient though and I would say Telviras is more neutral than The Eramith Academy. Well… yeah.”

Felix nodded, “Where is it?”

“Are… do you want the specific universe, star system, planet or something else?”

Felix shook his head, “Oh, I guess I didn’t really think about that properly. How do I get in?”

He looked at Felix with an odd expression, “By being one of the top few thousand individuals in the entire multiverse.”

Felix just looked at Sarseyran expecting them to go on, even though they seemed to believe that was a sufficient answer. Felix waited for a few seconds before they relented and continued, “The admission process is complicated. Generally you get chosen ahead of time and receive an invitation to apply at all. You’ll have to head to the school for the admission tests then assuming you pass, you’ll be admitted. Most people apply at around level 500 but that is not a hard requirement.”

Felix nodded, “How do I get there?”

Sarseyran darted off into the shelves then ran back to the table they were standing around with a massive book in his hands. He placed it on the table and flipped to the first page then pointed.

“That’s the portal anchor. Just bring it to the teleportation hub and get them to open a portal for you. You will need to provide your invitation and you’ll have to wait till the admissions are open, which should happen in about an epoch… I think. Otherwise you won’t even be allowed to open the portal.”

“Could you get me a more exact date?”

“I can… one second please.” The librarian darted off again, taking the book with them and no doubt replacing it, before hurrying back over to the table.

“In 412 days, 13 hours admissions will be open.”

Felix nodded, “How often is the application open?”

“Once every 100 epochs.”

Damn. So I have just over 400 days to hang out in the city I guess.

You’re going to the school then?

Felix mentally shrugged, I have a scholarship, I’ve already been accepted and it’s the most prestigious school in the multiverse. Seems stupid not to go.

Grim mentally nodded, Agreed.

So in the meantime… adventurer’s guild I guess?

That covers your class, what about your profession?

Oh good call. Guess I can get a job.

“How does money work, I take it credits are accepted?”

“Yes. E grade credits are the base form but you will see some things priced in D, C, B and so on.”

“Do I need to pay taxes to the city if I buy things or get a job?”

“Nope. No taxation.”

How the hell does that work?

“Where would I go about finding a job?”

“There are various job boards around the city, this happens to be the largest and most central one. I can retrieve some if you’d like, what kind of job are you looking for?”

“Enchanting, I guess.”

Sarseyran just looked at Felix for a second or two but didn’t say anything then slightly shrugged and darted off into the shelves once again. He returned a few seconds later with another massive tome that was half his height and proportionally as thick. He placed it gently on the table then opened it to a random page near the middle. Felix looked down at the book and watched as ink morphed and shifted within the page to form, dissolve and reform job postings constantly.

“How do you want to filter them?”

“I guess C or D grade?”

Sarseyran nodded, “Large or small establishment?”

“What’s large mean?”

“Largest enchanting operation in the city is Voyage’s enchanting plant with a few hundred thousand working there.”

“Small, very small by that standard. Let’s say 6 to 20 people I guess.”

He nodded then flipped the pages a few times until he was left with a list that moved around much less than the last one Felix had seen.

Sarseyran looked up from the book, at Felix, “Anything else? This is still a really long list.”

Felix frowned, “How long?”

“Tens of thousands.”

Felix just gaped.

Fucking city is massive.

Felix shrugged, “How about job posting has been active for only a few dekads at most?”

“Would you prefer number of rejected applicants?”

Felix nodded, “Yes actually. Can you show me the top and bottom 1% of the list according to rejected applicants?”

“Yes I can, just give me a second.” Sarseyran then flipped the pages seemingly at random, to Felix, until they ended up with a smaller but still massive list. Felix took a peek at the list and saw the bottom 1% of the list was entirely brand new postings so he got Sarseyran to remove those. He had been hoping their might be a hidden gem of some kind down there but with the robust filtering system at play, it appeared that wasn’t the case.

Sarseyran looked at Felix, “Pay?”

Felix shrugged, “Sure I guess sort that by the top 1% again.”

Sarseyran looked at him like he was an idiot, “Alright, these are going to be the most exclusive jobs you realize?”

Felix shrugged again, “Yeah, I might as well apply and see.”

Sarseyran snorted and shook his head, “Good luck. I’ve got 4 postings for you. Give me just a second and I’ll get you their information.”

The librarian darted off with the job posting book in tow then returned about a minute later with a sheet of paper that he handed to Felix.

Sarseyran handed Felix the paper with a smile, “Here you go. You should be able to find them all using your map’s search function pretty easily.”

Felix frowned, “I can search on my map?”

Sarseyran shook his head almost imperceptibly, “Yes you can. You can also filter down places similarly to how I just did.”

“That’s ridiculously convenient.”

He nodded, “Yes it is. Any other questions?”

“If I want to buy and sell things, where do I go?”

“Depends on the item. You could look for a large store or a more specialized one, depending on the value of the item and how much you value your time.”

Felix nodded, “Okay but, any store will buy things from me?”

“Generally yes, assuming they would carry that item. The Voyage department store won’t, they only carry Voyage made products and they don’t buy those back from you.”

I guess it’s just a big company?

“I’m likely heading to the adventurer’s guild next, anything I should know?”

“They’ll probably tell you all this when you get there but don’t exaggerate your ability. Try to be as accurate as possible. If you do exaggerate, you could end up on a job you can’t handle which could mean death. Be picky with the jobs you take, some will be undesirable and some will try to hide that fact.”

“Glad I asked. I can’t think of anything else.”

“Okay well, good luck.” Sarseyran nodded to Felix then disappeared amongst the bookshelves.

Felix had a decent number of things he needed more knowledge on but most of them were spell forms, enchantments and mana. He also had quite a few general questions but none of them were urgent and they were almost entirely curiosity. He figured he would come back and ask another time because he wanted to get settled as quickly as possible.

The first thing he had to do was register himself at the adventurer’s guild. Opening his map, Felix willed the search function to appear and quickly found the adventurer’s guild south-south-west of the library. Judging from his map, the adventurer’s guild was about as far from the library as Trenus’s entire circumference times anywhere from 3 to 5. It was hard to estimate given the distance but he was definitely interested in the Drakene registration desk lady’s recommendation to look at the portal spires.

Felix looked around at the countless books around him and promised himself that he would return then exited the building and flew off towards the nearest portal spire. He approached it from the air and examined it briefly but it was fairly self explanatory. The bottom portal had a 0 above it, the one above that had a 1. The topmost portal had a 3 above it. Felix shrugged and flew into the bottom portal, matching the speed of the other people at that height.

As he had expected, he appeared exactly one spire away in the direction he had flown. He flew back through it just to confirm then flew into the one above that. This time, he traveled much further than he expected, 10 spires to be exact. When he tested the one above that, he traveled 10 times further again for a hundred spires. As expected, the last portal at the top of the spire sent him one thousand spires away.

Felix oriented himself southwards then flew through the top portal. He had much further to go though so he looped around the spire and went through the top portal pointing south once again. He continued to fly through portals and loop around the spires until he slightly overshot his journey then readjusted and flew west.

Instead of taking him weeks, or dekads, the journey had taken him less than an hour in total. If he had been more proficient with the portal spires too, he could have reduced that even further.

The adventurer’s guild was another one of the buildings that seemed to be an exception to the low rise rule. The building looked to Felix like an ancient temple that just refused to decay. It was an odd sight to wrap his mind around because while the tower was covered in multicolored plant life and vegetation, the intricate stonework he saw peeking through was completely unmarred by the throes of time. There were no missing chunks or discoloration of any kind, it looked pristine, from the small chunks of the structure he could actually see. It seemed as though the vegetation had been placed all over the tower purposefully and then it was left to grow however they pleased.

He saw a vast grid array of doors all around the top section of the structure starting from the second story and continuing all the way up to the cloud cover above. Looking at his map, those seemed to be individual rooms, according to the ones it labeled. Some didn’t have labels at all either because they were kept secret or they simply weren’t relevant to him.

The main doors on the bottom floor, were a set of large stone slabs about 30 meters high that were folded open, flanked by the statues of two beasts Felix couldn’t identify. One looked like a lion with far too many heads and the other appeared to be a dinosaur or something closely resembling one.

Felix walked in through the doors and once again, stepped into a space far larger than the building should have been able to contain. Directly in front of him was a large circular desk with multiple people standing within it. Along the sides of both walls were individual desks separated by small dividing walls, almost like cubicles. Between those and all across the floor were thousands of tables, benches, couches, booths, small rooms and a whole lot of people occupying them. On the far wall Felix saw a long unseparated bar that seemed to serve food and drinks. Lastly, turning around to figure out what the crowds were looking at, Felix saw large boards covering the wall behind him that seemed to contain thousands of contracts.

Felix approached the large circular desk in the middle of the room and directly in front of him because it had a sign that read, ‘Main Information Desk.’ He had to wait a few seconds for a couple other people to be dealt with before he could step right up to the counter. A human man wearing what Felix would call a variant on a tuxedo turned to him.

“Hello, what can I help you with?”

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.

“I’m-”

“Registration? Head over to desk number 482.”

Felix followed the man’s finger as he pointed and headed over to one of the desks separated into a boot on the right wall. Desk number 482 was a fair distance into the building which meant Felix got a good view of a lot of the people inside.

Some of them seemed to know each-other as they talked and laughed together, other’s seemed to be waiting for someone. Amongst the thousands of people Felix had glanced over, he had seen thousands of races. He wasn’t sure if there was simply a lot of variance in each individual race but the number of skin colors, heights, horns, orifices, limbs all varied drastically. The majority of people he saw were either human, elves, Drakene, and another race he wasn’t sure what to call. Those races made up about 60% to 70% of the population and the rest all looked unique.

Approaching desk 482, he saw standing behind the desk, a female of that common race he couldn’t identify. She was about 30% taller than him with dark grey skin and two curved horns that originated on her forehead. She had long, dark red hair and wore a pale blue dress.

She spoke as he approached, “You’re here to register with the guild?”

“I am.”

She reached her hand out, “Could I have your registration please.”

Felix handed her the disk which she took for just a few seconds then handed back to him.

She tapped away at something as she spoke, “Will you be taking or posting jobs?”

“Taking. Do I have to register again to post jobs? Or am I not allowed?”

“You can post, just have to go through a different process. A lot of it’s the same we just want to make sure you’re credible and have the funds to pay out the reward. With taking jobs, we want to make sure your skill level is at least close to what you think it is. Keeps you safe and the job poster happy.”

Felix nodded, “I see. Just taking jobs for now.”

She smiled, “Alrighty. Are you willing to share your stats with the guild so we can recommend jobs for you?”

Felix winced a little, “No…”

She smiled and nodded, “Alrighty, no problem. If there were 5 of you with different classes but similar total stats, with your ideal party composition, what’s the highest level creature you could take in a head to head fight?”

What the hell kind of question is that?

Felix was pretty sure the answer was at least close to the C grade but he didn’t want it to be too unbelievable, “Uh 750?”

She looked at him with a cocked brow then shrugged, “Alrighty. Do you have any specializations outside of combat or is combat your focus?”

Felix winced again, “Mana?”

She leaned forwards, her brow still cocked, “Sorry, could you be more specific?”

“Not really?”

Her head tilted to the side a little, “Like… enchanting, engineering, contraptions, spells, rituals, magical creatures…”

“Yes?”

She just looked at him blankly for a minute then nodded, “Alrighty. Would you be willing to take a proficiency test to validate your proficiency?”

“What kind of test?”

She sighed, “In this case, likely a mana control skill cube. That’s the best I can do for something as general as: ‘Mana.’”

A mana control cube is enough for all that?

Felix shrugged, “Sure.”

“Alrighty, I’ll be right back.” She opened a door behind her that Felix didn’t even realize was there then disappeared for a few minutes. When she came back, she handed Felix a metal cube that Felix needed two hands to hold.

[D - Special] Skill Test Cube: Mana Control

A skill testing cube to test mana control.

AKA: Puzzle Box, Enigma Cube etc.

Felix took it and pushed mana into it, felt the cube respond and then solved it in under a minute or so. The box popped open but there wasn’t anything inside. He handed the cube back to the woman, over the desk.

“Uh… One second please.” She took the cube then disappeared again. She returned a few minutes later with another cube, this one Felix could hold in one hand.

[C - Rare] Skill Test Cube: Mana Control

A skill testing cube to test mana control.

AKA: Puzzle Box, Enigma Cube etc.

Felix took the cube from her hands and pushed some mana into it. This one required him to supply almost a million mana which was absurd but it wasn’t very difficult. All in all, they didn’t even come close to how hard the Arcane one had been that Grim was stored inside of. He completed the C grade cube in about 10 minutes, mostly limited by how fast he could pump mana into it, then handed it back to her.

She seemed to be ready for that so she reached under the desk and pulled out another cube, this one seemed to be made entirely of stone, which was just weird to Felix. It was only a few inches wide which Felix greatly appreciated because the first cube, the big one, was just unnecessarily unwieldy in his eyes.

[D - Epic] Skill Test Cube: Mana Control

A skill testing cube to test mana control.

AKA: Puzzle Box, Enigma Cube etc.

Back to D grade?

Remember that Mind, Body, Mana book?

Yeah I know, highest ever completed was an Epic skill cube. How out of date do we think that book is?

Might want to be careful with this one.

Felix looked up at the woman while he held the skill cube just below the desk and started pushing mana into it, “Has this cube ever been opened?”

“A couple of times… Maybe three actually? We don’t keep records lying around.”

“I read a book a while back that claimed a B - Epic Mana control cube was the greatest mana control feat ever accomplished. Was that a really old edition?”

“Yeah, that would have had to have been transcribed at least… a hundred integrations back? I’m honestly not up to date on these things myself, but I’m pretty sure someone did a legendary one a few integrations ago. It was kind of a big deal and lots of rumors were started around it.”

Seems safe to open it.

Agreed.

“I see. Where could I get more information on feats like that in general?” As Felix distracted the woman, he completed the box just below the desk and opened it.

“Probably just ask a librarian, that’s what I’d do.”

Felix feigned a nod so he could quickly glance down and saw that the cube was empty, so it had in fact been previously opened.

“Thanks. Here you go.” He handed her the cube and she just stared at him blankly for a few seconds. She seemed to be having trouble processing what happened but she managed to slowly reach out and take the cube from his hands.

“Alrighty… uh… give me a second please.”

Oh shit.

She disappeared through the door behind her then came back a few minutes later.

“Sorry about that. I just had to get approval to put a Grand Master tier proficiency on your sheet. Anything else you want listed?”

“Listed? How does this work exactly?”

“There are two different ways to get a job here. One, you can look for an open job that anyone can accept and take that. The alternative is to be specifically requested for a job. Either a preestablished team has a specific need or the poster needs a specific skill so they filter out and look for people. You’ll appear under mana proficiency filters, if you’re okay with that?”

“That’s fine. What are the chances I get requested?”

“I’d say fairly high. Grand Master tier proficiencies are very rare.”

“How rare?”

“There’s a decent chance you’re the only active adventurer with a Grand Master tier ‘mana’ proficiency. If not there probably aren’t more than a few if I had to guess.”

“Can we list that as Expert instead of Grand Master?”

“I can. If you’d like, we can have the internal proficiency be Grand Master then we’ll only ever show anyone Expert. That way you can upgrade it if you need to in the future.”

“Sure, that sounds fine. How common is it to downplay like that?”

“Not common but it happens. Some people just like to play it safe.”

“Gotcha, yeah let’s list it as Expert.”

“Alrighty. I have unproven combat proficiency at high D grade with an Expert tier Mana proficiency. You’ll appear in searches that require experience with enchantments, wards, contraptions, rituals, magical creatures and spells. Is that all accurate?”

Is it not weird that a mana control cube is enough for all that? I don’t have that much experience with crafting rituals or even enchantments.

Grim mentally shrugged, I guess it’s just so rare to beat mana control boxes with that rarity that they just… assume?

Still…

It probably wouldn’t be enough for an expert proficiency in rituals I would guess. You have an expert proficiency in mana and that means you have some ability or experience with rituals and so on? I guess?

Felix mentally nodded along, Yeah, I guess that makes more sense. It’s like if you had expert proficiency at blacksmithing. That doesn’t necessarily mean you’ve ever made a sword in your life and you aren’t an expert swordsmith.

But your experience with a forge would translate somewhat.

So they list it anyways.

Grim mentally nodded, Something like that.

“Yeah, sounds good to me.”

“Alrighty. Would you like to be listed by your name or would you rather go by a pseudonym?”

“My name is fine.”

“Alrighty. Lastly, are you ok with your location being shared with other adventurers?”

“Why…?”

“Basically, if someone finds you in a search, which I assume you’re alright with?”

“Yeah, that’s fine.”

“If someone finds you in a search and they want you for a job, they can request your location. As long as they have a legitimate job and are registered with the guild, we’ll give them your location. Then they can go find you and pitch you the job.”

“Oh, that’s fine.”

“Alrighty. That usually only happens if it’s urgent, otherwise they’ll leave a message with the guild. Make sure you come to a desk to check your messages when you can.”

“Okay, anything else I should know?”

She smiled, “Nope. You should be good. Is there anything else I can help you with today?”

“Is there anything else I can do here?”

“Other than apply for and take contracts you can buy food or drinks at the back bar, sell items to the guild itself and rent rooms. That’s most of what we do.”

Felix nodded, “I don’t need any of that right now. Thanks, I guess that’s everything for now.”

“Alrighty. Feel free to come back anytime if you have any questions or concerns.”

“Thanks.”

Felix nodded to the clerk then turned around and headed back to the front door. Before he looked into any jobs from the guild he wanted to at least apply to the enchanting shops. He had a list of 4 job postings from all over the city. Looking towards the sky, the sun was only just past it’s peak.

He pulled up the clock The System provided him and saw it was only two pm, though he wasn’t exactly sure if the days were the same length here as they were on earth and Trenus. He doubted it just because of the size of the planet but he didn’t want to head back to the library at the moment and also didn’t want to ask a random person.

He also had no idea how long the typical work day was or how long the shops would be open. He just figured he would keep applying until he got through his list or the sun set. He started with the first job on the list, an enchanting shop called The Griffin’s Claw Enchanting Shop. It was mostly east from the adventurer’s guild a fair distance away so Felix located the nearest portal spire and shot off in it’s direction.

Using his map, he pinpointed the shop as the 3rd door from the left on the second row from the bottom of a metal looking building that was almost perfectly reflective. He flew over and opened the door to the shop then walked into the lobby. Though he couldn’t see the majority of the shop located behind the front counter, the lobby area alone was far bigger than it should have been. Once again, looking from the outside with the doors half a meter apart from each-other, the inside of the shop had no right being as large as it was.

There was a young man who appeared to be a cross between a man and a wolf standing behind the desk.

“Here to pickup or commission?”

Felix smiled, “Looking for a job actually.”

He nodded, “How much enchanting experience do you have?”

“I’ve been enchanting for just over an epoch or so.”

The wolf man winced, “Uh… you have an enchanting based profession?”

Felix tilted his head, “Sort of. It includes enchanting as part of it.”

He smiled at Felix with more than a little pity in his eyes, “D’ya have any of your work on you?”

“I enchanted my armor? Though it’s more spell inscriptions than enchantments…”

The wolf man rubbed his forehead, “Uh… Look, kid I think this job might be a little above you. Try to find someone to apprentice under for at least 5 epochs or so then come back. Bring your best work with you too. We’re always hiring and I’m sure we’d be happy to talk then but right now, you just don’t have enough experience.”

Felix nodded, “Alright, thanks for your time then.”

Felix politely nodded and walked back out the door.

Well that was a bust.

Grim mentally sighed, You could have revealed at least a little bit more to him.

I could have but… honestly, that’s not the kind of shop I want to work for. Judging from the conversation alone, it’s just not my vibe. Considering there were thousands of job postings, I think I can afford to be a little picky.

Alright, up to you.

I mean worst case I can come back and show them my Expert proficiency, that would probably be enough… right? I think?

Whether or not he could have convinced them, Felix didn’t love the fact that the wolf man didn’t even seem to consider him at all. While he knew he was lacking in a lot of aspects of enchanting, he also knew he wasn’t a bad enchanter. What he was really missing was knowledge, he believed he had the skill. He decided though that if all 4 of the postings he was heading to rejected him, he would spend some time designing and enchanting something he could show off.

What he was hoping for was someone who was willing to take hire Felix even though his knowledge was severely lacking based on his potential and skill. He knew that was a tough ask but he was willing to try anyways. Ideally they gave him a practical test as part of the interview.

The second shop was located in a gothic looking building with dark stone, pillars and intricate tracery on the doors. Each door was separated by a tall pillar and guarded by their very own completely unique gargoyle. The one above the door for the Precision Enchantments shop appeared to be a gargoyle scribing something with a quill onto a breastplate.

Felix approached then opened the door and looked into a large open workspace with barely anything in it. There were a couple of desks laid out around the room and an assortment of tools but given the size of the room, it was practically empty. There were a handful of boxes and bins in the back corner and sitting upon them, was a man about half of Felix’s height who appeared to be reading a book. Felix didn’t see anyone else in the room.

The man looked over at Felix as he entered and hopped off the boxes, “Sorry about the mess, we’re kind of still setting up. If you’re looking for us to enchant something for ya, it might take a bit longer than it normally would. I can assure you the quality’ll be top notch though.”

“Actually, I’m here about the job you posted?”

The man’s eyes widened a little then he sighed, “Oh… sorry but, you’re not what we’re lookin for.”

Felix tilted his head and frowned in confusion, “What are you looking for?”

“Nothing against you, you may have a ridiculous amount of raw talent. We just started up, me and some buddies of mine. We want to create an enchanting shop where it’s just a small group of highly experienced enchanters. Ideally, we want everyone to bring over their clients too.”

Felix nodded, “Ah, makes sense.”

“Yeah, sorry about that. Good luck with the job search!”

“Thanks.”

Though it was disappointing, Felix felt like that interview went a lot better than the last. Though he wasn’t even really considered, again, the man was nice and his reasoning was solid. Felix was just hoping the trend continued.

He wasted no time as he headed towards the next enchanting shop which was a fair distance away. Checking the System provided clock, it was just after 3. He expected he would make it to the next shop by about 4 but he wasn’t sure when they would close and head home, he just hoped he was going to make it in time.

He arrived at the building just after 4 which was later than he had hoped but still acceptable. The building was a large old stone building reminiscent of ancient Roman ruins, except in pristine condition. Around each door there were pillars that started from a small landing and rose up to an arch above them. The entire building seemed to be made of some kind of marble and the doors themselves each had the shops signage carved into them.

He quickly found the door that indicated ‘Inscripticae’ and pulled it open. Inside, the building did not match the outside. There was a desk off to the right that was only a few meters long. Past that, Felix saw multiple doors on each side of the hall, each one just a few meters from the next.

Behind the desk, or anywhere else in the entire shop as far as he could see, there was no one there. He simply walked up to the desk and waited for a few minutes then got impatient.

Felix leaned over the counter and called out, “Hello?”

“Coming!” Felix heard a woman’s voice call back.

He waited for a few minutes before a tall horned woman with light brown skin and long white hair ran in from around the corner.

She chuckled as she slid in behind the front desk, “Sorry about that, didn’t have any appointments and we rarely get walk-ins. What can I do for you?”

Felix nodded, “I’m here about a job posting.”

She looked at him with a raised eyebrow and a cheeky smirk, “Are you now? One second.”

She disappeared again back where she came from and Felix heard her call out, “Aldahn, you’ve got another applicant!”

A few moments passed before what looked mostly like a human man appeared behind the desk. The only thing separating him from a human as far as Felix could tell, was that he had four eyes.

The man looked at Felix with a knowing smirk, “You here to apply as an enchanter?”

“I am.”

“Excellent. I’ll meet you in one of the meeting rooms just down that hall.” Then he hurried out from behind the desk and disappeared. Felix looked down the hall at the series of about 10 doors.

He didn’t say which one.

Felix walked over in front of the doors and waited. A few moments later, he head a door closing behind the third one so he he opened it and walked in. He saw the four eyed man, Aldahn he assumed, sitting at the table in the middle smiling at him. Felix closed the door behind him and sat down.

The man smiled and nodded, “Excellent, you found the right room.”

Felix frowned, “Was that a test?”

He shrugged, “Sorta. Did you just check each one in a line?”

Felix shook his head, “Nope. Waited for you to close your door and heard it.”

He smiled, “Name?”

“Felix Kade.”

He nodded and stared at Felix with four piercing eyes, “You a good enchanter?”

“I think so.”

“So if we asked you to-” At that moment, the four eyed man was interrupted by the door behind him opening to reveal a very tall, very muscular man with slate grey skin and two horns. He had long black hair and a scruffy beard that looked more like he was unshaven then it was a particular choice. He wore a leather apron, a white shirt and simple brown pants. Hanging in the neckline of his shirt, was a pair of glasses that Felix thought would be too small for his face.

The man looked down at the four eyed individual and sighed, “Inorim, get the hell out of here.”

The man in front of Felix turned back, “Oh come on, you didn’t even let me get to the punchline.”

“Get out.” The large man said with more exhaustion than exasperation.

“Sorry boss. He’s a smart kid that one.” The man that had been sitting across from Felix got up and squeezed through the doorway and around the large muscular man that had interrupted them. After Inorim, apparently not Aldahn, left, they closed the door behind them and the real Aldahn sat down.

“Sorry about that.” He said through a sigh. “Inorim goes a little too far sometimes. I’m Aldahn, I own the shop.”

Felix smiled, glad that wasn’t the boss, “Felix Kade. No worries.”

He leaned back in his chair adding to the look of being generally exhausted, “So Felix, what are you looking for?”

“I’m looking for a job as an enchanter. I’ve already been to two places and I know I’m only in the early D grade and I don’t have any classical training.”

“Oh, you’re here about the job.” Aldahn looked pensive for a second while he crossed his arms, then he shrugged, “I’ve got no problem with any of that. Are you any good?”

“I think so.” Felix said confidently.

“I guess we’ll find out. Where are you from by the way?”

“Uh…”

Aldahn shook his head, “It’s totally fine if you don’t want to say. What do you mean by no classical training?”

“I’m completely self taught… sort of. I’ve been taught through some books but most of what I know is from System dungeons.”

Aldahn squinted at Felix, “System dungeons? As in multiple? You learned enchanting from them…” Aldahn just frowned, “Wait… are you… you’re from the integration? You’re an integrated? The 256th?”

Oh shit, I guess dungeons aren’t that common in the rest of the multiverse. Well, that didn’t take very long.

Felix sighed, “Yeah…”

“Holy shit. Why didn’t you just say so?” Aldahn went from looking exhausted in general to sitting up and engaged in an instant.

Felix was a bit taken aback by his sudden enthusiasm, “I wasn’t sure how people would react, whether or not I should tell people.”

He nodded, “Guess you wouldn’t. Well, I’m glad you didn’t, otherwise those other two places you applied to probably would have hired you on the spot.”

Felix frowned, “Really? I kind of doubt that. Why?”

“The integration started what, an epoch ago? You might be the fastest integration escapee I’ve ever heard of. Any escapee is usually ridiculously talented, that’s the only way The System lets you out.”

Felix winced, “I’m not sure about ridiculously talented. It kind of kicked me out though so I didn’t really have much of a choice.”

Aldahn frowned again, “Kicked you out? What do you mean?”

Felix shrugged, “It told me I had to leave.”

“Huh… Look kid, I’m very interested in hiring you. I’m not just gonna hire you outright though without some kind of test. Before all that, would you mind giving me the whole story? Honestly, I’m just curious. Can you show me the title by the way?”

“How about I give you the whole story after the test? I’d rather not go around giving the whole story to just anyone…” Felix quickly equipped the title he had gotten which caused Aldahn to frown then shrug and seemingly accept it. Felix dismissed the title because he did not want that to appear when he was identified.

“Sure, fine by me. You don’t have to tell me anything at all by the way, if you’d rather not. Just sounds interesting is all. I know you don’t have much classical training and you aren’t familiar with all the terminology and whatnot, but I can work around that. You up to do a test right now?”

“Yeah, I’m ready.”

“Alright perfect, follow me into the shop.”

Aldahn stood up from the table and opened the door behind him then walked through it. Felix followed suit and entered into a large area with about 20 large work tables laid out in a grid 5 by 4. Each one was equipped with a complete set of tools, most of which Felix couldn’t even identify.

In one of the corners of the room, one of the work tables was much larger than the others and was spaced out separately. It was easily big enough for 5 people to work at it without ever interfering with each-other.

Running along the far left wall, there was a staircase that led up to a room with a large window overlooking the shop. Felix could see a few people in there but not much else about the room.

Aldahn led him to one of the work tables and gestured for Felix to stand on one side of it. Looking around, Felix saw Inorim, who winked at him, along with the woman, who had initially met him at the front desk, working at their own tables.

Aldahn nodded to Felix, “Alright, test is simple. I’m gonna give you some enchantments and I want you to see if you can find any flaws with them. If you do, fix them if you can, just identify them if you can’t. After that, I’ll get you to try and replicate some enchantments and I’ll provide some nodes for you. The vast majority of them will be unnecessary but a few of them will be useful. If you can, try to verbalize your thought process. That work for you?”

Felix nodded, “Sounds good to me.”

Aldahn smiled then walked over to the far left wall and through a door beneath the staircase. He came back a few minutes later with a simple breastplate and laid it down on the table in front of Felix then crossed his arms and watched.

The first thing Felix did was pick it up and examine it both with his mana senses and visually. Thanks to his, previously Mana Sight now Reaper’s Sense skill, he could actually see the enchantment which he knew wasn’t supposed to be visible. He followed the enchantment around the breastplate and found multiple inactive sections.

They didn’t seem to be flawed though, just large dead ends. He really didn’t want to just hit it in case it retaliated somehow so instead, he forced the issue. Using his mana control, Felix pushed mana through the entire enchantment so he could map it out. He only used a trickle but even then, he could tell what the function of the enchantment was.

Felix spoke without looking up from the breastplate, “This ignites itself when hit. It seems to spew fire out in all directions, is that… a desirable effect?”

Aldahn nodded, his poker face completely flawless, “In this case, yes. This was initially designed for a sentient Fire Elemental.”

“Alright then that’s not a flaw. It’s rough though. I’m not sure how to fix it exactly but… right here in the middle, the mana is all turbulent. When the breastplate is struck, the mana rushes far too quickly through the channels. Either swap out the channels or even out the flow with a rate limiting node.”

Aldahn just looked at him blankly, “Is that all?”

Felix shrugged, “Most of it. Everything else is minor. This is a major design flaw. There are a few kinks here and here and this node is imperfect but those are so minor in comparison. Do you want me to fix them?”

Aldahn nodded, “If you can.”

Felix winced, “Any chance you could supply me with a quill? Mine is only E grade.”

Aldahn pointed towards the desk, “Of course. Check the top drawer on the left.”

Felix backed up a step and opened the indicated drawer and saw about 50 quills all neatly organized in a horizontal quill holder. He carefully examined them and was tempted to ask which was the one he could use then thought better of it. The quills were organized by tip size, as far as he could tell. He looked at the breastplate and picked up the quill he thought was the right size then pushed mana into it.

Immediately, the quill heated up until the tip was red hot. Felix shook his head, pulled all the mana back out then replaced it in the drawer. He picked up the quill of an almost identical size next to it and supplied some mana. It began vibrating. He tested a few others until he settled on a quill that seemed to be sharp so it could scrape itself into a material.

Looking at the breastplate, Felix tested a tiny corner of it on the inside so it wasn’t visible then carefully adjusted the kinks and flawed nodes to the best of his ability. The enchantment was so fine that it was actually kind of difficult for him to get it exactly as he had imagined it, but he didn’t make it any worse. It was better, but not perfect. To a trained eye, his minor fixes would stand out though as evident patch work.

He was about to declare he was finished but then he took another look at the turbulent area in the middle of the breastplate and decided to try his hand at fixing it. Instead of adding a rate limiting node which would be impossible without sanding out the enchantment and starting fresh, Felix instead rerouted some of the channels to make the flow of mana less aggressive. Instead of rushing in one direction them smashing into a wall, now it would rush in the same direction but be redirected around a loop and into the intended channel a little more gracefully.

Ding You have gained a level in [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (222 => 223)

“Alright, it’s not perfect and this should really be redesigned, but I think this is better.”

Aldahn nodded, “I agree. On both points. That’s why this was in the back room, it was a prototype. Ended up scrapping the enchantment and starting from scratch. Not the worst fix though, if it was necessary to salvage the enchantment for some reason. Onto the next part.”

Aldahn reached forwards and took the breastplate then tossed it onto an empty table to his right. He then picked up two boots up and placed them on the table followed by a book.

“Replicate the enchantment as best you can. This book is a list of some enchantment nodes with their various effects and uses.”

Felix looked at the two boots and immediately picked out the one that was enchanted. He examined it and it’s enchantment with his mana senses. His best guess at what it did was hold the person to a surface so they could walk freely up walls and along ceilings.

Felix frowned, “Am I to replicate the enchantment exactly or the effect?”

Aldahn raised a brow, “What’s the difference?”

“I don’t think this boot is very optimal at what it’s trying to do.”

“By all means, as long as the effect is the same.”

Felix quickly flipped through the book Aldahn had provided to make it look like he was actually reading it. He had Grim file the book away in permanent storage then looked back at the enchanted boot. He ran a tiny trickle of mana through the enchantment just to make sure he hadn’t missed anything and in doing so, actually identified the entire enchantment.

Looking over the enchantment design mentally, he was able to cross reference the book and find every single node except one. He knew he was kind of cheating since most people couldn’t do what he was doing, but it was a test of his skills so he didn’t feel too bad about it.

Realizing Aldahn was also tricking him a little with a node that wasn’t in the book, he felt even less bad about using his mana senses and control so liberally. Unfortunately, he had no idea what the node did himself so he isolated it and turned it into a very basic spell that just supplied it mana. He cast the spell under the desk on his foot with just a trickle of mana and realized it was just a dead node. It didn’t seem to do anything at all.

Felix looked up at Aldahn and frowned, “Why is there a dead node here?”

Aldahn frowned, “A what? What do you mean?”

“This.” Felix reached over and picked up a piece of paper then drew out the node on it.

Aldahn smiled a little, “Huh… Which one does it look like the most in the book?”

“I guess this one?” Felix instantly flipped to the exact page and pointed which earned him a curious look from Aldahn.

Aldahn allowed himself a full smile now, “Yeah, exactly. That’s what it was supposed to be. It was so flawed though that… well, as you said, it’s dead.”

Felix nodded, “Do you want me to replicate the intended effect then or the actual effect?”

“Intended if you can.”

Felix looked through the quills in the drawer and picked one out that got hot but not red hot and was about the size he thought was right. He took a few minutes to mentally redesign the enchantment, which was much easier when he had something to start from, and made some adjustments of his own.

Instead of one large node, Felix split the antigravity effect into multiple smaller nodes then increased the force of the new, force nodes. He also replaced the dead node with it’s working version which would help distribute the force according to the enchantment node index.

As soon as he had the enchantment mentally drawn out, he got to work inscribing it into the boot. It took him about an hour but Aldahn stood there the entire time completely unfazed and unmoving the entire time as far as Felix could tell.

Once he was done with it, he picked it up and pushed mana into it then stuck it to the side of the desk. It seemed to work properly and his mana senses didn’t indicate anything wrong with it so he detached it and handed it to Aldahn. He looked it over then tossed it to Inorim who immediately put it on his left foot and hopped up the wall. Inorim gave them a thumbs up then backflipped back onto the ground and tossed the boot back to Aldahn.

Ding You have gained 4 levels in [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (223 => 227)

Aldahn smiled and nodded, “Not bad kid. I had another one but we can just skip that. How did you identify the entire enchantment well enough that you could draw out the dead node?”

Felix offered the lie he had already prepared, “Class skill actually.”

Aldahn cocked a brow but didn’t seem too shocked, “Really? That’s rather… unique.”

Felix shrugged, “Yeah, not unique but, I got lucky.”

“Alright, you definitely pass. Any chance you’d be willing to give me the whole story now?”

Felix shook his head in disbelief, “So… I’m hired?”

Aldahn nodded, “Yes kid, you’re in.”

“Then yeah, sure.”

Aldahn led Felix to one of the meeting room again and Felix proceeded to give Aldahn the abridged version of his tutorial, world event and subsequent exile from the 256th integration.

Aldahn’s face contorted in disgust, “You opened a portal with an empty mold?”

Felix shrugged defensively, “I guess so, though this is the first I’m hearing that te-”

Aldahn winced, “And you didn’t kill yourself?”

“Uh, well…”

“You are either ridiculously talented, lucky as shit or definitely both. Or you’re lying”

Felix just shrugged, “I guess you’ll have to be the judge of that.”

“Oh, cheeky. I think you’ll fit in just fine around here. You have a place to stay in the city yet? Sounds like you just arrived?”

“No but, sort of? I don’t really sleep much these days anyways.”

“Well, I’ve got a nap room set up in the back, if you need to use it, it’s open to all employees. I take it you have all your belongings on you? Don’t need to set them up anywhere?”

Felix shrugged, “Nope, I’ve got everything I need on me.”

“Alright, well I don’t know if there’s anything else you need to do in the city but let me know when you’re ready for a job and I’ll find you something.”

“Actually… this was my last stop. I’m open to anything you’ve got right now?”

Aldahn nodded, “Your enchantment was good but primitive. You don’t actually know any conditional nodes, calculation nodes, sensory nodes, measurement nodes or any of those, do you?”

Felix shook his head and failed to hold back a smile, “Uh, no. I’ve never heard of any of those actually.”

“Yeah, I could tell. No worries though, I’m sure you’ll be able to figure it out pretty quickly. Let me think… Alright, we’ve got a few pieces going out. I want you to look them over for any flaws you can find. I’m not expecting you to find anything but it should be a good first step so you can get more familiar with our work. I’ll also give you some books you can borrow about enchanting. They’ll have the terminology and techniques we use around here. Let me know when you finish reading them then I can have you sit in on some design meetings. I’ll stick you on shadow duty for a bit and you can review the other’s individual projects. Then I’ll have you assist with projects and once I think you’re ready, I’ll assign you a personal client.”

“Sounds good.”

“Alright, follow me.”

Aldahn walked over to the storage room he had previously retrieved the flawed breastplate from and Felix waited just outside the door. He saw Inorim give him a big smile and a thumbs up while he waited. Aldahn walked out of the storage room after a couple of minutes with a small pile of textbooks in his arms. He led Felix up the stairs into the room that overlooked the shop.

The room, now that Felix could see it, was rather simple. In the middle of the room was a large table that would comfortably sit at least a dozen people. On all the wall opposite the window there was a chalkboard split into five columns, three of which were filled. On the opposite two walls were hangers that currently held three items.

Aldahn placed the pile of books down on the table, “Here are the enchanting books. When you’re done with them, just stick them back in the storage room. Don’t worry about where, it’s a mess down there anyways.”

“Ok.”

“These,” Aldahn said as he walked over to the items hanging on either side of the room, “Are the items we have going out soon. Look over them, if you find anything at all or just have questions, ask someone. I promise no one will be offended if you do find anything or annoyed if you have questions. Once you’ve looked over something and are happy with it, put your name on the board under the item.”

“Does everyone review every item?”

“No, that would be a waste of time. If someone has time or specific concerns they’ll look it over. Usually the enchanter who made it will ask specific people to look it over. You’re welcome to take the items to an empty work table if you feel you need any tools, just don’t modify them yourself unless you’ve asked the creator.”

“Of course.”

“Okay perfect. Let me know when you’re done with those textbooks.”

“I will.”

“Oh and everyone here is friendly, feel free to introduce yourself. Ask questions about anything, I know you’re an integrated so. I’m sure anyone would be happy to answer any questions you have. I won’t tell them you’re integrated, if you want to tell them it’s totally up to you.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it.”

“Sure.” Aldahn nodded to Felix then walked out of the room, down the stairs and out of sight.

Felix had already finished passively scanning the textbooks and he planned on reading them mentally but he didn’t want to be seen putting them back just yet. He also wanted to get as much as he could out of the books and he figured having practical examples would be hugely beneficial for him. So, before he started reading the books, Felix looked over the items on the walls.

The first item was a set of armor that was somewhere between plate and leather. It was like leather armor with metal plates fastened over the more static areas. Felix picked it up off the hangers on the wall and immediately noted that it was unnaturally light. He couldn’t know if its weight was due to the material or the enchantment though until he analyzed it.

Felix placed the armor on the table and immediately started running a tiny trickle of mana through it’s channels so he could map out the entire enchantment. The enchantment was far more complicated than Felix had ever encountered and the vast majority of it he couldn’t identify. He was able to trivially map the entire thing though so he had it’s design memorized.

After he had fully analyzed the enchantment of the armor, Felix replaced it on it’s hangers then looked at the next of the three items. Hanging on the opposite end of the same wall as the armor, was something Felix couldn’t quite identify at first. It was a small platform, just half a meter wide and sticking out of one side of it was a pole about a meter long. The top of the pole then split into two. Felix took it off the hanger and realized it was a vehicle of some sort where the top of the pole split into handles.

He performed the same operation he had with the armor, running mana through the entire enchantment and mapping it out mentally. The enchantment on the vehicle was equally as complex as the last except Felix actually sort of recognized some of the nodes. He hadn’t seen them specifically anywhere but he could tell they were variants on force nodes.

The last item wasn’t actually hanging on the wall but rather placed against it on the ground. It appeared to be a large cube a few meters wide made of a painted ceramic of some kind. Felix didn’t want to try and lift it onto the table so instead he just examined it right where it was. The box had a door on the front and the inside looked much the same as the outside. Analyzing the enchantments, Felix realized it was some kind of oven, though unnecessarily complicated if it was just that.

With all the enchantment designs mapped and memorized, Felix chose a seat at the table and entered his soul space. He had all the textbooks stored away and his Soul Garden Meditation allowed him to perceptually dilate time so he could effectively speed read.

The first thing he did was set himself up on the open field area and conjure large whiteboards with the enchantments he had memorized all drawn out. He arranged them so they surrounded him then he had Grim retrieve all the textbooks for him, since Grim knew the filing system best.

Felix tried to organize the books based on their content level but found there wasn’t any obvious progression between them. Each book seemed to focus on different areas and types of nodes. Before he started reading, Felix also conjured another board so he could record and file away all the new nodes he found in the books.

While Felix could have just scanned the books and left it at that, he wouldn’t actually have an understanding of their content. The data itself would be stored forever but none of it would have actually been processed until he read them himself.

He started with conditional nodes and learned about enchantment nodes that could activate or deactivate themselves based on set conditions. Some were complicated, others were very simple requiring just a third input to activate or deactivate them. They also just expanded from there with conditional nodes that could toggle themselves between two output channels based on a condition. Other nodes that could alter the mana going through them based on a set condition.

The majority of the book was just introducing the nodes, listing them out then giving a brief description of their use along with some minor examples. It wasn’t very in depth into their uses or edge cases at all, but it was functional.

The next book he read was the sensory nodes book. This one was simple enough and it allowed a node to essentially read things about the outside world. They didn’t get much more complicated than that in the first half of the book. The second half went into measurement nodes though which were more precise.

Instead of binarily determining if something was in front of the node, they could measure their distance, size, color, even smell among a thousand other things. Different nodes had different levels of precision and that precision usually had tradeoffs in response time and sensitivity to fluctuations in mana.

The next book he looked at was all about calculations. They were nodes that could take the numbers from measurement nodes and use them in calculations. These had the same precision levels and tradeoffs as the measurement nodes as well. The book also included some conditional nodes that could use those numbers to alter their outputs, though nothing the first book hadn’t included.

The last book he looked at dealt with mana stability for the most part. As he had seen in the previous two books he had read, the more precise nodes were susceptible to error when there were large fluctuations in their input mana. The solution to this was to normalize and smooth out the input mana using other nodes. It was possible to have the source mana be stable but that it was unreliable in general to count on that always being the case. In some situations where the use case was controlled they wouldn’t matter but in most cases where mana was supplied by the user or the aether, it mattered a lot.

Attunement, energy level and quantity fluctuations all had potentially adverse effects on enchantments. The book included all kinds of nodes but also sections of enchantments that could be used to mitigate those risks. There were combinations of nodes that resulted in very smooth mana and recipes for how to reach even higher levels of precision. The most common tradeoff was that they consumed mana to function which exponentially multiplied the required input mana. The book had all kinds of tips and tricks that had been developed over time to deal with these tradeoffs and their ideal use cases.

As Felix read, he took notes on each of the different nodes he had seen along with the recipes, tips and tricks then had them all filed away in the library by Grim. He knew most of it off the top of his head but having notes to refer back to was just good practice in Felix’s mind.

The last book he read just detailed out some common enchantments, famous historical enchantments and just plain notable ones along with why and how they utilized different nodes. This one was more about expanding his understanding and solidifying what he had just learned along with giving him some second hand experience. He didn’t take notes on this one but he did read it all the way through with rabid fascination towards it’s contents.

Once he was finished, he looked through all the enchantments he had previously mapped out on the whiteboards around him and began recognizing sections and actually understanding them. It took him a half hour to fully understand each, but it was so entertaining to Felix that it had felt like just a minute had gone by in total.

The armor seemed to read incoming energy of any kind then use mana to create a defense. The majority of the enchantment worked towards deflecting incoming strikes but there was a small section that would deal with energy like fire and lightning. For those it mostly erected a shield to avoid collateral damage.

The vehicle measured the desired speed and direction, based on the tilt of the handles, and the user’s weight then calculated how much force to output. It also smoothed out the acceleration and deceleration so it wasn’t a harmful burst and was able to counteract some of the effects of external forces like strong wind. Felix knew just by looking at the enchantment design that it would falter and act erratically at extreme temperatures, but he was running under the assumption that that wasn’t relevant.

The last item, the cube was actually an oven of a sort. It was incredibly precise with it’s heating and ability to maintain it’s internal temperature. By Felix’s estimation, it was precise enough that the internal temperature shouldn’t fluctuate more than a degree per 1,000 degrees outside the cube. It had all kinds of nodes to normalize the input mana followed by calculation nodes and heating and cooling nodes to maintain it’s internal temperature.

Overall, Felix didn’t see any major flaws in the enchantments. There were some sections where he didn’t understand why they used some nodes or patterns over other’s and some small sections he knew were turbulent. Overall though, he just marveled at the possibilities. Just looking at the items and having read the books, he felt like his mind had expanded and he was able to do so much more.

Thinking back to the end of the world event, when he had sieged the castle with antigravity enchantments. He now had the nodes, from the node index he had memorized earlier, to target only creatures and only creatures below a certain weight.

If he had to do the same thing again, he could do it with about a tenth of the overall mana cost because he wouldn’t waste any on targeting buildings or heavy creatures. He could also have the force applied be the exact right amount instead of being complete overkill on some guards and not quite enough on others.

These nodes were also usable in spell formations, at least he assumed they were since he had adapted enchantment nodes before. He figured it should be possible to have self targeting spells and spells that specifically countered incoming effects. He could now realistically create a mana shield that cast itself to block incoming attacks. It wouldn’t be perfect, but it was a hell of a lot better than what he had now.

Felix quickly jotted down all his notes and mostly questions about the enchantments onto a board then exited his soul space. As his consciousness returned to his body and he opened his eyes, he saw two women sitting across the table looking at him, one of which had met him at the front counter. The other, appeared to be an elf of some kind and wore a full set of leather armor.

Ding You have gained 6 levels in [D - Arcane] Mana Engineer (227 => 233)

“You’re finally awake.” The elf noted.

The one he had already met smirked, “Oh hey, I guess Aldahn liked you enough to hire you then.”

“Guess so.” Felix shrugged.

“I’m Fralyna by the way.” The tall, horned woman with white hair, the one he had first met, smiled at him.

“Edemari.” The elf said.

“Felix. Pleasure to meet you guys.”

“What did Aldahn assign you?” The elf asked.

“Read these books and look over the enchantments on these items.” Felix pointed.

“Ah, makes sense. Well you better get on it then, those books aren’t gonna read themselves.” Edemari nodded and shrugged.

Felix tilted his head, “I already read them all.”

Edemari frowned and turned to Fralyna, “Huh? Fral, didn’t you say he showed up a few hours ago?”

She nodded and her smirk grew, “Yup.”

Edemari’s from deepened, “And he’s been sitting there meditating for the last couple of hours at least.”

Fralyna nodded, “Correct again Mari.”

The elf looked at him, “That is an interesting selection of skills you have.”

Felix shrugged.

Fralyna smiled, “Are you gonna analyze the items now? I can show you how the inspection tools work if you need?”

Felix shook his head, “Nope. Done with that too.”

Edemari leaned forwards, her face covered in disbelief, “Are you now? Do you have notes?”

Felix nodded, “I do.”

Edemari nodded, “Well, lay em on me. I made the armor over there.”

“Oh perfect.” Felix pulled up the notes he had jotted down in his vision then walked over and pulled the armor off the wall. He placed it down on the table then looked at the elf. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Fralyna smirking and watching.

“You aren’t gonna be offended if I question a bunch of your decisions are you? I am sort of new at this.”

“Kid, you don’t need worry about any of that. Aldahn doesn’t hire anyone who cares about that kind of shit. Worst case, you learn things. Best case, you find something wrong with it and I get to fix it before the client finds it.” Edemari stood up across from him, just on the other side of the armor.

“Alright perfect.”

Felix proceeded to question about a dozen of the decisions she had made most of which she had justifications for, some of which she admitted the option he offered was equivalent. When he pointed out turbulent areas she shrugged and asked what he would do about them.

Unfortunately, he realized the issue at that point, that neither of them had any good solutions to fix it. Ultimately, it wasn’t a big deal, it was just that that area of the enchantment, was almost guaranteed to fail first when it did fail in a few thousand epochs or so.

When he was done, Felix wrote his name on the chalk board as having approved the item. Neither of the other two enchanters for the other items were in the shop at the moment, since it was so late at night so Felix would wait until they were in to ask them. Apparently there were no set hours and Aldahn didn’t care when people were there and not there, just that they didn’t let their clients down if they could avoid it.

“Guess I’ll tell Aldahn I finished with the books then. Is he still here?” Felix asked the two women.

“Yeah, he has trouble sleeping so he’s almost always here. Luckily his high vitality keeps him relatively functional.” Fralyna answered.

Felix nodded like he understood, “That just from his race or…”

Fralyn and Mari looked at each-other briefly before Fralyna answered him, “Nah, he used to be an adventurer. Pretty good one too.”

Felix frowned, “Are you both nocturnal then?”

“I am, sort of. Sleeps just been weird the last little bit.” Fralyna shrugged.

“I just got back from an contract with the adventurer’s guild. Still a little too hyped up to sleep.” Mari shrugged.

“Shouldn’t you be sleeping too?” Fralyna smirked at him.

Felix shrugged, “Not tired. Where could I find Aldahn then?”

“I can show you to his office.” Fralyna rose from her seat and walked towards the door. Felix followed her.

As they walked down the stairs, Felix addressed her, “Weird question… what’s your race called?”

She stopped, turned and looked at him, “Kid, where the hell did Aldahn find you?”

“Sorry?”

“No need to apologize, you just must be from one of the most remote areas of the multiverse. Aldahn and I are Rhunar.”

Oh shit, like the middle finger in The Hand.

“Ah, thank you.”

She chuckled to herself a little then led him to one of the doors in the hall just outside the hallway where Inorim had tested him. Aldahn’s office was the last room in the hall. Fralyna pointed it out then headed back into the shop and Felix walked over and knocked on the door.

“Come in.” Felix heard through an exhausted sigh. Felix opened the door and found Aldahn sitting at a desk in an otherwise relatively empty room fiddling with some kind of small metal tablet wearing his tiny glasses.

Aldahn looked up and replaced his glasses on his shirt, “Oh, Felix. What’s up?”

“I finished reading the books you gave me and analyzing the items. I already questioned Mari and approved the armor.”

Aldahn chuckled, “That was… unnaturally fast. You really finished reading the books?”

Felix nodded, “Yup.”

“Ok now I have to ask, how the hell?”

Felix shrugged, “Time dilation skill.”

Aldahn frowned rather seriously, “You mean perceptual time dilation?”

“I guess? I’m not actually dilating time I think, just when I meditate time moves slower.”

“Yeah ok. Makes sense. Okay well I’ll have you sit in on the next design meeting then. I got nothing else for you right now. Feel free to pursue personal projects in the shop or use the nap room next door until then.”

“Alright thanks… Actually, any chance you could answer a few questions for me? I can’t tell if you’re busy…”

“Nah, just killing time. Shoot.”

“All the buildings I’ve seen or entered in this city are bigger on the inside then they are on the outside. How does that work?”

“It’s a spatial enchantment. When I say a spatial enchantment, I mean it. I don’t understand and could never replicate it. It was a gift the city got a while back and then basically built around it.”

“It’s that complex?”

“I’ll show it to you next time I inspect it.”

“You have to inspect it?”

“Nope. I’m the only one I know that does that. Think about it though, what would happen if the enchantment ever did fail?”

“We would all be compressed into a tiny little box?”

“Yeah, probably. Could be something more violent but basically, death. I don’t feel comfortable not inspecting it every once in a while.”

“Alright, thanks.”

Aldahn smiled, “My turn, how are you inspecting these enchantments without tools?”

“I told you, class skill lets me see mana… kind of… I just map it with a tiny trickle of mana and memorize it.”

Aldahn shook his head to clear it, “That’s it? Wait, you memorize it?”

“Memory skill, yeah.”

“Alright. Try to learn the tools anyways just in case. And do not ever do that with the spatial enchantments. They are way too… honestly I don’t have any clue how they work, I just don’t want to risk it. Don’t even try to inspect them without me, got it?”

“Yes, definitely not.”

Absolutely not running any mana through those to map them. That could be… really bad.

“Good.”

Felix sat down in the chair across from Aldahn, “Why’d you stop adventuring?”

“Oh so we’re good friends now? You’re allowed to ask me personal questions?”

Felix shrugged, “You don’t have to answer.”

“Nah, I’m just fucking with you kid. Yeah used to be an adventurer, I found my calling that’s all.”

Felix nodded, “There wasn’t some tragedy that traumatized you from adventuring ever again?”

Aldahn smiled and shook his head, “No my beloved didn’t tragically die because I wasn’t strong enough to protect her or anything. I was on a job with a new guy, we needed some arcane knowledge to deal with some traps. I was curious so he explained what he did and how it worked. I loved it so much, I ended up dropping my profession levels and switching over. I don’t adventure anymore because it was a means to an end. Now I do this and I love it. Are you registered at the guild?”

“Yeah.”

“As for tragedies, kid you need to be expecting them when you’re adventuring. They aren’t gonna happen all the time but they will happen and you just need to be okay with that. You get used to it, it’s part of the job.”

“Any other tips or advice for adventuring, I hear you were pretty good at it.”

“Who the hell told you that?”

“Fralyna.”

“Of course she did. Be selective with the jobs you take, don’t take just anything.”

“Fair enough. I take it you don’t mind if I disappear for a few days to do a job?”

“Nah, just let me know ahead of time. As long as you don’t have a client that requested you specifically, which may not happen for another epoch or two, no problem at all. Even then commissions usually take a few dekads so disappearing for a few days isn’t an issue.”

“Ok, thanks. When’s the next design meeting, do you know?”

“No idea but, you’ll have at least a day’s notice so, as long as you’re here once a day ish, you won’t miss it. Got somewhere to be right now?”

“I was thinking of exploring the city a little, finding more things to do.”

“Alright. Have fun and don’t get scammed.”

Felix frowned, “Is that an issue?”

“Not usually, but you have no exposure to the rest of the multiverse. Maybe just ask one of us before you buy anything.”

“Alright, thanks.”

Aldahn just nodded and Felix left his office, leaving him to his peace. Though it was the middle of the night, Felix had some things he wanted to go looking for, now that he had a job, and he figured the library would still be open. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .