Flynt cackled maniacally as his contraption spit lead into the sky. With each crank, fire and smoke and the pop of a firework erupted out the end of the metal tubes. The Roc’s warcry cut off abruptly, changing to a horrifying shriek mid-descent. It crashed into the ground with a wet crack and folded over itself, making noises of pain all the while.

Flynt kept cranking.

Blood pooled on matted feathers. Stray bullets from Flynt’s Gatling Gun sent sprays of muds into the sky, chewing up the ground. The goblins ran screaming from the wagon and away from the bird.

What a terrifying weapon in mortal hands.

“Run while you can!” Flynt cackled maniacally as the gatling gun released a tide of death into the back of the retreating goblins, cutting them all down in the field. It was all the more impressive on the smaller targets, their flesh exploding away in ruinous chunks.

I decided to keep my sword out.

Flynt kept cranking until the shots stopped, then sighed and leaned back.

“Thank you for the help, son!” He said. “Those birds get smarter and smarter!”

Flynt was bald, his head reflecting the light that made it through the cloud cover above. His face was sweaty; the area on top of his cart was burning hot with the release of steam behind us. The ends of his gatling gun distorted the air around them, a gradient of red hot metal crawling toward the gun’s handles. He had a large, bushy mustache, and he fiddled with the ends of it below boxy goggles.

“No problem?” I asked, not putting my sword away.

“Damn bird swept down and damaged my wagon while I was in the field! Was using me to bait out goblins here and hunt them.” Flynt snorted. “The diaspora from Spearpoint left these wilds painfully under managed. Monsters slipping in everywhere. But this bad boy here is the solution!”

Flynt slapped the top of his Gatling gun.

“A… gatling gun.” I said. “What does it do?”

“No! Not a Gatling Gun! I call this a Flyntling Gun. Damn system named it something silly. I have no idea why!” Flynt played with his mustache. “I’m going to sell them for a hundred gold a piece. Get them installed along the wall. Enough of them and even non-combat classes will be able to bring down Titans! Not to mention what will happen once the users start getting related classes. Imagine! A Flyntling Gunner class!”

Flynt gestured wildly.

“I see.” I said, leaning backwards away from the mad man. He was far too enthusiastic about his product. “I hope that goes well. So… it gives you this much power without any skill or class to use it?”

“Not a one!” Flynt smiled, eyes alight with passion and fury. Then he pulled himself back a little, coughing as if embarrassed. “Apologies, my boy, did you need a ride to the Titanfall dungeon?”

“I got lost in the woods. Saw the Roc I was hunting harassing you and — ”

“Ah! The Roc. You should go finish it off before it bleeds out! I’ll get this pipe fixed and then I can give you a ride.”

I turned and looked at the bird. It was still breathing in the field. I took another look at Flynt’s Gatling gun, debating if I wanted to be down range of the thing. I doubted a human here would turn on me for no reason. I jumped off and headed for the bird.

Flynt had no ill intent. He just loved his creationss.

In the worse case, I would just use my movement technique to run. I still kept a close eye on Flynt as I approached the corpse. I stopped moving as I watched Flynt grab hold of the burning hot pipe that had been shooting a cloud of steam into the air. Then he squeezed the pipe shut with his bare hands, bending the metal and rolling his hands over it until no steam leaked out.

He flicked water from his now wet hands and turned to smile at me.

“Damn things.” He frowned. “Going to need to forge a whole new pipe now!”

Non-combat classes seemed just as dangerous as combat classes.

I offered him an unsure smile and turned back to finish off the Roc.

The bird had a massive wing span, easily a dozen feet across. It’s body was riddled with wounds leaking blood onto the grass. I could hear its ragged breath. Each and every bullet had riddled it with wounds, though not every one pierced through its body. My sword stabbed toward its head, aiming to end this painlessly.

That’s when it snapped up at me. It moved so quick I almost failed to perceive it. Then it started to hobble up onto its legs.

I brought my sword down, stabbing the creature in the head. It continued to thrash even with the sword embedded in it; I chanelled qi into the shapes of the Anti-Light Herald. Black lightning danced on the edge of my blade, and smoke rose from the wound. The bird screamed, then stilled.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

The blade dripped blood and ichor as I ripped it free.

Then I brought it down again, separating the birds head. From my bag, I pulled one of the little storage cubes free and touched it to the bird’s head. It disappeared. The tiny cube sparkled, the texture outside of it changing. There was a mix of red and a facsilmilie of feathers on the outside of the cube.

Satisfied, I put the cube away.

“How far away is Spearpoint from here?” I shouted over to Flynt, who was loading up the spilled storage crates onto the wagon.

“Just an hour’s ride! Grab the goblin ear’s and hop on. I’ll take you to the Titanfall dungeon. There’s a road south directly to Spearpoint.”

“The goblins aren’t worth the silver.” I said with a shrug. I was here for the experience, not the kills. Each cube cost more than what I’d get from the goblin’s ears. So instead, I climbed aboard again. Flynt played with a dozen levers, and then, to my shock, the wagon started rolling forward.

“This is enchanted?” I asked, looking over the side for any indication of the qi-mechanism driving the wagon.

“No, my boy! It’s all mechanical!” Flynt laughed. “Powered by steam and coal. Made more effective by my class!”

Flynt had a big, blocky smile that displayed rows of white teeth.

We trundled into the treeline, the wagon bucking with every minor hill and rut. I expected it to get stuck, but it chugged on faithfully.

“What has you hunting Rocs in the Savage Expanse my boy? Leveling a new skill?” Flynt turned back and forth from the steering wheel of his wagon to me, giving me that gigantic smile. Every time he turned back he had to jerk the wheel to keep us from running into any tree.

“Just leveling.” I replied. My hands maintained a white knuckle grip on the side of the wagon as it bucked and tried its best to throw me off of it. Flynt seemed far too comfortable as the wagon leaned dangerously to either side. One of the crates slid back and forth on the ground until Flynt stuck one of his boots on it.

“Surprised you’re not at the Titanfall dungeon, then. Most people below the first tier get what, ten levels out of those?”

“Did you say ten levels?” I asked. That was more than I had ever gotten from a single source before.

“Yessir, ten levels. I’m on my way now to try to sell the use of this prototype here.” Flynt said, reaching an arm over to slap the end of his Flyntling gun. “I only get levels in my class when other people use my inventions, you see?”

“I see…” I said, staring at the Flyntling gun and seriously considering using it. If I had that, I could probably cut down the entire line of goblins I had ran away from. “I wouldn’t mind trying out your invention, sometime.”

Flynt reminded me of the mortals of my own academies — non-combatants who pursued a Dao all their own. I wondered how useful his invention could be back in the Feng Dynasty.

“Well, for you, I’ll make the fee ten silver for every belt of ammo. It’s not profitable for me, but you did get me out of that situation!” Flynt laughed like his earlier life or death situation was nothing. For all I know, it was; he was nearly level fifty.

“What’s the inside of the dungeon like?” I asked.

“They reflect the person… or thing… what died and created them. Heard this year it was some kind of storm monster. A really big version of the Roc. If only I had made it in time to sell this.” Flynt sighed, eyeing his Flyntling gun before jerking the steering wheel to move the wagon out of the path of another tree.

“Did you say person?”

“Yessir. Any human Titan will leave one too. Damn things will spit out monsters unless someone routinely harvests them or shuts them down. Every chamber in them is a memory of whoever died making them. Makes them great for training. Lots of the guilds have a legacy dungeon or two from their founding members to train their own members in. Course, the Trailblazers is back in the old country and they haven’t locked down any here.”

“I’ve seen a dungeon before. I think I’ll explore this one as well.”

They reminded me of the legacies left behind by cultivators; like the so called precursor dungeon or the one beneath Sandgrave, they were often built to pass down and preserve their legacies and cultivation. But come to think of it, it was odd how often cultivators built them; even cultivators with disciples would often go through immense undertakings to construct these labyrinths later in life.

As we continued through the treeline, the carriage sped up. The faster it went, the less I noticed the bumps; it’s huge wheels carved through mud and jumped over gaps.

“How does this thing work?” I asked.

“There’s a fire-core inside cooking up water that moves the Flynt Steam Engine!” He said. “It creates a rotational force that drives the wheels!”

Flynt went on to assault me with detailed information of how he crafted each individual pipe and lever, and the struggle of finding an apparatus large enough to lift the wagon up so he could add the finishing details. Apparently, he had to construct his own crane in his workshop in Spearpoint, and was only half way through finishing his second carriage and gun. He constantly interjected long tangents. I nodded and only added polite words here and there; it was enough to hear him. The more he talked, the more I became convinced that he was a genius.

I wondered if I could convince him to visit Sandgrave. What could he do with knowledge of and access to formations?

Probably something dangerous.

“Ah — here we go!” Flynt said.

We trundled out of the treeline and into a cleared meadow. The first thing I noticed was the gigantic corpse, a bird whose body was the size of city blocks — or what remained of it. It looked like it had-half melted and half-crystalized, gigantic open beak large enough for Flynt’s wagon to drive into open on the ground. The inside of it shifted and hurt to look at.

Feathers the size of men were scattered across the open plain.

The bird’s bones glittered, silver and white crystalline structures revealed beneath flesh that slowly dessicated as I watched.

There must have been a few hundred people milling about the meadow. In the far distance, I saw someone firing arrows into a troop of goblins trying to intrude into the massive clearing.

The next thing I saw was that this wasn’t a meadow.

Stumps decorated the hillside where the entire jungle had been cut away; a trio of fortresses occupied the space. Two atop distant hills, a third farther away. They were tiny forts, barely the size of a city block, but men and women gathered on their walls. The Titan had been brought low between them.

People were erecting camps and starting bonfires. A wall of wagons made a windbreak around the massive camp, and the wagon stopped bucking as much now that Flynt left the rough game trails behind.

There was an audible pop behind us, then the wagon stopped dead. Flynt turned around, a look of undisguised horror on his face as steam started to pour out of another hole in the pipes.

“Not again.” He said.

“Looks like you need a few more levels in engineer.”