“So, any input?” I asked, looking over my options for hobby specialization.

I was leaning toward Slayer. Specializing in taking damage seemed like it was asking for trouble, and I was skeptical of Consort for multiple reasons.

Koren tilted his head side to side, looking disappointed. “Those are fairly basic options. If you wait until you reach Copper, you should get some better choices.”

“They seem pretty useful. How much better are we talking?”

“Perhaps not better at all, perhaps significantly. You aren’t far from Copper. If you want my advice, wait till then to pick.”

“So every rank you get better choices? Should I wait till Iron?”

He chuckled. “If you can wait that long. It depends on the hobby, I’m not sure if Fodder would get anything extra at a higher rank.”

“Fragment Master loses options,” Vyrania put in.

“Am I going to lose one of the choices?”

“Not at Copper,” Koren answered. “Fragment Master is a special case. You have to understand how low Copper is. Most reach it during childhood.”

Vyrania nodded in agreement. “Telandrians are faster still, usually reaching Iron while still children.”

“Telandrian, that’s the other hominid race from your Earth?”

“Yes. They’re naturally better with mana, and their bodies accept it more readily. Most reach Steel before adulthood.”

“And how young is that for them?”

“About the same as us.”

I frowned, looking at Koren. “My memory is a little fuzzy, but when I inspected you, didn’t it say you were human and vorian and telandrian?”

“My heritage is quite varied,” he allowed.

“You look human. I guess you are kinda tall.”

“His features are conspicuously telandrian,” Vyrania said. “As is his disposition.”

“My disposition is efficacious and buoyant.”

“More like obstreperous and troublemaking,” she muttered.

I stared at the specialization choices, thinking. “These abilities, are they like the cards? How often can I use them?”

“This one,” Koren said, pointing at Ward of Defense under the Guardian specialization, “probably uses mana. I’d say most of the others shouldn’t. They’d be inherent.”

“How are they powered then?”

“By the system.”

“How nice of it.”

“Remember, they only work in broadcast areas.”

“Yeah,” I said, recalling the description for Fodder. “What does that mean? Like only areas the system can reach? Its radio waves or whatever?”

Koren frowned at me. “That's not at all what it means. It means a zone, event, or anything else that gets broadcast to the CorCivs.”

I stared at him blankly. “What gets broadcast?”

“Why us, of course.”

I froze. “What? You mean, broadcast to people? Like, for security?”

“Security? No. This is entertainment, my boy.”

“There’s people watching us? For entertainment. Like right now?”

“Of course. Right now, and from the moment you entered the tower. This is a broadcast area after all.”

“So when I fought that worg without clothes… people saw that?”

“Oh yes. But not many. This is the second tower in a NewCiv, so the viewership won’t be very high, if anyone’s watching at all.”

I breathed a sigh of relief.

“If they were,” he added, “you’d be able to access your numbers.”

“What numbers?”

“The number of viewers. It’s only accessible if you’re in the sponsored broadcast.”

“That’s the one that’s available for free to everyone,” Vyrania explained.

“And how would I access that?”

“The same way you’d access anything else.”

“By thinking it.”

He nodded.

I tried, and a message appeared.

You currently have 3,482,951 viewers.

My relief evaporated.

“I have three million viewers!”

Learning this fact did not help my paranoi— Uh, my, justified suspicion.

Despite the cold, nervous sweat prickled my skin.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

“Really? How interesting. Not bad for an unranked.”

“He is number one on the Hero Board,” Vyrania pointed out. “And the owner of this tower.”

“Ah, true,” Koren said, nodding.

“You didn’t think us being watched was an important thing to tell me?”

“Didn’t realize you didn’t know.” He patted my shoulder. “You do now.”

“Great. Super helpful.”

“I aim to please. Don’t worry, you put on a good show with that worg. Not a great one, but good enough.”

“I found it impressive,” Vyrania said.

“Thank you.”

“For an unranked.”

“Thank you,” I corrected, less sincerely.

‌

∎ ∎ ∎

We followed the trail of runes through the frozen forest, not encountering any monsters, only increasingly-dead trees.

Koren had me focus on my mana, focus on pushing it through my body with the method he’d taught me.

He also showed me an alternate method of detecting something’s rank or class that didn’t rely on the system by examining the mana directly, which he called manasight. But I had a harder time with it. When I tried it out on Vyrania, she said it was the opposite of subtle.

“It feels like you’re trying to get inside of me.”

“Uh, sorry.”

“Just don’t go around practicing it on anything stronger than you.”

“Which at this point is everything,” Koren pointed out.

“Don’t feel bad,” Vyrania said. “Even I can’t do it. You’re better than me already.”

“Really?”

“Oh yes,” Koren agreed. “Whenever she tries it on me, I feel quite explored.”

“And it’s different from the Copper awakening sense thing?”

“That allows you to see mana in general—or use whatever of your senses is most proficient. It doesn’t allow you to see the mana inside of others. Everyone has the ability to detect mana, get a vague sense of it, but not inspect it directly. Even my Copper sense didn’t allow that. What I taught you does.”

“Is it that useful though? You can just inspect people.”

“Not everyone. And not everything. This doesn’t rely on the system. I think you’ll find it comes in quite handy once you master it.”

I thought back to Torath, being unable to inspect him.

“Well, thanks. I appreciate it.”

“He learned it at great cost,” Vyrania said.

Koren waved this off. “It didn’t cost us anything.”

“It almost cost us our lives.”

“Exactly. Almost.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“It’s from a civ unlike any I’ve seen,” Koren explained. “One without a system, and yet, one where its inhabitants had great power. They somehow learned to harness the energy of their world on their own.”

“Mana?” I asked.

“No, something different. I’m not sure their world had mana. My sense for it was greatly disrupted there, which is how I ended up learning their method. Whatever it was, was close enough that the techniques they used to interrogate that energy in others transferred over.”

“At least for someone with a Copper sense for mana,” Vyrania added.

“I learned it from one of the most powerful people from that world, a man named Dom Wu.”

“And almost got us hanged in the process,” Vyrania added.

“Almost,” he emphasized. “Really Trel, I don’t see why you keep bringing this up.”

“I cannot imagine why, Al-Sagoyn,” she replied sarcastically.

“Would hanging even hurt you?” I asked.

“Oh,” Koren chuckled, “this kind would.”

‌

∎ ∎ ∎

“I see something,” Vyrania said, pointing.

“I don’t see anything,” I said, squinting.

“That’s because you have bad eyes,” Koren said.

“My eyes aren’t bad,” I countered. “Just not superhuman.”

“Yes, that’s what I said: bad.”

We made our way over to the object Vyrania had noticed.

It looked like some kind of shrine: a nine-armed statue below which was a stone slab with an indentation about half the size of my fist, with runes surrounding it similar to the ones etched into the trees by the golems.

Koren stood there, hand on his chin, studying it.

He was silent for several minutes.

“So?” Vyrania finally asked.

He pointed at the indentation in the center. “Something’s supposed to be here. This rune here, it means… life?” He shook his head. “I’m not sure. Something to do with life. A promise of life?”

“But it’s empty,” I said. “What does that mean? Are we supposed to put something in it?”

“I don’t know.” He sounded excited about this rather than upset. “Let’s look for more runes.”

It took several minutes before we located the next rune, etched onto a tree.

To me, it looked identical to all the previous ones we’d found.

Koren disagreed. “This one looks different.”

“Does it?” Vyrania asked. “It seems the same.”

“Not the rune itself. The mana. It’s etched with it.”

He studied it for several moments.

“Interesting,” he finally said. “The difference is subtle. Perhaps even meant to be hidden.” He glanced at me. “I’m going to do something. Watch my mana as I do.”

“Okay…”

“Please be careful,” Vyrania said.

“Of course. You know me.”

“I do. That is why I am telling you to be careful.”

“It’s adorable when you care.” He clapped. “Here we go. Pay close attention Noah.”

I did my best, but I had trouble following what he was doing, since I could barely see his mana. He did something like trace the rune with it, then doubled over, then inverted, then I completely lost track.

The rune pushed into the tree, spun, and the ground began to rumble.

“Koren, dear?” Vyrania asked.

“Yes dear?”

“What did you just do?”

“Brought us one step closer to the next key, I do believe.”

“Why is the ground shaking?”

“I believe that is the frozen lake cracking open.”

Vyrania looked around, nothing but forest for as far as I could see. “I don’t see any lake,” she said

“Oh, don’t worry,” he chuckled. “You will.”

‌

∎ ∎ ∎

“Where’s this frozen lake again?” Vyrania asked several minutes later as we wandered around the forest looking for it.

“I was certain there would be one.”

“Mind letting us in on why?”

“The rune. It was Arcturian for lake of shattering ice. Perhaps it was a metaphor,” he said thoughtfully.

“Arcturian?” I asked.

“A dead language used by a Sentinel-obsessed cult called the Revenants.”

“Oh I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Nor should you, my boy,” he assured me.

“I’m guessing they raise the dead?”

“It’d be more accurate to say they use them and their remnant will to create new life.”

“So, zombies.” Truly the worst apocalypse to wargame. It seems fun until you think through the actual logistics of it and realize how terrible it would be. “I hate zombies.”

“As do we all,” Koren agreed.

“Except for the Revenants,” Vyrania said.

“Yes, except for them. But no one likes them.”

“Better than sub—” Vyrania stopped herself, looking at me.

I waved it off. “It’s fine. Subjugation cards aren’t looked on fondly. I get it. It’s pretty messed up to control someone else. Even more messed up than controlling a corpse. Though zombies do seem more intimidating.”

“That keeps coming through as undead,” Koren said, “but the interpreter is indicating you’re saying a different word.”

“Yeah, the undead, living dead. Bunch a names, same thing.”

“That explains it.”

“I wonder how different your English is from mine.”

“English? I’m speaking Phoenosumerian.”

“We’re speaking a dead language?”

“Technically you’re speaking your language and we’re speaking ours and the interpreter is helping us understand each other.”

I frowned. “What year is it on your Earth?”

“The third season of the eleven-thousandth year of the Immortal Empress,” Koren answered.

“Wait, what? That sounds a lot different than my Earth.”

“What year is it there?” Vyrania asked.

“Not eleven thousand. Unless maybe you count from BCE. Not sure how many years there were there.”

“You split your eras?”

“You know what BCE means?”

“The interpreter.”

“Effective interpreter. Yeah, we split them. It started as some religious thing, BC and AD.” I shook my head. “But we sure don’t have anyone called the Immortal Empress. Is she really immortal?”

“She’s at least eleven-thousand,” Vyrania said. “Technically she was killed once in the battle of Hgytrontyl. But she’s fine now. So, probably?”

“Wow. It sounds like our worlds are very different. I guess it makes sense. You do have three hominid species while we only have one. But still similar enough to share an ancient language. I wonder when they diverged.”

“A system just came to your world. Ours came far in the past, before the Immortal Empress’s reign.”

“I suppose that would create a lot of differences over the course of several thousand years. Heck, after even just one.”

“Hush,” Koren said, holding up a hand for us to stop walking.

“What?” Vyrania whispered.

Koren pointed through the trees ahead of us.

It took a moment for me to spot what he was indicating, but when I finally did, I groaned.

Quietly.