Closing the door to the room I share with my brother, I drop the bag on the floor and faceplant onto the bed, adding mentally

Gem answered, and I do just that. For an instant, everything around me goes black before, once again, I find myself somewhere else. Instead of the office Gem used last time, we were in a large circular room. Like the office, the walls were made of metal I could not identify, but unlike the office, there were no windows. There were those glossy rectangles, Gem calls displays, embedded into the walls at regular intervals. Behind large panels in the ceiling, light was being produced to eliminate the space. The center of the room was lower than the rest of the floor, with seating around its outer edge and a raised circular platform at its center.

“I don’t think I’ll ever get used to that,” I say. “What is this place? I was expecting that office setting from last time.”

“I thought about using that one again, but I figured this one would be more fitting,” Gem says, “This was the main lounge area of Katherine’s place, at least back when she lived here. I doubt it looks like this now.”

“Oh, this would have been what my father had seen.”

“Actually, no; when Kat designed this place, she made the public areas easily accessible, but the more private areas were almost impossible to find without knowing where to look. Oh, so you know, I went back over some logs and found that I did get an intruder alert from this place around the time your father found it. Unfortunately, by the time I got a surveillance platform out that way, he had already left, but I did rebury it under several gigatons of dirt and rock. So we don’t have to worry about anyone else finding it.”

“Oh,” I say. I still don’t get why you’re acting this way about someone finding an old place used by your creators.”

“Because at your civilization’s current level of development, if anyone found any of my installations and brought any of the technology held within back, it would throw your development out of whack and cause problems—species-ending problems.”

“That’s bad,” I agree,

“Exactly. Since Kat left her Armor and Weapons here, it is logical that Michael left his armor and weapons at his place. The logs show I haven’t had an intruder alert from there, so we might have dodged a bullet there. I have a surveillance platform heading that way to ensure it’s still buried, but the closest one I have in the area is a few days away. I would like you to, at some point, go and look to make sure the armor and weapon are still there, but there is a high probability that it is.”

“I guess if I’m in the area, I can take a look,” I say. “Where is it anyway?”

“On the other side of the planet,” Gem says offhand, and I stare at her. As far as I knew, no one has been able to create a craft that could successfully navigate the oceans, let alone find another landmass on the other side of the planet. Seeing my expression, Gem smiles and waves her hand at the circular platform where a ball of blue and green appears floating over the surface. “Behold your planet,” Gem announces. “Each of those large greenish-brown areas is a landmass called a continent with its own civilization, and you are currently on this one; the blueish area is water.” The ball spun until a large landmass surrounded by water with a red dot close to the bottom appeared.

“Wait, are you saying that there are more humans around?”

“Well, yes and no,” Gem hedges. “Yes, there are other humans on the different continents, but they are a minority. This continent is the only one with a large human population. Other species dominate the others. Anyway, do you want a geography lesson or do you want me to show you that trick I mentioned? I doubt we have time for both.”

“Oh, while it would be nice to learn about the other contents, I can always learn about them later, and it’s not like I’ll be able to go to them any time soon. I think whatever you’re going to show me will be more useful in the short term.”

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“It’s nice to see you grasp what is important,” Gem says. I couldn’t tell if she was patronizing or not. “Anyway, why don’t you sit down, and I’ll explain?” She added, patting the seat next to the one she had taken in the center area. “You remember the last time we talked, and I explained that this world is full of machines so tiny that the eye can’t see them.”

“Yes, I believe you called them nanites, and it is through them that system skills and effects can affect the world.”

“Correct. Nanites, in general, are super efficient at building and deconstructing matter. More importantly, for our discussion, they can store whatever they deconstruct as data for future retrieval. The system has a Dimensional Storage skill that takes advantage of this capability. The nanites deconstruct whatever is put into the skill and store it as data assigned to the user’s internal system account. Of course, the amount of matter that can be put into the skill is restricted by the level of the skill. With me so far?”

“I think so; that skill sounds useful for merchants, especially the ones that travel a lot.”

“That’s why, as someone levels a merchant class, they have a chance for the system to offer the skill. Some other classes also have the chance, but it’s mostly given to the merchant classes. Anyway, the Administrator Class can do something similar. It’s just that you have to know the internal system commands to activate it instead of having a skill that does it for you.”

“Oh,” I say more because I didn’t know what to say. I knew my class was broken in some ways, but this.

“Yeah, anyway, just like the Dimential Storage skill, you won’t be able to put anything living in it. Well, you could. It just won’t be living when it comes back out. Anyway, your mother and brother are back, so you’ll probably get called to lunch soon. So let me show you how to access the ability, and you can jump back to real life and practice until then.”

“Sound like a plan,” I say, excited.

“Oh, I almost forgot there are separate commands to store money, but I’ll let you figure them out on your own. I will give you a hint, though: the names of the command are similar.”

“No fair,” I say with a playful pout.

“Did you expect me to give you everything on a silver palter?” Gem says with a laugh, which has me joining in.

~ ~ ~

“Ah, there she is,” Dad says as I make my way into the kitchen; he, Mom, and Danial are already at the table, “so how’s the armor?”

“Great, Dad. I’m sure I’ll be getting a lot of use out of it in the not-too-distant future.”

“Ha, oh, before I forget, and I’m sure Jake didn’t mention it, but the guild offers various courses for new adventures to help them get started, for a fee, of course. So when you get some coin from the more mundane requests, you can look into those.”

“Ah, no free lessons for the Guildmaster’s daughter,” I ask with a playful pout.

“Just for that, I think I’ll have them double the fee for you,” Dad says deadpan, only to ruin it a second later with a laugh that has the whole family joining in.

“So you’re an adventure now?” my brother asks, finishing the sandwich Mom had made for us for lunch.

“Yep, I even have the card to prove it.”

“Really!” my brother exclaims excitedly. Can I see?” I look a question at Dad, who nods, so acting like I was pulling the card out of my pocket, I materialize the card from storage and hand it over.

“Rank F, isn’t that the lowest rank, and what is this gray bar at the bottom?” Danial asks, examining the card.

“Everyone starts at Rank F, no expectations, at least that’s what the guy who registered me said. As for the bar, I’m not sure.” I say the last bit, looking at Dad, eyebrow quirked in question.

“The bar shows your progress to the next rank; it’ll fill as you complete requests,” Dad explains. “However, you must still go to a Guildhall to rank up.”

“Makes sense,” I say with a nod, grabbing the card back from my brother and putting it back in my pocket, where I have it vanish back into storage. Then, turn to my parents, “Anyway, I was thinking that, after lessons tomorrow, I would head over to the Guild to see what Requests are available.”

“That sounds reasonable,” Mom says. “Just remember, even though the system has given you your class, you still have much to learn before you reach your majority in eight years.”

“I will warn you,” Dad adds, “that most of the higher reward requests are usually snapped up early in the morning.”

“I kind of figured that,” I comment. “However, as I understand it, the lowest point reward that a request can give is one point. This means I only have to complete, on average, thirteen requests yearly for the next eight years to reach the rank-up requirement. And with Guild Points resetting after rank up, there’s no point in doing more requests besides the coin and experience.”

“True,” Dad agrees, “at least for Rank F. Rank D and onward, it’s not so bad. Plus, when you’re starting out, you’ll need all the money and experience you can get, so it all works out.”