Bob's eyes lit up. What was wrong with him? Seeing a shop full of weapons of mass destruction shouldn't make a person smile. And yet Bob was smiling. He suddenly liked his chances. The world is inherently biased towards those with money. Money has a gravity to it that warps the very fabric of human society. And if Bob had one thing, it was plenty of money.

At that moment, Bob was gazing dreamily at the front page of the shop's weapons categories, where the system's special recommendations were laid out in ordered tiles. There were some really choice items here: Carol's Mace of Eternal Death, the Butcher’s Trusty Hammer, the Staff of Forlorn Hope, the list went on and on. A good number of the listings, most of the best ones, were marked with a little unique badge. Many were without price, instead designated as "to be auctioned."

Bob focused in on the Staff of Forlorn Hope. He was a wizard. He needed a staff. It was a beautiful black, sleek thing with a misty white orb as a crown. It had dark, powerful wizard stamped all over it. Bob nodded to himself. He needed something that would shift up his image, something that would help people see past the mud and take him seriously. Let's see the price here. Bob's mouth fell open. "Three, million, credits..."

That was the price of thirty system pylons. The whole system casino hadn't held 5 million credits. Bob seriously doubted the combined fortunes of everybody on the planet (minus him) summed to that amount. And yet Bob could afford it. And the weapon was worth every penny.

For one it was marked as indestructible and soul bound. For another it provided several abilities of its own: dishearten, despair and destroy, being some of the highlights (a friendly little thing wasn't it). Each of them was absurdly powerful in its own right. The destroy spell looked like it was practically an insta-kill of anyone in their level bracket. Despair and dishearten both were fear abilities. One was an over-the-top, straight-to-the-bone fear that would have people crumbling down at your feet and begging for mercy. While the other was more insidious, completely undetectable, it just chipped away at your courage and self-confidence. It made you doubt yourself.

Those weren't exactly the abilities Bob would have chosen for himself. He preferred flashy, over-the-top magic. Magic that looked and felt like magic. Fireball being the ultimate example. Wasn't fear a little boring? But there was no question the staff would turn Bob into the wizard-king, feared and hated by his fellow earthlings. And in his current situation, he could hardly afford to be picky. Bob had decided. He was going to buy it. He would become the Wizard of Forlorn Hope. He pressed down on the grey purchase box.

Nothing happened. He pressed again. There was a faint disabled beep. Shouldn't the purchase box be orange? There was a little red asterisk beside the greyed-out button. Bob focused in:

> Rank Restriction - Minimum Rank B

Rank B? What rank was he again? Bob was currently rank E. He didn’t quite understand how rank and level corresponded, but he did understand that there were a lot of letters between B and E. Bob wouldn't be buying the staff any time soon. Bob sighed. No more Wizard of Forlorn Hope.

Well fair enough, Bob was a reasonable man. He could admit that he might have set his sights a little high there. A 3 million credit staff right off the bat was probably a tad unfair to the other sentients on earth. It wouldn't be sportsmanlike to have a insta-death spell. Nobody would even have a fighting chance. If the system let him purchase weapons of that calibre, life on earth would degrade into a pay-to-win proposition. Most lamentable in general terms, but somewhat disappointing to the man who probably had the most credits on the planet.

"Well what about something more in line with my rank?" Bob didn’t fancy using the system dagger. He hadn’t enjoyed his experience slicing up the poor boar. He wanted something with a bit more range and maybe a little less blood. What about a gun? Guns were easy. Just point and shoot. Bob typed "gun" into the search bar and capped the price at ten thousand credits. Here we go:

> Glock 17 Gen5 9mm Luger Semi-Automatic Pistol (Mana Signed)

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> Quality: Common

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> The Glock 17 Gen5 9mm Luger Semi-Automatic Pistol is a staple in the Glock family, renowned for its reliability, durability, and performance. This semi-automatic handgun is designed for professionals, enthusiasts, and self-defense with its superior ergonomics, unmatched accuracy, robustness, and high capacity. Bullets fired from the handgun are automatically infused with the mana signature of the wielder.

The system shop really did sell everything. This looked perfect for a low-level beginner gunman and only 6980 credits. Bob felt safer already. He tried to move to checkout and was greeted with the familiar, ugly phrase:

> Rank Restriction - Minimum Rank D

>

> Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

"We humans invented the damn thing and now you turn around and tell us that it's too strong for our good. I mean, well, thinking on the point, you might be right." Guns sure do make killing easy. That was after all why Bob had wanted to purchase one. "But then you should have taken the things away from us years ago, why'd you let us have those world wars and stuff?"

"Fine, fine," Bob got the message. He would have to really tone down his ambitions. Let's try for a simple staff. He adjusted his search term and picked the most benign option he could find: Reinforced Oak Staff (Mana Signed). An oak core, shod with steel cap and pointed foot. Perfect for beating back low level enemies. Only 2880 credits. But once again his designs were blocked by blatant rankism: "Minimum Rank D"

It wasn't to be believed. This was a level of technology you could have found on earth. Hell it was just a hunk of wood with a few pieces of metal stuck to it. An old man could have walked around with such a staff and hardly drawn a second glance. "Where do you get off telling me I’m too low a rank to be carrying around a glorified stick?" Bob pressed the little funnel beside the search bar, tracked down the rank filter and set it to E. The screen reloaded and Bob was greeted with an empty list.

Bad news. Rank E was obviously something akin to childhood in the system interverse, given that the system didn’t think there existed a single weapon it could in good conscience sell to us rank E sods. How that squared with giving George the ability to absolutely incinerate anything and anyone was beyond Bob’s comprehension. Humanity cannot penetrate heaven’s intentions. Guess Bob would have to sharpen his knife work.

He'd purchased a sheath for his knife and had it strapped securely around his shoulder. Let's see what old Bob could do. He imagined an enemy approaching. He would... No, too vague. It was too vague. He closed his eyes. Visualize Bob. The image of a boar floated up. Ah my old enemy, Grumpy-nose, I've missed you.

Bob imagined the boar twenty paces ahead of him. The boar had caught sight of him. The boar was starting to charge. In a single, dynamic movement, Bob grasped the knife, slid it out, stepped outside the boar's reach and... "What, how?" The dagger was lying on the ground. When had he dropped the thing? He hadn't. He swore he hadn't. The dagger had broken free of its grip and thrown itself on the ground. It had betrayed him. "Betrayer!" The imaginary boar turned and ran Bob down.

Bob had lost. Bob had lost even in imaginary combat against an imaginary enemy he'd already defeated once. Maybe he should leave out some milk and cookies for Death. Because he was expecting a call from the Reaper any time now. No, Bob was not made for fighting at close combat, he concluded as he picked up the knife and resheathed it. And yet the knife was his only weapon. Would he really venture out there into the wildness with its monsters and Bob-hunting sentients with just this little thing?

Magic. Magic was the only answer. Bob had to figure out how to get his mud magic working. But he'd already tried everything. It didn't work. He wasn't a wizard. He was a 24 year old, junior QA developer, massively out of his depth in a post-system-apocalypse world.

All true. But had he really tried everything? Had he QA tried everything? Coming at the problem with zero assumptions and just mindlessly trying out every conceivable interaction and combination. Attacking the problem like he wanted to break the thing, delighting in obscure, absolutely impracticable, impossible bugs that no real user in their right mind would ever stumble upon.

After all this, at the end of the world as we know it, Bob was still going to have to go to work. "Fine. I'll do it." This was going to be boring, time-consuming and look very very stupid. Bob was just glad there was nobody here to watch. First things first, he'd have to comb through the acceptance criteria. Bob pulled up the skill description:

> Skill: Mud Manipulation (Authority)

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>

> Feel the Mud, Young Puddler.

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>

> Effect: Grants unbounded authority over all forms of mud

He'd read it half a dozen times already, but he'd never deep-dived into the wording. "Grants unbounded authority over all forms of mud." The key word there was "authority." And see the way the word was bracketed beside the skill name, like "authority" was a type of skill. It definitely referred to something technical and concrete.

What did authority mean? Where was a dictionary when one needed one? By the king's authority. That is beyond my authority. An authority figure. Authority... Authority meant the power to do something, to make decisions or give orders, didn't it? But wasn't that exactly what Bob had tried to do? Bob had tried to order the mud to float up. And we all knew how that had ended. A king commanding his subjects obviously did not model well on to Bob's situation.

Bob scratched his head. What other senses of authority were there? Authority, authority, authority... Bob's mind jumped to computers. Work shapes the mind they say. In an IT context, authority meant something like permission. The level of access or control a user was given. You have the authority to edit these files or view this document. Now that didn't give you some magical control over the object. It just gave you permission. Where the system would block another person, it would allow Bob to take action.

Bob liked this interpretation. It seemed a lot more sensible than him ordering mud around like some mud tyrant. Mud was not a sentient force. It was an inanimate mixture of water and soil. The idea of him giving verbal or even visual commands to an inanimate object and it somehow obeying him was highly implausible. No Bob had been given permission. Permission to do what? Judging from the wording of the skill, to manipulate mud. Yes, that's all very good, but how? Bob's inquiry dead-ended here. Still he felt like he was on the right track.

Bob gave the message another reread. Maybe they were more clues. That description bothered him: "Feel the Mud, Young Puddler." Obviously, the line was a bad joke, although one that implied surprising cultural awareness from the system. But it was more than just a bad joke. Bob mustn't underestimate the system's cunning.

"Feel the Mud." What if Bob interpreted that literally? The system was telling Bob that he had some innate ability to sense out mud and advising him to begin by training that. Challenge accepted. It was as good a place to start as any.

First objective on the road to becoming an arch-mage: Feel the Mud.