Seras was surreptitiously not looking at Flint’s mangled arm. He was holding it in place with his other arm but all the bones had been crushed and it was twisted too far to look okay. She had done some gross things in her career and had developed something of an iron stomach, but the sight of mangled meat threatened to send her breakfast all over the ground.

Ripping an overgrown lizard apart, easy. Seras thought of it like tearing into a synth-steak. But first aid, nope, nu-uh, not happening.

Which made her feel guilty considering the pain Flint must have been in. But trying to get her to help right now would only make things worse. Idly she considered helping out Dustin and Petra. But she didn’t want to leave Flint alone in case anything else came for him.

And from what she could see they had the fight well in hand.

Seras had been expecting something more in line with firebolts and long casting rituals when she thought of magic, and that impression may have colored her opinion on the subject. But watching the three caravanners fight off the bulldozer seized armadillos was awe inspiring.

Dustin had briefly flown through the air, slashing out with scimitars made of fire. Flint had commanded the very earth around him like it was clay to be melded at his command. And then there was Petra, tanking the power charges of the sandstone-colored monster without so much as moving back a single step.

Seras suspected that if she put Petra in front of a freight train the end result would be a smashed locomotive and a bored looking Petra.

Seras glared at the ability description for her inscribe ability.

Inscribe Rune/circuit

Allows the infusion of Mana and crafting materials into small objects to create magi-tech formations up to iron rank.

Cost: Varies

Cooldown: None

She could have gotten a powerful ability like theirs and she wound up with this useless piece of crap. Unfair!

Her mind drifted to the Celestial Book awakening stone in her pocket space, maybe it would give her something actually useful?

Seras shook her head; magic was strange and something she was painfully ignorant about. She would not further expose herself to it until she knew more.

Seras watched as Petra finally cracked the monster’s hard shell. Dustin wasted no time slicing into the crack, fire bursting back with each slice until the monster stopped moving.

With all the monsters dead, and the wagon train saved, Dustin wasted no time rushing over on Jesse.

“Are you alright?” He asked as Jesse slowed to a trot.

“Just peachy, only broke my arm in six places.” Flint growled.

Dustin turned a glare on Seras. “Why aren’t you helping him?” he demanded.

Seras opened her mouth to defend herself, but Flint spoke over her. “Girl doesn’t know a danm thing about first aid, and has a weak stomach to match her ignorance. She would have only made things worse.” He explained.

Dustin frowned at Seras “You don’t know first aid?” he asked, like it was something everyone should know.

“I know field repairs and maintenance; first aid isn’t exactly a skill in high demand where I come from.” Seras explained, her voice dripping in snark to cover up her embarrassment.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Dustin looked back down to Flint. “We need to set the bones before I can give you a potion, Seras keep watching him. I’m going to fetch Garrette.”

“Yes sir” Seras said, relieved that he wasn’t going to make her help out with setting the bone.

Garette as it turned out was the man who had sat at Petra’s side the night before. The one who had mentioned mana lamps.

He was the groups medic and had a ‘life essence’ which was apparently good for magic healing.

He set the bones with a sickening crunching sound, and even over Flint’s screaming Seras wanted to vomit just from the sound. He then cast a spell that ‘purified the flesh of disease and poison’ before Dustin summoned an earthen ware jar. His hands produced sparks and embers as he conjured the jar from out of nowhere.

He passed the potion down to Flint who chugged its contents in a single swig. The bones knitted themselves together under the magical power of the potion, and the teeth marks on his arm slowly closed. They then slathered on a fresh smelling ointment and wrapped it in bandages.

Seras had been so intrigued by the process that she had forgotten her nausea.

Garrett and Dustin helped Flint rise to his feet, and putting Flint’s good arm over a shoulder, Garette helped Flint back to the wagons.

Leaving her and Dustin alone.

“I told you to go to the wagons.” He said with a clear tone of accusation.

“I heard you, but I decided that you weren’t putting my abilities to their best use. I’m a fighter Dust, not a bystander.”

“You’re a normal ranker with only a single essence and no combat abilities.” He shot back.

“No magical combat abilities.” Seras shot back, putting emphasis on the magical part. “I’m still a highly trained combat specialist with strength improving cybernetics. You can see what I did to that lizard with just my bare hands.”

Dustin glanced to the lizard remains and grunted. “I’ll keep that in mind. After we finish dealing with the monster remains, I would like to see exactly what you can do. After that though, if you ever disobey my orders again, you’ll be on your own.”

Seras nodded “Understood, as long as we’re clear on my capabilities then I’ll trust your judgement and situational awareness.”

“Good. Now, do you have a harvesting power?”

“Harvesting power?”

He glanced at the monster remains “the ability to harvest spirit coins and monster cores from fallen monsters.”

“Not that I know of. I had to cut the core out of the charger I killed. Is that something everyone gets?”

He snorted “No, no its not. It’s a very uncommon ability that is highly sought after. Outworlders have a higher chance of getting them, along with identifying powers, essence absorption, translation powers, long distance communication, storage spaces, psychic linking, and occasionally a mapping power.”

“I’ve got some of those, but not the harvesting ability.”

“Shame, would have been handy. Whelp we’ll just have to do this the hard way then.” Sparks filled his hand as a burlap bag appeared in it. He tipped the bag and started pouring a circle of white crystal sand around the dead lizard.

“What’s that?” Seras asked.

“Salt, it makes a great medium for drawing magic circles.” He explained as he finished one circle and began another larger one. The circle got more and more complex as Dustin added swirls, runes, and little geometric shapes.

Seras watched the whole process with rapt attention, somewhere towards the end Seras noticed something off about the circle. One of the runes looked wrong to her eyes. She tried to ignore the instinctual reaction considering she had no idea what was wrong about the rune, but as Dustin was finishing up she could no longer hold her peace. “That rune is wrong.” She said before she could second guess herself.

“Which one” Dustin asked instead of scolding her.

“That one, the one the looks like two Heidels fucking.”

He grimaced her description, but took a closer look at it. his jet-black brows drew together until he jerked up. “You’re right, I missed a line.” He said as he added another salt line.

When he did the sensation of ‘wrong’ went away, and Seras was no longer bothered by it.

He activated the circle and then stepped back. The monsters body released a rainbow-colored smoke like that of an oil slick, Seras recognized it as the same smoke that had come off her when the Golem was walking away. When the smoke was done a small pile of bronze colored spirit coins were in its center next to the bronze rank core.

“I usually link the ritual to my storage power, but I left it unlinked since this was your kill, not mine. That’s where the mistake came from.” He explained.

“Yeah, thanks for believing me. I couldn’t tell you how I knew it was wrong, just that it was, and it bugged me.” Seras scratched at her head.

“That essence of yours, ‘technology’” he said the word unfamiliarly “you didn’t say what kind of ability it gave you.”

“Inscribe rune/circuit. It says something about making magi-tech formations.”

“Magi-tech?” he said with a puzzled look.

“I assume its magic mixed with technology.”

“That word isn’t translating. What is Technology?”

“Oh, wow that’s a hard one to explain. One sec.” Seras said while holding up a finger. She searched her memory, the data she had downloaded to her drives. “The dictionary definition is about using science and engineering the enhancing human life with practical, and repeatable effects. My body for example is a form of tech, same with those light bulbs I mentioned.”

“And science is-?”

“It’s a broad thing, but its basically a deep understanding of the physical world around us, from the really big to the really small. How fundamental forces work like gravity, light, and electricity work. How planets form, what the stars are made of. Everything from the smallest bacteria to the largest creatures. Mountain formation, volcanic eruptions, weather, chemistry, everything you can touch or see. Science is about dissecting the world around us until we know everything about it.” Seras said passionately. Getting an education was never in the cards for her, but she had always been fascinated by the subject. She shook her head “Tech is about taking that abstract knowledge and making it work for us.”

“It sounds a lot like magic.” Dustin pointed out.

“I’ll have to take your word on that since I don’t really understand magic. But my world is a world without any magic.”

“And this is a world with magic aplenty. It sounds like that ability is kind of like a bridge between the two. One part rune making, one part technology. Similar to the magic and Rune essences. Powers like that often give their wielders an instinctive sense for these things. They still need to study and train, but they have a slightly easier time of it. Flint and I have amassed a small library of magic theory books, maybe we could let you have a glance through them, see if any of it clicks.”

“Worth a shot.” Seras pointed to the small pile “Want me to grab it?”

“Go ahead, I’ve got another two rituals to start on.” He stalked off to where Flint had buried a monster and began to draw another circle, one that was slightly different than the first. Seras collected her spoils and then ran off after Dustin so that she could pester him with questions about the magic circle.