Seras kept half an ear on the meeting, but wasn’t really paying attention to the details.

“You’ll be the leader of this expedition, and will be responsible for organizing it. I can have a list of iron ranked teams in the city sent to your quarters. But time is not on your side.”

Dustin nodded. “I understand, but this is going to be a big job to do on so little time. I trust that the compensation will be equal?”

The Director nodded, and the red beads tied to his hair clicked softly. “Yes, for any iron rankers you convince to join your expedition I have already approved a generous reward. As for yourself we can arrange a price, or if you’d prefer, we can arrange a special payment. Essences, awakening stones, even special materials.”

Dustin hesitated “that’s all well and good, but I’m going to be relying on my people to arrange this whole thing. I think its only fair they earn a good price.”

“What did you have in mind?” he asked.

“I have several crew members looking out for essences to complete their set, and even a few looking for awakening stones.”

The director shifted his gaze up to Seras, and she found herself shying away from his hard brown eyes. “I can arrange a payment for those who help in the management aspects, but I can only guarantee the dispensation of essences and awakening stones to those who participate and do well. The society has a vested interest in seeing those with skill getting the resources they require after all.”

“That is fair. I don’t believe everyone will be on board with this sort of risk anyway.”

The director nodded. “Adventuring is not for everyone. But I have a question for the Son of the Akemi.”

Rohan perked up.

The director met his eyes. “Do you intend to join and fight,” he asked?

Rohan held his eyes and nodded wordlessly.

“I believed as much.” He reached into a pocket and pulled out a small cube. “I believe you were looking for this essence?”

Rohan’s eyes went wide as he leaned in. “I have, but it’s always snatched off the market before I can get one, too popular.”

“The society likes to purchase the most common essences for this sort of occasion.”

“This is too much director,” Rohan said with a shake of his head.

The director eyes went hard, “If you go into battle against the Omeda, you know they will try to kill you more than anyone else. The Akemi’s steadfast dedication to the treaties earned their ire above all others. This is the most I can do for a promising young man like you.”

Rohan nodded his head. Dustin picked up, passed it back to Seras, who then passed it to Rohan.

Adept essence; bestows the power of martial adeptness to the user.

With this Rohan had the last essence he needed to reach iron, and moreover would get the Master confluence. A well-regarded confluence for weapon masters. And the Essence combo Rohan had been dreaming about.

Seras smiled to Rohan and the stoic warrior actually blushed.

Seras glanced to the Director; a thought had come to her.

He met her eyes “Yes Miss Cross?”

Seras frowned, it was only stray thought and likely not worth asking, but decided to ask her question anyway since he prompted her. “I was just wondering; I heard you guys do some sort of weeklong test for new members, if I do this mission could I just skip all that?”

The Director chuckled. “The test is mostly to prove basic competency, allow young adventurers to interact with their fellow initiates, and dispense general advice of which way to grow their abilities. But I think if you do well with this assignment I could look into fast tracking your membership.”

Seras nodded. She didn’t have time to go through the traditional testing process.

“If that is all then I have other business to attend to.” The director stood up, Flint and Dustin followed his example, Dustin reached out and gave the director’s hand a firm shake.

“Thank you for the opportunity, Director,” Dustin said with the same smile he used for all his friends.

The director returned it. “Thank you, Mr. Westbrook, for arriving when you did. Had fate not brought you and your people here then I fear more villages would have been lost. And Miss Cross,” Seras perked up and looked his way, “if you truly wish to see your membership approved then I would recommend you keep our conversation in mind. A branch director doesn’t often use his position to skip past the red tape for iron rankers. I would appreciate if you made the decision seem like an easy one to make.”

Seras nodded.

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They left the office, and the moment they left Dustin pressed his hand against his heart. “That was tense.” He muttered.

Seras quirked a brow. “You seemed to be taking it well.” She pointed out.

Flint began to shake subtly. “No he’s right, another minute and I might have lost my composure. It not every day you meet someone at the peak end of silver. Especially not someone like Alder Arlee. I’m just glad his bonded familiar wasn’t here.”

They walked out of the administrative section of the Adventurer Campus and into the grand bizarre area where magical merchants tried to hawk their wares and adventurers looked over the stalls while casually chatting with their friends. Seras saw quintessence of every variety, potions in every color of the rainbow, and weapons in every shape and size. Ruin had long left the era of cold steel weaponry behind in favor of firearms, but even Seras found herself impressed by the variety. From hooked sword things, sharpened metal disks, to twin sickles attached by a chain.

She was very tempted to wander about and browse, but since she wasn’t a member of the society she was barred from purchasing anything. An issue she was hoping to solve soon.

“I take it he’s a big deal.” Seras said casually, her head turning as they walked to stare at sword taller than Seras.

“Your ignorance pains me.” Flint mumbled. “Director Arlee is the kind of man you hear about in every city across the Five deserts. Where most directors are politicians and bureaucrats Arlee was able to take the office on the merits of his own adventuring career. As the rumor goes he was displeased with the way the previous director was doing things and forced him out of his job and took hold of the society by force.”

“So he’s a tyrant who usurped the last guy.” Seras muttered. She’d heard that story before, plenty of corporate take overs back home.

Dustin shook his head. “He’s sort of the opposite. I had dealings with the last one, he was about as corrupt as it came. He once seized all my cargo, including what was in my storage space. Arlee beheaded the man, then beheaded about half the staff, and he did it without the continental council getting upset. He may have seemed mild mannered in our meeting, but trust when I say he has no mercy for the enemies of the people.”

“He wasn’t even withholding his aura at all.” Petra muttered.

“Is that what that was” Seras asked. “I thought it might have been some sort of magical suppression field.”

Dustin shifted his gaze to her. “It was,” he said slowly, “it was aura suppression. And for someone in the iron rank it should have had bigger effect on you.”

Seras shrugged. “I mean I certainly felt something, in was like a giant was pressing down on me with their thumb.”

“And you’re not disturbed by that,” Flint asked? His voice rising by an octave.

“It wasn’t pleasant, but I sort of deal with worse every day.” She tapped at her chest for emphasis.

Dustin glanced to her. “Is it really that bad. You haven’t brought it up since that first time.”

Seras hesitated; it wasn’t a good idea to show weakness. But that was back on her own world, these people were different. “Yeah, I’m up to 10%. The only time I get to escape the pain is when I’m asleep, and even then its sort of always there. I don’t really think there are words to describe how much it sucks.”

“10%, that’s five abilities. Last I heard you had three in metal control, and one in reinforcement. What else advanced?” Dustin asked as they reached a magical elevator that brought them down to the ground level.

“Aura of Ruin went over the line after I fought that, Omeda Archer. I didn’t suppress this one because I figured some stronger aura control would be a good thing.”

Flint gave her a concerned look, which was strange for Flint. “Suppress?”

“Oh yeah,” Petra said, “Forgot to tell you in all the hubbub, Seras advanced her defensive power but somehow held it back from advancing. Said, it felt like holding in a fart.”

“Sneeze, I said it felt like holding in a sneeze,” Seras interjected.

“Oh right, that.” Petra said without a hint of shame.

“Unlady-like vulgarity aside,” Flint said ignoring Petra’s affronted look, “Suppressing the natural advancement of your essences is not a good thing. It puts strain on your magical matrix and might actually harm your soul.” He glanced at her side long, “More than you already are.”

Seras shrugged helplessly. “I’ve got no choice. I doubt Structural reinforcement will help me fix my problem, so I need to hold it back in favor of other essences.”

Dustin sighed “Speaking of which, did those books Bannack gave you help?”

She pursed her lips. “Maybe, I’ve only had them for half a day after all. But I think this should at least let me get started.”

As she understood things Magitech worked on a sort of slider scale. From either a mostly technical creation with some slight magical enhancements, to a mostly magical construct with technological elements. This ranged from her guns, which used a magic ritual to imbue the bullets with power, to taking a magical creation like the skimmer and strapping a motor and turbine to the stupid thing. But according to the unnamed author Magitech was best when both elements were fully incorporated together in equal measures, making a product that was more than the sum of its parts.

However, Seras was still a long way away from that since she was still working her way through the first chapter. Thankfully the unnamed Magitech Artificer knew how to get to the fucking point and skipped all the pointless dross that padded out Dundee’s first four volumes on basic magical theory.

That said Bannack had delivered ten volumes that were each as thick as a brick and twice as dense. It was going to be a while before she was done reading, and Bannack had hinted at some greater knowledge down the line.

“So what’s next?” She asked to change the subject. She could talk all day about how amazing the books were, but no one would listen, and she could have better spent that time reading.

“Next, I read through the files Director Arlee sent my way, then I get to spend the next few days assembling an expedition to hunt down the Omeda. It will take a few days, but that can’t be helped.” Dustin said. Seras could already see his face scrunched up in concentration.

“Alright, then if we’re done here I think Petra and I had plans to test my new ammo.” Seras said as she began to sneak off to the side.

Dustin’s head jerked around to face her. “No shooting your friends!”

“Aw come on boss,” Petra whined, “I can take a few puny bullets.”

“That sounds like a challenge,” Seras said with a grin.

“No!” Dustin interjected, “that is not a challenge, and you are not shooting your friends, I can’t believe I actually need to say this!”

Seras snickered, “Relax Dust, I’m just teasing you, I actually planned on spending the day locked up in my room refining my grenades. The keg full of BB’s and gun powder was not as effective as I had hoped.”

Now Flint looked alarmed “I hope you meant to say you plan on refining your designs, and haven’t been making bombs in the rooms we’re renting.”

“Not bombs.” Petra said with confidence.

“That’s good-,” Flint began.

“-just magically enhanced bullets.” Petra finished.

Flints eyes went wide. “Are you insane!”

Seras frowned. “Not since I last checked. But then again that was before I died in space and woke up in a magic world completely naked and befriended a lion woman. I may be overdo for another mental checkup.” She said sardonically.

“Not funny.” Flint grumbled. “You know you can rent out workshops to make your… weapons?”

“Why did you pause before weapons?”

“You misheard me.” He said quickly.

Seras decided to let it go. “As a matter of fact I did not, where is are these rentable workshops at?”

“Magic society campus, there’s a larger fee for nonmembers, but you should be able to pay it.” Flint explained.

“Magic society, that’s like your version of a research lab/University, right?”

“I don’t know what either of those words mean. But the Magic society is a collection of all those pursuing magical knowledge for the betterment of society. They fund magical research, help educate new talents, and organize and disseminate magical knowledge. Theres a branch in almost every city.”

“Is that where you get your books from?”

“Yes, as an associate specialist in Magical earth shaping, I get a slight discount, as well as access to some higher level text books.”

Seras thought about it. “I might want to consider applying for membership as well then. There’s some books I want to purchase in different subjects, what’s the bar to entry?”

Flint glanced at her. “There’s a test you can take to prove you have the requisite knowledge to be a junior associate. I think you might be able to get a passing score on that one.”

“Have some faith in me Flint, I’ve been soaking up magical theory like a sponge.”

He shook his head. “I was only making an accurate assessment. Despite your intelligence you’ve only been here for a little over two months. People spend years studying to take the junior associates test.”

“Okay, but how much of that time is also learning how to read, doing basic mathematics, and then trying to scan texts like Dundee’s for actually useful information?”

For all the amazing innovations this world had in magic and the like, it was still lacking in general literacy and education. The Temple of Knowledge tried to dispense some basics, but it couldn’t really compare to the education Seras was able to scrounge up through the Net.

Flint considered her words. “A fair amount of it.” He conceded.

“You’ll be fine.” Dustin said reassuringly. “The magic society is a great resource for anyone who wants to expand their horizons. They’re just down the road from here, you should be able to see the doors and their seal.”

Seras glanced to where he was pointing and decided to take the test today.

“Alright I’ll go do that.” She said.

“Just try not to go looking for trouble,” Flint harangued.

“Hey! I don’t look for trouble, trouble looks for me.” With that Seras ran off and barely heard Flint’s pained groan.