The trip back to our house turned out to be uneventful. The hardware store had been about thirty minutes in total as a drive but it made me realise that this town can’t be called a town. The sheer size of it matches a city, it’s just missing the skyscrapers we were all used to. Even the maps had been huge, but we kept calling it a town anyway.

Sheep had easily finished his quest off after we had argued for a while. Pursing my lip while we watched the others pulled up in front of the house I sighed and turned to him.

“Deven, I already know how dangerous it is. I’m still doing it regardless.”

Sheep sighs and looks at me. “You’re incredibly stubborn sometimes, Ruby. Are you going to tell Rebecca?”

“Yes. I know it’s stupid but we can’t move as a group, not even Ghost could squeeze through the horde Jupiter speaks of. Because of my magic I can at the very least check it out from afar.”

Sheep shakes his head before walking to the edge of the house before turning back to me. “I understand the importance, trust me. Let me advance first and I’ll come with you. Rebecca won’t let you go alone either, at least with the three of us we can keep each other safe.”

“And Jupiter and the rest?”

“We’ll take them to Beta. I know, I know. We can’t completely trust them, but it’s not like they have anywhere else to go, I highly doubt they will just drive off with everything.”

Sighing with a bit of frustration, I scratched the back of my head. I wanted to go alone because I didn’t want to risk their lives, but I knew Deven wouldn’t back off on an argument like this.

“If you still refuse Ruby, I’ll simply not advance.” Grimacing at his comment, I sighed again while throwing him an annoyed glare. “Oh, I’ve missed that face. You know I won’t back off on this.”

This isn’t the first time we’ve argued like this. It happened frequently in our world and one of the reasons why I preferred Sheep as my second in command. He wasn’t a yes man, he would instantly pick up stupid or bad ideas and call me out on them, putting his foot down. I know he’s right this time though, perhaps I’m being a bit too impatient.

“Fine. I’ll wait for you to advance and we’ll go as three.” Massaging the bridge of my nose I sigh and pat Sheep on the shoulder. “...Thanks.” I knew he went this far because he cared, not to be a stubborn arse.

“You’re most welcome. Ruby, I know why you want to go alone but I don’t need you to shove me or the others into a dark corner while you face the dangers by yourself. I’d rather die fighting alongside all of you, not locked up in some room you made to protect us.”

“That’s not fair, I’d have fed you guys in that room.” Poking my tongue at him as we shared a light laugh, I sat on the edge of the house as I saw Winter walking over to us. In one jump she landed on the roof with a bit too much force, cracking the tiles.

“Oops.” Winter looks down at the broken tiles before shrugging. “You two arguing again?”

“Were. Bek, we’re going to explore the centre of the town after Sheep advances.”

“Let me guess, you had another bad idea and wanted to go alone?” Winter sat down and leaned her head against my shoulder while Sheep sat on my other side a bit of distance away.

“She did and it took a few arguments to get her to agree to wait.”

“Mm, Deven you should trust her a bit more, she’s not stupid and won’t dive into trouble.” Feeling a smile creeping on my face at her trust in me, I felt her poking my ribs in the next minute. “But Deven is right, Rubes. It’s a bad idea, having backup is vital since we don’t know if there are any new types that can counter your Sharpshooting.”

Knowing she’s right, I pursed my lips and watched Jupiter’s team head inside before looking at the sun.

“Mm, I know. Thanks, I think I’m getting impatient again.”

“Is it because of how those guys lost their friends?” Looking at Deven who had been gazing at the four with a bit of a saddened expression, I couldn’t help but wonder if my change in temperament had been due to that story. I had always known the possibility of one of us dying is high, but to hear a story about those four losing their friends had hit hard.

“Well we can always lie to ourselves and say we’re prepared for death or just accept the fact we’re terrified one of us will die.” Muttering that to myself, I felt Rebecca squeeze my hand as we sat there in silence, our mood soured once again.

“Well, I’m sure we’ll pull through. We’ve just gotta keep going, don’t we? Doing the quests that the System gives us has given us this much strength over the Husks so we should just keep going down this path.” Sheep finally spoke up. “I won’t die in this damned world without seeing Diana once more.”

Deven’s determination oddly had infected me and I nodded strongly before laying on the roof as Rebecca joined me. “Deven, we can’t rely on the System that much.”

“Ah, so you’ve thought about it as well? If we do end up being able to do things outside of it it would certainly empower us a lot more.” Standing, Deven stretched before looking at us. “If you’re going to do anything, at least find another house.”

“Nah, we’ll head in with you. We’ll have plenty of time once we have our own little house and room.”

“Don’t want to know, so don’t tell me.” Deven waves his hand before jumping off the house lightly, with Rebecca and I following, moving to the base and upon entering it we watched as Deven started his advancement. He expressed the same pained face before passing out. Since I had started to feel tired I left looking after him to Rebecca before passing out in the opposite room.

***

A cracked sky laid above a fortress of metal and machines, a massive black obelisk with strange symbols slowly emerged from a crack in the sky. Six people stood on a platform in the fortress, their eyes glued to the obelisk, determination heavy in their eyes mixed with fear.

The figure that looked like me turned to face the other five. Sheep, Winter and Jupiter. I saw those three while the other three had faces and features heavily blurred, like a locked character in a video game.

I saw the figure that was me yelling but couldn't hear her words, but they had an effect on the three I could see, their faces hardening, determination washing away the fear. Only Winter held an affectionate expression towards the me that was there.. With a stomp of my foot, the fortress morphed, a massive turret forming from what looked like liquid metal while a sniper's barrel appeared behind me.

I saw figures walking towards the six of us, all but one blurred out. I knew the past one as it walked to Sheep's side and grabbed his hand. Diana.

***

Waking up with a jerk, I quickly sat up breathing heavily while my head pounded with a lot of pain. Taking a sharp breath in as my vision swam, I saw my HUD and my mana.

-100/50

I overused mana? Is that possible? Seeing it slowly replenish itself I saw a prompt from the System and lifting a shaky finger clicked on it.

You have glimpsed into one of millions of possible futures or realities.

"Glimpsed? Why…" As if to give me an answer that wasn't an answer another prompt came up.

Talent Progress: 10%

You have made progress towards an unknown talent. You will be given more details upon fully unlocking this talent.

"Don't tell me it's some sort of clairvoyance…no, it could be that that's an alternative reality. Diana had been there but she'd been in her original body…" Rubbing the bridge of my nose, I got up after five minutes when my mana had gone above 0 and unsteadily walked out of the room and into the one Sheep and Winter were in.

Entering the room I saw Winter sitting in a corner and the moment our eyes met she got up and walked over, concern written on her face.

"Ruby what happened? You're pale and you have a nose bleed." Taking some cloth, she wiped my nose before pulling me by the hand lightly and sitting me on her lap. Leaning against her chest and hearing her heartbeat, I closed my eyes and let the sound soothe me as the pounding of my head slowly stopped along with the pain.

We sat there in silence for some time, the only sound I heard was the beating of Rebecca's heart. I could feel her stroking my back, a regular occurrence between us when either one of us felt sick. As the pain subsided and my mind cleared up, I opened my eyes and started talking.

"I had this dream…" Slowly talking, I told Rebecca all of the details of the dream as well as the prompts from the System. She didn't interrupt me and only listened and when I finished she remained quiet for a bit.

"Rubes, did you get so good at Sharpshooting that you can scope in on the future?" Hearing her giggle lightly, I smiled as well.

"Now that would be funny. Perhaps it is a sort of clairvoyance or future sight?"

This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

"The System did say it is one of millions of possible futures so you can't just rely on it being our future. We should take it as a dream for now, if Deven heard you say that Diana had appeared in a possible future timeline he would stop at nothing to ensure it happens. It might even cause a bad ending."

Taking her words seriously, I remained on her lap for a bit longer as my body returned to its usual self. Moving my head away and standing, I turn to Rebecca and smile lightly.

"Rubes?"

"What's up babe?"

"Have you gotten the rewards for your Class Quest yet?" Remembering the quest that I had finished yesterday I brought it up and saw I could claim the rewards.

A Sharpshooter’s Speciality Completed.

As you are the third entity to have completed the Class Quest and are marked as Worthy, you have received additional rewards and quests.

Looking at the box that had appeared, I frowned as thoughts went through my mind before turning to Rebecca.

"Say, Bek? Why is the System rewarding us based on being worthy and being among the first to complete a quest? Shouldn't it be giving everyone as much as possible? What are we proving ourselves for?"

Rebecca leaned forward and looked at the newly acquired loot, holding her chin with a slight frown.

"Perhaps it's a way to reward people for progressing quickly and tempt those that are being slow? No, that can't be right, bigger groups or those not well off will be at a huge disadvantage…" Sitting up and crossing her arms, she tapped her foot before speaking again. "Maybe the System labels us as worthy because it's trying to find those with the potential to defend the Prime World?"

"So rewarding us this heavily is so we keep pushing ourselves and continue to get stronger? It doesn't make sense, if it can give everyone guns and food then why doesn't it do that?"

"Maybe it knows from previous iterations that giving everyone equal power only leads to problems? I agree that everyone should have the same access but if they don't have people stronger than them they may turn on each other in greed to obtain strength over others. If we just got food, weapons and strength for nothing then when it comes time to fight we wouldn’t know how to, so by excessively rewarding those who are worthy gives others the motivation to push on?"

We both got lost in our thoughts as silence rang out for a few minutes. Scratching the back of my head I shrug and sit down in front of the laptop sized box. Opening it, I found a few items scattered within, including what appeared to be another talent stone and spell tablet.

"Oh? That is fast, another spell and talent?" Rebecca leaned forwards as I frowned slightly. It is indeed fast, I've only just acquired a talent and spell recently yet I've gotten another. Picking up the spell tablet first, I frowned for a moment as it's not what I expected.

Machinist's Soul: Rank 1

When you craft parts they will always have durability of 70% regardless of components used. If the durability of the combined components will be higher than 70% then it will be.

"So it's a spell?" Hearing my explanation, Rebecca tilted her head in confusion. Taking another look at the tablet, I noticed a few differences that set it apart from the spell tablets we had used, especially its colour which is blue. The tablets had been black before. It reminded me of a circuit board, just with strange symbols instead.

"Either way it's incredibly helpful, it makes it so we can use any eroded or damaged components and when the System craft's it into parts it'll make them far better." Using the tablet, I feel nothing changed but the System came up with a prompt.

Machinist's Soul: Rank 1 now active.

"So it's always active and you don't need to feed it mana? The talent stone is different too, it's black and transparent, there seems to be something in it." Looking at the stone, I did indeed see something in the middle. Squinting my eyes a bit, I raised an eyebrow at what I saw.

"It…it looks like a throne?" Taking the stone, I called the System once again.

Fragment of the lost Machinist Kingdom.

"Nothing else?" Frowning while turning over the stone, I tell Rebecca who frowns slightly.

"Use it, maybe something will happen?" Nodding, I used the stone.

Fragment of the lost Machinist Kingdom: 1/16

Information poured into my head, but it's jumbled, a mess of information I can't grasp or make sense of. It's not that I don't understand it, but it's like it needs a cipher or I'm missing a component to understand it.

Sharing this with Rebecca she frowned slightly before tilting her head. "Rubes, in your dream is that fortress a machine?"

Recalling it as best as I could I shook my head. "No…but there is that liquid metal that made…wait, nanomachines?"

"Would nanomachines look like liquid metal? Hmm." Rebecca thinks while I try to understand the information but I fail to do so. Leaving it for now I checked the rest of the contents of the box.

There isn't much in the box, a carry bag for my sniper, an actual holster for a handgun and a little flag for wind. The last item piqued my interest, a small jade box and opening it I found two identical rings except for the colour. One is red while the other is blue.

Ring of Bonding.

This ring allows the wearers to share their health and mana pools. If one wearer is in critical health the rings will activate, providing lifeforce from the healthy wearer to the critically injured wearer. If both wearers have critical health then the rings will not activate.

If a wearer has no mana the rings will activate and balance both wearers mana pools.

Range is unlimited. Can not be taken off once put on.

My health pool sat at merely two hundred. Rebecca sat at one thousand. The only stat that she had gotten growth in that I didn't had been health. These rings would share health and mana and could be invaluable. If it meant keeping her alive I would let it take what it wants from me.

"Oh, those are beautiful aren't they?" Glancing at Rebecca, I smiled while explaining the use. Without even a question she held out a hand. "I want the red one." Giggling, I took out the red one.

"Rebecca, will you marry me?"

"Only if it means we can have pizza tonight." She had said that when I had proposed in our world while thinking I had been joking, failing to see me on my knee until a few seconds after saying it. With the both of us giggling at the memory, I put her ring on while she put mine on.

You are now linked to Entity 'Winter'.

Looking through the box we found nothing else. Deciding to relax for the next two days, I used the time to get to know Jupiter and his team more. Managing to see fire magic I found myself impressed.

"So you control the temperature and size before sending the mana to your hand?”

“Yes, depending on the heat and size the amount of mana will vary. I could use my entire mana pool to make a fireball the size of my palm and very hot.”

“You don’t know how hot?”

Jupiter gives me a look like I’m crazy and feeling the corner of my lip twitch, I remembered there wouldn’t be a way to actually tell how hot it is.

"Right, sorry. So to cast it you need to visualise a ball of fire right? What happens if you visualise a ball of water instead?"

"Nothing. The flow of mana still happens but nothing appears. I think fire has a certain flow of mana that needs to happen and water has its own unique pattern."

So magic isn't as simple as I had thought. "How much mana do you have?"

"Base 50 mana, but when I chose this Class I gained a talent called Spellcaster that tripled my mana capacity. My talent in magic was shown as 'Great' which is why I think I have such a high amount." Jupiter looks around before throwing the fireball onto the road. It burns for a good minute before dissipating. "It remains active even if we cut off oxygen for about a minute. We believe it's because mana keeps it going."

Looking at where the fireball had burned, I mimicked Winter and held my chin in thought. Mana, and by association magic, is one of the big unknowns. While I have it unlocked the only thing I know to do with it is Hawkeye. I had tried to use Fireball as well but it hadn't worked. Either it's because the flow of magic is unique to fire magicians or our mana is different.

"So you think we have unique mana depending on our class?" Telling Jupiter my thoughts, he crossed his arms and fell into deep thought.

"Sharpshooter Mana and Fire Magician Mana. Then each Class would have unique mana, but how would they differ? I don't think that's right. We both aren't able to detail exactly how we perform our spells, or we got confused at several parts so I think it's more down to practice."

We both fell into thought for a moment before I shrugged. "How about this, we practise for a while and see if we can use each other's spells. If mine is too complicated you can always ask Winter about her shield magic and I'll do the same."

"Alright." Jupiter nods with a determined look. Our goal is to not rely on the System for so much and if we are successful in learning each other's spells we may figure out how to make new spells ourselves.

"So what strength would you need to kill a Heavy?"

"About half my mana will ignite one. All of my mana will make it quicker but it's usually a few minutes of a Heavy on fire stumbling around the battlefield."

"So we'd need to ensure they don't come towards us, that will be easy to achieve. What do you need to do for your Class Quest?"

"Incinerate one hundred Husks. I'm at forty six at the moment."

"Could you find out what your team needs for the quest? When we get back to Alpha, our main camp, we'll organise to bring everyone out here and get their advancements and quests done."

"Not now?"

"I want to, honestly. But we're nearly at the two week mark and I'm slightly worried about those guys too. Plus we are running low on food and building the base absolutely has come to a halt which we need to start doing again. Once Sheep is awake, the three of us will be heading to the town centre then we'll loot a few more stores, put up the rest of the messages and get petrol and a working car. After that we'll head back."

"Makes sense, if we rush it, we'll…" Seeing Jupiter purse his lips, looking down, I quickly think of a new topic.

"So since you can use fire magic do you even need a weapon?"

Chatting with Jupiter while we made our way back, I saw Sheep stretching outside the house with Winter next to him. He's finished his advancement.