As Emilio entered the Trial he found that Tuor had really left the mattress there. Maybe he thought he was going to call him after the Trial. Either way, Emilio had things to share with the alien, so he called him immediately.

  As the Shopkeeper appeared he looked at Emilio with an interesting look on his face.

  “What is all of that? Last time was a bag, and now you bring several boxes tied to you. What should I expect next time?” Tuor asked.

  “At the rate things are coming, you should expect more people in the Monolith to bring stuff in my name.”

  Tuor took a few seconds to assess the matter until he finally reached a conclusion. “You are not joking, are you?”

  “No, not this time. Apparently I am the official Earth’s ambassador.”

  “Did you not say that it was not unified and you were supposed to be part of a merchant clan? Am I wrong?”

  “Most countries agreed to make me an ambassador. So did an entity that represents most of the governments in the world. I can officially negotiate on the name of the whole planet.”

  Tuor focused on Emilio. The chosen ambassador from Earth, a title he managed to get in just a few days. He already considered Emilio his friend, but at that moment he could look at the guy differently. Not anybody could do something like that.

  What he didn’t know was that it was not thanks to Emilio’s political talent, but Milagros’. Either way, he chose for Milagros to help him out so it was not that different.

  “You really shook things up over there. Should I treat you differently?”

  “Please don’t, it was not by choice. I already have some written contracts for you to check and we need to sign some Soul Contracts. But before all of that, could I bother you with some chairs and a big table? I brought some treats.”

  Emilio started unloading all of the boxes, and arranged the food and some drinks on the table.

  “I am presenting you to an all you can eat parrilla. It is a traditional food to eat in my country.”

  “You are not kidding when you say all you can eat, do you?” Tour asked, looking at the amount of food.

  “It felt bad to bring you less food than what I will eat, so we doubled my portion.”

  “Oh right, you have only 1 point in Energy. I will gladly accept the dinner. What about the drinks?”

  “The food was my idea, the drinks are a selection from all around the world. It is way more than what we are going to drink right now, but I was told to figure out what you like. So, try to try them all by the time I finish the Trial.”

  “I think I am starting to understand what you meant when you said that more people will bring packages.” He was starting to understand and felt it was unnecessary, but he was not going to complain about having some gifts and souvenirs to bring home.

  They decided to first enjoy the meal and afterwards talk about business. They spent a few hours eating, drinking and talking. They managed to eat all of the food and Emilio managed to find out that if Tuor really wanted to, he could eat as much as him.

  When he finished the meal, they decided to finally start with the real reason for the meeting, well the second real reason. The real reason was supposed to be the System Shop, but that was left as a second thought.

  “Do you have any instructions on how to proceed?” Tuor asked.

  “Yes, first we have to sign a Soul Contract about not lying.”

  “Clever use, but it won’t work as you want.”

  “Why not?”

  “Let me show you, let’s first sign it,” Tuor gave his hand. They signed the Soul Contract about not lying and afterwards Tuor showed what he meant.

  “My name is Tuor,” he first said and the contract did nothing. After that he said: “ My name is Emilio,” and the contract broke.

  “It seems to be working fine. Is there a problem?” Emilio asked.

  “Let’s sign one more and I will show you what someone that is a full Rank higher than you can do,” Tuor explained.

  This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author's work.

  They signed another contract and he said “My name is Tuor.” To Emilio’s surprise, the contract broke.

  “This happens because I can break it at will, if I do it when I tell the truth, then it will seem to be a lie.” Tuor explained, surprising Emilio about the limitations of his Skill.

  He was thankful that Tuor had been honest about the matter. “It is not working as expected, but it is not that bad. Maybe I can’t trust that what you say is a lie, but I can trust when you say something that is true.”

  “Not completely, if I was a Rank 2 that would be true, but if I am two ranks higher than you I can also stop it from breaking. Let’s sign another one.” After signing it he continued. “My name is Emilio,” and the contract didn’t break.

  “So you are Rank 3 and the contract is useless,” Emilio concluded.

  “Not quite, I am Rank 4, and the contract is not useless, it is just useless as a way to verify trustworthiness. It is really useful as a communication tool between us. Trust will still have to be earned in the regular old way.”

  And showing me you can do this is a way to show trust. I could have been really screwed by trusting the Skill blindly.

  “My higher ups will not like this at all, but I believe I can trust you and I am the ambassador. Not that we have many more options here.”

  “Good choice. Either way, it is not normal to do deals with people of a higher rank, so the Skill is still really useful. It is just that you had to know it is not infallible. In normal cases someone would have to be two full Ranks above you to block it completely, but if they know someone of an even higher Rank they might be able to block it on the target without you knowing.

  “This also varies with the specific case. For example, someone like your niece might have a better chance of blocking it, and it would be harder for someone to block one of her skills. As a normal rule, you have to be a full Rank above the Skill to block it partially, or two to block it completely. That is the reason I told you that Ranking up Skills is important.”

  Emilio kept that information in his head for the future. It was really important to know how his Skills could be blocked.

  “I get it and that also means we don’t need to have Soul Contracts for now. I have three variations of written contracts. We took into account the scenarios we talked about before and split the contracts into what we called Plan A, B and C. C being one that we really don’t want to happen, but considers all of what you said.”

  “I think I was not supposed to know there was a plan C in place,” Tuor laughed.

  “I said I trusted you, didn’t I. Let’s try not to use it.”

  “I will not promise anything, I will read them and have an answer ready for you. Even if I have the answer after you leave the Monolith I can tell you my answer using a Soul Contract to communicate with you.”

  “Let’s sign those contracts and then I have some things to show you.”

  They decided to sign a contract for each plan. If the contract broke it meant that Tuor accepted the Contract for the plan. They also made a series of contracts to verify that both sides could communicate with each other by breaking contracts when Emilio was out of the Trial.

  When they were discussing, Emilio also felt that the last of the test contracts he did in KimTec broke, which meant that he could feel them breaking even in the Monolith.

  After signing the Soul contracts and giving the physical copies of the contracts to Tuor. Emilio finally was going to show what technology meant to his friend.

  “Are you ready to know what real technology means?” Emilio asked.

  “I am already impressed by the quality of your paper. Also by your printing, as you called it. I really have no idea what to expect next,”

  “Then let’s start easy. The things I am about to show you require electricity to work, it is stored in a battery and expended as you use them.”

  “Not much different from any World Energy tool, how do you charge it?”

  “That was a problem in what we wanted to give you. We have a whole world infrastructure to be able to charge them. Given that you won't, we developed a solar charger for you to use. It uses light to make energy and store it so you can charge your electronics. As long as it is exposed to the sun, it will charge up.”

  Emilio took the biggest of the appliances that he got from Milagros. It was big because it was meant to charge a big internal battery to store energy.

  “You are able to turn light into electricity without any manipulation? How?” Tuor asked, astonished by the apparatus.

  “Trade secret. I told you we have value. Also, I am warning you now, if it is too cold it might not work, if it is too hot it might stop working or explode. It might also rise in temperature when charging and discharging. So please keep it at a reasonable temperature and cool it down if it gets hot. But not water. It is forbidden to throw water or anything that can conduct electricity.” Emilio threw the warnings. The last thing he needed is for the battery to explode due to the heat and be treated as a war effort.

  “I get it, do you have specifics?”

  “There are manuals inside, but I don’t know if you can read them. Do I have to teach you?”

  “I should be able to read them with the temporary Trait.”

  Oh it was a Trait and not a Skill. Though I don’t see too much of a difference.

  “Then you should definitely read them before that. You will also have the definitions of our metrics in the tablet if you need to do some conversions. At the same time, all of the technology might become useless if you don’t understand the languages. There is an app inside one of the items that can help you with that. I recommend you start with English and Spanish.”

  “Wait! Will these things work after I leave this place? Also, I am starting to be confused here, what is an app?”

  “Of course they will still work! I’ll explain everything in due time, first let's show you the kindle. You can use it to read all you want and it has a really long battery life.”

  Emilio showed him how to use it, and the man was fascinated by how it worked. He couldn’t believe something like that could be done without any Ranked materials or World Energy.

  He was beginning to understand why most people in the Trial were so educated. They really had another kind of access to education, maybe even better than what most people in the Realm had.

  “I know you liked it, but let me show you the real jewel here. The tablet.”

  Thanks for reading!

  Want to read ahead? Patreon has up to 50 advanced chapters: