The black M10 Booker idling on the tarmac was one of three of its kind in the US military arsenal. The program to develop this modern marvel of death had cost the government eight billion dollars before they scrapped the whole thing. Just as the medium tank was to begin full production, aliens attempted to invade Earth. Military research quickly pivoted to focus on the new threat Kalibutan posed. They weren’t publishing their progress, but it was a safe bet that the new weapons systems would involve magic and runes.

  This pivot in priorities was the only reason Luke had access to a state of the art tank. They didn’t care about it as much anymore and were willing to let someone with the right connections to try it out. It was smaller than the Abrams tank he had attempted earlier, about half the weight. It was still clearly a tank, just a medium sized one instead of a behemoth. Luke was crossing his fingers and hoping against hope that his Summon Vehicle skill could handle the M10 Booker. He really wanted access to that 105mm gun.

  He settled into the driver’s seat and said, “Nice seat, for a tank.”

  He activated and deactivated Machine Bond. The novel experience was enough to tip the skill over to its next level.

  That was interesting, great to have more levels. He was starting to wonder if he needed the Machine Bond skill anymore. The skill description said it was for people new to the class. He was starting to think that he might be able to bond to machines without the skill. The description for Repair Craft said he needed a bond, but it didn't say he needed the skill. The description for Summon Vehicle didn't say he needed a bond at all. Every time he used the Machine Bond skill, he felt closer and closer to being able to bond to machines without the training wheels of the skill.

  Either way though, he was here to focus on a different skill.

  “This piece of shit isn’t a tank,” his escort said. “It’s got less armor and a smaller gun than a real tank. It’s a terrible excuse for a fire support system. But it’s too big and slow for the job. And that’s if it’s even working. I swear, I’ve only seen it driven once before visits to the motor pool.”

  Luke chuckled and sarcastically replied, “Don’t sugarcoat it on my account.”

  He didn’t particularly care if it was hard to repair or if it couldn’t fight against an Abrams tank. It was big, had treads, and had a cannon that threw fifteen pound projectiles. It would be great against monsters. Assuming he could summon it in the first place.

  The mana diffuser had gotten his pool up to full so there was no reason to wait. He mentally clicked Summon Vehicle and felt his core spring into action. His mana rushed through his channels and spread throughout the tank. He felt the strain when it was just over halfway through the vehicle. By the time it was three-fourths complete, his temples were throbbing. He kept pushing.

  Inch by inch, the skill expanded. At first it had raced through the Booker, but now it was crawling along. Then it stopped.

  Luke blinked. The skill had succeeded. He had a third template in his skill, a whole-ass tank. The throbbing in his head slowly eased and the system of the world acknowledged his efforts.

  Three level ups in one go. Fantastic. It really paid to be stretching his skill with new things while being bathed in mana from a diffuser. He climbed out of the M10 Booker and pointed to a free section of asphalt. Just like last time, he said the unnecessary magic word and a cloud of mana appeared.

  It swirled around, slowly forming a gray colored tank with violet highlights. He noticed that it wasn’t completely opaque, he could see hints of the mechanisms and gears inside. The whole process took about twenty seconds.

  This time, he didn’t even try to get into the summoned tank. He slapped his hand onto its side and pushed the accept button on the popup. A machine soul flowed out of him and settled into the tank.

  “Drive forward ten feet and pivot your gun barrel twenty degrees to the right,” Luke said.

  The summoned tank leapt to obey and Luke’s escort swore in surprise. “What the hell? It can move on its own?”

  “Kinda, I have to give it specific commands,” Luke lied. He could tell he could give it general commands like hunt down the intruder, and it would understand and obey. Of course, that level of autonomy was scary, so he didn’t tell the guy.

  The next step would be to test out the weapons systems. Sadly, he hadn’t gotten permission to spend some time on their firing range. He would have to wait until next time he visited. He unsummoned the vehicle and turned to his escort.

  “I think that one’s the last official one. Any chance we could visit the hangar where they keep the Black Hawks or Apaches?” Luke asked.

  “No, we don’t have clearance, and none of them are loaded with ordinance even if we wanted to sneak in. You need ones with live ammo, right?”

  Luke nodded reluctantly.

  “But! I could get you into the Monster Garage,” the escort said and pointed into the distance.

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s where they work on drone warfare. Some of them blow up. That would work with your copying magic, right?”

  Luke tilted his head to the side. Did a drone count as a vehicle? He didn’t know how the magic skill defined things. “Only one way to find out, let’s go!”

  They hurried over to the Monster Garage, a tall and wide warehouse buzzing with the sounds of drones. His escort knew the people posted at the research facility, protecting the people working on new drones.

  They weren’t allowed in.

  Apparently the work was top secret and Luke’s connection to SPEAR wasn’t enough to get them in. They had to be happy with the second best option. There were unclassified drones in nearby storage and Luke was allowed to view them. There were more than a dozen weaponized drones. The predator drone was tempting, but it needed a runway to launch. The best option that could take off on its own was the Switchblade 600. It launched from a mortar and deployed airplane wings in the air. Its body was mostly explosives and had a warhead comparable to the Javelin missiles.

  Right now his skill could only handle three vehicle templates, so he had to drop his mech template to load up the Switchblade. To his great joy and relief, it worked. He was giddy with excitement when he thought about testing it out in the field. He decided to head over to Kalibutan right away.

  When he got to the Monster Jaeger Inc. warehouse, Allen had some news for him.

  “WikiRunes has exploded,” Allen said seriously.

  “Exploded? Did they take it down? I thought we had it hosted in multiple places with cloud storage.”

  Allen shook his head. “No, I mean exploded in popularity. Someone from the Lighthouse forums posted about WikiRunes last week, and our traffic spiked. It was a huge jump. I was gonna suggest a party. But then someone from KaliBay found our website and they’ve been advertising for us.”

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  “Makes sense. When we make money they make money.”

  “I don’t think you get it yet. We are getting a half million unique visits an hour. An hour, Luke. Our mods are overwhelmed with new runes and the forum posts are getting ridiculous. We’re gonna get sued.”

  Luke pulled up the website on his phone. As he scrolled through it he said, “Dude, this was literally the plan. This is exactly what we wanted. There are eleven new runes up there. I can’t wait to try them. And the rune design forum has plans for a hover-bike. Badass. This has to be good for us financially too, right? Core prices are up, aren’t they?”

  Allen sighed and pulled up Kalibay. “Oh. Yeah. The last I checked the prices were back up to normal. Now it’s like four times as much as normal. I gotta post some of our stock.”

  “There you go. If it makes you feel better, you can put more into the lawyer fund. But really, I don’t think we’ll need it. It’s unlikely they will find out it’s us. It’s unlikely they will sue us if they do find out. If they sue us, they won’t win. Relax man. Breathe. We can do this. Would it help if we took a trip to Kalibutan and drove tanks around?”

  “What? How are you going to get a tank through the portal?”

  “My new skill, remember? I told you about it last week. Come on. Suit up already. I want to blast some monsters to kingdom come.”

  ???

  Luke pointed at the Sonic Centipedes in the distance and said, “Fire.”

  His summoned M10 Booker barked, sending an armor piercing round hundreds of feet in an instant. It was much quieter than the real thing. Without having to use actual gunpowder, the only sound was the fifteen pound projectile breaking the sound barrier. Which was still loud, but not loud enough to hurt his ears. They probably didn’t even hear the shot from the estate village a few miles away.

  Almost simultaneously to the sonic boom was the impact on the armored monster. Chitin shattered, shards flew, and the monster screamed in pain. Its cry was laced with magic, blue wisps of power that shredded anything nearby. Luke wasn’t nearby. He scoffed as the attack only removed leaves from the nearby trees.

  He said, “Keep firing until both targets stop moving.”

  Allen put his hands on his ears as the light tank hammered away at the duo of monsters in the distance. Since he was wearing power armor, the move was useless.

  Luke pushed his perception to the limits, observing the damage from his tank. There were two Sonic Centipedes, each one a heavily armored behemoth. The armor piercing rounds of the M10 Booker were enough to get through the chitin, but didn’t devastate the flesh beneath. It was like the monster was being hit by bullets, not a cannon. The naturally tough constitution of the average Kalibutan monster was enough to hold up to several shots from his summoned tank.

  Every five seconds, another tank round fired. At first the monsters didn’t even know where the attacks were coming from. They were evolved for much closer combat. They eventually located the humans on the distant hilltop and skittered towards them. That only made it easier for the Machine Soul piloting the Booker to get headshots. The first of the pair fell shortly after it started moving. The remaining Sonic Centipede got closer, within three hundred feet by the time it finally died.

  Luke clapped his hands. “Better than I could have expected. The penetration is great and the Machine Soul has excellent aim. If the projectiles had a little more oomph, it would be perfect.” He unsummoned the tank to save on the mana upkeep costs.

  Allen looked around fearfully. “Is that it? Are they all dead now?”

  “Oh, sorry, buddy. I should have said that first. Yep, all the monsters nearby are dead. My eye in the sky that is keeping watch for us,” Luke said and pointed to the latest version of his magic drone circling high above. “I’m going to go harvest the mana cores and then we’ll head out.”

  Luke jogged over to the closest monster and jammed his sword in between the monster’s armor plates. He wished he had brought Angela along. She had gotten a Reaper class, which helped her kill and harvest monster parts. She could stab her sword into a monster corpse and pop out a mana core in two seconds. Luke had to do it the slow and bloody way.

  The Croatian brothers, Dom and Ivan, had gotten classes too, but their classes wouldn't help here. Dom’s Shield Breaker class was excellent against armored monsters, but tended to splatter blood everywhere. Ivan’s Brute class was even worse.

  As Luke worked as cleanly as he could, he checked his class screen. Yep. He had finally leveled up. Ever since he passed level twelve, low level monsters didn’t help his class advance. Only monsters with a tier two and up core could move the needle. These two Sonic Centipedes had pushed him over the edge to level sixteen.

  When he hit level fifteen earlier in the week, he had used the points on Perception. It had put him past the next threshold, but he didn’t really notice much change because his always active buff was already giving him eyes on the back of his head.

  For today he decided to put these two points into Dexterity and Memory. He needed the extra movement speed to keep up with his Acuity, and he wanted a larger mana pool that came with Memory.

  Once the points were assigned, he pulled up his stat screen and basked in the progress.

  The numbers filled him with joy. He was leaps and bounds above anyone in his weight class. His buff alone gave him the equivalent of 21 levels in his platinum class. That would be 42 levels of a gold class. His dreams of gaining power were coming true.

  He couldn’t wait to see what passing the threshold with Dexterity was going to do for him. Would it make him move bonelessly, or faster, or what? He decided to get to work and see if there were any changes as he harvested cores. There was a certain ease to his movements. Not just agility, but a certainty that his hands and body would do exactly what he wanted it to. He suspected that fumbling and dropping things was a thing of the past.

  By the time Luke had harvested the second tier four mana core from the Sonic Centipede corpse, his magic drone caught sight of movement in the distance. Monsters were coming to investigate the sonic booms his tank had created. He recognized all of the monsters on their way, so he wasn’t worried. Allen would be though, so it was time to get moving.

  “Let’s go. I’m sorry I didn’t think about how stressful it would be for you,” Luke said.

  “It’s fine. I’m not stressed,” Allen lied.

  Luke knew his friend was terrified, but had been pushing himself to come anyway. He was using exposure therapy to overcome his fears. Luke led the way back towards the estate village. As he ran, his thoughts drifted towards his Mark V mech. He was almost done constructing the new set of power armor. It was the longest he had spent crafting one set, but he wanted to be at his absolute best when he fought in the Malamon. The ritual war was the next Kalibutan day, so Luke had just enough time to finish and test his designs.

  His musings were derailed when his drone sent him a video of a monster up ahead. He slowed to a stop and waved for Allen to do the same.

  “Time for another experiment,” Luke said and bent down to touch the ground.

  “Is there a monster up ahead?”

  “Yeah, but don’t worry, it’s not close yet. It’s behind that stand of trees in the distance. I don’t think it even has an idea we are here.” Luke pushed his mana into Summon Vehicle.

  Gray and violent mana swirled, his personal mana signature. A tube appeared in the ground, like an oversized mortar. He pushed his final Machine Soul into the summoned vehicle and stood back up. Once he was sure Allen was out of the way he mentally commanded the Switchblade to launch.

  A five foot projectile launched out of the tube, rocketing into the air. As it flew, four wings and a propeller unfolded, turning it into an aircraft. The drone zipped through the air and behind the trees. Luke watched through his Machine Soul connection as the summon found its target and dived.

  The troll was a big one, at least as big as the biggest one Luke had fought. It didn’t have time to look up before the drone screamed out of the sky and detonated on the monster.

  Luke and Allen were treated to the sound of an explosion and the flash of fire in the distance. They saw a plume of smoke rise up behind the trees. The tube nearby dissolved into motes of mana.

  “Hell, yeah. That’s what I’m talking about.” Luke said happily. He raced forward to finish it off.

  Allen followed behind at a more sedate pace, keeping an eye on the surrounding forest. He arrived to find Luke cackling like a madman. There was a large impact crater and bits of ash.

  Luke held up a tier four core and said, “One shot, one kill.”

  Allen wiggled his head back and forth. “Sure, but that cost you a lot of mana, right? Not exactly a reliable hunting method.”

  “You are totally right. I’m down to four points of mana, and I’ve used up all of my Machine Souls. But still, I killed a troll with one hit. It’s an accomplishment, trust me.”

  “So you say, but I don’t know if I can take your word for it. You’re about as bright as a cave.”

  Luke rolled his eyes. “You are so witty. You'll go far someday. And I hope you stay there.”

  They laughed at each other and got moving again. The rest of the trip was much quieter, and Luke took care of most of the threats with his spell rifles. Allen even took a turn when a Mist Fox tried to sneak up on them.

  Back on Earth, Luke spent a few hours crafting and scrolling through the WikiRunes forums. Most of the posts were from ignorant people that thought they knew everything. But a few were from seriously brilliant people. He recognized the names SpinXOX and HoffmanFan69 from the Lighthouse rune forums. They were the same people that had helped him design his magic drones. They were discussing how to create a gauntlet with a super punch.

  On the one hand, Luke was worried that Atticus might get wind of this design and steal it. On the other hand, Luke wanted to use it for himself. He couldn’t add it to his gauntlets, they were already full with spell cannons. But he had an idea for using the clever rune design in a different way.