Their hover truck had stopped a hundred feet away from the edge of the swiftly flowing river. A huge water tendril controlled by one of River Sirens was reaching up and over the bank, slowly swinging down to capture them and pull them under.

  Luke ignored the attack and focused on the furthest monster. It had already caught a wagon and was dragging it into the water. They were about three hundred feet away, well within the range of Phantom Shot. But that wasn’t the only skill he could use here. Now that his Vortex Door was past its second threshold, it could reach that far too. If he revealed the skill, it would confirm to everyone else that he had a Platinum class, but it was better than them knowing he had an illegal skill.

  He placed the first half of the Vortex Door on the roof in front of him, and then shot the second half at the siren pulling in the other travelers. He could feel the skill resisting him. It didn't want to form on top of water. Acuity sped up his thought processes and he clamped down on the bucking skill. After the longest half second of his life, the portal formed. The door appeared right next to the bulbous headed monster. It reacted swiftly, swimming a few feet to the side in an instant. It wasn’t far enough away.

  Luke reached his right gauntlet through the portal and twisted around so it was facing the right direction. Then he fired both spell rifles on the gauntlet, a lightning ball and an acid bolt. The two spells shot across the short distance and impacted the monster while it was still trying to react. The lightning made it twitch in place while the acid ate through its scales. The surrounding water started diluting the acid, but not quickly enough. Three seconds later, the water was stained with blood and the monster was dead.

  The water tendril it had been controlling fell apart and splashed down. The small wave was enough to disturb the water and dispel the Vortex Door. The edge of his mech’s gauntlet was forced back through the portal as it closed.

  Luke looked around to see that another monster had died. Momoh had been using his brown rays as a distraction and had sent a wave of insects around behind them. The River Siren that had been focusing on Momoh’s hover cart had been surrounded by dozens of beetles. They pierced the monster’s scales and stripped the corpse in seconds. Another water tendril splashed down.

  By now his nephew had climbed to his feet with an annoyed look on his face. With a dramatic gesture Imohi sent a wave of blue and pink magic rocketing forward. The three remaining monsters blocked with their water tendrils, but the magic passed through without stopping. A shape formed below the monsters obscured by the river. Luke couldn’t see what was happening, but a few moments later, each remaining River Siren was pulled under. The water was quickly tinted red. The last of the floating water dropped and the eerie singing stopped.

  Nice. Convincing the skill to form on top of water had paid off in a level.

  Everyone that had been enthralled by the sirens suddenly awoke with a shout. The wagon that was half in the water shot backwards so fast that it bumped into the wagon behind it. They stopped and shouted at each other in fear and agitation.

  Imohi cleared his throat. “The one time your loud summons would be useful, you don’t use them. Shameful.”

  Luke scowled. “It’s a limited resource. I can’t create as many of them as I want.”

  Momoh slashed his hands down. “Do not disparage him, Provisional Lord Imohi. Those were tier six River Sirens. It is impressive he managed to fight at all.”

  “Yeah, I had my skill to protect me from the mental attack. How were you two unaffected?” Luke asked Momoh.

  “We are lords, what else do you expect?” Imohi interjected.

  Momoh chuckled. “Mental stats protect against a variety of magics, particularly the perception stat. My nephew and I are able to easily shake off their influence.”

  “Interesting. I won’t ask how high your stats are. If I wanted to raise my perception to protect myself from these exact monsters, what number should I shoot for?”

  “You can’t raise perception alone, it needs acuity and memory to support it. But I would suggest raising your perception to at least eighteen and your acuity and memory at twelve. That’s the minimum I suggest for these sirens, stronger monsters could still overwhelm you. You have a gold class, correct? If you work on it, you will be able to get there before you hit level thirty-two.”

  Luke waggled his hands in agreement. He was going to focus on acuity for now, but afterwards perception would be his next goal. He would have to sacrifice Armor Adjunct at some point, it would be best to have mental protection for when that day came.

  Imohi turned to him and gave him a weird grin. Luke was about to ask what that was about when the elf sat back down and ordered his servant to back away from the bank.

  Momoh was first across the river and spent a few minutes talking to the people there. It turned out they were delivering trade goods to the portal and he convinced them to visit his mining village first. The traders would give his village first dibs on their goods as thanks for saving them from the sirens. Imohi ignored the exchange, but that earned him a lecture afterwards.

  Luke ignored the talk to focus on himself. To his delight, he had leveled up from that fight, he was now a level twenty-two War Machine. Killing one monster hadn’t been that impressive, but it was a higher tier monster and that must have been enough to count. As planned, he put another two points into Acuity and closed his eyes as the change washed through him.

  It was a bigger change than he had experienced before, this was his first stat to hit twenty-four naturally. As a multiple of six, it gave him outsized benefits. He felt like he could think faster and he intuited that his bullet time in combat would last longer. More importantly, he felt like he could think easier. His thoughts flowed more smoothly and that also translated to his mana obeying him faster. He circulated it around his body and felt revitalized, reinvigorated.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  As a test, he looped his mana through his prosthetic leg, creating a copy of the Machine Bond skill. This would allow him to keep his buffs even when he wasn’t wearing armor. It was so much easier this time. Before he felt like he was juggling one handed. Now he felt like he was holding something in his hand and he could let the sensation fade into the background.

  He let the bond lapse and moved on to his next test. His main goal with hitting level twenty-four in Acuity was to get his mana regeneration up to one a minute. Time to find out if he had reached that point yet. He removed his phone from the magnetic shielding in his armor and started a timer.

  With one eye on his timer and the other on his stat screen, Luke watched his mana pool refill. It looked promising. Their caravan crossed the river and got moving again. Twenty minutes later, he had firm numbers. His mana regeneration was now at 0.76 points per minute. Not quite at his goal yet, but getting there. With the current mana density, he could keep Armor Adjunct or Summon Vehicle active for a while.

  The rest of his guard shift wasn’t as exciting. Monsters still attacked, but they died without endangering the caravan.

  Sulfur Elementals made themselves known by their stench before he saw them. He had a spell ready as soon as he saw the yellow mist creeping across the ground. There were four of the gaseous monsters hovering over a nearby pond. He was happy to take them out with a few well placed fireballs. The explosions made Imohi grumble, but it wasn’t Luke’s fault sulfur was flammable.

  The Devil Skeletons were impervious to his lightning and fireball attacks, but it only took one fracture spell to shatter each of the six monsters. Three of the monsters had tier three cores, so Luke had Bosa collect them before they moved on.

  The Plant Kraken looked like a tier six or higher monster. It was huge with a beak as big as their truck. It had long grasping tendrils with rows and rows of poisoned thorns along the bottom. It might have been a serious fight if Luke hadn’t seen wagon wheel ruts. The traders who had recently come this way had gone around the huge monster instead of attacking it. Luke directed Bosa to do the same and they made a wide circle around the stationary monster.

  When Luke’s shift was over, he was happy to climb out of his larger mech and into the cab of the hover truck. Constantly being on alert was draining. Momoh took the lead and Luke’s vehicle fell to the back of the convoy.

  “I’ll drive for the next nine hours,” Luke offered. “That way you can sleep. Kalibutan days are way too long for either of us to stay awake the whole time.”

  Bosa slashed her hands down. “That is not necessary. I am an elf, heart and soul. I would prefer to stay awake all day and sleep the full sixteen hours at night.”

  Luke glanced back at Kruro and Jinx. They were sleeping in the back seat. He settled into the passenger seat and said, “So wait, does that mean you are genetically an elf now?”

  “Yes, the same as the day I was born,” Bosa said and pointed to her ears and then forward to the others.

  Luke sighed. She didn’t want anyone to overhear her saying she wasn’t born as an elf. It seemed wildly unlikely, but then again, some of them had very high perception.

  “Alright, I guess we won’t talk about that. What can you tell me about yourself?” Luke asked.

  She tapped her chin. “I suppose I can tell you some things. One interesting fact about me is that I hate sewing.”

  Luke chuckled softly. “You have a thread mastery skill and you hate sewing?” He knew that her real skill was the ability to control needles, but that still implied a love of sewing.

  “Yeah, I killed a monster with a metal dart during my assessment period. It was kind of an accident. I was traveling between villages and the orc escort lopped off the legs of this spider horse. It was almost dead, but then it twitched towards me. I reacted without thinking. Afterwards, I had two choices, a bronze class, and the Thread Weaver class. The Archer class wasn’t nearly as good as this one.” Bosa replied. “How about you, how did you end up with a War Machine class?”

  “That’s a good question. I was actually gunning for a Runewright class. I made a mech so I could go kill monsters with my runes. I got the class I was hoping for, a gold one. But the platinum class of War Machine was calling my name. Turns out, it was a good choice. I still get to make mechs, and now I have skills that make it even easier to kill monsters.”

  “Yes, your summoning skill is particularly impressive.”

  “Thanks. It burns through my mana, but it’s super useful.” Luke paused and looked back towards Kruro. She was still asleep. “Hey, you said you knew something about the level twenty-four sacrifice. Judging by Kruro and Cormac’s reaction when I asked, it must be some sort of social taboo. Can you tell me about it now?”

  Bosa glanced back to double check that the naga was sleeping. “Sure, I can tell you about it now. It’s as you have guessed, there is a taboo against discussing it. It’s a serious one, so don’t repeat what I tell you.”

  Luke nodded and gestured for her to continue.

  She straightened her long black hair and settled into the driver’s seat. “The first thing you need to know is that people from Kalibutan consider glory to be a real thing. On Earth, you banter about that term because it’s an ephemeral idea. Here, we talk about glory as something valuable and measurable, because it is, to us.”

  Luke tilted his head to the side. “Wait, is this like a translation issue? I know we are talking in elvish right now, but what does ‘glory’ mean, exactly?”

  “It means what you think it does, glory is how we measure renown or honor won by notable achievements, how we determine magnificence or great beauty. The main difference is that we have a sixth sense you do not. We can quite literally sense when someone else has a great deal of glory.”

  Luke sat up straighter. “Really? Even if you’ve never heard of this guy, you can tell if someone has a lot of glory or not?”

  “Yes. They exude a presence, they feel heavy and bright in a way that others do not. When I met you, I knew instantly that you were my employer because your glory was higher than any other human I had met that day.”

  “Wild. So you just have this sense that goes ping when someone with a lot of glory goes by? No wonder Kalibutan still has royalty.”

  Bosa leaned over to him and whispered into his ear. “Yeah, it was such a shock to meet someone with a lot of glory after my transformation. I felt like kneeling down in front of this random four star general and doing whatever he wanted me to.”

  The hairs on Luke’s arms rose up. It was a heady feeling to have a beautiful woman whispering in his ear, even though it wasn’t a romantic situation. To distract himself he said, “So if glory is real, does that mean that whenever someone says ‘we work for their glory’ they are what, transferring glory over to their lord?”

  She straightened back up and tucked her hair behind her ear. “Precisely. Any miniscule bits of glory servants gain in the course of their service, they pass on to their lord. That’s how some lords gain all their glory, by having impressive people working for them.”

  “Can you do anything with glory? Or is it just a flex on those without?”

  Bosa tilted her head back and forth. “There are probably multiple uses for aristocrats, but the only one I know of for sure is sacrifice. At levels twenty-four and forty-eight, you have the choice of sacrificing your glory.”

  Luke shrugged. “Is that it? People don’t want to admit they are sacrificing glory because it’s so important to their society?”

  “I doubt that’s all there is to it. It’s a major cultural taboo. I just don’t know more than that.”

  Luke thanked her and spent the next few hours meditating on the nature of glory and what it would mean to have a glory sense. He took a shift driving, to give Bosa a break, even if she didn’t need to sleep.

  When it was nighttime on Earth, afternoon on Kalibutan, Luke leaned back in the passenger seat and attempted to sleep. It would be another nine hours before their caravan stopped for the night, but Luke needed some rest now. He was slightly jealous of Kruro and Jinx’s ability to sleep the journey away. It took some time, but he eventually fell asleep.

  Hours later he was jolted awake, the fading edges of a nightmare putting him on edge. He sat up and looked around, trying to determine why he felt off.