The murder of Explosive Crows flapped hard and accelerated towards Luke’s summoned helicopter. With a ten feet wide wingspan they were able to quickly get up to speed. As they flapped, they sent wave after wave of black feathers into the air. The swarm of black feathers turned and accelerated towards the loud machine in the distance. They sliced forward without dropping, primed to explode on contact.

  They never reached the helicopter.

  The AH-1Z Viper was the pinnacle of Earth engineering. It opened fire before the monsters flew fifty feet. The Machine Soul piloting the summoned vehicle was able to use its advanced sensor suite to track all fourteen monsters and unloaded on them with its nose cannon.

  Round after round of summoned ammunition streaked through the air like the buzz of a titan bee. It tracked the targets and eliminated them one after another. Monsters fell out of the air, trailing feathers. Before the Explosion Crow attacks came near, all fourteen monsters were dead. The Viper juked out of the way as the feathers' magic disintegrated and they turned to dust.

  Luke pumped his fist over a mile away. He had been watching through the eyes of his Machine Soul and was ecstatic with its performance. He mentally directed it to continue forward, staying about two miles ahead of the caravan. The mana upkeep cost for the helicopter warred with his higher regeneration and his mana points slowly ticked down at a rate of one per five minutes.

  Fifteen minutes later, the Viper found a nest of Blink Ants. After the first few monsters died to the nose cannon, the rest of the ants teleported fifty feet away. The helicopter spread out its attacks, trying to catch the monsters off guard. It was no use. They were too fast now that they were alerted. Luke sent a mental command to the Machine Soul to stop wasting ammunition and skip to the missiles.

  Twin JAGM missiles shot down towards the twenty foot tall anthill. The nearby monsters teleported away from the impact site, but not far enough. The fifty pound warheads in each missile detonated simultaneously and erased the anthill from existence. Luke could see the plume of dirt from a mile away.

  Despite all that, the Viper still hadn’t got all the monsters. Four Blink Ants had teleported far enough away to avoid the blast radius. They were currently scrambling up nearby trees, trying to get closer to the hovering heli. Luke didn’t wait for them to teleport in for revenge and ordered the Machine Soul to fly away, leading the Blink Ants away from the road. Once the ants were lost in the dust, he ordered the heli back to the road. The next monster it came across was a hulking solitary monster.

  Luke wanted to call it a Biceritops because it reminded him of a two horned dinosaur. But when the helicopter drew close, the monster stood up on its hind legs. He decided it was a Devil Dino. The monster swung its forelimbs and two thin crescents appeared midair and zoomed towards the Viper. Only inhuman reflexes allowed the helicopter to evade the twin attacks.

  The Machine Soul didn’t need prompting to unleash the big guns this time. It fired two JAGM missiles followed by two Hydra rockets. The quartet of explosions knocked the huge monster back and threw up massive clouds of dust. The Viper immediately switched to thermal vision, just in time to see another crescent attack.

  The summoned helicopter tilted to the side and the near invisible blade of energy sliced through the air inches away from its skids. As it was recovering, the viper sent out its Sidewinders. The internal guidance allowed the missiles to curve and hit the huge monster in the face. The Viper then tilted down and aimed its Hydra rockets at the Devil Dino. It fired one after another until the big beast stopped moving. The Viper was left with two rockets and no missiles by the time it died. Later, when the caravan drew close, Luke made sure to pick up the monster core from the corpse. He was vaguely disappointed to see it was only tier five. He perked up when the system gave him an update.

  Every level up to Summon Vehicle was doubly exciting. It was awesome getting a skill higher so it could do more. This skill was also his highest skill so every level meant that his class could level up too.

  An hour and a half after he first summoned the Viper, Luke’s mana ran out and the vehicle dissolved into little sparkles. He had to take on the next group of monsters himself. Thankfully, the Plant Kobolds were easily dispatched by the weapons on his Black Mamba mech. All four elemental spells were effective against the small aggressors so he was able to take them down before they got close.

  With his higher mana regeneration, it was only another half hour before he was full on mana and was able to safely summon another vehicle. This time he went with the M10 Booker. The medium tank wasn’t as versatile as the helicopter, but it cost less mana to summon, so he could keep it out longer with his remaining mana.

  He sent it racing along the path ahead of them, the tracks easily able to handle the rough condition of the dirt road. The Booker did have cameras, but Luke didn’t bother watching through them. They were all short range cameras designed for the driver to keep track of the nearby terrain. Instead, he watched the tank from his other machine, the magic drone flying high above.

  Hilariously, the first thing his summon ran into was a wagon train. A group of four wooden wagons was trundling down the dirt path. Each wagon had four dwarven guards, each armed with a spear and crossbow. They each had identical purple and blue uniforms that spoke to a well organized group.

  As soon as she saw the tip of the tank barrel, the lead guard shot her crossbow. A silvery bolt embedded itself into the tank’s front armor. Luke commanded the Machine Soul not to retaliate, but the command wasn’t necessary. The soul hadn’t twitched in response to the attack.

  Ever since his last threshold, Luke had noticed that his Machine Souls were smarter. Before they wanted to shoot anything that moved, and now they were able to recognize friend from foe. Which was better than the dwarven guards could say. Two more crossbow bolts streaked through the air and hit the tank. The third one set off a cascading failure, unraveling the spell that kept the summons together. His magic drone saw a puff of gray and violet sparkles dissipate into the air.

  Luke couldn’t hold back a groan. What a waste of mana and Machine Soul. The mana would regenerate quickly, but the Machine Soul took much longer. He only had two left out of the six he started this journey with.

  He turned around and waved back to Momoh. His hover cart sped up and drew closer to the hover truck. Luke said, “Lord Momoh. There’s a wagon train ahead. Buncha guys in purple and blue. They attacked and dispelled my summoned vehicle. Should we be worried about them?”

  Imohi yelled from the rear of the caravan. “Was your machine being annoyingly loud again?”

  Luke rolled his eyes and said, “No, it was being quiet, I hadn’t fired the guns once before they killed it.”

  Imohi laid back on his cushions and waved his hands dismissively. “Maybe they thought it was ugly.”

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  Momoh chuckled and said, “Luke of Machines. Be not concerned. The blue and purple tabard is the uniform of the Vincenne merchants. They are not our enemies. They must have erroneously assumed your summon was a monster or an illusion.”

  “If you say so. How about you go first until we meet them? I don’t want them to accidentally shoot my hover truck because they don’t recognize the design. They are about a mile ahead,” Luke said.

  Momoh chuckled and gestured forwards. His servant pushed forward on his little gazebo model and they drifted forward to take the lead. A short while later, they came up to an agitated group of travelers. The wagon train had circled and all of them were staring nervously into the forest.

  This time, the guards didn’t shoot first and ask questions later. Instead the lead guard leaned forward and put her fists on the wagon planks. “Esteemed aristocrats. It is an honor to see you, but we must warn you, there may be a monster with illusion magic out there. We encountered a strange metal beast a few moments ago. It disappeared after we shot it.”

  Imohi laughed uproariously. Luke scowled at the brat and turned back to the guard. “That wasn’t an illusion, that was my summoned construct. I had sent it ahead to clear out monsters before we got there.”

  It was a bit annoying how weak his summons were. The conjured ammunition was effective, but the conjured armor wasn’t as durable as the real thing.

  “My apologies, uh, Metal Master. We didn’t mean to interrupt your hunt.”

  “Don’t worry about it. I just wanted you to know there wasn’t anything to worry about. There is no monster nearby, and I just killed all of the monsters on the path behind us. You won’t have to worry about being attacked for a while.”

  She brightened up at that and thanked him. She ordered the wagon train to get going again and they were soon out of sight.

  Luke took the lead again. Despite his earlier bad luck, he decided to summon a Booker tank again. He loaded it up with his second to last Machine Soul and sent it ahead. Predictably, the tank didn’t run into any resistance for a while. The dwarves had cleared out some of the nearby monsters.

  Some, but not all. An hour after they saw the wagon train, his summoned tank found resistance. There was an Apex Troll sitting in the middle of the road, slowly pulling the meat out of a giant spider corpse. Monster’s instincts didn’t force them to fight each other, but they did enjoy eating. Inter-monster conflict was common.

  The tank fired its big gun before the troll had a chance to stand up. The summoned cannon shot blasted through the monster’s torso and left a gaping hole in its center. The Apex Troll didn’t even look down at the wound. Instead, it jumped up and raced forward. The wound was quickly filled in by tiny troll units until it was whole again.

  The two machine guns atop the turret started firing, each shot taking out a few troll units. Every shot was slowly wearing the monster down, shrinking it slightly. Given enough time, the three guns could whittle it down to nothing. The monster wasn’t going to give them enough time. It was still over fifteen feet tall when it got close.

  The Machine Soul piloting the tank was happy to sacrifice itself to hurt the monster, but Luke wasn’t. He had just created that thing, he wanted it to last a few more hours. He ordered the tank to reverse at full speed.

  It jolted into action, backing up at a blistering pace of twenty miles an hour. The troll’s attack was delayed, but not by long. Luke ordered the tank to focus on the monster’s legs. The next cannon shot took the leg off at the knee, making the troll tumble to the ground. It quickly got up and continued its mindless pursuit.

  The Booker was able to repeat that trick two more times before the troll was almost upon it. At the last moment, Luke’s hover truck came around the corner. He raised his mech’s arms and sent a fireball and acid bolt arcing through the air to hit the troll just before it killed his summon.

  The troll roared in pain and frustration. The elemental attacks were effective in a way that the bullets weren’t. Luke was able to quickly wear the monster down without it hitting either his tank or his hover truck. He was rewarded with a tier seven monster core.

  He tucked it into the storage compartment with the others. It was getting full. When they got back home, they were in for a huge payday.

  The rest of his shift went by uneventfully. The tank’s weapons were well suited to killing off Acid Bears, Snake Bushes, and way too many kobolds. He collected some of the bigger mana cores, but didn’t bother with the small ones from the kobolds.

  When his shift was over, Momoh congratulated him on not needing assistance to kill the stronger monsters in the area. Luke was proud of himself, but already had ideas on a better war machine he could construct and then load into his Summon Vehicle skill. He needed something fast and agile, with a variety of weapons to be able to handle a variety of threats. He wouldn’t bother with armor, since even summoned tank armor could be breached with a crossbow bolt.

  Luke relaxed as the next shift slowly slid by. The countryside transitioned from a temperate forest to a jungle forest. Every so often, the monster cullers in Momoh’s cart would fire off a bevy of laser shots and water jets. It was mostly quiet. And boring.

  The interdimensional modem should have been the perfect way to stave off boredom, but it was so slow. He had grown up after the time of dial up modems, but it seemed like this thing was even slower. He checked his email and the WikiRunes website before putting it away again. It was so frustrating to see the screen fill up one line at a time.

  Jinx seemed to sense his boredom and woke up and stretched. Luke held out his hands so she could climb up front and get pets and scritches. She turned around and phased through the back of the cab. Of course.

  The movement did wake up Kruro and Luke pounced on the opportunity.

  “Kruro, or should I say Kruro of Runes? What should I call you on this trip?”

  “Kruro of Runes is the proper address when we are in Kalibutan society. Among friends, you may call me Kruro.”

  “Well, Kruro my friend, I was thinking about what you said last night. You were being all mysterious, but I think I know what you were talking about. Do you have-” Luke cut himself off when she held up a hand.

  “Please, wait until we are aboard the train. It has special privacy enchantments that even the Triumvirate's seers cannot pierce."

  Luke leaned back and said, “Ok, fine. But we gotta talk about something. I’m so bored.”

  “Travel isn’t exactly entertaining. I try to sleep to avoid boredom and the anxiety that comes with traveling through the monster infested wilds.”

  “Well, you are up now. What do you want to talk about?”

  She tapped her fingertips together for a moment before she said, “I might find a mate while we are in the capital. What do you look for in a mate?”

  Luke smiled. “I think you and I have different definitions of a mate. We’re only going to be in the capital for a week. That’s not enough time for a real relationship.”

  She rolled her hand. “Still. You wanted to talk, answer the question.”

  “Well, I think you know that Vanessa and I broke up just before this trip. I don’t think I want to get into a new relationship anytime soon. But I have been thinking about it. Where I went wrong, what kind of personality would be a better fit for me.

  “I think I jumped into the relationship with Vanessa because she was beautiful and interested in magic like me. That kind of surface connection is fine at first, but we never developed a deeper connection. I think when I start dating again, I’ll be looking for someone that I can trust with a conversation that goes beyond surface level.”

  The cab was quiet for a beat before Kruro said, “I’m looking for a mate with a muscly tail and thin cheeks.”

  Luke and Bosa both laughed at the disconnect between the two answers. Kruro joined in a few moments later.

  “Bosa of Domestic, what do you look for in a mate?” Kruro asked when they stopped laughing.

  “I hope we can be friends, please call me Bosa,” she said. “I haven’t thought much about what I look for in a mate. I’ve been busy with other things recently. I’ve only been Chosen for a year, I’m still training myself up.”

  “Yes, but if you found a perfect mate, what would they be like?” Luke asked.

  “She would have to be special. Kind and giving, interesting and adventurous. I want a relationship that helps me grow and discover who I am. And she would have to have a good butt.”

  Luke smiled. That sounded like a good list. Kruro wiggled her hands in approval. Bosa brightened up when she realized that neither of them were upset that she was a lesbian. They kept talking about trivial matters until the forest opened up to a wide grassland. In the center of the grassland was a gentle hill with a walled city atop the mound. Vedastine. It was the largest city Luke had seen on Kalibutan, although admittedly it was smaller than Fort Collins, the Earth city that housed the portal.

  Even from a distance, he could tell that the city was drastically different from the estate villages. He couldn’t wait to explore it while they waited for the train they were catching later today.