I took a step back when I saw his lips quiver in panic. “There must be a misunderstanding,” I said, trying to appear as friendly as possible. “I’m not a wreck-ree… whatever you just said. I’m a sain.”

  His eyes didn’t lose their apprehension. “What’s that?”

  “What’s the word for it in Krallan…?” I muttered. “An exterminator?”

  His eyes darted right, and he tried to flee, only to find himself locked in place.

  “Monster exterminator!” I cried as he pulled, searching for someone to ask for help. “I kill monsters, not… people. Now I’m going to release your arm… please don't attack me.”

  He rapidly calmed after I released him, laughing indignantly as he rubbed his wrist. “So you’re an adventurer,” he said snidely, using the inflection of a statement rather than a question.

  I pounded my fist against my palm. “That’s the word! That’s a traveling monster hunter, right?”

  He looked down. “You’re insane… you’re actually insane. Do you even understand…” He trailed off when he saw my innocent expression. “You’re not from around here, are you?”

  “I am not,” I said cheerily, cheeks burning. “I was just hoping you’d tell me where I can buy one of those outfits.”

  He looked down at his garments. “A suit?”

  “Yes.”

  He blinked a few times in perplexity, and then suddenly panicked again. He patted his pockets twice, then retrieved a silver artifact on a chain. He opened the cover, and his face paled. “I don’t have time for this. If you want answers, you’ll find your people around 12th and Marca. That's about twelve blocks”—he pointed north, in the direction of a triangular tower sporting a bizarre white array with twelve runes—“in that direction. Good day.”

  He tipped his hat as if it were obligatory, and then jogged off blindly, nearly running into a woman pushing a stroller.

  Well, that was strange… I thought. He treated adventurers as if they were a bad thing… And what does ‘your people’ even mean?

  I was puzzled and offended, but the day was young, and there was too much to see and experience to worry about a single interaction. So, I took off north toward the tower, immersing myself in the culture. It was all so stimulating. The city had a pulse, a jutting rhythm that drove everything around me. At one point, I stumbled when a loud bell tolled. I prepared for a wyvern attack, but none came. Instead, a group of workers groaned, knocking out their pipes before entering a building in unison. Another man threw half his sandwich to the birds, as if bread wasn't a delicacy, and then returned to his building.

  There wasn't a single person who wasn't aggrieved by the sound. I wondered whether the bell used a new form of mental manipulation magic to get people back to work, but I was soon perplexed to see people exiting buildings with relieved expressions. What was going on?

  I was pondering the nature of the bell when I happened upon a street vendor selling roasted meat that he had stabbed onto small sticks. It smelled so heavenly that I found myself running toward him.

  “Hey, slow down, kid,” he said. “You’re scarin’ the skewers.”

  “My apologies, it’s just that it smells so good. I couldn't help it.”

  He rubbed his nose with a cheeky smile. “Well, that’s because it’s the best, of course.”

  I rummaged through my pocket. “How much?” I retrieved a marble-sized sphere of gold and melted the outer layer with my finger. The man watched a golden bead drift into the sky with telekinesis before flattening into a paper-thin coin. “I’m sure this’ll be enough?”

  I felt magnanimous, bequeathing him my generous “first contact” purchase. He didn’t look the least bit grateful.

  “What the hell’s this?” he asked, waving the coin at me.

  I stared at him with suspicion. “It’s gold. You accept gold, right?”

  “Yeah, gold. Not magic tricks.”

  We stared at each other with tense apprehension before he broke off, rummaging through his pockets. He pulled out an assortment of coins, all different colors, with strange birds on one side and a woman's face on the other. “Crows, doves, hawks,” he said, lifting each, “often referred to as copper, silver… and gold.” He wagged the hawk at me, exposing the words ‘The Governor’ written underneath the woman's face. “It’s called money. The hell you from, boy?”

  I didn’t like that question, so I shot a longing glance at the skewers and said, “Never mind,” and grabbed my gold coin with telekinesis.

  “Hey, where are you going, kid?” he cried, reaching out his hand.

  I laughed at his sudden desperation, turning back. “To somewhere that accepts gold.” I glanced at the hawk in his fingers. “Not treated brass on nickel."

  I sauntered off with a prideful smirk, but felt a lingering unease. That man knew exactly what I offered him, but he tried to exploit my ignorance to get a better deal. It just seemed so violent—all of it. Corruption, hustling, armed citizens—I’d hate to see what the law was like. I had a feeling that it would be as corrupt and arbitrary as it was back in Sleya's day.

  Shaking off my unease, I kept moving down the commercial strip I had happened upon, attracted by a fountain at the end of it. Interested, I decided to check it out and take a break.

  What I saw when I got there was far from what I expected.

  The structure was a glorious historical relic, a thirty-meter pool featuring five statues of armored heroes holding a bowl from which water poured. The warding system alone would impress Riakans. It was a wonder—at least it was, once upon a time. Now, it was just a toxic death trap that was so dangerous that my Codex gave me a warning without prompting.

  Warning: The blight in this fountain has reached a level of instant toxicity. Drinking it can cause bodily mutations.

  That warning was offensively unnecessary. Miasmic blight had webbed up the legs of the statues and beyond, spreading through artistic engravings within the bowl. It screamed poison. Despite that, at least fifty people were filling water jugs from it—a few looked pale and sickly.

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  “What the…” I watched them in disbelief and then looked around. Why haven’t they purified it?

  I didn’t understand, but I refused to let these people drink blighted water for a moment longer. So, I retrieved a purification disc from my satchel, only to remember that it was made with silver.

  No… this’ll get stolen, I thought. Better make it permanent.

  I sat on the rim of the fountain and lifted my hand. Water bubbled upward in reverse waterfalls, creating a turquoise shield around me. To me, the action was practical, a means to obtain a dry floor for the array, but to the nearby children, it was a performance.

  “Look! It’s magic!”

  I felt a deep wave of perplexity when they rushed me, hopping up and down in excitement.

  What’s going on? I wondered with a bewildered chuckle. Haven’t they seen magic before?

  A little boy tugged on my pant leg, smiling to expose a row of missing baby teeth. “What are you doing, mister?”

  “I’m gonna paint an array,” I answered, retrieving an inkwell and brush. “Have you ever seen someone draw one?”

  He shook his head.

  “Well, then you’re in for a treat. Watch very carefully.” I unscrewed the lid, but a woman yelled, “Wait! Hold it!”

  I jolted, turning to the right. A guard with a golden ponytail and a thin arming sword was jogging toward me. She was around my age—eighteen—and… pretty. Perhaps she wasn't pretty in the way the rich women with frilly, dyed dresses around town were pretty, but she was naturally attractive, flashing straight white teeth, rounded cheekbones, and rare emerald irises. Most importantly, a quick glance from [astral gaze] showed her mana gates open—albeit incompletely—and that was most attractive of all.

  She’s a mage, I noted.

  I must've been staring intensely because she blushed and turned away, falling silent. I stared at her until the children got antsy, expecting her to get to the point—but she didn't.

  “Did you… need something?” I asked.

  “Oh, right… Sorry. I just need to see your insignia and… permit.” She trailed off after seeing my hesitant expression. “What's that look for?”

  “I…” I flashed her a nervous smile, rubbing the back of my neck, “have no clue what either of those things are.”

  Her eyes moved from me to the hovering water shield, which was smoothly refracting gentle turquoise waves against my white cloak. She then glanced back.

  “How do you not know what… Your rank. What's your rank?”

  I winced. “What's a rank? Like my class rank?”

  “No. Your metal.” She pointed to the platinum insignia on her breast, a tiny kite shield with crossing hammers on it. “Skill level. Grade…”

  In just a few moments, her face expressed confusion, frustration, bafflement, and, finally, disbelief.

  “You seriously don't know…” she whispered.

  “Yeah… Sorry. I'm not from around here…”

  She seemed to agree, nodding, then paused as if realizing something. She blinked a few times rapidly, seeming to break out of a trance. Then, her eyes became animated and indignant, as if she had been duped. “What are you even talking about? The ranking system spans the Kaska Continent. There's no way you don't know what a rank is.”

  I smiled sheepishly. “Would you believe me if I said I lived in an isolated cabin for the last eighteen years?”

  “No.”

  “Didn't think so…” I sighed and turned, twisting my wrist. The water shield spun together like a wrung-out rag and then spilled into the fountain so smoothly that there wasn’t a splash. I turned back and saw her gawking. The expression made me laugh.

  “What?” she asked, folding her arms.

  “Nothing, it's just… your expression’s so… cute.”

  Her cheeks turned a vibrant shade of scarlet, and she took a stumbling step back. “Hey!”

  I panicked. “Funny! Cute, as in funny. It's just… strange. You’re clearly a mage, but you seem transfixed by…” I ran my finger along the surface of the fountain, and water skimmed off the surface, creating a stream that followed my hand like a snake. “Simple magic.”

  She followed the water with her eyes, silent and mesmerized, until she saw my triumphant grin. The redness in her cheeks spread to her ears, making me laugh harder.

  “Can you stop breaking the law?” she demanded.

  “Can you do your job and stop me?”

  She shot forward to grab me, but I skillfully dodged, flicking hovering water drops into her cheeks. She touched her face in disbelief, staring at me as if I had lost my mind.

  I smirked tauntingly.

  She frowned—and flicked her fingers. A large wave of water crashed out of the fountain toward me.

  I grinned, catching it with telekinesis before throwing half of it back at her.

  She caught it in the same way, but changed pace, splitting it into eight sections. The streams froze, turning into arrows with exaggerated heads, each releasing steam like dry ice as they pointed at me.

  If she expected me to be intimidated, she was sorely mistaken. I reformed my remaining water into a tiny shield and lifted it toward her threateningly.

  The gesture was so absurd that she finally broke down.

  “Stop!” she pleaded, suppressing a giggle. “Seriously. I'm going to get in trouble…”

  “Aw, I thought you'd fight me.”

  Her animated eyes dimmed. “I wish…”

  The children groaned when we released our weapons into the fountain. She smiled at them and then picked up my inkwell and brush. “What were you doing, anyway?”

  “I was painting a purification array. The water here's toxic, so…”

  My words landed like a large stone in a calm pond; the atmosphere violently shifted, grinding to a halt before reversing course.

  “You were… what?” she asked.

  I studied her grave expression nervously. “I was creating an array to purify the blight.”

  Her eyes sharpened, and she clenched a fist. “There's no way…”

  “I can prove it. It'd only take me a second. I can even do it on the ground first to prove I'm not poisoning the water. Here…”

  I gently pried the inkwell and brush from her hands with telekinesis. She let go, but then lunged forward and caught them.

  “I don't think you get it,” she said. “You can't use spells in public without a permit, let alone create something permanent...” She studied my face closely. “You seriously don't have an insignia?”

  “I seriously don't. But…” I looked at her earnestly. “I'll get both. Can you tell me where to get them?”

  She stared at me and then at the water. As if deciding upon something, she said, “Here.” She released my inkwell and brush, allowing me to pull them back and store them. Then, she flicked open and studied one of those round, chained artifacts that the first man I met wore. “Let's go,” she said. “I'll take you to my Adventurer's Guild. But we gotta hurry. If I get caught, I'll be docked the full day's pay."

  I immediately agreed. That’s where I had to go anyway, so I said, “I’d appreciate that,” and followed closely behind her.

  I expected light conversation, but she didn’t even look at me, opting instead to mutter about how stupid it was to abandon her shift. Then, we picked up speed, striding past slower pedestrians in dead silence—a silence that only became more oppressive as the blocks passed by. It was a strangely nightmarish experience—one I thought would never end—but it abruptly ground to a halt when we passed the street signs for 12th and Marca, and we happened upon the longest building I had ever seen.

  The guard abruptly stopped at the door, planting us underneath an ornate wooden sign that read—

  Wild Boar

  Adventurer’s Guild

  —before turning her whole body to face me.

  “The accent, the lazy backstory… you’re not a spy, are you?”