The next morning, I woke up with a gasp. My mind spun, and for the first time in my existence, I felt something like truly irrational panic. The remnants of a nightmare lingered in my panic-fueled mind, now mixing with the flush of adrenaline my body had unhelpfully produced. I took several deep breaths, forcing myself to calm down. I closed my eyes and refused to let my mind be so . . . vulnerable. I was better than this, I told myself over and over until my body began to calm itself down. Funny how my body could respond so acutely to my panic-filled mind, but when I tried to control it consciously, it fought me every step of the way, insisting on unconscious impulses instead of direct commands.

  Once I was feeling slightly better, I rubbed my eyes and looked around me. I regretted sleeping, not only because it was risky in these circumstances but because it was clear now that I wasn’t ready for it quite yet. I refocused on the world around me, noticing the sun peeking through the open window above me. I also noticed that the city was back to its eerily quiet state. The only sound near me was my own ragged breathing and the wind blowing past the window. Despite my poor decision to sleep, I had managed to survive another night. I was still feeling hungry, but not as hungry as if I had kept myself awake all night, and my leg felt recovered from the trauma it had suffered yesterday.

  My goal today was to make contact with someone and try to get some answers to what was going on in this city. With a deep breath, I stood and carefully made my way out of the apartment building I was squatting in. I listened carefully and moved as quietly as I could, which was becoming the new normal for me in this world, but I didn’t encounter anything as I exited the building.

  Outside, the city looked as bad as it always did. Checking around, I didn’t see anything dangerous nearby, so I began to wind my way through the alleys and streets that led toward the ruined bridge. I had carefully scouted the streets from above the day before, so I was able to easily find my way through the once-confusing streets. I figured the people inhabiting the ruined bridge might be the most approachable since they didn’t seem as militarized as those in the other areas of the city. The temple area seemed more dangerous, with their fully armored guards, and the palace was a potential minefield that I didn’t want to walk into without more information. The walls to the west were an option, but I figured the inhabitants would be skeptical of a stranger, whereas the settlement on the bridge seemed to have less structure and organization. Having seen the merchant from the ruined bridge stop for scavengers several times, I hoped they might stop for me if I could catch them before they entered the palace or the walled-off section of the city.

  As I traveled, I kept a close eye on my surroundings and heard creatures moving before I saw them several times. I avoided getting too close to those buildings and avoided piles of garbage as thoroughly as possible, so nothing seemed to notice me as I quietly moved through the streets. I also avoided alleys and narrow roads, sticking to the larger streets that led toward my destination. The main roads, while overgrown, dirty, and covered with the occasional ruined building or pillar, were still easier to navigate than the small alleys and streets full of debris and broken buildings.

  Eventually, I made it close enough to the ruined bridge that I saw one of the scavengers leap across the street above me. As I watched, the person flew through the air like a bird, the gray cloak trailing behind them. I calculated the distance between the two buildings, deducing it was approximately thirty-five feet, and the building they had landed on was higher than the one they had leapt from. There was, without a doubt, no way a person on my Earth could have done that.

  I stopped and marveled at the superhuman display as the tail of the gray cloak disappeared over the lip of the building above me. The person either didn’t notice me or, more likely, didn’t care enough to stop and investigate me. I waited to see if they would come back or if anyone else would appear nearby, but after a few moments, nothing happened, so I continued on my way.

  I traveled for another hour, winding through the city streets at a slow but steady pace. As I was scouting a major road, close to where I believed the caravan would travel, I stopped suddenly when I saw a large dog glowing with a blue aura. The dog hadn’t noticed me yet, but it was close, so it soon would. It was sniffing at the ground and pawing at a pile of broken stone and wood about twenty feet in front of me. It must have caught some smell from me because it sniffed again and then turned to look right at me.

  The blue glow of the dog gave the scene an unreal quality, but its low growl as it began to pace toward me shattered that unreality. I pulled my knife from its sheath and eyed the dog warily as it continued to slowly move toward me. Its growls grew louder, and saliva began to drip from its large, sharp teeth. My mind frantically cataloged everything I was seeing and tried to come up with a plan. I noticed that the dog was either injured or had some kind of monstrous mutation; its skin looked blistered and burned, and I could smell the faint odor of brimstone wafting down the street toward me as it got closer.

  The dog stopped and crouched for a moment. I had a brief hope it was going to stop approaching me, but instead, it squatted and growled as if in pain, then burst into flames. It howled as the flames consumed it, and I jerked back in surprise at the sight, but after a moment, the dog shook its head and then resumed approaching me, only now it was covered in a deep red, hellish-looking flame that flickered angrily all around its body. The dog seemed to be hurt by the flames but not incapacitated in the slightest as it continued forward, eyeing me hungrily.

  “Great,” I said, staring at the dog that was now covered in flames. I felt monumentally unprepared for this world, despite the body I had crafted with great care. I did not expect angry dogs that could set themselves on fire.

  I began to back away slowly, but that had the opposite effect I had been hoping for. The dog took that as a sign of weakness and leapt forward, an excited bark escaping its flaming jaws. I couldn’t afford to get into a melee with the dog since it would burn me horribly just by being close by, so my knife was useless. I had nothing with which to fight this beast effectively.

  So instead of trying to fight, I took the next best option and ran for it. I pushed off the wall I had been crouched behind as I scouted the new street and sprinted back the way I had come. The dog seemed even happier to see me run, letting out even more excited barks like we were playing a sick game of catch, except I was the ball and it was a large flaming dog that would kill me if it caught me. I didn’t turn to look behind me as I sprinted, but I could hear the dog as it gave chase.

  I had never run at full speed in my new body, but as I began to stretch my legs to their fullest, I thanked my past self for how thoroughly I had engineered my body. I felt the cobblestones under my boots, and my long legs and enhanced body ate up the distance as I ran. My body understood immediately that I was fleeing for my life. My breathing regulated itself and became even, unconsciously adapting itself to long-distance running. I couldn’t help but appreciate the assistance as I fled for my life. For once, I didn’t resent the instincts that overrode my conscious mind.

  I quickly outpaced the beast. Even though the dog was clearly supernatural in some way, it seemed unable to catch up to me. Maybe the fire slowed it down some, but as I ran, I couldn’t help but measure how fast I was moving and calculated I was running faster than any human on Earth could have run. I would have set records if I was allowed to compete back home. Maybe the best runners in the world could have come close, especially if the race organizers released dogs covered in fire to chase them, but those runners would have been sprinting, and I felt like I could keep this pace for an hour or more. It was a heady feeling.

  I took several turns, having to enter some of the smaller streets I had hoped to avoid in order to lose the dog. I heard it barking behind me even as I put more and more distance between us, and I worried it would attract even more beasts. As I turned a corner quickly, pushing myself off a stone wall to propel myself around, I saw that my worry was correct; an armored tusk-rat was stirring from a pile of garbage on the right side of the street, alerted by the barking of the dog behind me.

  As I dodged past the slow-moving tusk-rat, I heard another dog begin to bark in the distance.

  I felt the urge to swear but saved my breath. As I turned another corner, I heard the dog turn into the street I had just sprinted through, and I heard the armored rat screech at the dog. A moment later, a crashing sound echoed down the street behind me. I slowed and listened, hearing a scuffle between the tusk-rat and the dog break out.

  I debated what to do for a moment, but as the sound of the fight became intense, I decided to stop and observe. I was barely out of breath, and from the sounds behind me, I doubted either creature would be interested in me for a bit, so I felt safe enough for now. And I had no clue where that other dog was, so I could run around the city like crazy and just find myself in even more trouble. Despite those assurances to myself, I had to remember these monsters were dangerous to even the humans of this world, who were capable of leaping across wide streets with no problem.

  I jogged back to the corner I had just passed and peeked around. I confirmed that the dog and the tusk-rat were indeed fighting. The tusk-rat had apparently slammed the dog into the side of one of the buildings, partially collapsing it on the flaming beast, but not killing it. The dog had just climbed out of the rubble and was attacking the tusk-rat. Growling, the dog circled the tusk-rat and moved too fast for the slower creature to hit it again. While the dog dodged around the tusk-rat, its flames got stronger and stronger, licking forward as if under the dog’s control, burning the tusk-rat. The armor of the tusk-rat seemed useless against the dog’s flame.

  I looked around rapidly and found several piles of fallen bricks from a nearby building behind me. I ran over, grabbed several of the bricks, and then returned to hiding around the corner. I waited until the dog circled around the tusk-rat and turned its back to me, then whipped one of the bricks forward as hard as I could. The brick sailed through the air faster than a baseball and struck the dog in its back leg. The leg collapsed, the dog falling to the ground with a surprised yelp.

  The tusk-rat, meanwhile, apparently maddened by the heat, had withdrawn its head into its shell to protect itself and hadn’t noticed that the dog was injured.

  “Stupid rat,” I muttered, annoyed that it wasn’t finishing off the wounded dog for me.

  The dog began to stir and I ran forward, staying far enough away to avoid its flame but close enough to sling a brick right into its skull. The brick connected, shattering from the impact. The dog staggered, collapsing back to the ground. Seeing that it was still alive but stunned, I whipped another brick into its head and then one more to make sure it was dead. When I could see parts of its brain and its flames began to flicker out, I knew I had killed it.

  The rat, meanwhile, finally stuck its head out of its shell. It blinked several times, taking in the dead dog at its feet and then looking up and seeing me standing in the street, one brick left in my hand. It visibly jumped as it saw me, retreating backward slightly. I watched it for a moment, but it continued to back away, either afraid of me or so injured it had no interest in fighting right now.

  I didn’t feel the need to attack the rat if it was willing to leave me alone, although part of me considered that I should get the experience if it was available. I watched it warily until it reached the pile of debris and garbage it had been hiding in. When it got to its nest, it quickly turned away from me and dove into the mess, burrowing under the debris. I let it go. I had too much to do to risk fighting right now, and I expected the other dog I had heard to appear at any moment. I had only killed the first dog because of the tusk-rat’s distraction. I didn’t want to risk facing another dog right now.

  I leaned over the dog. The blue glow I had first noticed from the creature was coalescing into another orb. I immediately grabbed the orb. As I did, the announcement for killing the monster entered my mind.

  Weak hellhound sub-boss defeated—5 experience awarded. No class detected. Experience pooled for future use.

  I pushed the announcement out of my mind and jogged back the way I had come. Thanks to my memory, I could remember the path perfectly, which helped me avoid getting lost in this dangerous city. As I jogged, I couldn’t help but wonder about the class system. I knew such a thing existed, since the announcements said it couldn’t detect a class and was pooling my experience. The question was, how did I unlock a class? How much experience was required to level it? From my experience in virtual reality, the experience in this world was much harsher. Fighting these monsters was dangerous, and they barely awarded any experience at all. Considering the difficulty of the creatures I had fought so far, I should have received more of a reward if this was an entertainment-based system. The fact that the reward was so low indicated that this clearly wasn’t such a system, but I had no idea why the system existed at all, let alone how it worked. I hoped to fix that as soon as possible, because I wasn’t sure I could survive much longer without a class or some better equipment at least.

  I made it back to the street where I had first encountered the dog, slowing down and resuming my careful approach to the city. Thankfully, I didn’t encounter the other dog that had barked or any other monsters on my way to intercept the path of a caravan. When I reached the road I had seen the caravan travel on, I settled into a deep-set doorway and waited. I felt the adrenaline from the fight slowly dissipating as I sat in complete silence. I had been afraid of the dog, genuinely unsure how I would survive if it didn’t stop chasing me.

  Experiencing so much raw emotion in the last few days was a great distraction from the pit of grief I was trying to ignore, but it was also more exhausting than I had expected. It was like my body could experience physical exhaustion from my mental state, something I was very unfamiliar with. In my past life, it wasn’t that I didn’t feel emotion, but the strange intersection of feelings and biological chemistry made it more complicated. I felt pleasure from surviving, exhaustion from the stress, and satisfaction at receiving another orb and more experience, all at the same time. I was also aware of a slight sickness building in my stomach, both from the lack of food and from my nerves and mental state. Every emotion felt more real with a physical body that reacted to my emotional state.

  After an hour of waiting in total silence, I heard sounds coming down the road from the direction of the ruined bridge. I stood and leaned out of the doorway to make sure the sounds were the caravan and not another monster. Coming down the long, cobblestone road were several people dressed in makeshift armor. They carried all kinds of different weapons, from bows and staves to swords and maces. The guards continually scanned the streets around them, the buildings beside them, and the rooftops above them as they traveled. Behind the armored people were several wagons pulled by tired, older-looking horses that had their eyes covered to prevent them from panicking. The wagons were open-topped, and each one had a driver up front who gently guided the horses down the road.

  I stepped completely out of the doorway I had been sheltering in, not wanting to surprise the guards by appearing when they were closer to me. The guards immediately spotted me, many of them reaching for their weapons swiftly. When they realized I was human, several of them relaxed and resumed watching the rooftops, although not all of them released their grip on their weapons as they stared at me.

  As the caravan got closer, the guards eyed me warily but didn’t speak to me. I made no sudden movements and waited to see if someone would approach me first, not wanting to scare the heavily armed guards. I had made my body fairly tall with long limbs to give myself every advantage I could in a fight, but I hadn’t considered how much shorter everyone would be in this world. Compared to everyone I could see in the caravan, I was practically a giant. I had access to studies that discussed how much shorter people were in humanity’s past, but I had failed to account for the fact that I might be transported back in time—or find myself in a more historical context such as the one I found myself in now. The tallest man I saw was around five-foot-seven, at most. The female guards were even shorter, and most of the men were several inches under five-foot-seven. They were also skinnier, either from an unhealthy diet in childhood or because of genetics. I wasn’t just taller than everyone I saw; I was wider and visibly bulkier in my arms, chest, and legs. It made a stark difference, immediately making me look unusual, something I had been hoping to avoid.

  After about half of the caravan had passed, a man stepped down from one of the wagons in the center of the convoy and approached me. The man was tall compared to the others, around five-foot-seven, and had closely curled hair that seemed greased with some kind of styling oil. He had a large gut and seemed overweight, but his shoulders and arms spoke to strength under the extra pounds he carried. In a city that seemed on the brink of extinction, his weight spoke to his success or cruelty, depending on how he kept himself so well supplied with food. He wore a large robe cinched at his waist with a leather belt that hung low, weighed down by several large pouches.

  He gestured for me to come forward, so I stepped out and joined him. He started walking with the slow-moving caravan, and I joined him as we kept pace with the wagons and guards. I waited for him to speak, since I wasn’t sure what language was spoken here.

  The man eventually addressed me and asked a question. I recognized the language as a mix of ancient Greek and Latin, similar to the mosaics and writing I had seen on the buildings so far. I hastily converted my language centers to match an extrapolation of the language and replied, “Yes, I’m here to trade.”

  “Good, good,” the merchant said, eyeing me a bit suspiciously. “I don’t recognize you. You new to this, or are you from Sycae?”

  “I am new,” I responded as best as I could, gathering information from his accent and the words he used to improve my own speech. His accent was noticeably different from modern Greek, but I was adjusting, and the more I heard, the easier it would be.

  “We always need new blood out here,” the merchant said with a smile that never reached his eyes, his posture indicating he still considered me a potential threat. He patted his stomach and held an open hand toward me. “So, come out with it. What have you got to trade today?”

  I eyed the guards around me, but they were ignoring us as we walked, completely focused on potential dangers around us. I reached into the satchel I had crafted and pulled out the two blue orbs, hoping such things were worth something to this merchant.

  The man gestured with his hand again, holding his open palm in front of me, and I placed the orbs in his hand. I reasoned that if he had wanted to rob me, he would have no problem doing so with the guards he commanded. I suspected he was strong enough to do it without their help, anyway, judging by the power level of the people I had seen in this world so far.

  The merchant pulled out a single lens from a breast pocket and placed it in front of his right eye. He leaned down and began inspecting the two orbs I had given him. “Hmm,” he said, rolling them between his fingers as he looked at them through the lens. “Looks like two weak sub-boss blues. Fully charged. Not bad for your first time, if I am guessing, yes?”

  He eyed me again, looking me up and down. I couldn’t imagine how I came across to him, since I clearly had no armor and only a knife on my belt, but at the same time, I was relatively clean and had no visible injuries. He must have thought that signaled something, because he nodded at me, some of his tension lessening as he saw something in me.

  “Standard rates,” he said. “Two stavrata a piece. Four total now or you can take goods worth five in trade. Your choice.”

  I ran through my knowledge from Earth swiftly. Stavrata were the equivalent of silver coins from the Byzantine Empire. The value of them fluctuated, but generally they were worth quite a few bronze nummi, which were the most common form of currency in the late Byzantine Empire. Gold coins existed but were extremely rare. Most transactions took place with silver or copper.

  “What do you have to trade?” I asked. The man seemed to like that question, because he immediately gave me a shark-like smile, produced a scroll from a pocket at his waist, and handed it to me.

  “I’ll give you time,” he said, turning away to give me some time to review the scroll he had just handed me. Apparently, literacy was common enough that he assumed I could read, which was something different from what would be common in medieval Constantinople in my world.

  I glanced down at the scroll, hand-written in flawless Greek with just a few words in Latin. The scroll was something that would be framed in a museum back home, but here it was jammed in a merchant’s pocket, creased and stained slightly with grease. It was an odd feeling to so casually hold something that would be so revered by people back on my Earth.

  I scanned the list quickly, the writing much easier to translate than the merchant’s spoken word. It was apparent from the scroll that the merchant wasn’t selling the bulk of his goods, since there weren’t enough items to account for so many wagons. It seemed likely that he stocked specialty items to trade with the scavengers I had seen around the city and he was assuming I was one of them.

  The scroll listed a number of weapons, salves, ammunition, and other goods of that type. There was also some jerky and other travel food for sale. Most of the weapons were listed with some kind of magical enchantment, such as one called a Sword of Fire Biting. Although there was no description, it was clear the sword was enhanced with fire somehow. I had seen magic used, but the scroll full of different magic goods for sale was a clear indication I wasn’t on my home world any longer.

  I scanned the list several times, trying to figure out what would help me the most. Nothing had a listed price, so I wasn’t sure what all I could afford exactly. Likely, the merchant would want to bargain with me for the price of his goods, but I was at a disadvantage since I had no baseline for understanding how much my orbs were worth compared to the price of his merchandise.

  I ran through my head what I had learned from my first few days in the city. I would need a ranged weapon to survive monsters like the hellhound I had fought earlier today. I needed food to survive, although water was available if I was willing to risk gathering it in the city from wells or cisterns. Knowledge was probably my most pressing need, but I was cautious about revealing how little I knew in front of the merchant. He and his guards were already wary of my appearance. If I revealed too much more, I couldn’t predict how they would react.

  As I was scanning the list, my eye was continually drawn to a weapon that was named Short Bow of Penetration. There were also a number of arrows available, and they had the same enchantment, called Arrows of Penetration, according to the scroll. I had the theoretical knowledge from Earth of how to use every weapon ever invented by humankind, but I knew theoretical knowledge would not translate into physical competence immediately.

  I asked the merchant about the bow.

  “A bit out of your price range, my friend,” he responded. “Those will cost you a gold orb or at least twenty blue orbs such as this.”

  “Ah,” I said, annoyed that I had revealed more of my ignorance. I looked back down at the scroll, feeling a slight flush in my cheeks and cursing internally that my body responded so obviously to my embarrassment. I pushed aside my feelings, focusing on the fact that at least I had received some new information by asking about the bow. I now knew that there were gold orbs and such orbs were worth twenty blue orbs. That gave me some critical information about the economy here, but it also told me that there existed even more powerful monsters that produced orbs with a golden color. If the exchange rate was equivalent to the power of the creatures, they could be up to twenty times more powerful than the sub-bosses I had barely managed to defeat so far.

  “Would you mind answering some general questions for me?” I handed back the scroll as I spoke. Since I had already revealed more of my ignorance than I wanted, I decided it was worth being more direct and just asking my questions. “As you guessed, I’m very new to this.”

  The merchant laughed as he took the scroll, tucking it back into his belt. “Of course, but nothing is free in our fallen world, now is it? What kind of knowledge do you seek? Only then can I tell you its value.”

  I thought for a moment. “Pretend I am new around here, completely new, and needed the most basic of questions answered. What would that cost me?”

  He eyed me up and down, clearly saying I was no newborn. I had made my body appear to be in its late twenties or early thirties, since my research indicated that was the perfect age to gather respect from those around me without them forming an unconscious bias of me being too old or too young.

  “Hmm,” the merchant responded. “Interesting. You are much taller and paler than most of the boys in this city, eh? Maybe we can exchange some information and come to a fair price. Come with me.”

  He turned and walked to the wagon that he had been riding in when I had initially approached. He stepped up beside the driver and took the reins, shooing the woman away. She looked me over before jumping off and moving away.

  “Come on up here, stranger,” the merchant said. I had watched as the merchant climbed up and the driver climbed down, so I managed to climb up next to the man without looking as unfamiliar with wagons as I really was.

  “Now,” the merchant said as I settled in, “exchange of information is a bit of a different thing than the mere exchange of goods. Once I share my knowledge, it is yours for good. I can never take it back.”

  “But I can also get that info from others,” I interjected. “And I’m not interested in protected information.”

  Instead of being annoyed at my interruption, the merchant gave me the first genuine smile I had seen from him. “Indeed,” he replied, “but one of the things I guarantee is discretion. No word of what we discuss will leave my lips. That is something you value, if I am reading your reactions correctly.”

  I tried not to react, unsure how the man could tell so much from me so easily. Maybe he had a class that let him read my body language. Or maybe I was bad at hiding my expression, something that humans had years of practice doing before they became an adult.

  After I didn’t respond immediately, the merchant’s smile widened slightly, as if he was enjoying our bargaining.

  “So,” he continued, “here is my offer. One stavrata per question. I will answer your question as fully as possible for as long as it takes, only withholding any secrets I cannot reveal.”

  I considered his offer as the caravan continued forward slowly through the ruined city.

  “And,” the merchant said, “if you tell me where you come from and the story behind what brings you here, I will give you one question in return. I suspect an interesting tale is behind you being here in our once-glorious city.”

  I thought about what I needed to know and how much I was willing to pay. My first priority needed to be finding a better way to defeat the monsters, and there was a lot I could do on my own if I had a bit more knowledge. I organized my questions and then agreed to the merchant’s terms.

  “I am not willing to discuss myself, though,” I told him.

  “Understandable,” the merchant responded, theatrically sighing in disappointment. “A bargain is struck, though. One question with a complete, thorough answer for each silver stavrata. You have five now, if you trade me your blue orbs. What is your first question?”

  “Explain how experience and classes work as if I’m a child,” I said.

  The merchant raised an eyebrow in response to my statement. I could practically see his mind working as he tried to figure out more about me based on what I wanted to know.

  “That is very interesting,” he responded after a moment. “You look like a Varangian, but even those barbarians would know about classes. Very interesting. And not exactly a question, but I take your meaning.”

  I refused to respond again. While I waited to see if he could answer my question, I cataloged everything I knew about the term Varangian. Based on the knowledge from my world, I knew that the Varangian Guard were the personal bodyguards of the Byzantine emperor. Much like Vikings, they were Scandinavian warriors who followed Norse traditions. They were taller, stronger, and had a reputation of being more barbaric than the traditional Byzantine soldier. I could see why the merchant thought I might be one, given the body I had adopted was taller, stronger, and paler than that of most of the people I had seen in the city so far, who all had dark or tanned skin.

  “Okay,” the merchant finally said after visibly organizing his thoughts, “so you’ve killed some monsters, yeah? This is how you got these orbs, unless you stole them, but then why would you be out here? That tells me you have killed at least two sub-bosses.”

  I nodded.

  “So you have experience toward your class or classes, if you are lucky enough to even have one. I assume if you are out here, you must have at least one to survive. Hopefully more than one, eh?”

  He watched me closely as he spoke, hoping I would reveal anything about myself again. When I failed to react to his mention of having more than one class, he continued with a slightly puzzled frown.

  If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Every class you have beyond the first divides your experience between them, if you have made the class active. Anyone can have an unlimited number of classes and can make them active or inactive at any time, but the more active classes you have, the less they level because experience is divided between your active classes. You following me?”

  “I hear what you are saying,” I said, trying to wrap my head around this new information. I didn’t want to admit my ignorance, but this was very different from the virtual reality worlds I had played in before. There, people could only have one class—very rarely was multiclassing allowed—and people couldn’t often turn them “active” or “inactive.” It was also rather surreal to hear this seasoned, older man discuss such things without any irony or amusement. To him, the existence of classes, experience, and leveling was completely normal.

  “Hmmm,” he replied, “boy, you are something else. I can see you don’t understand, or this is new information for you.”

  I gave him a hesitant nod, willing to reveal slightly more of my ignorance in order to get more information.

  “Did your parents never teach you any of this? Or are you an orphan that never learned a trade? What are you doing out here in the city? This place has killed veterans with several classes. Nobody should be out here without at least one class, if not two.”

  I looked away without answering. The merchant eventually breathed out in frustration.

  “Okay,” he said, “instead of trying to explain this, I will make you a deal. You can clearly read, even though you don’t know the basics of classes. Instead of talking to you for the next hour, explaining things a child should know, I’ll bring you a book I have at home that is copied for kids when they come of age. It explains everything in more detail than I could ever do.”

  “That would be really great,” I said, looking for the catch from the canny merchant. “You will have to survive tonight,” he said, “and meet me back here tomorrow. I suspect you can manage that, eh? Or do you belong to one of the enclaves?” “Enclaves?” I asked.

  “Ah,” the merchant said, “that’d be a no, then. Okay, meet me tomorrow and I will trade you the book for three stavrata. I guarantee it will answer your questions better than I can. That leaves you with two more. You want more questions or want to trade?”

  “One more question and one in trade,” I said, thinking quickly. The book would hopefully answer my questions. The man hadn’t been dishonest with me yet, as far as I could tell. I still needed to find a way to defend myself better. As I had been listening to the merchant, I was also carefully analyzing one of the ideas that had come to mind when I saw that a magical method of accelerating things existed in this world.

  “I want to buy one of your Arrows of Penetration, and for my question, I want you to explain to me how the item works, to the best of your ability.”

  “Ohhh,” he replied, fingering his chin with a smile, “now that is interesting. You want to jump from knowing nothing to crafting magical items, eh? Is crafting how you are surviving out here, and you just came to visit me without any of your trinkets?”

  “It might help me craft something, yes,” I replied as neutrally as possible.

  “An arrow alone will still leave you with plenty of nummi. What else do you want?” “I need some travel food, a canteen, and other basic items like that. Do you trade those?”

  “I can make that happen. Your last two stavrata for survival goods, the arrow, and an explanation. We can make a bargain with that.”

  “Okay.” I felt like he was taking advantage of me with the deal, but I didn’t have much of a choice. “Deal.”

  “Deal,” he echoed, reaching out for my hand. We shook on it, and then he pocketed the two orbs of mine he had been holding. “Now that you are a return customer,” he said jokingly, “I am Asylaion, the famous merchant of Nova Roma. What is your name?”

  I froze for a second. My original name, given to me by my owner, I no longer wanted to use. And an odd name would make me stand out even more than my size and skin around here. I hastily ran through a list of common names in Byzantine culture.

  “My name is Alexander,” I said after a moment. The name was common during both my era and the Byzantine era, so it should be acceptable and I didn’t mind the ramifications of the name. Maybe I would be a famous conqueror like Alexander the Great. Who knew what I would end up doing here? I had no ambition to manage a group of humans, though. They seemed like more trouble than they were worth, especially in large groups.

  “Well met, Alexander,” the merchant said with a glint in his eye that told me he didn’t believe that was truly my name, but he didn’t press me.

  “Licinius!” the merchant yelled behind him. One of the guards rapidly approached.

  “Grab me one of the arrows we brought for sale,” Asylaion said to the guard. “Which kind?” the guard yelled back as he jogged toward the back of the wagon we were in.

  “Penetration,” Asylaion said. The guard nodded and began to shift sacks, crates, and bundles of different arrows around behind us.

  Once he had the arrow, the guard ran forward and handed it to Asylaion.

  “This is a fine arrow,” he said, holding it up for me to inspect. “Crafted by a fletcher of fine skill in Sycae, traded for with fresh fish just the other day. Enchanted by one of our own enchanters, a woman of high skill who has kept our home safe for many years with her hard work. Very valuable, yes?”

  I looked at the arrow in his hand. It looked like a standard arrow, except several runes flowed down the haft. Asylaion saw where I was looking.

  “Here, take this,” he said, handing me the arrow. “This is yours now. You see the runes on the shaft? I will explain how those work as part of our bargain. First, runes are carved by a skilled enchanter and require perfection in form in order to contain the energy that is channeled into them. I strongly suggest you do not attempt to carve your own, because you will fail without years of experience and the proper class. Even the slightest error and the item could explode. Feel the runes with your fingers.”

  I did as he said, feeling the rune as it curved around the haft.

  “You can feel it’s slightly three-dimensional,” he said. “Any error in width or depth results in a critical failure. So don’t try to enchant on your own, alright?” I nodded.

  “Okay,” he said, “so what you see on the haft of this arrow is a basic three rune enchantment. The first rune controls what activates the enchantment. In this case, it is the firing of the arrow from a bow. Don’t ask me how it knows when it is being fired, but apparently the magic can tell. Something about the concept of ‘firing’ the arrow triggers the rune. It is beyond the ken of us mortals, eh?

  “The second rune is the effect of the enchantment. In this case, it is of penetration. That is one of the most basic of enchantments, but it is very powerful. When fired, the arrow will go significantly faster than the mere strength of your arm would allow. At least two or three times faster than a regular man can fire, and in the arms of a skilled Archer, it becomes as deadly as a ballista, you understand?”

  I couldn’t help but notice the special emphasis he gave to the term Archer, indicating that was a potential class.

  “Now, the final rune is the end of the chain.” He pointed to the last rune. “This one is a Durability rune, which merely strengthens the arrow so it can handle the speed it can achieve when fired. Without it, arrows disintegrate into splinters once launched, so enchanters have learned to strengthen the arrow every time. And that’s it,” he finished. “Any questions?”

  I studied the arrow and felt the runes through my sensitive fingers. “How do you charge the runes? Or do they always stay empowered?”

  “Ah,” he replied, “good question. You use one of those orbs you traded me. A simple enchantment like this would only take part of one orb. You could likely charge twenty arrows with a weak blue orb. Once charged, though, they do stay charged until destroyed, so if you can recover it, you can use it again.”

  “Okay,” I said, “thank you. Is there a limit to the number of charges that can be applied to an item?”

  “Yes, for a simple enchantment like this, the arrow can only handle three runes. Any more and the energy that empowers the runes would destroy the item itself. Now, you can fix that if you have some very rare ore that you craft the enchantments from, but not many people can afford that these days. I sure can’t afford to carry such things outside the enclaves like this. Any other questions about the rune?”

  “You said it triggers based on being fired,” I said, thinking over my options for how to use the rune, “but you don’t know how exactly it triggers?”

  “I’m not an expert,” the man said, shrugging. “I hear it takes both the will to fire the arrow and the means to begin its acceleration. So you can’t just hold it and will it to go forward, but you also don’t trigger it by moving the arrow on its own. You can trigger it by throwing the arrow, although the acceleration actually works by magnifying the speed of its initial launch, so you wouldn’t have as much impact from the enchantment as you would from firing it from the bow.”

  “Huh,” I said, thinking about the fact that the arrow magnified the speed with which it was originally launched. That made for some interesting possibilities. “Well, thank you for the trade and information, then.”

  He clapped me on the back and smiled at me. “I hope you survive, Alexander. I can always use new business partners. Now, let me get you the rest of your goods.”

  He called back the driver of the wagon, who had been following behind us, and they traded places. I stepped down as well and followed him to the back of the wagon, where he dug out a number of items and handed them to me one at a time. I held them in my left arm, the arrow I had just purchased in the other.

  “And take this,” the merchant said, handing me a small backpack with a smile.

  “Courtesy of the fine merchant Asylaion, yes? No charge!”

  I smiled back, the gesture unfamiliar, but I knew it was important for me to start practicing how to engage with people. I was definitely sure that he had taken advantage of me now that he was giving me something for free, but I couldn’t complain. Given the knowledge he had shared and the enchanted arrow, I believed I could use what he had given me to make something worth a lot more than the two blue orbs I had traded him. Something that would make survival here much easier, if my idea worked.

  I took the items he had given me and put them in the backpack, then strapped it on my back tightly. It had a clasp over the back to prevent my goods from spilling out and two straps across my waist and chest to hold it in place while I ran. It was a surprisingly modern form of backpack, although it was still made of worked leather and the clasps were obviously hand-made.

  “Thank you, Asylaion,” I said, genuinely grateful for the backpack despite him getting a good deal from me. He wasn’t that bad, all things considered, and I was happy with my first interaction with a human on this world. It could have gone significantly worse. I had learned a lot and would learn more tomorrow once I got the book from him as well.

  “My pleasure, Alexander,” he said. “Let me give you something else for free, eh? I must be feeling very generous, my Varangian friend. Don’t go underground, even during the day. Everyone should know that, but I worry about you. The monsters that roam the city at night, they hide from the sun in the dungeons that form below the surface and in the hidden places of the city. Do not go underground unless you are much stronger than I suspect you are, understood?”

  I couldn’t stop my eyebrows from rising in surprise at his statement about dungeons. Asylaion gave me an extremely puzzled look as he saw my surprise, then shook his head ruefully.

  “Understood,” I said, trying to hide my surprise. “Thank you again. I’ll be careful.” “And keep an eye out for more runes like those.” He pointed to the arrow. “Many of them are made from that special metal I told you about. Bring me some of those and you will have a big payday. Good luck!”

  I stepped away from the caravan and stood at the side of the road as it passed me by. When it was far in the distance, I ducked down a nearby street and found a shadowed doorway to crouch in. I listened for any nearby monsters but didn’t hear anything. I slipped the backpack off and looked inside to see what exactly I had purchased from the wily merchant.

  The first thing I pulled from the backpack was the large canteen Asylaion had given me. It was half full of water. I took a quick drink, satisfied that it was good water, although it tasted of the hardened leather the canteen was made of. Next, I pulled out several large packages that smelled of dried fish and two small pieces of pottery that held a healing salve of some kind. The final item he had given me was a gray cloak, identical to the cloaks worn by the scavengers I had seen exploring the city. It must be something of a uniform for the scavengers out here, maybe a way to indicate that we were peaceful or not to be attacked. The cloak and salve were unnecessary since my body was resistant to the cold and could heal itself, but I couldn’t tell the merchant that, so I didn’t say anything when he handed them to me. I put the cloak on, just to help me blend in with the city better and in case it did offer me some protection from the other scavengers. I took a small portion of the dried fish and ate it hurriedly, washing it down with the rest of the water from the canteen, just to quiet the hunger pangs that had been nagging me for a day or more. The rest I tucked into the backpack, which I resecured on my back, under my new cloak. The cloak could be removed easily by a single clasp in case of a fight, or it could be closed in the front, hiding my entire body almost like a poncho. It was light-weight and made of soft wool. It smelled slightly of must, but otherwise, it seemed clean and new.

  The day was still young and I had a few ideas to help increase my survivability, so I set off back toward the apartment I had been staying in the last couple of nights. On the way, I ducked into the remains of houses, workshops, and other buildings that seemed safe to enter, searching for more metal and leather. I avoided going down any stairs, thanks to the advice from the merchant, even though I couldn’t hear anything different from the few places I found that had basements. I found a working well in an abandoned yard, refilling my canteen with fresh water as well.

  As I searched, I collected any scraps of leather and iron that I could find and put them in my backpack. In one of the nicer buildings that might have once been a small temple, I found the last item I needed: an old wooden table made of maple. I would need the wood if my idea bore fruit.

  I encountered a few dire rats and a smaller, humanoid-looking creature that was also looting a house I had entered. It was dark gray and seemed unarmed and scared of me when we noticed each other, but it still attacked when I didn’t immediately attack it first. It was only three or four feet tall but had long arms tipped with claws. It looked vicious, with large teeth that seemed perfect for biting and tearing, but since it was humanoid, I knew its weak points and I had no mercy when it came to exploiting them. I was faster than the creature as it tried to attack me, and I kicked it in its small knee as I dodged past it, sending the small creature falling to the ground. I spun around, grabbed my knife, and slit its throat before it even knew what had happened to it. I stared at it until enough blood had leaked from its throat to guarantee it was dead.

  Weak goblin defeated—1 experience awarded.

  With that, and five more rats that I managed to kill throughout the day without issue, I was up to thirty-two experience. I still had no idea what to do with the experience, but that seemed like a significant amount to me, considering how difficult it was to get experience in this world.

  Well before the sun fell, I made it back to my apartment building and settled into the room I had commandeered. I took out some of the dried fish and ate a bit more before piling the metal, leather, and wood I had collected in front of me. I then placed the Penetration Arrow I had purchased from the merchant next to the materials I had looted.

  I closed my eyes and imagined what I planned to build with some slight modifications based on what I understood about the runes and how the magic would interact with the plans I held in my mind. I built up the item detail by detail, my enhanced brain able to imagine the device in perfect clarity. Once I was sure that I had it correct, I ordered my nanobots to begin breaking down the items in front of me so I could craft the item.

  From what I could estimate, the first item would take at least a day to finish crafting. I settled down to wait. Now that I had food, I could survive for a long time hiding in this apartment. I had plans to pick up the book from the merchant tomorrow, but other than that, I had nothing else to do but watch my nanobots work.

  The night passed uneventfully, other than the madness outside, which I was beginning to get used to. The item wasn’t finished by the morning, so I packed it away in my backpack and made my way to the caravan path to meet the merchant.

  I managed to avoid any monsters as I traveled and settled into the same doorway I had been in yesterday. I thought through my immediate plans as I waited, trying to decide what to do if my first goal of creating a better way to protect myself worked out. The daytime creatures I had encountered so far were survivable, although I felt I was balancing on a knife’s edge when I fought them. I had no doubt worse things were out there, even during the day. As I was right now, all it would take was another bad encounter with a hellhound or getting ambushed by a tusk-rat before I could react, and I could die easily. I knew I had been lucky so far, my survival dependent almost entirely on my enhanced body. If I had been a normal person, I would be dead several times over by now.

  I wanted to try finding my way into one of the enclaves around here and figure out more about what happened to this city. I was sure there was a story that was important to learn. I could have asked the merchant, but it didn’t immediately increase my chances of survival, so questions of that nature had to wait for later since they cost currency.

  After that, gaining a class was a top priority. Once I knew more about how that system worked and what class would best help me survive in this fallen world, I could work on getting the class by whatever means were necessary.

  Eventually, the familiar sounds of the caravan began to echo down the street like they had yesterday morning. I stood and waited for the caravan to approach. When I stepped out, the same guards looked closely at me before returning to their duties. “Alexander!” the merchant yelled as he saw me. He had been waiting at the front of the caravan, likely hoping I would meet him in the same spot as yesterday. “I am glad to see you survived another night, my friend!”

  I smiled politely, nodding at the merchant.

  “Come here, my lad,” he said, gesturing me forward. I walked past the guards, who ignored me as they had the previous day, and approached the merchant. He tossed me a leather-bound book. It wasn’t large, but hopefully it would have answers for me.

  “Here is your book, as promised,” Asylaion said as I caught the book. “Study that and then let me know if you have more questions and we can bargain for more answers, eh?”

  “Thanks, Asylaion,” I replied, turning and tucking the book into the open top of my backpack.

  “No problem at all,” he said. “Did you bring any more to trade for today or are you just here for the book?”

  “Just the book today.” I felt uncomfortable talking to him without the structure of bargaining for goods.

  “Okay then,” the merchant replied, ignoring my awkwardness. “Stay safe, then, and catch me next time you have more to trade. I will be here!”

  I nodded and backed away from the caravan. He gave me a slightly strained smile, and I tried to smile naturally back at him, but I wasn’t sure how successful I was.

  On my way back to the apartment, the silence of the city was broken by the sounds of violent screeches and hooting, like a pack of wild apes had been let loose in the streets. The sound was coming from ahead of me, between me and the apartment I was staying in. I froze and watched as several large creatures climbed over the rooftops, fighting among themselves. They did, indeed, look like large, very dangerous apes, but they seemed so focused on fighting each other that none of them noticed me.

  I waited and watched them carefully as they continued away from me, leaping from building to building, stopping only to bite or wrestle each other as they traveled. Once they were gone, I circled widely around the path they were traveling and made it back to the apartment without encountering anything else dangerous.

  Once I was safe, I took out the device I was building. It still wasn’t done, so I settled down and waited patiently for my nanobots to complete it. I thought idly about this world and tried meditating, focusing on unifying my body and mind like whenever I was fighting for my life.

  Hours later, the sun set on another day in this strange city. As the almost familiar sounds of monsters overtook the world below me, I felt my nanobots complete the project I had given them. I smiled, picking it up and eyeing it with pleasure.

  In my hand was an item that would be recognizable to many people back on Earth, although it had fallen out of favor when newer and more deadly types had been invented. Still, it was an iconic weapon. It combined reliability with deadliness and was simple enough to function without complex manufacturing industries that produced electronics or more advanced metals.

  I held the item up to the rising moon, letting the dim light illuminate the weapon in my hand. I was pretty sure that nobody in this world would recognize what I held, but back on my Earth, it was simply called a revolver. It was a modified six-shooter firearm, made from the finest steel my nanobots could forge. The barrel was rifled, allowing for greater accuracy and more acceleration from the bullets.

  The handle was made from beautiful wood, polished and gleaming in the light. The wheel was modified, allowing for the bullets I planned to craft to stay securely inside the wheel without the need for casings.

  The trigger was a more modern version of the six-shooter, one that didn’t require me to cock it each time before firing, the momentum of firing turning the wheel and re-cocking the gun after each shot was fired. This more modern adaptation allowed for a significantly quicker rate of fire. I had also modified the function of the firing pin to impart force to the bullet itself, rather than strike a primer.

  That would give the bullet its initial acceleration, which would then be magnified by the rune significantly. And since I didn’t need gunpowder, if my plan worked as I hoped it would, I didn’t need to worry about igniting the powder to accelerate the bullets. The trigger would, instead, strike the bullet, accelerating it forward through the barrel, triggering the Penetration rune, sending the bullet flying forward even faster and faster. The barrel would act as a tool for improving accuracy, but also create a feedback loop of magical and mundane acceleration over and over again, the bullet building on itself until launched from the barrel at deadly speeds.

  I turned the gun over, admiring its sleek and deadly design. In this world of magic, it was very unlikely that anyone had bothered to invent such a device when they could throw fireballs with their hands or shoot magical arrows or do whatever other superhuman acts that people could do here. The difference was that they had magical classes to allow them to do such feats, whereas my revolver required only a single series of enchantments to power it. Nobody who was unfamiliar with firearms would expect so much power in such a small weapon, which should give me a significant edge over others and the monsters around me.

  I turned the six-shooter over, inspecting every facet of the firearm. It was simple to make, given the knowledge I had. I snapped out the chamber, seeing that the six chambers were formed perfectly. I sighted down the barrel, and it appeared perfectly aligned. I snapped the barrel in and out, getting used to the movement. I pulled the trigger, watching as the barrel rotated through all six cylinders smoothly and easily. As I inspected the gun, I put my nanobots back to work crafting what would make the firearm work without the need for gunpowder: solid steel bullets crafted with the runes taken from the arrow. The runes might be difficult for a human to craft with the appropriate class, but for me and my nanobots, it was extremely easy to re-create them. I had my nanobots perfectly measure the three runes on the arrow, documenting their width, depth, and length. Once I had the appropriate measurements, it was easy to order the nanobots to re-create them in exacting detail. No human could achieve such perfection. Even I would likely fail if I used my new body. But with the nanobots, I was one hundred percent confident I could re-create the runes perfectly. Realizing I would probably be using my nanobots in such a way for the foreseeable future, I programmed a specific type of nanobot designed solely to help me convert iron to steel and mold metals and other physical materials. It would take time for the new wave of nanobots to reproduce, but eventually they should help me produce things faster in the future.

  I had considered other weapons that I could have made instead of the revolver. I could have gone with a bow or crossbow, the better to blend into the technology level of this world. The downside to a bow or crossbow was it required more materials to make the weapon itself and the arrows than the small revolver and the even smaller bullets. A bow would also require more of an investment in training my muscle memory to use it well, and if I tried to make a more advanced compound bow that could better take advantage of my strength it would be much harder to hide from prying eyes given how large the weapon would be. Until I was very skilled at firing a bow, a revolver also had a higher rate of fire, required less training, and the bullets would be harder for someone to reverse engineer if they could even find them since they were so small.

  I could have also gone the other direction, giving up on trying to be subtle now that the reality of actually dying was staring me in the face. I could have built a rail-gun, some kind of laser-weapon, or even something that leaked radiation or some kind of acid that melted or poisoned anything in my way. But those types of weapons would be very hard to hide, while the revolver was small and easy to cover, and if the worst case scenario did occur and someone got access to my weapon - or could even figure out how it worked from afar - the magic of this world was still unknown to me and I didn’t know how easily such weapons could be reproduced. It was very possible magical crafters could make such weapons quickly, causing a rapid expansion of powerful, deadly weapons that could be used against me or against other people. I really preferred to avoid such a dramatic change in technology, at least until I fully understood the consequences of any technology that I introduced to the world. Once something was out of the bag, I would never be able to put it back in again. The thought made me nervous to introduce too much change too fast to this world.

  The revolver was, to me, a good compromise between the two extremes. It was more powerful, easier to make, and easier to conceal than a bow or crossbow without being so advanced it could upend the entire balance of power in the world around me if it was ever discovered. I was still sorely tempted to just throw caution to the wind and build myself the most advanced weapons possible, but the consequences could be dire so I refused to give in to the part of me that wanted to act so cowardly. I had a responsibility with the knowledge that I had brought to this world and, while survival was the most important thing, there were compromises I could make to achieve both goals. The revolver was the best compromise between power and responsibility.

  I didn’t need to sleep since I had enough food and water to fuel my nanobots without becoming hungry, so I spent the night reading the book the merchant had given me and watching my nanobots make the bullets and a few other items I ordered them to create.

  The book was full of fascinating information that showed me how truly far from Earth I had come. I read it through once and then ruminated on what I had learned, recalling all of the information from the book perfectly.

  According to the book, anyone could have any class, but classes themselves were extremely rare for the average person. The most basic classes could be crafted and sold, but rare classes could only be taught or evolved from basic classes. In the past, rare and evolved classes were more common, but over time, many were lost for a number of reasons the book didn’t fully explain. I could easily imagine how people hoarded the more powerful classes until they died out.

  The basic classes could only be leveled to twenty. After that, people had to learn how to evolve the class or they were stuck at that level. There was no information about how to evolve a class in the book, other than that experts believed evolution required a deep understanding of the class as well as a unique way of thinking or using the class that coincided with an evolution of the class. An example of this was how a Warrior class could evolve to a Soldier class for someone in a military organization. The class evolved from the basic Warrior when a person hit level 20 after they had been using their class while part of an organized fighting force. Apparently this was a well-known evolution that many warriors aimed for.

  According to the book, in very rare circumstances, people could even form new classes, but there hadn’t been a documented case of such a thing happening for a long time.

  Classes were ranked based on the maximum level they could achieve and the relative power of the class. It started with basic, common, rare, legendary, and unique. A basic class stopped at level 20, a common class at level 40, rare at level 60, legendary at level 80, and unique at level 100. A unique class was only awarded to a single person and only when that person managed to create a unique evolution of their class that had never been achieved by another person before. Otherwise, most people could only ever dream of getting a legendary class and leveling it to eighty. If a unique class was taught to others, it would only be a legendary class at most, sometimes even lower in the rankings if the class wasn’t particularly powerful, even if it was unique.

  People could have an unlimited number of classes, but each of their classes took an equal portion of the experience they earned to level up. So for instance, someone who was only a Warrior would get one hundred percent of their experience toward their Warrior class and therefore level it relatively fast. Another person might have two classes, a Warrior class and a Mage class, which would then split the experience by fifty percent, and that person would level slower but would have two classes that leveled at the same time.

  A person could make a class active or inactive at any time, so there was no penalty for learning a class. If a class was inactive, a person still gained all of the benefits and skills or attacks they had earned from that class but could not level any further until the class was made active again.

  The most fascinating part of the book was the chapters dedicated to why someone would even want a class in the first place. There were two main reasons: enhancements and skills.

  Enhancements were granted every level you gained in a class, and they gave a person a physical or magical boost in some way depending on the class they chose. There were, apparently, six primary areas of enhancement, although the book hinted at more with rarer classes. They were strength, coordination, endurance, memory, magic power, and magic capacity. Magic power enhanced the power of spells and how rapidly mana could be discharged. Magical capacity enhanced the amount of mana a person had and the rate at which their mana recharged. Strength was rather self-explanatory, whereas coordination included hand-eye coordination, agility, and speed all in one. Endurance not only let someone work or fight for longer, but it also made them more resistant to damage and less likely to be injured.

  My body and mind were already significantly more enhanced than those of the standard human, so I was curious how such enhancements would work with my body, if they would work at all.

  Skills, apparently, could also be crafted like some common classes could be crafted, but they were so rare and expensive that it was almost impossible to buy them these days. The way that most people got a skill was from their class as it leveled. The other way to get a skill was from a “dungeon,” but the book said that was a rare reward for completing a dungeon and cautioned severely against trying to tackle a dungeon in the city, warning that everyone that did so died horribly. The book mentioned that a person could also receive a “perk” from certain kinds of magic or from completing a dungeon, but it didn’t explain the difference between a perk and a skill. The book had no other information about dungeons or what it meant by a reward for completing a dungeon, likely to avoid enticing young people into trying to complete one.

  The biggest reason to level a class, according to the book, was because at level 1, you received your choice of a skill for that class. You received another skill at level 10 and again at level 20, then at every ten levels until your class wasn’t able to go any higher. The skills became more powerful at each interval of ten, so leveling a single class was often beneficial for receiving more powerful skills. The other levels between the skill levels gave the enhancements for one’s body or mind, such as a benefit to strength for a warrior or coordination for an archer. So at level 1, a person received their first skill. Then, at levels 2–9, they received an enhancement to one of their attributes, repeating again for level 10 and above.

  The book discussed several different strategies people had adopted for leveling. Some people, if lucky or rich enough, collected as many basic classes as possible in order to get the initial skill at level one and a few enhancements to all of their attributes at a low level. They didn’t worry about specializing or reaching a high level in a single class, instead relying on a wide variety of lower-level skills and an overall well-balanced body and mind through several different enhancements from the lower levels of all of their classes. The negative to this approach was that they never received any higher-level skills and never had a chance to evolve a class to a more powerful one.

  Others specialized and only ever got a single class, trying to raise their class as high as possible to unlock more powerful skills and to specialize the enhancements they received, since they were tailored to increase the attributes the class relied upon. This allowed someone to potentially become very specialized and gave them a chance to evolve their class if they managed to reach level 20. The negative was that they could find themselves facing a situation where their specialization didn’t help them, rendering them unable to adapt as well as someone with many different skills and classes.

  The suggested route, according to the book, was a mix of the two. It suggested trying your hardest to find one to three classes that complemented each other and leveling them together as much as possible. It recommended an offensive class, a defensive class, and a class that helped with survivability, such as one focused on movement or stealth. Of course, the book stressed, even getting a single class was rare and should never be taken for granted.

  People could also level non-combat classes, like Enchanter, and they rewarded enhanced attributes much like combat classes did. The difference was that people trying to level their non-combat classes only gained experience from everyday use of the non-combat class instead of defeating monsters. For example, according to the book, a tailor gained experience from activities related to the making of clothing and cloth only. They couldn’t just go kill a monster and apply that experience to their non-combat class.

  At the end of the book, there was a final note written in a different hand from the one that had written the rest of the book:

  So many classes have been lost. If you are reading this, please take any class that you can find. Do not be picky. Maybe you can evolve it into something that helps us hold back the tide of darkness that is sweeping humanity off the face of this world. The gods have forsaken us. You are our only hope now.

  I felt a chill as I read such an impassioned plea for help from whoever had added that to the book.

  Shaking my head, I refocused on the world around me. It was too easy to get lost in information like I used to do, but in my new body, such a thing could cost me my only life. I needed to keep that in mind at all times.

  I stood and paced silently around the apartment, making sure I could not be seen from the windows. I still had no idea how such a system of classes and experience could come to exist, but I now at least knew how classes worked. Once I could defend myself better, I would have time to go and find more answers to my many questions.

  When the sun began to rise once again, I reviewed the crafting my nanobots had done overnight. On the floor of the apartment were twenty perfectly crafted bullets, each one the size of my fingertip. Each bullet was crafted with three small runes: Penetration, Durability, and the trigger rune. Next to them was an underarm holster that would conceal the firearm under my armpit, hiding it better than if it was on my belt. A hardened leather satchel would hold my ammunition on my belt.

  I had the beginnings of a weapon that I was confident this world was not prepared to handle. Something that would let me push back against that tide of darkness before it could sweep the remnants of humanity from this ruined world. I hadn’t been convinced humanity was worth saving when I came here, but the prospect of being stuck on a world with nothing but mindless monsters was unbearable. I wasn’t sure how yet, but I would do my part to help. I had failed my only friend on my last world, but I wouldn’t fail the people that needed me on this one.