"What are you doing?" Xyn asked, her head tilted to the side as we walked the last kilometre to the great city.

  Her question was understandable, for I was enacting a magic beyond her comprehension. A power so grand in intricacies, so marvellous in its splendour. A magic that rivals even the gods themselves, that could one day make of me... a god. I was doing some programming.

  "Magic baby!" I replied.

  "That's magic? You're just wiggling your fingers in the air?" Xyn declared in a huff.

  "Haven't met many wizards, huh?" I replied.

  In a sense, I was doing magic from an outside perspective. If anyone had any ability to perceive system energy, they would perceive a cornucopia of mystical energy swirling around me. However, in truth, I had just figured out how to upgrade my skills, and the first one I upgraded was the Virtual Keyboard. Now I can summon two of them. With my enhanced cognition, I could now code multiple programs at once. Especially now that I had some system juice to work with and many things to upgrade. Soon my system would be nice and elegant, better than the generic one everyone else was using.

  "Honestly, not really; wizards are a peculiar sort, professionals that don't really like classers." Xyn explained, scowling.

  "Professionals?" Rak asked.

  "Ah, you poor systemless plebeian, so unschooled in our ways." Xyn joked.

  "I understood about half of what you said, but im pretty sure you are mocking me?" He phrased that as a question.

  "I was, but it's no less true. However, I shall be your guide, you big lug." They both grinned, neither offended. "Professionals is the term for those who choose to take on a profession rather than a class. Classes are gained through pursuing a path until the system grants you a class... however, professions are obtained through study and apprenticeship." She explained.

  "What is the difference between a class and a profession, and why do you all hate each other?" Rak questioned.

  "It's not so much that we hate each other; we just have an unpleasant history. The holy system chose classes back in the old country. Professionals were considered peasants and were nothing but labourers by most." She frowned, a trace of disgust seeping into her voice.

  "Like how others treated people like me," Rak compared.

  "No, they would have executed you as a heretic, but not now, thank the gods."

  "The church?" I looked up from my work.

  "The church." She sighed.

  While they chatted about the history of a racist zealot kingdom that thought the system was the one true god and is thankfully a thing of the past, I focused on more important endeavours. Figuring out how to manage skill upgrades. Now, I will admit I half-assed that part of the system, just shifted a portion of experience points gain to auto-upgrade skills. Turns out that was a crappy system, and my skills have rarely increased in rank. It was truly a poor idea, and I should be ashamed of myself as a system programmer.

  "What about a skill-point system?" I muttered.

  "What was that?" Xyn called over to me.

  Pulled out of intense thinking, I turned to my companions a little dazed, realising we had walked pretty far. I could see the city off in the distance. In just a couple more hours and we will be there.

  "What was what?" I asked, a little confused.

  "You said something," she explained.

  Realising in that moment I had annoyingly spoken my thoughts aloud, I mentally chastised myself for being an idiot. "Oh, it's nothing, just my weird magic stuff..." That's when I had a thought and quickly questioned her. "How do you upgrade your skills?"

  "Upgrade?" she tilted her head in confusion.

  "I mean, evolve your skills." I corrected.

  "It happens once we reach enlightenment, once we reach a threshold in the skill or spell path of advancement." She said that as if it were common knowledge.

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  I will admit I didn't know that part of how their system worked. Being a system clerk meant I had a good look behind the scenes but didn't investigate every facet of the Grimgard system. And I expected her answer, which was so annoying. Grimgard was one of those less rigid systems that took into the users' actions and experiences to advance their classes. Mystical enlightenment bullshit, if you ask me. I much prefer the cold, hard facts of numbers and levels. That is the good stuff, not the ephemeral, affecting how your skill will change.

  "Oh yeah, thanks." I tried not to roll my eyes.

  Getting back to my work, I sent a few thoughts to Jenny, awaiting a reply while I petted the little fur ball on my shoulder. Even with the revelation that he wasn't just an animal, he still insisted on being treated like a cat. Not that I really minded; he was my cat after all. Thinking about that statement made me feel weird. Jeremy was a sapient being, and declaring ownership over him made me feel wrong. He is my companion; yes, that is a better term. I still scratched under his chin, wanting to hear him purr. It feels weird, but I did it anyway.

  Getting back to the task at hand, I genuinely considered this skill point idea. It would be tricky to implement since some of my skills had already auto-ranked up. But that's fine; they would have just consumed a skill point automatically. Bearing that in mind, I began coding the basic framework of the system. Keeping the skill accumulation of experience points as the primary method, instead of auto-triggering a skill rank up, it created a skill point. I could use these skill points on any skill, because having one skill point per skill would be so annoying to keep track of.

  And with one final keystroke, a new number appeared on my character sheet. Right below the attribute points was now a figure called skill points, and nestled next to it was a flat zero. Which made sense since all my skill-accumulated experience points had yet to be quantified into a base singular number. Finally getting an affirmative back from my forever best girl, Jenny. It appeared she was on board with my most brilliant plan. No doubt she was marvelling at my genius as we spoke. Now that the feature was in place, I shifted all the experience points into a neat little formula. It calculated how much it required to upgrade a skill, and I ended up with the number 5.7888888 all the way to infinity.

  Looking at the number, I wondered how in the system gods did that happen. Then I realised a second later. The energy required for skill increases varies based on the skill itself and the features available for the skill. That way, it will not be a flat number. Since every skill has unique abilities. Coming across this problem was inevitable, and I should have considered it before. Considering that, I tried to come up with a solution. If each skill was different in terms of size and experience point requirements to reach the next rank or whatever ranking system Jenny came up with. Then perhaps it was better to minimise.

  Instead of increasing every facet of a skill to reach the next rank, increase the overall power of the skill and a single facet for each rank. For example, increase the attack, defence or passive gains of a skill and then augment another facet. These include decreasing the cost of the skill, increasing or strengthening a particular effect. If it's just a base increase overall and a single increase, each skill point will require the same amount of juice. It's just increasing or decreasing a number with some variation on which number it's affecting. As I develop it, I can improve it, but it isn't perfect. Implementing my new ideas took roughly an hour. Multitasking had become easy; walking and coding were rather enjoyable.

  We even encountered a travelling caravan on the road that waved to us. The human children pointed and laughed at me. Since I was tapping an invisible keyboard. I itched to give the little snots the finger but knew that was not a very adult thing to do; besides, did that gesture even exist in their culture? Interestingly, our non-human companion did not bother them, which made sense because a Volkaran child was clearly present in the caravan. Xyn wasn't kidding about the diversity of races in this new city. Unlike me and Rak, Xynthia smiled and waved. Her eyes were bright and joyful as the children waved back with smiles only the innocent could show.

  "Was that a Volkaran child?" Rak questioned.

  "Of course... I told you before they were common in the city."

  "I remember it is just strange to see them with humans; many Volkaran from my home would more than likely eat humans." Rak frowned.

  I dismissed my keyboard, giving my little coding session a rest. I could pick it up later once we got into the city. Rak was acting weird. He knew all this already, and still he couldn't believe it. I suppose it made some sense. Seeing is believing; hearing about something secondhand doesn't give the same visceral feeling of witnessing it with your own eyes. Casting a glance at the Garathi, I could have sworn he was tearing up, but as quickly as I saw it, he turned away, not facing us.

  "You okay, buddy?" I spoke a little worried about the big lug.

  "I am fine." He evaded.

  Xyn, showing off big sister energy, wrapped her arm around that big lug's shoulders and jostled him a little. They had developed a better relationship than I had with him. I would be envious if I cared much about being better friends with people. I was always a peripheral friend, comfortable with the lack of closeness.

  "What's wrong? You can tell us." Xyn spoke soothingly.

  It didn't take long for Rak to be broken down by that girl; she was persuasive. "You said that Garathi lived in the city?" He asked.

  "Yes, they do. I even met a family once. They had an adorable little kid... not sure how they conceived him." She tilted her head, confused.

  "I know." I raised a hand and immediately regretted it.

  "I just..." he paused, taking a deep breath. "I wonder what my life would have been like had I been born in that city." He vaguely pointed to the city gate in the distance.

  It was a sobering thought, and it resonated with all of us. We were all misfits in our own ways. Xynthia was born half human and likely dealt with the prejudice that came from that, especially considering the history of this region. Gods created me, and I didn't have a family and would have never cared until I learned what they were. And finally, Rakshur was just handed a bad rap the moment he was born in that cursed temple.

  "I know, big guy... but you've got us now." She gestured to all of us, even Jeremy, and that elicited a small smile.

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